Description
Object description
Photocopy (64pp) of an ms memoir written in March 1919 and recording his service as a subaltern with the 201st Field Company RE (30th Division) on the Western Front, November 1917 - November 1918, containing interesting descriptions of his journey to join his unit in the frontline and the desolation greeting him in the Ypres Salient, his billets and trench conditions, duties supervising construction work and wiring, the difficulty in finding one's way in the trench system and through No Man's Land, encounters with poison gas, souvenir hunting, a long march south to the Somme sector (January 1918) where he refers to British defensive planning prior to the German spring offensive, the German attack of 21 March 1918 at St Quentin and the ensuing confusion of the British retreat, his task of detonating bridges to halt the German advance and involvement in rearguard actions, the Allied offensive of the following month at Kemmel, the danger of booby traps left by the retreating Germans, his warm reception by liberated French people and the state of what had been German occupied territory, and the difficulties faced in crossing the River Escaut.
Content description
Photocopy (64pp) of an ms memoir written in March 1919 and recording his service as a subaltern with the 201st Field Company RE (30th Division) on the Western Front, November 1917 - November 1918, containing interesting descriptions of his journey to join his unit in the frontline and the desolation greeting him in the Ypres Salient, his billets and trench conditions, duties supervising construction work and wiring, the difficulty in finding one's way in the trench system and through No Man's Land, encounters with poison gas, souvenir hunting, a long march south to the Somme sector (January 1918) where he refers to British defensive planning prior to the German spring offensive, the German attack of 21 March 1918 at St Quentin and the ensuing confusion of the British retreat, his task of detonating bridges to halt the German advance and involvement in rearguard actions, the Allied offensive of the following month at Kemmel, the danger of booby traps left by the retreating Germans, his warm reception by liberated French people and the state of what had been German occupied territory, and the difficulties faced in crossing the River Escaut.
History note
Cataloguer APR
History note
Catalogue date 2001-11-03