Captain Eric L. Bird M.C.
Edited by Sue Sturley

How the Vickers machine gun was employed by the British Army during the First World War.
Signing up as a Private in 1915, Eric found himself assigned to the (12th) Gloucestershire Regiment and in 1916 he was seconded to the Machine Gun Corps. Here he rose through the ranks receiving the Military Cross and accelerated promotion to Captain for his actions as part of a machine gun crew serving with 242 Company during the battle of Cambrai (Bourlon Wood) in late 1917.
In great detail we learn first-hand how training was organised within the Corps, how the hierarchy viewed the use of such weapons and how it was employed and eventually adopted as a mainstay of infantry support.

Praise for Machine Gunner On The Somme
‘One of the finest first-hand accounts of a machine gunner during the Great War’
Graham Sacker, Historical Researcher -
Machine Gun Corps Old Comrades Association

Pub date: 09 July 2011
ISBN: 9781908336224
Format: 152x229mm
Binding: Paperback
Extent: 164pp
Price: £11.95 PB / £16.95 HB
Publisher: Tommies Guides
Imprint: Reveille Press

BIC Classifications:
Regiments (JWTR)
British & Irish history (HBJD1)
First World War (HBWN)
Diaries, letters & journals (BJ)
Biography: historical, & military (BGH)
First World War, 1914-1918 (3JJF)