A Miners Pals Battalion at War

A Miners Pals Battalion at War PDF Author: Mike Hall
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784620335
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
On the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, this is a story that so far has never been told. The 18th Battalion Middlesex Regiment were not infantry men whose primary job was to go 'over the top' at the start or during battle. Nor were they deployed behind the lines away from the action with the generals and base camp workers. They had a different job – to build the infrastructure necessary to prosecute the war. These 'miners pals' played a vital role in the war. They dug and drained trenches, wired No Man’s Land, mined under enemy lines, made and repaired roads, filled in craters, constructed dug-outs, stock piled ammunition, built and improved billets, fetched and carried, kept open communications with the front, made and repaired railways, built and demolished bridges, gased the enemy, picquetted rods and held the front line. If a job needed doing, they did it – no matter where, when or how dangerous. At times they fought back the Germans with only their picks and shovels, and in High Wood, at the height of the Battle of the Somme, they were deployed to fight the enemy at bayonet point. By this, amongst other events, the 18th Battalion earned the right to use the Middlesex Regiment nickname 'die-hards'. A Miners Pals Battalion at War is written in diary form, based on the 18th Middlesex Battalion War Diary and the 33rd Division War Diary. Volume 1 covers August 1914 – June 1917, with Volume 2 continuing the entries from July 1917 to January 1919. There are many accounts of the bravery of members of the battalion, recording biographical details of each soldier, including the cemetery where they are buried or memorial where they are honoured. The book is a goldmine of information, laden with incidents from the war and facts that have been cross-checked and verified. It is a fascinating read for anyone looking for an untold aspect of WWI.

A Miners Pals Battalion at War

A Miners Pals Battalion at War PDF Author: Mike Hall
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784620335
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
On the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, this is a story that so far has never been told. The 18th Battalion Middlesex Regiment were not infantry men whose primary job was to go 'over the top' at the start or during battle. Nor were they deployed behind the lines away from the action with the generals and base camp workers. They had a different job – to build the infrastructure necessary to prosecute the war. These 'miners pals' played a vital role in the war. They dug and drained trenches, wired No Man’s Land, mined under enemy lines, made and repaired roads, filled in craters, constructed dug-outs, stock piled ammunition, built and improved billets, fetched and carried, kept open communications with the front, made and repaired railways, built and demolished bridges, gased the enemy, picquetted rods and held the front line. If a job needed doing, they did it – no matter where, when or how dangerous. At times they fought back the Germans with only their picks and shovels, and in High Wood, at the height of the Battle of the Somme, they were deployed to fight the enemy at bayonet point. By this, amongst other events, the 18th Battalion earned the right to use the Middlesex Regiment nickname 'die-hards'. A Miners Pals Battalion at War is written in diary form, based on the 18th Middlesex Battalion War Diary and the 33rd Division War Diary. Volume 1 covers August 1914 – June 1917, with Volume 2 continuing the entries from July 1917 to January 1919. There are many accounts of the bravery of members of the battalion, recording biographical details of each soldier, including the cemetery where they are buried or memorial where they are honoured. The book is a goldmine of information, laden with incidents from the war and facts that have been cross-checked and verified. It is a fascinating read for anyone looking for an untold aspect of WWI.

6th Battalion, The Manchester Regiment in the Great War

6th Battalion, The Manchester Regiment in the Great War PDF Author: John Hartley
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783460962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 634

Get Book Here

Book Description
The 6th Battalion, The Manchester Regiment, was a prewar Territorial unit. Many of its members held white collar positions employed by the Citys legal, financial and stockbroking practices or worked for the major commercial organizations trading and manufacturing cotton goods. It went overseas in September 1914, taking with it many new recruits who would undertake their basic training whilst the Battalion formed part of the British garrison in Egypt.It saw action at Gallipoli from May 1915 until the evacuation at the end of the year and fascinating campaign is dealt with in considerable detail. The Battalion returned to Egypt until the spring of 1917 when it moved to France.The Manchesters saw regular action for most of 1918, coming under attack in the German offensive in March. Throughout the summer and autumn, the Battalion took part in the Advance to Victory and was still advancing when the Armistice was signed in November.The book also recounts the history of the second line battalion, the 2/6th Manchesters, from its inception in 1914 until it was all but destroyed in March 1918.The author draws on official records and personal accounts to tell the story of these fine battalions.

Pioneer Battalions in the Great War

Pioneer Battalions in the Great War PDF Author: K.W. Mitchinson
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783461799
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

Get Book Here

Book Description
Pioneer battalions, created as an expedient in 1914, were a new concept in the British Army. Intended to provide the Royal Engineers, with skilled labour and to relieve the infantry from some of its non-combatant duties, Pioneers became the work horses of

The British Working Class and Enthusiasm for War, 1914-1916

The British Working Class and Enthusiasm for War, 1914-1916 PDF Author: David Silbey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134269757
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines what motivated the ordinary British man to go to France in 1914, especially in the early years when Britain relied on the voluntary system to fill the ranks.

Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors

Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors PDF Author: Brian Elliott
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473834651
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book Here

Book Description
“A meticulous mixture of social and family history . . . Whether or not you have mining connections, this is an interesting socio-economic read.” —Your Family Tree In the 1920s there were over a million coalminers working in over 3000 collieries across Great Britain, and the industry was one of the most important and powerful in British history. It dominated the lives of generations of individuals, their families, and communities, and its legacy is still with us today—many of us have a coalmining ancestor. Yet family historians often have problems in researching their mining forebears. Locating the relevant records, finding the sites of the pits, and understanding the work involved and its historical background can be perplexing. That is why Brian Elliott’s concise, authoritative and practical handbook will be so useful, for it guides researchers through these obstacles and opens up the broad range of sources they can go to in order to get a vivid insight into the lives and experiences of coalminers in the past. His overview of the coalmining history—and the case studies and research tips he provides—will make his book rewarding reading for anyone looking for a general introduction to this major aspect of Britain’s industrial heritage. His directory of regional and national sources and his commentary on them will make this guide an essential tool for family historians searching for an ancestor who worked in coalmining underground, on the pit top or just lived in a mining community. As featured in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine and the Barnsley Chronicle.

A Kingdom United

A Kingdom United PDF Author: Catriona Pennell
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199590583
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this, the first fully documented study of British and Irish popular reactions to the outbreak of the First World War, Catriona Pennell explores UK public opinion of the time and successfully challenges the myth of British 'war enthusiasm'. A Kingdom United explores what people felt, and how they acted, in response to an unanticipated and unprecedented crisis. It is a history of both ordinary people and elite figures in extraordinary times. Dr Pennell demonstrates that describing the reactions of over 40 million British and Irish people to the outbreak of war as either enthusiastic in the British case, or disengaged in the Irish, is over-simplified and inadequate. Emotional reactions to the war were ambiguous and complex, and changed over time. By the end of 1914 the populations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland had largely embraced the war, but the war had also embraced them and showed no signs of relinquishing its grip. The five months from August to December 1914 set the shape of much that was to follow. A Kingdom United describes and explains that twenty-week formative process. Pennell draws from a vast array of diaries, letters, journals, and newspaper accounts by the very people who experienced the war in its first dramatic five months. She outlines the variety of responses felt amongst both the ordinary people and elite figures from across the country.

Pontefract & Castleford in the Great War

Pontefract & Castleford in the Great War PDF Author: Timothy Lynch
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473852161
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book Here

Book Description
By the end of 1914, 15,000 Yorkshire miners had volunteered for the army, with around 1,000 from a single Castleford pit. Over the next four years these courageous men would write home from the killing fields of France, Gallipoli, Italy, Mesopotamia and Africa. As the men marched away, the families they left behind were about to experience a war that reached into every home, touching every man, woman and child in the country. This was total war.Local women some still teenage girls faced the gruelling hardships and dangers of munitions work. Some would die for their country. Former male pupils at the Quaker school struggled with their consciences. Some would fight, some would serve in the front lines as ambulance men and others would go to prison for their beliefs. Using original material, diaries, letters and newspaper reports, this enthralling book tells the fascinating and largely forgotten story of the Great War at home. Covering the terror of Zeppelin raids and anti-German rioting, foreign refugees, a story of true love among the gentry, the vexed question of whether bookies were essential war workers and tales of heroism at the front, here is the war as experienced by the dedicated people of Pontefract and Castleford.

Reimagining the War Memorial, Reinterpreting the Great War

Reimagining the War Memorial, Reinterpreting the Great War PDF Author: Marzena Sokołowska-Paryż
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443838454
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reimagining the War Memorial, Reinterpreting the Great War: The Formats of British Commemorative Fiction is an in-depth analysis of the role of British war memorials in literature and film, in the wider context of the commemorative trend in contemporary culture. The Sheffield City Battalion Memorial, the Menin Gate Memorial, the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, the Royal Artillery Memorial, and the Shot at Dawn Memorial are the focus of the discussion, which aims to show how the meanings assigned to specific war memorials create ideologically diverse interpretations of the British experience of the Great War, ranging from the futility myth to the imperial sublime. The epistemological ambivalence of the war memorial lies at the heart of the analysis of the selected novels, films and plays, for the condemnation of a military conflict as a historical evil does not necessarily exclude the possibility of honouring the men who fought in it.

Wakefield in the Great War

Wakefield in the Great War PDF Author: Timothy Lynch
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473847427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Great War saw thousands of Wakefield men enlist in the armed forces, serving in every arm of the services. Wakefield in the Great War tells the story of the men who fought and the families they left behind.This was total war. Volunteers worked tirelessly as nurses in local auxiliary hospitals, cared for Belgian refugees, sent food parcels to prisoners of war, fed soldiers during their long waits at railway stations and stitched sandbags to send to the Front. At nearby country estates, the 'Gorgeous Wrecks' practiced maneuvers at weekend camps.Wakefields engineering firms set the model for war production from shells to backpacks. Children gathered chestnuts and moss to help the war effort and stood patiently for hours in long queues to feed their families. The prison became home to conscientious objectors and the target for running battles in the street outside so that men had to find ways of sneaking over the walls to get back into jail.Wakefield in the Great War is the untold story of a time that would change the city forever.

Tracing your Great War Ancestors: The Somme

Tracing your Great War Ancestors: The Somme PDF Author: Simon Fowler
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 147387680X
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Get Book Here

Book Description
If you want to find out about an ancestor who served on the Somme during the First World War during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 or at any time during the fighting in this sector of the Western Front this book is the ideal guide. It provides practical information and advice on how to conduct your research. It will help you to discover when and where your ancestors served and give you an insight into his experience of the war. It is also a fascinating introduction to researching the Great War as a whole.Simon Fowler outlines the course of the fighting on the Somme, introducing the many historical resources that you can use to explore the history for yourself. He identifies the key sources for family historians, including at The National Archives and Imperial War Museum and the many online sites that researchers can turn to. There is also advice on the literature, archives, museums and monuments that may help you to gain an insight into your ancestor's story.