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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
00:00:06:04 - 00:00:30:17
Speaker 1
Hey, it's Matthew Cudmore and welcome to Story Behind the Stone. In today's episode, we're joined by Steve Smith, an accredited battlefield guide and author. Some of my favorite moments from this episode explore the profound emotional experience of standing the exact battlefields or history was made. The investigative research behind Steve's books, and why it is so vital to move beyond Hollywood narratives to understand the true reality of the world wars.
00:00:30:19 - 00:00:41:14
Speaker 1
Steve, thanks for coming on the show to share more about your life's work and to our listeners, thanks for tuning in.
00:00:41:16 - 00:00:59:00
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to Story Behind the Stone. A story talks service, sacrifice and story connecting you to the people doing the most interesting things in commemoration in history. My name is Matthew Cudmore and I'm so pleased to welcome to the show today, Steve Smith, Battlefield Tour Guide and author. Steve, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
00:00:59:02 - 00:01:00:18
Speaker 2
Thank you. Thank you for having me on this.
00:01:00:18 - 00:01:07:04
Speaker 1
To start, Steve, if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and what sparked your passion for your particular niche in history.
00:01:07:05 - 00:01:50:19
Speaker 2
Like you say, I'm a back to guy and author. Quick potted history ex Royal Air Force, ex Norfolk and Star B so I sort of dated 35 years military and then civil place. I'm married with three daughters and within all of that time I worked towards becoming what's known as an accredited battlefield guide. I've been a battlefield guy for 22 years now, work for two companies, Adapt to Travel, which is a school tours company, and Sophie's Great Wall Tours, which is a company that's essentially a bespoke battlefield tour company, where we type people across to see where their relatives served, or to state them and show them any battle you could think of, really.
00:01:50:19 - 00:02:19:21
Speaker 2
But predominantly that's first and Second World War. Passion wise. It's that that really started with me wanting to find out about my great grandfather, who served it in the East Kent Regiment known as the buffs, and as a kid, I can always remember seeing a black and white photograph of him in my grand parents house. And I got to know a little bit about him, but only very little because the family didn't really know much about him to be honest.
00:02:19:21 - 00:02:56:06
Speaker 2
They joined up in 1914 and served all through the war, was wounded in 1916 and killed in 1918. Sadly, even then they didn't really know much about that. And so I got taken across to France. When I was very young. I was probably about 12 or 13 years old with my brother and my mum and dad's dad gets horrendously lost in France, but eventually finds his place near playschool forces, where there's the memorial service where my grandfather is commemorated, and when he takes us into the cemetery and takes my me and my brother to this panel, there's a name F Smith.
00:02:56:06 - 00:03:18:00
Speaker 2
And that was it. And when I asked him questions, he couldn't answer them. And so it was like a spark because I wanted to know more about this person. You know, this this person who was killed in the war. And as a kid, I was interested in that sort of thing anyway. And so from that, I've been able to trace his path, really, his, his history, all the way from when he joined up to the time that he was killed.
00:03:18:00 - 00:03:56:10
Speaker 2
And I've actually walked to ground where, where he was killed. I had the honor to show my dad and my uncle and my aunt where all that happened. And so that spark has created everything that I do now, so that those questions I couldn't get answered when I was a kid, at the very least, what I can do for people now as a guide, whether that be school, kids or adults that I'm taking, I can answer those questions, whether that be very basic questions on the First World War or detailed questions about what might have happened to a relative that is literally standing in fields and saying, this was the trench and this, you know,
00:03:56:12 - 00:04:05:11
Speaker 2
I can state that your, your, your uncle, your grandfather or whoever was was here at that point in time. So that's the kind of very potted history of what I do.
00:04:05:12 - 00:04:13:02
Speaker 1
Tell me about the trip with your family. Was everyone together? That must have been just such a special thing to do together.
00:04:13:02 - 00:04:35:05
Speaker 2
It was the pinnacle, really. I think of me because, sadly, my uncle and my my dad have now passed away. My aunt is still around, but if you can imagine a 13 year old asking his dad these questions and he couldn't answer them, although he'd taken the time to actually locate the cemetery. And bearing in mind, you know, at that time no such thing as social media, no such thing as a satnav.
00:04:35:05 - 00:04:54:03
Speaker 2
So he did it all by getting to this place under his own state and using maps or whatever. So to be able to take those two, because they had been brought up with the story as well by their dad, who had obviously lost his dad in the First World War, he leaves a wife and seven kids. And so it impacted on the family.
