In Which They Served

There are many books about Great War heroes. Relatively few are written about survivors and even fewer detail their whole lives or the wider context of their service. In this approach to the Great War, Richard Cullen takes the reader through history, led by the medals of five who served, each decorated for distinguished service; to wide-ranging political and military contexts, the personal side of their lives in war and peace, and the untold contributions that they made. What do the medals tell about the people who wore them? Where did they serve? How full were there lives? What wider historical and tactical contexts surrounded them?Readers will learn of aspects of service, battles and ways of making war that they might otherwise not have found in one place; philanthropy, volunteering, care for the injured, supplying an army, the dangerous monotony of the trenches, the Allied Intervention in the Russian civil war. Each of the subjects covered here led diverse lives. They served on land, in the air, and later at sea. Their stories are untold and open our eyes to the struggles that so many faced without formal recognition. In these varied and multi-layered accounts are tales of sadness, power struggle, modesty and compassion, bravery and a fulfilled post-war life.

"The depth of detail goes beyond the battlefield to describe the social and political worlds in which they lived and served. . . . There is much to learn and upon which to reflect. Readers will certainly be better informed. They may also feel their own emotions touched by the lives and fate of the five, and regret that such lives, representative of many others, have remained unknown and undervalued for so long. This is an unusual book, but it is well worth reading."

Richard Cullen caught the collecting bug as a young schoolboy while spending hours rummaging around junk shops. This included books about armies and battles, spawning a lifelong interest in military history. After forty years of international consulting work, he began to research the recipients of medals in his own collection and years of writing technical reports made way for crafting stories about them. Richard lives in Oxford where he is a member of a writers' group and he also produces the Journal on behalf of the Orders & Medals Research Society.