Men of Letters: The Post Office Heroes Who Fought the Great War

by Duncan Barrett

Stories of the lives and losses of the Post Office Rifles in World War I—men who came from all ranks and walks of life, brought together by their common pre-war employment as Post Office workers When World War I broke out, the post office was the biggest employer in the world. Spanning many ranks and walks of life, 12,000 men fought bravely with the Post Office Rifles. By the war’s end, 1,800 of them had been killed. Those same men who not long before had been sorting and delivering mail, found themselves hoping their own letters would get through to their loved ones at home, and relying on the letters and parcels sent to them for their own much needed morale-boosts. Using the personal stories and letters of the men who joined the Post Office Rifles, this is a moving account of how the war touched the lives of ordinary men—how it changed communities, how women took up men’s working roles, and, of course, the vital role the mail played in the war. Love letters, letters from the front line, much-welcomed parcels of food and cigarettes, and sad letters of condolence—together these tell the story of the fallen heroes.

Genres: History

384 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

About the author

Duncan grew up in London and read English at Jesus College, Cambridge. He is the editor of Ronald Skirth's First World War memoir The Reluctant Tommy (Macmillan, 2010) and co-author of Star Trek: The Human Frontier (Polity, 2000) and Zippy and Me: The Remarkable Life in Puppets of Rainbow's Ronnie Le Drew (forthcoming, 2011). He also works as an actor and occasional theatre director.

Reviews

[Ape · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up because of the post office connection, being a bit of a postal addict. This is primarily a world war one history, following the Post Office Rifles. I hadn't realised but they already had their own territorial group before the war started. I don't think it's news to say this will be a harrowing read, a lot of people die and by the end you do wonder for what. And most of them were just kids. Laughably, when returning post war, one lad wants to go into night shifts and his supervisor looks at him in horror, but you can't do that until you're 21!!!!

There is a bit about the post, how it was transported between the front line and family in the UK, and how quickly they could shift it. Makes today's deliveries look like a joke. Plenty of reference to how important the post was. And these interesting cross-out postcards, pre printed things, that they could send home. There was also one short chapter about how women stepped up to the job of keeping things running during the war whilst so many were sent off to fight. There was an unsettling turn of phrase used towards the end when he writes about the survivors returning to post office jobs and being shocked to see the women there, in some cases women having to show them the ropes. Then Barrettgoes on to say of these men : "In the long run, however, it was Nosworthy and men like him who had the last laugh. In the years after the war, female workers were gradually weeded out of the Post Office." P 319. The last laugh? That suggests malice and vindictiveness, as though it was a bit of a joke that women were employed. But written by the contemporary writer.

Given the drama going on now, both with the Post Office scandal, and the way Royal Mail is currently ripping apart the service it provides, given it is not profitable after shareholders have been paid and ceos etc have had their obscene salaries (this now the priority over actually providing a letter delivery service) one could wonder what all these people from the Post Office of yesteryear would thing about what has been done to their institution since.

[Jaffareadstoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Men of Letters, the author has with considerable skill, given the men of the Post Office Rifles their own very special voice and in a series of personal stories, poignant letters and diary entries, their life at the front becomes a heart rending chronicle of war. Their social observations forcibly remind us of just what life was like at the front, the interminable boredom of long periods of time closeted in the murk and mud of the French countryside, balanced against the shock of the sniper’s bullet and the agonising terror of waiting for the call to go over the top. It is especially heart breaking to realise that over 1500 of them didn’t make it to the end of the war.

In this evocative retelling of the history of the men of the Post Office Rifles, I was forcibly reminded of just how the Great War impacted on the lives of men and women, and of how the ordinary man in the street rose to the challenge of the call to arms. With over 10,000 registered letters per month reaching the Western front, I had never visualised the effort that it took to get the morale boosting mail packets to the men, and yet, whilst the Post Office rifles were made of up from the ranks of postal workers, they were very much part of the fighting force and acted honourably and with great courage under enemy bombardment.



The book is easy to read and well divided into understandable chapters, which cover the involvement of the Post Office Rifles, from the Battle of Festubert during the spring offensive in May 1915, through to their involvement in the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. The sensitive use of personal documentation highlights the very human face of war and as names begin to crop up in the narrative, I found that I formed an emotional attachment to many of them, and seeing their photographs and reading their memories emphasised to me in a very poignant way, that these are real stories and not just dusty records from the annals of history.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to, not just the men of the Post Office Rifles, but also to the many thousands of young men and women, who gave their lives unquestionably and who with pride and patriotism served their country in a war they really didn’t fully understand.

In this centenary year of the start of WW1, there will be many books published extolling both the virtues, and also the indecision of this war to end all wars. I highly recommend That Men of Letters is a very good place to start if you want to know more about the very human face of WW1.

Recommended read

[Alex Dalton · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at the Post Office workers who served in some of the most extreme and dangerous battles of the First World War. I must have misread the blurb when I picked the book up as I expected more about the actual workings of wartime post, such as trench deliveries and transportation, but this focussed more on the people fighting with the Post Office Rifles. The stories are great, the letters are interesting, but I do wish it had more insight into the non-combatant side of this area of the war.