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Albert Ball VC: The Fighter Pilot Hero of World War I
By Colin Pengelly. 2010
An action-packed military biography of a British fighter pilot and his rise through ranks during World War I. World War…
I pilot Albert Ball&’s invincible courage and determination made him a legend not only in Britain but also amongst his enemies, to whom the sight of his lone Nieuport Scout brought fear. Ball enlisted in the British army in 1914 with the 2/7th Battalion (Robin Hoods) of the Sherwood Foresters, Notts, and Derby Regiment. By October, 1914, he had reached the rank of Sergeant and then became Second-Lieutenant to his own battalion in the same month. In June, 1915, he trained as a pilot in Hendon. Then in October, he obtained Royal Aero Club Certificate and was transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. He further trained at Norwich and Upavon, being awarded the pilot&’s brevet in January, 1916. In May, he opened his score, shooting down an Albatros C-type over Beaumont. Days later he shot down two LVG C-types, while flying his Nieuport 5173. Captain Albert Ball made his final flight on May 7, 1917, when he flew as part of an eleven-strong hunting patrol into action against Jagdstaffel 11, led by Lothar Von Richthofen. Albert was pursuing the Albatros Scout of Lothar, who crash-landed, wounded. Then many witnessed Albert dive out of a cloud and crash. He died minutes later in the arms of a French girl, Madame Cecille Deloffre. Ball rose from obscurity to the top rank of contemporary fighter pilots in only 15 months. In that period, he had been awarded the MC, DSO, and two Bars, and was credited with at least 44 victories.The WWI biography of a Victory Cross recipient who fought bravely at Gallipoli, only to be shunned after the war…
for speaking out against it. The son of a former Premier of Western Australia, Hugo Throssell volunteered to join the Imperial Australian Force during the Great War. He was shipped to Gallipoli in 1915 with the 10th Australian Light Horse Regiment, which fought in a dismounted role. He was involved in the famous charge of the 10th Light Horse at the Battle of the Nek and the Battle of Hill 60. Throssell was severely wounded during the Battle of Hill 60, but refused to leave his post until the fighting was over. As soon as his wounds were dressed, he went back into the firing line until he was ordered to stand down by the Medical Officer. His determination saved his battalion at a critical moment. After the war, Throssell became an outspoken opponent of war, for which he was widely condemned. It also made employment difficult and he fell into debt. When he tried to pawn his Victoria Cross, he was offered only ten shillings. He committed suicide at forty-nine. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this is a moving tale of heroism and tragedy.Lady Under Fire on the Western Front: The Great War Letters of Lady Dorothie Feilding MM
By Andrew Hallam, Nicola Hallam. 2010
When Britain went to war in 1914 many people rallied to the cause, determined to join the colors or be…
useful in some other way. Lady Dorothie Mary Evelyn Feilding was one of the latter. ‘Lady D spent almost three years on the Western Front in Belgium driving ambulances for the Munro Motor Ambulance Corps, an all-volunteer unit. During her time in Flanders her bravery was such that she received the Belgian Order of Leopold, the French Croix de Guerre and was the first woman to be awarded the British Military Medal. She wrote home to Newnham Paddox, near Rugby, almost daily. Her letters reflect the mundane, tragedy and horror of war and also the tensions of being a woman at the front contending with shells, gossip, funding, lice, vehicle maintenance and inconvenient marriage proposals. Though Dorothie was the daughter of an Earl and from a privileged upbringing she had an easy attitude that transcended social boundaries and that endeared her to all that she came in to contact with whether royalty or the ordinary fighting man.Salute of Guns
By Donald Boyd. 2012
A British World War I veteran details artillery’s role in the Great War, life on the Western Front, and soldier…
morale in this classic memoir.Salute of Guns covers a story that is almost forgotten: Artillery was the decisive weapon of the Great War. The developments in artillery tactics, equipment and shells played a major role in the final Allied victory. British artillery was in the forefront of all those changes. This book gives the reader a dramatic insight into the story of artillery in the First World War.Donald Boyd joined his local Territorial Force artillery unit in September 1914. Commissioned in 1915, he learnt his trade in France from unsympathetic pre-war Indian Army regulars who did not understand how war was changing. From 1916 to 1918 he took part in the Western Front’s major battles, including the Somme, Third Ypres, Cambrai and the 1918 offensives. The stress of an artillery subaltern’s existence, observing in the front line, keeping the