VCs of the First World War: Cambrai 1917

In the latest volume of Sutton's VCs of the First World War series, Gerald Gliddon covers the men who won the VC on the Western Front in 1916 prior to the beginning of the Battle of the Somme on July 1st, together with those who won the medal after the Battle of Paschendaele petered out at the end of October 1917. Featuring the careers of 43 men, this volume tells the story of the Battle of Cambrai, famous for being the first occasion when tanks were used en masse. Its first day was so successful that church bells in Britain were rung in anticipation of a great victory. A tank crewmember numbers among the recipients of the VC. Containing biographies of a broad cross-section of men from Britain and the Dominions including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and even the Ukraine, this volume completes the series' coverage of the Western Front. It includes a sapper, a former miner, who chose to stay with his seriously wounded colleague underground and die with him, rather than obey an order to leave him and save his own life. Further accounts concern a maverick lieutenant-colonel who was relieved of his command and who later faced a court martial after refusing to carry out an attack which he believed would prove disastrous and a padre who worked tirelessly over a period of three nights bringing at least twenty-five men to safety from no-man's-land, who otherwise would have been left to die.