Introduction

Percy Smythe was one of four brothers that went to Europe to fight in World War One. He served in Gallipoli and France and was awarded the Military Cross.

     

The Smythe Boys 1912
L to R Vern, Bert, Percy, Viv

Bert	Viv
Percy	Vern

Dedication: For the other members of the Smythe clan – my cousins - for their much appreciated interest and help.

In typing up the diary, which was written in quite a number of exercise books of different sizes, I have endeavoured to type just what was written to it. It is possible some place names are incorrect as there were some unfamiliar to me and even though I am, of course, very familiar with my father’s writing, some of his letters can be misunderstood and so lead to possible errors.

In 1916 some names and places were originally in code, but were decoded some time after the war.

During his officer training he wrote some sentences in code. No one has yet deciphered it!

About 1960 my father decided to remove some pages from the diaries, one, two, three or more, and I have indicated these missing pages as ........... and a space between that line and the next.

Betty Smythe

The original diary was donated to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and is available for research by historians.

[note from webmaster. The French translations were done using Google Translate. As Percy's French was very rudimentary and as Google Translate is not entirely accurate, I am happy to receive corrections via the email below]

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