Stand To! No 94, the journal of The Western Front Association, is now being distributed to current subscribed members of the WFA.
Stand To! is published three times a year in Dec/Jan, April/May and Aug/Sept.
The Editor is always prepared to consider original articles for publication.
Below you will find the contents list. You can view a sample article from this edition with this link: sample article from Stand To! 94.
Front cover:
The cover image is a cartoon which was found in a scrapbook rescued from a pile of rubbish destined for a skip in Dublin. It came to light when the man who found and now owns it took it to an event at which members of the newly-inaugurated Dublin Branch were also in attendance. Dublin Branch Chairman Ian Chambers was able to look through the scrapbook whilst the unknown owner went lor a cup of tea. Inside were more than fifty drawings, cartoons, paintings, mottoes and autographs which Ian Chambers managed to photograph. Due to the frequent references to nurses and images of men in hospital 'blues', the other giveaway is the reference to Herne Bay Cottage Hospital - it is a good bet that the scrapbook belonged to a nurse or nurses - one nurse is named as Nurse Fraser - and that the drawings were done by grateful soldier 'patients' from a variety of British, Australian and Belgian units. There are many names included. Some of the drawings are very good indeed as are some of the humorous cartoons of which the cover image is an example. All this would have been lost forever had not Ian had the foresight to capture them for posterity. This particular cartoon was chosen due to its 'Piugstreet' location and because it resonated with the type of humour made famous by a sometime resident of that sector- one Bruce Bairnsfather by name - in addition to its strong flavour of the 'adverts' seen in such publications as The Wipers Times. That and the fact that the editor simply thought it was a 'gem'. Although not researched in any great detail - as he knows members and readers love a puzzle - the editor has established that the artist' - 9636 Corporal Austin Samuel Allen of the Royal Field Artillery - has the rank of Sergeant on his Medal Index Card and that he first went to France on 9 July 1915. The London Gazette of 7 September 1917 reveals that he was commissioned into the Special Reserve of Officers from an officer cadet unit as a Second Lieutenant on 5 August 1917. It appears that he survived the war. Readers are of course welcome to dig a little deeper next time they visit Kew!
Contents of Edition 94:
Communication Lines 2-3
‘A Cameron Can Never Yield': The 4th Cameron Highlanders at Festubert, 16-18 May 1915 4-8
From Snitterfield to Festubert, via British Columbia 9-10
‘It is a Gas-ly War' - The Diary of Major Swindell - Part 1 11-16
The Camera Returns (76) 17
The Incomparables? The Positive Existence of the ‘Learning Curve': The Case of the 29th Division 18-28
War Art - Private William Harold Hutchings (1885-1962) 29-32
Help at Hand: 1/7th Robin Hoods' Medical Team in the Great War 33-34
Re-reading Max Plowman and A Subaltern on the Somme: The Men and Officers of 10/West Yorkshire Regiment, 1916-1917 35-39
Commissions from the Ranks of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers during the Great War 40-47
Heroes on the Doorstep 48-49
Garrison Library 50-56
