HERTS Yeomanry doings as far as they concerned T. Holland-Hibbert from 30th August to 6th September 1915

 

Thurstan Holland-Hibbert

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies

[August] 30th

Bomb throwing instruction. Felt ill & faint I could not stand about in the sun for long. Men on fatigues. Several ill. Shelling off & on all day.

31st

Communion service 6.30. Dawn. Battle noises. Most impressive thing I have ever attended. Parham the padre. Alter of ammunition boxes. Food we had brought from Cairo indeed a luxury. Only 11 men of my troop fit to do anything. All with dysentery. Had a shave. First one since 21st. Kept on being shelled.

Sept 1.

Felt worse & worse. Perpetual journeys to awful latrines. A hole over a pit and when anything disturbed the flies they rose in clouds all up your shirt. All sorts of colours. Mostly green. Shelled. Got an attack of belly ache & had to go. Hugh¹ ordered me not to & to do it in my trousers. However I went. Blood coming away now. Took some opium pills which helped. Saw Bunker was talking to two men and got a bit of shell through his pocket book & a furrow cut in his arm. Tremendous fighting on all night. Cant think what we are purposed to be at.

2nd

Felt a little better owing to pills. 40 sick now in Sqdn. Ralph² washed our cloths in some Lux which was produced from somewhere. Had to go to latrine about once an hour.

3rd

Felt awful. Stewed in dugout. The memory of this and the guts ache is far more acute than anything else that has happened. Leonard Avery³ said he could do no more for me and that “I’d be better off away for a day or two.” Ambulance cart arrived. Sat on box seat with groaning men inside. Crossed Salt Lake with enormous shells bursting. The mules in the van knew well enough what they were. Arrived Welsh clearing hospital. Was injected with “emertine”. Marvellous to have a proper seat to sit on in latrine. Given some weak tea. Taken for granted that I was to go! Got into flat bottomed boat & was pulled away by a pinnace. They told me 57000 had passed through Mudros⁴ with “diarrhoea” . I was labelled “enteritis” (got the label still 1969) One man in my boat who had been using his binoculars and a snipers bullet had hit the glass been deflected by it thro his ear, helmet! Pulled up alongside hospital ship “Valdivea”⁵ Taken up a ladder & straight to bed in the saloon amongst dozens of others. Great questioning as to where I was from etc. When I said who I was a voice said “The last job I did as a vet was on a hog of your fathers” Simon son of Wheathampsted butcher.

Had a bath! Actually a bath. Calves foot jelly to eat. Dovers powder. 5 expeditions during night. My bed was unbelievable.

4th

Doctor part of it all very casual. Suppose they could not be bothered with gut troubles. Tepid tea, calves foot jelly, beef tea. Cheerful Scotch matron. Chap dying in our ward.

5th

Irregular meals which was bad as began to feel better inside. Managed to get hold of some sugar to suck. One officer saw some bread on the side board and crawled all amongst the beds to snatch it. Fearfully ill after. Had some ‘milk’ pudding. Great treat.

6th

6 expeditions in the night only one W.C. constant stream. As soon as you got back you were off again. Had a good bath. Poached egg, toast! Soup, pudding. Left Suvla⁶, on Mudros.

Notes:

1Hugh James Wylde (16^th April 1880 – ?) Appointed Major to command A Squadron 25^th August 1913. Served 1^st/1^st Hertfordshire Yeomanry August 1914 – May 1916 (commanding A Squadron – Egypt; Dardanelles; Western Desert)

² Ralph Francis Barnett (1882 – ?) Appointed Lieutenant A Squadron, Hertfordshire Yeomanry, 1^st February 1914. Served 1^st/1^st Hertfordshire Yeomanry August 1914 – August 1918 (A Squadron – Egypt, Dardanelles, Temporary Captain 28^th August 1915)

³ probably Leonard Avery an Australian doctor born in Queensland around 1871 but in 1911 living with his wife and three children at 19a Charles Street, Hanover Square, London.

⁴ Mudros – small port on the Greek island of Lemnos. It became significant after British decided to seize control of the Dardanelle Straits some 50 km away.

⁵ H.M. Hospital Ship Valdivia was a French passenger ship, built 1911 by Chantiers & Ateliers de Provence, Port de Bouc for Societe Generale de Transports Maritimes a Vapeur, Marseilles. In 1915 she was lent to the British Admiralty for use as a hospital ship, cf: http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Ships/HMHSValdivia.html

⁶ Suvla Bay on Aegean Sea side of Galipolli Peninsular was where Thurstan had landed on 17th August 1915.

HALS Reference: D/EYO/2/131