Extracts from the diary of Charles Gill
Item
Title
Extracts from the diary of Charles Gill
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Identifier
6442.doc
GWA_5489_C.P.Gill.W.W.1..doc
Creator
Gill, Charles Percival
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Abstract
Charles Percival Gill was a corporal in the R.A.M.C. Before the Great War he was a member of the Camborne Company (Cornwall) of the Wessex Field Ambulance and was drafted straight into the R.A.M.C. at the start of the war.
He was awarded the Military Medal at the second Battle of Passchendale. I have a letter from the 24th Battalion Loyal North Lancs Regiment, to which his Wessex Field Ambulance was attached, stating that he was awarded the medal for work during the attack on 26th Oct. 1917. I have tried to find the full citation but have been told that many of the Great War records were lost in the bombing raids in the Second World War. I have been told that he was bringing back wounded from the front line under fire when a shell fell among their stretcher party. One of the wounded men was thrown into a deep shell hole filled with water, mud, bodies and debris. My grandfather went down into the shell hole and brought the wounded man out and back to the dressing post.
My grandfather Gill died forty years ago, but as I was interested in the First World War, I did ask him about it when I was younger. I gathered that he was critical of the conduct of the war and the terrible loss of life. He had dreams about it when he was ill and dying. He was a private and modest man. After the war he did not parade with the other ex-service men on Armistice Day. When asked why, he said that he remembered his friends who had died every day.
He kept this diary intermittently in 1918, but it has been scribbled in. It mentions preparations for stunts and numbers of casualties but not a lot of details.
Editor's Comment:
Excerpted transcript of diary, from 3rd April - 3rd July 1918.
Corporal 459246 Charles Percival Gill, M.M., 2/2nd or 2/3rd Wessex Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 2/4th Bn. Loyal Noth Lancashire Regiment. Both units served in the 57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division.
He was awarded the Military Medal at the second Battle of Passchendale. I have a letter from the 24th Battalion Loyal North Lancs Regiment, to which his Wessex Field Ambulance was attached, stating that he was awarded the medal for work during the attack on 26th Oct. 1917. I have tried to find the full citation but have been told that many of the Great War records were lost in the bombing raids in the Second World War. I have been told that he was bringing back wounded from the front line under fire when a shell fell among their stretcher party. One of the wounded men was thrown into a deep shell hole filled with water, mud, bodies and debris. My grandfather went down into the shell hole and brought the wounded man out and back to the dressing post.
My grandfather Gill died forty years ago, but as I was interested in the First World War, I did ask him about it when I was younger. I gathered that he was critical of the conduct of the war and the terrible loss of life. He had dreams about it when he was ill and dying. He was a private and modest man. After the war he did not parade with the other ex-service men on Armistice Day. When asked why, he said that he remembered his friends who had died every day.
He kept this diary intermittently in 1918, but it has been scribbled in. It mentions preparations for stunts and numbers of casualties but not a lot of details.
Editor's Comment:
Excerpted transcript of diary, from 3rd April - 3rd July 1918.
Corporal 459246 Charles Percival Gill, M.M., 2/2nd or 2/3rd Wessex Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 2/4th Bn. Loyal Noth Lancashire Regiment. Both units served in the 57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division.
Date
April - July 1918
Date Created
1918-01-01
Temporal Coverage
1920-12-31
Source
Unknown
Medium
Text: Transcription
Type
Diary
Contributor
Richard Marshall
Peggy Martin
Publisher
The Great War Archive, University of Oxford
