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The Green Howards in the Boer War

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The Green Howards in the Boer War
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Author(s): M. I. Ferrar
Date Published: 2010/10
Page Count: 192
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-376-2
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-375-5

A famous county regiment at war on the veldt

The Green Howards are a regiment with a long association with Yorkshire and the regimental names survives within the Yorkshire Regiment of the British Army to this day. It has served under Marlborough, during the American War of Independence, in India, during the Crimean War, in the Sudan, on the North western Frontier and on many other campaigns and battlefields. This book concerns the regiment’s service during the Boer War at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in South Africa. This fascinating account chronicles the men of the Green Howards at the fiercely contested Battle of Paardeburg, where Sergeant Atkinson won a Victoria Cross, and beyond. The book contains very interesting accounts of the regiments service as mounted infantry as well as vital information for genealogists. This is an indispensable account of the campaign of a famous regiment and is essential for those interested in the Boer War or in accounts of Yorkshire men at war. Available as softcover and hardcover with dust jacket for collectors.

These trenches, with the exception of a few just opposite the laager at Vendutie drift, were all on the far bank, but this we could not tell at the time, and it was quite impossible at first to discover from which bank the enemy’s bullets were coming. It seemed almost a repetition of the Modder River fight, when both banks were held by the enemy, and where there was little or no cover for the assailants. <br>
After we had been lying down under this fire for some time, we were ordered to advance and turn out the occupants of the supposed trenches on the near side.<br>
From where we had halted after deploying, the veldt sloped gently down towards the Modder; rough, stony ground it was, with no cover save that of a not-to-be-trusted ant-heap, or an occasional spare boulder or two, and the river bank our objective being 1,500 yards away. The men were beginning to be knocked about pretty considerably, one of the first hit being a man of the machine gun detachment, who evidently offered a good mark to the Mausers concealed amongst the bushes on the edge of the river. Captain Buckle (attached), commanding B company, was one of the next wounded, very badly too, in the neck, and Sergeant Richardson was noticed bandaging him up. But there were soon so many that one could not keep count, and the cry for stretcher-bearers became a frequent one. These, as well as the ammunition carriers, had not an enviable time, but they did their work bravely and well, and Major Ferguson, our medical officer, testified to the skill of the stretcher-bearers’ bandaging. Three of them, Corporal Kearns, Bandsman Davis, and Drummer Coombs, were killed, Davis being hit as he was attending to Major Kirkpatrick, who was dangerously wounded in the throat It was quite impossible, therefore, to deal with all the wounded, and the majority of them had to lie out in the sun through all the live-long day before their wounds could be attended to, or before they could be carried to the rear.<br>
Our advance was made by short sectional rushes, the sections working together as far as possible, and directing their fire on the bushes fringing the river, where it was thought the Boers lay hidden in their rifle pits. Their bullets kept falling around us everywhere, but the Boers themselves we never saw all day.<br>
By about 9 a.m. we had advanced to within four hundred yards of the river. It was about this time that Lieutenant-Colonel Bowles, who was with the front line, was severely wounded in the chest, the command thereupon devolving upon Major Fearon, and soon afterwards an order came that the battalion was not to advance any further. Previously to this, however, a party of about sixty men, headed by five officers, had rushed down to the bank, to find that the Boers were only holding the far bank, and that the river at this point was quite impassable. In this final rush 2nd-Lieutenant Neave and many of the men were killed. Providentially, most of this party happened to jump into some small nullahs or dongas, and there got comparative cover from the enemy’s rifles, which were not more than thirty yards from them. It was here that Sergeant Atkinson went several times for water for an officer and some men who were wounded, and was at last mortally wounded himself in performing these gallant acts. He died a few days afterwards, and his relatives have lately been given the Victoria Cross, which would have been his reward had he lived. Private Burns, who was also with this party, volunteered to go back and stop the firing of a machine gun in their rear, which was making things very uncomfortable for them. He also fully deserved the Victoria Cross, if any man ever did. Sergeant Burgess was indefatigable in attending to the wounded in the donga. At night, when all had retired, he voluntarily accompanied the search party down to the river bank on two separate occasions. Many other Green Howards distinguished themselves, and several well-deserved medals were gained by their bravery.<br>
An officer who accompanied this party wrote as follows:<br><br>
We had been gradually nearing the river, and when we had got to within about 300 yards of it, we came to a somewhat steeper slope in the ground. Pausing for a space at the top of this to take breath, I called on the men to follow, and we all raced across this intervening ground just as hard as we could go, thinking and hoping that there were some Boers in front of us to get at. I and a lot of the men jumped into a small donga, about forty yards from the river. I continued right on, and passed several mimosa trees, till I came to the water, but saw at once that it was quite impossible to cross at this point. Realising this, I thought the next best thing I could do was to have a drink, and I don’t think any danger would have stopped me doing this. I had lost my tin mug on the way down, but I lapped up the water with a little saucer I carried in my haversack, and then handed it to Sergeant Burgess who had followed me. We then returned the way we had come, and had not gone five yards when we found one of the men had been badly hit We dragged him up to the donga, but, notwithstanding all our efforts to staunch the blood, he died in about ten minutes. He had been hit in the brachial artery. I now found that Esson and Broun were with me, as well as an officer in the Buffs. Broun had a narrow escape, for as we were attending to the wounded man, a bullet came through the entrance and just skimmed his knee-cap, tearing his trouser. Several more men were hit whilst here. We kept on firing through the bushes across to the opposite bank, where we imagined the Boers to be, for I don’t think any of us saw one all day.<br>
By about 2 o’clock I got rather tired of being in this place, and, taking advantage of a slight rainstorm, I ran out with Colour-Sergeant J. Walker and some men, only to find ourselves under a heavy fire, so had to throw ourselves down near a spot where a lot of other men were lying. Here I found Jarvis, and was joined later on by an officer of the Oxfordshire L.I. We remained here till it got dark, when I collected any men I could find and we retraced our steps up the slope, where, finding some more of the regiment, we lay down, all of us utterly exhausted.
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