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Off Topic WW1

Discussion in 'Sunderland' started by E.T. Fairfax, Apr 13, 2021.

  1. E.T. Fairfax

    E.T. Fairfax Well-Known Member

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    I have an interest in WW1, and have recently stumbled across some photos on the internet showing some sad, shocking and really mad stuff.

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    Roy Robertson had conned the enlistment people at Liverpool, NSW, Australia, into believing he was 18. He was 16 years and 4 month when killed in Gallipoli.

    Haunting.



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    WW1 Alpine shelter on Mount Cristallo, Belluno.

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    Sending food to the soldiers, Italy, WWI
    The cow is very likely alive since it was easier to let it walk on the mountainous ground and kill it later.

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    German soldiers and a donkey....all wearing gas masks.

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    Venice 1915. Antiaircraft guns.

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    A sergeant of the Lancashire Fusiliers in a flooded dugout opposite Messines near Ploegsteert Wood, January 1917

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    The Austro-Hungarian aircraft gunner in the picture is seen using a Mauser C96 pistol combination. Each pistol held a clip of ten bullets and the device attached to them fired them in unison, giving the gunner the ability to rapidly fire 100 rounds in volleys of 10. Two bars passed through the five upper and five lower trigger guards and were attached to the single aiming grip that can be seen in his hand. It had a trigger at the end which was pulled to fire all ten pistols at the same time. Given the close arrangement of the pistols, if the gunfire did hit the enemy aircraft, it would have been like using a shotgun. With the light frame and canvas structures of early war aircraft that might have been enough to bring it down. But one has to wonder how long it would take, and how difficult it would be, to reload and re-mount all ten pistols

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    British soldiers in the trenches, Battle of Loos, September 1915.

    The Germans cannot believe their eyes. The British, according to a German account, “moved forward in ten columns, ‘each about a thousand men, all advancing as if carrying out a parade-ground drill…Never had machine guns had such straight-forward work to do.’”
    The German guns mow the attackers down like blades of grass. “One machine-gun alone fired 12,500 rounds that afternoon.”
    “The result was devastating,” writes historian Adam Hochschild, quoting the German account. “The enemy could be seen falling literally in hundreds, but they continued to march.”
    “Hundreds of men have left descriptions of the Battle of Loos,” writes historian Martin Gilbert. One of those is the British writer Robert Graves, twenty years old at the time of the battle.
    In his book Goodbye to All That, Graves relates one officer’s story. “When his platoon had run about twenty yards, he signaled them to lie down and open covering fire. The din was tremendous. He saw the platoon on the left flopping down too, so he whistled the advance again. Nobody seemed to hear. He jumped up from his shell-hole and waved and signaled ‘Forward.’ Nobody stirred.”
    “He shouted, ‘you bloody cowards, are you leaving me to go alone?’ His platoon-sergeant, groaning with a broken shoulder, gasped out….
    Not cowards, sir. Willing enough. But they’re all ****ing dead.”
    As with many episodes from this war, writes Hochschild, “it is hard for us to see the attack on September 26, 1915, as anything other than a blatant, needless massacre initiated by generals with a near-criminal disregard for the conditions their men faced.”
    The Allies gained “a mile or two of ground.” The cost? More than 61,000 British casualties.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 13, 2021
  2. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    interesting read thank you for that, the General who marched those men into the battle of Loos to be mown down like blades of grass, should have been shot for mass murder
     
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    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
  3. Montysoptician

    Montysoptician Well-Known Member

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    If you haven't seen it, The Peter Jackson DVD, "They Shall Not Grow Old" is worth watching, extremely harrowing and thought provoking.
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07KK42BTV/?tag=not606-21
     
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  4. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    Monty mate i don't think i could watch it without my blood boiling at the incompetence shown by the old buffers in charge, fancy thinking they were in command of a cavalry attack sheer waste of life for what, thinking they would get a promotion for a win. In those days it was keep the minions thick, as they cant afford education so belived the bullshite being force fed, Thank god for the enlightenment of intelligent thinking generals
     
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  5. Montysoptician

    Montysoptician Well-Known Member

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    Nailed it Roger <ok> One of the most disturbing scenes it that DVD was sending the squaddies over the top unarmed, deliberately, to draw fire and find out exactly where the German gun placements were. Talk about cannon fodder.
     
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  6. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    I couldn't think of where to vent my anger if i watched it, Now thats when a government warning should come into play, coming from a military background the older members of my family who have passed their recollections down would have family members baying for blood, new campaign British lives matter BLM
     
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    Last edited: Apr 13, 2021
  7. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    Great photos! Have you read "Lost in France" the life (and death) story of former SAFC player Leigh Richmond Roose? He was thought lost at Gallipoli but, partially due to a spelling mistake, it appears more likely that he survived Gallipoli and died on the Western Front. He was one of the best known players of his day and several people reported chatting with him in France after he was supposed to have died. He's also the reason that goalkeepers can only handle the ball in their own penalty area.
     
