Britain at War 2015-05

IAL C E

E U S S I

SP

DUNKIRK 75TH ANNIVERSARY BUMPER ISSUE

R

BRITAIN’S BEST SELLING MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY

SHELL SHOCK Astonishing 1917 Film Footage

75TH

DUNKIRK ANNIVERSARY 1940-2015

DUNKIRK 24 PAGE SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE SECTION THE DEADLY MENACE IN THE DEEP How Britain Tried to Fight the U-boats in the First World War

SECRET LONDON REVEALED

The Tunnels that Helped Win the Second World War

FOUND: NEW PICTURES OF BATTLE OF BRITAIN HERO CRASH SITE

MAY 2015 ISSUE 97 £4.50

Bachmann F_P.indd 1

09/04/2015 11:04

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 Designer: 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 C

ONSISTENTLY IT seems, since taking over as Editor at Britain at War,, I have been covering anniversary upon anniversary of milestone events as they crowded into each successive month. Sometimes, they crowded in upon each other to the extent that it became something of a headache to decide which piece to run and which piece to hold over. Indeed, if any month in this current anniversary cycle might present this particular editorial headache then May 2015 might be it! Apart from the fact that this issue of the magazine will be published almost exactly on the centenary of the first use of gas in warfare, this month also see the 70th anniversary of VE Day, the 75th anniversary of the Battle of France with its lead-up to Operation Dynamo and the Dunkirk evacuations as well as the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915. That significant event, of course, was covered in our January 2015 issue because sometimes it simply isn’t possible to fit all of the ‘month relevant’ content into the specific month in question. For that reason we are covering the Dunkirk evacuation in this issue, and although it took place during the months of May and June we look at events that led up to Operation Dynamo and the retreat through France during May. Significant among the events which took place during May 1940 were the massacres at Wormhout and Paradis, France, which we mark with Peter Hart’s study of the terrible episode at Le Paradis. In contrast, and almost exactly five long years later, of course, Britain and her allies were able to celebrate VE Day and we take a look at that significant and memorable day. However, the widespread street parties and celebrations to mark the occasion were, perhaps, tempered with a certain element of constraint with the knowledge that the war was still being fought in the Far East where Japan remained undefeated. Of these Second World War anniversaries, the significant 70th and 75th commemorations are almost certainly the last major milestone commemorations where the events themselves remain in living memory. Then, they will have truly passed into history. Certainly, we do not intend that the magazine should be entirely anniversary driven in its content although we will continue to mark the anniversaries of significantly important events. Moving forward with features of that genre, one reader contacted us to point out that April next year sees the anniversary of the Battle of The Imjin River during the Korean War and we certainly see it as almost our duty to feature this important battle in what is an almost forgotten war. Meanwhile, we will continue to provide our readers with a balance of interesting features relating to all of Britain’s wars since 1914; land, sea and air. Commenting wryly on what he called ‘anniversary-itis’, one regular contributor to Britain at War said ‘History is not just for anniversaries, it is for life!’ We look forward to continuing in our delivery of Britain’s rich military history to our readers.

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.

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

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.

TH IAL EC UE DUNKIRK 75 ANNIVERSARY�BUMPER ISSUE ISS

SP

R

BRITAIN’S BEST SELLING MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY

SHELL SHOCK Astonishing 1917 Film Footage

75TH DUNKIRK ANNIVERSARY 1940-2015

DUNKIRK 24�PAGE�SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE SECTION THE DEADLY MENACE IN THE DEEP How Britain Tried to Fight the U-boats in the First World War

SECRET LONDON REVEALED The Tunnels that Helped Win the Second World War

FOUND: NEW PICTURES OF BATTLE OF BRITAIN HERO CRASH SITE

MAY 2015 ISSUE 97 £4.50

Spitfire N3200 of 19 Squadron, RAF Hornchurch, was damaged over Calais on 26 May 1940 and forced-landed on the beach at Sangatte, by Sqn Ldr G D Stephenson who was taken POW. The aircraft eventually sank into the sand but the wreck was salvaged in 1986. The remains were eventually obtained by American collector Thomas Kaplan and formed the basis for a reconstruction to flying condition in the UK. Based at Duxford the aircraft is now on the British civil aircraft register as G-CFGJ and featured in Channel 4's ‘Guy Martin’s Spitfire’. This image has been coloured from an original photograph in the collection of Peter Arnold.

www.britainatwar.com

3

Contents ISSUE 97 MAY 2015

FEATURES

88

22 VE-DAY

On the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe, we look back at the momentous events in London and elsewhere.

32 TIGER LEADER

New photographs emerge of the crash site of Battle of Britain Squadron Leader John Mungo-Park.

36 MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS

As part of our Dunkirk commemoration, we reveal, in the words of the men who survived, the terrible story of the mass murder of British soldiers by SS troops in May 1940.

32

36

44 SHELL SHOCK

Astonishing 1917 film footage reveals how a pioneering doctor attempted to cure what we would today call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

88 BAEDEKER RAIDS

The so-called Baedeker attacks were aimed by the Germans at Britain’s cultural centres. Steve Snelling describes what happened when Norwich was targeted.

4

www.britainatwar.com

132-PAGE SPECIAL ISSUE th 55 DUNKIRK 75 ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL 24-PAGE SECTION

We tell the story of Dunkirk with a series of unique vignettes highlighting the people, places and artefacts that sum up the bitter defeat that felt like the greatest of victories.

REGULARS 6 BRIEFING ROOM

Latest news and events for your diary.

20 FIELDPOST

Your letters, input and feedback.

80 FIRST WORLD WAR DIARY

Our guide to the Great War month-by-month reaches May 1915.

83 GREAT WAR GALLANTRY

Our monthly look at London Gazette citations, with another Hero of the Month from Lord Ashcroft.

98 RAF ON THE AIR

The harrowing story of a fateful ditching in heaving seas told by one who was there.

117 RECONNAISSANCE REPORT

Titles include Dunkirk histories as well as a definitive Indian Army work by a foremost expert.

130 THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN OBJECTS

Fanning deadly gas from the trenches? Yes, they tried it.

22

104

NEWS FEATURES 10 BATTLE OF BRITAIN

New wing for Capel-le-Ferne, and the sad passing of Sqn Ldr Michael Wainwright.

11 FRANCE REMEMBERS RAF

Two commemorations in different parts of France.

12 BERMONDSEY UXB

Huge bomb found, moved and safely destroyed.

15 CHANNEL ISLANDS WAR 104 FIGHTING THE U-BOATS

Meeting the underwater menace head-on in the 1914-18 conflict. British methods included everything from depth charges to a canvas bag with a hammer.

122 SECRET UNDERGROUND LONDON

It’s well known that Londoners took shelter from the Blitz in the London tube network. But few are aware of the many other uses to which London’s secret tunnels were put in the Second World War.

New discoveries on the island of Sark.

SMASHING THE HINDENBURG LINE 1918

THE LAST GREAT CAVALRY CHARGE 1918

Subscribe & Save!

A subscription to Britain at War offers great savings on cover price. See pages 102 and 103 for more details.

REAL LIFE IN STALAG

R

BRITAIN’S BEST SELLING MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY

XXB

HEROIC RIDE OF FLOWERDEW VC R

Eric Laidler POW 1940-45

The Chianti

BRITAIN’S BEST SELLING MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY

Raiders

WW2 NERVE CENTRE

GALLIPOLI 100

NAVAL DISASTER

Italian Air

‘Q’

Attacks on Britain

AUTUMN 1940

CENTRAL REVEALED Secret Home Counties Base

THE ONE THAT NEW PHOTOS FOUND

GOT AWAY

PLUS:

Korean War Memorial, Blitz, Leicester’s Defenceless at Auction, Dambuster Relics Biggin Hill Update, PLUS more of your History Local Military

AIRCRAFT OF A GERMAN POW ESCAPEE

CONVOY RESCUE SHIPS

EXPOSED: THE BOLD DO-OR-DIE VOYAGE OF RESISTANCE

1943: How The SS Stockport Faced the Atlantic U-Boat Peril

HMS DORIS

Shock Sections, Saboteurs In The British Countryside. 1915: One British Are They Fact orHow Fiction?

Gunboat Attacked

the Ottoman Empire LAST THROW OF THE LUFTWAFFE DICE

FEBRUARY 2015

ISSUE 94 £4.40

THE FIRST BIG PUSH OF WW1

Neuve Chapelle, March 1915: What Really Happened

LANCASTER HERO: BOMBER COMMAND’S LAST VC + SOE HEROINE SPEAKS+ THE RACE TO RANGOON 1945

www.britainatwar.com

5

MARCH 2015 ISSUE 95 £4.40

BRIEFING ROOM |

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

SS ‘Barn Hill’ Ceremony

FOLLOWING THE initiative led by Britain at War editor Andy Saunders (see March issue), a display board has been erected on the seafront at Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne, on the 75th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Barn Hill off Beachy Head and its grounding at Langney Point. The display panel was unveiled by the Mayor of Eastbourne, Cllr Janet Cole, in the presence of relatives of those who were involved in the ship’s loss including the next-of-kin of survivors and both RNLI and Fire Brigade rescuers. Representatives of the current Lifeboat crew and the Eastbourne Fire Service were also in attendance as a mark of respect. Funded by the RNLI heritage department and local Eastbourne organisations the display panel faces out over the wreck of the Barn Hill which is still visible at low tide near the harbour entrance. One of those in attendance was Margaret Addison, sister of 20-year old Seaman Roy James Oldman who was rescued from the SS Barn Hill in March 1940 but almost immediately detailed to join another ship, the SS Ashcrest, after his brief survivor’s leave. Unfortunately, and underlining the terrible toll of over 32,000 merchant seamen who were killed between 1939 and 1945,

Roy Oldman was lost when the Ashcrest was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland on 9 December 1940, inbound to Britain from Canada with war supplies. No trace of him was ever found, but he is commemorated by name on the CWGC Tower Hill Memorial, London. His sister, just three at the time, still remembers the dreaded wartime telegram that arrived just before Christmas telling the family that he was presumed drowned. Also in attendance was the son of one of the lifeboatmen who received an RNLI Bronze Medal and the daughter of one the Eastbourne firemen who ventured on to the red hot deck plating of the blazing Barn Hill to rescue survivors. Opening proceedings, the Eastbourne Lifeboat Operations Manager Paul Metcalf rang the salvaged bell from the Barn Hill (marked Canadian Challenger reflecting the vessel’s previous name) and rang it again to close the ceremony with the sound of Seven Bells and Eight Bells, respectively, chiming out across the water towards the wreckage protruding above the waves. It was this very bell that the Master, Captain Michael O’Neil, was ringing furiously by pulling on the lanyard with his teeth to attract attention as he lay helpless and badly injured on the deck.

ABOVE: The Mayor of Eastbourne, Cllr Janet Cole, led the ceremony with representatives from the RNLI.

6

www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: Seaman Roy Oldman, who survived the Barn Hill sinking but was lost later in the war. His sister attended the ceremony.

ABOVE: The salvaged bell, which reflects the vessel’s previous name before she became the Barn Hill.

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

| BRIEFING ROOM

I R E LA N D N E W S

Lusitania Wreck Site

ABOVE: 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’.

War Horse Trail

A NEW six-mile rural trail has been opened on the Isle of Wight, in recognition of the story informally dubbed, ‘The Real War Horse’ (see issue 95).The trail is dedicated to the life of ‘Galloper’ Jack Seely and his thoroughbred horse, ‘Warrior,’ who originally lived in the Isle of Wight and often followed the now-marked route before travelling to France to serve together in the First World War. It can be tackled on foot, bike or even on horseback where it eventually leads visitors to Carisbrooke Castle. There is also now an exhibition in the castle museum. Brough Scott MBE, grandson of General Seely said: ‘Having the Warrior statue in Carisbrooke Castle to help everyone

remember the Warrior story is great for our family, to now have the Warrior Trail for everyone to tread where he trod is even better.’

AU S T R A LI A N E WS

Mass Gallipoli Graves ‘Discovered’ AN AUSTRALIAN researcher claims to have discovered the site of an unmarked mass grave of Australian soldiers who died at the Battle of Krithia on Gallipoli in May 1915. Lambis Englezos, who was responsible for the Fromelles discoveries which has so far led to the identification of over 100 missing men, says a farm in the Turkish village of Kocadere should be investigated. (Editor’s note: Britain at War will return to this story in future issues.) ABOVE: Brigadier General Jack Seely, in the centre.

Female Volunteer Remembered A WAR memorial in the Rutland village of Braunston-in-Rutland has had the name inscribed of female air force volunteer, Gladys Walter after an absence of nearly 100 years. Local residents believe that her name was not included on the monument due to her gender. Ms. Walter enlisted in 1916, at the age of 18 where she served at an airbase near Grantham, Lincolnshire. She went on to join the newly established Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) in April

GREG BEMIS, 87, owner of the RMS Lusitania, has accused the Irish Government of failing to protect the wreck site and leaving it open to plunder by thieves and treasure hunters. He claims that this is due to the stringent conditions imposed on a proposed diving expedition to recover artefacts from the wreck site which he has now postponed. In 1995, following the recovery of items from the RMS Titanic, the Irish Government placed a Maritime Preservation Order on the wreck of the RMS Lusitania to avoid similar consequences. Bemis sought permission to recover the double-faced bridge telegraph which he says could record the last instruction from Captain William Turner to the engine room following the torpedo strike. He claims it may confirm whether the ship was set for ‘full steam ahead ’, this action therefore contributing to the vessel’s rapid demise by forcing water into the hole of the torpedo strike. Bemis also wanted to recover the triple chime steam whistle, the captain’s safe and silver spoons made to celebrate the war career of Lord Kitchener. Eoin McGarry, who has dived on the wreck more than anyone else, fears that some artefacts have already been removed illegally and maintains that officialdom is hampering the protection of the remaining items on the seabed.

1918 only to lose her life, due to pneumonia, on Armistice Day itself. Council Clerk, Carole Brown said, ‘It’s a shame but that’s how things were in those days. Women weren’t recognized… The whole village is behind it, we are all very proud it’s happening.’ The Parish Council funded the project with £120 to inscribe Ms. Walter’s name alongside the 14 other military personnel from the village who served and died in both world wars.

Aboriginal Memorial A NEW memorial sculpture has been unveiled in Sydney to commemorate the Aboriginal men and women who have served in the military since the Boer War. The striking monument features a series of 23-foot white-tipped bullets alongside three fallen shells of almost equal measure and was designed by Tony Albert, an Aboriginal artist whose father fought for Australia in World War II. He said, ‘It’s long overdue. It’s confronting. It might ruffle a few feathers but they are feathers that needed to be ruffled.’

Matilda Tank Found A MATILDA tank which took part in the Battle of Balikpapan, Borneo in the last days of the Second World War, has been discovered on a farm in New South Wales. Nicknamed ‘Ace’, the machine is one of three that were sold to farmers after the war, with the others all being destroyed. Restorers hope to have the tank fully mobile for the 70 th anniversary in July 2015.

www.britainatwar.com

7

BRIEFING ROOM |

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

PLACES TO VISIT

,

Imperial War Museums VE Day Memories

IWM would like everyone to join in marking the anniversary by sharing the VE Day memory you have been told or would like to tell and by posting a short story or picture to social media using #VEDayMemory From 1–11 May, IWM will be sharing VE Day memories, sound clips, photograph and archive materials through twitter, Facebook and at www.iwm.org.uk. 

1940s Events Day WHERE: IWM North Includes a tea dance and a talk on 1940s Manchester nightlife with Dave Haslam WHEN: Sunday 3 May

Exhibitions: Fashion on the Ration and a Family in Wartime WHERE: IWM London WHEN: Current

VE Day Anniversary Air Show WHERE: IWM Duxford WHEN: 23-24 May

,

Fighting History

,

With The Rifles to Waterloo

,

Courageous in Conflict

WHERE: Tate Britain WHEN: 9 June to 13 September 2015 The enduring significance and emotional power of British history painting through the ages. From the great, large scale 18th century history paintings by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) and Benjamin West (1738-1820) to 20th century and contemporary pieces by Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) and Jeremy Deller (b.1966), the exhibition will explore how artists have reacted to key historical events, and how they capture and interpret the past.

WHERE: Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum, Winchester, Hampshire WHEN: Current Outstanding opportunity to see the Waterloo battlefield up close without having to make the trip to Belgium, includes magnificently restored 25m² diorama. Details at www.rgjmuseum.co.uk

WHERE: Newhaven Fort, Sussex Military History Society WHEN: Saturday 23 May Charity event in aid of Combat Stress with five expert speakers giving their time free in discussing various aspects of the world wars. Tickets £15 to include tea, biscuits, refreshments. Details at www. sussexmilitary.org.uk

,

War Centenaries Exhibitions

WHERE: Blair Castle, Blair Atholl, Perthshire Highlands WHEN: Current Centenary exhibitions mark the Dardanelles, Waterloo and the Jacobite rising of 1715. At the Gallipoli exhibition, visitors will discover how the Scottish Horse Regiment, which was raised by the 7th Duke of Atholl, was commanded by his son, the Marquis of Tullibardine and future 8th Duke of Atholl. The regiment landed at Sulva Bay and led one of the most successful parts of the whole campaign in 1915. 

8

www.britainatwar.com

Dunkirk 75 Commemoration

Last Ditch Success For Steam Tug ‘Challenge’ MAY 2015 marks the 75th anniversary of the rescue of the British and French troops from Dunkirk. It will be marked by public events in Ramsgate and Dunkirk to support the Commemorative Cruise to Dunkirk by over 50 surviving Dunkirk Little Ships escorted by the Royal Navy and RNLI and covered by the world’s media. One brave survivor, the S/T Challenge, which faced a race against time to secure the necessary funding to allow her to take part in the Dunkirk anniversary events in May has been successful thanks to a mystery benefactor. S/T Challenge is the last operational Thames steam tug, having been built for the Elliot Steam Tug Co Ltd (Dick & Page) in 1931. She spent most of her working life in and around the Thames Estuary, the East Coast and the near Continent. Her ‘finest

hour’ came in May 1940 when she was requisitioned by the Admiralty along with a multitude of other ‘little ships’ to rescue over 300,000 British and French troops from the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk in the face of a massive onslaught by the Nazis. Her owners, the Dunkirk Little Ships Restoration Trust, needed funds to pay for the fuel and other costs; to this end they were actively engaged in trying to raise sponsorship in order to attend the Dunkirk celebrations and possibly move Challenge to another location. The unnamed benefactor has now ensured that S/T Challenge can take her rightful place in the anniversary flotilla, though her owners stress that she still relies on donations to keep going. For more information visit www.stchallenge.org

Dunkirk Schedule

THE BROAD schedule of the commemorative events to be staged in the district of Dunkirk itself have now been announced (nb: final times subject to confirmation). The War

and Peace Period Vehicle Display Team will be taking part.

THURSDAY 21 MAY (4-6pm): Arrival of the Little Ships at the end of the afternoon (subject to weather conditions). The little ships will be welcomed on the quay by the period vehicles of the War & Peace display team. FRIDAY 22 MAY (2:30pm): Commemorative ceremony at the British cemetery and memorial (route de Furnes) with display of vehicles at 5.45pm at the town hall.

SATURDAY 23 MAY (11am): Commemorative ceremony at the Allied memorial on the beach with at 3pm, a parade in the streets of Dunkirk including marching bands and the period military vehicles. SUNDAY 24 MAY (10am): Ceremony on Zuydcoote beach to honour the victims of the Crested Eagle, a paddle steamer sunk in 1940. The wreck can still be seen at low tide. MONDAY 25 MAY (MORNING): Departure of the Dunkirk Little Ships.

Philosophy Football F_P.indd 1

13/04/2015 10:03

NEWS FEATURE |

Memorials

ROYAL OPENING FOR BATTLE OF BRITAIN VISITOR CENTRE HER MAJESTY The Queen, accompanied by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, has officially opened the new National Memorial to The Few at Capel-le-Ferne, Kent, reports Geoff Simpson. The Queen unveiled the site’s new £3.5 million visitor and learning centre, The Wing. Veterans of the Battle were present as Her Majesty toured the building, constructed in the shape of a Spitfire wing, including the interactive Scramble Experience. a high tech, audio visual source of information about the aerial fighting of 1940. The Wing also features an area designed for use by schoolchildren undertaking educational projects, named the Geoffrey Page Centre, in honour of the Battle of Britain veteran who founded the National Memorial and the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust. From the Cockpit Cafe and balcony on the first floor visitors will be able to

look down on the Seated Airman sculpture, the centrepiece of the memorial site and, on clear days, be able to look across the English Channel to France. The National Memorial to The Few was opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1993. Features added in more recent years include the Christopher Foxley-Norris Memorial Wall, listing the aircrew who flew in the Battle of Britain.

ABOVE: The Wing, the new visitor centre at the National Memorial to The Few, Capel-le-Ferne, reproducing the shape of a Spitfire wing. LEFT: Flight Lieutenant Owen Burns and his wife Deborah are presented to The Queen at the opening of The Wing. Owen Burns is now 99. In 1940 he was a sergeant flying as a wireless operator/air gunner in Blenheims of No 235 Squadron. On the left is Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, President of the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust.

SQUADRON LEADER MICHAEL WAINWRIGHT AFC THE DEATH occurred on 23 March 2015 of Squadron Leader Michael Terry Wainwright, AFC, reports Geoff Simpson. He had flown Spitfires with 64 Squadron during the fighting over France and then in the Battle of Britain and survived to enjoy a long career in aviation after the war. Michael Wainwright was born on 15 March 1919 and attended St Paul’s School in London. He joined the Civil Air Guard in July 1936 and flew solo in September the same year. He joined the RAF on a short service commission and began his training in September 1937, receiving his wings in March 1938. He became a staff pilot at 2 Air Observer School, Acklington. Two days before the outbreak of war Pilot Officer Wainwright was posted to 72 Squadron, but the stay was brief and, on 4 September 1939, he moved across the airfield at Church Fenton to join 64 Squadron, exchanging Spitfires for Blenheims in the process.

10 www.britainatwar.com

In the spring of 1940 64 re-equipped with Spitfires. Over Dunkirk on 29 May 1940, Wainwright claimed a Bf 109 destroyed. He was promoted to Flying Officer on 27 June. At the end of 1940 Wainwright began a series of instructors’ appointments, before, in May 1944, going to Transport Command,

in a move that would shape his post-war career. He commanded the West African Communications Squadron with Dakotas and continued in the RAF until retirement in 1958 as a Squadron Leader. He became a civilian pilot and by 1990 had recorded 14,100 flying hours. LEFT: In later years Michael Wainwright was a regular attender at Battle of Britain commemorative events, including the annual Memorial Day at the National Memorial to The Few, Capel-le-Ferne.

Memorials

| NEWS FEATURE

FRENCH REMEMBER LOST RAF CREWS In two separate ceremonies in different parts of France local communities have come together to remember crews of two RAF bombers lost during the Second World War, report Chis Goss and Gonzague Carpentier.

THE FIRST commemoration involved an aircraft lost during a sortie to drop supplies to the French Resistance. On the night of 15-16 February 1944, Short Stirling EF271, EX-F, of 199 Sqn took off from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk to drop supply containers in the Dordogne region. The drop was apparently carried out without incident, but as the four-engine bomber started for home those on the ground could hear that it was in difficulties before it crashed and exploded near the village of Grun-Bordas to the south of Perigueux. The crew of seven were all killed. They were Flt Sgt (promoted to Plt Off after his death) Kevin Robinson (Pilot), Sgt Reg Williams (Engineer), Sgt Ron Stubbings (Navigator), Sgt Gerrard Caine (Bomb Aimer), Flt Sgt Henry Lambourne (Wireless Operator), Plt Off James Jackson (Mid-Upper Gunner) and Sgt Arnold Whimpenney (Rear Gunner). The pilot and mid-upper gunner were both Australian, the remainder British; the oldest crew member was 28 years old, the youngest just 20. Apparently, the Germans initially buried the remains in Perigueux as three American aircrew and after the war their bodies were moved to the American Military Cemetery at Draguignan, further south. However, investigations at the crash site proved the aircraft was British and eventually the pieces of the puzzle were assembled allowing the authorities to conclude that the airmen had been mis-identified. Ultimately, all the crew were identified and re-interred at Mazargues Cemetery, Marseilles. The village of Grun-Bordas felt strongly connected to the event that led to the deaths of these seven young men and as a result their names were inscribed on the village war

The memorial at Grun-Bordas.

A typical Stirling crew. (D HASKELL)

memorial and each year a ceremony is held to honour their deaths. This is led by local French service veterans and this year the Sud-Ouest Branch of the Royal Air Forces Association was invited to attend. Two wreaths were laid, one on behalf of the Association by Pamela Curtis-Jones, the other on behalf of the RAF and the Defence Attaché in Paris by David Clifton. In an aside, John Reid, a member of the Association living in France, had attended the ceremony last year and discovered that Bomb Aimer Gerrard Caine was from his home town of Barrow in Furness. An article in the Barrow newspaper put him in contact with Gerrard’s sister and nephew, and he was able to read out a message from them thanking the villagers for their dedication and for the annual remembrance ceremony. The commitment of communities across France to honour allied airmen lost over the country is not unique to Grun-Bordas. One year after the Grun-Bordas incident, on 14 February 1945 at 8:37 pm, Lancaster LM725, KO-X, of 115 Squadron, piloted by Fg Off Slogrove took off from RAF Witchford in Cambridgeshire. Its target was Chemnitz in Germany, and although the bomber reached its objective it was destined never to return home. On the return trip the crew had contacted the airfield at Prouvy (8km West of Valenciennes) informing them that, for reasons unknown, two of the engines had stopped and the pilot was asking to land as a matter of urgency. It is thought that the crew were unable to find the base because a thick fog covering the region at that time and

at.about 01:00 hours on 15 February the aircraft crashed between Wallers and Haveluy. On the 70th anniversary of the crash a ceremony took place in the cemetery of Haveluy at the initiative of the Veterans FrancoBritish Association (Facebook: AFBAC-NordPasde-Calais ) and the municipality of Haveluy where the crew was buried in 1946. Next year, on 14 February 2016, a ceremony will take place on the 70th anniversary of the burial. At that time, it is hoped that representatives of the British Embassy in Paris and a contingent from the RAF will be in attendance, and the people of Haveluy have made it clear that they would like to continue with an annual honouring of these men. These two separate events commemorations in France demonstrate the deep seated feelings in many French communities towards allied airmen and soldiers who gave their all in the liberation of the country.

The commemorations at Haveluy. (LAURE EBERSBERGER)

www.britainatwar.com 11

NEWS FEATURE |

Bermondsey Bomb

An unexploded Second World War bomb found in Bermondsey was taken to Kent and destroyed by bomb disposal experts, reports Mark Khan. A GERMAN 250kg SC 250 high explosive bomb was discovered on 25 March as a result of construction work near Grange Walk in Bermondsey, South-East London. Bomb disposal teams from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Royal Logistic Corps and 101 (City of London) Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Royal Engineers worked to safely defuse the bomb. The Royal Engineers were also responsible for building an earth-filled Hesco bastion, which, had the bomb detonated whilst in situ, would have absorbed some of the blast. This allowed the safety cordon around the site to be reduced. The fuze, which needed to be made safe before the bomb itself could be moved, was situated underneath the bomb and was

ABOVE: Pictured in 1940, the crew of a Dornier 17-Z pose with a 250kg bomb of the type found at Bermondsey. (CHRIS GOSS) BELOW: The moment the bomb was detonated, which could be heard ten miles away. (© CROWN COPYRIGHT 2015)

12 www.britainatwar.com

therefore difficult to access. The disposal teams worked through the night in difficult conditions and finally rendered the device safe to move away under police escort. It was eventually moved to a safe location in Kent and destroyed. Although the bomb was buried in a blast pit, and covered in sand to minimise the explosion, the blast was significant and there were reports that it could be heard over ten miles away. Senior Ammunition Technician John Lester QGM from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Royal Logistics Corps was in charge of the operation. He said: ‘This bomb was a live munition in a dangerous condition. It had been disturbed by some pretty heavy building machinery, which is never a good thing. Bombs don’t like being bashed around. But once we’d uncovered it we knew what we were dealing with and it was just a question of solving the puzzle quickly so we could get it away and the good residents of Bermondsey back in their homes. ‘We knew we had to get it away to dispose of it safely because trying to deal onsite with a bomb that size, even under a controlled explosion would cause significant damage to buildings, property and the risk of major loss of life in such a highly populated part of the city was

very high. We transported the bomb to its final disposal site in Cliffe, near Rochester and it was destroyed at 9am.’ Official records specifically state that during night bombing between 7 Oct 1940 and 6 June 1941 previous bomb plots were recorded in Grange Walk and nearby Maltby Street and Radcliffe Road. The contamination hazard posed by unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the London area continues to be very real. A report carried out for Transport For London in 2011 concluded that ‘across London an average of 84 bombs, which failed to explode, fell on civilian targets every day between 21st September 1940 and 5th July 1941. Most of the unexploded bombs (UXBs) were dealt with by Army Bomb Disposal Services during the war however a proportion did penetrate the ground unnoticed, only to be encountered many years later’. Although in the UK there have been no fatalities from unexploded bombs on the continent this is not the case. In recent decades there have been several incidents in Europe where Allied UXBs have detonated with at least three incidents causing fatalities. Data from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal industry show that from 2006 to 2009 approximately 15,000 items of ordnance of different types have been found on building sites.

Military collectables bought and sold

SINGLE ITEMS & COLLECTIONS WANTED

BEST CASH PRICES PAID

nt e r e f f i ‘In a d 1990’ - AT No.10 DOWNING STREET, Prime Minister Thatcher urges the Americans to continue the war... - IN THE NORTH SEA, HMS Tenacious hunts Soviet subs... - IN NORWAY, the SAS mounts a daring commando raid on a Soviet held airbase... - IN GERMANY, the British Army of the Rhine fights a massive armoured battle... It’s two minutes to midnight in World War 1990: Operation Arctic Storm

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]

Jersey Tourism F_P.indd 1

25/03/2015 10:02

Conflict Archaeology

| NEWS FEATURE

With the winter months preventing the growth of brambles and weeds, there was an ideal opportunity for one family to re-discover a fascinating part of Sark’s rich Second World War history, reports Simon Hamon. THOUGH PART of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, Sark, with a population of just a few hundred and little more than two square miles in extent, has always been fiercely independent. The initial occupying German force on 3 July — following the invasions of Jersey and Guernsey — consisted of just three officers, who were greeted by the hereditary, feudal ruler of the island. The following day, ten German infantrymen, led by a Feldwebel Hans Hamm, came ashore on Sark — a moment described by historian Michael Marshall: ‘Shouting raucously at his ten infantrymen, [Hamm] came ashore, marched up Harbour Hill and installed his contingent in the comfortable Bel Air Hotel. Soon they commandeered a flagpole which they fastened to the railings outside the hotel. The swastika was run-up.’

OPERATION BASALT

In the early months of the Occupation there was little construction of fixed defences by the Germans on Sark. That situation, however, changed following the events of the night of

3/4 October 1942. Commanded by Major J. Appleyard, DSO, MC, and operating under the codename of Operation Basalt, a small force of ten men drawn from the Small Scale Raiding Force and No.12 Commando landed on the Hog’s Back on Sark with the objective of conducting an offensive reconnaissance and capturing prisoners. During the raid a German sentry was stabbed near the Dixcart Hotel and four prisoners were captured. Initially held in the Dixcart Annexe with their hands bound, two of the captives were shot escaping, one escaped whilst naked and the fourth was taken back to the UK. As a result of this apparent breach of Sark’s defences, the Inselkommandant (Island Commandant), Oberleutnant Heinz Herdt, was court martialled for failing to protect the billets of the German garrison. On 8 October the same year an interim Inselkommandant, Oberleutnant Knauf of Infantry Regiment 583, arrived on Sark. He immediately oversaw significant improvements in the defences on Sark. It was at this time that a field gun emplacement was constructed on land owned by the Adams family.

