Rifleman Stubb's Diary

The short, but poignant and action-filled diary of a South African fighting in the British Army in 1915 during the First World War.

Bernard Castle Stubbs was a bright and well-liked employee of the Union-Castle Line, enjoying his peacetime career at their head offices at Fenchurch Street in London. Although a South African by birth, he had spent most of his schooldays in England, he joined the 9th Battalion London Regiment, better known as Queen Victoria’s Rifles, when the First World War broke out. He was involved in the heavy brutal fighting around Hill 60 in the Ypres Salient on the night of 20-21 April 1915 during which Lieutenant Geoffrey Woolley of the Rifles won the Victoria Cross for conspicuous bravery. The Author’s luck would not hold long under the constant bloodshed of the frontlines and on the 22nd June 1915 he was mortally wounded by German shellfire.