GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
At 7.15pm the Brigade was relieved by the Mhow Brigade, the Inniskillings taking over the posts held by the Regiment, which marched back to Bethune and thence returned to Lisbourg by motor bus.’ (Ibid).
Between 9 - 11 January 1915, the Regiment suffered 1 man died of wounds, 6 wounded, and 2 officers and 80 men were evacuated sick owing to exposure. The 1st King’s Dragoon Guards fought at Hooge, 31 May - 3 June 1915, and in the trenches at Authuille, August - September 1915. Williams advanced to Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel, and assumed command of the Regiment at Bernaville, 16 October 1915. Lieutenant-Colonel Wickham returned to the command of the Regiment in May 1916, and Williams was appointed to the command of the Worcestershire Yeomanry in Palestine, on 10 September 1916.
Egyptian Expeditionary Force - Cavalry in the Desert
The Regiment was based at Bayud in November 1916, ‘hostile aeroplanes flew over the camp at Bayud on most days, but, except one occasion, they reserved their bombs for El Abd and the railhead, where they were shot at but undisturbed by several antiquated anti- aircraft guns. In the middle of the morning of November 11th, an enemy aeroplane flew low over the camp and proceeded to drop bombs in the middle of it, just as the Colonel [Williams] was explaining to two R.E. officers of the water survey how and why the enemy never troubled the camp at Bayud with bombs. By a miracle neither man nor horse was touched, though there were several very narrow escapes.’ (The Yeomanry Cavalry of Worcestershire 1914-1922, refers)
Williams led his regiment as part of the Desert Column, Egyptian Expeditionary Force, against the Turks at the Battle of Rafa, 9 January 1917:
‘Preparations were now in full train for another cavalry raid, this time on the Turkish entrenched post at Rafa, some miles away to the east on the Turkish-Egyptian frontier. It was known that here the enemy had established a heavily entrenched position which he was holding with some 3,000 infantry and two or three Krupp mountain batteries.....
Just as the troops were all saddled up and ready to move, an enemy aeroplane came over to look for signs of unusual activity. Fortunately he saw none though he was only a quarter of an hour too early. The start was made at 4 in the afternoon of January 8th, with the Regiment leading and providing the advance guard.... The night ride was long and uneventful and it was not until Sheikh Zowaid was reached, twenty-two miles from El Arish, that a halt was called at 9pm to feed and off-saddle the horses. “D” Squadron found the outpost line, while “A” drew a cordon round the village to prevent any of the inhabitants leaving it to give warning to the Turks, 8 miles away, of the approach of the cavalry....
Before two in the morning the force was again on the move to its positions of attack south and south-east of Rafa.... The Turkish position at Rafa was situated round a low hill known as 255 about a mile to the south-west of the police post and barracks... The main works were on the hill, the approaches to which were gentle slopes bare of all cover for about half a mile, and all around was flat ground for quite two miles except where the sand-dunes approached on the northern side. The slopes were well entrenched on all sides, and many machine-gun pits had been dug which enfiladed the approaches. The defences had originally been designed to contain a much larger garrison than now was found in them and were drawn in three lines. The outer line was roughly the shape of a segment of a circle facing west along the road to El-Arish, south and south-east, and consisted of well-dug trenches and some small redoubts. Owing to the lack of men or the surprise of the attack, this outer line was not manned on January 9th, and the opposition came from the second inner line, 300 yards in rear of the outer, and much stronger, particularly, as might be expected, those systems which faced west and south. This line was connected with the third comprising the hill-top, by a long communication trench, which gave some trouble to the Regiment later in the day. The third line, again some 300 yards in rear of the second, encircled the crest of the hill itself. In forming it the whole hill-top had been dug into by the Turks, making a criss-cross series of entrenchments and communications and turning the hill into a formidable redoubt.’ (Ibid)
The Squadrons of the Worcestershire Yeomanry were initially deployed separately, fulfilling various roles including acting as escort to the HAC Battery and the machine-gun section. Williams on his horse Ishmael, gathered “A” Squadron, ‘just in time to take part in an exhilarating gallop by the whole Brigade towards the enemy entrenchments. It covered a considerable distance before the leading regiment, the Warwicks [Yeomanry], were held up by machine gun fire, when they developed a steady dismounted attack, co- operating with the Camel Corps on their right, which employed them for the rest of the day. The Gloucesters [Yeomanry], with the two troops of “A” slewed further north and came into action just south of the Rafa-Sheikh Zowaid road in positions where they found no protection from the enemy machine-gun fire and so could make no headway....”D” Squadron arrived from Sheikh Zowaid soon after 8 and followed the Gloucesters into the sandhills, where it was joined a little later by the Colonel with his two troops of “A”. As “C” Squadron was still employed with the battery, all the available troops of the Regiment were now concentrated in the sand-dunes on the right of the Gloucesters. A desultory long range fire fight was maintained, which caused a few casualties to the Regiment and probably none to the Turks, but, until the batteries subdued some of the machine-gun fire, it was an impossible position to attack from. The orders were to keep the enemy as fully employed as possible in his western entrenchments, in order to prevent him reinforcing his northern and eastern defences from them....
