Turner Donovan Military Books - The world’s finest selection of rare and out-of-print books on British military history from 1800 to 1945
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NOAKES (F.E.) The Distant Drum: The Personal History of a Guardsman in the Great War. 1st Ed., xii+241pp. VG in dw. Tunbridge Wells: Printed by Courier Printing & Publishing Co. Ltd. nd (c.1950).  #63778
[HLMainPic] Privately printed memoirs of enlistment in June 1917, posting to the Household Battalion ("an independent & somewhat anomalous body of dismounted cavalry") at Windsor then to the Household Battalion Service Bn. in France in October; the latter formed part of the 4th Div. & spent the next three months in & out of the line on the Arras front. In Feb. 1918 the H.B. was disbanded (with the reorganisation of infantry brigades that took place at that time) & Noakes was posted to 3rd Bn. Coldstream Guards, with which he remained throughout the year inc. the German attacks in March & the Allied Final Advance, then to the Army of Occupation in Cologne until demobbed in Oct. 1919. Provides a good account of life in trenches & in the villages behind the lines, & is the only account we are aware of of service in the Household Bn. Orig. red cloth, near fine in VG dec. dw (this just sl. chipped) & scarce. See illustration on our website.   £160

     




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