00:04:54:03 - 00:05:15:09
Speaker 2
So much so that, you know, through the generations that's become the story. So is literally start them off, a place called loose, where my great grandfather first saw action in 1915, taking them all through to the Somme in 1916, where he was wounded, and then to the point where he gets sent back into the military, into the army.
00:05:15:09 - 00:05:38:01
Speaker 2
In January of 1918, after he recovered from his wounds to be killed on the 21st of March 19, 18. And for us to actually lay this personal wreath on the ground, roughly where we knew that he might, might have been, was one of the greatest things for me to do for my dad and my uncle, just as a family thing to say.
00:05:38:01 - 00:05:42:21
Speaker 2
You know, your grandfather's story, my great grandfather story. So yeah, it was a great honor to do it.
00:05:42:21 - 00:05:49:16
Speaker 1
What are the reasons that people are taking these tours with you? And what would you say to people that are considering doing it?
00:05:49:17 - 00:06:10:15
Speaker 2
There's a number of reasons. I think, as you can imagine, there's always going to be a general interest in the history of either the First or Second World War. And because of that, as I say, people are really interested in just seeing those sights and where it all happened. But a lot of it comes from the fact that they would say to you, I knew my grandfather if they survived.
00:06:10:15 - 00:06:37:19
Speaker 2
For instance, I knew my uncle, or even down to the fact I knew my dad, but they never talked about it. And so what we're doing in some respects is providing that blank space of family history and filling it so that people can see where these men and women served and either sadly paid the ultimate sacrifice or having survived that go back to their lives.
00:06:37:19 - 00:07:00:21
Speaker 2
People nowadays, even if you think the Great War, you know, is over a hundred years, but there's still an interest in all of that, and sometimes it could be based on promises. So I've taken people across that promised their grandmother, for instance, that one day they'll go across and look at where somebody served and was killed. I've taken, funnily enough, a couple of Canadians across that one.
00:07:00:21 - 00:07:20:22
Speaker 2
One of the things that I wanted to do while they were there was to lay ashes from. It was a guy's mum whose dad had served with the six Battalion, Royal West Kent, and then emigrated to Canada about ten years after the war. But that was a significant step. While a mum was visiting her son in France, he passed away.
00:07:20:22 - 00:07:40:12
Speaker 2
So not only was I showing them where these grandfathers served, but I was also trying to find the grave of this guy's great grandmother so that he could lay ashes from his mum onto the grave. So there's just so many stories that I could tell you. And we would we would be here all day maps if I carried on doing it.
00:07:40:12 - 00:08:07:12
Speaker 2
I think a lot of it is just the interest in what somebody did. And of course, with watching all these films that we've seen in recent years, I think that also promotes interest for people. And I think, you know what, actually, I want to go across to to Europe and I want to go and see where such and such served, or even, as I say, as a general interest to go and see these sites so that I can actually see what it was like on the ground and perhaps get away from the Hollywood side of things.
00:08:07:12 - 00:08:13:03
Speaker 2
Don't get me wrong, I think that's great what they do, but sometimes it's actually looking at the reality of it all.
00:08:13:05 - 00:08:20:04
Speaker 1
Steve, tell me a little bit about what it's like to guide folks from this side of the Atlantic over whether it's in the UK or in continental Europe.
00:08:20:04 - 00:08:43:16
Speaker 2
Again, it's an honor to do it. I've taken across Americans, Canadians, Australians, those are probably the countries that come to visit because obviously of the connections between, again, both wars, everybody's got stories about while they're there. And most of it is to do with a relative of sorts. And so it's just amazing to me to learn about somebody new.
00:08:43:17 - 00:09:08:03
Speaker 2
I can never go through life as a guide, not thinking that I know it all because you don't. The reason I say that is that when I bring somebody new, I might be walking over perhaps familiar sites, but it's a new story that I'm learning about somebody's family, and whether that be again, that the relatives served and was killed sadly, or they survived and then came back and they wanted to know more than it was.
00:09:08:03 - 00:09:33:18
Speaker 2
It's just something that is is just an amazing thing to do. And it's also it's connecting, isn't it, with people, I think. So all the people so far that I've taken across, I've form friendships with and I still keep in touch with them. And that to me is a great way of of that whole kind of just learning about other people's lives and where we all live and how we all connect.
00:09:33:18 - 00:09:37:12
Speaker 2
And ultimately we're all pretty much the same only when we think about it.
00:09:37:13 - 00:09:44:17
Speaker 1
Tell me a little bit about your process, and is there any particular story that you'd like to share of guiding the family over, or maybe from America?
