Some Desperate Glory: the Diary of a Young Officer, 1917 - Softcover

"This diary of a few months in the life of a young officer on the Western Front in 1917 deserves to rank close behind Graves, Owen, Sassoon, among the most brilliant and harrowing documents of that devastating period."--Max Hastings

'This diary of a few months in the life of a young officer on the Western Front in 1917 deserves to rank close behind Graves, Owen, Sassoon, among the most brilliant and harrowing documents of that devastating period.' Max HastingsSome Desperate Glory charts the progress of an enthusiastic and patriotic young officer who marched into battle with Palgrave's Golden Treasury in his pack. Intensely honest and revealing, his diary evokes the day-to-day minutiae of trench warfare: its constant dangers and mind-numbing routine interspersed with lyrical and sometimes comic interludes. Vividly capturing the spirit of the officers and men at the front, the diary grows in horror and disillusionment as Vaughan's company is drawn into the carnage of Passchendaele from which, of his original 'happy little band' of 90 men, only 15 survived. Edwin Stephen Campion Vaughan MC (1897-1931) served in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment on the Western Front during the Great War. He fought at Passchendaele during the Third Battle of Ypres and kept a vivid record of his experiences. Later in the war he served in Italy, then again on the Western Front. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1918.