Thunder in the Skies (eBook)

A Canadian Gunner in the Great War

Derek Grout (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2015
488 Seiten
Dundurn (Verlag)
978-1-4597-3095-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Lt. Bert Sargent, who fought through the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, and the Hundred Days Offensive, captures what it was like for ordinary Canadians to be caught up in the Great War. Coming from a rank-and-file troop, Sargent’s clear-eyed account is a testament to the tenacity and accomplishments of a generation of soldiers.

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An extraordinary, newly discovered account from an ordinary Canadian on the ground in the crucial battles of the First World War.

What was it like to be a field gunner in the Great War?

Drawing on the unpublished letters and diary of field gunner Lt. Bert Sargent and his fellow soldiers, Thunder in the Skies takes the reader from enlistment in late 1914, through training camp, to the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, the Hundred Days Offensive, and home again with peace.

Posted just behind the front lines, Sargent and field gunners like him spent gruelling months supporting the infantry in the trenches. Theirs was a very different war, as dangerous or more at times as the one on the front lines. As an ordinary Canadian writing letters home to ordinary people, Sargent gives a wrenching, insightful account of a tight-knit band of soldiers swept up in some of the most important battles of the war that shaped the twentieth century.

Thunder in the Skies details the daily life of artillerymen fighting in the First World War in a way no other book has before.

Autoren

General Ernest Beno is Honorary Colonel, 7th Toronto Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery. He retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in 1997, after thirty-seven years of service, at the rank of Brigadier-General.

Derek Grout is a historian who has written extensively on shipwrecks and scuba diving in Canada and the United States. His book, RMS Empress of Ireland, was praised on both sides of the Atlantic. He lives in Pointe Claire, Quebec.

Inhalt

Foreword 
Introduction 
1A City Goes to War 
2Into the 21st Battery 
3Training and the "Mysteries of Barrack Life" 
4 "A Great Credit to Your Country" 
5 New Homes 
6 "Berlin or Bust" 
7 At Sea
8 Shorncliffe 
9"We are a Depot Brigade"
10 "Dear ... Folks" 
11 "Soldiering More Than We Have Done Since We Arrived in England"
Chapter 12 Zeppelin Attack 
13 "I Have Seen No Better Brigade This Year" 
14 To the Front 
15 A "Present to the Kaiser" 
16 The Second Division Ammunition Column
17 "Hell to the nth Power" 
18 "Absolutely the Best Pal I Ever Had"
19 "We Made the Usual Success of It"
20 Prelude to Vimy
21 The Battle of Vimy Ridge 
22 July and August 1917 
23 "Not Glad to be Back" 
24 "Like the Crack of Doom": The Battle of Passchendaele
25 Winter Quarters 
26 "Looks Like One Hell of a Job!" 
27 Operation Michael 
28 Holding the Line: May and June 1918 
29 A Much-Needed Rest 
30 Amiens: "Black Day of the German Army" 
31 Wedding Bells in "Blighty" 
32 Back to the Front 
33 Open Warfare and the Cambrai "Show" 
34 Valenciennes and the Pursuit to Mons 
35 Into the Rhineland 
36 "Blighty" and the Official Record 
37 HMT Northland and Canada
Epilogue 
Bibliography

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.8.2015
• Vorwort: Beno Ernest
• Verlagsort: Toronto
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Schlagworte: Derek Grout • Expeditionary Force, Hundred Days, soldier's letters, Passchendaele, personal narrative, War Diary, artillery • Great War, World War I, Canadian Field Artillery, CFA, howitzer, 18-pounder, Western Front, Vimy, Battle of Amiens, Armistice, artillery brigade, Montreal volunteers, barrage, non-fiction, history, 1914-18, Germany Occupation, British Army, Shorncliffe, Western Front, CEF, Ammunition Column
• ISBN-10: 1-4597-3095-X / 145973095X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4597-3095-3 / 9781459730953