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Description: | British gunner served as signaller with A Bty, 150th Bde Royal Field Artillery in GB and on Western Front, 1915-1918; signaller served with Royal Engineers Signal Section on Western Front, 1918
REEL 1: Background in Colne, Lancashire, 1898-1915: family; education; employment in cotton mill; reaction to outbreak of war, 4/Aug/1914; enlistment with Royal Field Artillery in St Annes-on-Sea, Lancashire, 1/1915. Aspects of period of training with Signal Section, A Bty, 150th Bde Royal Field Artillery in GB, 1915: reason for volunteering as signaller; accommodation; description of training on 18-pounder gun and in signalling; signalling equipment; attitude to army life and discipline; route marches; drill; living conditions; posted to Grantham, Lincolnshire; description of training with horses; story of horses stampeding in storm.
REEL 2 Continues: daily routine; uniform; equipment; method of tying puttees for mounted troops; ammunition; boots; kit inspection; punishments; posted to Larkhill Camp, Salisbury Plain, 10/1915; accommodation; signal and gunnery exercises; problem with temperamental horse; method of driving horses; mounting procedure; amusing story of mounting horse; memory of horse Bobby; riding training; opinion of instructors; saddle and equipment; care of horses; signalling equipment.
REEL 3 Continues: field telephone; earth pin; embarkation at Southampton, 11/1915; loading of horses and guns; story of horse Jumbo bolting; description of voyage aboard City of Benes to Le Havre, France, 28/Nov/1915; problem of seasickness; disembarkation. Recollections of operations as signaller with A Bty, 150th Bde Royal Field Artillery on Western Front, 1915-1918: billets in farm; opinion of adequacy of training; morale; memories of officers; story of Lieutenant Hart; moved to Colincamps; Christmas parcels from home, 12/1915.
REEL 4 Continues: moved to gun pits in Maricourt area, Somme,1/1916; terrain; memory of German observation balloons; story of French 75mm shells; description of gun pits and trenches; sleeping arrangements; daily routine and living conditions; liaison with infantry; proximity of German trenches; role of A Bty in Z1 sector shelling German wire; length of time for shells to land; effect of weather conditions; problem of communications; rate of fire; story of shell bursting in trench; description of trench system; problem of chalky soil; living conditions; problem of trenches flooding; rest periods; duckboards in trenches; method of drainage; dugouts; sleeping arrangements; personal possessions; postal communications with home; daily routine.
REEL 5 Continues: duties as signaller; maintenance of equipment and repairing telephone lines; types of wire; transportation of wire; composition of signal unit; shifts; testing lines; equipment; story of being buried; story of being blown into air by shell blast; rations; cooking food in mess tins; equipment as signaller; water cart; sanitary arrangements; problem of contracting dysentery from dirty water; state of health including temporary deafness.
REEL 6 Continues: washing facilities; shaving and haircuts; personal hygiene; problem of lice and rats; use of corpses as sandbags; problem of wet and cold; question of lighting fires; morale in A Bty; preparations for Somme offensive, 7/1916; preliminary artillery barrage; memory of wounded German POW; description of Forward Observation Post; description of conditions during Battle of Somme; moved to Messines area; story of signal office destroyed by shell; description of explosion of mine on Messines Ridge.
REEL 7 Continues: damage caused by mine; daily routine and duties as signaller; sleeping in gun pits; moved to Passchendaele, Ypres area, Belgium, 1917; description of trench system and use of captured German pill boxes; story of being gassed; transferred to Royal Engineers Signal Section; effects of gas including temporary blindness; transferred to hospital at Etaples for treatment of eyes. Aspects of period in GB, 12/1917-1/1918: returned to GB on hospital ship; further medical treatment in Edinburgh, 11/1917; story of visiting brother in Newcastle.
REEL 8 Continues: attitude of civilians to war; visited parents in Colne; posted to Bedford for further training; accommodation; problem of cold weather; story of damaged rifle butt; embarked from Southampton for France and drafted to 19th Div, 1/1918. Aspects of operations as signaller with Royal Engineers Signal Section on Western Front, 1-3/1918: duties in workshops in Abbeville; posted to Eperny; accommodation in champagne factory; duties as signaller and dispatch rider; story of French troops looting champagne factory; volunteered for training as pilot with Royal Flying Corps. Aspects of period with Royal Engineers Signal Section in GB, 1918: interview and medical examination for transfer to Royal Flying Corps.
REEL 9 Continues: reaction to failing medical; memories of Armistice, 11/Nov/1918; description of duties in telephone exchange in Crystal Palace; transferred to Reserve; problem of returning to pre-war employment; question of pension and compensation; demobilised, 1919. Post-war life and employment. Reflections on period of military service: effects of war on health. | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Lambart (Mr) | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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