|
Date: |
|
Description: | 68 ms letters and cards (including transcripts of his last 2 letters home) and 1 telegram, sent to his family during his service with: the 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders (8th Brigade, 3rd Division) as a platoon commander, initially in England (May – August 1914), then in France (August – October 1914) giving reaction to mobilisation and detailed descriptions of the retreat from Mons, with reference to the Battles of Le Cateau and the Marne including conditions, then as battalion machine gun officer until he was evacuated wounded; in Britain as assistant adjutant in Aberdeen and at Osborne Convalescent home on the Isle of Wight, then briefly on the Western Front (November 1914 – April 1915); as acting Lieutenant Colonel (at the age of 25) of the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders (20th Brigade, 7th Division) with brief details only of life in the trenches on the Western Front (January - ? May 1916); as assistant Staff Captain attached to the 91st Infantry Brigade (May – September 1916) with details of his role provisioning the troops of his Brigade and reporting casualties and with references to the opening of the Somme Offensive and the loss of friends and regular soldiers; on the Western Front with the 20th Infantry Brigade (7th Division) as acting CO of the 2nd Battalion Border Regiment and at 7th Divisional HQ (December 1916 – May 1917), then as CO of the 20th Battalion Manchester Regiment (May – September 1917), but with brief details only; also seven letters of condolence (mostly transcripts) and one draft reply (dated October – November 1917) containing details of his death in action during the Battle of Third Ypres and burial, together with a reprint of a press notice, also his birth certificate, service details, two transcripts of his account of the Mons retreat, six family letters (one a fragment) including a description by his father of how he had been wounded in October 1914 while manning a machine gun; he was subsequently awarded the DSO for this action.
Cataloguer AC | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | Border Regiment 1st Battalion British Army Gordon Highlanders 20th Battalion Manchester Regiment 2nd Battalion | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Turnbull, Dudley Ralph | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
|
|