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Remembered Today:

The Man Who Shot Siegfried Sassoon


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Sassoon names his batman at the time as Bond. (In Sherston's Progress).

 

Of course, he changes many names but others he retains. For example, he calls the psychiatrist William Rivers by the right name, but changes the name of Craiglockhart hospital to "Slateford."

So, who knows ?

 

He says that the sergeant (Wickham) had a DCM already, and went on to receive a bar before the Armistice. 

 

Any "Bonds" or double DCM men identifiable ?

 

 

 

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Law had some sort of a connection to Wales

In April 1921, at the time of labour unrest in the Welsh & Gloucestershire pits, Law “who worked in the area” acted as a guide to Sassoon who was to write a report for the Nation

[see Egremont, p.266]

 

But when Sassoon was in England recovering from a wound and writing his anti-war declaration, he had been serving with the 2RWF, not the 25RWF

 

Had Law been with Sassoon in the 2RWF as well?

Edited by michaeldr
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I may have my timings wrong, but if Sassoon wrote his anti-war declaration AFTER he was wounded the first time. wouldn't that suggest that it was the second time he was wounded was by friendly fire? If so, the 2/RWF link is irrelevant.

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1 hour ago, Perth Digger said:

I may have my timings wrong, but if Sassoon wrote his anti-war declaration AFTER he was wounded the first time. wouldn't that suggest that it was the second time he was wounded was by friendly fire? If so, the 2/RWF link is irrelevant.

 

He was sniped in April 1917 and it was whilst recuperating that he wrote his declaration. He was declared to have suffered a nervous breakdown and packed off to Dottyville. 

The accidental wounding occurred in July 1918.

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3 hours ago, Perth Digger said:

I may have my timings wrong, but if Sassoon wrote his anti-war declaration AFTER he was wounded the first time. wouldn't that suggest that it was the second time he was wounded was by friendly fire? 

Quite correct

 

3 hours ago, Perth Digger said:

 If so, the 2/RWF link is irrelevant.

Not if you want to know who it was who was SAD

and who was the brother who fired the shot in 1918 and ended up speechless

 

While it is, in the author's own words, a 'historical novel'

it would nevertheless be interesting to know where the history ends and the fiction begins 

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14 hours ago, michaeldr said:

 

 

While it is, in the author's own words, a 'historical novel'

it would nevertheless be interesting to know where the history ends and the fiction begins 

 

Somewhere round about page 1, I suspect.

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1 hour ago, Steven Broomfield said:

 

Somewhere round about page 1, I suspect.

 

:thumbsup:

and some how I have my doubts that it will find its way onto my 'must have' list

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It's close to the top of my 'must burn' list.

 

It will of course sell thousands, irrespective of whether we have done his marketing for him.

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16 minutes ago, Perth Digger said:

 

 

It will of course sell thousands, irrespective of whether we have done his marketing for him.

 

Don't mind that as long at it is being clearly marketed as 'fiction' however, it appears that they are more than happy for this distinction to be blurred.

 

Mike

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  • 3 weeks later...
Quote

After his bombing escapade he was returning to British lines, and in a moment of rest he removed his tin hat and stood up. He was immediately shot in the head.

 

"A moment of rest" in no-man's-land was usually taken lying down.  Standing up and removing one's helmet so that the distinctive profile would not be seen would be more the action of one who wanted to be shot at, though one could at best speculate on the reasons for that.

Edited by 2ndCMR
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28 minutes ago, 2ndCMR said:

 

"A moment of rest" in no-man's-land was usually taken lying down.  Standing up and removing one's helmet so that the distinctive profile would not be seen would be more the action of one who wanted to be shot at, though one could at best speculate on the reasons for that.

 

We had better not start another Great War myth, there's enough of them. There could have been any number of reasons, fatigue, perhaps he thought he was in dead ground etc etc etc

 

Mike

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The Gates of Memory by Geoffrey Keynes Kt

Clarendon Press, Oxford 1981

 

The Wedding of Siegfried Sassoon

 

"The wedding took place quietly at Christchurch, Bournemouth.   Of his friends, SS had invited only four:  Rex Whistler, the artist, Glen Byram Shaw, the theatrical producer, Aircraftman T E Shaw and myself.

