Britain at War 2015-03

THE LAST GREAT CAVALRY CHARGE 1918

HEROIC RIDE OF FLOWERDEW VC R

BRITAIN’S BEST SELLING MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY

GALLIPOLI 100

NAVAL DISASTER

THE ONE THAT

NEW PHOTOS FOUND

GOT AWAY

AIRCRAFT OF A GERMAN POW ESCAPEE

EXPOSED: DO-OR-DIE RESISTANCE

Shock Sections, Saboteurs In The British Countryside. Are They Fact or Fiction?

THE FIRST BIG PUSH OF WW1 Neuve Chapelle, March 1915: What Really Happened

LAST THROW OF THE LUFTWAFFE DICE + THE RACE TO RANGOON 1945

MARCH 2015 ISSUE 95 £4.40

Bachmann F_P.indd 1

04/12/2014 10:28

From the www.britainatwar.com Should you wish to correspond with any of the ‘Britain at War’ team in particular, you can find them listed below: Editor: Andy Saunders Consultant Editor: Paul Hamblin Editorial Correspondents: Geoff Simpson, Alex Bowers, Mark Khan Australasia Correspondent: Ken Wright Design: Dan Jarman EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES: Britain at War Magazine, PO Box 380, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 9JA Tel: +44 (0)1424 752648 or email: [email protected]. ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES: For all aspects of advertising in ‘Britain at War’ Magazine please contact Alison Sanders, Advertisement Sales Manager Tel: +44 (0)1780 755131 or email: [email protected]. GENERAL ENQUIRIES: For general enquiries and advertising queries please contact the main office at: Britain at War Magazine Key Publishing Ltd PO Box 100, Stamford, Lincs, PE9 1XQ Tel: +44 (0)1780 755131 Fax: +44 (0)1780 757261 SUBSCRIPTIONS, BINDERS AND BACK ISSUES: Britain at War, Key Publishing, PO Box 300, Stamford, Lincs, PE9 1NA Email: [email protected]

SUBSCRIPTIONS, BINDERS AND BACK ISSUES HOTLINE:+44 (0)1780 480404 Or order online at www.britainatwar.com Executive Chairman: Richard Cox Managing Director/Publisher: Adrian Cox Commercial Director: Ann Saundry Production Manager: Janet Watkins Group Marketing Manager: Martin Steele ‘Britain at War’ Magazine is published on the last Thursday of the preceeding month by Key Publishing Ltd. ISSN 1753-3090 Printed by Warner’s (Midland) plc. Distributed by Seymour Distribution Ltd. (www.seymour.co.uk)

All newsagents are able to obtain copies of ‘Britain at War’ from their regional wholesaler. If you experience difficulties in obtaining a copy please call Seymour on +44 (0)20 7429 4000.

Editor A

S I have previously noted, this year sees an almost overwhelming number of significant anniversaries tied to events of the First and Second World War and in Britain at War we will be marking them appropriately, although perhaps not all of those events will be ones that will be instantly well known to our readership. Some of them, of course, will be better known and in our examination of them we will look at aspects of those anniversary stories that have, perhaps, had comparatively little coverage and shine a spotlight where it has not often fallen. A case in point is our coverage, this month, of the naval bombardment at Gallipoli in March 1915 and the battle at Neuve Chapelle during that same month. Gallipoli, of course, is better known for the disastrous campaign after the April landings, but relatively little has been written of the naval action that preceded it. As for Neuve Chapelle, it is a battle that is well-known in the history of the war but in Peter Hart’s feature we look at its wider historical significance. Not all of our content, though, is anniversary led. Although we have quite recently looked at another First World War cavalry story, the account in this issue of arguably one of the most famous cavalry actions of that war is truly breath-taking. If nothing else, the fact that mounted cavalry charges were still a feature of a mechanised war that was utilising tanks, machine guns and aeroplanes on an industrial scale is astonishing, quite apart from the sheer heroics of the cavalrymen charging in the face of the modern weaponry ranged against them. These, surely, were incredibly brave young men and the exploits of one amongst them, Gordon Flowerdew, stands out as a hero amongst heroes. As is so often the case with historical events, especially those arising from the chaos and mayhem of warfare, the facts sometimes become blurred and legend often replaces the reality. Such might well have been the case with Flowerdew’s cavalry charge of 1918, but separating out the fact from the fiction does nothing to diminish the extraordinary courage and determination of this man and his heroic cavalry troopers. Indeed, Steve Snelling’s piece in this month’s issue gives us a faithful presentation of the man and the charge for which he became famous. If anything, it leaves the reader in greater awe of his actions — notwithstanding the fact that we are also left questioning some of the claims that have since surrounded the wider significance of the event. In fact, placing episodes like these under the lens of retrospective historical analysis and examination surely better serves men like Gordon Flowerdew if we can highlight their bravery and remarkable deeds whilst, at the same time, paying them the service of helping to ensure their stories are remembered accurately and objectively. In doing so, those stories, like the story of Gordon Flowerdew VC, are enhanced in the telling.

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part and in any form whatsoever, is strictly prohibited without the prior, written permission of the Editor. Whilst every care is taken with the material submitted to ‘Britain at War’ Magazine, no responsibility can be accepted for loss or damage. Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor or Key Publishing Ltd. Whilst every effort had been made to contact all copyright holders, the sources of some pictures that may be used are varied and, in many cases, obscure. The publishers will be glad to make good in future editions any error or omissions brought to their attention. The publication of any quotes or illustrations on which clearance has not been given is unintentional. We are unable to guarantee the bonafides of any of our advertisers. Readers are strongly recommended to take their own precautions before parting with any information or item of value, including, but not limited to, money, manuscripts, photographs or personal information in response to any advertisements within this publication.

© Key Publishing Ltd. 2015

Andy Saunders (Editor)

COVER STORY

When Luftwaffe fighter-pilot Oblt Franz von Werra was shot down over southern England in his Me 109 during 1940 there began a legendary tale of repeated escape attempts, the story of his remarkable exploits made famous in the book and the film ‘The One That Got Away’. Less well known is the story of his Me 109 and how, in part, it lived on in the guise of a flying test example operated by the RAF until it ended up, here, in American hands during 1942 where it was later written off in an accident. The cover image shows the Me 109 in highly unusual markings.

www.britainatwar.com

3

Contents ISSUE 95 MARCH 2015

FEATURES

54

26 LAST ROLL OF THE DICE

74

When the Luftwaffe launched its final offensive on 1 January 1945 it caught the RAF unawares and on the ground. While the damage inflicted was serious, one RAF ground-crew member portrayed the lighter side of things through a set of cartoons.

48 RESISTANCE BRITAIN

With the threat of invasion during 1940 secret units were set up to counter and harry the invading forces ‘behind the lines’. We look at some accounts relating to these mysterious units.

26

48

54 THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

German POW Oberleutnant Franz von Werra was famous as ‘The One That Got Away’. We take at a look at his extraordinary tale but focus particularly on the story behind his Messerschmitt 109 captured during the Battle of Britain.

74 THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY

Seventy years ago the last major battles took place in the war in Burma as the Allies pushed forward against the Japanese and raced headlong for Rangoon before the monsoons set in. We look at that historic campaign in the first of a two-part series.

4

www.britainatwar.com

SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE ! A subscription to Britain at War offers great savings on cover price. See pages 90 and 91 for details.

REGULARS 10 NEWS FEATURES

News and events covered this month include the mystery of Flt Sgt Copping, his aircraft and why it's a headache for the RAF Museum, as well as a lost VC, a candidate for the real War Horse and how you can now search WW1 military hospital records.

23 FIELDPOST

Your letters and emails.

34 RAF ON THE AIR : A TRICOLOUR TO PARIS

The graphic and exciting account of a daring Beaufighter sortie to the French capital.

72 FIRST WORLD WAR DIARY

We chart some of the principal events of the First World War 100 years ago, month by month.

82 IMAGE OF WAR

A Typhoon fighter-bomber photographed with its pilots on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

84 GREAT WAR GALLANTRY

As the First World War rolled on, so the announcements of British and Commonwealth gallantry awards began to increase in The London Gazette. We examine some of the acts of bravery announced in March 1915. Lord Ashcroft also selects his ‘Hero of The Month’.

92 DATES THAT SHAPED WORLD WAR TWO The events of March 1945 examined.

94 RECONNAISSANCE REPORT 38 NEUVE CHAPELLE: THE FIRST OFFENSIVE

The Battle of Neuve Chapelle 100 years ago saw the first organised British 'big push' of the First World War and had mixed outcomes. We look at the significance of that action and the important lessons learned by both sides.

98

106

A look at new books and products.

113 WHAT I WOULD SAVE IN A FIRE

Another curator picks an item to save from the flames.

114 THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN OBJECTS

A fund-raising pin flag issued by the Smokes for Wounded Soldiers And Sailors Society.

Editor’s Choice

98 BONFIRE OF THE BATTLESHIPS

The infamous Gallipoli operation began during March 1915 as a purely naval affair. Like the ill-fated land campaign that would shortly follow, the sea action was also doomed, having limited effect and suffering major losses.

106 SOUTH SEAS DEBUTANTS

Far away from what became the mud and horror of the Western Front, the Australians embarked on their country’s first independently mounted military operation in order to seize German held colonies in the Pacific. Until now, it has been a little-told story.

62 FLOWERDEW'S CHARGE

Did this heroic cavalry charge snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in spring 1918? We unravel the truth of Lieutenant Gordon Flowerdew’s courageous action, which earned him a Victoria Cross.

www.britainatwar.com

5

BRIEFING ROOM |

News • Restorations • Discoveries • Events • Exhibitions from around the UK

First World War ‘Time Capsule’ Found

AN ASTONISHING First World War ‘time capsule’ has been uncovered in a Hertfordshire school. The trunk, holding the personal effects of a Lieutenant Howard Hands was discovered in storage in the history department of Highfield School. With some remarkable items in immaculate condition, mystery surrounds how the belongings came into the school’s possession. Along with Lt. Hands’ neatly folded uniform, other items include his officer’s cap, belts, photographs, a cigarette case, a bedpan and newspapers from the many countries in which he saw action. Hands’s time in the services saw him fight in every

major theatre of the conflict, including Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, and then on to the Western Front. “It is a great reminder of the fact that the First World War was not only fought in the muddy fields of Flanders but also in the deserts and mountains in locations across the globe,” says Dan Hill of ‘Hertfordshire at War’.

Lieutenant Hands later went on to be awarded the Military Cross in 1919 and died at the age of 69 during the 1950s while on holiday in the present-day Zimbabwe. Mr. Hill said: “The items offer a fascinating glimpse into the life of a man who rose from the ranks to become an officer and whose entire military career

and personal artefacts are contained within the trunk.” The time capsule is currently displayed at Highfield School to help educate students. Head of History John Grant, who found the capsule, said: “We hope that Howard himself would have been pleased that his possessions would go on to teach others.”

Thiepval War Memorial Restoration

THE COMMONWEALTH Graves Commission has announced plans for a major restoration project of the Thiepval War Memorial ahead of the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme next year. With more than 72,000 British and South African War Graves located

at the cemetery, Thiepval War Memorial is one of the most visited First World War grave-sites in France. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens — the same sculptor known for the design of the Cenotaph in London — and was unveiled in 1932. CWGC’s Western Europe

Area Operations Director, Richard Nichol said: “This is one of the most important pieces of restoration work that is being undertaken by the organisation for some time and will ensure that both the monument and the surrounding landscape are ready for the Battle of the Somme

Centenary.” Restoration work is due to commence in early spring 2015 and will be completed in time for the centenary commemorations in July 2016. (Look out for a feature on the memorial, including never before seen images, in the April edition of Britain at War.)

HOME FRONT DETECTIVE: HELP WANTED IN THIS new regular feature, every month a Britain at War reader will seek your help. This month, we are looking to preserve a building that might be threatened by development. Reader Nigel Bailey is looking for any information he can find on Park Works, Borough Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey as he would like to seek Listed Building status for it. During the war, it was occupied by H.D. Symons, who he believes may have manufactured glass fabrics as a form of insulation, possibly for electrics used on the Hawker Hurricane. A catalogue listing from 1956 describes the business as follows: “Symons (H.D.) & Co. Ltd. (Estd. 1919). Park Works, Kingston Hill, Surrey.

6

www.britainatwar.com

Varnished glass, “Terylene”, nylon, silk and cotton in rolls and reels, Flexible combination slot insulations,, some incorporating glass fabrics, Flexible H..T. sleeving, some using varnished glass fabric and glass braids, Silicone elastomer coated and impregnated glass fabrics in rolls and reels. Trade names: Symica, Symel, Duply, Emlin, Symite.” The fire-watchers’ shelter on the roof is of particular note — Nigel believes that HD Symons were listed, along with Cellon Ltd and a few others, as being firms which, if bombed during the Blitz, the government were to be advised. Any information welcome on the above to [email protected].

Exhibitions from around the UK • Events • Discoveries • Restorations • News

BIGGIN HILL CHAPEL UPDATE

Minister: ‘Council Heritage Site Proposed’ SINCE Britain at War broke the story of proposals to dispose of the RAF Chapel at Biggin Hill, the matter was raised in Parliament at Prime Minister’s Questions when David Cameron made positive noises in hinting about the site’s future status. Indeed, some newspapers announced that it had been ‘saved’ from closure following the Prime Minister’s intervention. As this magazine had already pointed out, it was never the position of the MOD that it should be closed: it intended to dispose of the site but wished to ensure that whoever took it on would be able to continue maintaining its important heritage status. The Prime Minister’s intervention came after an online petition garnered over 12,000 signatures in just a few days appealing against the

chapel’s likely ‘closure’. Public expectations that the chapel would be retained under MOD/RAF stewardship were dashed with a statement from Anna Soubry, MP, Minister of State for Defence Personnel Welfare and Veterans on 22 January: ‘Bromley Council wish to create a heritage centre at the site and, subject to agreeing suitable terms to secure it, the site will be leased to them on a long term basis for a nominal rent.’ The statement is silent on the matter of the continued input from RAF clergy, administrative support or site maintenance. It seems likely that all of these roles will be relinquished by the MOD and the RAF and devolved, instead, to Bromley Borough Council with the MOD merely becoming landlords.

PLACES TO VISIT , VICTORIA CROSS MUSEUM, DONCASTER Now Open

TRENCH RATS are on the march again with the arrival of a collection of 100-year-old stuffed rats at the Victoria Cross Museum, Ashworth Barracks, just off the A1 at Doncaster. The rodents, described as being ‘the same size as a cat,’ are just part of a new collection of 15,000 First World War related items soon to be put on display at the fast-growing museum. Gary Stapleton, chairman of the Victoria Cross Trust, which runs the Museum, expects the giant rats to bring a lot of public attention. He said: “People described them as four or five times the size of ordinary rats. They fed off dead bodies in the trenches and in no-man’s land.” The venue was opened in November 2014 in honour of Victoria Cross recipients and will grow substantially with the arrival of the entire collection from the Ramparts War Museum at Ypres, Belgium, which was recently bought by a private collector. With this new World War One exhibit under development, the museum is currently half price until its expected completion date. It promises to be a very exciting addition to the military museum world. www.ashworthbarracks.co.uk

,

IWM in Numbers

THE PUBLIC impact of the First World War commemorations has been demonstrated by record visitor numbers announced by Imperial War Museums, London. The museum says these constitute its highest figures since its opening in 1920.

Number of visitors since July 2014

1,000,000 Average per month

166,666 Average per day

5025

MERSEYSIDE MARITIME MUSEUM From 27 March

A LIFEJACKET, a shoe belonging to a small child, and letters from survivors are among some of the items on show In ‘Lusitania: life, loss, legacy’. A service will also take place at Liverpool Parish Church, Our Lady and St Nicholas, near Pier Head, on the anniversary of the sinking, 7 May, while a walk of remembrance will take place from the church to Lusitania’s propeller, on the quayside between Merseyside Maritime Museum and Museum of Liverpool. It was a calm sunny day on 7 May 1915 when the 31,550-ton liner was torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, and sank in just 18 minutes. Germany had issued a warning that all Allied shipping, including Lusitania, would be valid targets. The action by U-20 submarine sparked revulsion and condemnation, particularly in Liverpool and New York, where Lusitania had been a regular visitor. www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/lusitania

, ABOVE: NAAFI canteen girls serve tea to pilots of 92 Sqn at Biggin Hill.

| BRIEFING ROOM

BLUE TOWN HERITAGE CENTRE, SHEERNESS From April

THIS PROJECT commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the ‘HMS Princess Irene’ tragedy at the dockyard. The incident occurred in May 1915 when an explosion onboard the minelayer caused the deaths of 273 crew members and 76 dockyard workers, despite being a couple of miles off the coast. Only one person survived, a stoker found floating amongst the wreckage of the ship. Chris Newman, a centre trustee, is appealing for relatives of those killed in the incident to come forward and help provide background information on the disaster.

,

TANFIELD RAILWAY, TYNE AND WEAR March 28-29

THE SETTING for the Great War Weekend will be spring 1915, with locomotives and wooden carriages of the period in use. The Durham Pals living history group, portraying the 18th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, will add to the atmosphere. The Durham Pals will be using the railway for training at various sites along the railway before recreating leaving for the front on the last train of each day. There will also be a number of First World War displays from local museums and organisations at the Marley Hill Carriage Shed. For more information visit the Tanfield Railway’s website at www.tanfield-railway.co.uk or 0845 463 4938. Postcode for Sat Navs is NE16 5ET www.britainatwar.com

7

BRIEFING ROOM |

News • Restorations • Discoveries • Events • Exhibitions from around the UK

No Medal After Campaign For Falklands Para

A LONG-RUNNING campaign by family, friends, ex-Paras and supporters to have Cpl Stewart McLaughlin, B Coy, 3rd Btn, The Parachute Regiment, posthumously awarded a gallantry medal for his actions during the Falklands War have seemingly been dashed. This is despite an online petition to the Government which stated: ‘Corporal McLaughlin was killed during the battle for Mount Longdon in the Falklands War and was described as a key figure in the Company’s attack, leading and supporting numerous assaults on the enemy. His supreme personal bravery and exemplary leadership was noticed by many during the battle and has consistently been acknowledged by senior military officers since. Despite this, he has never been formally recognized for his actions which contributed significantly to the victory achieved by the battalion. His case has been described as “extraordinary” by one very senior officer and the legend of his actions as “being in the DNA of the Regiment” by another. Other senior officers have commented

that his actions merited award but rules governing retrospective awards prevent this. We call on the government to amend the awards system to permit retrospective awards for such exceptional cases and to formally recognize Cpl McLaughlin.’ Although the petition was still running as this magazine went to press, the case has been formally looked at by the Ministry of Defence after Defence Minister Anna Soubry announced an inquiry into the matter. The case rests, largely, on a letter to McLaughlin’s commander, Lt Gen Sir Hew Pike, written by another Parachute Regiment officer, Major Mike Argue. In it, Argue said: ‘You have read my citation. Prior to his death, he led his section like a demon on the rocks of Mount Longdon. This was McLaughlin at his best.’ Now, the MOD have dismissed claims that McLaughlin was forgotten when a medal citation was lost in the post-battle confusion. A spokesperson said: ‘The investigation was conducted to identify any material not previously available and found

Obituary: Battle of Britain Veteran Sidney Whitehouse BATTLE OF Britain Clasp holder Wing Commander Sydney Anthony Hollingsworth Whitehouse has died. Tony Hollingsworth was born on 18 December 1919 and was educated at Harrow School, going on to study at Keble College, Oxford. He joined the RAFVR in 1939 and began training as a pilot. In late July 1940 Whitehouse was one of a group of three novice Sergeant Pilots (the others being Pickering and Gent) to join 32 Squadron at Biggin Hill. The CO, Squadron Leader “Baron” Worrall, was dismayed at their lack of experience and they were despatched first to the Biggin Hill Sector Training Flight and then to OTU at Sutton Bridge. Tony Whitehouse suffered engine failure in a Hurricane on 8 August 1940 and forced landed at Swanton Morley, Norfolk.

8

www.britainatwar.com

Later in the month the trio returned to 32 Squadron immediately before it went north for a rest. The new CO, Squadron Leader Crossley sent the three Sergeants on their travels again. This time they moved to 501 Squadron at Gravesend. On 25 October 1940 Whitehouse was shot down during an engagement with Bf 109s over Kent. He baled out uninjured and was returned by the army to the squadron, which was now based at Kenley. He was accompanied on the return journey by by Flying Officer Snell of 501 who had also been shot down. Whitehouse was commissioned in November 1940 and the following year became an instructor. He became a Flight Commander with 167 Squadron in April 1942. He later served in India and Burma and was released from the RAF in 1946.

Cpl Stewart McLaughlin (right) at Teal Inlet, days before his death.

no new information, but again noted the courage displayed by him. It found no contemporaneous evidence that he was treated differently from the other servicemen who were considered for an award.’ Despite this finding, the family have vowed to fight on after reference to a citation was dismissed, although General Sir Hew is adamant that a medal recommendation was written at

the time. How or when the citation was lost remains unclear, but Cpl McLaughlin’s brother, Mark, said: ‘The letter from Major Argue to Sir Hew makes a clear reference to a written citation. How can they dismiss it out of hand?’ Cpl Stewart McLaughlin was 27 years old when he was killed, and although initially buried in The Falklands he is now buried in Rake Lane Cemetery, Wallasey, Cheshire.

MEMORABILIA AND SALEROOM

Dambusters Auction Results A COLLECTION of ‘Dambusters’ memorabilia (See Britain at War, February 2014) has sold at auction in Towcester, Northants, for a total of £75,000. The original mahogany bomb sight we featured, used by bomb aimer John Fort, to deliver the decisive ‘bouncing bomb’ that breached the Mohne Dam in May 1943, sold for £41,500. Meanwhile, a set of marbles attributed to Barnes Wallis and claimed as used by the famous scientist to design his bouncing bomb, realised £27,200. Auctioneers Humberts also sold the map light and parallelogram attributed to Vivian Nicholson, the flight

navigator for £2700 & £2650 respectively. A leather collar box attributed to Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who famously commanded 617 Squadron in Operation Chastise, sold for £750. Remnants of the Perspex bomb-aimer’s bubble through which only-surviving ‘Dambuster’ George ‘Johnny’ Johnson aimed and dropped a bouncing bomb on the Sorpe dam sold for £520 which is being donated by the vendor and auctioneers ‘fee free’ to the RAF Bomber Command Memorial Fund, and with permission of George ‘Johnny’ Johnson. The items all sold to private buyers.

ADVERTORIAL FEATURE Gibraltar

CHURCHILL, THE MONKEYS AND THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF GIBRALTAR IN WWII

T

he strategic position of the Rock of Gibraltar has throughout its history played a critical role in Britain’s defence, as it sits at the entrance to the Mediterranean and key shipping routes. Its importance at the outbreak of WWII is well documented. Following the declaration of war in 1939, military leaders believed that with Britain at war with Germany and Italy, an attack on Gibraltar was imminent. Winston Churchill instructed that Gibraltar’s tunnel system be once again expanded to create a fortress within a fortress. Within the belly of the Jurassic limestone Rock is a complex cave and tunnel system, a combination of natural caverns and man built tunnels, originally excavated during The Great Siege of 1779-1783 that would be extended under Churchill’s orders.

TO VISIT GIBRALTAR CONTACT THE GIBRALTAR TOURIST BOARD... www.britainatwar.com

Gibraltar Advertorial F_P.indd 1

Within these cavern walls lie tales of espionage and sabotage, and of endurance and bravery, such was the role of Gibraltar during the war effort. It is from this hidden location, that Eisenhower would mastermind the North African landings. Churchill’s legacy over the small British territory extends further. In war torn 1943 he sent a top secret order concerning a dwindling garrison at Gibraltar. Legend dictated that if the Barbary Macaques left Gibraltar, the British would follow, for Churchill this could never be. The existing pack had been reduced to just a few macaques and so following Churchill’s instruction, a troop transport was despatched to North Africa to bring back more

monkeys to increase the dwindling numbers. They have flourished ever since. Today visitors to Gibraltar can witness the spectacular underground world that was once a key military base visited by world leaders including Churchill and De Gaulle. The legendary monkeys still inhabit the Rock and can be seen as part of a tour to the Gibraltar Nature Reserve that includes St Michael’s Cave, the Great Siege Tunnels and the City under Siege exhibition. Gibraltar’s story continues to inspire new generations and has long been the subject of fictional writers from Thackeray to Le Carre.

Gibraltar House, 150 Strand, London WC2R 1JA Tel: + 44 207836 0777 Email: [email protected] Visit the website: www.visitgibraltar.gi Facebook: www.facebook.com/visitgibraltar@visit_gibraltar MARCH 2015

1

29/01/2015 17:23

OBITUARY |

Andy Wiseman 1923-2015

FROM THE TO THE

GREAT ESCAPE LONG MARCH

BY ANY measure, Andy Wiseman (born André Weizman) was a lucky man. The only son of a Polish father and an American mother, Andy was born on 20 January 1923 and grew up in Berlin, just as Adolf Hitler was coming to power. As a Jew educated at the famous Werner Siemens Real Gymnasium in Schoneberg, he left only months before his school was closed down, fleeing with his family to Poland, one step of ahead of the Nazi persecution that was to follow and later take the life of his father in one of the Camps. From Poland he again escaped to England, this time without his parents, arriving as a 16-year old with little or no grasp of English. After a crash course in the language at a private school on the south coast, he avoided being called up into the Polish army in exile thanks to the ABOVE & BELOW: Andy Wiseman in his timely intervention of no less a man early years and more recently at the site than General Sikorski himself. Instead, where the Halifax came down. and while still being classed as an ‘Alien’ — albeit a friendly one — he enlisted in the RAF to train initially as a pilot, and upon being re-mustered, as an air equipped with the Handley Page Halifax. bomber in South Africa. On Andy’s first operation he was nearly When he joined the RAF, and they were shot down. His Halifax was attacked by a allocating identity tags, he told the sergeant nightfighter over Stuttgart, a cannon shell only in charge that he was Jewish. The sergeant, narrowly missing one of the petrol tanks but however, told him that he would causing damage to the hydraulics. The therefore have to wait while gunners could not respond since they changed the settings their .303 Brownings had all on the machine. In frozen. Although managing looking at the length to lose the fighter in of the queue behind the dark, they were him, Andy told the found by heavy flak sergeant not to that damaged Andy’s bother, and thus bombsight, a piece became Church of shrapnel slicing his of England (CofE)! nose. They eventually Soon after, he also made it home and anglicised his name landed away from base to become ‘Andrew without power to operate Wiseman’. Both of their undercarriage, flaps these actions would or brakes. probably later save his life. Andy survived a handful of On his return to the UK and further trips before falling victim after further training he ‘crewed up’, to one of the Luftwaffe’s top nightfighter his skipper, a young Australian named Barry pilots, Major Martin Drewes, during an attack Casey, choosing Andy simply because he liked on the railway marshalling yards at Tergnier (on the look if his face! Together with the rest of 18/19 April 1944) and parachuting to safety in the crew they were posted to 466 Squadron, France. Three of the crew, including his pilot, an Australian squadron based at RAF Leconfield were killed.

10 www.britainatwar.com

Briefly on the run he was betrayed and captured, spending the next 12 months as a prisoner of war, using his knowledge of Russian, Polish and German to act as one of the principal camp interpreters, and working as a ‘scrounger’ for the ‘X’ committee of escapers. Initially at Stalag Luft III at Zagan, scene of the Great Escape only a few weeks prior to Andy’s capture, he arrived to find the camp still in a state of shock following the murder of the ‘Fifty’, those escapees infamously shot by the Gestapo. With the advance of the Russians, the camp was soon after evacuated, Andy becoming one of thousands of prisoners forced into making the ‘Long March’ by the Germans attempting to escape the Soviet Army. At Luckenwalde, his final destination, he played a key role in avoiding the potential bloodshed that threatened when the Russians refused to allow the British and Norwegian prisoners to return home – a role for which he was later recognised by the King of Norway. Upon his release, and a spell with RAF Intelligence, Andy used his language skills to work with the BBC monitoring service and, later, BBC Television as a producer, sharing many adventures with the great broadcasters of the time, including David Dimbleby and Raymond Baxter with whom he worked closely. More recently he had become heavily involved with those seeking to commemorate both the Great Escape and The Long March, and was a regular visitor to Zagan. He had also appeared in recent TV documentaries regarding ‘RAF Bomber Command’ and ‘The Great Escape’ and was working with the son of his former flight engineer to build a memorial in France to those of his crew who did not survive.

AN ALIEN SKY ONLY WEEKS before his untimely and unexpected death, Andy had finished work on his autobiography An Alien Sky (Grub Street Publishing, May 2015) with author Sean Feast, dedicated to his late wife Jean. In the book, Andy reflects on how he wants to be remembered. He quotes from his favourite play, Julius Caesar: “‘…the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones…’ I would like people to think the opposite of me: that any good that I might have done will live on, and any evil is buried and forgotten.”

Museum Discovery GIVEN THE huge worldwide impact of the theatre drama and film of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, it was perhaps inevitable that the search would begin for a real-life example of such an astonishing equine stalwart. Claims have focused on General Jack Seely’s redoubtable mount, Warrior, particularly as he wrote a memoir about the horse in 1934 and was an accomplished raconteur of his wartime exploits (see ‘Flowerdew’s Charge’, p.62). Now, following a discovery just before Christmas 2014, the curator of the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum has come up with another solid candidate. Museum Director Chris Chatterton was researching the collections on a separate matter, and found himself drawn into a story that has since made news pages around the world, so much so that Mr Chatterton is considering the foundation of a fund to build a statue to Gloucestershire’s very own ‘war horse’. It is a story that shows the link between a British officer and his horse, one of bravery, loyalty and luck that serves to illustrate the scale of the first truly global conflict. In 1913, the 2nd Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment, was sent to Tientsin, China, as part of a multi-national force. Upon arrival, one officer, Lt A C Vicary purchased a horse from an officer in the 36th Sikh Regiment, whom they were to replace. The horse, bred in Australia, taken to India and then to China, was named ‘The Sikh’ in honour of his previous regiment. The following year war was declared and the 2nd Battalion was ordered to return to Europe. Vicary sought special permission for The Sikh to come with him, which was granted. Curiously, The Sikh was the only horse permitted to make the long and arduous journey. The voyage lasted for eight weeks. The Sikh was accommodated in a makeshift box on the open deck and while the soldiers were

banned from sleeping on deck due to atrocious weather, the horse was left out in the elements and only allowed to stretch her legs when officers went ashore at Hong Kong, Singapore, Port Said and Gibraltar. The journey was perilous, with the constant threat of contact with the enemy. Upon arrival in England, the Battalion swiftly moved to the Western Front, initially to the Ypres Salient. The Sikh travelled with Vicary’s regiment throughout the war, including the campaign on the Western Front, to Salonika, Serbia, Bulgaria and eventually into Southern Russia, often on the front lines through the thunder of grenades and shellfire and used by Vicary for the duration. The Sikh was viewed by many of the men she encountered as an omen of good luck. Horses were, of course, a key component of the war. They were used to pull heavy guns,

| NEWS FEATURE

to transport the wounded and supplies, in cavalry charges and to allow officers to move quickly around the men under their command. More than 1 million horses accompanied British forces to the front line, and most were killed. Only 67,000 are thought to have survived the conflict, making the story of The Sikh even more remarkable. Many perished due to artillery fire and other war-related causes, including exhaustion and harsh winter conditions at the Front. Within the first year, Britain emptied its own borders of horses needed for the effort, requisitioning beloved riding ponies and shire horses from farms and families across the country. As the war dragged on, the U.S. supported the Allies by delivering approximately 1,000 horses by ship a day between the years of 1914-1917. The Sikh, however, managed to survive, and as the war ended, was still with Vicary, by now a Lt Colonel, in the republics of Southern Russia. Eventually, The Sikh, along with Vicary and the rest of the 2nd Battalion, returned to England, by foot, rail and ship through Turkey, Greece, Italy and France and this remarkable animal was retired and allowed to live out the rest of his life in tranquillity on Vicary’s land in Devon. Vicary himself was a remarkable man, serving with distinction, awarded the DSO and Bar and MC, Mentioned in Despatches five times and ending up as Colonel of the Regiment. But that is another story.

SOLDIERS OF GLOUCESTER

ABOVE: The Sikh’s world tour continues, this time in Flanders during the First World War.

THE REAL WAR

ABOVE: Lt Alexander Craven Vicary with The Sikh in 1913.

THE STORY of Vicary and The Sikh will be displayed at the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum in Gloucester Docks, GL1 2HE. In summer, the museum is open every day from 10am-5pm. Adult admission is £4.75 though concessions and flexible tickets are available. Tel: 01452 522682. www.soldiersofglos.com

HORSE?

ABOVE: The Sikh, tail swishing for the camera, at Singapore.

www.britainatwar.com 11

NEWS FEATURE | Brighton Royal Pavilion

LOST VC

RE-DISCOVERED A VICTORIA Cross awarded posthumously to an officer killed in the First World War has been re-discovered during a search at a museum, in Brighton, East Sussex. The medal in question was awarded to Major George Godfrey Massy Wheeler of the 7th Hariana Lancers, Indian Army. An extract from the The London Gazette of 31 August 1915, records that the award was made “for most conspicuous bravery at Shaiba, Mesopotamia”. The citation states: “On the 12th April, 1915, Major Wheeler asked permission to take out his Squadron and attempt to capture a flag, which was the centre point of a group of the enemy who were firing on one of our picquets. He advanced and attacked the

enemy’s infantry with the Lance, doing considerable execution among them. He then retired while the enemy swarmed out of hidden ground and formed an excellent target to our Royal Horse Artillery guns. On the 13th April, 1915, Major Wheeler led his Squadron to the attack of the ‘North Mound’. He was seen far ahead of his men riding singlehanded straight for the enemy’s standards. This gallant Officer was killed on the Mound.” A contemporary account added the following detail to the events of 13 April 1915: “Major Wheeler and his squadron were entrusted with the task of carrying the Turkish position on the “North Mound.” The project was a desperate one, for the Turks were well entrenched. Major Wheeler decided to charge straight for the section where two Turkish standards were waving, rightly surmising that the loss of their flag would demoralize the enemy. The Turks, however, fought with extreme courage and steadiness and opened a devastating fire on the advancing cavalry. The Lancers began to waver. Then it was that Major Wheeler showed the spirit that was in him. Bit by bit he drew ahead of his men, and when last seen he was making straight for the standards, one man against many. He reached the Mound, but only to suffer a hero’s death and to gain a hero’s reward — the Victoria Cross.” LEFT & ABOVE RIGHT: Major George Godfrey Massy Wheeler and his Victoria Cross.

(© ROYAL PAVILION & MUSEUMS, BRIGHTON & HOVE)

ABOVE: A contemporary illustration of Major Wheeler leading a charge of the 7th Hariana Lancers at Shaiba in Apriil 1915. One reporter wrote that “the action on April 12th and 13th at Shaiba was a striking illustration of brilliant cavalry tactics against infantry”. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

12 www.britainatwar.com

Major Wheeler, who was buried in Basra War Cemetery, lived at Gwydyr Mansions in Hove, East Sussex. In the years after his death, his VC was donated to what is now the Royal Pavilion and Museums by his widow. Speaking to Forces TV, Andy Maxted, curator at the Royal Pavilion and Museums, said: “We were preparing for our various exhibitions and displays for the centenaries of World War One, so we were searching our database for objects that would be great to illustrate some of those displays. We came across this record that we had a VC in our collection, which was a surprise to us all, so a colleague and I went to the basement and, surprise on surprise, we actually found the VC.” Gary Stapleton, chairman of the Victoria Cross Trust, said: “The VC had been donated to the museum by Major Wheeler’s widow. They held some of his other medals but it appears they did not know they also had his VC. It seems that that knowledge was lost over a period of time. It’s brilliant that it has now been found.” Major Wheeler’s Victoria Cross medal group is also accompanied by a letter from the King addressed to his widow. In this, the King states: “It is a matter of sincere regret to me that the death of Major George Godfrey Massy Wheeler deprived me of the pride of personally conferring upon him the Victoria Cross, the greatest of Military Distinctions.”

Family History

| NEWS FEATURE

FAMILY HISTORY researchers looking into military backgrounds of ancestors and relatives now have a new online resource at their disposal: a quantity of First World War medical and hospital records. After the 1914-18 conflict, most military hospital information of this nature was destroyed, but the remainder was given to the Ministry of Health by the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). A representative selection of these records — amounting to no more than two per cent of the total — remain at the National Archives, Kew. Forces War Records, a company specialising in military genealogy, have now started the process of digitising Military Hospitals Admissions and Discharges Registers. They say the first 60,000 are now available to subscribers at their website, www.forces-war-records.co.uk. By no means complete – because so much information was destroyed – it nevertheless offers the chance to explore records from across the globe, including hospital ships, trains, ambulance units and convalescent units. Transcription of hospital records is not straightforward: they are handwritten, many in faint pencil or with multiple abbreviations, and therefore very difficult to interpret. The inconsistent methods used to record information 100 years ago also make them challenging. Needless to say, some gems have emerged. Of particular note are the recently digitised Admission and Discharge Records of Lord of the Rings author, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Second Lieutenant Tolkien was serving with the 11th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers when he contracted ‘trench fever’. At this time, the battalion were resting at Beauval, having taken part in the Battles of the Somme. Tolkien reported sick on Saturday 28 October 1916. He was admitted to 29 Casualty Clearing Station (Officers Hospital) on the

ABOVE: 2nd Lieutenant John Ronald Reuel Tolkien pictured in 1916. His admission can be seen for 28 October 1916. (WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)

WW1 HOSPITAL RECORDS NOW ONLINE ABOVE: The admission ledger page. (COURTESY OF FORCES WAR RECORDS - HTTP://WWW.FORCES-WAR-RECORDS.CO.UK/

same day. On the admission ledger his disease is listed as ‘PUO’, which was ‘Pyrexia (fever) of Unknown Origin’, the then medical term for trench fever. The cause of this illness was less well understood at this time. Its debilitating symptoms included frontal headache, dizziness, severe lumbago, a feeling of stiffness down the front of the thighs and severe pains in the legs, chiefly to the shins, followed by a relapsing fever. The cause was eventually discovered in late 1917 to be due to lice, prevalent in the unsanitary conditions in the trenches.

Tolkien was eventually sent home to recover, sailing from Le Havre on the hospital ship HMHS Asturias to Southampton on 9 November 1916. He spent the rest of the war either in hospital, convalescing at home or carrying out safer duties in England. Ironically, chronic ill health almost certainly saved his life, allowing the creation of one of the most globally popular works of literature of the century. It could all have been so different. In a preface to The Lord of the Rings second edition, he wrote: “By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.”

www.britainatwar.com 13

NEWS FEATURE |

Aviation Archaeology

KITTYHAWK

STORM: What Happened To Dennis Copping?

THE RAF Museum is under fire in the national press, following the emergence of a report that it disposed of a Spitfire from its reserve collection in payment for the recovery of the P-40 Kittyhawk aircraft found in the Sahara Desert just over three years ago. Questions have been raised as to the wisdom of that arrangement given the fact that the P-40 is still in Egypt and doesn’t seem likely to be heading to the UK any time soon. In its annual report, the RAF Museum admitted: ‘Given the uncertain political situation in Egypt there is a possibility that the Kittyhawk may never be returned.’ According to the same report, the Spitfire traded with Kennet Aviation of North Weald, Essex — in return for the recovery of the Kittyhawk — had a book value of £200,000 in

ABOVE: A member of the team that re-discovered the P-40 examines the interior of the cockpit.

(©JAKUB PERKA/BNPS)

ABOVE: Spitfire PK664, dismantled and on display while on loan from the RAF Museum to The Science Museum, London. (GORDON RILEY)

14 www.britainatwar.com

BELOW: The team that re-discovered the P-40 reported that the radio and batteries were found to have been previously removed from the aircraft. The bleakness of the location is all too evident in this picture, providing a stark illustration of the situation in which the aircraft’s pilot found himself.

(©JAKUB PERKA/BNPS)

its current state. A late mark F.22, PK664 is not currently airworthy though is likely that it could be restored and reconstructed and eventually placed on the UK register to fly. Although the P-40 Kittyhawk was successfully recovered from the desert it was placed in a shipping container and impounded by the Egyptian authorities who have prevented it from leaving the country. Originally, it was placed in a shipping container at the military museum at El Alamein, but it is not known if it is still at this location. Ian Thirsk, a spokesman for the RAF Museum, told Britain at War in a statement: “The Museum’s first priority was to ensure that Curtiss Kittyhawk Mk 1A ET574 was safely taken to a secure location. This has been done successfully and the aircraft is no longer under threat. The next step in this two stage project is to negotiate its delivery to the UK.  This is an on-going process currently being conducted with assistance from the British Embassy in Cairo and the Egyptian authorities. However this is complicated by the then and current delicate situation in Egypt. It is still our intention to ensure the aircraft returns to the UK. “The Spitfire Mk22 PK664 was one of a number of Spitfires given to the Museum by MoD for use as leverage and in exchanges to acquire aircraft not in our collection. The

agreement with regard to the Spitfire which was thoroughly vetted, was to ensure that the Kittyhawk was placed in a safe environment – which has now been done.”

