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    Twelve Days on the Somme: A Memoir of the Trenches, 1916
    Twelve Days on the Somme: A Memoir of the Trenches, 1916
    Twelve Days on the Somme: A Memoir of the Trenches, 1916
    Ebook177 pages3 hours

    Twelve Days on the Somme: A Memoir of the Trenches, 1916

    By Sidney Rogerson and Malcolm Brown

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    About this ebook

    This “brilliant and heartrending” memoir recounts one of the bloodiest battles of WWI—with a new introduction and a forward by the author’s son (John Keegan).

    A joint operation between Britain and France, the 1916 Battle of the Somme was an attempt to gain territory and dent Germany’s military strength. By the end of the action, the Allied Forces had made just twelve kilometers. For this slight gain, more than a million lives were lost.

    In this classic military memoir, Staff Sergeant Sidney Rogerson vividly captures the last spell of frontline duty performed by the 2nd Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. Awarded the George Cross for his service, Rogerson gives a frank and moving account of this notorious battle while demonstrating how he and his fellow soldiers faced the ordeal with resilience and good humor.

    This edition includes a new introduction by Malcolm Brown and a Foreword by Rogerson’s son Commander Jeremy Rogerson.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 19, 2020
    ISBN9781784385958
    Twelve Days on the Somme: A Memoir of the Trenches, 1916

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    • 4/5
      This memoir was written in 1933 by a former company commander on the western front in the First World War. He served there at the end of the Somme campaign in November 1916, so avoided the terrible first day (which many people take to be the whole battle, but it was a four months campaign). It is very well written and gives a full and well balanced picture of life in the trenches, depicting the camaraderie and sheer boredom and frustration of long periods of inactivity, as well as the horrors (not that many of these given the stage of the campaign covered). The author explicitly positions his memoir in opposition to the "war is unremitting hell" narrative that by this time had come to dominate discourse about the Great War, and indeed has done so until recent years. Worth a read in this year of the Somme centenary.
    • 4/5
      If you have any interest in World War I, this book is a must read. Most folks tend to read the novels centering around The Great War like ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN, and JOURNEY'S END. What sets this book apart from these novels is this is the diary of British officer Sidney Rogerson and the twelve days he spent on The Somme during the Winter of 1916. Although Rogerson was not in the trenches of The Somme that fateful day in July, 1916, he gives us a vivid portrayal of what the conditions were like during the time he was on the front line and near the front.

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