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  8. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    Wow our posters are varied in their knowledge of all things , Thanks for that Norton, will give it a look later, right now though i'm focused on a big win tonight.
     
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  9. Brian Storm

    Brian Storm Well-Known Member

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    I've been to Belgium and France visiting ww1 battlefields. You see a picture of crosses in a field. What you don't see is that there's thousands of these fields as far as the eye can see, in transit these fields would hug the roads most of my trip. It's one of those life changing experiences
     
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  10. Nig

    Nig Well-Known Member

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    Sydney Lewis was the youngest soldier sent back from the Somme.
    He was 12 when he enlisted.
    Fookin 12 :eek:
     
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  11. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    bet it doesn't tell you the name of the shiyte recruiting sergeant who signed him up for the extra shilling he got for it, the bastard. Syd was a very lucky boy finding an officer with sense and care for the troops. most of the headquarters officers never saw a bullet and still thought we had 10 year old drummer boys, and buglers.
     
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  12. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    The officers might have been **** Rog but there was still some incredible work done. Do you know much about the camouflage work, which was still in its infancy then, that they carried out? My favourite is the observation trees. A bloke would sketch a tree in no man's land or in a position overlooking the German lines, they'd build a replica of that tree, then go out at night, cut down the original tree and put the fake one in its place as an observation post. Some poor sod was left inside with a field telephone to report back what he saw.
     
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  13. Nig

    Nig Well-Known Member

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    And the ones they shot for sleeping on duty although young, prone to sleeping and suffering severe exhaustion. Etc.

    https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWexecutions.htm
     
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  14. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    can you imaging today's young people going through that, will never happen, same as women having to go through the same hardships ,in my time no woman passed para P company training too hard,even when they keep lowering the standard massively to what they were, and the type of recruit they will accept now, a good few get a good kicking for locker theft. but the poor fekkers in the trenches had it harder i think listening to the stories my grandad told me when i was a nipper
     
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  15. rb92

    rb92 Well-Known Member

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    It’s the war I’m most interested in too and I’m a bit of a history buff. The numbers of men killed is hard to get your head around really. I remember back in 2009/10 when we seemed to be losing soldiers every day in Afghanistan and how sombre the mood around the country was. Can’t imagine waking up on July 2nd 1916, grabbing a newspaper and reading that 20,000 British soldiers had been killed the day before. Sends a shiver down my spine thinking about it.
     
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  16. Montysoptician

    Montysoptician Well-Known Member

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    Something I want to do Bri, I am busy trying to get a list of my relatives who perished and the location of their graves so I can pay my respects
     
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  17. Draig

    Draig Well-Known Member

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    My grandfather was in the army from being a boy soldier in 1901 and had just spent 7 years with the RWF in Baluchistan, India and Burma and got back to England 4th August 1914.

    Poor bugger got no leave and was sent to France where, on 11th Aug, he arrived in Rouen. Moved to Valenciennes 22nd Aug and fought at Mons, Le Cateau, the retreat from Mons, 1st Marne then was badly wounded at 1st Aisne and returned to the UK in Oct 1914.

    Upon recovery in 1915 he was declared fit only for home service, so at least he was spared the horrors of trench warfare and gas attacks.

    He was retrained as a driver and spent the rest of the war driving trucks for the Army Service Corps and was demobbed in 1921 - three months short of qualification for a full army pension!

    Apparently they did that routinely because the country was so skint (Britain had to guarantee US war credit to Russia and the Bolsheviks defaulted on the Tsarist debt, which was one reason we got involved in their civil war).
     
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  18. Gil T Azell

    Gil T Azell Well-Known Member

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    ^^^^^^^^^^^ thank you to all who posted prior. Some fascinating info there.
     
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  19. Sunderlad

    Sunderlad Well-Known Member

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    Terrible, terrible to think that you would read news that whole villages/towns were being wiped out. But this was one of the reasons why the aristocracy changed after WWI. They had no one to do their chores as the vast majority of men were either wiped out of left with such horrific injuries not only physical but mental such as shell shock.

    I did some research on my Great Grandfather and he was involved in the Western theatre but was sent home with breathing issues and shell shock.

    And yet the pompous Generals sitting in the bunker 15miles behind enemy lines were just interested in their medals and accolades!!!
     
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  20. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    My family have got some letters sent between my Great Grandfather, who had been an NCO before the war and was stationed in a supply depot at home, and one of his younger brothers who was in France. They're an interesting read, showing how soldiers at the front thought and how they were getting on. Quite a lot of the letters are asking my Great Grandfather to send him stuff that he needs. The brother was eventually killed in a train accident behind the lines, not in action.
     
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