Like many teenage boys, John Richard (Jack) Green joined the rush to war in August 1914. Unlike many others, he returned four-and-a-half years later. Jack's initial ambition to be a gunner was thwarted by his lack of height. Instead Jack drove a gun limber, supplying the front with ammunition, a fortunate choice for the son of a Hansom cab proprietor who had grown up with horses. Jack went on to see action in Ypres, Poperinghe, the Somme. He survived injury, underwent court-martial, and endured field punishment for making a horse bleed when retreating under fire. By 1916 Jack's patriotic fervour is replaced by disillusion and a fierce comradeship: 'we volunteers - had lost faith in our Generals who we never saw - and only lived for our pals and horses'. In 1919 Jack is greeted not with a hero's welcome, but with a grudging offer of his old job back for a reduced wage. A hundred years on Jack's story provides a unique insight into an ordinary soldier's war, of his transformation from innocence through experience, from unquestioning patriot to staunch trade unionist, from boy to man.
- ISBN13 9781781322451
- Publish Date 4 August 2014
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 March 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint SilverWood Books Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 100
- Language English