Patrol orders from my grandfather's chest

[DingleRoad]

My grandfather was a Capt in the 5th battalion Duke of Wellington's Regt, until he left to take command of the 1/4 KOYLI in 1918.

I've scanned some patrol orders which might be of interest to some of you.

[Andrew Hesketh]

Fascinating stuff. Objective 1 is starkly clear.

[squirrel]

Excellent and thanks for posting this - couldn't be more detailed.

[DingleRoad]

I've also got a hand written combat report of a trench raid. It's a bit hard to read the guy's writing, but I'll scan that also and post it.

[532SQN]

Excellent I noticed # 5 duration of raid 1/2 hour I could not imagine what would be going through the soldiers minds.1/2 hour of shear terror.

Cheers

Rick

[Old Tom]

May I add my thanks for an enlightening post. This, I think, was a large raid, involving artillery and engineer support and I asuspect would have been ordered by brigade or division. Clearly the adjutant had access to a typewriter and, noting the number of officers involved, a means of duplication - or did a clerk use lots of carbon paper nad strike the keys very hard!

By the way I don't know what 'p bombs' are. If grenades; it seem odd that they were carried in buckets. Any guidance appreciated.

Old Tom

[DingleRoad]

May I add my thanks for an enlightening post. This, I think, was a large raid, involving artillery and engineer support and I asuspect would have been ordered by brigade or division. Clearly the adjutant had access to a typewriter and, noting the number of officers involved, a means of duplication - or did a clerk use lots of carbon paper nad strike the keys very hard!

By the way I don't know what 'p bombs' are. If grenades; it seem odd that they were carried in buckets. Any guidance appreciated.

Old Tom

Could 'p bombs' be phospherous grenades. Don't know, just a guess !

[squirrel]

Could 'p bombs' be phospherous grenades. Don't know, just a guess !

Good guess!

[Andrew Upton]

By the way I don't know what 'p bombs' are. If grenades; it seem odd that they were carried in buckets. Any guidance appreciated.

Buckets probably refers to the canvas portable buckets rather than metal ones that would usually spring to mind - these were often used for carrying purposes, such as Lewis gun magazines (the later purpose built carrier for them is largely just a modified and improved version of the same).

[usa2uk]

That's amazing. Thanks so much.

I take it that your grandfather was issuing the orders rather than carrying them out?

Interesting to note that 2 of the 4 runners were to carry bugles. Anyone have any idea why this may be? Distraction? Finding direction? Getting attention in-case of emergency?

Also interesting to note that the orders are not using a 24hr clock.

Have you been able to find a trench map which corresponds to this location and action? That would be really exciting / interesting as well.

Cheers.

Jason