Author: Joseph Edward LeePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1914-1918
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
Battle Scarred
Author: Craig DeaytonPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1921941251
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375
Book Description
"The dead and wounded of the 47th lay everywhere underfoot". With these words Charles Bean, Australia's Official War Historian, described the battlefield of Dernancourt on the morning of the 5th of April, 1918, strewn with the bodies of the Australian dead. It was the final tragic chapter in the story of the 47th Australian Infantry Battalion in the First World War. One of the shortest lived and most battle hardened of the 1st Australian Imperial Force's battalions, the 47th was formed in Egypt in 1916 and disbanded two years later having suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any Australian unit. Their story is remarkable for many reasons. Dogged by command and discipline troubles and bled white by the desperate attrition battles of 1916 and 1917, they fought on against a determined and skilful enemy in battles where the fortunes of war seemed stacked against them at every turn. Not only did they have the misfortune to be called into some of the A.I.F.'s most costly campaigns, chance often found them in the worst places within those battles. Though their story is one of almost unrelieved tragedy, it is also story of remarkable courage, endurance and heroism. It is the story of the 1st A.I.F. itself - punished, beaten, sometimes reviled for their indiscipline, they fought on - fewer, leaner and harder - until final victory was won. And at its end, in an extraordinary gesture of mateship, the remnants of the 47th Battalion reunited. Having been scattered to other units after their disbandment, the survivors gathered in Belgium for one last photo together. Only 73 remained.
The Wicked Boy
Author: Kate SummerscalePublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698135008
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book! From the internationally bestselling author, a deeply researched and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era London In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the brothers to open the house to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their mother in a bedroom upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and gave evidence against his brother. The court heard testimony about Robert's severe headaches, his fascination with violent criminals and his passion for 'penny dreadfuls', the pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse for what he had done, and neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a motive for the murder. The judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy. At a time of great tumult and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case crystallized contemporary anxieties about the education of the working classes, the dangers of pulp fiction, and evolving theories of criminality, childhood, and insanity. With riveting detail and rich atmosphere, Kate Summerscale recreates this terrible crime and its aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary story of man's capacity to overcome the past.
Combat Colonels
Author: David Clare HollowayPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1922132985
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Combat Colonels seeks to address the regrettable gap in Australia's documented history of its combat colonels. Its purpose is to name all the Commanding Officers who led units into actions in the Great War and to describe their lives before and, for those who survived, after the war. From these pages emerge the men who shaped Australia's battlefield history - both the professional soldiers and the former teachers, accountants, salesmen, clerks, farmers and others from a broad range of occupations whose leadership on and off the battlefield proved so crucial. These are men Australia cannot afford to forget.
The Day We Won The War
Author: Charles MessengerPublisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 0297856189
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
How the British, ANZACs and Canadians finally broke the German army on the most decisive day of the Great War. The British attack at Amiens was the most decisive day of the Great War. In earlier offensives, a gain of a few hundred yards counted as a 'victory', but this time our troops advanced seven miles in a day and broke clean through the German defences. The long agony on the Western Front was nearly over. Spearheaded by tanks and armoured cars and supported by the RAF, the attack was led by the Australian and Canadian Corps, with British and French troops on the flanks. Elaborate deception measures were employed to ensure surprise. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, as well as eyewitness accounts, this book describes how the attack was conceived, the preparations, and the actual assault itself, as well as what happened on the subsequent days and how Amiens paved the way for the final victorious Allied advance.
At Any Price
Author: Craig DeaytonPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1925520528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Book Description
The enemy must not get the Messines Ridge at any price… So read the orders to German troops defending the vital high ground south of Ypres. On 7 June 1917, the British Second Army launched its attack with an opening like no other. In the largest secret operation of the First World War, British and Commonwealth mining companies placed over a million pounds of explosive beneath the German front-line positions in 19 giant mines which erupted like a volcano. This was just the beginning. By the end of that brilliant summer’s day, one of the strongest positions on the Western Front had fallen in the greatest British victory in three long years of war. For the ANZACs, who comprised one third of the triumphant Second Army, it was their most significant achievement to that point; for the men of the New Zealand Division, it would be their finest hour. It is difficult to overstate the importance of Messines for the Australians, whose first two years of war had represented an almost unending catalogue of disaster. This was both the first real victory for the AIF and the first test in senior command for Major General John Monash, who commanded the newly formed 3rd Division. Messines was a baptism of fire for the 3rd Division which came into the line alongside the battle-scarred 4th Australian Division, badly mauled at Bullecourt just six weeks earlier. The fighting at Messines would descend into unimaginable savagery, a lethal and sometimes hand-to-hand affair of bayonets, clubs, bombs and incessant machine-gun fire, described by one Australian as ‘72 hours of Hell’. After their string of bloody defeats over 1915 and 1916, Messines would prove the ultimate test for the Australians.
Regiments
Author: Roger PerkinsPublisher: Newton Abbot, Devon : R. Perkins
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 824
Book Description
Intended as a work of reference, this critical bibliography is a description of the historical records published by, or in the name of, all the military, para-military and police forces which served the British Empire and Commonwealth. It is based upon information received from 200 contributors and from contacts with 78 military libraries worldwide. It gives a listing of all such books, for all of the dominions, colonies, protectorates and mandated territories, from the time of Robert Clive's India through to 1993.
Author: Jean Phyllis FieldingMessines 1917
Author: Craig DeaytonPublisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 152674015X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 453
Book Description
The enemy must not get the Messines Ridge at any price So read the orders to German troops defending the vital high ground south of Ypres. On 7 June 1917, the British Second Army launched its attack with an opening like no other. In the largest secret operation of the First World War, British and Commonwealth mining companies placed over a million pounds of explosive beneath the German front-line positions in 19 giant mines which erupted like a volcano. This was just the beginning. By the end of that brilliant summers day, one of the strongest positions on the Western Front had fallen in the greatest British victory in three long years of war. For the Anzacs, who comprised one third of the triumphant Second Army, it was their most significant achievement to that point; for the men of the New Zealand Division, it would be their finest hour.It is difficult to overstate the importance of Messines for the Australians, whose first two years of war had represented an almost unending catalogue of disaster. This was both the first real victory for the AIF and the first test in senior command for Major General John Monash, who commanded the newly formed 3rd Division. Messines was a baptism of fire for the 3rd Division which came into the line alongside the battle-scarred 4th Australian Division, badly mauled at Bullecourt just six weeks earlier. The fighting at Messines would descend into unimaginable savagery, a lethal and sometimes hand-to-hand affair of bayonets, clubs, bombs and incessant machine-gun fire, described by one Australian as 72 hours of Hell. After their string of bloody defeats over 1915 and 1916, Messines would prove the ultimate test for the Australians
Author: Ronald James Austin