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Description: | Letters to his family (230 ms originals, 28 transcripts only, 38 transcripts, also multiple duplicate transcripts), written during his service with 1/6th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment (143rd Infantry Brigade, 48th Division) in Essex (March 1915) and on the Western Front (March 1915 onwards), on attachment to HQ 143rd Infantry Brigade as OC Grenade School and Brigade Bomb Officer (November 1915 – November 1916), on attachment to 48th Division, eventually as Divisional Bomb Officer (November 1916 – January 1917), as an Intelligence Officer attached to 143rd Infantry Brigade (January 1917 onwards) on the Western Front and in Italy (December 1917 – April 1918), and as a GSO3 on the Western Front attached principally to 33rd Division (April – October 1918) and to 100th Infantry Brigade (October 1918 – January 1919), with outstanding detail concerning conditions in the front line, trench construction, technical specifications of arms, armaments and equipment, including his own innovations, forthright criticism of the calibre of officers and senior commanders in the British Army and of poor staff work and the unmodernised nature of the Army, also interesting references to the brigade cinema (see October 1915 onwards) and his personal philosophy, and good descriptions of the Battle of the Somme (see 31 August 1916), the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, the 3rd Battle of Ypres (1917), conditions on the Italian Front (December 1917 – April 1918) and the commemoration of war dead (November 1918). The collection also includes an ms account (76pp, illustrated with sketches and photographs) of his wartime service, plus a few letters from friends and relatives, some dating from his schooldays, detailed ts accounts of the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917 (7pp) and the Battle of Jutland (authors unclear in both cases), as well as various wartime souvenirs and papers relating to the purchase of a brigade cinema.
Cataloguer AC | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | 1/6th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment British Army | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Walker, Jeffrey | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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