"STAND TO."
By Captain F. C. Hitchcock, M.C.
Captain Hitchcock's War-diary (Hunt and Blacken, xis.) was worth publishing if only because it covers the part played in the War by his regiment, The Leinsters —disbanded since the creation of the Irish Free State. He has supplemented the rather scanty material of his diary with orders, secret instructions and other official documents of historical value. His entries are brief and unemotional— except for touches of humour—and compare strangely with the extracts he reproduces from the diary of a German soldier. Captain Hitchcock fought in the Ypres salient through 1915 and at Hooge, in the Somme offensive of 1916 and again at Ypres in 1918, and took part in the march on. the Rhine and the occupation of Cologne. He has no new light to cast on these events, but he was a painstaking observer with an unfailing sense - of humour, and his book is a further wimess to the wastefulness of modem warfare, and the courage of its vicEims. The book is well supplied with maps, sketches and photographs. •
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