ABOVE: The emplacement at La Valette de Haut pictured prior to the recent clearance work. (COURTESY OF RICHARD DEWE)

This emplacement has always been known about by the family; their house had been commandeered by the Germans and they could not return until the end of the war. Known as La Valette de Haut, the Adams family’s parcel of land is in fact the only parcel of land on Sark never to have been sold, having remained in the hands of the same family since 1565 when it was first acquired. Taking advantage of the winter season, it was at the end of December 2014 that the Adams chose to uncover the wartime gun position on their land.  www.britainatwar.com 15

NEWS FEATURE |

Conflict Archaeology

ABOVE: Clearing some of the dense vegetation that had consumed the gun emplacement in the years since 1945. (COURTESY OF KEVIN ADAMS)

AN UNUSUAL SURVIVOR

ABOVE: This image appears to show the name JANTON — was this the name of the gun position? (COURTESY OF KEVIN ADAMS)

SARK’S GERMAN GARRISON

A surviving German report dated 18 October 1942, reveals that the German garrison on Sark at that time comprised four officers, one medical officer, and 37 NCOs and other ranks. They were supported by personnel of the Verstärkter Grenzaufsichtsdienst (The Reinforced Border Control Service), a new grouping of all German frontier organizations under single control – including customs and passport officials, currency control agents, military police, and Security Service. For its part, the Kriegsmarine maintained a harbour unit, the strength of which comprised one NCO and three naval ratings. This garrison of 53 men had access to the following weapons: 23 MG 34 machine-guns, one captured Dutch Army light machine-gun, 21 MP 40s (Maschinenpistole 40 submachine-guns), four German 5cm light mortars, three ex-French Army 5cm light mortars, two German 8cm heavy mortars, one rifle grenade launcher, three antitank rifles, a single 37mm PaK 36 anti-tank gun, three self-propelled 4.7cm anti-tank guns, a pair of 5cm anti-tank guns, one 10.5cm K331(f) field gun, three medium flame-throwers, one light flame-thrower, twelve defence flame-throwers, 3,320 hand grenades and 42 anti-tank mines for quick blocking. Following Basalt, work was also carried out to extend and improve the minefields on Sark, while demolition charges were placed around the harbour and harbour tunnel areas. Mined beach obstacles and other barricades were also deployed. The final recommendation made at the time of the October 1942 report was that an officer of at least Hauptmann (Captain) rank should take command of the island and continue to oversee the defence improvements.

16 www.britainatwar.com

The field gun position constructed on La Valette de Haut was for intended for a French Schneider Canon de 105 mle 1913. Known in the French Army as an L13 S (the S standing for Schneider), these captured artillery pieces were designated by the Germans as the 10.5cm K331(f). With a range of 5.1 miles and a rate of fire of four rounds a minute, these field guns were in service with the French, Belgian and Polish armies and were captured in relatively large numbers during the Blitzkrieg and fall of France. Over 100 were subsequently sent to the Channel Islands, most of which were fitted on a fortress mounting and placed inside reinforced concrete bunkers that formed part of various beach defence schemes. That said, some were kept mobile on their original wooden wheels, whilst others were mounted on temporary fixed positions but in such a manner that they could be moved quickly should the need arise to deploy them elsewhere. The emplacement on the Adams’ land, which overlooks Masline Bay, is an example of the latter temporary fixed position, the gun itself primarily intended to engage sea targets. The field gun was mounted on a large wooden turntable, which acted as a central pivot. With the gun’s wheels clamped to the turntable, the trail was lifted manually by the crew or slid around on steel plates to bring it to bear on any given target. These temporary positions were always constructed to allow a 360° field of fire. While such emplacements in the Channel Islands were usually built completely from concrete, the Adams’ example was, probably due to difficulties in obtaining sufficient raw materials, partially laid out with granite cobblestones. Surviving examples of this method of construction are rare as such sites were often plundered after the war, the stones being used in local gardens or buildings. Although some of the granite cobblestones at La Valette de Haut have been removed in the past, the majority have remained in situ as it was allowed to

become overgrown and covered for the majority of the past 70 years. It is, therefore, an unusual example of German Second World War defences — it is known that a second identical position was constructed nearby at Les Laches in 1943, but it is believed the cobbles have all been removed. A view of the gun race in which the spade on the trail would have been moved around. (COURTESY OF RICHARD DEWE)

The remains of one of the corrugated iron shelters that run off from the main part of the gun emplacement. (COURTESY OF KEVIN ADAMS)

Conflict Archaeology

| NEWS FEATURE

ABOVE & BELOW: A 10.5cm K331(f) gun pictured in a similar open position on Guernsey. (COURTESY OF

THE GERMAN OCCUPATION MUSEUM, VIA RICHARD HEAUME)

The emplacement at La Valette de Haut would normally have had an earth or sandbagged wall at the edge of the larger circle of cobbles to protect the gun crew. It was originally surrounded by a barbed wire enclosure and was protected from attack from the cliffs by a minefield. This

gun position, as well as that at Les Laches, was part of a harbour blockade battery. The harbour on Sark was then, and still is, the only place on the island where vehicles could be landed and so necessarily the defences were stronger on this side of the island. As part of the recent work to re-expose the structure, the site was cleared of vegetation. This revealed traces of two entrances into the gun pit and, off to the side, two corrugated shelters. Of the latter, one was probably used for the crew and the other for the ready ammunition store. The shelters are in a very bad state of repair, having been buried for so long and are beyond

reasonable salvage. The gun ring, however, is in relatively good condition, with just a few cobbles missing and a few displaced where roots have pushed them out of place. Once these have been set back in place, the Adams family hope to open the emplacement as a heritage site later in 2015 to mark the 70th anniversary of Sark’s liberation from German occupation. Acknowledgement: The author would like to extend his thanks to Kevin Adams and family, Richard Dewe, Mark Lamerton and Richard Heaume for their help with this article.

ABOVE & BELOW: A gun crew at work on a 10.5cm K331(f) gun during the occupation of Guernsey. (COURTESY OF THE GERMAN OCCUPATION

MUSEUM, VIA RICHARD HEAUME)

ABOVE: An identical gun to that which would have been mounted on the turntable at La Valette de Haut, pictured at Les Cotils on Guernsey. (GERMAN OCCUPATION MUSEUM, VIA RICHARD HEAUME)

www.britainatwar.com 17

WARTIME EVENTS

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

WARTIME EVENTS Winstan

Living History is part of Newark Air Museum events in 2015 Saturday 16th & Sunday 17th May TRIBUTE TO OUR TRAINING AIRCRAFT Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th June COCKPIT-FEST & AEROBOOT Saturday 25th & Sunday 26th July VICTORY DAYS

Tel: 01636 707170 www.newarkairmuseum.org Follow us on Twitter: @NewarkAirMus

Registered Charity No. 256434

A tribute to our great wartime leader Winston Churchill. Now booking for public, private and corporate events throughout 2015.

www.winstan.co.uk

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]

LETTER OF THE MONTH

What Became of ‘Paddy’ Finucane? SIR - Your feature on the RAF fighter pilot ‘ace’, Wg Cdr Brendan ‘Paddy’ Finucane, (RAF On The Air, April issue) raises some very interesting points. First, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the references made by ‘Bluey’ Truscott as to his being unable to make out whether or not Finucane was tightening or perhaps undoing his straps before his Spitfire went into the sea. Of course, one might imagine that any fighter pilot in this predicament would be tightening his straps against the impending impact with the sea. But that isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, there are recorded instances of a number of RAF fighter pilots choosing to undo their straps, including releasing the parachute harness, in order to facilitate a hasty exit. Fighter aircraft of the day were known to often sink very quickly, and precious time taken in fumbling with harness straps and the risk of being dragged down by the parachute seat pack were factors that had to be taken into account. Thus, fighter pilots were faced with a conundrum; tighten the straps against impact or release them and hope not to do yourself too much damage on getting flung forward against the gun sight. Often, they chose the latter. A case in point was Sgt Jack Potter of 19

Sqn who put his Spitfire into the sea during May 1940 and chose to release his straps beforehand. Thrown into the sight, the impact cut his face and smashed his goggles, although he was able quickly to exit his Spitfire which sank like a stone beneath him. He considered that it saved his life. However, we will never know what happened to ‘Paddy’ before, during or after impact. All that we know is that he certainly died and his body was never found. Or was it? According to a local ARP Incident Report the body of an unidentified RAF pilot was washed ashore at Worthing and found at 11.20 hrs on the morning of Thursday 8 September 1942, a little over a month since he vanished into the sea off the French coast. The body was found directly opposite the end of Ham Road, to the east of Worthing Pier, and the written report states: ‘Body of RAF pilot washed ashore. No means of identification yet found. Body on mined beach. Revolver has the words ‘Paddy and Doris’. Tunic has three medal ribbons with two bars. Passed to RAF Tangmere’ What is striking about this report, of course, are the names apparently engraved on the service revolver and the presence of three [sic.] medal ribbons ‘with two bars’. bars’

ABOVE: Wg Cdr Brendan ‘Paddy’ Finucane on the right.

Whilst it is difficult to fathom what the third ribbon might have been, Finucane was the recipient of the DFC and the DSO. Not only that, he had two bars to his DFC. What are the chances, then, of a pilot being washed ashore in this sea area, with two bars to a gallantry medal, and having a revolver with the name Paddy marked on it? Certainly, it has to be a remarkable coincidence. However, can any connection with ‘Paddy’ Finucane be made to a person called ‘Doris’? And what became of the body, anyway? There seem to be no burials at Tangmere that might tie in, and the RAF Tangmere Operations Record Book makes no mention of the event whatsoever. Neither do the records of the undertaker contracted to deal with local RAF burials mention it either. And there are no local burials of unidentified RAF airmen who might be tied to this discovery at Worthing. Obviously the body was

buried somewhere. But where? A possibility has to be that the body was subsequently identified as somebody else and subsequently buried, away from the district, and as that named individual. But who? Whatever the truth of the matter, it is an inescapable fact that this unknown pilot’s body carried what might be considered to be interesting circumstantial evidence. It is easy to make facts fit the circumstances, and yet…! Could it have been ‘Paddy’ Finucane? And could he be buried somewhere or other in SE England as an unknown RAF pilot? Perhaps readers can shed some light and help us track a burial, either named or otherwise, that might tie in to this grim discovery on Worthing beach. Is there a link to ‘Paddy’ Finucane’s disappearance on the other side of the English Channel just a matter of weeks earlier? G E Linklater, 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 20 www.britainatwar.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]

The One That Got Away

SIR - In your March issue you carried a most interesting feature on the Messerschmitt 109 of Oblt Franz von Werra – ‘The One That Got Away’. In that feature you made reference to the two Me 109s brought down in France on the morning of Wednesday 22 November 1939, one flown by Fw Karl Hier and the other by Lt Heinrich Schulz, both of JG76. While you carried photographs of Hier’s machine, and although you mentioned that Schulz’s aircraft was later exhibited in the Place de la Concorde and on the

Champs-Elysées you otherwise did not have a photograph of it. I thought your readers might be interested to see one. This photograph in my private collection depicts Lt Schulz’s 3./ JG76 aircraft after it had come to grief in a heavy forced-landing at Remeling-les-Puttelange following an engagement with French fighters when it suffered heavy damage to its port wing and fuselage. Just another part of the story in your excellent article. G Christopher, Worcester. By email.

ABOVE: The Me 109 of Lt Heinrich Schulz after a forced landing at Remeling-les-Puttelange, France.

D-Day Collision: Perspex Puzzle?

SIR - I read with interest your piece on the D-Day collision over Sussex (April issue). As a young boy I lived quite local to the Ashburnham crash site and used to explore there with my brother at weekends and in the summer holidays during the 1960s and 70s when it became quite a game hiding from estate staff. It wasn’t too difficult in the lush undergrowth, and the thick cover of Rhodedendron bushes generally served us well and kept us out of sight. It was probably just as well because we used to leave there with armfuls of trophies including, on one occasion, a long belt of .50 ammunition. On getting home with it, father threw the belt into an unwitting neighbour’s ornamental pond once night had fallen! As your piece explained, the woods were still littered with

debris from the crash, including some huge pieces of airframe that were literally hanging in the high branches round about. Most of our finds are long gone, but the crater itself was water filled and it was from here that I fished out a large piece of Perspex which I kept because I was intrigued by the numbers that had been crudely scratched onto it: R + H 0687 - # 1329 – 38144 Could these have been scratched there by one of the crew as a reminder of some crucial detail like radio codes, co-ordinates or the like? Or does it relate to something dating from the manufacture of the B-26? Can anybody throw any light? I have attached a photograph for your reader’s interest. James H Goodsell, St Albans. By email

Nicolson VC: Pilot Officer King

SIR - Your recent piece on James Nicolson VC, and subsequent letters in the Fieldpost pages, made no reference to Plt Off M A King of 249 Sqn who was shot down and killed on 16 August 1940 in the same action during which Nicolson won his VC in ‘an engagement with Me 109s’. Interestingly, there have always been suggestions that King was

also shot at from the ground and that this caused his death when his parachute collapsed after being hit by gunfire. However, the RAF casualty report into his loss (recently released from the National Archives, Kew) gives Nicolson’s own version when, in 1941, he wrote that he had been told that King’s parachute had fouled a barrage balloon cable causing it to collapse. On the other hand, he

said, he was also told that one or two bullets, presumably German, had punctured King’s parachute pack causing it to finally collapse at 2,000ft. Interestingly, he also added that he had received reports that he himself had been attacked twice in his parachute by German aircraft on 16 August 1940 and states that although he heard fighter aircraft in his descent he wasn’t in a position to verify the

accuracy of the accounts. As to Plt Off King, a further report from his CO, Sqn Ldr John Grandy, confirms that examination of the parachute showed evidence of a bullet, bullets or metal fragments passing through the pack before the ‘chute was opened. It seems to be the case that the official record throws up more questions than answers in the whole matter of the Nicolson VC action. James Driver, Falmouth. By email

www.britainatwar.com 21

VICTORY IN EUROPE VE-Day 70th Anniversary In the early hours of 7 May 1945, General Jodl signed the document that marked the end of the most destructive war Europe had ever known. The following day the announcement was made to the world and the parties began. Yet, amid the celebrations there was anxiety about what lay ahead for the nation.

70

08.05.1945 08.05.2015

22 www.britainatwar.com

ICTORY

RY IN EUROPE T A group of soldiers and civilians celebrate Victory in Europe, by posing on a Bren gun carrier in the high street of a Scottish town or village, 8 May 1945. (ALL IMAGES HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE STATED)

HE EXCITEMENT had been mounting throughout the morning of Monday, 7 May 1945. The people waited in frustrated anticipation for the official announcement. ‘Germany’s Surrender Imminent’ ran the headlines of that day’s Daily Express, fuelling the drama. ‘It May Be Today’ declared the Daily Mail. Would the Germans really surrender? Was there still more fighting to be done? Would the killing never stop? Such concerns were swept aside as the day progressed and increasingly people began to believe that the war in Europe was really over: ‘Tens of thousands of Londoners and others were determined to celebrate the occasion, and there were remarkable scenes at Piccadilly Circus,’ wrote one reporter for The Times the following day. ‘Civilians and service men and women thronged the road and pavements, carrying flags and wearing paper hats. Cheering demonstrators climbed to the roofs of buses; the only people the crowd would make way for were lines of shouting, singing girls arm-in-arm with service men waving flags and yelling at the top of their voices. Cars trying to press though the crowds emerged with dozens of men and women clinging to the bonnets, the sides, and the back, and others standing on top trying to wave flags and hang on at the same time. ‘A procession about a mile long, including students of the London University carrying a large flag, marched up and down the Strand last night, and then through the Admiralty Arch down the Mall to Buckingham Palace. It was a cosmopolitan crowd, including many representatives of the Allied nations, with flags, rattles, and hooters. There were singing and dancing, and outside the Palace several times voices were raised, shouting “We want the King.” ‘Large bonfires ringed London during the night, and most public buildings were floodlit. Tugs, motorboats, and other small craft raced up and down the Thames, sounding their sirens and blowing their hooters. Now and again an aeroplane flew low over the city, showing its navigation lights. In some places fireworks and rockets were sent up.  www.britainatwar.com 23

VICTORY IN EUROPE VE-Day 70th Anniversary ‘When cars came to traffic lights which were red they sounded the V sign on their hooters. Before the daytime crowd in Whitehall dispersed it was able to cheer Mr. Churchill when he left No.10, Downing Street, after a Cabinet meeting. Mr. Churchill raised his hat and gave the V sign. A dozen police officers tried hard to clear a passage for the car, but it was some minutes before the driver could steer it through the cheering, excited throng. ‘At Poplar ships’ sirens celebrated the end of the war by hooting for two hours. Large bonfires were lit on bombed sites and in the middle of the streets. Flags of every Allied nation appeared in nearly every district of London yesterday afternoon, and were particularly in evidence in the most badly bombed suburbs. In many streets the Coronation flags had been saved and brought out again. There were food queues in many parts of London yesterday evening, especially outside bakers’ shops. Towards 6 o’clock, as the news of surrender was spreading rapidly, three Lancasters flew low over London dropping red and green lights.’

HITLER’S WEREWOLVES It was a different story in Germany where the actor David Niven was an officer with the Rifle Brigade. ‘By May 8th, the war in Europe was officially over,’ he recalled, ‘but people were still being killed and Hitler’s werewolves were still hopefully stretching piano

wire at head height from trees on either side of the roads. To avoid decapitation, the wiser jeeps now carried sharpened iron stanchions welded to their radiators.’ Britain had suffered terribly during the war but much of Europe was utterly devastated. ‘The routes west out of Germany were becoming clogged with an estimated eight million homeward bound displaced persons pushing their pathetic belongings on bicycles or dragging them in little home-made carts,’ continued Niven. ‘One became hardened to the sight of people lying under trees or in ditches too exhausted or too hungry to take another step.’ Though the parties had already begun across the UK, there was little rejoicing amidst the ruins of the Third Reich. ‘The sight of the

bedraggled remnants of the defeated German Army slowly trudging towards our line of lorries was terrible,’ commented Nancy Wilson, a Red Cross Welfare worker on her way to Lüneburg. ‘They had been disarmed and told to get home as best they could. Stumbling past, limping, bandaged, some supported by their comrades, totally broken and beaten. A terrible and amazing sight reminding me of the painting of the French Retreat from Moscow in 1812. I thought, this is history again, going by our transport windows.’1

NEAR LEFT: HM King George VI and Queen Elizabeth with Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret are joined by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, London on VE Day. The King was kept busy by the crowd outside Buckingham Palace who repeatedly requested his return to the balcony to receive their accolades. Even his own daughters, escorted by Palace guards, mingled in the crowd and joined in the shouting for the King.

ABOVE: Information regarding the German surrender is taken in by four US Army MPs as they read the news in a copy of Stars and Stripes. Such was the demand for copies of the newspaper, that even the presses of The Times in London were put to work, at 21.00 hours on 7 May 1945, to help produce copies of this special edition which was put out to announce the news of Germany’s surrender. The headline reads “Nazis Quit”. (US ARMY PHOTOGRAPH)

LEFT: A general scene in Whitehall on VE Day, 8 May 1945, shortly after the German surrender. Cheers greeted the appearance of Churchill and members of his Cabinet on the balcony. The crowd of thousands stretches down to the Cenotaph.

24 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: The document that ended the war in Europe, the unconditional German surrender, is signed at the headquarters of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force at Reims (which was a small schoolhouse), France, at 02.41 hours on 7 May 1945. Under the instrument of surrender all German armed forces were bound to lay down their arms on all fronts. Signing the surrender is General Alfred Jodl, the Chief of the Operations Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces High Command). To his left is Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg and on his right is Major Wilhelm Oxenius of the German General Staff. On the extreme left is Colonel Ivan Zenkovitch, aide to Major General of Artillery Ivan Susloparoff who signed the document on behalf of the Soviet High Command. RIGHT: This edition of The Bull’s Head was produced on 8 May 1945, and informs the men of the 79 Armoured Division of the events surrounding VE Day. It contained a warning for the men. ‘It may be hours, if not days’, one correspondent noted, ‘before the order to lay down their arms can reach every German soldier. The radio transmitters still left in German hands are so feeble that they do not carry very far. The same is true of German military signals. Communications inside Germany are in bad shape.’ (JON MILLS)

In Kiel, the 6th Guards Armoured Brigade had been ordered to make a show of ‘armoured might’ to deter any Kreigsmarine personnel in the area from thinking about offering any form of resistance. During the previous 24 hours a number of Germans had been press-ganged into cleaning all the tanks of the Coldstream Guards who were to drive into the city, while others had been made to fill in bomb craters and clear away rubble along the route. ‘At 1.30 the leading vehicles started to enter Kiel,’ recalled one witness. ‘The tanks glistened in the sunshine and the colour fastened to the Commanding Officer’s aerial fluttered in the breeze. Slowly and majestically the long column wended its way through the town, the German police saluting as the officers drove by. By 2 o’clock the procession had reached the northern end of town and the expressions on the faces of the German civilians and sailors who were watching left in no doubt that it had achieved its object. There would be no trouble in Kiel.’

THE ANNOUNCEMENT Back in the UK everyone was waiting for the official announcement to be made. All they knew was that at 15.00 hours on 8 May 1945, the prime minister would make a statement and that the 8th and 9th would be public holidays. John Lowry described that day to his parents: ‘We went down to the Palace where a crowd was beginning to form. By 12 noon there were thousands of people present. We got lunch free (we were in uniform) at a Lyons Corner House just off Piccadilly Circus. From there we walked, or rather pushed our way down to Parliament Square. By that time there must have been hundreds of thousands of people blocking all roads and squares. Flags were flying everywhere, thousands of them. We waited beside the House of Commons from 2.30 p.m.’ Harold Nicolson MP decided not to go into Westminster Palace Yard preferring to listen to Churchill’s speech through the loudspeakers that had been set up. He noted that

as the moment arrived ‘there was an extraordinary hush over the assembled multitude’. Likewise around the country, as the clock ticked towards 15.00 hours, crowds gathered around wireless sets across the country in breathless anticipation.  www.britainatwar.com 25

VICTORY IN EUROPE VE-Day 70th Anniversary

Then, as the chimes of Big Ben receded, the deep tones of a familiar voice drifted across the airwaves: ‘Yesterday at 2.41 a.m. at General Eisenhower’s headquarters, General Jodl, representative of the German High Command, and Admiral Doenitz, designated head of the German state, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea and air forces, in Europe, to the Allied Expeditionary Force and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command.’ After summarising the war and praising Britain’s allies, Churchill went on to remind everyone that the war was far from over. ‘We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing, but let us not forget for a moment the toils and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains RIGHT: The front page and centre spread of a programme highlighting some of the VE Day victory celebrations held in London on 8, 9 and 10 May 1945. Described as an illuminations souvenir, the second page contains details of Winston Churchill’s announcement, the third page a list of the prominent buildings that were illuminated, as well as information on a searchlight display, whilst the rear page contains a message from the Archbishop of Canterbury (who was the Archbishop of London during the Blitz).

26 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: Winston Churchill is mobbed by jubilant crowds in Whitehall on VE Day, 8 May 1945. ABOVE RIGHT: Crowds gathering in London on VE Day. The original caption states that ‘they knew they would have to fight and scramble and stand for hours to catch a glimpse of the King or “Winnie” but they were undaunted. Here, in Parliament Square, under the shadow of Big Ben, a flag vendor does a bustling trade.’

unsubdued. The injustice she has inflicted upon Great Britain and the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task both at home and abroad.’ Despite the dampening effect Churchill’s concluding words must have had, such considerations could be put aside for a couple of days. For now, it was time to party.

BLOWING WHISTLES, WAVING FLAGS People rushed down to the centre of London where they knew the crowds would be gathering that evening. ‘This is IT – and we are all going nuts!’ wrote a reporter from the Daily Mirror. ‘There are thousands of us in Piccadilly Circus.

The police say more than 10,000 – and that’s a conservative estimate.’ A woman living just behind St Martin-in-the-Fields was amazed by the noise outside in nearby Trafalgar Square. To her it was a surge of sound, of a great crowd of people singing and cheering: ‘I rushed down to Trafalgar Square, with my torch. There, an astonishing sight was vaguely visible in the darkness. The whole square was filled with people. One could just see groups of men and women, their arms linked together, whirling round and round. Others leapt about on their own in their irrepressible relief.’ Some vehicles tried to force their way through the crowds only to emerge with civilians, and servicemen and women clinging to their running boards. Most men, of course, were

LEFT: A double-decker bus slowly pushes its way through the huge crowds gathered in Whitehall to hear Churchill’s victory speech and celebrate VE Day. The crowd is a mix of service personnel, civilians and children. Behind the bus, people line the balconies of the buildings along the street. Loudspeakers can be seen affixed to the side of the building in the background. Churchill’s speech, which began at 15.00 hours, was relayed through these speakers to the gathered crowds. It was also broadcast on radio. In his speech, Churchill stated: ‘Yesterday at 2.41 a.m. at General Eisenhower’s headquarters, General Jodl, representative of the German High Command and Admiral Doenitz, designated head of the German state, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea and air forces in Europe … The German war is therefore at an end.’ With these words a great cheer went up spontaneously in homes, streets and squares all around the nation.

in uniform of some description. ‘The Canadians were noisy, the sailors merry, the airmen drunk (or pretended to be) and the Yanks had a girl each!’2 ‘Crowds were gathering’, wrote Elizabeth Layton, Winston Churchill’s secretary, ‘wearing silly paper hats and blowing whistles and waving flags – throwing confetti, playing banjos and mouth organs, banging cymbals and carefree.’ A London housewife cried when she heard Churchill’s announcement: ‘I can’t grasp the fact that it’s all over. We’ve been bombed out twice, and we’ve got no roof over our heads, only a tarpaulin. My boy’s home on leave after being away for nearly five years, but tomorrow I don’t care what happens. I’m going to be really happy. I’m glad of the opportunity to relieve my pent-up feelings.’3

A woman in one area of Cardiff recalled that they planned ‘the finest party the children ever remembered’ at their local bomb site: ‘Neighbours pooled their sweet rations, and collected money, a few shillings from each family … and our grocer gave his entire stock of sweets, fruit, jellies etc. All the men in the neighbourhood spent the day clearing the sites. The church lent the tables, the milkman lent a cart for a platform and we lent our radiogram and records for the music. We all took our garden chairs for the elderly to sit on … Blackout curtains came down to make fancy dresses for the children.’4 The Glasgow Herald reported that, ‘Hundreds of ships, warships, merchant ships, tugs, steamers, motorboats and anyone possessing a horn, hooter or an old ARP rattle 

ABOVE: A jubilant Pfc Melvin Weiss hugs a London resident during the celebrations that took place in Piccadilly Circus, London, as midnight on 7 May 1945, approaches. With all the licensing laws in London having been revoked for the evening, the celebrations went on well into the small hours. (US NATIONAL ARCHIVES)

RIGHT: A typical programme for just one of the many organised street parties held across Britain during and after VE Day, in this case that held in Bruce Grove, Watford, on 19 May 1945. (COURTESY OF

THE JAMES LUTO COLLECTION)

LEFT: People gather in Manchester to mark the end of the fighting in Europe, 8 May.

www.britainatwar.com 27

VICTORY IN EUROPE VE-Day 70th Anniversary

BOTH ABOVE: To celebrate victory in Europe, street parties were held throughout the UK. In most cases, the children of the various communities were given food and cakes, which had been in very short supply during the war years. David McBrien recalled one such event held for the children who lived in the ‘Lewis Trust Buildings’, in Warner Road, Camberwell, South London. David, 5 years old at the time, remembers that his mother was in hospital and his father had sent him to the party without a spoon. Somehow some ice cream had been obtained and he was unable to eat this exotic treat until after he had run home, in tears, to collect the spoon. It was the first time that he remembers ever having eaten ice cream. The party seen here was held in Nicholls Street, West Bromwich.

opened up in the Firth of Clyde to create the most tremendous victory din likely to be heard in any part of the country. For miles around and far inland the noise was heard and people on the coast, excited by the din … suddenly defied the coast blackout ban and allowed their lights to blaze out into the streets.’ Of the festivities in Leatherhead, the Surrey Advertiser reported that, ‘There was scarcely a house or a cottage in the district from which a flag was not fluttering, while elaborate decorations were carried out at business premises and offices. Children carried small flags and residents sported the national colours in rosettes and paper hats. After the announcement the church bells

28 www.britainatwar.com

crashed out victory peals, and open air services were held … When dusk fell numbers of young people took part in open-air dancing, and revelry was kept up to a late hour. Impromptu bonfires blazed in many parts of the district, and could be seen on the heights around … The explosion of fireworks was heard until a late hour.’ A dance had been organised in Stockton-on-Tees that night attended by 16-year-old Frank Mees. The hall had ‘riotous flags draped around the hall and lights full on, every one kissing everyone else, I drew the line at hairy faced sailors and stuck to the girls making sure I went round several times. We sang, we danced and we joined hands singing all the songs we could think of.

BELOW LEFT: A group of military personnel, led, according to a handwritten note on the reverse, by ‘the Camp Commandant, Flight Lieutenant R.W. Stockwell, during a Thanksgiving Service to mark Victory in Europe in a military base near Naples, 8 May 1945’. BELOW RIGHT: A programme for a Service of Thanksgiving in the Borough of Chingford. It took place at Ridgeway Park in the town on Sunday, 13 May 1945. Behind is a notice of a meeting held by Crawley Parish Council in West Sussex, on 29 May 1945, to discuss celebrations for welcoming home troops and Victory.

‘Finally tipped out of there we walked home in groups feeling as if a huge cloud had lifted off our shoulders and I must admit I never once thought of the war in the Far East still going on as we sang and danced in the streets. Each time we met a group going the other way we shared bottles and kissed all the girls, to a sixteen year old with raging hormones it was seventh heaven. On the Green at Norton we found a bonfire at the top of Beaconsfield road so all stood around that talking laughing and in my case more kissing. Sometime around one in the morning with the bonfire down to embers and a girl in my arms … I thought my life was made.’5

LEFT: The seething mass of people, both military and civilian, gathered in Trafalgar Square on VE Day. BELOW LEFT: Preparations for VE Day had often begun well in advance of the day itself, and not just in the United Kingdom. This American patriotic cover would have been printed well in advance, ready for the big day. Showing a newsboy holding a paper with the event commemorated in red headlines – Germans Surrender – the cover was postmarked in Louisville, Kentucky, at 08.20 hours on VE Day.

At Mytchett Barracks, Aldershot, a celebratory ladies football match (drivers versus office staff) had been arranged, in which young Eileen Head took part: ‘I didn’t know the first thing about football, few of us did, we were told which was our goal then the whistle blew and we were off. I think we lost track of which goal was ours, we were too busy chasing the ball. All I can remember about it really, was seeing all the men watching, rolling on the ground helpless with laughter. Our side won, I don’t quite know how but we got a big cheer, so did the losers. I don’t think the men had had such a good laugh.’6

LIBERTÉ France saw similar scenes as those in the United Kingdom. ‘Paris had not waited for the official declaration of the end of the war to begin its victory celebrations, but with the sounding of sirens and salvoes of artillery, and a short broadcast by General de Gaulle this afternoon, public rejoicing is

rising to fresh heights of fervour,’ The Times reported. There were, the report continued, ‘scenes in the beflagged streets filled with cheering people, and the processions formed more or less spontaneously, are comparable only with those of the liberation of the capital last August. To-night the modified black-out has been completely suppressed and all public monuments are floodlit. Paris is the City of Light again.’ Churchill’s reminder that the war was still far from over was echoed by those in Burma. The following report was submitted by a newspaper correspondent in Rangoon: ‘The reaction of the Fourteenth Army and the XV Corps to the news of VE Day in Europe was perhaps best summarized by a senior commander who, on a visit to Rangoon to-day, remarked: “The war is over. Let us get on with the war.” By no means all the troops have yet heard the news. Among those who have there is deep thankfulness and rejoicing. 

ABOVE: Well into the night, people gathered in London to celebrate the news of victory in Europe. It is believed that these two images are part of a series taken in East Acton.

www.britainatwar.com 29

VICTORY IN EUROPE VE-Day 70th Anniversary

‘The thought that is uppermost in the minds of the British soldier is repatriation. At last, lie hopes it will be possible to reduce the term of overseas service. The thought uppermost in the minds of the senior commanders is equipment, landing-craft, flamethrowers, transport, aircraft, freighters. At last we shall get the equipment we want. We have fought and won the Burma campaign on a shoe-string, but the days of shoe-string campaigning will soon be over. In Rangoon there were no official celebrations, but some unit commanders celebrated the occasion by issuing extra rations.’7

ANXIETY AND SADNESS The news of the ending of the war was not necessarily a joyful occasion either for everyone in the UK. Many had suffered immeasurable losses that only time would heal. ‘There was no reason for me to rejoice’, recalled one woman. ‘First my husband was dead

and second because the war in the Far East was still going on. Men were still at risk of being killed, like my husband was killed.’ In Portsmouth the mood was comparatively subdued, as one woman, Naina Cox, recalled: ‘Perhaps by mid-day other parts of Britain may have been shouting, singing, dancing or trying to get drunk, but not here. Generally it is forgotten that in Hampshire we had a far higher quota of lost men. Hundreds went down on warships, hundreds were killed or still prisoners of war in the Far East, never a word about them. Is it a wonder the women in our High Street were not laughing?’ Others also felt the same emotions. ‘Wondered how people had the heart rejoicing knowing what misery people have had and are still having and with the Japanese war – still likely to have … it certainly didn’t seem like a day of joy to me,’ recalled one person.

TOP LEFT: The Mansion House, home of London’s Lord Mayor, was one of the buildings illuminated during VE Day and VE week, as seen here on 8 May 1945. Others included Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament and Nelson’s Column, as well as all of the Town Halls across London. TOP RIGHT: For two days the country celebrated, but the reality that there was still a war to be fought was never far away. Japan still needed to be defeated and the harsh truth was that much of Britain, and indeed Europe, needed to be rebuilt – as this view of St Paul’s Cathedral, illuminated and seen from a Blitz-damaged street, testifies. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

LEFT: A card produced by the RAF’s 2nd Tactical Air Force.

