What was a 'U' frame?

[chris basey]

Just reading an interesting pesonal account of 19th November 1917 by a Norfolk man who, at the time, was with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He recounts 'we were carrying U frames, one each, in single file along a communication trench . . . we had nearly arrived at the place where we had to dump them . . .'

Have heard of 'A' frames but need enlightenment, please, on 'U' frames.

For members interested in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers he mentions a Capt HAMLET and the deaths of BRENNAN AND PEGEON.

[chris basey]

SORRY! Amend that name to read PIGEON (as in bird)

[Aurel Sercu]

Chris,

Our team the Diggers have found many A-frames at Boezinge near Ypres. (Full name : inverted A-frames). In the restored Yorkshire Trench there are still more than 70. (Though they are invisible, under the new duckboards.)

No problem as to the name : they look indeed like an inverted A (with a flattened top). A year ago we excavated a stretch of a trench (Nile Trench) a few hundred meters away, where the frames did not have that horizontal strut connecting the two legs of the A. You will agree that this looks like a U. (To this I can add that though this U-like element must have been useful when it came to revetting the sides of the trench, it was hardly of any use for the drainage, since the soldiers did not walk a foot or 2 over the water and mud, as they did with real A frames.)

If you had asked me then what a U frame was, then I certainly would have said : what we found in Nile Trench. An A frame, but without that strut.

BUT... A month or two ago I obtained extracts from the war diary of 62nd Field Company R.E., end of December 1915, related to Boezinge, and it said : "Trenches mostly falling to pieces and drainage very difficult. Only way to recover F34, F33, F32, F31 would be to put in U frames with good revetment and drain down the trench themselves."

But the interesting part is that the author had made a primitive sketch + measurements of what he meant. And what he drew no doubt was an A frame ! To the sketch he even added : "strut put in with hoop to carry trench boards".

Conclusion : a U frame is the same as an A frame.

I would have thought : maybe an older word, from the beginning of trench warfare, but since your source is dated November 1917 ...

(And please, do not ask me : if U frame = A frame, what then was the name of a frame that was U-shaped, without that strut ?)

I have a scan of that war diary sketch. Should you want it, contact me off forum.

Aurel Sercu