The marines of 3 Commando didn’t know what would kill them first: being blown apart by a landmine, shot down by an Argentinian sniper, or freezing to death in the icy southern winter. After entering a war on the other side of the world, many did not understand why Britain was fighting so hard to […]
“You’re on your own, Warren. You tackle the Stukas and we’ll take care of the Focke Wulf 190s upstairs…” Sergeant Pilot Jack Warren’s face went as white as chalk, and sweat gathered on his brow as he heard his flight leader’s voice crackle in the earphones. Four Stukas were bombing the convoy. Nine FWs screamed […]
They were “wood-and-wire wonders”, these early aircraft of World War One – hard enough to fly, let alone fight in! To make things worse for the pilots of the newly formed Royal Flying Corps, the enemy were quick enough to perfect a gun that fired successfully through the propeller arc of their Fokker Eindeckers. […]
November 11th, 1918. Armistice. The war was over… or so most thought, but some still held to the regime of battle, and kept a tight hold of their prisoners. All the Weekes family wanted was to be together again, but Tommy lay far away on the other side of the shrapnel filled fields of No […]
For many generations, there had been a Count von Regenskirch in the German Army. This duty had passed from father to son – but then, during the First World War, the Count was killed and his small son disappeared. But that child was not dead. Grown to manhood, he now stood proudly in military uniform. […]
In the dark, the cries of the wounded men on the front line echoed, their hoarse voices calling for the ‘angels on wheels’ to come save them. One such angel was Harriet Weekes, an ambulance driver in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. As the fourth and only female Weekes sibling, Harriet had joined up to […]
The chances of survival were poor for the officers and men in action in the trenches during the First World War. They all knew it, and courageously got on with the dangerous job at hand. One British officer found this harder than most, though. He was as brave as the next man, but he had […]
A line on a map separated British and German colonies in East Africa, but that meant nothing to Tom Denning and Hans Block. They had always been friends as boys, but when war came in 1914, they were put on opposite sides. It made them enemies. And then they were both posted to France to […]
While his family fought on land and the sea, Lieutenant Michael Weekes took to the sky in his Armstrong Whitworth F.K.8, sweeping over German archies in the lead up to the Saint‑Mihiel offensive. Reconnaissance and fighter, Michael’s plane did more than its fair share of shooting. But after crash-landing behind enemy lines, armed with only […]
The pilots and soldiers fighting in and above the trenches, tracing their way across France in the First World War, knew all about fear. They faced it every day and made the best of coping with it. That was never easy and if it did become too much, there was always a price to pay. […]
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