30 www.britainatwar.com

Equally, the war had meant well-paid work for many people. Those who were unemployed in the 1930s feared a return to those times. ‘I felt browned off,’ one Londoner remembered, ‘Then Bill came down. He said I looked unhappy. I didn’t feel particularly joyful – I could see nothing to jubilate [sic] about. Bill had been over at the Rose and Crown. He said it was flat there too. He said folk were frightened of losing their jobs and didn’t feel secure. At this particular time many folk felt that under our present system, having a job and having a war go together.’8 An uncertain future might have lain ahead for some, but for the many it was a time of simple, unrestrained exuberance – and that included our present Queen Elizabeth, who had just turned 19 years old. In 1985 she recalled that momentous day: ‘My sister and I realised we couldn’t see what the crowds were enjoying … so we asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves … After crossing Green Park we stood outside and shouted, “We want the King”, and were successful in seeing my parents on the balcony, having cheated slightly because we sent a message into the house to say we were waiting outside. I think it was one of the most memorable nights of my life.’9 

NOTES

1. Russell Miller, VE Day, The People’s Story (Tempus, Stroud, 2007), pp.189-90. 2. From Dorothy Sheridan (Ed.), Wartime Women – An Anthology of Women’s Wartime Writing (Mass Observation, 1937-45). 3. Juliet Gardiner, Wartime Britain 1939-1945 (Review, London, 2005), p.663. 4. When Peace Broke Out, Britain 1945 (HMSO), p.vi, 5. BBC WW2 People’s War, Article ID A2097867. 6. BBC WW2 People’s War, Article ID A4512674. 7. The Times, 8 May 1945. 8. Miller, V.E. Day, pp.114-18. 9. Quoted on the British Legion website: www. britishlegion.org.uk

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

TIGER LEADER: DEATH OF A BATTLE OF BRITAIN ACE Photographs Revealed

r e d a e L r e Tig DEATH OF A BATTLE OF

BRITAIN ACE

The recent emergence of photographs showing the remains of an RAF Spitfire fighter in a field in Belgium reveal the sad end of a Battle of Britain survivor who, like so many others, was killed in the Fighter Command offensive that followed. Chris Goss reports.

MAIN PIC: Smiles for John MungoPark (RIGHT) and Harbourne ‘Steve’ Stephen as they celebrate Biggin Hill's 600th kill.

32 www.britainatwar.com

O

N THE reverse of three photographs is written in German: ‘Shot down British fighter near Nieuport/ Adinkerke June 1941’. Curiously, another two photographs are inscribed ‘La Panne-Adinkerke 17 May 1941’. However, the doubts are cleared up by the next three pictures — one of which shows

the dead body of the pilot in the wreckage, which Britain at War has decided not to publish — as they make identification positive via the serial X4668 and the code ZP-E, which can be clearly seen. These tell us that the pilot is Squadron Leader John Colin Mungo-Park DFC and Bar. This is his story.

TIGER LEADER: DEATH OF A BATTLE OF BRITAIN ACE Photographs Revealed

FLYING TRAINING

BATTLE OF BRITAIN

John was born on 25 March 1918 to Marion ‘Mamie’ and Colin MungoPark in Wallasey, Cheshire. Sadly, his father, then serving with the 7th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment, was killed three weeks before the war’s end leaving John, his brother Geoffrey and sister Alison to be brought up by their mother. John excelled at school and in 1934, when the family had moved from New Brighton to Bolton, he started work in a textiles mill. However, he soon became obsessed with flying and in June 1937, joined the RAF on a Short Service Commission. By early 1938, he had completed his flying training, and was posted to an 2 Anti-Aircraft Cooperation Unit at Lee-on-Solent in Hampshire, a Fleet Air Arm airfield. He remained attached to the Royal Navy until the outbreak of the Second World War when he was posted to 74 (Tiger) Squadron at RAF Hornchurch in Essex. He would remain with 74 Sqn for the next 21 months – the rest of his life. 74 Sqn would have a quiet war until the start of the Battle of France. Then on 24 May 1940, John would share the destruction of a Henschel 126 observation aircraft, believed to be from 4 Staffel (Heer)/Aufklärungsgruppe 31 which crashed in northern Belgium with the deaths of both crew members. However, John didn’t return unscathed as it is believed he was attacked by a Messerschmitt 109 flown by Oberleutnant Wilhelm Gäth of 8 Staffel/ Jagdgeschwader 3 (8/JG 3). Mungo-Park returned slightly wounded in the left arm and with a damaged but repairable Spitfire (Gäth would be shot down and taken prisoner four days later).

With the Battle of France now over, John achieved his first kill on the first official day of the Battle of Britain, 10 July 1940. This was a Dornier 17 five miles south of Dover. Then, one month and one day later, he would be credited with a number of German aircraft in three combats. These comprised a Messerschmitt 109 damaged off Dover followed by a Messerschmitt 110 probably destroyed with another destroyed 30 miles east of Harwich and finally a Messerschmitt 109 destroyed off Dover. It is hard to say who was responsible for whom in these three combats as 74 Sqn claimed an amazing 16 aircraft destroyed, eight probables and 13 damaged. In the combat off Harwich, the RAF claimed nine Messerschmitt 110s destroyed, six probably destroyed and seven damaged. The doubt arises because post-war

ABOVE: These photographs, which only came to light recently, show John Mungo-Park’s crashed Spitfire in Belgium, after he was shot down and killed on 27 June 1941.

BELOW: Messerschmitt 110s of ZG 26, of whom John Mungo-Park is likely to have claimed at least one victim.

research shows that only four German aircraft were lost and two returned damaged. One of those lost was flown by Hauptmann Hans Kogler, who was leading 1 Staffel/Zerstörergeschwader 26 and some say he was the one shot down by John; however, with so many other RAF claims, this is impossible to prove. Kogler does recall what happened to him that day, though: ‘Due to confusion in the planning, we arrived three or four minutes late at the Gravelines assembly point where we found no aircraft to escort. I was of the opinion that the fighter-bombers of Erprobungsgruppe 210 had already flown towards the target so I decided to head that way. ‘Somewhere west of Ipswich/ Harwich, we were attacked by Spitfires. My wingman, Oberleutnant Wilhelm Spies, broke away and left me alone. 

www.britainatwar.com 33

TIGER LEADER: DEATH OF A BATTLE OF BRITAIN ACE Photographs Revealed

Suddenly I was attacked by a Spitfire and hit in both engines. I glided down to sea-level and tried to fly east as I was not being followed but soon both engines stopped and I was forced to ditch. The attack took place at about 1300 hrs and I ditched at about 13071310 hrs...’ Kogler and his gunner, Unteroffizier Adolf Bauer, were eventually rescued over three days later. Mungo-Park damaged another Dornier 17 on 13 August 1940 but with 74 Sqn being rested from operations the following day, he would only achieve a Heinkel 111 destroyed and a Junkers 88 damaged on 11 September and a Messerschmitt 110 probably destroyed on 14 September. The victim in the latter combat cannot be confirmed although John did return to RAF Coltishall with a damaged Spitfire. 74 Sqn returned to the front line on 15 October 1940, being moved to Biggin Hill in Kent. John had by now been promoted to Flight

34 www.britainatwar.com

Lieutenant to command B Flight and just five days later, shot down a Messerschmitt 109 near Maidstone (although his wingman, Sgt Clive Hilken, was shot down, as featured in Britain at War January 2011). This is believed to be a Messerschmitt 109 of 3 (Jagd)/Lehrgeschwader 2 flown by Unteroffizier Franz Maierl who was killed when his fighter crashed at Lenham in Kent. Another Messerschmitt 109, believed flown by Fähnrich Kurt Müller of 3/JG 51, was claimed as a probable on 22 October 1940 but the destruction of this fighter was shared with his Commanding Officer, Squadron Leader ‘Sailor’ Malan. Two more Me 109s were claimed as damaged (27 and 28 October) before John was credited with another two destroyed on 29 October. The Battle of Britain was now over but Flt Lt Mungo-Park’s star continued to rise. Another Messerschmitt 109 was claimed as damaged on 2 November and he was credited with two Junkers

TOP LEFT: Hauptmann Hans Kogler (centre with cap), pictured with a group including his gunner (3rd from right) after their rescue from the sea having been shot down, very possibly by John MungoPark on 11 Aug 1940. Kogler was leading 1 Staffel/ Zerstörergeschwader 26 at the time. ABOVE RIGHT: Siegfried Schnell. BELOW LEFT: Hauptmann Rolf Pingel, who is believed to have picked off MungoPark’s wingman, Clive Hilken on the day the Squadron Leader was killed. (ALL PICTURES VIA AUTHOR UNLESS STATED)

87s destroyed on 14 November (yet again, the RAF claimed 16 Stukas destroyed, five probably destroyed and five damaged in this combat while the Germans claimed they only suffered two destroyed and one damaged). The next day, John was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, but the momentous year of 1940 would see just one more kill for him when he and Flying Officer Harbourne Stephen shot down what would be Biggin Hill’s 600th kill, now believed to be a Messerschmitt 109 flown by Unteroffizier Fritz Wägelein of 5/JG 53.

ABOVE: Oberleutnant Josef Priller (1/ (1/JG JG 26), on the right, shares a light moment with Rolf Pingel and Flying Officer Harry Prowse of 603 Squadron, whom Priller shot down on 4 July 1941.

TIGER LEADER: DEATH OF A BATTLE OF BRITAIN ACE Photographs Revealed

LEFT: The famous ace ‘Sailor’ Malan writes his ‘10 Rules of Air Fighting’. When Malan was promoted, MungoPark succeeded him as CO of 74 Squadron. RIGHT: A camera gun shot of a Spitfire being chased by an aircraft of JG 26.

LEFT: Sergeant Pilot Clive Hilken, who had been previously shot down while serving as Mungo-Park’s wingman and who baled out successfully on the day his CO was killed. ‘I couldn’t see any attackers. I can only presume they came out of the sun and attacked from below,’ he later recalled.

1941 saw Fighter Command going on the offensive and with it, the risk of being shot down, killed or captured over enemy territory increased dramatically. Nevertheless, on 10 March 1941, ‘Sailor’ Malan was promoted to be the Biggin Hill Wing Leader and John was given command of 74 Sqn. He would have to wait until 16 June 1941 for any success when he was credited with the destruction of two Messerschmitt 109s but in the process, his Spitfire was badly damaged and written off on landing at RAF Hawkinge. Yet again, it is hard to say who his victims were – the

THE LAST FLIGHT

RAF claimed nine German fighters destroyed, five probably destroyed and three damaged when for the day, the Germans only suffered three destroyed and one damaged. By June 1941, John Mungo-Park’s official tally stood at 11 destroyed, two shared destroyed, five probables and four damaged. This would now be his final score as late in the evening of 27 June 1941, he would be dead.

John was tasked to escort Bristol Blenheims attacking Lille in a mission coded ‘Circus 25’. As the RAF formation crossed the French coast, it was bounced by Messerschmitt 109s of JG 2 led by Hauptmann Wilhelm Balthasar and I/ JG 26 led by Hauptmann Rolf Pingel. Both Germans were experienced fighter pilots with 38 kills and 20 kills respectively. Spitfires were claimed by Balthasar and another two by Leutnant Siegfried Schnell of 4/JG 2 with Pingel, Oberleutnant Josef Priller (1/JG 26), Unteroffizier Albrecht Held (1/JG 26) and Feldwebel Ernst Jäckel (2/JG 26) each claiming Spitfires. It is believed that Rolf Pingel picked off Clive Hilken near Roubaix, as Hilken himself later recalled: ‘I was attacked and hit by cannon shells from below and on the starboard side. I pulled round to port and yelled on the radio but it was dead and I could see that my Spitfire was spewing out a white trail and I couldn’t see any attackers. I can only presume they came out of the sun and attacked from below and went on to take out Plt Off Sandeman and Sqn Ldr Mungo-Park...’

FAR LEFT: Wilhelm Balthasar. BELOW RIGHT: The rudder of Priller’s Me 109-F.

The locations for the JG 2 kills are not known whilst the JG 26 claims are southwest of Gravelines, north of Dunkirk and east of Sangatte, none of which can be matched to the remaining two losses from 74 Sqn and another two lost by 19 Sqn. What can be said for certain is that John Mungo-Park’s Spitfire was mortally hit and from the evidence of the postcrash photographs, it seems likely his engine had stopped. Witnesses in De Panne saw a lone Spitfire descending trailing smoke which then crashed near the Adinkerke railway station, the body of its pilot being found in the wreckage. John Mungo-Park was buried in Adinkerke Military Cemetery on the French/Belgian border where it still lies today, about 60 miles from where his father’s body still lies at Valenciennes. John was posthumously awarded a Bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross and is now remembered as one of The Few who survived the Battle of Britain only to be killed in the Fighter Command offensive that followed, an offensive that would see more of The Few being killed or captured than in the summer of 1940. 

www.britainatwar.com 35

MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS First-Hand Accounts

It is often forgotten that before the stoicism and courage of the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940 British troops fought heroic actions against the fast-advancing Germans. The notorious massacre at Le Paradis followed such a stand by the 2nd Royal Norfolks. With the aid of first-hand accounts of the men who were there, Peter Hart tells the full story.

36 www.britainatwar.com

MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS First-Hand Accounts

B

Y THE time the 2nd Royal Norfolks reached the tiny hamlet of Le Paradis in late-May 1940, they had already experienced the sharp end of modern warfare. During the Phoney War, all had been calm as they were on the Franco-Belgian border with 4th Brigade (2nd Norfolks, 1/8th Lancashire Fusiliers and 1st Royal Scots) of the 2nd Division. Then the German offensive of 10 May 1940 triggered real fighting. First the Norfolks advanced into Belgium to the River Dyle, but then began a long retreat in the face of a relentless German onslaught. They fell back along roads packed with refugees, harassed by screaming Stukas, before taking up positions along the Escaut Canal. Here they fought a notable rearguard action on 21 May before falling back to the Gort Line.

They were then ordered to take up defensive positions along the La Bassée Canal, facing the looming threat from German panzers that had swept round to the west, thereby threatening to cut the BEF off from the Channel Ports. The Norfolks were therefore facing to the west, the reverse of the positions taken up by the BEF facing the Aubers Ridge in the Great War. The 2nd Division was collectively charged with screening and protecting the retreat of the BEF. The 6th Brigade was responsible for the St Venant–Robecq sector; the Norfolks and the rest of 4th Brigade in the centre held from the canal to beyond Béthune; while the 5th Brigade extended the line to La Bassée. Their acting commander was Major Lisle Ryder. By the morning of 25 May, A and C Companies were correctly in

position along the La Bassée Canal, between the Bois de Pacqueaut and Pont d’Avelette near Bethune, but it was found that B and D Companies had gone astray. In desperation the Pioneer Section was ordered to fill the gap that had opened up between the Norfolks and the neighbouring 8th Lancashire Fusiliers. ‘They told us to go up on to the top of this canal bank and make sure that every round that we fired got a German. After we’d fired a certain amount of rounds, we’d got to scramble back down the bank of the canal, run along a bit, then go up top again — just to try and bluff the Germans that there was a great company of us there. We were being hard pressed, we were being machine gunned, mortared, shelled. We were led to believe that the German tanks were made of cardboard and plywood, but, by God, we knew the difference when they started firing at us! We got our heads down very, very quickly! The most terrible thing that I’ve ever experienced. We were dug in our little fox holes, but you couldn’t be there all the time, you had to get up to fire at the Germans because they were trying to get across the canal to get at us! They were even driving lorries into the canal and trying to drive their tanks across on these lorries. But the artillery managed to keep them at bay. It was a very frightening thing. It really showed you what war was like.’ 

MAIN PICTURE: British prisoners are escorted from the La Bassée battlefield on 27 May 1940. These soldiers were fortunate — they were captured by the Wehrmacht, not one of the Waffen SS units that massacred the Norfolks in cold blood. TOP RIGHT: British troops make for the coast during the retreat to Dunkirk in May 1940.

www.britainatwar.com 37

MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS First-Hand Accounts Private Ernie Farrow, HQ Company Casualties slowly mounted. Yet every German attack was countered and against all the odds the line held until the evening when B and D Companies finally moved into the correct positions. The battalion headquarters were by this time located at Duriez Farm just outside the village of Le Paradis on the right flank of the position. ‘It was flat and farmland. From Duriez Farm you could see the village with the church about half a mile across country and a few hedgerows, ditches and small trees. All four companies were involved, there was no reserve at all because we were depleted in numbers - so they had to put everybody we had into the defence.’ Private Robert Brown, Signaller, HQ Company Ernie Farrow rejoined the HQ Company some time on the evening of 25 May. ‘I ran into this cow-shed and I was amazed to see all my comrades lying about. Some had lost a foot, some an arm; they were being tended by the bandsmen who were all first aid men. The first thing I wanted was a cigarette, I wanted a fag. I was dying! I’d never smoked a lot, but this time to save my nerves. I found someone who had some fags and I just smoked my head off for a few minutes.’ Private Ernie Farrow, HQ Company Next day, 26 May, was marked by hard fighting in chaotic conditions. The Germans launched several attacks supported by lethal mortar fire with much fighting at Petit Cornet Malo on the La Bassée Canal, close to the junction with the 1st Royal

Scots around the Bois de Pacqueaut. Casualties were escalating in both B and A Company as the Germans managed to get tanks across the canal in force. Orders were received that they were to hold the position to the last round and the last man. On the night of 26 May an unreal calm settled and Major Lisle Ryder seized the opportunity to feed his men. Sergeant Walter Gilding was acting as CQMS of the HQ Company. ‘I arrived at the farm somewhere between nine and ten that evening. There was very little to be seen. Major Ryder came forward and spoke to us and said that he was glad to see us and that the food could be distributed when he could get the people off the perimeter where they were out on various defensive positions. I can remember them being called in from their various buildings – the cowshed, the pigsties, even out in the little meadows around the farm — wherever they had taken up a position. There was no sound of shots, bombs, shellfire or anything. It went on like that till three o’clock in the morning. By this time it was just beginning to get daylight. Major Ryder came and said, “The situation seems to be getting worse! I think you’d better get back to ‘B’ Echelon!” It was then that I started to hear what sounded like heavy vehicles, possibly tanks, moving in the distance. Also the first mortar bomb landed. It didn’t seem to be very healthy, so we packed up very quickly and were clear by half-past three. Coming out of the farm gate there must have been six or seven mortar bombs landed. I told the driver to, “Put your foot down and get the hell out of this!” Fortunately the bombs were missing us, but we had quite a bumpy ride.’

ABOVE: Unidentified British troops await rescue from the sand dunes of Dunkirk at the end of May 1940. BOTH LEFT: Civilian refugees on the roads, regularly hampered by ‘Stuka’ dive bombers, held up the progress of British units retreating to the Channel.

FAR RIGHT: No one doubted the bravery of British soldiers in the fighting withdrawal to Dunkirk. Here a German medic checks for signs of life.

38 www.britainatwar.com

Company Quartermaster Sergeant Walter Gilding, HQ Company Behind them the Germans launched a terrific bombardment and dawn attack on all the battalion positions. Private Arthur Brough was caught in a frantic mêlée as the last surviving mortar team strove to support the remnant of B Company around Petit Cornet Malo. ‘We were putting as much stuff down the mortar as we could. We were trying to repulse them but we knew it wasn’t a lot of good because there was so many there. The No. 1 he was looking through the clinometer sight, focusing on roughly whereabouts the tank was situated. I was Number One. You say, “Right, on!” Tap No. 2 on the shoulder. He taps No. 3 who’s passing the bomb over. Then they’re putting it in the barrel. “Fire!”That’s what we did. The mortar must have been red hot. There was only about three of us left by that time. We resorted to rifle fire which was absolutely stupid, but I suppose it was instinct to try and do your job. When we saw that it was absolutely hopeless, we chucked the bolts out of the rifles. Why you do these things

MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS First-Hand Accounts don’t ask me why, but that’s what you were taught to do. Then we scattered — tanks by the hundred were coming up — we just ran for it. Johnny Cockerell, he was with me, we dived in a dyke. We got scattered because there was a shell dropped quite near us from the tanks and I could feel something in the back of my leg and Johnny Cockerel he got a piece in his knee – pretty bad. We were in this dyke and all of a sudden the tanks were right on top of us. A German officer standing there telling us, “The war is over, Tommy!” Private Arthur Brough, Mortar Platoon, HQ Company At some point during this last phase of the action Farrow was sent out to try and demolish a further bridge – the Pont d’Avelette towards Bethune. ‘Major Ryder told Corporal Mason that his driver had already been detailed to take us to this bridge, that he didn’t want no map reference, he knew exactly where to go to, it was only a short distance away. The CO’s vehicle was an old Humber car and we put in the gun cotton and primers, threw it in the back. The sergeant major came along and he said, “Right, here lads, here’s something to be going on with!” And he gave us a big tin of Bluebird toffees! The quartermaster came along and he said, “It’s just a few rounds!” Three rounds of ammunition we were issued with to fight the German Army! We thought, “Oh, God!” With this we all piled in and we were away.’

FAR LEFT: Company Quartermaster Sergeant Walter Gilding of HQ Company, 2nd Norfolks. With other men, Gilding tried to make it to Dunkirk via truck but the blocked roads forced them to finish the journey on foot, when they were told to dig in and wait for rescue.

Private Ernie Farrow. Pioneer Section, HQ Company A tragicomic air of farce hung over this mission. ‘We were so busy trying to get this tin lid off to get these toffees out! We were being shelled and machine gunned — not too badly — but the occasional shot or bust of machine gun fire. We knew that one bullet through the back of our car and we could all be blown to pieces. In no time at all, the driver turned round and said, “There you are lads, there’s the bridge coming up!” We could see the bridge in front of us and directly on our left-hand

side was a big house. On our right was the canal. At the very instant he spoke a machine gun opened up and the whole top of this old car was riddled by bullets — but not one of us was touched — we were still all alive, not even a scratch. We didn’t wait for the second burst, we dived out, because the Germans were firing from this house. There was no point in trying to get to the bridge because they were already over it! We were straight into the canal. The driver — he was trying to turn his vehicle round — we heard this hell of an explosion and we were spattered by all the pieces of metal and ‘whatnot’ 

ABOVE RIGHT: Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knoechlein was held responsible for the murder of 97 men of the 2nd Royal Norfolk Regiment at Le Paradis. After the war, the evidence of the only two survivors, Private Albert Pooley and Private William O’Callaghan helped bring him to justice and he was hanged on 28 January 1949.

www.britainatwar.com 39

MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS First-Hand Accounts

as the old car was blown up and the driver with it. We fired our few rounds off at these Germans in the house and along the side of the bridge, hoping that every bullet would kill a German.’ Private Ernie Farrow, Pioneer Section, HQ Company They had soon fired their last shot and it was apparent that they were going to have real difficulties in getting back to battalion headquarters. ‘There was no way we could get out of the canal where we were. So Corporal Mason told us, “Right, bolts out of your rifles, get rid of them!” Our tin hats, everything went off into the canal. The corporal said, “Right, stop where you are, keep your heads down. I’m going to swim down the canal and find somewhere where there’s a ditch runs into the canal where we can climb out. Then he disappeared.’

40 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE & BELOW: The Norfolks found themselves up against a crack German SS unit, the Totenkopf Division and put up a hard fight. The Nazis lost their regimental commander, Standartenführer Hans Friedmann Goetze, seen here laid out in a farmhouse near Le Paradis. Some claim the massacre was carried out by the SS division in revenge for the death of their commander.

Private Ernie Farrow, Pioneer Section, HQ Company Farrow and his companions were left in an extremely exposed position, unarmed, up to their necks in deep water. ‘The three of us were very close together in these rushes, they were about 2 foot either side of me – I was in the centre. This young fellow on my left hand side, he said to me, “I’m just going to have a peek over the top!” At that very instant I heard this machine gun or rifle fire. I turned and looked up. He’s been shot right through the head and the back of his head was missing. As quick as that and he was sinking back in the water. I was trying to hold him up which was no good, because he was already dead. This fellow on my right, he was an old soldier and he’d been out in India and had two gold teeth. I felt something hit my face. I put my hand up automatically and I was covered in blood. I thought, “God!” I thought I’d been hit. I felt again, but I was still all there. When I turned round to look, it was this poor fellow. They’d shot his jaw – and his jaw had smacked me in the face. He was then disappearing underneath. The last thing I saw of him was these two gold teeth shining. For many weeks afterwards, whenever I opened my eyes, I could see his face with no chin and his gold teeth

showing. The water round me was red with the blood. But the poor boys, they were at the bottom.’ Private Ernie Farrow, Pioneer Section, HQ Company The severely traumatized Farrow was left on his own. ‘A few minutes afterwards Corporal Mason came back, I didn’t see him, I didn’t see a ripple in the water. All I knew was he came up at the side of me and he knew exactly what had happened. He said, “Right, we can’t fret, let’s go!” We dived under and swam. Eventually he said, “Here we are!” and there was this ditch right beside us. I wanted to get out of that damn canal, to get clear of it! I heard this mouthful of ‘army language’ come out and Mason had been shot through the shoulder and the bone of his arm was sticking out the top. He put his arm around my neck to keep himself up and everything happened in seconds. A German came from behind this bush, jumped in the ditch and came running down towards us. When he was about 12 yards from us he stopped and put his rifle up to his shoulder. I said my last prayer because I knew I was going to die. But the Lord was with me and there was a loud click. He’d run out of ammunition or his breech had stuck – no bullet came out, no bang. He turned his rifle round, got hold of the barrel and as he got close to

MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS First-Hand Accounts us he took a swipe at my head. I put my arm up to stop him hitting me and the first blow smashed all my hand up. The next blow came down - I still had the strength to hold my arm up to stop him and he smashed my elbow and put my shoulder out of joint. One more blow and I’d have been dead, but at that very instant I heard this loud shout and lots more Germans came into sight. One of these was an officer who’d shouted. He ordered them to pull us out.’ Private Ernie Farrow, Pioneer Section, HQ Company Farrow was lucky enough to survive the war. Indeed, after a short spell as a POW, he escaped and managed to make his way, via Switzerland, back home to Norwich. Back at Duriez Farm the situation was becoming desperate. The Germans were across the canal in strength and it was increasingly obvious that the Headquarters Company was cut off as German shells crashed down all around them. A last message from the Norfolks was sent to 4th Brigade headquarters, then the wireless was destroyed.

The signallers joined the riflemen in preparing last-ditch defences. ‘I took up a position in the barn. We knocked holes through the galvanized walls which were heavily riddled with shrapnel. The mortar bombs were dropping over the barn and behind us between the farm buildings. A friend of mine I was with, John Hagan said, “We’ll find somewhere a bit more safe!” We went to the end of the barn and there was a small brick outhouse. We went in and knocked bricks out for loopholes. That’s where we continued our defence for the remainder of the day. The other side of the farm was all the stables, cowsheds and barn stables. The men there had done the same, knocked bricks out and made loopholes so we were more or less an all round defence. We had quite a lot of wounded, at first they were in a cellar under the house, and then it was hit so many times with the shellfire and mortar bombs that it was on fire. So we had to get the wounded out and lay them in a safer place – which was a very tricky position.’ ABOVE RIGHT: The Norfolks put up a stout defence of the La Bassée canal. Here engineers of the Totenkopf Division build an emergency bridge across it. LEFT: A mortar team of the Totenkopf Division. The Waffen SS were easily identified by their camouflage smocks and helmet covers.

LEFT: The barn wall at Le Paradis in front of which the victims were gunned down. Note the chest-high bullet-hole scars.

Private Robert Brown, Signaller, HQ Company The question was, what were they to do? ‘Major Ryder came round to us and said there was no way we could get away from where we were. Ammunition was running very low and he was taking opinions as to how we felt about fighting on – or surrendering. “Well,” some said, “Fight on!” Some said, “Surrender!” I said, “Well, let’s carry on as we are!” Because the morale was very high – there was no thought of being taken prisoner, getting killed or wounded. We were just carrying on fighting, carrying on the defence and making a joke of it all really. Laughing and joking between each other. We were causing more casualties than they were causing to us, but they must have outnumbered us by about six to one. Eventually Ryder said that it was no good wasting human life, we couldn’t hold them up indefinitely. We’d held them up for three days on the canal, which was a very good effort and he’d decided that we should cease firing. But he said if anybody thought they could get away, then we were entitled to do our own thing. The men in the outbuildings and the stables went through the stable door to the field. At first they were fired on so they came back in; then after a time they went out again with a dirty white towel on a rifle to wave and they were allowed to go out.’  www.britainatwar.com 41

MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS First-Hand Accounts

Private Robert Brown, Signaller, HQ Company The white flag was raised at around 17.15, the surrender was accepted, and the ‘dangerous’ part seemed to be over. The Norfolks and a few other troops captured nearby were marched away from Duriez Farm by the No 3 Company of the 1st Battalion, 2nd SS Totenkopf Regiment under the command of Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein. They did not go far, just over 250 yards up the road to Creton Farm. ‘There were a hundred of us prisoners marching in column of threes. We turned off the dusty French road through a gateway and into a meadow beside the buildings of a farm. I saw, with one of the nastiest feelings I’ve ever had in my life, two heavy machine-guns inside the meadow. They were manned and pointing at the head of our column. I felt as though an icy

42 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: Blitzkrieg in action. Men of the Totenkopf Division enter a French village during the advance on Dunkirk.

BOTTOM LEFT: A Panzerkampfwagon MkII crosses the La Bassée canal on a pontoon bridge, 27 May 1940. BOTTOM RIGHT: Evidence of the hard fight at the La Bassée canal in the last days of May 1940.

hand gripped my stomach. The guns began to spit fire and even as the front men began to fall I said fiercely, “This can’t be. They can’t do this to us!” For a few seconds the cries and shrieks of our stricken men drowned the cracking of the guns. Men fell like grass before a scythe. The invisible blade came nearer and then swept through me. I felt a terrific searing pain in my left leg and wrist and pitched forward in a red world of tearing agony. My scream of pain mingled with the cries of my mates but even as I fell forward into a heap of dying men the thought stabbed my brain, “If I ever get out of here the swine who did this will pay for it”.’ Private Albert Pooley, Signaller, A Company In those terrible moments some 97 men were cut down. As the German SS troops moved among the sprawling bodies they administered the coup de grace by bullet and bayonet to all

those who looked like they might still be breathing. In this horrific situation Pooley received another two bullets in his left leg but, by a supreme act of will, he kept still and thus survived until the SS butchers had left the scene of the crime. Only one other man had survived the massacre, Private William O’Callaghan, a signaller who had been lucky enough to escape with just an arm wound buried as he was beneath the shattered corpses of his friends. O’Callaghan helped drag the crippled Pooley from that awful pile of bodies. Although both were captured a few days later, they survived the war to wreak their vengeance on Knöchlein, when they had the satisfaction of acting as prosecution witnesses at a British Military Court in Hamburg in October 1948. As a result Knöchlein was found guilty and hanged on 29 January 1949. Albert Pooley certainly kept his promise.

MASSACRE AT LE PARADIS First-Hand Accounts Meanwhile, Robert Brown and his little group had made the right decision in deciding to try and slip away unseen. ‘Myself, John Hagan and another pal of mine, Bill Leven, decided we would go out of the door on to the road which was in the opposite direction to the others. The smoke from the burning house was going that way so we thought we’d keep in the smoke as extra cover in the hopes of getting away. We went in a ditch at the side of the road and in the ditch was the adjutant, lying on the ground wounded and the medical officer was there. We attempted to go out of the ditch and cross the road but as we did so the German patrols were coming up from the village of Le Paradis and we just couldn’t get over the road. They just shouted, “Hands up!” or words to that effect and that was that. They pushed and knocked us about a bit, but nothing outrageous.’ Private Robert Brown, Signaller, HQ Company They had evaded the clutches of the murderous Knöchlein. The fighting strength of the battalion had almost all been killed, wounded, captured or massacred. Only the drivers and cooks of the ‘B’ Echelon were left to try and escape. Their problems were by no means over. ‘The refugee problem was really terrible then and it was difficult to get transport along the roads. It was absolute chaos. If Stukas came down we would dive off the lorries and get into the hedgerows or ditches and the

refugees would do the same. They wouldn’t be so quick on the mark as us so we would pile back into the lorry and drive through before the refugees assembled onto the roadways again. But you wouldn’t go far before they’d all be on the road again with their handcarts, baggage, horse and carts – everything was there. We were on the road with the truck for two days and things got so bad that we just had to abandon the vehicle.’ Company Quartermaster Sergeant Walter Gilding, HQ Company On foot they made their way to Dunkirk from which they had heard the evacuation was taking place. ‘We arrived at one end of the beach where all the sand dunes were. We dug in. We stayed there that night which would be the 30th/31st. We had a bird’s eye view from where we were. Watching all the lads lining up down to the water’s edge ready to be evacuated with gaps of 20-30 yards between each group – there must have been ten of these queues. Out in the water, way out on the horizon, were naval destroyers and also civilian boats – private yachts and all types of boats. Plying in between the beach and them were small boats, some just rowing boats. I thought, “God, they’re going take a long while to get this lot off!” I thought, “Well there’s no way we’re going to hold up the whole German Army! It’s just a matter of time. We shall be either over-run, captured or hopefully we’re going to be evacuated!”’

