Birmingham Pals

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View books in the Service) Battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (The Pals Series.

VERY BEST BOOK OF ITS TYPE IN AGES - Rated
I am a retired Army Officer and pretty much gobble up military history as a passion. This book is simply superb. The author has gone to great efforts to present a picture of Birmingham, its citizens and the very nature of a society that has long since passed. The detail supporting the photographs is astonishing and the number and quality is also first rate. Mr Carter is clearly someone of exceptional dedication and ability. He has done Birmingham proud. I should add that I hail from Dorset and have no associations with Birmingham but I feel some affinity now thanks to the author!

Outstanding and moving history of a city at war, 1914 - 1918 - Rated
The First World War continues to cast a long shadow. This outstanding series of books traces the history of the 'Pals' battalions, not just as fighting men of the largest volunteer army Britain has ever fielded, but also as young men from specific towns and streets. Their loss left an empty place in their communities, shown in carefully preserved letters and photographs and names carved on war memorials.

Terry Carter's book is a labour of love, charting the story of the three battalions raised by the city of Birmingham at the outbreak of war in 1914. This is social as well as military history, with the letters home and workplaces of the Pals given as much emphasis as the grim list of familiar names: Arras, Somme, Passchendaele.

I have to confess a personal interest in this book: my great-grandfather, Private 15/1594 John Heath 14th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment died of wounds received at Guillemont on the 28th of August 1916 when the Battle of the Somme was at its height. He is listed is the Roll of Honour in the book's appendices, and his photograph looks down from the wall as I write.

Wilfred Owen said of the fallen of the war that 'Their flowers shall be the tenderness of patient minds'. This moving and human book more than fulfils that function.