Turner Donovan Military Books - The world’s finest selection of rare and out-of-print books on British military history from 1800 to 1945
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The First World War The First World War, Personal memoirs of soldiers of all nations on all fronts, anthologies, literature and fiction, history and analysis   911 Books
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Kenneth Gordon Garnett MC, RFA, 30 July 1892-22 August 1917. 1st Ed., 62pp., portrait frontis., 11 plates. Privately printed at the Chiswick Press. 1917  #63213
[HLMainPic] A memoir by his Mother with selections from his letters from the Front followed by customary extracts from obituaries & letters of condolence. Garnett was born in 1892, Ed. at St. Paul's School & Trinity College Cambridge (rowed in the triumphant boat in the 1914 boat race). He was commissioned in the Royal Field Artillery in Jan. 1915 & proceeded to France the following month, only to be accidentally wounded in March. He returned to the Front in Oct. 1915 & spent the winter in the Ypres Salient then, on 24th August 1916, during a bombardment of Delville Wood, he was shot in the neck & paralysed. He was convalescent in England for a year before his death from a relapse of his spinal wound & is buried in Wandsworth (Putney Vale) Cemetery. Orig. brown paper covd. boards with wheat cloth backstrip, titled in black to front & spine, VG. See illustration on our website..   £165
Letters from Flanders written by 2nd Lieut. A.D. Gillespie Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders to his Home People. 3rd Ed., with an Appendix, xvi+326pp., portrait frontis., 2 other portraits. Smith, Elder. 1916  #65190
[HLMainPic] Alexander Douglas Gillespie was Ed. at Winchester & New College, Oxford, commissioned in the 4th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders & went to the Front in Feb. 1915. He was killed in action on 26th September 1915 with the 2nd Bn. near La Bassée, during the Battle of Loos (his only brother, Thomas Cunningham Gillespie, 2nd Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers, had been killed near the same place on 18th October 1914). A.D.G. was twenty-six and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial. Contains one long letter from T.C.G. dated 16th October 1914, relating recent experiences in action etc. Almost all the book comprises A.D.G.'s lengthy letters from the Front, February 1915 onwards, describing life in trenches and billets, from the antagonistic activities of the Germans opposite to the habits of Sonia the cat that shared their trenches (and her kittens), changing conditions of warfare (issue of respirators etc.), curious rumours (streams poisoned with arsenic; booby-trapped corpses) and much more. Orig. red cloth, gilt, minor wear, VG. See illustration on our website.   £120
On Safari: Experiences of a Gunner in the East African Campaign. By F.C. 1st Ed., 90pp., orig. dec. card wraps., 5 plates. Cape Town: Juta. 1917  #66333
[HLMainPic] Personal experiences inc. a short account of German South-West Africa in 1914-15 then mostly active service in German East as an artillery signaller &c. Orig. illustrated card wraps., VG throughout & rare. See illustration on our website.   £95
Welsh Army Corps 1914-1919. Report of the Executive Committee. Facsimile reprint of 1921 1st Ed., [ii]+51pp. Newport: Westlake. 1989  #66294
[HLMainPic] Recruitment in Wales 1914-15 & the raising of the 38th (Welsh) Div. Hardback reprint, VG.   £15
Diary of an Officer of "U.C. 26." May 1917. 1st Ed., orig. blue printed paper wraps., 4pp., foolscap. Admiralty War Staff, Intelligence Division. May 1917  #61756
[HLMainPic] I.D. 1156. For Official Use Only. Translation of the diary of Leutnant D. Reserve (or Sub.-Lt. of the Reserve) Heinrich Petersen, second-in-command of submarine U.C. 26, 30 April 1917 [leaving Bruges] until 7th May 1917, detailing operations in the English Channel during these few days. They found a gap in the RN barrage on 1st May & steered for Havre. The submarine laid mines & sank a Norwegian steamer by torpedo, but U.C. 26 was herself sunk on 9th May. Detailed diary of a week at sea. VG & rare. See illustration on our website.   £95
Artillery & Trench Mortar Memories, 32nd Division. 1st Ed., 687pp. Printed by Unwin Bros. 1932  #68462