BELOW: The Totenkopf Division takes over another French village in northern France as the German advance continues in May 1940.

Voices from the Front: The 2nd Norfolk Regiment From Le Paradis to Kohima Published by Pen & Sword, 2011.

Company Quartermaster Sergeant Walter Gilding, HQ Company In fact, through the heroic efforts of the Royal Navy and the civilian volunteers in their ‘little ships’ who swarmed across the English Channel, they escaped in the early hours of the morning of 1 June. But only 139 of the original battalion were estimated to have returned from Dunkirk. Some were prisoners of war, but far too many were dead. The veteran interviews are available through the Documents and Sound Archive, Imperial War Museum, London, SE1 6HZ 

www.britainatwar.com 43

SHELL SHOCK ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? War Neurosis 1917

FACT OR FAKERY?

SHELL SHOCK

I

N THE Wellcome Collection, London, and online, you can view some disturbing Pathé film footage of men apparently in the most desperate stages of what was once called ‘shell shock’. Later, for some, there are scenes of a quite miraculous recovery. Entitled War Neurosis 1917, the film was shot over a period of eight months at the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, near Southampton and at Seale Hayne Hospital, near Newton Abbot in Devon. The man responsible for the footage was no film maker by profession — he was an innovative doctor and the film was a part of his method.

44 www.britainatwar.com

SIR ARTHUR HURST Sir Arthur Frederick Hurst was born (as Arthur Hertz) in Bradford in 1879, the son of a wool merchant. Attending grammar schools in Bradford and Manchester, and excelling as a student of physiology at Magdalen College, Oxford, he went to Guy’s Hospital and graduated with similar success in 1904, becoming a member of the Royal College of Physicians the following year. Changing his name from Hertz to Hurst, he took British nationality and, in 1915, volunteered as a doctor with the Royal Army Medical Corps, with whom he served in Gallipoli and Salonika.

Treating men with trench fever and dysentery in difficult conditions, his own health gave cause for concern and due to his asthma he was posted back to Oxford and put in charge of the treatment of soldiers with ‘shell shock’, what we would call today post-traumatic stress syndrome. Swapping jobs with a doctor with similar responsibilities at The Royal Victoria Hospital in Netley, Hurst found himself in that large hospital, the army’s main facility, built on Southampton Water after the Crimean War. One hundred beds in what was a general military hospital had been made available for those experiencing neurological symptoms;

SHELL SHOCK ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? War Neurosis 1917

PRESTON & SMITH

Private Preston, aged 19, reac ted to the word ‘bombs’ by running for cover under his hospital bed, while Private Ross Smith, aged 35, had a facial spasm affec ting his ears and head with violent twitc hes, which disappeared under hypnosis, only to return with renewed violence when he woke.

ON FILM

Behind the only surviving footage of the effect of shell shock on British soldiers in the First World War lies a fascinating and sometimes harrowing tale. Suzie Grogan explores the work of the doctor who directed the film.

many were patients treated in other hospitals without success. Major Hurst had established a neurology department at Guy’s Hospital in London, and had travelled to France to see the work doctors there were doing with men diagnosed as suffering from ‘hysteria’, a condition then still considered by British doctors to be peculiar to women. The War Office and the Army had been taken completely by surprise at the sheer numbers of soldiers affected by shell shock, a term first coined in the medical press in 1915 by Charles Myers, who originally thought it was caused by physical proximity to shell fire. However, it

to the trenches, many would have to be sent home to military hospitals such as Netley, which were ill prepared for men with these symptoms.

is a phenomenon that had actually been reported in the battles of the ancient world, was described by Shakespeare in Henry IV Pt 1 and noted in conflicts of the 19th century, such as the American Civil War. Some of the suffering experienced by men suffering from what was also referred to as ‘neurasthenia’ might have been alleviated had the British establishment been more willing to accept that men could break down, exhibiting ‘hysterical’ symptoms, such as paralysis and mutism. Soldiers with shattered nerves were taken to clearing stations and if immediate treatment behind the lines did not see a man recover and return

TICS AND STAMMERS Physical wounds had been anticipated and provision made for their treatment, but men whose minds were damaged could not find any relief on the same wards as those with bullet wounds or horrific injuries from shell fire. Many were unable to control their bowels, or were in a permanent state of anxiety. They also exhibited the classic symptoms of shell shock — they lost the ability to speak, or communicated with a marked stammer.  www.britainatwar.com 45

SHELL SHOCK ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? War Neurosis 1917

FARADIZATION

k ‘Faradization’ or electric shoc treatment. Understanding and y treatment of what we would toda der call post-traumatic stress disor (PTSD) were in their very early stages in the second half of the First World War.

DR ARTHUR HURST

Dr Arthur Hurst obtained a grant from the Medical Research Committee to make the films and directed them himself, using skilled Pathé cameramen at both hospitals.

Many relived experiences on the battlefield by developing symptoms relating to actions they had taken. Tics and uncontrollable facial muscles might be attributed to having bayoneted the enemy in the face, for example. Those who relied on their rifles to maintain the safety of themselves and others, such as snipers, might wake up unable to see, and many had shocking nightmares that repeated the trauma of the day’s battles over and over again. Arthur Hurst, in his work at Netley, quickly realised that more specialised treatment in different surroundings would benefit men with serious and enduring symptoms. His chance came at Seale Hayne. Now part of the University of Plymouth, Seale Hayne was originally established by the Right Honourable Charles Seale-Hayne, a wealthy local landowner who bequeathed £100,000 for the establishment of a ‘college for agricultural and technical

education near Newton Abbot’. during the Battle of the Somme. Before the building of the college was Having obtained a grant from the completed, war broke out and it was Medical Research Committee to offered to the War Office to train make the films, Hurst directed ‘land girls’ until Hurst spotted the them himself, using skilled Pathé opportunity for a secluded, peaceful cameramen at both hospitals. Patients and under-used building as a base for were initially filmed at the Royal his work. Seale Hayne was officially Victoria Hospital at Netley, with the requisitioned for use as a military crew subsequently moved to the hospital and patients were moved leafier fields of Seale Hayne. from Netley in spring 1918, into As one watches the footage it is buildings that could accommodate up clear the development of the films is to 350 men. A beautiful creeper-clad very organic, with little in the way building, it can still be visited and is of a story board. As a doctor Hurst now owned by the Dame Hannah wanted to highlight his work with Rogers Trust, one of the United traumatised soldiers, many of whom Kingdom’s oldest charities. had been treated unsuccessfully So how did the film War Neurosis under the care of other eminent come to be made? Film makers in medical men. Some specialists in the France had worked with French field felt that Arthur Hurst lacked Army neurologists to document the medical rigour in his work with the symptoms and treatment of French soldiers and Hurst was clearly influenced by these and other documentary films made The film was shot over a period of eight

LOCATION, LOCATION

months at the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley (below), near Southampton and at Seale Hayne Hospital, near Newton Abbot in Devon.

46 www.britainatwar.com

SHELL SHOCK ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? War Neurosis 1917

THERAPY

men, noting with concern his Occupational therapy, including keenness to cut himself off from traditional crafts and creative work his peers. These films were not formed a key part of Hurst’s treatment made for propaganda purposes methods. Indeed, Private Percy Meek, however. Hurst intended them one of the patients seen in War Neurosis to support his research and the 1917 was a basket maker by trade and teaching of other doctors in the returned to it, living into old age. treatment of neurasthenia. At the time, Seale Hayne was offering treatment unavailable elsewhere, particularly to the ranks (officers generally received treatment in better conditions than the men who served under them). When released in 1918 the films led to Hurst being lauded as a ‘miracle worker’ by some in the press. However, other doctors treating neurasthenia were less enthusiastic, considering Hurst a self-publicist whose methods were impossible to verify.

THE MEN IN THE FILM One hundred years on those who research the history of Seale Hayne are still keen to learn more about the individuals who appear in the films and other patients treated by Arthur Hurst. Perhaps the man about whom most is known is Private Percy Meek, a 23-year-old basket maker from Norfolk, who joined the army in 1913. First wounded in the thigh in May 1915, he was treated and returned to the Front later that year and served without further incident until February 1916. Hurst’s lengthy report on Meek’s case explains that the young man was stationed in a trench that was subjected to a period of continuous bombardment by German mortars. As the noise and anxiety became overwhelming, Meek’s comrades had to prevent him

from going ‘over the top’ in panic, to attack the German position. When first examined by doctors he was dazed and confused, experiencing exhausting convulsions causing constant movement in his head, body and limbs. Mute, but still able to understand questions put to him and to write in response, it became clear to doctors that Meek believed he was still in the trench, breaking out in a sweat as imaginary shells hurtled by him. Transferred to hospital in England he remained unable to speak, his expression was fearful, and he saw the ghosts of Germans he had killed coming towards him, firing at him, bent on revenge.

Hurst says in his report: ‘I saw him first at Netley in December 1916, eleven months after the onset. He was still unable to speak; all four limbs were now completely paralysed, except that he was able with a great effort to make slight movements at his left elbow joint. An extreme degree of contracture was present; the legs were rigidly extended; the arms were extended and the fingers tightly clenched. It was almost impossible to produce any passive movements, but the contractures were entirely hysterical, as they relaxed completely under an anaesthetic and during sleep. Total loss of sensation to touch and pain over the whole body, including the eyes was present, except that passive movements at the elbow were painful, and he occasionally suffered from toothache.’ 

CHAT

An example of the Seale Hayne magazine from 1918, produced by Hurst’s patients. Hospital gossip was a staple feature.

www.britainatwar.com 47

SHELL SHOCK ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? War Neurosis 1917 without physical wounds, became unable to move; the film shows him returned to full mobility and able to work on the hospital farm. In another section of the film we see Privates King and Sandall, captioned (in Hurst’s unique term) ‘hysterical stump orators’. Both blown up in 1917, we see them in January 1918, walking up and down the pavements of Netley, rolling with a ‘hysterical’ gait and speaking to each other in an animated and unnatural way. Hurst notes that Sandall imitates King and goes on to describe how, with just two hours of ‘treatment by suggestion’ the

RECOVERY

The calmness engendered by outdoor tasks were a key part of life for recovering patients at Seale Hayne.

When Arthur Hurst first met Meek, it is clear the young man had already been in hospital for some months. He was not improving; in fact doctors considered his condition to be steadily worsening. Paralysis was affecting his arms and legs, which were rigid and numb. Hurst reports that limited use of electric shock treatment to his larynx enabled him to whisper, but it became clear he had no memory of events or of family and friends. In War Neurosis 1917 we first meet Meek at Netley, captioned as a ‘complete retrograde amnesia, hysterical paralysis, contractives, mutism and universal anaesthesia’. We see him sitting, like a baby, in a straight backed, wooden wheelchair undergoing an examination of his rigid ankles for the benefit of the camera. Yet over a period of months his voice and understanding gradually returned, and, after transferring to Seale Hayne in April 1918, his physical recovery quickened and

POTTERY

Seale Hayne patients were encouraged to develop skills and crafts as part of the recovery process, including potttery.

48 www.britainatwar.com

the film shows a much healthier looking Private Meek, wearing the uniform ‘hospital blues’ and running up and down the steps in front of the building. The film shows his recovery to be so nearly perfect that by June 1918 we see him supervising fellow patients in a basket weaving shop at the hospital. Recent research has discovered that Meek returned to an able-bodied life, continuing as a basket maker into old age. In the film we see other young men exhibiting a range of symptoms. Private Preston, aged 19, reacts to the word ‘bombs’ by running for cover under his hospital bed, while Private Ross Smith, aged 35, has a facial spasm affecting his ears and head with violent twitches, which disappear under hypnosis, only to return with renewed violence when he wakes. Private Reid, aged 32, was buried by debris from an exploding shell, and though

KING & SANDALL

Privates King and Sandall featured in the film War Neurosis 1917, in which both displayed the ‘hysterical’ gait. To today’s viewers it is unclear what is genuine and what is being re-enacted, leading to accusations that fakery was a part of the filming and treatment process.

SHELL SHOCK ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? War Neurosis 1917

BATTLES

As part of the treatment, Dr Hurst even encouraged patients to re-enact battles, using firearms. These would also be filmed.

TAIT

Robert Tait (front right) with Maud Hanniford (back middle) and her sister Lilian, who worked as nurses at Seale Hayne. Tait and Maud later married.

symptoms are removed. Both men are sent to work on the hospital farm, but the film highlights King’s ‘incompetency at digging’, which results in his being made hospital librarian. Clearly not cut out for life on the farm, in pre-war civilian life King had been a bookseller. Robert Robertson Tait was born in Glasgow and joined the 41st Division Signal Company, Royal Engineers, leaving for France in May 1916. For almost two years he served in some of the most devastating battles of the Great War – the Somme, Messines Ridge and finally Ypres in April 1918. Having lost his brother early in the war, the horrors he witnessed caused great strain and in May 1918 he finally broke down, following the shelling of the transport line in which he was stationed. His granddaughter, Sandra Gittins, has researched his military career and uncovered the Army Casualty Form describing the incident. Tait is mentioned In Richard Van Emden’s book Sapper Martin and although there is some confusion as to dates, and the cause of the explosions, there is little doubt that Tait had been put under intense pressure: “[Tait was] subjected in the course of his duties to exceptional exposure of the following nature: ‘On May 8 at about 3am, the transport line where this Driver was stationed was suddenly shelled by gas and high explosive shells. After the shelling had ended, Driver Tait could not be found. He was eventually found about 7.30am wandering about the field like a person who had lost reason, his face

being white and with a vacant stare. He was led to the field ambulance which was close by.’ Robert Tait was one of the men transferred to Seale Hayne from the Royal Military Hospital at Netley, and the treatment he received was benign and by all accounts successful. He was encouraged to work on the land that surrounded the hospital, learning poultry management, a skill he would take into his post-war life. He moved to Kent to follow the doctor who continued his treatment and his health continued to be good until the outbreak of the Second World War, when the proximity of the family home to Biggin Hill Airfield brought back memories of the trauma he had experienced in the earlier conflict.

Robert Tait died in 1950, but for Sandra Gittins her grandfather’s time at Seale Hayne has great significance. Although married at the time, Tait struck up a friendship with a nurse, Maud Hanniford, who had taken up a position at Seale Hayne alongside her sister Lilian. The sisters were unqualified, but clearly keen to contribute to the war effort, having only recently lost their two brothers killed in action. After Tait’s return to Scotland, and the death of his wife in 1920, Robert and Maud continued 

www.britainatwar.com 49

SHELL SHOCK ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? War Neurosis 1917

RUPERT LEE

ient and Lt Rupert Lee, a pat iasm for artist whose enthus ds was Hurst and his metho work is a unwavering. The art is by Lee. book jacket design

their relationship and later married. Sandra says ‘I really am a child of the First World War, and of Seale Hayne, my grandparents having met there’. Tait’s story will not have been unique, but his later experience with the trauma resurfacing in World War Two cannot be dismissed. Research in pension records does suggest that many men, apparently healed under Arthur Hurst’s care, relapsed in the years following the signing of the Armistice.

TREATMENT METHODS Based on theories of occupational therapy, the simple peace of the rolling Devon countryside offered solace to the damaged men. Furthermore the physical activity — working on the land, tending cattle — was an important part of the therapy and Hurst even encouraged men to re-enact the battles they had been involved in, equipped with firearms. Creativity was encouraged and the men produced a lively magazine, complete with hospital gossip column.

In between these activities, Hurst and his team also offered lengthy and intense sessions involving hypnotherapy and what was termed ‘humane persuasion’. Unlike some other hospitals, the staff at Seale Hayne refused to bully a patient into submitting to the will of the doctor and the army. Hurst was keen to ensure the dignity of the men was maintained, with no pressure to get them back to the Front at all costs. In evaluating Arthur Hurst’s treatment, it would be easy to compare his methods to 21st century approaches to treating depression and anxiety. However, to the frustration of his peers, Hurst was somewhat evasive when answering questions about how his results were achieved. In the film, he describes the soldier’s symptoms on screen but he does not elaborate on the treatments. He tells of how visitors to the hospital were often surprised at the rapidity of his results, but mentioned little other than the fact that men were ‘kept at it’ for hours until the treatment was

EFFECTIVE

50 www.britainatwar.com

Physical exercise and fresh air have been shown to reduce anxiety and lift mood. Soldiers worked outdoors and farmed the land.

successful. His isolation from other ‘experts’ in the field, such as Frederick Mott, Charles Myers and the doctors at Maghull and Netley Military Hospitals, meant that few came to witness work in progress, and the physical location of Seale Hayne negated the possibility that anyone else could take credit for his successes. It was not until 1944, when publishing an updated version of his book Medical Diseases of the War, that Hurst formally detailed his methods: ‘Directly the patient is admitted the sister encourages him to believe that he will be cured as soon as the doctor has time to see him...The medical officer ...tells him as a matter of course he will be cured the next day. The patient is made to understand that any treatment he has already received has prepared the way, so that nothing now remains but a properly directed effort on his part for a complete recovery to take place.’ It appears Hurst is ‘tricking’ his patient into recovery, but similar deception was widely used as a ‘cure’ for shell-shock and it was not considered an unethical practice. Fake operations to cure deafness were staged, going so far as to anaesthetise and cut patients who had been told the procedure was a ‘cure’. Frederick Mott at the Maudsley Hospital also used this method, alongside ‘faradization’, or electric shock treatment. Mott, a distinguished neurologist, understood the ‘fight or flight’ reflex, and he recognised that as the war progressed towards a conclusion, and men sent back to the front were relapsing at such a high rate, the best ‘cure’ was to assure a patient that they would never be sent back to the Front; a factor that may have contributed to Hurst’s success so late in the war.

SHELL SHOCK ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? War Neurosis 1917

PATIENTS

One of the men sent to Hurst just months before war ended was Lt. Rupert Lee, an artist with a public school background ill-preparing him for the rigours of the barrack room. Receiving his call up papers in summer 1916, he joined the Queens Westminster Rifles but was bullied mercilessly. He was sent for officer training and to the British Line near Arras at the end of 1917. Lee’s group took a pounding during Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive in 1918 but, suffering from concussion and ravaged by influenza, he became delirious and the nightmares he experienced then continued for the rest of his life. He was so traumatised that doctors at the Front saw no alternative but to transfer him back to Britain for treatment. Determined not to refer to his condition as ‘shell shock’ Lee was sent to Seale Hayne and Arthur Hurst, who treated him for ‘war strain’. He was encouraged to draw and paint, continuing to produce the powerful images of war he had started whilst in the trenches. He later said: “ I Liked

Hurst very much and was able to help him by organising and conducting an orchestra and running a model making workshop and generally organising things for patients to do…” There is little doubt that Arthur Hurst inspired his patients and they respected his sensitive approach. This would contribute to their recovery and earned considerable respect from his patients. There is evidence that Rupert Lee continued to experience periods of depression and anxiety postwar, but his admiration for Hurst was unwavering.

PLAYING TO THE CAMERA It is hard to assess which parts of Hurst’s film are what would now be termed a ‘reconstruction’ and which are genuine. The facts of Private Meek’s trauma are undisputed, but the film, shot in just eight months, documents a recovery that took over two years. Presumably the wheelchair scene, and Meek’s paralysis, must be ‘faked’ or the time frame could not fit. Demonstrations of the disappearance

These relaxed shots of patients, orderlies and nurses at Seale Hayne demonstrate the group atmosphere that Hurst was trying to foster.

of Private Smith’s facial tic under hypnosis are so extraordinary as to be unbelievable and there is little doubt that Privates Sandall and King are ‘playing to the camera’ and imitating their ‘hysterical gait’. The film is moving and disturbing, but inevitably one begins to doubt the veracity of what one is seeing as there was no requirement, as there is today, for a documentary film to make it clear that a scene is being’ re-enacted’. Audiences, still unused to seeing ‘moving pictures’ would take them at face value. Hurst’s treatment by ‘suggestion’ might be compared to 21st century neuro-linguistic programming, or even the tricks used by modern ‘conjurers’ and criticisms especially as he (like many other shell shock doctors) failed to undertake any follow-up reporting, even though given funding to do so. The non-existent tracking of patients after they left the hospital — either back into the army or civilian life — means 

www.britainatwar.com 51

NO NORMAL SHELL SHOCKBATTLE ON FILM: FACT OR FAKERY? Longstop War Neurosis Hill 1917

VICTIM

n The affliction that became know as as shell shock was first called , such by Charles Myers in 1915 who believed it was caused by physical proximity to shell fire.

there are no statistics to indicate success, or failure rates. Hurst was widely criticised for making claims for rapid cures that he was unable to substantiate six months after the war, let alone one or two years later when a real ‘cure’ might be properly assumed, but this is true of much of the work done with soldiers in all hospitals. It is true that the relapse rates at the Front suggest that many men returned after treatment were in no fit state for combat, either psychologically or physically. In March 1919, the Sunday Times and local press, including the Western Times, printed lengthy excerpts from an article written by Mr W. S. London, Hon Sec. to the Middlesex War Pensions Committee following his visit to Seale Hayne Hospital. The article, headed ‘Modern Miracles’, describes how ‘the dumb are made to speak, the deaf to hear, the blind to see and the paralysed to walk’. The papers held Mr London up as a paragon of honesty, noting that he ‘only speaks of what he has really seen with own eyes, so that there can be no question of exaggeration!’ The reports offer interesting statistics; within five months of the end of the war, Hurst and his team could claim that in 100 consecutive, successful treatments, they were curing, within days, men A group of patients hard at who had on average been ess succ The . entry carp work at treated in other hospitals of otherwise of War Neurosis of for 11 months prior to 1917 continues to be a matter

WOODWORK

debate in professional circles.

admission. Ninety-six per cent were treated and cured in just one sitting, at an average of 54 minutes per patient. Of the four cases that took longer, all took less than four weeks. Some aspects of the Seale Hayne regimen are now recognised as effective in the treatment of depression and anxiety. Physical exercise and fresh air have been shown to reduce anxiety and lift mood, and there is little doubt that the support Hurst and his staff offered to those desperately afraid to return to the Front aided recovery. However, hypnotherapy and ‘suggestion’, which Hurst used to ‘cure’ patients very quickly, while being recognised as useful in some circumstances, is disputed as a treatment for more serious mental health issues.

War Neurosis 1917 will continue to be the subject of debate in professional circles beyond the centenary, and accusations of ‘fakery’ are common. But compared to the horrors of electric shock treatment used in other hospitals, or to admission to county lunatic asylums where treatment was minimal, the men who found themselves at Seale Hayne were fortunate. It is the failure to follow up those men treated that has resulted in the doubt cast upon the images. Such follow-up studies have been difficult to carry out in subsequent conflicts. In a BBC Panorama Special screened in the United Kingdom in July 2013, the subject of suicide among veterans of conflicts from 2000 onwards (but most particularly those serving in Afghanistan) showed a continuing dearth of follow-up even a century later. This lack of information was blamed for a rise in the number of ex-servicemen taking their own lives, having experienced the onset of the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder during or even years after their tours of duty. It is an issue the Ministry of Defence, the National Health Service and society still need to address.  Shell Shocked Britain: The First World War’s Legacy for Britain’s Mental Health by Suzie Grogan is now available from Pen & Sword. See www. facebook..com/shellshockedbritain or follow @ShellShockedGB on twitter for more details.

52 www.britainatwar.com

The Western Front F_P.indd 1

07/04/2015 12:13

Open everyday from 10am to 5pm local time. 2015 Admission Prices Adults: €5.00 - Groups: €4.00 - School Groups: €3.50

Memorial Du Souvenir F_P.indd 1

08/04/2015 15:00

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

75TH

DUNKIRK ANNIVERSARY 1940-2015

A British soldier, waiting to be evacuated from the beach at Dunkirk, prepares to fire his rifle at a Junkers 87 'Stuka' dive-bomber which is about to attack the huddled masses of troops, and the shipping lying offshore, during Operation Dynamo.

DUNKIRK

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

To commemorate the historic events of 75 years ago we offer a series of vignettes which sum up what made Dunkirk feel like a victory. www.britainatwar.com 55

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

GERMAN SERVICEMAN’S 1 PHOTO ALBUM RIGHT: A page from the German serviceman’s photograph album detailing his part in the rapid German advance of May and June 1940. (COURTESY OF CHRIS GOSS)

BOTTOM LEFT: German personnel inspect the wreckage of a French tank knocked out during the Blitzkrieg. (COURTESY OF CHRIS GOSS)

BOTH RIGHT: In the aftermath of the evacuation commercially produced souvenirs soon became available, such as this collection of photographic postcards of Dunkirk and Malo-Les-Bains. The German captions indicate that such items were intended for the occupiers, should there be any doubt about the matter.

T

The Blitzkrieg and Race Towards Dunkirk Begin

HEY CALLED it the ‘Phoney War’, eight months of tedium as the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) deployed by the French border and waited to come to grips with the enemy. During that time Allied commanders had drawn up a number of plans that they hoped would counter all the moves the Germans were likely to make. When the expected blow fell on the morning of Friday, 10 May 1940, it was learnt that the Germans had invaded Belgium which resulted in a message sent from French Headquarters to implement ‘Plan D’. This plan called for the BEF to move into Belgium to take up a position on the River Dyle. Such a move meant that the positions on the border which the British and French had been furiously strengthening all winter would be abandoned. It also meant that the BEF had to rush some 60

(HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

56 www.britainatwar.com

miles up to the Dyle to get there before the Germans and to occupy positions with which the troops were unfamiliar. This move also created a large gap in the Allied front around Gembloux where there was no natural anti-tank obstacle. Earmarked to fill this gap was France’s strongest force, the First Army supported by a full half of its armoured reserves. As we now know, the attack by the Germans into Belgium, though conducted with very heavy forces, was only part of their operation. With the BEF and the First Army holding off the German attacks and the French Second and Third armies manning the Maginot Line and associated areas, there was little to halt the German Panzer divisions when — against all expectations — they penetrated the Ardennes and broke into France. Despite all the planning, no arrangements had been made to counter

an attack through the Ardennes, nor had any plans been made for the withdrawal of Allied forces from Belgium, as it was expected that the German attack would be stopped in that country. The result was chaos. On 15 May 1940, just five days after the start of the German onslaught, the new French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, rang his recently installed counterpart in London, Winston Churchill, to announce that: ‘We have been defeated. We are beaten; we have lost the battle.’ Though Churchill tried to reassure the French Government, it soon became clear that the French commanders and soldiers held the same view as the politicians. The French were on the run and the unprecedented speed of the advances made by the Germans through northern France seriously endangered the BEF’s communications. Though the new French commander General Weygand urged the armies in the north to fight their way south, on 23 May the decision was made to try to save the BEF by evacuating it back to the UK. 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

This photograph album is held in a private collection.

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

DOVER CASTLE TUNNELS

D

2

Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay’s Headquarters During the Evacuation

EEP INSIDE the famous white cliffs of Dover is an extensive network of tunnels that formed the headquarters of Bertram Ramsay, who from 24 August 1939 was Vice-Admiral Dover. The tunnels were first constructed under the castle in the Middle Ages to provide a protected line of communication for the soldiers manning the northern outworks of the castle and to allow the garrison to gather unseen before launching sorties against besiegers. Fear of invasion by the French in the Napoleonic Wars led to Dover being powerfully garrisoned. Soon the castle was overflowing with troops and so to create further accommodation and storage space the tunnels were considerably expanded, the work being undertaken by French prisoners of war. When complete, the tunnels, seven in number, could accommodate up to 2,000 men. They are the only underground barracks ever built in the UK. After the threat from Napoleon had finally ended at Waterloo, the tunnels were used by the Coast Blockade Service but, in 1827, they were abandoned and remained largely so until the outbreak

LEFT: One of the tunnels beneath Dover Castle which formed part of Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay’s headquarters. (© ENGLISH HERITAGE)

of war in 1939. In the early months of the Second World War the tunnels were opened as an air-raid shelter and then converted into an underground hospital. The tunnels also became the naval headquarters at Dover. The nerve centre of the headquarters was a single gallery which ended in an embrasure at the cliff face. This was used as an office by Ramsay. When he first arrived at Dover, he had not been impressed with the resources. As he wrote to his wife: ‘We have no stationery, books, typists or machines, no chairs and few tables, maddening communications. I pray that war, if it has to come, will be averted for yet a few days.’ A succession of small rooms leading deep into the chalk away from Ramsay’s office housed the Secretary, the Flag Lieutenant, the Chief of Staff (Captain L.V. Morgan) and the Staff office itself. Beyond these was a large room used normally for meetings/conferences in connection with the operation of the base. In the First World War it had held an auxiliary electrical plant and was known as the ‘Dynamo Room’. It was in that room that, on 20 May 1940, Ramsay called a conference to discuss the rapidly changing situation

over in Belgium and France. Among the possible measures discussed was ‘the Emergency evacuation across the Channel of very large forces’. If such an emergency operation became necessary it was decided that it would have to be carried out through three French ports — Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk. The meeting of the 20th made it obvious that a reorganisation of the base staff at Dover would be necessary to cope with the sudden rush of additional work. It was decided to set up this new body in the conference room itself. It was in this former Dynamo Room that the preparation, planning, and organisation of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France took place. It thus became known as Operation Dynamo. 

BELOW LEFT: Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay KCB, KBE, MVO, who, on 24 August 1939, as a Vice-Admiral, was given command of the Dover area of operations and in which position he then had responsibility for the Dunkirk evacuation. This statue was unveiled in the grounds of Dover Castle in November 2000. (PAULINA GRUNWALD/

SHUTTERSTOCK)

BOTTOM LEFT: A view of one of the many rooms beneath Dover Castle. (© ENGLISH HERITAGE)

= WHERE TO FIND IT

On Castle Hill, Dover Castle is an English Heritage property described as ‘the most iconic of all English fortresses commanding the gateway to the realm for nine centuries’. For more information or to plan a visit, especially to explore the underground tunnels or to enjoy the Operation Dynamo Experience, please see: www.english-heritage.org.uk

www.britainatwar.com 57

2.

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

3

ADMIRAL TENNANT MEMORIAL Operation Dynamo’s Man on the Ground Commemorated

RIGHT: The bust of Admiral Sir William Tennant in Upton-uponSevern. It is said that without Tennant’s cool head and organisational skills, Operation Dynamo would not have achieved the results that it did. He came to be known by the nickname ‘Dunkirk Joe’. (WITH THE KIND PERMISSION OF NICK OLIVER)

BELOW: The kind of scene that greeted Tennant upon his arrival at Dunkirk. Part of the original caption states that this is 'the first picture of the destruction of Dunkirk … a square in the centre of Dunkirk photographed during the incessant Nazi bombardment of the French port. The smoke and dust of battle hangs over everything.’ (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

A

T 18.57 hours on Sunday, 26 May 1940, the Admiralty issued the directive ordering the start of Operation Dynamo. At this stage the Admiralty believed that it would only be able to rescue 45,000 men over the course of the succeeding two days, ‘at the end of which’, read the signal to Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram H. Ramsay at Dover, ‘it was probable that evacuation would be terminated by enemy action’. Even before the order to proceed had been given, the despatch of vessels to Dunkirk had begun at 15.00 hours. At this time a flow of two vessels every four hours had been agreed to; the first of these returned to Dover on the return trip at 22.30 hours, when 1,312 personnel were landed. The only Inshore Craft then available to Ramsay were four Belgian passenger launches and the small craft of the Dover Command, such as drifters, and motor boats from the Contraband Control Base at Ramsgate. With the situation at Dunkirk far from clear, Captain William Tennant, chief staff officer to the First Sea Lord, crossed the Channel on the afternoon of 27 May with orders to report his findings back to the Admiralty. As Ramsay himself later noted, he ‘was fortunate in having the services of Rear Admiral W.F. WakeWalker, CB, OBE, as Flag Officer afloat off Dunkirk, and Captain W.G. Tennant, CB, MVO, as Senior Naval Officer, Dunkirk on shore. Admiral Wake-Walker was responsible for supervising the embarkation afloat and Captain Tennant for organising embarkation from the shore, keeping touch with the French Naval Authorities and the staff of the British Commander-in-Chief.’

58 www.britainatwar.com

Tennant and his naval beach and pier party of 12 officers and 160 ratings, plus communication staff, left Dover in the destroyer HMS Wolfhound at 13.45 hours. During the crossing, Tennant was provided with a foretaste of what lay head as the warship was attacked by Luftwaffe aircraft at half-hour intervals between 16.00 hours and 18.00 hours when Wolfhound docked. Author Robert Jackson described the scene faced by Tennant and his team in his book Dunkirk: The British Evacuation, 1940: 1940 ‘As Wolfhound approached Dunkirk … the pall of smoke assumed frightening proportions as it coiled and billowed in the summer air, and at its foot the whole waterfront seemed to be ablaze. Rivers of flame seethed along the quay from lines of burning warehouses, and as the destroyer approached the harbour a carpet of soot descended on her like black rain. The Wolfhound berthed [at 18.00 hours] to the screech and crump of bombs.’

