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Key dates over August 1918

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Lives lost on this day: 4

6th August 1918 - Official Denial of Tragedy at Blackpole

Rolling casualty count: 10308

War Front:

2nd Batt: Divisional and Brigade Command visited the Batt HQ. Arrangements were made to further advance the forward posts at night. Capt. JJ Crowe was presented the Victoria Cross by HM the King at the 2nd Army HQ. A representative party from the Brigade Minimum Reserve, under Capt. Underhill MC, marched to Divisional HQ where HM the King drove past the assembled troops. A patrol of 2 officers and “6 ORs of C Coy and the American Coy searched the Batt Front covered by a trench mortar barrage to enable the posts to be pushed forward. The American officer and 1 OR were killed.

3rd Batt: Batt entered the Front Line, taking over from the 4th Royal Fusiliers in front of Avelette.

4th Batt: Patrols were sent out with no results. An inter-Coy relief took place. Z Coy had 6 casualties from shell fire.

Home Front:

Baby Show at Evesham – The Evesham Maternity and Infant Care Society, which is an outcome of the Interdenominational Social Service Union, was established on March 9th 1917, and since then it has done increasingly useful work in the town and immediate district. The Church House, kindly lent by the Vicar, was at first used as the Centre, but owing to the attendance of mothers and babies, larger premises became necessary. Since this time last year the number of mothers attending has more than doubled and each week sees an increase.

Blackpole Rumours – Official Denial of Tragedy – Rumours which began to circulate on Wednesday and gathered gravity by repetition on Thursday, wildly overstated the seriousness of a comparatively trivial accident, which happened at Blackpole. There had not been an explosion there, nor has there been any fatality. What happened was that a girl worker had her face singed, but her injuries were neither serious nor permanent. We are asked by the Management to state this fact in order to stop the circulation of rumours which were reaching alarming proportions.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team