The Wolds Waggoners - page 20
Image details
| Corps | RPC |
|---|---|
| Material type | Books |
| Book page | |
| Chapter head | |
| Chapter key | |
| Chapter number | |
| Full title | The Wolds Waggoners |
| Page number | |
| Publication date | 1988 |
| Real page | |
| Colour | Yes |
| Grey | No |
| Early date | 1908 |
| Late date | 1983 |
| Transcription |
hauling engineers' stores to help strengthen the line in front of Vimy Ridge: the horses were dropping from fatigue in the middle of the road, and their drivers were scarcely in better condition. Although not in the front line, the Parks were now within range of German shells. Several men, like Wagoner 227 Tom Bulmer of Arram and Wagoner 1123 William Dowson of Langtoft, both of 2nd Park, who, whilst engaged on transport work for the Australians, were both wounded by shellfire on the same October day in 1917. Even life behind the lines held its dangers. On 28th August 1915, Wagoner 803 Andrew Smith of 3rd Park (a Northumberland man by birth, but who had enlisted at Slingsby), was accidentally drowned whilst bathing in the river Aa, near the village of Esquerdes, just to the south-west of St. Omer. There was, however, some relief for the wagoners from time to time. The 1st Park, its wanderings of autumn 1915 finally at an end, found itself near enough to the town of Bethune to send men into the town in the evenings to visit the 'M.T. [Motor Transport?] Theatre', and the Park's craftsmen managed to erect a smaH concert platform of their own in the ruins of a cement works which lay close to their billets. Further north, in the Ypres salient, 2nd Park entered Class 23 of the 1st Army Horse Show in June 1917, for a G.S. wagon with a pair of horses and a mounted N.C.O. in marching order, and came away with 1st Prize. In early September 1915, 1st Park received a request from the mayor of the little town of Watten for help with the threshing, which the Park duly provided, sending ten wagons. As the war dragged on through the summer of 1917, with little or no movement zz. the front lines, many of the transport companies were forced to find drafts of men to rgrgfgr to the infantry, where the losses had been greatest. Most of the men did not want to go; some even wrote to Sir Mark himself, who was also in correspondence with the Secretary of the Yorkshire Branch of the Farmers' Union in Driffield. Sir Mark wrote to the Adjutant General, Lieutenant General Sir C. McCready to plead their case. It seemed strange, wrote Sir Mark, that trained and experienced drivers were being 'unjustly crimped', as he put it, into the infantry, when at home, infantrymen were being seconded to farmers in order to bring in the harvest. Surely, he protested, the v/agoners were best either left in transport units or sent home, where their experience could be put to best use. But the Army was not to be deterred, and during the months of September and October 1917, wagoners were transferred from all the Parks in drafts of fifty men. Some were lucky enough to find themselves placed in charge of their battalion's transport, so that they were at least working with horses. But others, like William Thompson, were not as lucky. He found himself in the front line, serving as a stretcher bearer with the 1/19th London Regiment. The wagoners were rep\aced by so-ca\\ed Category B men (the wagoners were Category A). A group of wagoners pose for the camera in one of their G.S. wagons. The corporal leaning on the side of the wagon is John Day, who was Mentioned in Despatches |
| Book number | R0398 |