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WW1 Digger History Podcast

WWI Digger Stories Podcast reproduces the diaires, memoirs and letters of the real participants in the war that changed the course of the 20th Century. What was it like to be in the trenches, on the ships or behind the big guns where death stalked in infinite ways and it was impossible to make friends unless you were prepared to lose tham at any moment.

This podcast is formatted with each diairy or memoir forming a series, usually taking the listener through the war from beginning to end, from raw recruit to returning veteran, as it was experienced by the soldier and in his (or her, when I include Nurses stories) own words.

Dec 19, 2020

Billy Sing was arguably the greatest sniper ever produced by Australia but as a Chinese Australian he was nearly denied enlistment and after the war almost forgotten. Billy died almost a pauper and alone at the age of 57. Here is his story.

The Ballad of Billy Sing is presented with the permission of Mr Jeff Brown.


Oct 27, 2020

The 7th and final part to the WW1 memoirs of Verdi Schwinghammer, who fought in the battles of Broodseinde and St Quentin Canal. There is no fighting in this one with Verdi sight seeing in Paris, Brussels, England and Ireland with some great observations of the immediate post era. Verdi returns home to his folks and we...


Sep 12, 2020

In this one, Verdi and 3rd Division take us through the Battle of St Quentin Canal with the Americans of the 27th & 30th Divisions, through Armistice and on to the early post war period. Of particular interest is the episode where Verdi treks through the old battlefields to find his cousin's grave and on his...


Aug 11, 2020

When some of our men went to bury the dead after the Battle of Mont St Quentin, when they were lifting up some of the dead bodies, bombs would explode and many of our men were killed this way. He laid these traps for us – placing a bomb under a dead soldier and when the body was lifted the catch from bomb would be...


Jul 11, 2020

The Australian 3rd Division Memorial sits above the town of Sailly-le-Sec for a good reason.... "We eventually arrived at Heilly. Passed a few stragglers – Tommies – the remnants of Gough’s British Fifth Army, which had been overtaken by disaster. The citizens had evacuated Heilly before we arrived. Here we dumped...