DENNIS COPPING AND ET574

Kittyhawk ET574 crashed in the Sahara Desert on 28 June 1942 after its pilot, Flt Sgt Dennis Copping of 260 Squadron, became lost and ran out of fuel. It is thought that Dennis survived the crash and attempted to walk to safety, only to perish in the hostile environment. No trace of him has ever been found, although portions of his parachute were extant alongside the wreck and another piece of parachute, along with human bones, were reportedly found later, several kilometres away, by an Italian research team. No confirmed link has ever been made between those human bones and Dennis Copping, and uncertainty exists as to what became of the alleged remains. Report and counter-report circulated as to whether the remains had been recovered from the desert, or whether any DNA had been extracted. That confusion and uncertainty continues to this day. The party who recovered the wreck of the P-40 reportedly stated there to be no evidence of any remains at the crash site. The story of how the Kittyhawk found its way to its desert resting place was provided by

Aviation Archaeology former Flight Sergeant E L ‘Shep’ Sheppard who recounted events thus: “On 28 June, 1942 Flight Sergeant Copping and myself were detailed to take the two aircraft that had been shot up to the Repair and Servicing Unit, back on the Cairo-Alexandria road, and to collect two replacement aircraft. We were to fly the replacement aircraft to the squadron’s rear landing ground before returning to the operational landing ground. “The aircraft I was flying had been badly damaged in the wings, having been shot up in a fight with the Hun that morning. The holes on the leading edge of the wings were now filled with sandbags and pasted over with canvas to give the aircraft some stability. Copping’s aircraft had something or other wrong with it that could not be repaired on the Squadron, including the fact that the undercarriage could not be retracted, so off we went in the early afternoon. The flight was expected to be 30-40 minutes at the very most. “Copping was flight leader, having been on the squadron very much longer than me, with me flying on the right wing. We had been in the air for about 20 minutes after taking off on a south westerly heading, and as Copping had made no attempt to turn eastwards, we were still heading south-west. I assumed he would turn south after take-off to avoid enemy aircraft or flying over enemy positions, because neither of us could use the guns, but having checked the course several times, I began to get worried. I broke radio silence but received no reply so I closed in on him and tried to signal the easterly direction. I tried all ways to get him to change course, signalling straight ahead and pointing at the compass then the sun and my watch, but

ABOVE: Flt Sgt Dennis Copping.

he did not budge. We must have been 30-35 minutes out and should be at the RSU, so surely he would realize we were off course but, no, he kept on with the original heading. “At that point I had to make a decision. I was right and he was wrong, so I flew in close to him, waggled my wings and pointed eastwards. I turned under him and flew away, hoping he would follow. I returned and tried to attract his attention again, but he would not budge so I turned eastwards again on my own. I checked my compass by the sun and also set the gyro compass and held the course for some 30 to 35 minutes, but all I had seen up to then was sand, more sand and desert, and even more sand and desert. My courage was beginning to fail me a bit then, but I reasoned that by flying with the sun on my right and behind me, I had to be

| NEWS FEATURE

flying eastwards, and so I reset my course to the north east knowing that sooner or later I must come to the coast – one hoped sooner rather than later. Then I saw, to the south and away on my right, the Qattara Depression, and knew that I had done the right thing in breaking away and using my own judgment....” Britain at War Editor, Andy Saunders, visited the family of Dennis Copping at Kinsale, Ireland, in 2012. At this time the family were hopeful that his remains might be found and identified, but those hopes have subsequently been all but dashed. Speaking to Britain at War shortly before we went to press, John Prior-Bennet said: “Frankly, I’m not desperately interested in all of the fuss over the exchange of Dennis’ P-40 for the Spitfire, and what will eventually happen to the Kittyhawk, although it does all seem very questionable. “What I am interested in is: What has happened to Dennis? It is a shame that he seems ignored in this current dispute over the trading of a Spitfire for his aircraft. Over the last few years we have been given hope, false hope and false information and the authorities haven’t been very helpful, really. Not only that, but those directly involved with the recovery haven’t told us anything either. And we’d really like to know what they know and what they found out.” Meanwhile, one can only hope that the P-40 will one day find its way to the RAF Museum, Hendon, for public display where it will surely become a fitting ‘memorial’ to Dennis Copping.

MAIN PICTURE: The P-40 pictured as found lying in the Sahara.

www.britainatwar.com 15

NEWS FEATURE |

Family History Research

THE COMMONWEALTH War Graves Commission has announced that a large tranche of historical records relating to its cemeteries and memorial sites is now accessible to the general public. Throughout 2014 around 23,000 cemetery files, which in many cases contain some of the earliest information about the CWGC’s sites, were incorporated into its archive. As part of this project by the Records and Archives Team, the records, dating from 1920 through to 1955, were catalogued and rehoused in archival folders and boxes, before being moved into the archive store at the CWGC’s head office in Maidenhead. Consequently, these precious documents, which help shed light on the history of the CWGC sites and the work that has been undertaken in them, are now more available to interested researchers and members of the public. The records will also benefit from improved storage conditions, which will help ensure they are preserved for future generations. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was founded in 1917 by Fabian Ware following a resolution passed by the heads of government of the United Kingdom, the Dominions and India at the Imperial War Conference held in that year. Its duties were officially defined in a Royal Charter which came into force on 21 May 1917, its core commitment being to preserve the memory, and the physical graves and memorials, of those members of the Commonwealth Forces who died as a result of the Great War (and in time, the Second World War).

The archive chronicles the history of the Commission, from the period leading up to its official founding, to its role in documenting and commemorating casualties in relation to both World Wars, and its activities right through to the present day. It is spilt into two distinct sections. The first is the Historic Archive. This contains records concerning the formation of the Commission and its growth and development. Most records date from the period 1917 to 1967, although the archive continues to grow as new material is added in order to continue to document the on-going work of the organisation. The second, Casualty and Cemetery Archive, is made up of documents which record the details and commemoration location of each casualty the Commission is responsible for. After the end of the First World War the Commission began work on the construction of cemeteries as we know them today. Small cemeteries were consolidated into larger ones, and the battlefields were searched for human remains. Some existing cemeteries were re-ordered. Records were kept for each casualty and headstones were ordered for those with known graves. The records were also used to produce the lists of those with no known grave, which were later added to the memorials to the missing. The records themselves include grave registration documents, casualty registers and headstone schedules. In many cases these represent the earliest recorded information that the Commission was able to gather

BELOW: In May 1922 King George V embarked on a pilgrimage to the battlefields of the Western Front, visiting early cemeteries and seeing himself the work that had been undertaken so far — much of which is detailed in the CWGC archive. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

about those who came under its care. These records also acted as working documents for the Commission, and over the years have been amended on a number of occasions as inaccuracies were discovered or new evidence came to light.

New CWGC Archive

Records Now Available

ABOVE: In 1921 the then Imperial War Graves Commission built three experimental cemeteries. Forceville Communal Cemetery and Extension in France was considered the most successful. Garden designer Gertrude Jekyll advised on the planting and the architects created a walled cemetery with uniform headstones in a garden setting. Sir Reginald Blomfield’s Cross of Sacrifice and Sir Edwin Lutyens’ Stone of Remembrance were the formal features. After some adjustments, Forceville, seen here today, became the template for the Commission’s building programme. (CWGC)

16 www.britainatwar.com

ABOV temp build

Military collectables bought and sold

SINGLE ITEMS & COLLECTIONS WANTED

BEST CASH PRICES PAID

for campaign souvenirs from all countries including Britain, America, Germany, France, Japan, Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan.

FREE VALUATIONS

We will travel to view collections within the UK. All enquiries handled in the strictest confidence. Discretion guaranteed.

We buy, sell or part/ex: Deactivated small arms and accessories Antique & obsolete calibre rifles & pistols Air rifles & pistols Inert ordnance - shells, grenades, mortar rounds Edged weapons Medals, badges, insignia Uniforms, headgear Field gear & equipment WWI & II Home Front ●

●

●

●

● ● ● ● ●

Our extensive website is updated regularly - click on now

www.jcmilitaria.com JC MILITARIA Ltd.

t: 0161 476 0436 m: 07786 707 191 e: [email protected] Design by [email protected]

NEWS FEATURE |

Eastbourne

SS BARN HILL

75

TH

ANNIVERSARY

SINKING MARKED

Following an initiative by Britain at War Editor Andy Saunders an interpretative information board is being erected on the waterfront at Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne. It will mark the 75th Anniversary and tell the story of the loss of the SS Barn Hill in March 1940.

WHILST WALKING the Sussex coast in 2014 writes Andy Saunders, I was surprised to notice the wreck of the ship still visible at low water, just off-shore from the entrance to Sovereign Harbour where the massive boilers and other pieces of structure protrude from the waves. Surprisingly, the wreck was not cleared when the new harbour and marina was constructed during the 1980s and its location almost at the harbour entrance, especially when invisible at high tide, presents a hazard for vessels entering and leaving. While the existence of the wreck is well-known among local residents, who are only too aware of the story behind the curious objects that appear between tides, the background is little-known to visitors who are inevitably curious about what these mysterious black shapes actually are. On nautical charts, the wreck is simply marked with the word ‘Debris’ but with no further explanation. Consequently, I launched an initiative to tell the Barn Hill’s story through an interpretative board on the seafront that would be positioned immediately facing the wreck and this has now come to fruition. Funded by the RNLI heritage department, and supported by other local organisations and bodies, the display board will be unveiled in a short ceremony on 27 March to commemorate the sinking.

BELOW: The SS Barn Hill burning off Eastbourne with lifeboat and tug alongside.

18 www.britainatwar.com

On the night of 20 March 1940, at around 10.30 pm, a German bomber attacked the SS Barn Hill three miles south west of Beachy Head with a stick of bombs straddling the vessel, one of them striking and penetrating her deck plating and exploding in No.4 hold. Four of her crew of 34 were killed in the attack and others were injured as the timber and carbide content of that hold ignited, a raging fire taking grip as the ship’s triple expansion engines ground to a halt and she took on a list to starboard. Distress signals were answered by a Dutch vessel, the SS Southport, who was soon alongside to take off 18 men. Soon after, the Eastbourne lifeboat, RNLI Jane Holland was launched to go to aid the Barn Hill and take off the survivors from Southport. Going alongside Barn Hill, the Jane Holland took off another ten survivors and returned them to shore but

RNLI.org

SS BARN HILL

The story behind this wreck On the night of 20 March 1940 the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) carried out its first attack of the Second World War on a British merchant ship in the English Channel, SS Barn Hill. She was on her way to London from Halifax with a mixed cargo of cheeses, tissue paper, cardboard, typewriters, waders, carbide, zinc, copper and large quantities of canned food. SS Barn Hill was 3 miles south-west of Beachy Head when a bomb struck and penetrated her deck plating before exploding in the hold. A raging fire quickly ensued, killing 4 of her 34 crew members and injuring many others. Before long, the engines ground to a halt and this 5,439-ton vessel began to list. SS Barn Hill as viewed from the shore. Photo: Beckett Newspapers Ltd

A remarkable rescue The steamship’s distress signals were answered by a Dutch vessel, SS Southport, which succeeded in rescuing 18 men. The Eastbourne lifeboat Jane Holland launched shortly after. Her volunteer crew returned a further 10 men safely to shore. However, it soon came to light that some of the steamship’s crew remained unaccounted for, including her Master, Captain O’Neil. Meanwhile a salvage tug, the Foremost, arrived to assist the blazing vessel. Her crew were astonished to suddenly hear the ship’s bell ringing. Amid flames shooting to the height of a double-decker bus, they spotted a man lying on the deck. It was the Master of the ship and, too injured to move, he was pulling the bell’s cord with his teeth.

The Eastbourne lifeboat Jane Holland alongside the SS Barn Hill, while crew members Alec Hugget and Thomas Allchorn rescue Captain O’Neil. Photo: RNLI

By now the lifeboat was on its way back to the SS Barn Hill. Crew Members Alec Hugget and Thomas Allchorn risked their own lives to go aboard and save the Master. The lifeboat then swiftly carried him to shore.

We will remember them This wreck stands as a reminder of the bravery of the crew of Eastbourne Lifeboat Station, the fortitude of Captain O’Neil and the sacrifice of men of the Merchant Navy in the Second World War in maintaining the crucial supply chain to the British Isles.

Volunteers Alec Hugget and Thomas Allchorn were each awarded an RNLI Bronze Medal for their bravery, while Coxswain Michael Hardy received a Framed Letter of Appreciation. Successfully evacuated, the SS Barn Hill was beached 275m south-east of Langney Point where she eventually broke in two, spilling the remainder of her cargo. Much of this provided local residents with a welcome supplement to their wartime rations. At low water you can easily see the boilers of the SS Barn Hill, directly ahead of this information board.

Eastbourne lifeboat crew members Alec Hugget and Thomas Allchorn, with Coxswain Mike Hardy, as featured in the local press. Photo: Beckett Newspapers Ltd

The four fatalities onboard the SS Barn Hill were among 35,000 Merchant Navy personnel who lost their lives during the Second World War, and the vessel was one of 2,426 British registered merchant ships that were sunk.

The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity registered in England and Wales (209603) and Scotland (SC037736). Charity number CHY 2678 in the Republic of Ireland

ABOVE: Funded by the RNLI and other local bodies, the new information board at Sovereign Harbour explains for curious visitors the mysterious protrusions from the water seen at low tide.

it wasn’t long before it was established that some men were unaccounted for, including the Master, Captain O’Neil. Meanwhile, a tug from Newhaven, the Foremost, had come alongside the Barn Hill to assist and engage in salvage efforts when suddenly the crew were astonished to hear the ship’s bell ringing furiously. They saw an injured may lying on the deck, furiously pulling the rope of the bell with his teeth. It was the Master of the ship, Captain O’Neil. By now, flames were shooting 60 feet into the air all around the injured mariner although the Jane Holland was already en-route back to the vessel. Displaying great heroism Lifeboatmen Alec F Hugget and

Eastbourne

BELOW: The Eastbourne lifeboat alongside the Barn Hill after transporting fire fighters and searching for survivors and casualties.

| NEWS FEATURE

ABOVE: A tide of scavengers follow the tide out in the rush to salvage foodstuffs washed overboard from the wrecked Barn Hill.

Thomas Allchorn got on board the blazing ship and rescued the injured O’Neil who was transferred ashore and to Eastbourne’s Princess Alice Hospital at 7.20 am. For their bravery, Huggett and Allchorn were later awarded the RNLI Bronze Medal, with a framed certificate of appreciation going to Coxswain Michael Hardy. The Barn Hill, at 5,439 tons, had been inbound to London from Halifax, Nova Scotia with a mixed cargo comprising cheese, tissue paper, cardboard, typewriters, waders, carbide, zinc, copper and canned food and after she had been bombed and crippled she was beached 300 yards south-east of Langney Point, the site of the Sovereign Harbour development constructed during the 1980s. Here, the vessel eventually broke in two and spilled much of her cargo into the sea, thus providing the local population with illegal but

rich pickings as the varied contents of the ruptured holds washed ashore. Canned food from the Barn Hill supplemented many meagre wartime meals around the town in what was Eastbourne’s own ‘Whisky Galore’ episode — albeit an episode that instead involved tinned peaches and huge cheeses rather than the more exciting whisky. Waders were also washed ashore in their dozens, but only left-hand ones. According to local stories, this was simply to prevent complete sets of waders falling into enemy hands should the vessel be captured - although this of course rather overlooks the unlikely military value of waders to the enemy, and the now completely useless nature of the right hand waders that were presumed to have been on board another surviving vessel! It is, though, a legend that has endured locally.

Now, through the new interpretation board, the facts are presented for all those who pass by and who might wonder about the story of the wreck that can be viewed just a short distance offshore. The display also marks the courage of local lifeboat crews and the sacrifice of merchant seamen who, against daunting odds, kept open Britain’s supply lifeline during the Second World War. In total, some 35,000 merchant seamen were killed throughout the duration, with a number lost in the home waters of the English Channel to enemy aircraft, mines and E-Boats, as the little merchant coasters plied the dangerous coastal convoy routes carrying vital coal and other essential supplies. Although she was just one of the 2,426 British registered merchant vessels sunk by enemy action between 1939 and 1945, the SS Barn Hill wreck stands as reminder of the bravery of Eastbourne’s wartime lifeboat crew, the fortitude of Captain O’Neil, the sacrifice of the men of the Merchant Navy and the fact that towns like Eastbourne were also very much in the front line during the Second World War. This initiative, therefore, also helps to mark important local wartime and maritime heritage. The ceremony to inaugurate the new information panel, and to remember the loss of the SS Barn Hill, will take place of Friday 27 March, 2015, at 11.00 for 11.30am on the seafront at Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne, and is open to any visitors who may wish to attend.

www.britainatwar.com 19

NEWS FEATURE |

Whitby Heinkel 111

75

TH

ANNIVERSARY

ABOVE: The bulletriddled Heinkel 111 down at Bannial Flat Farm near Whitby, close to the junction of the A171 Whitby to Scarborough Road and the A169 road to Pickering. Curiously, the image shows signs of contemporary 'doctoring' (the road and verge in particular look 'painted') possibly in an attempt to enhance it or to hide features for security reasons.

THE�FIRST�BOMBER� DOWNED�IN�ENGLAND

The air war over Great Britain for the first five months of the Second World War had been sporadic, with occasional attacks by German bombers generally directed against shipping off the east coast. Chris Goss describes what happened next. ON 3 February 1940 Heinkel 111 twinengined bombers of Kampfgeschwader 26 lifted off in pairs from an airfield in Schleswig, northern Germany. One of the Heinkels was crewed by Feldwebel Hermann Wilms (pilot), Unteroffizier Rudolf Leushacke (observer), Unteroffizier Karl Missy (radio operator) and Unteroffizier Johann Meyer (engineer) of 4/KG 26. This crew had started their war with attacks in Poland from 1 September 1939, followed by a series of uneventful operational flights against British shipping and naval land targets. This flight would be very different. About two and a half hours after take-off, Wilms and his crew were approaching Whitby on the Yorkshire coast, where they carried out an attack on a trawler. Meanwhile, their

20 www.britainatwar.com

approach had been detected by radar and three Hawker Hurricanes of Blue Section ‘B’ Flight, 43 Sqn, from RAF Acklington were scrambled to intercept. The three RAF pilots were Flt Lt Peter Townsend, Fg Off Patrick Folkes and Sgt Herbert ‘Jim’ Hallowes. In poor weather conditions the three pilots flew towards the plot of the incoming raid. Five miles south Whitby, at 09.40 hours, Peter Townsend spotted a Heinkel 111 flying at 300 feet and he and the other two Hurricanes attacked. His to-the-point combat report reads as follows: “Speed of enemy aircraft 180 [knots] seen climbing for clouds flying north- north-west. Fighters speed of 240 [knots]. Carried out No.1 [attack] attacking five times. Enemy aircraft lowered undercarriage after third attack. Under and top rear gunner firing from enemy aircraft.

All attacks except the first one were with full deflection. Enemy aircraft turned east. Enemy aircraft crash-landed, undercarriage collapsing. Crashed through hedge and stopped 50 yards from farmhouse.” Inside the Heinkel was a scene of utter carnage. Although the Hurricanes had been spotted by Rolf Leushacke in the nose of the aircraft, he was killed by the very first burst of gunfire. A second attack hit the starboard engine which started to smoke, and Johann Meyer, manning the lower gun position, was mortally wounded in the stomach. Karl Missy, in the upper gun position, was also wounded in the legs although, amazingly, Hermann Wilms was unscathed in the hail of gunfire. He was faced with one dead and two wounded crew and a crippled Heinkel which was more than two hours away from German territory.

Whitby Heinkel 111 Desperately, he tried to hide in the clouds, but to no avail. Flying lower and lower over Whitby, and still chased by the three Hurricanes, Wilms tried to find somewhere to crash-land. At Bannial Flatt Farm, just on the edge of the moors north of Whitby, the farmer’s wife was horrified to see the German bomber take out the telegraph wires, narrowly miss a barn and then flop onto the ground with its undercarriage collapsing on impact. However, despite having no wheels to run on, the Heinkel kept on going and slithered towards two cottages, the occupier of one looking out of his kitchen window just as the bomber headed towards him. Luckily, a row of trees slowed its approach and it eventually came to a halt yards from the startled cottager’s home. Police and farm workers rushed towards the German aircraft with Special Constable Arthur Barratt jumping up on the canopy. Looking inside, he could see Wilms trying to burn his paperwork, with Missy and Meyer alongside and in obvious pain. When Wilms had finished what he was doing, he exited the aircraft, then attempting to set the Heinkel on fire while bystanders were trying to get the injured Missy and Meyer out of the fuselage. Luckily, the plucky locals successfully managed to extinguish the fire before removing the body of Leushacke and waiting for the military to arrive.

All three living Germans were taken to Whitby Hospital. Wilms had superficial injuries and Missy had a foot amputated while Meyer succumbed to his wounds. Next day, Peter Townsend visited Whitby not only to see the Heinkel but to visit the surviving crew in hospital, taking Missy a gift of oranges and a tin of cigarettes. The bodies of Rudolf Leushacke and Johann Meyer were removed to RAF Catterick and buried with full military honours; they were later transferred to the German Military Cemetery at Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. Karl Missy, meanwhile, went to a POW hospital and Hermann Wilms started his six years as a POW. 3 February 1940 proved to be a good day for the RAF and a bad day for KG 26. 43 Sqn claimed another two Heinkels off the Farne Islands as well as another destroyed off Tynemouth at 1115 hrs. 152 Sqn (Spitfires) would claim a Heinkel destroyed at Druridge Bay at 1100 hrs. It would appear that the Heinkel claimed off Tynemouth was from 2/KG 26 and flown by Oberfeldwebel (Warrant Officer) Fritz Wiemer. He and two crew were picked up from the North Sea and captured whilst two more were killed. The Heinkel that crashed in Druridge Bay was flown by Unteroffizier Walter Remischke, killed along with his crew of three. In June 1945 the local council erected a plaque to commemorate the crash-landing at Bannial Flat Farm. The 75th anniversary

| NEWS FEATURE

of the crash was marked on 1 February this year, in recognition of what John Allison, RAF Association Northern Area Chairman called “this important local and national incident”. Sadly, those involved on the day were no longer around to participate. On the RAF side, Patrick Folkes was killed in an accident on 12 April 1940 and is still missing; his name is recorded on the Runnymede Memorial. Peter Townsend and Jim Hallowes both survived the war and remained in RAF service afterwards. Peter Townsend became Equerry to King George VI and romantically linked to HRH The Princess Margaret. He retired as a Group Captain and passed away in France in June 1995. Jim Hallowes retired as a Wg Cdr, but died in October 1987. Hermann Wilms returned to German after the war and he passed away in 1974. Karl Missy, meanwhile, was repatriated in 1943 because of his severe wounds, but before he passed away in 1981 he and Peter Townsend met again in 1969, 41 years after they first met off Whitby. Following this, the first of many such events, the RAF Association will be holding a service of commemoration for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain at St Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday 15 September. Further services will be held around the country in the run-up to the anniverary. For more information on these visit www.rafa.org.uk.

ABOVE: Sgt Pilot Jim Hallowes (photographed later in the war) was one of the three RAF pilots who shot the Heinkel down. ABOVE: The commemorative marker placed close to the crash site in 1945 by North Riding County Council. ABOVE LEFT: Uffz Karl Missy was seriously wounded in the action.

ABOVE: The RAFA commemoration at the site on 1 February 2015.

www.britainatwar.com 21

www.london-medals.co.uk 020 7836 8877 • BUY & VIEW ALL AVAILABLE STOCK ONLINE

www.worldmilitary-collectables.com The ‘Collective’ site for all your Militaria needs

Home Front Collection Tel: +44 (0)7885 644812 This site is entirely devoted to the British Home Front during World War Two and offers a wide range of genuine collectables from this era.

www.homefrontcollection.com

Tel: +44 (0)7768 743878 WMC offers a wide range of quality militaria from around the world, concentrating on the two major conflicts of the 20th century.

www.worldmilitarycollectables.com

ii

World War German Daggers Tel: +44 (0)1799 550062 This Website offers a good range of quality edged weapons manufactured and carried during the Third Reich period 1933-1945.

www.ww2germandaggers.com

The author of the Letter of the Month may select a book of their choice (maximum value £25) from the extensive range of titles available at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

FIELD POST

'Britain at War' Magazine, PO Box 380, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 9JA | [email protected]

LETTER OF THE MONTH

Rescued by the SS Stockport

SIR - I was fascinated to read the story of the SS Stockport and her various rescues in your February 2015 issue. I was privileged to interview a former Merchant Navy seaman who was torpedoed and actually owed his life to the SS Stockport rescue ship when his vessel, the SS Sheaf Mount was sunk with the loss of 31 of the 51 of her crew. Tom Scotland (right) was a stoker and, as his name might imply, was also a native of Scotland although later made his home in Bristol, which is where I met him. He was a true gentleman, and I thought that your readers might well be interested in Tom’s fascinating, harrowing account. It is certainly sad that the Stockport, too, would later meet a similar but perhaps nigh-on inevitable end after valiant service in saving so many lives. This is his story: “In July 1942 I joined the SS Sheaf Mount, a ship belonging to Andrew Souter of Newcastle, but I joined her in Southampton. I was designated the 12-4 watch and on 24 August, 1942, I came off watch in the afternoon, had a wash, a meal and then settled down to a game of cards with the lads. With the change of watch at eight o’clock I decided to lie on my bunk and read whilst

the lads who had just been relieved were having a meal. Eventually they started to play cards again and I dropped off to sleep. I woke up with a start to the thunderous clanging of the alarm bell, and looking down from my top bunk saw the lads on their way out while putting on their life jackets. Nobody spoke as everyone was intent on getting out on deck as soon as possible, there was a brief eerie silence when I was alone and donning my life jacket whilst walking along the alleyway to the deck. Suddenly, the alarm started to ring again and within seconds there was a huge explosion and a terrific flash from abaft the bridge. In the brilliant flash I could see what I assumed to be hatch boards being hurled into the sky, together with other debris. “Again there was an eerie silence and I went out on to the deck to hear the Captain shouting, ‘Abandon ship, Abandon ship!’ The off-watch firemen and the Bosun were trying to release a liferaft, which had become jammed. It was then decided to lower one of the lifeboats; we managed that with no problem and scrambled into our seats. Unfortunately the Sheaf Mount suddenly up-ended and started to plunge to the bottom taking the lifeboat with her. I also went down, and after quite a struggle rose to the surface just as I

thought my lungs would burst and in time to see the Sheaf Mount’s bows disappear beneath the waves Only a few of us survived the ordeal. The convoy had sailed on and we were treading water and hanging on to whatever debris we could find, with the idea being to try to make a raft when daylight arrived. “Within an hour or so a rescue ship, the SS Stockport, came back from the convoy to pick up survivors from both our ship and another, which had been torpedoed whilst we were in the water. I think that the worst part was hearing cries for help in the darkness and being unable to see or help anyone. I subsequently heard that the Stockport was herself attacked and sunk in a later convoy with the loss of all of her brave crew. “We finally arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 5th and were immediately signed on as firemen aboard the SS Fort Babine, arriving back in the United Kingdom on 21 September.” The ordeal that Tom went through when rescued by SS Stockport and her brave crew stayed with him for the rest of his life and he became very emotional if anyone asked about his experiences. The worst thing for him had been trying to stay alive as his shipmates

ABOVE: Tom Scotland, who owed his life to the Stockport.

drifted off into the night, never to be seen again. We cannot imagine what these merchant sailors went through and he told me that when he arrived back in Britain a woman accosted him in the street and accused him angrily of being an ‘army dodger’ because he was wearing civilian clothes with just the MN badge in his lapel. Little did she know. Hopefully, this first-hand account helps to place into context some of the courageous rescues that the stalwart SS Stockport provided. Tom Scotland owed his life to her. Norman Date, Bristol. By email.

The author of the Letter of the Month may select a book of their choice (maximum value £25) from the extensive range of titles available at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Sir - Re: Tank Guardians of Retimo (Issue 93). I thought your readers might like to know that the Matilda shown on the bottom of page 86 was the one commanded by Lieutenant John ‘Jack’ Bedells during the attack on Perivolia on the morning of 27 May 1941. Bedells and the driver (Corporal Terry Oakley) were members of the 2/11th Australian Infantry Battalion which, together with the 2/1st Battalion and two regiments of Greek troops, was assigned to the defence of the Retimo airstrip. After the Matilda had its track broken by a land mine it came under

Aussies at Retimo

fire from German mortars. One bomb exploded on the turret roof and blew open the hatch; Bedells lost his fingers when another bomb hit the tank while he was closing it. The hit on the roof also destroyed the commander’s periscope, forcing Oakley to direct the tank’s fire with the driver’s periscope.  When the 2-pdr barrel was hit by another bomb Oakley continued to direct the fire of the Besa machinegun. Because the tank was also under small arms fire it could not be abandoned until later that night. Oakley was subsequently awarded the Military Medal and Bedells was Mentioned in Despatches. 

Lieutenant Pat Lawry’s Matilda was knocked out by a single shell from a 10.5-cm LG40 recoilless gun, two of which were dropped by parachute on 20 May. I am well acquainted with the battle for Retimo because I am the author of the 2/11th Battalion’s history. About 1500 paratroops were dropped over the well-camouflaged defensive positions on the afternoon of 20 May. Many were shot before they hit the ground and by nightfall at least 50% of the attacking force had been killed, wounded or captured. The commanding officer of the 2nd Fallschirmjager Regiment, Oberst Alfred Sturm was

captured on 21 May by a 2/11th Battalion patrol. When questioned by Lieutenant-Colonel Ray Sandover (who could speak German), Sturm reputedly said, “It was a shit of a plan, and a shit of a drop.” The battalion also captured large quantities of German weapons and used these with great effect against their former owners. The best find was two scoped Mauser rifles. These were given to WO2 Charles Mitchell and Private Andy Mulgrave who made themselves very unpopular with the Germans in Perivolia. Both were awarded MMs for their sniping work. Wes Olson, Fremantle, Western Australia, via email www.britainatwar.com 23

FIELD POST

Our Letter of the Month is sponsored by

Pen & Sword Books

'Britain at War' Magazine, PO Box 380, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 9JA | [email protected]

Fumes of Chianti

Sir - Following the article on the Corpo Aero Italiano (February 2015) I thought readers might like to know that the clock from the BR20 which crashed at Tangham Forest is now housed in the museum at the Martlesham Heath Aviation Society at the old control tower there. There is no doubt from surviving Combat Reports that it was shot down by Plt Off Karol Pniak and Plt Off George Kay of 257 Squadron, even though there are claims for it by pilots of 46 Squadron. The pilot of the bomber shot down by Blatchford baled out and survived and allegedly later escaped from his POW camp, vanishing without trace. It was rumoured that he may have been sheltered by the infamous Italian crime boss, Darby Sabini. The Fiat CR42 pilot who came down at Corton was said to have thought that he may have been the other side of the Channel when he saw a Dornier 17 ‘parked’ in a field but, in fact, it was a shot down bomber that had been placed on public display! As to the Fiat G50s, these saw no confirmed combats and

ABOVE: Flt Lt ‘Butch’ Barton of 249 Squadron with the squadron’s mascot, ‘Wilfred’ the duck. Barton claimed a Junkers 86 P during the engagement with the Italians, but it was almost certainly one of the Fiat BR20 bombers.

24 www.britainatwar.com

only saw RAF fighters twice in operations against Britain. Author John Foreman has speculated that one might have damaged a Spitfire, the pilot of which reported being attacked in error by a ‘Hurricane’. This cannot be confirmed, however. Meanwhile, Flt Lt Elmer Gaunce of 46 Squadron destroyed the CR42 lost over the sea although other pilots claimed it as well, while 41 Squadron’s Fg Off ‘Hawkeye’ Wells was attacked by a dozen of the bi-planes in his Spitfire, which let in 257 Squadron to attack the bombers. Wg Cdr Victor Beamish, flying with 249 Squadron, claimed one as ‘probable’. These aircraft, and the one rammed by ‘Cowboy’ Blatchford, must have been among those who crashed on return. However, there is a puzzle over a claim made by Flt Lt ‘Butch’ Barton of 249 Squadron for a ‘Junkers 86 P’ which he must have confused for one of the Italian aircraft. There are references to ‘Capronis’ in this battle, with the Wonder Book of The RAF including an image of a Hurricane attacking a Caproni CA 135 which were never used by the Italians at all, although Punch magazine published a funny little verse about the November 1940 action and this also referenced the Caproni aircraft: ‘Avanti! Avanti! ‘Mid fumes of Chianti The vaunted armada took off in the breeze Each bulging Caproni piled high with Polony Ripe Macaroni and Parmesan cheese’ Aside from the entertainment value provided to the popular press of the day by the appearance of the Italians in the air war against Britain one wonders what on earth the Luftwaffe thought of this flying circus, its bi-plane fighters and rag-tag collection of bombers. Trevor Hart, Woodbridge, Suffolk.

BOTH ABOVE: The Kriegsmarine sextant recovered from U-1024.

Help Wanted: U-Boat Sextant

SIR - A friend of mine is in possession of a wonderful German Kriegsmarine sextant, complete in its carry-case, presented to his late father after being involved in boarding and capturing the U-Boat, U-1024. He was Lt Cdr Eugene Seymour Andrews, RNR, and the incident in question occurred right at the end of the war on 12 April 1945. U-1024 had been attacking convoy BB-80 but was captured in the Irish Sea, south of the Isle of Man, after being attacked in position 53°39’N, 05°03’W, by HMS Loch Glendhu (Lt Cdr E G P B Knapton RN) and HMS Loch More (Lt Cdr R A D Cambridge DSC RD RNR). Andrews, then First Lieutenant, was on board the Loch More and although the frigates attempted to tow U-1024 to port she sank whilst underway on 13 April 1945. Previously, the U-Boat had been boarded by boarding parties from the Loch More and valuable documents recovered, with the sextant being given to Andrews by one of the German officers. It had always been understood by the family that the German officer

had been the Captain of U-1024, Kapitänleutnant Hans-Joachim Gutteck, but this seems unlikely as he had been wounded in the action and was reported to have then shot himself. However, since Andrews was navigating officer on board Loch More it seems more likely that the officer on board the U-Boat who presented it to Andrews would have been the officer responsible for navigation on the German vessel. This is certainly a very long shot, but my friend would now like to see if he could discover who that officer was (or perhaps the names of the officer complement on board U-1024) as he has hopes of returning the sextant to the family of the man involved. Finding out now, after such a long time, seems an impossible task — and it probably is. However, the readership of this magazine are just the sort of people among whom might be an expert who knows the answer. At least my friend, Andrews’ son, will be pleased to know that his question has been put before a potentially very knowledgeable audience. Thank you for a truly splendid magazine! P Dimond, Petersfield. By email.

N

W E

!

AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE SECOND YEAR OF THE GREAT WAR A

SPECIAL

The second of Key Publications’ illustrated histories of the First World War examines the allencompassing nature of second year of the conflict. From ambitious grand strategies, to individual acts of valour, every aspect of this year of hope and frustration is brought to the reader in unique text and dynamic images.

THE YEAR OF RESIGNATIONS Fisher, Churchill, French and Hamilton all lose their positions; the government is forced into coalition.

THE YEAR OF GLOBAL WAR

New fronts are opened in the Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Salonica, Egypt, Italy and Africa.

THE YEAR OF SHAME

JUST *

£5.99

Civilians are victims as Britain is bombed by Zeppelins, Lusitania is sunk and Nurse Cavell is executed.

THE YEAR OF TECHNOLOGY Poison gas, flamethrowers and steel helmets appear on the battlefield for the first time; the first tank is designed and completes its test run.

AND MUCH MORE!

ORDER DIRECT:

JUST £5.99

FREE P&P*

*Free 2nd class P&P on all UK & BFPO orders. Overseas charges apply.

Free P&P* when you order online at www.keypublishing.com/shop

OR

1134/14

Call UK: 01780 480404 Overseas: +44 1780 480404 Monday to Friday 9am-5:30pm

SUBSCRIBERS CALL FOR YOUR £1.00 DISCOUNT!

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE Operation Bodenplatte MAIN PICTURE: The immediate aftermath of Operation Bodenplatte. This is the view of 485 Squadron’s dispersal at Maldegem on the morning of New Year’s Day 1945. Each plume of smoke signifies another burnt out Spitfire. (COURTESY OF MAX COLLETT)

H

ITLER’S GREAT attempt to change the course of the fighting in the West by breaking through the Ardennes to re-capture the port of Antwerp was launched on 16 December 1944. The attack was unexpected — Ultra intercepts indicated the movement and build-up of German air forces in the region, but did not suggest that an operation was imminent — and at first the Allies were driven back. Eventually, though, the German advance was halted and it appeared that Hitler’s final effort at driving back the Allied armies was going to fail. It was thought by the German commanders that the only way the offensive could be resumed was if the Luftwaffe gained superiority of the skies above the battlegrounds. This could only be accomplished if the Luftwaffe threw every available aircraft into the fight. Bearing the code-name Operation Bodenplatte (or Baseplate) it was Hitler’s final chance of achieving some form of victory in the West – his, and the Luftwaffe’s, last roll of the dice.

Over 800 fighters and fighter-bombers, predominantly Focke-Wulf Fw 190s and Messerschmitt Bf 109s, were despatched in this low-level attack on Allied airfields in Belgium and the Netherlands. Surprise was complete, as Wing Commander ‘Johnnie’ Johnson of 144 Wing, at airfield B-56 at Evère, described: “I heard the noise of a large number of aeroplanes, but paid little attention, since large formations of American fighters often flew over Evère. Flying along the western boundary of the airfield, the leading elements turned left and the first four Messerschmitts came low over the boundary in loose formation. The cannons belched; the three aircraft behind [Squadron Leader Dave] Harling’s Spitfire were badly hit. The pilots jumped from their cockpits and scrambled for shelter. Dave roared down the runway with wide-open throttle. Alone he turned into the enemy fighters and shot one down. But the odds were far too great; our brave pilot was killed before his Spitfire had gathered combat speed. “The enemy fighters strafed singly and in pairs. Our few light ack-ack guns

had already ceased firing; later we found that the gunners had run out of ammunition. The enemy completely dominated the scene, and there was little we could do except shout with rage as our Spitfires burst into flames before our eyes.”1

485 SQUADRON At Deurne in Belgium, 193 Squadron was also caught unawares with its Typhoon Mk.Ibs sat helplessly on the ground, as pilot David Ince recalled: “The sound of diving aircraft came almost as we saw them, a loose gaggle of Me 109s, swarming towards us above the rooftops of Antwerp. Bofors thumped, cannon and machine-guns responded abruptly, and the snarl of engines rose to crescendo as they flashed across the airfield, all mottled camouflage and splashes of yellow. “In their gunsights were 80-plus Typhoons. Out in the open, most of them fully armed and fuelled. The target of a lifetime. Yet only the first eight carried out any sort of attack. In a single pass they destroyed just one aircraft 

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE On 1 January 1945, the Luftwaffe was ordered to take control of the skies over the Ardennes where the German advance during the Battle of the Bulge had ground to a halt. Allied airfields were taken by surprise. Wtih the help of a set of unique cartoons drawn by a first-hand observer, Mark Hillier describes what happened next.

26 www.britainatwar.com

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE Operation Bodenplatte

www.britainatwar.com 27

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE Operation Bodenplatte and caused minor damage to eight others. Two further enemy formations appeared in the circuit. Flying aimlessly around at low level, they made no attempt to avoid the defensive fire, and departed to a cynical chorus of ‘Weave, you buggers, weave!’”2 In the midst of this desperate battle in the Ardennes, a good sense of humour and the ability to make light of any situation would have been a refreshing welcome in that bitter and deadly winter. One unit which contained individuals able to turn tragedy into humour was 485 Squadron RNZAF. The squadron had mostly New Zealand aircrew but many of the ground crew were British. The relationship between the two was close, as Joe Roddis, a fitter on the squadron from its formation, later recalled: “The aircrew and ground crew had a special bond on the squadron, they always spoke and we often socialised together, it wasn’t as stuffy as one of my previous squadrons. They all had a good sense of fun and I enjoyed my time immensely and was proud

to be associated with them. We had a chap with us who I think came to us as a general duties ground crew chap, we knew him as ‘Ticker’ Booth. I never knew his first name; he was a quiet chap with a very dry sense of humour. I knew that he had worked as a cartoonist for the Bradford Evening News before the war. Although he was quiet, when he did make light of a situation through his cartoons, they certainly cheered us all up.”3 The squadron had been formed in 1941, the second of the New Zealand squadrons to form and operate under RAF control — it was the first fighter squadron, the first squadron overall being 75 Squadron RNZAF, flying Wellingtons. Since 1941, 485 Squadron had been in the thick of the action, operating from northern France shortly after D-Day and advancing with the Allied front line, giving divebombing support through Belgium and on into Germany in 1945. At the time of Bodenplatte the squadron was equipped with the Spitfire Mk.IX carrying 500lb bombs.

