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Description: | British private served with King's Royal Rifle Corps and Royal West Surrey Regt on Western Front, 1917-1918 and his wife
REEL 1: Recollections of operations with King's Royal Rifle Corps and Royal West Surrey Regt on Western Front, 1917-1918: conscripted and posted to France, 1917; training; posted to King's Royal Rifle Corps; further training; posted to Royal West Surrey Regt, 47th Div; memory of town of Albert, France; description of night patrol and duty in listening post; memory of village of Contay; living conditions in trenches; memory of bodies of men and horses in shell holes; taken by London buses to rest area; story of rats eating food parcel; showers; problem of lice; cleaned uniform and kit; inspection; memory of playing football and complaints from French civilians; description of muddying buttons and badges for forthcoming attack; description of sitting on top of bus and problem of rain; description of fleets of buses and artillery returning to front line following German advance, 3/1918; rations; story of volunteering for trench raiding party; question of receiving Military Medal for capturing German; description of trench raid and taking prisoners; retaliatory shelling by Germans; description of artillery bombardment of German trenches prior to attack.
REEL 2 Continues: objectives; problem of creeping barrage falling short and casualties; nature of terrain; problem of losing officers and NCOs; description of effects of artillery barrage; problem of concussion from shell blasts; disorientation and clothing blown off; story of being wounded by sniper in shoulder and medical treatment in France and GB. Aspects of period in GB, 1918: description of injury to arm and medical treatment; memories of playing cornet in hospital band in Leeds; memory of Armistice, 11/1918; discharged from army. Comments from wife on sending parcels to Western Front during war and life on home front. Post-war life and employment: problem of pain in shoulder; effects of war on nerves and reaction to loss of friends. | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Rogers, Harold | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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