DIARY OF 1917

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 87, 6 January 1940, Page 15

DIARY OF 1917

New Zealand Soldier’s Experiences “Camps, Tramps and Trenches,” by Eric Miller (Dunedin: Reed). This is a faithful record in diary form of a New Zealand soldier’s experiences during the year 1917. The tale begins at Featherston camp on the eve of departure for service overseas. The two-month voyage to England, aboard the Waitemata, with stoppages in Australia and Africa, is described in detail. A iSling camp episode follows and the scene then changes to France, the writer being a sapper and dispatch runner with the 3rd Field -Company, New Zealand Engineers. There are vivid descriptions of life in the Ploegsteert and Ypres sectors and at Passchendaele, and the daily additions to the narrative never fail to interest. The diary was not written with a view to publication and consequently it shows no trace of the self-consciousness and striving for effect which might perhaps otherwise have crept into it. It is a straightforward account -by a young man with a capacity for looking on the bright side of things. Those of another generation who are now setting out on a similar adventure as well as those who slurred the author’s experiences will find in the book a great deal to interest them. An appreciative foreword is provided by Major-General Sir Andrew Russell.