Guest Irota Posted 24 May , 2004 Share Posted 24 May , 2004 I'm not really sure if this is the right place for this question, but i want to ask you which book about the "great war" made the biggest impression on you and why ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pete Wood Posted 24 May , 2004 Share Posted 24 May , 2004 Welcome to the forum, Irota. The slim book that most influenced me (as a teenager), and encouraged me to find out more about the Great War, was in fact a play; Journey's End by RC Sherriff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desmond7 Posted 24 May , 2004 Share Posted 24 May , 2004 A picture in a book - skeleton of a German soldier at, I'm nearly certain, Beaumont Hamel. For sheer readability - Middlebrook's First Day on theSomme. Des - welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyDick Posted 24 May , 2004 Share Posted 24 May , 2004 Hardly fitting for an historian by education, but a fictional work: 'Covenant with Death' by John Harris. It's about a typical City Battalion from 1914 to the first day of the Somme in 1916. Exceptionally well written. I think it was originally published in the early '60s, but I picked up my copy over 25 years later at a Scout jumble sale when I was about thirteen. Read it then; re-read several times over the following years; and once more last year. A great read and seems rather hard to find. I've been meaning to update by dog eared paperback copy but haven't seen any for sale except for hideous prices. Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 24 May , 2004 Share Posted 24 May , 2004 Hi Irota The book is Johnny Get your Gun- by John F Tucker. I like the books written by men from the other ranks, more down to earth. This is a very good story by a "quiet hero". It also shows the work of the Pioneers, and feayures drawings by the author. Unfortunately the only copies for sale are very expensive and I have to borrow it from the local library Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brummy Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 One that nearly every body must have read Frank Richards "Old Soldiers Never Die" A streight from the hip acount of a working class reservist who made it all the way through 14-18. A brilliant acount of the war from a man who was there at the time but had not the level of education to write in the anoyingly pretentious manner common in early 20th century books. Brum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
armourersergeant Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 One of the first books to get my attemtion was a book only loosly attatched to the subject and that was RF Delderfields 'To Serve Them All My Days'. later and more relevant I read Kate Caffreys 'Farewell Leicester Square' about the Old Contemptibles. After this followed '1914' by Lyn Macdonald and then others of hers. regards Arm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleur Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 Mine is Deaths Men by Dennis Winter. It was the first book I read about the great War, written about the boys and girls in the front lines using their own words. I was so moved by it, it made me cry at the end. Fantastic book and an essential for anyone who has an interest in the human emotions in war time. Fleur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hill 60 Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 The first book I ever looked at was my grandfather's copy of David Shermer's World War I way back in 1973. Although I didn't 'get into' the Great War for another 8 years or so, this book always held my attention. I think the abundance of photo, illustrations and maps appealed to my 6 year old imagination. When my grandfather died in 1998, this book (along with his and his father's medals) came winging their way into my care. Welcome to the Forum Irota Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryBettsMCDCM Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 "The Dispatch Riders" By;Captn; F.S.Bereton,The book was given to me by my Dear old Dad!;A Just Post WW1 Published Novel in the "Henty" Mould of B.O.P.Adventures of Two Young Public School Boys who whilst on a Belgian Motor~Cycle Touring Holiday in 1914 get caught up in the Outbreak of the War,Being unable to get back to Blighty,they Volunteer Themselves & their Motor~Cycles for service with The Belgian Army as Despatch Riders,Confrontations with Uhlans,Bullets Flying!Racing About On Bikes!Capture & Escape~Tremendous Fun~especially for an Eight Year Old Lad,it inspired me & formulated my interest for the Next 44 years to Date!I still have it,Dog Eared; well read & minus its boards now,but a marvellous tale!Also the Daily Express 1933 "The Great War" In Pictures; A Massive Tome of Sepia Photos with Apt Titles{Including the Dead German @ Beaumont Hamel,Who was used with Striking effect on BBCs Opening Titles of "The Great War"} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Bluestein Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 'The Vanished Army' By: Tim Carew The story of the Old Contempibles of the BEF. If this doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat nothing will! I couldn't put this book down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MaryFM Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 Some Desperate Glory: The Diary of a Young Officer in 1917 by Edwin Campion Vaughan For one so young he showed immense understanding for his men, his honesty and humour came through in his writing to effect that you felt that you had known him and when he returned as the only officer left of his platoon and when they did the role call and so many were gone, his despair leapt out at you. A most moving well written book. Mary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annette Burgoyne Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 All quiet on the Western Front, well I never read it, my dad read it to me when I was ten. Annette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyDick Posted 25 May , 2004 Share Posted 25 May , 2004 Forgot to mention AQ on the WF: excellent book and only read it in the last year or so. Far more scatalogical than the films and I can see why Hitler banned it as being contrary to his ideological training for war .... though unfortunately I can't get the images of Ernest Borgnine and 'Jon Boy' out of my head when reading it! Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyHollinger Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 Good Bye to all that ... and AQWF ... read both in college ... still important to me as a man ... (male person) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeppoSapone Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 There are so many, some of which are mentioned above. I also liked "The Lousier War" by Tucker and Ian Hay's "The First Hundred Thousand". The one that has made me smile the most was an American book called "Company K". Some really funny parts like the court martial of the soldier who had flunked OCS, and also when the officer "Fishmouth Terry" gets shot in the head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeppoSapone Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 The one that has made me smile the most was an American book called "Company K". Some really funny parts like the court martial of the soldier who had flunked OCS, and also when the officer "Fishmouth Terry" gets shot in the head. I have just read my post, and part what I had to say looks sick when seen in isolation. To elaborate. Captain Terry Matlock is the commander of "Company K". IIRC he is a Draper, or similar, who 'does not have a whole lot of sense' but is the officer because he was in the National Guard pre-war. Some of the men hate him, and the others just despise him. One of the men is telling the others how, in the attack, he saw Captain Matlock shot in the head. He says something like "about a teaspoonfull of brains ran out". To which one of the others says "If that much brains fell out it couldn't have been our Terry". Still sick, but also funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Irota Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 Good Bye to all that ... and AQWF ... read both in college ... still important to me as a man ... (male person) Thanks everyone for the words of welcome. Andy, i want to read Graves's book as well, as Sassoon,Barthas and Barbusse. I just finished ; “zacht en bewogen; lijden en sterven in een grote oorlog” (free translated; to suffer and die in a great war) It’s a book – as far as i know only published in Dutch- about the physical and psychological effects of the war on the individual soldier from both sides. The smell, the noise, the pain, the blood, the days and days without sleep, the deaths, the rats and lice, the cold, the rain, the lack of food and water, the visits to ‘public women’ etc.etc. and its effects on those who fought in the war and were confronted with it (various diseases, -unrecognised- shellshock etc). A well documented, interesting and moving study of 453 pages. I was in Ieper and stayed in a B+B at the Meninroad (at “Clapham Junction” to be precise) last weekend which made reading of it a quite intense ‘experience’. Although ‘Forgotten voices’ was a good read as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul guthrie Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 Because it came so early in my addiction Lyn McDonald's Somme. I get pissed off when some one denigrates her as a historian, she has brought more people to the story of these men than any one else. + she was once nice enough to answer a letter! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Birch Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 "Her Privates We" by Private 19022 (aka Manning). Started to read it as a schoolboy thinking from the title that it might be porno...! Found it facinating. My intererst in the great War really took hold a few years later when I first visited the Western Front. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyspiller Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 Paul Can't agree more - she (IMHO) never has an ax to grind about anything - just plain straight-forward fact. Regards Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annette Burgoyne Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 I get pissed off when some one denigrates her as a historian Me too Paul, I am a big fan Lyn McDonald's books. Tim - I have read The Middle Parts of Fortune, which is as you may know, the uncut version, a very good. Annette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul guthrie Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 Will there be another Lyn McDonald book? I bet she's rich as hell! I have read Her Privates We 4 times or so , I do that with the great ones. The best ever book by a real OR man is My Bit George Ashulst, wonderful, Paul Reed knew him. He tells of the early days on a boat to France, one man slit his throat & as he was dying " SOme wag put it out he'd been to France before." Wonderful, so many things sadden a student of this period but you get some laughs too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 John Terraine's "To win a war" did it for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 26 May , 2004 Share Posted 26 May , 2004 Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves - then Middlebrook Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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