guns in action at a battery position or leading ammunition columns up tracks exposed to shellfire brought him to nervous collapse twice. The author is frank about his problems and convincingly conveys the relationships within his sub-unit which helped or hindered his struggle to stay in the front line.A new foreword by Michael Orr sets Boyd’s memoir in context and documents its reliability from the archives.Praise for Salute of Guns“If I had to name the best record of Western Front fighting I should, on the whole, choose Donald Boyd’s Salute of Guns as the one that has dealt most faithfully with the most difficult to recall of all its aspects—contemporary morale.” —Robert Graves“An excellent account of service by a man dealing with the fear and mental fatigue of a long war who yet describes his military activities with great clarity. It is particularly valuable as such memoirs from the Royal Regiment are few. Pen & Sword are to be congratulated.” —British Commission for Military HistoryA century ago General Joffre, as Chief of the French General Staff, led the armies that blocked the German invasion…
at the First Battle of the Marne. He saved Paris from occupation and France from probable defeat. His calm demeanour when faced with a disaster, his ruthless dismissal of incompetent subordinates, and his skilled redeployment of his forces contributed to a historic victory. At the time many saw him as the saviour of the nation, but what should we make of him now? For Joffre contributed to the failures of the French army and its strategy before the war and during the first battles of 1914. Also his conduct of the war after the Marne futile offensives that cost thousands of lives and gained no ground, followed by near defeat at Verdun - undermined his position and led to his dismissal.Although he remained immensely popular in France, his reputation has been under a cloud ever since, and he has been overshadowed by the French generals - Ptain and especially Foch - who commanded the French army at the time of the final victory over Germany.Andr Bourachot, in this lucid and highly readable study of Joffre's career, focuses on his performance during the opening phase of the Great War. He offers a fresh and carefully considered view of the man and the soldier.Nottingham in the Great War (Your Towns & Cities in the Great War)
By Carol Lovejoy Edwards. 2015
The years 1914-1918 cost many lives in the trenches of France and Belgium. Those trenches and the battles that were…
fought from them are well documented. But back home in towns and cities up and down the United Kingdom death and desperation were also apparent. Those left behind to carry on suffered from harsh winters, lack of food and fuel and flu epidemics. This is the story of the struggles of ordinary people with their everyday lives. It includes the opportunities presented to the criminal fraternity and the contribution that women made to the war effort by filling men's jobs and providing a home for the men to return to. If they were lucky enough to come home from the war.Russian Civil War: Red Terror, White Terror, 1917–1922 (History of Terror)
By Michael Foley. 2018
This historical study examines how the Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War influenced events on the world stage in the…
Great War and beyond.The Russian Revolution of 1917 is remembered as the catalyst for a bloody conflict between the Communist Red Army and the anti-Communist White Army. But in reality, the conflict was far more complex and multifaceted, involving forces from outside Russia. In this probing history, Michael Foley examines the Russian Civil War in terms of its relationship to the larger conflict raging across Europe. It is an epic tale of brutal violence and political upheaval featuring a colorful cast of characters—including Tsar Nicholas II, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill.Wandsworth & Battersea Battalions in the Great War
By Paul McCue. 2010
The service and sacrifices of two London boroughs are chronicled in dramatic detail in this WWI military history.In 1915, the…
Mayors of the London Metropolitan Boroughs were each urged to raise a unit of local men for active service overseas. The responses from Wandsworth and Battersea, two neighboring boroughs in Southwest London, could not have been more different. Mirroring their different political leanings, Battersea raised a full infantry battalion for the Queens (Royal West Surrey) Regiment, while Wandsworth sent double the men needed for an infantry battalion to the East Surrey Regiment.Wandsworth’s 13th East Surreys and Battersea’s 10th Queens both served with honor and distinction. But they, and the communities from which they came, also suffered thousands of men wounded and killed. This sacrifice cemented links with France, Belgium and Italy that continue today. From the early tragic death of an adventurous boy of just 15, to the heroic deeds of a dustman who won the Victoria Cross, this book describes the pain and the glory of the volunteers of Wandsworth and Battersea on the Western Front.The French air force of the First World War developed as fast as the British and German air forces, yet…
