Dan Hill
@DanHillHistory
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Professional Military Historian & Battlefield Guide. Bad boxer, worse cyclist. Leading
Joined June 2017
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This is Ted. For more than 90 years he was one of the thousands of fallen of
#WW1
about whom we know very little. A few years ago Ted’s nephew found a case when clearing out his loft. He called me and asked if I wanted to see it. What I found was just incredible. Here’s the story
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Remembering the 620 officers and men of the 1st Herts Regt who went over the top into a hail of machine gun fire near Ypres 103 years ago today. Within two hours every single officer and more than 75% of other ranks were killed or wounded. Lest We Forget.
#WW1
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Went ovee to see my Dad for a late father's day visit and he has just finished his handpainted staircase. Epic!
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For quite a few years now I have made a personal pilgrimage to this spot on the Somme. For me the epitaph Mrs Walter chose for her son's headstone is just word perfect.
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Thanks very much for taking the time to read and for the kind feedback. For all those who have asked, Ted's story along with a number of others appears in the new book I have been working on with
@Scarletboy44
- you can check it out here:
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I (and I might be alone in this!) find it pretty cool that the city of Rome still uses the abbreviation 'SPQR' Senatus Populusque Romanus on things like the drain cover across the city - its first recorded use was 2100 years ago!
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The remains of the village of Oradour-Sur-Glane, one of the most powerful places you could visit. After the SS massacred the population of more than 600 men, women and children in 1944 they burned it to the ground. Today the ruins stand as a silent memorial to a martyred village.
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There is something truly amazing about this footage. Taken in 1919 from a French airship, it shows the shattered remains of Ypres which had been relentlessly hammered by shellfire for four years.
#WW1
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Ted was not a famous soldier. He did not perform some uncommon act of gallantry which is remembered today. He was an ordinary lad from a sleepy village in Hertfordshire who simply did his duty. Whenever I go to France and pass by Etaples, I always remember to stop and say hello.
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This is simply the most powerful testimony of combat in the First World War I have ever seen. Stops me in my tracks every single time. If you have not seen this before, please spare a moment - it's worth your time.
How do you live with yourself, after killing another man? What would you have done in WWI? Visit to discover more.
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This tabletop in a pub in Leicestershire was signed by men of US 82nd Airborne just prior to departing for Normandy in 1944. A great piece of history! There must be loads of stuff like this hidden around the UK' pubs! Anyone else got a wartime addition?
#WW2
#pubhistory
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Remembering the 620 officers and men of the 1st Herts Regt who went over the top into a hail of machine gun fire near Ypres 105 years ago today. Within two hours every single officer and more than 75% of other ranks were killed or wounded. Lest We Forget.
#WW1
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When I got that call from Ted’s great-nephew almost 100 years later, in truth, I had no idea what to expect. But opening that case, what I saw took my breath away. It was Ted’s whole life. A time capsule, sealed since 1916.
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Remembering the 620 officers and men of the 1st Herts who went over the top into a hail of machine gun fire near Ypres 106 years ago today. Within two hours every officer and more than 75% of other ranks were killed or wounded.
See their story here:
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This memorial marks the spot where legendary Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy held off hundreds of German troops for over an hour by using a .50cal machine gun on top of a burning tank destroyer in one of the most incredible lone stands in military history.
#WW2
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Remembering 102 years ago today when 650 lads from my local Regiment went over the top on the opening day of 3rd Battle of Ypres. Over the course of two hours they lost every officer and 75% of other ranks killed, wounded or captured. Lest we forget.
#WW1
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Remembering the brave Czech agents and resisters who 80 years ago today fought for 6 hours to hold off massive German forces in this central Prague church until eventually overpowered. They had done the world a favour by assassinating nazi Reinhard Heydrich several weeks before.
