Sub-titled 'The Great War Adventures, Letters and Observations of Alexander Douglas Thorburn'. At the end of WWI, Alexander Thorburn left his role as an artillery officer and went straight back to civilian life, but in 1933 he published a volume of engagingly written memoirs. These have now been reissued with the addition of a recently discovered collection of letters which throw an interesting new light on his wartime experiences. Serving in France, Salonica, Palestine and then France again, Thorburn's concern is always first and foremost with the horses which were used for transportation of men, artillery and supplies, often in remote theatres over terrain without adequate tracks. A vivid memory is the voyage to Valletta with 600 horses on board, inadequate ventilation, and a prohibition on throwing manure overboard lest their position might be given away. Tragedy and comedy are often mixed. At Vimy Ridge, awaiting the arrival of Canadian troops, the battalion captured a "suspected spy" in a gun pit, only to find that he is the Canadian padre. Thorburn's letters from Salonica praise the spectacular landscape and include a letter to "Dear Mama" in 1917 in which the cavalry hears of the "great destruction of Hun submarines". Meanwhile Thorburn and his comrades are preparing to "ride up the valley to see a boar hunt organised by the Serbian crown prince". A week of night marching follows, with the horses struggling to haul strings of guns and wagons over ditches and fords. In March he complains to his mother that she has not sent his tropical kit, but "Choc cakes excellent." There is often physical hardship, and in Palestine at the Battle for Jerusalem he operates a 4-gun howitzer battery on a 3000 foot hill with ten inches of icy rain falling. Finally back in France, the 74th (Yeomanry) Division is employed in the exhausting task of advancing against the Hindenburg line. 228pp, photos.

After 50 years in RAF uniform, here is the story of Tom Eeles, a true gent (as most pilots are). Having entered RAF College Cranwell in 1960, Tom Eeles began flying training in January 1962 on the Jet Provost and gained his RAF wings on 30th July 1963. This was followed by advanced flying training in the Gnat T1 and his first posting was to No 16 Squadron flying the Canberra B(I) 8. Its role as a light bomber squadron was primarily nuclear strike, with a secondary role of conventional ground attack by day and night. 16 Squadron was deployed to Kuantan, about halfway up the east coast of Malaya, tasked with providing long range day and night divebombing and strafing with 1000lb bombs and 20mm cannon on airfields on Java. In July 1966 and on loan to the Senior Service, Tom reported to RNAS Lossiemouth for a swept wing conversion course on the Hunter before starting the Buccaneer Operational Flying Course. Posted to 801 NAS, HMS Victorious in the Far East, in 1969 Tom joined 736 Naval Air Squadron responsible for training courses of RAF aircrew. In July 1972 he moved to 12 Squadron based at RAF Honington whose task was to provide a maritime strike/attack capability, and a nuclear strike capability. 1975 saw a move to 79 Squadron flying the Hunter and after a spell at the RAF Staff College, Tom became Staff Officer responsible for all aspects of fast jet advanced flying training on the Hawk at Valley, and multi engine advanced flying training at Finningley. In 1983 he was selected to command 237 OCU and commanded the Examining Wing at the Central Flying School and retired in 1997 but became a full time reservist until November 2004. He continued to fly with 5AEF until September 2010. And still has 'a passion for flying after all these years.' 'I also dabbled in air defence and had a long association with flying training in all its variety, ranging from operational conversion right down to elementary teaching.' From the serious to the hilarious here are the tours, the jinx, the technology, the camaraderie and the shared passion for the freedom of the skies. Tom has totalled over 8,000 hours flying! 147 page well illustrated paperback.

This fascinating and nostalgic book is based on the letters of six prolific correspondents in the war years. Three of them were famous members of the London scene: Noel Coward, Cecil Beaton and Freya Stark, while the other three were ordinary servicemen: First Officer Tommy Davies, medical student Donald Macdonald, and the author's father, Jack Knott, who was called up to the Royal Air Force. The book partly chronicles the author's search for his elusive father's identity. Freya Stark, fluent in at least seven languages, was an acclaimed travel writer on the outbreak of war. An eccentric who had already travelled round the Lebanon, she was appointed as the Ministry of Information's "South Arab expert" and dispatched to Egypt. Tommy Davies had served on 20 different ships by the time war broke out and wrote constantly and lovingly to his wife Dorrie. His ship the Atlantis was transformed into a hospital vessel and set sail for the eastern Mediterranean. Noel Coward was a well-known entertainer who immediately set off on a tour of the European capitals, but meanwhile he had also been recruited as an agent reporting back on the morale he found among his audiences, and this led to his being constantly tailed round by suspicious local counter-espionage operatives. Cecil Beaton was a celebrated society photographer, initially assigned to an air-raid precautions role but soon dispatched with his camera to Cairo. Donald Macdonald also headed for Cairo on graduation as a doctor. Jack Knott was in Egypt too, and like all three famous writers passed through Habbaniya RAF base in Iraq. A superbly told account of six lives sharing similar experiences from very different perspectives. 15.2 x 23.6cm, 254pp, black and white photos.

