Geoffrey DEARMER. 1893-1996. Served in Egypt, as well as
surviving the two most devastating British debacles of the war: Gallipoli and the Somme.
~~~~~~~~~
The Turkish Trench Dog
Night held me as I crawled and scrambled near
The Turkish lines. Above, the mocking stars
Silvered the curving parapet, and clear
Cloud-latticed beams o'erflecked the land with bars;
I, crouching, lay between
Tense-listening armies peering through the night,
Twin giants bound by tentacles unseen
Here in dim-shadowed light
I saw him, as a sudden movement turned
His eyes towards me, glowing eyes that burned
A moment ere his snuffling muzzle found
My trail; and then as serpents mesmerise
He chained me with those unrelenting eyes,
That muscle-sliding rhythm, knit and bound
In spare-limbed symmetry, those perfect jaws
And soft-approaching pitter-patter paws.
Nearer and nearer like a wolf he crept --
That moment had my swift revolver leapt --
But terror seized me, terror born of shame
Brought flooding revelation. For he came
As one who offers comradeship deserved,
An open ally of the human race,
And sniffling at my prostrate form unnerved
He licked my face!
~~~~~~~~~
~~ POEMS, William Heinemann, 1918.
~~ THE DAY'S DELIGHT, John Murray, 1923.
~~ A PILGRIM'S SONG: Selected Poems to Mark the Poet's 100th Birthday, John Murray, 1993.
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Captain
Richard DENNYS.
Born December 17, 1884, in London. Educated at Winchester College:
pianist, painter, actor, writer, poet. At the outbreak of the war,
he was commissioned in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. Captain
Dennys was seriously wounded on July 12, 1916, near Albert, while
pushing forward with his battalion from Usna-Tara Hill during a heavy
artillery bombardment in the Somme advance. He was taken to the British General Hospital
at Rouen, where he died twelve days later.
Come when it may, the stern decree
For me to leave the cheery throng
And quit the sturdy company
Of brothers that I work among.
No need for me to look askance,
Since no rehgret my prospect mars.
My day was happy ~ and perchance
The coming night is full of stars.
~~~ THERE IS NO DEATH.
With Forward by Captain Desmond Coke.
(John Lane).
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F.S. FLINT (1885-1960). Served in British Army during the war, in England.
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Captain Gilbert FRANKAU (1884-1952). Novelist,
educated Eton. Travelled the world. Entered family business as cigar
merchant. Commissioned into 9th East Surrey Regiment in 1914.
Transferred to Royal Field Artillery in March 1915. Fought at Loos,
Ypres, on the Somme and in Italy. Invalided from the service, February
1918, with rank of captain. Squadron-Leader RAF 1940-41.
THE CITY OF FEAR & OTHER POEMS (Chatto & Windus, 1918).
THE JUDGEMENT OF VALHALLA, (1918).
PETER JACKSON, CIGAR MERCHANT
(1920), has much narrative set in the Great War.
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Second Lieutenant Hugh Reginald (Rex) FRESTON, born 25 July 1891, Tulse Hill, Surrey. Educated Dulwich College, Exeter College,
Oxford. Served with 3rd (Attached 6th) Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment. Killed
24 January 1916, buried Becourt Military Cemetery, Becordel-Becourt, France.
~~~
THE QUEST OF BEAUTY AND OTHER POEMS (Blackwell, Oxford, 1915).
~~~
THE QUEST OF TRUTH AND OTHER POEMS (Blackwell, Oxford, 1916).
~~~ Markland, Russell,
THE POETRY OF H. REX FRESTON: A PAPER (N. Ling & Co., 1916).
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Crosbie GARSTIN (1887-1930). Joined 1st King Edward's Horse. Commissioned in the field, 1915.
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Lieutenant
Edward John Langford GARSTON (1893-?). Served in France with 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment.
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Wilfrid Wilson GIBSON (1878-1962). Served in Army in the ranks, though was not at the Front for any length of time.
