Private Papers of J R Skirth

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Interesting but anecdotal and disjointed ms memoir (4 volumes, 688pp in total), written in the 1970s and suggesting some historical inaccuracy, recording his service as an NCO with the 239th Siege Battery RGA during the First World War, initially on the Western Front (April - December 1917) where he was involved in the Battles of Messines (June 1917) and Third Ypres (August - November 1917), describing the operation of his artillery battery, trench life, the local estaminet and soldiers' songs, the bombed condition of Ypres, the prevalence of unburied dead, the general lack of confidence in Haig, and his wounding at Passchendaele which, although not serious, caused him to suffer from shell shock and memory loss; then his journey by train to Verona, Italy (December 1917) where his Battery was reformed at Piovene, describing periods of memory loss during which he was apparently treated for neurasthenia at Schio and received radioactive mud treatment at Montegrotto, Christmas celebrations, the differences between Army life in France and Italy, friendship with an officer in the Italian Army Medical Corps and an acquaintance of the American journalist and ambulance driver Ernest Hemingway, an unsuccessful visit to an Italian brothel, his involvement in the Battle of the Asiago Plateau (June 1918) where he helped to evacuate a wounded gun crew, and his refusal of the Military Medal and a commission on conscientious grounds. Skirth is highly critical of certain officers, and describes his reversion to the rank of Bombardier as a disciplinary measure following his questioning of an order to shell a church, the desertion of his post during the Battle of Third Ypres when his officer refused to follow orders to retire, and his disgust at the ordered vandalism of a French chateau. His memoir also includes much philosophical discussion regarding his thoughts on war and religion, and reveals a gradual disillusionment with the Church until the nervous breakdown resulting from his shell shock led him to reaffirm his religious beliefs and adopt a conscientious objection to taking further life. [See IWM Dept of Collections Access 14/695 for extensive research relating to this collection.]