Turner Donovan Military Books - The world’s finest selection of rare and out-of-print books on British military history from 1800 to 1945
  Stock last updated on 28 October 2024
 
   

Latest Books The most recently added books   30 Books
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CHAPIN (Harold) Soldier & Dramatist: Being the Letters of Harold Chapin, American Citizen who Died for England at Loos, Sept. 26th 1915. 1st Ed., 288pp., 2 portraits. John Lane, The Bodley Head.. 1917  #67889
[HLMainPic] Chapin was born in Brooklyn, USA, but lived with his mother in London from an early age. Following her example, he became a professional actor. He enlisted in the RAMC in 1914 & was KiA at Loos. Contains a memoir, letters from training & then in France with 1/6th Fd. Ambulance, RAMC, 2nd London Territorial, 47th (London) Division. Orig. green cloth, gilt, minor wear, VG. See illustration on our website.   £25
Hillhead High School War Memorial Volume. 1st Ed., 202pp., 4to, plate, 166 portraits. Glasgow: School War Memorial Commitee. 1921  #67887
[HLMainPic] Roll of 926 who served in the war + god quality portraits & lengthy obits. of 177 who fell. Orig. blue & brown cloth, gilt, VG & scarce. See illustrations on our website.   £75
BALES (Capt. P.G., MC) The History of the 1/4th Bn. Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regiment 1914-1919. 1st Ed., [xi]+314pp., 20 plates, 16 maps (most fldg.). Mortimer. 1920  #67886
[HLMainPic] F&F 1915-19: Ypres, Somme, Passchendaele &c., nominal rolls of officers, NCOs & awards. Rebound in maroon cloth with orig. leather title panel laid down on spine. VG thus. See illustration on our website.   £30
LEVYNS (J.E.P.) The Disciplines of War: Memories of the War of 1914-18. 1st Ed., xvii+173pp., portrait frontis., 6 photos. VG in sl. rubbed dw. NY: Vantage Press. 1984  #67882
[HLMainPic] Memoir of service with South African Scottish in France 1916-17, later commissioned in RAF & flew as a pilot with 102 Night Bombing Sqdrn. in 1918. See illustration on our website.   £20
HARRISON (Dr. Clive) Ed. QMS Edgar Wignall of the 51st Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps: Diary & Notes from the Great War 1914-18. 1st Ed., 79pp., A4 format, limp wraps. with spiral binding, portrait frontis., sketch map. Leicester: The Editor. 1999  #67881
[HLMainPic] Edgar Wignall's diaries while serving in France March-April 1918 & June 1918-July 1919. Sprial binding, VG ex-lib. See illustration on our website.   £20
GAULT (Chaplain Lt.-Col. James A., AIF) Padre Gault's Stunt Book. 1st Ed., orig. dec. wraps., 189pp., portrait frontis., several sketches. Epworth Press. nd (c.1920).  #67880
[HLMainPic] Australian padre's diverse recollections of service with the AIF in Egypt & France, work at Etaples 1916-17, later at Havre &c., inc. various games, quizzes & other entertainments he devised to cheer the troops. Also illustrations of Australian Inf. Base Depot Xmas programme 1918 & other related matter. Orig. dec. wraps., chipped as always, inscribed on ffep "With the Author's Compliments" & signed at foot of portrait frontis. "Yours most sincerely James A. Gault" Scarce thus. See illustration on our website.   £65
DUNN (Chief Petter Officer, Gunlayer, F.H. "Ginger") Personal daily 'log' maintained aboard HMS Exmouth from July 1914-31st August 1917, plus notes of service after that date. A fair copy neatly written in ink in a contemp. lined notebook, marbled sides with cloth backstrip, 192x160mm, 290pp., some 45,000 words in all.  #67877
[HLMainPic] The battleship HMS Exmouth was recommissioned on the outbreak of war, served in the North Sea with the Grand Fleet, was employed to bombard Zeebrugge (which was a German u-boat port) in November 1914, operated in the Dardanelles from May-November 1915 then in the Aegean, blockading the coast of Greece & Bulgaria & participating in the seizure of the Greek fleet. Transferred to the East Indies Station in March 1917, performing convoy escort duties. She was paid off in August 1917 at Devonport when her crew were allocated to other vessels, mainly in the anti-submarine service. Petty Officer, later Chief Petty Officer, Dunn, a senior man of many