The Skipper's War

Illustrated history of the wartime years of Dragon School, Oxford, and celebrated headmaster Charles 'Skipper' Lynam. Charles ‘Skipper’ Lynam, the celebrated preparatory school headmaster at the Dragon School, Oxford, during the First World War, inspired a generation of his pupils as they found themselves caught up in the conflict. This book tells the story of the school’s wartime years and the various fronts on which its boys were involved. It traces the roots of a school founded by Oxford dons for their children, its idiosyncratic ways and the extraordinary relationship Skipper Lynam forged with his boys, some of whom (in former pupil John Betjeman’s words) ‘lost their lives for King and Country and the Dragon School’.FOREWORD Rory Stewart PREFACE CHAPTER 1 Summer Term 1917 CHAPTER 2 The Oxford Preparatory School CHAPTER 3 Growth and Development CHAPTER 4 1914: The Clouds Descend CHAPTER 5 ‘Over by Christmas’? CHAPTER 6 The Western Front CHAPTER 7 Summer 1915 CHAPTER 8 The Gallipoli Campaign CHAPTER 9 The Winter of 1915–16 CHAPTER 10 The War at Sea CHAPTER 11 The Battle of the Somme CHAPTER 12 ‘The School-house afar …’ CHAPTER 13 War in the Air CHAPTER 14 1917/18 – The Losses Mount CHAPTER 15 The Road to Victory CHAPTER 16 ‘Too Many Empty Chairs’ EPILOGUE AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 287 ENDNOTES INDEX CREDITS CAPTIONS