This webpage presents the Abstract for an article published in the Journal of Tolkien Research in October 2020. It illuminates the hitherto-unreported duties of Lt J R R Tolkien as a Signals Officer in the Holderness Peninsula in the East Riding of Yorkshire from April 1917 to April 1918. The complete Tolkien and the Zeppelins can be accessed by this link. A reviewer wrote: 'engrossing' 'sensational' 'significantly broadens our view of Tolkien's service'. |
TOLKIEN AND THE ZEPPELINS; ABSTRACT To devotees of Tolkien, the
trench fever that led to his repatriation from the Western Front in November
1916, was a fortuitous circumstance that saved an extraordinary intellect
from annihilation in the mud and blood of French or Belgian fields. His
return is widely seen as an escape to the peace and quiet of treatment
and convalescence in England. Yet his posting to Holderness, in April
1917, placed him in the alarms and excursions of another front line. Author: Sqn Ldr 'Seamus' Hamill-Keays
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