The Great War

[Story]

The Great War in Africa - for those interested in the subject, I highly recommend this book

http://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Africa-1914-1918/dp/0393305643

 

[Renault]

I just finished another nice little book by Giles Foden On the two small boats the Brits hauled overland from Jo-burg to Lake Tanganyika, "Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure. It's hard to believe that the Graf von Gotzen is still in service on the lake!!!!!!!

This is the story that Forrester loosely based his "The African Queen" on.

Renault

 

[Story]

Reading music
[video=youtube;cZqN1glz4JY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqN1glz4JY[/video]

The astonishing diaries of a First World War captain whose company was slaughtered on the Western Front have been discovered after remaining hidden in a wardrobe for 40 years.

The journal of Capt Edwin Vaughan, detailing the Battle of Ypres in 1917 in which his band of 90 men were decimated to just 15, has been published, graphically throwing light on the battlefield carnage .

He notes how a fellow officer was overcome with a feeling of 'this is the end of us' when they received orders to advance across No Man's Land. He was killed by a shell a short time later.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-75-company-died-published.html#ixzz1MdgRBr9z

 

[Story]

Archaeologists in France recently discovered the remains of 21 German soldiers from World War I in an underground shelter that hasn't been touched since the day it was destroyed by French shells 93 years ago. Pocket books and prayer beads tell stories of life in the trenches -- but Germany doesn't want to hear them.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,794103,00.html


One of the most graphic accounts of World War I, the diary of German author Ernst Jünger, has been published for the first time. Its dispassionate description of life and death on the Western Front is a cold indictment of war -- even though Jünger embraced the conflict throughout as a glorious test of manhood.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,726672,00.html

 

[Stearmen]

Archaeologists in France recently discovered the remains of 21 German soldiers from World War I in an underground shelter that hasn't been touched since the day it was destroyed by French shells 93 years ago. Pocket books and prayer beads tell stories of life in the trenches -- but Germany doesn't want to hear them.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,794103,00.html

How sad!

 

[lolly_loisides]

Forgive me if this is already posted, but there is a Facebook page that contains hundreds of recently re discovered photographs of Australian servicemen taken in Fromelles, France. https://www.facebook.com/lostdiggers?sk=photos

 

[DNO]

Thanks for the photo link...great pics! I've been interested in World War I most of my life. Before my son was born (23 years ago today) I was a avid collector of WWI Canadian, British and Australian militaria. I kept the various and sundry items I had accumulated but I basically stopped buying. That is, except for the odd piece here and there that popped up at an estate auction or contents sale that no-one else seemed interested in. Most of the stuff these days is so expensive I can't even consider it. I still love doing the research, though. The availability of on-line records has really facilitated this.

 

[Chas]

the Somme was far worse for the Australians than Gallipoli was, that's for certain.

My dad's dad was at the Somme as well, he was wounded at Courcellette, where the tanks were first used.

 

[DNO]

The Somme was bad for everybody, including the Canadians.

And those poor Pals battalions on the first day...incredible.

 

[Story]

Dog tag lost in World War I returned to soldier's son
http://news.yahoo.com/dog-tag-lost-world-war-returned-soldiers-son-001150115.html

 

[Story]

Tomorrow night millions of viewers will see this grim existence in the BBC adaptation of Birdsong, the Sebastian Faulks novel which tells the story of an officer who fights alongside a tunneller at Messines.

Although fiction, Birdsong draws heavily on the experiences of men like Sapper William Hackett. Like many tunnellers, Hackett was a pitman by trade, who responded to calls for skilled miners on the Western Front.

At the age of 41 he was too old for the infantry – yet on October 25, 1915, he was accepted by the Royal Engineers. After a fortnight’s training at Chatham, Kent, he was sent to France.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-st...-world-war-one-115875-23709739/#ixzz1kDWAPmYE

To create a realistic portrayal of this deadly underground battle for the book's television adaptation, the producers built an accurate replica of part of the vast network of tunnels. They believe this is the first time this has been attempted.

The detailed reconstruction was aided by Peter Barton, a first world war archaeologist and historical writer, who has made the subject his life's work. Barton, employed as a consultant on the drama – judged too difficult to film for years – supplied Birdsong's director, Philip Martin, with scale drawings and plans from his excavations. Only then could a set of tunnels be built in a Budapest studio.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/jan/22/birdsong-tunnel-warfare-sebastian-faulks

 

[Story]

The 'Pompeii' of the Western Front: Archaeologists find the bodies of 21 tragic World War One German soldiers in perfectly preserved trenches where they were buried alive by an Allied shell
Men were killed when a huge Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in eastern France in 1918, causing it to cave in
Engineers find trench network 18ft beneath the surface near town of Carspach while excavating for a new road
Scene likened to Pompeii after skeletal remains found in same positions the men had been in at the time of the collapse


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...y-preserved-94-years-later.html#ixzz1m2z9DKYq

 

[DNO]

Amazing photos in that article, Story. It's good to see that they treat a site like that with the respect it deserves. Thanks for posting the article.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

World war 1 has always fascinated me. The absolute insanity of it.
I had a great uncle that I never met who had died shortly after returning home. He was a victim of a gas attack, and never recovered from the effects.
I've been wondering lately where I might find some record of his service. And yes I have done some searching but it always leads to such sites as "ancestors.com" which require a fee to view what are essentially public records. :eusa_doh:There must be archives that we can access for free to give those of us that have an interest some information?

 

[DNO]

Depends where you live Maj. Public Archives of Canada have made available WW1 attestation papers for all Canadian soldiers online (and free). In addition, many Canadian battalion war diaries are available online from the same source (a real boon for WW1 collectors like me). The Australians have gone one better...I believe whole service records of Australian soldiers are available online. The Brits have medal records online...but for a fee. I don't know what the US has available.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I did find The U.S. National Archives site today, but none of the links I needed to follow work. :eusa_doh:
Maybe mornings are a bad time for that site, I dunno. I'll try it again though as it looks promising.

 

[Story]

This week, workers renovating downtown Clearwater's Capitol Theatre found a memorial to local World War I soldiers on an interior wall of the historic structure, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...ound_n_3063615.html?utm_hp_ref=world&ir=World

 

[MisterCairo]

I'm four days' late in posting a memorial, but it was 96 years ago that the Canadian Corps took Vimy Ridge. All four Canadian divisions fought as a complete corps for the first time in the First World War.

Lest We Forget.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_Vimy_Memorial

 

[Story]

For Memorial Day -

When we remember American veterans who served in war, we often forget of those who fought in the first World War. For over a decade, writer RICHARD RUBIN traveled across America searching for living veterans of the WWI. The men and women Rubin found ranged in age from 101 to 113. Today, all of the veterans of the American Expeditionary Forces have died – the last surviving WWI vet died in 2011– but Rubin was able to talk with many of them and learn about their remarkable experiences. He recounts their stories and history of the war in his new book, “The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War.”

http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2013/05/24/remembering-the-doughboys-of-wwi/

 

[Story]

Every Memorial Day weekend, a ceremony takes place just outside Paris to honor a group of Americans who fought in France. They're not D-Day veterans, but a little known group of pilots who fought for France in World War I, before the U.S. entered the war. This year's ceremony in the tiny town of Marnes-la-Coquette began with a flyover by two French air force Mirage fighter jets from the Escadrille Lafayette, or Lafayette Squadron, paying tribute to the men who founded the group nearly 100 years ago.

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/27/186752528/france-pays-tribute-to-first-u-s-fighter-pilots