Monthly Archives: September 2026

Letter from Bernard King to Harry & Ethel King dated 4th September 1916.

France 4th September 16,

Monday,

My Dear Harry & Ethel,

            Thanks very much for your letter of the 27th August which I only received yesterday.  I hope you are now at home and feel much better for the fact.  Mother has told me she will be visiting you as soon as you are settled so I suppose you will soon be seeing her.

            I was sorry your visit to Malvern was cut short so unfortunately and do hope, Ethel, that you are now quite well again and that you won’t have a recurrence.

            I have not yet had my rest; another batch went away this morning but I was not one of the party – I am getting a very good share of the pleasure of anticipation though and still live in hopes.

            I was glad to hear from you as to where Alan is, and shall watch that district with interest.  Being at the place you name accounts for outings he is able to enjoy, whereas this is a sad & sorry show.  Where Alan is, such places as Y.M.C.A’s canteens etc abound but such luxuries have not reached our portion of the line, and I am afraid never will now.  I hope Alan will never get any nearer bursting shells than he has already done, he should have no doubt as to whether splinters have been so very close.  They usually make themselves known in a most positive manner.

            When I heard you were going to Worcester I several times thought of Madge King, but don’t know why I never mentioned her.

            As you say it would be welcome news to hear we had got to a certain place & I shall be glad when we get there.  We have an occasional busy burst and then a few slack days.

            I suppose Mother has mentioned to you that Lyn Davies has won the Military Cross, his has been a wonderful though short career in the Army and I hope he will get through to enjoy the distinctions.  How pleased they will be at Crossley’s to hear of him.  I happened to see it in a Cardiff paper which strayed out here.

            During the past week or so we have been having wretched weather – nothing but mud.  You can imagine the state the roads get in with a continual stream of heavy traffic and of course huge shell holes don’t help matters.

            News is just as scarce as ever so you must excuse short letter – everything goes on from day to day with growing monotony.

            Yours with love,

                        Bernard.

In On Active Service envelope addressed to Harry R King, Esq., c/o The Surveyor of Taxes, The Avenue, The Cross Worcester, England.

Ansd /10/9/16

Postmarked FIELD POST OFFICE R.16.  SP 5. 16.  Hexagonal PASSED FIELD CENSOR 3447.  Signed D.W. Knight

Notebooks of W. Allason.

All the notebooks were written on the right hand page and additions, photos, cartoons or other documents were added to the left hand page.

3rd Sept. 1916.          Vide “report on operations” the following officers were killed, Major Lawder, Lts Howard, Blake, Banynard, Sanders and Lardner.  Wounded Capt Barnett, Capt West, Lts Covell, Hague (see letter from E A Hague) Graves, Smith, Williams Rankin Gibbons & Topley.  I was hit in the left arm on the 3rd a slight flesh wound and on the 5th a piece of shell struck a bully beef tin in my pocket and gave me a huge bruise on my leg which at first absolutely lamed me it took a weeks steady massage to put right.

On the opposite page is a photograph and letter.  The letter is headed Bank of British West Africa Ltd. Dunkwa Gold Coast West Africa.  It’s dated 12th May 1922.

Addressed to The Editor “The Wasp” Goojerat Barracks, Colchester.

The text read Dear Sir, The writer would like to know where the photograph printed on Page 9 of the April issue of the “Wasp” was taken, since although he is not certain, he believes it to be the reproduction of a photo taken outside Chateau Tailly in August 1916.

The following officers he recognises:- there follow a list which continues overleaf.  As the top is stuck down I cannot identify.  It continues:-

The writer may be perfectly wrong, but will be quite interested to know where the photo was taken.  The reason he is not positive is because he does not recognise Capt Woolens and Lieuts A.R.O. Beale and Graves who were with the 1st Battalion at the time.  Yours faithfully E.A Hague.

Below is written Correct Hague was a fine young Officer.  WA

It is impossible to find words to do justice to the Bn performance.  The messages and reports I received were as good as they could be.  After the advance on the 3rd each Coy was intact with all its platoons and sections in their proper places.  The attack on the 4th was carried out under the most difficult circumstances.

From the opposite page.  The above message referred to the order to attack on the 3rd.  I had hurriedly to decide whether to advance or to agree with the 3 Bn. Commanders who obviously considered it impossible to advance from the forward trenches.  My attack was to be in combination with that of the Cheshires.  They did not advance.

The men had had no real rest or sleep for 48 hrs, their water was exhausted, the Coy opposite the German line to be assaulted had been heavily shelled by our own heavy guns for 8 hours, they had 20% casualties.  It was impossible to move any of the 3 other Coys before the hour of attack since every movement was visible to the enemy, they each had to be brought up in turn when secrecy no longer mattered, any delay in arrival might be fatal and the distance was considerable.

On the opposite page are Congratulatory Messages received in connection with operations at FALFONT FARM these are a separately typed document .

