James Sansom: June 3rd 1918 We have left Le Titre and after various moves and marchings, arrived at Villers Sir Simon, another village where I and several more have the good fortune to be billeted in a farm. We get a good many raids here also.

June 30th 1918 After several weeks here at Villers Sir Simon, we move again to Givenchy.

[After two and a half years in the heat and dust of Egypt and Palestine, stretcher bearer and Portland quarryman James Sansom of 230 Field Ambulance has arrived in the Pas-de-Calais waiting to go in the line for the first time in France]

Daily Telegraph: New York, Wednesday 6 June 1918

The tales of suffering and heroism by crews and passengers off the Atlantic coast are bringing home to the American people a fuller realisation of what has been taking place off your coast in the past four years

Daily Telegraph 6 June 1918

Indiscreet Joy

Federal Secret Service agents last night raided several New York clubs, patronised almost entirely by Germans, and broke up gatherings of Germans who were joyously celebrating the operations of the U-boats

Olive’s diary June 6th 1918:

A full ward again with some nice men this time. Hewitt very badly hurt. He told Florence he always liked the days I go. Buckley said I was the first one to speak when he arrived and that when I laid my hand on him he felt at home at once.

[Beaucroft was one of 3000 auxiliary hospitals run by 90,000 Red Cross volunteers in WW1. Buildings ranged from town halls and schools to large and small private houses. Soldiers preferred auxiliary hospitals because they were not so strict, less crowded and more homely]

June 6th 1918 Field of hay carried. Went to Mrs Bartlett about donkey for Lorna. Enemy at the Marne but “held firmly” there. U-boats on American coast - Stirs them up

June 8th 1918 Came here fortnight today [near Chideock] Watched an air-ship pass close, Lorna waved to it. It hung over Bay all PM. Sea planes came up from both sides, also destroyers, great firing about 11pm. Did they get a U-boat? I think so

Sometimes we can use an account of an event recorded in a diary and do more research to build a fuller picture of what happened.

On June 8th 1918 Lady Mary Monkswell witnesses an attack on a U-Boat - a rare thing for anybody to have seen.

She writes “Came here fortnight today [Chideock] Watched an air-ship pass close, Lorna waved to it. It hung over Bay all PM. Sea planes came up from both sides, also destroyers, Great firing about 11pm. Did they get a U-boat? I think so.”

We know that something happened in the sea off Chideock but what exactly? If we look at records of U-boat losses and U-boat sinkings in Lyme Bay we can see a fuller picture.

15/6/18 Ltr from Alfred Johnson to wife Essie:

I have had a letter to say I have been promoted to First Class, which means I get £300 a year, or £24 per month. There will be another soon as I am now a full Lieutenant. Reading The Egoist by George Meredith (1879)

18.6.1918 - advert in today's paper

anonymous letter postmarked Edinburgh to "Dr Marie Stopes" about my book Married love :

I mean it in no profane way when I say that you have “proclaimed liberty to the captives.” Yours faithfully, a bride-to-be

Letter to Marie Stopes:

Great Southern Hotel, Parknasilla on Sea, Co Kerry 24th Sept 1917

Dottissima Short of rewriting this play, [The Race or Ernest’s Immorality, a play in three acts] I can do no more with it than cut 20 pages just to show you how you should cut the rest.

You haven’t used your brains on it one bit. Would you find me very interesting if I had nothing more to say than “dowdy frocks, fiendish ideas, blue stockings and spectacles” and such like reach-me-downs?

You think you can make a motor bicycle by tying a second hand tool bag on an old poker and hanging a few worn out ribbons on it; but you can’t.

ever GBS

June 22 1918 Lieut Alfred Forbes Johnson to his wife Essie:

If you are not for OP [observation point] you are on night duty or taking the early morning parade at 7 o’clock, or starting an aeroplane shoot at 5 am. I seem to get about one full night a week in bed

Reading: 'The Amateur Gentleman', John Jeffery Farnol, (1916)

24th June 1918 Letter from Alfred Forbes Johnson to his wife Effie:

As to the books I know I should not look a gift horse in the mouth, but really are you trying to get rid of the rubbish off the shelves?

June 30 1918 Letter from Alfred Johnson to his wife Effie:

Reading: Edmond de Goncourt. I generally manage to read a book every time I am at the O.P. [Observation Post] as there are generally many hours in the early part of the day when it is too hazy to see anything