Item RDM/1/5 - South Africa and East Africa

No 59. 6 pp. ND (February 1917) No 60. 8 pp. 17 March 1917 No 61. 3 pp. 29 March 1917 No 62. 6 pp. 13 April 1917 No 63. 8 pp. 4 May 1917 No 64. 4 pp. 17 May 1917 No 65. 1 p. 19 May 1917 No 66. 2 pp. 4 July 1917 No 67. 2 pp. 4 July 1917 No 68. 1 p. 12 July 1917 No 69. 1 p. 19 July 1917 No 70. 1 p. 25 July 1917 No 71. 4 pp. 12 August 1917 No 72. 1 p. 26 August 1917 No 73. 2 pp. 5 October 1917 No 74. 2 pp. 25 October 1917 No 75. 3 pp. 15 November 1917 No 76. 14 pp. 1 January 1918 No 77. 4 pp. 6 January 1918 Writing during the troopship voyage to South Africa, Mountfort reflects on his year's service in France and concludes: If the hardships had not been mitigated by the society of real good fellows, many of whom I am glad to think will be my friends in after life - "though some are fallen asleep" - I honestly don't know if I could have endured them, though I suppose I could (No 59). On his arrival in South Africa he was posted to the 25th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers - the "Frontiersmen" - who had been serving with the East African Expeditionary Force, but were now doing garrison duties while they were being brought back up to strength. The local people looked after them very well since, writes Mountfort, "out here a private soldier is assumed to be as likely as not a gentleman" (29 March), but the garrison duties at Wynberg and Cape Town Castle brought in their wake "the increase in discipline and strict attention to all the piffling little trifles that constitute three fourths of the evils of army life" (13 April). He sought consolation in the fact that ". until the end of the war Africa seems to be a much more desirable spot than Europe" (4 May). The 25th Royal Fusiliers eventually returned to active service in East Africa in July 1917 and Mountfort's first impressions of his new theatre of operations were far from favourable. "This coast is a fever-stricken hole.. however I pump quinine into myself and keep smiling" (4 July). The climate proved as much of an adversary as the Germans and August found Mountfort in a comfortable base hospital at Dar-es-Salaam recovering from a bout of dysentry. At the end of the month he was back at Lindi waiting to go up the line and, by the time of his next letter (5 October), he was ". well out in the bush and life is not exactly a continuous whirl of pleasure." A stiff action with the Germans and the ravages of the "horrible, infernal climate" made serious inroads into the Battalion's strength and by November Mountfort, mentally and physically exhausted, was burdened by the onerous responsibilities of being acting CQMS. The final two letters were written from a hospital in Durban, where he was convalescing after an attack of fever. Out of 200 men in his Company, only seventeen had been able to march into the camp at Lindi at the beginning of December after their operations in the bush. On a brighter note, Mountfort gives an entertaining description of some of the troops with whom the 25th Royal Fusiliers had served in East Africa and an amusing account, of a "surprise" landing up the Lukuledi River carried out by the 'Silent Navy.'

Imperial War Museum Department of Documents >> R D Mountfort

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https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/4aa61cce-7ac1-41ed-a25e-f145cc67fe4b

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