Description
Object description
British private served with 12th Bn York and Lancaster Regt in GB, Egypt and on Western Front, 1914-1917; served as officer with 8th Bn North Staffordshire Regt on Western Front, 1918
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Sheffield, Yorks 1898-1914: family circumstances; education; sporting activities; Boy Scouts and Church Lads Brigade activities; work as office boy with various firms and Educational Department, Sheffield Council, 1912-1914.
REEL 2 Continues: conditions during work as office boy with Educational Department, 1913-1914; holidays; outbreak of war, 4/8/1914. Background to recruitment and initial training with D Coy, 12th Bn York and Lancaster Regt at Edmund Road Drill Hall, Norfolk Park and Bramall Lane Football Ground, Sheffield, 9/1914: reasons; procedure and medical on signing up; reactions of employer, parents and girlfriend; background to selection as signaller; drill; relationship with NCO instructors; story of review by Major General Horace Plumer; issue of rifles; blue uniform; organisation into companies; lack of rifle as signaller carrying signal flags. Recollections of conditions of service, lifestyle and daily routine during period at Redmires Camp, Sheffield, 12/1914-5/1915: issue of bed; hut accommodation; morning routine.
REEL 3 Continues: morning routine; bayonet and rifle training; flag signal training; organisation of Signal Section; army signal manual; status as signaller; tea; canteen; visits to Sheffield; sporting activities; church parade; kit inspections; relationship with other ranks and officers; role as signaller/scouts during route marches. Send off from Sheffield on move to Penkridge Bank Camp, Cannock Chase, 5/1915.
REEL 4 Continues: Period at South Camp, Rippon, 7/1915-10/1915: arrival; relaxation in training. Period at Larkhill and Hurdcutt Camps, 10/1915-12/1915: rifle training; visits to Stonehenge; issue with tropical kit; question of embarkation leave. Voyage aboard Nestor to Port Said, Egypt, 12/1915-1/1916: send-off and personal morale; hammocks; food; submarine watches; seasickness; delay caused by submarine activity; accompanying colonel ashore as runner at Malta; first impressions of Port Said. Recollections of period in Egypt, 1/1916-3/1916: initial tent accommodation; use of heliograph during attachment as signaller to Mysore Lancers building light railway; move to Kantara; story of collision with ship on floating bridge; return of troops from Gallipoli. Voyage to Marseilles, France, 3/1916; thunderstorm; theft of souvenir during disembarkation.
REEL 5 Continues: attitude of German POWs. Recollections of conditions of service, lifestyle and daily routine during period in Serre sector, Somme area, 4/1916-6/1916: conditions during train journey to Pont Remy; composition and equipment of signal section including telephones; march up to Colincamps sector; acclimatisation training attached in parties to regular unit including reaction to German shellfire, approach to front line and advice given; training in trench digging; nature of trenches; barbed wire and wiring parties; nature of dugouts; ration parties; food rations; brewing tea; water supply; lice problem.
REEL 6 Continues: lice and rat problems; latrines and danger of them being targeted by minenwerfer fire; question of washing and shaving; stand to; role as signallers including nature of communications system, operating telephones in headquarters dugout, taking coded messages, method of repairing telephone lines broken by German shellfire and question of laying telephone lines over top between first and second lines and repairing lines in daylight; atmosphere in HQ dugout; question of German ability to pick up telephone messages; sniping activities; German shell and minenwerfer fire; signal rota; officer inspections.
REEL 7 Continues: gas masks and alarm; cleaning rifle; cigarette ration and question of cigarette smoking; question of rum ration; rest periods including cleaning uniform, food rations, visits to estaminets, sugar factory baths, nature of preliminary bombardment prior to Somme offensive; reactions to speech from Major General Wanlass O'Gowan; ineffectiveness of shrapnel shells against barbed wire. Recollections of attack on from John Copse on Serre, 1/7/1916: move up into line, 30/6/1916; personal morale; taking place of shell shocked signaller in attack with advance party of Headquarters Coy; move forward into No Man's Land on German bombardment of front line trench; method of passing through gaps in British barbed wire; equipment carried; instructions to walk carrying rifle at high port across No Man's Land; attack in second wave across No Man's Land; effects of German machine gun fire; break down of attack before passing through British barbed wire.
REEL 8 Continues: break down of attack before passing through British barbed wire and orders to withdraw to front line; intended role as signaller; further withdrawal to support line; scale of casualties, cancelled orders for second attack and state of morale; withdrawal via Luke Copse to Observation Wood; story of temporary arrest by Military Police whilst acting as runner back to transport lines; assisting in rescue of walking wounded from No Man's Land during night; relief and return to Colincamps; personal morale; roll call; ignorance of progress of offensive; role as runner due to cut telephone lines. Aspects of service on Western Front, 7/1916-5/1917: question of movements; success of attack in Serre sector, 13/11/1916; story of singing hymn over battlefield corpses dating from 1/7/1916, the first day of the battle of the Somme; cold and wet winter conditions; parcel and letter contact with GB.
REEL 9 Continues: letter contact with GB and story of censorship of card from Egypt; opinion of padre for attending church services; reinforcement drafts; promotion to corporal; state of unit morale; shell shock cases; move into Arras area, 5/1917; training for Arras offensive; attack in Oppy sector, 5/1917; selection as suitable for commission. Period training with No 4 OTC at New College, Oxford, 1917-1918: nature of Australian and New Zealand Colonial cadets; nature of training and illustration of examination questions; commission and background to selection of North Staffordshire Regt, 5/1918 kitting out as officer; leave. Period at Regimental Headquarters, Newcastle upon Tyne, 5/1918. Recollections of period with 8th Bn North Staffordshire Regt in Aisne sector, 5/1918-6/1918: initial difficulty in locating unit; reception and confused situation during retreat from Aisne.
REEL 10 Continues: reconnaissance patrol onto hill to locate German artillery; continued retreat; story of rearguard action, 1/6/1918-3/6/1918, including threatening French officer of machine gun unit threatening to retire, relationship with other ranks, retirement of French unit; question of digging in and use of natural cover; hip and arm wounds from German shell; evacuation as walking wounded. Periods in various hospitals prior to evacuation to GB, 6/1918. Period in Somerville College Hospital, Oxford, 6/1918-8/1918. Period at Regimental HQ, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 8/1918-10/1918: story of recognising former employer amongst recruits; question of return to active service; golf. Period seconded to 3rd Bn Cameronians at Invergordon, 10/1918-11/1918: gambling at cards; medical examination; Armistice celebrations, 11/11/1918. Background to demobilisation, 2/1919. Post-war career: investment of war gratuity in National Bonds and inadequate interest payments; state of wounds; return to work with Education Department and initial tension with workers who had not served in war.