ABOVE: Taken at 09.30 hours on 1 January 1945, this is one of the 485 Squadron Spitfires destroyed in the Luftwaffe’s surprise attack. (JOE RODDIS, VIA AUTHOR)

BELOW: A Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-8 (werke nummer 681497, ‘White 11’) of 5./JG 4 at St. Trond airfield, Belgium, circa January 1945. It was flown during Bodenplatte on 1 January 1945, by Unteroffizier Walter Wagner who was hit by antiaircraft over St. Trond. The engine died and he had to make an emergency landing. Note the removed guns. (USAF)

28 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: Sergeant Joe Roddis standing on the wing of one of 485 Squadron’s Spitfires; a picture believed to have been taken at Maldegem. A presentation aircraft, this Mk.IX has been named Rangi II. (JOE RODDIS, VIA AUTHOR)

ABOVE: A member of 485 Squadron’s groundcrew poses for the camera in a captured Schwimmwagen pressed into service as an additional means of transport. (JOE RODDIS, VIA AUTHOR)

A NOGGIN OR TWO Joe recalls that the unit was quite happy and jovial until it moved into the former Luftwaffe airfield at Maldegem in Flanders, where it would be the subject of some unwanted attention on that fatal New Year’s Day of 1945 when Jagdgeschwader 1 appeared overhead.4 Flying a mixture of Bf 109s and Fw 190s, JG 1 alone lost 25 pilots killed, or captured during this daring early morning raid, which was witnessed by Joe Roddis:

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE Operation Bodenplatte BELOW: The remains of a burnt out Vickers Wellington Mk.XIII of 69 Squadron at Melsbroek, Belgium, on New Year’s Day 1945. No.69 had re-assembled at RAF Northolt on 5 May 1944 and was equipped with Wellingtons for night reconnaissance duties, beginning operations on the eve of D-Day. In September the Squadron moved to France and Belgium until 7 May 1945, the Squadron disbanding on 7 August that year. (WW2IMAGES)

“The previous night, being New Year’s Eve, and not much happening with the war in our area, we had a noggin or two and had been told not to be too early the next morning. It was very cold and [there was] a thick frost everywhere. The Spitfires would require defrosting and de-icing.

ABOVE: Members of the 127 Wing leadership team pose for a photograph at Evère in January 1945.(P.H.T. GREEN COLLECTION)

“At about 8am the ground crew started to drift out to their aircraft having had breakfast to begin their daily routine on the Spitfires which were parked in two straight lines opposite each other — we had not had a visit from ‘Jerry’ for a while and we were getting too relaxed. Bill Parker and I came across from the billet, round the corner of the hangar and were discussing the day’s programme along with the previous night’s binge! I was the sergeant in charge that morning, getting the aircraft ready was my responsibility. “The sound of aircraft engines made us look up and towards the control tower across the field. We saw three or four aircraft bank round the tower and head towards us. They were pretty low, two or three hundred feet at the most and coming at us in a shallow dive. I said to

LEFT: One of the many Allied pilots who saw combat on 1 January 1945 was Flight Lieutenant R.J. ‘Dick’ Audet. (ANDY THOMAS)

Bill ‘the Yanks are out early’, thinking they were Mustangs … ‘Before he could reply the front of their wings started to sparkle and flash and all hell broke loose. The Mustangs had suddenly become Me 109s and, as Bill legged it for the hangar, I dived down the side of it where I knew there was an old air raid shelter. There were already four chaps in there. Bullets and cannon shells were screaming off the hangar sides and rustling through the camouflage netting and I didn’t see Bill again until it was all over 30 minutes later. “Not being given to emulate an ostrich, after my initial instinctive dash for

A HISTORY FIRST OPERATION BODENPLATTE also saw a ground-breaking event — the world’s first night-time bombing raid by jet bombers. Shortly after midnight, on New Year’s Day, four Arado Ar 234 bombers from Kampfgeschwader 76 flew a circular route over Rotterdam and Antwerp, then continued over Brussels and Liege. The Ar 234 was the world’s first jet-powered bomber. It was capable of speeds exceeding 450mph, more than 260mph faster than an Avro Lancaster, and carried a 1,500kg bomb load. The four jets released their payloads randomly across the Belgium towns, their intention being to divert the attention of the Allied radar operators from the main attack. The Arados also had a secondary task which had been to report on weather conditions ahead of the massed fighters without it being obvious that they were undertaking a reconnaissance.

the shelter I came up for a look-see and had a grandstand view of the shoot-up. Occasionally there would be a clattering and thumping of ammo thrashing along the hangar and camo netting and I would duck down again, but I had to see this. The 109s took turns at coming in, one after the other from different angles, picking a Spitfire and smacking it straight in the cockpit. Most of the Spitfires had full drop tanks on and when hit just exploded in a ball of flame, then sagged in the middle. They really caught us with our pants down! “Some, still intact, had their engines running where the fitter doing his warm up had just leapt out and headed for the nearest hole. One poor chap was trapped in the toilet which was an open square breeze block type with bricks and a bucket in each corner. He was darting from corner to corner as each 109 came in spraying shells everywhere but he got out safely. “I watched one of them come down in a shallow dive towards the hangar, pick his Spitfire and destroy it then bank left over the top of the shelter I was in. As I looked up and to my right, I was presented with a perfect plan view of the banking Me 109. I could clearly see every marking on it and the pilot through the canopy looking back at what he had just done, or maybe looking for another target. We really were sitting ducks as all the airfield defences had gone the previous day to our next airfield. “The pilots, by now hearing all the carry on, were out in force down in the village. Some still in their pyjamas, all firing whatever they could lay hands on. Sten guns, Lugers, revolvers — anything that would shoot was used that morning to try and put up some feeble opposition.”  www.britainatwar.com 29

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE Operation Bodenplatte

CANADIAN PILOTS ON TARGET THE FOLLOWING account, released on 2 January 1945, was published in the Allied press in the days after the launching of Operation Bodenplatte: “Canadian fighter pilots accounted for at least half of the 94 German planes destroyed by the RAF’s 2nd Tactical Air Force New Year’s Day when the Luftwaffe made an attempt to cripple west front airfield operations. “A compilation tonight, based on the latest reports received from the Continent, showed that RCAF fighters in their biggest day of the war destroyed at least 36 enemy aircraft and half-a-dozen others fell to Canadian sharpshooters in RAF Squadrons. “The top scoring wing in the 2nd Tactical Air Force during the day of close to 100 ‘kills’ was the Canadian Spitfire unit which brought down 24 German machines, probably destroyed another three and damaged seven. An untold number of probables and damaged planes was claimed by other Canadians. “The wing’s scorers included two airmen who downed three planes apiece, both from the Ram Squadron. F.O. G.D. Cameron of Toronto destroyed a trio of ME-109s while Flt. Lt. John Mackay of Cloverdale, B.C. destroyed two ME-109s and an FW-190. Mackay got the last two without using his guns because they dived into the ground when he chased them. “Flt. Lt. D. Pieri of Toronto and Elmhurst, Ill., destroyed two ME-109s and probably destroyed two others. Flt. Lt. Dick Audet of Lethbridge, Alta., who last Friday shot down five enemy planes in little more than five minutes, brought his total to seven with two FW-190s bagged as they roared low over his field. Friday’s quintet were the first aircraft the 22-year-old Lethbridge airman had downed. “Others from the Canadian wing, who helped to set up the day’s record — the previous top mark for the Canadians in a single day was 22 planes — included Sqdn Ldr. Dean Dover, DFC, and Bar, of Toronto, who destroyed an ME-109 and shared another with F.O. Dean Kelly of Peterborough, Ont. and Flt. Lt Donald Gordon of Vancouver with two ME-109s.”

DEVASTATING RESULTS A similar scene on the ground, though this time at Evère, is described by pilot Boswell Filby in his memoirs. As he had been scheduled to fly early on New Year’s Day, he had avoided excessive participation in the previous evening’s festivities: “I drove to the hangars on that eventful morning and having checked my Auster aircraft with Corporal Wheaton, went into the shed adjacent to the main hangar to complete the paperwork. Suddenly we heard a very heavy and close burst of automatic fire and went outside to investigate. “About 40 metres behind the hangar, a Me 109 was doing a very steep turn with his port wing about ten metres from the ground. He passed us, gave us a quick glance, flattened out and put a well-aimed and long burst of fire along the full line of Johnnie Johnson’s

Spitfire Squadron, which were conveniently parked about 100 metres from our hangar. “The result was devastating. The German pilot pulled up and commenced to turn. Other Me 109s and Fw 190s were beating up other parts of the airfield. We looked to the Bofors gun sited to our right but it was silent and askew. Either the first burst we heard had killed the crew and silenced the gun or it had not been manned … “As the Me 109 completed his turn, he came back and again started to strafe the line of Spitfires. Errant bullets and richochets whizzed past us. We dived into a nearby slit trench from which we were able to observe the uncounted destruction of most of the many parked aircraft.”5 The following account was written by a, sadly un-named, member of ground crew from 127 Wing which was also based at Evère:

BELOW: The remains of unusual victim of Bodenplatte — a Handley Page Harrow II transport aircraft of 271 Squadron — can be seen in the foreground of this picture taken at Melsbroek on 1 January 1945. A further Harrow is in the background. (ANDY THOMAS)

30 www.britainatwar.com

BELOW: Not all the wreckage that the groundcrew of 485 Squadron encountered during the Squadron’s time at Maldegem was the result of Bodenplatte. Here an airman examines the wreckage of a USAAF Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress which, having been shot down in 1944, was moved to the airfield by a Luftwaffe recovery unit. (JOE RODDIS, VIA AUTHOR)

BOTTOM: Allied aircraft lie burning after the surprise attack by German fighters on 1 January 1945. The Stirling hulk in the foreground appears as if it has been in situ for a while as the nose glazing has been removed along with the tail and wings, so was probably not destroyed during Bodenplatte. (WW2IMAGES)

“Most personnel had been up a little late doing a little celebrating and were slightly groggy. One squadron was just preparing to take-off … As I walked, suddenly I could hear gunfire from aircraft coming from the Mechelen Airfield direction. Then, what I first thought was a Spit IX aircraft appeared from that way after flying across our airfield … He sort of rolled up and there were black crosses well marked under his wings. “Then aircraft started roaring across our aircraft and airfield. I jumped into a boarded up German slit trench as some 109s came low over the old hangar firing as they turned to hit our new aircraft. They weren’t shooting at me but one 37mm slug went into the wood beside me, the old German gas barrels also got hit and also our aircraft. “When I left about 2 minutes earlier, Robbie was running up one Spit. Whitey was on the wing tip. I ran back down the little road. Fire was coming out of the cockpit of Robbie’s Spit. I jumped up on the wing. The cockpit was empty, Whitey got up from the ground, he had dropped beside the cement [apron] in a patch of old oil; half of his face was black. “A few of the rest of the crew had dropped on the cement apron. Bullets had bounced off the cement all around them, no one was hit – Robbie and 3 others had run to the top of the old smashed hangar. Their backs were covered in red brick dust as slugs had missed them by inches and embedded in the bricks – and were later dug out for keepsakes. One fellow had been sitting on our prized toilet wondering what all the noise was when a slug came through the wooded

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE Operation Bodenplatte BELOW: Flight Lieutenant Don Gordon was flying this 442 Squadron RCAF Spitfire, MH728 (coded Y2-L), when he intercepted and shot down two Fw 190s to the south of his squadron’s airfield — B-88 Heesch — on 1 January 1945. Gordon had initially suffered engine problems and took off after his colleagues. Spotting a group of enemy fighters at low level he went for them single-handed. Despite his rough running engine, ‘Chunky’ Gordon fired a deflection shot at the first Fw 190 at a range of 20 yards and saw it immediately flick to the left and crash into the ground. He then swung left slightly and went after another and fired a burst from 300 yards seeing strikes and smoke emanate before the Fw 190 nosed over into the ground and blew up. (DND)

HALF AN HOUR’S WORK

door, hit the toilet between his legs, smashed the china bowl and left him sitting on a pile of rubble. “Bob Medforth got a cannon shell through both thighs. Some of the gang found him and applied field dressings to stop the bleeding, got a stretcher and ran him over to the M.Q.’s [Medical Quarters] and requested immediate attention. There were casualties coming in there pretty fast.”6 Thirty-six-year-old Leading Aircraftsman Robert Charles Medforth, an aero engine mechanic from Pennant, Saskatchewan, never recovered from his wounds. Buried in Brussels Town Cemetery, Evère-les-Bruxelles, Belgium, Bob Medforth was one of many casualties on the ground and in the air on 1 January 1945.

ABOVE MIDDLE: Further evidence of the success of the Luftwaffe’s strike on Eindhoven — wrecked Typhoon Mk.Ibs of 439 Squadron pictured in the hours following Bodenplatte. (PAC)

ABOVE: A Typhoon Ib of 439 Squadron RCAF burns out on the ground at Eindhoven, 1 January 1945. (S.M. COATES)

While Filby had been on his airfield when the Luftwaffe struck, most of the 485 Squadron pilots were not at site at Maldegem. In the days after the attack, ‘Ticker’ Booth sat down to create his series of cartoons lampooning the Luftwaffe’s strike. In one of the first he decided to depict Joe being asked to try and rouse the sleeping pilots by telephone in the nearby village as the Luftwaffe had free reign over the airfield. “They [the pilots] could see the airfield was under attack,” recalled Joe, “but they could not see the actual field and as the 109s turned over the village for another run, the locals were waving and cheering the Luftwaffe and getting waved back at by the pilots who’d obviously been there before! One or two 109s dropped small 250lb bombs but the results were not serious. A few craters in the earth around the ’planes and an aircraft standing inside the hangar door was peppered by shrapnel. “When eventually they had either run out of ammo, or fuel was getting low, they disappeared as quickly as they had come; [it was] all over in about 30 minutes. The whole wing had suffered from the attack and 13 of our squadron Spitfires were write-offs. “The pilots arrived and found us doing a salvage job on the un-damaged or slightly damaged aircraft, or pushing the ones that could be moved away from the burning wrecks. Any aircraft that flew in that day either to re-fuel or re-arm were confiscated and by the end of the day we were beginning to get some resemblance of order back.

“It was all tied in with von Rundstedt’s big push in the Ardennes but the Luftwaffe suffered more than we did for that last mad fling. We only lost ’planes, they lost hundreds of pilots when they were caught trying to return to their bases out of ammo and low on fuel. Squadrons that had not been hit and were actually airborne in the sector at the time of the raids had a field day. Within days we were back to full strength with Spitfire Mk.IXbs and on our way to Gilze-Rijn.”

REASONS FOR FAILURE Some of the attacks had been more successful than others. The raid upon the RAF base at Eindhoven in Holland, for example, caught more than 150 aircraft on the ground. The airfield was the home to eight squadrons of Typhoons of 124 and 143 Wings and three squadrons of Spitfires and Mustangs of 39 Wing. In addition there were a number of visiting aircraft. The reason why so many aircraft were packed into the Eindhoven base was that it was one of only a few airfields with an all-weather operating capability and hardened runways and taxiways that could support sustained operations. The attack on Eindhoven was undertaken by I, II and IV Gruppen of Jagdgeschwader 3. Flying at low level in line astern, and adopting radio silence, the 72 Bf 109s and Fw 190s reached Eindhoven undetected. As they flew over the airfield, 16 Typhoons of 438 and 440 squadrons were bunched at the end of the runway lining up to take off. The first of the Typhoons was already running down the airstrip when it  www.britainatwar.com 31

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE Operation Bodenplatte

‘Ticker’ Booth of 485 Squadron RNZAF depicted some of the events of Operation Bodenplatte from his illustrator’s perspective. The drawings were produced for all of the squadron’s personnel on air ministry paper.

32 www.britainatwar.com

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE Operation Bodenplatte was hit and the pilot killed. The second Typhoon actually managed to get airborne, but was quickly shot out of the sky. The other Typhoon pilots scrambled out of their cockpits and ran for cover.7 However, while generally a surprise to the Allies and a tactical success, Bodenplatte, the last large-scale strategic offensive operation mounted by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, was a failure. The German pilots failed to gain aerial superiority, even temporarily. Generalleutnant Adolf Galland, the man in charge of Germany’s fighter force and responsible for planning Operation Bodenplatte, later explained the reasons: “In unfamiliar conditions and with insufficient training and combat experience, our numerical strength had no effect. It was decimated while in transfer, on the ground, in large air battles ... and was finally destroyed. “In the early morning of January 1, 1945, every aircraft took off: some fighter units flying night fighters or bombers. They went into a large-scale well prepared, low-level attack on Allied airfields in the north of France, Belgium,

and Holland. With this action the enemy’s air force was to be paralyzed in one stroke. In good weather this largescale action should have been made correspondingly earlier. The briefing order demanded the very greatest effort from all units ... In this forced action we sacrificed our last substance.”8

TICKER’S DRAWINGS Joe recalls that one of the cartoons ‘Ticker’ produced depicted the planning of Bodenplatte by Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Ribbentrop at Berchtesgaden. Another scene depicts Hitler sitting on an (ersatz) soap box briefing his flyers and telling them, ‘I don’t want any binding about it either’ with his subject replying ‘OK my Furore’. The German pilots get airborne and one cartoon shows a pilot in his Bf 109 claiming he was so happy to be back in the air again after three years. The series runs through a typical morning at the Allied base followed by the panic and reactions by the pilots and ground crew. The last cartoon in the series shows the Luftwaffe pilots as winged avengers and then as angels with harps as they were unfortunate enough

CARTOON STRIP: A collection of drawings depicting Operation Bodenplatte. Joe Roddis recalls that 'Ticker' Booth, “one of 485 Squadron’s characters”, stayed with the unit until its disbandment, though not much is known about what happened to him after the war.

to meet a number of Typhoons on the return trip, many being shot down having run out of ammunition. As for Operation Bodenplatte, figures vary enormously, though it has been recorded that 224 Allied aircraft were destroyed (of which 144 were RAF) with a further 84 damaged beyond unit repair. For its part, the Luftwaffe lost 62 aircraft to Allied fighters and 172 to anti-aircraft guns — losses that it never really replaced, particularly in terms of aircrew. In Adolf Galland’s words, the Luftwaffe “received its death blow at the Ardennes offensive”. Hitler had thrown his last dice, and had lost. 

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

‘Johnnie’ Johnson, Wing Leader (Chatto and Windus, London, 1956), p.293. David Ince DFC, Brotherhood of the Skies (Grub Street, London, 2010), p.109. Joe Roddis account is taken from, Joe Roddis with Mark Hillier, In Support of the Few (Yellowman, 2013). Led by Oberstleutnant Herbert Ihlefeld, JG 1 was also tasked with striking against the Allied airbase at Ursel. Quoted in John Manrho and Ron Pütz, Bodenplatte: The Luftwaffe’s Last Hope, (Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, 2010), p.324. Quoted on the following website: https://rcaf403squadron.wordpress.com Alfred Price, Dogfight, True Stories of Dramatic Air Actions (History Press, Stroud, 2009), p.291. Adolf Galland, The First and the Last (Bantam, London, 1991), pp.261-2.

www.britainatwar.com 33

THE RAF ON THE AIR Flight Lieutenant Alfred Gatward

 

     

  17 PART

MAIN PICTURE: Bristol Beaufighter Mk.IC, T4800 (coded ‘ND-C’), of 236 Squadron, on the ground at Wattisham, Suffolk. (WW2IMAGES)

During the Second World War, RAF personnel regularly described their activities on the radio for listeners of the BBC. These broadcasts described their experiences in their own words and in effect provided the human stories behind the official communiqués. Each month we present one of these narratives, an account selected from over 280 broadcasts which were, at the time, given anonymously.

I

N SPRING 1942, the Commanderin-Chief of Coastal Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip de la Ferté Joubert, was informed through the Special Operations Executive that the occupying German forces paraded daily in Paris. In an unvarying routine, the troops apparently marched down the Champs-Élysées, every day, between 12.l5 and 12.45 hours. Joubert decided that this was an ideal opportunity to send a message of support to the French population.

34 www.britainatwar.com

It fell to Coastal Command’s 236 Squadron, and more specifically Flight Lieutenant Alfred ‘Ken’ Gatward and his navigator Sergeant George Fern, to undertake what was an unusual, if not unique, operation. It was on 5 May 1942 that Gatward and Fern learned the precise details of their mission. It was, as Gatward himself later recalled, to “fly low level down the Champs-Élysées, strafe the parade, and if that failed attack the Gestapo HQ in the former Ministère de la Marine”.

In the Official History of the RAF in the Second World War, Denis Richards outlined some of the preparation for their flight: “They were to carry out the attack only if good cloud-cover extended the whole way from the French coast to Paris. The two men at once began their preparations, making feint attacks each day on an old wreck in the Channel and poring for many hours over maps of Northern France and photographs of Paris. Very soon came the next step. ‘One day’, records Gatward, ‘we

went down to the naval dockyard at Portsmouth and drew a very new and grand-looking Tricolour for which we signed several forms. Back at Thorney Island we cut the flag into two and got the parachute section to sew iron bars on to each. In the evenings when few people were around we made tests with the flags, throwing them as high up as the hangar roof to see how they would unfurl when dropped from the air. We soon discovered the best way to fold them.’ “On 13th May the weather for the first time promised well. Half an hour before

noon the Beaufighter took off. But it had no sooner crossed the French coast than the clouds cleared, and in obedience to their instructions the two men turned back. Two days later they tried again, with the same result. Twice more in the next fortnight they were again baulked; on each occasion the skies cleared when they were well over French territory. Gatward’s patience was by then exhausted. As he took the Beaufighter up for the fifth time, on 12th June, he was determined to get through at all costs.” It was at 11.15 hours on 12 June 1942, that Gatward’s aircraft, Bristol Beaufighter Mk.IC T4800 ND-C, again lifted off, despite the pouring rain, from RAF Thorney Island. The events that followed were subsequently ABOVE: Wing detailed by Gatward in a broadcast he Commander A.K. recorded for the BBC: Gatward DSO, “I’d never been to Paris before, but it DFC in the cockpit of his Beaufighter. looked exactly as I imagined it would (WW2IMAGES) look: we’d studied a lot of guide books and photographs before we set out. TOP RIGHT: “We flew very low all the way across This picture of to avoid attack, and we saw masses of the Grand Palais horses in the fields. The Beaufighter in the ChampsÉlysées was taken is pretty quiet, and we didn’t seem from Gatward’s to disturb the horses and cattle very aircraft during the much, but we took some photographs flight on 12 June of them. Some horses were rearing up 1942. (HISTORIC as we came over the fields, and one of MILITARY PRESS)

them was a white horse and you can almost see the whites of his eyes in our picture. “We could see the Eiffel Tower when we were 30 to 40 miles from Paris, which helped out with the navigation, because we were much too low to have a look at Paris from above. But it was a very nice day – plenty of sun, and we could see quite easily where we were going. We took a bearing from the Eiffel Tower and came in smack over the Defence Monument, and then headed straight for the Arc de Triomphe. 

www.britainatwar.com 35

THE RAF ON THE AIR Flight Lieutenant Alfred Gatward

ABOVE: The ChampsÉlysées today — a view taken at about the same height as Gatward and Fern passed over it. (COURTESY OF J. SQUISH)

BELOW: A view of Paris and some of its landmarks taken as Flight Lieutenant Gatward’s Beaufighter raced low over the city on 12 June 1942. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

“I said to Sergeant George Fern, my observer, ‘Are you ready with the first flag?’ and he said, ‘Yes, I’m ready all right, but the slip-stream is nearly breaking my arm.’ He was pushing this furled flag down a flare shoot into the slip-stream from the propellers, and at the right moment he let her go. “We’d experimented quite a bit with the flags before we started, and they were both weighted and folded so that they’d stream as soon as they were released. However, we couldn’t stop to see exactly where the first dropped; but I’m glad to see that Vichy says it fell right on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior, which is, of course, just where you’d want it to be. “One of the things we wanted to look at particularly was the Ministry of Marine, because it was crammed with Huns, and we had something for them too. We spotted that quite easily, and turned north towards the Opera, and

36 www.britainatwar.com

then out again. On this first circuit the people in the street didn’t seem to pay a great deal of attention to us. Of course there was a certain amount of traffic in the street, which may have covered up the noise of our engines, but there wasn’t anything like the traffic there is in London, and we didn’t see any motor buses in the Champs Elysées. “We didn’t go very far before we turned for our second circuit, and this time we came in as low as we dared in case they had any light ack-ack on the roof-tops. Actually I was too busy watching out for chimney pots and steeples to notice any ack-ack fire at all; Fern warned me that some tracer did actually pass close by us, but certainly the aircraft was never hit at all. “On this second circuit we didn’t make quite the same tour. We turned south a bit towards the river so we could come square up to the Ministry of Marine, and when we were right in line at a range of about 500 yards we let fly with our four cannon, and I saw the sparks flying off the building. We hadn’t any time to see whether the shells burst inside, but a good many went through the windows. We sprayed the place from base to apex, and only cleared the roof with the aircraft about five feet. While I was doing this, my observer was shouting encouragement and pushing out the second flag, which we hoped would fall slap across the front door. “There was much more interest taken in this circuit of ours, and people were running about the streets to have a good look at us, and we noticed one or two faces at the window actually peering down

at us. We saw a number of German military cars stopped in the street with the Huns standing round them, and others of them were dodging round the trees in the Avenue, but we couldn’t let fly at them because there were too many civilians about. Some of the civilians were waving to us. Fern says he saw some German soldiers trying to take cover behind a lorry. One of them was very fat, and he was shaking his fist at us. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more about our visit to Paris – it was very short, only five or six minutes – but I’d like to go again with all the photographs we took, and see how it looks with both feet on the ground.” Gatward had turned for home at 12.30 hours, landing at RAF Northolt at 13.53 hours, two hours and fifty-five minutes after the pair had taken off. The only damage that their aircraft had sustained was the result of a bird strike in the Beaufighter’s starboard engine radiator during the low-level flying. Later intelligence confirmed that the parade had been assembling at the time of the attack but had to be abandoned due to the confusion following Gatward’s raid. With the reports of their flight having a propaganda value at home that was as big, if not larger, than on the opposite side of the English Channel, the two men became instant ‘stars’, fêted everywhere they went. For Gatward, it also meant the award of a Distinguished Flying Cross, Fern the Distinguished Flying Medal. After the war, Gatward was presented with a crate of champagne by the French government. 

NEW

W•N

• NE

2015

EW•

Produced by Key Publishing with exclusive access to the Royal Air Force, and featuring articles written with and by RAF personnel, The Official RAF Annual Review 2015 is a 132-page special magazine that provides behind the scenes insight into the aircraft, equipment and people of one of the world’s premier air forces. HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: TYPHOON FORCE: READY FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW Typhoon Force Commander Air Commodore Philip Beach provides an update on RAF Typhoon capability and details his vision for the aircraft’s future

MARHAM MATTERS: TORNADO AT THE HEART OF OPERATIONS Group Captain Harvey Smyth, RAF Marham Station Commander looks back on a busy year of operations over Afghanistan, Africa and Iraq, with exclusive 40th anniversary Tornado air-to-air photography

TIW: THE EYES THAT GUIDE THE TALONS

JUST

128/15

9 9 . £5

A rare glimpse inside the Tactical Imagery Intelligence Wing, the RAF’s premier reconnaissance imagery analysis and dissemination unit

AND MUCH MORE!

ORDER DIRECT

JUST £5.99 FREE P&P * *Free 2nd class P&P on all UK & BFPO orders. Overseas charges apply.

Free P&P* when you order online at www.keypublishing.com/shop

OR

Call UK: 01780 480404 Overseas: +44 1780 480404 Monday to Friday 9am-5:30pm

SUBSCRIBERS CALL FOR YOUR £1.00 DISCOUNT! SUBSCRIBERS CALL FOR YOUR £1.00 DISCOUNT!

NEUVE CHAPELLE The First Offensive

A

T THE beginning of 1915 the lines of the opposing armies stretched from Switzerland to the North Sea. One thing was certain: a defending garrison in trenches behind a tangle of barbed wire could deploy bolt-action rifles and enfilading heavy machine guns to deadly effect against any troops attempting to cross No Man’s Land. Artillery shells promised death to anyone caught out in the open. Thus, any attack across No Man’s Land was a fearsome prospect and the Germans were intent on standing firm on the Western Front in 1915. Their whole strategy had been based on quick war in 1914, but now they were caught up in a two-front war, with France and Russia fully mobilised and Britain slowly amassing her strength. The German Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, leaned towards concentrating in the West, but the collapse of the Austro-Hungarians had left him with no choice; he had to send Germans reserves to the east to try and defeat the Russians. Meanwhile, as Germany occupied most of Belgium and the industrial heart of northern France, it was inconceivable for the Allies to accept the status quo. Yet the challenges facing British and French generals were immense. How could they get enough troops across No Man’s Land to over-run the German front line? What to do about support trenches? How to consolidate gains from counter-attacks? How to exploit any gap in the line? The French, however, had fought hard all winter, seeking to break the mould with a series of major offensives in the Artois and Champagne regions and threw huge armies backed by hundreds of guns into battle. They made minor gains but could not break through the German line. Much of the fighting was starkly attritional. At first, the French had required little from their British allies, other than that they accept a greater share of the front line. However the Commander in Chief of the BEF, Field Marshal Sir

THE FIRST OFFENSIVE MARCH 1915 38 www.britainatwar.com

NEUVE CH

NEUVE CHAPELLE The First Offensive British and Indian casualties pictured during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

(HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

CHAPELLE

John French, was determined to dispel the prevailing view among his French allies that the BEF was incapable of launching an effective offensive action. Out of this resolve was born the plan for a major offensive action, the attack to be conducted by the First Army (IV Corps and Indian Corps) under the command of General Sir Douglas Haig. The point selected for the offensive was at Neuve Chapelle where the German front line formed a salient around the village and where there were just two German divisions facing Haig’s six divisions. The die was thus set for this, Britain’s first planned offensive action of the war.

A SERIOUS OFFENSIVE On 5 March, Haig briefed Lieutenant General Sir Henry Rawlinson (IV Corps) and Lieutenant General Sir James Willcocks (Indian Corps) and called for converging attacks on a frontage of 2,000 yards to ‘pinch out’ the village, before moving onwards and upwards. ‘We are embarking on a serious offensive movement with the object of breaking the German line. There is no idea of merely taking a trench here, or a trench there. My object is to surprise the Germans, and push forward to the Aubers Ridge with as little delay as possible, and exploit the success thus gained by pushing forward mounted troops as quickly as possible.’1 Throughout the planning process, Haig adopted a collegiate approach, consulting experts and holding conferences with his commanders and senior staff. Staff officers were expected to work out the details, but there is no doubt that Haig provided insightful guidance in grappling with many of the fundamental problems, suggesting, for example, the surreptitious registering of artillery, the surprise deployment of massed mortars and the possibilities of rapidly deploying support weapons to assist in the consolidation of ground gained. He also recognised the care needed in moving up troops, the importance of locating German machine gun positions and, particularly, the problems posed by barbed wire. 

The Battle of Neuve Chapelle was the first planned British offensive of the war. Military historian Peter Hart describes the battle and its significance. www.britainatwar.com 39

NEUVE CHAPELLE The First Offensive

Collectively, his staff would devote much of their time to details of the artillery bombardment with the emphasis placed very firmly on destroying the shallow trenches which, due to the raised water-table in the area, were often sandbag breastworks. The idea was to smash them down, kill the defending garrison and destroy any machine guns. After this, a defensive curtain of shells would crash down to prevent German reinforcements moving forward. In order to meet these demands most of the British batteries on the Western Front would have to be concentrated at Neuve Chapelle. Once in place, they were carefully registered. A fire programme was then drawn up for every gun, denoting targets and exact timings of ‘shifts’ during the barrage. It seemed complex, but this was just the start of a process that would grow out of all recognition. This was the future. It was also clearly evident that the guns would have to deal with the German barbed wire, or the attacking infantry would never stand a chance. But how? Tests were carried out to ascertain the best method and it was found that shrapnel shells proved best able to cut the wire into small scraps. In

40 www.britainatwar.com

contrast, H.E. shells literally ‘blew up’ the wire without cutting it, and when it fell back to earth it still posed exactly the same serious obstacle. There was also some debate as to the length of the bombardment: should it be a short ‘hurricane’ affair, or a longer barrage to ensure the destruction of the targets? In 1915, practical considerations held sway, not theory. Thus, after considerable discussion and a series of tests, it was decided that a hurricane bombardment of 35 minutes would suffice for the 18-pounder field guns to clear the wire, while the 4.5” howitzers and heavy artillery would by that time have destroyed the breastwork trenches. In all, the First Army managed surreptitiously to amass an impressive 282 field guns and howitzers with an additional 36 heavier pieces. This amounted to one gun per 6 yards of front, a figure which would rarely be equalled throughout the war. A special effort had managed to secure a modest supply of ammunition, although it had severely depleted the overall stocks available to the BEF elsewhere on the Western Front. However, as the Germans had only 24 field guns and 36 heavy guns this was certainly a very marked superiority of artillery.

ABOVE LEFT: The main street after its capture by the 25th Brigade, 8th Division. (MARY EVANS/

ROBERT HUNT COLLECTION)

ABOVE RIGHT: Recruitment poster at the time that the events at Neuve Chapelle became public knowledge in the UK. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

BOTTOM LEFT: Indian troops charge German positions. (HMP) RIGHT: During the enemy counter-attack, a large party of German troops entered British trenches. Corporal Anderson, 2nd Battalion Alexandra Princess of Wales’ Own (Yorkshire Regiment), led three men with bombs in a determined attack. The three men were wounded, so he fought on alone. He threw every bomb and then opened rapid rifle-fire with great effect. Anderson won the VC for his actions. (HMP)

At an early stage in the planning, Haig also consulted Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Trenchard, the commander of First Wing, Royal Flying Corps as the battle would mark the first effective addition of aircraft by the British to the existing mix of infantry, cavalry and artillery. Aerial reconnaissance had advanced apace, and cameras were now being employed to record the results. Lieutenant Archibald James of 16 Squadron, RFC was an early practitioner: ‘We used a big, heavy, clumsy box camera. You exposed the prints by pulling a slide away and changed them by hand. You had the camera on your knee and you yelled at the pilot when you were going to take a photograph so he kept the machine quite level and didn’t tilt the angle of the camera. One took photographs through a circular hole cut in the floor. It was quite a difficult job because first of all you had to look through the hole to see the target you were photographing. Then you lost sight of it as you put the camera in position between your knees and pressed the trigger to take the photograph! One only took about six plates which one had to change by hand.'2 By such means, and building upon

NEUVE CHAPELLE The First Offensive the increasingly systematic French contemporaneous experiments, a photographic ‘map’ could be produced of the German trench system which was then traced on to 1:8000 and 1:5000 scale maps. There had also been huge advances in artillery observation from the air. Indirect fire is all very well, but there had to be someone who knew where the target was in order to correct the range and direction as necessary. Aircraft were to carry wireless transmitters allowing corrections to be sent direct to the gun batteries. This was accomplished using specially lettered and numbered squared maps with a simple clock code to indicate relative position of the shells as they fell around the target. Aircraft could not only identify targets but they could also guide the shells right onto them. Additionally, Haig took care over

ABOVE RIGHT: Two gunners of No.5 Mountain Battery, 3rd Mountain Artillery Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery (Indian Army), lie dead by their 2.75 inch mountain gun, 10 March 1915. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

LEFT: Aerial photography had advanced apace and was used at Neuve Chapelle.

the planning of the infantry assault. Officers were carefully briefed with both aerial photographs and sketch maps so that they would know exactly where they were and what lay ahead of them once they had broken into the German lines. Painstaking preparations were also required to improve the existing communication trenches, and to dig assembly trenches where the troops could form up under cover. When the moment of attack came the men were to advance as quickly as possible to secure maximum benefit from the bombardment. Once the German front line had been secured, at 08.35 a further assault would be made on the village itself, pushing through to occupy the old trenches dating from the fighting in 1914 and known as the Smith-Dorrien Line. The men who had to make the attack reacted positively to the news of the

BELOW: Bodies of fallen soldiers of the 2nd Cameronians pictured lying on, and in front of, the parapet of the British front line trench following the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. (MARY EVANS/ROBERT

HUNT COLLECTION)

‘big push’ as revealed by Lieutenant Malcolm Kennedy of the 2nd Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). ‘For 4 solid months we had carried out a troglodyte existence in waterlogged trenches and had watched our casualties mounting steadily upwards. Seven officers had been killed and five wounded. Casualties amongst NCOs and men were more or less in proportion. It was a heavy toll to pay with so little to show for it; but now at least we were to have a run for our money and put an end to the stalemate.'3 Putting an end to that stalemate was the plan, and that plan swung into operation at precisely 07.30 hours on 10 March 1915.

HURRICANE BOMBARDMENT Exactly on time, the hurricane bombardment blazed out, and while half the 18-pounders thrashed the German barbed wire with shrapnel, the rest combined with the heavier guns to flay the German trenches. Lance Corporal William Andrews of the 4th Black Watch watched on in astonishment. ‘The noise almost split our numbed wits. As the shells went over our heads we grew more and more excited. We could not hear each other. Shots from

the 18-pounders were screaming not far over our heads, and much higher up, higher than the highest mountain of Europe, high explosives from the 15” howitzers were rushing like express trains. After a while we could trace the different sounds. There was no difficulty in making out the German trenches. They had become long clouds of smoke and dust, flashing continuously with shell bursts, and with enormous masses of trench material and bodies sailing high above the smoke cloud. The purely physical effect on us was one of extreme exhilaration. We could have laughed and cried with excitement. We thought that bombardment was winning the war before our eyes.'4 Certainly, and as Andrews surmised, the shells were wreaking havoc on the German breastwork trenches of layered sandbags which were certainly broken apart by the HE shells and many of the defending troops killed or demoralised — exactly as had been intended. Taking as a defining measure the weight of shell fired per yard of front, this awesome barrage would prove the heaviest fired until 1917. In the British front line the troops flattened themselves against the 

www.britainatwar.com 41

NEUVE CHAPELLE The First Offensive

front wall of the trenches. Lieutenant Kennedy was proud of his Scottish Rifles as the seconds ticked away. ‘The thick yellow fumes of lyddite rose high above the German trenches and came drifting towards us. The whole ground quivered as in an earthquake and only by shouting at the top of one’s voice was it possible to be heard above the din. The men were in great form, cracking jokes with one another and singing as though they were on a picnic. I went round from time to time to see how they were getting on. Some of them laughingly held out their hands for me to shake, in case either they or I got ‘blotted out.’5 Then, over the top he went at 08.05. ‘For a moment everything seemed strangely silent as the barrage lifted only to re-open a few seconds later into the village to our right front. Simultaneously, with a sound as of a nest of giant hornets suddenly let loose, the air became filled with the whistle of hundreds of bullets as the German machine guns belched forth their deadly streams of lead and the German infantry opened rapid fire with their rifles. I just remember a fleeting glance at A Company on our left, with the men dropping as though some giant scythe were sweeping through their ranks. It was a ghastly sight. Almost before I had time to realise it, I found myself up against the German wire. It was bared and twisted and almost unbroken, for the bombardment had proved ineffective at that particular point. Of how we got through that wire I have no clear idea. I have a vague recollection of tearing at it with my naked hands and, 42 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: Men of the 2nd Royal Scots move forward to their assembly positions in preparation for the start of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

with the help of one of my corporals, dragging away the remains of chevauxde-frise, while a German fired at us at a range of only 4 or 5 yards and missed us both, After that the fellow must have bolted, as I remember throwing myself through the remaining strands of wire.'6 Once through the wire, Kennedy leapt over the German front line trench where he was almost immediately hit and badly wounded. His battle was over.

CUTTING THE WIRE BELOW: Damage to several buildings in Neuve Chapelle, immediately after its capture by 8th Division. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

The shrapnel shells needed to have been very well-judged to have any effect on the wire and on the front attacked by the Scottish Rifles and the 2nd Middlesex the entanglements had survived almost unscathed. Yet there is temptation to concentrate on such dramatic stories and this can skew our vision of the real progress that was made where the wire had been cut and the German trenches smashed. Indeed, five of the eight assault battalions took their objectives and

advanced some 1,200 yards with minimal losses in order to take Neuve Chapelle village and the flooded remnants of the Smith-Dorrien Line, both being captured by 09.00. Many battalions went almost unscathed, and it had thus been amply demonstrated that the British tactics could break into the German lines. The question was: could they break out to secure the Aubers Ridge? Unfortunately, as the troop tried to exploit their gains everything began to go wrong. Communication problems multiplied alarmingly as the German counterbombardment cut lines leading back from the British front and communications were almost nonexistent from the newly captured trenches. Signaller John Palmer of the 118th Battery, 26th Brigade, RFA was one of those trying desperately to keep the fragile telephone line wires working. ‘Our most important wire was the infantry one and that had to be kept working at all costs. The first place it got cut was near Neuve Chapelle. Off we went and reached our trenches just after our lads had captured the enemy front line. We then discovered that Jerry had, after all, got a few batteries of artillery too! He certainly played very heavily on our trenches and well we knew it! One shell was a terrible disaster as it dropped right in the midst of a body of our reserves! I would not like to say how many were killed outright. It was unfortunate that our wire ran just by where they had been standing and we were forced to pick our way through

NEUVE CHAPELLE The First Offensive

this mass of dead and wounded to mend our wire. Once again we were forced to ignore appeals for help, it was pitiful to hear their cries and groans. We only had one duty, and that was to keep the wire working.'7 Up and down the front the vital telephone wires had been cut, and as a result no-one knew what was going on, this leading to a dreadful confusion over differing and conflicting requirements of the pre-arranged artillery schedules, the urgent needs of the infantry and the practical difficulties faced by hardpressed staff officers and commanders facing life-or-death decisions without being in full possession of the facts. Delays were probably inevitable, but they built up rather too alarmingly, stretching into several hours, before any attempt was made to exploit the early successes of the action.

