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WEST (Mrs Agatha)
Frank West, Lt.-Col. 4th South Midland Brigade (How.) R.F.A., A Record of the Great War 1914-1916.
Compiled by His Widow. 1st Ed., 111pp., 232x155mm. Printed for Private Circulation by George E. Over, Rugby.
1921
#67101
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Francis Charles Bartholomew West was born in 1883, educated at Cheltenham and St John's College, Oxford. He was called to the Bar in 1907, but having private means felt no need to practise as a lawyer; he was, however, a keen Territorial officer in the 5th (Rugby) Battery of the 4th South Midland Howitzer Brigade, then commanded the 4th (Coventry) Battery and finally the Brigade. He took his command, 243rd Bde. R.F.A., to France at the end of March 1915. On 28th September 1916, just after the capture of Thiepval, he was killed by a stray shell whilst riding down the road from Pozières to his H.Q. at Zollern Redoubt and was buried in Aveluy Communal Cemetery Extension. He was thirty-three years old. The memoir includes numerous lengthy extracts from his letters. During the summer and autumn of 1915 he wrote of the shell shortage which prevented the artillery being effective, then of routine trench warfare in French Flanders and the Somme. From time to time his commentary on events is diverting, e.g., in early July 1915: "Most of the children in this village [Ferfay, a small coalmining village west of Béthune] seem to think that English officers only exist in order to walk about with them and hold their hands. I was eloped with twice to-night by ladies of seven and two, until rescued by a panting mother." And later the same month, having moved to Hébuterne on the Somme: "We have got Poles opposite us whom we hope to catch by making a smell like fried fish, as we are told they will go miles to get a bit, but we are not quite sure whether this is allowed by the Hague Convention." Orig. grey paper covd. boards with wheat cloth backstrip with paper label, VG & rare.
£245
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