Royal Army Chaplain's Department battle school cartoon

[thorne83]

Hi all,

here is a cartoon booklet picked up by my grandpa, after attending the battle school for chaplains, prior to going over to Normandy. Here is a brief bit of background, taken from Chaplains at War by Alan Robinson.

"The battle school for chaplains was established at Church Stowe in Northamptonshire. Around two hundred chaplains of all denominations, including Catholics, undertook the course in February and March of 1944. Additional topics included mine lifting, digging slit trenches, identifying battle sounds to distinguish between rounds passing close by and the general noise of battle, a night navigation exercise, evacuating wounded soldiers and a rigorous assault course. The assault course included crawling under barbed wire with machine guns firing overhead, jumping into a stream and crawling along trenches.

Unfortunately one chaplain, Rev. Geoffrey L. Treglown, was blinded and had his hand blown off when he used his helmet to smother a stick of explosive that fell in front of him.

Any chaplain failing the course would be posted to bases and lines of communication rather than the front line".


Cheers, Tom

[Jerry B]

Very nice Tom, not one I had seen before and probably quite a rare one I would think.