Description
Object description
British private served with 12th Bn, South Wales Borderers Regt, 19th Entrenching Bn and 14th Bn, Worcestershire Regt on Western Front, 1917-1918
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Manchester, 1898-1917: family circumstances; education; milk round; recreations; leaving school early, 1912; loss of opportunity as designer with wallpaper manufacturers; work with pawnbrokers and jewellers; night school; membership of temperance association; accompanying father to pubs; awareness of approach of war; reactions to outbreak of war, 4/8/1914; opinion of mob attacks on German owned businesses.
REEL 2 Continues: question of food shortages; women workers; question of white feathers; brothers' war service and mother's charitable contribution to war hospital; background to attestation and medical, 11/1916. Call up to Fulwood Barracks, Preston, ca 3/1917: hair cut; kitting out. Period of conditions of service, lifestyle and training with 61st Training Reserve Bn, Welsh Regt at Kinmel Park, Rhyl, ca 3/1917-7/1917: hut accommodation; hut orderly; cleaning hut; kit inspections; food rations; morning routine; PT; drill; rifle training and firing on range; bayonet training.
REEL 3 Continues: bayonet and hand grenade training; rifle grenade training in Ireland; gas mask training; trench digging; tactical exercises; route marches including foot inspection and songs sung; guard duty and 'stick man'; canteens; question of anti-Semitic prejudice against Jewish friend.
REEL 4 Continues: relationship with ORs; visits to Rhyl; relationship with NCOs and officers; reactions to army lifestyle and punishment drill. Recollections of period at Galway, Lough Corrin and Curragh, Ireland, ca 7/1917-11/1917: story of rough crossing of Irish Sea; tent accommodation; hand grenade training; canteens; relationship with Irish civilians; conditions of service and training at Keane Barracks, Curragh; duty guarding water tower and well; leave; preparations for active service and embarkation leave. Journey out via St Martins Camp, Boulogne to Rouen, France, 11/1917.
REEL 5 Continues: Period at Rouen Camp, 11/1918: charge over dirty buttons; dispersal of unit and subsequent news of death of Jewish friend. Recollections of conditions of service, lifestyle and daily routine during period with 12th Bn, South Wales Borderers in Bullecourt sector, Arras area, 11/1917-2/1918: reception; account of trench raid including volunteering, intention of capturing German prisoner, passing through gap in British barbed wire, German machine gun fire, isolation, getting lost and password needed on returning to line; nature of trenches and dugouts; food rations; disposal of rubbish; tea and water supply; rum and cigarette ration; uniform; story of difficulties looking for latrine after being given castor oil; latrines; question of washing and shaving; story of being unjustly charged for neglecting duty on working party digging communication trench.
REEL 6 Continues: story of being unjustly charged for neglecting duty on problems on working party digging communication trench; question of shaving; lice and rat problems; extracting gold fillings from teeth of corpses; question of effects of cold and wet conditions; state of health; state of morale; cases of self inflicted wounds; stand to; sentry duty; cleaning rifle; conversations; German shell and minenwerfer fire; sniping activities; German machine gun fire; story of Lewis gun fire attracting German shellfire; absence of use of rifle; effects of German gas shells.
REEL 7 Continues: working parties; wiring and covering parties; question of patrols and raids; story illustrating effects of issue of private's uniform to officers; German use of star shells; trench raid and capture of German prisoner; reaction to German star shells when in No Mans Land; view of aerial war; relationship with officers, NCOs and ORs; rest periods including question of 'spit and polish', story of card game during German bombing raid, letter contact with GB, question of importance of mother to soldiers, relationship with French civilians, concert parties and Christmas celebrations, 25/12/1917; background to conversion of unit to entrenching battalion.
REEL 8 Period on working parties digging reserve trenches with 19th Entrenching Bn at Fremicourt Camp, 2/1918-3/1918. Recollections of German offensive and retreat towards Amiens, 3/1918: German bombardment; mist and firing at advancing German infantry; break down in communications; fatigue; shortage of food and story of NCO refusing access to canteen stores; mist and firing at advancing German infantry. Recollections of period with B Coy, 14th Bn, Worcestershire Regt in Somme area, 5/1918-11/1918: posting to join unit; role as pioneer battalion of 63rd Div; filling in mine craters and story of general cancelling working party due to German shellfire; road making; bridge construction across Canal du Nord; wiring parties; effects of influenza epidemic; dental treatment; self inflicted wound hospital; question of desertion; personal morale; question of cases of shell shock; state of morale; role as reserves and in cutting German barbed wire during advance.
REEL 9 Continues: story of sheltering from German shellfire in Bourlon Wood; story of being given No 2 Field Punishment for eating iron rations; food rations; story of localised armistice at Sebourg, ca 4/11/1918; Armistice, 11/11/1918, including story of close escape from German shellfire, subsequent celebrations and billet at Harmignies, 11/11/1918. Period of GB leave, 11/1918: state of British POWs met during journey back to Boulogne; lice problem; reception; question of civilian ignorance of conditions on Western Front; cases of soldiers deserting from leave. Period running dispersal camps at Dieppe and Le Havre, 11/1918-9/1919: order of demobilisation; problems with troops over delays in demobilisation; guard duties on military prison and types of offender; recreations; change inn unit numbering to 17th Bn, Worcester Regt; role of camps.
REEL 10 Period at German POW camp at Deuville, 9/1919: relationship with German POWs; conversation with German POW over justification of sinking of Lusitania, 1915. Demobilisation, 9/1919. Post-war career: period of unemployment; various jobs; question of effects of war service.