Warfare in News

Posted on Wednesday 9th November

BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine is broadcasting a special series for Remembrance Week, The Songs My Soldier Son Loved.

The shows feature 5 bereaved mothers and their memories of the sons they have lost in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and the songs they remember them by.

The series of documentaries is presented by Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) and the shows are being broadcast every day this week at 1.30pm. Each show, Jeremy meets the mother of a different soldier who has been killed in Iraq of Afghanistan, and learns more about their story through family photographs and music they loved.

These moving tributes are available to listen online, and the remaining two parts of The Songs My Soldier Son Loved will be broadcast at 1.30pm on Thursday 10th and Friday 11th November on BBC Radio 2.

Of further interest...

View Product

His First Tour was his Last

Wed 21st June

Severely wounded at 19, veteran Stephen Vause shares his story for Armed Forces Day. Article from The Royal Star & Garter Homes. Read article...

View Product

Colourising the First World War

Thu 26th May

Tom Marshall has taken on the challenge to colourise some recently discovered black and white images from the First World War, courtesy of Ross Coulthart. Read article...

View Product

Thank You Soldier

Fri 26th October

A spotlight on the charity Thank You Soldier. Read article...

View Product

Dig WW2 - Paul Reed

Tue 28th August

Military historian Paul Reed discusses his role as series consultant on the new BBC documentary series Dig WW2. Read article...

Dates in History

German forces cross the Somme River

24th March 1918

On March 24, 1918, German forces cross the Somme River, achieving their first goal of the major spring offensive begun three days earlier on the Western Front. Operation Michael, engineered by the German chief of the general staff, Erich von Ludendorff, aimed to decisively break through the Allied lines on the Western Front and destroy the British and French forces. The offensive began on the morning of March 21, 1918, with an aggressive bombardment. The brunt of the attack that followed was directed at the British 5th Army, commanded by General Sir Hubert Gough, stationed along the Somme River in northwestern France. This section was the most poorly defended of any spot on the British lines, due to the fact that it had been held by the French until only a few weeks before and its defensive positions were not yet fully fortified. Panic spread up and down the British lines of command, intensified by communications failures between Gough and his subordinates in the field, and German gains increased over the subsequent days of battle. On March 23, Crown Prince Rupprecht, on the German side of the line, remarked that The progress of our offensive is so quick, that one cannot follow it with a pen. The next day, German troops stormed across the Somme, having previously captured its bridges before French troops could destroy them. Despite having resolved to concentrate on weaker points of the enemy lines, Ludendorff continued to throw his armies against the crucial villages of Amiens (a railway junction) and Arras—which the British and French were instructed to hold at all costs—hoping to break through and push on towards Paris. By that time, German troops were exhausted, and transportation and supply lines had begun to break down in the cold and bad weather. Meanwhile, Allied forces had recovered from the initial disadvantage and had begun to gain the upper hand, halting the Germans at Moreuil Wood on March 30. On April 5, Ludendorff called off Operation Michael. It had yielded nearly 40 miles of territory, the greatest gains for either side on the Western Front since 1914. He would launch four more offensive pushes over the course of the spring and summer, throwing all of the German army’s resources into this last, desperate attempt to win the war. (www.history.com)

Further Reading

The Somme
(Paperback - 355 pages)
by Richard van Emden

The offensive on the Somme took place between July and November 1916 and is perhaps the most iconic battle of the Great War. It was there that Kitchener’s famous ‘Pals’ Battalions were first sent into action en masse and it was a battlefield where many of the dreams and aspirations… Read more at Pen & Sword...

Only £14.99 at Pen & Sword Books.

Read more from this day...