00:09:44:17 - 00:10:28:00
Speaker 2
It was a brother and sister, and they wanted to what we might call a bucket list tour. So they had an interest in history, and what they wanted to learn about was aspects of the Western from. So I was able to show them a lot of British stuff in relation to a place called the East Salem, but able to connect them to the American history, because there is a part of that battle area where American soldiers served in 1918, funnily enough, staying with the British division all through the war from their time that they went into France and Belgium and did not end up going into Pershing's army.
00:10:28:02 - 00:10:51:21
Speaker 2
So they actually stayed with with us. And for some really spectacular actions. There's a memorial to the south of, of place where you can literally stand and take people and show them where these American units served, with great distinction. Anyway, while we were there, the guy says to me that his wife was sent a message saying, got a relative over there.
00:10:51:21 - 00:11:10:17
Speaker 2
It's not someone you can imagine. That's can be difficult because if that relative is somewhere else in Europe, you can't necessarily do anything about it. But I said, okay, who is it? He's French sound guy. Okay. French. Because what what I learned from them anyway is that originally they came from France, from a place called Lille and emigrated to the US.
00:11:10:17 - 00:11:34:03
Speaker 2
So what we find out is that this French relative was killed around them in rage, funny enough. So it's very close to the Canadian battles. But of course, for me was a French battle in 1915. So I might do a bit of research. And I say to them, look, if you want to, we can alter the itinerary so that what we can do is we can actually go to the cemetery where this soldier's buried.
00:11:34:03 - 00:11:56:22
Speaker 2
And of course, they leapt at that. It was great. And we were able to go up to this cemetery school not to die on the right. And it's got about 10,000 French soldiers buried in there that pretty much from that sector around Semi Ridge, which is in Artois area. And we went to the grave and they were able to pay their respects to, to somebody that they were related to.
00:11:56:22 - 00:12:26:18
Speaker 2
And again, it was something that really helped to make that tour. And since then I've also been told that they're looking to come across again. And from that time, because I said I still keep in touch with people, we found out that they've also got another relative that served in the French army that was killed in 1914. I'm hoping that I'm going to be taking them across this year, but it's still not finalized and it may not happen, but if I can, we will be taking them to see again where somebody else from that family served.
00:12:26:20 - 00:12:39:06
Speaker 1
What did you do to prepare for all that? Sounds like you had to do some work on the fly, but ideally, if you have enough time, what is the research that you're putting into these tours and how do you make it so special? Personalizing that experience for those families.
00:12:39:06 - 00:13:04:17
Speaker 2
My first tour will be April this year. Brother and sister again, funny enough, British and I'm going to be showing them where two great grandfathers served. One was Royal Engineers railway troops and the other one was infantry. And so for five days I'm going to be taking them across and showing them either where grandfather served with the railways was positioned, or we're going to follow grandfather who was in the infantry.
00:13:04:19 - 00:13:28:17
Speaker 2
Now, the way that you can do that nowadays, obviously, thankfully online you can go to places like ancestry. So you know the genealogy site, those sites tend to hold military records. So you would find the military records, whether it be on that sort of thing, if the individual was killed, you've got the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, if it's Americans, for instance, American Battlefield Commission.
00:13:28:17 - 00:13:51:08
Speaker 2
So, you know, all these different places that you can use to start to build a picture of the individual that you're going to be looking at, then you've got so many great sites nowadays where you can find war diaries or histories. And so then you build on that with looking at where regiments were, units were positioned, what they were doing on specific days.
00:13:51:08 - 00:14:11:12
Speaker 2
If you hit gold dust an awards hour, you might find after action reports, you might find maps. All of that builds up into a tour where you will then say, right, okay, we're going to do an itinerary now, and in that itinerary we're going to start on day one, mostly trying to follow a timeline to take the people around.
00:14:11:12 - 00:14:37:16
Speaker 2
And that is is literally sometimes not sometimes a lot of the times just standing in a field talking about what happened. But nowadays we've got bits of kit, like there's something called linesmen. Now there's like a tablet with that tablet, I can show a guest on a map exactly where we are, and we can alternate between trench maps, for instance, and modern day maps to actually show the person.
00:14:37:18 - 00:14:56:06
Speaker 2
This is the trench. This is or this is a position where we know that your relatives regiment was on this particular day. This is for the Great War. Sadly, it's not for the Second World War, but if we're not using bits of kit like that, we can research and find maps anyway that we will use. It's called smelling the cordite.
