Turner Donovan Military Books - The world’s finest selection of rare and out-of-print books on British military history from 1800 to 1945
  Stock last updated on 14 June 2025
 
   

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   883 Books
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Who's Who in the British War Mission to the United States of America 1917. Chairman Viscount Northcliffe. 1st Ed., 55pp., lge. fldg. chart. NY: Clode. 1917  #65166
[HLMainPic] Biogs. of members (many military officers &c.) & detailed guide to the objects of the Mission. VG with typed note "With Lord Northcliffes Compliments" on the headed notepaper of the Mission. See illustration on our website.   £35
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 Scholar's Letters from the Front: Written by Stephen H. Hewett, 2nd Lieut. in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. With an Intro. by F.F. Urquhart, Fellow of Balliol College. 1st Ed., xviii+114pp., portrait frontis. Longmans, Green & Co. 1918  #65733
[HLMainPic] Stephen Henry Philip Hewett was born in India in 1893 (his father was in the Indian Telegraph Service), educated at Downside & Balliol College, Oxford: completing his third year in 1914 he went to Savoy for the summer where he witnessed the French mobilization and made his way home, commissioned in 11th (S) Bn. Warwickshire Regiment, but kept back when the Battalion went overseas, he eventually joined the 14th Battalion – the First Birmingham City Battalion – at the Front in February 1916 & was KiA leading his platoon in an attack between High Wood and Delville Wood on 22nd July 1916. He was twenty-three & is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. The book consists of lengthy 'diary letters' to his mother together with those to his sisters and various friends, containing, inter alia, affectionate descriptions of characters such as one Latham, the company officers' cook, and his horror at the first casualty he encountered: "his young freckled face was horribly smashed in by a bullet… I was severely shaken; but one has to get callous both in mind and body, and one does: and an hour's sleep revived me." Orig. paper covd. boards & cloth backstrip with paper label, eps rather browned, somewhat rubbed/worn, generally VG. See illustration on our website.   £145
The Lead Swinger: The Bivouac Journal of the 1/3rd West Riding Field Ambulance. Vol. I, September to December 1915. Approx. 160pp., 4to, sketches &c. throughout. Sheffield: Northend Printers. 1916  #65475
[HLMainPic] The first six numbers (+ Christmas 1915 Supplement) of superior unit journal of 'trench newspaper' originally locally printed & circulated within the unit on the Western Front & here reproduced in volume form. The Editor's introduction explains: "The articles were written & the sketches drawn in the trenches, the dressing station or the field hospital." Two further volumes were published 1916-19 & reprinted in the same form as this (scarcer first volume) in 1921. Orig. printed boards with cloth backstrip, somewhat worn, about VG. See illustration on our website.   £90
The Path of Honour: Sgt. Basil T. Wilmer's Experiences in the Great War, 1914-1918. 1st Ed., 160pp., portrait frontis., 17 photos., plate of original battlefield grave, diagram, sketch map. Launceston, Tasmania: A.W. Birchall & Sons. 1919  #65462
[HLMainPic] Diary from enlisting in August 1914 in 11th Bn. AIF, 1st Australian Div., training then landing at Gallipoli where wounded on the first day; rejoined after a few weeks convalescence then proceeded to Western Front where he exchanged into the Australian Field Artillery & was KiA with 3rd Battery AFA near Zillebeke on 21st July 1917, & buried at Reninghelst. Rare & detakled diary containing much of interest. Orig. dec. paper covd. boards, sp. chipped, generally VG. See illustrations on our website.   £250
Memoir of Capt. Geoffrey Grenside Bowen, M.C., The Lancashire Fusiliers. 1st Ed., [iii]+121pp., portrait frontis., 2 photos., fldg. map. Printed by Richmond Hill Printing Works, Ltd., Bournemouth. nd [c.1919].  #65271
