Yorkshire War Time Experience

The Yorkshire War Time Experience, the north’s biggest event is only 20 mins drive away for me and PTE Heaton. As so, I drove up the site during the week for a recce of our trenches, over the winter they had fallen in badly and needed work, I cleared some nettles and left a sign with our name on it. Some Suffolk’s wanted to join us this weekend, our new 3DIVIA group is set for this purpose. 

I packed Thursday evening, taking almost every bit of kit I had in the garage, 5 ammo boxes, cammo net, sandbags, various pioneer tools & the 14 man tent. 

We arrived Friday evening to find Col/SGT Hebden sunbathing, we unpacked the tent and sleeping gear, the rest we left in the car. Friday was evening was a little windy and had a chill, so we tried the beer tent for warmth, here we found PTE Pozniak, not 2 mins after getting there, Ben and his dad Paul, from the Suffolk Regiment LHG had turned up, so I ran along to great them and show them the camp, after they were settled I ran back to beer tent..£4 for 3.8% beer from Morley...we decided cans of beer from our stock was better so headed back. 

Saturday morning was pleasant, it was obvious it had rained in the night which wasn’t a bad thing, as it kept a lot of dust down. The rest of the Suffolk’s then arrived, this was a brilliant effort, they all had to set off around 4am to get there on time, closely after them PTEs Wilson and Etherington and PTE Dennington.

After we’d all greeted each other we made our way to the trenches, where we found PTEs Dixon and new Member Elliot, everyone now on display we had 15 men & 2 ATS. 

Throughout the day the men made the trenches as comfy as possible, we also watched the stuff going on the in main arena, plenty of armour and vehicles to be seen, followed by a post war Battle & a First World War battle, then more vehicle displays.

“All In stew” was made for dinner on the Col-SGTs petrol cookers, brilliant for quick pots of tea and warming stew, however a little scary to use as you’re cooking on a pressurised petrol burner...basically a small bomb. At 3.30 the main battle Started, for me I never really enjoy these big battles as there’s too much going on to think about, and the spacing is too close, but we joined in with the Duke of Wellingtons and took the right flank, we moved up behind a Stewart tank and had to wait for him to stop until we could deploy, this took us about 60feet away from the Germans...we deployed and tried to make it look good, we won pretty quickly, after the battle we had some water and then it was finish time. Back to camp for a few beers and sociallising.

Again we attempted the beer tent, but after an hour we moved back to camp, we spent all evening chatting and getting to know each other and even finished off a bottle of port. 

Sunday was pleasant weather again, me and Col-SGT Hendon cooked breakfast for everyone, sausages and bacon grill. 

Back in the trench for much of the same apart from a new skirmish, we were treated to the battle of Crete, with some Brit’s in full KD chasing off some fallschirmjager who’d landed, they then continued to run across open ground, to meet the Germans, who counter attacked and pushed the Brit’s back in to the original fixed positions...

In the battle we moved further right this time and took some German trenches, then moved passed the Stewart when he stopped, by the time the Stewart had stopped, the Germans were no more then 30 feet away, so we couldn’t fire any weapons for safety, as a result all the East York’s and some Suffolk’s took hits, lieutenant Preece took the remaining Suffolk’s and Duke of Wellingtons further up to capture the Germans. That’s the problem with all the armour on these big battles, it’s not correct tactics for infantry to follow them up the field, and not safe for us to go in front, this results in us being far too close to the Germans by the time we can safely deploy. After the battle we packed down and moved back to camp. A few of us emptied the sand bags in to the pyro holes, idea being that next year the trenches should be left deeper. 

After everyone had packed up we thanked the Suffolk’s for a great weekend, said our goodbyes and set off home, landing 20 mins later. A brilliant weekend.

CPL Heaton