1/8th Middlesex Regt

[ALANJONES]

Two companies of this battalion were, for a while over the period 22 - 25 April 1915, covering the gap left in the line following the gas attack - in the area of Fortuin. I wonder if anyone has copies of the war diaries or other histories of the regiment covering that phase of the battle please? I think they may have acted as escort to artillery battery as well.

alan

[bmac]

Wyralls' 'Die Hards in the Great War' vol 1 devotes six pages or so to this period.

On 25th April , A and B Company's were involved in a charge with men of the East Surreys which recaptured trenches lost earlier. C and D Companys were in front of Verlorenhoek and were engaged later in the day. Prior to that they were in Zonnebeke providing carrying parties for the East Surreys.

If I get a chance tomorrow I will scan the relevant pages.

[jhill]

As luck would have it copies of the War Diaries for this period are available on-line here . Scroll down to the section on the 85th Brigade. The Brigade diaries precede those of the individual battalions. You will probably want to browse through the Brigade and Divisional diaries as well.

There are also a number of sketches here , of which I have posted a snippet. Unfortunately, you may have to sift through a lot of pages to find stuff of direct interest.

Hope this is of interest.

[Ian Underwood]

Alan and all.

I have 4 PDFs downloaded from the NA of Captain Austin H Woodbridge's 1/8th Middlesex trench diary for the period 20th April to 21 August 1915. The section concerning the dates you're interested in are contained in a 1 meg PDF file. It's too big to upload to this thread, but P.M me your email and I'll send it to you if you'd like. same goes for anybody else interested in the PDFs.

What's your interest in 1/8th in this particular period? The chap in my signature and who's picture is my avatar was gassed on the 24th April during the Battle of Bellewaarde.

cheers

Ian