Great War Portraits

The remains of two World War I Honourable Artillery Company soldiers who were killed in action in France nearly 100 years ago have been laid to rest at a military cemetery.

2nd Lt Vincent M'Namara - Royal Engineers
Served in Gallipoli with the Mining Company Royal Engineers, he died 29 November 1915, aged 24. At the time of his death he had three Irish International Caps.

Six Weeks: The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War - by John Lewis-Stempel
 
If you, like me, have a fascination of the generation of the young men who became officers in the Great War. Then this remarkable book, by John Lewis-Stempel will tell you all about these forgotten men who truly won Britain's victory in the First World War.

Just a week after the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 Private Sidney Godley, of the Royal Fusiliers, single-handedly held off six divisions of the German Army as they pursued the vastly outnumbered British Expeditionary Force across northern France.

2nd Lt Alexander Sherriff, attd. 6th/7th Bn Royal Scots Fusiliers was killed in action 22nd March 1918. He was the son of Mrs Sherriff, 7 Kirkstile, Hawick. Twice previously wounded in action, he was 22 years of age.

Nicholas Clayton Marsh, elder son of Kenrick Clayton Marsh of Hoylake, was born on November 14, 1895, and was killed in action at Cuinchy, in the Battle of Loos, on September 25, 1915.
 
After the Great War many Rolls of Honour were produced to remember the dead. I shall be listing extracts from these rolls to illustrate the individual stories of many that died during the conflict.

WW1 Sapper Edward Sigrist, then 27, from Essex, kept a daily record of his time in France and Belgium from 1917 to early 1919, describing the near-misses, the friends lost, the hardship and also the humour.
© Photograph Times photographer, David Bebber

German soldiers found entombed in a perfectly preserved World War One shelter. Amazing find on the Western Front.
Picture BNPS

Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110.
Florence Green, the world's last surviving First World War veteran has died, marking the end of an era in British history.
Photo © Masons

It’s been a few years since I first read the novel Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. So I was looking forward to the BBCs adaptation hoping it would do it justice, well it did more than that. Mr Faulks must be a very pleased man.