St Valéry and Its Aftermath

St Valéry and Its Aftermath PDF Author: Stewart Mitchell
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473886600
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 526

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Book Description
This WWII military history chronicles the bravery and daring of Britain’s Gordon Highlanders in Nazi occupied France. During the German offensive of May, 1940, the 51st (Highland) Division—which included the 1st and 5th Battalions Gordon Highlanders—became separated from the British Expeditionary Force. After a heroic stand at St Valery-en-Caux, the Division surrendered when fog thwarted efforts to evacuate them. Within days, scores of Gordons had escaped and were on the run through Nazi-occupied France. Many reached Britain after harrowing travails, including recapture and imprisonment often in atrocious conditions in France, Spain, or North Africa. Those imprisoned in Eastern Europe were forced to work in coal and salt mines, quarries, factories and farms. Some died through unsafe conditions or the brutality of their captors. Others escaped, on occasion fighting with distinction alongside Resistance forces. Many had to endure the brutal 1945 winter march away from the advancing Allies before their eventual liberation. This superbly researched book vividly recounts their many inspiring stories.

St Valéry and Its Aftermath

St Valéry and Its Aftermath PDF Author: Stewart Mitchell
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473886600
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 526

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Book Description
This WWII military history chronicles the bravery and daring of Britain’s Gordon Highlanders in Nazi occupied France. During the German offensive of May, 1940, the 51st (Highland) Division—which included the 1st and 5th Battalions Gordon Highlanders—became separated from the British Expeditionary Force. After a heroic stand at St Valery-en-Caux, the Division surrendered when fog thwarted efforts to evacuate them. Within days, scores of Gordons had escaped and were on the run through Nazi-occupied France. Many reached Britain after harrowing travails, including recapture and imprisonment often in atrocious conditions in France, Spain, or North Africa. Those imprisoned in Eastern Europe were forced to work in coal and salt mines, quarries, factories and farms. Some died through unsafe conditions or the brutality of their captors. Others escaped, on occasion fighting with distinction alongside Resistance forces. Many had to endure the brutal 1945 winter march away from the advancing Allies before their eventual liberation. This superbly researched book vividly recounts their many inspiring stories.

St. Valery

St. Valery PDF Author: Bill Innes
Publisher: Birlinn
ISBN: 0857905198
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The gallant rearguard action which led to the capture of the 51st Highland Division at St Valéry-en-Caux (two weeks after the famous evacuation of the main British army from Dunkirk) may have burned itself into the consciousness of an older generation of Scots but has never been given the wider recognition it deserves. This new book re-examines that fateful chain of events in 1940 and reassesses some of the myths that have grown up in the intervening years. Two of the main contributors to this collection of soldiers' reminiscences, Angus Campbell from Lewis and Donald John MacDonald from South Uist, were both traditional Gaelic bards. Their work has been translated from their native language and reflects both the richness of the vocabulary they had acquired through the Gaelic oral tradition and their individual gifts as natural story-tellers born out of that tradition. These vivid accounts bring alive the chaos and horror of war and the grim deprivation of the camps and forced marches which so many endured. Yet the personal stories also resound with the spirit, humour and sense of comradeship which enabled men to fight on in desperate situations and refuse to be cowed by their captors.

Burnbanks Village

Burnbanks Village PDF Author: Joe McLeod
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1398110922
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
This fascinating history of the village of Burnbanks near Aberdeen will be of interest to all those who have lived in the village or know it well.

The Caretakers

The Caretakers PDF Author: Caitlin Galante DeAngelis
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1633889009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
When World War I ended, hundreds of British veterans stayed in France to work for the newly chartered Imperial War Graves Commission. Through the 1920s and 1930s, these veteran-gardeners married local women, raised bilingual children, and dedicated themselves to caring for the graves of their fallen comrades. When World War II swept through Europe in 1940, more than 200 War Graves gardeners were stranded in Nazi-occupied France. Their bosses explicitly ordered them to remain at their posts, even when their villages were under attack by the invading Germans. While some escaped, others were arrested by the Nazis. A handful managed to stay free and join the French Resistance. With their English-language skills and unshakable loyalty to the Allied cause, the gardeners and their families took on crucial roles in the effort to save British and American airmen shot down in France. In some cases, they hid the airmen in World War I cemeteries. In The Caretakers, internationally renowned cemetery expert Caitlin Galante DeAngelis tells the true story of three of these unlikely heroes: Ben Leech, a barman from Manchester who became a cemetery gardener in Beaumont-Hamel and joined the Resistance; Rosine Witton, the wife of a British gardener, who served as a key conductor on the famous Comet Line and survived Ravensbrück; and Robert Armstrong, an Irish gardener who worked for the Resistance until he was captured by the Nazis and sentenced to death. Through meticulous research, never-before-published journals and papers, and compassionate storytelling, DeAngelis honors the sacrifices made by War Graves gardeners and their families.