[HLMainPic] Very substantial compilation by Old Comrades, containing diaries of Lt. A.B. Scott, MC, of "X" & "W" TM Batteries & Reconnaissance Officer, 32nd Div. Artillery HQ; Rev. R.E. Grice-Hutchinson, MC, Chaplain, 32nd Div. Artillery; late Major L. Heathcote-Amory, Staff Capt., 32nd Div. Artillery (DoW Aug. 1918) & brief recollections by seven others. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, sp. tanned/little marked o/w VG. See illustration on our website.   £125
Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War 1914-19. Water Supply - France. 1st Ed., 92pp., 37 photos., 41 plates (many fldg.). & 10 fldg. maps. Chatham: RE Institution. 1921  #63082
[HLMainPic] Typically detailed & well-illustrated survey of a crucial aspect of the campaign, in three parts: Organization, Plant & Works, Operations, with excellent photos. & diagrams of equipment &c. including Water Points in Flanders, Water Cart Filling Points, Plan of Trench Water Point &c., with equally impressive maps/diagrams. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, VG & rare. See illustration on our website.   £145
The Gallant Legion. Complete set of 12 Vols. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. 1930s.  #66392
[HLMainPic] Angus & Robertson was the most prolific publisher of war memoirs in Australia after the Great War & produced a number of notable & several classic texts recording the experiences of Australian men & women in the Army, Naval, Nursing & Air services. At some point during the late 1930s, presumably to give a new lease of life to unbound sheets, the publisher reissued all these works in a series called The Gallant Legion. The sheets of various (but not 1st) editions were bound in excellent quality blue cloth with the series title at the head of the spine, plus the number of the volume in the series, with the individual volume title & author below, & a fighting soldier motif at the foot of the spine. All the volumes in this edition are complete as per the original texts, with all maps & photos. as originally published. This fine body of work, complete here in 12 volumes, includes: IDRIESS (Ion L.) The Desert Column; MAXWELL (J., VC, MC, DCM) Hell's Bells & Mademoiselles; WHITE (T.W.) Guests of the Unspeakable; RULE (E.J., MC, MM) Jacka's Mob; WILLIAMS (H.R.) The Gallant Company; TILTON (May) The Grey Battalion; REID (Frank) The Fighting Cameliers; MORROW (Edgar) Iron in the Fire; BURTON (O.E., MM) The Silent Division: New Zealanders at the Front 1914-1919; JONES (T.M.) Watchdogs of the Deep: Life in a Submarine During the Great War; SUTHERLAND (L.W., MC, DCM) Aces & Kings; MONASH (Gen. Sir John) The Australian Victories in France in 1918. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, VG throughout & excellent complete set. See illustrations on our website.   £425
Diary of H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth, January-May 1915. 1st Ed., 50pp., 20 photos. Printed by permission of the Admiralty "for Private Circulation to Officers & Men." 1919  #65900
[HLMainPic] Day-to-day record of battleship "Big Lizzie" in the Dardanelles; covering landings at W Beach, bombardments &c., with rolls of officers & awards & also Log of Trawler 448. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, a littled rubbed, VG. Rare. See illustration on our website.   £145
A Short History of the Revival of the Small Torpedo Boats (C.M.B.s) during the Great War & subsequently in The Kronstadt, Archangel & Caspian Sea Expeditions of 1919. Orig. dec. wraps., 44pp., 4to, approx. 4o photos., several sketches & plans, charts & maps (of operations named in the title). Printed by Vacher & Sons Ltd. for Thornycroft & Co. Ltd. March, 1920.  #67231
[HLMainPic] Typically handsome & finely illustrated work sponsored by the manufacturers of these Coastal Motor Boats, containing interesting accounts of their operations during the war & most notably in the Allied Intervention in north & south Russia during 1919, including the epic raid on Kronstadt harbour &c. Includes many finely produced photographs, sketches & plans of the craft involved, diagrams of the actions, together with a roll of the naval officers (RN, RNVR & RNR) appointed to the first twelve boats (& a named group photograph of these officers), lists of officers taking part in the Russian expeditions & of officers & ratings killed, wounded or taken prisoner during the Kronstadt raid. Attractive orig. card wraps., covers somewhat marked, staples rusting, generally VG, rare & well-illustrated record of these small vessels, their crews & operations.   £145

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