Fromelles and Pozières
In the Trenches of Hell
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Narrated by:
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Richard Aspel
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By:
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Peter FitzSimons
About this listen
On 19 July 1916, 7,000 Australian soldiers - in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front - attacked entrenched German positions at Fromelles, in Northern France. By the next day, no fewer than 5,500 were wounded, and just under 1,900 were dead - a bloodbath that the Australian War Memorial describes as 'the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history'.
Just days later, three Australian divisions attacked German positions at nearby Pozières, and over the next six weeks they suffered another 23,000 casualties.
Of that bitter battle, the great Australian war correspondent Charles Bean would write, 'The field of Pozières is more consecrated by Australian fighting and more hallowed by Australian blood than any field which has ever existed....'
Yet the sad truth is that nearly a century on from those battles, Australians know only a fraction of what occurred. This book brings the battles back to life and puts the listener in the moment, illustrating both the heroism displayed and the insanity of the British plan. With his extraordinary vigour and commitment to research, Peter FitzSimons shows why this is a story about which all Australians can be proud. And angry.
©2015 Peter FitzSimons (P)2015 BolindaListeners also enjoyed...
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A Storm in Flanders
- The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918: Tragedy and Triumph on the Western Front
- By: Winston Groom
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Novelist and prizewinning historian Winston Groom's gripping history of the four-year battle for Ypres in Belgian Flanders, the pivotal engagement of World War I that would forever change the way the world fought - and thought about - war. This is Groom's account of what would become the most dreaded place on Earth.
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I love, love, love this book!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-16-16
By: Winston Groom
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Normandiefront
- D-Day to Saint-Lô Through German Eyes
- By: Vince Milano, Bruce Conner
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In the cold morning of June 6, 1944, thousands of German soldiers were in position from Port en Bessin eastward past Colleville on the Normandy coast, aware that a massive invasion force was heading straight for them, although according to Allied Intelligence, they shouldn't have been there. The presence of 352 Division meant that the number of defenders was literally double the number expected - and on the best fortified of all the invasion beaches. What makes this account of the bloody struggle unique is that it is told from the German standpoint, using firsthand testimony....
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- By David Little on 11-05-24
By: Vince Milano, and others
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By Tank into Normandy
- By: Stuart Hills, Lord Deedes - foreword
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Stuart Hills embarked his Sherman DD tank on to an LCT at 6:45 a.m., Sunday, June 4th, 1944. He was 20 years old, un-blooded, fresh from a public-school background, and officer cadet training. He was going to war. Two days later, his tank sunk; he and his crew landed from a rubber dinghy with just the clothes they stood in. After that, the struggles through the Normandy bocage in a replacement tank, engaging the enemy in a constant round of close encounters, led to a swift mastering of the art of tank warfare and remarkable survival in the midst of carnage and destruction.
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First “The Big Show” now this?!
- By S. H. Moore on 05-19-21
By: Stuart Hills, and others
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First Over There
- The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I
- By: Matthew J. Davenport
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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At first light on Tuesday, May 28th, 1918, waves of American riflemen from the US Army's First Division climbed from their trenches, charged across the shell-scarred French dirt of no-man's-land, and captured the hilltop village of Cantigny from the grip of the German Army. Those who survived the enemy machine-gun fire and hand-to-hand fighting held on for the next two days and nights in shallow foxholes under the sting of mustard gas and crushing steel of artillery fire.
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Outstanding storytelling.
- By David on 04-26-21
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Marine!
- The Life of Chesty Puller
- By: Burke Davis
- Narrated by: Bill Thatcher
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In the glorious chronicles of the US Marine Corps, no name is more revered than that of Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller. The only fighting man to receive the Navy Cross five separate times - a military honor second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor - he was the epitome of a professional warrior.
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good book, God awful reading.
- By Amazon Customer on 12-28-21
By: Burke Davis
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Red Road from Stalingrad
- Recollections of a Soviet Infantryman
- By: Mansur Abdulin
- Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Mansur Abdulin fought in the front ranks of the Soviet infantry against the German invaders at Stalingrad, Kursk, and on the banks of the Dnieper. This is his extraordinary story. His vivid firsthand account of a ruthless war on the Eastern Front gives rare insight into the reality of the fighting and into the tactics and mentality of the Red Army's soldiers.
