Ch. 1 Landing at Havre

humor

Bullets & Billets

by Bruce BAIRNSFATHER (1887 - 1959)

A front-line view of life in the trenches of the Western Front in the early part of 1914-1915. Told by Lieutenant (later Captain) Bruce Bairnsfather, cartoonist, whose Alf, Bert, and Old Bill were forerunners to Bill Mauldin and his Willie and Joe in World War II. This volume traces Bairnsfather's service as a machine gun officer from its inception until he was removed from the battlefield by the intense shelling during the Second Battle of Ypres (April 1915). It is told with a wry, ironic, grim humor often possessed by those who have endured shells, bullets, floods, mud, bully beef, maconochie, and a surfeit of plum and apple jam. His participation in the unofficial Christmas Truce of 1914 (for which he was investigated in view of a court-martial) is documented as well as the horrors of war at close quarters. (Summary by Dr. P. Gould)

Listen next episodes of Bullets & Billets:
Ch. 10 My Partial Escape from the Mud , Ch. 11 Stocktaking , Ch. 12 A Brain Wave , Ch. 13 Robinson Crusoe , Ch. 14 The Amphibians , Ch. 15 Arrival of the 'Johnsons' , Ch. 16 New Trenches , Ch. 17 Wulverghem , Ch. 18 The Painter and the Decorator , Ch. 19 Visions of Leave , Ch. 2 Tortuous Travelling , Ch. 20 That Leave Train , Ch. 21 Back from Leave , Ch. 22 A Daylight Stalk , Ch. 23 Our Moated Farm , Ch. 24 That Ration Fatigue , Ch. 25 Getting Stale , Ch. 26 A Pleasant Change , Ch. 27 Getting Fit , Ch. 28 We March for Ypres , Ch. 29 Getting Nearer , Ch. 3 Those Plugstreet Trenches , Ch. 30 Rain and Mud , Ch. 31 Slowly Recovering , Ch. 4 More Mud , Ch. 5 My Man Friday , Ch. 6 The Transport Farm , Ch. 7 A Projected Attack , Ch. 8 Christmas Eve , Ch. 9 Souvenirs