ABOVE RIGHT: A building on the outskirts of Neuve Chapelle destroyed during the fighting in March 1915. Note the crucifix standing in the background on the left. Many soldiers who fought at Neuve Chapelle remembered this, particularly the fact that it stood “throughout the tornado of fire”. TOP MIDDLE: Men of a Gurkha Rifles battalion undergo training as part of their preparations for the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

LEFT: General Sir Douglas Haig, in command of the British forces at Neuve Chapelle. He employed a collegiate approach, consulted with experts and planned carefully.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant J. D. Wyatt, of the 2nd Yorkshire Regiment, had moved forwards with the reserves, and by 10.00 had reached the former German front line: ‘Really, one couldn’t make out what was going on. A certain amount of noise to our front round Neuve Chapelle, but nothing to our immediate left front, which was the line of our advance. On the right the prisoners were coming in, in streams, but we were not allowed to advance. It seemed we were to work by the right — and the right was temporarily held up. And there we remained with nothing in front of us till 2pm, four precious hours lost, never to be regained.'8

DETERMINED RESISTANCE Unfortunately, and frustratingly, a pocket of determined resistance was allowed to hold up the whole advance, and Lieutenant Colonel Lothian Nicholson commanding the 2nd Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment expressed his frustration: ‘There was very little hostile shell fire but a good deal of rifle and machine gun fire. The Bois de Biez which faced us appeared to be occupied, also some on trenches on our left front, but I thought if we could have got our own artillery to lift we could have advanced. If the Rifle Brigade had been able to go forward they could have got the Bois de Biez and we could have got the trenches and houses in the Moulin du Pietre road. The next two days fighting practically resolved itself into a struggle for these two points.'9 Additionally, there was the problem

of a line of concreted machine gun posts located just over 1,000 yards behind the front line prepared by the Germans in case of just such an emergency. These badly disrupted the British battalions, preventing a uniform advance and acting as a solid base around which the enemy could establish a coherent line of defence. In the midst of all the chaos was forward observation officer, Second Lieutenant John Wedderburn-Maxwell (5th Battery, 45th Brigade, RFA): ‘I sat and watched these heavy shells coming over from the Germans, who had woken up then to the fact that this was a very serious business. You heard these things coming, “WWHHHOOOOOOOOHHHH!! You saw a black thing hurtle to the ground and then a huge flame of black smoke the height of those trees.'10 Meanwhile, the Germans used every minute gained to press in from either side of the narrow gap, while at the same time moving up reserves to directly stem the breach. As the British troops pressed forwards they lost cohesion, finding themselves moving further away from their artillery support. Finally, just as the British offensive ran out of steam, the Germans launched a series of counter-attacks starting at dawn on 11 March although they were hastily organised and very soon broke down, as Vizfeldwebel Brockmann, 15th Infantry Regiment explained: ‘Slowly, the moment approached. Rifles were unloaded and bayonets fixed silently. We crept out of our holes and worked our way forward noiselessly towards the farm.  www.britainatwar.com 43

NEUVE CHAPELLE The First Offensive

NEUVE CHAPELLE NEUVE CHAPELLE village lies on the road between Bethune, Fleurbaix and Armentieres, near to its junction with the Estaires-La Bassee road. The front lines ran parallel with the Bethune-Armentieres road, just a little way to the east of the village. Behind the German line is the Bois de Biez. The ground here is flat and cut up by many small drainage ditches. A mile ahead of the British was the long Aubers Ridge, barely 20 feet higher than the surrounding area but giving an observation advantage. Some 25km to the south, this flat area is overlooked by the heights at Vimy Ridge. The German lines in the immediate vicinity at Neuve Chapelle were very lightly defended. The night before the attack went in, the weather was wet with light snow which turned to damp mist on 10 March.

At the very moment we were about to charge it, so came the trumpet call to break off and return. That put the Tommies on the alert. A machine gun opened up not 20 metres away. However it fired everywhere but at us, so we kneeled up and fired back. It went quiet immediately opposite and we crawled back through the morning mist, though a number of us were killed or wounded. When it became light a hellish rate of fire began. The enemy launched attacks several times, but wherever their lines appeared, we shot them up'.11 As renewed British attacks failed, so neither side achieved very much on 11 March. On the next day, though, the Germans launched another counterattack, this time determined to retake the village. Leutnant Carl Stiegler of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment told how it was: ‘We marched off at 3.00 am, following a blazing torch, which cast its light on a forest of grey helmet spikes. Ambulance vehicles, artillery convoys and machine gun wagons. To the front it was the calm before the storm. A shot up village. Sandbags were distributed. A wood loomed up. Terrible sodden countryside, criss-crossed with drainage ditches. Pitch black. Clinging clay added pounds to the weight of each boot. The company shook out into three assault lines and advanced. From then on events just cascaded over me like a kaleidoscope. 6.00 am. Suddenly violent small arms and gun fire crashed out. The assault lines got mixed up. There was wild rushing about. Here and there someone went down. Shell holes. Tree trunks. Folds in the ground. I ducked down behind a fold. A farm. Through the fruit trees cracked machine gun bullets. I crawled off to one 44 www.britainatwar.com

side in a narrow ditch. Wounded men shrieked. The guns opened up. Salvoes of shrapnel. Bursting shells bloomed out in the darkness into great fiery flowers. The machine guns rattled away endlessly. The enemy was totally invisible. I received a dreadful blow, my head hit the clay and I lost consciousness. When I came round, streams of blood were running down my face.'12

THE LESSONS LEARNED When the aftershocks had died down it was apparent that, although much had been learnt, the operation had not been a success. The battered remnants of Neuve Chapelle had been captured, but the efforts to push on to Aubers Ridge had proved an expensive failure. In all, the First Army suffered a terrible 11,652 casualties, the Germans about 8,600. But a real British success was never likely given the ‘greenness’ of almost everyone involved in offensive operations. There were considerable benefits, however, to the BEF from the experience of Neuve Chapelle. The innovations overseen by Haig in this action would establish many of the basic features of British offensives for the remainder of the war, but that is not to say that the arrangements were perfect. Perfection at the first attempt would be remarkable indeed, but it did represent a remarkable start, although there followed much ‘debate’ as to the lessons of Neuve Chapelle. Amid the recriminations, Rawlinson thought he had at least discerned one solution for the way forward: ‘What we want to do now is what I call, ‘bite and hold’. Bite off a piece of the enemy’s line, like Neuve Chapelle, and hold it against counter-attack. The

TOP LEFT: The Neuve Chapelle Memorial is officially unveiled by the Earl of Birkenhead on 7 October 1927. The Indian Memorial at Neuve Chapelle commemorates over 4,700 Indian soldiers and labourers who lost their lives on the Western Front during the First World War and have no known graves. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

ABOVE: One of the temporary positions used by the headquarters personnel of the 21st Brigade during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

NOTES

bite can be made without much loss, and, if we choose the right place and make every preparation to put it quickly in a state of defence, there ought to be no difficulty in holding it against the enemy’s counter-attacks and inflicting on him at least twice the loss that we have suffered in making the bite.'13 Unfortunately, the British lacked the resources to guarantee the success of even a limited initial assault and were often tempted by sheer necessity to cut corners with disastrous consequences. In truth, it was far too early in the war for much hope of a successful British offensive on the Western Front as a consequence of terrible shortages of munitions, combined with the madness of frittering away too much of a limited military strength on ‘sideshows’ such as Gallipoli. There was one more inconvenient truth for the British: the Germans, too, had learned. When the next British attacks came, they would find the defences were very much improved. 

1. D. Haig quoted by G. Sheffield & J. Bourne, Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters (London: Weidenfeld,2005), p.107 2. IWM SOUND: A. W. H. James, AC 00024, Reel 2 3. IWM DOCS: M. D. Kennedy, Transcript memoir, p.139 4. W. L. Andrews, Haunting Years: The Commentaries of a War Territorial (London: Hutchinson & Co,, 1930, pp. 48-49 5. IWM DOCS: M. D. Kennedy, Transcript memoir, p.139 6. IWM DOCS: M. D. Kennedy, Transcript memoir, p.152 7. IWM DOCS: J. Palmer 8. IWM DOCS: J. D. Wyatt, typescript account, p.9 9. IWM DOCS: C. L. Nicholson, typescript diary, p.21 10. IWM SOUND: John Wedderburn-Maxwell AC 9146 Reel 4 11. Brockmann quoted by J. Sheldon, The German Army on the Western Front, 1915 (Barnsley, Pen & Sword, 2012), p.56 12. C. Stiegler quoted by J. Sheldon, The German Army on the Western Front, 1915 (Barnsley, Pen & Sword, 2012), pp70-71 13. H. Rawlinson quoted by Prior & Wilson, Command on the Western Front (Oxford, Blackwell, 1992), p.78

Western Front F_P.indd 1

10/02/2015 11:16

Croydon Airport Visitor Centre Come and experience the history of London’s Historic Grade II listed Croydon Airport, built in 1928. Croydon Airport Visitor Centre is located in the world’s oldest Air Traffic Control Tower. Discover its history from WWI airfield, RFC Station Beddington and National Aircraft Factory No.1, through to WWII and its frontline role as Battle of Britain Airfield, RAF Croydon Features include images, displays and installations depicting its storyline from 1916 through to final closure in 1959 OPENING TIMES First Sunday of every month throughout the year 11.00 - 16.00 with last entry at 15.30 • Free admission • Free guided tours available • Free parking • Additional special Open Days are held at various times throughout the year See website for further details www.croydonairportsociety.org.uk Address: Croydon Airport Visitor Centre, Airport House, Purley Way, Croydon, CR0 0XZ As reviewed on Tripadvisor

The Memorial Pegasus museum

is dedicated to the men of 6th British Airborne Division. The 1st liberators to arrive in Normandy on June 6th 1944. Archive films, a guided visit and many interesting and authentic objects enable the visitors to relive this momentous time. The original Pegasus Bridge is on display in the park of the museum along with a full size copy of a wartime Horsa glider.

Open everyday from February to Mid - December Only five minutes drive from the Brittany Ferries Terminal at Caen/Ouistreham

Tel: +33 (0) 231 781944 Fax: +33 (0) 231 781942 Memorial Pegasus Avenue du Major Howard 14860 RanvilleNormandy • France www.memorial-pegasus.org

Allied Air Forces Memorial

Preserving our military aviation heritage

Tremendous atmosphere, Fascinating exhibits & Historic aircraft A Great Family Day Out Ideal for Coach Parties!! Cafe and Shop

Elvington, York, YO41 4AU. Tel: 01904 608595 [email protected] www.yorkshireairmuseum.org Follow us on Twitter @air_museum

MILITARY AVIATION FROM GREAT WAR TO COLD WAR

OPEN FROM 10AM 1st Feb to 30th Nov

Aircraft & memorabilia from Great War to Cold War, Lightning cockpit simulator and much more...

SIGNED FROM A27 3 MILES EAST OF CHICHESTER

RESISTANCE GB Auxiliary Units 1940

I

N THE years before his death in 2004, Eric Deverill revealed to his son, Dr Ian Deverill, that during the war, asides from working as a mining engineer at Annesley Colliery, Nottinghamshire, he had ‘a secret role’. Dr Deverill explained: “Over a number of years I was able to get a sentence here and there. On leaving my father’s house, I would sit in my car and carefully write down what he had said. This eventually amounted to an incredible and detailed story. “Aged 18, my father was asked by Colonel John Chaworth-Musters DSO, of Annesley Hall, to lead a ‘cell’ of five men, comprising of three colliery workers, Jack Attwood, Jack Kirk and Charlie Bramley, a poacher called Kelly Cooper and Frank Saint, the hall’s gamekeeper. The cell used to meet in one of the buildings at Home Farm, until a bunker was built in the dense pine forest on the Annesley estate. “There were numerous potential targets. Annesley Hall would probably have become a German HQ after occupation. The bunker’s location on a dense forested ridge gave an ideal vantage point of the

Hall. My father also said another cell existed at Moor Green. Both bunkers were equidistant to the underground RAF 12 Group bunker at Watnall, another potential German HQ. Two main railway tunnels, only several hundred metres away, were set with explosives by my father’s cell, as were the local electricity sub-station and telephone exchange. “Eventually I aroused my father’s suspicions and he became so horrified with the amount of information I’d accumulated, he contacted the intelligence services who talked him through destroying any documentation that might verify his activities. On his death, the lack of paper and photographic evidence of his life was shocking to our family — the house appeared to have been professionally ‘cleaned’. I even found a note on the back of an envelope he had written saying ‘Don’t look for any paperwork — you won’t find it’! “However, amongst his books I found an old Ordnance Survey map and examined it carefully, using a stereo microscope, for markings in the area where the bunker may have been. There were none. On re-examining it a year later, I saw he had faintly written some co-ordinates at the bottom of the map. “My father never called his cell an Auxiliary Unit: however, I noted he said ‘Colonel Chaworth-Musters headed 202 Division [sic] after he left command of the 150th (South Nottinghamshire Hussars) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery. My father’s mention of ‘202’ came before I knew or even heard anything about the Auxiliary Units’ 202 Battalion. “To add to the enigma, before my father destroyed his paperwork, I saw two different identity cards identifying him as ‘Captain Eric Deverill, Military Intelligence MI7.’”1

RESISTANCE

ABOVE: Eric Deverill, just after the war.

(DR IAN DEVERILL)

BRITAIN Shock Sections, home-made knives, saboteurs, knitting needles in the neck. The Gestapo, perhaps, or the Soviet NKVD? Some would have you believe it is Britain as it prepared for the expected German invasion in 1940. But is it fact or fiction? Austin J Ruddy looks for clues.

48 www.britainatwar.com

RESISTANCE GB Auxiliary Units 1940

Confusingly, MI7 was the Department of Propaganda and Censorship. The role of MI6’s Section D in the formation of the Auxiliary Units is known; however, in July 1940, MI6 also created a new Section VII of stay-behind agents operating a secret wireless network, similar to the Auxiliary Unit Special Duties radio sections. Recruitment was specially restricted to ‘people who, by nature of their occupation, could remain in enemy-controlled territory and continue their normal occupations without arousing undue suspicion’ such as doctors, bakers — and presumably, miners, such as Eric Deverill.2 In 1941, aged 49, Colonel John Chaworth-Musters had relinquished command of the 150th Regiment to return to Annesley Hall where he spent the rest of the war - why?  It should be noted that the Chaworth-Musters family had

a distinguished history of service in the British Army and that in 1940, John’s brother, Lt James Chaworth-Musters, was head of SOE’s Norwegian Section.3 Did James, through his involvement with MI6, persuade his brother to form a resistance network in his area? This could explain why there was a 202 Battalion so far inland, when auxiliary units have always thought to have been concentrated on a 25-mile coastal band.

SHOCK SECTIONS The second common perception is that the Auxiliary Units were the sole British resistance organisation. Indeed, today, they are often referred to as ‘the British Resistance Organisation’, suggesting they were the only such outfit. Evidence, however, challenges this assertion, indicating other inland non-Auxiliary Unit resistance groups also existed.

When I was researching a history of the Leicestershire and Rutland Home Guard, an unintentionally ambiguous question led an interviewee to reveal he had been a member of a Home Guard ‘Shock Section’. I’d asked veteran Allan Hopcraft the location of his Home Guard base and instead of the usual ‘village hall’ answer, Allan replied ‘underground’ – which immediately raised an eyebrow. Research into ‘Shock Sections’ proved frustrating: military historians had never heard of them and there were no related records. The only other surviving member of the unit refused to talk about it. With only one man’s testimony, it was difficult to corroborate the organisation even existed. Then, while sifting through a stack of yellowed papers relating to Quorn Home Guard, a typed sentence, crossed out in ‘X’s, stood out. Scanned and enlarged, the obscured text clearly stated: 

MIDDLE LEFT: Auxiliary Unit service lapel badge for veterans of 201, 202 and 203 Battalions. (AUTHOR)

MAIN PICTURE: A section of the 2nd (South Leicester) Battalion Leicestershire Home Guard practises storming a farmyard, c. late 1941. Note the use of sacking for head cover. (LEICESTER MERCURY)

www.britainatwar.com 49

RESISTANCE GB Auxiliary Units 1940

‘No.3 Squad (Shock)’. This one line proved Shock Sections, or Shock Squads as they became, did exist. Fortunately, Allan Hopcraft was forthcoming. In 1940, he had worked as a clerk at M. Wright and Sons’ Mill, Quorn: “My family came down from Scotland in 1938, looking for work. I was born near Aberfeldy, in Perthshire, where my father taught me to shoot and I’d carried a knife since I was five. I’d volunteered to join the RAF, but because our firm was on important war work, I had a deferment for two years. Whilst waiting, I joined the 6th (Quorn) Battalion, Leicestershire Home Guard. “About summer ’41, somebody called Lieutenant Dick Whitford called us in to have a chat about joining a ‘special section’. He explained he was in charge of Beaumanor Hall’s defences. At the time, we didn’t know the Hall was an important Y-Station, intercepting signals traffic for Bletchley Park. He said ‘We don’t want it spread around, but we’re looking for some young, active men’. He did not tell us why until we joined. He said he wanted to form a ‘Shock Section’ in ‘dirty tricks’: if the Jerries had come, we’d have gone about in

50 www.britainatwar.com

civilian clothes trying to raise havoc. When on duty we just wore normal Home Guard uniforms, nothing to tell us apart, except we used to carry knives in a belt. “Being an ex-Palestine policeman, Whitford knew all about dirty tricks. He taught us how to use a steel knitting needle. He said in Palestine, the criminals used to go behind a bloke and push it right up behind the ear. Within ten seconds, he’s dead, and it only leaves a tiny hole with no blood. Whitford said if one German saw a dead German lying there, first thing he’d look for is bullet wounds. There wouldn’t be any, so it would cause panic. He also told us how to use a wire or rope garrotte. And the knuckle-duster: you hit them on the side of the head, at the temples, the jaw. We also made coshes: you made whatever you wanted. “We were taught how to use knives. I made my own single-bladed knife. We were taught how to approach German sentries silently and take them out. The German helmet had a leather strap, which you could use to break their neck. Whitford taught us a lot of Jiu-Jitsu and commandotype actions. We used to put thick planks against the wall: he taught us how to break

ABOVE: Essex Home Guard ‘Commandos’ in training at Weald Park Camp. Note the blackened faces and fighting knives in mouths. (WARMEN

them and fall, by running and putting your feet back, so if it was a man, you’d break his back. There was no sentimentality. He was very callous… a hard nut. We had a small book on guerrilla tactics, I think, written by Whitford. “We had rifles and Sten guns, some had Tommy guns. We did not have a sniper, but COURAGEOUS) we knew who our good shots were. We were taught demolition on dud grenades ABOVE RIGHT: Samuel Hall, of at Mountsorrel quarry. One possible target the Leicestershire was the Great Central Railway, because of Regiment, was German troop trains. We were taught to get ‘instructed in a block of TNT, put it each side of the track, the case of invasion to form with a bit of safety fuse, which gave you 15 an underground minutes to get away and it would blow the resistance group’ line. We then used to give demonstrations in Charnwood at Rothley and Barrow, because they’d just Forest, started their Shock Sections. Leicestershire. (ANNE COOPER) “When invasion came, we’d carry on at work until we got the message. There BOTTOM LEFT: was talk about secret message holes, but A depression in it never really got to that. I don’t think we the ground in the had a radio, it was all word of mouth. At pine forest near night, you blacked your face. We’d go on Annesley Hall, Nottinghamshire, operations in civvy clothes. We knew it was which allegedly against the Geneva Convention, but weren’t marks the location worried. You’d know where to get a rifle: of Eric Deverill’s we had stashes, here and there. Various underground resistance bunker. houses stored ammunition or supplies: I (DR IAN DEVERILL) suppose those people must have taken quite a risk as well, had the Germans found they TOP LEFT were hiding it for the Shock Section. (OPPOSITE PAGE): “Whitford said: ‘if you kill a German, take Essex Home his weapon and ammunition’. We might Guard ‘Commandos’ have taken prisoners, but the idea was to scale a wall, kill ’em - that was the main thing. Because similar to Allan there were only ten of us, we weren’t Hopcraft’s meant to get in a big battle, because we description of wouldn’t have stood a chance. his Home Guard Shock Section’s “In a copse at Bull-in-the-Hollow penetration of Farm, was an underground base. You’d the Beaumanor go through a lot of little pathways to Hall Y-Station, in find it. You’d pull the hatch down and Leicestershire. cover everything up. Inside were bunks, (WARMEN COURAGEOUS) explosives, ammunition and medical

RESISTANCE GB Auxiliary Units 1940 LEFT: Fieldcraft and Stealth by Lt-Col N.A.D. Armstrong OBE and Guerilla by Alfred Kerr, published in 1942. (AUTHOR) BELOW: An unofficial wartime homemade fighting knife. (AUTHOR)

equipment. I believe there were a number of them. They were special places for people just to fade away. Once you’d blown up the railway or whatever, you’d probably escape there or try to get home, maybe get rid of your weapons. If there had been a change of plan and they said ‘Defend Quorn at all costs’, then we’d have all just gone out in our Home Guard uniform and joined the rest.” If the Germans had occupied the area, the Shock Section would have become a resistance organisation. Survival would have been paramount and as Allan explained, all obstacles would have been eliminated: “Traitors or collaborators in the village? Whitford told us to give ’em the chop. You had to, because we’d soon be eliminated if they got hold of someone who talked. Even living in a small community, any unease about it never entered our minds, to be honest - it was as serious as that.” Whitford was blunt about the Shock Sections’ life expectancy: “He said ‘You’re only amateurs, you won’t last very long. Everyone you take… it’s for the good’. But you didn’t worry about things like that. You were just taught to make yourself a bloody nuisance. How severe depended on you, I

ABOVE: Cloth shoulder insignia of the 6th (Quorn) Battalion, Leicestershire Home Guard. (AUTHOR)

The other Shock Sections at Rothley and Barrow-on-Soar which Allan mentioned, were also within striking distance. The Shock Sections’ role and methodology seem remarkably similar to Auxiliary Units: secrecy, small teams of hand-picked men, underground bases, specialised training, sabotage, ‘dirty tricks’, assassination and a continued post-invasion resistance role. MOCK SABOTAGE MISSION Yet Allan claims never to have heard “Around winter 1941, Whitford said: of Auxiliary Units, nor trained at their ‘I’ve told Beaumanor they’re going to be attacked by a Home Guard unit and they’ve Coleshill House HQ in Wiltshire. Instead, it seems these Shock Sections trained and got to be on the look-out. I’ll tell you when operated as a purely local initiative. to attack’. It was a flaming cold night. We But their organisation, authority and were blacked up and as it was snowing, we role seem distant to the Home Guard’s had white sheets on to blend in. sentry stereotype. The clue to the Shock “Beaumanor had a six-foot wire fence. Two men would hold a rifle, another would Section’s origin and purpose lies in their jump onto it and you’d throw him over and proximity to the important Beaumanor Hall Y-Station. It is also notable that Lt he’d roll over on the other side. We didn’t Whitford was part of Y-Service staff. In have guns, just dummy grenades with the Auxiliary Units, lieutenants were black powder to make a bang. We knew generally Group Leaders of several where the guardhouse was. Somebody Auxunit patrols: it may have been that he threw a stone at the door, and a squaddie was equivalent to a Group Leader of the came out. While the door was open, we Shock Sections. lobbed in a ‘grenade’ and ‘bang’: ‘right, So who authorised the Shock Sections? you’re out!’ The language from the squaddie Without records, it is impossible to say was horrible! When the grenade went off, for certain. However, in his 2008 book all the others came running to that spot, on Auxiliary Units, John Warwicker while we went our ways, because we notes that like the Auxiliary Units, ‘the knew Beaumanor’s grounds. “We then went round the various places Y-Service was also in the domain of the Secret Intelligence Services [SIS/MI6]’.4 He taking them out. We knew where the generators were and placed little bags of also records the existence of ‘other nonchalk on them to say they’d been attacked. conformist stay-behind units using the After the operation, we made our escape same, or similar, instruction manuals as and reported back. We were attacking Auxiliers… but apparently, under the direct Beaumanor to find their weaknesses. We supervision of the secret services…. Indeed, also used to attack the searchlight unit at it is probable that they had specific, one-off Woodhouse Eaves.” targets of potentially strategic significance, Allan believed this exercise was to test identified by Section D of MI6’.5 the Y-Station’s defences. However, in a Further evidence to support this theory similar role to the Auxiliary Units, it could can be found in Worcestershire. There equally have been to train the Shock was an underground operational base Section to sabotage Beaumanor had it one mile from the BBC Y-Station at Wood been occupied as a HQ by the Germans. Norton Hall.6 Although this operational 

suppose: how brash you were or foolish. “We were a back-up: if our troops had left, I reckon we would have taken a toll of Germans. I was not worried about repercussions on my family: my old man had served in the First World War and was very anti-German.

www.britainatwar.com 51

RESISTANCE GB Auxiliary Units 1940 base was part of the Auxiliary Units organisation and not a Home Guard Shock Section, this unit would also have been within striking distance of the Y-Station. Returning to Leicestershire, Anne Cooper explained that her late father, Samuel Hall, of Ellistown, was ‘instructed in the case of invasion to form an underground resistance group’. Formerly a miner, he had joined the Leicestershire Regiment in 1932. A sergeant in 1940, Hall was told in the event of invasion, to form an ‘underground resistance group’ based in the caves of Charnwood Forest, using Mount St Bernard’s Abbey as a ‘contact point’ to collect orders. This resistance organisation resembles the Army’s Auxiliary Unit Scout Sections. Although this Army resistance unit was based near the Quorn Shock Section, it appears they were two totally separate organisations. They also appear to have had a much wider operational area: for example, they placed explosives under the suspension footbridge alongside Nottingham’s Trent Bridge. In 1942, Hall was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the 4th Prince of Wales Own Gurkha Rifles and posted to India. Researchers Bernard Lowry and Mick Wilks have also discovered ‘sites of Auxiliary-like operational bases in the area of Worcester, although these structures had no relationship to known Auxiliary patrols.’7 A former Worcester Royal Grammar School OTC cadet, then aged only 14, told them he was recruited at the school with three other cadets by three Army officers who wore no insignia. They were trained by two NCOs to carry out acts of sabotage in case Worcester was occupied. They also had an underground operational base on Gorse Hill, built from railway sleepers, containing grenades and explosives, and were trained in ‘dirty tricks’, which were apparently ‘just too horrific’ to relate. The patrol was stood down in 1942 and the

52 www.britainatwar.com

contact ‘considered that the two years of intensive training ruined his education and took away his youth’.8

KEY HOLDERS AND ASSASSINS Lowry and Wilks also discovered evidence of yet another tier of inland resistance, this time in Birmingham, and what they describe as ‘Individual Urban Saboteurs’. A former member revealed to them that recruits had an industrial background and were told they would be working for ‘X Branch’. They went on specialist training courses, in the making and use of explosives, booby traps and ‘dirty fighting’. Trained to operate alone, their only contact was their controlling officer. Exercises were carried out alone at night, moving silently with rubber-soled shoes through the blacked-out Birmingham streets, allowing them to develop better night vision and operate stealthily, whilst developing a geographical knowledge of the city in darkness. They dressed as civilians, which put them outside the Geneva Convention, but allowed them greater cover in an urban environment. Unusually, apart from clockwork demolition fuzes, they were not issued with official equipment, perhaps to give the impression if captured, they were working alone. They made their own fighting knife, which was kept hidden discreetly in their trouser leg, plus other equipment such as a garrotte. One contact from the Black Country stated that after German occupation, he had been tasked to assassinate collaborators with a slow-acting poison administered by a syringe from his gloved hand. Whilst distracted, ‘all the victim would feel was a slight pin-prick and would die later of an apparent heart attack.’ Since this sort of method has been

ABOVE: Several commerciallyavailable manuals encouraged guerrillastyle tactics. Perhaps the most famous, All-in Fighting, by unarmed fighting instructor W.E. Fairbairn, was published by Faber and Faber, 1942. It was aimed at Home Guards, Auxiliers and regular servicemen. (AUTHOR)

BOTTOM LEFT: Former Leicestershire Home Guard Shock Section member, Allan Hopcraft. (AUTHOR)

NOTES

used post-war by some Eastern Bloc agents, it is feasible.9 Similarly, an enigmatic, fleeting reference in a 1960s Leicester Mercury article suggests there was an organisation of ‘sabotage key holders’ whose purpose was to disrupt war production after occupation: ‘The job of the sabotage key holders was to put the plant beyond the use of the enemy.’10 Had these key holders managed to destroy specific factories, they could have seriously disrupted sections of the German war effort. If a saboteur was caught, torture and a firing squad would no doubt have been inevitable. Who exactly ran these ‘Individual Urban Saboteurs’ and ‘Sabotage Key Holders’ is unknown. Their role and existence seems to have remained a greater secret than the Auxiliary Units, with practically no related information in the public domain, though their methodology does suggest a possible link to MI5. Documentary evidence is scant, but it seems the network of British resistance may have been more complex, with several different sub-organisations.11

1. Personal communication: Dr Ian Deverill. 2. ‘MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949’ Keith Jeffery, Bloomsbury, 2010, p.361-362. 3. ‘The Secret History of SOE 1940-45’ W.J.M. Mackenzie, St. Ermin’s Press, 2000, p.198 4. ‘Churchill’s Underground Army’ John Warwicker, Frontline Books, 2008, p.202 5. Ibid. p.98 6. ‘The Mercian Maquis’ Bernard Lowry & Mick Wilks, Logaston Press, 2002 7. ‘The Defence of Worcestershire and the Southern Approaches to Birmingham in World War II’ Mick Wilks, Logaston Press, 2007, p.216 8. Ibid, p.217 9. Ibid, p.218 10. Leicester Mercury, 11.9.1964 11. The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Stewart Angell, Anne Cooper, Dr Ian Deverill, Allan Hopcraft, Bernard Lowry, David Waller (www.auxunit.org.uk) and Mick Wilks, plus several others who chose to remain nameless, in the compilation of this article.

259/12

Britain’s Top-Selling Aviation Monthly

FlyPast is internationally regarded as the magazine for aviation history and heritage. Having pioneered coverage of this fascinating world of ‘living history’ since 1981, FlyPast still leads the field today.

 

APRIL ISSUE AVAILABLE 27 FEBRUARY*

FREE AIRSHOW GUIDE Your indispensable guide to all of this year’s major air displays both in the UK and overseas. Over 24 pages we list all the forthcoming dates, in this country, Europe, North America and even further afield, with links to websites where possible.

BBMF’S BIG YEAR The RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is preparing to mark the 75th anniversary of the conflict it is named after. Steve Beebee spoke to the Flight’s boss, Sqn Ldr Dunc Mason, about plans for the year ahead.

FROM THE WORKSHOP Avro Lancaster NX611 ‘Just Jane’ is emerging from its winter maintenance programme at East Kirkby in Lincolnshire. Anne Rogers reports.

ONLY

£4.40

MANUFACTURERS – HANDLEY PAGE Ken Ellis charts the post-war history of one of the great names in British aviation.

AND MUCH MORE!

MAY ISSUE AVAILABLE 1 APRIL

From

and other leading newsagents

For latest subscription deals visit www.flypast.com

173/15

*UK scheduled on-sale date.

ALSO

AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD

SCAN HERE TO PURCHASE

also available for PC & MAC from

Requirements for app: registered iTunes account on Apple iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4S, 5, 6, iPod Touch or iPad 1, 2 or 3. Internet connection required for initial download. Published by Key Publishing Ltd. The entire contents of these titles are © copyright 2015. All rights reserved. App prices subject to change.

b

AVAILABLE FROM

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY… Messerschmitts On Tour

O

N THE morning of Wednesday 22 November 1939 Feldwebel Karl Hier of 1./JG76 found himself out-manoevered and outgunned by fighters of the French Air Force in what would be a brief but wild engagement over the Bas-Rhin region of France, with his Gruppe of Messerschmitt 109s trying to fight off their determined attackers. In the engagement, Hier’s aircraft (W.Nr 1304) was hit and disabled, as was that of Lt Heinrich Shulz of 3./JG76 who made a heavy forced-landing at Remeling-les-Puttelange with his fighter suffering severe damage to its port wing and fuselage. Hier, meanwhile, had managed to execute a near-perfect wheels-down landing alongside an orchard at Goersdorf, close to the town of Woerth.

In the space of just a few minutes the Allies had been delivered their first two examples of the Luftwaffe’s front-line fighter and although Schulz’s aircraft had been somewhat knocked around it fulfilled a useful propaganda service placed on public display at the Place de la Concorde and later on the Champs-Élysées. Hier’s aircraft, though, was in near pristine condition and was quickly removed to the French flight test evaluation centre (CEMA) where minor repairs were carried out and it was prepared for air testing. However, with demands for access to the German fighter being made on the French by their British allies the aircraft was ferried to England on 3 May 1940 where it arrived at the Aircraft Armament & Experimental Establishment,

MAIN PICTURE: Oblt Franz von Werra’s crash-landed Messerschmitt 109 at Winchet Hill, Marden, on 5 September 1940. FAR RIGHT: Franz von Werra seated in the cockpit of his Me 109.

Boscombe Down, for initial flight testing and before transfer to the Royal Aircraft Establishment on 14 May and its allocation of the RAF serial number AE479, albeit remaining ‘on loan’ from the French.

‘EXPERTEN’ Meanwhile, back across the English Channel, the Germans were advancing up through France at an alarming pace. In their vanguard was another Messerschmitt 109-equipped fighter unit, JG3, where a certain Lt Franz von Werra was starting to make something of a name for himself as he began to rack up claims of Allied aircraft destroyed. Without a doubt, here was a potential future ‘experten’ and a rising star of the Luftwaffe fighter arm.

When Franz von Werra crash-landed his Messerschmitt 109 in Kent at the height of the Battle of Britain it seemed that the war was over for both pilot and machine. However, as Andy Saunders explains, it wasn't the end of the story for either von Werra or his aircraft, as the recent discovery of two unusual photographs reveals.

THE ONE THAT

54 www.britainatwar.com

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY… Messerschmitts On Tour As JG3 followed the advancing army in its drive up through the collapsing allies in France, so the evacuation from Dunkirk and the period in its immediate aftermath would result in something of a hiatus for the German forces now ranged along the coastline facing Britain. It wasn’t long, however, before the German forces had rested, re-organised, re-equipped and readied themselves for the onslaught against the British Isles. Lounging in the summer sun of the Pas de Calais, von Werra had been itching to go but amused himself by whiling away the time playing with his unit’s mascot: Simba the lion cub. The camera, it seemed, was never far away and neither, apparently, was publicity. Once the air campaign against Britain had begun in earnest, von Werra was

getting into his stride as the archetypal ‘ace’ and, with the newly awarded Iron Cross 1st Class pinned to his tunic, the fighter pilot, now promoted as Oberleutnant and Adjutant to the Stab.II / JG3, began to notch up yet more victories over RAF fighters – something he was certainly not shy in talking about. Indeed, sometime at the end of August he was interviewed on German radio about an attack on an aerodrome ‘near Rochester’ on or around the 26th of that month when he had claimed to have shot down four Hurricanes that were coming in to land, set fire to a hangar and riddled five other parked Hurricanes with gunfire. By any standards, they were extravagant claims and not ones that can be substantiated with any post-war research. 

AT GOT AWAY…

www.britainatwar.com 55

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY… Messerschmitts On Tour

Notwithstanding these tales of derring-do, mounting casualties were now being experienced by the Luftwaffe fighter force — although von Werra himself seems not to have been unduly fazed by the all-too-frequent losses of friends and colleagues. Perhaps, like any other fighting man, he simply put to the back of his mind any possibility that he might be the next man who wasn’t coming home. It would always be ‘somebody else’. No doubt it was the only way to get through it, but on 5 September 1940 it wasn’t the ‘somebody else’ who wouldn’t be coming home. It was von Werra himself. However good a flier, and however skilled a fighter pilot, it could take just a couple of seconds of bad luck, of an opponent momentarily gaining the upper hand, for the ‘ace’ to fall. The hunter, after all, was also the hunted.

VON WERRA’S DOWNFALL As dogfights went during the Battle of Britain, and almost as two-a-penny as crashed Messerschmitt 109s had become across the landscapes of southern England, the demise of Franz

56 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: A soldier examines the victory tallies marked on the tail of the Me 109; eight for aerial claims and five representing aircraft von Werra claimed as destroyed on the ground. TOP RIGHT: ‘Simba’ on the cowling of a Messerschmitt 109. RIGHT: Film poster for The One That Got Away. BELOW: Oblt von Werra poses in the cockpit of his Messerschmitt 109 with his pet lion cub, ‘Simba’.

von Werra was hardly out of the ordinary when his fighter, with Spitfire in hot pursuit, skimmed across fruit trees and Oast Houses above Marden in Kent. The descending fighter was on its final approach to what would be a bumpy and dusty crash-landing at Love’s Farm, Winchet Hill. Unscathed, the suave and cool von Werra hauled himself from the cockpit in front of astonished detachment of ‘C’ Company, Marden Home Guard, under the command of Platoon Sgt Donald Fairman. In true Dad’s Army fashion, Fairman rushed to find his rifle in order to take the German pilot prisoner but, unable to get to it in time, was beaten to the capture by an unarmed army cook from a nearby searchlight unit. Fairman could only look on disconsolately as his moment of glory evaporated and ‘his’ German was marched away into a captivity that would be very far from uneventful. If the unknown army cook had uttered the immortal words ‘For

you, the war is over!’ then he could not have imagined how very far from the truth that statement would actually turn out to be. As it happened, the war was not exactly over for von Werra’s rather forlorn Messerschmitt, either. Across the starboard wing of the Messerschmitt 109, noted RAF Intelligence, were ‘many .303 bullet strikes’ and it would have been these strikes, or one of them at least, that had punctured the aircraft coolant system and perhaps the wing-mounted radiator itself. Either way, and with a rising engine temperature and failing power, there was no hope of a return trip across the English Channel for von Werra. At any rate, not for yet awhile. For now, the enemy of whom he been somewhat contemptuous in his very recent radio broadcast had now trumped the ace and gained the upper hand, that mastery having been meted out by a Spitfire of 603 Squadron flown by Plt Off ‘Stapme’ Stapleton. Whilst some debate has ensued across the years as to who actually downed von Werra it seems most likely that Stapleton was the victor, although the Messerschmitt had most likely also come under prior attack by Spitfires of 41 Squadron, flown by Flt Lt J T Webster and Plt Off G H Bennions. In his Combat Report, Stapleton set out the circumstances of the downing: ‘I was diving to attack the bombers when I was engaged by two Me 109s. When I fired at the first one I noticed glycol coming from his radiator. I did a No.2 attack and as I fired I was hit by bullets from another Me 109. I broke off downwards and continued my

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY… Messerschmitts On Tour

dive. At 6,000ft I saw a single-engined machine diving vertically with no tail unit. I looked up and saw a parachutist coming down circled by an Me 109. I attacked him from the low quarter. He dived vertically towards the ground and flattened out at ground level. I then did a series of beam attacks from both sides and the enemy turned into my attacks. He finally forced-landed. He tried to set his radio on fire by taking off his jacket and setting fire to it and putting it into the cockpit. He was prevented by the LDV.’ Years later, Stapleton discovered the identity of the pilot he had brought down and spoke about the event, saying: ‘I remember seeing my tracer strike the 109 and was concerned that I was flying at low-level with a village in my apparent line of fire. Contrary to the myth that has developed over the years I have no doubt that the pilot was making no attempt to open fire on the descending parachutist. He was merely concentrating on self-preservation and happened to be circling in the vicinity. The 109 was clearly disabled with the pilot looking to evade further attack

and get his aircraft down. Why risk murdering the parachutist knowing that his aircraft was damaged and a forced-landing, on enemy territory, was imminent?’ Of course, the story of Franz von Werra would become well known in the post-war years through the 1956 book by Kendal Burt and James Leasor, The One That Got Away, and in the film of the same name (Rank Organisation, 1957) with Hardy Kruger playing the lead as von Werra. It has to be said that the book by Burt and Leasor is hardly an objective or wholly factual account, but it does very much follow the style of many war stories published in these post-war years. It is, though, unusual in that it deals with a German; the enemy, rather than an Allied allaction hero. In this respect there was, perhaps, some nervousness on the part of publishers, Collins with Michael Joseph, as to how the British readership would view so recent an enemy. Indeed, in the book’s flyleaf we read: ‘It is a story which the British reader will follow with breathless fascination and with intermittent doubt as to where his

TOP RIGHT: Platoon Sgt Donald Fairman, of the Kent Home Guard, who was denied the opportunity of capturing von Werra in a real-life ‘Dad’s Army’ farce. (BETHANY SCHOOL)

ABOVE LEFT: Oblt von Werra plays with ‘Simba’ on the wing of his fighter. BELOW: Fw Hier’s Messerschmitt 109, shortly after capture and wearing French national markings.

sympathies lie.’ Whilst the escaping exploits of Oblt von Werra could fill another entire feature, we should at least examine those adventures in brief outline, here, even although the main focus of this piece rather centres on the machine rather than the man.

