Download or read book The Diary of a Flying Soldier During the First World War on the Western Front 1914 18 written by Anonymous and published by Leonaur Limited. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rifleman, Highland regiment officer and RFC pilot--one man's incredible war This book's original title, 'A Soldier's Diary of the Great War', did nothing--despite being an excellent account--to give potential readers any indication that it is a very unusual diary of the First World War by a British Officer. The author put more literary effort into writing this diary than is normally the case, this makes this both an informative and enjoyable read for those interested in the period. However, what makes this diary especially interesting is that the author first enlisted as a rifleman in the ranks of the London Rifle Brigade and served in France. He then became an officer in a Scottish infantry regiment, the Cameron Highlanders. After further service in the trenches in 1916 he volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps and was accepted for pilot training. The final section of his diary, concerning the war in the air in 1917, is a record of his flying experiences. This is a valuable diary of varied Great War recollections and is recommended. This Leonaur edition contains photographs not present in the original publication. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.
Download or read book War Birds written by Elliott White Springs and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the declaration of war by the United States, more than 200 American men, unwilling to wait until US squadrons could be raised, volunteered to join the Royal Flying Corps in the summer of 1917. Amongst these men was John MacGavock Grider and Elliott White Springs who both joined 85 Squadron to fly SE.5 fighters.During his service with the RFC and the RAF, Grider kept a record of his experiences from when he joined up until his untimely death in 1918, when he was shot down over the Western Front. Before his death, Grider had made a pact with Elliott White Springs that in the event of one of them dying, the other would complete their writings. Springs went on to write this book, an amalgamation of his own recollections and Griders diary and correspondence.War Birds records in detail the stresses of training and the terror and elation of failure and success during combats with the enemy the First World War. This unique edition of War Birds has been produced from a copy owned by another officer from 85 Squadron, Lieutenant Horace Fulford. In his copy, Fulford made numerous handwritten annotations and stuck in a number of previously unpublished photographs all of which have been faithfully reproduced.
Download or read book British Artillery on the Western Front in the First World War written by Sanders Marble and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a systematic investigation into the evolving role of the artillery in the British Expeditionary Force, this study looks at how tactical and operational changes affected the overall Allied strategy. In line with the 'learning curve' thesis, it argues that despite many setbacks and missed opportunities, by 1918 the Royal Artillery had developed effective methods to overcome the defensive advantages of trench warfare that had mired the Western Front in bloody stalemate for the previous three years.
Download or read book The Royal Flying Corps the Western Front and the Control of the Air 1914 1918 written by James Pugh and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the middle of 1918 the British Army had successfully mastered the concept of ’all arms’ warfare on the Western Front. This doctrine, integrating infantry, artillery, armoured vehicles and - crucially - air power, was to prove highly effective and formed the basis of major military operations for the next hundred years. Yet, whilst much has been written on the utilisation of ground forces, the air element still tends to be studied in isolation from the army as a whole. In order to move beyond the usual 'aircraft and aces' approach, this book explores the conceptual origins of the control of the air and the role of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) within the British army. In so doing it addresses four key themes. First, it explores and defines the most fundamental air power concept - the control of the air - by examining its conceptual origins before and during the First World War. Second, it moves beyond the popular history of air power during the First World War to reveal the complexity of the topic. Third, it reintegrates the study of air power during the First World War, specifically that of the RFC, into the strategic, operational, organisational, and intellectual contexts of the era, as well as embedding the study within the respective scholarly literatures of these contexts. Fourth, the book reinvigorates an entrenched historiography by challenging the usually critical interpretation of the RFC’s approach to the control of the air, providing new perspectives on air power during the First World War. This includes an exploration of the creation of the RAF and its impact on the development of air power concepts.
