Our World War
Three true stories of British soldiers fighting in World War 1. Each one takes place at a different time and place in the war, focuses on a different unit and shows a different aspect to the war. In Episode 1 it is 1914 and we follow an infantry company defending a bridge in the Battle of Mons. In Episode 2 it is 1916: a soldier is on a firing squad, formed to execute a deserter after the Battle of the Somme. In Episode 3 it is 1918 and we follow a tank crew at the Battle of Amiens.
- 2014-2014
- 1 season
- Action & Adventure, Drama
Three true stories of British soldiers fighting in World War 1. Each one takes place at a different time and place in the war, focuses on a different unit and shows a different aspect to the war. In Episode 1 it is 1914 and we follow an infantry company defending a bridge in the Battle of Mons. In Episode 2 it is 1916: a soldier is on a firing squad, formed to execute a deserter after the Battle of the Somme. In Episode 3 it is 1918 and we follow a tank crew at the Battle of Amiens.
Season 1 Episode Guide
4 Episodes 2014
Episode 0
High Wood: Interactive Episode
Make decisions for a young Corporal - Arthur Foulkes - as he leads a section of men during the attack on High Wood in 1916.
Episode 1
The First Day
58 mins
Two weeks into the Great War a detachment of the 4th Royal Fusiliers, led by Lieutenant Maurice Dease arrives in South Belgium, setting up temporary camp in the town of Mons. Following a nocturnal encounter with Belgian refugees they learn that their task is to defend the Nimy bridge over the Mons canal against the German advance though the Royal Engineers would prefer to blow the bridge up. Dease captures a wounded German who tells him that he is not ready for the conflict but Dease, a professional soldier, waves this aside. However, after an eight hour skirmish the Germans win the battle of Mons. Four or the British combatants are awarded the Victoria Cross, three of whom will survive the war though Dease's medal is given posthumously.
Episode 2
Pals
57 mins
The Battle of the Somme, follows the extraordinary real journey of a soldier in a Pals regiment, from enlisting, through his first brush with warfare, the experience of hand-to-hand combat in fearsome and unexpected conditions and the challenges of no man's land.
Episode 3
War Machine
57 mins
In 1918 Chas Rowland is part of the crew of the Niveleur Mark V tank under the down-to-earth Lieutenant Mould along with family man Fred Firth, young mechanic Michael Weston, a conscientious objector conscripted to the unit and the hardened Scot Dodds, whose brothers have all died in the war. The tank takes part on the first day of the battle of Amiens, mowing down Germans whilst the RFC bomb from above. Firth is wounded but survives and the unit moves to the town of Amiens for hand-to-hand fighting. After four days the German army is broken and the war about to end though the crew are one of the few to return from the battle and none of them has the heart to shoot a weeping German boy soldier who has surrendered to them. The war over Chas goes to see the widow of a man he has never known but discovered a letter home on the man's corpse and reads it to her from memory. An end title explains that, at the age of eighty-two, Chas recorded his memories of the war for his family.
