Welcome back to Season 4 of the podcast!
In this episode, we're on the little-visited battlefields around Fampoux, east of the city of Arras. These few acres of farmland became a slaughterhouse for the British infantry in April 1917.
The village of Fampoux and the fearsome Hyderabad Redoubt was captured with relative ease, but as they attacked and pushed east towards Roeux and its heavily fortified chemical works, German machine guns took a heavy toll on the exhausted British divisions.
We visit some of the cemeteries that litter the battlefield, hear the story of the 1st Rifle Brigade's attack on the Redoubt which resulted in the capture of a very unexpected prisoner and visit the magnificent Seaforth's memorial on the sunken lane outside Fampoux.
We hear about the heroism of a severely wounded officer whose bravery lead to the award of a posthumous VC, the youngest member of the Magic Circle whose father tried desperately to prevent him from going to fight and meet the eccentric and dangerous to know RFC officer who flew with a potato in his pocket and once chased a German aviator across a cabbage field at gunpoint.
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