Letters From the Trenches: A Soldier of the Great War (31 page)

Specialists
– soldiers who had acquired special skills, among them Lewis gunners, signallers, scouts and bombers (grenade teams). Specialists are referred to several
times in the war diary (q.v.).

Trench foot
– also called ‘immersion foot’, a painful and, if untreated, dangerous affliction of the feet caused by long immersion in water, mud or
otherwise damp conditions, and made worse by troops being unable to change socks and boots for dry ones. In extreme cases it could lead to amputation. It was extremely common among all the
combatants in the Great War, and is still a threat to soldiers on active service; many British servicemen serving in the Falklands campaign of 1982 were to suffer from trench foot, partly due to
poor-quality boots.

Trench mortar
– a comparatively portable short-range weapon designed to fire an explosive projectile at a high angle, the advantage being that fire then falls into an
enemy’s trench or other defences. The standard British trench mortar was the 3-inch Stokes, which could fire a high-explosive bomb weighing just under 11 pounds (4.84kg) at ranges of up to
800 yards (730 metres). The German equivalent was the
Minenwerfer
, which was built in a number of calibres, the 77-mm (just under 3 inches) and the 170-mm (6.7-inch) weapons being the ones
most commonly deployed in the trenches.

VC
– Victoria Cross, the nation’s highest decoration ‘for valour’, instituted in 1856 and awarded to ORs as well as officers.

Very pistol
– single-shot, breech-loading flare pistol issued to front-line units, used to fire signal flares, for instance to summon artillery support. The colour of
the flare (red, green or white) served as a simple code, red indicating a request for help or support. It was named for its inventor, Edward W. Very, an officer of the US Navy.

Vickers gun
– tripod-mounted machine gun based on the Maxim design (Maxims were used by the German and Austro-Hungarian forces, and had originally equipped the
battalions forming the BEF [q.v.] at the beginning of the war), the standard heavy machine gun of the British Army from well before the Great War until decades after it. Like the Lewis (q.v.), it
was of .303-inch calibre, and fired the standard rifle round, as well as tracer, and had a nominal rate of fire of 450–600 rounds per minute. There the similarity ended, however, for as well
as being water-cooled (and much heavier), the Vickers was recoil-operated and fed by a belt holding 250 rounds, rather than a magazine. Vickers guns were operated by two-man crews from companies of
the Machine Gun Corps, each infantry brigade (
see
Bde) having such a company attached to it; as with Lewis-gun sections, the gunner and loader were protected by a small team of riflemen. It
proved to be one of the most reliable automatic weapons ever made.

War diary
– a formal daily record kept by military units from battalion level (or equivalent – e.g. an artillery battery) upwards. The keeping of war diaries was
mandatory, and forms were provided for the purpose. In an infantry unit, they were written up at battalion headquarters, although the exigencies of battle sometimes made it impossible for them to
be added to daily. The war diaries of British battalions from the Great War, including that of the 9th York and Lancasters, are in many cases held at the National Archives, Kew
(
http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/
).

Warrant
– i)
see
warrant officer; ii) ‘railway’ warrant, a paper issued to soldiers who had to travel anywhere by train, serving in place of a ticket
and accepted by all the railway companies, which would then reclaim the cost of tickets from the War Office.

Warrant officer
– a non-commissioned officer ranking above an NCO (q.v.) but below a commissioned officer, and so called because of the warrant for their appointment
issued to them by the War Office (nowadays by the Ministry of Defence; by contrast, a commissioned officer holds a commission from the sovereign). Abbreviated to WO, there are two grades: WOI
(warrant officer class one) – regimental sergeant-majors and equivalent – and WOII – company sergeant-majors and equivalent.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is very difficult to complete this section. As Harry’s blog progressed and developed into this book, help has been offered from so many directions. Perhaps I can apologize
now if I have omitted anyone who feels that they should be here. I know that, as soon as I have closed this section and sent it to press, I’ll realize, with horror, that I’ve left an
important contributor out.

I must thank my sister Anita, who has supported me from the start, and who has been able to fill many of the gaps and to point me in the right direction for research into the
family background. ‘Willie’, my father, Bill Lamin Senior, has provided real motivation for the project.

The Internet readers of Harry’s blog have, between them, written thousands of inspirational and supportive comments. Without those comments it would have been much more
difficult to retain enthusiasm for the task. As well as support, many have provided information and guidance to make it possible for a novice researcher to make some sensible progress.

Of those readers, Jono Wood, Bob Lembke and Rocco Chiarolanza have provided superb supportive material that has helped make sense of Harry’s experiences. John Murray took a
very battered and tatty, but vitally important, photograph of Harry in uniform – the only one in existence, so far as we know – and worked his magic on it, to restore it to a
presentable state.

