|
Date: |
|
Description: | British NCO served with 1/9th Bn King's Liverpool Regt on Western Front, 1915-1916; served as private with 1/2nd Bn Mommouthshire Regt on Western Front and in Germany, 1916-1919
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Burscough, Lancs, 1898-1914: family circumstances; education; work in rope mill; work at Rainford Colliery, including duties loading coal tubs into pit head cage, night shifts, safety and story of lamp failure. Recruitment underage with F Coy, 1/9th Bn King's Liverpool Regt, Ormskirk Drill Hall, 4/8/1914: procedure; reasons; parents' reactions; issue of rifle. Period in Liverpool, 8/1914: drill at Goodison Park Football Ground; billets at Liverpool Empire; question of underage status. Period training at Dunfermline, 8/1914-1/1915: school billets; initial absence of uniform; drill; relationship with civilians; comparison with trained territorials and formation of second line unit.
REEL 2 Recollections of conditions of service and lifestyle during training with 2/9th Bn King's Liverpool Regt at Blackpool, Tunbridge Wells and Ashford, 1/1915-7/1915: guesthouse billets; rifle training and issue with Japanese rifle; bayonet training; route marches and songs sung; tactical exercises; signal semaphore training; daily routine; pay; relationship with other ranks, NCOs and officers; sporting activities; move to Tunbridge Wells on departure of 1/9th Bn King's Liverpool Regt on active service, 3/1915; role as reinforcement unit. Journey out to join F Coy, 1/9th Bn King's Liverpool Regt in Ypres area, Belgium, 7/1918: Channel crossing; train journey; state of unit.
REEL 3 Period in quiet sector of Mazingarbe, Bethune area, 7/1915-8/1915. Recollections of attack and subsequent operations in Loos sector, 25/9/1915-27/9/1915: question of prior preparations and briefing; question of use of gas and issue of gas masks; preliminary bombardment; equipment carried; personal morale; staggered start; passing through gaps in British barbed wire; German machine gun fire and advance in rushes across No Man's Land; difficulty in getting through German barbed wire until German troops surrendered and cut a passage through the wire; consolidating captured German front line; German machine gun fire and advance in rushes across No Man's Land; use of machine gun and rapid rifle fire in defeating German counter-attack across Loos-Hulloch road, 26/9/1915; question of not firing at retreating German soldiers; casualties during attack; German snipers.
REEL 4 Continues: German shellfire and snipers; relief and lack of communication lines across No Man's Land. Recollections of conditions of service in Loos and Lens sectors, 10/1915-6/1916: nature of trenches and absence of dugouts; question of barbed wire; ration parties and food rations; braziers; water supply; food rations; letter and parcel contact with GB; use of cigarettes to barter as non-smoker; ruse to secure extra rum ration.
REEL 5 Continues: ammunition and trench stores; uniform and personal appearance; latrines; rubbish disposal; opinion of Lieutenant-Colonel Ramsey including his introduction of special underwear to counter lice problem, insistence on 'spit and polish' and question of polishing buttons; lice and rat problems; corpses and burial parties; effects of cold and wet conditions including symptoms of trench feet, frostbite, use of duckboards, and drainage; state of health.
REEL 6 Continues: stand to; cleaning rifle and inspection; sentry duty; conversations; relationship with NCOs and officers; burial parties; nature as quiet sector; personal morale; story of not shooting German soldier lost in No Man's Land on Christmas Day, 25/12/1915; attending Lewis gun course, 5/1916 including stoppage clearance, firing bursts on range and indirect fire techniques; rest periods including visits to estaminets and hand grenade training. Recollections of diversionary attack in Arras area, 1/7/1918: question of briefing; role supporting bombing party as No 1 on Lewis gun in diversionary attack and dispute with officer over tactics in providing covering fire; throat wound from German sniper; local medical treatment by officer and medical orderlies; failure of attack; recovery from wound.
REEL 7 Recollections of period in Somme area, 7/1916-8/1916: prior movements; German shellfire; positions in sunken road; story of being wounded in hand by German shell during issue of rations prior to attack on Guillemont, 8/8/1916; shell shock case; evacuation to casualty clearing station and botched tetanus injection; hospitalisation and return to unit, 8/1916; GB leave and orders not to report back to unit. Period with 2/2nd Bn Monmouthshire Regt at Lowestoft, 1916: loss of rank as corporal; draft of soldiers with active service experience. Various aspects of period with 1/2nd Bn Monmouthshire Regt on Western Front, 1916-1918: reception; successful use of creeping barrage in attack on Somme area; influenza attack; retreat during German offensive, 1918; muddy ground conditions during successful attack in Passchendaele Ridge sector and subsequent continued advance, 10/1918.
REEL 8 Aspects of service with 1/9th Bn King's Liverpool Regt on Western Front, 1915-1916: story of wounding and subsequent death of inexperienced officer in successful attack in Somme area, 8/1916-9/1916; stories of casualties from German snipers and shellfire during Loos sector, 9/1915; arrival at Poperinghe, 7/1916. Aspects of advance with 1/2nd Bn Monmouthshire Regt on Western Front, 10/1918-11/1918: open warfare conditions; skirmishes with rearguard German cavalry; warnings of booby; Armistice, 11/11/1918. Period in Cologne area, Germany, 1918-1919: relationship with German civilians; movements. Return to GB and early demobilisation as miner, 1/1919. Post-war career: decision not to return to colliery; initial problems finding work and question of becoming regular; work with ambulance service; effects of war service. | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Trafford, Richard | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
|
|