First world war: share your letters, photographs and stories

This is most likely the last letter my Great Uncle Herbert Edward Reade wrote. He was killed three days later on September 27, 1918, aged 19. What strikes me about this letter is that the topics are so mundane, so everyday life. I read this letter often and wonder what Herbert was really thinking and feeling - I know he was putting on a brave face as he had been fighting in France for many months. When I feel I'm having a hard time, or have a tough job to do, I think of Herbert going over the top for his final battle and it inspires me to get a grip and put life in perspective.

This is a picture of my great grandfather, William McMurray who was a serjeant in the Corps of the Hussars. This photo shows him in his uniform looking relaxed, thoughtful and perhaps a bit weary. He was in his forties when WWI began so he would have been one of the many older soldiers. He survived the Great War, but died aged around 51 in 1925.

2nd battalion, Gordon Highlanders. Died 4 October 1917 in the 3rd battle of Ypres. My great grand uncle. Sadly no grave but commemorated in Tyne Cot.

My grandfather, Eduardo Augusto Adelino (1896-1934) joined the Portuguese Expeditionary Force, settled near Aire-sur-la-Lys, in 1918. After the 9th April 1918, he was captured by the German force, near Leuhan (Finistère) along with many Portuguese and British soldiers. In these pictures we can see him: before the departure to France; and after the Battle of the Lys. My grandmother used to tell me about his deep feelings on war. More than being in prison, the thing that struck him the most was the effect of the gas attacks in the soldiers. Our school is also working on a data base in order to rebuild this kind of "personal archaeology".

Ana Laires Pinheiro

Agrupamento de Escolas Prof. Reynaldo dos Santos, Portugal.

Editor's note: this item was edited in line with our privacy guidelines.

My grand father Thomas Simpson served with the Hood, he was there from the beginning at Crystal Palace until the very end. Winston Churchill's little army as they were known. Thomas was shot numerous times, the first being at Dardanelles, I have his full service record. He was led by the likes of Rupert Brooke, Bernard Freyberg, Charles Lister, Arthur Asquith to name but a few, truely inspirational men. The Hood were involved in all the major battles of WW1, their story is amazing and one which should be covered in a national newspaper.

My grand father never spoke of the war, the only thing that he mentioned was a wound to his chest, after reading The Hood Battalion by Leonard Sellers, I can understand why he could never speak of it, I can only remember my grand father as a frail old man sitting in his wing back chair smoking his pipe, racing paper on his lap, stout at his side watching horse racing on the tellly, I am now so very grateful that my grand father was one of the chosen ones who was granted his future, his wife, children, grand children and was allowed to have his future, his peace.

I implore you to look into the amazing Royal Navy Division and the heros that are the "Hood"

I have my grand father's full records and those of his elder brother Frederick who a fought with the Hood

My Grandfather Lt Alfred Farnan, who served with the 5th Btln Machine Gun Corps returning to Dover early 1919. He is the officer on the right with a cigarette. The picture below is him far right undergoing training at Hare Hall, Essex with the Artists Rifles. He joined his original regiment the 2nd Kings Royal Rifle Corps on the Somme in August 1916 and was wounded ten days later.

After returning to England he then served in Mesopotamia until 1921 as a Captain.

My father was adopted at birth so I do not have a great deal of information on this picture as I never met my great grandfather and my grandfather being the youngest sibling, did not get to talk much to his father about his experiences in the war. I am pretty sure that this is the home guard, based in Rhyl, and that this picture was taken in 1914. My great grandfather went on to run a tobacconists in Rhyl (F. Knowles) His daughters served in the Wrens in the Second World War, his eldest Daughter Valerie Knowles ending up on the roll of honour for the work she did at Bletchley Park. If anyone from Rhyl has any further information on this picture I would love to hear from you!

Michalis Konstantes, my great-grandfather, joined the Macedonian Mule Corps. He was from the village of Ardana in the Famagusta district of Cyprus. Along with over 1,000 other Cypriots he went to the Salonika Front in northern Greece. According to the Australian historian Andrekos Varnava of Flinders University, whose family is also from Ardana, over 170 of the Cypriots died during the war. This picture is the only artefact that survives from Michalis Konstantes’s time in the British Army.

I stumbled across my grandfather's war notes and pieced together his story. He fought on the Western Front in 1917 and 1918 before getting injured shortly before the end of the war. I wrote a mini-blog series called about it here:

http://www.hstry.co/blog/category/back-to-the-mud

my grandfather and the Sphinx, Royal Scots Grey, seconded to Royal Flying corps, having survived two charges in the trenches, went to Afganistan.

My paternal grandma could recall seeing, as a young girl in WW1, a zeppelin exploding over the skies of Essex where she grew up. She talked of seeing the men jumping or falling from the gondola to escape the flames. I am proud to say she did not succumb to any jingoistic hurrahs but felt sorrow for the crew as they fell.

