Page 17 - WW1 - 1915

Redditch Local History Society Remembering Redditch Residents & WW1

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Aberdeen Evening News – Thursday 4 February 1915

Barbed Wire Electrified – Describing the duties of despatch riders at the front,
Corporal F. H. Knott, of Redditch, now a despatch rider for the Royal Engineers, states that
the chief danger attending their work is at night.
Snipers get up trees and in all sorts of hidden places. Great care has to be exercised when on
night duty, as the riders are challenged by the Allies sentries, and if the password is not given
quickly there is a danger of being shot. They have to ride without a light when in the vicinity
of the trenches and are forbidden to lift the exhaust to prevent explosions.
Recalling a rough journey to the trenches, he says that as soon as he got inside the Germans
opened fire, and he had to crouch in a hole for an entire day. The soldiers were singing away
as if nothing was happening, and he saw one of our aeroplanes ascend and locate the
position from which the Germans were firing, thus enabling the artillery to achieve results.
His division had a terrible fight a short time ago. The flashes from the guns and the
brightness of the rockets made it as light as day, and the whole place trembled until he
thought the houses would fall. The Germans were eventually driven from their positions but
reoccupied them after a counter-attack.
The British would have kept them out, but lost very heavily through the trenches being so
strongly guarded by barbed wire, which was electrified. Two spies were caught, one being
dressed as a man on the British staff and the other as a Red Cross man.
(On the 1911 census Frederick Harold Knott, aged 24 years, Builder and Contractor Clerk, lived with his parents
William and Christiana Knott at 23 Melen Street, Redditch.

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