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Description: | Microfilm copy of a ts account (124pp), written in 1919 and rewritten in 1949 adding "political comment and opinion", of his service with the Royal Artillery during the First World War; beginning in 1916 the account describes his first impressions of Army life in Winchester, Seaford and Northampton before his transfer as a signaller to the Royal Artillery, training at Woolwich (December 1916 - May 1917) and then on active service with the 42nd Brigade RFA (3rd Division) on the Western Front (June 1917 - August 1918), commenting on the use of horses in warfare, his living conditions, duties and leisure activities, the results of an artillery bombardment, time spent in a rest camp near Therouanne suffering from acute depression, his opinions on pacifism, observations on the commanding generals, and demobilisation, while referring to his unit's postings to Bullecourt on the Somme (ca July - August 1916), the 3rd Battle of Ypres (July - November 1917) where he describes the terrible conditions, and on the Arras Front where he experienced the German spring offensive (March 1918), before returning to the Battery at Béthune and describing the build-up to the 1918 Allied offensive around St Amin and Monchy du Bois, the opening of the offensive at Monchy-le-Preux (20 August 1918) and the subsequent advance.
Cataloguer JSK
Catalogue date 2002-04-16 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Beale, E T | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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