description
Content description
Ms diary April - December 1916 composed largely of brief, daily entries describing his service as an NCO with the Signal Company RE attached to the 87th Brigade (29th Division) first on the Ancre sector of the Somme around Beaumont Hamel (April - July), then in Ypres (July - October), before returning again to the Somme around Guedecourt (October - December), including references to the work of laying telephone lines up to the front lines and artillery units, in particularly the 17th Brigade RFA, the bombardment preceding the Battle of the Somme, watching the infantry attack on 1 July and seeing the subsequent casualties, the German gas attack at Ypres on 8 August, a German instrument for picking up British signals (3 September), and methods of dealing with rats in the trenches, together with a 29th Division Christmas Card for 1918, a printed card from the King and Queen Christmas 1939, an ms postcard dated 26 [May 1940] sent on his return from the Dunkirk evacuation to say he is well, a printed drawing of the 29th Division Memorial in Warwickshire (1957), a 50th Anniversary booklet about the Battle of the Somme produced by the Arras District British Legion and printed sheet explaining the history of the Gallipoli Association (1971).
History note
Cataloguer NS
History note
Catalogue date 1988-11-16
