Bedfordshire
Regiment men with Saunderson tractor
Monday
20th May 1918: A
group of Bedfordshire Regiment soldiers serving in Palestine found a surprising
link with home in a village recently captured from the Turks. Corporals Fred
Kendall of Wilstead and R. E. Shadrake of Bedford, Private Edward Doughty and
some other Bedford boys, found a Model V Saunderson tractor on a farm in the
village. Corporal Shadrake wrote to Mr. Saunderson and enclosed a photograph of
the machine:
“A few weeks ago we took a village
from the Turks, which was found to be a German Colony, called Wilhelma. One of
the first things we saw was a ‘Saunderson’ Tractor made at Elstow Works. I
thought it would interest you to know that a few Bedford boys have had memories
of her native place brought before them by the sight of this tractor so many
miles from home.”
It appears that Corporal Kendall had
helped to make the machine, and the mark of Private Doughty’s father was on the
spokes of the wheel. Private Doughty writes that the tractor, which was sent
out to Palestine eighteen months before the War, was in fairly good order
except that the cylinders had been removed.
Source:
Bedfordshire Times, 24th May 1918
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