Shell WW1 History Source Pack

Harold Startin’s Trench Club Imperial War Museum (2014) Harold Startin’s Trench Club, http://www.www.wartime.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30001746 (Accessed on 30.11.17)

Figure 1. Harold Startin’s Trench Club. This trench club was made and used in 1915, by Private Harold Startin of the 1st Leicestershire Regiment. He subsequently left it at home while on leave from the Front and donated it to the Imperial War Museum in 1964, along with details of its manufacture and use. Startin and other members of his Company's bombing section made clubs because they were unable to carry rifles when using their hand grenades. They made them by fitting entrenching tool handles with lead heads made in clay moulds. Startin calls them 'a most effective weapon, especially when used on listening patrols between the trenches'. He goes on to say that 'the first victim' of his club was a Sergeant in a Württemburg regiment whom he killed near Hooge in Belgium in July 1915. Startin was a regular soldier, who participated in the 'Christmas Truce' of 1914.