The Great War Interviews.nfo
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| The Great War Interviews |
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Name: The Great War Interviews
Date: 2014 (original Interview footage 1960s)
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Size: 3.81 Gb
Files: 90 x 43.9Mb
Pars: Yes
Files: 14
Size: 395Mb
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Running Time: 5 Hours 25 Mins
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Container: Matroska (MKV)
Resolution: 832x468 AVC(Pal)
FPS: 25.000
Audio: 192Kbps 48Khz 2 Channels AC-3
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#01 Frank Brent :- 17 minutes
Frank Brent was a NCO with the Australian Imperial Force and fought
at Gallipoli. His account illustrates how ordinary men morphed into
wild animals driven by revenge over fallen friends when faced with
desperate surroundings and little support. He paints a vivid picture
of the battles fought at Gallipoli, with its dusty ridges and cooling
sea that quelled a soldier's nerves as well as cleaned his kit.
#02 Katie Morter :- 17 minutes
Katie was happily married to husband Percy Morter when he was recruited
by music hall star, Vesta Tilley. In 1915 he was posted to France with
the 9th Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. It would be six
months before Percy got leave at Christmas - and had only six days with
Katie. Percy returned to the Western Front, and Katie found out she was
pregnant. In July 1916, not long before the baby was due, Katie received
a letter from Percy's Sergeant, regretfully informing her that Percy had
been killed in action at the Somme. Katie lost a husband who never got
the chance to meet his son.
#03 Henry Williamson :- 30 minutes
Henry Williamson joined the 5th London Regiment as a Private in January
1914, and was greatly excited when the order for mobilisation came in
August. He was one of many who believed the war would be over by Christmas.
Initially exhilarating, he soon found life in the trenches to be almost
unendurable as mud and death became part of the daily routine. The Christmas
Truce of 1914 - a short moment of peace and civility in the otherwise
relentless reality of gunfire and shelling - left a deep impression on him.
#04 Cecil Arthur Lewis :- 39 minutes
Cecil was a fighter pilot with the Royal Flying Corps, and had only 20 hours
of flying experience when first posted to France for reconnaissance and contact
patrol duties. His unique account documents the appearance of the Somme from
the air - trenches that looked like the edge of lace doilies, and shells like
lobbed tennis balls. His account is permeated with fearful honesty about how
frightening it was to fight alone in the air, in stark contrast to the almost
enjoyable hours spent on the airfields and towns of France.
#05 Stefan Westmann :- 32 minutes
Stefan Westmann was a Corporal with the German 29th Infantry Division while
fighting for ground on the Western Front. His description of killing a French
Corporal is honest and harrowing, as Stefan wonders how war turns civilised
quite the opposite - British soldiers risking their lives to raise a Red Cross
flag and bring the German side their dead.
#06 Charles Carrington :- 29 minutes
Charles Carrington enlisted in 1914, and by December 1915 found himself stationed
on the Western Front between Gommecourt and Serre. Up until the spring of 1916,
Charles enjoyed the experience; a sort of 'outdoor camping holiday with the boys,
with a slight spice of danger to make it interesting'. The war tactic soon changed
as did the weather and Charles found himself living in a world of mud, noise, and
always a few shells away from nervous breakdown. The trenches became the real world,
and far-off London - and his family - began to feel very unreal.
#07 Mabel Lethbridge :- 16 minutes
A 17-year-old Mabel Lethbridge lied about her age to get a job cleaning detonators
at the No. 7 National Filling Factory in Hayes, Middlesex. It was a dull job, and
when on her sixth day of work a poster appeared requesting staff to work in Amatol
Filling Section - the Danger Zone - she immediately volunteered. Injury and deaths
were frequent due to novice workers and highly explosive materials. On Mabel's
ninth day of work, a shell exploded and her left leg was mutilated beyond repair.
It was later amputated, and she was awarded a Medal of the Order of the British
Empire (known as a BEM nowadays) for her courage and devotion to duty.
