A personal and honest account of one man's war from the trenches of the Somme during World War One.
The book really conveys the emotion and sacrifice the men made during the war and how it took a toll on many of them.
It was a really enjoyable read, and well worth a look.
The ending was a little abrupt and left me wanting to know what happened next, but a great read all the same,

This is presumably a re-release of an existing book since it's a first-hand account of Norman Gladden's service during The Great War. Gladden writes clearly and honestly about his experiences and emotions, and I found this fascinating. I look forward to the next in the series.

Norman Gladden's The Somme, 1916 recounts the author's personal journey through the British Army in the First World War, towards the end of the Battle of the Somme. Across eight sections, Gladden details his experience from the mundanities of training, the horrors of combat and the process of recuperation.

Detailing both the start of war and his working life, Gladden sets the scene with a history of the outbreak of the war and the British response. He was a young man in his late teens, just starting his working life as a boy clerk in a Post Office Savings Bank. He then details his journey through joining the army and his training, before making his way to the European theater. Gladden's narrative is based on a diary he kept while in service, but was expanded following the end of the war. The author then went back through adding historical notes and rewriting it before it eventual publication in the 1970s.

What this has left us with it a compelling account of service in the British Army on the First World War's Western European Front. It includes the author's deeper feelings and thoughts of his experience of the war. However, as a primary source of world war I service it has lost some of its immediacy and power.

Written around fifty years after his experience, the reader is left with the older Gladden's recounting of his war service. I was frequently left to wonder what the post war diary contained. Was the younger Gladden also critical of his officers and fellow soldiers? When did he begin to consider himself a coward? I wish this had had the original diary reproduced with Gladden annotating or otherwise expanding upon those initial writings.

Readers looking for some idea of world war I front line experiences would find some useful content here, but those looking to more generally for British male perspectives of World War I service should read the classics of Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon.

I have read a good number of war memoirs, but not many from WW1. This one left me somewhat disappointed. I understand that it is diary-based and therefore the pacing is true to life. However, the long sections of relative inaction coupled with Gladden’s highly formal style create a drawn-out lull, almost pretentious-sounding to an American ear.

At 50-60%, the action picks up, and Gladden’s style settles into a more casual story-telling tone, making for a much more effective read and achieving the realities of war, which is the end goal for most of this genre. An abrupt ending completes the volume.

Thank you to the estate of Norman Gladden, Sapere Books, and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

An incredible first hand account which backs away from no unpleasant detail while also providing material insights into the experience of the “average” soldier. The Battles of the Somme seem, with the perspective of hindsight such a ridiculous waste of life and land and this soldier’s experience seems to reflect similar sentiments. A very well written book which shows the skill of the author in reflecting back on brief diary notes to provide an evocative, engaging description of the events.

The two world wars are often in a tight race to see which can have the most books published about it. While I think this book would have been fitting to publish in 2016, alas, editorial timeliness often cannot neatly match historical anniversaries. This is a riveting personal account from those who lived it, and suffered in it, edited by a historian whose future works I will be eagerly reading.