Memoirs: The Great War Remembered

Posted on November 11, 2023 by

25 Comments

In this episode for Armistice Day we look at those who survived the Great War and came home to write about in a series of memoirs which were published from the 1920s until more recent times as that generation faded away. We look at Officer’s Memoirs and ask why there are fewer memoirs by ordinary soldiers?

Tom Donovan Books: Turner Donovan website.

SOME RECOMMENDED OFFICERS MEMOIRS:

RECOMMENDED SOLDIER’S MEMOIRS:

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST:

Officers Memoirs:

Siegfried Sassoon – Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
Robert Graves – Goodbye To All That
Edmund Blunden – Undertones of War
Sidney Rogerson – Twelve Days
Francis Hitchcock – Stand To! A Diary of the Trenches
Charles Douie – The Weary Road
G.S. Hutchison – Warrior
A.O. Pollard – Fire Eater: Mémoires of a VC
Charles Edmonds/Charles Carrington – A Subaltern’s War
Edwin Campion Vaughan – Some Desperate Glory
R.B. Talbot Kelly – A Subaltern’s Odessy
Huntley Gordon – The Unreturning Army
P.J. Campbell – In The Cannon’s Mouth, The Ebb and Flow of Battle
I.L. Read – Of Those We Loved
Francis Buckley – Q.6.a and Other Stories

Ordinary Soldiers Memoirs:

Frank Richards – Old Soldiers Never Die
F.S. Clapham – Mud and Khaki
Aubrey Smith – Four Years on the Western Front
Wilfred St Mande – War, Wine and Women
Giles Eyre – Somme Harvest
George Coppard – With A Machine Gun to Cambrai
Frank Dunham – The Long Carry
F.J. Hodges – Men of 18 in 1918
Will R. Bird – And We Go/Ghosts Have Warm Hands
Donald Fraser – The Journal of Private Fraser
Victor Wheeler – No Man’s Land

Category: Podcast Episode, Veterans, WW1 Books, WW1 History, WW1 Literature

25 Comments on “Memoirs: The Great War Remembered”

  1. Hello Paul It is of course, like Armistice Day in the UK, Remembrance Day here in Canada. I’d like to thank you for discussing a few months ago the books written by Will R. Bird. It reminded me to search for copies of his books. His book, Ghosts Have Warm Hands, was one of the most poignant books I have ever read on the Great War. It was certainly a different time. The sacrifices those young people made can never be forgotten.

    Take care

    Glenn Heath Grimshaw, AB, Canada

    Glenn Heath Grimshaw, AB 780-625-2513 ________________________________

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  5. A fantastic compendium of so many of the great memoirs (and I hope you do a podcast on Tubby Clayton!).

    For the American experience, loking towards a future other combatants’ podcast or two: two AEF memoirs that I suggest highly are Hervey Allen’s “Toward the Flame” (an infantry officer’s perspective) and Elton Mackin’s “Suddenly We DIdn’t Want to Die” (an enlisted Marine’s perspective).

    Cheers, and many thanks, Paul.

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  6. Hi Paul, as always very interesting and informative. Funnily enough I have just read With a Machine Gun to Cambrai. I remember my father having a copy on his bookshelf when I was a child and so I had an urge to read it. Now you’ve inspired me to read some of the other titles you mentioned.

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  7. Great episode again. Am searching the internet now to find some of the books. 😉

    But I have one question, you and other podcasters often mention places to search for books, but I never heard a reference to Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) where you can find loads of books in the public domain, including many WW1 related books.

    Is it because many people prefer the paper versions of books? 😉

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  8. An excellent, interesting and useful episode and one I’ll definitely come back to for the recommendations, especially Donovan Turner Books. I now have a splendid book I’d been looking for but am now a bit poorer! Thanks

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  9. An excellent podcast to accompany the Leger “Oh what a literary war tour”! It is interesting to note in the latest edition of Stand To! that Nigel Cave in his article about Army Chaplains states that Richards was heavily influenced by Graves.

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  10. Wow, thank your again, mate, for a great episode. Had to agree with your on so many of those superb memoirs, and so glad you included Aubrey Smith and Fred Hodges. And as for RB Talbot-Kelly…well, I was lucky enough to find a copy of his book many years ago, his watercolours of the battlefields as shown as illustrations to the main text are, quite simply, fantastic; i believe one, which I still find breathtakingly beautiful, is simply entitled “Highlander, Somme”

    andy

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  11. I have been a little late to the party within regard to the podcast. So I have been binge listening for the past 3 months. This is my favourite episode so far, as I have read a few of these memoirs already and I’m currently on the hunt for the others. Thank you so much for passing on your knowledge.

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