The Story of Delville Wood. Told in Letters from the Front

The Story of Delville Wood. Told in Letters from the Front PDF Author: DELVILLE WOOD.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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The Story of Delville Wood. Told in Letters from the Front

The Story of Delville Wood. Told in Letters from the Front PDF Author: DELVILLE WOOD.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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Book Description


Silent General

Silent General PDF Author: Don Farr
Publisher: Helion & Company Limited
ISBN: 9781874622994
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
This biography assesses Henry Horne's relationship with Haig and the Canadian Corps. It also evaluates his contribution to the technical advances of the artillery during the war and describes the battles which he conducted. It attempts to accord to Henry Horne the recognition and credit that he deserves but which has been withheld. Whether or not Henry Sinclair Horne was the 'silent' General he might lay claim to being the 'forgotten' General of the Western Front. His self-effacement in a profession not renowned for shrinking violets undoubtedly made its contribution to his relative anonymity-- he wrote no memoirs nor kept anything more than sketchy diaries.

Delville Wood

Delville Wood PDF Author: Ian Uys
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781534729476
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
No battlefield on all the Western Front was more bitterly contested than was 'Devil's Wood.' It was "the bloodiest hell of 1916," and of the 3,200 soldiers of the 1st South African Infantry Brigade that entered the battle on July 14 less than 800 mustered afterwards. For six days and five nights, in the solitary square mile of Delville Wood, the South Africans stood firm against three crack German divisions. By the time they were relieved a legend had been born, but who were these men that took and held the wood in an inferno of exploding shells, flame-throwers, machine-gun and rifle fire? Fresh-faced youths, Boer War and South West African campaign veterans, enlistees with false names ... all were volunteers whose overriding desire was to serve in France. First published in 1983, 'Delville Wood' remains a landmark volume commemorating the daring and fortitude of South Africa's soldiers at the Somme during the First World War. In forming an overall picture of each day's fighting through the words of the survivors, the statistics of battle are cast aside by Uys in favour of something altogether more profound, exploring their characters and ensuring they will never be forgotten. Ian Uys (b. 1942) is a South African accountant and author. A co-founder of the Military Medal Society of SA and former committee member of the SA Military History Society - and related to a survivor of the battle of Delville Wood - his interests have lead him to write numerous books on the subject.

Hold at All Costs!

Hold at All Costs! PDF Author: Ian Uys
Publisher:
ISBN: 1912174456
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Delville Wood in the Somme was the most famous battle ever fought by South Africans. Through this action other nations learnt to respect the fighting qualities of the men from the fledgling Union of South Africa. Erstwhile foes, Boer and Briton, fought shoulder to shoulder against the pride of the German Army. They withstood waves of attacking infantrymen; were subjected to savage artillery fire which reached a crescendo of seven shells a second, pulverizing the wood and obliterating the defenses; then fought hand to hand until overrun; threw back the enemy; and fought on with unbelievable tenacity. The bone-weary survivors defended the wood through five days and six nights of hell, eventually being forced into a corner of the wood. The orders were to hold on at all costs – and this they did despite appalling casualties. The saga of Delville Wood will never be forgotten by South Africa, yet the story of the battle, told through the eyes of the participants was never fully documented – accounts read like fiction, yet are wholly true. We learn about youngsters from the plains of Southern Africa who earned the admiration of their enemy. After being shelled for eight hours they stood up from the mud to repel fresh assaults. We read of the Victoria Cross won through rescuing a wounded officer under fire; a man blown up and buried who continued on to deliver his message and earn the DCM; the officer who was captured then knocked out his guard to return to the fighting; the colonel who fought like a private with rifle and mills bombs; and many more. The Germans’ experiences are also chronicled. Extracts from their regimental histories paint a picture of their dogged determination to retake the wood. Their order was that the enemy was not to advance except over corpses! The author interviewed many of the South African survivors, now long gone, and has visited the wood on many occasions during the past thirty-three years. The trilogy of books he wrote on the battle has been combined into a riveting account of ‘the bloodiest battle hell of 1916’. In 1917 The Times of London recounted, ‘No battlefield on all the Western Front was more bitterly contested than was “Devil’s Wood”... [where] South African forces won their imperishable fame – grimly hanging on against overwhelming odds and repulsing counter attacks by troops five and six times their number.”

Delville Wood

Delville Wood PDF Author: Nigel Cave
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473813506
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Almost every British regiment saw action in 'Devil's' Wood at some stage in the long Somme summer. This book examines some of the incidents and individuals who contributed to the history of the British Army and Delville Wood.

Memory and Identity

Memory and Identity PDF Author: Linda Pillière
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000768457
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
This book examines the ways in which ghosts haunt and shape cultural identities and memory, considering the manner in which the fluctuations of such identities sometimes imply the rethinking or rewriting of the past. Drawing on case studies in historical, political, literary and linguistic studies, it explores the narratives that produce imagined communities and identities and the places in which cultural identities are constructed through memory, asking how far these identities and memories disinherit or exclude otherness, and how far ghosts disturb orderly narratives, inviting multiple readings of the past. Thematically organized to consider the persistence of ghosts within present memory and identity, the creation of new identities through intertwining narratives of the past, and the reclamation of identities in postcolonial contexts, Memory and Identity: Ghosts of the past in the English-speaking world offers a multi-disciplinary examination of the concept of haunting. Memory and Identity will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and history with interests in memory and identity.

Rollcall

Rollcall PDF Author: Ian S. Uys
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Somme, 1st Battle of the, France, 1916
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Delville Wood

Delville Wood PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Description: Views of remnants of trench system in Delville Wood, the commemorative stone concerning the only surviving original hornbeam from the battles of 1916 and the tree itself.

Delville Wood

Delville Wood PDF Author: Ian S. Uys
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Delville Wood, Battle of, 1916
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Understanding the Somme 1916

Understanding the Somme 1916 PDF Author: Thomas Scotland
Publisher: Helion and Company
ISBN: 191029490X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This is a guidebook with a difference. It is not a list of memorials and cemeteries. Its aim is to provide the reader with an understanding of the Battle of the Somme. There were some partial successes; there were many disastrous failures. In 17 concise chapters dealing with different areas of the battlefield and various aspects of strategy, this book explains what happened in each location and why. Each chapter is accompanied by color photographs, taken by the authors in the course of many visits to the Somme, which will illustrate, illuminate and allow the reader to understand important points made in the text. It doesn`t matter whether you are in your armchair, on foot, on a bicycle, or in a car, this book will effortlessly transport you to the battlefield and will sweep you round the front line of 1 July 1916. From Montauban in the south, to Serre in the north, it will lead you to the night attack of 14 July and to the first use of tanks on 15 September. It will take you to the Pozières Ridge and to Mouquet Farm, and to the heights above the Ancre. You will visit the famous Sunken Lane near Beaumont Hamel, where the text will transport you in time to stand with men from the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers waiting to go over the top on 1 July 1916. You will look towards Hawthorn Mine Crater and almost feel the earth tremble beneath your feet as though you were there at 07.20 hrs. on 1 July 1916. You will go into Beaumont Hamel with the 51st (Highland) Division and climb up Wagon Road. You will look across to where Frankfurt Trench once was, and where men from the 16th Highland Light Infantry from Glasgow fought a last ditch battle, having become marooned in the trench, in what was the last action to take place before the Somme finally petered out in the mud in late November 1916. With its focus on informing and illuminating the events of 1916 on the Somme, and illustrated throughout by carefully annotated color photographs showing the sites today, this book will prove equally essential to the battlefield visitor or the 'virtual visitor' in their armchair.