BOY’S OWN ESCAPE ATTEMPTS There is little doubt that from the moment of capture von Werra began to focus on how he could get away; it was, after all, the duty of every POW to escape if possible. In Britain, though, there were two massive obstacles to any return to Germany or occupied Europe: the North Sea and English Channel. Even if a German prisoner could escape his camp, the realistic possibility of ‘making a home run’ was bleak. It wasn’t, though, something that apparently daunted the intrepid von Werra and once incarcerated the determined prisoner set about freeing himself. Once, on a heavily guarded 

www.britainatwar.com 57

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY… Messerschmitts On Tour

VICTORY CLAIMS BY VON WERRA NO. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

DATE 20 May 1940 22 May 1940 22 May 1940 22 May 1940 28 Aug 1940 28 Aug 1940 28 Aug 1940 28 Aug 1940

AIRCRAFT Hurricane Breguet 690 Breguet 690 Potez 63 Spitfire Hurricane Hurricane Hurricane

LOCATION 15km East of Arras Saudemont Cambrai SW of Cambrai 3km West of Rochester -

(Plus: Five Hurricanes claimed as destroyed on the ground)

CITATION FOR AWARD OF KNIGHT’S CROSS OF THE IRON CROSS (RITTERKREUZ), 8 January 1941: OBERLEUTNANT VON Werra. In the course of 47 operational flights von Werra has shot down eight enemy aircraft and destroyed five more on the ground. On one occasion, flying alone over England, he turned a tactically unfavourable situation to his own advantage and successfully attacked a formation of Hawker Hurricane fighters going in to land on an airfield. He then made four low level attacks on the airfield itself, destroying aircraft and a petrol tanker on the ground and firing into groups of enemy personnel. This attack is unique in the annals of air fighter aviation in this war. Oberleutnant von Werra had proved himself to be an outstanding and courageous fighter pilot, worthy of the high honour bestowed on him.’ Writing of the events recounted here relating to von Werra’s actions, J M Spaight CB CBE, former Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry, would later state of this account: ‘….[these exploits] could not be reconciled with any such incidents known to the Royal Air Force.’

route march with other prisoners, he slipped his minders and rolled, unseen, over a dry stone wall before heading off and going on the run. Re-captured by the Home Guard, he again broke free from his captors and, again, was on the run before eventual capture and return to the camp. However, he wasn’t long in being involved in yet another escape attempt, this time in the time-honoured fashion of digging a tunnel from which he ultimately made a break, albeit after a narrow escape when the tunnel roof collapsed. This time, having broken out from the camp, and employing all the bravado he could muster, he posed as a Dutch

ABOVE LEFT: Plt Off Gerald ‘Stapme’ Stapleton of 603 Squadron, who almost certainly shot down von Werra, though the German aircraft may also have been engaged by two Spitfires from 41 Squadron.

BOTTOM LEFT: The title page from a copy of the book The One That Got Away, signed by Stapleton and with an appropriate inscription. BOTTOM RIGHT (OPPOSITE PAGE): Fw Hier’s Messerschmitt 109 in the USA during 1942. A swastika has been applied over the RAF fin markings. The original image clearly shows the number 1480.

58 www.britainatwar.com

Air Force pilot, Captain van Lott, and astonishingly bluffed his way onto the Rolls-Royce airfield at Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. In a scene directly out of the Boys Own annual, he managed by guile to find his way to a parked Hurricane which he almost managed to start before being rumbled at the last moment and ordered at gunpoint out of the cockpit. The audacity and boldness of von Werra apparently knew no bounds and although he was once again incarcerated and back at the POW camp his adventures were very far from over. When it was decided in January 1941 to transport all German prisoners of war to camps in Canada it seemed that the game was finally up. What chance could there possibly be of escaping from the other side of the Atlantic and making it home? Part of the plan, of course, was to remove captured German service personnel from Britain and thus any realistic chance of even bothering to try to escape. How could anyone get back from Canada to Germany? There was, though, something of a flaw in the plan and it was one that von Werra was not long in planning to exploit once he and his fellow prisoners had embarked on the liner Duchess of York as it set sail from Greenock on 10 January 1941. As things turned out, and by odd coincidence, a significant part of von Werra’s Messerschmitt 109 would also follow him across the Atlantic just over one year later, but on the very day he sailed for Canada the victory-marked tail of his Messerschmitt had suddenly become of renewed interest to the RAF once more.

As RAF Intelligence Officers noted the detail of von Werra’s Messerschmitt 109 E-4, Werke Nummer 1480, at the crash site immediately after its landing on 5 September 1940 they also noted that it was in surprisingly good condition with even the canopy still intact whereas, usually, crash-landing pilots jettisoned them beforehand to make a quick exit. As result, and rather than earmark this aircraft for scrap re-processing, or even for use as a morale-boosting display piece for Spitfire Fund events, the aircraft was allocated to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. Here, it could be evaluated for potential repair and test flying since the currently flying example, Karl Hier’s W.Nr 1304, was perhaps coming to end of its useful life. If nothing else, 1480 might prove to be a useful source of spares. Meanwhile, though, RAF officers who had first interrogated von Werra noted: ‘The pilot was Adjutant of the Gruppe, his ID disc number being three below that of 6./JG3. According to other POWs from the Gruppe this pilot gave a talk on German radio describing an attack on an aerodrome near Rochester, on about 26th August. When confronted by the text he strenuously denied the broadcast, although is regarded by fellow officers as a ‘Hell of a Fellow’. He also kept a pet lion cub.’ Certainly, here was a larger than life and flamboyant character and, whatever the validity of his combat claims, the tail of his Messerschmitt was emblazoned with the officially acknowledged marks of his success; eight victory tabs denoting his claimed air-to-air victories and five tabs as downward-pointing

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY… Messerschmitts On Tour

arrows denoting, presumably, the five Hurricanes he claimed in the radio broadcast to have shot up on the ground. For some months, though, 1480 languished, dismantled, in a Farnborough hangar. Then, on 5 January 1941, Hier’s old Messerschmitt suffered a quite serious landing accident at Farnborough which very badly damaged the tail section. Rather than get von Werra’s old mount (1480) repaired and airworthy it was decided, instead, that it should become the sacrificial spares-ship for 1304. Accordingly, and coincidentally on 10 January just as von Werra was departing for the Americas, 1480 was dusted off and dragged out from the back of a hangar where its tail was amputated ready for grafting onto 1304. Repaired, Hier’s old aeroplane was

given a new lease of life as, meanwhile, 1480 continued to offer valuable parts as a spares source before finally being consigned as scrap. The flaw in the British plan to ship German prisoners to Canada was, of course, that Canada was next door to the United States which, at this point in the war, was still a neutral country. Thus, if any German prisoner could escape and find his way across the border and into the USA then there might just be the possibility of eventual repatriation back home. It was this plan that von Werra now worked on, although he realised that he needed to act quickly as the further into Canada he was taken then the bigger the challenge of simply getting to the border became, let alone crossing it.

ABOVE LEFT: A film still from The One That Got Away depicting the moment von Werra was captured after his crashlanding.

(AFTER THE BATTLE)

ABOVE RIGHT: Hardy Kruger, who played von Werra in the film, in a Rank Organisation publicity postcard.

ESCAPE AT LAST Taking his chances, von Werra managed to jump from a railway carriage transporting prisoners to their new camp and, undetected, he made his way to the partially frozen St Lawrence River which, with great difficulty, he crossed partly by stolen rowing boat and partly by walking on the ice. Eventually, and suffering from frostbite, he arrived on American soil – albeit having entered the country illegally and already abusing its strict neutrality hospitality rules. ‘Escape’ from the USA, per se, was not really an option but for this man of action and adventure it isn’t surprising to learn that he travelled covertly across America, crossed the border into Mexico and made his way down to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil before 

www.britainatwar.com 59

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY… Messerschmitts On Tour

finding a ship home and an eventual return to Germany, a surely deserved hero’s welcome and the award of the coveted Knight’s Cross of The Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz). Oblt Franz von Werra could truly be described as ‘The One That Got Away’, although here we have only scratched the surface of his truly remarkable exploits as an escapologist. Instead, our focus must return to his old Messerschmitt. Or, rather, the hybrid Messerschmitt that it had now become. One year after the ‘transplant’ of von Werra’s Messerschmitt tail onto Karl Hier’s old machine representations were

60 www.britainatwar.com

being made in the United States, newly embroiled in the war, for access to captured German technology for their own evaluation and assessment. On the Americans’ ‘wants list’ was a flyable Messerschmitt 109. Its useful life all but served with the RAF, the composite 1304/1480 was made available and crated and shipped across the Atlantic on the SS Dramesfjord, leaving London on 7 April 1942. Consigned to the US flying test centre at Wright Field on 14 May 1942 the aircraft had but a short life and was written-off in a crash landing at Cambridge, Ohio, on

ABOVE LEFT: Von Werra’s Me 109 in the hangar at Farnborough. Note the bullet holed starboard wing in the background. BELOW: Hier's aircraft in the USA in 1942.

3 November 1942. However, shortly after its arrival at Wright Field the aeroplane became the centre of attention for a publicity photo shoot and it is the previously unseen images from that event that were the catalyst for this feature in Britain at War. Interestingly, and purely for the titillation of the American public, a swastika had been roughly painted over the RAF fin stripes that had been applied by its previous operator. Although the victory tallies had been overpainted the tell-tale number, 1480, remained clearly in evidence. Meanwhile, though, von Werra had already returned to Luftwaffe service but had been killed on active duty long before his old Messerschmitt had come to the end of its life. Back as a front-line fighter pilot, von Werra had increased his victory tally to 21 aerial victories by July 1941 whilst serving on the Russian Front as Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG53 before the unit withdrew to Germany to re-equip with the new Messerschmitt 109 F-4 and a move to Katwijk in The Netherlands. It was from here, on 25 October 1941, that von Werra took off in a test flight at the controls of W.Nr 7285. Somewhere to the north of Vlissingen his fighter suffered engine failure and von Werra crashed, fatally, into the sea. This time, he wouldn’t get away. 

NE

THE DEVELOPMENT, COMBAT HISTORY

W

AND THE ACES WHO FLEW THEM Produced by a team of some of the most highly-respected aviation journalists in the business, ‘Famous Fighters of World War 2’ is a 100PAGE SPECIAL publication timed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of VE Day.

We hold the iconic fighter aircraft of World War Two in such reverence, that it is sometimes difficult to comprehend that they were designed for one purpose, and one purpose only. They were the lean, mean, killing machines of their time, a time when rapidly advancing technology honed the aircraft into a war-winning weapon that influenced every theatre of the conflict. Arranged in chronological sequence, we look at the top ten fighters of the conflict, their development, combat history and the aces that flew them. From the eternal grace of the Spitfire to the futuristic Me262, this special publication pays tribute to them all.

AIRCRAF T INCLUDE:

JUST £

5.99

SUPERMARINE SPITFIRE HAWKER HURRICANE MESSERSCHMITT BF109 FOCKEWULF FW190 MESSERSCHMITT ME262 P51 MUSTANG P47 THUNDERBOLT AND MANY MORE!

*

AVAILABLE NOW FROM

AND ALL OTHER LEADING NEWSAGENTS

Alternatively, Order Direct:

JUST £5.99 FREE P&P* *Free 2nd class P&P on all UK & BFPO orders. Overseas charges apply.

Free P&P* when you order online at www.keypublishing.com/shop

OR

Call UK: 01780 480404 Overseas: +44 1780 480404 Monday to Friday 9am-5:30pm

K E Y M A G A Z I N E S U B S C R I B E R S C A L L F O R Y O U R £ 1. 0 0 D I S C O U N T !

164/15

!

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918

Flowerdew’s

Charge It was hailed as the cavalry charge that turned defeat into decisive victory in the grim spring of 1918. But the truth about Gordon Flowerdew’s heroic ride into history has become shrouded in myth. Steve Snelling charts the extraordinary story of one of the last mounted attacks on the Western Front.

62 www.britainatwar.com

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918

T

HE SLAUGHTER had barely ceased and everywhere on the wooded ridge was wild confusion. Bullets split the air and shells chased blood-smeared and mostly riderless horses through geysers of mud and shrapnel. A cavalry charge as brave and desperate as any in history had descended into chaos. The ground south east of Amiens was strewn with dead and wounded; men and animals forming a grisly mosaic before a makeshift German position bristling with machine-guns. During a mad few minutes in the “mocking spring sunshine” of Easter Saturday 1918 a squadron of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) had been shattered in a whirlwind of fire. Almost a third had been killed outright and most of the remainder had been hit, several of them fatally. But

from out of that hell a few emerged dazed with shock to reach the covering shelter of the wood. One among them was the squadron’s farrier. Sergeant D Watson was on foot. He was leading his faithful horse, its flesh torn to tatters, when he stumbled across his commanding officer somewhere in the midst of that tangle of blasted trees. “Sir,” he reported bleakly, “the boys is all gone.” The shock was tangible. So, too, was the sense of disaster his terse account conjured. Others, however, would draw different conclusions. They would present an altogether different version of the cavalry charge at Moreuil Wood, one more heroic than catastrophic and more fateful than ill-fated. It would colour people’s impressions of the action for decades after. 

MAIN PICTURE: Portrait of heroism: Charge of Flowerdew’s Squadron by Alfred Munnings. The renowned English equine artist was recruited to the Canadian War Memorials Fund art programme in late 1917 and was attached to the Canadian Cavalry Brigade in January 1918. His work, immortalising the action at Moreuil Wood, was based on sketches made during a re-enactment staged by survivors of the charge less than a month later. Lieutenant Luke Williams, who took on the role of his friend Gordon Flowerdew (inset), later recalled: “The space which we had was rather too short and was closed off with a barbed wire fence at the end toward which we charged. I found that my mare took some stopping after going all out… However we all quite enjoyed the gallop at full speed. We repeated the charge about three or four times while Mr Munnings made his sketches.”

www.britainatwar.com 63

ABOVE: Gordon Flowerdew, standing fourth from the left in the doorway of Billingford Hall, with members of his family during the First World War. BELOW RIGHT: Billingford Hall on the Norfolk/ Suffolk border was the Flowerdew family home where the future VC winner spent many of his leaves during the First World War. BOTTOM: Back home: Gordon Flowerdew, standing left, with his father and mother at Billingford Hall.

‘CARRY ON BOYS’ The rendering of an apparently forlorn small-scale action into a pivotal struggle owed much to the presentational skill of John Edward Bernard Seely, politician, soldier and best-selling author of a celebrated equine war memoir regarded by some as the real-life inspiration for the novel War Horse. As Brigadier General Jack Seely, astride his redoubtable and seemingly indestructible mount, Warrior, he had commanded the Canadian Cavalry Brigade during the dark days of the German Spring Offensive of 1918. Fourteen years on, he recalled those momentous events at a widely-reported literary gathering designed to publicise his latest book, an autobiographical study covering his years of command on the western front. The image he sketched was both graphic and grim. It was a picture of disintegration and near despair as the British army’s gains, painfully won by two years’ attritional warfare, were surrendered in little more than a week. Chaotic retreat had threatened to become a catastrophic rout involving the collapse of a significant portion of the army. In reality, Seely informed his audience, the Allies’ plight was even worse than anyone had imagined. “The Germans,” he declared, “had won the war completely, definitely and finally on March 30, 1918, but did not know it…” 64 www.britainatwar.com

They remained oblivious to this ‘fact’, he insisted, due only to the courageous enterprise of a “young boy… the son of an Eastern counties parson” who, in his vivid description, literally rode to the Allied armies’ rescue and, at heavy cost, stemmed the enemy tide with an act of supreme self-sacrifice that “may have deflected the whole course of history”. The audience was transfixed as the general recounted the story of the battle and of the cavalry charge.

Mostly, however, he spoke of the gallant “boy” whose daring intervention at the critical moment had, in his estimation, transformed British fortunes. He quoted from the officer’s own journal, a record he described as “the diary of a gentleman who played a wonderful part in the greatest battle in history”, and he recited his last reported words as a phalanx of men and horses swept over his wounded body: “Carry on boys. We have won.” To sustained applause, Seely sank back into his chair, tears streaming down his face. It had been a bravura performance that made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic — with extraordinary consequences. Within days, the leader of the charge was being hailed a hero all over again. Magazines and newspapers made hay. Fact and fiction became hopelessly blurred and the story became legend.

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918 LEFT: Gordon Flowerdew enjoying life in the great Canadian outdoors. By 1910, he had settled in Walhachin, British Columbia, where he became part of an aristocratic fruit-growing community and a part-time lawman. Remembered as a latter-day ‘Sir Galahad’, his feats of horsemanship became legendary.

From being the officer credited with turning defeat into victory at Moreuil Wood, the Norfolk-born Canadian cavalryman became a posthumous sensation as “the man who won the war”.

‘SIR GALAHAD’ The truth about Gordon Muriel Flowerdew and the 75 men of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse who charged the Germans on an embattled French ridge almost a century ago is altogether more complicated but no less remarkable. To begin with, Flowerdew was not quite the romanticised character

BELOW RIGHT: Though his army attestation papers give his occupation at the outbreak of war as 'rancher' Gordon Flowerdew (right) was a ‘jack of all trades’ whose duties also involved running the general stores in Walhachin. BOTTOM: Cavalry volunteer: Flowerdew, seated second from the right in the front row, at a pre-war camp for the 31st Regiment, British Columbia Horse. Enlisting in 1911, he joined C Company which was largely made up of Englishborn residents of Walhachin.

portrayed in Seely’s highly coloured version. The son of a gentleman farmer from the small south Norfolk village of Billingford, near Diss, he was far from being the “young boy” of Seely’s story. In fact, at the time of his last and most memorable action, he was a mature 33-year-old squadron commander risen from the ranks and hardened by years of toil in the Canadian west and on the battlefields of France and Flanders. The eighth of 10 sons, four of whom had volunteered to fight the Boers, he emigrated to Canada, aged 18, in 1903, not so much in search of adventure but of a cure for his poor health. Shortly after leaving school at Framlingham College, he had contracted pleurisy and it was considered the wide open spaces of Canada might act as a restorative. Working his way across the prairie lands of Saskatchewan and Alberta via remote farms near Duck Lake and Wingard, he eventually wound up in a pioneering settlement on the edge of the Rockies.

Walhachin, British Columbia, was a ‘Little England’ populated by a band of gentlemen horticulturists who included among their wellheeled number the sixth Marquis of Anglesey, Lord Victor Paget, and descendants of King George V, Cecil Rhodes and the British prime minister Herbert Asquith. Described as a Canadian ‘Camelot’, the aristocratic community discovered in Gordon Flowerdew its own Sir Galahad. As daring as he was dashing, he was a sometime rancher, general store keeper and lawman who acquired local celebrity status for the Wild West-style horseback chase and capture of two vicious bandits who had beaten and robbed a Chinese businessman. His reputation was further enhanced by his performance as a volunteer trooper in the locally raised 31st British Columbia Horse. In the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, he set records both as a steeplechaser and a marksman. Flowerdew’s rise through the ranks mirrored his equestrian prowess. One of 44 out of a total male settler population of 45 who volunteered from Walhachin for overseas service, he was swiftly transferred to the Lord Strathcona’s Horse with whom he rose from lance-corporal to sergeant in a little more than seven months. Dismounted service on the western front, where Canadian cavalry units helped make up for infantry shortages, neither dulled his enthusiasm nor stunted his progress. A soldier by instinct, he displayed stoicism, manning trenches where “the water was well over my knees”, and fearlessness, leading night patrols across no-man’s-land. 

“he set records as a steeplechaser and marksman”

www.britainatwar.com 65

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918 On one such foray he resorted to clubbing an enemy soldier with his revolver butt after forgetting to remove the safety catch. The result was one finger smashed between revolver and steel helmet and two prisoners secured. His leadership skills earned him a commission, but opportunities for further distinction were few and far between. By spring 1916, the Lord Strathcona’s Horse, having resumed its mounted role, was among those cavalry units held back in the hope of exploiting a breakthrough that seemed to the newly promoted officer a distant prospect. “I very much doubt,” he wrote home prophetically, “if the war is more than half over.” Fleeting hopes of a return to open warfare following early successes around Arras and Cambrai in the spring and autumn of 1917 proved merely transitory. It was no little irony, therefore, that his only chance to lead a classic cavalry charge should result not from a British but from a German breakthrough.

‘GREATEST SKILL’ The so-called Kaiserschlacht (Kaiser’s Battle), also sometimes called the Ludendorff Offensive launched on March 21,1918, struck a devastating blow against the thinly spread, overstretched British positions in front of St Quentin occupied largely by units of the Fifth Army. In the first day alone, the massed German army advanced over four miles and took more than 20,000 prisoners.

66 www.britainatwar.com

LEFT: Gordon Flowerdew before going overseas in 1914. Having completed three years and four months service with the 31st British Columbia Horse, he transferred to the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) Regiment on September 22, 1914. As a member of B Squadron, he gained rapid promotion, his appointment as lance-sergeant taking effect the day the regiment arrived in France.

As resistance crumbled and shattered formations fell back across the old Somme battlefield, the three divisions of the Cavalry Corps became the British army’s only reserve with three Canadian units forming an 800-strong battalion. Part of a dismounted cavalry brigade commanded by Jack Seely, the makeshift unit’s CO was Lieutenant Colonel Donald MacDonald and its 337-strong Strathcona’s element was led by Major Jackie Tatlow until he was killed by a sniper on 23 March. Command now devolved upon Gordon Flowerdew.

ABOVE RIGHT: Flowerdew (right) as a sergeant in England. BELOW: Flowerdew, second from left, with comrades of Lord Strathcona’s Horse drilling in England. Ironically, they were originally employed as makeshift infantrymen in Festubert, northern France.

The next four days were a blur of rearguard actions fought behind canals and riverbanks as stragglers streamed back. With the crisis threatening to become a catastrophe, Flowerdew, a squadron commander of just two months standing, rose to the challenge. According to MacDonald, he displayed the “greatest skill and coolness” throughout a relentless battle that was constantly in danger of sliding out of control. “The situation was such,” wrote MacDonald, “that a mistake on the part of a leader would have at once brought disaster to the men he led, but in this case, although the troops under Gordon

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918

LEFT: Flowerdew holds his sabre aloft in regulation fashion, shortly before leaving England for France.

were the last troops to cross south of the Oise, yet they were withdrawn intact, and none of our wounded fell into enemy hands.” Plugging gaps in the fragmented lines held by the British 18th Division before being briefly placed under French command, Flowerdew’s footsore cavalrymen helped cover a shrinking bridgehead over the Canal de la Somme through which the French were struggling to save their artillery. The withdrawal successfully accomplished, the dismounted Canadians were pulled back to Carlespont where they were reunited with their horses and the rest of the cavalry brigade under Seely’s command. Far from being dismayed by recent events, Flowerdew was in buoyant mood. To his “dearest mother”, he wrote home: “Have been a bit busy lately, so haven’t been able to write… The weather is still very good, but very keen at night. Have had the most wonderful experiences lately. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything…” The following day, having resumed command of C Squadron, Lord

Strathcona’s Horse, he rode out in advance of the brigade through a desolate landscape to near Welles Perrennes amid reports of a developing attack on the junction between the British and French armies. Fears of another breakthrough proved unfounded and, aside from a few minor and confused clashes with friendly as well as enemy forces, 28 March passed relatively uneventfully. The next day the brigade was diverted to Guyencourt, where Flowerdew and his men spent a fitful night’s sleep with instructions to ‘Stand to your horses’ and to be ready to move off at 05.30.

‘ENGAGE AND DELAY’ March 30 dawned cold, dull and cheerless with the ground shrouded in fog. Orders to mount having been countermanded overnight, there was a pause of a couple of hours or more while Seely was briefed about a rapidly deteriorating situation and the desperate measures required to avert a disaster. “The Germans had captured Mezieres and were rapidly advancing on Amiens,” the Brigade war diarist noted. “The

TOP RIGHT: Flowerdew (right front) with a group of fellow officers from Lord Strathcona’s Horse at Yzengremer, France, in February 1917. They include: Lieutenant Fred Harvey VC (back row centre) who was awarded a Military Cross for his part in the action at Moreuil Wood, Lieutenant Luke Williams, (front row second left) who doubled as Flowerdew in the re-enactment of the charge for Alfred Munnings, and the unit commander Lieutenant Colonel Donald MacDonald, who was one of the last men to see Flowerdew alive. Between them, the eight men here accumulated two VCs, four DSOs, four MCs and a Croix de Guerre. ABOVE RIGHT: Gordon Flowerdew was given command of C Squadron, Lord Strathcona’s Horse in January 1918.

Brigade was to cross the Noye and the Avre rivers as quickly as possible and engage and delay the enemy.” In fact, the 23rd Saxon Division were within 20 kilometres of Amiens, a key communications centre for the British army, with another division advancing in support towards the strategically important high ground that dominated not just the approaches to the city but the main railway link running south to Paris. Seely set off immediately, leading his brigade across country and over the Avre at Castel where he found the commander of the French 125th Division preparing defences but with little confidence of holding the Germans who were already swarming over the wooded slopes of Moreuil ridge just the other side of the river. It was, as Seely put it, “the supreme event in my life”. Recalling the moment years later, he recorded: “I believed that if nothing were done the retreat would continue, and the war would be lost.” His opening gambit to his French senior was blunt. “We must retake Moreuil ridge,” he declared. The Frenchman agreed, but was equally certain it could not be done with the forces at their disposal.  www.britainatwar.com 67

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918 LEFT: Home leave: Gordon Flowerdew with his mother and one of his sisters-in-law on 29 April, 1916. Commissioned as a temporary lieutenant the previous month, he had been granted eight days’ leave to England.

Seely’s powers of persuasion, however, won the day: he convinced the French to hold their ground while the Canadian cavalry pushed on across the Avre towards the sprawling tangle of leafless ash and beech trees that stretched from the flattish crest of the ridge to within a kilometre of the village of Moreuil. His orders were simple and unambiguous. One squadron of the Royal Canadian Dragoons was to veer to the right of the wood and occupy the south-east corner, while two squadrons were to move round to the left and seize the north-eastern fringe followed by the Lord Strathcona’s Horse, whose men faced the toughest task of all. For while one squadron was to gallop right round the north-eastern reaches and charge the enemy reinforcements pouring into the wood before occupying the eastern edge, the remaining two squadrons were to press on into the wood and fight their way through from the southern tip to the

68 www.britainatwar.com

RIGHT: Fight against exhaustion: an artist’s impression of the Lord Strathcona’s during the wearying struggle around Amiens in March 1918. The unit was in almost constant action for virtually a week without a break. BELOW: Machine-guns versus sabres: in this artist’s impression of the charge, C Squadron are shown almost on top of the German line. According to some British accounts, the cavalrymen cut their way through two lines of Germans. In the enemy version, the attack was stopped dead in its tracks 200 yards from the first line.

point on the eastern side, hopefully, by then secured by their comrades. Having issued his orders, Seely, his aide-de-camp, an orderly and his signal troop galloped through enemy fire across a field of young wheat to the southern point of the wood. By the time his red pennant had been planted in the ground five of his headquarters party were already casualties, but he was in time to witness the en masse approach of his brigade. He later wrote: “It is curious how galloping horses seem to magnify in power and number; it looked like a great host sweeping forward over the open country.”

‘SPLENDID MOMENT’ From then on there was little let up. At 09.30, the three squadrons of the Royal Canadian Dragoons began fighting their way into the fringes of the wood. The clashes were fierce. One troop, driven out by heavy machine-gun fire, dismounted

and charged again, on foot, with fixed bayonets. The Germans, many of them young soldiers belonging to 8 Company, 2nd Battalion, 101st Grenadiers, were seemingly stunned by the unexpected nature of the attack. As the squadrons splintered, the fighting quickly developed into a series of small-scale actions, some of them desperate hand-to-hand affairs with no quarter asked for nor given. Major Reg Timmis’ B Squadron caught it worst. His objective was to encircle the wood and attack from the eastern fringe, but a galling fire from close range tore into men and horses, forcing him to wheel right and then left. It was all to no avail. The curtain of fire seemed impenetrable and the remnants of Timmis’ battered squadron were forced to admit defeat. Survivors were straggling back from the bloody repulse when Seely intervened.

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918 LEFT: Veteran of Moreuil Wood: Farrier-Sergeant D Watson, seated second from left, together with fellow C Squadron sergeants in Belgium in January 1919. Watson, who had joined the unit in March 1916, was one of the few men to come through the charge unscathed.

The Strathcona’s were preparing to follow the example of some of the Dragoons by dismounting and advancing on foot. But Seely was convinced the original plan could work. He wanted a second attempt to be made to get men round to stem the flow of reinforcements reaching the embattled troops fighting for their lives inside the wood. The task fell to Gordon Flowerdew’s C Squadron. To succeed where Timmis’ luckless squadron had failed, the English lieutenant knew he had to limit the time his Canadian horsemen would be exposed to the enemy’s fire. His plan was to head for a draw, a narrow cutting running along the north-east corner of the wood, which at least afforded a measure of natural cover as his squadron approached their objective. He ordered his second-in-command, Lieutenant Fred Harvey, a lanky, powerfully built Irish-born rancher with a couple of international rugby caps and a Victoria Cross to his name, to forge ahead with his troop, and before following on he was joined by Seely who rode up alongside him. The two men were well-acquainted. Flowerdew had served for a spell on Seely’s staff where his willingness to work hard and shoulder responsibility had been noted. Seely had absolute faith in the ability of ‘Flowers’, as he was known throughout the brigade. He merely wanted to be sure his instructions were fully understood and to offer moral support. “As we rode along together,” Seely later wrote, “I told him that his was the most adventurous task of all, but that I was confident he would succeed. With his gentle smile he turned to me and said: ‘I know, sir, I know, it is a splendid moment. I will try not to fail you.” At the north-east tip of the wood Seely

RIGHT: A headline which appeared in Liberty Magazine in 1933 during publicity for Brigadier General Seely’s war memoir, Adventure. Despite all the hype, the claims do not stand up to close scrutiny of the facts.

bade him farewell and watched C Squadron ride away until they were lost to sight in the mist-shrouded draw.

‘IT’S A CHARGE’ By the time Flowerdew caught up with Harvey’s troop the first clash had already taken place. Four or five Germans caught unawares in the act of looting a French transport wagon had been swiftly put to the sword by Harvey’s men. Having reached the edge of the wood and come under fire, Harvey ordered his men to dismount. They were in the process of starting after “a big bunch of Germans” inside the wood when the rest of the squadron led by Flowerdew arrived. “I told him the situation,” recalled Harvey, “and said I thought we could drive them out. Flowers said, ‘Go ahead and we will go around the end mounted and catch them when they come out’.” The “scrap”, as Harvey called it, was well and truly on. While the dismounted Strathcona’s pitched into the wood, Flowerdew gathered the remaining three troops of his squadron,

around 75 men all told, and led them up a steep bank out of the draw and into the open. As he crested the rise, Flowerdew LEFT: The first made a startling discovery. Where he page of Brigadier expected to find a disorganised mob of General Seely’s fugitives desperately fleeing Harvey’s letter detailing the courageous bayonet attack, he saw instead a solid action at Moreuil line of German troops, several hundred Wood sent to strong, barely 300 yards distant. Flowerdew’s The Germans were no less surprised. sister Eleanor, The 300 or so men from the 101st who was serving Grenadier Regiment, bolstered by an as a nurse at the time. artillery battery and a machine-gun section, had been warned to prepare BELOW: for an attack by tanks, not swordThree wounded wielding horsemen. survivors of Flowerdew’s decision was never C Squadron. Privates Roblin, in doubt. The ‘splendid moment’ had McKnight and arrived, though not quite in the manner Lowe all belonged he had anticipated. An attack on such to 4th Troop. All told, 39 out of the a well-armed and alerted enemy was tantamount to suicide, but to attempt to 75 chargers were killed or died retreat in full view at such close range, of their wounds as well as being anathema to him, was and most of the liable to be almost as costly. According remainder were to the Strathcona’s’ diarist, he acted wounded. “without any hesitation”. 

www.britainatwar.com 69

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918

Trooper Albert Dale, a member of 4th Troop, later recalled that splitsecond. “Flowerdew half turned in his saddle and shouted, ‘It’s a charge, boys, it’s a charge’.” Behind him, Trooper Reg Longley raised his bugle to blow the call, but it never sounded. The 22-year-old bank clerk from Manitoba was dead before it reached his lips, the first casualty of the charge. As man and horse crumpled, Dale was forced to leap their prone bodies. Everything after that, according to Dale, took place amid a blur of “speed and fury”. Writing about it more than 30 years later, he had a “hazy” recollection of seeing Flowerdew and his horse falling as the survivors swept over them. “Everything seemed unreal,” he recalled, “the shouting of men, the moans of the wounded, the pitiful crying of the wounded and dying horses. When I woke up I was pinned under my horse which was mercifully dead.”

‘MURDEROUS FIRE’ Accounts of the action vary markedly. The official citation for Flowerdew’s subsequently awarded Victoria Cross portrays the attack as a ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ in miniature, with rifle and machinegun fire directed from the front and both flanks crippling but failing to stop C Squadron’s pell-mell rush. In the course of the fight, it claimed that the cavalrymen hacked their way through “two lines” of Germans, “killing many… with the sword”, then wheeled 70 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: War artist: Alfred Munnings (1878-1959). He ran foul of the Cavalry Corps commander, General Sir Charles Kavanagh. Finding him in the frontline without a shred of identification, Kavanagh reputedly spluttered: “What on earth do you think you are?” With total lack of deference, Munnings is said to have replied: “Well, I don’t really know what I am, but when they sent me out here they told me I was a genius.” ABOVE RIGHT: Gordon’s mother holds the VC presented to her at Buckingham Palace, with her two daughters and her younger son, Eric. He had served with Gordon in the Lord Strathcona’s Horse and was under-going training as an officer cadet.

about and “galloped on them again” until “the enemy broke and retired”. According to the Brigade war diary many of the Germans, who “showed no signs of surrender”, were killed by Flowerdew’s men as they “ran out to meet them with the bayonet”. Seely put the number of Germans killed by “sword thrust alone” at 70 and claimed to have seen around 200-300 more victims of machine-gun fire, although he did not say whose guns they were. The only machine-guns mentioned in other accounts were German, with the Strathcona’s’ war diarist estimating that the chargers were confronted by the “murderous fire” of about 20 such weapons from among a force that “showed no sign of wavering”. Survivors’ recollections bear witness only to the confusion and the slaughter. Sergeant Fred Wooster was one of the few to emerge unscathed. He claimed to have fought his way into and out of the lines of German infantry, thrusting and

Recalling a scene of chaos and carnage, he observed that the only thing that seemed to stand out clearly was “that the horses, no doubt catching the excitement from the men, became entirely unmanageable and simply bolted”. He cited the experience of the officer commanding 4th Troop who only succeeded in regaining control of his horse after the charge “was completely smashed”. A sergeant from the same troop was last seen heading in totally the wrong direction, straight towards a German-held village, while another trooper was spared a similar fate only by a comrade who galloped after him and succeeded in bringing him back safely. The question of how many Strathcona’s actually reached the enemy position remains a matter of conjecture. German accounts are in sharp conflict with the British version of events. Dismissing the action as being of little importance, one German officer

clubbing all in his path before picking his way among the dead and dying to the rear. So numerous were the losses he thought for a time that he was “perhaps, a sole survivor”. Another sergeant, Tom Mackay, considered himself fortunate to have escaped with more than a hundred wounds to his legs. According to Lieutenant Luke Williams, who later collected eyewitness accounts of the action, the action was far-removed from the glorious charge portrayed by war artist Alfred Munnings in his celebrated painting.

merely observed that “the attack was bloodily repulsed, the last rider falling dead from his saddle 200 yards from the rifle muzzles of No 8 Company”. The Grenadiers’ regimental history broadly agrees, stating: “The last horses collapsed 200 metres in front of the company, only one horse and two wounded troopers reached our lines.” Casualties were certainly heavy among C Squadron. An official record reckoned that 70 per cent of the chargers were either killed or wounded. In fact, 24 had been killed, with 15 more dying later from wounds sustained during the action. Of the 36 survivors, few emerged entirely unscathed.

FLOWERDEW’S CHARGE The Lord Strathcona’s Horse 1918

‘GREAT VALOUR’ For all the undoubted chaos, there are grounds for believing the British claims that, against all the odds, the surprise attack launched by Flowerdew had, at least in the short term, consequences advantageous to the Canadians’ struggle for Moreuil wood. Both Flowerdew’s citation and the Brigade war diary made reference to the action’s contribution to the successful “capture of the position” while the Strathcona’s’ diarist wrote of its “moral effect” on the enemy troops fighting in the wood. “Hearing the clatter of hooves behind them and thinking themselves surrounded,” he noted, “their resistance to our dismounted troops weakened considerably…” Seely went further. In a letter written a little over a month later, he credited Flowerdew and his chargers with the largest share of the victory. “His splendid courage and fearless leading,” he wrote, “turned the fortunes of that fateful day.”

What is certain is that by around 11.00 hours on 30 March, following hours of bitter fighting mostly on foot, all of the wood bar the southernmost tip was in Canadian hands. The last Germans were finally ejected by the 16th Lancers, vanguard of the British 3rd Cavalry Brigade. Seely’s battered brigade — he had lost more than 300 men and 800 horses killed — was withdrawn into reserve to be eventually showered with honours. Their victory, however, proved little more than a delaying action. The following day the Germans renewed their attack and recaptured most of Moreuil wood which they would continue to hold until the Allies’ warwinning summer counter-offensive. And what of the man who led the charge? Gordon Flowerdew had fallen from his saddle with two bullets in his chest and grievous wounds to both thighs and yet, according to Seely, had the strength to shout to his men as they surged over him. Still conscious when he was recovered from the battlefield, he lived

just long enough to know that his actions had contributed to the wood’s temporary capture. The next day, his commanding officer, found him lying on a stretcher at No 41 Casualty Clearing Station, south-west of Amiens. “He… knew how serious his wounds were,” wrote Lieutenant Colonel MacDonald. “He had the satisfaction, though, of knowing how great was the service which he and his squadron had rendered towards stopping the Germans and was content. “When they took him away to the operating theatre, about ten o’clock on Easter Sunday morning, I asked him if there were anything I could do for him or any messages, and he said: ‘Nothing’.” It was the last word he heard him utter. Shortly afterwards, the leader of one of the last British cavalry charges on the western front succumbed to his injuries. So, passed the hero of Moreuil Wood. A posthumous Victoria Cross, announced a few weeks later, would recognise his “great valour”. In Jack Seely’s estimation, his final act had been “not only one of the bravest, but also one of the most decisive of the war.” However, contrary to the hype generated by Seely’s post-war publicity tours, Flowerdew had not “won the war”, nor had he been responsible for halting a German offensive that was already fast losing momentum. None of that, though, in any way diminishes the courage displayed by either he or the 75 men who sought to follow his lead by charging a more heavily armed enemy force three times larger than themselves with a degree of determination and self-sacrifice which, on occasions, may have been equalled but seldom surpassed. 

FAR LEFT: Brigadier General Jack Seely, centre, with General Sir Sam Hughes, the Canadian Minister of War, left, and newspaper baron Lord Rothermere, right, at Cavalry Brigade HQ in August 1916. TOP MIDDLE: Alfred Munnings’ painting of Major General the Right Honourable J E B Seely, CB, CMG, DSO on his Charger ‘Warrior’, the so-called original ‘War Horse’. TOP RIGHT AND BOTTOM RIGHT: Flowerdew’s Victoria Cross, awarded for “conspicuous bravery and dash”, was announced in the London Gazette of 24 April 1918. Following a spell on loan to a Canadian museum, it was returned to his old school, Framlingham College, at a special ceremony in 2003. The medal is currently displayed in the Imperial War Museum. FAR LEFT: Memorial tablet in Billingford Church, near Diss, Norfolk.

www.britainatwar.com 71

AN ESCALATION in the war at sea saw a joint British/French declaration to ensure supplies were denied from Germany and also saw losses of the first neutral ships sailing around the British Isles. The first believed attack on a British merchant vessel took place by a German aircraft, but failed to cause any damage. Meanwhile, the first British passenger ship was sunk by a U-boat. Demonstrating the global nature of the First World War, the German raider SMS Dresden was sunk by the Royal Navy off the Coast of Chile in the Pacific Ocean. Operations continued in South West Africa, East Africa and the Cameroons. On the North West Frontier of India operations were concluded against tribesmen stirred up by German agents. On the Western Front, The Battle of Neuve Chapelle was the first large scale British organised and conducted offensive of the war on the Western Front. Naval bombardments in the Aegean and at the Dardanelles also took place.

