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Description: | Four very brief ms diaries and a detailed ms memoir (115pp) recording his service with the 5th (Reserve) Battalion Grenadier Guards in the United Kingdom, February 1916 - September 1917, describing in some detail his enlistment into the Guards at the age of 18 as he was not old enough to join other regiments, his training and army education, inoculations and recreational activites; then on active service with the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards (3rd Guards Brigade, Guards Division) on the Western Front, October 1917 - 1919, describing the French landscape, his time in the base camp at Le Havre and journey to join the 1st Battalion with whom he served as Lewis gunner, their billets and the trip to the front line, hygiene and trench foot, construction work including working on the old Somme battlefield and the discovery and burial of Guards casualties, the issue of gas helmets and adaptions to steel helmets, aerial warfare, leave in Amiens, practising for the next offensive, his role as part of the Battalion reserve for the Third Battle of Ypres, conditions on the Ypres battlefield, his wounding when the shelter next to his received a direct hit killing two friends, time spent recovering in hospital, the changing composition of his company, tank warfare, off-duty entertainment, Christmas celebrations at Arras, American troops, his second wounding which led to his evacuation back to hospital in the UK where he heard news of the Armistice while on home service, and his demobilisation. Also held with the collection are two ms letters written home from Tankerton Hospital in Kent (6pp, August - September 1918); 24 souvenir postcards; his Third Class Certificate of Education (1p, 6 July 1916); a portrait photograph of him in uniform; his identity disc and shoulder badge; and various related documents including his service papers.
Cataloguer KB
Catalogue date 2002-03-15 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Philipson, F | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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