Description
Object description
British gunner served as driver and signaller with 125th and 22nd Heavy Btys Royal Garrison Artillery on Western Front, 1916-1918
Content description
REEL 1: Background in GB, 1915-1916: enlistment in Liverpool, 4/1915; reason for volunteering; memory of recruiting rally; medical examination; reason for joining Royal Artillery and question of size; description of training and billets in Lytham and Ansdell area, Lancashire; posted to Sunderland and duties on coastal defence; problem of shortage of guns; description of shells and fuses and firing gun; posted to France, 4/1916. Aspects of operations as gunner with 125th Heavy Bty Royal Garrison Artillery on Western Front, 1916: description of terrain around Albert, Somme; memory of statue of Golden Virgin; duties carrying shells to gun pits; location of guns in Death Valley, Fricourt sector; description of horses being shelled; story of friend in Irish battalion; memory of seeing Prince of Wales; duties collecting horses and supplies from railhead; care of horses; problem of trench foot and frostbitten feet; medical treatment; evacuated to GB, 12/1916; reason for German POWs being carried on hospital ship; further medical treatment at Lady Astor's hospital; volunteered to return overseas; posted to France, 4/1917.
REEL 2 Continues: description of breaking in and exercising horses; opinion of food; posted to 22nd Heavy Bty Royal Garrison Artillery near Peronne; story of German reconnaissance aircraft; location and movement of guns; question of water supply; posted to Dickebusch, Ypres sector, Belgium; memory of canteens; posted to position near Hindenburg Line, France; location of guns; description of advance to Mormal Forest; memories of Armistice celebrations, 11/1918; posted to Bray-sur-Somme, 12/1918; home leave and demobilisation, 1919; daily routine and duties; movement at night only; cigarettes; location of guns; role as signaller; method of calibrating guns; attitude to survival; casualties; story of soldier killed on latrine; description of guns and ammunition; location of guns and horse lines; role of Army Service Corps; use of lorries; aerial activity; observation balloons; opinion of American contribution to war; duties bringing up ammunition; role of 22nd Bty as flying column; amusing story of wine.
REEL 3 Continues: amusing story of German boots; description of conditions in Passchendaele area, Belgium; problem of mud; use of pill boxes as observation posts; duties with burial party; attitude to shell shock cases and executions for cowardice; noise of guns; problem of repairing breaks in phone lines; story of German aircraft; memory of corpses on Somme battlefield, 1/Jul/1916; description of field dressing station; question of self-inflicted wounds; opinion of Guards Div; attitude to role of conscientious objectors; memories of Liverpool Pals battalions; story of Movement Order.
REEL 4 Continues: increase to six-gun battery; amusing story of medals; story of monastery; effects of artillery; attitude to dead Germans in shell hole; story of unburied Royal Welch Fusiliers; problem of lice; personal hygiene; gun team; story of mustard gas; story of unexploded shell; attitude to survival; various memories of period as officer's batman. Post-war visits to battlefields.
