69 14 15 16 17 18 The GreatWar The Operation Canada Digital War Diaries Project By Dr. Irene Gammel “Nerves start going bad,” Clarence (Buster) Booth recorded in his personal diary on April 26, 1916. Four days later: “This place is a sure Hell,” referring to Scottish Wood near Dickebusch in Flanders, where the 24th Battalion faced heavy shelling that killed four (including two buglers) and wounded eight. Considering his role as a drummer, Booth would have been particularly close to the buglers. Just one month later, on June 2, 1916, Booth noted his diagnosis from the hospital: “Shell shock.” In total Booth, who served as a drummer, confided three episodes of “shell shock” to his personal diary before being removed from frontline duty for the remainder of the war, reassigned as a batman and cook in the 2nd Divisional General Headquarters. Booth wrote the bulk of his entries in 1916 in a single 388-page brown leather-bound diary, the front cover embossed with the words “A SOLDIER’S DIARY” and an outline of the general service badge of the CEF (Figure 1). The inside of the front cover contains Booth’s personal identification information (Figure 2), and the diary contains some additional visual elements, including pressed leaves and flowers and drawings by Booth, underscoring human vulnerability. Figure 1: Clarence Booth, Cover, Diary of Clarence Booth, 19151916, Digital Frame 1, The Operation Canada Digital War Diaries Project, MLC Research Centre, Toronto. Courtesy of Canadian Centre for the Great War (Centre canadien pour la Grande Guerre), Montreal. Figure 2: Clarence Booth, Endpapers following front cover, Diary of Clarence Booth, 1915-1916, Digital Frame 2, The Operation Canada Digital War Diaries Project, MLC Research Centre, Toronto. Courtesy of Canadian Centre for the Great War (Centre canadien pour la Grande Guerre), Montreal.
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