ECHOES OF WAR 1915-1918 (PART 1)

Abstract

It is necessary to point out that the facts referred to in the following pages of my story happened sixty tosixty-two years ago.

At this distance of time I have had to rely largely on memory, though I have been able to refer to a few letters written home from France and a brief diary kept in the Western Egyptian Campaign. Then too, I have had the benefit of John Buchan's history of The South African Forces in France to check dates and to obtain official records of casualties suffered by individual regiments.

Memories are very strange; in times of stress they imprint themselves indelibly on the mind, yet often leaving out events seen later in more placid times. I can look back and picture vividly the incidents I have related.

I have memories of many wonderful comrades who fell in those hectic days and who went to their deathswith a song. To these, I humbly dedicate my tale of experiences in three theatres of the Great War.