Cowley, William Thomas (Oral history)

British NCO served with 11th Coy Army Service Corps in GB, Gallipoli, Egypt and on Western Front, 1914-1919

REEL 1: Recollections of background in Leamington Spa, 1892-1914: family; work as railway booking office clerk; work as sales clerk; camping holidays. Recruitment with Royal Army Ordnance Corps at Budbrook barracks, Warwick, 2/9/1914: reasons; family reaction. Period at Talavera Barracks, Aldershot, 9/1914: basic drill; orderly office duties; use of influence to secure posting to No 11 Coy Royal Army Ordnance Corps at York. Period at Fulford Barracks, York, 10/1914. Recollections of detachment as storeman to assist equipping 11th Div at Grantham Royal Army Ordnance Corps depot, 11/1914-6/1914: equipment issued and procedure; cooking duties; relationship with other ranks and civilians; church attendance. Move to Whitley camp, 6/1915. Recollections of voyage aboard Aquitania via Mudros, Lemnos to Imbros, 6/1915: ignorance of destination; conditions; preparations for landing. REEL 2 Continues: Recollections of landing with ammunition lighter at Suvla Bay, 7/8/1915: landing infantry, 6/8/1915; sailing around bay until morning; situation; moving ammunition into old Turkish trenches; salvaging equipment; personal morale; situation. Recollections of operations attached to 32nd Bde Headquarters, 8/1915-12/1915: dugout; food and water rations; nightly routine duties collecting ammunition and stores from beach dump and transport to Jephson's Post, Kiritch Tepe, 10/1915-12/1915, shell fire; question of promotion to NCO; attack on Chocolate Hill, 21/8/1915; view of Yeomanry Regts crossing Salt Lake; close escape from shell; state of morale; dysentery attack and period in rest camp; fly, lice and corpse problem; changing from khakhi drill to khakhi as winter approached; blizzard, 11/1915; contacts with GB; lack of opportunity to spend pay. REEL 3 Continues: food and water rations; latrines; relationship with officers; special friend; rum ration; morale; preparations for evacuation including ruse to fool Turks, 12/1915; evacuation, 20/12/1915. Voyage via Imbros to Alexandria, Egypt, 12/1915-1/1916. Re-equipping 11 Div at Alexandria, 1/1916. Period at El- Ferdan Depot, 1/1916-7/1916. Aspects of operations on Western Front, 1916-1918: journey from Egypt; fake tanks; role as corporal running stores depot for 32nd Bde; organisation of divisional moves; movable 'office' arrangements; use of lorries; movements; promotion to sergeant on transfer to 33rd Bde; story of close escape from shell fire; friendship with regimental quartermasters; billets; recreations; promotion to warrant officer, 3/1917; story of meeting brother. REEL 4 Continues: story of meeting brother and his subsequent wounding by air raid; GB leaves and marriage; story of supplying brother with tent illustrating advantages of position in charge of stores depot; question of stealing from stores; armistice, 11/11/1918; duties collecting stores and equipment from units, 11/1918-7/1919; background to demobilisation, 7/1919. Post-war career: low wages on return to office work; positive effects of war experience; comparison of Gallipoli and Western Front service; membership of Gallipoli Association and visit to Gallipoli,1975