Forgotten Voices Of The Great War

Author: Max Arthur
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446446255
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
In 1960, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous and important task. A team of academics, archivists and volunteers set about tracing WWI veterans and interviewing them at length in order to record the experiences of ordinary individuals in war. The IWM aural archive has become the most important archive of its kind in the world. Authors have occasionally been granted access to the vaults, but digesting the thousands of hours of footage is a monumental task. Now, forty years on, the Imperial War Museum has at last given author Max Arthur and his team of researchers unlimited access to the complete WWI tapes. These are the forgotten voices of an entire generation of survivors of the Great War. The resulting book is an important and compelling history of WWI in the words of those who experienced it.

Forgotten Voices of the Somme

Author: Joshua Levine
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0091926289
Category : Somme, 1st Battle of the, France, 1916
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Book Description
Drawing on a wealth of material from the vast Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, 'Forgotten Voices of the Somme' presents an intimate, harsh but often poignant insight into life on the front line: from the day-to-day struggle of extraordinary circumstances to the white heat of battle and the constant threat of injury or death.

Forgotten Voices of The Holocaust

Author: Lyn Smith
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1409003590
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
Following the success of Forgotten Voices of the Great War, Lyn Smith visits the oral accounts preserved in the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, to reveal the sheer complexity and horror of one of human history's darkest hours. The great majority of Holocaust survivors suffered considerable physical and psychological wounds, yet even in this dark time of human history, tales of faith, love and courage can be found. As well as revealing the story of the Holocaust as directly experienced by victims, these testimonies also illustrate how, even enduring the most harsh conditions, degrading treatment and suffering massive family losses, hope, the will to survive, and the human spirit still shine through.

Forgotten Voices

Author: Ulrich Merten
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412846943
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

Book Description
The news agency Reuters reported in 2009 that a mass grave containing 1,800 bodies was found in Malbork, Poland. Polish authorities suspected that they were German civilians that were killed by advancing Soviet forces. A Polish archeologist supervising the exhumation, said, "We are dealing with a mass grave of civilians, probably of German origin. The presence of children . . . suggests they were civilians." During World War II, the German Nazi regime committed great crimes against innocent civilian victims: Jews, Poles, Russians, Serbs, and other people of Central and Eastern Europe. At war’s end, however, innocent German civilians in turn became victims of crimes against humanity. Forgotten Voices lets these victims of ethnic cleansing tell their story in their own words, so that they and what they endured are not forgotten. This volume is an important supplement to the voices of victims of totalitarianism and has been written in order to keep the historical record clear. The root cause of this tragedy was ultimately the Nazi German regime. As a leading German historian, Hans-Ulrich Wehler has noted, "Germany should avoid creating a cult of victimization, and thus forgetting Auschwitz and the mass killing of Russians." Ulrich Merten argues that applying collective punishment to an entire people is a crime against humanity. He concludes that this should also be recognized as a European catastrophe, not only a German one, because of its magnitude and the broad violation of human rights that occurred on European soil. Supplementary maps and pictures are available online at http://www.forgottenvoices.net

Irish Voices from the Great War

Author: Myles Dungan
Publisher: Merrion Press
ISBN: 1908928832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
This pioneering study, first published in 1995, retains its rank as one of the most powerful histories ever written about Irish involvement in World War 1. This year, the centenary of the war, sees its timely re-publication as the Irishmen who fought in that war re-enter the national memory after decades of indifference and hostility. The gradual softening of attitudes over the last twenty years amid great historic change on the island of Ireland, is due in no small part to the efforts of historians, such as Myles Dungan, to tell thousands of forgotten stories. Drawing on the diaries, letters, literary works and oral accounts of soldiers, Myles Dungan tells some of the personal stories of what Irishmen, unionist and nationalist, went through during the Great War and how many of them drew closer together during that horror than at any time since. This volume deals with a selection of the most important battles and campaigns in which the three Irish Divisions participated.