00:14:56:06 - 00:15:13:21
Speaker 2
So what we're trying to do, if you can tell the story properly, then you're doing that you're smelling the cordite is the kind of whole battle aspect, isn't it, that that people talk about it, you know, the smell of a battlefield, this is filled with cordite. It's doing that. But it's having the ability to tell a story. And we can do that really well.
00:15:13:23 - 00:15:41:22
Speaker 2
Certainly if we're using accounts or after action reports to tell an individual how this person served. An example of something that I did with that, two Australians go across and they are following great Uncle Rollo, who served with the 58th Battalion, Australian Infantry. And Rollo was a very lucky individual and you might not think he's lucky in a minute when I tell you the story, but very lucky individual.
00:15:41:22 - 00:16:06:13
Speaker 2
He ends up in Egypt. So from Australia into Egypt, Egypt to the west and from. And the first battle he sees is in June of 1916 at a place called From Now, where it's a major failure. The battle itself was supposed to be a diversion to the main battle of the Somme, though it was happening further north with British Australian troops involved in that, Canadian troops involved in that.
00:16:06:13 - 00:16:36:03
Speaker 2
But in this aspect, it's a diversion. To try to draw white German troops involves Australians and British divisions. Initial gains in this attack ends up with the Germans managing to sort of beat off the advance. In the end, the overall commander gives an order no more advances. Sadly, Rollo's Battalion do not get that message and he witnessed two companies of a four company Italian being decimated.
00:16:36:05 - 00:17:03:04
Speaker 2
When I say lucky, it's because Rollo was in one of the other two companies that didn't go over the top. And so he sees all that, for instance, and then after they've in, pulled out the line for that battle in late 1916, after the battle of the Somme is ended in November, Rollo finds himself in that battle area where the Australians take over quite a big patch of some area where we've got to a point where we've had farms as far as we can.
00:17:03:04 - 00:17:24:13
Speaker 2
Early 1917, the high command gets wind, the Germans are moving back. The moving out of that area are moving back to pre-planned positions, which your listeners and you may have heard of it called the Hindenburg Line. So it was a pre a new position that they move away from. So they basically give up ground and move away. But we don't know that for sure.
00:17:24:13 - 00:17:59:00
Speaker 2
And what the order is given then is that for the Australians in the line to go out into no man's land, carry out patrols and find out if the Germans are manning the trenches opposite. And so we do that. They go across sometimes they don't find Germans in the trenches and sometimes they do. Rollo goes out on a patrol in March of 1917, and they have the misfortune to find Germans in the trenches opposite them, and it ends up in a firefight, where Rollo is shot through the neck and survives and this is amazing.
00:17:59:00 - 00:18:29:02
Speaker 2
This is amazing to me. If anybody thinks about the kind of thing that you think about, First-aid right. Even in an environment where you can perhaps get an ambulance or medics to you quickly, being shot through the neck is actually on his service record, shot in the trachea, so people are able to give him first aid on the battle ground, get him back to a trench, stabilize him, move him back to something called an advanced dressing station, and then eventually to something called a casualty clearing station.
00:18:29:05 - 00:18:49:21
Speaker 2
And the cast clearing station is where you would get the best care you can to stabilize you before being evacuated. And that's what happens with Rollo. He's evacuated back to the UK. It's the end of his war. Lucky. Unlucky, you know, obviously badly wounded, but survive. And luckily for him, that's the end of his war. Goes back to Australia.
00:18:49:21 - 00:19:15:05
Speaker 2
So I'm taking these two people across. And because I've got the information from the Australian War Memorial where you can download official histories, you can download War diaries, I know exactly where that patrol went. And I could stand these two people in a field. And with my linesman say, this is the trench that Rollo went into before he was wounded.
00:19:15:07 - 00:19:37:02
Speaker 2
It ended up with the Lady Louise, bless her, who a new Rollo. She said that, you know, I seem to remember them when she was a teenager, falling to her knees and just becoming so overwhelmed. For her, it was a closure thing that she got to see where Rollo had been and was able to sort of see where he sat because she remembered him as such a lovely uncle.
00:19:37:02 - 00:20:02:03
Speaker 2
She just wanted to do that, to remember what he'd gone through and remembers, you know, seeing the wound, the remains of his wound around his neck when she was younger. So that's the sort of thing we get and the reaction that we might get. And it's what I call having a moment where something will resonate with you when you go across an atoll and it may come out of the blue, or it may be that you know you're prepared for it because you know where you're going.
00:20:02:03 - 00:20:08:19
Speaker 2
But ultimately, you know it happens and it's something again, you understand as a guide, it can be an emotional experience for somebody.
