Sniper on the Ypres Salient written by Sue Boase and published by
Pen & Sword Books - £22 - Hardback - Pages 224
Just after midnight on 22 April 1916 on the Western Front, a sergeant from the 15th
(1st London) Royal Welsh Fusiliers came sliding and stumbling along the dark, mud-filled
trench towards the four men, huddled together and soaked-through, in the shallow dugout.
He was clutching his postbag in which there were four parcels for one of them, William
McCrae, whose twentieth birthday fell on this day.
A hand-written account by William, my grandfather, was found in my mother’s papers, long after his death. This book describes a year of his time fighting in the First World War, from December 1915 to December 1916.
Two months after his birthday, he was marching towards the Somme, where he was to act as a runner during the key Welsh engagement in the Battle of Mametz Wood. Later, he went on to volunteer and train as a sniper. He continued in this role for over a year, becoming a lance corporal in the 38th Divisional Sniping Company while fighting on the Ypres Salient. His words emphasise the key role snipers played in the collecting of intelligence about the enemy, through close observation and careful reporting.
His account stops abruptly in mid-sentence, just at the point where he indicates he is about to reveal more to us about ‘a new, interesting part of the line to be manned by us Snipers’.
Piecing together clues from his sketches, maps and photos, and this book paints a picture of Williams’ time during the rest of the war. In 1917 he returned to England to train as a temporary officer in the 18th Officer Cadet Battalion at Prior Park, Bath. He came back to the Western Front as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment, where he was seconded to the 1/5 Lancashire Fusiliers until the end of the war. During this time, it is likely that his interest and experience as a sniper continued, with evidence that he may have taught at one of the Sniping Schools set up across France.
Sniper on the Ypres Salient is a very admirable, fascinating and decent book,
impressive that the author Sue Boase, granddaughter of William McCrae, who
started his story/WWI as a runner at The Somme, he would then go on to
become a sniper and this book follows a year in his life. Being a sniper he
would have been a well-trained, patient and observant person and this comes
out in the book as there is lots of detail and the book clearly shows how
observant he was as the great detail comes out as he has a lot of say and
needed too as his intelligence would help support future plans and attacks.
The book is written in little chunks like you would get in a diary, but the
information is always of interest, and you really do get an idea of what life
was like as a sniper in those conditions. Excellent work by Sue Boase, and a
thoroughly good read. I also loved the glossary at the back of the book along
with the huge links of websites in the sources section too.
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