WIMBERLEY Douglas Neil Major

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Surname: WIMBERLEY;

Forename(s): Douglas Neil;

Initials: DN;

Rank: Major;

Previous Regiment: Cameron H;

Date of transfer to MGC: 23-Jan-1916;

MGC Branch: Infantry;

MGC Unit: 232 Coy;

Other MGC Unit Served (1): 51 Bn;

Other MGC Unit Served (2): 8 Bn;

Date abroad: 02-Oct-1915;

Theatre of War: 1;

Awarded: MC;

Other Data: MG Officer with 1 Cameron H Dec 1915
with 1 Coy at formation, Jan 1916 (war diary)
went to No 2 Coy as 2 I/c 1/7/1916
extract from "Forgotten Voices" - Lt D Wimberley, 232 Coy MGC " I spent the night before the battle in a concrete pillbox, Ferdinand Farm. It had very thick concrete but it was a curious sort of place to have a Headquarters. It had been built by the Germans and so the entrance face the German lines. Inside it was only about five foot high and at the bottom there was about two foot of water. This water was simply horrid, full of refuse, old tins and even excreta. Whenever shells burst near it the smell was perfectly overpowering. Luckily there was a sort of concrete shelf the Boche had made about two foot above ground level. It was on this shelf that four officers and six other ranks spent the night. There wasn't room to lie down, there was hardley room to sit upright, and we more or less crouched there. Outside the pill-box was an enormous shell-hole full of water and the only way out was over a 10 inch plank. Inside the shell-hole was the body of a dead Boche who had been there a very long time and who floated or sank on alternate days, according to the atmosphere."

Lt D Wimberley 232 MG Coy…" The wire at Cambrai was about four foot high and fifteen yards wide, but the tanks that had gone in front of us had ploughed through it like a ship in the sea, and we had no difficulty at all in following their tracks. We also got over the Hindenberg front line. That was an enourmous trench, about eight feet deep and fifteen feet wide, but again we were able to get over quite easily. Getting our mules over wasn't so easy, but luckily there were quite a lot of Germans there who were more or less looking for someone to surrender to, so they helped us get them across. When it became really light, it was a wonderful sight. We could see the lines of tanks ahead of us going down the slope towards the Grand Ravine and the lines of Jocks moving along behind them. As we passed, there were numbers of Germans in every direction. The ones near us were really just trying to surrender, but further down the slope we could see quite a lot more running around trying to escape from the tanks. They'd left their trenches and dugouts - probably right - because had they stayed they'd have got Mills bombs from the Jocks. They were a very poor type of German - they were small, unshaven and dirty, and quite a lot were wearing spectacles, rather like the cartoons of the time of what the Germans were supposed to look like. Later on we got into position and began shooting "overhead fire"over the lines of the advancing Jocks. The extraordinary thing was that for about three minutes I had to stop firing altogether as a great number of Boche came straight towards our machine guns with their hands up, and it would have been absolute sheer massacre to have killed them."

b 15/8/1896, 2Lt 12/5/1915, 2Lt MGC 23/1/1916, Lt 12/2/1917 A/Capt 12/2/1917- 13/8/1917, A/Major 19/2/1918
Address: Bulmer Tye, Sudbury, Suffolk
Died:26/08/1983 - Obit "The Times" 27/08/1983 (Photo) (Maj Gen.)

War Diary 26/3/1918 - wounded
Commanded "D" Coy 8 Bn N Russia 1919
On nominal roll of 8 Bn in Russia
Recording of interview in IWM collection

N Russia: MH106 82CCS Bakkaritza 13/8/1919 - diarrhoea;

Other Notes: MC: LG 3/6/1918;

END OF RECORD.

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