Private Papers of Colonel W A C Wilkinson DSO MC GM

105 ms letters (201 folios) to his father and sister, September 1914 - January 1919, relating to his service with the Army Service Corps in France and Belgium (December 1914 - January 1916), transfering to the Special Reserve of the Coldstream Guards before returning to France in June 1916, spending some weeks with No 7 Guards Entrenching Battalion on the Somme before joining the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards (1st Guards Brigade, Guards Division) in August 1916, being wounded in September 1916 and not rejoining his battalion until May 1917, taking part in the opening assault of the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) and Cambrai, and being wounded at Gouzeaucourt (December 1917), with a good description of the action, some time spent in No 1 British Red Cross Hospital, returning to his Battalion and later holding staff appointments with the 1st and 3rd Guards Brigades, rejoining his Battalion for the final operations in France and as part of the Army of Occupation in Germany, together with: certificates; telegrams informing his family of his wounding; a letter from his batman; a list of casualties of No 1 Company, 2nd Coldstream Guards and details of next of kin (4pp, November 1917). Also included is a large amount of correspondence, articles, and some memoirs written in 1982, relating to his Second World War service, as commander of the 11th Battalion Royal Fusiliers in the UK, and then commander of 14th Battalion Queen's Royal Regiment (1940), being awarded the George Medal for rescuing one of his men from a minefield in Selsey, Sussex (December 1940), the Battalion becoming the 99th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery (June 1941), and service in the Middle East (September 1942), in Sicily and Italy (1943 - 1944), and his appointment as Military Governor of Styria, Austria, with a printed volume (65pp) containing transcriptions in English and German of all the public speeches and broadcasts given by him in that role (July 1945 - February 1946).

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