Chatham in the Great War

· Pen and Sword
Ebook
152
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

Discover a coastal English town's vital role in WWI with this local history covering Royal Navy actions and the pursuit of escaped German prisoners.
Home to one of the Royal Navy's three major dockyards, Chatham played a very important part in Britain's Great War effort. Only six weeks into the war, residents took a major blow as three vessels from the Chatham Division—HMS Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue—were sunk by a German submarine. Two months later, the battleship HMS Bulwark exploded and sunk whilst at anchor off of Sheerness on the Kent coast.
It wasn't all doom and gloom, however. Winston Churchill, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, visited Chatham early in the conflict. Two German prisoners of war, Lieutenant Otto Thelen and Lieutenant Hans Keilback, escaped from Donnington Hall in Leicestershire—only to be re-captured in Chatham four days later.
By the end of the war, Chatham and the men who were stationed there had truly played their part in ensuring a historic Allied victory. This volume vividly captures the town's service, sacrifice, and legacy.

About the author

Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Fathers Conflict, published in October 2010. Both Stephens grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.
When not writing Stephen can be found walking his three German Shepherd dogs with his wife Tanya, at some unearthly time of the morning, when most normal people are still fast asleep.

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