Boy Soldiers of the Great War: Their Own Stories for the First Time. This item is unavailable.Boy Soldiers of the Great War: Their Own Stories for the First Time

When war broke out in 1914, no one was more caught up in the popular tide of patriotism than the young boys who wanted to fight for King and country. This is their untold story - the heroics of boys aged as young as thirteen who enlisted for full combat training. It is the story of Dick Trafford who was gassed and wounded three times and went over the top with one ear drum burst by the noise of battle before he was just sixteen, and Frank Lindley who, fearful that he would see no action, joined the infantry and went over the top on July 1st 1916 when some 60,000 men were killed or wounded. At the time their stories were buried in censorship and government control. Now, the last survivors, all well over 100-years-old, have their chance to hand down their miraculous stories of sacrifice and survival. Drawing on these unique testimonies, as well as diaries and letters, Richard van Emden makes this truly insightful investigation into the perenially affecting topic of children and war.

Richard van Emden is a writer and television researcher specialising in the First World War. He continues to visit the battlefields each year and to interview the dwindling number of veterans and is Britain's foremost oral historian on the period.