Inside France's secret WWI bunker: Urban explorers find wartime weapons stowed away in underground quarry
A sprawling military bunker containing a treasure trove of vehicles and weaponry spanning more than two world wars has been discovered at a secret location deep within a French forest. Like a giant time capsule, the huge installation, carved out of solid rock, contains wartime relics from a German 77mm Model-1896 World War One cannon to military vehicles dating from the 1960s and 1970s. It was discovered by a team which specialises in exploring urban areas. Although they will not reveal the exact location, the bunker once formed part of the Maginot line.
(dailymail.co.uk)
Fisherman Joseph Watt's Victoria Cross sold for £204,000 at Spink auction
A fisherman's medals including a Victoria Cross have sold for £204,000. Joseph Watt, who skippered out of Fraserburgh, is believed to be the only Scottish fisherman ever to be awarded the medal. He refused to surrender when his boat was engaged by an enemy cruiser while mine sweeping in the Adriatic during the First World War.
(bbc.co.uk)
Documentary film "Gallipoli from Above" exposes forgotten role of British spy Clarence Palmer
He was the Gallipoli spy who might have ended WW1 countless lives earlier. Like Ian Fleming's James Bond, Clarence Palmer was urbane, multilingual, self-reliant, knowledgeable about weaponry and a Royal Naval officer. Yet as a new documentary reveals, Palmer's role at Gallipoli remains a great unsolved mystery. "Gallipoli From Above: The Untold Story" is based on Australian military intelligence officer Hugh Dolan's controversial 2010 book, 36 Days. But the film - using historic footage, modern graphics, and unexplored Turkish reports - comes to a vastly different conclusion: The initial Anzac landings were an outstanding success.
(smh.com.au)
WW1 postcard shows Hitler wanted return to frontlines after being injured
The newly uncovered postcard was written by Hitler as he recovered from a war wound in a Munich hospital in 1916. The postcard surfaced at a family history roadshow almost a century after being sent to Karl Lanzhammer. It shows that Hitler was keen to return to the front line after being injured in the Battle of the Somme. From his hospital bed in Munich Hitler wrote of his intention to "report voluntarily for the field immediately". Dr Thomas Weber said: "What's clear is Hitler desperately wants to return to the front and that's rather unusual, even for soldiers who were generally willing to fight in the war and thought Germany's cause was a just one."
(bbc.co.uk)
ANZAC's Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History by Craig Stockings (book review)
The first myth, which editor Craig Stockings describes as a "monster of the mind", is that Australian military history did not begin with Gallipoli. Anyone with a passing interest in Australian military history will know that Australians fought in much smaller conflicts before the First World War, but a few Antipodeans at the Napoleonic Wars is hardly the same thing. So there is much to debate and that is the book's strength. The writers contort their arguments in an attempt to show another side of the Anzac story.
(heraldsun.com.au)
German soldier's cartoon paintings of life on the First World War frontline unearthed
A collection of cartoon paintings of German soldiers on the Western Front has been discovered - and shows a little-known humourous side to the Kaiser's war machine. The images were drawn 1914-1916 at the Somme and were for a senior German officer with a sense of humour. The caricatures poke fun at the officer class and a strange recurring theme is the supplying of toilet rolls to soldiers. The 80 coloured pictures are in pen, ink and gauche and were drawn by German artist Albert Heim. He was commissioned by Lieutenant General Theodor von Wundt of the 26th Division, who appears in at least one of them.
(dailymail.co.uk)
British fan of German Zeppelins set to sell his 15 ton collection of airship memorabilia worth £1m
The world's biggest collection of airship memorabilia amassed by a British businessman over 40 years is being tipped to sell for more than £1 million. David Kirch's hoard - including hundreds of photographs of huge German Zeppelins - is so vast he planned to open a museum in an old aircraft hangar he bought especially. But the 75-year-old, who hoped to offer the public rides on airships at the attraction, never got around to finishing the project and is now selling it all at auction.
(dailymail.co.uk)
When Thailand went to war in Europe during First World War
Everyone knows about the involvement of Great Britain and France with other assorted European allies against the Central Powers of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. But few know that Thailand was also part of the Great War in Europe. The King, Rama VI, King Vajiravudh, was convinced that participation would be "an excellent opportunity for us to gain equality with other nations." Thailand had suffered from the colonial actions of France that resulted in the loss of control of Laos and Cambodia, and also had a dispute with Britain that resulted in Thailand ceding 4 provinces to Malaysia. Additionally, Thailand was forced to accept the imposition of unequal treaties with England, France and the US that gave citizens from those countries extraordinary rights within Thailand.
