Beschreibung:

WORLD WAR II -- The archive of PETER WHITE (1921-1985), comprising
WORLD WAR II -- The archive of PETER WHITE (1921-1985), comprising: Autograph manuscript diary, in 5 volumes, 1 January 1938 - 10 August 1944, folio (325 x 205mm), upper cover of vol. I titled, 'Peter R. R. White Diary', including OVER 730 DRAWINGS in pen and ink, pencil or watercolour, a few loosely inserted, a few newspaper clippings and a photograph; together with a 6th volume containing entries from 1952-1966, with sketches in ink and watercolour. Unpublished. Typed and autograph manuscript, With the Jocks. The Diary of an Infantry Platoon Commander 10 Platoon, B Company, 4th Battalion, The King's Own Scottish Borderers 155 Brigade, 52nd Lowland Division , covering the period from October 1944 to May 1945, including 71 pages of drawings in ink, pencil and watercolour, printed maps and photographs, 441 pages, folio (330 x 205mm) (occasional spots or browning), bound by White in paper and tape, the upper cover titled 'With the Jocks' in white with Scotland's heraldic shield below. Published (reproducing a selection of the drawings): Peter White With the Jocks. A Soldier's Struggle for Europe 1944-45 , Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2001, foreward by Sir John Keegan ('an unforgettable memoir'). Together with : White's regimental KOSB glengarry, 4 medals (the 1939-45 Star; the France and Germany Star; the Defence Medal; the War medal); related manuscript material, and a Kodak camera taken from a German Prisoner of War in Holland, together with photographs developed from the film. And : 12 sketchbooks, oblong octavo (125 x 160mm), containing pen and ink sketches and drawings in watercolour, with descriptive text, illustrating White's travels in France, Scotland, Ireland, Yorkshire, Newcastle and London, comprising topographical views, buildings, and highly detailed scenes of agriculture and industry (some images later published in My Foreign Correspondent in the British Isles ); 2 sketchbooks containing watercolours; and further related material, including a collection of school reports and artwork, original illustrations, printed pamphlets containing White's work, a typed letter signed with watercolour sketches, and 2 Royal Academy of Art medallions. A REMARKABLE AND MOVING WARTIME MEMOIR: the extraordinary diaries and drawings of an infantry lieutenant and artist on active service in the battlefields of north-west Europe. Peter White's comprehensive, highly-detailed and heavily-illustrated diaries, which form the body of this archive, describe a country preparing for war, his own intensive military training, and the harrowing experiences of White's regiment as the 52nd Lowland Division played its part in the Walcheren Invasion and made its way across Belgium and Holland in pursuit of retreating German forces. With its culmination in the assault on Bremen in April 1945, the immediacy of White's narrative and beautifully-drawn sketches make this an intensely moving and all the more vivid first-hand account. 'Hitler's behaviour has upset the work rather at school and it will mean a lot of extra work to catch up again' (5 October 1938): White's early diaries combine the usual preoccupations of a seventeen-year old school boy with keen observations of London preparing its defences ('while I write ... the wireless [is] blaring out Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! over and over again ... trenches are being dug night and day in the parks and open spaces including Regents, & Hyde Park, and Hampstead Heath, and Primrose Hill has anti aircraft guns stationed there ... the sky is ablaze with searchlights'). As the war unfolds, White leaves school, works in forestry and then begins his training as an artist at London's Central and Royal Academy; his text is interspersed with detailed illustrations ('my impression of balloon barrage. Poor old Hitler; he jeered at them -- then got some himself'), reportage of the current international situation '('PARIS IS NOW SAID TO BE IN GREAT DANGER') and of casualties, often represented in pictorial form on th