Letter from J.Robin, 1 December 1915 Letters 1916-1923 John Robin

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A report on the trench periscope that Lieutenant John Robin (d.1918) of the Machine Gun Corp was asked to try. Lt Robin stated he had used the periscopes at Gallipoli where it is 'all trench warfare' and found 'no fault with them'. They saved lives by preventing head wounds where there was such a prevalence of enemy snipers. His only recommendation was that the dark glass at the bottom of the periscope be replaced with clear as the dark glass made sighting the enemy slower and more difficult. This letter is part of a large correspondence from Captain James Davidson. Davidson, who was Managing Director of the Sirocco Engineering Works in Belfast, served with 13 Royal Irish Rifles and the Machine Gun Corps.

 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland Davidson Family Papers, D3642/D/8 https://letters1916.ie/item/718 English John Robin 1915-12-01 B.M.G.O. 31st Infantry Brigade, X Division, Servia Male World War I (1914-1918)

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 The undernoted is a copy of letter received from Machine Gun Office Lieut J Robin of 31st Infantry Brigade 10th Division as written by him from Servia. Servia 1st December 1915 Extract from letter B M G O 31st Inf. Brig. X Div.: 'I had the original periscopes in daily use in the trenches in Gallipoli where it was all in trench warfare and candidly speaking I have found no fault in them, on the other hand I can only praise them. If we had not had these attachments I am certain we should have had many of our men suffering from head wounds from the many snipers bullets flying around. The only thing I might men- tion is I do not consider the dark glass in the bottom frame is absolutely essential, as a matter of fact when we had to open fire quickly on a given position I preferred the clear glass as one can sight much quicker and further with the clear glass and I do not think the attachment is given away in the least. Our original attachments were greatly smashed up and I had to patch them up with the clear glass and our position was never observed. Many M/G Os of the other units have seen the attachment and asked me if they could not get them. In Egypt they are using some other sort of attachment but I was speaking to an officer recently returned from there and he said these were the best he had seen.' J Robin B M G O 31st Inf. Brig. John Robin Letter from J.Robin, 1 December 1915 B.M.G.O. 31st Infantry Brigade, X Division, Servia Letter from J.Robin, 1 December 1915