Introduction

Summary of Reggie’s war

Reggie was in action firstly with his regiment the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards. However, it became apparent that, due to the nature of advancing warfare technology and the battlefield conditions, cavalry regiments were no longer as relevant and able to deliver the decisive results that they had been able to in the past. The 1st KDG found themselves continually moving around in preparation to go into action but only rarely actually doing so. When they went to the front it was generally on foot. The horses were often used to move equipment around the battlegrounds but this must have been very frustrating to the cavalry soldiers.

After a year and a half being only relatively rarely in action, Reggie was reassigned to the 1/4th Seaforth Highlanders as second in command. The Seaforths were an infantry battalion and Reggie found himself almost immediately involved in front line action at High Wood on the Somme.

After just 4 months with the Seaforths, Reggie was given his own command of the 8th Battalion King’s Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment. He led them for one and a half years through many engagements on the Somme, in the Battle of Arras (1917) at Monchy-le-Preux and Guemappe and at the 3rd Battle of Ypres with the attack on Zonnebeke.

Finally, he took leave of the 8th KORL in March 1918 and took an army training job in England before being called to the Desert Mounted Corps with the Middlesex Yeomanry where he was at the Capture of Damascus in the Autumn.

Summary of Donald’s war

Donald joined the 2nd Battalion Transvaal Scottish in South Africa at the beginning of the war.

Donald was in action in German South West Africa with the Transvaal Scottish Regiment. His major action was at the Trekkopjes where the Transvaal Scottish repelled what was to be the last major German offensive of the campaign.

When the 1st South African Infantry Brigade was formed Donald joined the 4th Regiment (known as the South African Scottish) and served in Egypt before the Western Front.

At the Western Front, the 4th South African Infantry were involved in many engagements. Notable battles being the Battle of Delville Wood (July 1916), Attack on the Butte de Warlencourt (October 1916), 1st Battle of the Scarpe (April 1917) and the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele, September 1917)

At the beginning 1918 Donald was cherry-picked to travel to the Middle East with General Dunsterville’s British Military Mission to the Caucasus (known as Dunsterforce) where the mission was to protect British interests in the area by co-operating with Russian for in preventing German and Ottoman forces from reaching Central Asia, Afghanistan and India.

Overview map

This map shows the principal battlefields where Reggie and Donald Hunt served and fought during World War 1.