In the latest @oldfrontline.bsky.social we explore some lesser known battlefields on the Western Front, what happened to captured trenches, the rise of AI in military history of #WW1 & whether Great War generals were butchers or brilliant. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/11/15/q...

The Battle of the Ancre took place #OTD in 1916. Among those killed was Leonard Hasman of the Anson Battalion, an 18 year old from Barrow Hill. He’d enlisted at 17 and joined the unit France being killed in his first battle. I rescued his Memorial Plaque some time ago.

On the cusp of WWII, in 1938, my grandfather Charles W. Bridgen shot a colour film of his journey to revisit the Northern Front. It documents a Europe on the brink of war, still scattered with the fragments of the last. The full film is on Youtube here: youtube.com/watch?v=esA9...

Today in 1918 the Guns Fell Silent on the Western Front, and more than a century later on Armistice Day we continue to reflect on the meaning of the Great War, and all those ordinary men and women in extraordinary times.

A daughter’s hand places a cross against her father’s name on the Cassino Memorial to the Missing. #RemembranceDay #RemembranceSunday

We Will Remember Them - sunset on the Somme at Courcelette British Cemetery. #RemembranceDay #RemembranceSunday

During War people had no humour... wrong Just a standard group photo of WW1 soldiers? Something in this picture is very curious... No caption on the photo, just my educated guesses: ▶️103e Régiment d’Infanterie 📅Likely Winter 1915/16 📍Ville-Sur-Tourbe to Melzicourt area

Forgotten Battlefield is about to start on BBC4 - a few photos from the filming in 2001. One of the more incredible experiences I’ve had on The Old Front Line.

Forgotten Battlefield returns tonight at 19.30 on BBC4 looking at the groundbreaking work of The Diggers to recover the archaeology and the dead of Ypres. Made in 2001, it was the first BBC film I worked on. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

War poet Wilfred Owen died on the Sambre Canal #OTD in 1918, along with many others in that final great battle of the First World War.

In the latest @oldfrontline.bsky.social we discuss: - How big is the 'Zone Rouge' today? - Was morphine use in the trenches ever misused? - When did British and Canadian troops first get steel helmets? - Which #WW1 slang terms are still in use today? oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/11/01/q...

Battle of Loos with Peter Doyle: in the latest @oldfrontline.bsky.social we are joined by @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social to discuss the offensive of September 1915. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/10/25/b...

Thanks to all who joined me for an @oldfrontline.bsky.social Supporters Evening where we discussed the Official Images of the Battle of Messines in June 1917.

Sunset over Courcelette on the Somme battlefields - taken #OTD in 2013.

Very pleased that the BBC will be specially re-showing my first ever TV programme ‘Forgotten Battlefield’ made in 2001 by John Hayes Fisher about the work of The Diggers at Ypres. BBC4 6th November at 19.30: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

Battle of Loos with Peter Doyle: in the latest @oldfrontline.bsky.social we are joined by @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social to discuss the offensive of September 1915. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/10/25/b...

In the latest @oldfrontline.bsky.social QnAs we look at: - Was there only one “Hill 80”? - How did armies supply millions of men in #WW1? - Did regiments fight with multiple battalions at the front at once? - Who were the “whippers-in” at the front line? oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/10/18/q...

As mentioned y'day Kevin, our Chair, is writing a booklet about Notable Graves in the cemetery. He has published a booklet on our Commonwealth War Graves of which there are 178. @cwgc.bsky.social @sommecourt.bsky.social "War Graves — Friends of Ocklynge Cemetery" www.fooc.org.uk/war-graves

In the latest @oldfrontline.bsky.social QnAs we look at: - Was there only one “Hill 80”? - How did armies supply millions of men in #WW1? - Did regiments fight with multiple battalions at the front at once? - Who were the “whippers-in” at the front line? oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/10/18/q...

Gunner Officer: Malcolm Vyvyan. In this latest Old Front Line #podcast we return to the memories of #WW1 veteran Malcolm Vyvyan MC, who served with 96th Siege Battery Royal Garrison Artillery on the Western Front from 1916. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/10/11/g...

Shrapnel from 1944 found along the edge of the fields at Hill 112 in Normandy this morning.

What I’m listening to this week. Started with: @oldfrontline.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

On a Battlefield Tour in Normandy and at a museum we visit regularly which seems to get more and more tempting to the wargamer in me each time I visit. 😱

In 1917, during 3rd Ypres, 11/Northumberland Fusiliers returned to the front lines after a brief rest and took over from the 13/Durham Light Infantry. C company, with 2/Lt. L.W. Ablett and 2/Lt. E.D. Bruty, went in support trenches near Reutel on 12 Oct.

The scars of war in Ranville: from MG/Flak impact marks on buildings to battle-damaged (and later repaired) walls. One of the many layers of that landscape of the Second World War in Normandy.

