208105 Lt. Ralph Lindsay Christie MIDBritish Army 9th Btn. Yorkshire Regiment from:Durie Leven, Fife My father fought in the First World War with the Yorks. We have all of his letters from the trenches and I know of several fascinating stories of his period in the front line including going over the top, incomings striking his dugout when they were saved by a cat which acted as a direction finder for howitzers, going forward into machine gun fire which took out hundreds in minutes, sheltering in shell holes, sitting the Lewis gun, comrades being killed alongside and so forth. He contracted amoebic dysentery from the Indian troops and had to be invalided out spending time in a British military hospital in Italy and requiring a lengthy prescription of emetine with unpleasant consequences. I came across your website while attempting to find out more about the regiments service in Flanders - at least I suppose in Flanders - you will understand that his letters could not reveal his whereabouts. He was mentioned in dispatches and we have his citation with Churchills signature.
I should add that the history of my father's association with the Yorks is somewhat drole - his eyesight was poor and such Scottish regiments as he approached would not accept him as a frontline soldier hence his application to the 9th Yorks. The eye test consisted of reading letters from a board at a standard distance; a sergeant read them out for him and he was in. He called it the British Expeditionary Force and explains that they were poor fellows 'keen as mustard'.
|