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There are a fair few 'WW1' photos that have done the rounds over the last few years, almost always misidentified, sometimes with good intent, but often used to reinforce old myths, here are a few of the usual ones (and the truth behind them)... 1
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Have been working this evening to try and identify men on this amazing photograph of E Company, 1st Herts taken at Letchworth train station on 5th August 1914 and what became of them... such a long shot but please RT, maybe someone will recognise one of them!
#WW1
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102 years ago today one of the most iconic photos of
#WW1
was taken at the Riqueval Bridge over the St Quentin Canal. It had been captured three days previously by men of 137th Brigade who are here addressed by their commander. A really powerful place to visit today.
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106 years ago this evening Mrs Sarah Ambrose learned that her son Ted had died of wounds on the Somme. When she received his personal effects she locked them away in this suitcase. They stayed that way in the attic for 99 years. A stunning time capsule of one young man's life.
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The grave of Sgt Arthur Banks, whose end was truly horrific. Captured after being shot down he was tortured for days, being doused in petrol and set alight by Italian Fascists then thrown into the Po river. He survived only to be executed. Posthumously awarded the George Cross.
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207 years ago today, tens of thousands of troops went into battle at Waterloo. We often forget the ‘ordinary’ servicemen who marched and rode in Wellington’s ranks. So here’s the remarkable life of just one: George Arnold, a working class lad from a sleepy Hertfordshire village🧵
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His pipe with burnt tobacco inside from the last time he smoked it, a case still containing his unsmoked cigarettes, a sweetheart brooch from Gladys, a photo of his mum, the medals he never wore, and of course, that letter from dad.
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This is by far the most haunting example of the horros of
#WW1
I have ever seen and is a MUST watch. 👇
How do you live with yourself, after killing another man? What would you have done in WWI? Visit to discover more.
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Very sad to learn today that Robert Hébras last survivor of the Oradour-Sur-Glane massacre passed away today. The final witness to a tragic moment in history.
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In mid-1915 an 18-year-old lad called Ted Ambrose from a quiet village in Hertfordshire decided to do his bit and ‘join up’. He spent 9 months training before word came that he was heading for the Western Front. Just before he left, his dad, a man of few words, wrote him a letter
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80 years ago today this beautiful villa in the suburbs of Berlin was the site of the 'Wannsee Conference' where,15 men sat around a table and in 85 mins decided on the complete and systematic extermination of Europe's 11 million Jews. Then they had lunch. Never Forget.
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A few weeks later Mrs Ambrose received her boy’s effects, but couldn’t bare to look at them. She put them in a suitcase and closed it up. Opening it only once after the war to add the medals he never saw. Into the loft it went, where it remained untouched for over ninety years.
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Remembering Private Walter Flanders, E Coy, 1st Herts Regiment who was killed 107 years ago today outside Ypres, less than a week into his war. Walter and his entire section were buried by a German shell which collapsed the trench they were occupying. He was never seen again.
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This is a great bit of
#WW2
history in a Leicestershire pub. It's a carved table-top, signed by men of various US Airborne units whilst enjoying a beer shortly before heading to Normandy in 1944.
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I absolutely love history like this. A genuine Roman street, uncovered after two millenia, still with grooves worn into the stone from carts which passed down this road more than two thousand years ago.
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What an incredibly powerful epitaph chosen for the grave of Trooper Perrin by his wife. He fell in Italy in 1943 and is today buried at
@CWGC
Minturno War Cemetery. I wonder if she ever had the chance to visit.
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This huge section of the solid oak foremast (about 2 feet thick) of HMS Victory was shot clean through by a French roundshot at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Just imagine the power required to do that! On display at the excellent
@PHDockyard
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The remains of a candle, last extinguished some 103 years ago, still sitting on a chalk shelf in a recently opened tunnel beneath the Western Front. It's little, often unremarkable, things like this that I found most fascinating about visiting the battlefields of The Great War.
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You can't get much more powerful than the words chosen by Mrs James to go on her son's grave.
