Edwin Campion Vaughan

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Edwin Campion Vaughan was a subaltern in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Royal Warwicks) 48th Division. During the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) in August and September 1917 he kept a diary of his experiences with trench warfare. Vaughan was promoted to Lieutenant in October 1917 and he later fought in the Italian campaign. In 1918 he returned to France where as a result of his heroics in capturing the a bridge over the Sambre Canal, Vaughan was awarded the Military Cross for bravery.

After E.C. Vaughan’s death in 1931, one of his brothers hid the diary away in a cupboard, which is where it was found four decades later. The diary was published in 1981. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 2006, James J. Cramer cites "Some Desperate Glory" as one of the five best books on war: “Vaughan describes the screams of the wounded who had sought refuge in the freshly gouged holes only to find themselves slowly drowning as rain fell and the water level rose. A relentlessly stark account of the war's bloodiest, most futile battle.”