[PDF] Artillery Trench Mortar Memories 32nd Division Diaries Of The Years 1916 1919 By Ab Scott Re Grice Hutchinson L Heathcoat Amory Etc Edited By R Whinyates eBook

Author : Ed R. Whinyates
Publisher : Andrews UK Limited
Page : 670 pages
File Size : 49,22 MB
Release : 2012-04-04
Category : History
ISBN : 1781491577

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This book is a compilation of Diaries and Trench Mortar Memories contributed by various members of the 32nd Divisional Artillery, and apart from anything else it goes some way to make up for the lack of a full divisional history. The 32nd Division landed in France in November 1915 without its artillery which had been transferred to the 31st Division. In return the 31st Divisional artillery joined the 32nd Division in France in December 1915 and was redesignated 32nd Divisional Artillery. The War Office worked in even more mysterious ways than the Lord! The diaries make up the bulk of the book which begins with the diary of Lieut A.B.Scott, who served with the 32nd Divisional Artillery in X and W Trench Mortar Batteries (TMB) and, from March 1917 onwards, as Reconnaissance Officer at HQ Divisional Artillery. As there is little written about operations with TMBs this well-written diary is a most useful source of information on that aspect of artillery warfare on the Western Front. But the main part of the book, almost 500 pages, is the diary of the Rev R.E Grice-Hutchinson, the divisional artillery chaplain who left for France on 1 July 1916 and remained with the division to the end of the war. But his diary goes on through to 19th October 1919 which makes it about the longest, personal diary of the Great War to appear in print, and it is a very good one. If you want to know what the 32nd Division got up to, look no further!. The last of the tthree diaries is that of Ludovic Heathcoat-Amery of the Royal Devon Yeomanry, who served as Staff Captain at the divisional artillery HQ from January 1917 till killed in action on 24th August 1918. The last twenty-five pages are taken up with personal memories of six officers and men who fought with the division's TMBs. There is no roll of honour, list of awards etc nor index.

Author : Spencer Jones
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
Page : 383 pages
File Size : 14,14 MB
Release : 2013-04-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0806189614

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The British Expeditionary Force at the start of World War I was tiny by the standards of the other belligerent powers. Yet, when deployed to France in 1914, it prevailed against the German army because of its professionalism and tactical skill, strengths developed through hard lessons learned a dozen years earlier. In October 1899, the British went to war against the South African Boer republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State, expecting little resistance. A string of early defeats in the Boer War shook the military’s confidence. Historian Spencer Jones focuses on this bitter combat experience in From Boer War to World War, showing how it crucially shaped the British Army’s tactical development in the years that followed. Before the British Army faced the Boer republics, an aura of complacency had settled over the military. The Victorian era had been marked by years of easy defeats of crudely armed foes. The Boer War, however, brought the British face to face with what would become modern warfare. The sweeping, open terrain and advent of smokeless powder meant soldiers were picked off before they knew where shots had been fired from. The infantry’s standard close-order formations spelled disaster against the well-armed, entrenched Boers. Although the British Army ultimately adapted its strategy and overcame the Boers in 1902, the duration and cost of the war led to public outcry and introspection within the military. Jones draws on previously underutilized sources as he explores the key tactical lessons derived from the war, such as maximizing firepower and using natural cover, and he shows how these new ideas were incorporated in training and used to effect a thorough overhaul of the British Army. The first book to address specific connections between the Boer War and the opening months of World War I, Jones’s fresh interpretation adds to the historiography of both wars by emphasizing the continuity between them.

Author : William Philpott
Publisher : Hachette UK
Page : 549 pages
File Size : 19,84 MB
Release : 2016-08-04
Category : History
ISBN : 0349142653

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1 July 1916: the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The hot, hellish day in the fields of northern France that has dominated our perception of the First World War for just shy of a century. The shameful waste; the pointlessness of young lives lost for the sake of a few yards; the barbaric attitudes of the British leaders; the horror and ignominy of failure. All have occupied our thoughts for generations. Yet are we right to view the Somme in this way? Drawing on a vast number of sources such as letters, diaries and numerous archives, Bloody Victory describes in vivid detail the physical conditions, the combat and exceptional bravery against the odds but it also, uniquely, captures how the Somme defined the twentieth century in so many ways. This is an utterly gripping new analysis of one of the most iconic campaigns in history.