Despite the devastation around him, Tennant immediately made an initial assessment. At 20.25 hours, he sent the following signal to Ramsay: ‘Port consistently bombed all day, and on fire. Embarkation possible only from beaches east of harbour … Send all ships and passenger ships there to anchor.’ A short time later, a further message reached Dover: ‘Please send every available craft to beaches East of Dunkirk immediately. Evacuation tomorrow night is problematical’. It was these reports from Tennant that helped set in motion the extraordinary rescue effort by vessels of all shapes and sizes that came to characterise Operation Dynamo. 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

The memorial bust to Admiral Sir William Tennant is located in the grounds of the Bell Tower (often referred to as the ‘Pepperpot’), which dominates Church Street in Uptonupon-Severn, Worcestershire.

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

TEDDINGTON LOCK MEMORIAL A

4

Remembering the Gathering of the Little Ships

S OPERATION Dynamo gathered pace, the need to find enough vessels with a shallow draught intensified, such craft being suitable for taking troops off the beaches where the larger ships could not penetrate. However, some preparation in this respect had already been made when, on 14 May 1940, the following announcement was broadcast by the BBC: ‘The Admiralty have made an order requesting all owners of self-propelled pleasure craft between 30’ and 100’ in length to send particulars to the Admiralty within 14 days from today if they have not already been offered or requisitioned.’ Because of this Small Craft Registration Order, the Admiralty had access to the details of where such boats might be available within a reasonable sailing distance of Dover. However, as the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships points out on its website, ‘very few owners took their own vessels, apart from fishermen and one or two others’, so ‘in many cases the owners could not be contacted and boats were taken without their knowledge — such was the speed and urgency of the Operation’. The process, though, was still painfully slow with sizeable delays

incurred wading through the data collected during the registration process. At this point, H.C. Riggs of the Ministry of Shipping thought of a short-cut. Why not go direct to the boatyards? Consequently, staff at the Small Craft Section of the Ministry of Shipping began contacting various agents, boatyards, boat builders and yacht clubs up and down the Thames and along the south and south-eastern coasts. At William Osborne’s yard in Littlehampton, West Sussex, for example, the cabin cruisers Green Eagle and Bengeo seemed to fit the bill. Local volunteers were quickly rounded up by the harbour master and both vessels headed east up the Channel. Green Eagle certainly crossed to Dunkirk but is recorded as lost during the operation. At the Tough Bros. boatyard at Teddington, proprietor Douglas Tough received an early-morning telephone call from Admiral Sir Lionel Preston. Taking Tough into his confidence, Preston briefly outlined Operation Dynamo, the kind of boats needed and, most importantly, the urgency of the situation. The results were dramatic. Assisted by individuals such as Ron Lenthall and Chief Foreman Harry Day, Douglas Tough set about gathering the small craft asked for, starting with 14 in his yard opposite Teddington Lock. ‘More than 100 craft from the Upper Thames were [duly] assembled at the Ferry Road Yard of Tough Bros.,’ continues the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships account. ‘Here everything unnecessary was taken off and stored … The boats were then checked over and towed by Toughs and other tugs down river to Sheerness. Here they were fuelled and taken to Ramsgate where Naval Officers,

Ratings and experienced volunteers were put aboard and directed to Dunkirk … The whole Operation was very carefully co-ordinated and records exist of most of the Little Ships and other larger vessels that went to Dunkirk.’ 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

Teddington Lock is a complex of three locks and a weir on the River Thames. The lock is situated on the towpath on the Surrey side of the river, in Ham about a mile below Kingston-upon-Thames. It can normally only be reached on foot. The nearest road is Riverside Drive in Ham. Alternatively the lock can be reached from Ferry Road, Teddington, over the footbridges which cross the river there.

ABOVE: The black granite plaque at Teddington Lock. Some scenes from the 1958 feature film Dunkirk were filmed in the area. (COURTESY

OF JIM LINWOOD)

LEFT: One of the Little Ships pictured in its peacetime role. This is the Southend pleasure boat Princess Maud providing a good illustration of how just many people could be carried. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

BOTTOM: A few of the Little Ships under tow to Dunkirk — note the warship in the background. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

www.britainatwar.com 59

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

BRAY DUNES

5

T

The Queues on the Beaches

HE PORT of Dunkirk had been largely destroyed by the Luftwaffe and concrete blockships had been sunk at the harbour entrance. With rescue ships therefore unable to enter Dunkirk there were only the outsides of the wooden breakwaters on either side of the harbour where ships could pull up alongside. Captain William (HISTORIC Tennant, who was in charge of the MILITARY PRESS) evacuation at Dunkirk, decided to BELOW RIGHT: use only the eastern breakwater. Soldiers wait This, the East Mole, was only patiently in line, five feet wide and had not been up to their necks in the sea, to be designed for embarking personnel. Apart from the East Mole there hauled aboard the minesweeper were just the soft, sandy beaches, HMS Oriole, stretching for 16 miles eastwards beached off the from Dunkirk to Nieuport, at places Belgian resort such as Malo-les-Bains, Bray-Dunes of La Panne, 29 and La Panne. Ships could not May 1940. It is perhaps the approach these beaches, but small most widely boats could. published It was to the beaches such as those picture of the at Bray that the vessels with shallow evacuation draughts could creep close inshore. but rarely, if ever, has the Here the troops waited, with astonishing photographer, order and discipline, to be taken from John Rutherford the beach to the ships anchored further Crosby, a subout at sea, as Captain Anthony Rhodes lieutenant RIGHT: Allied troops on one of the beaches near Dunkirk form into long winding queues ready to take their turn to board small boats intended to take them to larger vessels.

serving in the converted Clyde paddle steamer, been credited. It has also on occasion been described as a fake — a montage — on the assumption that no ship could get so far inshore without running aground. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

BELOW: The beach at Bray-Dunes. (COURTESY OF

ARNAUD FRANOUX)

60 www.britainatwar.com

of 253 Field Company, Royal Engineers described: ‘Towards early morning great queues formed to go to the water’s edge where at about four o’clock, out of the darkness, we saw boats coming in. Where they came in, there was a little nucleus of men at the head of the water, and a great queue running from the dunes behind, perhaps a quarter of a mile long. Nobody told us what to do, but it seemed the decent thing to get into the queue and not to try and jump it. ‘At the head of each little nucleus there was a naval officer. There must have been 10 or 12 of these queues, and when we were halfway up our queue, the bombing started again. One man ran out of place to the head of the queue when he saw a boat coming. The naval officer turned on him, and I heard him say, “Go back to the place you’ve come from, or I’ll shoot you!” He said it very loudly for everybody to hear, and the man went back with his tail between his legs.’

The orderly queues from the beach, stretching into the water as the boats came in, were one of the hallmarks of the Dunkirk evacuation. Signaller Alfred Baldwin of the 65th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery said that the impression he had was of people standing waiting for a bus. He recalled that even when the German aircraft attacked, the same discipline was maintained: ‘Every time a ’plane strafed the beach, all the queues vanished miraculously, then as soon as the strafing finished, they all came up and formed up again where they were before.’ In typically British fashion the men waited their turn, and for most of the soldiers of the BEF their patience was rewarded. 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

The beaches east of Dunkirk can be reached at a variety of locations. One site is the Reserve Naturelle Dune Marchand, a nature reserve to the west of Bray-Dunes. The reserve covers a total of 83 acres, and is signposted off the D-60 coast road.

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

THE EAST MOLE D

6

Rescued by the Larger Vessels and Warships

UNKIRK WAS a fine port and, had the harbour not been largely destroyed by the Luftwaffe and the entrance stopped by blockships, it would have proven an ideal point of embarkation for the BEF. Though the harbour was denied to the ships of the Royal Navy, the outer breakwaters, or moles, could still be approached. Captain Tennant decided to use the mole and beaches to the east of Dunkirk. The East Mole was not a stout stone wall with berthing places along its length, as might be imagined around a harbour. It was a narrow plank-way barely wide enough for three men to walk abreast. On either side was a protective railing made of strong timbers with, at intervals, taller posts which could be used by ships

to secure themselves against the Mole in emergencies. At the far end of the Mole was a concrete ‘nose’ upon which stood a short lighthouse. The Mole was built in this fashion to allow the tides to roll in and out and to put less strain upon its structure. This, though, meant that ships which did try to berth alongside had to ride the waves, making every approach difficult. Embarking troops in such circumstances was going to be no easy matter. There was, however, no alternative. Of the ships that used the East Mole, the cross-Channel ferry boats had the advantage of being built with their sides specially stiffened with thick rubbing strakes to berth against quays and jetties; not so the warships of the Royal Navy. Destroyers were built for speed, and were notoriously difficult to handle at slow speeds. Their sides were also

made of thin steel plating and great care had to be taken as their skippers inched them towards the large wooden piles of the Mole. The worst though, was to come, because when the ships were tied up against the Mole they were easy, static targets for the Luftwaffe. Just what it was like during the evacuation was described by Able Seaman Ian Nethercott on board HMS Keith: ‘When we tied up alongside the Keith mole, we went past a troopship at the very end of it which had been sunk. She was lying at the bottom, burnt out. Next there was a destroyer which was burnt out, and then there was a gap in the mole for about 100 yards. Then there were trawlers and sweepers, also burnt out, leaning against the mole. In the middle section the mole had been shot away and they’d got a load of planks which the troops had to walk over in single file.’ Despite all the hazards involved in taking men off the East Mole, it was by far one of the more successful options. Of those personnel evacuated from Dunkirk, 98,780 were lifted from the beaches, whilst 239,446 were embarked from the harbour and at Dunkirk itself. The item seen here is a piece of the actual jetty, or East Mole, at Dunkirk, as used in Operation Dynamo. It was presented to the House of Lords by the Dunkirk Veterans’ Association in November 1971. 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

The piece of timber from the jetty, or East Mole, at Dunkirk is on display in the Palace of Westminster in London. The remains of the East Mole can still be seen in the port itself.

ABOVE RIGHT: The piece of timber from the jetty, or East Mole, at Dunkirk on display in the Palace of Westminster.

(COURTESY OF THE UK PARLIAMENT)

LEFT: British troops pass through a street in Dunkirk, possibly heading towards the harbour and East Mole. A burnt out lorry is seen on the right. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

BOTTOM LEFT: Troops on what is believed to be the East Mole board a Royal Navy warship. The poor quality of this image is due to the fact that it is an example of a ‘Wirephoto’, when images were sent, in this case to the US, for immediate publication, by telegraph or telephone. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

www.britainatwar. 61

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

THE ‘GRETA’

7 RIGHT: Abandoned vehicles and equipment litter the seafront at Dunkirk in the immediate aftermath of Operation Dynamo. Note the abandoned Thames sailing barge, believed to be Ethel Everard, in the centre background. Ethel Everard was towed across the Channel by the tug Sun XII in company with another barge, Tollesbury.

(HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

TOP RIGHT: Lying alongside abandoned Bren gun carriers and, in the distance, lorries, the sailing barge Barbara Jean is pictured on the beach at Dunkirk. Barbara Jean was run ashore on 1 June 1940 by skipper C. Webb and set on fire after food, water and ammunition had been unloaded. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

BELOW: The Thames sailing barge Greta today.

(SHUTTERSTOCK/

T

A Thames Sailing Barge

HE MOST notable aspect of the Dunkirk evacuation is unquestionably the myriad of small vessels that sailed across the Channel to help rescue the men from the beaches. They were a truly varied collection, with a number formally chartered for the Royal Navy and others simply commandeered without notice. Tugs accompanied some of the boats, often towing them, across the Channel but many made the journey alone, and made that journey two, three, or even more times. Odd though it may seem, and despite the official Small Craft Registration Order, the precise number of the small vessels that took part in Operation Dynamo is not known. Estimates given in various sources range from 700 to 1,300. The most detailed published record of the so-called ‘Little Ships’ has identified, with certainty, more than 1,000 vessels of all descriptions. These included sailing ketches such as Angele Aline, a beautiful 65-foot yacht which had no engine and was towed out to sea where she could hoist her sails. There were also trawlers, like Willdora which was fishing off the south coast of England when the call came to help the troops stranded in France. Ferries were employed in the rescue as well. These came in all shapes and sizes. Southend Britannia was a 107-foot-long ferry boat employed on the widest part of the River Thames to carry passengers from Southend to Sheerness. Medway Queen, which we shall feature in greater detail in the following pages, by contrast was nearly 80 feet longer and, as a

PAUL J. MARTIN)

62 www.britainatwar.com

large and powerful paddle steamer, could carry almost 1,000 passengers in her excursions along the Thames and the Medway. There were, of course, many much smaller boats employed, like the 25-foot motor yacht Daphne and the smallest of them all at less than 15 feet, the clinkerbuilt open fishing boat Tamzine, which we also feature later. Amongst the oldest of the Little Ships was the Thames sailing barge Greta. As the author Russell Plummer pointed out, the ‘Thames sailing barges made up one of the more unlikely elements of the Dunkirk fleet and some historians believe it was the first occasion since the Anglo-Dutch campaigns that so many spritsailrigged vessels had gone to war!’ The shallow draught of these vessels made

them ideally suited for working off the beaches. Of the 30 or so barges that crossed the Channel, roughly one third failed to return, some being lost en route, others deliberately beached and abandoned after the supplies that carried had been unloaded. One that did return was Greta. Built in 1892 at Brightlingsea, Greta was employed carrying grain, malt and building products along the river. Early in the Second World War Greta was chartered by the Ministry of Supply to carry ammunition from the army depot at Upnor, near Rochester in Kent, to naval vessels anchored in the Thames estuary. After the war Greta returned to her duties on the Thames. 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

Greta is now privately owned by Steve Norris. In the winter she is berthed at Standard Quay, Faversham, spending the sailing season (April-October) based at the South Quay inside Whitstable harbour. She is available for day trips. For more information, please visit: www. greta1892.co.uk

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

THE ‘SUNDOWNER’ O

8

The Little Ship With a Titanic Connection

LEFT: The motor yacht Sundowner in Ramsgate Harbour. After Dunkirk, Sundowner continued to serve as a coastal patrol vessel, taking part in a number of other rescues, such as when a Walrus flying boat crashed in the sea and, on another occasion, when a Spitfire force-landed in the mud in the Thames Estuary.

N THE night of 14 April 1912, Charles Herbert Lightoller, the second officer, was on watch on the bridge of RMS Titanic. It was the last watch he would undertake, for shortly after being relieved, the ship collided with an iceberg. Pulling on a sweater and trousers, Lightoller went on deck to marshal the evacuation of the passengers. He was the most senior officer to survive the sinking. Twenty-eight years later Charles Lightoller would take part in another nautical evacuation — from Dunkirk. In 1929 Charles Lightoller, who had earned the DSC in the First World War, purchased a former Admiralty steam pinnace which was in poor condition lying in the mud in Conyer Creek east of the River Medway. Over the course of the next two years the boat was completely

FAR LEFT: The need for many small craft such as Sundowner to help recover men from the beaches is clearly illustrated by this image of men wading out into the water in an attempt to reach a bigger vessel forced to wait further out. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

overhauled and was fitted with fourstroke engines. Named Sundowner, she was re-launched on 28 June 1930. Charles and Sylvia Lightoller then spent the next ten years cruising along the northern coast of Europe, taking part in many international competitions. In 1939, with the threat of war in the air, Lightoller was asked by the Admiralty to survey secretly the Continental coast and, when the sudden need for boats to sail for Dunkirk was realised, the Admiralty came calling again. When he was told that Sundowner was required to help evacuate the BEF Lightoller insisted that he would take the boat over himself. So, on 1 June, with his eldest son Roger, and a Sea Scout called Gerald Ashcroft, Lightoller took Sundowner over to France along with five other vessels. On the way over, Sundowner encountered the

motor cruiser Westerly, Westerly broken down and on fire. Lightoller went alongside and transferred her five-man crew, taking them on to Dunkirk, as Lightoller later explained: ‘We had been subject to sporadic bombing and machine-gun fire, but as the Sundowner is exceptionally and extremely quick on the helm, by waiting till the last moment and putting the helm hard over — my son at the wheel — we easily avoided every attack, though sometimes near lifted out of the water … ‘The difficulty of taking troops on board from the quay high above us was obvious, so I went alongside a destroyer where they were already embarking … I now started to pack them on deck, having passed word below for every man to lie down and keep down; the same applied on deck. I could feel her getting

distinctly tender, so took no more … They were literally packed like the proverbial sardines, even one in the bath and another on the WC.’ Sundowner successfully reached Ramsgate at 22:00 hours that night with an astonishing 130 men on board. It was at this point that disaster nearly struck when the small craft was nearly sunk by the weight of troops moving to one side of the ship to disembark, forcing Roger Lightoller to shout at them to lie down and not move until told to do so. 

ABOVE LEFT: British soldiers wade out to a small launch at Dunkirk, in a suspiciously clear image. That’s because this is a scene from the film Dunkirk which was released at the St. James Theatre in July 1958. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

= WHERE TO FIND IT

Since May 2012, Sundowner has been owned by The Steam Museum Trust who also manage the Ramsgate Maritime Museum. She can normally be seen berthed in Ramsgate Harbour.

www.britainatwar. 63

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

9

RIGHT: Sergeant Jack Potter. (THE

ANDY SAUNDERS COLLECTION)

BOTH BELOW: The charred remains of Supermarine Spitfire K9912, KT-O, of 65 Squadron. Following combat with Messerschmitt Bf 109s over northern France on 26 May 1940, Pilot Officer K.G. Hart forcelanded this aircraft on a beach on the French coast. Uninjured, Hart was able to set fire to his aircraft, evidence of which can be seen in this photograph. Hart was one of those pilots who returned by boat. (COURTESY OF CHRIS GOSS)

SERGEANT JACK POTTER’S FLYING GOGGLES W

The RAF’s Role in the Evacuation

ITH SCARCELY 300 aircraft and little more in terms of available pilots, Fighter Command faced a daunting task during the Dunkirk evacuation. Somehow the might of the Luftwaffe had to be opposed if the BEF stood any chance of being rescued from Dunkirk. Indeed, noted Vice-Admiral Ramsay after the end of Dynamo, ‘It is unnecessary to stress the vital necessity for effective air co-operation in an operation of this nature. Not only did German air effort interrupt and reduce seaborne traffic, but it also prevented embarkation by suspending troop movement.’ Fighter Command, though, was operating under extreme conditions. Designed as a defensive force, it was expected to fight offensively many miles from its bases and often beyond radar and radio range. The time the aircraft had over the Belgian coast was limited and the enemy aircraft attacked in large formations, far greater than anything 11 Group’s squadrons could hope to defeat. As the evacuation continued, some of the fighter squadrons made four and five sorties a day, flying and fighting until they were utterly exhausted.

64 www.britainatwar.com

Despite such efforts, it is well-known that many viewed the RAF’s involvement as weak, ineffective or virtually nonexistent. Ramsay himself went on to write: ‘To both Naval and Military observers on the coast, the situation at times was extremely disheartening. Rightly or wrongly, full air protection was expected, but instead, for hours on end the ships off shore were subjected to a murderous hail of bombs and machine gun bullets. ‘Required by their duty to remain offshore waiting for the troops, who themselves were unable to move down to the water for the same reason, it required the greatest determination and sense of duty, amounting in fact to heroism, on the part of the ships’ and boats’ crews, to enable them to complete their mission. In their reports, the Commanding Officers of many ships, while giving credit to the RAF personnel for gallantry in such

combats as were observed from the ships, at the same time express their sense of disappointment and surprise at the seemingly puny efforts made to provide air protection during the height of this operation, though the gallantry of our out-numbered airmen was the admiration of all.’ By 1 June 1940, the air battle over Dunkirk had reached its climax. Already over the previous six days since the start of Operation Dynamo Fighter Command had lost more than 90 aircraft. Such losses were alarmingly high, but of even greater concern to Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding was the loss of

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL LEFT: The flying goggles that Sergeant Jack Potter was wearing when he was shot down over Dunkirk on 1 June 1940. (THE

ANDY SAUNDERS COLLECTION)

BELOW: A bomb explodes among soldiers waiting to be evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk. As dramatic as this image looks, it is in fact a scene from the 1958 film Dunkirk.

(HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

experienced pilots — men could not be replaced as quickly as machines. Nothing was more important than getting downed pilots back to the UK. One such airman was 19 Squadron’s Sergeant Jack Potter, whose dramatic story on that Saturday, the first day of June 1940, began when he was up before dawn and soon heading out across the Channel in his Spitfire Mk.I, K9836. The squadron found itself over the Belgian coast at around 05.40 hours and immediately ran into a gaggle of German aircraft. ‘On 1st June 1940, I was on patrol with Red Section … and shortly after reaching the patrol line we found 12 Me 110s over Dunkirk’, Potter later recounted. ‘We moved into attack, whereupon they turned very quickly back over the town as if trying to escape. However, we soon engaged them and they broke up and most of them appeared to turn steeply to the left. This appeared to be the only means of escape they knew and they became quite easy to shoot at. ‘I fired at several without apparent effect and then engaged one which had just begun a steep diving turn to the

left. I had a full plan view of the top of the aircraft and opened fire at about 400 yards. I held my fire for almost eight seconds and could see my bullets going into the front half of the fuselage. At about 150 yards my ammunition ran out, and I had to avoid the shell fire of another enemy aircraft which was firing at me from my port side.’ Potter tried to escape from the mêlée so that he could return home to re-arm. ‘As I reached the outskirts of the fight a metallic ‘bang’ from my port side made me look at my port mainplane and I saw a hole about eight inches long and about two inches wide just above the position of the oil cooler … at about ten miles out from the coast the engine became very rough and oil and glycol smoke started to appear. Finally the engine seized up at about 4,000 feet and fifteen miles out from land. ‘Looking around at the sea I saw a small boat and decided to land alongside it. I decided to stay with the aeroplane as the sea was very calm and I thought my chances of being picked up were greater if I landed alongside the boat than if I took to my parachute. ‘I circled the boat at about 50 feet and then, being very close to the sea, straightened out to land … On first touching the water the machine skimmed off again, and after one more such landing it dug its nose into the sea. I was flung forward and my forehead and nose met the reflector sight … I stood up in the cockpit and found the aircraft still afloat but it sank almost

immediately … As the aircraft sank I tried to get out but the parachute caught on the sliding hood and I was taken down with the aircraft. However, I was soon released and pushed off with my feet only to be struck by the tailplane as it went past.’ Potter swam upwards and broke the surface to find himself just 50 yards from the boat, a French trawler. Eventually, having endured further Luftwaffe attacks from the deck of the fishing vessel, Potter was put aboard a Royal Navy destroyer. He was one of 18 Fighter Command pilots shot down that day, five of whom survived and were taken back to the UK by sea. In total some 40 or so pilots brought down during Operation Dynamo were either taken off the beach at Dunkirk or were rescued from the sea — almost the equivalent of three squadrons. 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

BOTTOM LEFT: It was not only Fighter Command that was in action during Operation Dynamo — aircraft and crews from Coastal Command, Bomber Command and the Fleet Air Arm also played their part. Here a Coastal Command Lockheed Hudson patrols over a burning Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

This photograph album in held in a private collection.

www.britainatwar. 65

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

10

THE ‘MEDWAY QUEEN’

RIGHT: HMS Medway Queen under attack during one of her seven journeys between British ports and the French coast as part of the flotilla of Little Ships that participated in the Dunkirk evacuation. (MEDWAY QUEEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY)

BELOW RIGHT: Medway Queen working as a minesweeper. In 1942 she was converted to a mine sweeping training ship, and served out the war in this capacity. (AS

T

The Vessel That Rescued the Most Men

HE PADDLE steamer Medway Queen was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1939, repainted in battleship grey, armed with a First World War-vintage 12-pounder gun, fitted out as a minesweeper and sent off with HMS in front of her name. Bearing the number J48, HMS Medway Queen formed part of the 10th Minesweeping Flotilla. On 28 May 1940 she was anchored off the south coast watching out for German aircraft laying mines when she was ordered to make for Dunkirk. Along with other paddle steamers, such as Brighton Belle and Gracie Fields, she was among the first ships across the Channel. ‘A everything went quiet. We thought we would be taken back across to France to continue fighting, but instead we were taken to Ramsgate Pier and unloaded. There were people at the end of the pier all cheering us.’ Despite being one of the first vessels to reach the beaches Medway Queen was one of the last to leave on 4 June. She limped into Dover Harbour to be greeted by the sound of the sirens from all the ships in Dover Harbour. To mark her final return, Vice-Admiral Ramsey signalled, ‘Well Done Medway Queen’. 

ABOVE)

FAR RIGHT: Medway Queen stands by the fatally damaged Brighton Belle on 28 May 1940. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of the crew of Medway Queen all the soldiers on board Brighton Belle were rescued. (AS ABOVE)

BELOW: Medway Queen’s name on the side of one of her paddles. (COURTESY OF

NIGEL SIMMONS)

long time before we got there,’ recalled one of her crew, Bruce Sutton, ‘we saw the flames and smelled burning oil. No person who was there will forget it.’ Medway Queen was ordered to head for the beach at La Panne. She had towed some small boats over and, as dawn broke on the 29th, the crew sent in the boats, time and time again, to load up as many men as they could carry. By 07.00 hours Medway Queen had taken on board around 1,000 men and she set off back across the Channel. Over the days that followed Medway

66 www.britainatwar.com

Queen completed no fewer than seven return trips to Dunkirk. She is officially recorded as having rescued 3,046 men, though her crew believed that the true figure exceeded 6,000 and was probably closer to 7,000. Alf George, of Ashford, Kent, served with the Royal Artillery during the Second World War, and remembers being brought into Ramsgate by Medway Queen: ‘There were stretchers and bodies all along the Mole as we made our way along. We were given a tin of bully beef and a big packet of hard biscuits and told to share it among five of us. We’d been without food for three days. ‘I looked over and there was this little paddle steamer about six feet below me. A sailor helped me down and I went to the after cabin and sat on a bench seat where I dropped off to sleep. Then I was woken up by an airburst of shell fire. I looked out of the window and there were all these flashes. The floor was completely covered with stretchers and injured men. ‘I slept again and was awoken by a shuddering and a rattling, then

= WHERE TO FIND IT

Having been threatened with destruction on several occasions since the end of the Second World War, the Medway Queen was finally saved by the Medway Queen Preservation Society. She is now the only surviving estuary paddle steamer left in the United Kingdom and is normally berthed on Gillingham Pier. To find out about the Society’s efforts to restore Medway Queen to her former glory and how to support this work, or to arrange a visit, please see: www.medwayqueen.co.uk

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

DUNKIRK RIFLE

11

One of the Pieces of Equipment Left Behind

T

HE BRITISH Army suffered almost debilitating losses in terms of equipment and materiel during Operation Dynamo.. Among the items left behind in France, much of it to be re-used by the German Army, were 2,472 guns, 63,879 vehicles, 20,548 motorcycles, 76,097 tons of ammunition and 416,940 tons of assorted stores, whilst 162,000 tons of petrol and fuel were destroyed. The historian Basil Liddell Hart once described the situation thus: ‘Although the British Army … escaped from the trap in France, it was in no state to defend England [sic]. ]. It had left most of its weapons behind, and the stores at home were almost empty. In the following months Britain’s small and scantily-armed forces faced the magnificently equipped army that had conquered France with only a strip of water between them.’ The huge loss suffered by the British at Dunkirk is symbolised by this British .303 SMLE rifle. It was discovered

in 1999, buried at a depth of six feet in the sand below the low water mark just off the beach at Dunkirk. When uncovered, and having been cleaned and conserved, it was discovered that the rifle was cocked and that the sights were set at 700 yards. Further, when subjected to X-ray examination, it was found that an unfired round was in the chamber with another two or three in the magazine. From this, notes the original caption, ‘we may surmise that the soldier concerned was firing at aircraft. He was then either killed, wounded, or abandoned the weapon when embarking on a rescue craft.’ Arthur Joscelyne was a

civilian aboard one of the Little Ships — in his case, the Thames barge Shannon. His account of Operation Dynamo appears in Joshua Levine’s Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk: ‘The soldiers were not used to boats — and they all rushed to get aboard. We could have capsized at any moment. An officer stood up in the bows and got his revolver out. He said, “I’ll shoot the

first man who makes a move before I give you permission to board — you will do it in an orderly manner!” He stood there with his revolver, while we got about 50 of them on board. They

were in such a state that they just lay down anywhere. A couple of them threw their rifles overboard and said, “We shan’t want these any more!”’ We can only guess whether the rifle seen here was abandoned in such a manner. 

MAIN PICTURE: The Infantry and Small Arms School Corps Weapons Collection’s Dunkirk rifle. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

TOP LEFT: When the rifle was X-rayed, it was discovered that it was loaded. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

LEFT: A British QF 3 inch 20-cwt anti-aircraft gun pictured abandoned on the seafront at Dunkirk. This image was taken by a German war photographer soon after the capture of the port. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

= WHERE TO FIND IT

This rifle is normally on display at the Infantry and Small Arms School Corps Weapons Collection at Warminster. However, the collection is currently closed for redevelopment, scheduled to reopen in June 2016.

BOTTOM: A British soldier fires at attacking German aircraft while lying on the beach at Dunkirk.

(COURTESY OF

THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; 101172)

www.britainatwar. 67

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

BINOCULARS

12

Found in the Wreck of a Sunken Paddle Steamer MAIN PICTURE: The shipping line-issued binoculars believed to have been used by the captain of Crested Eagle and which were recovered from the location of the wreck on the beach at Dunkirk.

T

HE FIRST Thames paddle steamer to be built with oilfired boilers was the 299-foot TOP LEFT: Crested Eagle. Originally it even Taken by had a telescopic funnel to allow a German it to pass beneath London Bridge photographer in the immediate to berth at the Old Swan Pier. By aftermath of the time it was called upon to help the evacuation, evacuate the BEF from France, its this is the wreck berth had moved and a conventional of the paddle steamer Devonia funnel had been fitted. Along with two other paddle after it was deliberately steamers, Crested Eagle was already beached having in naval service, carrying out antibeen damaged aircraft duties with what was known in an air raid on as the Thames Special Service patrol, 30 May 1940. when, on 25 May 1940, she was Devonia had made several summoned to Sheerness. Three days journeys to later Crested Eagle sailed for Dunkirk, and from arriving there the following morning, the beaches watched by Corporal Arthur Turner, 48 before it was Provost Company, Royal Military Police: abandoned. (HISTORIC MILITARY ‘Then the Crested Eagle came in PRESS) alongside and we had to jump onto the mall first to jump back onto the Crested BOTTOM LEFT: Eagle, which was nearly full, mostly with The remains of the wounded. I and my three mates were both Crested Eagle (left circle) on top deck and a corporal in the Royal and Devonia Artillery said, “Here you are, you can (right), both help me work this Orlican [Oerlikon].” So paddle steamers we went with him and succeeded, and lost at Dunkirk, we began to steam away from the pier. can be seen on the beaches near We’d sailed perhaps half a mile, and then Bray-les-Dunes. we were bombed again. The bomb went Today, Crested straight into the engine room and there Eagle is used as were spuds, carrots, meat [everywhere] (COURTESY OF

JULES HUDSON)

a mussel farm. The building bottom right is at the end of Boulevard Georges Pompidou in Bray-Dunes. (© 2010 GOOGLEIMAGERY, ©DIGITALGLOBE, AERODATA INTERNATIONAL SURVEYS, CNES/ SPOT IMAGE, GEO-EYE, IGN FRANCE)

68 www.britainatwar.com

— evidently the bomb hit the provision store, as well. ‘A motor mechanic stationed with the Military Police (to look after our vehicles) was on fire. He was screaming, screaming … We rushed to get a bucket of water and chucked it over him. As we put this bucket down, he was putting his arms in the water, but all his skin came off. Then the whole place was on fire … ‘Me and my mates were holding onto the lattice work where the guide for the wheels was, and everybody was treading on my bloody fingers with big army boots. Then an officer said, “Come on lads — let’s swim for it”. So we dived into the water and started to swim.

= WHERE TO FIND IT

The pair of binoculars from Crested Eagle seen here are one of the many exhibits in the excellent Mémorial du Souvenir museum in Dunkirk. The museum is located in the fortifications that were built in 1874 as part of France’s coastal defences. For more information on the museum and its work, or arranging a visit, please see: www.dynamo-dunkerque.com

‘My full pack hit me under the chin as I dived and I smashed a couple of my teeth, but I started to swim and managed to get off my battle dress jacket, but I had khaki trousers and braces on and as I was swimming the braces were coming down. I swam for the shore, and gradually got rid of my trousers, and even my boots. I was a pretty good swimmer, but I tried to touch the bottom and I couldn’t — I just sank. With panic I surfaced and then I swam and swam. Then I managed to stand upright and walk to the shore — I was in vest and pants and nothing else except socks.’ Crested Eagle was hit by three bombs. Though Arthur Turner survived, more than 300 others died as she sank just a short distance off Bray Dunes. 