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About this time 75 years ago the residents of of Oradour-sur-Glane were enjoying a normal day in their picturesque French village. By nightfall, 642 men, women and children would be dead; massacred in 'reprisals' by SS troops. Today the village ruins stand as a silent memorial.
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Remembering the brave Czech agents and resisters who 78 years ago today fought for 6 hours to hold off massive German forces in a central Prague church until eventually overpowered. They had done the world a favour by assassinating nazi Reinhard Heydrich several weeks before.
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An unexploded British artillery shell at the side of a field on the Somme, likely fired in late June 1916. I find it fascinating to think that until a week ago, the last person to touch this shell was the artilleryman loading the gun which fired it 104 years ago.
#WW1
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Ted was buried the next day by the Padre who had written to his mum. He packaged up Ted’s belongings; his pipe, cigarettes, mirror, the French phrase book he hardly used, and that letter from his dad; carried with him wherever he went. He sent them back to Hertfordshire.
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It's hard to imagine Miss Flora Pickworth's feelings in 1917 on receiving her own letter to her brother, unopened and marked "killed in action". Whatever she thought, she kept it like that for the rest of her life. It was discovered in an attic, still untouched, 97 years later.
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This tabletop in a pub in Leicestershire was signed by men of US 82nd Airborne just prior to departing for Normandy in 1944. A great piece of history! There must be loads of stuff like this hidden around the UK' pubs! Anyone else got a wartime addition?
#WW2
#pubhistory
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Ted was unlucky. He arrived as the British were preparing to launch an offensive in a little-known place – The Somme. In his first spell in the trenches a shell exploded nearby, perforating his eardrums. At least in hospital he had a chance to write to his sweetheart Gladys
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Just before Ted was due to return, he came down with German measles. Gladys didn’t mind, it meant he was away from the frontlines a little longer. I imagine Ted smiling when he read her letter, she thought he must have been ‘cuddling a German girl’.
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Gravely wounded, Ted was taken out of the line and sent to a hospital on the French coast. News of that reached home about three days later. His mother immediately wrote to the Army asking permission to come over and see him.
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I love this photo! Taken on 8th August 1928 on the banks of the Ypres ramparts, it shows a group of Great War veterans of the same Battalion on their return to the Western Front a decade after the guns fell silent. Fascinating.
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78 years ago today Lt Paul Swank, an American OSS operative was killed by this roadside in southern France. Every year the local population turn out to pay their respects at his grave including this gentleman, a 97-year-old Maquis veteran who was with him when he fell. Incredible
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I have lost count of how many powerful epitaphs I have read on the graves of fallen servicemen over the years. Its strange how there's always that one which keeps calling you back. This one is mine.
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Of the thousands of war graves I have seen out on the old Western Front, this one on the Somme stands out. The epitaph Mrs James chose to adorn her son's grave it just incredible.
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80 years ago today from this university atrium in Munich, young "white rose" activists including Sophie Scholl dropped anti-nazi leaflets for fellow students. Sophie was spotted and arrested along with her brother and later executed by guillotine. Incredibly courageous.
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On 14th July a telegram arrived. It was the Padre from the hospital at Etaples. Permission refused. The timestamp on the receipt? 2.17pm on 14th July 1916 – Ted had died of his wounds an hour earlier.
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The quiet didn’t last. By 1st July Ted was back on the Somme. He watched on from reserve as 120,000 men attacked that morning; 60,000 being killed or wounded, most by the time those at home had finished their breakfast.
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In the words of Sir Laurence Olivier:
Down this road, on a summer's day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, a community which had lived for a thousand years was dead.
This is Oradour-Sur-Glane.
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I saw this captivating image yesterday, colourised by by
@marinamaral2
of a lad sitting on the ruins of a bombed home in London in 1940 and couldn't help but think he looked familiar. Turns out its the same boy who appears in that incredible intro to the epic World at War series!
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Of all the
#WW1
items I have seen over the last few years this stands out. The unsmoked cigarettes carried by Pte Ted Ambrose when he was mortally wounded on the Somme in 1916. They were returned to his mother after his death and kept locked away for a century.
