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Description: | Microfilm copy of a ts (and occasionally ms) diary in three volumes (660pp), covering his life in Birmingham during May - November 1915 before he enlisted in the Royal Engineers, November 1915 - June 1916, and his subsequently served as a despatch rider, mainly with the Carrier Pigeon Service, on the Western Front, July 1916 - March 1919, describing his training at Houghton Regis near Leighton Buzzard, his difficulty with conforming to Army regulations, his arrival in France where, as a despatch rider, he was attached to the 2nd Anzac Corps pigeon station at Senlis on the Somme, his duties including carrying pigeons from the Corps lofts to Divisional and Brigade signal offices until his transfer to the X Corps Signal Company, responsible for pigeon stations in the Poperinghe area, where he describes the difficulties of despatch riding including a delivery of pigeons made under heavy bombardment during the Third Battle of Ypres, then his transfer to the Second Army Signal Company at Cassel where he served as an ordinary despatch rider before being ordered to rejoin the X Corps at Frevent, returning to pigeon duties at Esquelbecq in July 1918; after the Armistice he went to a rest camp at Menin before delivering despatches to Cologne by train (January 1919), sightseeing in Bonn, and then returning home to Birmingham for demobilisation.
Cataloguer JSK
Catalogue date 2002-04-30 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Davis, O H | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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