First World War Poetry Digital Archive

Photograph of artillery column and train, from effects of James Ryan

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Title
Photograph of artillery column and train, from effects of James Ryan
Author
Ryan, James
Notes
James Ryan was 6ft tall and looked older which was why he was accepted as a volunteer at just 16 years of age.
He joined the Royal Field Artillery as a Gunner (service no. 1385) and was mobilised on the 4th August 1914 from Southampton to Alexandria. He travelled to Cairo, Ismailia, Kantarah, Albania, Port Said and into Turkey, fighting in Gallipoli and the Dardanelles with the '1st/1st Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 1/4th East Lancs. Battery, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force' (i.e. 213th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 42nd Division). Then eventually back to Alexandria, Cairo, Alexandria, Dardenelles, Cairo, Suez, Moses Well to Cairo. During this period he was hospitalised several times with slight knee injury from splinters from a shell burst, several severe attacks of dysentery and was seriously ill with jaundice which keep him in hospital for several weeks. He sailed to Cyprus to a Hospital in Limassol.
He was sent home to England at some point to his parents and young sister Edna, my mother- who will be 96 years old this July and remembers and still grieves for her brother ˜jim-jim'. A gap here in information, but he returned to action and fought in France and Belgium. He states in the attached letter that there isn't a bullet with his name on, which proved correct when Jim was killed by Mustard Gas on 30th September 1917 at the 3rd battle of Passchendale on the Menin Road (serving with 'B' Battery, 210th Brigade Royal Field Artillery, 42nd Division, as Acting Bombadier, no. 705469), and taken to the Mendingham dressing station. He is buried at the Mendingham cemetery where his headstone shows his age as 22yrs old which is incorrect as he had lied about his age when he volunteered.
Item date
1914 - 1916
Creation place
Eastern Mediterranean
Item source
Photograph
Item medium
Photographic paper
Content
Photograph
Cataloguer
Richard Marshall
Filename
GWA_5292_WA-JR-022.jpg
Copyright
The Great War Archive, University of Oxford / Primary Contributor
Digital repository
The Great War Archive, University of Oxford
Contributor name
simon green
Contributed on the behalf of
Joan Green from Cheltenam England

Citation

“Photograph of artillery column and train, from effects of James Ryan,” by Ryan, James. The Great War Archive, University of Oxford / Primary Contributor via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed April 23, 2024, http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/item/6260.

Permitted Use

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