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Description: | Ts transcript of his surviving diaries, letters and excerpts from his memoirs (written about 1970, 142pp in total), covering his service with the Royal Engineers on the Western Front initially in the 104th Field Company near Mount Kemmel (May 1916) where he vividly describes the sights of a battlefield, the sounds of exploding shells and an air raid during a night working party; his move to the 103rd Field Company on the Somme near Albert (June - September 1916), where he writes of the enormous rats in the trenches, the difficulty of digging new fortifications due to the number of corpses buried on the battlefield, the ineffectiveness of flannel gas masks, his own severe gassing during a German bombardment (September 1916) and subsequent recovery in the United Kingdom; his return to France on the Arras front where he despairs of the quality of American-made shells, attributing it to German sabotage; his transfer to the 152nd Field Company (May 1917 - April 1918), during which he describes becoming a target of enemy fire while trying to find a Division outpost at night, his involvement in the opening days of 3rd Ypres and his return to hospital with boils (April 1917) and subsequent convalescence in the United Kingdom during which he was sent to Ireland to investigate shipping losses and find mineral deposits near Blacksod; his return to Belgium with the 510th Field Company (April 1918 - January 1919), during which he reflects on the differences between his soldiers and the new, conscripted soldiers under his charge and describes the work of building bridges in France and Belgium, his growing hatred of horses and frustration over being unable to obtain leave, his bout of Spanish influenza which forced him to travel to Cologne without his Company, his shock at the deprivations experienced across Germany and eventual demobilisation (January 1919).
Cataloguer BEK
Catalogue date 2006-06-22 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Godfrey, J T | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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