For our 250th episode of the podcast, and as part of our continuing Air War series, we are joined by aviation historian and author Andy Saunders to look at the life, and death, of Edward 'Mick' Mannock VC DSO & Two Bars, MC & Bar and the search for his potential burial place on the Western Front. Is the grave of an Unknown Aviator at Laventie British Cemetery Mick Mannock's final resting place?Andy's book: Mannock: The Life and Death of Major Edward Mannock VC, DSO, MC, RAF by Frank, Norman and Saunders, Andy. (Grub Street 2008)Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us a textSupport the show
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49:24
Above the Battlefield: Royal Flying Corps & RAF in WW1
For the start of our War in the Air Month, we begin with a look at the real story of the 'Twenty Minuters', the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force in the First World War. We look at its history from formation in 1912, its role in the opening months of the conflict, and how the war on the Western Front changed military aviation forever.A good overview of the Air War from the Imperial War Museum: What impact did the First World War have on aircraft and aerial warfare?Photographs of some of the aircraft mentioned in the podcast can be found here: Old Front Line website.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us a textSupport the show
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47:24
Questions and Answers Episode 34
For our latest questions submitted by podcast listeners, we examine what my first visit to the battlefields of the Great War with my school meant to me, ask what the Wiltshire Regiment did in the First World War, what sources in English can we look at to understand the German side of WW1 and what did British veterans think of their German foe?Brigadier E.A. James book - British Regiments 1914-1918. Main image: Group portrait of officers of the 1st Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, after their return from fighting at Thiepval, photographed at Bouzincourt, September 1916. (IWM Q1151 - photo by Ernest Brookes)Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us a textSupport the show
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Questions and Answers Episode 33
Our latest questions from podcast listeners discuss what role German steel helmets, Stahlhelm, had on the First Day of the Somme, how did Great War veterans feel about WW2, how were women who fell pregnant from British soldiers treated during the conflict, and when we visit British and Commonwealth cemeteries are we walking over the graves of those buried there?For more information on the Battlefield Tours I do: Leger Battlefields.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us a textSupport the show
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Return to the Somme
As the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme approaches, we walk part of the battlefield across the iconic Mash Valley, visit Ovillers Military Cemetery and walk through Ovillers village to the far end of the valley facing the Pozières Ridge.Alf Razzell discusses the burial of the dead at Ovillers: A Game of Ghosts.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us a textSupport the show
Walk the battlefields of the First World War with Military Historian, Paul Reed. In these podcasts, Paul brings together over 40 years of studying the Great War, from the stories of veterans he interviewed, to when he spent more than a decade living on the Old Front Line in the heart of the Somme battlefields.