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Description: | Ms memoir (110pp) written ca. April 1975 about his service as a Driver in the Royal Army Service Corp, Horse Transport, October 1914 – October 1919, specifically with the 46th Divisional Train in France (March 1915 – July 1916), at the 1st Horse Transport Depot in London (September – November 1916), arriving in Salonika (December 1916) and joining the 22nd Divisional Train (July 1917- December 1918) and finally with 82nd Field Ambulance in Georgia from December 1915 until he was demobilised in August 1919, including descriptions of how he enlisted and volunteered for front line duty with his cousin before they had received any training, transporting rations and supplies up the line whilst under fire, the importance of grooming the horses and mules and keeping the harnesses clean, encountering victims of a gas attack, his treatment at Uplands VAD hospital in England for minor wounds received during the Battle of the Somme (1916) and the duties he performed there before being released for active service, air raids on London, the shooting down of a Zeppelin over London, his journey to Salonika aboard the Cunard liner SS ROYAL GEORGE and the fear of submarine attack, the availability and quality of food, the difference between using mules and horses, the adaptation of equipment to suit the terrain of Salonika, the relationship between British soldiers and Greek civilian drivers, measures taken to protect against malaria, his treatment for malaria including a stay at a convalescent camp at the Port of Salonika (May 1918), entertainment and sport behind the lines, the changing conditions in Georgia under Bolshevik rule, the thriving black market used by Georgian civilians and British civilians and the demobilisation process. Together with nine photographs of Hewitt taken throughout the war, a leaflet from the Salonika Army (4pp) with a message from the Bishop of London praising the victory of the Salonika Army (1918) and an ms pocket diary (33pp) covering October 1914 – April 1919 containing irregular, brief entries which form the basis of the memoir.
Cataloguer SMR | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Hewitt, Frank | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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