The Daredevil of the Army: A Motorcycle Despatch Rider and `Buzzer` in the British Army During the First World War, Corcoran Austin Patrick

The highly dangerous task of the aide-de-camp was often to carry urgent despatches with essential calls to action across the field of battle. The young men chosen for the job were invariably dashing, brave and prepared to take risks to achieve their objectives. They were, of course, always expert horsemen. The age of the military horseman had not quite come to a close at the time of the First World War, but-as with most forms of progress-he was sharing duties with that which would eventually replace him, the machines of the new age. Now there was a another breed of daredevil, though necessarily cut from the same cloth. The motorcycle despatch riders were a new service created in an age of innovation. All were so called amateur soldiers though immediately at least ranked corporal so that they could, by British Army convention, address officers directly. These were invariably intelligent, accomplished young men drawn from the professions or universities. Their creed was the same as that of their horse mounted predecessors-the messages they carried had to get through and to deliver them motorcyclists often had to outpace charging Uhlans. Many of them ended their careers tangled among the wreckage of their bikes. The author of this book has written a thrilling first hand account of his experiences riding military motorcycles along the front lines during the early stages of the First World War. Later as an officer he took command of a unit of buzzers, whose job it was to maintain telephone links. A highly entertaining book and thoroughly recommended to all those interested in motorcycles, motorcycling and the Great War in Europe.
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