00:20:09:00 - 00:20:19:11
Speaker 1
You're touring folks of all ages around, and you do a lot of work engaging with the next generation as well. What do those tours look like? How are they different, and what does it mean to you to be passing the torch?
00:20:19:11 - 00:20:50:06
Speaker 2
Remembrance kids in the UK, they study history. They can do exams, what we call GCSEs in history, English literature or medicine. And all of those exams will have an aspect to do with the Great War. So it could be the history of the Great War, it could be about the poetry. So the poets, the famous poets or not just about the Great War, but, you know, poets in general that have written about war in different forms or how medicine evolved in the Great War and how things kind of moved on.
00:20:50:06 - 00:21:27:04
Speaker 2
And so my job as a guide is to take school groups across and show them those different aspects. So it could be a generic tour where what we'll do is we'll take kids to predominantly. I've mentioned already eight in Belgium and down to the Somme. It's not so much detail, but they are still looking at sites, so we might stand them at a place called the Sunken Line, you know, a place called Beaumont Hamel, and we can show them photographs of where the first Battalion, Lancashire Fusileers went over the top on the 1st of July 1916 and ended up sadly being cut down in the field next to this sunken line.
00:21:27:06 - 00:21:46:14
Speaker 2
So that helps for the kids to kind of like get an idea of what it was like to serve in the trenches. We'll take them to cemeteries. We don't just take them to Commonwealth cemeteries, we'll also take them to German cemeteries. There's a place called Langham, Ark, for instance, near eight, where we can show them the difference between the German cemeteries and the all Commonwealth cemeteries.
00:21:46:14 - 00:22:13:14
Speaker 2
And they're very, very different because I'm trying to use to think about how will you bring this alive? So is it visually? Is it going to be auditory? Is it going to be through reading something or is it just something, you know, kinesthetic? So are they standing somewhere and just trying to experience, you know, the fact that it's raining, for instance, and they get an idea that we're going to be wet, but we're going to go back to a hostel later, where these men spent 3 or 4 days in trenches before they had the ability to go back.
00:22:13:14 - 00:22:44:15
Speaker 2
So, you know, just trying to get them to understand that there's a place called Essex Farm just on the outskirts of the town, and it's got about 1200 graves in there. It's got a 15 year old boy that's buried in that cemetery, and everybody goes to see this individuals, somebody called Valentine Joe Strudwick, and we can talk about underage lads joining up and you know, I will use not only the biggest lad, but he might always be the eldest as well to say, you know, do you think this guy would be able to join up underage and lie about it.
00:22:44:15 - 00:23:05:15
Speaker 2
And we have a debate about it. But the other thing is, the Essex farm was where the Canadian doctor John McCrae was, who penned In Flanders Fields. The story of that is that he was there for the second battle of in 1915, treating the wounded for that battle. And his friend Alex Helmer is brought in to that advanced dressing station.
00:23:05:15 - 00:23:23:22
Speaker 2
And while Alex is waiting to be treated sadly, a shell comes in and kills him and a number of other people, and it really affected John McCrae. And he writes, the power of the Flanders fields and there's a line within that poem that says, the torch be yours to hold it high. If you break faith with those that line fonds fields.
00:23:23:22 - 00:23:54:22
Speaker 2
And so what I say to the kids is that you might come back here at a later date when you're older, and you will certainly remember aspects of the tour. It may just be that you had a really good time with your friends, and you went into the town and you bought some chocolate from a chocolate shop. But I said, I can also guarantee that there'll be something within this tour that you will remember, and you might then come back to this area at some point in time, later on with whoever it is.
00:23:55:01 - 00:24:14:17
Speaker 2
And you might think, actually, I'd quite like to go back and see that cemetery that I went to as a kid. And I'll say then, is that thinking about the poem? I'm giving you the torch. I'm now handing you the torch as the next generation to keep that torch burning, hopefully resonates with them. That remembrance has to be something that carries on.
00:24:14:17 - 00:24:43:20
Speaker 2
No matter how many years we go by. And certainly I know with the kids they do have an interest in this. As long as you do it right, they really do become quite an engaging bunch of individuals that really, really do get a lot out of it. And it's even that we might just see a message that they've written in a cemetery register just to say that, you know, they've been to that cemetery and thank you for what you did, you know, thank you for your service, as we will remember them and stuff like that.
00:24:43:20 - 00:24:50:07
Speaker 2
So, yeah, that's what I kind of do with the kids. And I really do enjoy doing that because they are the next generation coming out.