Especial mention must be made of Joanne Allen for providing help and support as the blog developed and transformed into the book, and to Lucy Cook for making sense of a muddled
bundle of letters.

Thanks are also due to Mark of Soverign Tours for organizing a trip that enabled me to retrace Harry’s steps through the Flanders battlefields.

In the early days of the blog, members of the History Department at Pool Business and Enterprise College in Cornwall persuaded me that Harry’s letters were of value and well
worth developing. Andie Parker-Jones, Paul Annear and Jeremy Rowe were so enthusiastic about the project that I had little choice but to proceed. Phil Jones, the Network Manager at the school, was
of great help with any technical problems encountered when publishing the blog.

The research was an interesting challenge, having little knowledge of the background to the First World War. The National Archives in Kew, formerly the Public Record Office,
carries a treasure trove of material, the war diary of Harry’s battalion, in particular, proving an invaluable resource. It was especially helpful, living in West Cornwall, that much of this
material was available online (
http://nationalarchives.gov.uk
).

Without the resources available on the Internet, the project would have been much poorer. There is a wealth of websites containing relevant material, and I frequently consulted
many of these to confirm information or to get a different view on a topic. (I should add that this is by no means an exhaustive list):

My agent, James Wills of Watson, Little Ltd, suggested, at a very early stage, that the blog could transfer into a successful book. (I do hope he was right . . . ) I must thank him
for his efforts in finding the right publisher.

At Michael O’Mara Books, Kate Gribble was an earnest and enthusiastic champion of the project. I must recognize the efforts of my editor, Toby Buchan, with his knowledgeable,
sensitive and meticulous approach to the task of sorting out this project. Grateful thanks also to Ron Callow of Design 23, and, at Michael O’Mara Books, to Judieth Palmer, Ana Bjezancevic,
Anna Marx, Janine Orford, Polly Tingle and Florence Warrington.

Finally, I would like to thank the media (and I’d guess that they don’t get this sort of a mention too often . . . ). Without the wonderful worldwide publicity for
Harry’s blog through television, radio, magazines and newspapers, potential readers simply would not have known about it. Indeed, without the publicity, I doubt whether there would have been
the incentive to produce this book. In particular, BBC Radio Five Live’s
Pods & Blogs
with Chris Vallance first aired the story, following it up with several features on BBC Radio
4’s Sunday morning
Broadcasting House
programme. James Roberson of BBC East Midlands spotted the potential for a short TV broadcast which triggered what I can only describe as a media
frenzy. I am glad, therefore, to be able to offer my warmest thanks to Chris and James, and to many other journalists or broadcasters who have expressed an interest.

As I have said, I apologize to anyone who feels their name should be here. Any omission is by oversight, and does not in any way lessen either my appreciation, or the value of
someone’s contribution.

PICTURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The majority of the illustrations in this book are the author’s and, with the exception of those photographs or documents that have appeared on his blog, ‘WW1:
Experiences of an English Soldier’, are published here for the first time.

Grateful thanks to Karl Noble, Collections Officer of the York and Lancaster Regimental Museum, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, for his time and help with illustrations for this book,
as well as his expert knowledge (for further information and the museum’s address:
http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/info/200070/museums_and_galleries
)

Thanks are also due to Ray Mentzer of the Great War Primary Document Archive:
www.gwpda.org
, and to Suzy Blake of the Historic Environment Section of Staffordshire County
Council.

The image on this
page
is from
The New Illustrated Encyclopedia
published in the USA by Dodd, Mead and Company. The photograph on this
page
was taken by a Lieutenant J. W.
Brooke. The photograph on this
page
is from an Italian book,
Di qua e di là dal Piave. Da Caporetto a Vittorio Veneto (This Side and Over the Piave: From Caporetto to Vittorio Veneto)
by Mario Bernardi, published in 1989 by Mursia Edizione. The photograph on this
page
is also from an Italian book,
Inglesi sull’altopiano
(
The English on the Plateau
) by Giovanni
Cecchin, published in 1995 by Collezione Princeton.

Illustrations other than the author’s are from the following sources:

York and Lancaster Regimental Museum, Rotherham:
here
,
here
,
here
,
here

Staffordshire County Council:
here
; the plan was drawn by Julian Bagg. Staffordshire CC also supplied the upper image on this
page
; with grateful acknowledgement to Jake
Whitehouse

Great War Primary Document Archive
www.gwpda.org/photos/
:
here

Redvers at en.wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org):
here

The medals shown on this
page
are those awarded to Harry Lamin after the end of the Great War.