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Description: | Ts account (13pp) of his service with the 2/21st Battalion London Regiment (1st Surrey Rifles) (181st Brigade, 60th Division) on the Western Front, October 1914 – November? 1918, including training at St Albans (October 1914 – March 1915), embarkation to France and the sight of numerous dead bodies in the area where he was stationed (May 1915), his experience of working on a burial party during the Battle of Loos (September - October 1915), the extraordinary number of casualties sustained by the Battalion during the Battle for High Wood (September 1916), an attack on Hill 70 in which he was involved and during which he rescued a comrade who was wounded (July 1917), the move to Flesquieres where he was awarded the Military Medal for rescuing members of his company who were injured while carrying rations (December 1917), the enormous losses suffered during the opening of the German Spring Offensive (March 1918), his receipt of the DCM, making him the most decorated man in his regiment (August 1918), and his return to the United Kingdom following an injury from a trench mortar and his demobilisation at the Crystal Palace; together with notes on the development of the gas mask in the British Army, photocopies of a portrait photograph showing him in uniform, his demobilisation papers, extracts from the Supplement to the London Gazette of 16 January 1919, 'A War Record of the 21st London Regiment' describing the actions for which he was awarded the DCM, a ts list of his war medals, a letter from the Ministry of Defence (dated 1976) and a photocopy of his obituary in the 'S.A. Sapper' (May 1979).
Cataloguer BEK | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Burley, Walter George | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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