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Twelve Days on the Somme

A Memoir of the Trenches, 1916

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Twelve Days on the Somme

By: Sidney Rogerson
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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About this listen

A joint operation between Britain and France, the 1916 Battle of the Somme was an attempt to gain territory and dent Germany's military strength. By the end of the action, the Allied Forces had made just twelve kilometres. For this slight gain, more than a million lives were lost.

In this classic military memoir, Staff Sergeant Sidney Rogerson vividly captures the last spell of frontline duty performed by the 2nd Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. Awarded the George Cross for his service, Rogerson gives a frank and moving account of this notorious battle while demonstrating how he and his fellow soldiers faced the ordeal with resilience and good humour.

©1933 Sidney Rogerson (P)2024 Soundings Military Military & War World War I Memoir
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This is one of the best Great War memoirs I have read to date. Up there with Robert Graves’ ‘Goodbye to All That’. Highly recommend.

Excellent memoir

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An intimate and personal insight into the fatigue, deep mud, chores and randomness of life at the front in November 1916. Random death, random shells, proximity of artillery, snipers, haphazard trenches, lost men, illness, cold, rain, back breaking work and 6hrs sleep in 3 days. Hard labour and roaming minds. Dead bodies in no man’s land and unknown front lines. But a stiff upper lip regardless, discipline and camaraderie. A remarkable and well written interesting story of command and humanity in a putty coloured wilderness of mud, wire, debris, bodies and chalk spoil. 10/10.

An intimate and personal insight into the fatigue, deep mud, chores and randomness of life at the front in November 1916.

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I have listened to quite a few books on the First World War but this one is truly bizarre. The book begins with a criticism of those who reported the war with any negativity. Sassoon Graves, etc… this author seemed to love every minute. The book reads like a 12 day scout camp..
What a jolly time he had. This is definitely a “Dulce et decorum est’ chappie, son of a Parson , went to Cambridge- what fun.
I suggest the reader spends their money on Harry Patch who saw his mates shredded, or Robert Graves. Unless of course Enid Blighton releases “Five go mud larking in Pascendale “ or “ Alice’s Adventures in no mans land’ . It explains why we have learned nothing in 100 years - old men sending young men and women to their graves- with a hot cup of tea mind you …

Jolly Hockey Sticks and a nice bit of bacon and tea… just the ticket.. oh and half a million casualties

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