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Description: | Wordprocessed transcript (203pp, plus annexes and illustrations) of his letters to a close family friend in Rugby, Warwickshire and, more particularly, her eldest teenage daughter (with whom he had fallen in love and aspired to marry) written during his service as a Church of England Chaplain to the Forces attached to the 12th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (63rd Brigade, 21st Division) in the United Kingdom (June - August 1915) and then on the Western Front with the 12th West Yorkshires (September - November 1915), the 4th Battalion Middlesex Regiment (also 63rd Brigade, 21st Division to July 1916 but then 37th Division) (November 1915 - December 1916), at the 5th Army Officers School (December 1916 - July 1917), with the 13th Wing RFC/RAF (July 1917 - May 1918) and with the 1st Battalion Norfolk Regiment (15th Brigade, 5th Division) from June 1918 until his death in action in October 1918 and with interesting references to his experiences during the Battle of Loos, the Battle of the Ancre and the Allied offensive in October 1918, his daily routine as a Chaplain and the difficulty in carrying out effective 'parsonic' work under active service conditions, and the pleasures of life when his units were well behind the front line, and with occasional but valuable comments reflecting his intense dislike of war (2 and 4 October 1915, 24 March 1917) but recognition that Germany had to be defeated (21 October 1915 and 13 and 22 October 1918 for instance), his distress at the deaths of many of his fellow officers and friends, his efforts to understand the attitude towards religion of the men in his units, his admiration for the young RFC pilots and his high regard for Donald Hankey's book A STUDENT IN ARMS (22 August and 25 October 1916). The correspondence, which also traces the development of his affection for the schoolgirl daughter (to whom the majority of the letters are written), quite often touches on the cost and 'beastliness' of war, but understates the scale and bitterness of the fighting in which he was sometimes involved.
Cataloguer RWAS
Catalogue date 2005-03 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Dugdale, R W | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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