Footsteps of the fallen

The fields of fire - Hooge 1915

January 23, 2022 Season 3 Episode 14
Footsteps of the fallen
The fields of fire - Hooge 1915
Show Notes

Our podcast today takes us back to the fields around Hooge near Ypres where once stood Zouave Wood.  On the 30th July 1915, the Germans attacked men of the 8th Rifle Brigade and 7th Kings Royal Rifle Corps with a terrifying new weapon of war - the flammenwerfen -or flame thrower.

What followed was one of the disasters of military planning where senior command's refusal to listen to men on the ground caused the deaths of hundreds of soldiers in an attack that was fatally flawed from its minute of conception.