My late father, working on a farm nr. Wisbech Cambs aged 15 volunteered for service with the Cambridgeshire Regiment in October 1914 "because he was bored". He was told by the recruiting sergeant that he was too young, but the recruiting unit would return the following April if the war was still on, he could enlist then "only be more than 16" April 1915 Dad put his age up to 19 and enlisted. From his heavily annotated copy of the Regimental History, he never spoke about the war,and a photo I had now I fear lost, I have deduced that Dad was present as a headquarters signaller when the HQ dugout suffered a direct his during the battle of Bapaume in September 1918. Most of those in the dugout, including the Regimental CO Lt. Col. Saint were killed or seriously wounded.He has marked details of a young white faced runner telling Major Clayton commanding the forwward unit of the incident, Clayton became CO on Saint's death; and though he never talked about the incident I believe from these notes in the book that Dad was the runner concerned. I only wish I could prove it.