years service, served on board throughout her WW1 commission. He provides an excellent, detailed, daily log describing the ship's movements & operations throughout the war, also recording events of note that took place on board, including the misdemeanours of himself & fellow POs & seamen, the behaviour of several officers, & other operational & domestic matters. Some extracts: 4/8/1914, war declared: "When the signal was read out to the crews deafening cheers went up from all the ships & all bands struck up the French & Russian Anthems. Everyone was filled with joy to think our chance had come at last to show at last what the British Fleet was made of..." 5/9/1914: "Now comes a very amusing incident. During the coaling the Officer of my Division Lieut. Turner paid numerous visits to the collier Captain's cabin, & eventually imbibed really more than was good for him, & made himself a general nuisance, after tea he became worse & I noticed he had his revolver on (all Officers carried Webley Revolvers during the early days of the War). He wanted to work the winch that a coloured man, one of the crew, was working to everyone's satisfaction, our Commander noticed this & warned him off. This evidently ruffled him & he began to bully the [man] & pointed his pistol at him... shortly after, without any cause (as witnessed by P.O.s Cunliffe & Manley & several others) he came to me & accused me of insubordination, & pushing the pistol against me said 'I will put a bloody bullet through you if you laugh at me, War or Peace. I don't care a damn for you. I coaled ship before you were bloody well born.' I remonstrated with him & asked him to please go away... he replied by shaking the pistol in my face... My composure seemed to make him worse..." At the same time Dunn was positioning himself to push Turner overboard if necessary, but the latter, in need of refreshment, returned to the collier: "...later he came staggering up the hatch from the Captain's cabin... a thump & Lieut. Turner fell sprawling onto the iron deck below..." In a later diary entry Dunn records that Turner's court martial resulted in him being dismissed the ship. 23/11/1914, bombardment of Zeebrugge: "We passed several floating mines, fired at them & sank or blew several up... the destroyers are securing us from submarine attack which was thought for certain, so preparations were made for any mishap & we were then informed we were on a very hazardous mission & would be lucky if we got back, anyway we arrived off Zeebrugge at 2.0 pm cleared for action, loaded with common shell, & started bombarding. Fired 4 rounds from each Turret then the 12 inch guns fired Lyddite & 6 inch fired Shrapnel & very soon the whole place was in flames a very pretty but awful sight. We caught a train coming along the shore & fair hit under the engine which sent it flying into the air followed very soon by some of the carriages & a large crane on the Mole... we achieved our purpose..." Senior ratings were evidently capable of mischief, as recorded on 23/1/1915: "On returning from leave this evening orders were given to search all Petty Officers for smuggling in consequence several were found guilty & I think I personally was the only one that escaped after a thorough search..." He had got away with a bottle of Johhnie Walker which, however, "was quickly consumed in case of accidents." On 25/1/1915 "P.O. Windsor got dished up for the theft of a side of ham from the canteen, very laughable although rather sad." Next day: "Ex P.O. Windsor left ship today as a A.B., his career ruined right enough poor chap." The Dardanelles, 30/5/1915: "...proceeded to sea dodging some submarines outside & passed Cornwallis 1 pm & away to our starboard there looms up the Peninsular of Gallipoli & about 2 or 3 miles from shore was the Majestic bottom up only the ram showing above water..." Bombardment of Achi Baba, 4/6/1915: "...proceeded at 15 knots accompanied by screen of destroyers went up to close range of Peninsula & opened fire 11 am we had a fine point of aim which was the crossroads above Krithia the shells falling away to left on the main road etc. & according to what we could see & reports from our aircraft