Description
Object description
British private served with 15th Bn Durham Light Infantry on Western Front, 1918; POW in Belgium and Germany, 1918
Content description
REEL 1: Background in Hull, 1899-1917: family; daily life and living conditions; education; employment in saw-mills; reaction to outbreak of war, 8/1914. Aspects of training with 4th Bn East Yorkshire Regt in GB, 1918: story of enlistment with 4th Bn East Yorkshire Regt at Beverley, 1/1918; description of conditions in camp; accommodation and sleeping arrangements; food; drill; route marches; memory of singing on marches; transferred to Colchester for further training; musketry and bayonet training; bombing practice with Mills bombs; gas training; relations with fellow recruits; question of bullying; opinion of NCOs; swearing; opinion of officers; relations with local civilians; recreational and sporting activities.
REEL 2 Continues: kit inspection; pay; attitude to discipline; guard duty and stick system; draft leave; attitude to being drafted to France. Recollections of operations with 15th Bn Durham Light Infantry on Western Front, 8/1918: description of journey to Boulogne and further training at St Martin's camp, Boulogne, 8/1918; marched to Bapaume, France and description of German attack; marched to rest camp at Cambrai; marched to Butte de Warlincourt sector and description of various skirmishes with Germans; living conditions in trenches and dugouts; opinion of rations; water rations; cigarettes; problem of lice; sanitary facilities; problem of rats; disposal of corpses; weather conditions; state of health; daily routine; stand-to; sentry duty; snipers; description of being under artillery fire; question of fear; shell shock; memory of officer shooting off own fingers; deserters; gas attacks; role as bomber with 15th Bn; opinion of Mills bomb.
REEL 3 Continues: opinion of officers; rest periods out of line; estaminets. Aspect of period as POW in Belgium and Germany, 8-12/1918: story of being captured on Butte de Warlincourt, 8/1918; reaction to capture; treatment as POW; problem of lack of food; question of trying to escape and electrified wire; description of conditions in camp in Belgium; accommodation; food; treatment by guards; daily routine; recreational activities; working parties; attitude to escaping; washing and sanitary facilities; transferred to gas works in Germany; accommodation; daily routine and nature of work; Red Cross parcels; question of sabotage; reaction to news of Armistice, 11/11/1918; story of repatriation to GB; state of health; billeted in Catterick and demobilisation, 1919. Post-war life and employment. Reflections on period of military service.