Dr Alastair Massie presents the Crimean War campaign journal of Captain Mark Walker.
Campaign Journal from the Crimean War (video)
Transcript
Voiceover:
Now, in "A small piece of history", Dr Alastair Massie of the National Army Museum presents a favourite object from the Collection.
Dr Alastair Massie:
This is the Crimean War campaign journal of Captain Mark Walker, who won the Victoria Cross for gallantry at the Battle of Inkerman in November 1854.
And the page we have it open at here is for 9 June 1855 when he was, as he describes, hurrying men along a trench (they were besieging the Russians at Sebastopol) when a shell exploded by his right elbow shattering it.
He was taken back to the field hospital and put under chloroform and when he woke up his right arm had been amputated above the elbow.
It shows much for the character of the man that he's operated upon, has his arm cut off, and yet straight away he's writing with the left hand into his journal. Certainly they made them tough in those days.
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