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Great War Memorial Volumes Great War Memorial Volumes   134 Books
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Geoffrey Watkins Smith. 1st Ed., 219pp., 197x133mm, portrait frontis., 5 plates, facsimile letter & menu card. Oxford: Printed for Private Circulation. 1917  #69281
[HLMainPic] Geoffrey Watkins Smith was born in 1881 at Beckenham, Kent. He was a Scholar at Winchester & New College, Oxford, taking a First and becoming a Fellow & Tutor at New College. A distinguished zoologist, he was commissioned in 13th (Service) Battalion, Rifle Brigade, in 1914 & commanded "A" Coy. in France until his death on the Somme on 10th July 1916 during the battalion's tragic attack at Contalmaison. He was thirty-four years old and is buried in Pozieres Military Cemetery. This memorial contains around 60pp. letters in training & at the front; also biography, lists of scientific publications &c. Grey paper covd. boards with wheat cloth backstrip. Number 91 of 125 individually numbered copies printed, "Each copy is to be numbered & presented to a near relation or intimate friend & the name inscribed." This copy presented to E.A. Elliott. Little wear, VG. See illustration on our website.   £225
War Diary and Letters of Captain A. Ellice. 5th Battalion Cameron Highlanders. 1st Ed., 88pp., 198x140mm, portrait frontis. Privately Printed for His Father by Robert Carruthers & Sons, Courier Office, Inverness. 1920  #69375
Alexander Ellice was born in 1894, son of Major Edward E. Ellice D.S.O. and Margaret Ellice, educated at Cargilfield School, Edinburgh, and Rugby. He was working in London when war broke out and obtained a commission (despite poor eyesight) in the newly raised 5th Camerons. Served in France from May 1915, as a Platoon Commander then commanding a Brigade Trench Mortar Battery, until wounded on 6th September 1915. He returned to France in February 1916 and remained there until badly wounded by shrapnel during a relief at Eaucourt l'Abbaye on 13th October the same year. He died in the Casualty Clearing Station at Dernancourt (where he is buried in the Communal Cemetery Extension) three days later. He was twenty-one. Contains descriptive letters written during his first period of active service, a fairly informative diary of his second stint, plus extracts from several letters of condolence. Blue cloth, gilt to front, ltlle stained o/w VG & scarce.   £220
In Memoriam Captain Harold Ludington Hemingway, Company F, 104th Infantry, USA. Born at New Haven, Connecticut, May 25, 1893. Died at Glorieux, France, October 21, 1918 of wounds received in action near Verdun. 1st Ed., 81pp., 222x182mm, portrait frontis., 6 photos., map. New Haven: Privately Printed at the Yale Unv. Press. 1920  #68151
[HLMainPic] A memoir of school & college life (Hopkins Grammar School & Yale College) then a career in commerce until his military service which commenced in May 1917. Arriving in France in Feb. 1918 he was in action at the Chemin des Dames, Chateau Thierry, & St. Mihiel, events which are described in interesting & engaging detail in his letters from the Front. Includes various letters from colleagues describing his services & the work of his regiment. Orig. blue paper covd. boards, gilt to front, with wheat cloth backstrip, this lacking a small paper lettering label, o/w VG. See illustrations on our website.   £65
Henry Augustus Coit, Number 487429, Private in Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. 1st Ed., 31pp., 197x158mm, portrait frontis., one other portrait & one photo. of Duke of Connaught inspecting Fifth University Overseas Copamyy (Coit identified on parade). No imprint/date. Printed for Private Distribution. [1917]  #68153
[HLMainPic] Henry Augustus Coit, an American & a student at Yale, enlisted in the PPCLI at Montreal in December 1915, sailed for England in March 1916 where several months were spent in training before arriving in France where he he had been a month on active service when he was struck & dangerously injured by a motor lorry near Ypres. He died at Third Canadian CCS at Remy Siding & was buried in Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery. Includes records of his services, memoir & various letters of condolence, &c. Rare: no copies on JISC/Library Hub, one institutionally in USA (at Yale). Orig. brown paper covd. boards with brown cloth backstrip, title to front with embossed bronze medal. See illustrations on our website.   £145
Letters of An American Airman: Being the War Record of Capt. Hamilton Coolidge, U.S.A., 1917-1918. 1st Ed., ix+231pp., silhouette frontis., 2 portrait photos. Boston: Privately Printed. 1919  #66511
[HLMainPic] Coolidge enlisted in the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps at Key West in March 1917, graduated as a pilot & sailed overseas in July & after several months in France organising schools of aviation he joined the 94th Aro Squadron, USA, First Pursuit Group & downed eight EA/balloons until killed in action by ant-aircraft fire near Grand Pre on 27th October 1918. Posthumously awarded American Distinguished Service Cross, French Croix de Guerre & a unit citation. Letters written from July 1917 (sailing from Oyster Bay for France) up to the day before his death in action. Rare original edition, orig. paper covd. boards, dark blue cloth bacsktrip neatly replaced, gilt title to sp., additionally titled in gilt to front, inscribed in ink by a family member: "Geo. W. Martin from J.R.C. III March 1 1920." See illustrations on our website.   £225
