
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


It was a tragedy beyond comprehension. Soldiers who had survived the trenches, civilians who had weathered shortages and bombardment, now faced a new enemy: influenza. The virus tore through societies already weakened by war in 1918. According to one British nurse who recorded an interview with the Imperial War Museum, 'the mortuaries were so full we had the patients lying one on top of the other'. Dan Snow hears the accounts of those who survived it, from those in the front line and Prisoner of War camps, to those who were schoolchildren at the time in Britain, and were forced to look after their families and neighbours.
By BBC Radio 44.8
6161 ratings
It was a tragedy beyond comprehension. Soldiers who had survived the trenches, civilians who had weathered shortages and bombardment, now faced a new enemy: influenza. The virus tore through societies already weakened by war in 1918. According to one British nurse who recorded an interview with the Imperial War Museum, 'the mortuaries were so full we had the patients lying one on top of the other'. Dan Snow hears the accounts of those who survived it, from those in the front line and Prisoner of War camps, to those who were schoolchildren at the time in Britain, and were forced to look after their families and neighbours.

7,721 Listeners

1,053 Listeners

5,534 Listeners

1,797 Listeners

1,826 Listeners

1,085 Listeners

1,964 Listeners

4,808 Listeners

2,548 Listeners

764 Listeners

1,436 Listeners

47,516 Listeners

3,217 Listeners

763 Listeners

185 Listeners

15,817 Listeners

70 Listeners

3,566 Listeners

1,175 Listeners

141 Listeners

1,223 Listeners