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Description: | 39 ms letters and postcards written home during his service as a Sapper with a Royal Engineers Signal Company initially based in Bedford but mainly on active service with the 3rd Area Detachment, First Army on the Western Front, June 1917 - March 1918, describing the poor conditions at Wrest Park camp in Bedford and the low morale of the troops, his embarkation and arrival in France, food and living conditions, gifts from home, German air raids on London, vermin in the trenches, a mistaken gas alarm resulting from rotten apples sent to him, his involvement in keeping a 'farmyard' of chickens, Christmas celebrations, his views on the progress of the war, the regularity of his correspondence and censorship. Sams was killed in action on 29 March 1918, and the collection includes four postcard photographs taken by Tom Sams during a pilgrimage to his brother's grave in August 1926 with one depicting him laying a wreath on the grave; an ms postcard sent home by Tom while on the pilgrimage; an IWGC photograph of the original wooden grave marker; an ms postcard sent home by Tom Sams while serving at the Royal Naval Barracks at Chatham, March 1916; and a Christmas card from HMS THAMES, 1916.
Cataloguer APR
Catalogue date 2002-11-30 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Sams, J | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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