Description
Object description
Photocopy of a ts diary (220pp) kept throughout his service with the 2nd Battalion Otago Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, 5 April 1915 – 22 September 1917, describing in at times great depth his voyage to the Gallipoli peninsula (17 April 1915), the disconcerting number of dead and wounded soldiers he witnessed whilst participating in the Dardanelles landings (25 April 1915) and how he became accustomed to the hardships experienced in the trenches, and outlining his impressions of Kitchener's New Army and the different nationalities he encountered, detailing the brief period he spent in hospital due to a stomach complaint (October 1915) and rejoining his Battalion in Egypt (February 1916) immediately prior to embarkation to France where he arrived on 15 April 1916, continuing with an interesting account of his daily life on the Western Front, how he was wounded during the Battle of the Somme (13 July 1916), his subsequent convalescence back in the United Kingdom and the further training he received before returning to France (June 1917) where he was killed in action on 12 October 1917, aged 21.
Content description
Photocopy of a ts diary (220pp) kept throughout his service with the 2nd Battalion Otago Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, 5 April 1915 – 22 September 1917, describing in at times great depth his voyage to the Gallipoli peninsula (17 April 1915), the disconcerting number of dead and wounded soldiers he witnessed whilst participating in the Dardanelles landings (25 April 1915) and how he became accustomed to the hardships experienced in the trenches, and outlining his impressions of Kitchener's New Army and the different nationalities he encountered, detailing the brief period he spent in hospital due to a stomach complaint (October 1915) and rejoining his Battalion in Egypt (February 1916) immediately prior to embarkation to France where he arrived on 15 April 1916, continuing with an interesting account of his daily life on the Western Front, how he was wounded during the Battle of the Somme (13 July 1916), his subsequent convalescence back in the United Kingdom and the further training he received before returning to France (June 1917) where he was killed in action on 12 October 1917, aged 21.
History note
Cataloguer CLS