CULTURAL HERITAGE,HISTORY,SOCIAL HISTORY
For a Spandau machine gun, sent from Walter Tull to his brother Edward Tull-Warnock in a letter from the Front 10th August, 1917.
Walter Tull won the Charity Winner's Medal early (September 1909) in his first season with Tottenham Hotspur. He signed for Spurs on 20th July, and then seemed to have played preseason cricket for the team. His signing on fee was £10, and he was then paid £4 a week as a player.
The uniform belonged to 2nd Lieutenant Thomas William Deeves MC, who served in the 16th (Public School) Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment. Deeves received the Military Cross with bar (basically: two military crosses!) for his gallantry on two separate occasions on the 20th and 30th of November 1917. On the 30th he was so badly injured by airplane machine gun fire that he was left for dead in a farmhouse; two days later, as he was taken away to be buried, someone checked his pulse and found he was still - barely - alive. After several days on a No Hope Ward in a military hospital, doctors began to treat him. Two and a half years later, after over 30 operations, he requested to have his left arm amputated. The red triangles on his uniform sleeves are wound stripes, showing that he had previously been injured. Walter would have worn a similar jacket as he was on active service in the 17th and 23rd Middlesex Regiments. Walter took part in a football tournament between the Sportsmen’s and Public Schools’ Battalions whilst training in July 1915. Deeves was also training in the same camps as Walter. They were at Perham Down in summer and autumn 1915. Deeves left Folkestone for Boulogne on 17 November 1915 and Walter on 18, the day after. They were also in the same Battalion at the same time: Walter was in the 5th Battalion between 30 May and 4 August 1917 and Deeves joins the 5th Battalion (a reserve officer’s Battalion before being posted to the Front) on 27 June 1917 after recuperating from a shrapnel wound.
The letter from the Front is dated 10th August 1917, and was sent to his brother Edward Tull-Warnock. The Mark note and the Ammunition box top were included in the letter, and were picked up during Walter's foray into No-Man's-Land, as described in the letter. The title of Phil Vasili's biography of Walter, All the guns in France couldn't wake me, comes from a section in the letter where Walter is describing just how exhausted he is, after his days at the Front.
Sent from the Front by Walter Tull, included in his letter to his brother Edward Tull-Warnock 10th August, 1917.