Drummer James William Hyde, 41709, 2nd Battalion Suffolk Regiment, was a patient in Ward 2 at Wardown V.A.D. Hospital in April 1918, with a graphic story to tell of escaping the hell of the battlefield at Wancourt and almost miraculously surviving to enjoy the heaven he found at Wardown a couple of weeks later.
Drummer Hyde's home address was 32 Ridgway Road, Luton, and he had been a member of the local Salvation Army Band. This was his amazing story as described in a letter to The Luton News ahead of publication on April 18th, 1918. It was during what the newspaper described as the greatest battle in the history of the world.
"I am very pleased to be here, as it is just like heaven, although it was hell that I went through to get here. I was with my battalion just before Wancourt, a few miles to the right of Arras, but our flanks dropped back, compelling us to retire immediately behind Wancourt.
"Well, I shall never forget a fortnight yesterday [possibly March 28th, 1918].'Jerry' opened out his barrage at about 3.15am and kept it up until 3 in the afternoon - that is, when I left, as he was right on the top of me by then. So we got ready and destroyed all our letters etc as best we could, although I think he got the mail and everything, including a nice large parcel I had received and not even opened.
"But, as providence would have it, I saw someone making a dive for it, so I ran with him. Ah, I shall never forget that run from Wancourt to Neuville Vitasse - all open ground, and I ran through a barrage of machine gun fire on my left and right and also behind (because, as I say, both our flanks by this time had dropped back and we did not know it), and also a heavy barrage of all kinds of shell.
"Although the bullets whistled through my legs and by my head and all around me, nothing touched me, only that I got gassed and had shell shock. But I managed to bring a wounded man down with me for about four or five miles, and we were shelled all the way, with about 14 Boche planes over our heads firing at us also, so the shooting could not have been very good.
"I landed at the base after visiting about three hospitals, was taken to Cambridge and now they have kindly sent me to Wardown, and I am being looked after lovely. In fact, as I have already said, it is like heaven.
"I have heard from one of my unit who didn't happen to be in the trenches at the time, and he tells me that I and one more (who is wounded and in Blighty) are the only two left. So you will see how lucky I was."
The Luton News said that a daily newspaper, describing the engagement in which Drummer Hyde took part, reported: "A British detachment near Neuville Vitasse yesterday fought until only 30 men were left standing. Every officer was a casualty, but somebody took command, organised a new defence, and those 30 fought until most of them had fallen and their leader was captured.
[James Hyde, born in Luton in 1880, survived the war and was demobbed in 1919. He had married Emily Jane Day at St Matthew's Church on August 2nd 1902, and they had three children.]