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| Lieutenant Roger R.F. West, DSO |
For
those with only general knowledge of the events of World War I, here is an
on-the-scene memoir that will bring it alive. This
is an important book because it gives us one man’s story while placing him within
the conflict happening all around him. British-born Roger
West was of Anglo-German stock, with many German friends, but when the war
broke out he volunteered to serve with the British. Being an expert
motorcyclist, he was assigned as a despatch rider to the 19th Brigade in France,
which bore the brunt of the fighting in the first few weeks in 1914. Even while
in the heat of battle, he jotted events in his diary (Aug 4-Sept 18) and told of many hair-raising
experiences.
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| The bridge at Pontoise-lès-Noyon |
Historian Michael Carragher proposes that it was a seemingly
casual act by West that changed the course of the war. When West discovered that the bridge at Pontoise-lès-Noyon had
been left open to the German advance, he volunteered to ride back and blow it
up. This prevented the Germans from
crossing a key river and soundly defeating the French and British since, by
taking Paris, the Germans would have won the war in a matter
of weeks.
West’s diary entries are reproduced in full, with explanations by
Carragher that give a broader picture of how West’s experiences fit in with the
horrors occurring that same time. We learn how German armies poured through neutral Belgium in
their attempt to destroy the French military and sweep down to take Paris. Only
the tiny British Expeditionary Force got in the way, and their fighting has
achieved a mythical status for the endurance of British regulars in the face of
the ruthless might of the Germans who outnumbered them several times over.
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| British despatch rider |
West tells an absorbing story of how he moved around the battlefield
amid chaos and uncertainty and his account is full of atmosphere and detail. Even though he was crippled with a badly damaged foot, he
still rode around the clock, delivering dispatches and directing and assisting
soldiers separated from their units. The picture of an exhausted but determined young man, trundling
around the battlefield on a worn-out motorcycle, is gripping, thanks to West’s
vivid descriptions of those times.
After the
war West was awarded The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) the first decoration
awarded to the Intelligence Corps for his bold act that had saved Paris. In his
memoir, written later but based on his diary, West modestly states: “I was astonished when I heard the idea put
about that I had saved Paris… a gross if enthusiastic overstatement… but the
demolition of the bridge at Pontoise no doubt played some part in the outcome
of events.”
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| German Cavalry Patrol |
One moving incident haunted him all his life. While hiding beside
a road in France he saw a German patrol approaching. In his own words: “So here were 21 Cavalry, at 200 yards or
less; and myself prone in the long grass above them. I sighted on the leader
and then another and another. Eleven of them at least were sitting ducks, and
as good as dead, and maybe all 21 before they could reach any sort of cover. It
was my duty to kill them. Or was it? For once, in the impersonality of war, I
could see them close-to, as fellow men, such men as I had met and been friends
with at Bonn University before the war. The horses slopped along with heavy
feet, and the leader’s head was bowed on his chest from sheer exhaustion. So,
they had been having a hard time too. I squeezed the trigger lightly but not
enough to fire, and then crawled back down the embankment to my cycle. I tried
to rationalize it to myself - my rifle was full of dust and might have jammed;
I was probably unsteady and might have missed; but I knew in my heart I could
not have murdered those men.”
The book stays true to Roger West, showing how the tough time he
had in the war, and the loss of so many dear comrades, led to his lifelong suffering
from PTSD, then called shell shock. After the war was over he left England and moved
to British Columbia whose mountains calmed his spirit. In 1938 he moved with
his wife to California and became an advisor to Paramount Pictures, working on
many movies before ending his days in Carmel, aged 84.
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