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Description: | Ts bound transcription (135pp) of a series of 78 personal letters, sent to his sister and parents during his service as a subaltern with the Cheshire Regiment on the Western Front, between October 1914 and December 1917, concerning principally news from home but also detailing his early training in Northampton and then Stowmarket and his hopes of obtaining a commission which he eventually gains in November 1914, providing a useful insight into the conditions in the trenches on his arrival in France and describing particularly vividly the very active part he played in the Second Battle of Ypres from May to April 1915, the heavy number of casualties and wounded sustained due to the innovative but haunting use of gas and the actions of the Germans whose trenches were in very close proximity to his own, throughout reporting frankly but at the same time always in a reassuring and upbeat manner for the benefit of his family; the duties he undertook, the hardships he suffered, including the strain of being under constant bombardment, the miserable weather and muddy conditions, disease, fatigue and most poignantly his feelings of overwhelming futility, ending with his rejoining his unit to take part in the Third Battle of Ypres in September 1917, after his temporary appointment away from the action, in March 1916, as a member of the Divisional Staff, accompanied with various scanned images of him in both uniform and civilian clothes, members of his family, medals and documents concerning his commission and mention in dispatches.
Cataloguer CLS
Catalogue date 2007-09-25 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Smith, S H | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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