Accrington's Pals: The Full Story PDF Download

Author: Andrew Jackson
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783468823
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
Andrew Jackson's new history tells the story of the Great War as it was experienced by the men of the 11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment (Accrington Pals), the 158th (Accrington and Burnley) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (Howitzers) and their families. Using information gathered from years of painstaking research in national and local archives and in private collections, he reconstructs, in vivid detail, the role played by these men on the Western Front. His book, which draws extensively on diaries, memoirs and letters, follows both infantry and artillerymen into the British armys bloodiest battles of the war, giving a graphic close-up view of their experiences. It is a moving record of the wartime service of a select group of local men during a time of unprecedented conflict.

Author: Andrew C. Jackson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781848844698
Category : Accrington (England)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The First Battle of the Marne was one of the most pivotal battles in history. Fought outside Paris in September 1914, it turned the tide of the German invasion of France, and robbed Kaiser Wilhelm II of his best chance of winning the First World War.

Author: Andrew Jackson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: Steve Corbett
Publisher: Helion and Company
ISBN: 1911096850
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
September 1914, and the whole of Europe was at war following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his beloved wife Sophie by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914. In France and Belgium, the British Expeditionary Force were struggling to hold back the German hoards as their casualties began to mount. Back in Britain the call went out for volunteers to join the ‘Pals’ battalions which were springing up in the northern towns of England, and one of the first to volunteer was young Jack Smallshaw of Accrington. On 15th September 1914, Jack became an ‘Accrington Pal,’ a member of a battalion of men who are remembered more than any other of the Pals battalions because of the appalling tragedy which befell them on the killing fields of the Somme. On that fateful day on 1st July 1916, the battalion attacked the fortified village of Serre and were virtually wiped out on the slopes in front of the village. Jack was one of the very few who survived. He continued to serve on the front throughout the remainder of 1916 and into 1917, where he took part in the battle at Oppy wood in May of that year. Shortly afterwards he was struck down by a second bout of trench fever and spent the rest of the year recovering in England. By February 1918 he was back in France serving on the front line, but Jack was never the same man. He was in the thick of the action again in March when the Germans launched their spring offensive against the allied lines. He weathered that too, and stuck it out to the bitter end. This then, is the story of a quite remarkable survivor of the ‘war to end all wars’, whose diaries have lain unpublished, in the possession of his family, since 1919.

Author: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674545192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680

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Book Description
Rescuing from history the heroes on the front line whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Battle of the Somme in all its glory and misery, helping us to realize that there are many meaningful ways to define a battle when seen through the eyes of those who lived it.

Author: John K. Rieth
Publisher: Badgley Publishing Company
ISBN: 0998804509
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
Imperial Germany's "Iron Regiment" of the First World War offers a rare English-language account of a premier German infantry unit. Renowned as the Iron Regiment for its fighting record in the legendary 1916 Battle of the Somme, its service spanned from WW I's earliest battles through its destruction by US Marines in the Argonne Forest in the war's final days. Inspired by a wartime journal written by the author's grandfather, an IR 169 veteran, much of the book is drawn from rare soldier accounts, many published here for the first time in English. The voice of these soldiers take us into the other side of the trenches and through the unimaginable horrors of the First World War. This second edition adds over 100 pages of text, maps, and pictures to the original publication. "An excellent writing looking at WW 1 from a German soldier's perspective. I highly recommend it to everyone interested in learning more about the Great War." Gerald York, Colonel (Ret), US Army Grandson of Sergeant Alvin York, famed US Army WW I Medal of Honor Recipient "This book stands head and shoulders above previously published unit histories and should not be ignored for its substantial value in providing the whole picture of many of the war's landmark battles." Roads to the Great War "War histories of German regiments during either the First or Second World War are comparatively rare, and this book is a welcome addition." Britain at War Magazine "A complete lifecycle account of a German regiment for the duration of the First World War, and so a rare contribution to those wishing to see the war from the German perspective." Great War Society ---------------- The author, John K. Rieth, is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel with a lifelong interest in military history. He is the author of Patton's Forward Observers: The History of the 7th Field Artillery Battalion and is a member of the US Army Historical Foundation and the Western Front Association.

Author: William Bennett Turner
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473811627
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 767

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Book Description
Follow the footsteps of the Pals in their journey from Lancashire to their training camps in England and Wales and to the villages and battlefields of France. A comprehensive account, with maps and pictures, of a Pals Battalion's service throughout the war.

Author: Stewart Binns
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 140591629X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
The second in Stewart Binns' acclaimed Great War Series, The Darkness and the Thunder is a sweeping story of war following five families through the terrifying conditions of the Western Front, the slaughter of Gallipoli and the heartbreak of those left at home. 'The book on the conflict remembered 100 years on' Jon Wise, Sunday Sport -1915- The Western Front is a wasteland of barbed wire, shell craters and mud-filled trenches. Winston Churchill, searching for a solution to the stalemate, commits the Allies to a disastrous Gallipoli campaign. As men on both sides die in droves, miners and mill-workers work tirelessly for the war effort while families confront the broken bodies of returning soldiers. Nurses, soldiers, politicians, factory-workers and children - all are torn apart by war, and for husbands and sons, mothers and wives, the old way of life is vanishing. *** Praise for Stewart Binns: 'Anyone with even a vague interest in Britain and the Great War should read The Shadow of War' Celia Sandys, granddaughter of Winston Churchill 'Stewart Binns has produced a real page-turner, a truly stunning adventure story' Alastair Campbell 'A fascinating mix of fact, legend and fiction . . . this is storytelling at its best' Daily Mail 'Unique, entertaining and eye-opening' Robin Carter, Parmenion Books 'A tour de force of writing brilliance' Books Monthly 'Unarguably heart-warming... will leave any reader with a sense of British pride' Goodreads 'Truly a book that educates while entertaining, a talent of this best-selling author' Historical Novel Review

Author: Geoff Dyer
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307742970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
The Missing of the Somme is part travelogue, part meditation on remembrance—and completely, unabashedly, unlike any other book about the First World War. Through visits to battlefields and memorials, Geoff Dyer examines the way that photographs and film, poetry and prose determined—sometimes in advance of the events described—the way we would think about and remember the war. With his characteristic originality and insight, Dyer untangles and reconstructs the network of myth and memory that illuminates our understanding of, and relationship to, the Great War.

Author: William Turner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781871236163
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
At 7.30am in the bright sunshine of 1st July 1916, 700 men of the 11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment - the 'Accrington Pals' - advanced from their trenches before the fortified village of Serre. Seven days of ferocious British artillery fire had preceeded the first infantry of what was later to be known as the Battle of the Somme. The deep German dug-outs however, were relatively unscathed by the barrage and men emerged to the surface as teh British soldiers were advancing slowly across 'no man's land'. Within twenty minutes, 585 'Pals' lay dead or wounded, cut to pieces by a withering hail of machine-gun and shell-fire. Accrington was the smallest town in Britian to organise the raising of a full battalion, and the manner of its creation increased the sense of loss and tragedy for the East Lancashire communities affected - for the 'Pals' battalions consisted of men drawn from the same town, villages and workplaces. In this new and revised edition of his popular short book, Bill Turner pays tribute to the men of the 11th (Service) Battalion (Accrington), East Lancashire Regiment, who fought and died in the Great War 1914-18.