Читать книгу The War History of the 1st/ 4th Battalion, 1914-1918. The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment онлайн
11 страница из 81
Elliott & Fry.
OFFICERS GROUP.
Bedford, 1915.
CHAPTER II.
Early Days and the Battle of Festubert.
ssss1
On the 2nd of May, 1915, Major Foley, Second Lieutenant Harris (Transport Officer), the Machine Gun Officer, and 104 other ranks and the whole of the Regimental Transport, entrained at BALLAST PIT SIDING, BEDFORD, at one o’clock in the morning, arriving at SOUTHAMPTON at 6 40 a.m., where they embarked on s.s. “ROSSETTI” and sailed at 4 30 p.m., arriving at HAVRE at 3 a.m. on the 3rd.
On the evening of that day, the rest of the Battalion entrained at BALLAST PIT SIDING in two trains, and travelled down to FOLKESTONE, where they arrived about midnight, and marched straight down on to the boat, s.s. “ONWARD,” which cast off at 1 30 a.m.
At last we were really on our way, after all the delays and waitings we were going overseas like the rest! And it had all been done so quickly that only now, as we stood on the darkened boat and watched the lights of England receding, did we begin to realise what it meant—this stealthy journey of nearly a thousand souls across the Channel, which many of us had never seen before, and which many were never to see again.