Alun Thomas completed his doctoral research in 2010. He is especially interested in operational analysis of the BEF in the First World War. He is a member of the Centre for First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham, the Western Front Association, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies and the Society for Army Historical Research. After teaching in a West Midlands comprehensive school for seven years, he served in the West Midlands Police for twenty-five years. He has presented on the British Upper Silesia Force to the Annual Conference of Irish Association of Russian, Central and East European Studies in Dublin in 2014. Alun Thomas is the author of a number of works including a chapter on the Action at Bois Grenier in Spencer Jones’ forthcoming book, ’Courage Without Glory: the British Army on the Western Front 1915’, also to be published by Helion, ‘Open Warfare during the 'Hundred Days' – 1918’, Stand To! The Journal of the Western Front Association, No. 96 (January 2013) and of a number of book reviews in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, the Western Front Association’s digital magazine and for the Centre for First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham. He lives with his family on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire.