The book “With A Machine Gun To Cambrai” is a true story written from the actual diary that the author, George Coppard, wrote while serving in the British Army in the first World War. He kept diary entries from his service in France, and all the battles he experienced. The book starts off with the author volunteering to enlist in the British army at the age of 16. He lied about his age and was able to enlist. After some training he found himself going to France to fight in the trenches against the Germans. The book tells all the terrible things the soldiers had to deal with, like cold weather and not enough warm clothes, body lice, hunger, and being extremely scared of death. He eventually becomes a member of the Machine Gun Corps, where he was severely wounded. He was sent to the hospital where he did recover and eventually received a Military Medal for bravery.

There were a few quotes from the book that made an impression on me and I thought, gave a good feeling of how the author felt as a soldier. One describes his fear of death, “My worst fear was being killed without a pal knowing about it. A pal would recover my paybook and, if he was sensible, pocket any cigarettes I had left as well as writing a letter of condolence to my next of kin.” Another was when the author was wounded, “The fact that I was a machine gunner myself increased my fears and for a few paralyzing seconds I felt that death was about to claim me.”

I liked reading the stories the author told about the war experiences, but disliked the fact that a lot of the language and terms used in the book were British and I did not understand a lot of them. It was sometimes hard to understand what he was really talking about since I was not clear on the British terms he used. I think anyone interested in war, especially World War I, would like this book. It would also be good for young teens, since the author was only 16 when he entered the army, so many of the stories were from a young man’s point of view. I would recommend this book, even with the difficult British terms, because it was a pretty easy read and gave you a lot of insight into a soldier’s feelings and experiences during horrible war time in the trenches. Personally, it made me not want to experience this myself, and gave me more appreciation for all the men and women that serve in the armed forces.