Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

104 World War I visited each and every one of his sections. Five days later on 30 December 1916 he led his men with all their equipment, wagons and horses on to the transports that sailed from Avonmouth to Rouen. They assembled again with all their colleagues from the remainder of the Division on 18 January 1917. They remained on the Western Front, in Flanders and in other areas of France, until towards the end of the fighting and shared together in the horrors and misery to come. The History of the 62 nd (West Riding) Division 1914-1919 by Everard Wyrall gives a graphic account of the fighting, sometimes on an almost daily basis of the men of this mainly Yorkshire dominated Division. The formal Order of Battle of the Division on arrival in France in January 1917 lists the senior officers of the three infantry brigades and their constituent battalions – including the 2/7 th Battalion West Riding Regiment, Lt-Col. the Honourable F.S.Jackson – and then the officers of the Royal Artillery within the Division. There, under the heading 62 nd Divisional Ammunition Column is the name of its commanding officer Lt.-Col. F.Mitchell. Under his command were four sections each led by a captain. At the end of January 1917 the 62 nd Division were ordered into the front line trenches. In February 1917 the infantry brigades supported by the Royal Artillery were engaged in fierce fighting to capture the hamlet of Beaumont Hamel. Then on 27 February an advance was also made towards the Hindenburg Line. Wyrall wrote: ‘the Divisional Artillery was engaged in moving the guns forward. ... A section of the Divisional Ammunition Column was also moved forward to near Hamel. In the whole course of the history of the 62 nd Division in France, no period was fraught with more discomfort or extraordinary difficulties than those early days of the advance to the Hindenburg Line, for not only did the men suffer, but the horses had a terrible time. Here was mud and slush everywhere but hardly a drop of water for the horses. The poor animals did their work nobly...’. During March the advance continued at a slow pace and in terrible Mitchell’s position in command of the 62nd Divisional Ammunition Column is recorded within these pages.