Author: Damien Finlayson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1921941286
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
Below the shattered ground that separated the British and German infantry on the Western Front in World War I, an unseen and largely unknown war was raging, fought by miners, 'tunnellers' as they were known. They knew at any moment their lives could be extinguished without warning by hundreds of tonnes of collapsed earth and debris.
Author: DAMIEN. FINLAYSON
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781458738530
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Damien Finlayson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780980658255
Category : Tunneling
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Below the shattered ground that separated the British and German infantry on the Western Front in the First World War, an unseen and largely unknown war was raging, fought by miners, 'tunnelers' as they were known. They knew that, at any moment, their lives could be extinguished without warning by hundreds of tons of collapsed earth and debris. Australian tunneling companies took part in the battles of Fromelles, Arras, Messines, Passchendaele, Cambrai, the defense of Amiens, Lys, and the famous last 100 days. Crumps and Camouflets, is the first complete history of Australia's role in the tunneling war of 1914-1919, of the men and units in which they served, and of life in the tomblike tunnels of the war underground.
Author: Damien Finlayson
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526740192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409
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Book Description
Few soldiers on the Western Front had heard of the Australian Electrical and Mechanical Mining and Boring Company, even after it had been renamed the Alphabet Company by an AIF wag. Yet many knew the work of this tiny unit which numbered fewer than 300 at full strength. Despite its small size, the Alphabet Companys influence was enormous and spanned the entire British sector of the Western Front, from the North Sea to the Somme.This is the story of the Alphabeticals who, led by Major Victor Morse, DSO, operated and maintained pumps, generators, ventilation fans, drilling equipment and other ingenious devices in extreme circumstances. Given the horrendous conditions in which the troops lived and fought, this equipment was desperately needed, as were the men who operated it in the same, often nightmarish setting.This is the first account of the dynamic little unit that was the Alphabet Company, a unit that has been neglected by history for a century. It is the story of the men, their machinery and the extraordinary grit they displayed in performing some of the most difficult tasks in a war noted for the horrific conditions in which it was waged. They do not deserve to be forgotten.
Author: Damien Finlayson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1925520358
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 457
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Book Description
Few soldiers on the Western Front had heard of the Australian Electrical and Mechanical Mining and Boring Company, even after it had been renamed the ‘Alphabet Company’ by an AIF wag. Yet many knew the work of this tiny unit which numbered fewer than 300 at full strength. Despite its small size, the Alphabet Company’s influence was enormous and spanned the entire British sector of the Western Front, from the North Sea to the Somme. The Lightning Keepers: the AIF’s Alphabet Company in the Great War is the story of the ‘Alphabeticals’ who, led by Major Victor Morse, DSO, operated and maintained pumps, generators, ventilation fans, drilling equipment and other ingenious devices in extreme circumstances. Given the horrendous conditions in which the troops lived and fought, this equipment was desperately needed, as were the men who operated it in the same, often nightmarish setting. This is the first account of the dynamic little unit that was the Alphabet Company, a unit that has been neglected by history for a century. It is the story of the men, their machinery and the extraordinary grit they displayed in performing some of the most difficult tasks in a war noted for the horrific conditions in which it was waged. They do not deserve to be forgotten.
Author: Craig Deayton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1925520528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331
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Book Description
The enemy must not get the Messines Ridge at any price… So read the orders to German troops defending the vital high ground south of Ypres. On 7 June 1917, the British Second Army launched its attack with an opening like no other. In the largest secret operation of the First World War, British and Commonwealth mining companies placed over a million pounds of explosive beneath the German front-line positions in 19 giant mines which erupted like a volcano. This was just the beginning. By the end of that brilliant summer’s day, one of the strongest positions on the Western Front had fallen in the greatest British victory in three long years of war. For the ANZACs, who comprised one third of the triumphant Second Army, it was their most significant achievement to that point; for the men of the New Zealand Division, it would be their finest hour. It is difficult to overstate the importance of Messines for the Australians, whose first two years of war had represented an almost unending catalogue of disaster. This was both the first real victory for the AIF and the first test in senior command for Major General John Monash, who commanded the newly formed 3rd Division. Messines was a baptism of fire for the 3rd Division which came into the line alongside the battle-scarred 4th Australian Division, badly mauled at Bullecourt just six weeks earlier. The fighting at Messines would descend into unimaginable savagery, a lethal and sometimes hand-to-hand affair of bayonets, clubs, bombs and incessant machine-gun fire, described by one Australian as ‘72 hours of Hell’. After their string of bloody defeats over 1915 and 1916, Messines would prove the ultimate test for the Australians.
