Sunday WW1 Remembered..

Over the last four years of adding WW1 information onto my blog I have found lots of books really interesting so I thought it was time to share them.

Some, like this one have been featured before, but its always worth a reminder.

AA Publishing
August 2014

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

In Men of Letters, the author has with considerable skill, given the men of the Post Office Rifles their own very special voice and in a series of personal stories, poignant letters and diary entries, their life at the front becomes a heart rending chronicle of war. Their social observations forcibly remind us of just what life was like at the front, the interminable boredom of long periods of time closeted in the murk and mud of the French countryside, balanced against the shock of the sniper’s bullet and the agonising terror of waiting for the call to go over the top. It is especially heart breaking to realise that over 1500 of them didn’t make it to the end of the war.

In this evocative retelling of the history of the men of the Post Office Rifles, I was forcibly reminded of just how the Great War impacted on the lives of men and women, and of how the ordinary man in the street rose to the challenge of the call to arms. With over 10,000 registered letters per month reaching the Western front, I had never visualised the effort that it took to get the morale boosting mail packets to the men, and yet, whilst the Post Office rifles were made of up from the ranks of postal workers, they were very much part of the fighting force and acted honourably and with great courage under enemy bombardment.

The book is easy to read and well divided into understandable chapters, which cover the involvement of the Post Office Rifles,from the Battle of Festubert during the spring offensive in May 1915, through to their involvement in the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. The sensitive use of personal documentation highlights the very human face of war and as names begin to crop up in the narrative, I found that I formed an emotional attachment to many of them, and seeing their photographs and reading their memories emphasised to me in a very poignant way, that these are real stories and not just dusty records from the annals of history.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to, not just the men of the Post Office Rifles, but also to the many thousands of young men and women, who gave their lives unquestionably and who with pride and patriotism served their country in a war they really didn’t fully understand.

~****~

Sunday WW1 Remembered ....

World War One and The Postal Service

At the outbreak of WW1 in 1914,  the Post Office employed over 250,000 people and with a revenue of £32 million pounds it was one of the largest single employers in the world. The Post Office not only handled 5.9 billion items of post each year but was also responsible for the nation's telephone and telegraph system.

When war was declared in 1914 national fervour saw a huge amount of men enlist and the government used the post office to circulate recruitment forms.

The Post Office had its own Battalion. The Post Office Rifles (POR) was made up entirely of Post Office Staff. You can read more about the Post Office Rifles in this informative book by Duncan Barrett which I featured on Jaffareadstoo in 2014 - you can read more here

Men of Letters

AAPublishing
2014

Receiving news from home was one of the best ways to keep up a soldier's spirits, and letters and gifts from family and friends helped to relieve the boredom of sitting in trenches, and understandably, a few home comforts helped to make this living hell, almost bearable. Small packages with socks, gloves and scarfs could find their way to France in just about 2 days and even perishable food items like jams, cakes and biscuits could arrive at their destination long before they had time to perish..

Goods and letters started their outward journey at a sorting station in Regent's Park, London and from there mail was shipped to the English ports before making its way to the French ports, Calais, Bolougne or Le Havre. Once on French soil the Royal Engineers Postal Section were responsible for getting the mail to the troops.

You can only imagine what joy a letter from home, a pair of knitted socks or piece of homemade fruitcake did for morale.


However, this rather a sad poem written by Eleanor Farjeon reiterates the poignancy and heartbreak of receiving, or not receiving, mail...

Easter Monday (In Memoriam E.T.) (1917)

In the last letter that I had from France

You thanked me for the silver Easter egg

Which I had hidden in the box of apples

You liked to munch beyond all other fruit.

You found the egg the Monday before Easter,

And said, ‘I will praise Easter Monday now –

It was such a lovely morning’. Then you spoke

Of the coming battle and said, ‘This is the eve.

Good-bye. And may I have a letter soon.’

That Easter Monday was a day for praise,

It was such a lovely morning. In our garden

We sowed our earliest seeds, and in the orchard

The apple-bud was ripe. It was the eve.

There are three letters that you will not get.

April 9th, 1917

The Battle of Arras - took place between 9 April - 16 May 1917 and resulted in 160,000 British casualties.

~***~