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Key dates over January 1915

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Lives lost on this day: 3

27th January 1915 - Cannonades were from Worcester direction!

Rolling casualty count: 619

1st Batt: Kaiser’s Birthday: Every gun in the Division about 90 in number opened fire at 5am on Neuve Chapelle. We also fired a great number of rounds which the Germans replied to. Marched out of trenches to Corps Reserve Billets at La Gorgue; 2nd Batt: Battalion HQ shelled again during the morning, all quite till about 8:30pm when we were again shelled and finally had to move and occupy new HQ at a ruined Farm where ‘D’ Coy were billeted; 3rd Batt: Westoutre: Relieved at 7pm in trenches by Royal Scots and Suffolk Regiment. Marched to billets at Locre.

Lce-Cpl L. T. Flux, son of Mr A.E. Flux has been gazetted second-lieutenant to the 11th Battalion Worcestershire Regt. He is an old Grammar School boy. Before the war broke out he was in the 8th Battalion (Territorial) Manchester Regt., and after the war was declared he joined the Public Schools Corps and was at Ashtead;

Sir, - I am interested in reading your correspondent’s letter from Colwall as to the sounds of cannonading heard on Sunday morning, as I distinctly heard sounds that I felt sure could only be from big guns, and seemed to come from the direction of Worcester, but as there is an echo down the Teme Valley it is a bit difficult to locate a sound. Now that I know someone else has heard it too, I feel sure I am not mistaken in the sounds I heard. M. Riddell, Post Office, Knightwick;

Casualties in 1st Worcesters: Pte. J Siviter, who belongs to the 1st Worcs Regt, has been invalided home suffering from frost-bitten feet. Cpl. R. Chime, of the 1st Worcs Regt, son of Captain Chimes, late of Warwick, has been wounded at the front, and is now in Guildford Hospital;

The Stealthy Gurkhas: Lance-Cpl Greenway, of the 1st Worcesters, relating his experiences at the front, said that one evening they observed that the body of a German soldier, which had lain for some time between their and the enemy’s trenches, was on fire, and being curious to ascertain the cause, a part of twenty, including several Gurkhas, crawled cautiously to the spot on their stomachs, and discovered that the Germans had sapped to within twenty yards of their trenches. Leaving the British to destroy the sap, the Gurkhas crawled to within a few paces of the German’s trenches, ready to give the alarm to the others should their presence be discovered. It was thought that the sapping operations had set fire to the body. Lance-Cpl. Greenway paid a high tribute to the work of the Gurkhas. Often at night they rendered exceedingly useful service by getting about so quietly.

Information researched by Sue Redding