250466 Lt. Ronald Spencer Searle British Army 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment from:The Hawthorns, Willenhall Park, New Barnet, Hertfordshire My father, Ronald Searle joined the OTC at University College, London, when a student, and was assigned to the Artists Rifles when in training, and then to the 10th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was sent to France on 24th of September 1917. He was wounded by shrapnel in the shoulder on 29th of March 1918 at Bapaume and invalided back to England, returning to France in November 1918 and finally being discharged from the Army in April 1919 with the rank of Lieutenant.
My father never spoke of what happened to him during his war service except to say that there could be no God if such things were allowed to take place. As he had been brought up in a very deeply religious Methodist family, one that had produced a number of Methodist ministers, his complete loss of any religious faith was clearly the direct result of World War One. His experiences during Operation Michael at Bapaume in March 1918 must have been horrific, especially considering that he was then only 19 years old.
When in hospital at the end of his life in 1986 my father believed himself to be back in wartime France, and kept saying that the boys shouldn't keep being moved around. His wartime memories must therefore have remained vivid, even though during his life after World War One he managed to suppress them.
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