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

THE ‘TAMZINE’ N

13

The Smallest of the Little Ships

AMED AFTER the 18-year-old wife of a sailing skipper, who was drowned off the Isles of Scilly in an 18th century shipwreck, and who is said to be buried in the churchyard at St. Mary’s, Tamzine is the smallest surviving open fishing boat to have taken part in Operation Dynamo. She is generally recognised as the smallest survivor of the Little Ships. A clinker-built wooden-hulled open fishing boat, equipped with sails and a removable centre thwart, Tamzine had been designed for year-round fishing off Birchington, Kent. Built at the yard of Len C. Brockman and John Titcombe at Margate in 1937, she was the property of Ralph Bennett when she was requisitioned for use during Dynamo. Having been towed across the Channel, she was soon at work lifting troops off the beaches and ferrying them to the bigger vessels offshore. The difficulties involved in such duties were outlined by ViceAdmiral Ramsay: ‘Having reached the coast the business of ferrying from the water line to the offshore craft was by no means easy. Apart from the surf, which was usually experienced for some hours every day, derelict lorries, which had been abandoned below the high tide mark, proved a serious danger to boats. Another source of much trouble close inshore was the large amount of floating grass rope which various craft had used and lost in their rescue work, and numerous articles of military equipment such as great coats jettisoned during the evacuation. A great number of small power boats were put temporarily out of action by such ropes and garments fouling the screws, usually resulting in broaching to and being swamped while they were thus unmanageable.’

ABOVE: Tamzine on display in the Imperial War Museum, London.

As the evacuation drew to a close, Tamzine was taken in tow by a Belgian trawler and returned to the UK. It was her distinctive design that enabled her to be returned to her original owner, as the author Christian Brann reveals in his book The Little Ships of Dunkirk: ‘[Her builders] gave her their local peculiarity – a characteristic Viking-style straight stem, This enabled the Margate fishermen to identify and claim her as their own when, saturated with blood inside, but

otherwise undamaged, she was towed back by a Belgian fishing smack … Though hundreds of similar small boats were used, few were recovered or could be traced back to their owners in the same way.’ 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

Tamzine can be seen today on display in the Imperial War Museum, London. She was donated to the IWM by her owner, Ralph Bennett, in 1981.

LEFT: A view of one of the improvised piers at Dunkirk, consisting of vehicles parked side by side, taken looking towards the shore by a German war photographer. The beach is littered with a number of small boats similar in size to Tamzine.

(HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

BOTTOM LEFT: The plaques bearing the Arms of Dunkirk and the Battle Honour ‘Dunkirk 1940’ affixed to Tamzine.

(HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

www.britainatwar. 69

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

BULLET-HOLED LIFEBOAT RELIC

14 MAIN PICTURE: The damage pipe in Eastbourne Lifeboat Museum. (ANDY SAUNDERS COLLECTION)

BOTTOM LEFT: The damage to Jane Holland being repaired after Operation Dynamo.

(HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

MIDDLE: Un-named and undelivered, the Guide of Dunkirk was sent to Dunkirk direct from her builders at Colchester, Essex. She sailed on 1 June. Once off the French coast, she was badly damaged by machinegun fire, after which a rope then became entangled around her propeller. Having been towed back across the Channel, stern first, she was patched up and sent back into the maelstrom. On this trip she was extensively damaged by shell fire. (WITH THE KIND PERMISSION OF THE RNLI)

I

The RNLI Comes to the Rescue

T WAS not until 13.15 hours on Thursday, 30 May, that the Admiralty telephoned an obvious source of suitable vessels for use off the beaches at Dunkirk — the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The RNLI was asked to send as many of its boats as possible to Dover at once. That was all that was said and the instruction was not queried, though the reason for the call was easily guessed. As soon as the Institute received the call, it telephoned the 18 stations around the south and east coasts within practicable sailing of Dover, from Gorleston in Norfolk, which is 110 miles north-east of the Kent port, to Shoreham Harbour in Sussex, 80 miles to the west. The lifeboat coxswains were ordered to make their way to Dover immediately for special duty with the Admiralty. They were told to take a full crew, full fueltanks and towing ropes. The first boats arrived at Dover that evening and another three reached the port early the next day. Within 29 hours of the summons all bar three of the lifeboats had reached Dover. The Eastbourne lifeboat, Jane Holland (ON 673), was the oldest of the RNLI’s fleet to serve at Dunkirk. She was also the one to survive the greatest damage. Taken across the Channel by a naval crew on 30 May, Jane Holland immediately set about ferrying troops. But things did not go well, and she was soon in trouble. A French motor torpedo boat had hit her forward in the confused melée inshore and, while the crew struggled to repair the damage, she was hit again. This time it was aft, and by a Royal Navy motor torpedo boat. She struggled on until, about half

70 www.britainatwar.com

This object, a bulletriddled ventilator from Jane Holland, stands testimony to the battering she endured. Incredibly, Jane Holland was repaired, returned to Eastbourne and continued to serve the RNLI until 1949. 

a mile offshore, the engine failed — a point at which Jane Holland came under heavy fire from German artillery onshore. She was also attacked by German aircraft. The crew finally ‘abandoned ship’ and were rescued by a passing boat. A French destroyer, considering the lifeboat to be a hazard, attempted to sink her with gunfire. As a result of all this attention Jane Holland was reported as lost, only to be found a few days later drifting, abandoned, in the Channel. The damage was extensive. Her bows had been riddled by more than 500 machine-gun bullets, the fore-end box was badly stove in, and she was heavily water-logged.



= WHERE TO FIND IT

The relic from Jane Holland’s Dunkirk service is on display in the Eastbourne Lifeboat Museum. The Museum is housed in the 1898 RNLI William Terris Memorial Boathouse on King Edwards Parade, at the western end of Eastbourne Seafront, East Sussex.

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

HMS WAKEFUL’S TREAD-PLATE

S

15

The Cost of Operation Dynamo for the Royal Navy

IX BRITISH and three French destroyers were sunk in the course of Operation Dynamo, along with nine other major vessels. In addition, a further 23 destroyers suffered serious damage. Writing about the loss of vessels returning from Dunkirk, Vice-Admiral Ramsay stated: ‘It is a distressing fact that many ships were sunk or damaged on the return voyage when laden with troops. But it is fortunate that in most of such cases the majority of troops were saved owing to the large volume of traffic that was coming and going between Dunkirk and the United Kingdom. Exceptions to this were due to the rapidity with which certain ships sank after having been bombed or torpedoed. ‘Such cases are as follows:- WAKEFUL. Torpedoed. Ship broke in half and only those on the upper deck were saved. About 600 troops were below. CRESTED EAGLE. Was bombed and then beached in a burning condition. Only about 300 saved out of 600 on board. SKIPJACK. 250-300 troops on board, most of whom, unfortunately, went down with the ship when she sank. WAVERLEY. 600

= WHERE TO FIND IT

HMS Wakeful’s tread-plate is currently on display in the HMS – Hear My Story exhibition which is situated in the Babcock Galleries at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. The crest is held in the reserve collection. For more information on the exhibition, please see: www.nmrn.org.uk

troops were on board before ship was abandoned in sinking condition, but only 200-300 were picked up. ‘In all it is regretted that about 2,000 troops must have been lost through these and similar disasters on the return voyages to England.’ It had already been a bad night for the Royal Navy when, at about 01.00 hours on 29 May, the destroyer HMS Wakeful was attacked by German E-boats, being hit by a torpedo fired by E-30. Wakeful broke in two and sank in just 15 seconds. Able Seaman Iain Nethercott was serving on HMS Keith, one of the ships that came to Wakeful’s aid: ‘She [Wakeful] was packed with soldiers at that time. Her sinking was a terrible tragedy with all those soldiers drowned below decks. There were a few groups of corpses still floating around in that area when Keith passed through, and while attempting to rescue the pitifully few survivors from Wakeful, including the

severely injured, another destroyer, HMS Grafton, was itself sunk.’ Such was the scale of the disaster that only 25 of Wakeful’s crew and one evacuee were saved. The corvette HMS Sheldrake sank the wreck the following day leaving Wakeful and those who perished on board in the shallow waters of the Channel as a war grave. In 2001, following an agreement by the British and Belgian authorities, work began to deal with the danger that Wakeful’s wreck, lying at a depth of just 53 feet, presented to modern deep-draught ships that use the English Channel. It was eventually decided to remove part of HMS Wakeful’s superstructure, including funnels and navigation equipment, and secure them to the side of the wreck. It was during this sensitive operation that the tread-plate (seen here) and ship’s crest were recovered by Belgian divers. 

ABOVE: The remains of HMS Wakeful’s tread-plate. A tread-plate is fitted to the deck of a warship at the gangway.

(HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

BELOW: The W-class destroyer HMS Wakeful. Built under the 1916-17 Programme in the 10th Destroyer order, she served into the early years of the Second World War.

(HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

www.britainatwar.com 71

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

HURRICANE ‘R’ FOR ‘ROBERT’

16 RIGHT & BELOW LEFT: The recovery of Pilot Officer McGlashan’s aircraft gets under way. Note the dunes that form the backdrop in one of these two images. (VIA GORDON RILEY)

BOTTOM: Hurricane Mk.1a P2902 emerges from the sand on the beach at Leffrinckoucke. (VIA GORDON RILEY)

P

A Remarkable Dunkirk Relic

ERHAPS THE most dramatic survivor of Operation Dynamo was not rescued from the beaches until 1988 when a Hawker Hurricane that had made a forcedlanding there emerged from the sands at Leffrinckoucke between Dunkirk and Bray-Dunes. Ultimately recovered by a team of enthusiasts from a local flying club the story that emerged with the wreckage is a truly remarkable one. Shortly after the local aero-club had retrieved the wreckage contact was made by them with aviation historian Andy Saunders (who is now Britain at War editor), asking whether he could provide any assistance as to the identity and story of the Hurricane. Andy explained that the engine numbers and part numbers the team had sent to him were, in fact, unhelpful and that a search needed to be made for the RAF serial number, hopefully located on the main

72 www.britainatwar.com

constructor’s plate in the cockpit. The recovery team were also advised to look out for four numbers that would probably be preceded by either the letter L, N or P. An engine cowling panel soon revealed the vital clue when the serial number P2902 was found stencilled inside. Without a doubt, this was Hurricane Mk.1a, P2902, R For Robert. Unravelling the rest of the story was more straightforward as RAF records showed that P2902 had been lost on 31 May 1940, while flying with 245 Squadron and with a Pilot Officer K.B. McGlashan at the controls. Clearly, if he could be found, McGlashan would have an interesting story to tell — and that was indeed the case when Ken McGlashan was tracked down to Collaroy Plateau, New South Wales.

Writing in 1988 he told how P2902 ended up on the beach near Dunkirk: ‘On 31 May, having returned to RAF Hawkinge from Kenley the previous afternoon, it was a beautiful day and we could see the pall of smoke over Dunkirk from the airfield while we waited at full squadron readiness. We were scrambled at about 12.30 to counter German bombing activity over Dunkirk. I was leading the rear section with Pilot Officer Geoff Howitt and Pilot Officer A.L. Hedges, but halfway across the Channel, Hedges returned to Hawkinge with falling oil pressure. ‘We arrived over Dunkirk at 25,000ft and almost immediately the first three sections dropped down to tackle Ju87s and Me109s. Soon after, I observed three Me109s in wide formation

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

passing below me. I was about to attack when an indistinguishable shout in my headphones warned me that my No.2 was concerned about something — as it turned out, with real cause! I then saw my No.2 peel off and dive across and under me and I thought he was about to precede the attack on the three 109s. I then broke left, and then right, to line up behind the 109s but there was no sign of my No.2. ‘At the moment I opened fire there was a cacophony of noise and red tracers passed between my legs, coming in from the port side. Oil and glycol was thrown in my face and I was partially blinded. My reflex was to push the stick forward. ‘All seemed relatively quiet, if not a little smoky, and I thought fire was imminent so decided to bale out. I levelled off and was struggling with the canopy when the 109s obligingly shot out the rest of the Perspex and cleaned up the instrument panel. I felt a sharp blow on the outside of my left thigh and blood trickled down my calf. Later, I found this to have been a half-spent bullet that had crushed an AGFA film cassette in my pocket. ‘I felt this was the end of me and as I had heard of Me109s diving into the ground when following an aircraft down

I went into another vertical dive — but there was no response from the motor. My sight began to clear and I saw the beach to the east of Dunkirk and decided I was more alive than dead after all and pulled out with the result that I totally blacked out from the ‘G’ force. When I came to I found that I was travelling very fast and low along the beach. I prepared for a crash-landing and turned the gunbutton to ‘SAFE’ but my oily fingers slipped and I fired the guns for a split second before making safe. Eventually, the speed dropped, the propeller wind-milled and I selected flaps down and made an uneventful landing … ‘I tried, rather nervously, to set fire to the aircraft by lighting a map and pushing it down the side of the seat. Then somebody started shooting at me and I beat a hasty retreat. Thinking that my parachute might save my backside, I slung it over my shoulder and hastened off, running up the beach as a battle raged around me and spent bullets and bomb and shell splinters rained down all around me, against a backdrop of utterly terrifying noise and beneath a sky where the sun was blotted out by oily black smoke. It was an apocalyptic scene.’

Ken McGlashan eventually made it to the Eastern Mole at Dunkirk from where he was evacuated back to the UK on board the Thames paddle steamer Golden Eagle, still lugging his torn parachute saturated in oil and glycol. Too damaged to be of further use, he sent the fabric home where it was made into a christening robe — a family heirloom which continues to serve the McGlashan family 75 years on. As to the recovered wreck of P2902, this was acquired by aircraft restoration specialist Craig Charleston in April 1994 and subsequently purchased by Tony Ditheridge of Hawker Restorations Ltd. who, in turn, sold it on to Rick Roberts. Roberts placed P2902 on the British Civil Aircraft Register as, appropriately, G-ROBT, on 19 September 1994. The aircraft remains with Hawker Restorations Ltd where work to return it to the skies continues. Unfortunately, Squadron Leader Ken McGlashan AFC, RAF (Retd.) passed away in 2005 but not before he had viewed his old aircraft in 1990. 

ABOVE: This is believed to be the wreckage of Hawker Hurricane Mk.1a P2902/ RD-X of 245 Squadron on the beach at Dunkirk having been shot down on 31 May 1940. Pilot Officer Kenneth McGlashan was wounded but safe, and went on to be one of those Fighter Command pilots who returned to the UK by sea. (COURTESY OF CHRIS GOSS)

ABOVE LEFT: Pilot Officer Kenneth McGlashan (left) beside Pilot Officer Geoff Howitt.

(ANDY SAUNDERS COLLECTION)

BELOW LEFT: Hurricane P2902 under restoration in the workshops of Hawker Restorations Ltd. (GORDON RILEY)

= WHERE TO FIND IT

Hawker Hurricane P2902 remains in private ownership with the civil registration G-ROBT.

www.britainatwar.com 73

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

17

DUNKIRK PROPAGANDA TOUR Painting of Fire-Boat ‘Massey Shaw’ in Action

rescue hundreds of men from that hellish beach.’ Haybrook was well placed to inform the American audiences of the events of May and June 1940. One reporter in Oregon wrote that Haybrook ‘was the guest speaker at a Clatskanie High School assembly last night. During the 45-minute address everyone was held spellbound as Mr. Haybrook told the thrilling story of the Dunkirk evacuation.’ Built by J. Samuel White of Cowes in 1935, the vessel met a fire fighting specification laid down by the London County Council which called for the ability to pass under all bridges on the Thames and its tributaries at any state of the tide. She was named after Sir Massey Shaw, who commanded the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in Victorian times.

ABOVE LEFT: A photograph of Rudolf Haybrook’s painting of Massey Shaw off Dunkirk during the evacuation. This signed photograph was presented by Haybrook to Jason Lee Jr High School in Tacoma. Note the smoke from the burning oil tanks in the background. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

ABOVE RIGHT: The covering letter Haybrook sent with the photograph of his painting to the principal of the Jason Lee Jr High School.

(HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

F

ROM THE moment Winston Churchill came to power in May 1940 the United States was central to his strategy. His aim was to use all possible means, including propaganda if necessary, to persuade Americans to enter the war. In summer 1941, the Ministry of Information was reorganised, following which its American operations were revitalised. One outcome of this was the despatch to the US of a collection of artwork completed by personnel serving in the Auxiliary Fire Service. The idea of sending an exhibition of artworks by auxiliary firemen had first been suggested by Major F.W. Jackson DSO, Officer Commanding London Fire Services. The tour would both support the UK’s propaganda campaign in America and act as a fundraiser, with half of the proceeds of any sales going to the Firemen’s Benevolent Fund. A total of 107 works by 22 firemen were selected by Sir Kenneth Clark, director of the National Gallery, London; Sir Walter W. Russell, R.A., keeper of the Royal Academy; and J.B. Mason, former curator of the Tate Gallery, London. The

74 www.britainatwar.com

exhibition was sponsored by the British government, under the auspices of the British Library of Information, and by Mayor F.H. LaGuardia of New York. Before leaving for America, the works were exhibited at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London in March 1941. It was also decided that three firemen would accompany the works: Rudolph Haybrook, Daniel Ivall and Clarence Palmer. As a result of bombing in the Blitz, the pictures left the UK much later than the three firemen. After the public airing in Washington, the exhibition continued to museums in Canada, then returned to the United States for further viewings. One of Haybrook’s paintings on the tour was his depiction of the fire-boat Massey Shaw in action during Operation Dynamo, a scene which he entitled ‘Dunkirk in Flames 1940’. One Portland newspaper noted how Haybrook had been ‘a soldier in the last World War at 16. In post war years he won fame as a portrait artist. When war was declared, he joined the Auxiliary Fire Services, and was one of the men who crossed to Dunkirk on the London Fire Boat Massey Shaw, and helped to

The Massey Shaw Education Trust records that, ‘the Massey Shaw’s finest hour came in May 1940 when she answered a call from the Home Office asking her to take part in Operation Dynamo’. With a volunteer crew of 13 under the command of a Sub-Lieutenant RN, Massey Shaw soon found itself heading across the Channel. ‘The Massey Shaw did not even possess a compass,’ continues a description of the vessel’s subsequent actions on the Massey Shaw Education Trust’s website, ‘but they had bought one hastily from a chandler’s in Blackfriars. There was no time to swing and correct it, which made it rather

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL LEFT: The fire-boat Massey Shaw berthed in London’s Surrey Quays. One of the Little Ships, she can be seen in the 1958 film Dunkirk starring John Mills and Richard Attenborough. For further information on Massey Shaw, the oldest operating fire-boat in Europe, please visit: www. masseyshaw. org. (COURTESY OF BILL SCOTT)

unreliable since the large steel hull of the fireboat caused a massive deviation. As a result, despite the excellent landmark of smoke from Dunkirk’s burning oil tanks, they were well outside the swept channel when they got to the French coast. But their shallow draft enabled them to cross the hazardous sandbanks without grounding. ‘The fires ashore were what the Massey Shaw’s crew were used to, but the bursts of shells, bombs and anti-aircraft fire were a new experience. As they steamed parallel to the beach, they saw columns of men wading out in the shallows, waiting to be picked up by a host of small boats. Late that afternoon [31 May 1940], they anchored off Bray Dunes. ‘They used a light skiff, picked up at Ramsgate Harbour, to go ashore and collect the first of the men. Most of the soldiers were non-swimmers and, at first, too many of them tried to get aboard so that they swamped and sank

the skiff … After many attempts to find a suitable way of ferrying soldiers to the Massey Shaw, a line was made fast to a derelict lorry and a small boat was used to ferry altogether 40 of a company of Royal Engineers aboard the fire float. The young Naval officer who had spent most of the day in the water between the fire float and the beach, then safely navigated her back to Ramsgate where they arrived next morning. They escaped major damage, despite an attack by a German bomber which had spotted the Massey Shaw’s phosphorescent wake, but whose bombs missed by a boat’s length.’ Having re-fuelled, Massey Shaw promptly set out to return to Dunkirk, though some of the exhausted firemen had been replaced by naval ratings. The ad hoc crew also took with them a Lewis gun and a ship’s lifeboat in tow as a tender, eventually returning to Ramsgate at 08:00 hours on Sunday, 2 June, landing 30 or 40 more soldiers.

Massey Shaw and her Fire Service crew returned to Dunkirk again the next evening, though on this occasion they headed to Dunkirk’s jetty. There it proved difficult for soldiers to climb down to her decks and she came away empty. The gallantry of the fire-boat’s crew was officially recognised. Sub Officer A.J. May was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and there were Mentions in Despatches for Fireman Henry Wray and Fireman Edmond Wright. Bertram Ramsay, Vice Admiral Dover, wrote, ‘Of the civilian manned crew, one of the best performances was that of the London Fire Brigade fireboat Massey Shaw’. 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

Rudolf Haybrook’s original painting depicting Massey Shaw returning from Dunkirk during the evacuation is believed to reside in a gallery in Seattle. The signed photograph seen here is in a private collection.

BOTTOM LEFT: Just weeks after its part in the Dunkirk evacuation, Massey Shaw faced its next series of challenges with the Luftwaffe’s attacks on London. Here fire-boats battle a major blaze in warehouses on the banks of the Thames at the height of the Blitz. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

BOTTOM RIGHT: Auxiliary Fireman Rudolph Haybrook in a bombdamaged street in London.

(HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

www.britainatwar.com 75

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

18

RAMSAY’S SIGNAL TO HIS WHOLE COMMAND

RIGHT: Rear Admiral W.F. Wake-Walker, CB, OBE’s copy of Vice-Admiral Ramsay’s ‘The Nation Looks to the Navy’ message. BELOW LEFT: Dunkirk fell to the Germans on 4 June 1940, the first German troops entering the town between 07.00 hours and 08.00 hours. Here some of the early occupiers are pictured on the beach beside a camouflaged dug-out with a Union Flag still flying. The wreck in the background is that of the French destroyer L’Adroit, which was bombed and sunk by German Heinkel He 111 bombers in shallow water off Dunkirk, at Malo-les-Bains, at 12.00 hours on 21 May 1940. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

B

‘The Nation Looks To The Navy’

Y THE early hours of Sunday, 2 June 1940, it was becoming clear to Ramsay and his staff that Operation Dynamo was rapidly coming to a conclusion. Plans were made for what it was hoped would be the last night of sailings across the Channel. In his despatch, Vice-Admiral Ramsay wrote the following: ‘Considerable doubt existed during the forenoon [of the 2nd] as to the numbers remaining to be evacuated in Dunkirk. It was thought that 2,000, plus the 4,000 rearguard British troops, might well be found in Dunkirk. The number of French troops remaining was increasing from the 25,000 quoted the previous evening to figures in the region of 50,000 to 60,000. ‘The Rear Admiral, Dover, arrived back from the coast in a M.T.B. and during the forenoon a joint Naval and Military conference was held to devise a plan for the forthcoming night’s evacuation. The fact that evacuation traffic was suspended in daylight hours enabled all transport resources to accumulate during the day and to be held available for a massed descent upon Dunkirk Harbour during the night.’ This plan provided for as many as 37,000 men to be evacuated, plus whoever the Little Ships still making the journey might pick up. In addition, the French would use their vessels to lift troops from the beaches and the west pier of the outer harbour. This, Ramsay hoped, would finish the job.

76 www.britainatwar.com

At 10.52 hours on the morning of the 2nd, Ramsay sent the message seen here to his whole command: ‘The final evacuation is staged for tonight, and the nation looks to the Navy to see this through. I want every ship to report as soon as possible whether she is fit and ready to meet the call which has been made on our courage and endurance.’ At 17.00 hours that afternoon the massed armada of evacuation ships set off for Dunkirk. It consisted of 13 personnel vessels, two large store carriers, 11 destroyers, five paddle minesweepers, nine fleet sweepers, one special service vessel, nine drifters, six skoots, two armed yachts, one gunboat, and a large number of tugs, lifeboats and the like. The smaller craft were either formed into organised tows or travelled under their own steam and at their own pace. Generally speaking, the operation proceeded well. At 22.00 it was reported that loaded vessels were leaving Dunkirk. Then, at 23.30 hours, came the

= WHERE TO FIND IT

This message, kept by Rear Admiral W.F. Wake-Walker, CB, OBE, is on display in the ‘HMS – Hear My Story’ exhibition which is situated in the Babcock Galleries at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. For more information on the exhibition, please see: www.nmrn.org.uk

message, from the Senior Naval Officer Dunkirk, which everyone had been striving for: ‘BEF evacuated.’ Despite such welcome news, the sheer number of French troops in and around Dunkirk meant that Dynamo would continue, at least for the night of 3/4 June, when 27,000 troops were lifted. ‘As a result of the night’s operation …,’ wrote Ramsay, ‘[the French] Admiral Nord agreed that the operation should be considered as completed, observing that all ammunition at Dunkirk had been expended and that the numbers left behind were small consisting principally of non-combatant troops. This decision was agreed to by the French Admiralty at 11.00, and the operation ‘Dynamo’ [was] terminated by Admiralty Message I423/4.’ The last of the evacuation ships had sailed for Britain on the morning of 4 June 1940. 

20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS  DUNKIRK SPECIAL

SAFELY HOME LETTER

I

19

‘The Evacuation from Dunkirk was Surely a Miracle’

N HIS official despatch written on 18 June 1940, Vice-Admiral Ramsay noted that by the end of 4 June 1940, a total of 338,682 men had been disembarked at British ports. Such a figure exceeded the expectations of most. Little wonder, therefore, that an editorial in The New York Times at the beginning of June declared, ‘So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkirk will be spoken with reverence’. The recently elected Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had words of warning in his speech to Parliament on 4 June: ‘We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations … Our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonising week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster.’ For many who had been brought back from France, their evacuation was more than likely met with relief. H.R. Pratt Boorman was the proprietor of the Kent Messenger. While Dynamo was underway, he choose to visit one of the Kent ports, Ramsgate, to observe the situation for himself: ‘The front was crammed with people. They were watching the … arrivals … As they arrived they gave their names in, dropped their rifles, if they still had them, in a heap, and climbed into waiting buses or trains. They had been through hell. Tired, hungry and wet to the skin, they came in a steady stream for a week. Always cheerful, glad to be home again.’ For many of these men, their first action was to get a message off to friends or family. Corporal Frank Hurrell, serving

LEFT: The letter that one member of the 1/6th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment wrote to his parents on 3 June 1940, following his evacuation from Dunkirk, informing them that he was safely ‘back in England’. BOTTOM LEFT: Evacuated members of the BEF soon after their arrival back in the UK. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

with the 3rd Field Army Workshop, RAOC, recalls his return: ‘When we got to Dover we were put into old customs sheds. In there were these ladies from the women’s services — the Red Shield Club —all the various ladies’ associations. I had no tunic — I’d lost it — and one of the elderly ladies took off her fur coat and put it round me whilst I sat down, and gave me a cup of tea. Then she produced a stamped envelope — stamped and sealed —and she said, “Right. Address it to go to your wife or whoever. Put the message on the back. Use it like a postcard — it will get there quicker.”’ Signaller Alfred Baldwin, 65th Field Regiment Royal Artillery, had a similar experience during the train journey following his arrival in the UK: ‘On the way we stopped somewhere around Redhill, at a small village station, and all the village ladies came out. They gave us each a postcard, on which we wrote our home address, and they posted them

for us … It just let our parents know that we were in England again. Back at home I think they realised that we’d been beaten, and we’d had a real hammering, but, nevertheless, they treated us as heroes, You’d have thought we’d won a battle instead of lost one.’ 

BOTTOM RIGHT: It was not only Allied personnel who were evacuated from Dunkirk. Here a group of German prisoners of war, complete with identifying patches on their backs, are escorted to one of the evacuation ships for the journey to a camp in Britain. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

= WHERE TO FIND IT

The letter and portrait shown here are both held in a private collection.

www.britainatwar.com 77

DUNKIRK SPECIAL  20 PEOPLE, PLACES AND OBJECTS

DUNKIRK MEDAL

20 BOTH RIGHT: The obverse and reverse of the Dunkirk Commemorative Medal. The medal was struck in bronze and is approximately 36mm wide and 44mm in length. The obverse depicts a circular wreath of laurel with an anchor mounted with the arms of Dunkirk. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

BELOW: The Dunkirk Commemorative Medal is awarded on application to the relevant authorities in Dunkirk or via recognised ex-servicemen’s associations such as the Dunkirk Veterans Association. The holder of this life membership certificate of the Dunkirk Veterans Association, William Ayling, was serving in the Royal Engineers when he was evacuated from Dunkirk. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

J

For Service during Operation Dynamo

UST SEVEN days after Winston Churchill’s speech in the House of Commons, in which he described Operation Dynamo as ‘a miracle of deliverance, achieved by valour, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity’, the subject of recognising the actions of those involved was first discussed in the same building. During a debate on 11 June 1940, Mr Ellis Smith, the MP for Stoke-on-Trent, asked the Prime Minister ‘whether he will consider awarding a special British medal to all men and women who went to the assistance of Belgium by land, air and sea and who also took part in the Dunkirk evacuation; and, if so, whether the medal will be presented to British, French and Belgian allied men?’ In reply, the Lord Privy Seal, Mr Attlee, stated that ‘the question of instituting a British medal for war service will be considered in due course. Awards of decorations and medals for gallantry and for good service are already made from time to time and special services rendered since the invasion of Belgium will be dealt with in accordance with the usual practice.’ There was little discussion on the subject during the remainder of the war. It was on 22 July 1946, that questions were again asked about a specific Dunkirk medal. On this occasion it was the MP for Gravesend, Mr Garry Allingham, who raised the topic. He asked the Prime Minister ‘whether he will arrange for a special medal to be struck, similar to the Mons Medal of the 1914–18 war, to commemorate the

78 www.britainatwar.com

action of men who fought through the Dunkirk campaign’. The then Prime Minster, Clement Attlee, replied thus: ‘The 1939–45 Star is granted to men who took part in the operations in France and Belgium between 10th May and 19th June, 1940, and there is no time qualification. These men will also qualify for the War Medal. It is not proposed to recommend the institution of any further general award for service in these operations.’ Allingham was not prepared to leave the matter at that: ‘Does not the Prime Minister realise that these men did make a distinct and distinctive contribution to the war effort, and that, just as the Mons effort was recognised, it would give great satisfaction to these particular men if their effort was recognised?’ ‘I do recognise that a great many men in various theatres gave distinctive service,’ continued Attlee. ‘The whole matter is one of great difficulty, and I do not think we should carry it any further

by trying to draw parallels between other wars.’ Though a separate medal for involvement at Dunkirk was not issued by the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals in 1946, a concession was made in that service in Operation Dynamo was recognised by waiving, for those involved, the eligibility criteria for the 1939-1945 Star. It was in 1948 that the Dunkirk Commemorative Medal, which is also referred to as the Dunkirk Star, was established by the French Government, under the patronage of the town of Dunkirk. In 1970 authority was given by the Queen for the medal to be awarded to British personnel who served in operations at Dunkirk in 1940. 

= WHERE TO FIND IT

Both the medal and membership certificate seen on this page are held in a private collection.

Tankfest F_P.indd 1

01/04/2015 10:53

THIS MONTH saw the continuation of the ill-fated Dardanelles Campaign. The impact of the failure to achieve the objectives led to the removal of First Sea Lord Winston Churchill and a series of heroic actions by the Allied forces. On the home front a coalition government was formed while on the Western Front major battles were fought to counter German attacks and to support Allied offensives. Meanwhile, the nature of warfare changed forever as civilians were dragged into the conflict, illustrated by the sinking of an American vessel and the loss of the Liner Lusitania and, separately, the first Zeppelin raid on London.

HOME FRONT

25 May A coalition government is formed comprising 12 Liberal and eight Tory Ministers under the leadership of Herbert Asquith. Lloyd George is made Minister of Munitions. 27 May Winston Churchill is removed as First Lord of the Admiralty as a result of the failure at the Dardanelles and as a result of political pressure from the Tory element of the coalition.

HOME FRONT 28 May Arthur Balfour appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.

31 May First German airship raid on London area.

WAR AT SEA

1 May The SS Gulflight is the first United States ship torpedoed by a German submarine without warning. She is damaged, but reaches port. 7 May The RMS Lusitania is sunk by German submarine U 20 off Queenstown, Ireland with the loss of 1,198 passengers and crew. The sinking has a profound impact on American public opinion.

.

WESTERN FRONT

6 May General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien is relieved from his post and replaced by General Herbert Plumer. 8 May Battle of Frenzenberg Ridge. In a German attack on the Ypres Salient the British are forced to fall back but a tenacious defence and counter-attack restore a precarious situation. 9 May Battle of Aubers Ridge. Lack of surprise and an insufficient British bombardment result in no ground being taken and no tactical advantage gained. 9 May The lead division of the British New Armies leaves England for France. 13 May Battle of Frenzenberg Ridge ends 15 May Battle of Festubert begins, in effect a second phase of the recently failed attack on Aubers Ridge. The objectives are to press forward and establish a defensive flank along the La Bassée road on the left and to maintain the right at Givenchy. Hampered by the shortage of artillery ammunition and guns, and not helped by poor weather, the British Army achieves a small-scale tactical success by capturing enemy positions. 24 May Battle of Bellewaerde Ridge. The Germans attack in the Ypres Salient. Gas is again used by the attacking Germans and many of the defending troops fail to don their respirators quickly enough, resulting in large numbers being overcome. The British defence rallies and the attackers are repelled apart form the northern position where a withdrawal is made to a more defensible line. 25 May Battle of Festubert ends.

