Copyright Notice:
The diary of Frederick Pendall is reproduced here with kind permission of the Heirs to the estate of Frederick Pendall. They have given limited approval for the diary to be reproduced in whole or in part for personal and non-commercial use provided this notice is included. Their permission must be obtained prior to its use for commercial purposes.
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Introduction.
Frederick Pendall
PTE 26695 Norfolk Regiment 1916-1919
The diary is a small notepad some 4x3 inches in size with maximum use made of the available space. Some pages are missing and some rendered unintelligible by age and wear. It contains the experiences of one member of the Norfolk regiment.
If you are looking for for a graphic account of trench warfare then you will find this diary disappointing, for a combination of ill health and sheer luck kept the author away from the conflicts that cost so many members of the Norfolks their lives. It does however give a good account of the mechanics of service life in World War One and an insight into local conditions as Frederick travels to India via Africa and then returns to England via Egypt, Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, Italy and France.
Thanks are due to Maurice Cotton of Cople, Bedfordshire whose assistance in deciphering the original document is gratefully acknowledged. Its content is reproduced as faithfully as possible with the exception of some small format changes to make it more readable in HTML format.and place the events in chronological order as the original pages are sometimes not in date order.
The initial pages appear to be missing and the first readable pages find Frederick on board ship somewhere on the coast of Africa in the final days of 1916..