author
Robert Derby Holmes
A firsthand World War I memoir gives this book its force, drawing on the author's experience as an American who enlisted with the British Army before the United States entered the war. The result is vivid, direct writing that brings trench life close without losing its human side.
1 Audiobook
A Yankee in the Trenches
by Robert Derby Holmes
About the author
Born in Boston, Robert Derby Holmes is best known for A Yankee in the Trenches (1918), a memoir based on his service in World War I. Contemporary editions and library records identify him as an American who enlisted in the British Army in 1916 and served as a corporal with the 22nd London Battalion of the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment.
His book was written for readers at home who had not seen the Western Front for themselves. Rather than offering a distant history of the war, Holmes wrote from personal experience, describing daily trench life, danger, fatigue, and the grim routines of service with a plainspoken, eyewitness style.
That directness is a big part of why his work still resonates. A Yankee in the Trenches remains valued as a personal war narrative: not just a record of battles, but a close human account of what it felt like to live through them.