A Gunner's Great War

If the First World War had not happened when it did, Channel Islander Clarence Ahier would almost certainly have led a mostly unremarkable life. But it did, and in October 1915, aged just 23-years-old, Clarence left his home and volunteered to join the British Army. He would spend the next two and half years serving as an artilleryman on the Western Front.

Now this in itself is not remarkable - millions of other young men did the same thing. But Clarence Ahier did do something remarkable, and it was something to set him out from almost all his contemporaries. From the very beginning of his time at the front, he wrote a graphic and moving account of his experiences of war.

Clarence's ultimate plans for his meticulously written journal are unknown. But having lain unnoticed for years, it was recently discovered in a collection of dusty ephemera handed to a local history society.

The complete journal consists of around 25,000 words, with a focus on Clarence's experience during the Battle of the Somme, in the fighting around Ypres, and, after he was wounded for the second time, the journey to India and his time there as a member of the garrison. This will be supported by additional explanatory text.

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Some books that may interest you

The Battle for France By: Philip Warner	Hull at War 1939-45 By: David Bilton, Malcolm K Mann	Big Gun Battles By: Robert C Stern
Posters of World War 2: Allied and Axis Propoganda 1939-1945 By: Peter Darman	German Bombers Over England By: Manfred Griehl	The Tanks of Operation Barbarossa By: Boris Kavalerchik
The First Day on the Somme By: Martin Middlebrook	Comet! The World's First Jet Airliner By: Graham Simons	Aisne 1914 By: Jerry Murland