Remembrance Day: Letters from World War 1
A Dewsbury woman feels like 'she's found a pot of gold' after discovering letters from her great uncle during world war 1
A Dewsbury woman feels like 'she's found a pot of gold' after discovering letters from her great uncle during world war 1.
Jo Fox found 10 letters, but believes there are many more that are lost. She tells us there's an 18 month gap during 1917.
Fred wrote the letters to his sister Annie throughout the war, from January 1915 through to August 1918.
Fred was sadly killed in action on 27 September, 1918, leaving behind his wife and two young daughters Doris and Elsie.
Fred's battalion were awarded the French "Croix de Guerre" for their efforts in the 2nd Battle of Marne.
Jo said:
"The letters are interesting because they don't talk about the actual war, and that's for many reasons, one is that the letters were censored.
"It's a little piece of history that we otherwise wouldn't know, they can easily get lost."
Fred talks about many things in the letters, we asked Jo to read one of her favourite passages:
"We were so near the Germans that we were talking to them, they're as fed up as we are. We were even snowballing each other, we were just 20 yards away, we had a lot of fun with them.
"He talks about friendly snowball fights, everybody is aware of the Christmas day truce and the football match, but this was in March, and he actually states the Germans are a lot of fun, they're a lot like us, they're fed up too."
Jo hopes her story will inspire other people to learn about the sacrifices their family members made during the war, she continued:
"I felt it was my duty to find out exactly what Fred did and to tell his tale, which is why I've put it into a book.
"He was reassuring his sister he was ok, when you read between the lines, you can tell he's not, but sort of pretending everything is ok, so they didn't give much away in terms of what battles they were in and where the fighting was."
She's now published the letters in a book called 'Fred's Letters', saying she has a duty to share his story and inspire others to learn about their family member's sacrifices during the war.