Author: Matthew Leonard
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783463066
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
Beneath the Killing Fields of the Western Front still lies a hidden landscape of industrialised conflict virtually untouched since 1918. This subterranean world is an ambiguous environment filled with material culture that that objectifies the scope and depth of human interaction with the diverse conflict landscapes of modern war. Covering the military reasoning for taking the war underground, as well as exploring the way that human beings interacted with these extraordinary alien environments, this book provides a more all-encompassing overview of the Western Front. The underground war was intrinsic to trench warfare and involved far more than simply trying to destroy the enemys trenches from below. It also served as a home to thousands of men, protecting them from the metallic landscapes of the surface. With the aid of cutting edge fieldwork conducted by the author in these subterranean locales, this book combines military history, archaeology and anthropology together with primary data and unique imagery of British, French, German and American underground defences in order to explore the realities of subterranean warfare on the Western Front, and the effects on the human body and mind that living and fighting underground inevitably entailed.
Author: Craig Deayton
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 152674015X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 453
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Book Description
The enemy must not get the Messines Ridge at any price So read the orders to German troops defending the vital high ground south of Ypres. On 7 June 1917, the British Second Army launched its attack with an opening like no other. In the largest secret operation of the First World War, British and Commonwealth mining companies placed over a million pounds of explosive beneath the German front-line positions in 19 giant mines which erupted like a volcano. This was just the beginning. By the end of that brilliant summers day, one of the strongest positions on the Western Front had fallen in the greatest British victory in three long years of war. For the Anzacs, who comprised one third of the triumphant Second Army, it was their most significant achievement to that point; for the men of the New Zealand Division, it would be their finest hour.It is difficult to overstate the importance of Messines for the Australians, whose first two years of war had represented an almost unending catalogue of disaster. This was both the first real victory for the AIF and the first test in senior command for Major General John Monash, who commanded the newly formed 3rd Division. Messines was a baptism of fire for the 3rd Division which came into the line alongside the battle-scarred 4th Australian Division, badly mauled at Bullecourt just six weeks earlier. The fighting at Messines would descend into unimaginable savagery, a lethal and sometimes hand-to-hand affair of bayonets, clubs, bombs and incessant machine-gun fire, described by one Australian as 72 hours of Hell. After their string of bloody defeats over 1915 and 1916, Messines would prove the ultimate test for the Australians
Author: Graham Wilson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1921941758
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
Dust, Donkeys and Delusion examines and clinically debunks the myth that has grown up around Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the so-called `Man with the Donkey', the quintessential Australian `hero' of Gallipoli. While the various elements of the Simpson myth have now become popularly accepted as `history', Dust, Donkeys and Delusion shows clearly, based on historical documents, both official and unofficial, that almost every word ever spoken or written about Simpson following his death is false.
Author: David A. Finlayson
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526715074
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
Pioneers of Armour in the Great War tells the story of the only Australian mechanized units of the Great War. The 1st Australian Armoured Car Section, later the 1st Australian Light Car Patrol, and the Special Tank Section were among the trailblazers of mechanization and represented the cutting edge of technology on the Great War battlefield.The1st Armoured Car Section was raised in Melbourne in 1916, the brainchild of a group of enthusiasts who financed, designed and then built two armored cars. Having persuaded the Australian Army of the vehicles' utility in the desert campaign, the armored car section, later re-equipped with Model T Fords and retitled the 1st Australian Light Car Patrol, provided valuable service until well after the Armistice.The First World War also saw the emergence of the tank which, despite unpromising beginnings, was to realize its potential in the crucial 1918 battles of Hamel and Amiens. A British Mark IV tank which toured Australia in 1918 demonstrated the power of this new weapon to an awestruck Australian public.Much of the story of the armored cars is told in the voices of the original members of the section and in newspaper articles of the time which highlight the novelty of these vehicles. Painstaking research has produced a remarkable collection of images to accompany the narrative, many never previously published. Biographies of the members of these extraordinary units are also a feature of this book, their stories told from the cradle to the grave. Appendixes provide a wealth of supporting biographical and technical information that enriches the text and adds factual detail.