Recruited into the 14th Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles on the outbreak of war in 1914, Jim Maultsaid, a self-taught artist living in Donegal, saw combat on the front line before being wounded on the Somme. Jim recorded his war experiences through sketches and notes in his "little black book", and many of the striking pictures of warfare reproduced here form a graphic impression even more immediate than a photo. Jim's granddaughter has now edited selections from his notebooks and this first volume takes him up to Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval in Spring 1916. Jim's irrepressible good humour is astonishing and catching, even when he is describing with appropriate reverence the deaths of comrades. His training starts with a route march of six miles. Jim fires his first shots two months later, and on 26 February 1915 gets his complete kit weighing 80 lbs, just in time for a route march of 26 miles. Exactly a year after enlisting, following an inspection by the King, the battalion embarks on a transport for France. Marching through Amiens and Beauval they are already deep in mud and soon "In the far distance we heard Boom! Boom! Guns! Big stuff, too. Yes! Getting there now." Jim's sketch of the front line, punctuated by pinpricks of fire and shells, is unforgettable. He narrowly avoids a bullet when he looks over the trench and does not make that mistake twice. On Sunday the sound of hymn singing floats across from the other side. Jim volunteers for bombing patrol and crawls forward on his stomach to within 20 yards of a German sentry post. He reflects that his youthful enjoyment of stories like Buffalo Bill were now a reality. Rats in the trenches are lured by cheese and then bayonetted. At the Somme conditions are pitiless and Jim's sketches of the Night Patrol convey fear and violence. "Rain - mud - snow and filth." A major attack leaves Jim's friend Billy dead, and he pays tribute. When Sir Douglas Haig himself passes by and asks to see Jim's boys doing bombing practice, they all throw a bull's eye. 17.8 x 25.4cm, 198pp, lively drawings on most pages.

Operation OVERLORD in June 1944 was the greatest seaborne invasion and indeed the greatest military endeavour of all time. Although eventually a brilliant victory and duly celebrated as a triumph of intelligence, planning, combined operations and international co-operation, the D Day Landings came close to being the greatest military history disaster. From the parachutists and glider pilots landed behind enemy lines to the sappers, gunners, tank crews, signals, infantry, chaplains and surgeons, and a vast armada of ships and landing craft that brought them to the congested beaches, each has their own story of excitement, elation, horror and heroism. A unique collection of letters and accounts from all ranks and regiments, this book champions the ordinary men who made it possible. As Bill Deedes points out in his Foreword, it was the 'ordinary man' who turned this great undertaking into a reality. This now classic reprinted book reflects this. We hear the experiences of RAF pilots who dropped the parachutists and towed the gliders; of sailors in the Royal Navy who had to negotiate minefields and other obstacles; and of a wide spectrum of soldiers who came face to face with the enemy who all provided vital support. Hostile fire does not distinguish between those roles more than it does between high and junior rank. We are privileged to share these individuals' experiences and emotions at such a defining moment both in their lives and in the history of the world. Each section is introduced by clear explanation of the action concerned and enhanced by maps and photographs. Facsimile reprint of the 1980 original in large softback.

This second volume of Sergeant Jim Maultsaid's expressive pictorial diaries of the Great War starts with preparations in the woods of Thiepval. "Pass the cruel barbs through and around in loops. We are out wiring, in the dead of night. Zip! Zip! Rat-a-tat! A bullet strikes metal and soars away." Boxing competitions and the 100-yard dash keep morale up. Then on 1st July at 6 am, a day which will see the end of the 14th Rifles, "the air is rent with a tornado of gunfire". The Ulster Boys "stumbled in amongst the wreckage of bodies, wooden beams and revetments" to clear the dug-outs, where Jim accounts for several Germans. "War! Hellish war!" Kid Lewis, "a great little hero", is lost. "The slopes of Thiepval run red with the blood of Ulstermen." Then "Like a thousand-ton hammer, it strikes me". On the first day of the Battle of the Somme Jim is seriously wounded and invalided out. Two unknown boys bandage the wound, Sergeant Tommy Murphy offers a mug of tea and Jim drags himself to the Red Cross station, losing blood and in terrible pain. After hospital in Suffolk Jim is sent to Cambridge for officer training. He then finds himself leading a detachment of the Chinese Labour Corps, a little-known supporting force that did manual labour to free up fighting men for the front line. The work was often difficult and dangerous and Jim pays generous tribute to his men, accompanied as always by vivid drawings. When a detachment is laying railway sleepers close to a main line, an express unexpectedly thundering through leads some workers to drop their sleepers on the track with terrifying results and loss of life. The final push by the Germans, surrounded as they were by petrol and oil dumps, was a terrifying slaughter. 17.8 x 25.4cm, 249pp, drawings on most pages.

Depicting the grim realities of the four year struggle for the Ypres salient, this powerful collection showcases work of the contemporary combat artists and illustrators from the Great War era. Included here are the works of serious artists, propagandists, illustrators and humourists, and the result is a stunning and vivid graphic record of life and death as reported to contemporary audiences when events were still unfolding. They provided a highly accurate visual record of the fleeting moments which the bulky cameras could not reproduce and a contemporary record of hand-to-hand fighting, trench raids, aerial dogfights, sea battles, desperate last stands, night actions and cavalry charges. Images show Irish fusiliers attacking with the bayonet, they go into prayer before action and a crowded railway platform with a wounded soldier and stretcher bearers in a Bruce Bairnsfather drawing has the caption 'The unquenchable cheerfulness of the British soldier.' 128 large pages, 24 x 18.5cm, paperback. Hundreds of illus.

Set comprises Star Shell Reflections, 1914-1916 and War! Hellish War! Star Shell Reflections Vol 2, 1916-1918. Save £5 more and acquire both rare items.