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Description: | A collection of papers and diaries relating to his service with the 5th (Reserve) Battalion and 1st Battalion Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), August 1916 - January 1918 but mainly the 10th Battalion Sherwood Foresters (51st Brigade, 17th Division) (February 1918 - March 1919) on the Western Front, including a ms notebook (188pp) covering his time as a prisoner of war (April 1918 - November 1918) containing detailed diary entries mentioning the dull routines of POW life, very detailed lists and charts setting out the daily rations the prisoners received, notes about learning German with half the notebook consisting of a German to English dictionary, his captivity work on railways and in sawmills, movements between camps including those at Le Transloy, Fremicourt, La Longueville and others in the Somme area as well as Stammlager Parchim and Friedrichsfeld in Germany, and transcripts of some of the letters he sent to his wife during this time; a second ms notebook (93pp) contains notes on mathematics, science and literature largely written in the 1920s, and also has a few transcriptions of some of the diary entries mentioned above, but adding brief entries for January - April 1918 prior to his capture and details of his journey home after the Armistice. Also included in the collection are: three letters (3pp) informing his wife that he was in hospital due to gunshot wounds sustained on 31 July 1917 during the Third Battle of Ypres, that he was posted as missing (April 1918) and that he was a prisoner of war (June 1918); a letter from the International Red Cross regarding his internment at Friedrichsfeld POW camp (November 1918); a telegram sent from on board the MITAU bound from Danzig to Leith where he arrived New Year’s Day 1919; a 'welcome home' Christmas card from the Sherwood Foresters Prisoners of War Regimental Care Committee (Christmas 1918); his ID Certificate and his Certificate of Transfer to Reserve on Demobilisation (March 1919); a small pocket book of poems entitled 'The Princess: a Medley' by Alfred Lord Tennyson given to Atkins by his wife and carried by him in France and Germany; and a postcard photograph of German soldiers given to him in December 1918 by a German (marked in the photograph).
Cataloguer APR | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Atkins, John | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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