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Description: | Ts transcription (72pp) of a diary written during his service with the 2/5th London Field Ambulance RAMC (180th Infantry Brigade, 60th Division) on the Western Front, June - August 1916, describing his journey to France and the unit's feelings on going abroad, French civilians and Catholicism in the country, his billets and rations, the noise from the guns, aerial warfare, diary and letter censorship, time spent at an aid post and a divisional rest station, a visit by HM King George V and Field Marshal Haig to present medals, and trench fever among the patients, while observing how flowers grew along the trenches and in No Man's Land; then in Salonika, September 1916 - June 1917, referring to the Macedonian landscape and agriculture and route marching; in Egypt and Palestine, June 1917 - July 1918, describing his voyage out and seasickness, the Egyptian people and culture, his duties running a small field hospital where most of the patients were suffering from dysentery, journeying through the desert to Palestine, the landscape and desert wildlife, periods of leave and sightseeing in Egypt and time spent in Jerusalem soon after its capture, his involvement in tactical manoeuvres as part of an Advanced Dressing Station and experience as a medical orderly in battle, Christmas celebrations and recreational activities including sports; and then after the break-up of his unit, his transfer to the 43rd Siege Battery RGA in Palestine, August - December 1918; referring to artillery life and training, expectations of the Armistice and local reactions to it.
Cataloguer KB
Catalogue date 2002-04-05 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Empson, H | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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