Description
Object description
Memoir (203pp ts), based largely on a series of talks given to fellow prisoners of war in Shamshuipo POW camp, Hong Kong, in 1942, covering his life and military career until that time, including joining the Army Ordnance Corps at Woolwich in 1913 at the age of 20 (having signed up for the Territorial Army three years previously), service with the Corps there and at Portsmouth, proceeding to France at the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 with 2 Company AOC, attaining promotions and postings to the staffs of HQ 1st Army and 1st Guards Brigade in fairly rapid succession, also serving briefly in the line with the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards before returning to the UK in June 1917 for Officer Cadet training at Rhyl, North Wales, gazetting as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment and returning to France to join the 13th Battalion in the Ypres sector in November 1917, vivid descriptions of the dire trench conditions there, subsequently moving to the Peronne area (Fifth Army) and meeting the German 'Spring Offensive' in March 1918, during which he was taken prisoner of war, initial confinement in a POW cage at Villers-Faucon and at Le Cateau before being sent to the camp at Rastatt in southern Germany, the unpleasant conditions there (in particular the chronic malnourishment due to inadequate food supplies in the country generally), and subsequent imprisonment at Karlsruhe and Clausthal-Zellerfeld, repatriation to the UK at the end of the war in November 1918, service with the 1st Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment in the Army of Occupation in the Rhineland based at Cologne, March – September 1920, mainly engaged on maintenance trains between Cologne and Danzig and dealing with troublesome troops, return to England and signals training at Maresfield for transfer to the Royal Corps of Signals in 1923, tour of duty in India during 1924 – 1929 based at Rawalpindi and later at Jubbulpore (Jabalpur), with interesting observations on army life in that country and on the Indian soldier, posting to Aldershot on return to the UK to command 2 Company Royal Signals and, in 1933, to Derby as Adjutant in the Territorial Army Divisional Signals, leaving the UK again in December 1937 for service in the Far East as CO Hong Kong Signal Company, appointment to Chief Signal Officer, China Command, in May 1940, the volatile international situation (particularly with regard to Japanese actions in China) and its effects on the colony, extensive descriptions of the Hong Kong defence systems, his experience of the Japanese attack on the colony in December 1941 and the defenders' response, with particular reference to Signals, being taken prisoner of war when the colony surrendered at the end of the month and his experiences in the Shamshuipo and Argyle Street POW camps at Kowloon (including the construction and operation of a clandestine radio set in the latter camp, and the consequences of its discovery by the Japanese secret police), concluding with his liberation at war's end; with the memoir is a bound carbon copy (28pp ts) of a 'War Diary of Chief Signals Officer, China Command, Hong Kong, 1941', compiled by Levett at Shamshuipo.
Content description
Memoir (203pp ts), based largely on a series of talks given to fellow prisoners of war in Shamshuipo POW camp, Hong Kong, in 1942, covering his life and military career until that time, including joining the Army Ordnance Corps at Woolwich in 1913 at the age of 20 (having signed up for the Territorial Army three years previously), service with the Corps there and at Portsmouth, proceeding to France at the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 with 2 Company AOC, attaining promotions and postings to the staffs of HQ 1st Army and 1st Guards Brigade in fairly rapid succession, also serving briefly in the line with the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards before returning to the UK in June 1917 for Officer Cadet training at Rhyl, North Wales, gazetting as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment and returning to France to join the 13th Battalion in the Ypres sector in November 1917, vivid descriptions of the dire trench conditions there, subsequently moving to the Peronne area (Fifth Army) and meeting the German 'Spring Offensive' in March 1918, during which he was taken prisoner of war, initial confinement in a POW cage at Villers-Faucon and at Le Cateau before being sent to the camp at Rastatt in southern Germany, the unpleasant conditions there (in particular the chronic malnourishment due to inadequate food supplies in the country generally), and subsequent imprisonment at Karlsruhe and Clausthal-Zellerfeld, repatriation to the UK at the end of the war in November 1918, service with the 1st Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment in the Army of Occupation in the Rhineland based at Cologne, March – September 1920, mainly engaged on maintenance trains between Cologne and Danzig and dealing with troublesome troops, return to England and signals training at Maresfield for transfer to the Royal Corps of Signals in 1923, tour of duty in India during 1924 – 1929 based at Rawalpindi and later at Jubbulpore (Jabalpur), with interesting observations on army life in that country and on the Indian soldier, posting to Aldershot on return to the UK to command 2 Company Royal Signals and, in 1933, to Derby as Adjutant in the Territorial Army Divisional Signals, leaving the UK again in December 1937 for service in the Far East as CO Hong Kong Signal Company, appointment to Chief Signal Officer, China Command, in May 1940, the volatile international situation (particularly with regard to Japanese actions in China) and its effects on the colony, extensive descriptions of the Hong Kong defence systems, his experience of the Japanese attack on the colony in December 1941 and the defenders' response, with particular reference to Signals, being taken prisoner of war when the colony surrendered at the end of the month and his experiences in the Shamshuipo and Argyle Street POW camps at Kowloon (including the construction and operation of a clandestine radio set in the latter camp, and the consequences of its discovery by the Japanese secret police), concluding with his liberation at war's end; with the memoir is a bound carbon copy (28pp ts) of a 'War Diary of Chief Signals Officer, China Command, Hong Kong, 1941', compiled by Levett at Shamshuipo.
History note
Cataloguer SWW