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Author: Ray Westlake Publisher: Casemate Publishers ISBN: 1783833432 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
An account of the infantry battalions belonging to regiments of the British Army and the 63rd (Royal Naval Division) during their service in the Somme area. Although seventy-eight years have passed since the Battle of the Somme was fought, interest in this, the bloodiest battle of the First World War, has never waned. Ray Westlake has collated all the information so painstakingly gathered, to produce a comprehensive compendium of the exact movements of every battalion involved in the battle. This book is invaluable not only to researchers but to all those visiting the battlefield and anxious to trace the movements of their forebears.
Author: Ray Westlake Publisher: Casemate Publishers ISBN: 1783833432 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
An account of the infantry battalions belonging to regiments of the British Army and the 63rd (Royal Naval Division) during their service in the Somme area. Although seventy-eight years have passed since the Battle of the Somme was fought, interest in this, the bloodiest battle of the First World War, has never waned. Ray Westlake has collated all the information so painstakingly gathered, to produce a comprehensive compendium of the exact movements of every battalion involved in the battle. This book is invaluable not only to researchers but to all those visiting the battlefield and anxious to trace the movements of their forebears.
Author: Paul Cobb Publisher: The History Press ISBN: 0752468405 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
At Fromelles in July 1916 two divisions – one British and one Australian – within a few weeks of arriving in France – went into action for the first time. Their task was to prevent the Germans from moving troops to the Somme where a major British offensive was in progress, but the attack on 19/20 July was a disaster with nearly 7,000 casualties in a few hours. This account explores this battle which for many epitomises the futility of the Great War. In those few hours many heroic deeds were done but the battle caused a souring of Anglo-Australian relationships and truly was a baptism of fire for these British and Australian troops. This is their history. In a new section, Paul Cobb explores the recent discovery in 2008/09 of a mass war grave on the battlefield and includes details of the findings of the archaeological dig, the recovery of 250 bodies and the creation of a new military cemetery.
Author: Terry Carter Publisher: Casemate Publishers ISBN: 1473865832 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 338
Book Description
How the experience of war impacted on the town, from the initial enthusiasm for sorting out the German Kaiser in time for Christmas 1914, to the gradual realization of the enormity of human sacrifice the families of Birmingham were committed to as the war stretched out over the next four years. A record of the growing disillusion of the people, their tragedies and hardships and a determination to see it through. Birmingham’s part in the Great War is well documented from the production of Rifles and Lewis Guns at the B.S.A. to the mind boggling 25 million rifle cartridges produced weekly at Kynochs. Airplanes, tanks, armored cars, military trucks, shell fuses, shell cases, Mills bombs and hundreds of other intricate parts needed to make military hardware. “The country, the empire and the world owe to the skill, the ingenuity, the industry and the resource of Birmingham a deep debt of gratitude,” to quote Prime Minister Lloyd George and former Minister of Munitions. But that is only part of the story. Around 150,000 Birmingham men enlisted and sadly approximately 14,000 did not return. No story of Birmingham’s war effort can be told without mentioning the wives, moms, sisters and girlfriends who toiled away night and day working in munitions. Four years of local war time newspapers have been trawled through unearthing personal experiences of Brummagem folk in the Great War.
Author: Philip Guest Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 0850527899 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 161
Book Description
After the First World War, how many thousands of British families would have proud or bitter reason to remember the name St Quentin? At least eight Divisions, 23 Brigades, 74 Battalions an enormous number of fighting men, a weight of experience, courage, defeat and victory, all to be traced through these fields and villages round the city. There is much to honour here: exhausted British troops marching south in the Retreat from Mons in August 1914, resistance attacks on the Hindenburg Line in 1917, desperate feats of arms in the final German onslaught in the Spring of 1918. Many impressive individual and collective achievements, captured guns, Victoria Crosses richly earned. The ancient city itself suffered too - bombardment by French and British artillery, its citizens subjected and exploited by the occupying German forces, then evacuated ahead of the withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line - before its final liberation in October 1918. The book gives details of positions, redoubts, attacks, lines of advance and retreat, with many illustrations provided from local sources. Most of the positions described can still be traced and the sites of some epic events located.
