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    A Yankee In The Trenches
    A Yankee In The Trenches
    A Yankee In The Trenches
    Ebook130 pages2 hours

    A Yankee In The Trenches

    By R. Derby Holmes

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    R. Derby Holmes was an American serving as a corporal of the 22nd London Battalion of the queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment. As he writes in his foreword “I have tried as an American in writing this book to give the public a complete view of the trenches and life on the Western Front as it appeared to me, and also my impression of conditions and men as I found them. It has been a pleasure to write it, and now that I have finished I am genuinely sorry that I cannot go further. On the lecture tour I find that people ask me questions, and I have tried in this book to give in detail many things about the quieter side of war that to an audience would seem too tame. I feel that the public want to know how the soldiers live when not in the trenches, for all the time out there is not spent in killing and carnage. As in the case of all men in the trenches, I heard things and stories that especially impressed me, so I have written them as hearsay, not taking to myself credit as their originator. I trust that the reader will find as much joy in the cockney character as I did and which I have tried to show the public; let me say now that no finer body of men than those Bermondsey boys of my battalion could be found.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateJan 3, 2014
    ISBN9781783949380
    A Yankee In The Trenches

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    • 3/5
      Robert Derby Holmes was a Bostonian who in 1916 decided to enlist in the British army. Traveling across the Atlantic, he signed up with the Royal Fusiliers and, after a couple of months of training, was sent with his unit to France. His book is an unvarnished recounting of his experiences, one of particular interest as it was written for an American audience that was only just beginning to experience the conflict when Holmes's book was published. Interspersed with the account of his service are a number of tips as to how Americans at home might best support 'Sammy' at the front, all of which he follows up with a concluding chapter that reiterates some of his advice and follows up with additional suggestions.

      Though many books have been published that recount the experience of trench warfare, Holmes's memoir is of interest for two reasons. The first is its date of publication; written while the war was still ongoing, it is undimmed by the intervening years that separate most accounts from the conflict. The other is its unusual perspective, which not only relates what life in the trenches was like, but attempts to interpret the customs, patterns, and language of the British army for American readers. In doing so, Holmes does not make assumptions of his reader's prior knowledge, which makes his memoir one of the most accessible accounts of the miseries of the Western Front.

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    A Yankee In The Trenches - R. Derby Holmes

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