Private Papers of R Chambers MM

Photocopy (51pp) of an ms diary kept during his service on the Western Front with the 6th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment (112th Brigade, 37th Division), January 1916 - October 1918, and the 1st Battalion Hertfordshire Regiment (102nd Brigade, 34th Division), November - December 1918, describing in generally brief entries the artillery bombardment prior to the Battle of the Somme (June 1916) and the subsequent attack on Contalmaison (July 1916), trench conditions and mustard gas, his nervous state and negative attitude towards the war, and with one of the pages showing squashed lice found in a British trench. The photocopies include a Battalion Order regarding his award of the Military Medal (November 1918), a poem entitled 'Windmill Hill' and 3 photographs.

Cataloguer KB

Catalogue date 2002-01-25