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Spare a thought today for the thousands of men who went over the top 104 years ago in the opening phase of the 3rd Battle of Ypres. Some met with success, some were wounded but lived, others were never seen again. Here’s the INCREDIBLE story of just one man...
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An early start today to explore quite simply the most powerful and haunting place I have ever visited. Oradour-sur-Glane was just a normal French village on 9th June 1944. The following day the SS came. It's ruins today stands as a memorial to it's inhabitants destruction. 1
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In the words of Laurence Olivier in the World at War series, “Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, a community which had lived for a thousand years was dead”. This is the story of Oradour-sur-Glane. A THREAD
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Ted and the Bedfords went ‘up the line’ on the 7th July, and came under a massive artillery bombardment. In the space of an hour, more than 100 laid dead or wounded. Private Ambrose was amongst them; hit in the head, arm and leg.
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At this exact spot 77 years ago today, 2nd Lieutenant Audie Murphy almost single handedly held off an assault by 6 tanks & 250 German infantry using a .50cal machine gun on top of a burning tank destroyer for over an hour. He rightly earned the Medal of Honor for his actions.
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Here's a quick glimpse at some incredible tunnels beneath the battlefields of the Western Front - a system that runs for literally miles and still has a huge amount more yet to be explored. Love this.
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This is believed to be the shell of the town doctor's car in Oradour-sur-Glane. Abandoned here in 1944 when he was stopped on his rounds by SS troops and forced to join the other 600+ inhabitants who were summarily executed just a few minutes later.
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Last year I stayed at an old farmhouse in Normandy on a visit and speaking the the lady owner (who was a child there on D-Day) she mentioned that British soldiers had stopped there during the liberation in 1944. They had left these on the walls - unseen since 1944. Fascinating!
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Sometimes the simple epitaph's are the most hard hitting. Powerful words from the mother of young Gunner Wright who fell at Dunkirk - "To the world just a soldier, to me my beloved son".
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I like to look at this letter from time to time. It does me good to know that even in the most awful periods of history humanity can still triumph. This letter was written by a German soldier to the wife of his English 'enemy'. It's how she learned her husband wasn't coming home.
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I've had pretty limited time lately to really get stuck in to research and it's always a pleasure to get back to this little piece of work. I can't say how much it would mean to me to finally be able to put a name to each of these faces. Little by little...
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This vehicle was driven into the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on 10th June 1944 about the same time several hundred SS arrived. The owner, along with over 600 of the village's inhabitants were massacred over the next few hours. 78 years later it's still here.
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Been talking about the Ypres salient today and it reminded me of this stunning footage. It comes from a French flight over the devastated battlefields shortly after the guns fell silent on the Western Front. Powersul stuff.
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Sometimes a moving personal inscription on a
#WW1
headstone really makes you think, other times it completely stops you in your tracks. This is one. Wow.
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This is Jim Perry, 48 Royal Marine Commando, landed Juno Beach on
#DDay
and was wounded in the assault. He would love to know if there are any other surviving 48 Commando veterans around. Can anyone help? Please RT
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This little-visited fortified house on the approach to Dinant was held by a small group of French soldiers quite literally to the last man against the invading German Army in 1940. Today it stands as a memorial to the courage of those men who died defending it.
#WW2
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Sat down for lunch today beneath the Riqueval Bridge. Just incredible to think that a century ago we would have been sitting amongst several thousand British soldiers, each one long gone, but not forgotten.
#WW1
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This memorial marks the spot where legendary Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy single handedly held off hundreds of German troops for hours by using a .50cal machine gun on top of a burning tank destroyer in one of the most incredible lone stands in military history.
#WW2
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This penny was carried into battle on 13th October 1915 at the Hohenzollern Redoubt near Loos by a lad from Leicestershire. The owner was killed that day & the coin remained in his tunic pocket for 101 years until his body was discovered where he fell. His name remains a mystery.
