Private Fred and the Great War

This is the wartime diary of 492499 Private Fred Fish, of 60th Division 2/13th London Regiment (2nd Kensingtons) and 179 Light Trench Mortar Battery. Joining the war in June 1916 at the age of 19, Fred served in three theatres of World War I - in France on the Western Front, in Greece on the Macedonian Front, and in Palestine in the Battle of Jerusalem - before being shipped home from Egypt with malaria in October 1918. Fred's daily observations, illustrated with contemporary photographs (including many of Fred) and contextualised with excerpts from the Battalion's official War Diaries, offer a window onto the experiences of an ordinary soldier in the Great War: back-breaking work punctuated with moments of poignancy, comedy and terror.