Tommy S Story The Life Experience Of A Salford Man A British Soldier Of World War Two

Tommy's story begins in an impoverished Salford of a bygone time. It follows Tommy through his childhood and youth. This leads into the main part of the story about Tommy's experiences as a British soldier seeing combat in the Libyan Desert with the British 7th Armoured Division, which leads to capture and life as a prisoner of war and eventual escape and spectacular journey to reach freedom. The story has twists and turns that will keep the reader not knowing how it will finish until the end. It contains shocking first-hand accounts of war and the harshness of living in a war environment, but also moments of hope and endeavour, and the laughter of life and romance in the most bizarre of situations. The story travels between continents and countries, highlighting the importance of how a grasp of different languages can remove cultural barriers and, in Tommy's story, probably saved his life.

A hundred years have now passed since Britain sent hundreds of thousands of men to fight and to die on the Western Front and elsewhere. This is the perfect introduction to the life and experiences of the ordinary British soldier.

Groundbreaking and critically-acclaimed, Tommy is the first history of World War I to place the British soldier who fought in the trenches centre-stage.

The British soldier of the Great War has been depicted in many books. Invariably, a pen picture paints him as stoic, joining the army in a wave of patriotic fervour, and destined to serve four years on the Western Front in some of the most costly battles in history. Yet often the picture is difficult to resolve for the reader. What was it like in the trenches? How did the soldier live, where did he sleep? What was it like to go over the top, and when he did, what did he carry with him? For many, the idea of trench life is hazy, and usually involves 'drowning in mud', in, as one writer put it, 'the pitiless misery' of Passchendaele. Recently, military historians have presented an alternative picture, a picture in which the hopelessness of the First World War is given new life and purpose. Remembering Tommy pays tribute to the real life British soldier of the Great War from the moment of joining up to their final homecoming. Using original artefacts in historic settings, the men and their words are brought to life. The uniforms they wore, the equipment they carried, the letters they wrote home, their personal possessions, mementos and photographs come together in a powerful tribute to the indomitable Tommy. Each one of these precious artefacts bears witness to the men who left them behind – allowing us to almost reach out and touch history.

The image of the innocent British soldier (or Tommy) setting off with a spring in his step in 1914 to fight the Great War would not last long.Indeed that initial euphoria would soon give way to a deep-seated bitterness as these young men endured the horror of the First World War.In a new edition of this extraordinary book, the uncensored letters, diaries, documents and many photographs tell the story of the British soldier (nicknamed Tommy) in their own words.While there are flashes of their wit and humour, the overwhelming feeling is that of a generation who felt let down by their superiors and left to perish.There are visceral, terrifying insights into life in the trenches and agonising descriptions of the squalor and privations of war.This haunting account also looks at the aggressive drive to recruit more soldiers through the Pals Battalion or Chums Battalion. Friends from the same town or village; professional bodies, or work colleagues among others were encouraged to enlist en masse. They would fight together alongside their friends or colleagues. Many of them would sadly die together and leave communities wild with grief for a lost generation, robbed of a future having barely had a past.With a concise analysis of the British Army in the First World War, we are reminded of the terror of war, the fury, the fear and the frustration of what has been described by some as a war typified by the devastating assessment: lions led by donkeys.

Benjamin Clouting was just sixteen years old when he embarked with the British Expeditionary Force for France in August 1914. The youngest man in the 4th Dragoon Guards, he took part in the BEF's celebrated first action at Casteau on August 22nd, and, two days later, had his horse shot from under him during the famous cavalry charge of the 4th Dragoon Guards and the 9th Lancers at Audregnies. Ben served on the Western front during every major engagement of the war except Loos, was wounded twice, and in 1919 went with the Army of Occupation to Cologne. The son of a stable groom, Ben was brought up in the beautiful Sussex countryside near Lewes and from his earliest years was, as he often said himself, "crazy to be a soldier". He worked briefly as a stable boy before joining up in 1913; his training was barely completed when war broke out. The Regiment, knowing Ben to be under age, tried to stop him embarking for France, but he flatly refused to be left behind. During the next four years, he served under officers immortalized in Great War history, including Major Tom Bridges, Captain Hornby, and Lieutenant-Colonel Adrien Carton de Wiart VC.Teenage Tommy is a detailed account of a trooper's life at the front, vividly recalling, for example, the privations suffered during the retreat from Mons. and later, the desperate fighting to hold back the German onslaught at 2nd Ypres. But this is more than just a memoir about trench warfare. Ben's lively sense of humor and healthy disrespect for petty restrictions make this an entertaining as well as a moving story of life at the front.

Shares excerpts from the personal diaries and photographs of British soldiers to depict the daily life of a Tommy in the trenches between 1914 and 1918.

Tommy Atkins is the English soldier, who joking broke the cavalry of France at Minden, who singing marched with the Great Duke to the Danube, who grumbling shattered Napoleon's dreams at Waterloo, who sweating in his red coat tramped back and forth across Indis, who kept his six-rounds-to-the-minute at Mons, and who died in the mud at Passchendaele, the sands of the Western Desert, and the jungles of Burma. If his name has been eclipsed by his more illustrious commanders - Cromwell, Marlborough, Moore, Wolfe, Wellington, Allenby, Slim - they at least will accord him his rightful place beside them. They knew his worth. Tommy Atkins is his story - the story of this most versatile, most adaptable, most unmilitary soldier.