(americanexpatchiangmai.com)
Poland promoted a 112-year-old Józef Kowalski, who saw action in 19191921 Polish-Soviet War, to an army captain
It's probably the longest-awaited promotion in military history. Recently, 112-year-old Józef Kowalski, a lieutenant in the Polish army, was promoted to captain. Kowalski was born on February 2, 1900 in southern Poland (then part of the Austrian empire). He served in the 22nd Uhlan Regiment of the Polish Army during the 19191921 Polish-Soviet War. He did return to the front in 1939, but spent most of WWII as a German PoW. He was awarded the Officer`s Cross of the Order of Reborn Poland for his 100th birthday.
(southcarolina1670)
Archaeologists find the bodies of 21 WW1 German soldiers in perfectly preserved trenches where they were buried alive (photos)
The bodies of 21 German soldiers entombed in a WWI shelter have been discovered 94 years after they were killed. The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when a huge Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918, causing it to cave in. 13 bodies were recovered, but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them. French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave during excavation work for a road building project. As well as the bodies, personal effects such as boots, helmets, weapons, etc, were also found.
(dailymail.co.uk)
Florence Green, the last surviving WWI veteran, dies just days before her 111th birthday
The world's last surviving First World War veteran has passed away. Florence Green, who joined the war effort in September 1918, when she was aged 17, passed away just two weeks before her 111th birthday. The great-grandmother, who lived through all but 400 days of the 20th century, signed up to the Women's Royal Air Force two months before the end of the Great War. She was the last surviving person to have seen active service after the death of British-born sailor Claude Choules in Australia last year. Green worked at Narborough Airfield and RAF Marham, Norfolk, as an Officer's Mess steward.
(dailymail.co.uk)
Never-before-seen images of the tunnels dug by British clay-kickers under German lines in First World War
Flanders fields today bears little sign of the four years of war that ravaged this corner of the Western Front. But deep below the surface there remains a constant reminder of the bravery of the men who risked their lives for their country. Beneath the farmers ploughs, most of the tunnels hewn from the earth by English pitmen to undermine the German offensive remain intact. The British Tunnelling Companies were formed in the early months of the war to counter the German miners who were blowing British trenches. Pitmen from mining communities in Wales and the north and the clay-kickers` who built the London Underground were recruited to provide protected shelter for the troops.
(dailymail.co.uk)
Sergeant George Thompson refused to put faithful mount down and kept him in secret stable
Sergeant George Thompson and his faithful charge braved hellish conditions for real in the First World War. Decorated hero Sgt Thompson even defiantly disobeyed orders to shoot his horse when it became sick, instead building a secret stable and nursing it back to health. In diary extracts revealed for the first time, Sgt Thompson writes of his close bond to the horse which he cared for throughout the Great War. However, his relationship with the horse did not begin well: The horse used to kick and bite him every time he went for a drink.
(dailymail.co.uk)
War Horse film review (photos + trailer)
Like the Duchess of Cambridge at the premiere, I wept. You probably will, too. Anyone in doubt whether this most theatrical of plays could make the transition to the more realistic medium of cinema can rest easy. Steven Spielberg, has fashioned Michael Morpurgo`s novel into a moving picture. There are many superb battle scenes, including a suicidal cavalry charge and the Battle of the Somme itself. But Spielberg never loses control of the horse`s story, or the human ones.
(dailymail.co.uk)
Somewhere in Blood Soaked France: The Diary of Corporal Angus Mackay, Royal Scots, Machine Gun Corps, 1914-1917 (book review)
The early 20th century was filled with `war and rumours of wars` and, like many young men of his day, Angus enlisted in the Territorial Army, joining the 5th Battalion of (Queen`s Edinburgh Rifles) Royal Scots. Angus caught measles just before his battalion embarked for the Middle East and therefore he missed the initial deployment to the Dardanelles and did not rejoin his compatriots until May 26, 1915. With a thousand men killed or wounded for every hundred yards of Turkish land captured, it was soon apparent there would be no easy way to knock Turkey out of the war and, on January 1, 1916, the High Command initiated a complete withdrawal from Gallipoli. Through all this Angus kept a diary.
(johnogroat-journal.co.uk)
The Blue Cross opens WWI war horse archive (photos and posters)
The Blue Cross opens First World War horse archive (photos and posters).
(bbc.co.uk)
The First World War (August 1914 to November 1918) is also known as the Great War, The War to End All Wars, World War I and WW1.
Many of the bloodiest battles in military history occurred during the First World War. In trench warfare hundreds of soldiers died for each yard of land captured. Artillery with fragmentation shells caused the most casualties and made massed infantry attacks futile.