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SPENCER (Col. Charles Louis., RE [T], CBE, DSO, TD) Some Private Recollections of a Base Wallah, 1914-1919. Unpublished memoirs, [v]+160pp., carbon typescript, rectos only (approx. 35,000 words), 4to (264x210mm). No imprint/date. (c.1920s)  #65673
[HLMainPic] In August 1914 Spencer was commanding the 1st Highland Fd. Coy. of the 51st Highland Division. He moved with the Division to its training/concentration area at Bedford. Over the course of the following months he was detached to assist with preparing defensive lines around London, at Epping Forest, &c. Appointed CRE of the Division in January 1915, he went to France with it in May and spent several months in the front line before being appointed Senior Works Officer based at Rouen where he resided from July 1915-July 1916. He was the appointed Chief RE Stores Officer (South) from July 1916-Jan. 1917 (i.e. in charge of RE Stores on the Southern Lines of Communication. This important job involved overseeing & coordinating the work of the procipal base workshop at Havre, a 12 acre storeyard at Soquenie, the Rouen depot, a store yard at Quevilly & a 32 acre workshop & central store yard at Abancourt). From Jan.-August 1917 he was CRE at Abancourt (in command of the Abancourt Group of Depots). From August-November 1917 he was CRE at Dunkirk then finally at Calais (the largest base in France) from November 1917 to March 1919. Some brief extracts: [A. In training with the HD at Bedford] "February was spent in training and musketry. Most of the training given to the Troops was for mobile warfare, which I think was a mistake, as obviously they were going out to trench warfare. For one thing, the troops were never imbued with the idea that digging, ordinary trench work, wiring, etc., was the work of the infantry and that the Engineers should be employed on special work only... During March I tried to give my men some instruction in mining and in sapping, working day and night in shifts..." [B. With the HD at the Front] "...I visited the Companies and I also inspected a lot of old bombs left in store by some of the Indian sappers and miners. They were rather fearsome fireworks, and I had some excitement in drawing fuses, etc., and in destroying them. On the 20th May Lacouture was again heavily shelled. In the afternoon I went up to Rue de L'Epinette with Jim Allan and arranged for two sections of his Company to to go into the front line that night with the East Anglian R.E.... On Sunday the 23rd I was up with General Ross, who was in command of one of the Brigades of the Division. He and I and Wedd went out to our front lines and along our position. Most of the lines consisted of breastworks, as it was impossible to dig deeply on account of water. They had been constructed by the Germans and had been captured in the last attack. The trenches themselves in which we were had been cleared of dead, but the ground between our old line and their old line was strewn with dead men and with equipment of all sorts. A short distance, perhaps a couple of hundred yards in front of our front line there was another breastwork which did not appear to be occupied, and the proper thing seemed to me to find out... I walked out of our front line across the open space to this other breastwork. It was an exceedingly foolish thing to do, and if we had had more experience we would never have dreamed of such a thing in daylight..." [C. Aspects of wok at RE bases] "I very soon realised the magnitude of the job of the R.E. at a large base. At Rouen on the left bank of the Seine and well up the hill on a heathery moor were situated various hutted and tented camps, and a hospital... innumerable hired buildings, hospitals, both tented and hutted and in hired buildings, several veterinary hospitals, ordnance depots and workshops, two bakeries and a goat farm, the latter intended for goats for the Indian Divisions... The work in the office at Rue Renard consisted mostly in getting out programmes of work, dealing with accounts, preparing plans of new installations and designs, and in correspondence... I was usually out of the office and 'on works' a portion of every day..." Later: "When I took over at Abancourt I soon realised that the water supply was not what it should be. We were depending upon water pumped by a French railway installation, and we did not even appear to have any definite agreement with them. I went down and had a look at this French pumping station and found that it was in a very bad condition... I took an early opportunity of reporting this to the Director of Works, because the water supply was not only for the Troops in this station but also for the important railway junction..." A valuable and detailed account of RE work on the Western Front. Carbon typescript (so presumably one of only two or three copies made) bound in blue cloth with gilt title to sp., a few small neat ms. corrections to the text, inscribed by the author to a fellow 51st Div. Sapper who is mentioned numerous times in the text: "To Major J.G. Allan D.S.O. in memory of old times! Chas. L. Spencer." VG throughout & self-evidently a rare survival. See illustrations on our website.   £450

     




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