I now know he was a sergeant in the 1st or 2nd Cadet Battalion of the Sussex Yeomanry before he was conscripted into the regular army. There is a postcard group photo of him with sergeants stripes taken by Lindfield photographer William Marchant. In his 1917 diary is the address of a Capt Staunton Hedges. Newspaper reports of the time mention Capt Staunton Hedges and the Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill Bn of the Sussex Yeomanry. and Thomas makes one mention of his cadet uniform in his diary.
Several weeks of sleuthing over the names in the 1917 diary has revealed someone called Crockford, who turned out to be from Hurstpierpoint in Sussex and who was also in the Sherwood Foresters, indeed his regtl number is only 4 digits on from Thomas's.
Crockford's military record survives, whereas Thomas's does not. Thomas's diary has the words Brocton and Clipstone, Crockford's records show these were army training camps and has the dates they were there. Crockford died from the effects of gas on 18 Aug 1918 at a Canadian field hospital in France.
I knew Thomas had been gassed due to an undated letter from his employer sympathising. I found a query on the Great War Forum about the 10th Battalion Sherwood Foresters and a gas attack which revealed it was on 15 Aug 1918 somewhere between Fouilloy and Vaux sur Somme resulting in the loss of 18 officers, 33 men killed, 44 died later of wounds and 431 wounded.
"and long strings of men with their eyes bandaged, each holding the man in front, trailed slowly backwards down to the dressing station" (quote from 10th (S) Battalion The Sherwood Foresters by Lieut W N Hoyte) which is an image which is exactly that portrayed in "Gassed" the painting by John Singer Sargent.
|