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ww1

  1. Legs

    Book Review The Life of a Medical Officer in WW1: The Experiences of Captain Harry Gordon Parker

    I have already reviewed a Doctor’s Diary from the frontline 1914 – 1918, and after that book I was a little dubious about accepting this book to review. That one was not a good book. It told very little about being a Doctor on the front line. I need not have worried. This book takes us through...
  2. Themanwho

    Book Review Laugh Or Cry – The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918 Peter Hart & Gary Bain

    This is not at all a normal history of WW1; in the main, it’s a study of how British soldiers lived and laughed through the worst of the western front. If you’re expecting to learn something new about how the Schlieffen Plan failed or how the Pals Battalions trained and fought, this book is not...
  3. Trilby

    Book Review Nicholas Milton's 'The Role of Birds in World War One'

    The Role of Birds in World War One Nicholas Milton's recent (Pen & Sword History, 2022) 232-page hardback 'The Role of Birds in World War One' covers a range of topics pertinent to birds and the war, including birdwatching at the front, the activities of the RSPB, culling birds, famous...
  4. MoleBath

    Book Review: The Harwich Striking Force

    Readers may well think of the Great War and the Royal Navy in terms of the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, the Dover Patrol and the U boat battles around the UK. Gallipoli is known to one and all. However, of equal importance is the Harwich Striking Force. This was based on the East Coast with...
  5. MoleBath

    Book Review Book Review: I Served With Hitler In The Trenches by Hans von Mend

    Stagging on with Hitler. There have been a number of excellent biographies of Hitler, including Konrad Helden and Joachim Fest. This biography from the 1930s was written by Hans von Mend who served with Hitler in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment. The book has been republished by the...
  6. MoleBath

    Book Review: The Nearly Man

    Anyone who has come across con men will attest to their credibility and in some cases charm. Indeed, without it their career will be short and unproductive. This book follows the life of Francis Metcalfe. Metcalfe was commissioned into the South Lancashire Regiment and saw service in France...
  7. Trilby

    The Butte de Warlencourt, Martinpuich and Le Sars

    This is, at 200 pages, a sizeable entry into the Battleground Europe - Somme 1916 series. It is well put-together, with vivid writing for a starting author. A combination history and battlefield guide, it discusses the fighting for Martinpuich, Le Sars and the emblematic Butte, a prehistoric...
  8. W21A

    Zeppelin Inferno. The forgotten Blitz – 1916.

    Ian Castle has been writing about military history for over thirty years but for the last fifteen has concentrated on the German air raids against Britain during World War one. He has a dedicated website www.IanCastleZeppelin.co.uk. This book 'Zeppelin Inferno' is the second in his 'Forgotten...
  9. O

    1918 shell identification

    Got a 1918 shell with these markings can anyone help identify what it was weapon it was used in
  10. Trilby

    British Naval Trawlers and Drifters in two World Wars from the John Lambert Collection

    British Naval Trawlers and Drifters in two World Wars from the John Lambert Collection John Lambert/Steve Dunn Seaforth, 2021 Pp208 A 208-page coffee-table size hardback, this is a finely illustrated work on trawlers and drifters of world wars one and two, arranged around a core of...
  11. Themanwho

    Years of Endurance - Life aboard the Battlecruiser Endurance, 1914-16

    I’m most definitely not an expert in naval matters, and other than a teenaged passion for the works of Douglas Reeman (PBUH) and some potluck reading over the years, it’s not an area of military history that has held much fascination for me. As you may imagine I was not exactly thrumming with...
  12. Trilby

    Badges of the Regular Infantry 1914-1918

    Badges of the Regular Infantry, David Bilton, Pen & Sword, 2021 This mid-sized hardback is written by David Bilton, author of 'The Hull Pals', later filmed for television as 'The Trench', and of a companion work on the badges of Kitchener's New Army. This volume sets out to be a definitive...
  13. D

    From the Channel to the Ypres Salient, The Belgian Sector 1914-1918

    This book has taken the author many years of hard work and research to complete, from his first visits back in the 80s, he has immersed himself in the history of Belgium, learning about its geography, art, culture, architecture, food, and language, although a relatively small country it has a...
  14. D

    A Lancashire Fusiliers First World War By Normal Hall

    Edited by his Grandaughter Norman kept a diary of all his wartime experiences, even taking the trouble to add black and white sketches, and some superb water colour illustrations, the diaries ran to 5 books, all of which now reside in the Imperial War Museum; on their own they are a fascinating...
  15. Flight

    WW1 Naval Blockade of Germany sabotaged by Foreign Office?

