Description
Object description
British private served with C Coy, 1/7th Bn Royal Warwickshire Regt on Western Front and in Italy, 1915-1918
Content description
REEL 1: Recollections of operations with C Coy, 1/7th Bn Royal Warwickshire Regt on Western Front and in Italy, 1915-1918: communication with other companies; background of recruits; recruitment from Motor Transport companies into infantry; brother's military service; use of runners to HQ; attitude to discipline; description of canal bank at Ypres; story of shell landing on cookhouse; role in night raid in St Julien Road sector; use of light railway for transport; sheltered in shell hole; use of mules and horses to carry ammunition; opinion of tanks; terrain and weather conditions; story of not receiving rum ration before attack memory of noise of guns; description of leaving trench and crossing no man's land; casualties; age of German POWs; attitude to souvenir hunting on battlefield; use of captured German dugouts for wounded; burial of dead; memory of dead German; story of blinded soldier; preparations before attack; trench system at Martinpuich, Somme; sentries; problem of water in trench; question of some soldiers deliberately contracting trench foot; shower and change of uniform; problem of lice; story of taking message to C coy HQ; story of listening posts; story of gas attack; use of artillery canteen; exchanged cigarettes for tobacco; delivery of rations.
REEL 2 Continues: use of petrol cans to carry water; memories of YMCA at Poperinghe; story of meeting brother; contents of pack; story of 75mm shell cases; use of interpreter to locate billets; amusing story of corporal and lice; billets in barn; story of Lewis gunner; attitude to shell shock cases and executions in field; description of Yser canal and bridges; sleeping arrangements in dugouts; tents; general duties in trenches and on working parties; story of accidental bayonet wound; reaction to replacing working party of German POWs on road near Amiens; description of laying duckboards; problem of trench foot and use of whale oil; question of not having to shave; use of boiled shell hole water for making tea; description of trenches at Hebuternes, Somme; story of shrapnel wound in hand becoming infected and treatment at hospital in Italy.