Bozie's War

Gilmore Boswell (Bozie) was a New Zealand soldier who served in France and Belgium in World War 1. In his nineties he recorded his wartime experiences in two separate interviews. These transcribed interviews document, in his own words, Bozie’s wartime life. Bozie describes his experiences in the battlefield from Flers (and his first encounter with a British tank) to Le Quesnoy. He talks about the long marches and his times in the mud and in the trenches. He talks about local food (fish and chips, no fish). Over 30 of Bozie’s postcards from the front, reproduced here, together with their contents give another picture of life for a young soldier half the world away from home. As do reproductions of rarely seen wartime documents that Bozie brought back. Colin Boswell is Bozie’s son and used Bozie’s words, postcards, and documents to present this unique and intriguing personal perspective of a New Zealand soldier’s life in France in World War 1.