Download or read book A Companion to World War I written by John Horne and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-11-23 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to the First World War brings together an international team of distinguished historians who provide a series of original and thought-provoking essays on one of the most devastating events in modern history. Comprises 38 essays by leading scholars who analyze the current state of historical scholarship on the First World War Provides extensive coverage spanning the pre-war period, the military conflict, social, economic, political, and cultural developments, and the war's legacy Offers original perspectives on themes as diverse as strategy and tactics, war crimes, science and technology, and the arts Selected as a 2011 Outstanding Academic Title by CHOICE
Download or read book War Birds written by John MacGavock Grider and published by . This book was released on 1938 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "... In the summer of 1917, two hundred and ten young university men, who had joined the Air Service at the declaration of war, volunteered for immediate service abroad. They were sent to England, just as others were sent to France, Italy, and Canada, to be trained by our allies and to fight with them until we could supply them with fighting planes. One of these men kept a diary which has been published as "War Birds." He was one of two hundred and ten ... but because he was closest to me in life, I have undertaken to publish the story of his career in the A.E.F. Before he was killed, he gave me his diary and told me how he would like to have his deeds reported in case I survived him. He was very definite in his ideas and I agreed to respect them. He promised to do the same for me in case I should go first. I have discharged this trust faithfully. Though "War Birds" is an individual diary, intended only to refresh the mind of the writer in later years, it became the actual history of those two hundred and ten men. It tells, for the first time, of their lives and deaths, their successes and their failures. Though it gives the opinions and prejudices of one individual, these same opinions and prejudices were shared by us all. Whatever errors he made were made by us all. If he committed any transgressions, so did we all. It could have been the diary of any of the two hundred and ten. ... Of the two hundred and ten men who landed in England and trained with the Royal Flying Cops, fifty-one were killed, thirty were wounded, fourteen were prisoners of war, and twenty became mentally unfit for flying before they finished their training. When the Armistice was signed, the survivors found themselves on the American front, under the American high command. ... They wandered home by various channels - a sort of lost battalion - disillusioned and discouraged. ... They were without rank or medals and they suffered by comparison with the much decorated pilots from the American front who returned with rank and headlines. It was for these survivors that the publication of "War Birds" was intended. They will attest to its authenticity. And they will understand it. ...It is not an attempt to make heroes of any group of men. It is the actual story of one man and his friends ... The ten men whose names appear in it most prominently read it and compared it with their own diaries and records. They gave their endorsement to it without asking for a single deletion or change ... My name and Callahan's appear oftener than any others. I have no apologies to make for that since we three were constantly together for nearly a year. None of the books I have read about the war mention the fact any one beside the writer therof did any fighting at all. I do not like this title "War Birds." It was given to the diary by Liberty and stuck so closely that it was necessary to use it on the book. But to me it will always be "The Diary of the Unknown Aviator." His body lies at Houplines, near Armentieres. His spirit still haunts the pages of his diary...I have carried out his orders"--Foreword, page ix, signed by Elliott White Springs, dated Fort Mill, S.C. July 1927.
Download or read book Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War written by David J. Fine and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War David J. Fine offers a surprising portrayal of Jewish officers in the German army as integrated and comfortably identified as both Jews and Germans. Fine explores how both Judaism and Christianity were experienced by Jewish soldiers at the front, making an important contribution to the study of the experience of religion in war. Fine shows how the encounter of German Jewish soldiers with the old world of the shtetl on the eastern front tested both their German and Jewish identities. Finally, utilizing published and unpublished sources including letters, diaries, memoirs, military service records, press accounts, photographs, drawings and tomb stone inscriptions, the author argues that antisemitism was not a primary factor in the war experience of Jewish soldiers.
Download or read book The Battle of Messines 1917 written by Craig Deayton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-05 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 7 June 1917, the British Second Army launched its attack on Messines Ridge, detonating 19 giant mines beneath the German front-line positions. By the end of the day, one of the strongest positions on the Western Front had fallen, a place of such importance that the Germans had pledged to hold it at any cost. It was the greatest British victory in three years of war. The first two years of the First World War had represented an almost unending catalogue of disaster for the Australians. Messines was not only their first real victory, it was also the first test in senior command for Major General John Monash who commanded the newly formed 3rd Division and would later be hailed as Australia’s greatest soldier. 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 in one of the worst defeats of the war. 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 be the ultimate test for the Australians.
Download or read book The Great War written by Peter Hart and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015-04-14 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the decisive engagements of World War I, the author explores the immense challenges faced by the commanders on all sides, looking at the changing weapons and tactics and offering his own assessment on what brought about the war's outcome.
