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An extraordinary, newly discovered account from an ordinary Canadian on the ground in the crucial battles of the First World War.
What was it like to be a field gunner in the Great War?
Drawing on the unpublished letters and diary of field gunner Lt. Bert Sargent and his fellow soldiers, Thunder in the Skies takes the reader from enlistment in late 1914, through training camp, to the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, the Hundred Days Offensive, and home again with peace.
Posted just behind the front lines, Sargent and field gunners like him spent gruelling months supporting the infantry in the trenches. Theirs was a very different war, as dangerous or more at times as the one on the front lines. As an ordinary Canadian writing letters home to ordinary people, Sargent gives a wrenching, insightful account of a tight-knit band of soldiers swept up in some of the most important battles of the war that shaped the twentieth century.
Thunder in the Skies details the daily life of artillerymen fighting in the First World War in a way no other book has before.
What was it like to be a field gunner in the Great War?
Drawing on the unpublished letters and diary of field gunner Lt. Bert Sargent and his fellow soldiers, Thunder in the Skies takes the reader from enlistment in late 1914, through training camp, to the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, the Hundred Days Offensive, and home again with peace.
Posted just behind the front lines, Sargent and field gunners like him spent gruelling months supporting the infantry in the trenches. Theirs was a very different war, as dangerous or more at times as the one on the front lines. As an ordinary Canadian writing letters home to ordinary people, Sargent gives a wrenching, insightful account of a tight-knit band of soldiers swept up in some of the most important battles of the war that shaped the twentieth century.
Thunder in the Skies details the daily life of artillerymen fighting in the First World War in a way no other book has before.
Price: $24.99
Pages: 472
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Imprint: Dundurn Press
Publication Date:
22 September 2015
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781459730939
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
HISTORY / Military / World War I, First World War, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Military, HISTORY / Military / Canada, Biography: historical, political & military
Author Derek Grout…has done a remarkable job in painting a picture of the daily life of Canadian gunners in World War I…it is a very well-written, very readable book that should be on every Canadian gunner’s bookshelf.
Grout’s volume is the product of considerable effort that enhances the value of an otherwise important addition to Canada’s national collection of eyewitness soldier accounts from the First World War.
Grout’s volume is the product of considerable effort that enhances the value of an otherwise important addition to Canada’s national collection of eyewitness soldier accounts from the First World War.
Derek Grout is a historian who has written extensively on shipwrecks and scuba diving in Canada and the United States. His book, RMS Empress of Ireland, was praised on both sides of the Atlantic. He lives in Pointe Claire, Quebec.
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 A City Goes to War
- 2 Into the 21st Battery
- 3 Training and the "Mysteries of Barrack Life"
- 4 "A Great Credit to Your Country"
- 5 New Homes
- 6 "Berlin or Bust"
- 7 At Sea
- 8 Shorncliffe
- 9 "We are a Depot Brigade"
- 10 "Dear ... Folks"
- 11 "Soldiering More Than We Have Done Since We Arrived in England"
- Chapter 12 Zeppelin Attack
- 13 "I Have Seen No Better Brigade This Year"
- 14 To the Front
- 15 A "Present to the Kaiser"
- 16 The Second Division Ammunition Column
- 17 "Hell to the nth Power"
- 18 "Absolutely the Best Pal I Ever Had"
- 19 "We Made the Usual Success of It"
- 20 Prelude to Vimy
- 21 The Battle of Vimy Ridge
- 22 July and August 1917
- 23 "Not Glad to be Back"
- 24 "Like the Crack of Doom": The Battle of Passchendaele
- 25 Winter Quarters
- 26 "Looks Like One Hell of a Job!"
- 27 Operation Michael
- 28 Holding the Line: May and June 1918
- 29 A Much-Needed Rest
- 30 Amiens: "Black Day of the German Army"
- 31 Wedding Bells in "Blighty"
- 32 Back to the Front
- 33 Open Warfare and the Cambrai "Show"
- 34 Valenciennes and the Pursuit to Mons
- 35 Into the Rhineland
- 36 "Blighty" and the Official Record
- 37 HMT Northland and Canada
- Epilogue
- Bibliography