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FROM THE CONTEMPORARY LOCAL NEWSPAPERS OF NORTH BUCKS (BUCKS STANDARD, NORTH BUCKS TIMES, WOLVERTON EXPRESS)
With today’s internet a wealth of official information is available regarding those who served.
In an age before local radio and television, families often allowed letters to be published in the local press from their loved ones on active service.
However, for their descendants the letters reveal a more personal aspect, graphically describing the experience of the people and providing an insight into their personalities.

W.E. 1917 Feb. 23rd

A parishioner has received the following letter from her brother;

“African Steam Ship Co., R.M.S. “Uborso,” Feb. 8. 1917. - At Sea. - I expect that you have heard of my being sunk by a German submarine. I have had a fearful time of it, but am all right now except for a little stiffness in the feet. We were sunk by shell fire, January 10th, and I sailed in a small boat 200 miles before being rescued by hospitable ship, Jan. 15, and landed Jan. 21 at Dakar, French West Africa. It was a terrible experience. I have some photographs that were taken from the ship of us in the boat when coming alongside. I think that someone must offer up a prayer for me, for if we had not been rescued by that ship we must all have died in 24 hours. I had a fearful time trying to control the crew the last night in the boat, for some of them went mad. … I suppose I will be at sea again before long, for it would be a queer German that would scare me.”


W.E. 1918 Aug. 2nd

Mr. John Knapp, J.P., of Linford Hall, yesterday received news from the War Office that his younger brother, Captain Alured Knapp, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, has been admitted to the Second Red Cross Hospital at Rouen. He is suffering from a severe gun shot wound above the right knee, sustained in the heavy fighting in France on July 29th. When the regiment went into action he was second in command, but when the colonel was killed he assumed command for 2½ hours before being wounded. The officer who then took command was subsequently killed. He is the fourth and youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Knapp, late of Linford Hall, and having been in the Army before the war, saw service in Nigeria against the German forces. From there he went to Palestine, and was present at the fall of Jerusalem. He has been in France for only a short time.

(Educated at Radley College, the third son of the late Mr. Knapp, of Little Linford Hall, Lieutenant Arthur Knapp, of the Nyassaland Field Force, had died of enteric on Sunday, May 27th, 1917, whilst on active service in East Africa. He was aged 40, and prior to the war had been engaged for 15 years in cotton planting in Nyassaland. He took a commission in the Nigerian Field Force at the outbreak of hostilities, acting as assistant transport officer, and more recently had been recruiting native carriers for the British Forces in German East Africa.)


ALSO AVAILABLE IN BOOK FORM AS ‘LETTERS FROM THE FIRST WORLD WAR’ FROM WWW. LULU.COM,
PRODUCED WITH THE INVALUABLE EXPERTISE OF ALAN KAY & ZENA DAN.