TODAY is the last part of our series looking at some extraordinary tales from the Great War.

These tales of courage and tragedy come from the new book Weymouth, Portland and Dorchester in the Great War.

Author Jacqueline Wadsworth said: "Tales of courage, stoicism and tragedy are plentiful in my book and they begin early on, in August 1914, with the heartbreaking tale of a Dorchester lad who was just 15 when he managed to slip through the net and join the army (the legal age for enlistment was 18).

"The lad, Frank Adams, never made it to the fighting, though.

"While larking around in barracks just a few miles from home, he was shot dead accidentally by a friend who didn’t realise his gun was loaded.

"A solemn funeral procession carried his body to Weymouth Cemetery and there he lies today, beneath the only military gravestone there which doesn’t give an age."

Jacqueline has uncovered a more uplifting story- that of 19-year-old Archie Dunn, a young naval officer from Weymouth who volunteered to serve in northern Russia, fighting the Bolsheviks, in 1919 when the war was over for most.

As First Lieutenant of the minesweeper HMS Sword Dance, he helped play a vital role on the Dvina River, clearing the way for Allied forces to bombard Bolsheviks hiding out in dense riverbank forests.

He recorded the sweltering summer heat and the lawlessness that hung in the air In his small pocket diary, with reports of mutiny, looting, and executions: ‘A woman spy was shot last night; had to dig her own grave,’ he wrote.

Jacqueline writes: "Within weeks, however, the Sword Dance struck a mine and sank.

"Showing courage and leadership beyond his years, Dunn wrote: ‘Worked on saving gear till 3am. Some deserted the ship.’ For this he was awarded the DSC at Buckingham Palace after returning home in autumn 1919.

"In April 1916 the people of Dorset were appalled to hear that a British force, which included men from the Dorsetshire Regiment’s 2nd Battalion, had been forced to surrender to the Turks in Mesopotamia.

"After being trapped under siege for five months in the Arab town of Kut-al-Amara, and on the brink of starvation, they had little choice.

"The grim months leading up to surrender were recorded by Captain Warren Sandes, a Royal Engineer from Weymouth, in un-posted letters to his mother.

"For three days we have now been living on horse and I am surprised how good it is with a little sauce to help,’ he wrote.

"‘Butter is scarce so is not allowed for lunch or dinner. Sugar has run out altogether.’"

After surrendering, Jacqueline writes, the men were forced on a brutal march across the desert to prison camps where those who survived remained for the rest of the war.

At home, the people of Dorset held ‘Kut Fund’ days to provide what help they could by sending ‘comforts’ to the prisoners.

Captain Sandes survived the war and later in life became a respected writer of military history. Sadly, not all were as fortunate and many found it hard to come to terms with the horrors they had experienced.

One former soldier turned into a recluse in the village of Portesham, cruelly taunted as ‘gun-shy Jack’ by children who knew no better.

The final chapter of Jacqueline's book records the heartbreaking tale of Frank Radgowski, a 20-year-old Polish soldier who was being held at Dorchester Prison Camp.

Even though repatriation was imminent, he tried to escape early one morning in May 1919 but was shot by sentries who found him with wire cutters, on the barbed wire perimeter fence.

Asked why he had tried to escape, Radgowski replied, just before he died: ‘I wanted to go home.’

A memorial to the 45 prisoners who died in the camp (many from Spanish flu epidemic at the end of the war) still stands at Fordington Cemetery.

*Weymouth, Dorchester and Portland in the Great War is published by Pen and Sword Books, RRP £12.99

Readers should quote this number 179442 to get 25% off, plus free P&P, when they buy it from Pen and Sword Books.

The book can be ordered using the Pen and Sword website: http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/

Or by phone the sales team on: 01226 734222

CONTACT ME:

t: 01305 830973

e: joanna.davis

@dorsetecho.co.uk

twitter: @DorsetEchoJo