Source: File: Photograph of 1/22nd
Battalion London Regiment (The Queen’s), 1916. [online] See an original image at: <https://trinityremembers.wordpress.com/their-stories-3/>
[Accessed: 26 May 2016]
Up to the day in
August 1914,
Unrelated men had
undertaken
Daily tasks in
the city.
Bankers and
stockbrokers
Annually, making
thousands
Of pounds a year.
Others were men
of Fleet Street,
Daily reporting
news of empire
To outbreak of
war.
One day that
changed fortune
Saw such men take
to route
To join a king's
call.
Months of
training turned these
Civilian men into
eager soldiers
For a London
regiment.
One innocuous day
on the front,
A non-specific
London regiment
Came under attack.
On this regiment's
section was
A German decision
to send some
50,000 shells
Over fifty
minutes the bombarding
Bombs made a wreck
of trenches
Wire, swept like
'chaff'.
The held line was
starting to thin,
As London
soldiers were wounded
And killed by
blasts.
A last bomb burst
and the Germans
Readied to invade
a space, where
Surely no one
lived.
Still in cautious
stealth, they began
To walk though
the cordite haze,
When they came to
halt.
Ahead on the
parapets, stood men
Of London with their
bayonets fixed -
Goading their approach.
Not so many yards
separated
Opposites - 'Come
on Fritz!' went
The English shout.
Declining the
invite, the Germans
Turned under a
hail of thousands
Of retaliating
bullets.
Back to their
trenches they ran -
Survivors leaving
casualties
In their wake.
Learning of his
London regiment,
Their Brigadier
General then sent
Warmest
congratulations.
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1916.
London Regiment's Bravery. The Daily
Telegraph, [online] 19 May 1916.
P.10. Col.1. Available at:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12210234/Daily-Telegraph-May-23-1916.html> [Accessed: 26 May 2016].
Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie
Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 26 May 2016).
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