who were up spotting we inflicted great losses to the enemy... we silenced several guns & our troops by 4 pm had advanced 1700 yards..." As well as supporting ground operations by bombardment HMS Exmouth landed troops ("wonderful chaps these soldiers only they cannot keep their feet in our boats, they fall all over the place") & her divers were often employed, e.g., 14/6/1915 "our divers were busy trying to patch up some of the lighters on the beach, & clearing hausers from ship's propellor" and the nextday "trying to salve steamboats engines & boilers." This rare & engaging log continues until the conclusion of Exmouth's commission, after which CPO Dunn relates various employment including training in gunnery until the log tails off, having related a conversation in which his then captain told him he was worthy of mention to the Admiralty for saving the ship during his absence, for which he, apparently, should have been court martialled. Dunn: "We shook hands & I said try and forget it, I shan't be blowing the gaff I am leaving the service I hope soon. He says Anything I can do when you get in Civil life just write & tell me. I promise." See illustrations on our website.   £500
LAIRD (Frank M., BA, TCD, late Royal Dublin Fusiliers) Personal Experiences of the Great War (An Unfinished Manuscript) 1st Ed., [vii]+200pp., portrait frontis. Dublin: Eason & Son Ltd. nd (c.1926).  #67876
[HLMainPic] Very rare memoirs of enlistment in Ireland in 1914, Gallipoli in 1915 in the ranks of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers (wounded at Suvla Bay), back to the Depot at Naas & recieved a commission; present in Dublin during the Easter Rising in 1916; then posted to France in Jan. 1917 to the 8th Dublins (16th Irish Div.): in action in the Salient inc. Battle of Messines, March Retreat 1918 (when he was wounded & taken PoW), repatriated in December 1918 (& died as a result of his war service in Jan. 1925). Inter al, includes an unusual account of a recruiting tour in Ireland in 1916, events in Dublin during the Easter Rising, recollections of the famous Father Doyle at the Front & other interesting matter. Orig. blue cloth, gilt to front, covs. little rubbed & worn. See illustration on our website.   £225
RICE (Philip Sidney) An Ambulance Driver in France: Being Experiences, Memories & Impressions of The Western Front. 1st Ed., orig. printed card wraps., 109pp., col. portrait frontis., 4 photos. Pennsylvania: Wilkes-Barke. 1918  #67875
[HLMainPic] Self published memoir of active service in France inc. Verdun 1916 & 1917. Orig. dec. wraps., VG. See illustration on our website.   £45
VANDERBILT (John B.) World War I Experiences of an Ambulance Driver. 1st Ed., [vi]+100pp., group photo. No imprint/date. [Privately printed, c.1970s]  #67872
[HLMainPic] Rather a rare account of the experiences of a member of Bucknell Ambulance Section Number 525, a unit of the United States Army Ambulance Corps attached to a French Army Division, including evacuating casualties during two major offensives. The curious genesis of this scarce book came about as follows, as explained by the author: "Two people have helped me make this book possible; my daughter, Mary Jane, & her husband, Boyd Warne. For almost 25 years Boyd has worked for the Xerox Corporation... He wanted to use the latest products of Xerox Corporation to produce an example of what these machines could do above & beyond the routine tasks they are used for in daily business activities. My diary, in his opinion, would be a perfect vehicle to demonstrate the capabilities of these machines. Boyd prepared the text of this book using the Xerox 800 Electronic Typing System & printed the book using the Zerox 9200 Duplicator. Over several weekends he typed the text. Mary Jane and I proofread the material; correcting the spelling, typing errors, grammar and sentence structure to the best of our ability. Without their help, my diary probably would never have been shared with you, the reader." Orig. green cloth, gilt title to front & sp., the outcome of a pretty cool self-publishing project. See illustrations on our website.   £90

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