HOME FRONT

1 March Joint declaration signed by Great Britain and France to prevent trade by or with Germany. This is actioned by detaining and taking into port ships carrying goods of presumed enemy destination, ownership or origin. It is enforced without risk to neutral ships or to neutral non-combatant lives and ‘in strict observance of the dictates of humanity’.

WAR AT SEA 4 March First case of “indicator” nets aiding in the destruction of a German submarine: U-8 is trapped in nets that are part of the Dover barrage, forced to surface and scuttled under gunfire from HMS Gurkha and HMS Maori.

25 March First neutral ship deliberately sunk by German submarine. The Dutch steamer SS Medea is on voyage from Valencia to London with a cargo of oranges when sunk by gunfire from U-28. 28 March The SS Falaba, a passenger ship en-route to Sierra Leone, is torpedoed by U-28. As a result, no fewer than 104 persons perish, from a total of some 160 passengers and 90 crew. One of those killed is a US citizen — Leon C. Thrasher, a 30-year-old mining engineer from Massachusetts on his way back to the Gold Coast to resume work. His death gains him the epitaph of being the first American victim of Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare. Public outrage in the United States over Germany’s actions begins to escalate, weakening the pro-neutrality camp.

WESTERN FRONT

10 March The Battle of Neuve Chapelle begins, the first large scale British organised and conducted offensive of the war on the Western Front. (See feature, page 38) On the 12th, the Germans counter-attack. Though they do not re-capture the lost ground, so fierce are the German attacks and so ineffective is the Allied artillery, Sir John French decides to call off the offensive and consolidate the gains his men have made. The number of artillery shells fired shows that much bigger numbers are required to support such an attack. Shell production must therefore be stepped up. 13 March Battle of Neuve Chapelle ends. 14 March The Germans endeavour to bring about a counter-strike at the hamlet of St. Eloi, to the south-east of Ypres. The action is fierce. The front trench and an important 'mound' remain in the hands of the Germans, but they are pushed back from all other trenches and the portion of the village which they had been able to occupy in the first rush. British losses amount to 40 officers and 680 men killed or wounded, and 100 missing.

72 www.britainatwar.com

WAR AT SEA

14 March The only survivor of the Battle of the Falkland Islands, the light cruiser SMS Dresden is hunted by a strong Royal Navy force. The German ship is almost out of fuel and forced to seek refuge in the Chilean harbour at Cumberland Bay, where the governor insists that she must leave within 48 hours or the crew will be interned. The British are told and on 14 March HMS Kent, HMS Glasgow and the armoured merchant cruiser Orama attack. In a battle lasting less than five minutes, the British ships knock out Dresden’s guns and set her on fire forcing her captain to scuttle the ship and surrender.

WAR AT SEA

5 March The neutral Swedish steamer SS Hanna is torpedoed without warning and sunk in the North Sea off Scarborough. It is believed to the first neutral ship sunk by a German submarine, although no official confirmation is issued by the Germans and therefore may be the result of mistaken identity.

WAR AT SEA

15 March First attack on a merchant ship by aircraft: the fleet collier SS Blonde, heading for the Tyne in ballast, is 3 miles E of North Foreland when the second mate on bridge notices an aircraft flying from the east. It drops five bombs, all near misses. The ship goes to full speed, zigzags and sounds her whistle. A British armed trawler comes up and fires on the aircraft, which then flies away.

AEGEAN

5 March Bombardment of Smyrna by British squadron under Admiral Peirse. The objective is to smash the forts at the Turkish port of Smyrna (now Izmir) and prevent it being used as a base for enemy submarines. Some damage is done and the Turks themselves sink a number of steamers in the channel. As the port is deemed as being denied to submarines, Admiral Peirse is recalled. 15 March British Squadron blockading Smyrna withdrawn.

DARDANELLES

12 March General Sir Ian Hamilton appointed Commander-inChief, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. 18 March The first attempt at silencing the Turkish forts guarding the Dardanelles Strait in February 1915, had failed. Another major assault on the forts is attempted on 18 March, by both British and French warships. Despite an impressive bombardment, the Turks have a decided advantage as the current flowing through the Dardanelles towards the Aegean allows them to release floating mines towards the attacking force. The mines soon begin to take effect. At 15.45 hours HMS Inflexible strikes one, killing 39 men. Badly damaged she withdraws. Shortly afterwards, the French battleship Bouvet hits another mine, going down in just two minutes and 35 seconds with the loss of all her crew except six survivors. HMS Irresistible is hit repeatedly by Turkish shells and starts to sink. The attack is called off. (See feature, page 98) 25 March General Liman von Sanders appointed to command the Turkish Fifth Army at the Dardanelles.

INDIA

25 March On India’s northwest border operations against tribesmen stirred up by German agitation continue in the Tochi Valley. On the 25th-26th a force of over 7,000 tribesmen are completely defeated at Dardoni by a column of the Bannu Brigade, part of the British Northern Army.

SOUTH WEST AFRICA 18 March South African forces advance on the Namib Desert. The enemy has taken up extremely strong positions on the edge of the desert around vital water holes. Attacks on the German positions are successful and among the most important of this campaign.

30 March The German held town of Aus in South Western Namibia is seized by South African forces.

CAMEROONS

7 March Hostile activity continues in the neighbourhood of the Northern railhead where the Sierra Leone Battalion is engaged. As a result of this and other actions in the area 120 British native colonial soldiers are killed, wounded or missing. 7 March Due to the arrival of the rainy season operations halt. Insufficient troops, difficulties in communication and a lack of effective co-operation with French Forces also preclude further operations at this time.

EAST AFRICA

1 March A formal blockade is put in place to prevent supplies reaching German land forces in East Africa. Light cruisers HMS Weymouth and Hyacinth, HMS Pyramus, HMS Pioneer, the armed merchant cruiser Kinfauns Castle and six smaller vessels are re-enforced on 5 March by the old battleship HMS Goliath. Vice Admiral Sir H. G. King-Hall takes charge of operations.

www.britainatwar.com 73

THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY SHORE The Race to Rangoon 1945

74 www.britainatwar.com

THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY SHORE The Race to Rangoon 1945

T

MAIN PICTURE: British troops of the Fourteenth Army cross the River Chindwin on the way to the Shwebo plain and beyond that the Irrawaddy. (AMORAMA.COM)

HE JAPANESE were on the run. They had failed in their bid to invade India, being heavily defeated at Imphal and Kohima in spring 1944. It was now time for the Allies to take the offensive and recapture Burma. Such an operation was fraught with problems, not the least being the country itself. Its climate is particularly unfavourable for campaigning, with the predominant feature being the annual monsoons. Its effects were described by General Sir George Giffard, Commander in Chief of the 11th Army Group in India and Burma, in his despatch on operations: “While the South-West monsoon has a bad effect upon the health of troops and causes them also acute discomfort from wet, its really worst effect is upon the communications in the country... In Assam and Burma there is very little stone, most of the hills, which are clothed in forest or bamboo, being composed of a soft shale quite useless for road making. The making of roads is, therefore, very difficult as they have to be built to a high standard in order to stand up to the torrential rains which fall between May and October. The heavy rains also make the ordinary native tracks very nearly impassable as they get so slippery on the steep

hillsides that neither man nor beast can stand up on them. Finally, as can be imagined, these heavy rains make the rivers and streams into very formidable obstacles, all of which have to be bridged to allow the passage of troops and transport. Indeed, campaigning in the monsoon in Burma may be said to be one of the most arduous operations anywhere in the world today.” Whilst it was true that General William Slim’s Fourteenth Army had been able to make some progress during the 1944 monsoon, no large-scale operations could be considered until the skies cleared and the ground hardened.

PLAN ‘Y’ Plans were therefore laid to drive vigorously into central Burma after the monsoon in autumn 1944, with the aim of capturing Rangoon, the Burmese capital, before the heat of summer broke with the start of the following year’s monsoon. It was a tough objective, against a tough enemy, but Slim knew his men had the beating of the Japanese: “We had learned how to kill Japanese,” he later wrote, “how to build roads and airfields with little equipment and strange materials. Our troops had shown themselves steadier, more offensive, and better trained 

THE BATTLE OF THE

IRRAWADDY 1 SHORE PA RT

Spring 2015 sees the 70th anniversary of the last major battles in the war in Burma. In this two-part article John Grehan describes those remarkable few weeks in 1945 when the Fourteenth Army pushed the Japanese out of central Burma. But could they reach the Burmese capital in the south before the summer monsoon washed away the roads and flooded the fields? It was a race against nature, a race against time — it was the race to Rangoon.

www.britainatwar.com 75

THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY SHORE The Race to Rangoon 1945 LEFT: Crossing the Shwebo plain in January 1945. While the plain may have been open and flat compared with the mountainous and densely wooded terrain in the north of Burma, the lowlying ground was evidently still muddy, having not completely dried out from the 1944 monsoon. (DINGE AND GOETE)

BELOW: Men of the 11th East African Division on a ferry crossing the Chindwin River to Kalewa, January 1945. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

than ever before. They did not now accept any country as impassable, either for the enemy or themselves ... Our troops had proved themselves in battle the superiors of the Japanese; they had seen them run ... They had smashed for ever the legend of the invincibility of the Japanese Army. Neither our men nor the Japanese soldier himself believed in it any longer.”1 Slim’s men may have learnt how to fight the Japanese and overcome the terrain but these factors were not to be taken lightly. Yet, as Allied air forces in this theatre now outnumbered those of the Japanese, it meant that the Fourteenth Army would not be entirely reliant upon long and tenuous lines of communication but instead could be, in part at least, supplied from the air.

76 www.britainatwar.com

Whatever plan was adopted, the Fourteenth Army would have to cross two major rivers, the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy. The first of these was crossed in late autumn 1944, as a preliminary objective, with three bridgeheads being established at Sittaung, Mawlaik and Kalewa. When the main operation was due to start, the Fourteenth Army would break out from the bridgeheads into the Shwebo plain. This was a dry, open expanse of land where the Allied armour, no longer confined to jungle tracks, could be fully utilised for the first time. If the enemy could be brought to battle in such country he was certain to be at a grave disadvantage. General Heitaro Kimura knew this as well as Slim. When the Fourteenth Army began its great offensive on 3 December

1944, breaking out of its bridgeheads over the Chindwin, Kimura deployed only light forces to delay the Anglo-India divisions’ advance. He concentrated his forces instead behind the Irrawaddy and challenged the Fourteenth Army to dare cross it. Of the three plans considered during 1944 for the recapture of Rangoon, the one that was adopted, Plan ‘Y’, was to use 33 Corps, with the 19th Division attached, to force its way across the River Irrawaddy north and west of Mandalay. This, it was expected, would draw Kimura’s divisions into that area. Whilst the battle was raging to the north, 4 Corps would advance from the south up the Gangaw Valley and suddenly appear at Pakokku, almost 100 miles downstream, and storm across the Irrawaddy. Once over the river, 4 Corps would rush eastwards to capture Meiktila, the main administrative centre of the Japanese Fifteenth and Thirty-Third armies, with the help of airborne forces. 

THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY SHORE The Race to Rangoon 1945 14 DEC Banmauk KATHA Pinlebu

Poungbyin 29 NOV

INDIA

Wuntho

Indow

BHAMO

Shwegu

19 DEC

Aijal

Tiddim Kalamyo

Kalewa 2 DEC

Namtu

Falam

Shwebo 7 JAN

CHITTAGONG Dohazari

MONYWA 22 JAN Sagaing

Gangaw

11 JAN

Cox's Bâzãr

18 FEB Pakokku

Kyaukse 30 MAR

BURMA

Kanpetlet

29 NOV Buthidaung

Donbaik

12 MAR Maymyo MANDALAY 20 MAR

Myingyan 22 MAR

Pauk 27 JAN

Paletwa

Maungdow

LASHIO

Mogok

Ye-u 2 JAN

18 APR

Kyauktaw

3 MAR

Yenangyaung 22 APR

Minbya AKYAB 3 JAN

MEIKTILA

Chauk

Minbu 29 APR

12 JAN Myebon

Magwe 19 APR

An

Pyawbwe 11 APR Yamethin 14 APR

TAUNGGYI

Taungdwingyi 14 APR Pyinmana 21 APR

Ruywa 17 FEB Kyaukpyu

Loilem

Thazi

Thayetmyo

Loikaw

Allanmye 29 APR

Ramree

26 JAN

Bay of Bengal

Taungup 13 MAR

PROME 2 MAY

TOUNGOO 22 APR

Sandoway

Papun

Henzada

Tharrawaddy 17 MAY

RACE TO RANGOON

Pegu

1 MAY

Bilin

4 CORPS 33 CORPS 15 CORPS

BASSEIN

RANGOON 2 MAY

Martaban

SULTANS COMMMAND

MOULMEIN

Pyapon LEFT: An aerial view of a Bailey Bridge being constructed across the Chindwin River at Kalewa. At the time that this was completed, for use by the men of the 11th East African Division, it was the longest such bridge in the world. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

Gulf of Martaban

www.britainatwar.com 77

THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY SHORE The Race to Rangoon 1945 ORDER OF BATTLE

The Irrawaddy is one of the world’s great rivers. It runs north to south through Burma for 1,348 miles from its Himalayan tributaries to its vast delta on the Andaman Sea. Near Mandalay it is about a mile across. The river was at the end of a long line of communication for the Fourteenth Army which meant that only very limited numbers of specialist craft could be transported the hundreds of miles through the jungle and the hastily-prepared tracks to the river. The means for crossing the river therefore had to be improvised on the spot. A few assault boats were transported from India and the US forces supplied a number of Ranger boats, which were rubber craft with outboard motors. These varied in size, being capable of carrying between five and ten men. There were also nine amphibious DUKWs per division.

78 www.britainatwar.com

Of the two corps that would force the crossing of the Irrawaddy, 4 Corps consisted of the 7th and 17th Divisions, 255 Tank Brigade with Sherman tanks, the Lushai Brigade (an ad hoc formation of four Indian battalions) and the 28th East African Infantry Brigade. The northern corps, 33 Corps, was composed of the 2nd, 19th and 20th Divisions, 254 Tank Brigade with Lee, Grant and Stuart tanks and 268 Indian Motor Brigade. The 5th Division was held in reserve.

Reserve which was the 49th Division based in the south of the country. By 9 January the patrols of the 19th Division of 33 Corps leading the northern thrust had reached the Irrawaddy. They found the Japanese holding both banks of the river. The other divisions of 33 Corps also moved up to the west bank of the Irrawaddy, whilst 4 Corps began its quiet march towards Pakokku north of Pagan, the ancient Burmese capital. Though the Japanese put up a stiff fight for control of the west bank, they

To defend Burma General Kimura had under his command three armies, which, more realistically should have been called corps. The Twenty-Eighth Army, consisted of the 54th and 55th Divisions and the 72nd Independent Mobile Brigade; General Katamura’s Fifteenth Army, of the 15th, 31st and 33rd Divisions; and Lieutenant General Honda with the Thirty-Third Army which consisted of the 18th and 56th Divisions and elements of the 2nd and 53rd Divisions. Kimura also had what was described as the Burma Army Area

eventually withdrew to the east side where both sides knew the battles would take place. Kimura understood that he could not hope to defend the entire line of the Irrawaddy and so made no attempt to do so, concentrating instead on the most likely crossing points, holding his reserves well back. To disrupt British preparations for crossing the river the Japanese sent numbers of small suicide squads across the river. These were men who would fight until killed, with no intention of returning across the river to the Japanese side.

ABOVE LEFT: Sherman tanks and vehicles of the 63rd Indian Infantry Brigade, part of the 17th Division, shown here after crossing the Irrawaddy at Nyaungu to the north of Pagan. (IWM SE 3071).

ABOVE RIGHT: A view across the ancient city of Pagan (or Bagan as it is now known). (AUTHOR’S

COLLECTION)

BELOW: Men of the 2nd Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment cross the Irrawaddy at Nagazun. (IWM SE3153).

THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY SHORE The Race to Rangoon 1945

ACROSS THE RIVER

The 19th Division also started sending men across each night to scout out the ground and to look for the best crossing points. As these met only slight opposition, on the 14th an entire battalion crossed the river, and that night the 16/17th began their main crossing. Two days later the whole of the 64th Brigade was on the east bank. The 4th Corps, meanwhile, had reached the Irrawaddy and sprung its surprise. The 20th Division attacked the town of Myinmu where the river turns south and trapped a body of Japanese on the north bank. During the two-day battle many of the Japanese tried to escape across the river, including 24 soldiers who jumped into the river complete with all their arms and equipment. They all drowned within sight of the bank.2

silently across the river, closely The 5th Infantry Brigade of the 2nd followed by Lieutenant Colonel Division, the only all-British division, ‘Jock’ Stocker in a boat containing was to cross the river opposite the town two Royal Engineers, two signallers, of Nagazun. Here the Irrawaddy is three wireless sets and ten oarsmen. 1500 yards wide and to help Brigadier In the strong current a number of Michael West to make the crossing the the boats were carried downstream 1st Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers was and one boat had to return to the added to the brigade. Their role was to northern bank. The troops that occupy an island in the river – Nagazun did manage to get across that Island – on the left flank to cover the night found that the Japanese had crossing of the rest of the brigade. deserted the island. All was now set This was a large, low-lying, for the main crossing.3  ‘permanent’ island, not one that disappeared when the river flooded during the monsoon, and was therefore cultivated. The man who would act as the RWF’s beach-master, Captain J. Steele, actually rowed across to the island one dark night to scout out the ground. He found no trace of the enemy, though it was thought that it was held by a single Japanese platoon. At 22.00 hours on 24 February, ‘B’ and ‘D’ Companies stared to paddle

ABOVE: Men of the 6th Gurkha Rifles go into action at Singu on the Irrawaddy bridgehead. (JAMES LUTO

COLLECTION)

FAR LEFT: Major Scott of the 8th Frontier Force Rifles, 19th Indian Division.

(JAMES LUTO

COLLECTION)

ABOVE: The attack upon Meiktila. Smoke from the burning village can be seen in the distance

(GURKHA MUSEUM).

LEFT: The view across the Irrawaddy to the north of Pagan. (AUTHOR’S

COLLECTION)

www.britainatwar.com 79

THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY SHORE The Race to Rangoon 1945

Lieutenant Colonel O.G.W. White of the 2nd Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment, described the events of that night as “most confusing”, with the 7th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment being the first to cross: “The Worcesters got into mid-stream and soon found themselves in difficulties. Some of the boats began to fill and as they approached the south shore they came under small-arms fire which holed the surviving boats. The Commanding Officer found himself swimming about in the water and by his own personal gallantry saved a number of lives. The opposition being stronger than had been expected, and the difficulties of navigating these obdurate craft by paddle in the four-knot current proving much greater than had been anticipated, the Worcesters were back again on the north bank by midnight.” Further downstream the Cameron Highlanders also got into difficulty, encountering stiff opposition. Little more than a single company was able to reach the south bank. They then had to land under and assault a cliff, but succeeded in gaining a precarious foothold in the thick jungle grass on the cliff top. However, when they tried to paddle their craft back to collect reinforcements, they failed completely, with the enemy “picking off the boatmen at his leisure.”

TOP LEFT: Another shot of CMP 3-ton truck as they cross a temporary bridge over a ‘chaung’ on the approach to Rangoon, 26 April 1945.

At around midnight the Brigadier had to decide whether to continue to cross on a number of fronts or reinforce the single point where the few troops had crossed and were just about holding their ground. The Japanese held a strong position at Mud Point and were well dug in. What Brigadier West chose to do was send the Dorsets to outflank the Japanese position. With two DUKWs and two Royal Engineer F.B.E. boats [Folding Boat Equipment] fitted with outboard motors. The Dorsets sailed round the left hand side of Nagazun Island in the hope that the vegetation would hide them from the enemy.

(AMORAMA.COM)

TOP RIGHT: Sherman tanks cross the Irrawaddy and advance on Meiktila. (FLICKR) ABOVE LEFT: Though there is no indication where this crossing may have taken place, it is likely to have been to the north of Mandalay and these are probably Gurkhas of the 19th Division. (WW2TODAY.COM)

LEFT: The banks of the Irrawaddy at Pakokku where the 4th Corps crossed the river far to the south of Mandalay (AUTHOR’S

COLLECTION)

RIGHT: A Ford Canada truck circa 1945 lies abandoned in the streets near the Irrawaddy. (AUTHOR’S

COLLECTION)

80 www.britainatwar.com

Colonel White went in one of the F.B.E. boats with Tactical Headquarters and men from ‘B’ Company. “It was a memorable voyage: if for us on the left the enemy provided little thrill, we had plenty of excitement from the sapper driver of the F.B.E. boat. He had little or no experience of piloting a cumbersome craft across a stream on a circuitous course of well over two thousand yards in a strong current. We progressed in a series of ever-decreasing circles, bumping from one sandbank to another.” White’s boat made it across undetected but the remainder of ‘B’ Company, in one of the DUKWs, were pushed a little way downstream and were spotted by the Japanese. The Dorsets suffered 13 casualties. Eventually, the Japanese were forced to withdraw and the rest of the brigade could cross. The British, however, could not break out towards Mandalay until the village of Ngazum, which blocked all the routes south and east, was taken. The plan was for the Dorsetshire Regiment

THE BATTLE OF THE IRRAWADDY SHORE The Race to Rangoon 1945

to attack the north and centre of the village whilst the Worcestershire Regiment would try and move the town’s southern perimeter. To help them the RAF and USAAF and the Sherman tanks of 254 Tank Brigade bombarded the village. The aerial assault began at 13.00 hours on the 25th. “For thirty minutes they pasted the village and seemed to be hitting the targets we had given them,” remembered White. “At 13.30 hrs, the air moved off and down came the guns; it was a grand show to see, and one could feel the battalion’s spirit rise with every pace we took forward to the artillery-concentration line, about six hundred yards farther on... “At 13.50 hrs. the artillery concentration ceased and the Battalion went in in magnificent fashion under the really close support of the troop of tanks and Manchester medium machine guns, [the 2nd Battalion Manchester Regiment was a machine-gun battalion] who from their position on the flank could continue firing right up to the time the infantry entered the thickly treed village and even for a few yards beyond.. “It was a most inspiring sight to see two battalions of British infantry advance with bayonets fixed right up under the support of the tank 75s and the machine guns.”

It took until 15.00 hours before most of Ngazun was in British hands. The last position the Japanese held was in a pagoda at the southern end of the village. Here a suicide party hung on until they were all killed the following morning.

TOP LEFT: A truck of the 36th Division in the advance down the Irrawaddy valley towards Mandalay.

PARKASH SINGH VC

(AMORAMA.COM)

The 19th Division had already crossed the Irrawaddy but its bridgehead had come under ferocious counter-attacks from the Japanese and no progress inland had been possible. The 20th Division had crossed in support of the 19th on the night of 12/13 February. The Japanese were again taken by surprise but they soon responded and the inevitable counter-attacks were delivered. However, in three days of fighting the bridgehead was gradually enlarged. Not only was there fighting on the land but Japanese attacked from the air and the water. The Japanese went down the river in boats and tried to attack the rear of the bridgehead. On the night of 16/17 February Jemadar Parkash Singh of the 13th Frontier Force was commanding a platoon which found itself facing the weight of a powerful Japanese attack. For more than three hours the attackers used flame-throwers, artillery, mortars and medium machine-guns to try and dislodge Parkash Singh’s tiny force.

ABOVE: An Allied convoy starts across a temporary pontoon bridge just after its completion in 1944. Built across the treacherous Irrawaddy River, this bridge was approximately 1,200 feet long and served as a link in the Ledo Road for the combat troops and supply vehicles. (US ARMY)

TOP RIGHT: The well-known image of General Slim of the Fourteenth Army created for the Ministry of Information. (AUTHOR’S

His havildar was killed and Parkash himself was wounded, even so he continued to direct the action, dragging himself forward on his hands and knees. He went forward to a 2-inch mortar post and, with his batman also wounded, continued firing until the ammunition ran out. From the dead and wounded he collected the remaining rifle ammunition and distributed it to his men. He then took over a Bren gun and was again wounded whilst using it. Wounded a third time, he continued to urge his men to hold their ground. Finally, he was wounded a fourth time by a grenade burst and died shortly afterwards. Little wonder that Jemadar Singh was awarded the Victoria Cross. By the end of February a very large proportion of the Fourteenth Army was across the Irrawaddy, though fighting continued until the second week of May. The next battle was to be fought at Mandalay and then the race to Rangoon before the monsoons arrived would begin in earnest. 

NOTES 1. 2. 3.

William Slim, Defeat into Victory (The Reprint Society, London, 1957), p.361. James Luto, Fighting with the Fourteenth Army ion Burma (Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2013), p.91. Michael Glover, That Astonishing Infantry, (Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 1989), pp.219-20.

COLLECTION).

BELOW: The old Ava Bridge over the Irrawaddy. During the war this was the only permanent bridge across the Irrawaddy. It was built by the British in 1934 and it was destroyed by British forces as they retreated from Burma in 1942. It was rebuilt after the war but a new bridge completed in 2008 now spans the river just to the north of the old bridge. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

www.britainatwar.com 81

IMAGE

OF WAR D-DAY TANK BUSTER 6 June 1944

This historic photograph showing pilots of 198 Squadron was taken on 6 June 1944 at RAF Thorney Island and was the first publicly released photograph of a tank buster rocket-firing Typhoon. The aircraft in this image, Typhoon JR197, TP-T, was shot down by Flak over Cherbourg on 22 June 1944 with the loss of Sqn Ldr I J Davies DFC. (PIC: G PEARSON)

82 www.britainatwar.com

www.britainatwar.com 83

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY March 1915

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY march 1915 Throughout the First World War, the many announcements of British and Commonwealth gallantry awards appeared in the various issues of The London Gazette. As part of our major monthly series covering the period of the Great War commemorations, we examine some of the actions involved and summarise all of the awards announced in March 1915.

A

MONG THE 212 gallantry awards announced in The London Gazette in March 1915 were no fewer than 35 to members of the Royal Navy for their actions during the Battle of Dogger Bank, which resulted in the sinking of the German armoured cruiser SMS Blücher, on Sunday, 24 January 1915 — an account of which we featured in Issue 91 (November 2014). The awards announced in March 1915 relating to Dogger Bank included one Distinguished Service Order, three Distinguished Service Crosses and 31 Distinguished Service Medals. The single DSO was that of Lieutenant Frederic Thornton (some accounts give the spelling of his first name as Frederick) of HMS Meteor. Commanded by Captain the Hon. H. Meade, DSO, Meteor had closed right in on the battered Blücher, in an attempt to position itself so that a torpedo could be fired. However, the destroyer was hit forward by a heavy shell at 11.20 hours. The explosion in the foremost boiler room, as well as putting her out of action, killed two ratings and

84 www.britainatwar.com

wounded two more, one of whom later succumbed to his injuries. For his actions on Meteor that day Peters gained the distinction of being the first Canadian ever to receive the Distinguished Service Order. The author Sam McBride details a little of what happened: “The speedy Meteor was setting up to torpedo the slower, but much larger, German cruiser Blücher when it was hit by one of the last rounds from the cruiser before it sank — an 8.2-inch shell that caused extensive damage to Meteor’s engine room.  With incredible calm and coolness, Lieut. Fritz Peters rushed to the engine room — a scary place of fire, scalding water and boiler explosions when damaged in battle — and made it safe.  In the face of leaking oil in the engine room threatening to explode, he was credited with saving the lives of two ratings and perhaps many more on board if there was an explosion or bursting of the boilers.” A London Standard news report in 1943, meanwhile, states that Peters had rushed to the engine room – described in the original citation as the No.1 Boiler

BOTTOM LEFT: A contemporary painting depicting the armed trawler Thordis about to ram the U-boat in the English Channel on 28 February 1915. RIGHT: Interestingly, all of 32 Military Crosses gazetted in March 1915 carried details of the actions for which the various awards was made. One example is that of Lieutenant W.R. Freeman, the Manchester Regiment and Royal Flying Corps. His award was, noted The London Gazette of 27 March, “for gallantry, ability, and very valuable work performed”: “[He] located the position of German batteries on 10th instant, and conveyed the information by wireless messages from his aeroplane to our Artillery, and, although his propeller and planes were pierced by the enemy’s bullets, he remained aloft for more than five hours during the day.”

Room – to turn off the steam cocks, which apparently saved the ship from blowing up. Peters’ mother once wrote that “a live bomb fell in the engine room of the Meteor, and Frederic, without hesitating, at once rushed into the engine room and, seizing the bomb, threw it overboard just before it exploded”.

Peters was initially Mentioned in Despatches for his actions onboard HMS Meteor. It was on 3 March 1915, that King George V presented him with the Distinguished Service Order. Writing from the Ypres Salient to his brother Gerald in Montreal on 11 March 1915, Private Jack Peters said: “I suppose you know about Fritz winning the D.S.O. and being mentioned in dispatches [sic]. Won’t Father and Mother be tickled to death! I dare say he is quite satisfied, but I should think that it certainly should help his promotion a lot.” The son of the Attorney General and the first Liberal Premier of the province of British Columbia, Peters

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY March 1915

was a remarkable individual. As well as the DSO, by the time of his death in an aircraft crash in November 1942, he had been awarded the Victoria Cross (for his part “in the suicide charge by two little cutters at Oran” in the same month), the Distinguished Service Cross and Bar (the latter in the Second World War) and the United States’ Distinguished Service Cross. Continuing with the naval and maritime themes, on 15 February 1915, the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, made the following announcement: “The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole of the English Channel, are

herewith declared to be in the War Zone. From 18 February onward, every merchant-ship met with in this War Zone will be destroyed, nor will it always be possible to obviate the danger with which passengers and crew are thereby threatened.” The era of unrestricted submarine warfare had begun. One of the earliest actions against a U-boat after von Bethmann-Hollweg’s proclamation occurred on Sunday, 28 February 1915. Commanded by Captain John William Bell, the 500-ton collier (some accounts say armed trawler) Thordis was steaming down the English Channel when, off Beachy Head, the periscope of a submarine was sighted

ABOVE: A contemporary drawing depicting Sergeant Charles Mayes, Royal Marines, during the action for which he was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal in March 1915.

to starboard. Coming on deck, Bell stopped his ship and ordered everyone else up from below. At this point, the submarine then slowly moved across Thordis’ bows to a position 30 or 40 yards away on her portside. One author, writing during the First World War, describes what happened next: “Directly after the German submarine had taken up her position, the track of a torpedo was seen. A moment later a wave lifted the stern of the ‘Thordis’ out of the water, and the torpedo, which passed harmlessly beneath, was seen streaking away to starboard. Captain Bell at once put the helm of the ‘Thordis’ hard over to  www.britainatwar.com 85

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY March 1915

GALLANTRY

AWARDS GAZETTED IN March 1915

Victoria Cross Distinguished Service Order Distinguished Service Cross Military Cross Distinguished Flying Cross* Air Force Cross* Distinguished Conduct Medal Conspicuous Gallantry Medal Distinguished Service Medal Military Medal* Distinguished Flying Medal* Air Force Medal* Total

18 8 32 110 1 43 212

* Indicates an award that has not yet been instituted. Mentions in Despatches are not included in this survey. RIGHT: Company Sergeant-Major Fred Seaman leads his men along the banks of the La Bassée Canal at Cuinchy, 1 February 1915.

BOTTOM LEFT: There are three Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries today in or near Cuinchy. Cuinchy Communal Cemetery (seen here) contains, besides civilian graves, a total of 103 First World War graves, including 12 men from the Irish Guards who were killed on 1 February 1915, plus 14 men from the Coldstream Guards who died on the same day.

One of the other awards gazetted in March 1915 was that of the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal to a Royal Marine, Sergeant Charles Mayes – only the second time that the CGM had been awarded since the start of the war. A member of the crew of the armoured cruiser HMS Kent, Mayes had been present during the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. Still reeling from its defeat at the Battle of Coronel, the Admiralty despatched a large Royal Navy force to intercept the victorious German cruiser squadron. In the subsequent engagement in the South Atlantic, HMS Kent was ordered to pursue the fleeing German light cruiser SMS Nürnberg. Kent’s crew pushed its boilers and engines to the limit until, at 17.30 hours, Nürnberg finally turned to face battle. The British warship had the advantage in shell weight and armour. Nürnberg suffered two boiler explosions an hour later, giving the advantage in speed and manoeuvre to Kent. After a long chase Nürnberg rolled over and sank at 19.27 hours.

In the fight, however, a shell from Nürnberg had entered one of HMS Kent’s casemates through the gun port and exploded, killing or wounding the whole of the gun crew. The blast, noted the citation in The London Gazette, “ignited some cordite charges in the casemate; a flash of flame went down the hoist into the ammunition passage. Sergeant Mayes picked up a charge of cordite and threw it away. He then got hold of a fire hose and flooded the compartment, extinguishing the fire in some empty shell bags which were burning. The extinction of this fire saved a disaster which might have led to the loss of the ship.” A total of 110 Distinguished Conduct Medals were announced in March 1915. In last month’s ‘Great War Gallantry’ we mentioned the award of the Victoria Cross to Lance-Corporal Michael O’Leary, 1st Battalion Irish Guards. O’Leary had shown “conspicuous bravery at Cuinchy on the 1st February, 1915”. A number of other gallantry awards resulted from the same action – including some of the DCMs gazetted in March 1915.

port, and the ship crashed down on the German submarine, which, misjudging its distance, had come too close. The crash was heard, and then a scraping noise …” It was reported at the time that the U-boat “sank to the bottom”. A claim was submitted for a U-boat sunk (though no corresponding loss can be traced in post-war accounts); Prize Money was distributed among the Captain and crew. Captain Bell was given a commission in the Royal Naval Reserve and, in March 1915, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The announcement in The London Gazette makes no mention of the U-boat having been sunk, only that the award was for Bell’s “gallant and spirited conduct in ramming a German submarine”.

(COURTESY OF THE CWGC)

86 www.britainatwar.com

The following wartime account reveals the events that day: “On February 1st, 1915, a fine piece of work was carried out by the 4th (Guards’) Brigade in the neighbourhood of Cuinchy, where fierce fighting had been in progress for some days. “Very early in the morning the Germans made a determined attack in considerable force on some trenches near the La Bassée Canal, occupied by a party of the 2nd Coldstreams, who were compelled to abandon them. A counterattack by a company of the Irish Guards and half a company of the Coldstreams, delivered some three-quarters of an hour later, failed to dislodge the enemy, owing to the withering enfilading

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY March 1915 LEFT: The G V R issue of the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. When it was instituted in 1855, the CGM was intended to be awarded to Petty Officers and Seamen of the Royal Navy and to NCOs and Other Ranks of the Royal Marines for acts of conspicuous gallantry in action against the enemy at sea — a Royal Warrant that was not extended until the Second World War.

fire which it encountered. But about ten in the forenoon our artillery opened a heavy bombardment of the lost trenches, which is described by General Making, by whose orders it was undertaken, as ‘splendid, the highexplosive shells dropping in the exact spot with absolute precision’. “This successful artillery preparation, which lasted for about ten minutes, was immediately followed by a brilliant bayonet charge made by about fifty men of the 2nd Coldstreams and thirty of the Irish Guards. The Irish Guards attacked on the left, where the enemy’s position was strengthened by barricades; and it was here that Lance-Corporal Michael O’Leary performed that heroic feat of arms which gained him the Victoria Cross and made his name a household

when the German guns began to shell its new occupants very heavily; but our men held their ground, and subsequently succeeded in taking another German trench on the embankment of the canal and two machine-guns.” For his actions, Private White was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Other members of the 2nd Coldstreams to receive the same gallantry decoration as a result of the events of 1 February 1915, included Private F. Richardson, Private S.B. Leslie Private J. Saville, and Company Sergeant-Major Fred Seaman. The latter’s citation states: “For conspicuous gallantry and ability at Cuinchy on 1st February, 1915, when he entered the tunnel under railway embankment and prevented the enemy coming through; had they succeeded our men would have been taken in flank or rear. He realised the great importance of holding his ground, and, although wounded, kept the enemy at bay.” Second Lieutenant A.C.W. Innes, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards (Special Reserve) was awarded the Military Cross. The announcement in The London Gazette state: “When all the Officers of the attacking company had been put out of action, this Officer was sent forward to take command. Leading his men he captured the enemy’s post, and then advancing a further 60 yards captured another.” For his part, Captain Arthur Leigh-Bennett was awarded the Distinguished Service Order: “Leading his men with great ability against the enemy, he stopped their advance, and eventually captured their position.” 

word. But the Coldstreams also had their heroes that day, and amongst them a young Yorkshireman, Private Duncan White, whose action, if necessarily overshadowed by that of O’Leary, was, nevertheless, a most gallant one. “Private White was one of a little party of bomb-throwers who led the assault, and on Captain Leigh Bennett, who commanded the Coldstreams, giving BOTTOM LEFT: the signal for the charge by dropping A young Frederic his handkerchief, he dashed to the front Thornton Peters. and, passing unscathed through the fierce rifle and machine-gun fire which greeted the advancing Guardsmen, got within throwing distance and began to rain bombs on the Germans with astonishing rapidity and precision. High above the parapet flew the rocketlike missiles, twisting and travelling uncertainly through the air, until finally the force of equilibrium supplied by the streamers of ribbon attached to their long sticks asserted itself, and they plunged straight as a plumb-line Victoria Cross down into the trench, exploding with Distinguished Service Order a noise like a gigantic Chinese cracker Distinguished Service Cross and scattering its occupants in dismay. Military Cross So fast did he throw, and so deadly was his aim, that the enemy, already badly Distinguished Flying Cross shaken by our artillery preparation, Air Force Cross were thrown into hopeless disorder; Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Guardsmen had no difficulty in Conspicuous Gallantry Medal rushing the trench, all the Germans in it Distinguished Service Medal being killed or made prisoners. “The attacking infantry had been Military Medal followed by a party of the Royal Distinguished Flying Medal Engineers with sandbags and wire, to Air Force Medal make the captured trench defensible. Total Scarcely had they completed their task,

RUNNING TOTAL OF

GALLANTRY

AWARDS AS OF THE END OF March 1915

50 444 31 395 1261 2 143 2326

www.britainatwar.com 87

LORD ASHCROFT'S "HERO OF THE MONTH" Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC - Endurance

LORD ASHCROFT'S

"HERO OF THE MONTH"

Lieutenant General

Sir Philip

Neame VC As there were no awards of the Victoria Cross announced in March 1915, Lord Ashcroft investigates the actions of a recipient who was one of the 12 listed the previous month, Lieutenant (later Lieutenant General) Philip Neame.

Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC

ENDURANCE

THE MANY Victoria Crosses and George Crosses in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum in London are displayed under one of seven different qualities of bravery. Lt. General Sir Philip Neame’s award is part of the collection, and Lord Ashcroft feels that it falls within the category of endurance: “Endurance is the opposite of Aggression. It is all about ‘cold courage’, about knowing the cost and being prepared to pay it. It involves mental and physical resilience, not giving in and rising above the pain. It is almost infinite.” ABOVE: Senior British officers captured in North Africa. Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC (centre) is seen here with other British officers (including Major General Richard O’Connor who can be seen in centre, middle distance, Brigadier John Combe on the left and MajorGeneral Michael Gambier-Parry on the right) waiting to be transported to Europe by Junkers Ju 52 aircraft following their capture by Germans troops at Derna.

