Knocked out
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by
shuli
The handwriting has changed after the first battle of Arras - does this mean the diarist was killed?
Also, when he says men were "knocked out" by the shell does that mean killed? because when the officer is wounded on the same occasion, it says "wounded..."Posted
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
Not necessarily - he may have been wounded, or transferred elsewhere - but sadly it's always a possibility he was killed. If you know his name, try looking him up on Lives of the First World War to see whether it has any info about when or if he died.
Knocked out in this case could mean killed, or possibly wounded. You'll often come across fairly colloquial sounding terms like this for what were probably pretty awful things.
Posted
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by
David_Underdown
moderator
Or it could be that the adjutant had to take command of the battalion or at least a company due to other officers being incapacitated, so a more junior officer took over the role of adjutant
Posted
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
Absolutely. Although some of the diaries are written by the same person over quite long periods of time, others have a lot of different authors, for a variety of reasons.
Posted