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Description: | 5 ms diaries (298pp in total), with a photocopied ts transcription (48pp), recording his service as an NCO with the 188th Company, Royal Engineers (Special Brigade, later C Company, 3rd Special Battalion) on the Western Front, August 1915 - November 1918, covering his training at the gas training camp at Helfaut, duties on gas cylinders and pipes with the Brigade at the Battles of Loos (September 1915), the Somme (June 1916), Arras (April 1917), Third Ypres (July 1917), and Cambrai (November 1917) and including excellent but brief details about conditions in the trenches, accounts of British (June 1916) and enemy gas attacks (June 1917), scathing remarks about the British Army systems of pay and leave, his bitterness at the death of his mother in Lancashire (February 1915) which he blamed on the Germans, his attitude to the gluttony displayed by his fellow soldiers (December 1917) and comments on his role in the preparation of ammunition dumps against the German Spring Offensive. The later entries are of a more general nature, relating to the progress of the war, and a large proportion of the diary entries concentrate on letters written and received.
Cataloguer PJG
Catalogue date 1996-02-02 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Robinson, M | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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