7th Battalion Rifle Brigade at Hooge, July 1915

[Guest]

The War Diary of the 7th Battalion available on Ancestry is missing July 1915. I'm particularly interested on Saturday 24th and the fate of Second Lieutenant Thomas Samuel Gent. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

 

Many thanks,

 

Graeme

[MBrockway]

Try doing a Forum-wide search for posts by myself and/or stiletto_33853 that contain the terms liquid fire and Hooge.

 

We have posted a great deal on this.

 

2/Lt Thomas Gent enlisted on 22 Aug 1914 and was killed in action on 24 Jul 1915.  He went up to Trinity College, Oxford in 1913 where he served in the OU OTC.

 

Andy has posted a transcript from Gilbert Talbot's letters that mentions Gent dying in a bombing party - see here:

 

Mark

 

[stiletto_33853]

Not mentioned in the Diary until the appendices.

 

Andy

From Talbot's last letter to his brother

Edited 22 December , 2018 by stiletto_33853

[stiletto_33853]

[MBrockway]

2 hours ago, stiletto_33853 said:

From Talbot's last letter to his brother

July 28th, 1915.

Dear Bumps(1), - <snip> French's communique about Hooge was really concerned only with my platoon and my trench ! - which is amusing(2). But it's all ridiculously exaggerated and overstated, and makes me think very poorly of communiques. And it's just an ordinary lie that the trench mortar is silenced. The guns never hit it, and it's been firing this morning. It's a sort of aerial torpedo, bigger I believe than the ordinary mortar. It fires an enormous long shell, which goes a very great height and spins like a rugger ball, and then falls with an ear-splitting, and most demoralizing noise. It's very trying, and we've had a lot of nervous breakdowns.

 

(2) Captain Drummond writes, 28 July: "We were very much pleased, at least my company is, and especially one platoon - Talbot's who did it. We have got a mention in the communique. The 'Daily Telegraph' even gives it a big heading (26 July 1915), 'Bombs and Mines' - near the crater.

 

 

Here's French's 25 July communique as reported in The Times of 26 Jul 1915 - note the reference to the "silenced" German trench mortar that Gilbert finds so objectionable  ...

[ © Times Newspapers Limited. The Times, 26 Jul 1915, p.6]

 

And French's earlier communique of 20 Jul reporting the the explosion of the mine and capture of the crater from The Times of 21 Jul 1915

[ © Times Newspapers Limited. The Times, 21 Jul 1915, p.6]

 

Mark

 

[stiletto_33853]

[Guest]

Gentlemen - thank you both very much for the information, Very helpful and greatly appreciated.

 

Graeme Hodge