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Robert GRAVES (1895-1985). Enlisted in 1914 at age 19 in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. On 20 July 1916 wounded and reported dead. Rose to rank of Captain. Suffered from shell shock for several years after the war. His memoirs, GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT, are among the greatest works of literature to emerge from the war. He personally rejected his war poems, which have only been collected into a single volume recently:
POEMS ABOUT WAR. Moyer Bell Limited, 1988. The first American edition was
in 1990. Introduction & notes by William Graves. Contains Graves' war poems from OVER THE
BRAZIER (1915), GOLIATH AND DAVID (1916), FAIRIES & FUSILIERS (1917), COUNTRY
SENTIMENT (1918-20), eight poems from other sources, and five previously unpublished poems.
~~~ OVER THE BRAZIER (The Poetry Bookshop, 1916).
~~~ FAIRIES AND FUSILIERS (Heinemann, 1917).
~~~ GOODBYE TO ALL THAT (Cape, 1929; Cassell, 1957).
~~~ COLLECTED POEMS 1914-1947 (Cassell, 1948).
Quinn, Patrick J., THE GREAT WAR AND THE MISSING MUSE: THE EARLY WRITINGS OF ROBERT GRAVES AND SIEGFRIED SASSOON.
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Julien GRENFELL (1888-1915). An officer in the Royal Dragoons from 1910 until his death by wounds on 30 April 1915, at the age of 27. Mentioned in Despatches twice and awarded the Distinguished Service Order.
His poem "Into Battle" has been widely anthologized.
~~~
PAGES FROM A FAMILY JOURNAL, 1888-1915, (Privately Printed, Eton College, 1916).
~~~ Meynell, Viola,
JULIAN GRENFELL (Burns & Oates, Ltd, 1919).
~~~ Mosley, Nicholas, ,
JULIAN GRENFELL, HIS LIFE AND TIMES OF HIS DEATH, 1888-1915 (Weldenfeld & Nicholson, 1976).
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Ronald GURNER (1890-1939).
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Ivor Bertie GURNEY (1890-1937). Served in 2/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment.Wounded April 1917. Transferred to the Machine Gun Corps, June 1917, though still attached to the 2/5th Glosters. Gassed at St. Julien, in the Ypres Sector, September 1917. Suffered severe breakdown, June 1918.
~~~ SEVERN AND SOMME(Sidgwick and Jackson, 1917).
~~~ POEMS, 1890-1937 (Chatto & Windus, 1973). With an introduction by Edmund Blunden, and a bibliographical note by Leonard Clark.
Hurd, Michael, THE ORDEAL OF IVOR GURNEY (Oxford, 1978).
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Alan Patrick HERBERT (1890-1971). Served with the Hawke Battalion, Royal Naval Division, 1914-17, first at Gallipoli, where he was Mentioned in Despatches, and later in France. Wounded in 1917 and invalided from the Service.
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Aubrey HERBERT (1880-1923). Half brother to Lord Carnarvon (of Tutankhamen fame).
Balliol College, Oxford. Traveller, M.P., polyglot, twice offered
throne of Albania; Buchan based the character of Greenmantle on him.
Enlisted in Irish Guards (though half-blind) in 1914, wounded.
Served as interpreter Gallipoli. Similar with help of T.E. Lawrence in
Mesopotamia. Story told in his book Mons, Anzac & Kut.
Died in 1923.
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Lieutenant
William Noel HODGSON,
Born January 3, 1893, Thornbury, Gloucestershire.
