A proud Newfoundland soldiers memoir gives unprecedented details of life as a German POW during the First World War.

Im going to tell my story. With those words, eighty-three-year-old Arthur Manuel set his remarkable First World War memoir in motion.

Like many Great War veterans, Manuel had never discussed his wartime life with anyone. Hidden in the Manuel family records until its 2011 discovery by his grandson David Manuel, Arthurs story is now brought to new life.

Determined to escape his impoverished rural Newfoundland existence, he enlisted with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in late 1914. His harrowing accounts of life under fire span the Allies ill-fated 1915 Gallipoli campaign, the Regiments 1916 near-destruction at Beaumont-Hamel, and his 1917 Passchendaele battlefield capture. Manuels account of his seventeen-month POW experience, including his nearly successful escape from a German forced labour camp, provides unique, compelling Great War insights.

Powerful memories undimmed by age shine through Manuels lucid prose. His visceral hatred of war, and of the leaders on both sides who permitted such senseless carnage to continue, is ferocious yet tempered by Manuels powerful affection for common soldiers like himself, German and Allied alike. This poignant, angry, witty, and provocative account rings true like no other.

Andrew Traficante teaches high school with the Algoma District School Board in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. He is the author and researcher of an online exhibit exploring the Saults industrial heritage for the Virtual Museum of Canada.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: Botwood, 1908
Chapter 2: St. Johns, August 1914
Chapter 3: Gallipoli, Spring 1915
Chapter 4: Beaumont Hamel, July 1916
Chapter 5: England, Autumn 1917
Chapter 6: Passchendaele, August 1917
Chapter 7: Prisoner of War, October 1917
Chapter 8: Bavaria, January 1918
Chapter 9: Armistice, November 1918
Conclusion
Notes
Index