1917 World War 1 Diary Gunner Louis Charles Malabre 187th Brigade Royal Field Artillery 63rd Anti-Aircraft Section

This story commences with Louis Charles Malabre being born to an English father (the Honourable William Titely Malabre) and French mother (Marie Antoinette Malabre nee Carvalo) in Kingston, Jamaica on the 14th May 1892. On the 27th May 1912 he moved to New York U.S.A. aged 20.

In August 1915 he boarded the liner "Carpathia" (of Titanic rescue fame) in New York and sailed to St. Nazaire France en route to Liverpool where he disembarked for a train to London. Here he enlisted into the 187th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 41st Division for basic training on the 13th September 1915. Eventually he is posted into the 63rd Anti-aircraft Section armed with a lorry mounted 13 pounder and sails to Le Havre France via Southampton.

He then writes detailed day by accounts in his diaries from 21st August 1916 throughout the years of World War One. Each year will be published separately on Kindle. This is the 1917 diary.

He survived the war and returned to New York in 1919 and on the 17th April 1936 he became an American citizen through naturalisation. He continued to live in New York, frequently visited by his mother and sisters, until he eventually passed away in the Bronx in June 1976 aged 84 years. He never married.