World War I Articles | The Western Front Association

Articles on every aspect of the First World War written by experts in their field. Some were first published in Stand To! or Bulletin, others have been researched and written for the web. If you would like to contribute an article please get in touch.

U-36 and the Prince Charles

SM U-36 was a type U 31 submarine, commissioned on 14 November 1914 under the command of Kapitanl...

Was Lord Kitchener Gay?

Ever since the publication of the biography entitled ‘Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist’ by P...

The Air Raid on Chatham Drill Hall 3 September 1917

On 3 September 1917, the Chatham Drill Hall, then a glass roofed building, was being used as a te...

The Restoration of a ‘Lost’ War Memorial – Woodborough Road Baptist Chur...

The Woodborough Road Baptist church in Nottingham was an imposing late Victorian building, design...

Balloonatics during the First World War 1914-1918

There are many groups of combatants who could claim to be the ‘unsung’ heroes of the First World...

Running the Rufiji Gauntlet: The destruction of SMS Königsberg

Early on the morning of 6 July 1915 two warships slipped away from Tirene Bay on Mafia Island, an...

Gilbert the Filbert

Captain Basil Hallam Radford, No 1 Army Kite Ballon Section, Royal Flying Corps was born on 3 Apr...

'Roasting a sausage': Balloons, their crews, and those who shot them down

Although observation balloons had been used as early as 1794 the static nature of the conflict in...

Great War Crested China militaria of the Great War

Webinars which have been produced by The Western Front Association and watched live or via the Fa...

A Liverpool Lad at Ypres Pte Joseph Gough KIA 31 July 1917

“The Valley of the Shadow, 31 July 1917. Down in the valley the Steenbeek flows, A brook you may...

The First Non-Stop Transatlantic Flight by Alcock and Brown in 1919

In 1913, the Daily Mail newspaper offered a prize of £10,000 to ‘the aviator who shall first cros...

Vivian Hicking - a Grimsby Chum in India, drowned 3 June 1919

After the armistice, many men would have been returning to their homes after receiving their disc...