#08 John Willis Palmer :- 17 minutes
18-year-old shop assistant John enlisted into the army in 1911, and became a Gunner
with the Royal Field Artillery. In August 1914 he was appointed Acting Bombardier
and posted to France, where the realities of mud, fatigue and death began to break
his spirit. His account is tinged with the hopelessness and cowardice felt by many
men who did not feel mentally or physically capable of the endless advances and
retreats over a few feet of pock-marked ground. During a time when John contemplated
self-inflicting wounds to remove himself from the situation, he was injured by a
nearby shell burst. Having sustained severe wounds to his back and shoulders, he
returned to England.
#09 Edward Glendinning :- 10 minutes
Edward was a 17-year-old clerk when he enlisted in 1913, and by February 1915 found
himself in France as a Private in the 5th battalion of the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire
Regiment, the Sherwood Foresters. He describes in detail the process of going over the
top and running through no man's land, past dead and dying comrades, under the merciless
fire of the enemy. He remains haunted by the memory of an injured comrade he didn't stop
to help when making the precarious journey back to the British trenches.
#10 Horace Leslie Birks :- 19 minutes
Horace Leslie Birks sailed for France in 1915 as a Private with the 5th Batallion of the
London Rifle Brigade. Having been wounded at Gommecourt in July 1916, he was transferred
to the Machine Gun Crops heavy branch and became a Second Lieutenant in February 1917.
He recalls his nervousness when first ordered to command a tank in action at Passchendaele,
and what it was like to operate inside those hot, steamy and altogether claustrophobic
cockpits while machine gun fire and shells rained down. Next came Cambrai, the first battle
to use tanks en masse.
#11 Richard Henry Tobin :- 23 minutes
Richard Henry Tobin had joined the Royal Naval Reserve Mersey Division in 1911, and when
war broke out he was promoted to Leading Seaman with the Hood Battalion. Having landed at
Antwerp, Henry saw the civilian impact of war in the desperate and fearful Belgian refugees.
As a Sergeant Major he would spend the next three years to-ing and fro-ing over Passchendaele
and the Somme, and remembers the feeling of dropping into a Somme trench in March 1918 that
he had first occupied in November 1916. This is an inspiring account of how the British
unwillingness to give up and give in is one of the greatest examples of human endeavour
during the Great War.
#12 Edward Louis Spears :- 51 minutes
Born in Paris to British parents, Edward Louis Spears first became the liaison officer between
Field Marshall Sir John French and General Charles Lanrezac, commander of the French Fifth
Army, in August 1914. In this month General Lanrezac made a sudden decision to retreat, a
manoeuvre that would have left the British forces on his flank dangerously exposed. Edward
urgently reported this to Sir John French who called off a British advance the night before
it was due to commence - and in doing so prevented a massive loss of life. In the following
month Edward met the French General Joseph Joffre who had begun to plot out Allied strategies
ahead of the First Battle of Marne. He was extremely impressed at the ease with which one
man could exercise his will over a million men for the fate of his country without the
slightest hint of reservation, and still be in bed by 10 o'clock. Edward was party to many
intimate moments of the generals - he recalls how Joffre's dramatic plea for British
involvement at Marne made Sir John French cry. By 1917, Edward was head of the British
Military Mission to the French government in Paris. The French army was haemorrhaging lives,
fuelling unrest within the ranks. Mutiny was in the air, and swept through the regiments,
Edward reported this to London before the British army became swept up in the mess. Summoned
from the Front to 10 Downing Street, Edward was interrogated by Lloyd George as to the severity
of the mutinies - and in a scene that would be unbelievable had it been written for a drama,
Edward lost his temper at the Prime Minister. Edward's account is a fantastic example of how a
subaltern could become the bearer of overwhelming responsibility, and provides a privileged
insight into the mind of some of the Allied forces' most important leaders.
#13 Norman Macmillan :- 23 minutes
Norman Macmillan enlisted as a Private with the Glasgow Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry.
He served as an infantryman in France from November 1914 until September 1916, when he was
commissioned to the Royal Flying Corps as a temporary second lieutenant. This was his calling.
Norman describes one particular strafing mission at Passchendaele that became the most thrilling
flight of his life. With a natural flair for manoeuvres and for developing his own combat techniques,
Norman excelled in what was a very lonely and terrifying task. The skies of Passchendaele were
also the stage for dogfights, and with incredible detail Norman recalls tactics that scattered
seven German Albatross Scout planes and shot down their leader. His account is a rare opportunity
to hear of the differences between life in the trenches and in the air.
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