|
|
This is an unusual approach to family history. The author has produced biographies of twelve individuals who served during the First World War, each of which is supported by an explanation of where the information was found.
The resulting book is much more readable than most guides to family history. The twelve people chosen are very varied, and include a rare example of a major war poet of low rank, Britain's only black front line pilot of the war, men who served on the Western Front, at Gallipoli and in the Middle East, as well as a mix of survivors and the dead.
This book is best used alongside a more traditional guide to the archives, using this book as inspiration and the guide to find out how to access the records used here or other related materials.
The approach used here also means that the book is of value to readers with an interest in the First World War, but who don't intend to trace their own ancestors - the twelve mini-biographies are interesting in their own right.
Chapters
1: The Boy who came home - Lieutenant Vernon James Austin, Royal Field Artillery
2: Where are the Boys of the Village Tonight? Roy Fazan and the Wadhurst Tradedy
3: Britain's Sea Soldiers at Gallipoli - Frederick James Stone
4: All Quiet on the Western Front - A Greek Printer in the Trenches, Alexis Ectos Maffuniades
5: Beneath the Western Front - A Tunneller in France, William Hackett VC, Royal Engineers
6: Died of Wounds at the Base - the Short War of Rifleman Francis Davies
7: A Vicar's Son on Three Fronts - William Coburn Cowper's Long Journey from France to Palestine
8: I Died in Hell .. They Called it Passchendaele - Henry Joseph Penn, a Royal Marine in France and Flanders
9: A Great War Guinea Pig - Frank Plumb, Suffolk Regiment
10: From Officer to Private - The Strange Case of Ernest Hopcraft
11: Britain's Black Pilot - William Robinson Clarke, Royal Flying Corps
12: A Poet at War - Ivor Gurney, 2/5th Gloucestershire Regiment
Author: Paul Reed
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 215
Publisher: Pen & Sword Family History
Year: 2010