All the Officers of the leading Coy were knocked over immediately and most of the men still the remainder pressed on until reinforced by the 2nd Coy, here again all the officers and most of the men were killed or wounded but they held on, the third company pressed up the hill and joined in, all the officers became casualties.  Major Lawder who was acting adjutant went forward to be instantly killed by a shell – the fourth Coy came up and charging forward fended off a final German counter-attack and reaped the full fruits of success.

Three officers and 128 men of the 164th Regt were taken prisoner and sent back also four machine guns in good condition and other loot.  One officer came forward holding up a cigar in each hand in token of surrender and good will.  They insisted on presenting watches to their captors.  They were collected in batches and sent back carrying wounded and when there were no more they were employed in burying the dead and later on carrying back equipment.  I asked for relief on the morning of the 5th after being 48 hrs in action and reduced to 3 Officers & 200 other ranks but we had to hold on until the following morning.  The Boche shelled us heavily all day in revenge.

It was a magnificent fight.  The hill was convex so that you could only see a few yards.  It was a case of moving from shell hole to shell hole and only very fine discipline enabled the advance to be made at all.

On our right and left the troops who should have assisted failed to advance so the whole credit of the capture of Falfemont ridge, which had already been repeatedly attacked, and until the capture of which the French said they could not advance, belongs to the Bedfords.

On the opposite page are two newspaper cuttings one referring to Allason’s second award of the D.S.O. and the other on the capture of Combles and Falfemont Farm.

Letter from Alan King to Ethel King dated 2nd September 1916

France

September 2nd 1916

Friday.

My dear Ethel,

I received yours and Harry’s letter yesterday.  The second place Harry says the fellow in his orderly room has been to is where I was.  I notice from your previous letter that in Worcester you suffer as we do here.  Scarcely anything is marked up that we are likely to buy & when you go & enquire you wonder whether you ought to beat them down, what the actual price of the article is to the French and how mad they think you are.  I hope your furniture has arrived safely by now.  Mother told me you have a house and I am glad you are settled.  We had no chance of going to High Mass at the last place & it is doubtful if we will while we are here as we have plenty of training to go through.  I am glad you are an enemy of Charlie Chaplin.  Will you support any league I found with the object of his extermination?  Now for the fulfilment of my promise.  The town is a very big one & has some very quaint corners.  A canal and river flow through it.  One of them has an avenue of trees each side forming two long promenades.  The main streets are rather grand.  Shops exist in large numbers.  There are about three large churches.  We were all of the opinion the largest was a Cathedral.  There are one or two monuments.  One is to a chevalier who was martyred in seventeen something for refusing to salute a procession.  His age was nineteen.  The monument was erected by socialists who consider him (what I call) a pioneer of free thought.  Notre Dame, the largest church, is very beautiful.  The front is magnificent and the best part.  It is very old and on similar lines to that of Wells only much smaller.  Carved figures stand in all sorts of corners & niches & have the appearance of being very interested in the goings-on of modern people.  Half the church is modern unfortunately, and the two halves don’t seem to harmonise in the interior or on the exterior in the least.  The oil paintings are very nice.  In this district – this is very difficult to describe – up above the altar is an aperture & through it can be seen a saint (the Virgin Mary or to whomever the shrine is dedicated) in the middle of the clouds.  It is rather peculiar & the saint seems to be very far away.  Without exception a little of the clouds has drifted over the side of the opening!  Have I made this the least bit clear?  When you are about the town only the old part seems to be visible.  Consequently the church looks very imposing & causes the inside to be disappointing.  Joan D’Arc is a very important saint in this town.  We went into another big church (1829 or 80) & found it far more beautiful than the other.  Were it an Anglican Church it would not be called “High” by any means.  It is a very lofty building, has two “rose” windows, few images – I expect a Frenchman would say no images – and is fitted out properly.  We had to talk French – or rather try to – much more here & consequently one or two of us are becoming very fluent on eating topics.  I should have written you long ago but we seem to be so busy what with work & this town.

I will now close – you will not doubt it – with love.

            Yours affectionately,

                        Allan

On Active Service envelope addressed to Harry R King, Esq., c/o The Surveyor of Taxes, The Avenue, The Cross, Worcester. England.  Ansd 10/9

Postmarked FIELD POST OFFICE 124 3 SP 16.  Hexagonal Passed Field Censor 3274 cachet.

Signed WA Blount

Notebooks of W. Allason.

All the notebooks were written on the right hand page and additions, photos, cartoons or other documents were added to the left hand page.

2nd Sept. 1916.         Work on the trenches was continued and they really became quite good, very heavy calls were made on us for working parties.  A curious type of shell which on bursting gave out a reddish light caused about 10 casualties as it fell among a group of men drawing rations; it was the only shell that dropped anywhere near.

Notebooks of W. Allason.

All the notebooks were written on the right hand page and additions, photos, cartoons or other documents were added to the left hand page.

1st Sept. 1916.          Next morning at dawn we had a great cleaning all round.  In the dug out they found a dead man under about two inches of soil so I had the whole place blocked up.  A small hole in the ground elsewhere led to the discovery of another dug out which proved to be untenanted but by the time it was ready for occupation we went forward.  There was desultory shelling which caused one casualty but the men were well dug in.