Details of the speakers for our 2013 meetings can be found below.

You can see our programmes for the last four years by clicking these links :- 2012 2011  2010  2009

January 9^th 

Fraser Skirrow

Fighting Spirit—Patrolling & Raiding 1917-18

Opinion is divided over the role of patrol actions in trench warfare. Using detailed accounts from war diaries and letters, contemporary and modern photos, this talk looks at the development of patrolling and raiding in a battalion. It examines who was involved, how the patrol and raiding war actually worked, what was achieved and discusses whether the emphasis on patrolling had any effect on the fighting ability of a battalion as a whole. Fraser is a former TA officer and an amateur military historian.

February 13^th

Trevor Harvey

Development of the Canadian Corps

The Canadian Corps was formed when the 2nd Canadian Division moved to France in September 1915, and placed under Lt-Gen Sir Edwin Alderson, then Sir Julian Byng (May 1916), and finally by Sir Arthur Currie (from June 1917 onwards). It eventually grew to command all four Canadian Divisions. From formation, with the exception of early 1918, the Canadian Divisions always remained together as a national Corps. Due to Currie's opposition, their brigades were not reduced from four to three battalions, as happened to British formations in early 1918. Trevor has an MA in First World War Studies and is currently working towards a PhD concerning the role of brigadier-generals at the Battle of Arras.

March 13^th

Ian Passingham

Back With The Mates I Left Behind: A Frontline Medical Officer from Passchendaele to Allied Victory

This talk is based on the wartime experience and life of Major Donald Dunbar “Pom” Coutts DSO, MBE, who served with the 24th “Red and White Diamond” Battalion AIF, of 2nd Australian Division, in the final year of the war on the Western Front. Donald was to return to France and Flanders in 1971 as the senior Australian Army representative for the unveiling of the replacement 2nd Australian Division Memorial at Mont St. Quentin, near Peronne. Ian Passingham served for over seventeen years in the British Army in both the Royal Hampshire Regiment and in staff appointments in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, the Falklands, Kenya, Germany (including Berlin) and the former East Germany, (where he was the Operations Officer for the British Military Liaison Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany (“BRIXMIS”)). He was educated at the Duke of York’s Royal Military School, Dover and the University of Keele, as well as the Royal Academy Sandhurst and the Army Staff College at Camberley. He left the Army as a Major in 1995 to pursue a second career as a defence analyst and historian. As a defence analyst, Ian has worked for the Ministry of Defence on diverse issues including the psychological effects of direct fire weapons and mines, counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, intervention and stabilisation operations, the tactical use of battlefield helicopters since the early 1950s and urban warfare in Chechnya, Bosnia and Vietnam, as well as similar studies on urban conflict at Cassino and Ortona in Italy, Stalingrad and Berlin in the Second World War.

April 10^th

Dr. Diane Atkinson

Elsie and Mairi Go To War: Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front

Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm were the two most famous women of the First World War. They met at a motorcycle club, and when war broke out they roared off to London 'to do their bit'. Within a month they were on the Western Front and had set up their own first-aid post a hundred yards from the villiage of Pervyse, near Ypres. They became famous as the 'Angels of Pervyse'. Journalists and photographers told their story, royals and VIPs visited them. Elsie and Mairi were decorated with seventeen medals for bravery and self-sacrifice. Diane lives in London where she was a history teacher before becoming a lecturer and curator at the Museum of London, specialising in women's history.

May 8^th

Members’ Evening

+ the branch AGM

Members’ evening plus branch AGM. Further details will be published nearer the time.

June 12^th

Neil Hanson

The First “Great Escape” - The Break-out from Holzminden POW Camp in July 1918

Holzminden was the most heavily guarded POW camp in the world. It was a brutal punishment camp, housing 700 prisoners of all nationalities. To escape would take boundless ingenuity and nerves of steel. Many tried. Every attempt failed, leading only to ever-tighter defences. But on the night of 23 July 1918, 29 undaunted Allied prisoners achieved the impossible. They had spent 9 months digging a tunnel over 150 feet long through the foundations of the barracks and under the walls and barbed-wire fences, to the farmland beyond. In this talk, historian Neil Hanson explains how they did it - and of the many who had failed before them.

July 10^th

Jon Cooksey

Falklands Hero: Ian McKay – Last VC of 20th Century

At the height of the bitter battle for Mount Longdon during the Falklands War , 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment’s assault has stalled in the face of determined resistance. With his platoon held up by an Argentine machine gun, it falls to Sergeant Ian McKay to act. The machine gun has to be silenced to break the deadlock. Gathering a small group together, Ian McKay leads them in a headlong dash into the teeth of a withering fire. His was the final act of a man who lived, breathed and was shaped by the Parachute Regiment: an act which earned him a posthumous Victoria Cross. This is the story of Ian McKay: the last British hero of the Twentieth Century.

August 14^th

Professor John Derry

Foch: Architect of Victory

Professor Derry's talk will explore the role of Marshal Ferdinand Foch in the allied victory in 1918. At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Foch's XX Corps participated in the brief invasion of Germany before retiring in the face of a German counterattack. Ordered west to the defence of Paris, Foch's prestige soared as a result of the victory at the Marne for which he was widely credited as a chief actor while commanding the French Ninth Army. The failure or stalemate of subsequent offensives led to his removal from command. Recalled as Chief of the General Staff in 1917, Foch was ultimately appointed "Generalissimo of the Allied Armies" in the spring of 1918. He played a decisive role in halting a renewed German advance on Paris in the Second Battle of the Marne, and was promoted Marshal of France.

September 11^th

Craig Campbell

Poor Sons of Rich Fathers

This talk charts the research undertaken by branch member Craig Campbell into the lives of two lieutenants whose families in Britain were living over 300 miles apart, unknown to each other, and the many coincidences and similarities between them which cropped up in the course of his investigations.

October 9^th

Jerry Murland

Retreat & Rearguard, 1914

The British action at Mons on 23 August 1914 was the catalyst for what became a full blown retreat over 200 miles. In this talk based on his book published by Pen & Sword, Jerry will examine some of the eighteen ensuing rearguard actions that occurred over the twelve days of the retreat. While those at Le Cateau and Nery are well chronicled, others such as cavalry engagements at Morsain and Taillefontaine, the Connaught Rangers’ action at Le Grand Fayt and 13 Brigade’s fight at Crepy-en-Valois are virtually unknown. We learn how, in the chaos and confusion that reigned, units of Gunners and other supporting arms found themselves in the front line.

November 13^th

Bill MacCormick

A Forlorn Endeavour: 46th and 56th Divisions at Gommecourt, 1st July 1916

The costly diversion that caused disaster to both VII and VIII Corps on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The talk is based on two self-published books: Pro Patra Mori – The 56th (1st London) Division at Gommecourt, and, A Lack of Offensive Spirit – the 46th Division at Gommecourt. Based on over six years of research, Bill examines the tragic sacrifice of so many men in what was a mere diversionary attack designed to deflect attention away from the main Somme offensive.

December 11^th

The Chris Baker Christmas Lecture

The British army in North Russia, 1918-20 — Part 2

This will be Chris Baker’s eighth annual lecture. In his seventh lecture he introduced the genesis of the Allied intervention in Bolshevik Russia. This time he will explore the muddled and under-resourced campaign in the Murmansk and Archangel areas during 1919-20 and the final withdrawal from the Arctic.