[HLMainPic] Ed. at Charterhouse 1909-13 & passed into Sandhurst. Commissioned August 1914, Lancashire Fusiliers & joined 3rd (SR) Bn. on the East Coast for a few weeks before being posted to the 2nd Bn. in France in Sept. Wounded 21/10/14 at Le Touquet, near Ploegsteert & returned to England. Back to the 2nd Bn. in Jan. 1915 & on Bde. staff during 2nd Ypres until evacuated with jaundice. On his recovery he was posted to the 19th (S) Bn. Lancashire Fusiliers as adjutant & accompanied them to France in November 1915, but returned to the 2nd Bn. in May 1916. He was wounded on 1/7/16 between Serre & Beaumont Hamel & invalided to England once more; returned in Nov. 1916 & was awarded MC & Mentioned in Despatches for work at Arras in the spring of 1917; later served during 3rd Ypres then attached 2/2nd Lovats Scouts in UK, Nov. 1917-April 1918. Rejoined 2nd Bn. & took part in the Final Advance. He was Killed in Action commanding "B" Coy. in an attack on the Drocourt-Queant Line on 2/9/18. "Granny" Bowen wrote most informative letters to members of his family as well as keeping a daily diary for longish periods. These documents largely make up this book & provide an extremely valuable record of the life of a regular infantry officer in all its facets from the daily routine to active operations, courses of instruction &c. Concludes with letters of condolence from regimental officers, describing his death & burial. Orig. red cloth. leather sp. label, sp. little rubbed & worn o/w VG & inscribed: "Evelyn Barron Christmas 1931. J.C.G. Bowen, Zo. W. Bowen." See illustrations on our website.   £225
The Letters of Mayo Lind. With an Introduction by J. Alex Robinson. 1st Ed., 175pp., frontis., 4 portraits, 5 other photos. inc. named group of Newfoundland Regt. soldiers &c. St. Johns, Newfoundland: Robinson & Co. Ltd. 1919  #68229
[HLMainPic] Letters & memoir of No. 541 Pte. Francis Thomas Lind (nicknamed Mayo Lind after a fundraising effort he organised) a Newfoundlander born in 1879 who enlisted in the Newfoundland Regiment in Sept. 1914, served in Gallipoli & France until KiA at Beaumont Hamel on 1/7/1916 & is buried in Y Ravine Cametery. Before the war Lind was engaged in trade but the war revealed latent journalistic ability & his letters, reproduced here but also contemporarily in the St. John's newspaper the 'Daily News', earned him the soubriquet "Newfoundland's First War Correspondent" due to their descriptive qualities. This worl contains letters from Dec. 1915-August 1915 in training & en route to Gallipoli, from the Dardanelles until Dec. 1915, hospital at Malta until March 1916 then in France from April 1916 until the day before his death in action at Beaumont Hamel. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, little wear, VG & rare. See illustrations on our website.   £225
Comforts for the Wounded in Our Hospitals. Written by the Staff of Fort Pitt Hospital. 1st Ed., orig. pictorial wraps., 36pp., approx. 20 photos. Charham, Mackay & Co. on Behalf of the Committee of the Comforts Fund, [Central Military Hospital, Fort Pitt, Chatham]. 1915  #68378
[HLMainPic] Illustrated record of work at this military hospital in Chatham, 1914-15, including Surgical Division, Operating Theatre, Radiant Heat & Massage Dept., Dispensary, &c. Orig. pictorial wraps., little chipped/rubbed, generally VG & scarce contemporary souvenir.   £60
The War Work of the G.E.C. 1st Ed., 83pp., 4to, photos. throughout. Published by the G.E.C. Publicity Organisation. nd (c.1920)  #67866
[HLMainPic] A high quality, profusely illustrated record of the war work of the General Electric Co. Ltd. at its factories in Birmingham, Kent, Coventry, &c., where shells, aerial bombs & many other warlike supplies were manufactured. Also contains a list of honours & awards gained by members of staff while on active service. Orig. blue cushioned morocco, gilt design & title to front, light rubbing to edges o/w VG with an oval stamp of a works library to front blank. See illustrations on our website.   £125
The Letters of Major Howard W. Beal, Headquarters First Division Medical Department, Killed in action July 18, 1918. 1st Ed., ix+75pp. Paris: J.R.E. Guild, Printer. 1926  #66036
[HLMainPic] Rare memorial, based on the letters he wrote to his wife, of a surgeon with the American Expeditionary Force, attached to the 6th Field Artillery regiment, describing his experiences in & out of the line until shortly before his death in action (when he, with some others, was killed by an aerial bomb). Also contains a short memoir of the subject. Printed in Paris in a private edition of 100 copies "for relatives & friends." Beal is buried in the American Cemetery at Suresnes. Rebound in good quality qtr. calf over brown cloth boards with black leather lettering label to sp. See illustrations on our website.   £120

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