Jutland

Voices of the First World War

The first five programmes of Voices of the First World War 1916 explore the events of the year from the point of view of those who experienced them, from descriptions of the huge and costly battles that engulfed the British and French Armies on the Western Front to interviews given by Conscientious Objectors and their families.

In this, the second programme we hear vivid recollections from those who were caught up in and narrowly survived the dramatic and fast-paced Battle of Jutland, which took place across the course of a few hours.

Before the last survivors of the First World War passed away, the memories of some of those who fought it were captured in sound recordings. Speakers recall in great detail the conditions of the trenches, the brutality of the battlefield, and their psychological state in the face of trauma. The Imperial War Museum's holdings include a major oral history resource of remarkable recordings made in the 1980s and early 1990s with the remaining survivors of the conflict. Among the BBC's extensive collection of archive featuring first hand recollections of the conflict are the interviews recorded for the 1964 TV series 'The Great War', which vividly bring to life the human experience of those fighting and living through the war. In a unique partnership between the Imperial War Museums and the BBC, the two sound archive collections are brought together for the first time in this Radio 4 series. 'Voices of the First World War', a fifty-part series which began in Autumn 2014, broadcasts many of these recordings for the first time, and will run in short seasons throughout the commemorative period, tracking the course of the war.