Kitchener's Last Volunteer

Kitchener's Last Volunteer PDF Author: Dennis Goodwin
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1907195297
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Henry Allingham is the last British serviceman alive to have volunteered for active duty in the First World War and is one of very few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. In Kitchener's Last Volunteer, he vividly recaptures how life was lived in the Edwardian era and how it was altered irrevocably by the slaughter of millions of men in the Great War, and by the subsequent coming of the modern age. Henry is unique in that he saw action on land, sea and in the air with the British Naval Air Service. He was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 with the British Grand Fleet and went on to serve on the Western Front. He befriended several of the young pilots who would lose their lives, and he himself suffered the privations of the front line under fire. In recent years, Henry was given the opportunity to tell his remarkable story to a wider audience through a BBC documentary, and he has since become a hero to many, meeting royalty and having many honours bestowed upon him. This is the touching story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life - one who has outlived six monarchs and twenty-one prime ministers, and who represents a last link to a vital point in our nation's history.

Kitchener's Last Volunteer

Kitchener's Last Volunteer PDF Author: Dennis Goodwin
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1907195297
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
Henry Allingham is the last British serviceman alive to have volunteered for active duty in the First World War and is one of very few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. In Kitchener's Last Volunteer, he vividly recaptures how life was lived in the Edwardian era and how it was altered irrevocably by the slaughter of millions of men in the Great War, and by the subsequent coming of the modern age. Henry is unique in that he saw action on land, sea and in the air with the British Naval Air Service. He was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 with the British Grand Fleet and went on to serve on the Western Front. He befriended several of the young pilots who would lose their lives, and he himself suffered the privations of the front line under fire. In recent years, Henry was given the opportunity to tell his remarkable story to a wider audience through a BBC documentary, and he has since become a hero to many, meeting royalty and having many honours bestowed upon him. This is the touching story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life - one who has outlived six monarchs and twenty-one prime ministers, and who represents a last link to a vital point in our nation's history.

Publishers, Readers and the Great War

Publishers, Readers and the Great War PDF Author: Vincent Trott
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474291503
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Literature is at the heart of popular understandings of the First World War in Britain, and has perpetuated a popular memory of the conflict centred on disillusionment, horror and futility. This book examines how and why literature has had this impact, exploring the role played by authors, publishers and readers in constructing the memory of the war since 1918. It demonstrates that publishers were as influential as authors in shaping perceptions of the conflict, and it provides a detailed analysis of critical and popular responses to war books, tracing the evolution of readers' attitudes to the war between 1918 and 2014. By exploring the cultural legacy of the war from these two previously overlooked perspectives, Vincent Trott offers fresh insights regarding the emergence of a collective memory of the First World War in Britain. Drawing on a broad range of primary source material, including publishers' correspondence, dust jackets, adverts, book reviews and diary entries, and examining canonical authors such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Vera Brittain alongside long-forgotten texts and more recent autobiographical works by Harry Patch and Henry Allingham, Publishers, Readers and the Great War provides a rich and nuanced analysis of the climate within which First World War literature was written, published and received since 1918.

The Archaeology of the Royal Flying Corps

The Archaeology of the Royal Flying Corps PDF Author: Melanie Winterton
Publisher: Pen and Sword Archaeology
ISBN: 139909727X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
"Winterton’s book is a good introductory effort on the haptic environment of World War I aviators and their personal artifacts."—The Journal of the Air Force Historical Foundation Archaeology provides a fascinating insight into the lives of the aviators of the First World War. Their descriptions of the sensation of flying in the open cockpits of the primitive warplanes of the day, and the artifacts that have survived from these first years of aerial combat, give us a powerful sense of what their wartime service was like and chart the beginning of our modern understanding of aviation. But the subject hasn’t been explored in any depth before, which is why Melanie Winterton’s pioneering book is so timely. Hers is the first study of the trench art, souvenirs and lucky mascots associated with the Royal Flying Corps which, in an original way, tell us so much about the experience of flying on the Western Front a century ago. Extensive quotations from the memoirs of these early airmen are combined with an analysis of the artifacts themselves. They convey something of the fear and anxiety the airmen had to grapple with on a daily basis and bring out the full significance of the poignant souvenirs they left behind. Pieces of crashed aeroplane – wooden propellers, strips of linen, fragments of metal – were recycled and circulated during the war and afterwards became the focus of attention in the domestic home. As Melanie Winterton demonstrates, these items connected the living with the deceased, which is why they are so strongly evocative even today.

Missing in Action Presumed Dead WW1

Missing in Action Presumed Dead WW1 PDF Author: Lynda Whiteley
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
ISBN: 1398426075
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Chris Clark, a soldier from Sheffield, is fighting on the Western Front. Siggi Haas, a soldier from Berlin, is also fighting on the Western Front. They were just ordinary young men before the war started and now, their lives have been cast to Fate. Chris worked in a steelworks and was happy with his lot. Siggi was an assistant history teacher and looking forward to becoming a good teacher. They were uprooted from their normal environment and thrust into a world of war, as so many others were. They knew nothing of war and assumed it to be something gallant and adventurous. They even assumed they might enact some heroic deed. There were so many heroes in the Great War and so many battles that I have not mentioned because this is a story based mainly, but not entirely, on the Western Front. It concentrates on the events surrounding Chris and Siggi, being the British Army and the German Army. The words of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and leaders have been taken from letters, diaries, memoirs or documents — real people experiencing real events. However, Chris Clark, his family and friends are fictional, as are Siggi Haas, his family and friends. Some of the men in this book died in the Great War, some lived and some endured something in between living and death.

