300279 A/Sgt. Charles Herbert Moss Moss British Army 18th Btn. C Coy. Durham Light Infantry Charles Moss was born in 1880. On 1st July 1916, Lance Corporal Moss was a Lewis gunner with “C†Company 18th DLI. This Coy was in reserve trenches at 7.30am and did not move forward to the front line until mid-day. After the war he wrote ‘My Part in the Battle of the Somme’. A copy of this account is now held in Durham County Record Office [D/DLI 7/478/4].
30th June 1916
"During the evening, our CO, Lt-Col Hugh Bowes, gave us our instructions ... There was to be no turning back, every man must advance at a steady pace. All officers had the authority to shoot anyone who stopped or tried to go back ... the grimmest order to me was that no fighting soldier was to stop to help the wounded ... We spent the rest of the evening being issued with field dressings, extra ammunition, picks and shovels, camouflaging our tin hats with sandbags and getting the bayonets sharpened. There was a good deal of light-hearted talk amongst groups of us ... The main thing we all looked forward to was to get away from the trenches to fight in open country and get on the moveâ€.
Zero Hour 1st July 1916:
“We reached our assembly at about 4am on Saturday 1st July... They must have waited until we were all in position then they opened fire on us. Along on my left there was soon word being passed along for stretcher bearers.. The trench was so shallow I had to crouch into the front of it. Regardless of danger Lieut. Simpson kept moving up and down the trench with head and shoulders in full view of the Germans... At about 7.30am, Zero Hour, the time for the first wave to go over we heard a heavy rumbling thud which was the exploding of our great mine.
We got the word to move to our jumping off trench to be ready to go over the top. As I got into this trench I nearly bumped into a soldier who seemed to be carrying a big piece of raw meat resting on his left arm. He was doing a sort of crying whimper. Then I realised it was the remains of his right forearm he was carrying ... Many more soldiers were making their way back up the trench, they were the walking wounded. The artillery fire was much quieter by the time we reached the front line trench but it was nearly impossible to tell it from No Man’s Land .. The whole of the front was an awful chaos of duckboards, sandbags and stakes, wire netting and dud shells strewn about. Among the wreckage were the dead bodiesâ€.
"On army forms ‘Tommy’s’ the name he bears
But in the ranks this Monica’s no good
If he’s a Murphy, whatever he cares
He’ll get no other name than ‘Spud’.
And if he’s one of the family Clark
And was baptised Fred, or Jack, or Bobby
Or uses his number to keep it dark,
He will always loudly be called ‘Nobby’.
And if his true surname should be Miller
Let him be a fraud, or good and trusty,
A man or a mouse or a ladykiller,
You’ll find he will always be called ‘Dusty’!
Sergeant Charles H. Moss, 18th (Pals) Battalion, Durham Light Infantry - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10307703/The-WW1-poetry-they-didnt-let-you-read-Ribald-and-risque-poems-from-the-front.html
Charles Moss died in 1963
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