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Ypres Salient   123 Books
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178 Siege Battery R.G.A., B.E.F. France 1916-1918. 1st Ed., viii+127pp., 4 plates. Chorley & Pickersgill Ltd., Printers, Leeds. 1919  #63037
[HLMainPic] 6-inch Howitzer battery formed 1916: to France in October & immediately in action on the Arras front, inc. supporting a raid at Blangy in Jan. 1917, Battle of Arras inc. supporting attacks on Monchy-le-Preux &c., later at 3rd Ypres, Cambrai, Spring Offensive &c. Nominal roll of original Battery, another at demobilization, Roll of Hon. (inc. wounded & gassed), awards. Useful account with much interesting detail on the work of the battery & several most interesting appendices including Battery Humour &c. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, VG & scarce. Ownership inscrip. of W.N. Bates, listed as a Gunner in the nominal roll of the original battery. See illustration on our website.   £100
2nd Lieut. Charles Douglas Lucas Hill, 9th (S) Bn. Royal Sussex Regt., formerly 28th London Regt. (Artists' Rifles): Killed in Action 14th February 1916. Hard covered "Partridge & Cooper's" pocket diary during service in France with the 9th Sussex from 31/10/15 to 31/12/1915, 157x100mm, with short but interesting daily entries (see extracts below). 2/Lt. Hill was Killed in Action 14/2/1916 when he & his entire platoon were buried alive by the explosion of a German mine. He is buried in Menin Road South Cemetery, near Ypres.  #58346
[HLMainPic] Hill landed in France on 31/10/15 & joined 9th Sussex the following day (the battalion had arrived in France just two months before, on 1/9/15). He was posted to command No. 15 Platoon, "D" Coy. (Lt. Robertson) & spent the winter in the trenches of the Ypres Salient apart from a one week bombing course (14-20/11/15) & machine gun course (20-25/12/15). Experiences in & out of the line typical of the period. Some extracts: 1/11/15: "Left Hazebrouck for Poperinghe but break journey at Godeswaersvelde & from there proceeded by motor bus to Reninghelst to find Regt. up in trenches. Report to Adjutant but sent back to spend the night at Dickebusche"; 6/11/15: "Start away at 2.45 pm for the trenches. Arrive at trenches about 7.30 pm. We relieve the R. West Kents"; 7/11/15: "Spend quiet day in trenches. Not much doing. Trenches in very bad state & need a great deal of attention. Slept with Shaw in his dugout, but very uncomfortable"; 11/11/15: "Try & improve my portion of trench. Get some of superfluous water away. Bosche sends a few whizz bangs over. A very wet night, & turn in wet. Dugout starts to leak"; 16/12/15: "Orderly dog. Inspect & mount guards at nine, billets & turn out guard at 12. Complaints round at 12.45. Staff parade 9. Turned out guard at 10.30. Lecture on trench tactics given by Major"; 17/12/15: "Parade at 9.00. Give lecture on trench orders. Practice gas helmet drill. Bomb competition in afternoon. 13 & 14 [platoons] win first round. Raining"; 18/12/15: "Parade at 9.30. Finish bomb throwing competition. 13 defeat 14 very close finish. Soccer match between B & D, B win by 3-0. Knight & Matthews come over & stop for tea." Useful but brief diary, mentioning a dozen or so other officers of the battalion, together with photocopies of Hill's personal file & WD extracts. See illustrations on our website.   £275
332 Siege Battery R.G.A. An Account of its Adventures in the Great War, 1917-18. Compiled from Notes & Recollections of Officers of the Battery. 1st Ed., ix+134pp., 22 photos., 5 fldg. maps. Windsor: Oxley & Son, Printers. nd (c.1920s)  #61958
[HLMainPic] 6-In. How. Battery formed Jan. 1917: F&F from May starting in Ploegsteert Sector then 3rd Ypres, down to Bertrancourt for March Retreat & Final Advance from Mericourt to Bois l'Evecque. Detailed history. Roll of officers & WOs (with brief services), Roll of Hon. Orig. dec. blue cloth, VG & scarce. See illustration on our website.   £95
9th Royal Scots (T.F.), B Company On Active Service, From A Private's Diary, February-May 1915. 2nd Ed., 94pp., sm. 8vo. Edinburgh: Printed by Turnbull & Spears. 1916  #56786
[HLMainPic] Presumably privately printed record, the writer reporting events with great immediacy as they unfolded, of active service in the Ypres Salient, billeted at Voormezeele & Vlamertinghe, in action at Sanctuary Wood, in support of the Canadians at St. Julien during '2nd Ypres,' then back to Sanctuary Wood. Some of the letters also appeared in Scottish newspapers of the period. Orig. green cloth, gilt to front, VG & scarce. See illustration on our website.   £65
A Corner of Armageddon. 1914-1918. A Personal Narrative of the Great War by Corporal of Horse Percy Lloyd King, Second Life Guards. [ii]+75+[iii]+[ii]pp., foolscap, dup. typescript (rectos only), approx. 52,000 words. Privately circulated by the author. 1919  #58583
