The writer declared dead on his 21st birthday – who then led a most extraordinary life

Robert Graves was never quite able to fully say goodbye to all that, writes James Rampton

Robert Graves writing at Vale House, his home in Galmpton near Brixham, Devon, in December 1941 (Getty)

On 20 July 1916, in the thick of the Battle of the Somme – one of the bloodiest conflicts in the whole of the First World War – a German shell exploded next to Robert Graves. At that moment, he wrote: “I felt as though I had been punched rather hard between the shoulder blades.”

Graves, who had enlisted two weeks after the war broke out and attained the rank of captain at just 20 years of age, sustained multiple life-threatening injuries, including one from a fragment of shrapnel that tore through his lungs.

The writer was so severely wounded that on his 21st birthday, 24 July 1916, he was declared dead at a dressing station close to Mametz Wood. His mother was even sent a telegram informing her that he had passed away, and his death was announced in The Times.