“Dear Sir Frederick,—Many thanks for your kind letter of August 27th, which has been forwarded to me from home, and reached me last night; many thanks also for your kind offer to help financially in the publication of the record of the Regiment in this War; I have noted this, although I do not—at present—anticipate that any appeal with this object will be made.
“We arrived back from the operations which resulted in the capture of Tekrit yesterday, and I was on the point of writing you an account of our share in them and of the charge in which your son Travers was wounded. The Army Commander has interested himself personally in the case of your son, and will, I have no doubt, have cabled you fully and given you the reasons why we think we are justified in thinking his fate to be no worse than that of a prisoner of war.
“Well, about 4.45 P.M. on the 5th November, the Regiment was being held in reserve, so that should an opportunity arise to assist the Infantry who had been assaulting the Turkish trenches all day, we might be put in without delay, and our Brigadier evidently thought the moment had arrived, so he ordered me to send out a squadron to find the first line of trenches and to sweep up it towards the Imam, which was the most conspicuous mark; ‘B’ Squadron was the first for duty, so I gave Captain Robinson his orders, and the squadron went out. No sooner were they started than I received orders to send a second squadron, and ‘C’ Squadron, under Lieutenant Norton, was sent out. I at once received orders to take out the remaining two squadrons in support; this I did, but the first two squadrons had got such a good start of me that what followed I had to learn from the survivors of the charge. It seems that on approaching that point of the first-line trench which had been given him as an objective, Robinson realised that it had been evacuated by the enemy, who had retired in a N.W. direction, and that the left flank of our Infantry were also approaching that point; he therefore halted his squadron, and when ‘C’ Squadron had overtaken him, he explained to Norton the situation, and his decision—which incidentally was the true soldier’s instinct, and from a military point of view quite correct—to attack the mass of the enemy, a few hundred in number, who could be seen retiring in the open about 1200 yards to his left flank. Accordingly the two squadrons wheeled to the left, and almost in line, galloped along, one on either side of a long trench, which had several strong points, at one of which Robinson was killed, shot through the back of the head; and your son was last seen pinned to the ground by his horse, which had been shot, and trying to load his automatic pistol, and surrounded by a number of Turks. The man who saw this said he also thought that Travers was wounded, but there is only his evidence on this point. When the squadrons had got back to the neighbourhood of our Infantry line they were dismounted and advanced about 200 yards, with a view to covering the escape of any of our men who had been unhorsed or slightly wounded; but it was now almost quite dark, and after allowing a reasonable time for any stragglers to rejoin, I ordered a retirement on the Brigade.
“The Turks retired during the night, and our Infantry next morning went over the ground, and buried six bodies, including Robinson’s; they were unable to identify these as the Turks had stripped them of everything, including identity discs; I however sent a party that day, Tuesday, to ascertain what was possible about our missing, and they identified the bodies of Captain Robinson, Sergts. Newman and Gray, and Pte. Francomb. Two bodies, buried by our Infantry, they were unable to find, and so remained unidentified; but I think we are more than justified in presuming, under the circumstances, that Travers was made prisoner of war by the Turks, wounded perhaps but not necessarily so, and personally I have every hope of hearing in course of time through our Red Cross and the Red Crescent Associations that he is safe and well in the hands of the Turks.
“I will say no more at present beyond expressing our universal regret at losing so popular and so capable an officer, and our great sympathy with you in the painful suspense which the uncertainty of Travers’ fate must impose upon you.—Believe me, yours sincerely,
J. J. Richardson.”
Extracts from letter from Lieutenant Guy Pedder to his Sister, 15th November 1917.
“At last we are back at rest, so I will try and give you a sort of account of our doings of late. We have been on the go now for just on 8 weeks, so you can imagine how topping it is to get back into a decent camp with a tent to yourself, &c. This morning I had a cup of tea and a biscuit when I was called, followed by a boiling-hot bath and a change of clothes—what luxury!... The mail goes out to-night....
“Our Brigade left Childari about Sept. 25th, a week after the other Brigade had gone out on the Ramadie stunt, which was a great success, the Fourteenth doing very well, but losing their C.O., and Medd Bridges is now commanding them.