Fighting Through to Anzio

Fighting Through to Anzio PDF Author: Stewart Mitchell
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399058231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
This is the inspiring story of two Gordon Highlanders Territorial Army battalions which saw action in some of the Second World War’s fiercest battles. After evacuation from Dunkirk, 6th Gordons fought in Tunisia in 1943, leading to the German surrender in North Africa. Following a spell in Iraq, the 1st London Scottish fought in Sicily and then the Battle of Monte Cassino where Private George Mitchell won his posthumous Victoria Cross, the most prestigious of the numerous gallantry awards to the men of both battalions. In January 1944, the 6th Gordons were the first British battalion ashore at Anzio. While the landing was unopposed, the Germans mounted devastating counter-attacks but, despite almost 400 killed, wounded and captured, the Battalion heroically held on. The 1st London Scottish arrived to fight alongside their Regimental ‘brethren’ suffering equally heavy devastating casualties. After the break-out, the Gordons pipe band led the liberation parade in Rome. Both battalions went on to fight up through Italy to smash the Gothic Line and eventual victory.

The Black Watch

The Black Watch PDF Author: Victoria Schofield
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1784979961
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 876

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Book Description
The heroic and inspiring story of the fortunes of the Black Watch, whose soldiers have distinguished themselves in theatres of war across the world. Formed into a regiment in 1739 and named for the dark tartan of its soldiers' kilts, The Black Watch has fought in almost every major conflict of nation and empire between 1745 and the present, and has a reputation second to none. Following on from The Highland Furies, in which she traced the regiment's history to 1899, Victoria Schofield tells the story of The Black Watch in the 20th and 21st centuries. She tracks its fortunes through the 2nd South African War, two World Wars, the 'troubles' in N Ireland and the war in Iraq – up to The Black Watch's merger with five other regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006. Drawing on diaries, letters and interviews, Victoria Schofield weaves the many strands of the story into an epic narrative of a heroic body of officers and men. In her sure hands, the story of The Black Watch is no arid recitation of campaigns and battle honours, but a rewarding account of the fortunes of war of a regiment that has played a distinguished role in British, and world, history.

Voice and Eye in Faulkner's Fiction

Voice and Eye in Faulkner's Fiction PDF Author: Hugh M. Ruppersburg
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820333646
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Hugh M. Ruppersburg examines the use of narrative viewpoint and structure in four representative novels by William Faulkner: Light in August, Pylon, Requiem for a Nun, and Absalom, Absalom! In his discussion of these four works he refers frequently, and often at length, to Faulkner's other novels and stories, so that the book offers a comprehensive examination of the narrative principle that underlie Faulkner's literary achievement. Ruppersburg shows how the Nobel Prize-winning novelist employed a number of elements to guarantee the impersonality of his fiction--how he built his novels primarily around the speech and thoughts of his characters. The absence of a judgmental authorial or narrational voice, says Ruppersburg, compels the reader to reach his own judgment concerning the behavior of these characters as well as the meaning and value of the fiction. By fusing a number of individual perspectives into a composite perspective, Faulkner gives the community itself a voice. He also uses narrative viewpoint to dramatize the individual's search for identity and the nature of truth, time, history, and human consciousness. Most significantly, the author says, Faulkner's manipulation of character perspective forces the reader to participate in the narrative process on the same level as that of the fictional characters. Voice and Eye in Faulkner's Fiction is primarily intended for the literature teacher and specialist, but it is directed as well to all readers curious about Faulkner's methods and the ways in which his novels work.

Scattered Under the Rising Sun

Scattered Under the Rising Sun PDF Author: Stewart Mitchell
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
ISBN: 9781399085113
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders was posted to Singapore in 1937 with their families. When the Japanese invaded Malaya in December 1941, the Battalion fought bravely until the surrender of Singapore on 14 February 1942. Those who were not killed became POWs. Of the 1000 men involved initially, over 400 had died by their liberation in summer 1945. Despite the diverse background of the members of the Battalion, all were bound by close regimental spirit. As POWs, all suffered hard labour, starvation, brutality and tropical diseases. Rank was no protection from death. After initial incarceration in Singapore the Gordons were dispersed to work on the famous Thai-Burma railway, in the mines of Taiwan and Japan and on other slave labour projects. Conditions defy modern comprehension. Others died trapped in hell-ships torpedoed by allied submarines. The author has researched the plight of these extraordinary men, so many of whom never saw their native Scotland again. Despite the grim conditions, he captures the strong collective regimental spirit and the humour and cooperation that saved so many who would have otherwise have perished à as many did. This is an inspiring tale of courage and survival against appalling odds.

Anglo-Norman Studies XLIV

Anglo-Norman Studies XLIV PDF Author: Stephen D. Church
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783277130
Category : Anglo-Saxons
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
The most recent cutting-edge scholarship on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Codex Calixtinus

Codex Calixtinus PDF Author: John Williams
Publisher: Gunter Narr Verlag
ISBN: 9783823340041
Category : Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description