00:24:50:09 - 00:25:06:14
Speaker 1
It's really special to hear how you're engaging with them. You're humanizing that history. You're making it real for them. You're really doing something special there. And, you know, I wasn't expecting you to mention how much I've visited his grave at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa. Have you visited the Menin Gate to see his name?
00:25:06:17 - 00:25:15:01
Speaker 2
Every year I'm there because every tool that we take that goes to that town, we will always go to the Manning Gate ceremony.
00:25:15:01 - 00:25:16:08
Speaker 1
This is with the school groups.
00:25:16:08 - 00:25:18:10
Speaker 2
Yes, and adults as well. What is it.
00:25:18:10 - 00:25:19:17
Speaker 1
Like to attend one of those?
00:25:19:17 - 00:25:43:15
Speaker 2
It's an amazing emotional experience. Imagine that the Belgian Fire service, or certainly the Belgians in that town, have been doing that since 1928. The only time it stopped had been in the Second World War when the Germans wouldn't allow it. And every night isn't it? They go and do that ceremony at 8:00 without fail. They've done it through things like Covid.
00:25:43:18 - 00:26:03:06
Speaker 2
At that time it was just one solitary bugler with nobody there. I've been there when there's been very few people stood up to look at the service or where you can't actually get into the memorial arches itself to have to stand outside and still listen to what's going on. It could be just a couple of buglers with very few people.
00:26:03:08 - 00:26:36:10
Speaker 2
You also have bands or military units come to pay their respects, typos, all manner of different things. I've seen over the years. And I think the most evocative you will ever hear is if you ever get a lone piper playing some form of pipe music while the ceremony is going on, people lay raised and they said they they'll go there and they'll lay raves, either on behalf of the school, for instance, or it could just be a personal pilgrimage, or it could be for a regiment, it could be all manner of different things.
00:26:36:10 - 00:26:50:22
Speaker 2
And so while that's going on, you've got maybe have a pipe playing. That's when you definitely get a little bit grit in your eye. And and so listening to that and just thinking about the immensity of the always is just quite an amazing thing, really.
00:26:51:00 - 00:27:04:05
Speaker 1
I'd like to turn the lens to your books. You've authored and published four books. Your most recent was published just a few months ago. Can you share a little bit about your body of work, and give a sense of what readers should expect when they crack open one of your books?
00:27:04:05 - 00:27:24:23
Speaker 2
So the first book is, a self-published book which looked at the war memorials of my village of worsted in Norfolk, and Westwick, which is the village next to it. And the connection for that being is that a lot of the men worked on what was known as the Westwick estate, and so they all joined up, for instance, in the First World War, Second World War as well.
00:27:25:00 - 00:27:47:22
Speaker 2
And that was looking at what happened to each of the men where they were, how were they killed? So it's just a story really, of each person on the memorials and where they were. The second book was quite by chance. I was recommended to a publishing editor on social media by a friend who said, I think you need to speak to Steve.
00:27:47:22 - 00:28:14:10
Speaker 2
And through that, this editor from the History Press said, can you write a book about Norfolk in the Great War? And so that book, the remit was it has to be home from and the fronts where men and women served. And what subjects can you bring into that sort of book? Very quickly. The first Zeppelin raids ever carried out on mainland UK happened to be at a place called Great Yarmouth in King's Lynn in Norfolk.
00:28:14:10 - 00:28:34:13
Speaker 2
And so, you know, I was able to write about that. I was write about what it was like to serve as a woman that went to work in the factories or became part of the Red cross. And so bringing to life, you know, individuals and going through the timeline of the Great War. And from that I learned a lot more about the Norfolk Regiment and where they served.
00:28:34:15 - 00:29:15:17
Speaker 2
And so because of that, and because of guiding and seeing Norfolk Regiment graves and actually touching on sites in France and Belgium where the Norfolk served, my next book was about the Norfolk Regiment on the Western Front. So that looks at the five battalions that served in France and Belgium from 14 to 18. That brings in stories about things like the first Battalion, Norfolk Regiment, experiencing the Christmas truce and being one of the only battalions, along with the sixth Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, to actually play football on Christmas Day.
00:29:15:18 - 00:29:35:22
Speaker 2
Because that's a big myth, but we can definitely state that the Norfolk's and the Cheshire is played football against the 16th Reserve Infantry Regiment, a place called Wolves again. And so we wrote about that and the myths about it. Oh, but then things like the fact that the eighth Battalion, Norfolk Regiment was there on the 1st of July 1916.
