This book tells the story of the Queen s Own Royal West Kent Regiment from the aftermath of the Great War in 1920 down to the wake of the Second World War in 1950. The RWK did garrison duty in India and the occupied Rhineland in the early 1920s, and in policing the turbulent north and south of Ireland during the Irish independence struggle. The author calls 1923-32 the lean years when post-war cutbacks hit the RWK hard. After 1933, however, the growing prospect of war with Nazi Germany meant gradual rearmament and partial mechanisation. In 1938-39 the RWK s second battalion policed Palestine against Arab unrest. The final months before war saw hasty preparation and expansion; and after war broke out most battalions crossed to Franceand Belgium as part of the BEF. Here they found themselves on the old battlefields of the Great War and even at Oudenarde, scene of one of Marlborough; s victories. Swept up in the German Blitzkrieg of May 1940, the 6th and 7th battalions were overrun at Doullens and Albert; while the Queen s Own Brigade were embarked in the Dunkirk evacuation. From June 1940 new battalions were recruited; the 2nd Battalion defended Malta and the 4th and 5th battalions joined the Eighth Army in Egypt; fighting at the battles of Alam Halfa and Alamein and also seeing service in Iraq. The 1st and 6th battalions joined Operation Torch , the Anglo-American invasion of French Algeria in November 1942; and fought the Germans in the tough Tunisian campaign. The 6th battalion was present at the invasion of Sicily, fighting in the fooothills of Mount Etna and was joined by the 1st and 5th battalions in the Italian campaigns, fighting at Cassino and slogging up the Peninsula to Florence, the Gothic Line and finally entering Austria. Meanwhile the 1st battalion had been in Greece, where it was caught up in the politicial in-fighting in Athens in December 1944; and the 4th battalion had formed part of Slim s forgotten army in Burma. In the five years after the war the RWK underwent extensive re-organisation while serving in Egypt and occupied Germany and in Malaya. With a Roll of Honour, 30 maps and 42 photographs. The text is accompanied by six appendices listing honours and awards, officers in campaigns, Home Guard units, Colonels and CO s etc.

How did ordinary citizens become soldiers during the First World War, and how did they cope with the extraordinary challenges they confronted on the Western Front? These are questions Ian Isherwood seeks to answer in this absorbing and deeply researched study of the actions and experiences of an infantry battalion throughout the conflict. His work gives us a vivid impression of the reality of war for these volunteers and an insight into the motivation that kept them fighting. The narrative traces the history of the 8th Battalion The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), a Kitchener battalion raised in 1914. The letters, memoirs and diaries of the men of the battalion, in particular the correspondence of their commanding officer, reveal in fascinating detail what wartime life was like for this group of men. It includes vivid accounts of the major battles in which they were involved – Loos, the Somme, Passchendaele, the German Spring Offensive, and the final 100 Days campaign. The battalion took heavy losses, yet those who survived continued to fight and took great pride in their service, an attitude that is at odds with much of the popular perception of the Great War. Ian Isherwood brings in the latest research on military thinking and learning, on emotional resilience, and cultural history to tell their story.

Montauban was the southernmost of the Somme villages attacked by the British Army on 1 July, 1916, and it was where there was the greatest success. This new book in the series takes the reader over ground where Captain Nevill kicked a football on going over the top, where the Somme cameramen took some of their most evocative footage and where Pals battalions engaged in a triumphant first major engagement.