its history, and the enormous contribution it made to the eventual French victory, is often forgotten. So Ian Sumner's photographic history, which features almost 200 images, most of which have not been published before, is a fascinating and timely introduction to the subject. The fighter pilots, who usually dominate perceptions of the war in the air, play a leading role in the story, in particular the French aces, the small group of outstanding airmen whose exploits captured the publics imagination. Their fame, though, tends to distract attention from the ordinary unremembered airmen who formed the body of the air force throughout the war years. Ian Sumner tells their story too, as well as describing in a sequence of memorable photographs the less well-known branches of the service the bomber and reconnaissance pilots and the variety of primitive warplanes they flew.The first detailed chronicle, with photos included, of the four battalions of riflemen who left Leeds for the Western Front.…
The full wartime story of the &“Leeds Pals&” has never been told. This volume describes their volunteer origins and how they came to be woven into the social fabric of Leeds from where they drew their enduring esprit de corps, discipline, and resolve. It takes the reader on a journey across the Western Front of the Great War, contrasting the first line battalion&’s lot, to stand in the mud of Ypres and endure all without breaking, with the second line battalion&’s blooding at Bullecourt and transformation as part of an elite assault division that went on to occupy Germany. It is told, in part, by those who were there and experienced the fear, elation, and sadness of loss, and who took strength from their volunteer ethos and their common origins in Leeds. All the Leeds Rifles&’ main battles are described in detail as are the helter-skelter actions of the last one hundred days of mobile warfare and escalating casualties, when the defeated but still defiant German army found itself in full and final retreat. Follow the fortunes of these enfants de Yorkshire, these Leeds Lads, as they speak out from the pages of history with a very familiar accent.Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
By Erik Larson. 2016
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the…
sinking of the Lusitania&“Both terrifying and enthralling.&”—Entertainment Weekly&“Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.&”—NPR&“Thoroughly engrossing.&”—George R.R. MartinOn May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era&’s great transatlantic &“Greyhounds&”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger&’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don&’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, IndigoWinged Sabres: One of the RFC's Most Decorated Squadrons (The national Archives Ser.)
By Robert A. Sellwood. 2018
Winged Sabres is the story of a RFC & RAF squadron flying the cumbersome FE2 from February 1916 to September…
1917, and then the superlative Bristol Fighter: a two-seater fighter-reconnaissance squadron with an astonishingly high success rate.20 Squadron was possibly the highest scoring squadron of the war and one of the most highly decorated, claiming over 600 combat victories with well over 400 confirmed in RFC & RAF Communiqus. Its members won seventy gallantry decorations including a posthumous Victoria Cross, and included fliers from the U.K. and around the world. Over 40 became aces, including the American Iaccaci brothers and some Canadians and others. But with a casualty rate of around 50% including killed, wounded and POW they paid a high price.Over 15 years research has gone into this book, covering a seldom-explored aspect of WW1 in the air: the two-seater fighter-reconnaissance squadrons. 20 Squadrons motto was Facta Non Verba Deeds Not Words!Somme Success: The Royal Flying Corps and the Battle of The Somme 1916
By Peter Hart. 2012
This history of the Royal Flying Corps during the Battle of Somme offers a comprehensive firsthand look at WWI military…
aviation. During the summer and fall of 1916, high above the blood-soaked trenches of the Somme, the Royal Flying Corps was engaging in one of the first great aerial battles of history. Even in those pioneering days of aerial warfare, primitive aircraft and the brave men who flew them were proving vital. Before the battle, photographic reconnaissance aircraft from both sides were desperately trying to map the opposition's deployment; artillery spotting aircraft were locating hidden targets; and bombing raids had become standard.Somme Success provides a detailed description of all facets of air operations of the period using the firsthand accounts of those who were there. It describes how the Royal Flying Corps answered the Fokker scourge in Airco DH.2 single-seater planes and, later, the ubiquitous F.E.2b two-seaters—the plane that shot down German 'Ace' Max Immelmann. Having conceded air supremacy to the Royal Flying Corps early in the Somme Offensive, the German Air Service launched an aerial counterattack during August and September. The Albatross single-seaters of the elite scout squadron proved superior to any allied aircraft. When German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen—the Red Baron—took to the skies, a new period of German supremacy began.Australia's Lost Heroes: Anzacs in the Russian Civil War 1919