Forgotten Voices of the Secret War

Author: Roderick Bailey
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1407022369
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
'The Gestapo kept me three days in this interrogation house. They especially wanted to know what I did after my escape, and precise things on the organisation of the SOE. And just for fun I suspect, because I had really not much to tell them, they pulled one of my toenails out...' - Robert Sheppard, SOE agent The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British organisation created early in World War 2 to encourage resistance and carry out sabotage behind enemy lines: in Winston Churchill's famous phrase, to 'set Europe ablaze'. Drawing on the vast resources of the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive and featuring a mass of previously unpublished personal testimonies, Forgotten Voices of the Secret War tells the stories of SOE agents, HQ staff, diplomats, aircrew and naval personnel in their own words. As the war unfolds, we learn of parachute drops into enemy territory, torture by the Gestapo and nerve-wracking sabotage missions in far-flung climes. Forgotten Voices of the Secret War is both an incredible account of espionage during World War 2 and a fitting testament to the efforts and sacrifices of a dedicated group of courageous men and women.

Forgotten Voices Of The Second World War

Author: Max Arthur
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446446239
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 500

Book Description
The Imperial War Museum holds a vast archive of interviews with soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians of most nationalities who saw action during WW2. As in the highly-acclaimed Forgotten Voices of the Great War, Max Arthur and his team of researchers spent hundreds of hours digging deep into this unique archive, uncovering tapes, many of which have not been listened to since they were created in the early 1970s. The result will be the first complete oral history of World War 2. We hear at first from British, German and Commonwealth soldiers and civilians. Accounts of the impact of U.S. involvement after Pearl Harbour and the major effects it had on the war in Europe and the Far East is chronicled in startling detail, including compelling interviews from U.S. and British troops who fought against the Japanese. Continuing through from D-Day, to the Rhine Crossing and the dropping of the Atom Bomb in August 1945, this book is a unique testimony to one of the world's most dreadful conflicts. One of the hallmarks of Max Arthur's work is the way he involves those left behind on the home front as well as those working in factories or essential services. Their voices will not be neglected.

Forgotten Voices of Burma

Author: Julian Thompson
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 144814874X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Book Description
From the end of 1941 to 1945 a pivotal but often overlooked conflict was being fought in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War 2 - the Burma Campaign. In 1941 the Allies fought in a disastrous retreat across Burma against the Japanese - an enemy more prepared, better organised and more powerful than anyone had imagined. Yet in 1944, following key battles at Kohima and Imphal, and daring operations behind enemy lines by the Chindits, the Commonwealth army were back, retaking lost ground one bloody battle at a time. Fighting in dense jungle and open paddy field, this brutal campaign was the longest fought by the British Commonwealth in the Second World War. But the troops taking part were a forgotten army, and the story of their remarkable feats and their courage remains largely untold to this day. The Fourteenth Army in Burma became one of the largest and most diverse armies of the Second World War. British, West African, Ghurkha and Indian regiments fought alongside one another and became comrades. In Forgotten Voices of Burma - a remarkable new oral history taken from Imperial War Museum's Sound Archive - soldiers from both sides tell their stories of this epic conflict.

Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle for Britain

Author: Joshua Levine
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0091910048
Category : Britain, Battle of, 1940
Languages : en
Pages : 500

Book Description
Drawing material from the Imperial War Museum's extensive aural archive, Joshua Levine brings together voices from both sides of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain to give us a unique, complete and compelling picture of this turbulent time. We hear from the soldiers, airmen, fire-fighters, air-raid wardens and civilians, people in the air and on the ground, on both sides of the battle, giving us a thrilling account of Britain under siege. With first-hand testimonies from those involved in Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, Black Saturday on 7th September 1940 when the Luftwaffe began the Blitz, to its climax on the 10th May 1941, this is the definitive oral history of a period when Britain came closer to being overwhelmed by the enemy than at any other time in modern history.

We Also Served

Author: Vivien Newman
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783462256
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Book Description
We Also Served is a social history of women's involvement in the First World War. Dr Vivien Newman disturbs myths and preconceptions surrounding women's war work and seeks to inform contemporary readers of countless acts of derring-do, determination, and quiet heroism by British women, that went on behind the scenes from 1914-1918.??In August 1914 a mere 640 women had a clearly defined wartime role. Ignoring early War Office advice to 'go home and sit still', by 1918 hundreds of thousands of women from all corners of the world had lent their individual wills and collective strength to the Allied cause. ??As well as becoming nurses, munitions workers, and members of the Land Army, women were also ambulance drivers and surgeons; they served with the Armed Forces; funded and managed their own hospitals within sight and sound of the guns. At least one British woman bore arms, and over a thousand women lost their lives as a direct result of their involvement with the war. ??This book lets these all but forgotten women speak directly to us of their war, their lives, and their stories.