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Description: | British private served with 6th Bn Northamptonshire Regt on Western Front, 1916-1918; POW in Germany, 1918-1919
REEL 1: Background in Birmingham and Yorkshire, 1888-1914: family; education; employment; reaction to war and story of enlistment with Northamptonshire Regt, 8/1914; attitude to Germans. Aspects of training with 6th Bn Northamptonshire Regt in GB, 1914-1915: description of training in Weymouth, Penzance and Colchester; drill; route marches; accommodation; musketry; signalling; posted to France, 12/1915. Recollections of operations with A Coy 6th Bn Northamptonshire Regt on Western Front, 1916-1918: description of German raid at Trones Wood, Somme area, 4/1916; composition of 6th Bn; morale; living conditions in front line; sleeping arrangements; opinion of rations; rum ration; problem of lice and rats; relations with French civilians; water supplies and washing facilities; description of role as support battalion during attack on Somme, 1/Jul/1916.
REEL 2 Continues: story of being wounded by German sniper at Thiepval, 9/1916; medical treatment; question of lack of shells, 1915; story of being wounded and taken prisoner during German offensive, 3//1918. Aspects of period as POW in Germany, 1918-1919: interrogation and question of giving information to Germans; taken on stretcher to hospital in Trier and opinion of treatment; taken to POW camp at Gustow, Germany; baths and disinfected; reaction of German officers to revolution in Lubeck area, 12/1918; work duties in camp; problem of lack of food; food parcels; evacuated to GB via Sweden, 1919; memory of POWs visiting German girls in Gustow; demobilised in GB, 1919. Further recollections of operations on Western Front, 1916-1918: description of taking rations to front line in Ypres sector, Belgium, 1917; problem of contracting trench fever; gas.
REEL 3 Continues: casualties in 6th Bn; lack of information about war; story of throwing away medals after war; opinion of officers; attitude to shell shock cases; communication with home; attitude to outcome of war; opinion of Germans; question of fraternization with Germans; comparison of fighting qualities of Saxon and Prussian units; role in wiring party in No Man's Land; comradeship; leave. | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | IWM | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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