Born in London , Blunden was the eldest of the nine children of Charles Edmund Blunden (1871-1951) and his wife , Georgina Margaret No Tyler , who were joint -head teachers of a London school .

Blunden was educated at Christ's Hospital and The Queen's College , Oxford . 
In August 1915 Blunden was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment [1 ] and served with them right up to the end of World War I , taking part in the actions at Ypres and the Somme , and receiving the Military Cross in the process . Unusual for a junior infantry officer.

Blunden survived nearly two years in the front line without physical injury , but for the rest of his life bore mental scars from his experiences . [1 ] With characteristic self - deprecation he Attributed his survival to his diminutive size : he made ​​" an inconspicuous target" [3 ]

Although he wrote war poems , he avoided the graphic edge That characterization rises the work of Sassoon or Wilfred Owen , and his memoirs of war service , though beautifully written , lack the immediacy of Those of . Sassoon or Robert Graves. His own account of his frequently traumatic experiences was published in 1928 under the title Undertones of War .

Source: Wikipedia.org