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Key dates over December 1916

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Lives lost on this day: 24

15th December 1916 - 9th Worcesters in heavy fighting in the desert

Rolling casualty count: 5126

2nd Batt: batt rested and cleaned up.

3rd Batt: Batt provided working parties for the front line.

9th Batt: Batt advanced and had sharp skirmishes with Arab snipers and then there was heavy firing. The Turkish trenches were strongly held and protected by wire.

Batt dug in with entrenching tools and Lewis guns tried to protect the men. High enemy explosives covered the men with shrapnel. Private J merit saw that the man next to him was badly wounded so he dragged the wounded man into cover he had made and started to dig himself a fresh trench. From 2 Coys over 100 men had been killed or wounded but the rest held fast.

SMD RFA: One section per battery was relieved by the corresponding battery of 242 Brigade and proceeded to rest billets at Behencourt.

Yeomanry/Cavalry: There were problems with the passable drinking water that the medical Orderlies had been instructed to Chlorinate. It made it taste as if someone had drunk it before. Squadrons detailed specially trained men to sterilize the wells.

Home Front:

The Restricted Lighting Question – The resolution passed by the City Council on the subject urging that there should be more uniformity in deciding what were infringements. As the resolution suggested that an instruction should be issued to the police by the Committee, after consultation with the Electrical Engineer the latter was asked for his observations and he replied that he had enough to do. The Chief Constable said that he had endeavoured to carry out that rather difficult Order in the best possible way, having regard to the interests of the public and consistent with the instructions concerning the Order. It was a difficult thing to do and threw a great onus on the police.

Pensions Secured: To start with peace – The Chief Constable reported that four officers, all of whom had served the full term of 26 years, and could, in peace times, have retired on a pension at various dates from September 1915, till now, asked that their pensions should be secured at the end of the war. Under the war legislation no officer could retire if he was fit for duty except by the special consent of the Chief Constable, which consent he felt was undesirable to give. The Town Clerk said that if the men were retained it was only right that their pensions should be secured.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team