Source: Earned the Military Medal for “Bravery in the Field” during the actions at the Somme September 1916.
FIGHT FOE AND DEATH ALL IN ONE SHORT WEEK
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18th Battalion Man Writes of Stream of Wounded Arriving From Battle Front.
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How a soldier may leave England at the beginning of the week, burning with an intense desire to meet the enemy and how, within a few days, after serving in the trenches, he may be invalided home across the Channel, wounded and nearly dead, is told in a letter received by friends of this city of Corp. H. Tripp, of “C” Company, 18th Battalion, now at Sandling camp in England with the second Canadian expeditionary forces. Corp. Tripp enlisted here with the 18th, coming to this city from Sarnia, where he resided previous to the war.
Corp. Tripp tells of seeing twenty large trainloads of wounded Britishers arriving directly from the front, and mentions one sergeant who left England on Monday only to be invalided home on the following Thursday, badly wounded.
His letter in part follows:
“Just a line to let you know that I arrived O.K. last night (April 30). We came over on the Grampian, and had a fine trip. There was another boat—the Northland—accompanying us. We had the cruiser Cumberland as far as Queenstown and three destroyers the rest of the ay as escorts. We were ten days at seas, and just two weeks in making the trip.
“We landed at Avonmouth, near Bristol, and went the rest of the way to camp by train. This country can’t be beat for scenery. It certainly is beyond description. Also the railway service has us “skinned” a mile, even if the cars are small.
“Our camp is five miles from Folkestone and one and one-half miles from Hythe. We can see the Channel fine.
“Last night we could hear the boom of the heavy guns all night long. We saw by the paper this morning that the fleet has bombarded Zeebrugge again. They are very strict about showing lights at night on account of the Zeppelins. There are camps all over the country.
“When we got off the train here, I saw twenty large trainloads of wounded soldiers coming up from Shorncliffe. They had just landed from France and had been wounded the day before. There was a sergeant from an English regiment who went over last Monday and he landed back Thursday, wounded, so you can see we are not far, being about fifty miles from the firing line.”
London Advertiser. May 15, 1915. Page 12.
War Diary of the 18th Battalion CEF 