Author: Tom Renouf Publisher: Abacus ISBN: 074811856X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
As a 19-year old Black Watch conscript Tom Renouf's war began with some of the most vicious fighting of the conflict - against Himmler's fanatical 'Hitler Youth' SS Division. It ended with the capture of Himmler himself and Tom taking a trophy he still treasures - the Gestapo commander's watch. Seriously wounded and later decorated with a Military Medal for gallantry, Tom Renouf witnessed the death and maiming of countless of his teenage comrades and saw the survivors transformed into grizzled veterans. Tom Renouf draws on his own personal experiences - as well as his unique archive of interviews with veterans amassed over twenty years as secretary of the 51st Highland Division Veterans' Association - to paint a vivid picture of the Battle of Normandy, the liberation of Holland, the Battle of the Bulge and many more memorable WW2 events.
Author: Trevor Royle Publisher: St. Martin's Press ISBN: 023011234X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
The unique leadership and lasting legacy of the greatest British army commander of the Second World War and one of the most professional and well-liked generals in the allied coalition. Bernard Law Montgomery was a dedicated battlefield tactician, though a controversial one. In North Africa in 1942, he commanded the Eighth Army to a great triumph against Rommel at El Alamein, which Churchill hailed as the beginning of the end of the war. During the planning stages for the invasion of Sicily, Montgomery proved himself to be a splendid organizer and a great believer in simplicity. But he was also known as a complicated man whose legacy remains tainted by his insensitive and boastful nature and desire for personal glory—all of which can have dangerous consequences on the battlefield. In the end, though, it was only due to Montgomery's influence that the weight of the Allied attack at Normandy was increased, and the Allied success of D-Day owes much to his far-sightedness. In the field, especially during the planning stages, he was at his best. An inspirational commander whose self-confidence was legendary, Montgomery's military life has proved to be a great lesson for leaders in the years since.
Author: Nigel McCrery Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1473505852 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
A moving narrative history of the professional footballers who fought and died in World War I, with a foreword by Gary Lineker. In 1914, as today, successful footballers were heroes and role models. They were the sporting superstars of their time; symbols of youth, health and vigour. Naturally enough, when war broke out they felt it was their duty to join up and fight. Between 1914 and 1918, 213 professional players fell in action. Some teams lost half their players, either killed or else so badly injured in mind and body that they were never to play again. The Final Season is the powerfully moving account of these young men who swapped the turf of the pitch and the cheers of the fans for the freezing mud of the battlefield and the terrible scream of shell fire. It follows them as they leave their fans and families behind, undergo training and then travel on to the bloody arenas of war: Ypres, Gallipoli, the Somme, Passchendaele. Nigel McCrery paints these men in vivid detail. From their achievements on the football pitch to their heroic conduct on the battlefield, we will learn of the selfless courage and determination they displayed in the face of adversity. For far too many, we will also learn when, and how, they made the ultimate sacrifice.
