John Sheen

The Pals battalions were a phenomenon of the Great War, never repeated since. Under Lord Derbys scheme, and in response to Kitchener’s famous call for a million volunteers, local communities raised (and initially often paid for) entire battalions for service on the Western Front. Their experience was all too frequently tragic, as men who had known each other all their lives, had worked, volunteered, and trained together, and had shipped to France...

A history of four battalions of the Durham Light Infantry raised in the Country during the First World War. The 18th (Pals) were the first troops of Kitchener’s new army to come under fire, when the Germans bombarded Hartlepool in December 1914. The 19th were raised as Bantams and the 20th (Wearside) were raised by the Sunderland Recruiting Committee. The 22nd, the last raised became a pioneer Battalion but fought as infantry through much of 1918....

In March 1918, the German Army launched a series of offensives that brought them very close to winning the war. Military photographers followed their advance and took many photographs of the operations as they progressed. This is the war seen from the German perspective, British and French soldiers lie dead on the battlefield, and Allied prisoners are escorted to the rear, as the German Artillery pound away covering the advance of the 'Feldgrau'....

John Sheen, the author of this book, was told, aged nine, that his parents were dead. It was then, having found them alive and well, that he was told that he had been adopted. This is his story, and how he came to find his birth family after sixty-four years. It gives an insight of the adoption process in the 1940s through the documents and letters discovered. Highly emotional at times, but laced with humour, this story will be of interest to both...