    I'm becomming quite a fan of looking into the Foreigner's Office and their ineptitude, though this one truly gasted my flabber. The recently deceased Eric Groves talking about the effectiveness of the blockade in a seminar here, you can get the jist from the first few minutes though some of the...
  16. Flight

    Tigris Gunboats

    Captain, later Rear Admiral, Wilfred Nunn narrates the entire First World War campaign in Meopatamia, modern day Iraq, in this fascinating account of Riverine Warfare, most of it direct from the front lines. This however is not simply a naval history but one of the intense cooperation between...
  17. BratMedic

    British Naval Intelligence through the Twentieth Century

    An extremely well researched and comprehensive read, but, it is a weighty tome indeed. This account covers just about everything to do with Naval Intelligence you could think of, personnel, incidents, codes, ciphers and general intelligence gathering. There is a brief account of the early...
  18. Auld-Yin

    The Black Watch and The Great War : various authors

    This book consists of stories from the BW Regimental Family covering the Great War and come from various sources. Each story tells a bit about a section of the Regiment, for instance the Arbroath High School Section tells of the section made up of pupils and teachers of the school. The Janitor...
  19. DSJ

    Trench Art

    I have inherited from a cousin a few bits & pieces of furniture and a few shell cases converted to walking stick stands etc. Among these items is what I suspect is a trench art book mark that would have been made by or for his father, who served in the PPCLI during WW1. The name tapped into the...
  20. Auld-Yin

    Twelve Days on the Somme

    Written in 1933 by Sidney Rogerson, a Company Commander in the West Yorks during WW1 because he was getting fed up of memoirs coming out at that time talking only of battles. He wrote 12 Days to illustrate what a ‘normal’ period in the front line was like for the ordinary infantryman and chose a...
  21. Trilby

    Soldiering on: British Tommies after the First World War

    Adam Powell's 'Soldiering on: British Tommies after the First World War' is a slimmish (pp.256) larger format paperback, arranged in four parts, with prologue and introduction. Part I covers the Armistice (both at the Front and at home), plus demobilisation and the actual return under the title...
  22. W

    Fire-Step to Fokker Fodder

    Fire-step to Fokker Fodder is an account of the First World War experiences of William ‘Jack’ Lidsey from when he volunteered as a private soldier in the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry in August 1914, to his death at the hands of the Red Baron as an observer in the Royal Flying Corps on 21st March...
  23. Auld-Yin

    Dictionary of Tommies' Songs and Slang

    “Dictionary of Tommies' Songs and Slang" is an excellent book about life for the WW1 troops, and contains exactly what it says - on the tin!! For research into the humble foot-slogger of the era - as opposed to the usual officer’s viewpoint given in the common letters home to mater and pater -...
  24. Auld-Yin

    The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing

    This is a very quirky but very enjoyable book. The eponymous hero is an Heir Hunter based in Edinburgh who is very down on his luck, owing money to some very dodgy people when he comes across a case, handed to him by his friendly local plod. This gives him a chance to get in front, identify...
  25. DieWespe

    Need help Identifying a Shell Casing Headstamp

    I bought this curious lil' thing in a memorabilia shop, and I would like to know what sort of weapon it came from. The shell itself has 'Fleury' stencilled on it, suggesting it's from Fleury-devant-Douaumont, a village that was razed to the ground during the Battle of Verdun. The area was...
  26. Themanwho