00:29:35:22 - 00:29:59:15
Speaker 2
So they went over the top on the first try, the Somme, which is still known as the greatest defeat that the British Army ever suffered because we lost 60,000 men killed or wounded or captured on that day. And it was just, you know, writing about the regiments where they served at any particular time through the timeline for 14 to 18, but not just about the story of the regiment using accounts.
00:29:59:15 - 00:30:24:03
Speaker 2
So there's lots and lots of accounts about, from what the men experienced. But it also acts as a guidebook so that people that have an interest in the Norfolk's, whether that be through relatives or just a general interest, can actually go to the sites that I write about. Because what I certainly did for that book and the next book is I walked the ground so I could actually stand all the places that the Norfolk served in and say, this is where it was.
00:30:24:03 - 00:30:48:14
Speaker 2
And if you ever want to go, hey, you need to go X, Y, and Z to get to these places. So anyway, the most recent book is about the fifth Battalion of the regiment that served at Gallipoli, and this is more of a bit of a mystery book because they go across to Gallipoli in August of 1915. That battle has been raging since April 15th.
00:30:48:18 - 00:31:15:19
Speaker 2
The idea was that it's in Turkey. If we can smash through what was known as the Dardanelles Straits or body of water, if we can get through there and capture that strait and the area around it on the land, if we can get into the Marmara Sea and basically capture what was known as Constantinople, now, obviously Istanbul, and essentially that was to campaign.
00:31:15:19 - 00:31:42:18
Speaker 2
But it didn't work, and it just bogged down into like, again, trench warfare. After the initial landings in April, they launched another set of landings in in August on the 6th of August 1915. And so the Norfolk's come into that on the 10th of August and on the 12th of August, having only been there for two days, they go over the top with their brigade, the 163rd Brigade, and go into action.
00:31:42:18 - 00:32:07:22
Speaker 2
And then the report is that they go into advance, and the Turks and advance into a wood, and I quote, and disappear from sight and sound, never to be seen again. That story, you can imagine, then burst out because there were people within the battalion that could be linked to the royal family, essentially because they worked on the Royal State at Sandringham.
00:32:07:22 - 00:32:29:22
Speaker 2
So the King takes interest in where the men from Sandringham, what what's happened to them and stories then come out about? Well, they were all captured and shot in cold blood by the Turks. You can go even to the extreme that there are theories that they were abducted by aliens, funny enough. And so the book, what it does is look at all the different theories.
00:32:29:22 - 00:32:53:07
Speaker 2
And because I come from an investigative background, from my time in the police, I've looked at all of the theories and put it down to look at the truth and myths of the old and so, for instance, as an example, I can give you where they all shot in cold blood. Not really. You could prove that by the fact that at least 35 men became prisoners of war, and they were documented as prisoners of war.
00:32:53:08 - 00:33:13:12
Speaker 2
The story goes 0.2 barn and shot falls to the ground. When you kind of look at that kind of evidence, I do, cos is a bit of a mystery, but because, as I say, I do cover the the Abducted by Aliens in the chapter. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the sort of UFO aspect, but in this instance now again, that's not how it pans out.
00:33:13:12 - 00:33:23:21
Speaker 2
But you know, you've got to cover everything in a book, I think. And if I didn't cover that sort of story, then people would have said, well, why isn't this a thing? Yeah. So that's basically the four books that I've written.
00:33:23:21 - 00:33:28:19
Speaker 1
And what's next for you in your research? Are you currently working on a book or a project? Anything you could share?
00:33:28:20 - 00:33:54:23
Speaker 2
I'm helping the Royal Norfolk Regiment Museum at the moment, sort of documenting trench maps. So they've got a load of archival trench maps that were carried by various people in the First World War, and they don't really know how to use them, whereas that's my bread and butter work. So I'm kind of documented that putting it into a timeline, so they know that this trench map came from this battle or from this aspect of the First World War.
00:33:54:23 - 00:34:16:12
Speaker 2
I've kind of had a bit of a break from writing, but there's a couple of ideas that I've I've got that I'm working on. One of those I'll kind of keep to my chest, but the other one is I got to learn about some individuals again from a particular battalion. The Norfolk's the ninth Battalion, and they've written some really interesting histories and the archives as well.
00:34:16:12 - 00:34:34:05
Speaker 2
So what I would like to do is put some of that together, perhaps in the book as well, and tell the story. This is really zeroing in on individuals as opposed to perhaps units, if that makes sense. You know, it's going to be a more of a personal book about their journey and their experiences in the First World War.