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Undoubtedly one of my favourite
#WW1
photos. This a proud young Walter Flanders standing in his back garden the morning he left for war in 1914. Poor chap was buried alive near Ypres less than 48 hours after first reaching the frontlines and his body never recovered.
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Nice to have a chance to return to this little project today. It has taken five years to identify nineteen men in this great photograph and what became of them. I would love to think that one day they might all have a name again.
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Last year I stayed in a farmhouse in Normandy and chatting to the old lady that owner, she said that British soldiers had been billeted there after
#DDay
. They had written on the walls and would I like to see it?! Well, turns out it's amazing! Would love to know more about them..
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I'm very sad to report the passing yesterday of my friend Denis Gregson. Denis joined the Royal Marines in 1942 and commanded an LCM which landed on Gold Beach on D-Day. A quiet man, very thoughtful and a true gentleman, I will miss our chats more than I can say. RIP Denis
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This is a truly stunning piece of footage. It highlights that conclict of humanity and war in an incredible way. If you have an interest in history and have 5 minutes spare today, or any day for that matter, spend it watching this.
#WW1
How do you live with yourself, after killing another man? What would you have done in WWI? Visit to discover more.
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One of the truly horrific places in history. In this room at Natzweiler Concentration Camp SOE agent Andrée Borrel and 3 other agents were murdered. Borrel's last act was to scratch the face of her killer so badly that he was identified by the scar post war and executed.
#WW2
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There is something immeasurably powerful about epitaphs on
@CWGC
headstones. This one I make a point of visiting when on the Somme. For me Mrs Walter's chosen inscription sums up so much in so few words.
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If you ever find
#WW2
buttons for sale at a car boot or antique shop - give them a twist. You never know, you might find one of these rare (and very cool) escape compass buttons...
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If you have ever wondered why artillery shells were so devastating during
#WW1
, look no further than this. All this 'shrapnel' came from ONE shell. Imagine that screaming about a battlefield glowing red-hot at a few hundred miles an hour. Awful.
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One of the most powerful cemeteries on the Somme has to be this one. Almost all of the men here fell in the same Battalion within minutes of each other on 1st July 1916. The memorial at the entrance reads "The Devonshires held this trench. The Devonshires hold it still"
#WW1
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Such a privilege to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Major Anders Lassen of the SBS today. During
#WW2
he earned no less than THREE Military Crosses and was mortally wounded after capturing several German MG positions - rightly earning the Victoria Cross. He was just 24.
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The immense former
#WW2
German U-Boat pens at St Nazaire on the atlantic coast. The scale of these things is just unbelievable. The roof alone is 8m thick! Well worth a visit 👍
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Very sad to hear today that Formula 1 commentating legend Murray Walker has passed away aged 97. Less known generally but Murray was also a WW2 veteran, having served in Europe as a Sherman tank commander. The end of an era - RIP.
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It has taken a huge amount of research but i'm really proud to have identified a number of these men of the
#Hertfordshire
Regt, photographed in Bethune in March 1915. I'd love to be able to put a name to one or two more, a massive long-shot but please RT, you never know!
#WW1
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A regular, and sadly necessary reminder of the staggering determination and price paid by the French military in defending their homeland in two world wars. I honestly don't think this could be overshared. On ne passe pas.
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A proud Private Walter Flanders photographed in his garden on 5th August 1914, the day after war was declared. He landed in France on 5th November 1914 and was buried alive by a shell near Ypres on 18th November, only his second time 'up the line', poor fella. Not forgotten.
#ww1
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The amount of trenches still lying untouched in the Foret d'Apremont (St Mihiel salient) is just unbelievable. Miles and miles of them hidden away in the woodland. Well worth the exploration!
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One of the most famous hats in history. It once sat on the head of Napoleon Bonaparte.
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A regular, and sadly necessary reminder of the staggering price paid by the French military in defending their homeland in two world wars. I honestly don't think this could be overshared. On ne passe pas.
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