Description
Object description
Ms transcript of a diary (38pp), August - October 1914, describing his service in an unidentified Signal Company RE attached to GHQ, BEF giving an account of his journey from England to Havre and the warm reception he received there from the local population, his move to Le Cateau where his unit were attached to GHQ, the exhaustion and anxiety of the retreat via St Quentin and Noyon to Compiegne, then to Dammartin, where they were nearly cut off, Melun, Coulommiers and finally Fere en Tardenois, with frequent comments on the plight of the civilian population and the escaping refugees, the sight of the British wounded and German prisoners and the destruction wrought by the retreating German Army after the Battle of the Marne, and brief references to hearing of the death of Lieutenant General Sir James Grierson, meeting a wounded gunner of his brother's former unit, L Battery RHA, on 29 August and the commanding officer of the battery on 1 September after its heavy casualties at Nery, the gruesome souvenirs reputedly carried by French Moroccan troops (20 September) and a visit of Winston Churchill (27 September)
Content description
Ms transcript of a diary (38pp), August - October 1914, describing his service in an unidentified Signal Company RE attached to GHQ, BEF giving an account of his journey from England to Havre and the warm reception he received there from the local population, his move to Le Cateau where his unit were attached to GHQ, the exhaustion and anxiety of the retreat via St Quentin and Noyon to Compiegne, then to Dammartin, where they were nearly cut off, Melun, Coulommiers and finally Fere en Tardenois, with frequent comments on the plight of the civilian population and the escaping refugees, the sight of the British wounded and German prisoners and the destruction wrought by the retreating German Army after the Battle of the Marne, and brief references to hearing of the death of Lieutenant General Sir James Grierson, meeting a wounded gunner of his brother's former unit, L Battery RHA, on 29 August and the commanding officer of the battery on 1 September after its heavy casualties at Nery, the gruesome souvenirs reputedly carried by French Moroccan troops (20 September) and a visit of Winston Churchill (27 September)
History note
Cataloguer NS
History note
Catalogue date 1991-07-29