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WW1 Digger History Podcast

WWI Digger Stories Podcast reproduces the diaires, memoirs and letters of the real participants in the war that changed the course of the 20th Century. What was it like to be in the trenches, on the ships or behind the big guns where death stalked in infinite ways and it was impossible to make friends unless you were prepared to lose tham at any moment.

This podcast is formatted with each diairy or memoir forming a series, usually taking the listener through the war from beginning to end, from raw recruit to returning veteran, as it was experienced by the soldier and in his (or her, when I include Nurses stories) own words.

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  2. Episode 2.40 Battle of Hamel

Episode 2.40 Battle of Hamel

Jan 15, 2018

Wait for Zero Hour in the Battle of Hamel. Percy experienced this one from the sidelines. Learn about camouflage counter battery work, tanks, new kinds of shells, sneezing gas, German prisoners and much more. Here is a bit of it:

"Suddenly the captain sat up and exclaimed, "It's quarter of a minute past zero and the bombardment hasn't started!" We tumbled out of the dug-out in order to witness the strafe, and, even as we did so, a machine gun started chopping the air on our left, and the next instant the valleys and ridges behind us broke forth into a vast rumbling roar, the sky dancing with the multitude of lightning-like flashes from our guns. I jumped on to the nearest fire-step in time to see the first red light go up from the German lines. It was followed by many more all along our front, and by green ones, and also the pretty orange clusters and the ordinary white illuminating flares. Less than a mile in front of us the barrage from our guns descended in a mighty uproar on the German lines. Great columns of smoke, lit up by the many varied lights, arose from the bursting shells and drifted lazily across to the right"