Memoirs recommendations and associations

[keithfazzani]

I am sure that buried somewhere in the Forum is a list of memoirs. If there is I apologise I cannot find it. Therefore I wonder whether it is possible to start a new list. They can prove to be so useful in research terms.

 

For example and to kick off as it were. I am currently researching 6th Battalion the Buffs. Someone reminded me that   Coppard - With a Machine Gun to Cambrai, was in the same Brigade (37th) as 6th Buffs. So I dug out my copy and found lots of interesting and useful background stuff.

 

Now I am sure that this would have been obvious to many with a better memory than me, who would simply “know” who was in what and where. However there may be others who find that the years challenge the little grey cells. So I wonder if it wouldn't be useful to have a list of memoirs well known and not so well known, associating the author with their regiments, battalions, brigades and divisions?  

[charlie962]

I suspect this was a thread you were thinking of ?   Autobiographies anonymous

 

What it lacks is a list of units alongside the title of each book.

 

Charlie

Edited 24 May , 2019 by charlie962

[paulgranger]

You beat me to it.

[keithfazzani]

Thanks for the link, now all we need is the associations. I take the liberty of reproducing the list here:

 

Sidney Rogerson: "Twelve Days on the Somme"

Robert Graves: "Goodbye to All That"

Charles Carrington: "Soldier from the War Returning"

Charles Carrington alias Charles Edmonds: "A Subaltern's War"

Frank Richards: "Old Soldiers Never Die"

Charles Douie: "The Weary Road"

John Bickersteth: "The Bickersteth Diaries 1914-19"

John Glubb: "Into Battle"

Bernard Martin: "Poor Bloody Infantry"

G. Greenwell: "Infant in Arms"

Max Plowman: "A Subaltern on the Somme"

Cameron Stewart: "An Unimportant Officer"

J.C. Dunn: "The War the Infantry Knew"

John Reith: "Wearing Spurs"

Edmund Blundon: "Undertones of War"

Norman Collins: "Last Man Standing"

F.E. Noakes: "The Distant Drum"

Edwin Campion Vaughan: "Some Desperate Glory"

S. Sassoon: "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer"

Len Smith: "Drawing Fire"

[paulgranger]

You could include 'General Jack' s Diary' Jack was Sidney Rogerson's CO, 2/W. Yorks. 

[charlie962]

9 hours ago, keithfazzani said:

reproducing the list here

By the time you get to the end of the thread I linked  you will have a very long list. Given that thread was from 2013, has someone already done the 'associations' ? I know Dick Flory did provide a list of associated Artillery Batteries or Brigades on another old thread (perhaps I'm thinking of this thread which is not quite the same thing ?)

Charlie

 

Edit:  And wouldn't it be useful for them to be noted on relevant LLT page ?

Edited 24 May , 2019 by charlie962

[MaureenE]

Some that are available online, from the FIBIS Fibiwiki page Western Front

https://wiki.fibis.org/w/Western_Front

 

Cheers

Maureen

• Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves. New edition revised, November 1957, 2nd edition March 1958. First published 1929. Archive.org. (Catalogued with a different author). Graves was in the Royal Welch Fusiliers as a Special Reserves Officer. Robert Graves Wikipedia
• A Subaltern’s War by Charles Edmonds (pseud.) [Charles Edmund Carrington] 1929 Archive.org. Full title A Subaltern’s War being a memoir of the Great War from the point of view of a romantic young man, with candid accounts of two particular battles, written shortly after they occurred, and an essay on militarism. Carrington was a Lieutenant in the 1/5th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. On a list of "highly personal top 20 War Memoirs"^[24]. "Not Disillusioned: A Subaltern’s War, #8 Best World War I Memoir" by Edward Lengel, author of World War I Memories: An Annotated Bibliography of Personal Accounts Published in English Since 1919.
• A Subaltern on the Somme in 1916 by Mark VII [Max Plowman] 1928, first published 1927. Archive.org. 10th West Yorks. On a list of "highly personal top 20 War Memoirs".^[24]

• Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden 1929 Archive.org. Subaltern in Royal Sussex at the Somme & Passchendaele. On a list of "highly personal top 20 War Memoirs".^[24]

[Black Maria]

On ‎24‎/‎05‎/‎2019 at 13:18, keithfazzani said:

Thanks for the link, now all we need is the associations. I take the liberty of reproducing the list here:

 

Sidney Rogerson: "Twelve Days on the Somme"

Robert Graves: "Goodbye to All That"

Charles Carrington: "Soldier from the War Returning"

Charles Carrington alias Charles Edmonds: "A Subaltern's War"

Frank Richards: "Old Soldiers Never Die"

Charles Douie: "The Weary Road"

John Bickersteth: "The Bickersteth Diaries 1914-19"

John Glubb: "Into Battle"

Bernard Martin: "Poor Bloody Infantry"

G. Greenwell: "Infant in Arms"

Max Plowman: "A Subaltern on the Somme"

Cameron Stewart: "An Unimportant Officer"

J.C. Dunn: "The War the Infantry Knew"

John Reith: "Wearing Spurs"

Edmund Blundon: "Undertones of War"

Norman Collins: "Last Man Standing"

F.E. Noakes: "The Distant Drum"

Edwin Campion Vaughan: "Some Desperate Glory"

S. Sassoon: "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer"

Len Smith: "Drawing Fire"

2 West Yorks

1 & 2  R.W.F

1/5 R. Warwicks

1/5 R.Warwicks

2 R.W.F

1 Dorset

1/12 London / 1(Royal) Dragoons

7 Field Co R.E

1 N.Staffs

1/4 Ox & Bucks

10 W.Yorks

1 Scottish Rifles

2 R.W.F

1/5 Scottish Rifles

11 Royal Sussex

6 Seaforth Highlanders

Household Battalion

1/8 Warwicks

1 & 2  R.W.F

7 London & R.E

 

 

 

Edited 12 June , 2019 by Black Maria

[keithfazzani]

Thank you