Educated at Durham School & Christ Church College, Oxford. In
September, 1914, Hodgson was commissioned in the 9th Battalion,
the Dovonshire Regiment. The Battalion arrived in France at the
end of July 1915 & was sent to the trenches near Festubert. On 25
September 1915, Lieutenant Hodgson with three other young officers
& a hundred men held a captured trench for 36 hours without food or
reinforcements. Hodgson was awarded the Military Cross. In February
of 1916 the Battalion was in front line trenches at Fricourt. About
this time Hodgson began publishing regular articles for "The Spectator", "Saturday Review" and "Yorkshire Post", describing life in the trenches. In April 1916 the Battalion was in front line trenches opposite Mametz. On the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, Hodgson was killed by German machine gun fire while taking a supply of bombs to his men in newly captured trenches near Mametz.
I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of Thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this; ~
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.
~~~ VERSE AND PROSE IN PEACE AND WAR.
(John Murray).
~~~ SOLDIER POETS.
(Erskine Macdonald).
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Sergeant
S.S. HUNT (pseu. Bernard Moore). Served in the Middlesix Regiment.
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Dyneley HUSSEY (1893-1972). Commissioned into the Lancashire Fusiliers, 1914-17.
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Lt.
Lessel HUTCHEON. Served in the Royal Flying Corps.
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Donald Frederic Goold JOHNSON.
Born March 6, 1890, Saffron Walden, England. Educated at Caterham School & Emmanuel College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he converted to Roman Catholicism and won the Chancellor's Medal for English Verse with a 14-stanza poem "The Southern Pole", on Capt Scott's expedition. At the outbreak of war he abandoned plans for writing a study of Chaucer and was gazetted to the 2nd Battalion, Manchester Regiment. He was sent to France in late 1915 and joined the Battalion at Sailly-Laurette on the Somme, a few miles east of Amiens. Lt Johnson participated in the opening of the Battle of the Somme in July. On the 15th, during the action to take Ovillers, while holding a trench against a German counter-attack, Johnson was killed.
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David JONES (1895-1974). Served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1915-18. His monumental poem "In Parenthesis" was published in 1937. He was also a leading painter of the time.
~~~ IN PARENTHESIS (Faber & Faber, 1937).
~~~ DAI GREATCOAT: SELECTED LETTERS, edited by Rene Hague (Faber & Faber, 1980).
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Lieutenant
Wilfred JOSEPH. Served in the West Yorkshire Regiment.
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Joseph Johnston LEE, 1876-1954. Served in the Black Watch and in the King's Royal Fifle Corps (60th Rifles). Captured by Germans and imprisoned in Germany.
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Lieutenant
Rolland Aubrey LEIGHTON, born March 1895. Educated: Uppingham School. Won a place at Merton College, Oxford, in January 1914. At outbreak of war volunteered for service but was rejected due to poor eyesight. Accepted two months later and commissioned in the 4th Battalion Norfolk Regiment. Applied for transfer so as to get sooner to France. Sent to the 7th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment in March 1915, two weeks before it went to the front. Was in the trenches at Armentieres in April.
While on leave during August 1915 became engaged to Vera Brittain. Upon returning to France, was stationed in trenches near Hebuterne, north of Albert. In October was in billets with battalion at Courcelles. Converted to Catholicism late in 1915. On 22 December was wounded by rifle fire while repairing barbed wire in front of his trenches. Taken to Hospital Clearing Station at Louvencourt, where he died the next day, 23 December, aged 20. Buried 26 December in military cemetery at Louvencourt. Vera Brittain received word of his death the next day, 27 December, 1915.
~~~ POEMS (Privately printed by David Leighton).
~~~ CHRONICLE OF YOUTH: VERA BRITTAIN'S WAR DIARY 1913-1917. (Edited by Alan Bishop with Terry Smart. Foreword by Clare Leighton. Gollancz, 1981).
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W H LITTLEJOHN. Born 1891. Civil Servant in Exchequer & Audit dept.
Joined Territorial branch of Middlesex Regimentt when it was
inaugurated, becoming sergeant before the war. Served at Gallipoli.
Killed in France as Company Sergeant-Major, 1/7th Middlesex Regiment,
on April 10 1917, aged 26. Buried in Wancourt British Cemetery.
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