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Pte. Reginald Thomas Sanders
British Army 8th Btn. Royal Fusiliers
from:Newcastle-under-Lyme
On 22nd of August 1914 my grandfather, Reginald Sanders, aged 19, volunteered for service in the armed forces.†He was recruited in Stoke on Trent and then travelled to Hounslow where he joined the 8th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers which was part of Kitchener's First New Army.
For the next nine months he was in training at various camps in England and on the morning of 31st May 1915 he left Aldershot and at 10.30pm the same day he landed in Boulogne, France. On 12th June he went into the trenches for the first time near Armentieres. For the next 22 months, except for a home furlough in October 1916, he was in the trenches in the Aisne, Nord and Pas-de-Calais Departments of France.
On 29th April 1917 at Feuchy he suffered a wound to his right hip whilst returning from a working party and on 4th May 1917 he was transferred to Edmonton Hospital in England. I don't know how long he was in hospital but he was granted a furlough from the 12th to 21st June 1917.
He was then sent to Shoreham in July 1917 and on 8th September 1917 he left for France and joined the 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers near Arras. Excepting for a spell at 3rd Army Infantry School in Auxi-le-Chateau he was in the trenches until, on 27th March 1918, he was again wounded in action, this time a gunshot wound to the head. On 6th April 1918 he was transferred to Epsom Hospital. I don't know how long he was in hospital for but he was granted a furlough to visit his family in Newcastle under Lyme from 17th to 26th July.
On 29th July 1918 he was posted to the 5th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers at Dover where he stayed until 22nd September when he took a trade test at Woolwich Arsenal and he subsequently transferred to the Royal Engineers. He spent the rest of the war mainly in Hampshire and was demobbed on 31st March 1919 in Halifax.
