Product Description

It is now eighty-seven years since the First World War ended and the survivors returned to Britain to re-build their lives. Veterans - The Last Survivors of the Great War accompanied the celebrated two-part BBC1 documentary of the same name.
Veterans, talking openly for the first time about their experiences, give powerful testimony, a final insight into the war which has shaped the 20th century. Their stories, moving and heartbreaking, funny and perceptive, tell of how a new volunteer army went to war in 1914 to fight in such brutal battles as Loos, the Somme and Passchendaele.
The Home Front, too often forgotten in books about the First World War, is also brought alive through the testimony of loved ones who stayed at home. Nurses tell of caring for the wounded, a munitions worker labouring in the factories. But perhaps most moving of all are the testimonies of children who lost fathers and young women, their fiancés.
This evocative book is illustrated with a unique collection of private photographs, many published here for the first time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #351670 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Peter Barton - author of Beneath Flanders Fields.
`A deeply gratifying and thought-provoking book...full of human interest and insight...a must read.'

Synopsis
Veterans is based upon the memories of World War 1 veterans and is highly illustrated with photographs, many of which have never been published before. It is characterised by a stark honesty about things that happened over 80 years ago.'

Customer Reviews

Honest and moving narrative of the war from those who won it
The authors searched and raced against time to find the few remaining WWI veterans and to capture their thoughts and memories. The survivors include women who nursed, or who coped with the deaths of loved ones, and they are all heroes. They recall the superhuman courage and sacrifices which became routine under those horrifying circumstances, and with the perspective granted by age they manage to make sense of the conflict which changed the world as no prior or subsequent event ever did. Awe-inspiring reading, a must for anyone who wants to understand the 20th century.