The past is brought to life in this historical epic about a South African family whose lives collided with the biggest event in history: the First World War. The central theme is the largely forgotten East Africa campaign, but by definition a world war has a wide reach. Five members of one family with deep roots in all four corners of the country, served in three different theatres of war. Their lives on active service are all interwoven and inseparable from the home front. Global events are juxtaposed with everyday life on a farm in the eastern Orange Free State. Appropriately, the author constructs linkages that span generations, uncovering individual experiences of an earlier conflict which had engulfed South Africa barely a decade before the eruption of the 1914–18 war. As the sons of early pioneers, this generation witnessed history in the making before writing their own. Riding into action on horseback or in a flying machine, their paths led from the South West African desert, through disease-infested jungles in East Africa to some of the great battles on the Western Front. Only one of the five came home unscathed although he crash-landed his aircraft behind enemy lines and only made it back through his audacity and brute strength. Another, an intellectual priest, was left for dead at Delville Wood, and his brother was wounded on Messines Ridge. The remaining two suffered from debilitating tropical illnesses. Hazard and hardship lingered on in the form of Spanish influenza, mining strikes and the Great Depression. The war cast a long shadow. Between them, these consciously literate men left substantial documentary legacies. Using extracts of their letters from the front, the story is to a large extent told in the words of those who were there. Context is provided by referencing existing literature, unpublished memoirs and archival material. It could be called a military history or a social history, but it is a truly South African story which contains much new material for historians, while for the general reader it offers an accessible insight into an unparalleled period of history.

The soldiers of World War I are often referred to as the “Lost Generation”; this book is an intimate look at some U.S. soldiers’ experiences after being thrust into the centre of the Great War and enduring some of its most gruelling battles. Len Fairfield (the author’s grandfather) was an Artillery Scout, or Forward Observer, for the U.

It is important to remind visitors of the history of the most emblematic monument on the battlefield: this is the role of this small 32-page guide, Douaumont Ossuary. Olivier Gérard and Jean-Luc Kaluzko have produced this indispensable brochure to offer visitors the history of this mythical sanctuary of the First World War. Illustrated with 90 photos, this book will accompany you in the discovery of the sites of Verdun. If more than 3,000 combatants and 400 associations have their names engraved under the vault, it is important not to forget those of the 130,000 unknown men and women mingled for eternity in the basement of this sanctuary. The sacred mission, entrusted more than 90 years ago to this private work, must continue so that future generations will never forget.

Now that the last veterans are gone, the First World War is now a completely historical subject—governed by archaeology and genealogy, battlefield tourism and military history. The anguish and privations are a bit further away, but there is still huge interest in the awful conditions and carnage endured by a generation of youth who sacrificed their lives for their country.“The Old Front Line” is a phrase first coined by the poet John Masefield when he looked back on the battle of the Somme from a distance of just one year, in 1917, and speculated how the Western Front might look in the future. Stephen Bull’s copiously illustrated work—part travel guide, part popular history—a century on, answers his speculations. The main source material is new and contemporary photographs, as well as some from the intervening century. Taken together these provide a series of exciting vistas and informative details that tell the story of the battles and landscapes. Aerial photography, old and new ground shots—and in a few cases even images taken underground—provide an authoritative summary of the war on the Western Front. Following an introduction that sets the scene and looks at the early stages of the war, eight chapters examine the Western Front geographically, looking closely at the main areas of fighting and what is visible today: not just the “iron harvest”—the scars left by trench and battle—but also the cemeteries, war memorials and statues that remind the visitor starkly of the loss of a generation.

Ira “Taffy” Jones was a well-known air fighter during the First World War, having scored about 40 victories flying SE5 scouts in France with 74 Squadron. Well known in flying circles, Jones recorded stories drawn from his own experiences during the war and wrote of the many personalities he had met or known by association, both during the war and in the post-war flying years.An Air Fighter’s Scrap Book recreates the atmosphere of the days of the biplane, of wartime flying, of early peacetime adventures in the air, the development of civil aviation, and breathtaking record beating flights, all evoking the sheer delight in flying that characterised those early years.

Although the author has given this Jagdstaffel a fictitious number and changed the names of the pilots composing it, the incidents related in this book have the genuine ring of truth and will be recognised as facts by anyone who has had experience of flying on the Western Front or who has studied it since. Many experts believe this work draws on the experience of the Bavarian Jasta 35, which flew against the British; however, whatever its real number may have been, Jagdstaffel 356 undoubtedly fought in the air over Flanders in 1918.This book is an exciting account, obviously written from firsthand experience, of the air war from the German side.