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Memoir of a Soviet soldier fighting the Nazis
- By Ladybug on 09-16-21
By: Mansur Abdulin
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The Lions of Iwo Jima
- The Story of Combat Team 28 and the Bloodiest Battle in Marine Corps History
- By: Major General Fred Haynes (USMC-Ret.), James A. Warren
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, claiming a third of all marines killed in World War II. The relentless fighting on Iwo Jima lasted for 36 days, but most of us only know the iconic photo of five soldiers raising the American flag on Mount Surabachi. For Fred Haynes, a young captain in Combat Team 28, Surabachi was one marker in a ferocious blood-letting against an enemy of 22,000 warriors who were dug into caves and tunnels.
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Excellent Account of the Battle
- By Jesse on 11-25-11
By: Major General Fred Haynes (USMC-Ret.), and others
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Citizen Soldiers
- The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A masterful biography of the U.S. Army in the European Theater of Operations during World War II, Citizen Soldiers provides a compelling account of the extraordinary stories of ordinary men in their fight for democracy. From the high command on down to the enlisted men, Stephen E. Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from men on both sides who were there.
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Required reading, excellent narration
- By Jeremy on 06-30-11
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This Kind of War
- The Classic Korean War History
- By: T. R. Fehrenbach
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 24 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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This Kind of War is a monumental study of the conflict that began in June 1950. Successive generations of U.S. military officers have considered this book an indispensable part of their education. T. R. Fehrenbach's narrative brings to life the harrowing and bloody battles that were fought up and down the Korean Peninsula.
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Great narrative, frustrating redundancy
- By Ted on 08-16-10
By: T. R. Fehrenbach
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Passchendaele
- Requiem for Doomed Youth
- By: Paul Ham
- Narrated by: Robert Meldrum
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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From Paul Ham, winner of the NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History, comes the story of ordinary men in the grip of a political and military power struggle that determined their fate and has foreshadowed the destiny of the world for a century. Passchendaele epitomises everything that was most terrible about the Western Front. The photographs never sleep of this four-month battle, fought from July to November 1917, the worst year of the war.
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Very compelling - good story, good narration
- By DPM on 11-25-16
By: Paul Ham
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Forty-Seven Days
- How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I
- By: Mitchell Yockelson
- Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The Battle of the Meuse-Argonne stands as the deadliest clash in American history: More than a million untested American soldiers went up against a better-trained and more experienced German army, costing more than 26,000 deaths and leaving nearly 100,000 wounded. Yet, in 47 days of intense combat, those Americans pushed back the enemy and forced the Germans to surrender, bringing the First World War to an end - a feat the British and the French had not achieved after more than three years of fighting.
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Comprehensive history of The First Army in WWI
- By Bruce Miller on 03-08-18
What listeners say about Fromelles and Pozières
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Suzanne
- 02-25-16
Tragic yet Powerful
Once again Pete Fitzsimons and his team deliver a gripping narrative that rips at heartstrings as well as it gives you a sense of man's humanity, humility and need for reason when faced with the unexplainable.
Personal stories combined with grand strategy and an ending with a legacy that was only unveiled within the last decade.
Thanks for bringing these "cobbers" and the "criminals" to life!
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- Michael
- 08-14-17
Peter FitzSimons is no historian
I was given this book for Christmas. I didn't want to read it, so I had it read to me by Richard Aspel who does a good job but is rather thick with the Australian accents at times.
Peter FitzSimons tells a good story and as a journalist has an excellent column in the Sunday newspaper. He tells history like a yarn in the pub. His research at times is a little shallow and other times he finds information to back up his story he is telling.
My biggest gripes about this book is the 'Pommy bashing' that Australians like to do against 'the brass'. I am sure Australians think that the First World War was won by the Anzacs and a regiment of Scots. Mr FitzSimons skims over some of the Australians failings. Fromelle and Poziéres were and extension of the Somme Battle and the Australians were very inexperienced and poorly led at the senior level of their corps. These 'battles' bloodied the Anzacs and as with most battles in the First World War, were costly and for little gain but it did lay the ground work for the reputation that the Anzacs would gain in later exploits of that war. Overall I would say that this book is a story and not to be rated as academically history.
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