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Staff Officer
Lieutenant-colonel Whittle

One has quite often seen them pass by in their striking limousines, the visor underlined by a wide band of gold braid, the restrained tone of the tunic brightened at the collar with a distinctive flash. These staff officers have represented, in our eyes, British elegance, the most sober, but also the most definitive, and the cut of their laced boots made more than one young sub-lieutenant dream, over here. But for those who had seen them at work, they represented something else, something better. In the dreadful sectors of the battle, in Flanders, Artois and Picardy, where nature seemed almost totally destroyed by the war, they always counteracted the disorganised tumult of battle with the same methodical calm and serious concentration on their task. They knew how to ride on horseback in tight places where footsoldiers could only risk crawling, making sport as if the shells were mere bagatelles. And when they had to die, they did it elegantly, without fuss, with the grace of a gentlemen, who knows how to slip away in a timely manner, without being noticed, in the English way.

JW Whittle wrote to Burnand from Marseille in April 1919 and gave his home address as Glau Hafod, Old Colwyn, North Wales.