Forgotten voices of the great war - Max Arthur

I know im a smutt merchant but my great grandfather served and died in the first world war. this is a book of accounts from soliders on the battles and the conditions they had to live through. One solider who gives his account served in the same company and at the same time as my great grandfather so its quite touching for me to have read this. He served in the 175th tunnelling division of the royal engineers at Ypres in Belgium...they tunnelled below german lines and planted huge amounts of explosives before detonating them and destroying the german trenches...the craters are still there now...very moving

sounds interesting...
I've read a few books on WWI and its pretty haunting. Think people just don't realize the shit that went on and the experimental weapons/gases nations were using to get an advantage.

well it was at Ypres that gas was first used in warfare by the germans...though my great grandad died from shrapnel when a shell tore into him as he was making his way to the tunnels

I have read numerous books on the great war and its pretty daunting stuff...shame that the last WW1 'Tommy' - Harry patch died last month.

if you like that book hugh, max arthur has written about 3 or 4 forgotten voices books, but a few years back he wrote one called the last post (the final word from our first world war soldiers)

basically its the remaining 21 veterens at the time telling their story of there lives and their parts in ww1.
they also talk about whats going on the world today and what they think about it. its worth reading just to hear henry allingham (who died the week before harry patch) going on about how he would bend tony blair over his knees and smack the shit outa him.
gota love people of that gen they don,t feck about and just tell it how it is.

got it mate and loved it

i 'enjoy' if thats the right word for it, the actual accounts of our tommies...brings it home just what my great grandfather went through...thanks for that though mate

it sort of makes you feel really humble. i mean i know its tough when you have to go off to war and i take nothing away from our boys that are out there now but these guys back in ww1 and ww2 what they went through beggers beleaf.

my grand father was in ww2 and got left behind at dunkirk. he never mentioned it once and it was,nt until 1994 when he died that someguy we never knew was at the funeral sat down and told us how he was wounded by a bomb from a stuker and my grandfather refused to leave him behind. turns out they got smuggled out of france by the resistance 4 months later.

strange that when asked he always told us he had an un eventfull war.

whenever i think what it must have been like i always think of the two airmen from allo allo.

my grandfather was also in WW2 but never once spoke about it, ive since found out he was a P.O.W....funny how every soldier in every recent war seems to be bringing out a book about it (fair enough they are hero's) but take Harry Patch, it wasnt until around the millenium that he finally spoke of his experiences


i dont mind admitting i dont have the balls and guts that the veterans of both wars have got