Description
Object description
British private served as signaller with 1st Bn Devonshire Regt and 2nd Bn Middlesex Regt on Western Front, 1915-1918; POW in Germany, 1918
Content description
REEL 1: Story of enlisting with Devonshire Regt in Exeter, 7/Sep/1914; billeted in drill hall; issued with uniform; amusing story of horse; description of training as signaller with Devonshire Regt in GB, 1914; drafted to 1st Bn Devonshire Regt, Feb/1915; description of journey to France. Recollections of operations as signaller with 1st Bn Devonshire Regt and 2nd Bn Middlesex Regt on Western Front, 1915-1918: posted to wireless station at Rouen; joined 1st Bn at Bethune, France; memories of other soldiers; description of living conditions; description of making and using jam-pot bombs at Neuve Chapelle; memory of French women in German trenches; description of carrying boxes of ammunition during attack at Neuve Chapelle; casualties; took over German trenches; emergency rations; pay; rations.
REEL 2 Continues: amusing story of cooking cockerel; description of role as signaller; amusing story of signals officer; duties as sentry and in listening post; description of HQ signals post in Albert; memory of fishing; role as brigade signaller; story of sending SOS; posted to Henecourt Wood; memory of German plane dropping bomb on mules; rest period; description of further training as wireless operator; posted to Passchendaele area, Belgium; description of mending lines under fire; story of wireless post in German pillbox.
REEL 3 Continues: description of role in attack on German trenches; wounded by shrapnel; story of killing rats; use of bicycle; further training; promoted acting lance-corporal, 1917; relations with French Army; description of mending lines during German attack; casualties; story of telescope; story of being wounded by shell in No Man's Land; story of being taken prisoner by Germans, 1918.
REEL 4 Continues: Aspects of period as POW in Germany, 1918: taken to camp in Westphalia; food; description of work in coal mine; reason for not receiving Red Cross parcels; relations with German guards and question of treatment of POWs; accommodation; story of carrots; reaction to news of Armistice, 11/Nov/1918; story of soup; description of release and return to GB via Holland, 1918; question of being reported killed in action and reaction of parents to return. Further aspects of operations as signaller with 1st Bn Devonshire Regt on Western Front, 1916-1918: attitude to death and survival; problem of lice; leave; amusing story of signals course.
REEL 5 Continues: various memories of incidents on Western Front; attitude to Germans; story of deserter; memory of seeing No 1 Field Punishment.