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George Wannop was killed the next time he went in
They Called it Passchendaele September 1916 Passchendale was a quagmire Not like trenches. There was no communication. And you could only walk about in the dark. (Ypres is at sea level. As the...
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International Corner – Lice & Rats – November 1917
Our rest spot was International Corner, some seven or eight miles back from Passchendeale. I played football once at right-back against the trench mortar battery. It was during the winter and the...
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A Pilot shot down in No Man’s Land – November 1917
There was this RE 8 Artillery Observation Plane hit with incendiary bullets. The wing caught fire. The pilot tried to slew the plane over to keep the flames away from the fuselage. He crashed in front...
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Using a compass in the morass of Passchendale – 1917
Second Battle of Passchendale 26th October – 10th October 1917 Before the big push around Houthulst Forest during the Ypres Offensive, the Brigadier gave us a lecture. He told us that one machine gun...
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You’ve got a Blighty One – October 1917
We had another casualty, a Birmingham lad who was in charge of that gun. The engineers would rig up a bit of a dug out on a dry spot and make a bit of shelter with corrugated sheeting. They’d been...
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The only thing that lived out there were rats and they had a feast of it –...
Mother! Mother! On the way in I came across these guardsmen, eight or nine, lying in a shell-hole as though they were asleep. (They were Gough’s XIV Corps. Guards. From the 38 Division commanded by...
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Henry Gartendfeld & Dick Piper R.I.P OCT 1917
Gartenfeld’s head was split right down the middle as if he’d been hit with an axe. They’d dragged him out round the side. (Henry Godliph Gartenfeld died on the 22nd October 1917) Dick must have been...
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The never ending war, rather than the war to end all wars: death as a way of...
However horrible and however pointless war appears to be, the very fact that some conflict is always in the news makes one wonder if it isn’t in our nature to be forever at eachother’s throats;...
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War on the grand scale: 1914-1918 (And how to publish a weekly part-work...
In the Editorial from Sir John Hammerton written in 1936 we learn that during the Great War there were 15 part works published each week to follow the war as it played out but only 4/5 stayed the...
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World War: its origins and opportunities
In Part Six of ‘World War’ the editor Sir John Hammerton (1938) makes some interesting points, written in 1938 with the Great War only twenty years before. I’ve heard others, regular Tommies from the...
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The Great War – 50 years on
Fifty years on from the BBC’s ‘The Great War’ the immediate issue is the choice of voice overs – the choice of the grandest. most pompous and celebrated voices of the age is a statement. We have ‘Sir...
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Article 2
Script using terms like ‘weak’ or ‘brave’ to describe the Belgian army where neither term is apt. Gemany. All were required to attend and all were delighted to do so … really The ‘swelling cities …’...
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A firm rock in the shifting sands of socialist …
In 1964 the script on the Great War could have been written a hundred years before … especially the ‘gay hussars’. But a male script for a male audience. Her and her .. sides against each other....
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The primary role of the British Fleet – as Sir Walter Raleigh
I learn, watching ‘The Great War’ BBC TV series that the British Fleet harked back 350 years. Produced in 1964 it would have looked dated in 1989 and the 75th anniversary of 1914. And music to suggest...
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Identifying veterans of the First World War: Putting names to faces, and...
Fig.1. ‘Poster’ constructed using a combination of ‘Brushes’ (to layer several photos in one) and ‘Studio’ a simple graphics app that provided the overlays and text. Images and screen-grabs cropped...
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On why the BBC series ‘The Great War’ (1964) has not withstood the test of time.
Fig.1 Freeze frame from the ‘Great War’ title sequence The Great War’ television history series produced by the BBC in the early 1960s has not stood the test of time and so does not warrant broadcast...
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