P

HILIP NEAME, the son of a farmer/land agent, was born in Macknade, near Faversham, Kent, on 12 December 1888. After being educated at St Michael’s School in Westgate, Kent, and Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire, he attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Neame was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Royal Engineers in July 1908 and was one of five brothers from his family to serve in the armed forces during the First World War. As a subaltern with the 15th Field Company, Royal Engineers, part of the 8th Division, Neame arrived in France in November 1914 and soon he and his comrades had occupied positions in waterlogged ground near Neuve Chapelle. On 27 November, Neame was part of a small party that blew up Moated Grange, a farm building being used by German snipers. Over the next three weeks he and his comrades carried out a series of attacks on other enemy positions. The action for which Neame was awarded the Victoria Cross took place on 19 December 1914. During the previous night, Allied forces had attacked enemy positions at Moated Grange and attempted to link the German trench system to the British one so as to gain ground. In the morning, the Germans launched a counter-attack using grenades and Neame (by now a lieutenant) was ordered by his CO to consolidate the position. He

advanced towards the fighting where he learnt from the forward infantry commander that the Germans appeared to have fought off the British advance: the enemy was still throwing bombs and the British, according to the senior officer, could not retaliate because all the men were wounded. In fact, when Neame encountered one of the British servicemen the latter explained to Neame that he and his comrades were unable to light the damp fuzes to the bombs. Neame, however, knew a way to detonate the bombs without a fuze and he ordered everyone to collect every available bomb so that he could target the two enemy positions. Neame initially concentrated on the position directly in front of the men and had to stand up on the fire-step, exposing himself to the enemy, before throwing each bomb. Each time he did this, he came under German machine-

AGGRESSION•BOLDNESS•INITIATIVE•LEADE 88 www.britainatwar.com

LORD ASHCROFT'S "HERO OF THE MONTH" Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC - Endurance

ABOVE: Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC’s medal ribbons on his battledress tunic. They include that of the Victoria Cross, Order of the British Empire (Military), Order of the Bath, Distinguished Service Order, Venerable Order of St John, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal 1914-18, Allied Victory Medal, 1939-45 Star, Africa Star, Italy Star, Defence Medal, War Medal 1939-45, George V Jubilee 1935, George VI Coronation 1937, Elizabeth Coronation 1953, Legion d’Honneur, Croix de Guerre (France), Croix de Guerre (Belgium), and the Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia. (COURTESY OF THE ROYAL

ENGINEERS MUSEUM)

gun fire but he always got back down again before any bullets hit him. Time and again, Neame threw his bombs and screams from the enemy positions indicated the success of his one-man attack. Soon, the enemy bombing petered out and eventually it stopped altogether. By this point, many of the wounded men had been rescued. Neame then held his advanced position with three infantrymen until ordered to move back. Neame now became aware of the heavy casualties – dead and wounded – from the fighting earlier in the day and he began taking one wounded man along a ditch until the enemy fire became too heavy. Neame then switched to taking the injured man along a road in full view of the enemy, who chose not to fire, before handing him to stretcher-bearers.

Neame’s action-packed day ended when he was told to take a party of men to repair the British front line of defences because the commanders feared a German counter-attack. On Christmas Day, Neame learned that he had been recommended for the VC, his award being announced on 18 February 1915. His medal was presented to him by George V in an investiture at Windsor Castle on 19 July 1915. I have included his VC under the “endurance” label because he showed courage during a whole day under great pressure to succeed. Neame served with distinction for the remainder of the war, during which he received the Distinguished Service Order. He had advanced into Belgium when the war ended on 11 November 1918. His other awards included the French and Belgium Croix de Guerre and the French Légion d’Honneur. Neame remained in the Army after the war and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1919, and then to full colonel in 1926. Ten years after his VC action he won a gold medal for shooting in the 1924 Paris Olympics, thereby becoming the first and, to date, only man to have received the VC and an Olympic gold medal. His other interests included exploring, polo, shooting and hunting. While participating in big game hunting in India in 1933, Neame was mauled by a tigress and needed hospital attention. Harriet Alberta, the nurse who treated him, went

on to marry him in the following year in Bombay and the couple eventually had four children together. During the Second World War, Neame again served in the Army but was captured and taken as a prisoner of war in April 1941 while serving in Cyrenaica (now Libya). He used his time in captivity to write his autobiography, which he hid from his captors. Incredibly, his hand-written book was found after the war ended and returned to him. He retired in the rank of lieutenant general in 1947. Sir Philip Neame, whose many distinctions and decorations included a knighthood, died at Selling near Faversham, Kent — close to his birthplace — on 28 April 1978, aged 89. Neame’s medal group is not part of my VC collection but it is on display at Imperial War Museums, London. 

ABOVE LEFT: Lieutenant Philip Neame, Royal Engineers, is depicted holding back the enemy and attempting to rescue wounded men. (ALL IMAGES HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

BELOW LEFT: Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC’s medal set.

VICTORIA CROSS HEROES LORD ASHCROFT KCMG PC is a Conservative peer, businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. His book Victoria Cross Heroes is largely based on his VC collection. For more information, please visit: www. victoriacrossheroes.com Lord Ashcroft’s VC and GC collection is on public display at Imperial War Museums, London. For more information visit: www.iwm.org.uk/heroes. For details about his VC collection, visit: www.lordashcroftmedals.com For more information on Lord Ashcroft’s work, visit: www. lordashcroft.com. Follow him on Twitter: @LordAshcroft

EADERSHIP•SACRIFICE• SKILL•ENDURANCE www.britainatwar.com 89

SUBSCRIBE

&SAVE

3 EASY WAYS TO ORDER...THIS FANTASTIC SUBSCRIPTION OFFER!

www.britainatwar.com

PHONE UK 01780 480404 OVERSEAS +44 1780 480404

FAX UK 01780 757812 OVERSEAS +44 1780 757812

POST COMPLETE THE FORM AND POST TO:

BRITAIN AT WAR, KEY PUBLISHING LTD, PO BOX 300, STAMFORD, LINCS, PE9 1NA, UNITED KINGDOM

054/15

ONLINE

WHEN YOU TAKE OUT A 2-YEAR OR DIRECT DEBIT SUBSCRIPTION TO

MAKE HUGE SAVINGS when you pay by easy Direct Debit – just £9.75 every quarter YES, I would like to subscribe to PAYER’S DETAILS Title Address

First name

Surname

Postcode Email address

Country

Please complete to receive news updates and offers from us by email.

DELIVERY DETAILS Title Address

(IF DIFFERENT)

First name

Surname

Postcode Email address

Country

Please send gift card 

SPECIAL OFFER

(PLEASE TICK)

12 FOR THE PRICE OF 10

24 ISSUES FOR THE PRICE OF 19

UK

12 issues

 £44.00

24 issues

 £77.99

Europe

12 issues

 €64.99

24 issues

 €113.00

USA

12 issues

 $71.00

24 issues

 $131.75

12 issues

 £54.00

24 issues

 £92.99

Rest of the World

PAYMENT DETAILS I enclose a cheque for £/$/€ ................................. made payable to Key Publishing Ltd Please debit my Mastercard  Visa  for £ / € / $ ...............

Expiry date

Security Code (3 digit code on reverse of card) OFFER CLOSE DATE: 31 MARCH 2015 PLEASE QUOTE: BAW315

Signature .............................................................................................................Today’s date ..............................

INSTRUCTION TO YOUR BANK OR BUILDING SOCIETY TO PAY BY DIRECT DEBIT Please tick:

UK Direct Debit

Quarterly £9.75

6 5

8

9

6

0

READERS IN THE USA

MAY PLACE ORDERS BY:

054/15

TELEPHONE TOLL-FREE: 800-428-3003 OR FAX: 757-428-6253 WRITE TO: Britain at War, 3330 Pacific Ave, Ste 500, Virginia Beach, VA 23451-9828 ALTERNATIVELY, ORDER ONLINE: www.imsnews.com/baw QUOTING/ENTERING CODE: BAW315

Direct Debit UK only. If paying by Direct Debit please send in form. Please allow 28 days for gift delivery. Payments are accepted by Direct Debit, cheque, Postal Order, Credit Card and US Dollar check. Payments by credit or debit card wil be shown on your statement as Key Publishing Ltd. Key Publishing wil hold your details to process and fulfil your subscription order. Occasionally we may wish to contact you to notify you of special offers on products or events. If you do not wish to receive this information please tick here  or mention when calling. Gift subject to change. Any alternative gift wil be of equal or higher value.*Free magazines refer to saving compared to individual shop price. Please note: Free gift is only available on Direct Debit with a minimum 2 year subscription. Should you cancel your subscription earlier then an invoice wil be raised for the full price of the gift.

MARCH 1945

DATES THAT SHAPED THE SECOND WORLD WAR Key Moments and Events that affected Brit Britain

The V-1 flying bomb campaign against the United Kingdom reopened with the launch of an extended-range variant of the missile from a launch site in the Netherlands. This bombardment ceased at the end of March, by which time 275 missiles had been fired, though most failed to reach their targets.

3

4

The advance in Burma continued with the town of Meiktila falling to the men of the Indian 17th ‘Black Cat’ Division.

By 04.00 hours a large group of German prisoners of war, many of whom were described as “ardent Nazis”, had escaped from Camp 198 at Bridgend, Glamorgan. At the time the largest such attempt seen in the UK (though the exact number of escapees differs between sources), it was achieved by the use of a tunnel. A huge search involving the army, police and former Home Guards was instigated.

11

The first 22,000lb Grand Slam earthquake bomb deployed on operations was dropped from the specially adapted Avro Lancaster flown by Squadron Leader C.C. Calder and his crew of 617 Squadron. The target was the Schildesche viaduct at Bielefeld, which collapsed as a consequence of a near hit.

14

The recently completed Loch-class frigate HMSAS Natal sailed from the Tyne estuary bound for Scapa Flow in the Orkneys and then for the anti-submarine training base at Tobermory, Isle of Mull. A few hours later, Natal became involved in the search for a U-boat which had sunk a merchant vessel, SS Magne. Using its new type of ‘Sword’ Asdic scanning equipment, the frigate’s inexperienced crew located a target and attacked with the warship’s ‘Squid’ apparatus — a top secret ahead-firing weapon using depth-charge mortars — to devastating effect. With much oil and wreckage observed on the surface, the victim, U-714, was adjudged to have been sunk in what was described at the time as an event “unique in the annals of the Royal Navy”.

14

During a debate in Parliament, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Herbert Morrison, confirmed that he was still not planning to end completely the UK’s blackout regulations: “Though I share my Hon. and gallant Friend’s desire to cancel wartime restrictions so soon as they may no longer serve a definite public purpose, I fear the time has not yet come when the blackout should be completely abolished.”

15

Under Operation Carthage, RAF Mosquitoes carried out a low-level attack on the Shellhus, the Gestapo headquarters building in Copenhagen. The target was destroyed, a number of prisoners were freed, and German antiresistance activities (including the Gestapo’s planned arrests of the banned Danish Freedom Council) were thwarted. However, a nearby school was hit during the raid, resulting in a total of 125 civilian deaths.

21

 OPERATION VARSITY

Dawn on Saturday, 24 MARCH 1945,, broke fine and clear. The early spring sun shone brightly on the airfields of southeast and southern England, lighting up the wings of a huge fleet of transport aircraft, tugs and gliders. British and US airborne forces were about to take to the skies in Operation Varsity, the crossing of the Rhine. Part of the bigger Operation Plunder, Varsity involved some 1,500 aircraft and 1,300 gliders. With the lessons of Operation Market Garden having been learnt, Eisenhower called Varsity “the most successful airborne operation carried out to date”. However, whilst most aspects of the operation went well, casualties were high, amounting to around 2,500 killed or wounded. This has been attributed to the fact that the landings were undertaken during daylight and that the aircraft involved, particularly the gliders, suffered severely from anti-aircraft fire. Operation Varsity remains the largest airborne operation in history to be conducted on a single day and in one location. This picture shows airborne troops driving a Jeep out of a Horsa glider during operations east of the Rhine, 25 March 1945. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

92

www.britainatwar.com

DATES THAT SHAPED THE SECOND WORLD WAR Key Moments and Events that affected Brit Britain

MARCH 1945

 THE CAPTURE OF MANDALAY

Days of grim fighting for Fort Dufferin at Mandalay — effectively the last main Japanese stronghold in Burma — ended with a bloodless occupation by Commonwealth troops on Wednesday, 21 MARCH 1945. The Indian 19th ‘Dagger’ Division had been preparing to make an assault via the sewers of this impressive citadel, but this attack was abandoned when it was discovered that the Japanese garrison had pulled out under cover of darkness during the previous night, curiously enough by using the same sewers. On hearing the news that Mandalay had fallen, Churchill is reputed to have said, “Thank God we have got a place whose name we can pronounce”. In the picture, men cheer as the Union Flag flies again over the fort. (JAMES LUTO COLLECTION)

 THE LAST V-2 ATTACK

The devastating V-2 campaign against the UK ended when the last of the rockets fell at Orpington in Kent at 16.45 hours on Tuesday, 27 MARCH 1945. Fired from a launch site in the area of Den Haag in the Netherlands, the rocket impacted and exploded in the built-up area between Court Road and Kynaston Road in Orpington, blasting a crater 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep. The explosion was heard for miles around as buildings shook, windows and tiles were blown from houses and people dived for cover. While many people were injured, some seriously, 34-yearold Mrs Ivy Millichamp of No.88 Kynaston Road was pulled from the wreckage of her home by her husband and found to have been killed by the blast. She was the last civilian to be killed as a result of enemy action in Britain during the Second World War. Right up to the end, the V-2 campaign had extracted a deadly toll on the UK. This picture shows the scene in Smithfield Market, at the corner of Charterhouse Street and Farringdon Road, in London on 8 March 1945. Again launched from Den Haag at 10.58 hours, this V-2 struck a few minutes later. One block was totally destroyed, others severely damaged. Both gas and water mains were fractured and the underground beneath damaged. A total of 110 people were killed, 123 seriously injured. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

A wagon on a train loaded with depth charges was found to be alight just as a train was pulling into Bootle railway station, Cumberland. The driver, H. Goodall, immediately stopped the train and the fireman, H.N. Stubbs, uncoupled the carriages behind the burning wagon. The rest of the train pulled forward, then the same was repeated in front of the burning wagon. Unfortunately, moments later the 52 depth charges exploded, killing Goodall.

22

It was announced that of the 150,000 German prisoners of war held in Britain, about one-quarter were being employed, mainly on agricultural work or clearance of bomb sites.

28

The last V-1 flying bomb of a total of 2,419 to arrive over Britain during the Second World War was destroyed by anti-aircraft guns near Sittingbourne, Kent.

29

The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, also known as the Empire Air Training Scheme before June 1942, officially ended. By 30 September 1944, the two schemes had taught a total of 168,662 aircrew in training schools located in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia. Of this total, there were 75,152 pilots, 40,452 navigators, 15,148 air bombers and 37,190 in other aircrew categories.

31

www.britainatwar.com 93

RECONNAISSANCE REPORT |

The Britain at War team scout out the latest items of interest BRITISH ARMOURED FORMATIONS 1939–1945

BLUE DIAMONDS

The exploits of 14 Squadron RAF 1945-2015 Michael Napier



IN THE second volume of his lengthy history of 14 Sqn, Michael Napier takes the story of the squadron over the 70 years from the end of WW2 to the present day. And what a story he has to tell. 14 Sqn served in Germany in NATO’s front line, much of it in the nuclear strike role, through the entire period of the Cold War. It had ended WW2 in Coastal Command but as this ran down it was one of many ‘senior’ units that were resurrected by simple expedient of renumbering a newer squadron. In this case it was the Mosquito B 16 equipped 128 Sqn at Wahn in Germany that set the unit’s post war history. de Havilland’s twin engined classic was replaced in 1951 by the same company’s Vampire so bringing 14 into the jet age and also a change to ground attack. These were successively replaced by the Venom and Hunter in both the F 4 and F 6 forms and it was on these that the Squadron’s Blue Diamond markings first appeared and which gave this book its title. The Hunters’ withdrawal in 1962 saw a further disbandment but it was immediately revived when 88 Sqn was renumbered. The role change was a significant one for its Canberra B (I) 8s formed part of NATO’s tactical nuclear arsenal. This role, for which nuclear-armed aircraft were maintained at instant readiness, was maintained when in June 1970 Phantoms arrived and continued following re-equipment with Jaguars five years later. These lasted ten tears and while the replacement Tornado GR 1s gave the squadron a true all-weather capability as it saw out the final tense years of the Cold War. Since the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, 14 Sqn has been almost constantly engaged in combat operations. Firstly the Tornado saw considerable action during the Gulf War of 1991 followed with regular periods policing the Iraq no-fly zone. At the end of the 1990s 14 Sqn’s Tornado GR 4s flew operations over the former Yugoslavia during the Kosovo campaign. Based in the UK for the first time since WW2, 14 Sqn played a full part of air attacks on Iraq during the 2003 invasion and

94

www.britainatwar.com

deep behind enemy lines in ‘Operation

armoured vehicle units and the general enthusiast of the subject alike. Never before has such a comprehensive and painstakingly constructed work detailing the bibliography of all British armoured formations in the Second World War been assembled and John A Smith’s work is truly impressive.

Illustrations  Appendices 

References/Notes Index 

It has clearly been a labour of love. The book is broken down into all Regiments and formations, including Brigades and Divisions, and includes useful appendices detailing theatres of operations, regiments operating ‘Funnies’, Cavalry and RTR Regimental titles post war and an index of all authors. Included in the book are a fine selection of colour plates and the standard of production is truly superb. Hardback and finely bound, this is not only a pleasingly good looking book but one that will be a most useful addition to the bookshelves of military historians, researchers and writers. It will certainly be joining the shelf of essential reference works in the Britain at War editorial office! (NB: This title is only available direct from the publisher, Tank Factory). Publisher: Tank Factory www.tankfactory.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-9930228-0-7 Hardback: 316 pages RRP: £35.00

STILLWELL AND THE CHINDITS The Allied Campaign In Northern Burma 1943–1944 Jon Diamond

 IN THE popular and successful ‘Images of War’ series, this is a comprehensive photographic look at the Chindits’ war in Northern Burma and in the established format of these books it tells the story, photographically, of that campaign. The vast majority of the photographs were new to the reviewer and cover every aspect of what was a brutal and difficult theatre of operations. Hostile terrain, tropical weather, illness, insects and snakes joined forces with a tenacious and motivated Japanese enemy to



from home, but Brigadier Orde Wingate and his 77 Brigade (The Chindits) fought

both the serious student of British

Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978 1 47382 327 3 Hardback: 319 pages

this was a war being fought a long way

John A Smith book will appeal to

REVIEWED BY ANDY THOMAS

army’ and for very good reason. After all,

A Bibliography  THIS SPECIALIST

subsequent operations countering the insurgency until the withdrawal in 2009. Then the focus shifted to Afghanistan where it flew attack sorties in support of the NATO ISAF mission. Following the 2010 Defence Review it fell victim to cuts in the Tornado force and it was disbanded in June 2011. However, it was reformed in October to fly the recently acquired Shadow R 1 in the ISTAR role in support of ground forces in Afghanistan. Thus today 14 Sqn flies in a role that is a remarkable parallel to its 1915 guise when it flew in support of the Army on operations in Arabia. It remains a key asset in providing support to ground and air commanders to this day. As with Volume 1, Michael Napier offers a model squadron history. He has skilfully woven the essential historical overview with numerous and valuable personal reminiscences from squadron members. This well-balanced text is complemented by a comprehensive photographic coverage covering both ‘men and machines’ many of which are previously unpublished. The whole is supplemented with extensive footnotes, appendices and references. There is also a comprehensive list of serial numbers of aircraft used, detailed noted on the aircraft colour schemes and markings, topped off with eight pages of colour profiles from Mosquitos to the Shadow. This excellent book is if interest to historians, enthusiasts and modellers alike — and, most importantly, ‘those who were there’.

was sometimes called ‘the forgotten

turn this into what was often a hell on earth. Quite apart from the fearsome conditions, the army that fought here

Longcloth’ and whilst the success of this operation is open to debate the work they did in conjunction with General Joseph Stillwell and his US forces in eventually seizing the Japanese base at Myitkyina is legendary. In fact, such is the legend that, as this magazine went to press, news came from the MOD that the ‘Chindit’ Brigade is to be re-formed in the British Army, albeit engaged on rather different duties than their forebears. An excellent account, told largely through photographs, of that neglected aspect of the Second World War fought so very far away from home by British soldiers. Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-78383-198-2 Softback: 239 pages RRP: £16.99

BEFORE ACTION

William Noel Hodgson and the 9th Devons Charlotte Zeepvat

 FROM TWO titles covering actions that are sometimes forgotten or overlooked to one that is very much part of the British consciousness of war; the Western Front and, specifically, the first day on the Somme. Charlotte Zeepvat looks at the life of a young man who never intended to be a soldier but who wanted to write. While the war he joined also killed him it also made his reputation as a poet and although not as well-known as Rupert Brooke or Wilfred Owen, for example, the legacy he left behind is a poignant one. His story is a personal one, but evokes the experience of a generation, following Hodgson’s life through letters, diaries and photographs tracing the history of a 1914 volunteer battalion, the violence of the Battle of Loos, where Hodgson won the Military Cross, through to the opening day of the Somme Offensive where Hodgson lost his life. It uncovers the hidden meaning behind some of Hodgson’s most familiar poems, and its wider themes of family, friendship, war, grief and remembrance are all universal. This is a fascinating and moving book, well written and nicely illustrated. Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978 1 78346 375 6 Hardback: 237 pages RRP: £19.99

The Britain at War team scout out the latest items of interest

BOILED BEEF TO CHICKEN TIKKA

| RECONNAISSANCE REPORT

APRIL 2015 ISSUE

500 Years of Feeding the British Army

ON SALE FROM 26 MARCH 2015

Janet MacDonald



NAPOLEON FAMOUSLY said that ‘an army marches on its stomach’ and nothing is more important to a soldier than his grub. A hungry soldier is not a happy soldier; morale and food are inextricably linked. A hungry soldier is also weaker and more prone to disease and less able to concentrate and think straight. Next to bullets for his gun, the vital necessity for the fighting man is food for his stomach. Keeping any army adequately supplied is a major exercise and as armies have got bigger, so has the problem. Nothing could exemplify this more than the Crimean War. As the British Army had not been involved in a European war for almost 40 years since the Battle of Waterloo, it did not possess the sophisticated organisation and structure to keep the forces in the Crimea supplied. So inefficient was the commissariat, and so tangled in bureaucracy were its officers, the condition of the troops in the Crimea became a national scandal and swiftly led to the collapse of the government — that shows how important it is to keep an army well fed. Incredibly, one of the items that helped the troops in the Crimea was simply a recipe. The men were provided with little else other than pork and biscuit. A request was made to the chef of the Reform Club in London, Mr Alexis Soyer, to devise a method of turning the dull rations into a palatable meal. Soyer responded with a pamphlet, ‘Soyer’s Camp receipts [sic] for the Army in the East’. It made an enormous difference to the men at the front and raised the fading morale of the troops. So, if it might be thought somewhat inappropriate to have a collection of recipes in a book on military history, think again! Boiled Beef to Chicken Tikka is much, much more than this, examining how the British Army has been fed at home and on campaign since the days of Cromwell (not strictly the British Army of course). Part of this is the actual nutritional content of the food. Janet Macdonald tells us that a moderately active young man needs somewhere in the region of 2,800 to 3,000 calories per day, but a soldier in training needs

VALOUR AT COMACCHIO

When a troop of commandos was trapped in the open by devastating German machine-gun fire, the actions of a lone Royal Marine saved the day at the cost of his own life. Seventy years on, Steve Snelling tells the story of the battle for Comacchio in northern Italy, and the extraordinary self-sacrifice of Tom Hunter, the only marine to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the Second World War. 3,429. When on active service in cold conditions he needs 4,238, while, astonishingly, if fighting in tropical conditions he needs even more. In general, officers and other ranks received the same rations. The nature of the food consumed is therefore highly significant if the fighting person’s strength and fitness is to be maintained – and this has to be achieved in all kinds of weather and across all kinds of terrain. Janet Macdonald examines the diet of troops who fought in all the major theatres of war over the centuries, and the difficulty of finding and preparing the right kind and correct quantity of food in such places as Gallipoli, Burma, Russia (where Britain fought in 1918-19), the Sahara Desert, Mesopotamia, and more recently the Falkland Islands, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. She also explains what the various Rations were, and which foodstuffs were prepared for emergency situations in field hospitals. Janet Macdonald brings the book to a conclusion by looking at the current state of the food provision for the British armed forces and the most recent contracts that the Ministry of Defence, bound to keep costs as low as possible, has agreed with suppliers. Boiled Beef to Chicken Tikka takes a different look at military history but one every bit as relevant as any blood and guts campaign study. REVIEWED BY ANDY THOMAS

Publisher: Frontline Books www.frontline-books.com ISBN: 978-1-84832-730-6 Hardback. 246 pages RRP: £25.00 Illustrations  Appendices 

References/Notes Index 



D-DAY COLLISION DISASTER

Some of the first casualties of D-Day were the crews of four USAAF B-26 Marauder aircraft, together with a number of civilians on the ground, who died as the result of aerial collisions over Gillingham in Kent and Battle in East Sussex. As the Allied aerial armada set out on attacks supporting the Normandy landings, so a double tragedy unfolded. Andy Saunders tells the story of death and survival on 6 June 1944.

THE BATTLE OF THE LANDING

At dawn on Sunday, 25 April 1915, the Gallipoli campaign began. With the naval effort to force the Dardanelles having ended in failure, it fell to an army of around 80,000 men to seize the Gallipoli Peninsula. The British went ashore on a number of different beaches around Cape Helles, while the Australians and New Zealanders, the Anzacs, landed on the rugged and mountainous western side of the peninsula. The attackers met strong and unexpected Turkish resistance and there were heavy casualties on both sides. We look at how the die was cast for the disaster that followed.

www.britainatwar.com

95

MAIL ORDER MAGAZINES

>

DVDS

>

CDS

>

BOOKS

>

Famous Fighters of World War II

FLIGHT SIMS

>

MODELLING

>

OFFERS

World War II Day-by-Day 3-DVD Set

Arranged in chronological sequence, we look at the top 10 fighters of the conflict, their development, combat history and the aces that flew them. From the eternal grace of the Spitfire to the futuristic Me262, this special publication pays tribute to them all.100 pages, magazine special.

WORLD WAR II - DAY BY DAY is 366 sixty-second programmes that, in an entertaining and informative manner, describe the most important actions day by day, each day being selected from one of the war years. The series is based on an extensive library of outstanding archive material from American, English, German, Soviet and Japanese sources, and incorporates all major events, including the Anschluss of Austria, the Blitzkrieg on Poland, Operation Barbarossa, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour, D-Day and more. Region-free 3-DVD set, Running time 366 minutes.

KEY SUBSCRIBER ? CALL FOR YOUR £1 D ISCOUNT Code: SPECFF2

Code: DVD593

O N LY £ 5 . 9 9

O N LY £ 1 1 . 4 9

Eagle’s War Book HMS Eagle was already old when war was declared in September 1939 and her new Swordfish biplanes were soon flying escort to vital Australian troop convoys in the wastes of the Indian Ocean. When the war moved to the Mediterranean, Eagle’s meagre air group bolstered by a few Sea Gladiator biplanes. Softback, 192 pages.

Code: B400

O N LY £ 7 . 9 9

War Diaries 1939 DVD In this first film of the series, 1939, follow the prelude to war and consider how the Treaty of Versailles, drawn up after the First World War, failed to keep the peace. Watch the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and those who attempted to stop his bid for global domination. See for yourself the preparations made by the people of Britain as war became inevitable from the enforcement of the blackout to the evacuation of the nation’s children. Region 2 DVD

Code: DVD684

O N LY £ 8 . 9 9

If the Gods are Good Book This is the enthralling account of one of the greatest and most heroic naval battles of World War II. On 28th October 1940 HMS Jervis Bay set out to escort 37 freighters and tankers across the North Sea. Unexpectedly deicovered by the Admiral Scheer, one of Germany’s most feared pocket battleships, the Jervis Bay captain immediately dispersed convoy HX84 to hide in the twilight of a rising winter storm. 240 pages, softback.

Code: B397

O N LY £ 7 . 9 9

Spitfire: A Test Pilot’s Story book Living in World War II - Fighting Back 617 The Last Days of the Vulcan Squadron DVD Mega Airport Helsinki Vantaa, the premier work of the new developer team A-Flight in breathtaking quality for FSX and Prepar3D. Enjoy this accurate and high detailed rendering of the major airport of Finland and the main hub of Finnair. Day-and night textures as well as textures for all seasons including snow banks in winter reveal the special Nordic atmosphere. 336 pages, paperback

War Bonds, “business as usual”, rummage sales for the Spitfire fund, make do and mend - this was the spirit of Britain in World War Two as Britain fought back against the Nazis. The Americans arrived in 1942 in huge numbers, changing life in Britain forever. This film contains rare and unique footage of everyday life in Britain and the mass VE Day celebrations. Region 2 DVD, Running time 90 minutes.

Code: B317

Code: DVD543

O N LY £ 1 0 . 9 5

World War II Archives Storm Clouds Gather

This series of programmes tells the complete story of World War II through fascinating archive footage that has become a living history of the incredible series of events that shaped the future of the entire human race. Within a decade the Treaty of Versailles being ratified, which set out to restore peace and reconciliation in the aftermath of the carnage, the storm clouds were already starting to gather. Region-free DVD, Running time 56 minutes

Code: DVD595

O N LY £ 7 . 4 9

O N LY £ 9 . 8 9

Avro Lancaster Book

At the end of 1981 the iconic Avro Vulcan was withdrawn from service and the famous 617 Squadron faced its final days. Fortunately, these last weeks of the 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, were captured on camera. This fly-on-the-wall documentary charts the thoughts and emotions of the crew and commanders and, importantly, shows the great aircraft being prepared and embarking on its final sortie. Region 2 DVD, Running time 36 minutes

Code: DVD712

O N LY £ 1 1 . 9 9

Escape to Freedom Book

Comprehensively illustrated throughout with a stunning collection of black and white and colour photographs, presented in a large, landscape format, this book is an entertaining read not only for aviation enthusiasts, but for all who know the legend of the Lancaster bomber in Britain’s wartime history. Hardback, 128 pages.

Tony Johnson was shot down in his Wellington bomber on his third operational mission. Captured shortly after he was interrogated in Dulag Luft before being sent to Stalag Luft 1 on the Baltic where he stayed from April to September 1944. As the noose tightened on Germany, Tony and his fellow kriegies were kept on the move. Softback, 208 pages.

Code: IA2

Code: B399

O N LY £ 1 5 . 0 0

O N LY £ 4 . 9 9

For more great gift ideas visit us at: www.keypublishing.com/shop

Last Bomb DVD From US War Department films of the time, this moving footage was shot by US Army Air Force combat camera units in air battles over Japan. Featuring close-ups of the planes, it also contains powerful aerial film from US bombers in action. Region 2 DVD

Supermarine Spitfire - A Pilot’s View DVD

Supermarine Spitfire book

The Supermarine Spitfire remains one of the all time classic fighters and certainly one of the most recognised. In Britain it has become part of folklore - the aeroplane that helped save the UK in the Battle of Britain. Join aerobatic ace Tony Bianchi in what was once W.W.II ace Ginger Lacey’s personal Spitfire Mark Ia as it is put through its paces. Features the Mark Ia, Mark V, Mark XIV, Mark XVI and Mark XIX aircraft. Region 2 DVD, Running time 61 minutes

Thought by many to have saved Britain from almost certain German invasion, the Spitfire is a British legend. This striking book is a fitting tribute to one of the greatest symbols of British success and victory. Hardback, 128 pages.

Code: DVD687

Code: DVD707

Code: B346

O N LY £ 6 . 9 9

O N LY £ 7 . 9 9

O N LY £ 1 9 . 9 9

1915 An Illustrated History

Stormbird book Bomber pilots who become fighter pilots are rare, Hermann Buchner was one. The author, a Luftwaffe NCO pilot and Knight’s Cross holder gives a riveting account of his training with the pre-war Austrian airforce, instructing with the Luftwaffe then the terrifying ground attack operations on the Eastern Front trying to stop the Russian mincing machine. Softback, 272 pages.

Britain At War Binder

The second of our illustrated histories of the First World War examines the all-encompassing nature of second year of the conflict. From ambitious grand strategies, to individual acts of valour, every aspect of this year of hope and frustration is brought to the reader in unique text and dynamic images. KEY SUBSCRIBE Special magazine, 132 pages R? CALL

Invest for the future with these Britain At War binders. Perfect for keeping your favourite magazines in pristine condition.

FOR YOUR £1 DIS

COUNT

Code: B318

Code: SPEC15

O N LY £ 1 0 . 9 5

O N LY £ 5 . 9 9

Code: BAWBINDER

O N LY £ 8 . 5 0

Postage and Packaging ORDER VALUE

UK & BFPO

Europe

USA

Rest of World

2nd Class

1st Class

Surface Mail

Airmail

Surface Mail

Airmail

Surface Mail

Airmail

Up to £10

Free

£3.99

£2.99

£3.99

£2.99

£4.99

£3.99

£4.99

£10.01-£19.99

Free

£3.99

£2.99

£4.99

£2.99

£5.99

£4.99

£5.99

£20.00-£34.99

Free

£3.99

£4.99

£8.99

£4.99

£9.99

£5.99

£9.99

£35.00-£49.99

Free

£4.99

£4.99

£12.99

£4.99

£13.99

£6.99

£13.99

£50.00-£99.99

Free

£4.99

£4.99

£16.99

£4.99

£17.99

£7.99

£17.99

£100+

Free

£4.99

£6.99

£22.99

£6.99

£23.99

£8.99

£23.99

All prices correct at time of going to press. Terms and conditions apply, see www.keypublishing.com/shop for full details.

How to Order

VISIT: www.keypublishing.com/shop

TELEPHONE: (UK) 01780 480404 (OVERSEAS) +44 1780 480404 Monday to Friday 9.00am until 5.30pm

MAIL ORDER FORM PAYER’S DETAILS



Item code



COMPLETE/PHOTOCOPY THE FORM BELOW AND FAX TO: (UK) 01780 757812 (OVERSEAS) +44 1780 757812 Quantity

Title ................... First name ......................................... Surname ...................................................................... Address ........................................................................

Price

COMPLETE THE FORM AND POST TO: Key Direct PO Box 300 Stamford Lincs, PE9 1NA United Kingdom 182/15

PAYMENT METHODS

Payments are accepted by cheque, Postal Order, Credit Card and US Dollar check. Payments by credit or debit card will be shown on your statement as Key Publishing Ltd and debited in UK Sterling. Use local currency as a guide as prices are subject to currency exchange rate fluctuations. I enclose a cheque/check for £ ........................ or US $........................... made payable to Key Publishing Ltd

..................................................................................... .....................................................................................

Please debit my Mastercard  Visa 

Postcode ............................ Country ............................ Email address .....................................................................................

Expiry date

Please complete to receive news updates and offers from us by email.

DELIVERY DETAILS

Security Code

M M Y Y

(IF DIFFERENT)

Title ................... First name ......................................... Surname ...................................................................... Address ........................................................................ ..................................................................................... ..................................................................................... Postcode ............................ Country ............................

Sub Total P&P Grand Total £

Signature ............................................................... Today’s date ........................... Key Publishing will hold your details to process and fulfil your order. Occasionally we may wish to contact you to notify you of special offers on products or events. If you do not wish to receive this information please tick here  or mention when calling.

BONFIRE OF THE BATTLESHIPS Dardanelles Centenary

W

HEN GERMANY declared war on Russia on 1 August 1914, both nations had amassed large concentrations of troops on their respective borders. Russia had the biggest army in the world; when she entered the war she could count an impressive total of 5,000 guns. The trouble was, she did not make enough shells at the required rate to make those guns effective. By the beginning of December 1914, Russia was down to a little more than one week’s requirement. As Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, wrote: “At the moment when the Russian armies needed the greatest support from their artillery, they found their guns frozen into silence.”1 Just as the Russians were facing up to the size of the task against the Germans, they would be required to look anxiously to the south. The Turkish Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, not to fight Britain or France, but to confront her oldest enemy, Russia. Declaring war on 30 October, 1914, the Tsar’s forces were therefore compelled

BONFIRE OF THE 98 www.britainatwar.com

E

BONFIRE OF THE BATTLESHIPS Dardanelles Centenary to open a second front in the Caucasus, stretching their dwindling resources still further. Her partners in the Triple Entente, Britain and France followed suit by withdrawing their ambassadors from Constantinople. The truth was that Russia faced utter ruin, which would be potentially catastrophic for her Western partners. If Russia was defeated, scores of German divisions — hundreds of thousands of troops — would be released from the fighting in the east to add their weight to the German forces on the Western Front. Defeat for the Allies in the east could well spell defeat in the west. So Britain and France had to aid Russia. The question was, how? Every available soldier was required on the Western Front. There could be no withdrawal of troops from France or Belgium as any weakness would be immediately exploited by the enemy. With the new machines of war, aircraft, able to observe the movement of troops, any large-scale deployment was certain to be detected.

MAIN PICTURE: The predreadnought battleship HMS Cornwallis fires at Turkish positions on the Dardanelles, 19 February 1915. (ALL IMAGES HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

BELOW RIGHT: One of the Turkish guns that fired upon the Allied naval fleet on 18 March 1915. This survivor can be seen at Fort Rumeli Mecidiye on the east coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula, south of the town of Eceabat overlooking the Dardanelles Strait.

Yet there was one powerful force available to the Allies that was grossly under-employed — the combined Anglo-French navy. Britain and France could deploy a large number of warships to attack Turkey. This, it was expected, would relieve the pressure being exerted upon Russia. The “ideal” method of achieving these goals, declared First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was by an attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula. “This, if successful, would give us control of the Dardanelles, and we could dictate terms at Constantinople.”2 Indeed, the following message was sent from Churchill at 17.05 hours on 31 October to all ships: “Commence hostilities at once against Turkey. Acknowledge.” The commander of an Anglo-French fleet squadron in the Eastern Mediterranean, Vice Admiral S.H. Carden, was also told by Churchill to bombard the outer forts of the Dardanelles at long range “at the earliest suitable occasion”.

Various schemes to assist Russia were duly considered by the War Council. The forcing of the Dardanelles, meanwhile, was advocated by Lieutenant Colonel Hankey, the Secretary of the War Council, as well as by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Fisher. The Russians themselves begged for “a demonstration of some kind against the Turk”.3 Churchill discussed this with Fisher and his advisors but he also sought the views of Carden. “Do you consider the forcing of the Dardanelles by ships alone a practicable operation? It is assumed older Battleships fitted with minebumpers would be used preceded by Colliers or other merchant craft as bumpers and sweepers.” Churchill added the chilling comment that, “Importance of results would justify severe loss”. When Carden and others considered this plan they concluded that if a squadron of eight battleships tried to rush through the Dardanelles, the powerful Turkish coastal batteries were likely to sink six and severely damage 

The infamous Gallipoli campaign began as a purely naval operation to sail warships through the Dardanelles and bombard Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, into surrender. Martin Mace explains how and why the naval attacks failed disastrously, thus setting in motion the planning for landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

BATTLESHIPS www.britainatwar.com 99

BONFIRE OF THE BATTLESHIPS Dardanelles Centenary the other two. He did not believe that the Strait could be forced in that way. Yet, with no alternative scheme on the table, plans for forcing the Dardanelles and attacking Constantinople continued to be discussed. The 41-mile-long Dardanelles Strait links the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara and is less than four miles across at its widest point with depths varying to a maximum of half-a-mile, the water flowing in both directions. From its mouth at Cape Helles to the Sea of Marmara, the narrow waterway is bounded by the Gallipoli heights and by many lesser hills. The entrance to the strait was guarded by four forts, two on either side. Ten miles up the strait was another series of forts and a single line of sea mines strung from shore to shore. At the Narrows, just 13 miles from the entrance, the channel has a width of less than a mile and was protected by yet more forts. When Turkey joined the Central Powers, the Germans despatched a coastal gunnery expert, Admiral Guido von Usedom, along with around 500 other similarly skilled men, to help organise the Gallipoli defences. Straightaway work was put in hand to build roads between key points, while defensive planning and training, particularly anti-invasion drills, began in earnest. Spanning both the European and the Asiatic, or Anatolian, sides of the Strait, the Canakkale Fortified Area Command had 14 permanent forts lining the coast. They were armed with coastal defence cannon ranging from 87mm up to 355mm in fixed positions. The true defence of the Dardanelles, however, were the minefields which the Turks began laying in August 1914. The purpose of the guns was to provide covering fire to prevent the minefields

100 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: One of the silenced Turkish guns at Sedd el Bahr fort in 1915. The original caption states that this was a 10-inch gun that was put out of action. RIGHT & TOP RIGHT (OPPOSITE PAGE): Sedd el Bahr fort later in the Gallipoli campaign with the effects of the Allied bombardments all too evident. BELOW: Guns from the fort at Sedd el Bahr were left lying on the shore after the Allied bombardments.

from being swept by the enemy. At 06.50 hours on the morning of 3 November 1914, the French preDreadnought battleships Suffren and Verite,, and the Royal Navy battlecruisers HMS Indomitable and HMS Indefatigable opened fire on all four of the forts at the entrance of the strait. The British ships fired at a range of 15,000 yards, their 12-inch guns out-ranging the four Turkish 240mm L/35 guns located at Fort Ertugrul on the Gallipoli Peninsula and Fort Orhaniye on the Anatolian side of the Strait. These guns did reply, but possibly with just one salvo. For 17 minutes Indomitable

and Indefatigable continued the bombardment. Despite spectacularly blasting quantities of soil into the air, which was soon cleared by the Turks, little damage was done to either fort. The fort at Kum Kale on the Anatolian shore also escaped serious damage, but it was a different matter with the old fort at Sedd el Bahr to the east of Ertugrul on Gallipoli. Its 15th-century stone-built west tower took a direct hit, blowing up the powder and shells stored in the tower and those placed outside it, and displacing a number of guns. Total casualties across the four forts amounted to 150 men, of whom

40 were Germans, many having been killed when a barracks was hit. Djevad Pasha, the Turkish commandant at Sedd el Bahr, testified after the war that the attack caused more damage than any subsequent attack. At the same time, noted the captain of the destroyer HMS Harpy,, “The Turkish guns were quite outranged, and as far as I could see, only a few ricochets came near us. I hope this war will be prosecuted with vigour, and that we shall not be content with a 20 minute bombardment occasionally.” The British Prime Minister, Asquith, however, was less impressed. “The shelling of a fort at the Dardanelles seems to have succeeded in blowing up a magazine”, he wrote, adding, “but that is peu de chose.. At any rate we are now frankly at war with Turkey.” In fact, it was a further two days before, on 5 November 1914, the United Kingdom and France both officially declared war on the Ottoman Empire, the British government having reached the conclusion that, due to the bombardment and destruction of the fort, “a final declaration of war against Turkey could no longer be postponed”. At 09.51 hours on 19 February 1915, the battleship HMS Cornwallis opened fire on the outermost Turkish fort on the Anatolian shore of the entrance

to the Dardanelles Strait at a range of 9,500 yards. Shortly afterwards HMS Triumph’s first shells were directed at the corresponding fort at Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The two other entrance forts on the Anatolian shore were attacked by the French battleship Suffren. There was no reply from the forts but spotter aircraft from the converted seaplane carrier HMS Ark Royal saw that the Turkish guns were still in place. The force under Admiral Carden was formed into three divisions of battleships. The 1st Division was composed of Inflexible, Agamemnon and the new 15-inch gun Queen Elizabeth, while the 2nd Division comprised Vengeance, Albion, Cornwallis, Irresistible and Triumph. The 3rd Division was entirely French and was made up of Suffren, Bouvet, Charlemagne and Gaulois.. In total these warships mounted 178 guns of 5.5-inch and upwards and, for the most part, were more modern than those in the forts, heavier and capable of outranging them in every class of gun. The bombardment continued until 16.40 hours when Carden ordered a ceasefire to allow the smoke and dust to clear and enable seaplanes to report on the results of the day’s attack. As the smoke lifted across the calm

BOTTOM LEFT: Lying at the foot of the imposing walls of Sedd el Bahr fort, in the northeast corner near an old gateway, is the Seddulbahir Magaine (Cephanlik) Cemetery. On the wall in the cemetery is a plaque which commemorates five officers (who are named) and 81 other ranks, all members of the Turkish garrison, killed in the bombardment on 3 November 1914. These were the first Ottoman troops killed in the course of the Dardanelles Campaign. Amongst those named is Captain Sevki, the fort’s commander. BELOW LEFT: Bombardment damage is still visible at Sedd el Bahr fort today, in this case on a stretch of wall on the northeast corner. ABOVE RIGHT: HMS Canopus fires on the Turkish forts in March 1915.

waters the Turkish forts appeared to be in smouldering ruins. HMS Vengeance Vengeance, the flagship of Carden’s second-in-command, Rear-Admiral Sir John de Robeck, also steamed close inshore to examine the forts. Much to de Robeck’s surprise the guns in both the outermost forts, Orhaniye and Ertugrul, began shelling Vengeance. Field guns from both shores also joined in. The British and French ships immediately moved in to support Vengeance Vengeance. At 17.30 hours, with the ships silhouetted by the setting sun behind them, Carden ordered the bombardment to cease for the day. Despite the obvious disappointment felt after the action of the 19th, and indeed that of the previous year, Carden was determined to continue with his offensive. A strong southerly gale and poor visibility unfortunately delayed the attack until the 25th. At 10.14 hours the long-range bombardment began and a number of shells found their marks. The Turks replied and HMS Agamemnon was hit twice. Irresistible destroyed two 9.4-inch guns in Fort Orhaniye and HMS Queen Elizabeth experienced similar success against the Helles forts.  www.britainatwar.com 101

BONFIRE OF THE BATTLESHIPS Dardanelles Centenary BELOW: HMS Irresistible listing and sinking in the Dardanelles, 18 March 1915. The photograph was taken from the battleship HMS Lord Nelson.

