Sniper on the Ypres Salient

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.

Voices of Russian Snipers: Eyewitness Red Army Accounts from World War II

Voices of Russian Snipers: Eyewitness Red Army Accounts from World War II

- written by Artem Drabkin & Andrey Ulanov and published by Greenhill Books

- £25 - Hardback - Pages 288 

‘Wiped out three Nazis in a shallow trench. But only got out by a miracle. The Germans

apparently guessed where my lair was and unleashed a hurricane of mortar fire … the

company had as good as buried me. Somebody saw a direct mortar hit on my lair.’

- Fyodor Dyachenko

‘The German snipers on the other side also engaged in stalking, especially stalking us women. They had no female snipers, just men’ - Antonina Kotlyarova

‘Dreadful death cries could be heard from the German trenches, where the enemy were bayonetting those of our wounded who had remained behind there’ - Klavdia Kalugina

‘Before firing I managed to get a good look at him through my sights. He was a young officer. He seemed to be looking straight at me and I shot him. But it was a human being! Then my feelings dulled and I went on killing the way we were supposed to’ - Antonina Kotlyarova

‘When we learnt on May 9th that the war was over, our joy knew no bounds […] I felt enormous relief when I heard the news of victory – now I wouldn’t need to kill anymore’ - Maria Bondarenko

With a wealth of first-hand testimonies, collected by Artem Drabkin, this is a unique collection of eyewitness accounts from the Second World War. The reminiscences of the Red Army snipers reveal fascinating details of life in Russia before the war, as well as the surprising commonality of the privation and unforgiving experience of frontline combat and the day-to-day starkness of sharpshooting.

The book includes testimony from celebrated snipers such as Fyodor Dyachenko, Alexander Romanyenko, Klavdia Kalugina, Antonina Kotlyarova and Maria Bondarenko.

This was a surprising book in that it was very informative about life in Red Army during the Second World War. I initially made the mistake of thinking it was one long account, but the book is a collection of first-hand accounts of various Russian snipers. Life in the was army, conditions, fighting in war, training and what I liked was the thought processed that was instilled in Russian snipers. I did think while reading this book that with current events going on the state of the Russian army does seem to have declined in recent decades. Also in one of the chapters, there is a ‘Best of the Best’ in terms of Russian snipers and how many kills are attributed to them. I enjoyed this book, and although I knew quite a bit about life as a soldier in the Red army, it was nice to read so many differing accounts, which was nice and refreshing with each chapter. Fans of the Eastern Front will enjoy this book.