Water Sourcing

[Chris Noble]

As temperatures sore here in Yorkshire today, ( the wife was not impressed by my reconstruction of going over the top, clutching cheap Woolworths water pistol),

Who, and how many, were tasked with the sourcing of water? I presume, it was the R.E?

Still in the 'Dog House', Chris

[Terry_Reeves]

Chris

It certainly was the RE. There were some well boring units on the RE establishment, principally employed in the middle-east. On the Western Front much of the work of water supply fell to the RE Army Troops Company's who, amongst other things, dug wells, laid pipes and erected waters storage tanks.

The war diary of 214 Army Troops Company, a Kitchener unit raised in Coventry in March 1915, is a good example of this. Prior to the 1916 Somme battle they were employed in sourcing water for the offensive. Their first casualty was a Cpl employed in hand- digging a well which collapsed on him, and later on they were laying water pipelines.They also record building a water storage tank in High Wood.

Terry Reeves

[Chris Noble]

You don't happen to know the site of the water storage tank at High Wood Terry do you?

Just that i've got something ' on the go ' at the moment as regards 6th Cameronians, local interest.

Cheers. Chris.

[Terry_Reeves]

Chris

I'm afraid not. It is mentioned in the war diary, but no specific location. If you wish to e-mail some more detail however, it may be possible to track it down.

Terry Reeves