At around midday, the second phase of the attack was put in motion, which was for the ships to close to 4,000 yards from the shore, fire all guns, turn round to port, fire a second time, and then speed back out of range of the Turkish batteries. The final phase saw some ships approaching to within just a few hundred yards to demolish the forts completely. By 18.30 hours Sedd el Bahr was almost in ruins but still functioning, Kum Kale was severely damaged and the others were out of action, with barracks and forts on fire.4 Now it was time to deal with the mines at the entrance to the Strait. Because the Royal Navy’s minesweepers were heavily employed keeping the English Channel clear,

North Sea fishing trawlers with their civilian crews were sent to the Dardanelles to help clear the Turkish mines. The next morning, with the battleships taking up their bombardment once again, the trawlers pushed deeper into the Dardanelles, close support being provided by destroyers. With the Turks still able to fire back as the minesweeping flotilla entered the Strait, the decision was made to land two parties of Marines to seize the forts and destroy them once and for all. The Marines, covered by the guns of the fleet, managed to put the Sedd el Bahr and Orhaniye forts out of action before returning to their respective ships. Over the course of the next two days the other guns in the entrance forts were similarly dealt with. This was a highly significant development. A purely naval bombardment was, as Carden explained, unlikely to achieve the desired result: “The result of the day’s action of 19 February showed apparently that the effect of longrange bombardment by direct fire on modern earthwork forts is slight.” However, a

RIGHT: On the coast road below Fort Rumeli Mecidiye is this statue called “The Man With the Shell”. Unveiled in 1922, it in fact depicts a Turkish gunner, Seyit Ali Çabuk, who is more commonly referred to as Corporal Seyit. According to well known battlefield tour guides Major and Mrs Holt, during the bombardment on 18 March 1915, Seyyit, “when sixty-one of his comrades were killed by Allied naval shells, carried the last 275 kilogram shell to his gun in the Rumeli Mecidiye Ramparts and fired it himself”. It is reputedly this very shot that hit HMS Ocean, damaged her rudders, causing her to run into the mines and be sunk.

ABOVE LEFT: Corporal Seyit recreates his remarkable act for the photographer. Seyit was discharged in 1918 and became a forester and later coal-miner, dying of lung disease in 1939.

102 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: The French battleship Bouvet in the Dardanelles, 1915. During the bombardment of the Turkish forts on 18 March 1915, she was hit about eight times by shellfire prior to being fatally damaged by a mine.

naval bombardment, followed by an amphibious landing, seemed to work very well indeed. Meanwhile, Carden planned to conduct a major attack on the forts on 18 March 1915. While making the final arrangements, however, with the burden of the whole operation bearing so onerously upon his shoulders, he suffered a complete collapse of confidence. He was placed on the sick list. John de Robeck took over command and was immediately promoted to acting Vice-Admiral. The planning for the attack was too far advanced to stop it at this stage, indeed there were simply no other plans. The attack on the forts of the Narrows would be carried out — not because it was a brilliant idea but because no-one had a better one. At 10.10 hours on the morning of 18 March 1915, destroyers fitted with minesweeps, entered the Dardanelles. Behind them came the Royal Navy’s battleships Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon, Lord Nelson and Inflexible, while other warships guarded the flanks of the armada. “It looked,” wrote one of those involved, “as if no human forces could withstand such [an] array of might and power.” HMS Queen Elizabeth’s 15-inch guns were the first to open fire upon the forts on the western bank of the Narrows. As they advanced the other battleships joined in, shelling both banks. The plan was for these great warships to silence the enemy and allow the following French battleships to close up to the forts and destroy them. When the French ships withdrew the older British battleships would take their place. There would be no respite for the Turks

BONFIRE OF THE BATTLESHIPS Dardanelles Centenary RIGHT: Allied warships bombard Turkish batteries at Chanak, 18 March 1915 — note the return shell fire. According to an account by the Ottoman General Staff, by 14.00 hours “all telephone wires were cut, all communications with the forts were interrupted, some of the guns had been knocked out ... in consequence the artillery fire of the defence had slackened considerably”. LEFT: The surviving Turkish gun at Fort Rumeli Mecidiye points out across the Dardanelles Strait towards the Anatolian shore in the distance. Until recent years there were two guns in place at the fort, though one has been moved and can now be found inland at Alçıtepe (known to the Allies as Krithia).

until their fortifications had been demolished and their guns disabled. After an hour’s bombardment, at 12.15 hours, the French ships were ordered forward. “Viewed as a picture, the battle was a sight of overpowering grandeur,” wrote Raymond Swing of the Chicago Daily News. “The skies were cloudless, the sun shone down from near the zenith on the warships, the waters were a deep clear blue, the Hellespont hills were a dark green. The picture was in many hues, the gray-white smoke of the explosions, the orange smoke of firing cannon, and the black of flying earth in eruption, all set off by the white geysers of water as they rose after the immersion of shells. The accompaniment of sound was both oppressively insistent and varied. There was a roar when guns fired, the defeaning detonations of the shells when they hit, the whistle of the shells in flight, the shriek of flying splinters.”5

BELOW RIGHT: The Allied naval bombardment of Turkish positions as a battleship fires its 12-inch guns in the Dardanelles Strait in 1915. The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign were predominantly carried out by the Royal Navy with substantial support from the French and minor contributions from Russia and Australia.

The battle may have looked picturesque to the American journalist sitting on a hill watching from above. It was far from picturesque down below, as Gaulois was hit by a 14-inch shell and was forced to beach outside the Strait. The second line of British battleships also moved up to take over the bombardment, including HMS Irresistible Irresistible.. Lance-Corporal Powell, Royal Marine Artillery was on board: “All around the water was dotted with white splashes of foam, where the Turkish shells were falling. What with the vivid flashes from the guns, the splashes from the shells, now falling ahead, now astern, it was truly a sight never to be forgotten … The noise was tremendous – one continual roar. Surely, I thought, nothing ashore could live under such a tremendous fire? For nearly six hours now the bombardment had been going on, and yet there had been no lull in the firing; if anything, it increased in its intensity as the afternoon wore on. ... From

where I was I could see, almost at the very entrance to the Strait, it seemed, the Queen Elizabeth battering away, her huge 15-in. guns pointing upwards, and great clouds of yellow smoke drifting away from her every time she fired. And all around her the water was splashed up in tremendous columns. Shells were being simply poured in her direction.” The Turks had another advantage: the current flowing through the Dardanelles towards the Aegean. This was running at around 2 to 2.5 knots and was ideal for the Turks’ most lethal weapons, floating mines. Midshipman Denham on board HMS Agamemnon saw the deployment: “The water must have been thick with mines for we could see a Turkish torpedo boat, a merchantman and two tugs a long way past the Narrows and they must have been heaving mines overboard for all they were worth.” The mines soon began to take effect. At 15.45 hours HMS Inflexible, which had already began to list from the effects of a shell that had hit the water very 

www.britainatwar.com 103

BONFIRE OF THE BATTLESHIPS Dardanelles Centenary

close to her port side, struck one of these mines on her starboard bow. Immediately the water rushed into her hull, killing 39 men. She crept slowly back to the Greek island of Tenedos where it was discovered that 20 compartments were flooded through a hole 30 feet by 26 feet wide. “Time was getting on, still there was no lull in the firing,” observed LanceCorporal Powell from his post on Irresistible’s upper deck. “Looking out of my casement I could observe, steaming slowly towards us, one of the French squadron. We afterwards knew it to have been the Bouvet. As she came along, all her guns blazing away, she presented a remarkable picture. Little did the poor fellows aboard her realise how very near they were to their doom. “It all happened so suddenly. One minute the Bouvet was steaming majestically along, the next minute a tremendous cloud of smoke or steam arose, completely hiding her from view.” Another observer, an officer on Queen Elizabeth saw Bouvet, “heeling over to about 15 degrees to starboard, and listing rapidly to 30 degrees. Men could be seen running up over

ABOVE LEFT: Many of the warships involved remained in theatre to support the subsequent fighting on land. In this picture, a church service is being held aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth off the Gallipoli Peninsula. TOP RIGHT: Another view of the Turkish gun at Fort Rumeli Mecidiye. BELOW: Restored ramparts at Fort Rumeli Mecidiye, site in 1915 of six coastal artillery pieces, in six batteries with eight ammunition bunkers (with barrel-vaulted rooms), four of 24cm calibre and two of 28cm.

her bottom. She turned turtle, went down stern first, her bow remaining for a few seconds upright, and then she was completely gone. Of her total complement (between 600 and 700) only 5 officers, 10 petty officers, and 51 men were saved.” Bouvet went down in just over two minutes.6 It is not known whether it was a shell or a mine which caused the massive internal explosion which saw Bouvet blown apart, but what is certain is that after the loss of the French ship, Turkish fire found Irresistible’s range and she was hit by a large shell and the whole ship reeled over with the impact, before she righted herself again. Then another shell fell into the water close where Lance-Corporal Powell was stationed. “We had just been hit again forward by another big shell that shook us all up, and then, before we had time to recover ourselves, a tremendous shock was felt,” he recalled. “Fully half a dozen of our crew were thrown violently over, and when order had been regained there was the old Irresistible heeling over to port, at an angle of fully 45 degrees, and our guns pointing in the air for all the world like an anti-aircraft gun. We did

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

104 www.britainatwar.com

not need anyone to explain. We one and all knew that the Irresistible had fought her last fight.” The next casualty was HMS Ocean, which struck a mine. With three ships sunk and two badly disabled, and not the slightest diminution in the Turk fire, de Robeck abandoned the attack. As the Allied warships retreated, Major General Cevat Pasha, Turkish commander of the Canakkale Fortified Zone, said triumphantly: “They are gone ... They could not break through ... They will not break through.”7 After the disastrous battle of 18 March it was possible to accept that the Dardanelles were too powerfully defended to waste any more lives and ships in trying to breach the Narrows. But the operation had developed a momentum of its own. The politicians could hardly admit that their decisionmaking was flawed and that they had misjudged the situation, and the Royal Navy could not admit defeat. So de Robeck was forced to cancel his planned attempt at clearing the mines and to wait for the Army. The seeds for another disaster had been sown. 

Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918 (Barnes & Noble, New York, 1993), vol.1, p.470. War Council Minutes 25/11/14, TNA CAB 42/1/4. Robin Prior, Gallopoli The End of the Myth (Yale University Press, London, 2009), p.13. Victor Rudenno, Gallipoli, Attack from the Sea (Yale University Presss, London, 2008), p.38. R. Swing, Good Evening! Raymond ‘Gram’ Swing (The Bodley Head, London, 1965), p.71. E.K. Chatterton, Dardanelles Dilemma: The Story of the Naval Operations (Rich & Crown, London, 1935), p.140 M. Forrest, The Defence of the Dardanelles: From Bombards to Battleships (Pen & Sword, Barnsley), p.137.

Events

Events

The Aviation & Militaria Fair at

BRENZETT AEROJUMBLE

Vauxhall Motors Club House, Rivacre Road, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire CH65 1NJ J5-M53

Sunday 15th March 2015

THE BIGGEST AEROJUMBLE & AVIATION COLLECTORS EVENT!!

Inside 6’ tables supplied

at ROMNEY MARSH WARTIME COLLECTION (Brenzett Aeronautical Museum) IVYCHURCH ROAD, BRENZETT, KENT TN29 0EE

@ £15.00

SATURDAY 11th APRIL 2015

Outside areas for exhibits also welcome.

ADMISSION – ADULTS: £6.00 – CHILDREN: FREE (Includes admission to museum)

The Griffin Trust 0151-327-4701 or 07745 873491

griffin@griffintrust.org.uk Medals

ALL DAY REFRESHMENTS

GATES OPEN: 10.00am (trade passes available from 8.00am) STALL HOLDERS APPLY TO –

Telephone: 01424 753356 Mobile: 07808 288606 Email: [email protected]

Publishers

BOOK PUBLISHING

Authors invited to submit manuscripts all categories

New Authors welcome A.H. STOCKWELL LTD, Dept. 764, Ilfracombe, Devon, EX34 8BA. Tel 01271 862557 www.ahstockwell.co.uk

Publishers for over 100 Years

To Advertise with Classifieds Call Marie Parry Tel: 01780 755131 email: [email protected]

Classified Marketplace

Books

“I

F YOUR Ministers desire and feel themselves able to seize German wireless stations at New Guinea, Yap in the Marshall Islands and Nauru or Pleasant Island, we should feel that this was a great and urgent Imperial service. Other Dominions are acting on the same understanding in a similar way, and, in particular, suggestion to New Zealand is being made with regard to Samoa.” The somewhat grandiose language of this cable sent from London on 7 August 1914 to the Governor General thus set in train the despatch of the first all-Australian military force on war operations. It also saw the first planned use of aircraft of the fledgling Australian Flying Corps (AFC). During the late 19th century Germany had established a number of colonies in the Pacific. In 1884 the northern part of eastern New Guinea, claimed as Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land, and the islands of Buka and Bougainville in the Solomon Islands chain also became part of German New Guinea. The New Britain archipelago, discovered and named thus in 1700, was colonised as

MAIN PICTURE: The Allied task force enters Rabaul harbour, September 1914. Headed by the flagship Australia, it had transported the men of the the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. (COURTESY

OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL)

RIGHT: In the rear cockpit of this BE 2 at Point Cook shortly before the start of WW1 is Lt Eric Harrison who was one of two AFC pilots to accompany the Rabaul expedition. In the front is Lt Henry Petre, an English pilot who was the first instructor. (E F CHEESMAN)

New Pomerania while adjacent New Ireland became New Mecklenburg. Other small Pacific islands were also claimed. The tiny island of Nauru was annexed in 1888 whilst a Tripartite Convention of 1899 partitioned the Samoan Islands, ceding the western islands to Germany as German Samoa. Elsewhere in the Pacific during the first years of the 20th century the Germans established a base for a powerful naval force in eastern China and by 1914 Vice Admiral Graf von Spee’s East Asiatic Squadron comprised the armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the light cruisers Nurnberg, Leipzig, Dresden and Emden plus some smaller vessels. The effectiveness of this force, however, depended on the strategically important colonial outposts in New Guinea, Rabaul, Samoa and elsewhere to provide radio links, coaling facilities and resupply.

AFC FORMATION Following agitation in the Australian Press and Parliament, in 1913 the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia published legislation that

established a national flying arm. On their behalf, English pilot, Lieutenant Henry Petre travelled widely to inspect suitable sites for a flying school. Eventually a sheep paddock at Point Cook to the south of Melbourne, Victoria, was bought for just over £6,000 and facilities for flying created at what became the birthplace of Australian military aviation. The Central Flying School was established and an order placed for four aircraft from Britain — a pair of BE 2a two seaters from the Royal Aircraft Factory and two Deperdussin single seaters; later a two seat Bristol Boxkite was added. However, the aircraft were originally shipped to Sydney and when they were forwarded to Melbourne and uncrated it was discovered that the fabric had rotted en route. It was therefore not until the morning of 1 March 1914 that Lieutenant Eric Harrison lifted the Boxkite off on the first flight from Point Cook. Hailing from Melbourne, Harrison had learned to fly in England and on his return had been granted an honorary commission as a flying instructor.

South Seas

Debutants

The first Australian force sent on operations under the command of its own national officers did so just over a century ago when setting sail against German colonies in the Pacific. Words: Andy Thomas

106 www.britainatwar.com

SOUTH SEAS DEBUTANTS Australia’s Pacific Expedition

Over the next few months, further preparations for the establishment of the AFC were made, with the first training course beginning on 17 August. By this time an additional BE 2a had been delivered.

THE ALL-AUSTRALIAN FORCE Meanwhile, a fortnight earlier, hostilities had broken out in Europe. With an eye on Germany’s colonial possessions in the Pacific, recruiting for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) began on the 10th. The following day an expeditionary force, somewhat grandly titled the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF), began to be assembled. This all-Australian force was commanded by Colonel William Holmes, a Citizen Force officer who was also Secretary of the Sydney Water Board.

It comprised a battalion of infantry, mainly recruited in Sydney, known as the 1st Battalion, AN&MEF and six companies of a 500 man Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Naval Brigade under Commander J A H Beresford, supported by two machine gun sections. There was also a signals section and a medical detachment, the latter under command of Lieutenant Colonel Neville Howse of the Army Medical Corps. Howse had been awarded Australia’s first ever Victoria Cross on 24 July 1900 during an action at Vredefort in the Orange Free State. Having seen a trumpeter fall he braved very heavy crossfire to rescue the man despite his own horse being shot from under him. The AN&MEF also included its own air element. Two of the fledgling AFC’s aircraft, a

ABOVE RIGHT: The first batch of troops that would form part of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force heads towards the quayside at Sydney, en route to Rabaul. (COURTESY OF

THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; H11567)

Farman Shorthorn Seaplane — presented to the embryonic air service by Mr Lebbeus Hordern, a Sydney businessman — and one of the BE 2s were crated and embarked with the rest of the Force that sailed from Sydney on 19 August. As well as several mechanics, there were two pilots embarked — Harrison and Lieutenant G P Merz, a qualified doctor who had previously served with the Melbourne University Rifles. Although the aircraft were intended purely for reconnaissance, Eric Harrison was already harbouring more aggressive thoughts. During the voyage he and the mechanics would construct a quantity of aerial bombs by fitting small propellers to the nose caps of 36lb Lyddite shells to offer the aircraft an offensive capability. 

www.britainatwar.com 107

ABOVE: The AFC’s first aircraft all served with the CFS — this BE 2a being CFS 2. (RAAF MUSEUM)

The Australian force also included its first two submarines, HMASs AE1 and AE2. Even as the AN&MEF began to be established, it began to act upon London’s request. The first action came from the Royal Australian Navy, when the Australia Squadron under Vice Admiral Sir George Patey — flying his Flag in the 22,000 ton Indefatigable Class battlecruiser HMAS Australia — conducted a reconnaissance of northern New Pomerania. On 12 August the force entered Blanche Bay and that night the destroyers Parramatta, Yarra, and

Warrego sailed into Simpson Harbour and Matupi Harbour near Rabaul looking for von Spee’s cruisers. Landing parties went ashore to destroy telephones in both Rabaul and Herbertshöhe some 20 miles away. Patey also threatened to bombard the settlements if the radio continued to transmit, before withdrawing his force. In St George’s Channel two German merchantmen, Sumatra and Zambezi were boarded and captured. The same day the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire shelled the important wireless station at Yap and rendered it inoperable, also capturing a German merchantman.

TOP: Sydney University officers in the AN&MEF including Capt Pockley in the front row, second from the left. (RAN HERITAGE CENTRE)

ABOVE: AFC pilots and ground crew just before the start of the war. (RAAF MUSEUM)

THE NZ EFFORT Meanwhile, in New Zealand almost 1400 men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, under Lieutenant Colonel Robert Logan, sailed from Wellington on 15 August aboard the requisitioned Union Steamship Company steamers Monowai and Moeraki. Their task, as hinted in the London cable of 7 August, was to capture Samoa. They were escorted by three elderly cruisers HMS Psyche,

BELOW: The success of the operation to capture Rabaul was marred by the disappearance of AE1 on 14 September while patrolling the narrow St George’s Strait between New Britain and New Ireland — the first Royal Australian Navy vessel lost in wartime. No trace of the submarine or its crew has ever been found. Both HMAS Yarra (centre) and HMAS Australia (on the left) can be seen in the background. (COURTESY OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; A02603)

108 www.britainatwar.com

SOUTH SEAS DEBUTANTS Australia’s Pacific Expedition

ABOVE: A platoon of German Reservists in German New Guinea, after the outbreak of war and shortly before the arrival of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. (COURTESY OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; A02543)

Philomel and Pyramus. All three were almost 20 years old and little match for the German East Asiatic Squadron whose whereabouts, worryingly, remained unknown. Five days later the convoy reached Noumea in French New Caledonia to rendezvous with HMAS Australia, the light cruiser HMAS Melbourne and the French Gueydon Vlass armoured cruiser Montcalm before continuing the voyage. This convoy arrived off Apia, the Samoan capital and began landing on 29 August. Although a Germanofficered constabulary of around 50 men protected the important wireless station, there was no resistance. Later in the day the New Zealanders marched through the town, the German flag was lowered and Union Flag raised.

LEFT: The second AFC pilot to sail to Rabaul was Lt G P Merz. Sadly he was killed in Mespotamia in 1915 — the AFC’s first combat fatality.

THE FLEET SAILS The Expeditionary Force was carried in the 11,000 ton P&O steam ship Berrima and the store ship Aorangi; it is thought that the two aircraft were carried in the latter while the former carried all military personnel. The Sydney Mail correspondent wrote: ‘On Saturday afternoon 1100 New South Wales volunteers, who are to leave with the Australian Expeditionary Force, paraded at the Agricultural Show Ground, Sydney, and were inspected by Colonel Holmes, who expressed great satisfaction with the manner in which they bore themselves. Volunteers have offered from all parts of the State, and as only 6420 troops are required as the quota of New South Wales for the Expeditionary Force of 20,000 many must be disappointed. The men, who are

full of eagerness, include many South African campaigners.’ However, before proceeding to occupy New Pomerania, the ships carrying the Expeditionary Force were required to wait for their heavy escorts, led by Australia, which needed to complete their escort of the NZEF to Samoa. With the escort thus occupied at Samoa the AN&MEF therefore used the time for a short period of training and acclimatization at Palm Island, Queensland, while en route to the rendezvous. Meanwhile, as the AN&MEF had been sailing towards Rabaul on 9 September, the Chatham Class light cruiser HMAS Sydney had sailed to Nauru and put the wireless station there out of action. 

(E F CHEESMAN)

RIGHT: This unmarked BE2a is believed to be the aircraft that accompanied the Expedition. However, as it turned out the aircraft was never uncrated or used during the campaign, and returned to Point Cook early in 1915. (E F CHEESMAN)

www.britainatwar.com 109

BATTLE OF BITA PAKA The transports rendezvoused with the escorting squadron at Port Moresby on the south coast of New Guinea before setting out for enemy territory. The fleet arrived off Rabaul on 11 September where they found the port free of enemy forces; in Rabaul at the time of the landing the Germans had 51 trained European Polizeitruppe and partly trained white settlers, with 240 trained Melanesian native police under command of Hauptman Carl von Klewitz, a regular officer on secondment from the 25th Württemberg Dragoons. The landing force began disembarking. Soon after dawn Sydney, with the destroyers Warrego and Yarra began landing parties of armed sailors at the settlement at Kabakaul near Herbertshöhe (later renamed Kokopo) to capture the wireless station at Bita Paka. A party of 53 armed sailors of the RAN Naval Brigade under Lieutenant Bowen began landing from Sydney shortly after 7am and they began moving inland towards Bita Paka. Having split into two groups the sailors moved cautiously along the road but because of the very thick scrub either side of the road their ability to manoeuvre was severely limited. With Bowen’s party was a medical officer, Captain Bryan Pockley (son of Dr F A Pockley), whilst his orderly accompanied the other group.

110 www.britainatwar.com

TOP LEFT: The AN&MEF landed at Rabaul jetty. (RAN

HERITAGE CENTRE)

TOP RIGHT: Australian troops pictured beside a captured gun in an emplacement at Rabaul in 1914. (COURTESY

OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; H01986)

BELOW LEFT: The first Australian to be killed in the First World war was Able Seaman W G V Williams. (RAN

HERITAGE CENTRE)

BELOW RIGHT: Personnel of the Australian Navy and Military Expeditionary Force, and more specifically the Royal Australian Naval Brigade element of it, pictured after the operations against the Germans at Rabaul. (COURTESY

OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; A04003)

The Germans under von Klewitz had dug two trenches across the road leading to Bita Paka and constructed some carefully camouflaged fire pits in the trees at the side, concealing numbers of the armed native police. As the Australians advanced along the road they spotted armed men in a coconut plantation to the right. Moving ahead Able Seaman W G V Williams came under heavy rifle fire and was hit and badly wounded. Leading Stoker William Kember gave him aid until Bryan Pockley arrived to give specialist attention. He had previously been attending his first casualty, a German officer named as Mauderer who had suffered a shattered arm after an exchange of fire. At the side of the road Pockley made Williams as comfortable as possible before taking off his Red Cross armband, giving it to Kember before ordering him to return with Williams to the ship for further attention. When Kember remonstrated with him about this Pockley told him that he “would be all right and take any risk”. His immediate superior, Major F A Maguire said later: “It was an act of heroic self sacrifice.” At about 8am Pockley then moved forward again to follow Lieutenant Bowen’s group that was fighting its way forward to the radio station. The Germans in the first trench were trying to outflank the group of sailors and soon

afterwards Bryan Pockley was hit in the chest and severely wounded as he leaned forward to help another injured man. Like Williams he was evacuated back to the Berrima for treatment. Aboard the ship Williams quickly succumbed to his wounds and became the first of over 60,000 Australian to be killed during the war. At 1.45pm, the gallant Pockley also died and was thus the first Australian officer to die in the First World War; he was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches. There were further contacts as the fighting went on all day and during the battle four more Australians, Lieutenant Commander John Elwell, who fell sword in hand at the head of his men, Signalman R D Moffatt and Able Seamen D S Skillen and John Walker were killed. Four others were wounded before the radio station fell at 7pm. The Battle of Bita Paka had been a fierce skirmish. However, during the fighting the Germans fared much worse, losing one officer and 30 native police killed with another officer and ten policemen wounded.

FURTHER ACTIONS Skirmishes with the Germans and locally recruited natives continued and at nightfall on the 12th Berrima landed the infantry battalion at Rabaul where the Union Flag was hoisted over the town the next day. At 7am the following morning,

SOUTH SEAS DEBUTANTS Australia’s Pacific Expedition

14 September, the destroyer HMS Parramatta and the submarine AE1 left Blanche Bay to patrol off Cape Gazelle in case von Spee’s cruisers should attempt to intervene. The submarine was never seen again. Despite an intensive search no trace of Lieutenant Commander Thomas Bessant and his crew of 34 was found. She is thought to have struck uncharted rock or reef and sunk. It was the RAN’s first major loss of the war. Meanwhile, the village of Toma, where the Government and Treasury had moved on the outbreak of hostilities, and which lay inland some five miles or so from Herbertshöhe, continued to resist. On the 14th it was surrounded by troops from the AN&MEF, beginning a threeday siege. However, following a brief bombardment of a ridge near the village by a 12 pounder gun the Australians had landed, the German leaders agreed terms of capitulation on the 17th. Four days later

all German and locally recruited native forces surrendered at Herbertshöhe. On the 24th, AN&MEF troops went ashore at Madang on the north coast of New Guinea and took control of Kaiser Willhelm’s Land without opposition. Four officers and 13 men surrendered, 40 others having earlier departed for New Pomerania before they learned of its fall. While these skirmishes were going on, Harrison and Merz were aboard ship preparing to move their aircraft ashore for assembly and to find a suitable area from which to operate them. Frustratingly, due to the speed with which the Australians prevailed, the fighting had ended before they could get demonstrate the aircrafts’ value. Their two machines were never unpacked from their crates, and there they remained until they finally reached Point Cook again nine months later. Although the AFC had been unable to play any meaningful part in the brief fighting, the embryonic Corps had proved that it could deploy forces and had contributed to the first force ever to leave Australia with its own ships, troops and aircraft under the command of Australian officers. The AN&MEF consolidated its gains before wrapping up

TOP LEFT: The French armoured cruiser Montcalm also formed part of the escort carrying the landing force to New Britain. (RAN HERITAGE CENTRE)

TOP RIGHT: This Krupp 6-pounder field gun was seized during the Allied offensive against Rabaul. It is the first piece of enemy ordnance captured by Australian forces in the First World War. LEFT: Able Seaman William Williams and Captain Brian Pockley are buried in Rabaul (Bita Paka) War Cemetery. (COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION)

the other German possessions in the Bismarck Archipelago by occupying without opposition New Mecklenburg (New Ireland) on 6 November. On the same day Australians also occupied Nauru. Then on the 19th Australian troops landed from the SS Siar in the Admiralty Islands while after a few shots were fired from the ship, the small German Garrison at Lorengau surrendered. Although the occupation of Germany’s Pacific colonies had seen relatively little fighting, the the RAN had nonetheless earned it first Battle Honour: ‘Rabaul 1914’ is proudly carried to this day by the frigates HMASs Melbourne, Parramatta and Sydney and the minehunter Yarra. The AFC continued to expand so that when in early 1915 a call came from the Indian Government for air units to support the campaign against the Turks in Mesopotamia it was able to deploy the Australian Half Flight which went on to play a significant part in the subsequent fighting. Sadly, on 30 July the AFC suffered its first casualties when a Caudron was forced down and the crew, including Lieutenant Merz, were lost — thought killed by local Arabs. It was a tragic end to a true pioneer of Australian military aviation.  BELOW: With the whereabouts of Admiral von Spee’s cruisers unknown the battlecruiser HMAS Australia was a key element of the escort for the AN&MEF en route to Rabaul. (RAN HERITAGE CENTRE)

www.britainatwar.com 111

A O NVA I L AN W AB D IN LE N KIN DO O DL WS W EF 8 IRE

Your favourite magazine is now available digitally. DOWNLOAD THE APP NOW FOR FREE.

FREE APP with sample issue

IN APP ISSUES £3.99

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Monthly £2.99 6 issues £19.99 12 issues £34.99

SEARCH: Britain at war

Read on your

iPhone & iPad

PC & Mac

Android

kindle fire

Blackberry

SEARCH:

SEARCH Britain at War

SEARCH

FREE APP

FREE APP

IN APP ISSUES £3.99

IN APP ISSUES £3.99

ALSO

AVIATION NEWS

AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

Windows 8

with sample issue

NEW FREE Aviation Specials App NEW

FLYPAST

with sample issue

How it Works.

Simply download the Britain at IN APP ISSUES War app and receive your sample issue completely free. Once you have the app, you £3.99 will be able to download new or back issues (from December 2011 onwards) for less than newsstand price or, alternatively, subscribe to save even more!

Simply download to purchase digital versions of your favourite aviation specials in one handy place! Once you have the app, you will be able to download new, out of print or archive specials for less than the cover price!

SEARCH:

Aviation Specials

Don’t forget to register for your Pocketmags account. This will protect your purchase in the event of a damaged or lost device. It will also allow you to view your purchases on multiple platforms. iTunes

PC, Mac & Windows 8

Available on PC, Mac, Blackberry, Windows 8 and kindle fire from Requirements for app: registered iTunes account on Apple iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4S, 5, 6, iPod Touch or iPad 1, 2, 3 or 4. Internet connection required for initial download. Published by Key Publishing Ltd. The entire contents of these titles are © copyright 2015. All rights reserved. App prices subject to change. 163/15

SAVE IN A FIRE Incident Control Box

SAVE IN A FIRE Every month Britain at War asks a military museum to nominate one item it would save if the entire collection was under threat from the proverbial fire. This month we visit a hidden gem in the story of the Home Front. MUSEUM: Stockport Air Raid Shelters CURATOR: Angela Nesic, Collections Assistant OBJECT: Incident Control Box STOCKPORT STOOD out in its pre-war determination to prepare properly. In the late 1930s, the town, about seven miles from the centre of Manchester, decided that it would provide deep shelters — despite Government disapproval, which the authorities would demonstrate by withholding the central air raid shelter building grant from Stockport for a time. In pushing forward its scheme the town on the River Mersey had advantages, including existing tunnels, which had been used to bring water to mills. Also, properties in the Chestergate area had been demolished to make way for a road-widening scheme. This was where construction started in September 1938. The first tunnels opened in October 1939. They were seven feet high, seven feet wide and approximately 40 feet underground. Capacity was thought to be 3,850, though 4,000 was the figure given to the public, while the local Air Raid Precautions Committee believed that it would be possible to allow in double the official capacity in the event of a major raid. More tunnels came later. Against that background, the artefact chosen by Angela Nesic, collections assistant

at Stockport Air Raid Shelters, is entirely appropriate. Angela has selected the incident control box from Cheadle Ward in the outlying suburbs. She explained, “The Cheadle Ward incident control box is a wooden box fitted with a punched grid and peg system, allowing the ARP wardens to monitor people, appliances and casualties during air raids in the Second World War. The box was conceived by Mr Colin Hepplestone, Head Warden for Cheadle Ward, and his colleagues. It allowed Cheadle Ward ARP to monitor incidents and utilities successfully during the air raid attacks.” Angela goes on: “It is a truly unique object, built out of British courage, strength and determination. Originally made to keep the people of Cheadle safe, it now serves as a stark reminder of what the people of Greater Manchester went through during the Second World War. “The incident box is on display at Stockport Air Raid Shelters and is considered one of our star objects, as it is a unique hand crafted item with a strong local connection.” The shelters did their job well. So popular were they that when Manchester came under attack many of its citizens made their way to the Stockport haven. It is claimed that at least one baby was born underground. When the war ended the Stockport air raid shelters were locked up and lay abandoned for 40 years, though there would be a further occasion when destruction came out of the sky. In June 1967 a British Midland Airways Canadair C-4 Argonaut crashed on wasteland in the town centre, not far from the modern entrance to the tunnels. There were no fatalities on the

ground but 72 of the 84 on board, crew and holidaymakers returning from the Balearic Islands, died despite heroic acts by people nearby who ran into the burning wreckage and pulled some people clear. Local interest in the Second World War has grown and with it interest in the shelters. Tours underground began in 1988 and since the 1990s parts of the tunnels have been open to the public. Today the Stockport Air Raid shelters are open to the public as a museum operated by the Council. They conjure a Blitzed world: the crowding, lack of privacy, the smells and the unease at what might be happening above ground. They provide dramatic and useful clues to how a previous generation lived through the Blitz in one Cheshire town.

Stockport Air Raid Shelters, 61 Chestergate, Stockport SK1 1NE Tel: 0161 474 1940

OPENING TIMES: Tuesday to Friday 1pm-5pm, Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 11am-5pm, Monday closed, except for bank holidays 11am-5pm WEBSITE: http://www.stockport.gov.uk/services/leisureculture/visitstockport/museumsandgalleries/museumsandgalleries/airraidshelters/ www.britainatwar.com 113

The First W NO.8

rld War in Objects

FUND-RAISING

CHARITY PIN FLAG THE FIRST World War prompted a new wave of voluntary activity and the foundation of many charities. One of the earliest, at a time when tobacco was considered a necessity for British servicemen, was the Smokes for Wounded Soldiers And Sailors Society. More commonly known as the SSS, its patrons were Queen Alexandra and Princess Victoria, while it fielded an impressive and influential committee with members including Field Marshal Lord Grenfell, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford and the wives of other leading admirals and generals. Another key figure in the society was Lady Gertrude Denman, who had returned from Australia barely weeks before the outbreak of war. Herself a smoker, Lady Denman became heavily involved in its work, to the extent that the society operated from the Denmans’ house at 4 Buckingham Gate, London, where the ballroom was transformed into a packing and distribution centre. In 1916, Lady Denman was appointed the society’s chairwoman. The aim of the society was simple. As well as providing supplies of free cigarettes to all service hospitals, its voluntary workers would meet hospital trains and ships and distribute cigarettes to the wounded on their arrival. To achieve this aim, various means of fund-raising were employed, such as the sale of pin flags. There were also appeals through the press. On Tuesday, 15 December 1914, for example, the Hull Daily Mail carried the following on behalf of Mr E.F. Benson, the popular novelist and the society’s Honorary Secretary: “[He is] appealing to the generosity of the public towards wounded soldiers and sailors in hospitals and convalescent homes in Great Britain and abroad, in supplying them with tobacco. The troops at the front are being supplied by the Government direct, but should additional quantities be required the committee at once arranges to send them.

ABOVE: Wounded British soldiers, injured during the Battle of Mons, receive free gifts of cigarettes or tobacco following their evacuation back to the UK. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

114 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: A fund-raising pin flag issued by the Smokes for Wounded Soldiers And Sailors Society. LEFT: A poster promoting a fund-raising day for the Smokes for Wounded Soldiers And Sailors Society.

“This appeal is to everybody. There is not a smoker in the country who, if he saw a wounded soldier or sailor longing for a pipe, would not give him a ‘fill’. There are already hundreds of wounded soldiers and sailors who want a ‘fill’. We are all stirred with the thought of the sufferings of those engaged in the actual stress of war; we should also think of those who, having done their duty there, needs comforts in their convalescence. All contributions of any sort, tobacco, cigarettes, pipes or cash will be most gratefully received.” It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that 4 Buckingham Gate was, notes Lady Denman’s biographer, “soon crammed with cigarettes and packers”. That the gifts distributed by the society were “a boon and a blessing”, as described by a reporter in the Western Daily Press on 28 November 1914, is evidenced by the following extract from a letter published that day by the paper having been sent from the Second Southern Territorial Hospital in Bristol: “What you have already sent has given the very greatest enjoyment and delight. The men cannot believe it when they see us coming round with the generous supply you have sent each time.” Another letter from a different military hospital, noted by the same reporter, stated: “They don’t seem to mind the pain of their dressings if only they can be given a cigarette to smoke during it.” Though Lady Denman resigned as chairwoman in 1917, due to other commitments, the society continued with its work. By the end of the war it had distributed at least 265 million cigarettes.

Wing Leader F_P.indd 1

10/02/2015 11:29

Philosophy Football F_P.indd 1

10/02/2015 13:01