Download or read book War Birds written by John MacGavock Grider and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dagbogsnotater af en ukendt amerikansk pilot, der deltog i 1. verdenskrig beskriver her pilotens oplevelser og den tids luftoperationer. Redigeret som flyvelitteratur snarere end et historisk værk.
Download or read book Diary of a Night Bomber Pilot WWI written by Clive Semple and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2008-03-28 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flying at 18, demobbed at 20, Semple's astonishing experience has been meticulously put into context. How do you fly a Handley Page across France in total darkness? The answer is the 'Lighthouse system', just one of the revelations in this unique record of ingenuity and courage.
Download or read book A Soldier of the Sky written by George Frederick Campbell and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Unsubstantial Air written by Samuel Hynes and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The vivid story of the young Americans who fought and died in the aerial battles of World War I. The Unsubstantial Air is a chronicle of war that is more than a military history; it traces the lives and deaths of the young Americans who fought in the skies over Europe in World War I. Using letters, journals, and memoirs, it speaks in their voices and answers primal questions: What was it like to be there? What was it like to fly those planes, to fight, to kill? The volunteer fliers were often privileged young men--the sort of college athletes and Ivy League students who might appear in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and sometimes did. For them, a war in the air would be like a college reunion. Others were roughnecks from farms and ranches, for whom it would all be strange. Together they would make one Air Service and fight one bitter, costly war. A wartime pilot himself, the memoirist and critic Samuel Hynes tells these young men's saga as the story of a generation. He shows how they dreamed of adventure and glory, and how they learned the realities of a pilot's life, the hardships and the danger, and how they came to know both the beauty of flight and the constant presence of death. They gasp in wonder at the world seen from a plane, struggle to keep their hands from freezing in open-air cockpits, party with actresses and aristocrats, and search for their friends' bodies on the battlefield. Their romantic war becomes more than that--it becomes a harsh but often thrilling new reality."--
Download or read book Lost Wings of WWI written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Pen and Sword Aviation. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Compendium of ... First World War accounts of the ... aerial battles flown by the RFC, German, American, British and Commonwealth pilots shot down over the Western Front ... including stories of their escapes and lives in POW camps"--Jacket.
Download or read book The Road Past Monchy written by Terence Loveridge and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terence Loveridge offers a unique look at the land and air operations around the strategic village of Monchy-le-Preux at the center of the western front during World War I. The story of the Great War is usually one of condemnation or rehabilitation of strategists and consecration of the common soldier, while the story of those who planned, directed, and led operations on the ground has generally been overlooked. Loveridge uses experiences of junior leaders fighting around the key terrain of Monchy-le-Preux to challenge the currently accepted views and reveal that the Great War, despite subsequent impression, was a surprisingly dynamic effort conducted in an arena of constantly evolving practices, techniques, and technology. Less well known than its contemporary campaigns at the Somme, Verdun, or Passchendaele, Monchy also carries less preconceived baggage and thus offers a prime opportunity to reevaluate the accepted wisdom of the events, personalities, and understandings of the Great War. The Road Past Monchy offers readers a unique chance to uncover the "lost" perspective of junior war leaders in a theater of war that saw almost continuous operations from 1914 through to 1918.
Download or read book Death in the Air written by Wesley D. Archer and published by Frontline. This book was released on 2016-07-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The typewritten script of a First World War pilot s diary with a large number of photographs was submitted to the publishers William Heinemann and published by them in 1933. Heinemann stated on the book s jacket that the diary contained no names, dates, or anything that could reveal the identity of the writer or the squadron in which he served. The publishers understood that the diarist was killed in action in 1918 and that it was in deference to the wishes of those who were close to him that his diary should be published.So remarkable were the photographs that their veracity was immediately questioned, but no proof of their authenticity or otherwise could be ascertained. It was not until 1983 that a collection of documents, photographs and artifacts was presented to the Smithsonian s National Air and Space Museum. Some of the photographs were recognized as being those of the mystery diarist and the truth was soon revealed. The author was Wesley Archer, an American with Canadian parents who served with the RFC in the First World War, and the photographs and diary had been faked."
Download or read book Making Sense of the Great War written by Alex Mayhew and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-31 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary account explores how English infantrymen in Belgium and France experienced and coped with war between 1914 and 1918.