 

For me it was a heaven-sent opportunity to meet at last with Lawrence of Arabia, who had long been one of my top heroes.   I was fascinated by his extraordinary and complicated personality and by his achievements, in spite of efforts by jealous regular soldiers to belittle them.   David Garnett had generously given me one of several columns of the linotype edition containing unpublished passages.   I had read of the linotype printing, and beyond this read everything about Lawrence that I could find.   In the church I was placed opposite him and could gaze my fill at the small but strongly built man, with a pink face and a shock of yellow hair, so that I can see him still.   After the wedding I held a long conversation with him, leaning on opposite sides of his motor-cycle Boanerges.   This was followed by an interesting correspondence abruptly cut off by his lamented death in 1935 in a motor-cycle accident.

 
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I'd rather have liked to have met Rex Whistler.

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32 minutes ago, Steven Broomfield said:

I'd rather have liked to have met Rex Whistler.

 

A bit louche for strong, manly types like you.

 

First man in his battalion to be killed in action after they landed in Normandy.

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 For me, the clincher is the idea that Sassoon could possibly have written any of the ghastly doggerel which, according to the novel, Sassoon wrote and discarded, and which Private Davey Jones claimed as his own to save Sassoon’s life.

 

Of course not everything Sassoon wrote was of the same quality - some of it was trite and derivative - but he was never less than technically competent - the ‘poems’ quoted in the book fall down, again and again, on basic metre.

 

John Hollands claims that these ‘poems’ around which the story revolves were published in the journal of the No-Conscription Fellowship (which he consistently calls the ‘NON-Conscription Fellowship’ - not a great tribute to his research skills). The next stage is to find out whether these poems actually do appear in that Journal. If they don’t, I suspect that Mr Hollands wrote them - in which case he should definitely stick to prose in the future.  If they do exist, they can’t have been written by Sassoon.

 

If there were any truth in this story, how could that arch-rattle Robert Graves have failed to tell it at some point?

 

The style of the novel is cliched and the dialogue full of anachronisms, but there’s no denying that it’s a good story. So why didn’t Hollands just give his central character, and the regiment, different names? Although he does have the good sense to call the book a ‘novel’, the narrative framework and the use of actual names encourages the reader to take it as lightly-veiled history. The interviewers from the Daily Express and Wales Online have done exactly that. Will Mr Hollands be setting them right?

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3 hours ago, Meg Crane said:

 

 

Of course not everything Sassoon wrote was of the same quality - some of it was trite and derivative

After 25 odd years of having to teach (among others) bits of Sassoon's poems ANYONE who shot him is all right by me and welcome to marry my sister.

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4 minutes ago, yperman said:

After 25 odd years of having to teach (among others) bits of Sassoon's poems ANYONE who shot him is all right by me and welcome to marry my sister.

Can we see a picture of your sister please yperman.

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1 hour ago, yperman said:

After 25 odd years of having to teach (among others) bits of Sassoon's poems 

At the school which I attended, the leather belt was administered for un-learnt poetry

Perhaps if we'd only been required to memorize "bits" then I would have escaped the strap more often

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On 06/08/2018 at 22:43, Skipman said:

 

We had better not start another Great War myth, there's enough of them. There could have been any number of reasons, fatigue, perhaps he thought he was in dead ground etc etc etc

 

Mike

 

There is no possibility of "starting a myth" in regard to that incident.  However, when attempting to find explanations for odd behaviour one might as well look at the matter with as much logical deduction as can be applied from this distance of time.  Depending on the amount of moonlight, whether any flares or starshells were in the air, the weather etc., standing up in no-man's-land was a very good way to get shot and taking off the distinctive helmet an even better way, depending on which lines one was closer to at the time.

 

One could hardly call such an action "out of character" considering the other dramatics.

Edited by 2ndCMR
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1 hour ago, 2ndCMR said:

 

One could hardly call such an action "out of character" considering the other dramatics. 

 

It has already been mentioned that Sassoon went back to the war as he felt he was missing his men. Do you think he was trying to commit suicide or get a 'blighty'?

 

Mike

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15 minutes ago, Skipman said:

 

It has already been mentioned that Sassoon went back to the war as he felt he was missing his men. Do you think he was trying to commit suicide or get a 'blighty'?

 

Mike

 

I have no idea, but from little I know of him he was plainly rather unstable; ' will leave that for the students of his career to ponder.

 

Edited by 2ndCMR
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On ‎14‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 12:10, RaySearching said:

Surely it would have been a commissioned officer commanding the firing squad, not the CSM, and therefore an officer would have had to administer the coup de grace?

 

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21 minutes ago, JulianR said:

 

error.JPG.e7c7a0e3bc1cbbea11808fc89427d5f8.JPG

 

Don't think I said that at all on the 14/07/2018 ?

 

Edited by RaySearching
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