Description
Object description
Detailed personal diaries (9 notebooks/files) for the period July 1923 – August 1945, recording his Merchant Navy service as a junior radio / wireless operator aboard cargo and passenger ships in the North Sea and eastern Atlantic including RMS ORMONDE, SS CITY OF LINCOLN, SS COLLEGIAN, SS ANDORINHA and SS CITY OF CANTERBURY, proceeding with the latter ship to Bombay at the end of 1924 for service in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf aboard a succession of other vessels, mostly on mail runs, returning to England in early 1926 to join the SS ROCIO bound for Cuba and South America, SS HILLGLADE to North Africa and eastern Mediterranean, and SS ULMUS to South America and North Russia (with notable observations on his experiences ashore in Bolshevik Russia in the summer and autumn of 1928, including visits to Leningrad and to the convict settlement at Kem on the White Sea), his Merchant Navy service ending at the close of 1929 when he went up to Oxford University to study history, taking up a commission in the Royal Corps of Signals (Reserve) at Aldershot in 1931, extensive descriptions of his training and participation in military exercises there and at other locations in southern England, the diary being very fragmentary between 1931 and August 1939 (mainly regarding his RCS Reserve activities, with no mention of his teaching duties at the Nautical College at Pangbourne during this period), resuming in detail at the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 with his mobilisation as a Lieutenant in the RCS, active service in northern France from mid-September with 1 Corps Signals, British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at Douai until January 1940, returning to England for home service with several different Corps Signals between April and September 1940, latterly with 8 Corps with whom he proceeded overseas again (with rank of Major) in November 1940, initially to Egypt (in camp at Mena) and from January 1941 in Kenya as part of East Africa Force, based on Nairobi, operating also into Italian Somaliland and Abyssinia (Italian East Africa) during the advance into and occupation of the colonies, February – May 1941, witnessing the return of Emperor Haile Selassie to the Abyssinian capital Addis Ababa (5 May) where M-B was also headquartered on the Lines of Communication Signals staff, Abyssinia and the Somalis, impressions of British Somaliland during tours of signals units based there, return to Kenya and appointment as Commandant of the Signal Training Centre and Depot at Karen, Nairobi, in June 1943 until August 1944 when he was appointed Officer Commanding Troops at Nanyuki Garrison, returning to England at the end of the war in May 1945; with a small number of associated documents.
Content description
Detailed personal diaries (9 notebooks/files) for the period July 1923 – August 1945, recording his Merchant Navy service as a junior radio / wireless operator aboard cargo and passenger ships in the North Sea and eastern Atlantic including RMS ORMONDE, SS CITY OF LINCOLN, SS COLLEGIAN, SS ANDORINHA and SS CITY OF CANTERBURY, proceeding with the latter ship to Bombay at the end of 1924 for service in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf aboard a succession of other vessels, mostly on mail runs, returning to England in early 1926 to join the SS ROCIO bound for Cuba and South America, SS HILLGLADE to North Africa and eastern Mediterranean, and SS ULMUS to South America and North Russia (with notable observations on his experiences ashore in Bolshevik Russia in the summer and autumn of 1928, including visits to Leningrad and to the convict settlement at Kem on the White Sea), his Merchant Navy service ending at the close of 1929 when he went up to Oxford University to study history, taking up a commission in the Royal Corps of Signals (Reserve) at Aldershot in 1931, extensive descriptions of his training and participation in military exercises there and at other locations in southern England, the diary being very fragmentary between 1931 and August 1939 (mainly regarding his RCS Reserve activities, with no mention of his teaching duties at the Nautical College at Pangbourne during this period), resuming in detail at the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 with his mobilisation as a Lieutenant in the RCS, active service in northern France from mid-September with 1 Corps Signals, British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at Douai until January 1940, returning to England for home service with several different Corps Signals between April and September 1940, latterly with 8 Corps with whom he proceeded overseas again (with rank of Major) in November 1940, initially to Egypt (in camp at Mena) and from January 1941 in Kenya as part of East Africa Force, based on Nairobi, operating also into Italian Somaliland and Abyssinia (Italian East Africa) during the advance into and occupation of the colonies, February – May 1941, witnessing the return of Emperor Haile Selassie to the Abyssinian capital Addis Ababa (5 May) where M-B was also headquartered on the Lines of Communication Signals staff, Abyssinia and the Somalis, impressions of British Somaliland during tours of signals units based there, return to Kenya and appointment as Commandant of the Signal Training Centre and Depot at Karen, Nairobi, in June 1943 until August 1944 when he was appointed Officer Commanding Troops at Nanyuki Garrison, returning to England at the end of the war in May 1945; with a small number of associated documents.
History note
Cataloguer JS / SWW
History note
Catalogue date 2006-01-04