Description
Object description
British trooper served as signaller with 2/1st Surrey Yeomanry (Queen Mary's Regt) in GB, 10/1914-10/1915; served with C Sqdn, 1/1st Surrey Yeomanry (Queen Mary's Regt), 29th Div and III Corps Cavalry Regt in Egypt, France and Belgium, 10/1915-7/1917; private served as signaller with 10th (Service) Bn Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regt) on Western Front, Italy and Germany, 7/1917-4/1919
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Surrey, GB, 1896-1914: initial summary of military service, 1914-1919; family; employment; recreational activities; training with Church Lads Brigade in Dorking including bayonet practise, night operations, naval gun drill, signalling, use of radio transmitters and friend's loss hand in gun explosion.
REEL 2 Continues: Recollections of period as trooper with 2/1st Surrey Yeomanry (Queen Mary's Regt) in GB, 10/1914-10/1915: childhood memories of Surrey Yeomanry and reasons for enlistment; training at Cavalry Depot at Howe Barracks, Canterbury; daily routine; opinion of instructors; mucking out horses in stables; learning to ride and control horses; amusing stories concerning Major Lloyd and his enforcement of discipline.
REEL 3 Continues: Sunday visits by relatives; method of cleaning stirrups and bits; looking after horses including brushing with woven straw. Aspects of period as signaller with C Sqdn, 1/1st Surrey Yeomanry (Queen Mary's Regt), 29th Div in Egypt and III Corps Cavalry Regt in France and Belgium, 10/1915-7/1917: posting to unit in Egypt, 10/1915; journey from GB to Alexandria, Egypt; role in operations against Sanusi; nature of the 'composite' regiment; prior recollection of incident with Hurricane Lamp whilst serving with 2/1st Surrey Yeomanry (Queen Mary's Regt) at Dorking, GB, 1915.
REEL 4 Continues: attending signalling course at Nieuport, Belgium including use of power buzzer and amplifier. Recollections of operations as signaller with 10th (Service) Bn Queen's Royal West Surrey Regt, 124th Bde, 41st Div on Western Front and Italy, 7/1917-11/1918: transfer to battalion; posting to River Piave sector, Montello Hills, Italy, 11/1917; role in two-man amplifier station attached to battery of Ordnance QF 18 Pounder Field Guns in Italy; daily routine and duties; opinion of rations and problem of shortages; making flour in coffee grinder.
REEL 5 Continues: duties in observation post at Kemmel, Belgium; sending and receiving messages by lamp; problem of lice and sickness; repairing telephone lines under shellfire at night on Sherpenberg Hill, Belgium; amusing story of forgetting password; tunnel in Sherpenberg Hill, Belgium and use hand-driven pump for ventilation; story of father finding his dead son on battlefield.
REEL 6 Continues: message rockets and method of operation on Ypres Salient, Belgium; disadvantages of rockets; story of near-miss from German shell while in dugout; memories of Captain Thomas Toovey and his behaviour under fire; work of signallers in an advance.
REEL 7 Continues: further details of signalling duties at Kemmel, Belgium; running out lines to companies; signalling to B Coy; laying wire; amusing story of resting in shell-hole and testing for machine-guns with tin hat; sickness and journey to Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) by ambulance; attempts to find missing company on Hill 60, Ypres Salient, Belgium, 28/9/1918; discovery of disembowelled German soldier; incident of being trapped in ditch between own Ordnance QF 18 Pounder Field Guns and German machine-gun; story of accidentally bayoneting fellow soldier in dugout.
REEL 8 Continues: account of rioting at Infantry Base Depot, Étaples, France, 8/1917 including description of Bullring, nature of discipline and training regime, background to rioting, effect of Scottish soldier being shot dead by military policeman, how riot was controlled and conversion of Bullring into training area; amusing story of sergeant from London.
REEL 9 Continues: attitude to transferring from Yeomanry to infantry; journey from France to Italy, 10/1917; problem of putting on puttees; conditions on train and sanitary facilities; amusing story of going to the toilet at night; attutude of French civilians; arrival in Mantua and ten day march to River Piave sector, Italy; problem with lice; issue of new boots; conditions in billets; attitude of Italian civilian population; opinion of rations and shortage of food.
REEL 10 Continues: effects of marching and malnutrition on battalion; arrival in Montello Hills sector, Italy; description of accommodation in caves; problem with lice; health of battalion; problems caused by Italian fat bacon; posting back to Western Front, 3/1918; arrival in Mondicourt, France; amusing story of aphrodisiac tablets; incident of getting cramp while under fire on Italian front.
REEl 11 Continues: story of visit by Prince of Wales to front; receiving news of Armistice, 11/11/1918; reasons for remaining a private during war service and refusing promotion.
REEL 12 Continues: relations between German civilians and post-war Army of Occupation; billets in German homes; attitude to military decorations during wartime and opinion of two medal awards.
REEL 13 Continues: reflections on courage and fear in wartime and opinion of signaller killed on Sherpenberg Hill, Belgium; difference between rashness and bravery; story of finding signal officer at night and attitude to danger; account of signalling equipment and methods of usage including semaphore flags, Morse Code, D3 Field Telephone, landlines, Fullerphone, 4+3 telephone exchange, power buzzer and amplifier, Lucas Electric Lamp.
REEL 14 Continues: trench wireless set and trench shutter, message rockets and disadvantages of leaving smoke trail, Heliograph, Popham Panel, despatch riders, pigeons, dogs; message runners wearing red arm bands, Very lights and other coloured lights; story of German air attacks against observation balloons near Ypres, Belgium; sight of British artillery observers coming down in burning parachutes and German aircraft being shot down.
REEL 15 Continues: sight of Royal Flying Corps shooting down German observation balloons; wartime leave in GB and attitude of civilian population. Aspects of demobilisation and return to civilian life in GB, 4/1919: problem of finding employment; applying for jobs and being told war service of no account; attending teacher training course. Recollections of operations as signaller with 10th (Service) Bn Queen's Royal West Surrey Regt, 124th Bde, 41st Div on Western Front and Italy, 7/1917-11/1918: description of Dirty Bucket Camp near Ypres, Belgium including Casualty Clearing Station (CCS), estaminet and ammunition dump.
REEL 16 Continues: collapse of Nissen Hut and escape following explosion probably caused by German bomb on ammunition dump; description of damage caused to buildings; amusing story of parade for King George V and men refusing to cheer; story of fellow soldier killed trying to rescue wounded comrade; memory of meeting Belgian King Albert I, journey through battlefields on Western Front and return to GB for demobilisation, 4/1919; amusing story of handing in kit and forgetting to give in rifle; quote from Rudyard Kipling poem 'The Return'.