Forgotten Voices of the Somme

Forgotten Voices of the Somme PDF Author: Joshua Levine
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 140702552X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
1916. The Somme. With over a million casualties, it was the most brutal battle of World War I. It is a clash that even now, over 90 years later, remains seared into the national consciousness, conjuring up images of muddy trenches and young lives tragically wasted. Its first day, July 1st 1916 - on which the British suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead - is the bloodiest day in the history of the British armed forces to date. On the German side, an officer famously described it as 'the muddy grave of the German field army'. By the end of the battle, the British had learned many lessons in modern warfare while the Germans had suffered irreplaceable losses, ultimately laying the foundations for the Allies' final victory on the Western Front. Drawing on a wealth of material from the vast Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, Forgotten Voices of the Somme presents an intimate, poignant, sometimes even bleakly funny insight into life on the front line: from the day-to-day struggle of extraordinary circumstances to the white heat of battle and the constant threat of injury or death. Featuring contributions from soldiers of both sides and of differing backgrounds, ranks and roles, many of them previously unpublished, this is the definitive oral history of this unique and terrible conflict.

Forgotten Voices of the Somme

Forgotten Voices of the Somme PDF Author: Joshua Levine
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 140702552X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
1916. The Somme. With over a million casualties, it was the most brutal battle of World War I. It is a clash that even now, over 90 years later, remains seared into the national consciousness, conjuring up images of muddy trenches and young lives tragically wasted. Its first day, July 1st 1916 - on which the British suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead - is the bloodiest day in the history of the British armed forces to date. On the German side, an officer famously described it as 'the muddy grave of the German field army'. By the end of the battle, the British had learned many lessons in modern warfare while the Germans had suffered irreplaceable losses, ultimately laying the foundations for the Allies' final victory on the Western Front. Drawing on a wealth of material from the vast Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, Forgotten Voices of the Somme presents an intimate, poignant, sometimes even bleakly funny insight into life on the front line: from the day-to-day struggle of extraordinary circumstances to the white heat of battle and the constant threat of injury or death. Featuring contributions from soldiers of both sides and of differing backgrounds, ranks and roles, many of them previously unpublished, this is the definitive oral history of this unique and terrible conflict.

Forgotten Voices Of The Great War

Forgotten Voices Of The Great War PDF Author: Max Arthur
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446446255
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
In 1960, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous and important task. A team of academics, archivists and volunteers set about tracing WWI veterans and interviewing them at length in order to record the experiences of ordinary individuals in war. The IWM aural archive has become the most important archive of its kind in the world. Authors have occasionally been granted access to the vaults, but digesting the thousands of hours of footage is a monumental task. Now, forty years on, the Imperial War Museum has at last given author Max Arthur and his team of researchers unlimited access to the complete WWI tapes. These are the forgotten voices of an entire generation of survivors of the Great War. The resulting book is an important and compelling history of WWI in the words of those who experienced it.

Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk

Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk PDF Author: Joshua Levine
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1407031295
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The subject of the new major film by Christopher Nolan It could have been the biggest military disaster suffered by the British in the Second World War, but against all odds the British Army was successfully evacuated, and 'Dunkirk spirit' became synonymous with the strength of the British people in adversity. On the same day that Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, Nazi troops invaded Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium. The eight-month period of calm that had existed since the declaration of war was over. But the defences constructed by the Allies in preparation failed to repel a German army with superior tactics.The British Expeditionary Force soon found themselves in an increasingly chaotic retreat. By the end of May 1940, over 400,000 Allied troops were trapped in and around the port of Dunkirk without shelter or supplies. Hitler's army was just ten miles away. On 26 May, the British Admiralty launched Operation Dynamo. This famous rescue mission sent every available vessel - from navy destroyers and troopships to pleasure cruisers and fishing boats - over the Channel to Dunkirk. Of the 850 'Little Ships' that sailed to Dunkirk, 235 were sunk by German aircraft or mines, but over this nine day period 338,000 British and French troops were safely evacuated. Drawing on the wealth of material from the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk presents in the words of both rescued and rescuers in an intimate and dramatic account of what Winston Churchill described as a 'miracle of deliverance'.

The Missing of the Somme

The Missing of the Somme PDF 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.

The Somme

The Somme PDF Author: Peter Hart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605987654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
One of the bloodiest battles in world history—a military tragedy that would come to define a generation. On July 1, 1916, the British Army launched the “Big Push” that was supposed to bring an end to the horrific stalemate on the Western Front between British, French, and German forces. What resulted was one of the greatest single human catastrophes in twentieth century warfare. Scrambling out of trenches in the face of German machine guns and artillery fire, the Allied Powers lost over twenty thousand soldiers that first day. This “battle” would drag on for another four bloody months, resulting in over one million causalities among the three powers. As the oral historian at the Imperial War Museum in London, Peter Hart has brought to light new material never before seen or heard. The Somme is an unparalleled evocation of World War I’s iconic contest—the definitive account of one of the major tragedies of the twentieth century.

Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk

Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk PDF Author: Joshua Levine
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0091932203
Category : Dunkirk, Battle of, Dunkerque, France, 1940
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
It could have been the biggest military disaster suffered by the British in the Second World War, but against all odds the British Army was successfully evacuated, and Dunkirk spirit became synonymous with the strength of the British people in advers

The First Day on the Somme

The First Day on the Somme PDF Author: Martin Middlebrook
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473814243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
A history of the British Army’s experience at the Battle of the Somme in France during World War I. After an immense but useless bombardment, at 7:30 AM on July 1, 1916, the British Army went over the top and attacked the German trenches. It was the first day of the battle of the Somme, and on that day, the British suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, two for every yard of their front. With more than fifty times the daily losses at El Alamein and fifteen times the British casualties on D-day, July 1, 1916, was the blackest day in the history of the British Army. But, more than that, as Lloyd George recognized, it was a watershed in the history of the First World War. The Army that attacked on that day was the volunteer Army that had answered Kitchener’s call. It had gone into action confident of a decisive victory. But by sunset on the first day on the Somme, no one could any longer think of a war that might be won. Martin Middlebrook’s research has covered not just official and regimental histories and tours of the battlefields, but interviews with hundreds of survivors, both British and German. As to the action itself, he conveys the overall strategic view and the terrifying reality that it was for front-line soldiers. Praise for The First Day on the Somme “The soldiers receive the best service a historian can provide: their story is told in their own words.” —The Guardian (UK)

Irish Voices from the Great War

Irish Voices from the Great War PDF Author: Myles Dungan
Publisher: Merrion Press
ISBN: 1908928832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This pioneering study, first published in 1995, retains its rank as one of the most powerful histories ever written about Irish involvement in World War 1. This year, the centenary of the war, sees its timely re-publication as the Irishmen who fought in that war re-enter the national memory after decades of indifference and hostility. The gradual softening of attitudes over the last twenty years amid great historic change on the island of Ireland, is due in no small part to the efforts of historians, such as Myles Dungan, to tell thousands of forgotten stories. Drawing on the diaries, letters, literary works and oral accounts of soldiers, Myles Dungan tells some of the personal stories of what Irishmen, unionist and nationalist, went through during the Great War and how many of them drew closer together during that horror than at any time since. This volume deals with a selection of the most important battles and campaigns in which the three Irish Divisions participated.

Intimate Voices from the First World War

Intimate Voices from the First World War PDF Author: Svetlana Palmer
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060584203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
The story of World War I is brought to life through the gripping personal narratives of those at the center of the storm. World War I was waged by young people from twenty-eight countries in an era without the advantages of military "embeds," satellite phones, and streaming media coverage. Intimate Voices from the First World War fills in the gaps in the history of the world's first global confrontation with excerpts from recently uncovered letters and diaries of those on the front lines and their friends at home. In their reflections on the vastness of the enterprise of war, these combatants, victims, and eyewitnesses re-create the scope of the conflict with immediacy and tenderness. Written with the frankness and intimacy of words not intended for public eyes -- full of private passions, prejudices, humor, and vivid insights -- these communiqués speak to us directly from within the war itself and from all sides of the conflict. These marvelous historical narratives not only immerse readers in an ongoing dialogue about the meaning of human conflict but also serve as reminders of the individual perspectives and beliefs that sometimes get overlooked during times of global strife.

1914

1914 PDF Author: Matthew Richardson
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473826497
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 459

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Book Description
The opening battles of WWI’s Western Front and the world-changing advances in warfare are reexamined through eyewitness accounts from the trenches. The 1914 campaign of World War I, sparked by the German Army’s invasion of Luxembourg, Belgium, and France, marked a watershed in military history. Advances in weaponry forced both sides to take to the earth in what became a grueling standoff of trench warefare. In a bizarre mix of ancient and modern, some of the last cavalry charges took place in the same theatre in which armoured cars, motorcycles and aeroplanes were beginning to make their presence felt. These dramatic developments were recorded in graphic detail by soldiers who were there in the trenches themselves. Now, with the benefit of these firsthand accounts, historian Matthew Richardson offers a thoroughgoing reassessment of the 1914 campaign. His vivid narrative emphasises the perspective of the private soldiers and junior officers of the British Army and includes full colour plates containing over one hundred illustrations. 1914: Voices from the Battlefields was a Britain At War Magazine Book of the Month in February 2014.