Mud and bodies
Subtitle: the war diaries and letters of Captain N.A.C. Weir, 1914-1920
By: edited by Saul David ; preface by Michael Weir Burns
Contributors: David, Saul, 1966- editor; Burns, Michael Weir, 1959- writer of introduction
Publisher: Frontline Books, an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Barnsley, South Yorkshire
Language: eng
Number of pages: 158
ISBN-13: 9781848326880
Subjects: Correspondence; World War, 1914-1918; Great Britain. Army. Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Battalion, 2nd; Diaries; British Personal narratives; Great Britain; Soldiers; History
Description: "Neil Weir died in 1967, but it was not until 2009 that his grandson ..., discovered his diary and letters among some packing trunks he had been left, and learnt that his grandfather had served as an officer in the 10th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders for much of the First World War. A captain and company commander at the tender age of nineteen, he fought at Loos, Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Ploegstreert, and the Somme. At Ploegstreert Wood, Weir's sector contained some of the largest mines ever dug under the German trenches and here the sister battalion he fought alongside was led by Winston Churchill. At Vimy Ridge he was with General Furse where a dud 18lb shell landed at their feet and on the Somme, he was recommended for a D.S.O. and mentioned in Despatches for his role in the attack on Longueval in July 1916 which General Haig called 'the best day we have had in this war.' This was where the troops took up their jump-off positions at night, guided by tape laid out in no man's land, and, protected by an early use of a 'creeping' artillery barrage, they advanced towards the German front line. Badly injured in the trenches later that year, Weir went on to train other young officers for the war, and then worked at the War Office in Whitehall where he went into the section that dealt with the British intervention in the Russian Civil War. ..."--Book jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.