Page 8 - Needles Lodge 2838 History

bearer. On November 20, 1914, near Wulverghem in Belgium,

German artillery fire had collapsed a trench and buried a number

of men including an injured 2nd Lt Colebrooke. Bandsman

Rendle, who had been working throughout the day to free

casualties, crawled across the blown-in trench under heavy fire,

attended to the officer’s leg and with Lt Colebrooke on his back,

scraped away at the earth to get him back to safety. Brother

Rendle was Initiated into Needles Lodge on 2 August 1916,

Passed on 6 September 1916 and Raised on 4 October 1916. He
was Assistant Secretary in 1918.

The regiment left in 1919 resulting in the loss of many members

and honorary members.

The December 1914 minutes include mention of a letter received

from a war-wounded brother currently in Manchester Infirmary.

Attached to the letter was a Masonic Service card, issued by the

lodge under the authority of the Grand Lodge of England. A

similar card would have been carried by a brother in the Army or

Royal Navy to identify him as a Freemason if captured, in the

hope of reasonable treatment by `Masonic’ captors. The

information on it was also in German, French, Italian and Arabic.

During 1916, there were five emergency meetings, to initiate 21

candidates and pass or raise a number of servicemen, who were

being posted off the island. At the July emergency meeting, two

sailors and three soldiers were initiated. In April, there were three

initiations for Royal Navy Reserve Lieutenants on torpedo boats

stationed in Yarmouth Roads.