She later married my Grandad and moved to North Yorkshire. He didn't serve but his brother, my Great Uncle Frank, served in both World Wars. Uncle Frank was something of a Black Sheep. I overheard him talking to my dad once about his time in the 14-18 war and mentioned Armentieres. My dad asked if he'd 'parley-vous'ed' with the Mademoiselle. 'Aye', he said with a twinkle, 'I think I met her'.

My Grandad, Philip Carter, signed up in 1917 and he was at Ypres ("Wipers!") and Passchaendale. He told our family about a Christmas Truce he was involved in (we think it must have unofficial as we understand the truces were made a court-martial offence after the famous 1914 one). He talked about playing soccer on No-Man's Land and exchanging cigarettes with a German soldier. He told us of his best friend being killed directly next to him in the trench..and his ear was forever deafened as a result of the explosion. These are the stories he told me personally and confirmed by my dad, his son, Ken Carter.

My grandfather had a heart problem and the British Army and ambulance service wouldn't take him. He joined the French Ambulance service and, after my (French) grandmother died in 1988, we found an album full of photos from February and March 1916.

In some places they could almost be holiday snaps. The men look relaxed and smiling. But the hint of war is always in the background: the “cars” are adorned with the red cross; the French infantry are marching; an ambulance indicates that a chateau is being used as a hospital. And there are intermittent shots of graves, including numerous “English graves”.

The March photos are more startling in their depiction of war: with stretcher bearers, a searchlight car, refugees, the massive shell hole and finally the wounded being unloaded and transported. The album ends with pictures of graves – lines of graves as far as the eye can see.

my grandad and mate. R.A.S.C. Time for a fag at last

Percy, Jack A

Sapper, Royal Engineers

Regiment No: 70349

Son of John and Ellen

Husband of Dorothy Minnie

Father of Dorothy

Grandfather of Elizabeth and Christopher.

Born 14 December 1894

Occupation: Carpenter

Interests:

Cricket, spin bowler.

Singing (sometimes in drag) and playing the piano

Cats.

Smoking, specifically 'Craven A'

Joined up: August 1914, aged 19

Medals: 1914-15 Star, The British Medal and The Victory Medal.

Memorable WWI moments:

Mistaking half a pint of whisky for half a pint of beer on New Years Eve 1915, downing it in one and being out cold for two days;

Fleeing mustard gas in the trenches. He carried the scars to his death;

Playing piano in a brothel in Paris on leave, a fact known to everyone in the family except his wife;

Surviving all his friends but one.

Memorable post WWI moments:

When asked what he did after the end of the war, he said "I think I was drunk for about five years";

His daughter, born in 1928 -- ten years after the end of the war -- grew up with the sound of her Dad "screaming from nightmares about being back in the trenches, most nights";

His granddaughter remembers him making sure she dried between her toes after a bath. "Don't let the gaps stay damp, it's bad for you." A remark which made me obsessive about my toes for years, and a lesson I still obey to this day.

He came from an age when you didn't discuss your feelings, let the side down, or drag other people into your woes. You suffered quietly, or drank your troubles away.

As a family, we didn't often talk about the war with him because Grandma said it brought it all back to him in the form of nightmares. He shielded us from the darkest moments and secret horrors.The best books, films and poems about WWI have filled in some of the gaps of his personal history, and have given me some insight into how it must have been for him in that hellish place.

I wear his RE dog tags. This December they will be 100 years old.

My great uncle Willie Woolnough fought in the first World War in France. He met a French girl and after the war brought her back to Manchester and married her. She didn't like Manchester after her native Boulogne and they returned to France. They had a son and a daughter.

The family lost touch after WW2 and I only discovered his existence 7 years ago when i researched the family tree. I posted a message on a french web-site and after 6 years have recently received a reply from his grand daughter.

It seems that Willie remained always proud of his Britishness and conveyed that pride to his family. He had some problems finding and keeping work because he would not adopt French nationality.

In WW2 he and his family were interned by the Germans and their health suffered severely. Shame at the state they had come to caused him to cut himself off from his family in England. His grand daughter continued an interest in all things English and a curiosity in the English family.

I haven't come across any other account of British soldiers marrying local girls while serving in WW!.

Postcard to W. J. Hartnett (my grandfather)detailing flu:

What do you think of the bunch. Ted was up to-day for the first after the flu + pneumonia. He was very bad. Is all well now. Frank is recovering from a mild attack. I am fine + 170 lbs. Will write later Kate

15 November 1918

Kate is sitting. The others, from left to right are Genevieve (Kruse), Ida (Krough), and Margaret (Peg) (Harrigan)

In una fotografia in "formato visita", inviata alla famiglia prima di partire per il frnte, Domenico Bonadè Bottino, detto Minet, nato nel comune di Chialamberto (Val Grande di Lanzo, Italia ) il 10.06.1894 morto a Lione (Francia) il 17.12.1962.