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Description: | Ms transcript of letters and one original ms letter (October 1916) forming an interesting account describing his service 1914 - 1917 in the CEF enlisting in the 11th Battalion (4th Brigade, 1st Canadian Division) in September 1914 and arriving in the Salisbury Plain area in November before transferring to the 1st Divisional Cyclist Company in January 1915, in February he arrived in France acting as a traffic policeman before being wounded in the Second Battle of Ypres (April) and evacuated via hospitals in Etaples and Rouen to the 1st Southern General Hospital in Birmingham, he returned to the Reserve Cyclist Company near Salisbury Plain in July 1915 and was posted to the 3rd Divisional Cyclist Company at Ypres in April 1916 where he again worked on police duty before being moved south to the Somme in September and attached to 7th Brigade HQ to do salvage work around Pozieres and in November he was sent to Vimy Ridge to help the 71st Tunnelling Company on the building of the Grange tunnel in preparation for the attack in April 1917, with references to the local civilian population and the execution of a Belgian farmer for spying (April 1915), a visit by the Prince of Wales to his post at the Lille Gate (May 1916), birds and cats on the battlefields, the strange attitudes of French soldiers, the general devastation of the Somme area and the problems of morale encountered in the building of the Vimy tunnels.
Cataloguer NS
Catalogue date 1990-07-19 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Durham, G W | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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