BRIDGES, Lieutenant-General Sir Tom

Alarms & Excursions. Reminiscences of a Soldier [1892-1937]. With a Foreword by The Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill ...

London, Longmans Green and Co., 1938.

Octavo, x, 361, [1] (colophon) pages plus a frontispiece portrait.

Cloth a little bumped at the extremities; inner hinge cracked at the half-title (but the binding is sound); top edge dyed maroon, others a little marked; a very good copy with the good unclipped dustwrapper (chipped and marked, with some loss to silverfish to the rear panel and hinge of the rear flap).

Sir George Tom Molesworth Bridges (1871-1939), 'lieutenant-general and governor ... spent his early service in India and Nyasaland. In the South African War for a few months in 1901 he commanded the 5th and 6th Western Australian (Mounted Infantry) Contingents ... He lost a leg at Passchendaele and subsequently led two war missions overseas ... In 1922, at the instigation of his friend and admirer (Sir) Winston Churchill, Sir Tom accepted appointment as governor of South Australia' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). The three-page introduction by Churchill is dated 31 January 1938: 'We soldiered together in Dundonald's Brigade during the relief of Ladysmith, and ever since I have preserved a lively friendship and admiration for him'. He goes on to explain that he was 'indignant when General Plumer, the Army Commander, refused to allow me as Minister of Munitions to be with Bridges on that day' when he was struck down by a high-explosive shell at Passchendaele; 'but when I learned what happened to him, I was by no means sure that I had much ground for complaint'.

Item #127284

Price (AUD): $250.00
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