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Key dates over April 1917

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Lives lost on this day: 9

7th April 1917 - Culling of rooks

Rolling casualty count: 5770

War Front: 2nd Batt: Batt marched to Chestnut Camp near Bayencourt via Pas ,Henu and Souastre. The camp was comfortable but dirty.

2/8th Batt: Batt attacked again on the left flank and consolidated a line of posts and wired them in.

3rd Batt: Weather conditions very severe for training.

4th Batt: Batt marched to the village of Couturelle to good billets. 2 Coys were in huts and HQ plus 2 Coys were in a chateau.

Yeomanry/Cavalry: Gas masks were issued for the 1st time since Gallipoli. They were not popular as they felt suffocating.

Home Front: DESTRUCTION BY ROOKS – Sir, Doubtless many growers of field and garden crops will agree that the present time when seeds are being planted, is a time when rooks prove to be very destructible in gardens and in farmer’s fields. If they are allowed to go on until the young rooks are fully fledges, i.e. about the middle of June, much damage and loss would have been caused by them. This could largely be avoided I those persons having guns and licenses to use the same were allowed to thin out the rookeries at the present time, instead of later in the season.

MILK FOR THE CHILDREN – Sir, As I could not get to the Worcester Cattle Market early enough last Monday, I telephoned through to ask Messrs Bentley, Hobbs & Mytton to please refer to my remarks at Upton-on-Severn the previous Thursday about next winter’s milk, which they very kindly did. I am told there was some jeering. Now, I can’t imagine any of my good farmer friends being so guilty. I would ask what is to become of thousands of little children and the babies that will be born next winter and spring, whose mothers cannot get enough milk for them, if the cows and heifers are fed out this summer instead of being kept for milk production next winter, simply because it will pay better to do so. Surely profit is not all that one lives for when one’s country is in danger, and when millions of our brave men are risking their lives and fighting the desperate foe! John Kent. Upton Upon Severn.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team