Before dawn broke over northern France on 4 November 1918, a 25-year-old British officer, Lt Wilfred Owen of the Manchester Regiment, headed out from a house in which British troops had been holed up in woodland near the village of Ors.
The Hundred Days Offensive was nearing its conclusion and Allied victory was just a week away. Owen had written to his mother from what he called the “smoky cellar” of that house five days earlier to reassure her that he was in good spirits. He intimated that it would all be over soon.
Whether your family members or someone you know were in active service, or in some supporting role at home or abroad, we’d like to hear their stories, and will be featuring some of them as we approach the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war.