HMS Hood

HMS Hood PDF Author: Daniel Knowles
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
For over twenty years the battlecruiser HMS 'Hood' toured the world as the most iconic warship in the Royal Navy. Unmatched in her beauty and charisma, 'Hood' is one of history's greatest warships. During the twilight years of the British Empire the 'Hood 'toured the world showing the flag as a symbol of British power. As the Royal Navy's show-ship, 'Hood' came to command a special place in the hearts and minds of the British public. Such was the regard for HMS 'Hood' that her destruction in the Denmark Strait on the morning of 24 May 1941 by the German battleship 'Bismarck' created dismay across the world. Within minutes of entering battle 'the Mighty Hood' as she was affectionately known, was destroyed by a catastrophic explosion which had echoes of Jutland a quarter of a century earlier. Out of a crew of a crew of 1,418, only 3 survived. The sinking of HMS 'Hood' was the single largest disaster ever sustained by the Royal Navy. This book charts the life and death of this legendary battlecruiser in both peace and war from her early origins, through the interwar years, to her destruction.

Maud Coleno’s Daughter

Maud Coleno’s Daughter PDF Author: John Dann
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1785899716
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
One woman’s transformation from ingénue chorus girl to wealthy Mayfair hostess – whilst hiding some dark secrets... Dorothy Hartman, known to her intimates as ‘Dodo’, a glamorous society hostess and a successful businesswoman, had a hidden past. Her ‘missing’ earlier life had been shrouded in mystery; a deceit she deliberately cultivated. The love child of a Cockney music hall artiste, born in poverty during the Victorian Fin de Siècle, Dodo emerged as an attractive West End chorus girl, compelled to marry an army officer twice her age during the First World War. Her aristocratic second husband disinherited her on his death-bed, following a string of affairs. Dodo’s next marriage secured a partnership in Lendrum & Hartman, the most prestigious transatlantic car dealership in London, patronised by royalty – including the Princes of Wales and Wallis Simpson. Using her theatrical charm Dodo seamlessly moved amongst fashionable society becoming a regular passenger to America during the golden age of sea travel, a renowned Mayfair hostess whose guests were drawn from the theatrical world such as Charlie Chaplin, Frances Day and Valerie Hobson, including business and political circles like Jack Profumo. She rode with the Beaufort hunt, which included Britain’s top wartime spymaster. Maud Coleno’s Daughter contains largely unpublished material about a once well-known, now forgotten Mayfair hostess, who succeeded in a man’s world despite disadvantage of birth. It throws another perspective on little-known aspects of some influential British and American business people involved in the smoke and mirrors world of pre-war political espionage, set against country house balls and high society. The book will appeal to fans of biographies and ‘rags to riches’ stories.

GWB London

GWB London PDF Author: Stuart Hallifax
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750960574
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
The First World War claimed over 995,000 British lives, and its legacy continues to be remembered today. Great War Britain: London offers an in-depth portrait of the capital and its people during the 'war to end all wars'. It describes the reaction to the war's outbreak; charts the experience of individuals who enlisted; shares many first-hand experiences, including tales of the Zeppelin raids and anti-German riots of the era; examines the work of local hospitals; and explores how the capital and its people coped with the transition to life in peacetime. Vividly illustrated with evocative images from the newspapers of the day, it commemorates the extraordinary bravery and sacrifice of London's residents between 1914 and 1918.

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

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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.

Volunteers

Volunteers PDF Author: Richard Van Emden
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1473891892
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
What greater pride might a young man feel than to serve shoulder to shoulder with his friends in time of war? To enlist into the army with his pals, chums, mates, filling the ranks of battalions that drew their strength from the local community, from amongst factory workers, miners, shop-workers and tradesmen. In August 1914, what more fitting role was there to play than to answer the country’s call to arms? The past is another country, of course: the world in which these men grew up and the mores that took them to the Western Front might appear innocent and naive today. The Somme battle eviscerated many of these free-spirited battalions. But the raising of this New Army – a purely volunteer army – lives on in the public consciousness, their collective story part of our heritage. Who were these volunteers who poured into recruiting offices, overwhelming the staff? What motivated these men – too often just boys - to join up? How did they feel about one another and the new military regime into which so many ran with enthusiasm, without much thought as to the future? After the success of his previous books, The Somme, The Road to Passchendaele, and 1918, best-selling Great War historian Richard van Emden returns to the beginning of the War with this, his latest volume, including an unparalleled collection of soldiers’ own photographs taken on their privately-held cameras. Drawing on long-forgotten memoirs, diaries and letters written by the men who enlisted, Richard tells the riveting story of Kitchener’s volunteers, before they went to fight.

John Redmond's Last Years

John Redmond's Last Years PDF Author: Stephen Lucius Gwynn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ireland
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description