Mortleman's Patent Sound Absorbers

[Doug ex-em4]

Just re-reading Memoirs of an Infantry Officer at the moment.

At the end of a spot of leave, Sassoon calls in at the Army and Navy Stores for some vital replenishments before returning to the Front (a superb salmon, 2 bottles of old brandy, 2 pairs of wire-cutters with rubber-covered handles and an automatic pistol). However, the man in the Weapon Department failed to persuade him to buy some Mortleman's Patent Sound Absorbers.

Now, I'm only a miserable lurker on this board but I can tell as well as the next man that Mortleman's Patent Sound Absorbers are obviously some piece of fiendish VSF kit which can only be found in the darker recesses of the Army and Navy Weapon Department. I rely on you VSF chaps to tell me what devilishness they were designed to wreak.

Doug

[Hammers]

[Doomsdave]

Hearing protection-Ear plugs

[ozanima]

I think I can explain the origin of 'Mortleman's Patent Sound Absorbers'.  My relative, 2nd Lieutentant  Wilfred Robert Mortleman, was admitted to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh (for shell-shocked officers) on the same day as Sassoon.  WRM was a gunner with the Honourable Artillery Company and had been blown up by a shell and buried for 5 hours.  Sasoon mentions WRM quite often in the 'Hydra', the Craiglockhart newspaper which he edited and I guess a gunner would know all about the need for sound absorbers, so this was posibly a joke between the two men.  Although WRM was discharged and returned to France, he eventually shot himself in 1918 while still in the Army.  He had then only been married for 6 weeks.

[Traveler Man]

The poor fellow! How tragic for his young wife.