Miller, Ralph (Oral history)

British private served with 1/8th Bn, Warwickshire Regt in GB and Western Front, 1914-1916; service as traction engine driver with MT Section, Army Service Corps in GB and Ireland, 1917-1922

REEL 1 Recollections of background in Erdington, Birmingham, 1895-1914: education; methods of raising money for youth football team; work in father's furniture business. Recruitment with party of friends from football club to Warwickshire Regt at Witton Barracks, 2/1915: reasons including effect of Kitchener recruitment posters; procedure; prior minimal experience working as steam engineer; reactions. Recollections of conditions of service and training at Budbrooke Camp, Warwick, 2/1915-12/1915: tent accommodation; relationship with ORs; canteens; food rations; drill; route marches and care of feet; PT; boxing activities; rifle training; cleaning rifle. REEL 2 Continues: Lewis gun and bayonet training; tactical exercises; daily routine; guard duty including preparations for kit inspections to win 'stick'; question of disciplinary punishments; recreations; tattoo done to ease identification if killed; hair cut; embarkation leave, 12/1915; ignorance of conditions on Western Front; pride in unit. Journey out to Le Havre, France, 2/2/1916: parting from girlfriend; secrecy; false start through U Boat alert prior to Channel crossing aboard La Marguerette. Period at Harfleur Camp, Le Havre, 2/1916: first impressions; tent accommodation. REEL 3 Continues: silk cards and censorship; question of issue of winter uniform; painting buttons khaki; VD warnings; gas precautions; march to front. Recollections of conditions of service, lifestyle and daily routine during period with 1/8th Bn, Warwickshire Regt in Somme area, ca 2/1916-7/1916: situation; first impressions; nature of trenches and dugouts; wet conditions; food rations; question of ration parties; latrines; question of washing and shaving; problems with lice, crabs and scabies and methods of treatment. REEL 4 Continues: rat problem; precautions against cold and wet weather; stand to; sentry duty; relationship with ORs, NCOs; opinion of various officers including Lieutenant Bernard Montgomery; state of morale; German shell fire; methods employed as sniper; machine gun fire; issue and use of hand grenades; barbed wire; reconnaissance patrols; trench raids. Recollections of being wounded during attack on Delville Wood, ??? 1/7/1916: preliminary bombardment; prior briefing; equipment carried; punctured lungs and wounds from blast of German shell in No Mans Land; casualties. REEL 5 Continues: wounds and evacuation in unconscious state to GB. Period in Birmingham Hospital, 7/1916: reactions on recovering consciousness; question of shell shock; delousing; state of hand. Period in Sutton Park Convalescence Camp, Sutton Coldfield, ca 8/1916-11/1916: reception of visits home; visits from civilians. Period with Provisional Bn, WR at Sutton Coldfield, ca 1916-1917: background to posting; story of refusal to parade in protest at repetition of basic training and subsequent punishment of being confined to barracks; issue of ribbon to those with active service to mark their exclusion from basic training; fatigue duties. Recollections of attending cookery courses at Aldershot, ca 1917: cooking equipment; use of Aldershot oven; methods of pastry cooking. REEL 6 Continues: importance of fair division and not wasting food rations; methods of pastry cooking; use of curry powder to conceal bad meat. Period at Provisional Bn at Southminster, 1917: supply of cockles; pay and earlier ruse to double money by making allotment to mother who posted it to him; promotion to lance corporal; cooking breakfast; brewing tea; supervisory role as cook NCO; preparing stews; story of accidentally getting soap in stew prior to officers' inspection; cooking fires and trenches; tea; role of quartermaster. Period training and work as steam mechanic and traction engine driver with MT Section, Army Service Corps in GB, ca 1917-1918: background to erroneous identification as steam engineer; learning to drive at Grove Park, London. REEL 7 Continues: nature of training at Grove Park, London; role of traction engine crew of stoker and driver mechanic; illustration of boiler problems; methods of starting, running and driving traction engine; impromptu water supplies; precaution necessary on driving traction engines on roads; story of difficulties in crossing ford carrying load of gravel without assistance of stoker; story of taking loads of manure to farmer. REEL 8 Continues: story of being paid to unload loads of manure for farmer; organisation of work assisting farmers; hay bailing; methods of unditching when bogged down in muddy conditions; billets; story of being bogged down in snow; circumstances of accident with Lewisham clock tower; accidents with farmers' gateposts and collapsed land drains; cleaning boilers; maintenance; role of different types of traction engines; running engines along sidings to army camps on Salisbury Plain. Recollections of period in Curragh Camp, Ireland, 1918-1922: circumstances of posting, 12/1918. REEL 9 Continues: journey out, 25/12/1918; reception; role repairing sabotaged and badly maintained traction engines; journeys taking traction engine fumigation machine, electrical generator and X-Ray machine to Newcastle West including opinion of escort of 'Black and Tans', trenches dug across roads, ambush by party of Sein Fein and treatment of minor wound in bottom; use of X-Ray machine; meeting possible British spies; demobilisation, 1922. Post-war career.