Interview with L.J. Ounsworth, Royal Artillery (part 5)

Fifth part of six sections of a recording of a long interview with L.J. Ounsworth, Royal Artillery (interviewer unknown), continues directly from the fourth part. Length 45 mins approx, includes: the appalling conditions at North Command Depot Royal Artillery at Ripon, which provoked a successful mutiny over rations. After refusing to eat, a Captain P.W.M. Bate arranges for another better meal to be prepared and served to the men. Conditions are so poor that Ounsworth does all he can to get posted back to active service, eventually ending up in the 144th Heavy Battery in France. He describes in detail the football games he plays in for his battery in Britain - nine of the eleven players were English or Scottish League professional footballers. On arrival at Le Havre he endures the terrible conditions of the bullring there (a sort of assault course [at Etaples?]) He witnesses a mutiny in May 1917, but does not know what happened to those involved. He reaches his battery on the day of the start of the battle of Messines, 7 or 8 June 1917. He descibes coming under bombardment with gas shells, as well as the technicalities of other ordinance. Continues directly into the sixth part.