WWII Typescript Retrospective War Diary and Subsequent Moral Reflections from a Prominent British Social Welfare Reformer Whose Battalion Supported the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen

On offer is Richard Culling Carr-Gomm’s unpublished and hand-corrected Return to France, an approximately 198-page typescript account of his service with the 4th (Tank) Battalion, Coldstream Guards, during the final campaign in Northwest Europe from March through July 1945.

Carr-Gomm later became one of Britain’s best-known social-welfare reformers as the founder of the Abbeyfield Society. This manuscript documents an earlier and very different period of his life, but it is more than a straightforward wartime narrative. It preserves both Carr-Gomm’s account of the campaign and his later reflections upon what he had written.

These two perspectives are essential to the manuscript. The dated narrative conveys the immediacy, excitement, confusion, and hardening of attitude experienced by a young officer advancing into Germany. Carr-Gomm subsequently returned to the text in a section headed “Notes on Re-Reading,” judging his younger conduct with considerably greater unease. The result is a manuscript in which the wartime record and its later moral reassessment survive together.

The narrative begins with preparations at Pirbright on March 4, 1945, and follows Carr-Gomm’s return to continental Europe. At the Rhine near Wesel, he marked the crossing, writing: “I threw a penny into the river and wished hard.” From there, his squadron advanced through northern Germany as organized resistance collapsed and British units assumed responsibility for prisoners, displaced persons, German military personnel, and civilian communities.

One of the manuscript’s most historically important passages dates from April 12, 1945, when Carr-Gomm was operating in the Celle area. He records encountering political prisoners in striped clothing who were weak from starvation and mistreatment. His developing understanding of what he was witnessing appears within the account when he identifies their camp as Belsen.

Carr-Gomm does not claim in this manuscript to have entered Bergen-Belsen itself. Instead, his account records what a British armoured officer encountered in its surrounding operational area and how knowledge of the camp reached nearby units. Amid the disorder, one of his observations was of the passing prisoners: “They managed to smile as they passed me.”

This is not a retrospective history, but reads as a narrative written during or immediately after these events occurred. Through this narrative it is apparent that the British officers, including Carr-Gomm, didn’t fully appreciate what Belsen represented in the moment. 

Another major episode occurred in May 1945, when Carr-Gomm received orders to take charge of a German headquarters train bound for Flensburg. He describes arresting General Peters and his staff [likely Generalmajor Matthias Peters (1896–1974)], disarming and separating the personnel, identifying SS members, organizing guards, dealing with British and American liaison officers, and assuming responsibility for the train overnight. His account enumerates 48 officers, 146 other ranks, and 26 female clerks.

In the campaign narrative, Carr-Gomm describes controlling the prisoners through threats, shouted orders, and the forceful assertion of military authority. In his later “Notes on Re-Reading,” however, it was precisely this episode that troubled him. Looking back upon the orders he gave on the journey to Flensburg, he wrote that they “horrify me now.”

Excerpts demonstrate the stark contrast of Carr-Gomm’s feelings as a young soldier and later as a reflective author:

“Great excitement…there was a German train at Bockhorn with a General and all his staff on board…21 Army Group had rung up direct for us to go and capture it and take it to Flensburg. Mark [Bonham-Carter] told me to take charge… I paraded the Germans and detailed them off to coaches…. I saw red at one moment with a German army captain whom I knew to be a Nazi and to whom I had refused permission to go to his compartment…[we] told them we were putting them all in close arrest… there was so much noise and the queue was so out of control that I got furious and shouted at the Oberst…Through my interpreter I told the General [Peters] that I had orders from 21 Army Group to arrest him and his staff…I explained that I had already told them my orders and would shoot anyone outside the train without an escort” [May 22, 1945].

“Orders I gave—particularly on the train up to Flensburg—horrify me now…” [Notes on Re-Reading]

His retrospective comments extend beyond that single incident. Carr-Gomm recognized an increasingly callous strain in his account of the final days of combat and admitted that reading it frightened him. His eventual conclusion that, “War deforms judgment,” transforms the significance of the entire typescript. The reader is invited to reconsider the earlier narrative alongside Carr-Gomm himself.

Other entries document the ordinary but revealing work of an advancing and occupying armoured unit: damaged vehicles, displaced persons and former forced labourers, the processing of SS personnel, dealings with German civilians and officials, the release of Russian prisoners, social life among British officers, and a visit to the Schönböken Stud Farm.

The manuscript’s retrospective dimension also has considerable biographical relevance. Carr-Gomm remained in the army after the war and served in Palestine and Egypt, but in 1955 he resigned his commission and became a volunteer home help in Bermondsey. His recognition of loneliness among the older people he visited led to the establishment of the Abbeyfield Society in 1956. Return to France should not be presented as a direct blueprint for Abbeyfield, but its later reflections reveal the serious reconsideration of violence, authority, and human responsibility undertaken by the man who subsequently devoted his life to social welfare.

The typescript contains occasional handwritten corrections, cancellations, additions, and marginal notes in blue and black ink. It is a working or reading copy preserved in utilitarian paper wrappers rather than a formally bound presentation manuscript.

A separate group of Carr-Gomm autobiographical typescripts, including another copy or version of Return to France, was previously handled by Peter Harrington. That example was bound in blue half morocco as part of a three-volume autobiographical compilation and contained annotations attributed to Mrs. Carr-Gomm. The present paper-bound typescript is separately provenanced, and the two versions have not been fully collated.

Provenance and Family Correspondence

The current owner purchased this manuscript directly from Richard Carr-Gomm’s son, in 2025 and corresponded with him about the manuscript, his father’s writing, and the survival of other Carr-Gomm material. The younger Carr-Gomm explained that his father wrote prolifically and frequently gave manuscripts and scrapbooks to other people and institutions. This family testimony helps explain the existence of multiple copies or versions of certain writings, including Return to France, and provides important context for the Carr-Gomm manuscripts that have appeared in collections and the rare-book trade.

The manuscript therefore has a direct chain of provenance from the author’s family, supported by correspondence with his son. Copies of the relevant provenance correspondence can accompany the typescript.

Biographical Notes

Richard Culling Carr-Gomm (1922–2008) attended Stowe School and served in the Royal Berkshire Regiment and the Coldstream Guards from 1939 until 1955. He was wounded during the Second World War, received the Croix de Guerre in 1944, and later served in Palestine and Egypt.

After leaving the army, Carr-Gomm became a volunteer home help in Bermondsey. Recognizing that many of the older people he visited suffered principally from loneliness, he used part of his army gratuity to establish a shared home. This initiative led to the formal establishment of the Abbeyfield Society in 1956. He later founded or inspired several related organizations and was appointed OBE for his social-welfare work.

Condition

The typescript remains in its original paper wrappers, with a typed title label mounted on the front. The wrappers are heavily worn, creased, chipped, and torn around the edges, with old tape repairs concentrated along the spine and lower left corner. The paper is uniformly age-toned, with occasional edge tears, creasing, and small losses not materially affecting the text. The binding is fragile but remains together, and the numbered text appears complete through page 198. Handwritten corrections and marginal notes occur intermittently throughout. Overall Fair. 

Summary

Author: Richard Culling Carr-Gomm
Title: Return to France
Content dates: March–July 1945
Physical date: Mid-twentieth century; the date of typing is not stated
Extent: Approximately 198 typed pages, with handwritten corrections and notes
Language: English
Provenance: Purchased directly from David Carr-Gomm, the author’s son, in 2025, with accompanying family correspondence