Museum volunteer Will Young spent six months transcribing a bound volume of letters relating to Second Lieutenant Ernest Kemp. Kemp served with The Yorkshire Regiment (as The Green Howards were known during the First World War), but went on to volunteer for the newly formed Royal Flying Corps and qualified as an observer.
Ernest died whilst engaging the enemy during a patrol flight in September 1916. His family bound his letters, and correspondence between them and Ernest’s senior officers following his death, in the volume which is now in our care.
We’ve selected three letters from the volume, read them here.
“World War One is my particular interest and I enjoy reading about it, so it was great to be able to immerse myself in these letters to get a real first-hand feel for the time, and also transcribe them so that the original can be preserved, but the contents shared.” says Will. “I felt that I got to know Ernest and his family during the time I spent deciphering his handwriting and researching some of the people he mentions. He was the family’s eldest child, obviously much loved, and his death devastated them.”
At first, they clung to the hope that although reported ‘missing’, Ernest had perhaps survived. The grieving family naively hoped he would receive a proper burial, but his body was never identified, and Ernest Kemp’s name is on the Air Force Memorial at Arras.