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A WWI Diary
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RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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 A WWI Diary
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This is a picture I took yesterday of the dairy written by my neighbour Frank’s father in 1915. It is a day by day account of the first ten months he served on the front lines as a soldier in the British infantry during WWI. Frank is now 92 and his father is long dead.
Couple of things…Frank had the cover and binding of the diary restored but considering it had been carried by an infantryman engaged in trench warfare it is in amazingly good condition. Second of note is the penmanship. The diary would be smaller than 4x3” (more like 3.5x2.5”) so each line would take up no more than a couple of millimetre’s space, or less than a tenth of an inch per line. Considering this was written by a young man while he was living in a trench on the front lines I find it admirable. Who amongst us is even capable of penmanship such as this? With lines so straight? I can’t do it even under the best of circumstances, that’s for sure. I never could.
I took the picture to show the scale of the diary, it is much too delicate for me to have presumed to start reading it. But, here comes Frank’s father to save the day. He took it upon himself, later in his life, to transcribe the diary into typewritten pages. Clearly, he wanted this record to survive, although Frank indicated his father never spoke to him of the war. Frank has subsequently had those pages captured into a hardcover volume containing photocopies of the typewritten pages as well as other documents and memorabilia from his father’s life.
As far as the content goes, I was only able to glance through some of the pages while conversing with Frank, mainly about my own search into my ancestry inspired by a couple of recent posts made by Piwin regarding the evolution of French in Quebec.
Each page of the diary that I turned to contained something of interest. A couple of items stood out. I leafed through the early pages and found the entry for the day when he first arrived at the trenches. He mentions how when he stepped down into the trench he immediately sunk knee deep in mud. This was to be his home.
He saw a lot of action, that is until he was wounded and removed from front line service. Some of the entries are brief, mentioning how the Germans were quiet that day, or about day to day life (did you know the British soldiers still had their tea every day, or at least whenever possible?), while others were full, like the pages shown in the photo.
One incident stood out. Again, I was just flipping through the diary while talking with Frank, sometimes stopping to read a passage out loud to him, so I couldn’t read full pages.
In this particular entry (and I stress this was a random page opening) they were pinned in their trench by sniper fire. I think the orders had been given to pull out. There were some soldiers pinned behind a barn some distance from the trench. The passage mentions how one soldier had tried to run to the trench, only to have been shot down only yards away from safety. Frank’s father had pulled the body into the trench. Across the field, at the barn, there were about five soldiers who were refusing to make the run to the trench, obviously fearing for their lives. An officer was with them and had drawn his pistol and was threatening to shoot any soldier who refused to go. Back in the trench, the soldier beside Frank’s father had drawn his rifle and had fixed his aim onto the officer’s head. His intent was to kill the officer were he to fire upon one of his own men.
Powerful stuff. I assume the shooting never happened. I actually don’t know as I had to stop reading, not wanting to be rude to my host by not conversing. I did beg him to allow me to spend some more time on his porch in the future so I could properly read the diary. I’m really hoping this can happen. I want to read it all. It totally blows me away to see a first hand account like this, written in real time by a young man who was clearly well educated and literate. Just the snippets I read showed him to be masterful at narration. This is a true historical document.
I’ll update if and when I can read more passages, and if there’s any interest. Apparently, diaries were not allowed in the trenches, for obvious reasons. Who knows how many accounts such as this have ever existed, let alone survived? And so well written?
This post was a long one, lol, but I figure anyone who’s read this far is probably interested in this kind of stuff, so they probably won’t mind the length.
History is so fascinating.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 26 2023 0:42:54
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: A WWI Diary (in reply to RobF)
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Many thanks for posting your experience with your friend's father's diary of WWI trench warfare, Rob. It would really be interesting to read the whole thing. Most of the men in the "ranks" in WWI were not as literate or articulate as this diarist apparently was, so first hand accounts were rarely published. The officers were the ones who published accounts, most notably, in my opinion, T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) with his masterpiece Seven Pillars of Wisdom, recounting his two years with the Arabs fighting the Turks.
If you come across some more interesting vignettes, please continue to post them. Interesting stuff.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 26 2023 14:27:30
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