A.R. Kingsford flew with 100 Squadron, the unit that dropped the first bomb at night on Germany and, on November 11, 1918, the last one. One of the many who came to Europe from all over the Commonwealth to fight in the First World War, Kingsford had sailed from New Zealand in 1914. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and learned to fly at Northolt, before being posted to 33 Squadron at Lincoln, where he flew against Zeppelins which had been sent from across the North Sea on night bombing raids. Kingsford joined 100 Squadron in France early in 1918. He had an active career with this famous squadron up until the end of the war.Full of incident and adventure, Night Raiders of the Air is a first-person account by this young Commonwealth volunteer on his experiences during the war against Germany.

The amazing life of Pieter Krueler (1885-1986) provides a window into a full century of conflict such as one man rarely experiences. Four-War Boer traces Krueler’s highly colourful life from the Second Boer War, where he first served as a 14-year-old scout, through his service in World War I with the German army in East Africa, to the Spanish Civil War to World War II, this time with the Allies, and on into the latter part of the 20th century, when he served as a mercenary during the 1960s Congo Crisis. Later, by this time in his eighties, he became a civilian trainer for the original Selous Scouts of Rhodesia, and later still a trainer for South African commandos. This biography of a most remarkable man and warrior is based on six years of historical research through hard-to-find secondary and published primary sources as well as extensive interviews with Krueler himself. Interviews with German officers and others who knew and worked with Krueler amply document the biography, adding first-person testimony and giving the work the immediacy of a memoir. Following the Boer defeat by the British, sided with the Germans during the East African Campaign. He also operated in the Belgian Congo where he led native African soldiers on extremely dangerous missions. After WWI, Krueler’s distrust of both the rising Fascist and Communist movements in Europe led him to volunteer as a mercenary during the Spanish Civil War, where he worked with the Pyrenees Basque movement. In World War II, he worked as a reserve officer instructor, and later as a coast watcher to guard the coast of South Africa from German incursion. Krueler later served as a mercenary with Michael Hoare during the 1960s Congo Crisis, before serving South Africa to train commandos. A chapter of this book is devoted to the formation of Rhodesia’s highly elite Selous Scouts, along with highlights of several previously classified missions. This material includes a wealth of fascinating new information, and breaks the great secrecy surrounding Rhodesian and South African special operations, as unveiled through the experience of a man who was a founding father of counterinsurgency in Africa.

This is a rare day-to-day account by a young German squadron leader in Jagdstaffel 35 during the grim last year of the war. Originally published in 1933, it provides minute descriptions of kills, losses, and the Germans’ step-by-step retreat in the face of increasingly overwhelming Allied forces in the air. Brutally honest and vividly written, Stark’s account of the end-game of the Imperial German Army Air Service provides an intimate, front-row glimpse of the death-throes of a once feared corps. This book also contains reproductions of some of the author’s paintings depicting life on the Western Front.

By far the most controversial sinking during the First World War was that of the Lusitania. As opposed to the loss of the Titanic several years earlier, which could be attributed to nature, the destruction of the passenger-liner Lusitania came at the hands of a German U-boat, one of many which infested the Atlantic at the time seeking destruction. Over 1,200 people perished in this attack, including citizens from the then neutral United States of America. Although America did not declare war over this incident, the repulsion over needless loss of life put the country in psychological terms on an inexorable path toward intervention in Europe. Many questions, however, rage to this day. Was the liner armed? Did she carry contraband (munitions) in a secret effort to aid the Allies? Did the Germans set out from the start to sink this ship? Did the supposedly protective Royal Navy deliberately allow the Lusitania to be sunk in order to draw the United States into the war? This book answers these and other questions surrounding this emotionally charged sinking. It traces the story from the time of the vessel's construction to her demise, while providing a real-time look at the chaos on board once German torpedoes had shattered the ship. And what of the U-boat commander, who may either have made the greatest mistake in history, or had just been performing his duty? This account deals with the diplomatic repercussions of the sinking while at the same time examines the human side of the story.John Protasio has here provided an expert account and analysis of the sinking that swayed a nation—in fact, the world—into a new era, as the United States finally found that it could no longer hide behind its oceans, and instead felt compelled to assert itself as a global power.

