Showing titles in World War I

In 2007, after almost 40 years of operations, the SAS ceased operations in Northern Ireland and ended the longest operational commitment in the unit's history. Starting in 1969, Mark Urban reveals the extraordinary history of the special forces' operations in Northern Ireland and the unenviable dilemmas faced by intelligence chiefs engaged in a daily struggle against one of the world's most sophisticated terrorist organisations.

A joint operation between Britain and France, the 1916 Battle of the Somme was an attempt to gain territory and dent Germany's military strength. By the end of the action, the Allied Forces had made just twelve kilometres. For this slight gain, more than a million lives were lost. In this classic military memoir, Staff Sergeant Sidney Rogerson vividly captures the last spell of frontline duty performed by the 2nd Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment.

The Gallipoli letter is an 8000-word private report written by journalist Keith Arthur Murdoch, with the help of British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, after visiting the Gallipoli peninsula in September 1915. It describes the organization and conditions of the Gallipoli campaign. It was sent to Andrew Fisher (then-Prime Minister of Australia) and Henry Herbert Asquith (then-Prime Minister of the UK). Murdoch’s twenty-eight-page letter helped to establish the idea of Gallipoli as a military disaster.

"Good-Bye to All That: An Autobiography" by Robert Graves is a seminal work that vividly captures the harrowing experiences of a young British officer during World War I.

War stories inhere in all generations. This book is about the shards of war--the deep sharp edges left within those who have seen combat, survived it, and lived beyond it. The book weaves these stories told to the author, or experienced by him, with the Civil War Diary of the author's great-great grandfather. Grandfather Benjamin Franklin Heuston (1824-1894) fought for the Union with the 22nd Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment. He marched with General Sherman to Atlanta in 1864, and was badly wounded.

Americans love a good fight, and if the cause is just, all the better. When the Kaiser tried to bring authoritarian rule to the west of the Rhine, American expatriates in France stepped up to stop him. Men who knew how to fly offered their services to the young French Air Force - as did men who did not know how to fly, but insisted that they could with hilariously disastrous results. The great Ace Lufbery, along with his comrades Thaw, Hall, Rockwell, and others more or less invented the "dogfight" over the bloody fields of Verdun and Flanders, and when they were not on the attack they ...

Step into the extraordinary life of Alvin C. York, a humble farmer from Tennessee whose unparalleled bravery during World War I transformed him into an American legend. This gripping screenplay captures the essence of his journey, from his early struggles and awakening to his heroic actions on the battlefield and his impactful return home. ACT I: Roots and Awakening Journey back to the humble beginnings of Alvin C. York in the rugged hills of Tennessee. This act delves into York's early life, portraying the struggles and values that shaped his character. Witness his personal transformation ...

Sent to France with the Royal Flying Corps at just 17, and later a member of the famous 56 Squadron, Cecil Lewis was an illustrious and passionate fighter pilot of the First World War, described by Bernard Shaw in 1935 as 'a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet'. In this vivid and spirited account the author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war. We then follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme to his pioneering defence of London against deadly nighttime raids.

This is not a history of the First World War. It is the story of the women of the resistance in Belgium and Occupied northern France during that conflict. Stroud uses six main characters as a lens to describe the work of an extraordinarily brave group of women. In 1914, before the Germans invaded, they were ordinary people – some were poor, some were rich, some were low born and others from the top echelons of society – they were drawn together by war and they show what the individual can do when faced with apparently overwhelming odds.

Frederick Rutland was an accomplished aviator, British WWI war hero, and real-life James Bond. He was the first pilot to take off and land a plane on a ship, a decorated warrior for his feats of bravery and rescue, was trusted by the admirals of the Royal Navy, had a succession of aeronautical inventions, and designed the first modern aircraft carrier. He was perhaps the most famous early twentieth-century naval aviator. Despite all of this, and due mostly to class politics, Rutland was not promoted in the new Royal Air Force in the wake of WWI.

Charles Edward Wells deployed to France, and we join him there in the summer of 1918, following a vicious attack wherein he lost his first diary. We then see the full scale of war through his eyes. Not only the mortal danger of combat, but also a good bit of what happens to a soldier when he's not on the front line.

Nesta biografia de um dos mais conhecidos guerreiros de nosso tempo, o ouvinte descobre como Lawrence - que não foi o primeiro, nem o único militar a servir junto às forças árabes rebeldes da época, tampouco o oficial de mais alta patente a assistir os líderes da sublevação - tornou-se um destacado e influente assessor militar dos mais importantes chefes árabes.

How the US Army developed historical programs since World War I―sending combat historians into the fray to interview soldiers and collect documents for the benefit of history.

Parker Hitt's proactive mentorship of Army cryptology during World War I laid the groundwork for the modern American cryptologic system. Though he considered himself an infantryman, Hitt is best known as the "father of American military cryptology".

In the spring of 1918, German forces broke through Allied lines in a last-ditch attempt to overcome their enemies. To hold back this tide, inexperienced young men from France, Britain, the United States, Australia, and Canada were sent into war. What was it like to be an eighteen-year-old and sent to the frontlines in the First World War? Frederick James Hodges was one of these young men and his book, Men of 18 in 1918, provides insight into the ordeals of an ordinary soldier who left Britain as a teenager but returned as a man having witnessed the full horrors of war.

World War I saw an unprecedented loss of life in Western Europe, and destruction on a scale no one alive had ever seen. All those who experienced it were irrevocably changed, including many writers and artists upon whose oeuvre it left an indelible mark. This captivating series examines the impact of the war on artists and thinkers through the prism of their great works. In each episode, a leading figure from the worlds of science, culture and the arts reflects on a single iconic piece, and discusses how the events of 1914-18 shaped its creation.

Nariman Karkaria, a young Parsi from Gujarat, had always wanted to see the world. So he left home as a teenager with fifty rupees in his pocket to do just that. After working in Hong Kong and Peking for a few years, in 1914, when war was in the air, he decided to volunteer for the British Army. Passing through China, Manchuria, Siberia, Russia and Scandinavia, he reached London early in 1915 and managed to register as a private with the 24th Middlesex Regiment. He was now a Tommy.

Nel maggio 1915 l'Italia si prepara a entrare in guerra. Angelo Gatti, ufficiale di Stato maggiore, comincia a scrivere un diario che si rivelerà molto utile per ricostruire le vicende dell'esercito italiano. Questo volume raccoglie le riflessioni e le annotazioni che egli affidò alla carta dal 17 maggio al 5 agosto del 1915. Uomo dalla personalità ricca e dalla vasta cultura, dotato di autonomia di giudizio, capacità critica e lucidità di analisi Gatti scrive le sue impressioni sull'andamento del conflitto e sui capi politici e dell'esercito.

On the centenary of the Great War, there are now no longer any veterans alive of the six million men who served on the Western Front. Although this means that the Great War as a living history is to all intents and purposes over, the twenty years Richard van Emden spent interviewing and carefully recording the memories of over 270 veterans, makes this extraordinary collection of stories even more poignant.

My Boy Jack is the extraordinary story of Kipling's search for his son. John Kipling was reported missing in the Battle of Loos on the Western Front in 1915. His father, Rudyard, had pulled strings to get his myopic son into the firing line. Devastated at the loss of his only son, Rudyard undertook the sad mission to find John's grave but tragically never succeeded in his quest.