Warfare in News

Posted on Tuesday 27th May
For one week only, coinciding with last week's RHS Chelsea Flower Show, ABF The Soldiers' Charity revived the legendary First World War publication, The 'Wipers Times', and handed out a new edition at The Soldiers' Charity No Man's Land garden each day (as shown in the photograph above).
The Wipers Times Revival contained original excerpts and news from the No Man's Land garden, as well as guest columnists featuring articles from Stephen Fry, BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson, Dan Jarvis MP and many more.
Publication of the original Wipers Times began in early 1916 when a group of British soldiers from the 12th Battalion Sherwood Foresters found an abandoned printing press in Belgium and began producing their own newspaper for troops at the front.
The publication was named after Tommy slang for the Belgian city of Ypres – an area of intense fighting – and became a much-loved morale booster for the troops. It contained satirical and humorous swipes at the military establishment and the war itself, along with poetry, stories and musings from the frontline.
The six editions of The Wipers Times Revival have now been published and are available to view and read online via ABF: The Soldiers' Charity website.
The Wipers Times Revival contained original excerpts and news from the No Man's Land garden, as well as guest columnists featuring articles from Stephen Fry, BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson, Dan Jarvis MP and many more.
Publication of the original Wipers Times began in early 1916 when a group of British soldiers from the 12th Battalion Sherwood Foresters found an abandoned printing press in Belgium and began producing their own newspaper for troops at the front.
The publication was named after Tommy slang for the Belgian city of Ypres – an area of intense fighting – and became a much-loved morale booster for the troops. It contained satirical and humorous swipes at the military establishment and the war itself, along with poetry, stories and musings from the frontline.
The six editions of The Wipers Times Revival have now been published and are available to view and read online via ABF: The Soldiers' Charity website.
Further Reading
The Riddles of Wipers
(Paperback - 208 pages)by John Ivelaw-Chapman
The Wipers Times was the Private Eye of the Ypres Salient during WW1. Edited, while under bombardment, by a battalion commander in the Sherwood Foresters, written by soldiers actually in the trenches and distributed by ration-wagon and ammunition-mule. The paper bears vivid witness to the shocking realities of trench warfare. Yet for all the occasional horror of its content, The Wipers Times was a gentle, humour-filled and satirical paper which, once its codes are cracked… Read more...
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