WORLD WAR ONE

Adventures of a Motorcycle Dispatch Rider

What is the toughest riding conditions that you have ever ridden in (on or

off road)?

CALL FOR MOTORCYCLISTS FROM THE WAR OFFICE:

Ministry of National Defence (Canada) seeking to recruit soldiers for WW2.Appealing to valour by comparing motorcycle-riding soldiers to mediaeval knights!

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Harold Wilbert (1899-1978)Motorbicycle Dispatch RiderRoyal Engineers Signals Depot in Canterbury (1917-19)

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ROAD CONDITIONS WERE SIMILAR TO GREEN LANE RIDING

Darn it …

Derek Frazer (ex-KYB) green lane riding near Aylesham.

Darn it …

The first motorcycle travel book? (1919)

The Royal Engineers are based in Kent.

If you had to ride a motorcycle through a war

zone, what would your first

thoughts be?

“I IMAGINED WAR AS A DESPERATE CONTINUOUS SERIES OF BATTLES, IN WHICH I SHOULD RIDE ALONG THE TRENCHES PICTURESQUELY HALOED WITH BURSTING SHELL, VARIED BY INNUMERABLE ENCOUNTERS WITH UHLANS, OR SOLITARY FOREST RIDES AND IMMENSE TIRING TREKS OVER DESERTED COUNTRY TO DISTANT ARMIES. I WASN'T QUITE SURE I LIKED THE IDEA OF IT ALL.”

“About ten o'clock on the morning of August 23rd I was sent out to find General Gleichen, who was reported somewhere near Waasmes. I went over nightmare roads, uneven cobbles with great pits in them. I found him, and was told by him to tell the General that the position was unfortunate owing to a weak salient …”

With my heart thumping against my ribs I opened the throttle, until I was jumping at 40 m.p.h. from cobble to cobble …”

“ …We had already heard guns, but on my way back I heard a distant crash, and looked round to find that a shell had burst half a mile away on a slag-heap, between Dour and myself.

“ … Then, realising that I was in far greater danger of breaking my neck than of being shot, I pulled myself together and slowed down to proceed sedately home.”

OUR LIVES CAN BE A BATTLEFIELD:

“(God) is close to the broken heartedand saves those who are crushed in spirit.”(Psalm 34:18)

HOW DO WE LOCATE THE FAMILY OF Harold Wilbert (1899-1978)