E R M Fryer

Grenadier: the Recollections of an Officer of the Grenadier Guards throughout the Great War on the Western Front E R M Fryer

An account of the Front Line from the Guards Brigade

The Guards have always been known as 'The Gentlemen's Sons' and it seems that the author of this book was no exception. At work in 'the City' when war broke out and he managed initially to be elected to that other gentleman's club of the time-The Honourable Artillery Company. It was with the HAC that he went to the continent and saw action in the early engagements of the war before selection for cadet school and a commission. Upon returning to the Front, Fryer embarked on a wartime career that would keep him in action almost constantly throughout the hostilities and which he would report with nothing less than the casual savoir faire one would expect of him. Despite his style Fryer clearly saw hard campaigning at Givenchy, Loos, the Hohenzollern Redoubt, Ypres, the Somme and many other brutal and significant actions until the final offensives of 1918.