Description
Object description
British private served as driver with 368th Bty, 147th Bde Royal Field Artillery in GB, Gallipoli and on Western Front, 1915-1918
Content description
REEL 1 Aspects of background in Cricklewood, London, 1894-1914: family; education; work as jeweller's messenger boy and printer's apprentice, 1908-1914; sporting activities; outbreak of war, 4/8/1914. Background to recruitment as driver with Royal Field Artillery at Marylebone Town Hall, London, 3/9/1914. Period in tents at Woolwich Common, 4/9/1914-8/9/1914. Recollections of conditions of service, lifestyle and training at Ipswich, 8/9/1914-27/2/1915: issue of uniform; billet accommodation; food rations; relationship with other ranks, NCOs and officers; exercises in park without gun teams; wooden rifles for drill; rifle training.
REEL 2 Continues: route marches; breakfast; relationship with officers; learning to ride, practising role in driving guns into action and grooming horses at riding school; treating horse catarrh; relationship with local civilians; recreations; patrolling town and problem with Scottish troops; return to Woolwich Arsenal, 217/2/1915 Posting as centre driver to 368th Battery, 147th Brigade Royal Field Artillery, 29th Division at Leamington Spa, 12/3/1915. Recollections of move to Avonmouth, 20/3/1915: civilian send off; loading train.
REEL 3 Continues: Recollections of voyage aboard Manitou to Alexandria, Egypt, 20/3/1915-1/4/1915: problems of caring for horses at sea; conditions and seasickness; coaling at Malta. Period at Chatby Camp, Alexandria, 1/4/1915-4/1915: state of horses; maintaining harnesses; water cart duties; march past, 6/4/1915; ignorance of eventual destination. Recollections of being attacked by Turkish destroyer on Manitou at Lemnos, 16/4/1915: 3 minute warning from destroyer; capsizing after dropping in lifeboat from davits; prior fetching of lifebelt; torpedoes passing under ship; order of events; question of panic; rescue by HMS Reclaimer effectiveness of lifebelt; return to Manitou; cause of casualties.
REEL 4 Continues: question of panic; order of events. Period at Mudros, Lemnos and off Gallipoli, 16/4/1915-2/5/1915: situation; lice problem. Recollections of landing at W Beach, Helles, Gallipoli, Turkey, 2/5/1915: landing horses; situation; move inland and establishing temporary horse lines; water supply. Recollections of conditions of service, lifestyle and duties at Gully Ravine, Helles, 5/1915-1/1916: gun positions on Fusilier Bluff; move off horse lines to Gully Ravine sector, 9/5/1915; dugout.
REEL 5 Continues: water cart duties; taking ammunition up to gun positions using pack mules; horses fodder; food rations and fly problem; water rations; washing and personal appearance; latrines; absence of lice; prevalence of centipedes; situation; shell and small arms fire; question of casualties; Asiatic Annie shell fire.
REEL 6 Continues: duties as officer's groom and relationship with officer; recollections of horses groomed on Gallipoli and Western Front; death of friend from shell fire; daily routine duties as groom including horse holding whilst officer went to forward observation post; prevalence of VD amongst regulars of 29th Div; effects of floods and snow storms, 11/1915; Kitchener's visit, 11/1915.
REEL 7 Recollections of evacuation from Gully Beach, 8/1/1916: guns left in action; hiding battery donkey; evacuation of officer's horses; disabling guns and destroying ammunition; control point on route to beach; opinion Turk's knew of evacuation; shooting of horses; equipment carried; explosion of beach ammunition dump immediately after boarding pinnace; rejoining unit in Egypt. Aspects of conditions of service and duties on Western Front, 3/1916-12/1918: arrival at Marseilles; train journey with horses; duties as officers groom; waggon line positions and question of accommodation; food rations.
REEL 8 Continues: lice problem; reorganisation of batteries and joining 10th Battery, 147th Bde Royal Field Artillery; football activities; officers polo; gambling activities; visits to estaminets and drinking; canteens; shell fire; question of regulars use of brothels; personal health; protecting horses from mud; story of battery column being shelled whilst approaching new position; disposal of horse carcasses; stable picket duty; helping French farmer with calving; arrangement with French woman to cook food rations; stories of stealing to supplement rations; shell fire; concert party.
REEL 9 Continues: question of gas shells and horse gas masks; armistice, 11/11/1918. Demobilisation and return to work as printer's apprentice, 1/1919. Physical effects of war experience. Post-war contact with officer.