00:34:34:08 - 00:34:47:00
Speaker 2
And of course, you know, I've got six tours already this year, so lots of planning for that. And, and stuff that you have to do. It's a heck of a lot goes into that before you even put boots on the ground. So yeah, busy.
00:34:47:01 - 00:34:56:11
Speaker 1
It's the 110th anniversary of the Somme. This year. What does this anniversary mean to you, given your great grandfather's service and your work that continues today?
00:34:56:11 - 00:35:20:01
Speaker 2
Although I won't be there for the anniversary, my daughter Lily asked me last year, Will you take me across so I can see some of the First World War stuff? And I'm like, yeah, okay, you know? Great. So I've said to her that what we'll do is we'll look at some aspects of the Great War. But I said, what what are you thoughts on you looking at, you know, sites where your great great grandfather served.
00:35:20:03 - 00:35:47:14
Speaker 2
And she went, yeah, I'd like to do that. So the Somme itself then for my great grandfather is that they weren't there for the 1st of July. They were still in Belgium. Then that happened on mid July. They end up on Somme and in August they are put into the line for the 18th of August 1916, where there is an attack around two areas known as Gilman and Del would.
00:35:47:14 - 00:36:26:22
Speaker 2
Delvaux would actually translate from French into English as Devil's Wood, and they go over the top and as it goes to numbers, you're talking about 9000 men going over the top. And sadly, most of that attack ends in failure. Apart from the area where my great grandfather's regiment, the eighth Battalion, East Kent Regiment, the buffs were. But in that advance he's wounded and it looks pretty much like he was actually wounded by his own artillery because they were advancing behind what's known as a creeping barrage.
00:36:26:22 - 00:36:47:15
Speaker 2
So the the artillery shells are moving or the, you know, the arteries is moving constantly as the infantry moved. But the acceptance was that we would take a certain percentage of casualties from our own artillery. Sadly, whether he was or whether it was enemy, we don't know. But what we do know is that he's wounded and he writes a letter.
00:36:47:17 - 00:37:05:17
Speaker 2
He writes a letter to his wife while he's been waiting to be cleared out of a casualty clearing station. And I quote, he says, I've been in the carry on on the Gilman front. And that was his interpretation of a 9000 man advance. And then he goes on about here. I've been wounded in the foot and the leg.
00:37:05:17 - 00:37:39:15
Speaker 2
Never seen anything like it. But the boys held on in this kind of business, and within five days he's been evacuated out of France, back to the UK, where he was then sort of treated for his wounds. So I'm going to be able to take Lily in May and show her exactly where that was. For me, it's quite an emotional thing anyway, to do that, to be able to show my daughter what her great great grandfather was will also be, you know, quite an amazing thing to do, really, to just to see, you know, what what she thinks of the all really, I suppose more than anything.
00:37:39:17 - 00:37:41:07
Speaker 2
So yeah, that's what I'll be doing this year.
00:37:41:07 - 00:37:43:20
Speaker 1
Where can listeners find your work and follow you online?
00:37:43:20 - 00:38:12:17
Speaker 2
I do have a WordPress site, which is that's Steve Smith, 1944 WordPress, and there's lots of little blogs that I've written about various aspects to do with the Norfolk, but also other subjects as well. It's not just about Norfolk. There's some other interesting bits and bobs on there. My books, the three main books you can find if you're interested are Great War Britain, Norfolk, which is the one about Norfolk in the Great War that's published by the History Press.
00:38:12:17 - 00:38:42:20
Speaker 2
That still available North Regiment on the Western Front, which is published by Fonthill. Although they are now part of the publishing company called Pen and Sword, and the same for the Gallipoli Book. You will find the book at Pen Sword, so they're all available online if anybody wants to obviously purchase them. I do have a bit of a so I've got battlefield guide training, which because I train other people to be battlefield guides, I often post on there about what I'm doing as well when I'm doing tours and stuff like that.
00:38:42:20 - 00:38:46:02
Speaker 2
So that's kind of my social media presence, really.
00:38:46:05 - 00:39:04:23
Speaker 1
Steve, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you, learning more about your craft, your process, the impact that you're having on families, grateful for the work that you're doing, and hoping that your trip in May is as profound as it sounds. You and Lily, thank you again for coming on the show today.
00:39:04:23 - 00:39:13:02
Speaker 2
It's been a pleasure, Matthew. Thank you for having me on.
00:39:13:04 - 00:39:26:04
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for tuning in. Story. Behind the Stone is available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on the Rise Across America Radio Network on iHeartRadio. Audacity and tune in to search for wreath.
00:39:26:06 - 00:39:27:07
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in.