MOTG_OP_Brochure_2018-01-19_V1_Proof

Training
The great influx of men recruited to the ‘Pals’ battalions took the
army authorities by surprise. There was a chronic shortage of
uniforms and equipment and the men paraded in civilian clothes.
Some had old service tunics but most dressed in what they had:
sweaters and jumpers in a variety of colours, and especially hats
such as bowlers, flat caps, straw hats and boaters. In November
they were issued with emergency ‘blue’ uniforms but full dress
khaki would not arrive until nearer Christmas. It was the same with
equipment, especially rifles. They had to use wooden stakes and
poles as drill rifles. The rifles they did have were old and often out
of service and those which could be used for musketry training
had to be shared.
As the men were training in their camps and barracks, back home
in Oswestry people followed their stories in the Border Counties
Advertiser. In a letter, Private 12360 Samuel Gowrie Dalrymple
Campbell, wrote of his time in the camp, ‘we have plenty of
blankets. Bread is the main food, and we had margarine for tea
yesterday, which was a great treat. We get brawn for breakfast
and four loaves have to last sixteen of us a day”. He also wrote
of watching aircraft from the nearby Royal Flying Corps base at
Farnborough. He said they were ‘looping the loop …..it is very
pretty to watch them against the setting sun’. Each day they
trained, ‘we skirmish every morning from 11 - 1 o’clock, and it is
awful charging the hills’. He finishes by listing the other men in
his tent: ‘Owen Williams (the librarian), Corp. Cecil Huxley, L/
Corp Woolledge, L/Corp Beaton (from Phillip’s), Tudor Roberts,
Bert Kenyon, Ernie Evans (Mr Gaius Evan’s son), Hughes (North
and South Wales Bank), Charlie Hughes, Gwilym Roberts, TP
Price, Corp. Beck (Barrs Bank), Billie Edwards and Sabbin (United
Counties Bank)’.
In a letter home Corporal Charles Hughes wrote that they have
been on brigade manoeuvres to attack a hill. He said, ‘we…
advanced by companies with five paces interval between each
man. It looked fine. You can imagine what it was like, 500 khaki
clad soldiers in extended order dotted all over the common’. The
next day there was a surprise visit and inspection by the King,
where the men were paraded in their smartest order. Charles only
caught a glimpse as the King passed by a 100 yards away, ‘we saw
nothing more and were informed the parade was over’.
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| The Oswestry Pals