Author: Capt H. FitzM. Stacke Publisher: Andrews UK Limited ISBN: 1781508496 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 426
Book Description
Arguably the finest regimental history even written. A magnificent publication it is with its profusion of maps, illustrations and photos - each page of photos contains several. The Worcesters was one of the five regiments that had four regular battalions before the war, with two special reserve and two territorial battalions. By the end of the war another fourteen battalions had been raised for a total of twenty-two of which twelve went on active service. 9,460 officers and men gave their lives, 71 Battle Honours were awarded and eight VCs one of whom, attached to the RFC, was the airman Leefe Robinson, famous for shooting down a zeppelin. Battalions served on the Western Front, in Gallipoli, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Italy; one battalion ended the war in North Persia. Appendices provide the Roll of Honour; Honours and Awards including Mention in Despatches, with date of Gazette (for 'Companion' of the British Empire read 'Commander'); details of Badges, Colours and Distinctions of the regiment; and the music for regimental marches. Illustrations are by well-known artists depicting battle scenes including each VC-winning action - apart from Leefe's zeppelin. After considering various factors, explained in his very informative preface, the author decided to present this history as one general story in which the number of the battalion concerned is printed in the margin of the pages dealing with its deeds. Attention is paid to minor actions such as trench raids, which usually find no place in compressed official histories; they are recorded in this history. The plans illustrate the engagements recorded in the book, and are designed to depict the part played by the several battalions in their battles and to enable the visitor to the battlefields to recognise the ground on which each fight took place, as much as to make clear the general course of those actions. The book opens with a very interesting account of the regiment in the years before the war, beginning at the turn of the century, and there is a very comprehensive index of 25 pages. This is a great piece of work and must rank as one of the finest of the Great War regimental histories, many would say the finest, and I wouldn't argue.
Author: Peter Hughes Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1473825563 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 345
Book Description
Like Ypres, Arras was a front line town throughout the Great War. From March 1916 it became home to the British Army and it remained so until the Advance to Victory was well under way. In 1917 the Battle of Arras came and went. It occupied barely half a season, but was then largely forgotten; the periods before and after it have been virtually ignored, and yet the Arras sector was always important and holding it was never easy or without incident; death, of course, was never far away. The area around Arras is as rich in Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries as anywhere else on the Western Front, including the Somme and Ypres, and yet these quiet redoubts with their headstones proudly on parade still remain largely unvisited. This book is the story of the men who fell and who are now buried in those cemeteries; and the telling of their story is the telling of what it was like to be a soldier on the Western Front. ??'Arras-North' is the first of three books by the same author. This volume contains in depth coverage of almost sixty Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and is a veritable 'Who's Who' of officers and other ranks who fell on this part of the Western Front. It provides comprehensive details of gallantry awards and citations and describes many minor operations, raids and other actions, as well as the events that took place in April and May 1917. It is the story of warfare on the Western Front as illustrated through the lives of those who fought and died on the battlefields of Arras.??There are many unsung heroes and personal tragedies, including a young man who went out into no man's land to rescue his brother, an uncle and nephew killed by the same shell, a suicide in the trenches and a young soldier killed by a random shell whilst celebrating his birthday with his comrades. There is an unexpected connection to Ulster dating back to the days of Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange, a link to Sinn Fein and an assassination, a descendant of Sir Isaac Newton, as well as a conjuror, a friend of P.G. Wodehouse, a young officer said to have been 'thrilled' to lead his platoon into the trenches for the first time, only to be killed three hours later, and a man whose headstone still awaits the addition of his Military Medal after almost a century, despite having been involved in one of the most daring rescues of the war. This is a superb reference guide for anyone visiting Arras and its battlefields.
Author: Mark Osborne Humphries Publisher: University of Toronto Press ISBN: 1442644710 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 500
Book Description
More than 16,000 Canadian soldiers suffered from shell shock during the Great War of 1914 to 1918. Despite significant interest from historians, we still know relatively little about how it was experienced, diagnosed, treated, and managed in the frontline trenches in the Canadian and British forces. How did soldiers relate to suffering comrades? Did large numbers of shell shock cases affect the outcome of important battles? Was frontline psychiatric treatment as effective as many experts claimed after the war? Were Canadians treated any differently than other Commonwealth soldiers? A Weary Road is the first comprehensive study to address these important questions. Author Mark Osborne Humphries uses research from Canadian, British, and Australian archives, including hundreds of newly available hospital records and patient medical files, to provide a history of war trauma as it was experienced, treated, and managed by ordinary soldiers.
Author: Ray Westlake
Author: Ray Westlake
Author: Paul Cobb
Author: Terry Carter
Author: Philip Guest
Author: Tom Renouf
Author: Trevor Royle
Author: Nigel McCrery
Author: Capt H. FitzM. Stacke
Author: Peter Hughes
Author: Mark Osborne Humphries