The bullet-scarred notebook of a lovelorn First World War British Army officer has given a glimpse into the lives of the men who fought and died at the Somme 100 years on.

Second Lieutenant Philip Woollatt was among the first of thousands who fell in the killing fields of France during the stuttering summer offensive of 1916.

A shredded leather-bound notebook is the only remaining trace left of 21-year-old Lt Woollatt, a bank clerk from Surbiton, in Surrey, after it was recovered during the fighting.

The book's yellowed pages, nearly torn in half by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel, tell of a man whose heart had been broken after leaving behind his sweetheart and hearing of her marriage to another.

It also reveals how he never told his love, Alison Robertson, of his true feelings for her.

By the time he had enlisted at the start of the war, it was already too late and she was engaged.

His entries, telling of a "lovely chateau" and the "fine town" of Amiens - as well as some "appalling weather" - recorded how the former Cheltenham College student later heard of his former beau Alison's wedding, while he was leading his men in repeated actions against the German lines.

He wrote: "I now realise how much I love her and what a topping girl she is."

"I was not good enough for her anyway."

The young lieutenant, of the 7th Battalion of the Queens' Royal West Surrey Regiment, added: "I can't get it out of my head now."

She would later write to him in the trenches, and a copy of one of her letters, recounting her trip to a cinema, was found tucked inside the notebook.

The book itself is a stark reminder of the shelling and gunfire which British and Imperial forces endured for five months in a battle which would eventually cost them 420,000 casualties.

At some point a bullet hole pierced the book, stopping a few pages from the back cover - telling either of a close brush with death or of the violence of Lt Woollatt's brave end.

The young officer, one of four brothers and sisters, died on July 14 1916 leading his men.

His body was never found, and the pocket book is the only clue as to what happened.

A local newspaper report about his death stated: "The battalion was called on to attack a wood that is already notorious and went forward most gallantly.

"Lieutenant Woollatt, with wonderful bravery, led on his company almost to the wood, when he fell, shot through the heart.

"In him, the regiment has lost a most admirable officer of whom all the battalion were very fond."

The book was later found in a shell hole by another soldier, with a note in pencil written in the back in Lt Woollatt's hand urging anyone who found the diary to return it to his mother's address.

An Army officer who sent the book on to his mother Edith Woollatt, wrote to tell her: "I am sorry I am unable to give you further information but the book was found alone in a shell hole."

Just days after the book arrived home, his older brother Claud Woollatt, a captain in the 8th Battalion of the Queens' Royal West Surrey Regiment was killed in the battle.

His mother had lost both sons to the Somme in the space of just two months.

Lt Woollatt's name is recorded, along with his brother's, on the war memorial of the Shrewsbury House School in Surbiton, where both had been pupils.

Amidst the carnage and loss of the war, he had never forgotten his sweetheart Alison and in his will, fixed in the back page of his notebook, he left all that he had of value, a collection of Sir Walter Scott books, to her.

He wrote the books would to be "a token of remembrance to my dear friend Alison Robertson".

The Somme offensive lasted 141 days, ending on November 18 1916, and was one of the bloodiest battles of the war with 57,000 British casualties on the first day.

More than a million men were killed or wounded in total on both sides by the end of the battle.

His will is among 278,000 last wills and testaments of soldiers killed in Britain's wars which are being preserved for future generations by archivists at Iron Mountain on behalf of Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service.

The ageing and disintegrating records which are kept under lock and key in a secret environmentally-controlled facility in Birmingham have been digitised and can be accessed through an online database.

Dee-Ann Craddock, the wills account manager for Iron Mountain, said: "He left his collection of novels to his sweetheart Alison, even though she had broken his heart."

She added: "It just goes to show how much she really did mean to him."

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.