VC's of the First World War : Passchendaele 1917 by Snelling, Stephen

Phoenix Mill, 1998 , Sutton, UK first edition, FINE/FINE CONDITION, hard bound in dust jacket, 7 x 10 , 280 pages , profusely illustrated , bibliog , index.----------------------------------------------Of all the costly campaigns fought across the Western Front during the First World War, none strikes a more chilling chord than Passchendaele. Even now, more than eighty years on, the very mention of the name is enough to conjure up apocalyptic images of desolation and misery on a quite bewildering scale - humanity drowning in a sea of mud.Passchendaele has come to serve as a symbol of the folly and futility of a war chiefly remembered for its carnage and profligate waste of human lives. It also stands as testament to the endurance and extraordinary courage displayed by men of all ranks and all nationalities. During the three and a half month long struggle, which claimed the lives of more than 60,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen, sixty-one men were adjudged to have performed deeds worthy of the Empire's highest military award for valour - the Victoria Cross.-------------------------------------------------Men from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa were among their number, alongside men from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They came from all walks of life, counting humble privates and, for the first time, a general among their ranks. They won their awards, often in conditions that beggar belief, as a campaign of grand strategic ambition became bogged down in the Flanders mud.Of those sixty-one VCs, fifteen were posthumous awards, including the Bar to Captain Noel Chavasse, while five other recipients were destined not to survive the war.With the help of eyewitness accounts and many previously unpublished photographs, author Stephen Snelling has charted the lives and deeds of this heroic band of men, setting each act of gallantry into the context of the campaign in which it was performed. The VCs of Passchendaele 1917 stands as a lasting memorial to a body of men who deserve to be numbered among the bravest of the brave.