Billy Bishop was the top Canadian flying ace in the first World War, credited officially with a record breaking 75 victories. A highly skilled pilot and an accurate shot, he was fiercely ambitious, driven by an undisguised hatred of his enemies. He played hard and fought even harder. A highly skilled pilot and a crack shot, "top gun" of the Allied air forces, by 1918 Bishop was the most highly decorated war hero in Canadian history. He also remains the most controversial. Some of Bishop's fellow pilots were repelled by his grandstanding and suspected he was deliberately inflating his number of "kills." Since then, the claim has been repeated by many others. Bishop went from being the most decorated war hero in Canadian history to a crusader for peace, writing the book Winged Peace, which supported international control of global air power. While some historians feel that authorities upgraded Bishop's claims to improve morale, author Dan McCaffery presents the true life and accomplishments of Bishop through information he gathered from interviews and archival sources.About the AuthorDan McCaffery is one of Canada's most successful military aviation history writers. He is the author of Hell Island: Canadian Pilots and the 1942 Air Battle for Malta, Air Aces, and Battlefields in the Air, amongst others.

"This is a solid, no-nonsense book, an important one that lays the Bishop controversy to rest..

At the beginning of the Great War, assault units did not exist. If one was to compare the Caslow assault detachment (Sturmabteilung Caslow) with the Rohr assault detachment then battalion (Sturmbattalion) which succeeded it, it is easy to maintain that the former - an experimental detachment - gave rise a year later to the latter, a remarkable combat and training unit.The book supplements existing works on the subject of the Sturmbatallion Nr 5 (Rohr) and offers among other things an exceptional number of illustrations in a small format, which has never previously been available. Indeed, it allows a closer look at this assault unit, showing different aspects over a period of about three years. The text is drawn from the account written by Schwerin and a number of other sources. It particularly studies the circumstances in which the unit's fighting took place.

This book offers a fresh, close-up look at the First World War as it was experienced by ordinary Canadian soldiers. Over 67,000 Canadians lost their lives in WWI and 173,000 were wounded. Their sacrifice was driven by a sense of duty to the ‘Mother Country’. This is the war as it was experienced by the tens of thousands of young Canadians. Reading their accounts offers a no-holds-barred picture of fighting, life in the trenches, the human cost in lives lost, and the physical and emotional aftermath for survivors. About the AuthorCynthia Faryon is an internationally published author and freelance writer residing in Victoria, B.C. Canadian born, she focuses her writing on Canadian content, covering topics such as travel, family issues, biography and history.

This is a story drawn from the early days of the Canadian Navy, an account of four young Canadian seamen who were the Navy's first casualties at the beginning of the First World War. Ironically, many consider them victims of incompetent seamanship by a British naval officer. The four were among the 21 young men who made up the first class of the Royal Navy College of Canada, set up in 1911 shortly after the Canadian Navy itself was established in 1910. All four sailors were from Canada's Maritime provinces. After their training at the College, they were posted to the British Navy for further experience at sea. William Palmer, first in his graduating class, and Arthur Silver, senior Cadet Captain, both from Halifax, were personally chosen by Rear-Admiral Christopher Cradock to go to war on the large and powerful British vessel Good Hope. Their comrades John Hatheway of Fredericton, and Malcolm Cann of Yarmouth, were also selected, to the disappointment of the remaining men. Within six weeks, these four much-envied comrades were dead as the British warship Good Hope went down with no survivors, sunk by the German navy. First to Die depicts the early history of Canada's navy and the reality of war at sea, experienced through the eyes of the four young midshipmen eager for adventure. The book is extensively illustrated with photographs drawn from key archival and private collections. About the AuthorBryan Nelson is a former officer of the Royal Canadian Navy, and the current director of the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He lives in Halifax.

• Personal letters detailing a soldier’s analysis of the war and day-to-day life on the front line• Astonishing contemporary photographs bring the many colourful characters vividly to lifeThough the United States was late to enter the Great War, a number of idealistic young Americans wished to take part from the beginning. One of these was Avery Royce Wolfe, a highly educated scion of a family in America’s burgeoning industrial heartland.Volunteering as an ambulance driver with the French Army in the Verdun sector, Royce sent back a constant stream of highly detailed letters describing the bitter experiences of frontline combat, Verdun being the worst battle the French have ever seen, not excluding comments on strategy, the country he encountered, and the Allies’ prospects for success. Containing expert overviews to set the reader in Royce’s time and place; however, the narrative is most gripping with his own day-to-day perceptions, analytical and emotional in turn. The reader can sympathize with Royce’s dilemma when his original term of service expires and he wonders whether to return home. Then the American army begins to arrive and he decides to continue on. We hear firsthand how the US troops are first kept out of battle, then take casualties no veteran unit would have sustained, because of their fresh-faced audacity. Full of exciting experiences as well as interesting firsthand analyses (such as comparing French and German trenchworks—the latter were far better), Letters from Verdun brings the reader amazingly close to the frontlines of the Great War, almost as if in person.