drummer Posted 11 July , 2006 Share Posted 11 July , 2006 So there was a piece printed in the Boston paper (Boston Globe 10/07/06) yesterday by a national columnist who used The Somme as the focal point of his article. In it, he mentions some crazy rumor of underground areas where deserters from both sides lived in peace and something else about angels carrying the fallen. Now, I have heard of the Angel of Mons but, although I am hardly an student of the Somme, I have read a fair amount and have never heard of such business. Do any of the Somme experts know of such a side bar to the horror of that battle?? Just curious…. Thanks, drummer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Hartley Posted 11 July , 2006 Share Posted 11 July , 2006 I have read a fair amount Obviously unlike the aforesaid national columnist. Nuff said? John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirrel Posted 12 July , 2006 Share Posted 12 July , 2006 Angels carrying the fallen sounds like the Nordic legend of the Valkeries carrying dead heroes slain in battle to Valhallah - had the writer been reading the sleeve notes on a Wagner CD? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gporta Posted 12 July , 2006 Share Posted 12 July , 2006 The story doesn't sound feasible: where would these battlefield subterranean angels get their food and drink? how would they arrange their sanitation? In no-man's land they would be having shells falling over them wether from ar attack or a counter-attack. Would they remain hidden -and unnoticed- once the German army retired to the Hindenburg line? Not to mention that both sides were mining and counter-mining and if German and British engineers could be aware of their enemies underground activities, surely they would have noticed an underground community. It makes a fine table-dinner story, but I don't find it credible. Too bad for some journalists to take any high tale that comes around: it undermines the worthy efforts of those who take their job seriously and check the sources. Gloria Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Bailey Posted 13 July , 2006 Share Posted 13 July , 2006 I always thought US papers had high standards of accuracy (or was that just in the film 'All the president's men'?). This sounds like a bunch of cobbled together ideas, that have little relationship to known history. Angel of Mons, Miles of tunnels were around Arras - not on the Somme. As to deserters from both sides living in peace and harmony - sounds like a hippy dream. Can you copy the article and post it on the forum? We can all have a laugh. Guneer Bailey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 13 July , 2006 Share Posted 13 July , 2006 Didn't the journalisy just mention a rumour he had come across. Doesn't necessarily mean that he belives it or is presenting it as fact? Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ypres1418 Posted 13 July , 2006 Share Posted 13 July , 2006 Have not heard this one before, but as you all know me it isn't impossible. Mandy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drummer Posted 13 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 13 July , 2006 Gunner... I thought I had posted a link in my first message, but I don't think it is active....here is an address that might be still viable.. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/10/opinion/edcarroll.php Just the fact that so many Pals have not even heard of this makes me wonder what this was all about. I am ready to just figure that he was under some sort of tight deadline and mixed all kinds of things up..even a Google search of his source (Paul Fussell) and Somme turns up nothing but this article... In rereading the piece, he also makes the British Army of 1916 sound not unlike the Soviets at Stalingrad, what with officers waiting to shoot those who would not attack...the whole thing is crazy. I do stand abashed in that my original reading did not register that these "deserters" were the Angels who cared for and carried off the wounded... Still sounds crazy. Thanks to all.. Drummer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirrel Posted 13 July , 2006 Share Posted 13 July , 2006 Looks as if he has just cobbled together the well known "facts" of some popular beliefs and added his own theories based on something that he read and misunderstood/misinterpreted. Certainly not what you would expect from a journalist who had carried out the research properly. Surprised that the paper printed it. I hope he is not working on a film outline and script! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ypres1418 Posted 13 July , 2006 Share Posted 13 July , 2006 Now i see i thought he was talking about real Angels! still never heard of it before. Mandy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drummer Posted 13 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 13 July , 2006 squirrel...I hope he isn't working on a script either. As I harken back to some of the wishful threads about possible Great War movies, it would be the Hollywood way to pick up something like this..a "message" film based on total fantasy. Again thanks to all.. Drummer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markinbelfast Posted 13 July , 2006 Share Posted 13 July , 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feh Posted 13 August , 2006 Share Posted 13 August , 2006 Angels carrying the fallen... In Testament of Youth there are a couple of pages recounting a conversation Vera Brittain heard between men she was nursing in France. It seems that a lot of men saw these 'angels', or thought they did. I'm sure that trench warfare, and warfare in general, does something to the brain, however, and hallucinations are plausible. Interesting story, though. I suggest you read it. Pages 378 - 380. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audax Posted 13 August , 2006 Share Posted 13 August , 2006 Paul Fussell in the 'Great War and Modern Memory' (1975) talks of 'the finest legend of the war'. The rumour was that somewhere between the lines a battalion sized group of half-crazed deserters from all armies, harboured in abanoned trenches and dugouts and caves, living in amityand emerging at night to pillage corpses and gather food and drink. Osbert Sitwell was well aquainted with story. See Fussel Chapter IV 'Myth, Ritual, and Romance' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo Posted 13 August , 2006 Share Posted 13 August , 2006 Something like this has already been featured on film, albeit as a small part of a larger story. In the Australian TV series ANZACS, one of the characters joined a group of deserters but his comrades went to get him back. In this case, they were living on a former battlefield well behind British lines that had been vacated when the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg Line. I don't remember the group including any Germans. It was led by a man who wore a British officer's uniform & spoke with an upper class accent. He gave his name & one of the ANZACs commented that there had been a well known Australian actor of the same name before the war who specialised in playing upper class Englishmen. I've related this out of interest & because the danger of a Holywood film based on a myth was mentioned. It doesn't sound very plausible to me, although a bit more plausible than men surviving in no man's land. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 14 August , 2006 Share Posted 14 August , 2006 I believe the story of deserters living together in No Man's Land featured in the book (and perhaps the TV drama of some years ago) "The Monocled Mutineer", which has been discussed on the Forum in the past year or so. The Monocled Mutineer was Percy Toplis, a deserter who impersonated British officers. In haste, otherwise I'll search for some links Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manchester regiment Posted 14 August , 2006 Share Posted 14 August , 2006 drummer is right about the deserters,they were hiding out on the old somme battlefields near the end of the war,they were well armed,they got their supplies by raiding british and german supply depots,both sides were aware of their existance but didnt have the resources to deal with them,so they left them alone,bernard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2ndCMR Posted 15 August , 2006 Share Posted 15 August , 2006 The number of American deserters in France, in particular Paris, is said to have been in the thousands and they reportedly remained a feature of the Paris underworld in the 20s and 30s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MikeDeller Posted 18 March , 2009 Share Posted 18 March , 2009 Interestingly, I heard the story of the International Commune of deserters who lived in the caves over thirty years ago from my father. He had the tale, in some detail, from his father - who was one of that very group of deserters. They kept themselves supplied by swapping uniforms and papers, and wandering back into camps, which were in a constant state of confusion, and engaging in the age-old foot-soldier skill of "scrounging". He never told of the "angelic" behaviour, though, of course, corpse robbing would have proven both unhealthy and, I suspect, insufficiently profitable to make the risk worth taking. Grandfather always referred to the "Great" or "First" war only as the "Capitalists" war - but then, he was, apparently, an old-fashioned anarchist who kept a gun in the cupboard for the day that the revolution came and he could get the boss-class up against the wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest WILBEE Posted 4 August , 2014 Share Posted 4 August , 2014 the angel of somme was seemingly seen by my great grandfather and the 1st battalion gordon highlanders, when they were going into battle they seemingly seen an angel telling them to go back and not to advance into the slaughter, my great grandfather lost his leg in this battle , Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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