Description
Object description
Brief ts account with few dates (14pp) recording his service as an officer with the Coldstream Guards, ?March 1944 - May 1947, including: volunteering to join the Army although medically unfit; training at the Guards Depot; with the Training Battalion at Pirbright, when he took part in the filming of 'The Way Ahead' starring David Niven; pre-OCTU at Wrotham; and officer training at Mons, when his portrait was painted by Eric Kennington; active service as a platoon commander with the 5th Battalion Coldstream Guards (32nd Guards Brigade, Guards Armoured Division), ?March 1944 - July 1945, in Yorkshire, moving to Eastbourne in April 1944 in preparation for D-Day; taking part in the landings in Normandy, June 1944, and operations in North-West Europe, June 1944 - May 1945; Staff Captain A (Administration), 32nd Guards Brigade, Germany, July 1945 - winter of 1946; Infantry Instructor at Pirbright, employed also in strike breaking and as an ADC, from the winter of 1946 until his retirement from the Army on medical grounds in May 1947; describing conditions in the front line; the rations; his duties; German shelling; preventing the French Resistance from shooting a female collaborator; off-duty entertainment; meeting his future wife in Brussels, December 1944; the heavy casualties and the loss of close friends; the execution of a British soldier for the rape of a German girl; and mentioning briefly Major General Sir Allan Adair; RSM R Brittain; Major General Sir George Johnson; Captain I O Liddell VC; and Brigadier J O E Vandeleur.
Content description
Brief ts account with few dates (14pp) recording his service as an officer with the Coldstream Guards, ?March 1944 - May 1947, including: volunteering to join the Army although medically unfit; training at the Guards Depot; with the Training Battalion at Pirbright, when he took part in the filming of 'The Way Ahead' starring David Niven; pre-OCTU at Wrotham; and officer training at Mons, when his portrait was painted by Eric Kennington; active service as a platoon commander with the 5th Battalion Coldstream Guards (32nd Guards Brigade, Guards Armoured Division), ?March 1944 - July 1945, in Yorkshire, moving to Eastbourne in April 1944 in preparation for D-Day; taking part in the landings in Normandy, June 1944, and operations in North-West Europe, June 1944 - May 1945; Staff Captain A (Administration), 32nd Guards Brigade, Germany, July 1945 - winter of 1946; Infantry Instructor at Pirbright, employed also in strike breaking and as an ADC, from the winter of 1946 until his retirement from the Army on medical grounds in May 1947; describing conditions in the front line; the rations; his duties; German shelling; preventing the French Resistance from shooting a female collaborator; off-duty entertainment; meeting his future wife in Brussels, December 1944; the heavy casualties and the loss of close friends; the execution of a British soldier for the rape of a German girl; and mentioning briefly Major General Sir Allan Adair; RSM R Brittain; Major General Sir George Johnson; Captain I O Liddell VC; and Brigadier J O E Vandeleur.
History note
Cataloguer SNR
History note
Catalogue date 1998-01-17
