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Key dates over November 1917

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Lives lost on this day: 5

12th November 1917 - Italian retreat from Caporetto ends. With British and French troops transferred from the Western Front, the Italians manage to establish a new front along the River Piave.

Rolling casualty count: 8119

War Front:

4th Batt: All Coys practised advance and bombing. The CO, 2ndLt Briers and 2ndLt Dixon went to visit the new trench area. Brig Gen Nelson held a conference for all commanders of the Brigade.

10th Batt: Batt moved to Blaringhem entraining at Caestre Station for Eblinghem.

Yeomanry/Cavalry: At 6.30am the Brigade moved north following the Railway and saw 7 large hangars which had housed enemy aircraft. The roads were littered with dead animals and the rubbish of war. At Balin Station, 6000 fresh Turkish troops detrained with the object of breaking the right flank of our Cavalry. We were heavily shelled and by 3pm the Turks were within 50 yards of our line with fixed bayonets, when the 3rd Australian Light Horse galloped up and pushed them back. Brigade went to an outpost for the night.

Home Front:

Worcester Food Control Committee: Take notice that the maximum price of two shillings and sixpence per pound and so in proportion for larger and smaller quantities, fixed by the Committee, now applies to all kinds of butter, including Danish and Dutch butter and that this fixing of the maximum price does not interfere in any way with the Provision in the Butter Order, that no person shall sell butter by retail at a rate per pound exceeding by more than 2½d. the actual cost to him of the butter sold. N.B. The effect of the above is that the cheaper kinds of butter should still be sold at LESS than 2s. 6d. per pound and that the highest price that can be charged for ANY butter is 2s. 6d.

DCE Corporal leads a Platoon: A parchment has been awarded to Lce.-Cpl. Alfred Malins, Worcestershire Regiment (T.F.), in recognition of an act of gallantry, as under: “When his Platoon Commander was hit at the beginning of the action, he took command of the platoon and reorganised it. He continued to command it with great skill until the battalion was relieved.” Lce.-Cpl. Malins has been at the front about two years. Previous to enlisting he was employed by Messrs. Webb, Copenhagen Street, Worcester.

Mr. and Mrs. Evans, of 42, Melbourne Street, Barbourne, have received information of the death from wounds of their youngest son, Lance-Corpl. J. Evans, of the Lancashire Fusiliers. He joined up in January, 1915, at the time of the formation of the Bantam Battalions and went to France with his Battalion in January, 1916. He was wounded on the Somme in the following July and sent to King George’s Hospital, London. He went out again in January of this year and came home on furlough six weeks ago. His three other brothers are serving – one in Mesopotamia, one in France and one is at present in a convalescent home in Scotland, recovering from a fractured ankle, an injury received in France.

There is to be a revival of races in Worcester on Saturday, April 20th, with an autumn meeting on Saturday, October 19th. Other fixtures to be permitted in this part of the Midlands are at Birmingham and Warwick. The Stewards of the Jockey Club, in publishing the list of fixtures for 1918, state that they submitted to H.M. Government the claims of all courses on which meetings were held in 1913 and that the fixtures for next season have been allotted with the approval of the War Office, Board of Trade, Ministry of Munitions and the Railway Executive. The list is therefore final.

Mrs. W. Tyson, Powell’s Row, St. John’s, Worcester, has received news that Pte. W. Tyson, Worcestershire Regiment, was wounded by shrapnel on the 26th October and has now been removed to the base. Before joining up he was employed as a plumber by Messrs. Woods, The Butts.

Robert Wilson, 5, George’s Yard, Friar Street, was charged with being a deserter from the Australian Imperial Force. The Chief Constable said that the prisoner was arrested on Saturday as he could not produce a pass. There was a case coming on in which prisoner would be an important witness and the Chief Constable therefore asked for a remand for a week. Granted.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team