Claro Times – 27th February 1915

As we announced last week, Lieutenant A J R Lamb, DSO, son of Mr and Mrs W R Lamb, of Goldsborough Hall, has been invalided from service, on account of constant exposure in the fighting line. He has arrived at Goldsborough Hall, and is making satisfactory progress.

In simple language Lieutenant Lamb narrates the story of how he won the DSO, and also the decoration of the Croix de Chevalier of the Legion of Honour from the French military authorities : "We were perfectly peaceful in billets, and I was going to shave, when a perfect hail of bullets and shells poured into our village, killing heaps of our horses. We managed somehow to collect men in all states of undress, and I collected just enough of my men to fire my machine guns. The enemy had apparently sneaked up to within eight hundred yards, with their artillery, under cover of a thick morning mist, and took us unawares. Well, we fired several thousand rounds through our machine guns, and everyone behaved splendidly. The enemy's guns were silenced in about half-an-hour. Some people say that my guns did the trick. I don't know if it is true, but anyhow, after a very sharp battle, we got them out of it, and in counter-attack we captured eight or ten guns and lots of prisoners".

About the same time in a letter describing life at the Front, he says : "I hadn't my boots off for a week. It is extraordinary how one gets used to it. As long as you can keep warm and fairly dry, taking ones clothes off is quite a secondary consideration. The men and ourselves are being excellently fed, and we all get as much as we want".