A Poet of the Air: Letters of Jack Morris Wright, First Lieutenant of the American Aviation in France, April, 1917-January, 1918. 1st Ed., xvii+246pp., portrait frontis., plate. Boston & NY: Houghton Mifflin. 1918  #66498
[HLMainPic] Letters of the American aviator/poet in France 1917-18, arranged by his mother. He was killed in a flying accident before seeing active service in the air. Orig. paper covd. boards with blue cloth backstrip, paper label to sp., label rubbed, generally VG. See illustration on our website.   £35
Letters of Norman Crawford MacLehose Lieut. 8th City of London Bn. (Post Office Rifles) August 1914-May 1915. 1st Ed., [ii]+89pp., 198x135mm, portrait frontis. Glasgow: Printed at the University Press by Robert MacLehose and Co. Ltd. 1916.  #69273
[HLMainPic] Norman Crawford MacLehose was the second son of Norman Macmillan MacLehose, a Harley Street opthalmic surgeon, and of Olive, his wife. He was educated at Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a member of the Officers' Training Corps. He took a keen interest in military history. While reading for the Bar he joined the Inns of Court O.T.C. and received a commission in the Post Office Rifles in 1913. He went to France with his Battalion in March 1915 and participated in the Battle of Festubert in May. On 26th May, towards the end of several days' operations he was shot by a sniper while helping to consolidate a position in a captured German trench. He was twenty-six years old and is buried in Post Office Rifles Cemetery, Festubert (described by a contemporary as "one of the little military cemeteries at Le Marais, just west of Festubert, on the road from Béthune.") Contains letters written to several family members from training camps in England 1914-15 then from France containing interesting descriptions of billets, the front line area and trench life in the low lying region near Béthune. (A note explains that "As these letters are printed only for near and intimate friends, it has been thought best to leave them as they stand, not omitting details which otherwise might seem too trivial."). Pale blue paper covered boards and cloth backstrip, gilt to spine and black to front, VG with loosely inserted letter from his mother, Olive, to a family friend explaining the circumstances of publication &c.   £225
Frederick Goodyear: Letters & Remains 1887-1917. 1st Ed., xv+193pp., portrait frontis. McBride Nast & Co. 1920  #69275
[HLMainPic] Memorial volume including letters from the Front. UCS & Brasenose College Oxford (where he was regarded as "unambitious & dilatory"); became Assistant Manager of the Oxford Univ. Press at Bombay, but came home in 1914 to enlist in the ranks of the Artist's Rifles: served with them in France from May-Sept. 1915 when he transferred to the RE (Meteorological Dept.) then commissioned in the Essex Regt. in Feb. 1917, joined the 2nd Essex on 16th March 1917, wounded at Fampoux during Battle of Arras, 12th May 1917 & Died of Wounds on the 23rd May inst. Contents include letters from India & around 45pp. letters from France 1915-17. These are followed by a selection of poetry & prose compositions. Blue cloth, gilt to spine, somewhat rubbed, generally VG.   £95
Norman Prince, A Volunteer Who Died for The Cause He Loved. With a Memoir by George F. Babbitt. 1st Ed., [v]+73pp., portrait frontis., 12 plates. Boston & NY: Houghton Mifflin. 1917  #66487
[HLMainPic] Memoir & letters plus messages of condolence &c. Norman Prince was a Harvard educated lawyer who went to France to volunteer in 1914 & was an innovator of the Escadrille Americaine, which became known in due course as the Lafayette Flying Squadron. Awarded the Croix de Guerre & other distinctions, he participated in 122 aerial engagements, was credited with some nine EA brought down in battle & was killed in a crash, while returning from a raid, in October 1916. Orig. blue paper covd. boards with paper label to front, blue cloth backstrip with paper label, ex-Topsfield Town Lib. with bookplate to front paste-down & ink letters to lower sp., VG thus. See illustration on our website.   £75
Above the French Lines: Letters of Stuart Walcott, American Aviator: July 4, 1917, to December 8, 1917. 1st Ed., v+93pp., portrait frontis., 2 plates. Princeton Univ. Press. 1918  #66494
[HLMainPic] Memoir & letters. Walcott graduated from Princeton in 1916 &, influenced in part by Carroll Winslow's account of flying in France (qv), he trained to be a pilot & joined the Lafayette Escadrille. On 12th December 1917 he was shot down in his first aerial combat, having himself already downed one EA on this occasion. Orig. pale blue cloth, titled in black to front & sp., VG with citation for the Croix de Guerre avec Palme posthumously awarded to him neatly written out on rear endpapers ("on December, 12, 1917, attacked an enemy airplane. He pursued it four kilometers behind the German line, where he brought it down. He was in turn attacked by three other monoplanes & was driven down.")   £65

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