In Defence of the Realm

Dr. Richard Ormrod is a semi-retired academic who has taughtfor the Open University and continues to teach Creative Writing to adults underthe auspices of Rye Arts Festival, to which he has also given a number ofpublic lectures. He is a published biographer, journalist, reviewer and poet;and now also a literary critic. His first volume of sole-authored poetryappeared in 2025, with a second volume scheduled to appear soon.

• ContentsDedicated        3General Introduction. 6World War 1: Introduction.    12Chapter 1:       16Established Writers and Non-Combatants.    16Chapter 2:       49“Into cleanness leaping…”:   49Early Patriotism.         49Chapter 3:       60Trench Warfare: The Realities.         60Chapter 4:       87All Abram’s Sons.      87Chapter 5:       103Armistice and After.   103World War II. 118World War II: Introduction.   119Chapter 6        121Established Writers and Non-Combatants.    121Chapter 7        152The War in the Air.    152Chapter 8        217The War at Sea.          217Chapter 9        262The Italian Campaign & Other Fronts.          262Chapter 10      315El Alamein; North & East Africa Campaigns.          315Chapter 11:     376POWs. 376Chapter 12      401The War at Home:      401Civil Defence, Home Guard, the BBC.          401Chapter 13      447Army and Naval Intelligence.            447Chapter 14      478Changes in Attitude/Imagery/Prosody Between the Poetsof the Two World Wars.   478Chapter 15      502David Jones, In Parenthesis    502(“a shape in words”).  502Chapter 16      560Retrospective Perspectives: Larkin, Owen Shears, Ted Hughes,Ciaran Carson, etc.     560ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.   575Index   579