80 www.britainatwar.com

SOUTH WEST AFRICA

13 May German held Windhoek in German South-West Africa is occupied by the South African Northern Force.

BALKANS

BALKANS

DARDANELLES

23 May The Italian Government orders mobilisation and declares war against Austria.

29 May Valona (now Vlorë ) the second largest port city in Albania is occupied by Italian forces.

6 May Second battle of Krithia begins. The Allies attack the village of Krithia and neighbouring hill of Achi Baba. A small amount of ground is captured after two days of costly fighting but the objectives of the attack are not met.

4 May Italy denounces the Triple Alliance pact made with Germany and Austria.

24 May Italian forces cross Austrian frontier.

26 May The Italian Government announces a blockade of Austro-Hungarian coast.

1 May Action of Eski Hissarlik. An unsuccessful attack is made by the Turks to push the Allied troops back to the sea.

6 May First action of Kereves Dere. The French 1st Division to the north of S Beach attempt to meet up with the 29th Division, but are faced with the notorious Kereves Dere, a deep gully running inland from the Dardanelles coast which is well defended by the Turks. The French suffer heavy casualties. 12 May Affair of Gurkha Bluff. At 6.30pm under covering fire a double company of the 1/6th Gurkhas creep along the shore and assemble at what becomes known as Gurkha Bluff, a steep cliff north-east of ‘Y’ beach. They swiftly scale the cliffs and rush the Turkish position, securing the British left flank.

MESOPOTAMIA

7 May Operations on Karkha River begin. Attacks are made on local tribes who actively support the Turks and who consistently harass the troops and oil pipelines in Mesopotamia. As a result the area is secured. 14 May Further offensive action is taken against the Turks. Unable to bring them to battle a two brigade force destroys or seizes grain to prevent use by the Turks at Khafajiya. 31 May Second action of Qurna For four months the Turks have been emplaced on a series of hills on either side of the Tigris near Qurna. Owing to the spring flooding, these hills have become fortified islands. The British now assault using boats with gunboats in support. The Turks put up little fight, and the British advance and capture the Turkish emplacements with relative ease.

MIDDLE EAST 2 May Defence of Charbar. An attack by dissident Arab forces is repulsed.

CAMEROONS

3 May British forces facing a formidable enemy position at Wum Biagas, attack and capture the German position in the face of stubborn resistance. 26 May Operations to take the Central Plateau begin. 31 May Siege of Garua begins. French and British forces entrench themselves around the forts at Garua and began to lay siege to the German held positions.

EAST AFRICA

30 May Affair of Sphinxhaven. British command of Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi) is secured after HMS Gwendolen bombards the German port which is then taken by the King’s African Rifles. www.britainatwar.com 81

A DAY WITH THE FIGHTER COLLECTION

and GOLD PASS PRIZES PLUS ADULT TICKETS TO FLYING LEGENDS up for grabs!

EACH GOLD PASS PRIZE INCLUDES: • Special Fighter Collection Merchandise (To collect from FOTFC enclosure at Flying Legends)

• Your individual Gold Passes • Gold Car Pass to your VIP parking area (One car pass per pair)

• Entrance to the Air Show and Museum • Viewing enclosure on the flight line • A copy of the souvenir programme • Free, direct access to the flight line walk

Our friends at The Fighter Collection are giving away to one lucky reader ‘A Day with The Fighter Collection’ – Get to spend a day with the Fighter Collection team at an IWM airshow, see behind the scenes and the Fighter Collection aircraft up close!

HOW TO ENTER

WANT TO KNOW MORE....

Send your name, address and email (if you have one) on a postcard or sealed-down envelope to:

To book discounted tickets, or for the latest flying programme, visit: www.flyinglegends.com or call +44 (0)1223 499 353 All flying subject to weather, serviceability and operational commitments.

Flying Legends Competition Britain At War Magazine Key Publishing PO Box 100 Stamford Lincolnshire PE9 1XQ

Gold Pass Available for £80.00 per person per day or £111.50 including a two course buffet lunch.

For two lucky runners-up, The Fighter Collection are offering two pairs of ADVANCE TICKET PRICES Gold Pass prizes to this year’s Flying Adult 16-59 yrs £31.05 Legends, be held on 11 and 12 July at Imperial War Museum, Duxford. This Senior 60 yrs+ £24.30 year’s show is set to be an unmissable or email the same information to: Child 5-15 yrs (Under 5s free) £16.30 event with appearances from over Discounts available for group bookings 50 historic aircraft. Each of these [email protected] f Close Date: 12.00 GMT 29 May 2015. rs o ! historic aircraft is a living tribute to the i a p with subject header Winners will be notified ir 5 outstanding skills of the people who no later than 1 June 2015. win per pa ‘BAW Flying Legends Competition’. designed, built, maintained and flew o t 0 .0 ity them in years gone by. rtun £62

r o opp rth ove e h t o 279/15 also ckets w s Images: Darren Harbar ’ e i r T e t Th Adul

On occasions Key Publishing Ltd and The Fighter Collection may make offers on products or services that we believe to be of interest to our customers. If you do not wish to receive this information, please write NO INFORMATION clearly on your entry. Transport and accommodation not included for any prize. Please state if you would prefer to attend on Saturday or Sunday.

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY May 1915

GREAT WAR05.15

GALLANTRY 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 May 1915.

T

HE LIST of awards announced in The London Gazette in May 1915 is dominated by one service, the Royal Navy, and, more specifically, one vessel – the E-class submarine HMS E.14. As detailed by Lord Ashcroft in his ‘Hero of the Month’, the crew of E.14 was commanded by Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral) Edward Boyle, who was one of the most experienced submarine officers in the Royal Navy when E.14 began its service in the Gallipoli campaign. In fact, so successful were Boyle and his crew that the actions of every man

were acknowledged in The London Gazette during May 1915. The awards, a Victoria Cross for Boyle, a Distinguished Service Cross to his two officers, and a Distinguished Service Medal apiece for the remaining crew members, amounted to 31 in total, or roughly 57% of all those announced that month. Of the five other VCs listed, two were for actions during the bitter fighting at Hill 60 near Ypres. A hill that is 60 metres in height would hardly be classified as significant in most western European countries. However, in the low-lying countryside

surrounding Ypres, such a peak could gain great strategic importance during the First World War. By the spring of 1915 the salient around Ypres was well established. Both the German and the British commanders quickly realized that possession of the tiny piece of ground known as Hill 60, which was located three miles to the south-east of the city, allowed whichever side occupied the hill to see into Ypres itself. Indeed, the visibility from the hill permitted artillery observers to direct fire into Ypres and in addition to dominate 

o Second

Lieutenant Geoffrey H. Woolley and his men of the 9th (County of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles) in action on Hill 60 on 20/21 April 1915. (ALL IMAGES HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

www.britainatwar.com 83

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY May 1915

GALLANTRY AWARDS GAZETTED IN MAY 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

6 11 2 8 28 55

* Indicates an award that has not yet been instituted. Mentions in Despatches are not included.

southern side of the salient. Both sides were desperate to secure Hill 60 for themselves. Thus this tiny hill feature became one of the most fiercely contested pieces of ground in the Ypres sector. The hill was in fact man made, formed from the spoil excavated during the construction of the nearby railway cutting. The railway engineers produced enough spoil to create a small hill with a summit that sat 60 metres above sea level, one that was captured by German troops in 1914. The British attempt to recapture the hill, known as the Battle of Hill 60, was launched on Saturday, 17 April 1915. Private Edward Dwyer, of the 1st Battalion, the East Surrey Regiment, distinguished himself in the subsequent fighting on 20 April 1915: ‘When his trench was heavily attacked by German grenade throwers he climbed on to the parapet, and, although subjected to a hail of bombs at close quarters, succeeded in dispersing the enemy by

i o A drawing of Corporal William Anderson’s VC action in the trenches at Neuve Chapelle.

the effective use of his hand grenades. Private Dwyer displayed great gallantry earlier on this day in leaving his trench, under heavy shell fire, to bandage his wounded comrades.’ That evening, and in the hours of darkness that followed, Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Harold Woolley, of the 9th (County of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles), also displayed the ‘most conspicuous bravery’ at Hill 60. During the afternoon of the 20th, Woolley and his company had been ordered to take ammunition supplies to those holding the line. Under pressure from enemy troops, the situation rapidly deteriorated, with many men and all the other officers on the hill being killed. One author described a little of what followed: ‘At 9.30 that night [of the 20th] two companies of the Queen Victoria’s, under Major Rees and Captain Westby, received orders to advance from their trenches and take up a position close to the top of the hill. Al­though the distance to be traversed was only some 200 yards, so terrible was the fire to which they were exposed, that it took them two hours to reach the post assigned to them, where they dug themselves in close to a huge crater made by one of the British mines which had been exploded on the 17th.

i

A stylised depiction of Lieutenant Lanoe George Hawker’s attack on the Zeppelin base at Gontrode on 19 April 1915. Dropping bombs from his 6 Squadron BE.2c on a German airship shed from a height of only 200 feet, while utilizing an occupied German captive balloon to shield him from fire.

u After the war, Hill 60 was left as it was, a memorial to all those soldiers whose bodies were never recovered from the battlefield. Although softened by the hand of nature and passage of time, many of the shell-holes, craters and trenches can still be discerned. 84 www.britainatwar.com

‘Towards midnight Sergeant E.H. Pulleyn was ordered to take 16 men to the very crest of the hill, some 20 yards away, to fill a gap in our trench-line there. A withering fire was immediately opened upon the party by the enemy, who were not 30 yards distant, and only the sergeant and 11 of his men reached the position, while of the survivors five fell almost immediately. Pulleyn and the remaining six maintained their ground for a few minutes, when, recognizing the impossibility of holding it longer, they retired and rejoined their comrades, carrying their wounded with them … ‘It was at this critical moment that an officer was seen making his way up the hill towards them. The men in the trench held their breath; it seemed to them impossible that anyone could come alive through the midst of the fearful fire which was sweeping the slope; every instant they expected to see him fall to rise no more. But on he came, sometimes running, sometimes crawling, while bullets buzzed past his head and shells burst all about him, until at last he climbed the parapet and stood amongst them, unharmed. Then they saw that he was Second Lieutenant Woolley, who, learning that their officers had been killed, had left the security of his own trench and run the gauntlet of the enemy’s fire to take charge of that gallant little band.’

u On top of Hill 60 is this

memorial to the Queen Victoria Rifles. It is situated there as this was where the regiment fought its first open engagement. The original memorial was unveiled in 1923, but destroyed by the Germans in 1940. This rebuilt version was constructed using a number of stones from the original.

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY May 1915 Woolley refused verbal and written orders to withdraw, stating he and his company would remain until properly relieved. They repelled numerous attacks through the night. When they were relieved the next morning, he returned with 14 men remaining from the 150-strong company. The London Gazette of 22 May 1915, states: ‘Although the only officer on the hill at the time, and with very few men, he successfully resisted all attacks on his trench, and continued throwing bombs and encouraging his men till relieved. His trench during all this time was being heavily shelled and bombed and was subjected to heavy machine gun fire by the enemy.’

served in the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department in the Second World War. Another of the VCs awarded in May 1915 was that of Corporal William Anderson, 2nd Battalion Alexandra Princess of Wales’ Own (Yorkshire Regiment). On 12 March 1915, a large party of German troops entered the British front line trenches at Neuve Chapelle. Perceiving the danger, Anderson promptly led three men with bombs in a determined attack on the enemy. During the engagement the three men were wounded, and Corporal Anderson was forced to continue fighting singlehanded. Having first thrown his own bombs, he then threw those of his men, after which he opened

RUNNING TOTAL OF

GALLANTRY AWARDS AS OF THE END OF MAY 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

u An individual

Hill 60 was not completely recaptured by the Allies until June 1915, by which time both Dwyer and Woolley had been awarded the Victoria Cross. In 1916, Dwyer, by then a Corporal, made an audio recording for the Regal record label in which he described taking part in the Retreat from Mons, in 1914. The monologue describes life at the front, pay and rations, and includes a sample of one of the songs sung by soldiers at the time. Dwyer was killed on 3 September 1916, aged just 20. The son of a clergyman, Woolley was the first Territorial Army officer to receive the VC. After the war, he resumed the study of theology at Oxford and was ordained in 1920. He

i Corporal William Anderson was killed the day after his VC action. His body was never found or identified and he is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial.

rapid rifle fire upon them with great effect, notwithstanding that he was at the time quite alone. Amongst the names of the 11 men awarded the Distinguished Service Order in May 1915 is that of Lieutenant Lanoe George Hawker. On 19 April 1915, Hawker, of the Royal Engineers and Royal Flying Corps, succeeded in dropping bombs from his 6 Squadron BE.2c on a German airship shed at Gontrode ‘from a height of only 200 feet, under circumstances of the greatest risk. Lieutenant Hawker displayed remarkable ingenuity in utilizing an occupied German captive balloon to shield him from fire whilst manoeuvring to drop the bombs.’ Acknowledged as the first British flying

previously covered in Britain at War, Lt William Barnard RhodesMoorhouse of the Special Reserve, Royal Flying Corps was decorated after dropping bombs on the railway line near Courtrai station. Starting the return journey he was mortally wounded, but succeeded in flying for 35 miles to his destination, at a very low altitude. He later died of his wounds. He was the first airman to win the Victoria Cross. (COURTESY

OF STEVE SNELLING)

67 474 41 424 1283 5 218 2512

‘ace’ and having been promoted to Captain, Hawker’s name was soon in the public eye again when he became, as we shall see in a future issue, only the third pilot to be awarded the Victoria Cross. Another individual whose name appeared amongst the gallantry award recipients in May 1915, and who will also feature in the months ahead, was Captain Adrian Carton de Wiart, 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards. Having been seconded to the Somaliland Camel Corps, Carton de Wiart, a Boer War veteran, was travelling to British Somaliland when war broke out in 1914. At the time, British forces in the area had been engaged in fighting the followers of Mohammed bin Abdullah. It was ‘in connection with the successful operations against Dervish forces at Shimber Berris’, during the months of November 1914 and February 1915, that Carton de Wiart’s award of the Distinguished Service Order was announced in The London Gazette on 15 May 1915. 

i The pin of the bomb dropped by Rhodes-Moorhouse during the mission for which he was subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross. The hand-written states: ‘This is the safety pin removed from the 100lb bomb just before your father started off for Courtrai on April 25th which was handed to him just as he was going to leave. It was in his pocket when he came back.’ (© IWM; COURTESY OF THE LORD ASHCROFT COLLECTION)

www.britainatwar.com 85

LORD ASHCROFT'S "HERO OF THE MONTH" Lieutenant Commander Edward Courtney Boyle VC

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER

EDWARD COURTNEY

BOYLE VC

LORD ASHCROFT'S

"HERO OF THE MONTH"

By 1915 Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral) Edward Boyle was one of the most experienced submarine officers in the Royal Navy. It was his involvement in the Dardanelles Campaign that led to the award of the Victoria Cross.

E

o Lieutenant Commander Boyle pictured on the deck of HMS E14 when the submarine was under way at sea, circa 1915. (COURTESY OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; G00337A)

SKILL

AGGRESSION • BOLDNESS • INITIATIVE LEADERSHIP • SACRIFICE • 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. Although Lieutenant Commander Edward Courtney Boyle’s award is not part of the collection, Lord Ashcroft feels that it falls within the category of 'Skill': “Wisdom, sound judgement and technical knowledge are the hallmarks of Skill. It is about using resources to greatest effect usually under intense pressure. For many involved in bomb disposal, while a single movement might start the clock ticking, the puzzle still has to be solved, the game won. Perseverance is everything.”

86 www.britainatwar.com

DWARD COURTNEY Boyle was born in Carlisle, Cumberland, on 23 March 1883. He was the son of a lieutenant-colonel, also called Edward, who served in the British Army’s Pay Department. Boyle Jnr was educated at Cheltenham College and, from May 1898, HMS Britannia where, as a cadet captain, he was a fine athlete, excelling on the rugby pitch. Early in his Royal Navy career he was singled out for submarines and on 4 July 1910 Boyle joined the depot ship Thames for instruction as a sub-lieutenant. Within five months of his arrival, he was promoted to full lieutenant and given his first command, a Holland boat – an early type of submarine – aged only 21. Other commands followed and, after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, and by then a lieutenantcommander, Boyle was appointed in October to command the new HMS E14, one of three submarines sent to the Dardanelles in March 1915. On 14 April 1915, Boyle was part of a select group of naval officers gathered on board the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth to discuss whether it might be possible for a submarine to penetrate the mine-infested Narrows and to reach the Sea of Marmara. In his book, VCs

of the First World War: The Naval VCs, Stephen Snelling described the Sea of Marmara as ‘a stretch of water regarded by the Turks as their own private lake’. After an early failure by another submarine, E14 made her way past the Gallipoli beach-head in the early hours of 27 April. ‘I think really that we were all resigned for the worst and hoped for the best,’ wrote Edward Stanley, the submarine’s first lieutenant. Boyle, who was calmness personified, stood alone on the open conning tower because he wanted to travel as far as possible on the surface. Only when the enemy shells starting dropping nearby did he take his submarine under the water. Boyle took E14 to 90 feet and passed under one minefield before rising to 22 feet. Time and again, he passed beneath patrol boats that were hunting the submarine down. But, eventually, he reached the Sea of Marmara where Snelling wrote: ‘The cat and mouse game had begun.’ The first full day in the Marmara was a troubled one as the submarine was repeatedly forced to dive after attracting enemy fire. The next day went better after Boyle spotted four enemy destroyers at 12.30 hours, then, just 45 minutes later, two troopships with three escorting destroyers.

u HMS E14 negotiates

the Turkish mines when passing through the Dardanelles Strait, 27 April 1915. At this point in the campaign, Boyle was only the second British submarine commander to have successfully taken his vessel through into the Sea of Marmara.

(HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

LORD ASHCROFT'S "HERO OF THE MONTH" Lieutenant Commander Edward Courtney Boyle VC

VICTORIA CROSS HEROES i Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international 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

o HMS E14 pictured heading towards the Dardanelles Strait en route for the Sea of Marmara. A variety of shipping, including the new French submarine Mariotte, can be seen in the background. (COURTESY OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; H10318)

As soon as E14’s periscope was raised, the destroyers spotted and came towards her, firing as they advanced. From a range of just under a mile, E14 fired at one of the transport ships, hitting its target. Over the next few days, the cat and mouse game continued. Twice on 30 April E14 came under attack and was forced to make a swift dive. The next day, Boyle decided to sink a patrol boat because ‘they were always firing at me’ and he achieved his task, sinking a small minelaying-gunboat Nour-el-Bahr. When a larger gunboat appeared on the scene, Boyle fired again, but the torpedo did not run straight and it missed its target. On 10 May, E14 had its biggest breakthrough. The crew had been swimming when a destroyer was spotted and so everyone scrambled back on board and the submarine dived. The first destroyer passed overhead, followed by a second one and two transport ships. Boyle lined up his targets: the first torpedo missed the first transport ship but the second torpedo hit the second transport, causing a huge explosion. The ship that had been hit, Guy Djemal, a former White Star liner, had

a cargo of field guns and 6,000 troops bound for Gallipoli. With the ninth of his ten torpedoes, Boyle had caused more damage than a brigade of Allied troops on the peninsula and all Turkish ships realised they were no longer safe in the Sea of Marmara. On 17 May, E14 was ordered home, mission accomplished. The voyage home saw more near misses after skirmishes with enemy ships but when E14 surfaced in safe waters, close to the crew of a cheering French battleship, her 22-day patrol was over and her achievements were widely acclaimed. She was only the second British submarine to penetrate the Narrows and the first to make it safely back. Within just 24 hours, news reached Boyle that he had been awarded the Victoria Cross: the announcement was made formally in The London Gazette on 21 May 1915. The following year, Boyle was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour by the French and was awarded the Italian Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus. Boyle, who was promoted to commander at the height of his fame, was loaned to the Australian Navy after the war before being given a number of commands. He retired a day after being

i A group photograph of the crew of HMS E14 as she came out from the Dardanelles Strait. Standing at the top of the conning tower are, from left to right: Lieutenant Reginald Wilfred Lawrence, Lieutenant Commander Edward Courtney Boyle, and Lieutenant Edward Geldard Stanley. Lawrence and Stanley were both awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, whilst all of E14’s ratings were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. (COURTESY OF

THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; G00247)

promoted to rear-admiral. After the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Boyle returned to the Active List before retiring once and for all in 1943. In his retirement, he lived at the Sunningdale Hotel in Berkshire, where he was a keen member of the local golf club. A childless widower, he died at Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot, on 16 December 1967, after being knocked down by a lorry on a pedestrian crossing. Boyle was 84. Boyle’s VC is on display at HMS Dolphin, Gosport, Hampshire, the headquarters of the 1st Submarine Squadron, after being donated by his family in 1988. 

u The final moments of the Turkish troopship

and transport Guy Djemal. The original caption states: ‘On one occasion when Commander Boyle in the E14 came up to the surface to take his bearings while making his way into the Sea of Marmara, he saw through his periscope the reflected image of a Turkish gunboat. He immediately edged his vessel round, took aim, then gave a couple of orders and 300lbs of gun-cotton was tearing towards the hapless Turkish gunboat. In a few seconds the submarine rocked to a terrific explosion.’ (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

www.britainatwar.com 87

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942

V

IOLET CAMPLING’S hand was still shaking with shock when she snatched a few moments to scribble a letter to a friend. ‘Oh Alice,’ she wrote, ‘it’s dreadful here… Our nerves are all gone wrong.’ It was 1 May 1942. The air was heavy with the stench of burnt buildings and ruptured sewers and a beleaguered and bewildered population was only slowly coming to terms with the shattering impact of the most devastating blitz on the city in more than 2½ years of war. Over the course of two nights, fewer than 70 bombers had rained destruction on the East Anglian city of Norwich. More than 900 people had been killed or injured and 32,000, roughly a quarter of the population, rendered homeless. Sixteen acres of the city centre had been turned into a smouldering wasteland of bombed-out shops, factories and offices. At least 30 key roads or streets were impassable and supplies of electricity, gas and water had been cut so that for a few days at least normal life all but ceased. Poor Norwich has caught it this time,’ wrote Violet Campling. ‘The swines have struck us very hard… Norwich is ruined.’ She prayed to God the Luftwaffe had finished with them, but she was taking no chances. She had just found out that her mother’s house had been reduced to a charred ruin and no matter how many air-raid shelters the authorities built and no matter how many antiaircraft batteries were belatedly rushed into Norwich, the city no longer felt safe. So she joined thousands of others in a nightly exodus that would reach such epidemic proportions as to spark fears in some Government circles of an imminent breakdown in morale.

The traumatic consequences of the so-called Baedeker Blitz on Norwich during the spring and summer of 1942, while undoubtedly exaggerated in certain alarmist reports, nevertheless challenge the popular myth of an heroic civilian population stoically, even cheerily, enduring privations the enemy’s bombing imposed upon them. Investigations carried out on behalf of the Ministry of Home Security make clear that reactions to the raids were far more complex than reported at the time. And they also reveal that the hysteria associated with them was not confined to the city’s hapless inhabitants. That the accuracy and ferocity of the attack came as a painful surprise to the people of Norwich is plain. The 120,000-strong city, lying just 20 miles from the North Sea coast, had been the target of a number of small-scale hitand-run raids in 1940. But since Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941, it had been attacked only twice with the only casualty in that time being a solitary tree. It was hardly surprising that people had become blasé about air-raid warnings that were shown to be nothing other than false alarms. Some continued to answer the siren call by trooping into their nearest shelter, but most people simply ignored them. The prolonged lull led an increasing number to find alternative uses for their shelters; corrugated-iron Anderson shelters were converted into garden storehouses or chicken sheds, while the widely disliked concrete street shelters acquired a lurid reputation as the setting for all manner of nefarious activities. Such, indeed, was the vandalism in parts of the city that air-raid wardens had taken to locking some of the surface shelters. 

BAEDEKER

88 www.britainatwar.com

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942

BLITZ

Unleashed in April 1942, the Luftwaffe’s Baedeker bombing campaign brought destruction to the streets of Norwich with alarming consequences. Steve Snelling explains how two short sharp raids sparked fears of an imminent breakdown in morale. www.britainatwar.com 89

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942 All of that changed after the night of 27-28 April, 1942, when Norwich became the third city after Exeter and Bath to experience Hitler’s wrath in retaliation for the RAF’s experimental raid on the Hanseatic port of Lübeck. In near-perfect bombing conditions, around 200 attackers had destroyed much of the old, timber-built town in a test of Bomber Command’s new ‘area bombing’ strategy that for the first time deliberately targeted Germany’s civilian population.

An outraged Nazi hierarchy immediately responded by ordering the Luftwaffe to carry out a wave of revenge attacks on similarly historic English cities which were said to have been selected by reason of their ‘star’ status in the Baedeker travel guide. Where the RAF could muster aircraft in their hundreds to rain destruction on the Third Reich, the Luftwaffe,

RIGHT: The worst of the conflagrations in the city centre began in Curl’s department store at bottom right of the picture and spread across the road to engulf neighbouring stores before destroying print works en route to the towering mills of the Caley’s chocolate factory.

ABOVE: Under fire: local photographer George Swain took these dramatic pictures of the destruction of the Wincarnis works in Norwich even as bombs were continuing to fall.

BELOW: This massive crater at a key junction on the edge of the city centre rendered one of the major roads into the Norwich impassable. The city’s cathedral, which escaped damage during the first two Baedeker raids, can be seen rising above the heaps of rubble to the left of the row of wrecked businesses.

90 www.britainatwar.com

denuded by the demands of the Eastern Front, could assign fewer than 30 to the initial assault on Norwich. Yet such was the surprise, coupled with the paucity of the city’s defences, that even this small number of aircraft was able to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting population. Aided by an almost clear night, the bombers were gifted the freedom of the sky over the city. Mike Bailey, then an eight-year-old living near to Norwich’s main waterworks, recalled being shaken awake by his mother as the air was filled with the deafening noise of aeroplane engines. Running towards a neighbour’s shelter he was ‘transfixed’ by the

sight of “chandelier” flares cascading down on the bombers’ aiming point, the nearby City Railway Station. ‘I just stood there looking at a line of flares which seemed just like a staircase of light, slowly coming down over the city,’ he recalled. ‘The next thing I remember was my mum calling, “Don’t stand there with your mouth open. Get down into the shelter,” and she literally dragged me inside.’ Across the city, 16-year-old Geoffrey Burton’s family, like thousands of others, was caught literally napping. Leading a mad scramble from their beds, he was the only one to reach the garden Anderson shelter before the bombs began falling.

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942

With his grandparents, mother and brother forced to take cover beneath a table explosions rent the air all around. ‘I’ll never forget the screaming noise of the aircraft,’ he later said. ‘It sounded like we were being dive-bombed and machine-gunned.’ He was right. What he described as ‘the worst experience of my life’ merely heralded the city’s onslaught. Having successfully marked the target, the Heinkel 111 pathfinders were free to indulge in strafing attacks before the main force, consisting of Dornier 217s and Junkers 88s, launched their assault.

UNOPPOSED ATTACKS Roaring across the city from west to east, they bombed, for the most part, independently, making full use of the favourable conditions. By then, City Station and the surrounding factories were well ablaze and, in the absence of ground fire, they were able to make shallow and steep diving attacks at will. To one teenager cowering from the bombs it felt akin to being a sitting duck in a shooting gallery. ‘There was no opposition,’ wrote Gordon Sabberton. ‘No balloons. No fighters or ack-ack.’ Though not entirely accurate, his assessment was understandable. Indeed, researchers from the Ministry of Home Security later observed of the city’s Baedeker baptism of fire: ‘There was little, if any, anti-aircraft defence and the enemy appeared to do what they pleased.’

ABOVE: The debris-strewn Norwich Corporation yard on the morning after the first raid. Vital workshops and valuable Civil Defence stores were destroyed and a senior member of the city’s rescue squads was killed when bombs ravaged the site. TOP RIGHT: Not much was left of Bullards mineral waterworks in Westwick Street, Norwich, on the morning after the first raid. ABOVE RIGHT: Civil Defence messenger: Philip Burkill kept a graphic diary of the raids on Norwich. Scrambling out of his shelter, he couldn’t help ‘wondering if it was all true’ but the sight of ‘miles of shattered streets’ soon put him right.

The lack of opposition contributed to a fearful helplessness and vulnerability exemplified in Civil Defence messenger Philip Burkill’s blitz diary entry. From his Anderson shelter, he could hear the ‘horrible crackling of fires’ and the ‘crump’ of high explosive followed by the roar of an aircraft that sounded too close for comfort. Suddenly,’ he wrote, ‘it dived and came rushing down. Then it released its bombs. They came rushing and whistling nearer and nearer until they seemed on top of us… One crammed itself into the ground and exploded

with a deafening roar. The shelter shook, dirt fell from the cracks in the roof, some heavy object thudded against the side of the shelter and pieces of earth as big as footballs were dropping all round. I cannot describe what the feeling is as you lie huddled together expecting each one is your “ticket”.’ For over an hour the city was battered by 55.76 tonnes of high explosive and incendiaries. Geoffrey Burton emerged from his shelter, ‘shaking with fear’, to find nearby streets scarred beyond recognition. But at least he was still alive. Others were not so fortunate.  www.britainatwar.com 91

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942 LEFT: Firemen at work amid the ruins of Curls’ department store. BELOW LEFT: Not even reinforced concrete surface shelters could resist direct hits by HE bombs.

Ten patients, many of them elderly and infirm, were killed as they were being led to safety from the bombdamaged Woodlands Hospital. A family of six, including a serviceman home on leave, died amid the flames of their shattered house. Theirs were among more than 60 dead recovered from the city’s ruins. As Mike Bailey and his mother joined a small army of refugees forced to abandon their wrecked homes, he saw bodies being pulled from beneath mountains of rubble. Their faces, caked with plaster, resembled circus clowns and were indicative of the fact, confirmed in a Civil Defence report, that many of the 158 people killed in the first raid had either chosen to remain in, or had not had time to leave, their homes before the bombs smashed them to smithereens. All across the city, people were struck by scenes of jarring juxtaposition amid the carnage. One woman remembered seeing a branch of jasmine, ‘whitestarred and sweet-smelling’, clinging to the remnants of a demolished shed and ‘pathetic half-filled milk bottles in

ABOVE: The skeletal remains of carriages and platform covers at Norwich’s City Railway Station, which was used as a marking point by the German pathfinders and suffered extensive damage during both April raids.

92 www.britainatwar.com

blitzed pantries exposed to the street whose owners would never see them’. Not far away she found a child’s shoe lying forlorn on a path while a front door which had been torn off its hinges lay splayed across the road. ‘All the tiles of the roofs were standing up and if in hideous surprise,’ she noted. ‘Trees and palings flung about and the shattered and cracked buildings had crazily tilted chimneys. It was as though a madman had swept by.’ Overnight, the familiar had been rendered grotesquely unfamiliar. As Philip Burkill stirred from his bombinterrupted sleep, he couldn’t help ‘wondering if it was all true’. That it wasn’t merely a bad dream, but rather the start of a recurring nightmare was evidenced two nights later when the Luftwaffe resumed its assault on Norwich. The second Baedeker attack on the city was, in many ways, a repeat performance of the first raid. Around 40 bombers, led by seven Heinkel 111 pathfinders, dropped a total of 39 tonnes of high explosive in the space of just 36 minutes.

BELOW RIGHT: The tottering remains of Caley’s chocolatemaking mills were likened to the ‘Tower of Pisa’. Rumours of rivers of chocolate pouring through the streets proved to be ‘a mass of a bitter black substance which turned out to be burnt cocoa’.

Their progress uninterrupted by the RAF’s counter-measures unit, they made full use of the cloudless conditions and limited opposition to continue the destruction begun on 27 April. Varying their height from 500-2,000 feet, the main force adopted much the same tactics, with shallow dive-bombing and random machine-gunning. Though casualties were fewer than in the first attack - an indication that people were quicker to reach their shelters - the damage was more significant. As well as 180 separate bomb incidents, Civil Defence workers and fire-fighters had been overwhelmed by the ‘heavy and widespread’ deluge of incendiaries. A total of 61 major fires were recorded during the raid’s brief duration with the worst conflagration ripping through the commercial heart of the city. With water mains ruptured by bombs, the fire, fanned by the wind, tore through department stores and factories, culminating in the destruction of the towering mills that housed one of the country’s biggest manufacturers of chocolate.

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942

ABOVE: Picking through the debris: the densely packed terraces in Rupert Street suffered grievously during the first raid. Around 32,000 people, more than a quarter of the population, were rendered temporarily homeless as a result of the first two raids.