At 3 in the afternoon the order arrived for the Regiment to carry out a dismounted attack along the south side of the Rafa road with the main Turkish position as final objective. The Gloucesters were to join in on its left, the whole covered by the two machine-gun sections in the sand-hills. Accordingly “D” and half “A” were led out from the protecting dunes on to the open plain, where a short sharp gallop under machine-gun fire brought them on to the main road where it runs through a low ridge. Here “C” Squadron joined up under Major Wiggin, having suffered some casualties during the day, and the dismounted attack started by a steady series of rushes soon after 4 o’clock. The ground was devoid of all surface cover, only slight protection from view was occasionally obtained by shallow depressions, while a continuous fire was directed upon the attacks from rifles and machine guns situated in the trenches in front and in the long communication trench in enfilade from the right. The Gloucesters were manfully pressing their attack between the Worcesters and the New Zealanders, suffering considerable casualties in doing so, and the whole line had worked to close under the Magruntein hill when at 5.30 the New Zealanders broke through from the north with a sudden irresistible rush and poured over the crest of the hill. The battle was won and all that remained to do was shepherd in the prisoners and collect the wounded. Regimental Sergeant-Major J. K. Brodie was very badly hit late in the evening , also Lieutenant J. W. Edwards slightly while a dozen more lay about in the track of the attack. Fortunately, the setting sun shone full on the backs of the Regiment as they advanced and in the faces of the Turks, otherwise casualties must have been more severe.’ (Ibid)
With the battle won, and darkness falling Williams mounted his exhausted men and led them back to the reserve positions to feed and water the horses. After a couple of hours respite, the Worcestershire Yeomanry remounted at 1am for the night march back to El Arish. In torrential rain, ‘the darkness plays strange tricks with the eyes of tired men riding through the night, and many and various were the hallucinations of the riders, fortunately unshared by their mounts. Many went frankly to sleep in the saddle but others rode through limitless forests, rows and rows of tents, up steep mountain sides, over sheer precipices.... The Colonel said afterwards that he rode in his imagination past an endless succession of public-houses, the contents of which lay in the roadway.’ (Ibid)
As a result of the action some 35 Turkish officers and 1,700 other ranks were captured, as well as two mountain batteries and many machine guns and rifles. The Turks suffered casualties of approximately 300 dead, whilst the British casualties were approximately 500 of which the vast majority were wounded and were from the cavalry engaged in the action.
The Worcestershire Yeomanry spent the remainder of January 1917 going out on patrol from their base at El Arish. In February they moved to El Bruj, and they continued to serve as part of the 5th Mounted Brigade, Imperial Mounted Division. From El Bruj they moved to Sheikh Zowaid the following month, and from here they prepared for the First Battle of Gaza. The latter took place on 26 March, and the 5th Mounted Brigade was allotted a position with Huj on its left to in front of Hareira on its right. The battle itself was primarily an infantry attack upon infantry entrenched, with the cavalry providing a wide-flung screen facing outwards keeping the area free from interference from outside. Once again Williams’ squadrons were allocated to separate areas, occasionally coming together under his command for short sharp actions in their mobile role.
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