By Damien Wright. 2024
This extraordinary book is both an engaging military history and an enthralling mystery. Australia&’s Lost Heroes tells the astonishing little-known…
story of the Australian soldiers who fought the Red Army in Russia in 1919 and the personal odyssey, 100 years later, to locate and identify the lost grave of Victoria Cross hero Sergeant Samuel Pearse VC MM.The Anzac volunteers fought an arduous campaign punctuated by fierce ambushes in thick forest, swamps and marshes and attacks on fortified bunkers. They also had to fight a war within, avoiding the treachery and mutiny of White Russian &‘allies&’. Remarkably, two Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross, one posthumously. Yet, unlike the reverence, recognition and commemoration afforded to WWI soldiers, not only do the deeds of Anzacs in Russia remain unrecognized, their graves lie lost and forgotten. Follow the author&’s journey to a remote corner of Russia with the grandson of Samuel Pearse in the hope of identifying the lost grave. Guided by a Russian battlefield archaeologist, they discover an astonishing clue which may resolve the mystery of an Australian hero missing for 100 years. An extraordinary story of national importance dedicated to those forgotten Australian heroes who fought and died in Russia after the Armistice.The Territorials, 1908–1914: A Guide for Military and Family Historians
By Ray Westlake. 2011
The Territorials 1908–1914 is a unique, comprehensive record of the part-time soldiers who made up the Territorial Force that supported…
the regular army in the years immediately before the outbreak of the First World War. Previously information on the history and organization of these dedicated amateur soldiers has been incomplete and scattered across many sources but now, in this invaluable work of reference, Ray Westlake provides an accessible introduction to the Territorial Force and a directory of the units raised in each county and each town. The origin, aims and organization of the Territorial Force are described as well as the terms of service, recruitment, equipment and training. But the bulk of the book consists of details of over 600 Territorial units plus a comprehensive account of every city, town or village associated with them. Essential information on the all the infantry formations is supplied, but also covered are the yeomanry, the artillery, the engineers, the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Army Service Corps. Ray Westlakes historical guide of the Territorial Force the forerunner of the present-day Territorial Army - will be of enduring value to military and family historians.Tommy Goes to War
By Malcolm Brown. 2018
The image of the innocent British soldier (or Tommy) setting off with a spring in his step in 1914 to…
fight the Great War would not last long.Indeed that initial euphoria would soon give way to a deep-seated bitterness as these young men endured the horror of the First World War.In a new edition of this extraordinary book, the uncensored letters, diaries, documents and many photographs tell the story of the British soldier (nicknamed Tommy) in their own words.While there are flashes of their wit and humour, the overwhelming feeling is that of a generation who felt let down by their superiors and left to perish.There are visceral, terrifying insights into life in the trenches and agonising descriptions of the squalor and privations of war.This haunting account also looks at the aggressive drive to recruit more soldiers through the Pals Battalion or Chums Battalion. Friends from the same town or village; professional bodies, or work colleagues among others were encouraged to enlist en masse. They would fight together alongside their friends or colleagues. Many of them would sadly die together and leave communities wild with grief for a lost generation, robbed of a future having barely had a past.With a concise analysis of the British Army in the First World War, we are reminded of the terror of war, the fury, the fear and the frustration of what has been described by some as a war typified by the devastating assessment: lions led by donkeys.The War Poems Of Wilfred Owen
By Wilfred Owen. 2018
'Orpheus, the pagan saint of poets, went through hell and came back singing. In twentieth-century mythology, the singer wears a…
