Soldier and dramatist

25 September – 16 October 1915

Battle of Loos

WAR LETTERS OF A DRAMATIST

Harold Chapin was killed on Sunday, Sep- tember 26th, at the battle of Loos. He was only twenty-nine on that Sunday afternoon, but he had lived worthily and he died gloriously.

MY DEAR MRS. CHAPIN,

I have been at some pains to get for you some details of that fatal afternoon, but I cannot — the reason will be obvious — now tell you quite all there is. The essential is that on Sunday morning an appeal came to our station for stretcher- bearers to assist a battalion, seven of whose bearers were out of action. Your husband and two other men set out for the trenches in question, which were to the south-west of Loos. The journey, itself, had its perils. Over the distance of two miles or thereabouts, the Ger- mans, who were rallying after their defeat of the day before, could enfilade our ground. One day I will explain the position with precision. The three of them eventually reached the series of trenches at a moment when the Germans were counter-attacking, and were told by an officer that stretcher-work was impossible at such a moment. It was suicide to show one's head above the parapet. This was, of course, one of the old German trenches, and the enemy fire came both from front and right flank. Chapin consequently told the two others to wait for him while he reported to the medical officer who had appealed in the morning, his intention being to return to collect the wounded after dark, as we did during the week as a matter of routine. The two never saw him again.

MY DEAR MRS. CHAPIN,

where he fell. I went down on Wednesday to the trenches, saw the officer who had been in charge of the burial party, and eventually got the papers, watch, etc., which were found on his body. These you will have received by now, I suppose. There can be no harm in telling you that he lies with six other London Territorials, within a few hundred yards of Loos cemetery.

HAROLD CHAPIN, DRAMATIST

" The name of Harold Chapin is one of which America may well be proud ; for, though English bred, he was born in America, of American parents. The occasion to which I refer was a presentation of four of his one-act plays, given in honour of his memory. For he is dead : he fell in battle before Loos ; and with the single ex- ception of Rupert Brooke, no English-speaking man of more unquestionable genius has been lost to the world in this world-frenzy. Chapin was more fortunate than Brooke, for he died in active and devoted service.