    Supplying the British Army in the First World War

    This is a book I was looking forward to; the “Q” triumphs and trials of the British Army in the Great War has been covered in large scale by historians as part of their publications, but has not generated a decent genre of books devoted solely to the arts logistic. I’ve felt for some time that...
  27. D

    The Battles of ARRAS North - Vimy ridge to Oppy Wood and Gavrelle

    This excellent guide gives you advice on driving, walking, or cycling, when touring the area around the City of Arras, and will complement any visit that you make by showing you those subtle hidden gems that are so easy to miss. The area North of Arras is somewhat neglected by those interested...
  28. Romsey warhorse - B&W.jpg

    Romsey warhorse - B&W.jpg

    Romsey Memorial park 2017
  29. D

    Sopwith Camels over Italy 1917-1918

    Images of War: Sopwith Camels over Italy 1917-1918 While most of us are familiar with the Great War on the Western front, names like the Somme, Passchendaele, and Verdun, other areas of conflict are less well known about, Gallipoli and the the middle east for instance, although a few films...
  30. Daz

    Reference Image SE5a

    Taken at the Yorkshire Air Museum :)
  31. Stumpy4154

    A Sturdy Race of Men - 149th Brigade

    I requested this book to review as, after visiting Ypres and some of the nearby cemeteries for the centenary commemorations of the Armistice, I seem to have "rediscovered" WW1 and I was not disappointed with it. In fact I could hardly put it down, much to the chagrin of the Stumpette. The book...
  32. Trilby

    The French Army on the Somme, 1916

    This excellent book by Ian Sumner is a very valuable corrective to the idea that the 1916 Battle of the Somme was all about the British. Featuring a good introductory section, it uses its many well-chosen large black and white photographs with informative captions to paint a quite different and...
  33. Trilby

    The Somme 1916 : The Strip of Murdered Nature 2 July - 18 November 1916

    This book, by television producer Ed Skelding, is built around numerous photographs taken by him on filming trips to the Somme sector, and deals with the Battle of the Somme, 1916 from the second day (2 July 1916) until the end, in November. The first volume one deals with the first day...
  34. goodoldboy

    The Soldiers' Peace

    The sub-title of this book is Demobilising the British Army 1919 and that is precisely what it describes. The author clearly has a passion for research as mostly the text is who said what, where and when in handling this massive. After a good Introduction which, despite a number of spelling...
  35. goodoldboy

    Fight to the Finish

    Fight to the Finish by Allan Mallinson When this book arrived for review my thoughts were ‘Ah, the Great War, I’ll soon have this done after a bit of Ypres, Passchendaele, the Somme and a nod to Gallipoli’. How wrong could I be? This is probably the best publication I have read on the subject...
  36. seaweed

    Home Waters (1914-1918)

    'Dawn off the Foreland - the young flood making/Jumbled and short and steep - 'Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking -/Awkward water to sweep. '"Mines reported in the fairway,/"Warn all traffic and detain. '" 'Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."'...
  37. Simon - Quest Magazine

    Win a limited edition signed print from Jacqueline Hurley’s War Poppy Collection

    QUEST is delighted that Jacqueline has very kindly donated a limited edition signed print for us to give away - Click here to read more and enter
  38. Stumpy4154

    A Battle Too Far – Arras 1917

    I took this review on for two main reasons; to expand my burgeoning knowledge and interest of WW1 and to learn about a battle that I had heard of but knew virtually nothing about, so I looked forward to getting the book off Auld Yin. It arrived, and first impressions were good. A decent sized...
  39. seaweed

    After Jutland

    Rear Admiral Goldrick brings to the story insights as a seaman that no landsman could possibly achieve, and is able also to draw on his own Command experience. He is no mean researcher, as shown by his extensive references and bibliography. Consequently what we get is a truly comprehensive...
  40. seaweed

    Mr Midshipman VC

    'They were not rated too young to teach, nor reckoned unfit to guide When they formed their class on Helles' beach at the bows of the "River Clyde"' Kipling, 'The Scholars' 'You may...
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