[HLMainPic] Very rare account by a NCO (Corporal of Horse is a rank unique to the Household cavalry, corresponding to a sergeant in other regiments) of the 2nd Life Guards of service in France & Flanders from October 1914-November 1918. A very well written & informative narrative of much value on the active service of the regiment & other matters pertaining to it. In August 1914 2nd Life Guards was denuded of some of its best men & horses to the newly formed Composite Regiment of Household Cavalry, which proceeded immediately on active services. King's story therefore commences with the regiment being brought up to full strength by drafts from other cavalry regiments, so that it in itself could proceed on active service, as it did in October. During the rebuilding of the regiment in 1914 "it must be noted that the equine half of the Regiment was practically untrained in military work, the majority of the animals being blissfully ignorant of Riding School manners & customs. Undoubtedly a great many of them knew more about the hunting field, (or haply the tradesman's van), & so, just at first, the mere act of drawing swords created quite a flutter, while the practice of the Charge often led to the multiplication of 'Troop Leaders'. & the exercise of considerable invective. For my own part, although the animal I bestrode was powerful, lovable & 'a grand lepper', I could always be unpleasantly sure, in the event of a charge, of getting away with the first flight, & involuntarily appearing to wish to oust the Colonel from his rights & privileges! But I always comforted myself with the conviction that Active Service would tone down this Pegasus of mine to behaviour more seemly, & so, in the event, it proved." It also proved that on arrival in Flanders they were to be thrown into the First Battle of Ypres: "We took up a position dismounted [on the line Passchendaele-Westroosebeke], & were presently so perseveringly attended to by the Germans, whose guns were feeling for a battery on our left, that we got the order to dig in. This was not so easy as it sounds, as there were few, if any, shovels available. However, by working with bayonets & fingers & the soil being luckily soft & free from stones, we at length made quite a respectable trench..." The next afternoon [21st October] "...we were haled from a turnip field, where we had been resting, to a very pretty little affair in Zonnebeke. Arrived thither somewhat rapidly, we dismounted in the shelter of the streets, & were led into the grounds of a chateau, where, almost immediately, we came under rifle fire. Some of us selected a circular flower bed as being about the best place to view the proceedings from, and, as the firing evidently came from some reeds on the other side of a sheet of ornamental water, proceeded to respond to the attention. It seemed that the greater part of the enemy were on the sky-line, rather out of effective rifle range, but that the Germans had left some snipers in the grounds of the chateau... We were presently withdrawn from the chateau grounds, & lined a hedge by the road outside, the texture of which was so thick that it was necessary for each man to clear a little loophole for himself with his bayonet... When word was passed to retire, we had to do so rather carefully, running past a big gap in the hedge, one by one, & on arriving at the near end of the line of horses, found... Four carcasses were lying in rather a ghastly mess at different points along the road... one of our Corporals had been killed... An exhausting night march to Voormezeele followed" Unknown to the men at the time, their support on a flank had enabled the infantry in front of the village to maintain its line, "but, for all we knew... we might have been acting as disappearing targets for the improvement of German marksmanship." Much activity followed during the next week, including action at Zandvoorde &c. 31st October found King witnessing events at Ypres: "I remember seeing a woman & several children at the gate of a cottage, watching the shells bursting on the sky-line, & evidently trying to decide whether to swell the ranks of the refugees or to remain where they were. A pitiful sight enough, but one all to common... The sight of refugees moving away from their houses, with such poor baggage as their limited means of transport enabled them to convey, was distinctly pathetic..." On 6th November near Hooge: "A young officer of ours, a Lieut. Peterson, was hit in the leg, not far away to my left, & was also killed by a second bullet as he was being carried out of it. The Troop Officer, Lieut. Sandys, was hit in the shoulder & I saw him crawling painfully away, but had no time to enquire as, with the putting out of action of the only two British officers in the immediate neighbourhood, the control of the Troop devolved upon me, as the senior N.C.O. present..." These extracts convey the quality of the observant & eloquent narrative. He remained with the regiment on the Western Front throughout the war including much further action during the second battle of Ypres, 1915, assisting in holding the Hohenzollern Redoubt in Jan. 1916, at readiness on the Somme for a breakthrough, but not employed, more of the same in 1917 & 1918, but often employed providing digging parties & so forth. The account includes an index & concludes with a short but useful statement of the services of the regiment in the war. Nice contemp. cloth binding, red cloth spine & corners with blue cloth boards & leather letterin label to fron, incribed by the author: "To:- Mrs Edward Tregoning of Launceston. In token of the friendship of many years from the Author. P. Ll. King. 23rd September 1919." See illustrations on our website.   £1250
Artillery & Trench Mortar Memories, 32nd Division. 1st Ed., 687pp. Printed by Unwin Bros. 1932  #63558
[HLMainPic] Very substantial compilation by Old Comrades, containing diaries of Lt. A.B. Scott, MC, of "X" & "W" TM Batteries & Reconnaissance Officer, 32nd Div. Artillery HQ; Rev. R.E. Grice-Hutchinson, MC, Chaplain, 32nd Div. Artillery; late Major L. Heathcote-Amory, Staff Capt., 32nd Div. Artillery (DoW Aug. 1918) & brief recollections by seven others. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, VG. See illustration on our website.   £145
Harrow Memorials of the Great War. Vol. II. c.210pp., 4to, portraits throughout. Medici. 1919  #59064
[HLMainPic] Obituaries & full page tipped-in sepia portraits of the 100 Harrovians who fell between March 31st, 1915 & September 11th, 1915. Orig. paper covd. boards, wheat cloth backstrip., paper labels to front & spine. VG. See illustrations on our website.   £35
History of the Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles. 1st Ed., xvi+489pp., col. frontis., 26 photos., 14 maps. Printed for the Regt. 1921  #53057
Detailed history: 1st Bn. Western Front 1915-18; 2nd Bn. F&F briefly then Palestine & back to France in 1918. Nominal roll, awards &c. VG ex-IWM lib.   £25
In Memoriam Harold Parry, 2nd Lt., KRRC, Born at Bloxwich Dec. 13th 1896, Fell in Flanders May 6th 1917. 1st Ed., xiii+144pp., portrait frontis. Privately published. nd (c.1917).  #62982
[HLMainPic] Parry was Ed. at Queen Mary's School, Walsall & Exeter College, Oxford. 17th (S) Bn. KRRC 1916-17, a memoir, atmospheric letters from France, a few of his poems & some letters of condolence. KiA in Flanders & buried in Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery. Contains some interesting observations such as: "Two hundred years will not suffice to efface the traces of this tragedy from the land. Things can never be as they were, and the greatest indictment that war can have, is the forlorn and shell-shattered land about here with its rude and pathetic crosses to mark the last resting-place of those who in the fullness of their youth - at the beginning of love and hope and ambition - were cut off from life..." Grey paper covered boards with cloth backstrip, gilt to spine. Pages 138/139 are usually pasted together to conceal misattributed Henry Newbolt poem, but this copy intact & the pages unblemished apart from a contemp. ink note: "This poem is by Henry Newbolt." A very nice copy. See illustration on our website.   £120
James Colin MacLehose 2nd Lieut., Rifle Brigade 1897-1917. 1st Ed., 39pp., 5 portraits, 2 other plates. Glasgow: Printed for Private Circulation at the University Press. 1918  #57831
[HLMainPic] MacLehose was elder son of J.C. Maclehose, publisher to Glasgow University, & his wife Mary. Ed. at Rugby 1911-16; from school he went to the 4th Cadet Bn. at Oxford, was commissioned in the Rifle Brigade in November & joined 16th (S) Bn. in France in Jan. 1917. He was KiA in a night raid east of Ypres on 14th Feb. - rather less than six weeks after arriving - his last words as he was wounded being "Carry on, men, carry on." He was leading a raiding party and had not even reached the German wire when mortally wounded. The raid failed, the wire being uncut by the artillery preparation. Brown cloth with leather sp. label, another version seen, bound in brown paper covd. boards with gilt title to sp. VG. See illustration on our website.   £145

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Historical Record of the 2nd (Now 80th) or Royal Tyrone Regiment of Militia, From the Embodiment in 1793 to the Present Time.
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