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Key dates over December 1916

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Lives lost on this day: 0

23rd December 1916 - Soldier on leave injured

Rolling casualty count: 5142

4th Batt: At 10am one officer and 90 other ranks proceeded by motor lorries to Musketry Camp, 14th Corps . Training was held up by rain.

Yeomanry/Cavalry: There was a small battle at Maghdaba .Turks fought well in their excellent trenches and redoubts, but early in the day they were surrounded and out-gunned so Maghdaba fell, ensuring an excellent water supply for men and horses.

Home Front:

Land Workers and the Army – Extended Exemption – The Secretary of the War Office: It has been represented to the Army Council and to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries that while in some parts of England and Wales there is an unnecessarily strong compliments of agricultural labourers, other farming districts have too few men left to secure that increase in food production which is desirable in the national interest. To meet this difficulty it may be found necessary to grant conditional exemption from military service to a certain proportion of agricultural labourers, who are surplus to net requirements in the counties which they now are.

Injured Whilst on Leave – A serious accident occurred on the Midland Railway near Blackwell Station on Thursday night, the unfortunate victim being Pte Walter Banner (41) single of the Royal West Kent. He was returning on leave from the South of England to his home at Crab Tree Lane, Sidemoor. He left Birmingham by the train times to depart from New Street at 10.55 and alighted at Blackwell Station, where the train stops to set down passengers. He started to walk down the line in the direction of Bromsgrove and when a few hundred yards from Blackwell, he heard an engine approaching from behind. He moved to get out of the way, when he slipped and fell and the engine passed over his left foot. He was conveyed by the Midland Railway ambulance to the Bromsgrove Cottage Hospital, the injured limb was amputated and Banner is going on satisfactorily.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team