steel helmet and makes his descent "down some profound dull tunnel" in the stinking mud of the Western Front. For most readers of English poetry, the face under that helmet is that of Wilfred Owen.' Professor Jon Stallworthy, from his Introduction.When Wilfred Owen was killed in the days before the Armistice in 1918, he left behind a shattering, truthful and indelible record of a soldier's experience of the First World War. His greatest war poetry has been collected, edited and introduced here by Professor Jon Stallworthy. This special edition is published to commemorate the end of the hellish war that Owen, though the hard-won truth and terrible beauty of his poetry, has taught us never to forget.A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture
By Samuel Hynes. 1990
Between the opulent Edwardian years and the 1920s the First World War opens like a gap in time. England after…
the war was a different place; the arts were different; history was different; sex, society, class were all different.Samuel Hynes examines the process of that transformation. He explores a vast cultural mosaic comprising novels and poetry, music and theatre, journalism, paintings, films, parliamentary debates, public monuments, sartorial fashions, personal diaries and letters.Told in rich detail, this penetrating account shatters much of the received wisdom about the First World War. It shows how English culture adapted itself to the needs of killing, how our stereotypes of the war gradually took shape and how the nations thought and imagination were profoundly and irretrievably changed.A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front: Memoirs from a WWI camp hospital
By Olive Dent. 2014
Starring Oona Chaplin as a V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment), and Suranne Jones and Hermione Norris as trained nurses, The Crimson…
Field is a gripping drama set in a tented hospital on the coast of France, where plucky real-life V.A.D. Olive Dent served two years of the Great War, and kept this extraordinarily vivid diary of day-to-day life – ever cheerful through the bitter cold, the chilblains, hunger and exhaustion. Resilient, courageous and resourceful, nurses, doctors and patients alike do their best to support each other. A Christmas fancy-dress ball, a concert performed by a stoic orchestra covered in bandages, church services held in a marquee and letters from Blighty all keep spirits up in camp, as wounded soldiers suffer terribly with quiet dignity on the makeshift wards, and nurses rush round tirelessly to make them as comfortable as possible.With original illustrations throughout by fellow V.A.D.s, Olive’s memoir is a fascinating period piece, a rare first-hand account of this little-known story, which will resonate very strongly with viewers of The Crimson Field.Too Important for the Generals: Losing and Winning the First World War
By Allan Mallinson. 2016
‘War is too important to be left to the generals’ snapped future French prime minister Georges Clemenceau on learning of…
yet another bloody and futile offensive on the Western Front. One of the great questions in the ongoing discussions and debate about the First World War is why did winning take so long and exact so appalling a human cost? After all this was a fight that, we were told, would be over by Christmas. Now, in his major new history, Allan Mallinson, former professional soldier and author of the acclaimed 1914: Fight the Good Fight, provides answers that are disturbing as well as controversial, and have a contemporary resonance. He disputes the growing consensus among historians that British generals were not to blame for the losses and setbacks in the ‘war to end all wars’ – that, given the magnitude of their task, they did as well anyone could have. He takes issue with the popular view that the ‘amateur’ opinions on strategy of politicians such as Lloyd George and, especially, Winston Churchill, prolonged the war and increased the death toll. On the contrary, he argues, even before the war began Churchill had a far more realistic, intelligent and humane grasp of strategy than any of the admirals or generals, while very few senior officers – including Sir Douglas Haig – were up to the intellectual challenge of waging war on this scale. And he repudiates the received notion that Churchill’s stature as a wartime prime minister after 1940 owes much to the lessons he learned from his First World War ‘mistakes’ – notably the Dardanelles campaign – maintaining that in fact Churchill’s achievement in the Second World War owes much to the thwarting of his better strategic judgement by the ‘professionals’ in the First – and his determination that this would not be repeated.Mallinson argues that from day one of the war Britain was wrong-footed by absurdly faulty French military doctrine and paid, as a result, an unnecessarily high price in casualties. He shows that Lloyd George understood only too well the catastrophically dysfunctional condition of military policy-making and struggled against the weight of military opposition to fix it. And he asserts that both the British and the French failed to appreciate what the Americans’ contribution to victory could be – and, after the war, to acknowledge fully what it had actually been.