68377: 'Undertones of War', Annotated 1st Edition

Page 220 of 'XXI: The Crash of Pillars' section from a first edition of 'Undertones of War' (1928). This section describes Ypres and the battle at Passchendaele where Edmund Blunden was stationed with the 11th Royal Sussex between December 1916 and December 1917. The volume was written, apart from the help of a few maps, entirely from memory while Blunden was teaching in Tokyo between 1924 and 1927. Annotations in Blunden's hand added later at an unknown date. He draws a diagram of headquarters, and writes, 'The H. Q. was, as H. J. White tells me, a pillbox with an inner apartment. The shell entered the narrow doorway at the moment when the staff of another H. Q. were relieving the 13th. The officers were in the little sideroom. One was blinded with a splinter. There was not much noise. The men in the large apartment were almost all killed, more by concussion than wounds'.