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O'SULLIVAN (Mrs. D.) Ed.
Harry Butters R.F.A., An American Citizen, Life & War Letters: The Brief Record of a California Boy Who Gave His Life for England.
1st Ed., 297pp., portrait frontis., 11 plates. NY: Lane.
1918
#65636
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![[HLMainPic]](booksThumbs/65636.jpg "Click on the left or right of the image for more images")
Harry Augustus Butters, a native of San Francisco, was born in 1892, Ed. at Beaumont College in England for a year 1906-07 then returned to the United States. In the years before 1914 he travelled widely & inherited his family's ranches & fortune at the age of seventeen. He landed in England early in 1915 & obtained a commission in the Warwickshire Regiment, afterwards being transferred to the Royal Field Artillery. Went to France in September 1915, attached to 107th Brigade R.F.A., initially being posted to the Divisional Ammunition Column then to "D" Battery, with which he participated in the Battle of Loos. He was blown up in May 1916 and somewhat shell shocked, posted back to the D.A.C., then to "B" Battery, 109th Brigade R.F.A. and was killed in action by a shell at his O.P. on 31st August 1916. He was twenty-four years old and is buried in Meaulté Military Cemetery. The book comprises an account of his life with around 150pp. letters from the front. Regarding the Battle of Loos he wrote: "Our observation station was about a mile in front of the guns in one of our support trenches… One of us was on post each day controlling the fire that we were throwing into the German wire entanglements, cutting lanes through it and sweeping sections of it away where we were able to open the way for our infantry to charge through… this ugly looking barbed wire… it is about ten yards broad and as strong as German efficiency and driving can make it. And it is THIS that you have got to tear through with your four-inch guns…" Except that they couldn't. A detailed account of Loos & related artillery operations during the ensuing days (as well as later events) follows. Includes a tribute by Winston Churchill, reproduced from the Observer. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, somewhat rubbed & worn, lacking ffep, generally sound & rare original edition. See illustration on our website.
£65
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