1914-1918 War Recollections of Private Donald William Lechte. No. 848 - 13 Platoon, D. Company, 22nd Battalion A.I.F
[No Place, No Publisher, circa 1973].
Quarto, [iii], 16 leaves of duplicate typescript (printed rectos only) plus 4 tipped-in photographs (copy prints). There are numerous corrections (of fact and orthography) typed over correction fluid, with two brief additions in the lower margins.
Stapled overlapping card covers with a paper title-label; covers a little creased and marked; pencilled ownership signature on the front cover ('R. East'); a very good copy.
A short unpublished memoir of Gallipoli and the Western Front. 848 Private Donald William Lechte enlisted on 15 February 1915 at the age of nineteen, and composed this memoir around 1973. 'I will try to describe in some detail my experiences on Gallipoli & in France to the hell of Pozières. Otherwise I will leave out the gruesome parts, for I dont [sic] think any description I can give can convey to anybody who did not actually see it ... what war is really like - especially what is known as trench warfare' (page 1). Despite this announcement, Lechte pulls no punches in his description of his experience of fighting at Pozières: '... there was a corporal Vial next to me almost touching my right shoulder & a shell hit him fair in the face took his head off & exploded just behind him & blew the rest of him to pieces all over me. I got two shrapnel in the right shoulderbut [sic] they went through my haversack & didn't go far in. I struggled on & got to where the front was supposed to be ready for the hopover. By this time there was very few of the company left. As we were waiting a shell exploded right in front of me; amazingly I didn't get any steel, but the concussion hit me in the chest & mainly left shoulder, split my throat open & caused my lungs to bleed' (page 10).
Item #129538
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