Durham City in the Great War

Durham City in the Great War PDF Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783030321
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
Durham was, and still is, one of the country's oldest and best-loved cites. The very name was synonymous with dedication, dependability and determination. Men from the city answered the call to arms with an eerie normality, no matter what their age or social class. Many had been miners before the war and had spent their working life down a pit, but just as many had been teachers. Others were students at the Durham School, one of the most prestigious in the land, going on to further greatness at Durham University. When the announcement of war was made, they all enlisted to do their duty for King and country. They asked nothing in return, despite knowing the inherent dangers of what they were about to do. They carried on regardless, selfless in their readiness to give to a greater cause. There was a similar determination amongst the city's people. For some that meant working for the local Voluntary Aid Detachment or the Durham Volunteer Training Corps, whilst still going about their day job. They knew that no matter how hard things were for them, it was much more trying for their sons, brothers, husbands, uncles and other loved ones who were fighting on the Western Front. Hundreds went off to fight in the war: men who had been born in the city, who lived and were educated in the city, and men who had worked in the city. Some 360 of them never made it home. They are gone, but never forgotten.

Durham City in the Great War

Durham City in the Great War PDF Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783030321
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
Durham was, and still is, one of the country's oldest and best-loved cites. The very name was synonymous with dedication, dependability and determination. Men from the city answered the call to arms with an eerie normality, no matter what their age or social class. Many had been miners before the war and had spent their working life down a pit, but just as many had been teachers. Others were students at the Durham School, one of the most prestigious in the land, going on to further greatness at Durham University. When the announcement of war was made, they all enlisted to do their duty for King and country. They asked nothing in return, despite knowing the inherent dangers of what they were about to do. They carried on regardless, selfless in their readiness to give to a greater cause. There was a similar determination amongst the city's people. For some that meant working for the local Voluntary Aid Detachment or the Durham Volunteer Training Corps, whilst still going about their day job. They knew that no matter how hard things were for them, it was much more trying for their sons, brothers, husbands, uncles and other loved ones who were fighting on the Western Front. Hundreds went off to fight in the war: men who had been born in the city, who lived and were educated in the city, and men who had worked in the city. Some 360 of them never made it home. They are gone, but never forgotten.

City of London at War 1939–45

City of London at War 1939–45 PDF Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526708337
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
The City of London was always going to be an obvious target for German bombers during the Second World War. What better way for Nazi Germany to spread fear and panic amongst the British people than by attacking their capital city?Although not vastly populated in the same way that a bigger city or larger town would be, there were still enough people working there during the day for attacks on it to take their toll. The city’s ancient and iconic buildings also bore the brunt of the German bombs, including churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire in 1666. The book looks at the effects of war on the City of London, including the damage caused by the 8 months of the Blitz between September 1940 and May 1941\. The most devastating of the raids took place on 29 December 1940, with both incendiary and explosive bombs causing a firestorm so intense it was known as the Second Great Fire of London. It also looks at the bravery of the staff at St Bart's Hospital, which was one of the medical facilities that remained open during the course of the war. Other stories include the sterling work carried out by the City’s civilian population and the different voluntary roles that they performed to help keep the city safe, including the Home Guard and the Fire Watchers, who spent their nights on the city’s rooftops looking out for incendiary devices dropped by the German Luftwaffe. Despite the damage to its buildings and its population, by the end of the war the City of London was able to rise, like a phoenix, from the flames of destruction, ready to become the vibrant and flourishing borough that it is today.

Churchill's Flawed Decisions

Churchill's Flawed Decisions PDF Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526708574
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
Winston Churchill is undoubtedly one of the most respected and best-loved characters the nation 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.

Enfield in the Great War

Enfield in the Great War PDF Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473850762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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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.

Fighter Aces of the Great War

Fighter Aces of the Great War PDF Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473865433
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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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.

The Green Howards in the Great War

The Green Howards in the Great War PDF Author: John Sheen
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399080962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 630

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Book Description
In answer to Lord Kitchener’s appeal, in late August and September 1914 many men joined Alexandra’s Princess of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment, better known as The Green Howards. Recruits came from around the Middlesbrough area and the ironstone mines on the North Yorkshire moors, while others came from the East Durham coalfield and the Durham City area. The 8th and 9th Battalions left the Regimental Depot in Richmond in late September and moved to Frensham on the Hampshire/Surrey border, where they trained hard until bad weather forced a move to barracks in Aldershot. They arrived on the Somme front at the end of June 1916, but were not involved in the fighting until 5 July, when the 9th Battalion captured Horseshoe trench and Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell won the VC when he destroyed a German machine gun position. On 10 July both battalions took part in the capture of Contalmaison, a village that had been a first day objective. A second VC was awarded posthumously to Private William Short of the 8th Battalion during the fighting in Munster Alley in August 1916. The next year found the 23rd Division in the Ypres Salient, where they were in and out of the line until June 1917 when they took part in the Battle of Messines and the 8th Battalion had the honor of taking Hill 60. In November 1917 the division was sent to Italy to bolster the hard-pressed Italian Army, but the 9th Battalion returned to France in 1918 where they fought until the Armistice. The 8th Battalion stayed on in Italy and fought at the crossing of the Piave and Vittorio Veneto, which brought the war to an end in Italy.

Sunderland in the Great War

Sunderland in the Great War PDF Author: Clive Dunn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783462868
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
Looks at how the Great War affected Wearsiders from the initial enthusiasm for sorting out the German Kaiser in time for Christmas 1914, to the gradual realization of the enormity of human sacrifice the families of Sunderland were committed to as the war stretched out over the next four years Ð including local Zeppelin attacks and experiences of those fighting for the DLI and other regiments. ??The Great War affected everyone. At home there were wounded soldiers in military hospitals, refugees from Belgium and later on German prisoners of war. There were food and fuel shortages and disruption to schooling. The role of women changed dramatically and they undertook a variety of work undreamed of in peacetime. Meanwhile, men serving in the armed forces were scattered far and wide. Extracts from contemporary letters reveal their heroism and give insights into what it was like under battle conditions.

Disaster Before D-Day

Disaster Before D-Day PDF Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526735121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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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.

Economic and Social History of the World War

Economic and Social History of the World War PDF Author: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Division of Economics and History
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1914-1918
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description


British Archives and the Sources for the History of the World War

British Archives and the Sources for the History of the World War PDF Author: Hubert Hall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archives
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description