Max Arthur is an oral and military historian and author who specialises in first-hand recollections of historical events, particularly the two World Wars of the twentieth century. He has worked closely with the Imperial War Museum

Imperial War Museum

Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...

 to bring together two books in the Forgotten Voices

Forgotten Voices

A series of audio tapes and books put together by the Imperial War Museum, the Forgotten Voices series brings the IWM's sound archive to life. The sound archive features thousands of interviews with people who survived wars in which the British were involved in the 20th Century...

 series, Forgotten Voices of the Great War

Forgotten Voices of the Great War

Forgotten Voices of the Great War is a collection of interviews with people who lived through the first World War. The book is part of the Imperial War Museum's oral archive....

and Forgotten Voices of the Second World War

Forgotten Voices of the Second World War

Forgotten Voices of the Second World War consists of interviews with soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians of most nationalities who saw action during World War II. The interviews were drawn from the Imperial War Museum's sound archive. Many of the recordings had not been heard since the 1970s...

. In the course of his work he developed a close relationship with the last surviving World War I veteran in the UK, Harry Patch

Harry Patch

Henry John "Harry" Patch , known in his latter years as "the Last Fighting Tommy", was a British supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe, and the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War...

.

Prior to becoming a writer, he served with the Royal Air Force, worked as a teacher and for some years was an actor. His love of football led him to write The Manchester United Air Crash and The Busby Babes: Men of Magic (2008).

Arthur's other books include Above All Courage, Northern Ireland: Soldiers Talking, Men of the Red Beret, There Shall Be Wings: The RAF 1918 to the Present, The True Glory: The Royal Navy 1914 to Present and Last Post. He has also presented two television documentaries: The Brits Who Fought For Spain (2008-9), a joint production by The History Channel UK and The History Channel Spain.

External links

• Forgotten Voices website