STORY OF THE MUNSTERS, AT ETREUX, FESTUBERT AND RUE DU BEIS

This account of four battles involving the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers during the first year of the war was written by the widow of Lt Col V Rickard, who was killed at the Rue du Bois on 9 May 1915 while commanding the battalion. An interesting chapter is the description of the battalion’s stand at Etreux during the retreat from Mons, written by an officer who was taken prisoner and wrote his account in a PoW Camp at Mainz am Rhein in July 1915; he was given permission to send it home. The appendix contains several letters, written by members of the battalion to friends or to next of kin of those who had been killed. Today a memorial to the battalion stands on the site where it fought its heroic action at Etreux and where nine of its officers and 118 other ranks are buried.