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QMS. John Bentley
British Army Royal Field Artillery
from:3 Fielden Terrace, Victoria Rd, Todmorden, Yorkshire
John Bentley (born 22nd March 1890) joined the RFA in France in 1915 as a bombardier and was promoted to Quartermaster Sergeant. He may have been in the 49th (West Riding) Division, which saw action at The Battle of Albert, The Battle of Bazentin Ridge, The Battle of Pozieres Ridge, and The Battle of Flers-Courcelette (all phases of the 1916 Battles of the Somme). After the war he returned to his job as a school headmaster and he and his wife Elsie had three children. He died aged 84 in March 1974 in Todmorden, Yorkshire.
He didn't talk much about his time in the trenches. However, his son David related these stories:
In a skirmish during the Great War, presumably after the officers had been killed, an NCO colleague of Dad's, surname Julian, countermanded the orders which led to a successful result. However, to avoid a court martial for insubordination, Julian was promoted straight to Lieutenant Colonel Julian.
On an occasion when Dad was coming home on leave he found himself at a railway station in Manchester in the middle of the night. The driver of a coal train saw him, stopped, asked him where he was going, and as the train was going through Todmorden anyway, invited him to ride in the engine. Approaching Todmorden, the driver stopped the train by the row of houses where Dad lived for him to alight. When Dad knocked at the door of his house, his father, Sam Bentley wouldn't let him in until he'd undressed outside because, as with all soldiers from the trenches, he was infested with lice.
One dark night he heard some movement close by his trench, and clobbered this Jerry over the head with his rifle butt only to discover that he'd brained a badger - and as a keen naturalist he was most upset about it.