Popped into Ranville Church this morning - in the heart of the Airborne Drop in 1944 and at the heart of post-war visits by veterans.

Gunner Officer: Malcolm Vyvyan. In this latest Old Front Line #podcast we return to the memories of #WW1 veteran Malcolm Vyvyan MC, who served with 96th Siege Battery Royal Garrison Artillery on the Western Front from 1916. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/10/11/g...

New Old Front Line #podcast Q&A episode out now: - Who were the officers in the British Army in #WW1? - Did British veterans really hate their enemy? - Why did some men re-enlist after discharge? - Is interest in the Great War fading on the battlefields today? oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/10/04/q...

Coming Soon! The Taking of Vimy Ridge: First World War Photographs of William Ivor Castle, by Carla-Jean Stokes, explores the life and works of a Canadian official First World War photographer known for staging and manipulating his photographs. Preorder now at www.wlupress.wlu.ca/...

The hematologist Oswald H. Robertson pioneered the idea of "blood banks" in WWI by packing glass jars of citrated blood from universal donors in an ice-filled chest that he had constructed from ammunition cases. He convinced countless others to donate blood during the war.

Remembering the Forgotten Front: in the latest @oldfrontline.bsky.social for the 110th Anniversary of the Battle of Loos we make an overview of the 'Forgotten Front' in Northern France and discover the history, landscape and stories of those who fought there. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/09/27/r...

That time of the month for decent coffee and a read of the new @wssmagazine.bsky.social.

@sommecourt.bsky.social These are the buttons and the “lost” soldier mentioned by Nicki in your war detectives episode that I was kindly pointed to.

The Newcastle Tramways buttons that were instrumental in identifying him, Great Uncle Gordon finally be laid to rest, wonderful service/experience. 110 years, to the day, of his death. Lost but now found. #WWI #Loos #History

#Loos110: It's the 110th Anniversary of the Battle of Loos which took place #OTD in 1915. Discover more about the battle with this episode of @oldfrontline.bsky.social with a new one on the Forgotten Front coming this weekend. oldfrontline.co.uk/2022/10/01/l...

Thanks to all who joined us for a @oldfrontline.bsky.social Podcast Supporters evening where @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social joined us for an excellent talk about the Battle of Loos in 1915 - with the 110th Anniversary tomorrow, very apt!

The Cenotaph in Trinity, Newfoundland, Canada. A moving tribute to those lost while serving with the Royal Navy and in the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. @sommecourt.bsky.social

Questions & Answers Episode 36: in the latest @oldfrontline.bsky.social we answer questions about what happened to German forces at the end of the war, how the dead were buried, poison gas and the fate of all those War Horses at the close of the conflict. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/09/20/q...

In our first episode for Season 9 of @oldfrontline.bsky.social we walk the battlefield at Gommecourt, looking at the fighting here on 1st July 1916. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/09/13/w...

Every year on the Arnhem Anniversary I take this book off the shelves and give it a read: it’s one of my favourite memoirs of the battle, and I love the Prologue too and the introduction by Hackett, who I was lucky to meet several times.

#Arnhem81: today in 1944 Operation Market Garden began. The Air Armada took elements of three Airborne divisions deep into enemy territory and filled the skies as men dropped between Eindhoven & Arnhem, as seen in these private photos of the time.

In our first episode for Season 9 of @oldfrontline.bsky.social we walk the battlefield at Gommecourt, looking at the fighting here on 1st July 1916. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/09/13/w...

Season 9 of @oldfrontline.bsky.social begins tomorrow with a walk at Gommecourt on the Somme. Lots more coming this season!

Where #WW1 met #WW2 - Field Marshal Montgomery visits the Canadian First World War memorial at Vimy Ridge #OTD in 1944. Monty had served at Vimy in 1916 as a Staff Officer.

In our final Bonus Episode from Season 8 of Old Front Line #podcast we visit the Menin Gate at Night. Season 9 begins in a week's time. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/09/06/b...

Thanks to all who joined me for an Old Front Line #Podcast Supporters Evening talk about images of the Battle of Arras tonight. Great to see so many present!

In this second Bonus Episode to end Season 8 of Old Front Line #podcast we look at the subject of Great War veterans: in particular Malcolm Vyvyan who served as a Siege Battery officer in the Royal Garrison Artillery on the Somme, Arras & in Flanders. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/08/30/b...

It's #InternationalDogDay - this Company Sergeant Major of the 16/Highland Light Infantry poses with his little friend just after #WW1 in occupied Germany. A long war together finally over?

Some clips from our 2001 Documentary ’Forgotten Battlefield’ have been added by the BBC to their YouTube channel, including this one: youtu.be/yKz2M5PcNjg?...

In the latest Old Front Line #podcast we have the first of three Bonus Episodes to end Season 8: we travel to Fricourt on the Somme and examine the journey to unveil a memorial to the 17th (Northern) Division in the church there in July 1938. oldfrontline.co.uk/2025/08/23/b...