Gravesend in the Great War PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Gravesend in the Great War PDF full book. Access full book title Gravesend in the Great War by Stephen Wynn. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473864968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Get Book
Book Description
Gravesend was like most other towns in the UK during the course of the First World War. When the call came to serve King and Country, local men enlisted in their thousands, but sadly not all of them returned.This book gives an insight into the Tilbury to Gravesend Pontoon Bridge, which allowed the rapid deployment of troops in the event of a German invasion along the East Coast. It provided a quicker route to get troops, equipment and supplies from Essex into Kent for transportation across to France. It looks at the role both New Tavern and Shornemead Fort, part of the London Defence system, played in preventing the German Navy from carrying out direct attacks on London.There is an account of the Gravesend riots, in which groups of local people burnt and looted premises they believed belonged to German aliens who were residents in the town, and the unique story of Captain Robert Campbell, taken as a prisoner by the Germans early in the war. He was allowed home by the Kaiser to see his dying mother one last time, and voluntarily returned to captivity in Germany, on his word of honour to do so.The story of Sir Gilbert Parker, the wartime MP for Gravesend, is also told. He was instrumental in convincing America to join the war as a British Allie, which was no easy task, as the United States Justice Department estimated there were some 480,000 Germans living in America at the time.The book also tells the individual stories of Gravesend's men who fought in the war, some who survived and returned to their loved ones, and others who were not so fortunate. It documents the triumphs and tragedies of Gravesend's people as they sought to find normality amongst a reality far removed from anything they had ever known before.
Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473864968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Get Book
Book Description
Gravesend was like most other towns in the UK during the course of the First World War. When the call came to serve King and Country, local men enlisted in their thousands, but sadly not all of them returned.This book gives an insight into the Tilbury to Gravesend Pontoon Bridge, which allowed the rapid deployment of troops in the event of a German invasion along the East Coast. It provided a quicker route to get troops, equipment and supplies from Essex into Kent for transportation across to France. It looks at the role both New Tavern and Shornemead Fort, part of the London Defence system, played in preventing the German Navy from carrying out direct attacks on London.There is an account of the Gravesend riots, in which groups of local people burnt and looted premises they believed belonged to German aliens who were residents in the town, and the unique story of Captain Robert Campbell, taken as a prisoner by the Germans early in the war. He was allowed home by the Kaiser to see his dying mother one last time, and voluntarily returned to captivity in Germany, on his word of honour to do so.The story of Sir Gilbert Parker, the wartime MP for Gravesend, is also told. He was instrumental in convincing America to join the war as a British Allie, which was no easy task, as the United States Justice Department estimated there were some 480,000 Germans living in America at the time.The book also tells the individual stories of Gravesend's men who fought in the war, some who survived and returned to their loved ones, and others who were not so fortunate. It documents the triumphs and tragedies of Gravesend's people as they sought to find normality amongst a reality far removed from anything they had ever known before.
Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473850762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191
Get Book
Book Description
A historic profile of the London borough of Enfield during World War I and the conflict’s effect on the region and its people. The Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield was famous for producing the Lee Enfield .303 Rifle, the standard issued rifle provided to all infantry soldiers in the British Army during the First World War. The factory was so prestigious that King George V visited it in April, 1915. By the end of the war, its workforce of more than 9,000 had produced more than 2 million rifles. Their gun helped play a big part in winning the war. On July 7, 1917, the town was hit by a German air raid. Local anti-aircraft batteries did their best to thwart the enemy. Sadly, falling shrapnel from British anti-aircraft gunfire killed one woman, making her Enfield’s only resident to be killed in the town throughout the course of the war. A nearby young boy was also struck by some falling shrapnel but survived. After the incident, members of the Government Workers’ Union held a meeting to complain about the lack of a warning about the attack. Meanwhile, that month also saw a baker appear at Enfield Magistrates Court, charged under the Bread Order for selling loaves of bread that were over the permitted weight. For his heinous war time offence, he was fined the princely sum of ten shillings. Through researching local newspapers of the day, along with letters, diaries, photographs, parish magazines, trade journals, contemporary printed pamphlets, and more, author Stephen Wynn details the stories of Enfield during this dramatic era.
Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526708566
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 185
Get Book
Book Description
An examination of the political and military controversies that turned out to be missteps on the road to greatness for the British Prime Minister. Winston Churchill is undoubtedly one of the most respected and best-loved characters England has ever known. However, much of how people view him is based on his leadership during the bleak and dire times of the Second World War. If it wasn’t for him, Britain would almost definitely have lost the war: there were those in government who encouraged Churchill to strike a deal with Hitler at the time of the Dunkirk evacuations, which took place just three weeks after he had been made Prime Minister, but he stuck resolutely to his guns and said, “no.” However, Churchill was never the favorite to take over after Neville Chamberlain resigned. Indeed, everyone believed Lord Halifax would be the next Prime Minister, although even he thankfully recognized that Winston Churchill was the best man for the job, even though King George VI disagreed. Yet there was another side to Churchill that is not often spoken of, and one that led to him making some questionable decisions. Some of these, it could be argued, were for national security reasons, but others were not, proving that even the very best are not always as perfect as they first appear. This book looks at Churchill’s most questionable decisions throughout his career—from the Sidney Street Siege in London in January 1910 through the Bengal Famine of 1943 to the Mau Mau Uprising in British Kenya between 1952 and 1964.
Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526735121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 149
Get Book
Book Description
“An eye-opening exposé of the Pre-D-Day disaster and incident of friendly fire tragedy and cover up that was the Slapton Sands.” —WorldWars.com This is a book of two stories. The first is the sad tale of how at least 749 American servicemen lost their lives on a pre-D-Day landing exercise, code-named “Operation Tiger,” on the evening of 23/24 April 1943. The second, was the unanswerable question of whether the attacking E-Boats of the German Kriegsmarine had fully grasped the importance of what they had stumbled across. Because of the time scale between the operation and the actual D-Day landings, secrecy surrounding the tragedy had to be stringently adhered to, and even after the invasion of Normandy, only scant information about the incident and those who were killed was ever released. The other factor that was of major concern, was if the Germans had understood the significance of the vessels they had attacked, then the intended Allied invasion of Europe was in grave danger of having to be postponed for an indefinite period of time. In late 1943, as part of the buildup to the D-day landings at Normandy, the British government had set up a training ground at Slapton Sands in Devon, to be used by the American forces tasked with landing on Utah Beach in Normandy. Coordination and communication problems between British and American forces, resulted in friendly fire deaths during the exercise, making a bad situation even worse. The story was then lost to history until Devon resident, Ken Small, discovered evidence of the aftermath washed up on the shore at Slapton Sands in the early 1970s.
Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473865433
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 138
Get Book
Book Description
History has recorded that the first ever powered flight took place at Kitty Hawk in America, on 17 December 1903 and was carried out by the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, who were aircraft designers and manufacturers. By the time of the outbreak of the First World War, aviation was only eleven years old. The daddy of battlefield warfare until that point in time had been the cavalry, a position it maintained even as war was declared on the Western Front. Aircraft were not initially seen as an offensive weapon and were instead used by both sides as observation platforms, or to take aerial photographs from. Even when they were eventually used in an offensive capacity, they did not have machine guns attached to them; if the crew wanted to open fire then they had to use a pistol or rifle. As the war progressed so the use of aircraft changed from being an observational tool, to that of a fighter and bomber aircraft - something that had never been foreseen at the outbreak of the war. The book then looks at the fighter aces from all sides. These were pilots who had been credited with shooting or forcing down a minimum of five enemy aircraft, of which their were hundreds. While some of these aces survived, many of them were killed. The most famous fighter ace of all is without doubt the German pilot known as the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen.
Author: Peter C. Stewart
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476681058
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Get Book
Book Description
Drawing on newspaper accounts, college yearbooks and the recollections of veterans, this book examines the impact of World War I on sports in the U.S. As young men entered the military in large numbers, many colleges initially considered suspending athletics but soon turned to the idea of using sports to build morale and physical readiness. Recruits, mostly in their twenties, ended up playing more baseball and football than they would have in peacetime. Though most college athletes volunteered for military duty, others replaced them so that the reduction of competition was not severe. Pugilism gained participants as several million men learned how to box.
Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473864909
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 179
Get Book
Book Description
Maidstone in the Great War tells the remarkable story of this Kent county town's immense contribution to the Great War effort from the outbreak of war in 1914, to the long-awaited Allied victory in 1918. Maidstone has a long and illustrious military history it even had its own Civil War battle, dating back to 1648 and with the onset of the First World War, its civilians, like thousands of communities up and down the country, sent their men off to fight for their king and country. The town paid a hefty price as it lost nearly 900 of its young men. The harbinger of death catered for all strands of society, from the richest to the poorest, from those who toiled in the fields, to the loftiest of society. The book looks at the war year by year and how it directly and indirectly affected Maidstone. As more and more of its young men were killed and wounded, everyday life, or what passed for everyday life, continued the best that it could. The town's incredible support for the war on the Home Front was apparent from the very beginning. When the Mayor of Maidstone appealed to the town's people to support Lord Kitchener's request for blankets for his New Army, they responded in droves. Convalescing soldiers were tended to as passionately as Belgium refugees were looked after by the town's people; they freely and happily did this while coping with the unsettling reality that one or more of their loved ones may never return from the war. This is a superb account of the people of Maidstone's outstanding determination to see the war through.
Author: Ken Porter
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473823102
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Get Book
Book Description
Grays (Thurrock) in the Great War tells the story of Grays and the wider Thurrock area from the outbreak of the Great War until the peace of 1918. The Docks at nearby Tilbury were the source of much employment in the area for both fathers and sons alike. They also played their part in the war, but not as a hub of military deployments. In May 1915 the German spy Augusto Alfredo Roggen, a Uruguayan born in Montevideo, arrived at Tilbury on board the SS Batavia, which had sailed from Rotterdam in Holland. On his arrival in England he made his way to Scotland to carry out his spying activities at the Loch Long torpedo range. He was captured, found guilty and executed by firing squad at the Tower of London on 17 November 1915. In July 1915 the German Naval officer and pilot, Gunther Plschow, made good his escape from Donington Hall POW camp in Leicestershire and made his way safely back to Germany by hiding himself on board one of the many ships that sailed from Tilbury. He became the only German POW to escape from Britain and make it back to Germany during the First World War. The Kynochs munitions factory was situated near Fobbing on the site of what had previously been Borleys Farm. The site, which made shell cases, detonators, cordite and acetone for the British war effort, was so vast that it included its own housing estate for its workers, a hospital and a railway line. It became so big that it actually became known as Kynochtown and was a major source of employment in the area, particularly for women. There were Prisoner of War camps at Horndon House Farm, Puddledock Farm and Woodhams Quarry in West Thurrock which housed over 150 German prisoners. The Thurrock area also played an important part of protecting London from seaborne invasion up the River Thames with the help of Tilbury Fort and Coalhouse Fort at East Tilbury.
Author: Paul J Collins
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1329121872
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 500
Get Book
Book Description
In World War I, 35 relatives of the Collins family aged between 18 and 57 volunteered for service - 15 came from the Collins side while 20 were from the Byrne side. Some never passed the enlistment process. Of those who served overseas, many were injured and a saddening percentage died. With interest in the war high due to its centenary, this book honours those who answered the call by detailing their service and lives using primary documents and the vast amount of resources available for researchers. It is hard to say whether these veterans cover the full range of Australia's involvement during the Great War, from being enlisted for a few weeks at the end of the war to dying, but there is no denying the 34 men and one woman whose lives are recorded here encompass a broad range of the Australian experience during the conflict.
Author: Jane Cotter
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750957646
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229
Get Book
Book Description
The First World War claimed over 995,000 British lives, and its legacy continues to be remembered today. Great War Britain: Oxfordshire offers an intimate portrayal of the county and its people living in the shadowof the 'war to end all wars'. A beautifully illustrated and highly accessible volume, it describes local reaction to the outbreak of war; charts the experience of individuals who enlisted; the changing face of industry; the work of the many hospitals in the area; the effect of the conflict on local children; the women who defied convention to play a vital role on the home front; and concludes with a chapter dedicated to how the city and its people coped with the transition to life in peacetime once more. The Great War story of Oxfordshire is told through the voices of those who were there and is vividly illustrated through evocative images from the archives of Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.
