The author Captain JC Dunn DSO, MC and Bar, DCM was a doctor attached to the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty Third of Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers, who kept a detailed diary through out his service in the First World War. After the war he contacted many officers and men of the Battalion and asked for their recollections of battles and incidents in which they had taken part. From this jigsaw of information he wrote one of the truly great accounts of the First World War from an infantry perspective. One of the best books I have read on this subject, that on occasions raises the hair on the back of the neck with his precise descriptive writing. It is a large tome because it has so many recollections and takes the reader in detail through Captain Dunn's war. His decorations alone give a hint of the hands on bravery of a medical officer determined to do his best for his men in what ever conditions he found them. Thoroughly reccommended.
Sometimes, through word of mouth and shared enthusiasm, a secret book becomes famous. The War the Infantry Knew is one of them. Published privately in a limited edition of five hundred copies in 1938, it gained a reputation as an outstanding account of an infantry battalion's experience on the Western Front' Daily Telegraph
' I have been waiting for a long time for someone to republish this classic. It is one of the most interesting and revealing books of its type and is a genuinely truthful and fascinating picture of the war as it was for the infantry' John Keegan
'A remarkably coherent narrative of the battalion's experiences in diary form . . . a moving historical record which deserves to be added to the select list of outstanding accounts of the First World War' Times Literary Supplement