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Description: | Ts transcript (7pp) of a letter, dated 20 June 1917, written from Egypt to his wife in Hampshire by a soldier serving in an unidentified ASC unit describing his passage across the English Channel in crowded conditions on board the HMT LYDIA in April, the train journey through France from Le Havre to Marseilles, their embarkation on the troopship TRANSYLVANIA on 3 May for passage across the Mediterranean, the sequence of events from the time that the TRANSYLVANIA was first hit by a torpedo in the Gulf of Genoa on the morning of 4 May until he managed to get on board the Japanese destroyer SAKAKI shortly before the troopship sank, the kindness shown by the people of Savona to the survivors, their rail journey back to Marseilles and, after almost a month in a transit camp there, their embarkation on the troopship KASHMIR on 4 June and the apprehension on board whenever there were submarine alarms during the nine day passage to Alexandria in Egypt. The letter, which gives a particularly graphic account of his actions and feelings during the time that the TRANSYLVANIA was hit by two separate torpedoes and many of the men on board lost their lives in the explosions or in trying to escape from the sinking ship, is accompanied by a photocopy (1p) of his 1913 – 1914 civilian driving licence on which there is a photograph of him in uniform.
Cataloguer RWAS | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Avent, Leslie Harold | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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