Even by the standards of the first raid, the scenes that greeted residents in the city centre on the morning after the second raid were shocking. To some, they appeared almost apocalyptic. Writing to her serving brother, Kathleen Pye likened the heart of Norwich to ‘a wilderness’ while an engineer called to survey the ruins of one factory found a steel building ‘curled up like a writhing animal’. Once again, or so it seemed to many of the city’s citizens, the military response had been lamentable. Though Norwich had been upgraded to a ‘gun defended area’ in the midst of the double blitz, the reinforcements, which included a ’Z’ AA rocket projector battery, were ordered to fire ‘freely, even at the expense of accuracy’, but had neither daunted nor deterred the raiders. Even worse, despite claims of two ‘probable’ and two ‘damaged’, they hadn’t managed to destroy a single aircraft. It was all too little, too late, and even as barrage balloons rose above the city and anti-aircraft batteries continued to roll in, there was a growing sense of the stable door being shut after the horse had already bolted. For large sections of the population, however, no amount of balloons or guns could convince them that it was safe to spend another night in the city. They had simply lost faith in the military’s ability to protect them and had joined what quickly became a wholesale evacuation.

ABANDONED CITY? Agnes Pond was one of those who chose to abandon the city. In her diary, she observed that ‘everyone [was] leaving the city that could get away’ and wrote of ‘hundreds sleeping in the open’. What started as a trickle soon became a flood as thousands fled the city every night. Driven by a mixture of fear and self-preservation, they sought shelter in surrounding villages or, in the absence of anywhere else, fields or woods beyond the city’s boundaries. Watching the exodus, an anonymous Mass Observation diarist was reminded of newsreel footage of columns of refugees in war-torn France and Burma. ‘They tramped out of the city in their hundreds in the evening - a few belongings, an old pram, tired dirty children, a setting sun - horrible, and suddenly

one pictured people all over the world doing the same, out of Lashio, out of Mandalay, out of Rostock, everywhere…’ Not all the evacuees left on foot. School teacher Rachel Dhonau arrived at Norwich’s Thorpe Railway Station to find the platforms crowded with people ‘standing about ten deep… with their little bundles’. In a diary note, she added: ‘Lots of them are sleeping under haystacks and half of them have dreadful colds.’ Just how many people were involved in the voluntary ‘self-evacuations’, as they were officially dubbed, is not clear. An official ‘appreciation’ into the impact of the second raid thought the number ‘considerable’, while a Home Office researcher who arrived in the city on May 8 merely reported that ‘a large number of… people were going out at night or had moved outside the area’. 

TOP RIGHT: Bomb sites such as the oncethatched Boar’s Head pub in the heart of the city centre became familiar landmarks. ABOVE RIGHT: Wills' set of pre-war cigarette cards were intended to promote Air Raid Precautions by showing how civilians could support the fire service. In reality even fire-watchers trained to deal with incendiaries were reluctant to fight fires. LEFT: Schoolteacher, artist and Civil Defence volunteer Philippa Ruth Miller’s painting of the destruction of Caley’s chocolate factory. (COURTESY NORFOLK MUSEUMS & ARCHAEOLOGY)

www.britainatwar.com 93

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942

Where actual figures were given, they tended to vary markedly. One official report put the number of people who temporarily quit the city between the two main April raids at 40,000, a staggering figure which, if accurate, amounted to roughly a third of the city’s population. Another Home Office survey, compiled the following year, reduced the total to 11,000. Whatever the true number, it was sufficient to set alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power where the so-called ‘in and out’ evacuations were viewed as an ‘alarming symptom of sinking morale’.

OFFICIAL ALARM BELLS Opinion on ‘trekking’, as the unauthorised mass movement of people away from blitzed cities was most commonly known, was sharply divided. What seemed to some a perfectly natural human response was regarded by officials in the Ministry of Home Security as a shameful sign of weakness.

ABOVE: Hosepipes snake through the debris as firemen continue their work on the morning of 30 April, 1942. Fractured water mains and windfanned flames defeated efforts to save buildings in the heart of Norwich. ABOVE RIGHT: Wrecked dressing rooms at the bomb-hit Hippodrome Theatre. BELOW: Bernard Storey introduces King George VI to Civil Defence workers during a morale-raising visit to the city in the aftermath of raids on Norwich.

A Home Intelligence report delivered a year before the Baedeker raids made the government’s position on ‘trekking’ clear. ‘It is known that there is a section of the population, estimated at a maximum of one-tenth, who are of weaker constitutional mental make-up than the rest,’ it stated. ‘These people react to different situations in two ways - either by cowardly retreat, or by a neurotic breakdown… The potentially neurotic section of the population takes to the roads each evening and seeks safety in dispersal…’ Harsh though it seems, the officials were not alone in deploring such instances. In an officially sanctioned record of the Norwich Blitz, Ralph Mottram, an award-winning novelist and veteran of the First World War who experienced the bombing firsthand, described what he called the ‘melancholy spectacle’ of columns of people quitting the city as ‘pitiful’. A 54-year-old air-raid warden and Mass Observation diarist, who worked as a lecturer at the city’s bombed-out teachers’ training college, was even

more scathing. Writing on May 2, she noted: ‘Three of our wardens, who did not turn up for duty on Wed night’s blitz, have taken their families into the country and stayed there!… I don’t know how they will stand. Soldiers can be shot for desertion…’ The following day she added: ‘Indignation against able-bodied men who drop their fire-watching responsibilities or wardens’ duties and go into the country seems rife.’ She overheard one man saying that ‘it was dreadful the way people were streaming out of the place for there would not be enough people left to deal with incendiaries’. The same diarist was contemptuous of an ‘almost wholesale desertion’ by residential fire-watchers. ‘Blitzed or unblitzed,’ she wrote, ‘they went out into the country, returning by day for work. In one road there were for a time only 2 men available and one was a warden…’ In a detailed report to Mass Observation, which formed part of the Ministry of Home Security’s

BELOW: After the deluge: on the morning after the second April raid, people get their first glimpse of the damage wrought in the city’s main shopping centre.

94 www.britainatwar.com

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942 LEFT: 'Messrs Caley’s Factory in Flames', a painting by Polish soldier Stanislaw Mikula, who was among hundreds of servicemen drafted in to the city during the Blitz. (COURTESY

post-raid analysis of civilian morale, she complained: ‘Whole streets are practically deserted at night, and the residential fire watching has gone to pot. This is dangerous as too few are left to cope with fires which would provide a target for HE [high explosive]… Country districts, open spaces and villages are packed out (I am told) night after night. People sleep in their cars, or walk out and sleep in woods. One man told me his charwoman and her husband walk 5 miles each way and sleep in the open…’ While the city’s Civil Defence Controller, Bernard Storey, may have shared her sense of outrage, he was more sanguine. Rather than seeing ‘trekking’ as a measure of morale, he

part-time duties concerned with Civil Defence or its associated services.’ Efforts’ were, indeed, made. After an inquiry identified at least 50 ‘defaulters’ were identified and within two months of the raids 10 fire-watchers were charged with ‘failing to report for duty’. Punitive and publicly reported court action was not the only action taken. A Mass Observation compiled in June noted that ‘residents [had been] circularised and told that houses left unoccupied would be commandeered for the homeless. This brought them back and so they resumed firewatching’.   Ordinary people, however, were not the only ones guilty of what senior Civil Defence officers saw as a dereliction of duty. In his report to the Regional Commissioner, Bernard Storey was highly critical of the ‘extent to which members of the [city’s] Emergency Committee, and other leading citizens were sleeping outside the town’. There was also, he pointed out, a wider implication of ‘trekking’ that had little to do with morale and rather more to do with the danger of air attack being the prelude to an invasion which, even preferred to view the ‘self-evacuations’ in the summer of 1942, was clearly still as ‘a valuable safety valve’. regarded in certain quarters as a realistic What mattered most, he argued, was possibility. not whether people left Norwich at His anxiety that the evacuations night, but how quickly they returned ‘might easily develop into a refugee and to what extent the withdrawals movement’ was shared by neighbouring affected war production and the city’s district councils who believed the April capability to protect itself from the raids had shown that ‘the population of effects of aerial bombardment.   Norwich neither would nor could ‘stand As he made clear in a letter to the firm’ under the combination of invasion Regional Commissioner, Sir Will Spens, and bombing’. on June 3: ‘If women and children desire Sir Will Spens was inclined to to go out of the city each evening, I do think such fears alarmist, though he not personally see why they should not acknowledged that any such ‘in and do so, but I think efforts should be made out’ movements to to persuade able-bodied men to remain, and from the city in as they should all be performing some the event of an enemy

NORFOLK MUSEUMS & ARCHAEOLOGY SERVICE)

BELOW LEFT: A Home Office file plots the course of the fires through Caley’s incendiaryravaged site.

invasion would have to be ‘checked’. In fact, as the findings of a regional progress report showed, the evacuations ‘died down satisfactorily and fairly rapidly’. At the same time, with ‘one explicable exception’, who remained unnamed, all of those members of the Emergency Committee who had abandoned the city in the wake of the raids had returned.

INCONSISTENT REPORTS Concerns about morale, however, persisted. As late as June, officials from the Home Office were questioning the resilience of Norwich’s population. Referring back to the April raids, one report spoke of ‘a considerable stepping up in trekking, absenteeism, etc, from the first to the second heavy raid’ and went so far as to suggest that Norwich was ‘a city whose morale is just at breaking point’. It was a bleak assessment in stark contrast to the conclusions reached by investigators from the Ministry of Home Security. In a memo to the War Cabinet dated June 24, they stated that morale in Norwich had ‘stood up very well indeed to the two sharp raids’. So which version are we to believe? If disruption to war production was taken as a reliable measure, then it would seem the 

BELOW: Norwich’s town clerk and Civil Defence Controller Bernard Storey found it ‘impossible to praise too highly’ the work of the city’s emergency services, but admitted the performance of fire-guards was ‘very patchy’ during the April raids. The Ministry of Home Security went further, insisting they were the ‘weakest link in the Civil Defence chain’.

www.britainatwar.com 95

BAEDEKER BLITZ Attack on Norwich 1942 ‘There was a good deal of complaining because of the lack of water and the lack of adequate defences at the outset,’ wrote Rachel Dhonau. Another diarist noted that while many people were ‘frightened’ by the attacks, there was an acceptance that they were from ‘an impersonal agency’. ‘The whole business had the effect of shaking up everyone, and making them realise what war can mean,’ wrote a 26-year-old veteran of the Merseyside Blitz. In her report to Mass Observation, she added: ‘The people were frightened, but not cowardly, and certainly shewed (sic) they could stand up to it.’ Baseless rumours had extended the list of grievances. Among them Ministry of Home Security’s judgment were false claims that as many as was the more accurate. 2,000 people had been killed during Despite the ‘substantial damage… to the two April raids, that the city had industrial and working class property’, been rendered ‘helpless’ because its most people affected by the bombing anti-aircraft guns had been sent to took only one or two days off work in Liverpool and that there had been the aftermath of the raids to take care an outbreak of paratyphoid in the of their families or damaged homes. aftermath of the attacks. Given the number of houses that However, complaints, frayed nerves were either destroyed or rendered and a tendency towards ‘trekking’ temporarily uninhabitable and the were not of themselves indicators of breakdown in the city’s billeting a city’s crumbling morale, but rather arrangements following the first heavy the natural by-products of a deeply raid, that was something of a miracle. distressing ordeal. Mass Observation’s Reports compiled by Mass Observation conclusion drawn from the reports for the Ministry of Home Security of their Norwich diarists was clear. differentiated between the inevitable ‘There is no suggestion of any general moans and groans and a collapse in despondency,’ it stated. ‘The general civilian morale. attitude of people was that this was just part of war which must be expected.’ Further confirmation of the population’s preparedness to endure came later in an assessment of air-raid morale in seven

ABOVE: The bomb that landed in Ethel Road, Norwich, during the raid of April 29/30, 1942, shattered homes and wrecked a surface shelter (seen here on the right), killing or wounding all of the 20 people taking cover inside.

96 www.britainatwar.com

TOP LEFT: Reduced to ruins: the carnage in Norwich as depicted by Polish soldierartist Stanislaw Mikula (COURTESY

NORFOLK MUSEUMS & ARCHAEOLOGY SERVICE).

TOP RIGHT: A line of white crosses mark the site of a mass burial in Norwich’s Earlham cemetery in May 1942. According to R V Jones, an error in combating the enemy’s navigational system had contributed to the death toll during the April raids.

towns and cities conducted by the Ministry of Home Security on behalf of an Air Ministry anxious to analyse the impact of targeting civilians as part of its own ‘area bombing’ strategy. Delivered in 1943, the report concluded that, contrary to the earlier concerns, Norwich’s morale had, in fact, been ‘high’ after the two April Baedeker raids. But the endorsement came with a puzzling caveat: though the population had shown themselves able to withstand the bombing they were, observed the report’s authors, ‘aware of the limit of their endurance’. What that limit was, or under what circumstances it might be reached, was not made clear. Nor would it ever be put to the test. Following the cessation of the failed Baedeker bombing campaign, Norwich was the target only of a few random hit-and-run raids and an utterly ineffective bombardment by V2 rockets. Never again would its population have to undergo the kind of trials that had so severely tested its resolve and maligned its reputation during that bitter spring of 1942. 

Mosquito

✈

by

bill perring

Two 139 Sq. Mosquitos fly over the English countryside. On the river below, members of a well-known Home Guard are practising, using home-made rafts with varying degrees of success — A must for fans of ‘Dad’s Army’. A signed and numbered limited edition of 850 (image size 12 ” X 22” — 305mm X 560mm) £40 inc P+P Artist remarqued copies £50 extra. Postage and packing free world-wide. Satisfaction guaranteed. Full refund if returned within 14 days. Please make cheques and P.O’s to: BILL PERRING. D’ARCY COLLECTION. 8 MARLPIT LANE, COULSDON, SURREY CR5 3HB. ENGLAND Tel 01737 555727 — e-mail [email protected]

www.darcycollection.co.uk

for my full range of books and prints and originals

The Homepage of Aviation

Brought to you by Key Publishing, Europe’s Leading aviation publisher, Key.aero is a website designed to be your complete information source for Military, Civil, Historic and General Aviation as well as Flight Simulation. Constantly updated by our team of top aviation writers, Key.aero features:

• All the latest aviation news from around the world • In-depth features and articles • Comprehensive event and airshow listings • Discussion forum with over 28,000 members

AND MUCH MORE! VISIT YOUR NEW ONESTOP AVIATION WEBSITE TODAY!

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

THE RAF ON THE AIR Pilot Officer Peter Henry de Kaap Bocock

MAIN PICTURE: A sister aircraft to that flown by 204 Squadron’s Flight Lieutenant S.R. Gibbs on 28 October 1940, Short Sunderland T9070 (KG-E), is pictured sitting on the water with merchant vessels in the background.

(WW2IMAGES)

A

T 16.40 hours on Monday, 28 October 1940, Flight Lieutenant S.R. Gibbs took off from Oban at the controls of Short Sunderland Mk.I P9620, coded KG-K. Amongst his crew was Pilot Officer Peter Henry de Kaap Bocock. Born Pieter Heinrich Neugebauer, Bocock was one of two brothers serving in the RAF. He was granted a short service commission as an acting pilot officer on 24 June 1939. (His name at this point was listed as Peter Hermann Neugebauer. Just over a year later it was announced, in The London Gazette on 30 July 1940, that Peter had elected to change his name by deed poll to Peter Henry de Kaap Bocock.) As Bocock recounted in a recording he made for the BBC, the convoy patrol flight that began on 28 October 1940 ended in disaster when Gibbs was required to make an emergency landing in the Atlantic Ocean west of the Hebrides: ‘We were the crew of a Sunderland flying boat of the Coastal Command,

and a fairly mixed crowd. The captain and second pilot were Canadian, and I, the third pilot, came from Cape Town. The rest hailed from the Empire and the home country. ‘I suppose superstitious people might deduce something from the fact that we numbered 13, but that didn’t worry us as it is quite a normal number in a Sunderland. Incidentally, it was my first operational trip, and the navigator’s too. ‘We had been flying through the night for over nine hours on our patrol when we set course back for the coast of Scotland, several hundred miles away. The weather was absolutely filthy with wind, rain, and mist; visibility, which matters most in the air, was practically nil. In fact, conditions were so bad that even the wireless wouldn’t function because of atmospheric interference. I put the earphones on once or twice and the noise might have been an echo of what was going on outside – a rushing sound like a close-up of a mighty waterfall.

19 PART



    �

98 www.britainatwar.com

‘We did our best to navigate back to our base without wireless help. We climbed to 5,000 feet, where we got a bit of icing-up, and came down low when we calculated we should be near home. There was nothing in sight but sea, and we knew we were well and truly lost. ‘Petrol was getting very low. We had enough left for only about another 15 minutes flying, so the captain, a Flight Lieutenant with the DFC, decided to try and alight while he could still use his engines. The closer we came to the sea, the worse it looked. The waves were simply enormous. It is one of the most difficult operations in flying to land a boat successfully with anything of a sea running. If you get even a wing-tip float stove in you’re finished, because she loses trim and the wing goes in. ‘Down we came towards the dark sea. Our normal landing speed is about 100 knots. The pilot brought her in at 50 knots to try and save the hull, and with the terrific wind our ground speed was probably not more than 20 knots. We

held our breath as we touched down [at 06.15 hours], but nothing came adrift. It was a really wonderful landing in almost insuperable difficulties. ‘Now we were tossing up and down on the huge waves, with the engines stopped and the wind whistling past like a tornado. It was still dark. The wireless operators, who had been trying ceaselessly to get into touch with the base, were tapping out messages. We learned later that these had been received, and a directional bearing obtained from them which resulted eventually in our rescue. ‘The motion was so violent that we were all sick except the chief airgunner, a man of Malvern. He took long spells at the controls, using the ailerons to save the aircraft from buffeting as much as possible, while the rest of us got the dinghies prepared. 

LEFT MIDDLE: A moving image shows the upturned hull of Sunderland P9620 as seen from the deck of HMAS Australia. The unidentified member of the flying boat’s crew who can be seen on the fuselage was one of the four who could not be saved. (COURTESY OF

THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; P00233-001)

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.

 � 



www.britainatwar.com 99

THE RAF ON THE AIR Pilot Officer Peter Henry de Kaap Bocock

ABOVE: The four men from P9620’s crew who were lost at sea were Leading Aircraftman Matthew Ewing Towe, Sergeant Stuart Hayden MacDonald RNZAF, Aircraftman 1st Class Kenneth William Beavis and Sergeant Malcolm Sydney Ross. All four are commemorated on The Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede which commemorates by name over 20,000 airmen who were lost in the Second World War during operations from bases in the United Kingdom and North and Western Europe, and who have no known graves. (SHUTTERSTOCK)

100 www.britainatwar.com

‘As time went by, the wind and sea were both rising. It didn’t seem possible for conditions to get any worse, but they did! We’d had nothing to eat for twelve hours or so, and anyway it was impossible to keep anything down. I ate an orange, but it was no good. ‘When daylight came we received a wireless message that help was on the way. A ship was expected to reach us about 2.30 in the afternoon. The waiting hours were pretty anxious ones, but at 2.45 we saw her smoke. It was a beautiful sight. In driving, drizzling rain we let off distress signals. She turned towards us, and stood off a bit to make rescue preparations. ‘Then something happened that we had all been dreading. An enormous wave got us. I can see it coming now. The gunner was still at the controls, and he shouted, ‘Look what’s coming!’ As it swept past us, the control column hit him in the stomach, and then went loose. Our port wing-tip and float had carried away. It was amazing that the thing hadn’t happened before. The fact that we had floated securely in that sea for eight and three-quarter hours is the finest tribute possible to our captain’s landing and the stout build of a Sunderland.

‘But now the boat was going. She heeled to port and we scrambled out on top. If it hadn’t been so serious, it would have been funny to see us all throwing our heavy flying clothing into the sea – boots, parachute harness, overalls, etc. One chap held up his wool-lined boots, shook his head sadly, and dropped them gently into the sea. ‘The chief air-gunner climbed out on the starboard wing to try and balance the aircraft. He slipped on a patch of oil and fell into the water then things happened rather quickly. We threw him ropes. The Sunderland started to turn over. I found myself in the water and tried to undo one of the dinghies. The mooring ropes got round my neck, and I thought I was going to be drowned underneath. ‘Our rescue-ship saw what was happening to the Sunderland and steamed to windward giving us the shelter of her lee. We were in a bunch in the sea, supported by our Mae West lifejackets, and swam and paddled towards the warship. From her deck, someone flung a lifebelt towards me. On it was painted ‘HMAS Australia’. The crew threw out ropes and scrambling nets for us to climb up.

BELOW: Short Sunderland KG-B of 204 Squadron during a patrol in late 1940. The loss of P9620 cost 204 Squadron another Sunderland. T9045 had taken off to search for P9620 on the 29th, only to be forced down onto the sea at 21.45 hours due to darkness and a veering wind. The starboard float was smashed on landing and a trawler in the vicinity came alongside and lines were passed. Attempts to tow the aircraft were foiled owing to the roughness of sea, and after the port float had been stove in by the trawler, it was decided to abandon the aircraft, the crew all being rescued. (WW2IMAGES)

‘I’m sorry to say that four of our number disappeared in those dreadful few moments, and were not seen again’

BELOW: The heavy cruiser HMAS Australia which rescued nine men from the crew of P9620. On the afternoon of Monday, 28 October 1940, she was ordered to sea to join in the search for a German merchant raider reported to be operating in the Atlantic. But, as Tuesday dawned the warship’s task changed. At this point her captain was informed of the 204 Squadron Short Sunderland flying boat which had put down in the Atlantic Ocean; he was instructed to join in the hunt for survivors.

‘In a few minutes some of the Australia’s crew themselves were in the water with us, helping to get us aboard. I learned later that the ship’s captain was among them. They assisted us to ropes, but we were paralysed with cold and could hardly hold them. Even if you’d got a rope round your arm, you were in the water one moment and pulled high out of it the next by the movement of the ship. There was always the danger of being crushed against the ship’s side. Several chaps climbed partly up the rope ladders and fell back into the sea. I’m sorry to say that four of our number disappeared in those dreadful few moments, and were not seen again. Without the very gallant help of the Australians, I don’t think any of us would have reached the deck. ‘Somehow I got on the wrong side of one of the scrambling nets, and was in imminent danger of being slapped against the ship’s plates. But a sailor got hold of me through the net, and held on. Someone let down a bowline, which I got beneath my arms with the sailor’s help, and the next minute I was going up to the rails like a lift. I remember noticing,

half dazed, that my watch glass was cracked, and muttering, “Damn, I’ve broken the glass!” ‘They wanted to carry me below, but with a sort of muzzy stubbornness, I insisted on walking. Of course, I had to be supported on both sides, and the officers laughingly humoured me. The nine of us who had been saved were put in the sick bay with warm blankets, hot bottles, and drinks to thaw us out. We must have been in the water round about 30 minutes, and some of us didn’t stop shivering for two hours. Meantime, the search went on for the missing four, but without success. ‘At last we turned for the land, leaving the Sunderland floating upside down, hull awash. The seas were by then about 50 feet high, and the wind was so strong that it was right off the ship’s indicator, gusting at well over 100 mph. The captain, when he had dried and changed, came down and told us it was the worst storm he had seen in his life.’ After a period of recuperation, Bocock returned to operations, eventually being demobilized from the RAF in 1945 having flown a total of 2,677 hours.  www.britainatwar.com 101

FREE BOOK WHEN YO U TA K E OUT A 2 -YE AR OR DIR E CT D E B IT S UB S C R I P T I ON TO

Image: Key Collection

H WORT 9 £7.9

CHOOSE ONE OF THESE GREAT BOOKS A DOCTOR’S WAR

SPITFIRE PILOT

“Spitfire Pilot” was written in 1940 in the heat of battle when the RAF stood alone against the might of Hitler’s Third Reich. It is a tremendous personal account of one of the fiercest and most idealised air conflicts the Battle of Britain - seen through the eyes of a pilot of the famous 609 Squadron, which shot down over 100 planes in that epic contest. Often hopelessly outnumbered, in their state of the art Spitfires, Flight Lieutenant David Crook and his colleagues committed acts of unimaginable bravery against the Messerschmidts and Junkers. Softback, 208 pages.

H WORT 9 £7.9

As an RAF medical officer, Aidan McCarthy had served in France, survived Dunkirk, and was plunged into adventures in the Japanese-American arena comparable with those of famous war heroes. Interned by the Japanese in Java, he helped his fellow prisoners with amazing ingenuity in awful conditions. En route back to Japan in 1944, his ship was torpedoed but he was rescued by a whaling boat and re-interned in Japan. His life was literally saved by the dropping of the Nagasaki atom bomb. This is an almost incredible account written with humour and dignity. Softback, 260 pages.

ONLINE www.britainatwar.com

PHONE UK 01780 480404 OVERSEAS +44 1780 480404

FAX UK 01780 757812 OVERSEAS +44 1780 757812

373/15

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

POST COMPLETE THE FORM AND POST TO:

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

MAKE HUGE SAVINGS when you pay by easy Direct Debit – just £9.99 every quarter plus FREE book.

YES, I would like to subscribe to

M A G A Z I N E S* 5 FREE WITH EVERY 2 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION

2 FREE WITH EVERY 1 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION

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 Please send gift card 

Country Please choose gift  Spitfire Pilot  Doctor’s War

SPECIAL OFFER

(PLEASE TICK)

12 FOR THE PRICE OF 10

24 ISSUES FOR THE PRICE OF 19

UK

12 issues

 £45.00

24 issues

 £84.99

Europe

12 issues

 £55.00

24 issues

 £99.99

USA

12 issues

 $75.00

24 issues

 $137.50

12 issues

 £55.00

24 issues

 £99.99

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 MAY 2015 PLEASE QUOTE: BAW515

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

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

READERS IN THE USA

UK Direct Debit

Quarterly £9.99

6 5

8

9

6

0

MAY PLACE ORDERS BY: 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: BAW515

Direct Debit UK only. If paying by Direct Debit please send in form. Free gift available on UK Direct Debit orders only. Payments are accepted by Direct Debit, 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. Key Publishing will 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 will be of equal or higher value. 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 will be raised for the full price of the gift.

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea

The threat to the Royal Navy, merchant and passenger vessels from German U-boats in the First World was potentially devastating. Rob Langham examines the varied means used to strike back, from the lance bomb to the convoy.

U-BOATS TURNING THE TABLES 104 www.britainatwar.com

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea

T

HE ROYAL Navy found out how dangerous U-boats could be as early as 8 August 1914 when a torpedo just missed the battleship HMS Monarch. Even so, defensive methods were slow to develop, making the submerged raiders a constant menace. U-boats would not be used to their full potential until February 1917: Britain then found itself pushed to the limits as supplies were sent to the bottom of the sea in such large numbers that starvation and submission seemed very real prospects. Finding an effective defence was essential.

EARLY DEFENCE TACTICS Not that the successes all went one way. The day after the unsuccessful attack on HMS Monarch, HMS Birmingham caught U 15 on the surface — U 15 started to move as the cruiser bore down upon her, but it was too late, and the German craft was sliced in half and sank to the sea bed, taking the entire crew with her. A few months later U 18 was also destroyed by ramming after entering Scapa Flow. This basic tactic proved to be fairly successful, and accounted for six U-boats until July 1915 – and ramming

remained a continuous threat to U-boats throughout the war. Other measures to seek and destroy the threat early in the war were primitive to say the least — one anti-submarine tactic involved equipping picket boats with a canvas bag and a hammer – the idea was to approach a submerged U-boat (with the periscope visible), slip the canvas bag over the periscope and smash the lens with a hammer! After initially concentrating on attacking warships, disappointing results for the U-boats switched the 

MAIN PICTURE: Surrendered German U-boats pictured at Harwich in 1919. The terms of the Armistice in 1918 required that Germany turn over all her U-boats to the British and her Allies. A total of 176 were surrendered. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

www.britainatwar.com 105

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea focus in early 1915 on to merchant shipping instead. On 4 February 1915 Germany announced that the waters around the British Isles were now a war zone and that merchant ships found there would be destroyed, including the caveat that ‘nor will it always be possible to obviate the danger with which the crews and passengers are thereby threatened’. This effectively meant the U-boats would now sink targets without warning, where previously they would have given the crew and any passengers time to escape. This first phase of unrestricted warfare ended in September 1915 following the diplomatic fallout with neutral countries, especially the United States of America following the sinking of the RMS Lusitania and later the SS Arabic. Between the start of unrestricted submarine warfare and the end of 1915 166 British merchant ships and 168 fishing boats were sunk, as well as around 30 British ships lost by mines laid by U-boats. On the other side of the ledger, at least 11 U-boats had been destroyed by the Royal Navy.

NETS AND MINES The use of nets, although simple, was tried throughout the war. As well as static versions to defend against torpedo attack or to provide a barrier against submarines, nets were pulled between vessels in the hope of snaring

106 www.britainatwar.com

BELOW LEFT: This poster, ‘Defeat the Kaiser and his U-boats’, was published by the United States Food Administration and was intended to reinforce the message, on both sides of the Atlantic, regarding the need to conserve food stocks. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

BELOW: Launched at the Flensburger Schiffbau yard on 28 March 1916, U-155 was seized after the Armistice on 24 November 1918. She was taken to Britain and exhibited in London, where this picture was taken near Tower Bridge, and elsewhere, before being broken up at Morecambe in 1922. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

a U-boat, which if tangled enough could completely disable it, or at least give away its position. It could then be destroyed by other means. As unlikely as this may sound, nets were responsible for the confirmed destruction of at least two U-boats. Small mines designed to explode on contact with a U-boat were also fitted to nets, together with mines anchored to the sea bed; this was how the Royal Navy tried to close off the English Channel to U-boats, alongside air and maritime patrols. In February 1917, Admiral Bacon, in charge of the Dover Patrol, started to work on a more comprehensive

mine barrage for the Dover Straits from Folkestone to Cap Gris Nez on the French coast — a distance of 22 miles. A suitable mine was not available in numbers until November (a copy of a German design) so the new barrier was not completed until the final few days of 1917. It was to be lit up at night, boosted by patrols which would attempt to stop U-boats from surfacing and crossing safely under cover of darkness. This took effect quickly when UB 56, which intended to cross on the surface, instead ran underwater straight into the minefield and blew up just after midnight on 19 December 1917.

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea As more mines were produced more were laid, set up at different depths to maximise their potential, although the barrier was not fully complete according to the Admiralty specification until August 1918. Although U-boats still travelled via the Dover Straits, either risking travelling on the surface at night or still going underwater, the barrier took a toll on them, and in September 1918 U-boats operating in coastal waters were banned from travelling via the Dover Straits. Those which operated further afield had ceased using the route since February. A similar proposal for a barrage across the North Sea had been dropped earlier in the war, but after their entry into the war the US Navy was keen to revive the idea. It was therefore laid from June 1918 onwards, with large gaps for allied vessels to sail through. Although it was not completed by the end of the war, it destroyed at least five U-boats and, if complete, was thought to have the potential to bottle up U-boats in the North Sea completely.

Q-SHIPS The Q-ships, also known as ‘Mystery Ships’ or ‘Decoy Vessels’ were an early successful tactic against the U-boats. Owing to the small number of torpedoes a U-boat carried — especially early in the war — it would surface and attempt to sink an enemy merchant ship with gunfire. The British therefore chose to requisition and arm a number of merchant ships that would appear unarmed to any U-boat. The weaponry was hidden behind fake crates or parts of the superstructure. When the order was given, the false coverings would fall away and the guns open fire, using the element of surprise and close proximity to destroy the U-boat. The deception meant the crews had to be dressed in civilian clothing and, while on deck, not do anything that might alert a U-boat crew secretly watching them through a periscope.

RIGHT: The deadly menace: a U-boat engine room. LEFT: A 1917 poster urges British civilians not to waste bread owing to the losses incurred by merchant shipping in the draining U-boat campaign. BELOW: The German U-boat U-118 stranded on the beach at Hastings while being towed to the breaker’s yard in 1921. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

BOTTOM: A scene more reminiscent of the Second World War. In an effort to beat the U-boats a transatlantic convoy forms up, in 1916 or 1917, prior to setting out for British ports. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

Great secrecy surrounded the Q-ships, so named after their base in Queenstown, Ireland, and if it was felt a Q-ship had been identified then great lengths were taken to either change its appearance or even to stop using it. Other ruses would add to the deception: for instance, a number of crew might be part of a ‘panic party’ who would escape the Q-ship in the ship’s lifeboat. Successes followed: U 36 was sunk by the collier Prince Charles on 24 July 1915, and in the next two months three more U-boats were destroyed by

Q-ships. Various types of vessel were used – sailing ships were particularly useful when the convoy system was introduced as they were more likely to be seen on their own in normal circumstances, and not as conspicuous as a lone merchant or passenger vessel. Q-ship crews turned this circumstance into a new tactic — they filled the hold with wood or other material so that if the ship was holed by torpedo it stood a chance of staying afloat. The U-boat was likely to surface to finish off the ship with gunfire rather than use another of its few torpedoes, which would give the Q-ship crews their chance to fight back. It was a risky tactic and required immense patience and coolness on the part of the crews, who would have to remain hidden, but it did work, notably in the sinking of U 83 by Q-ship Farnborough in an action, which would earn Commander Campbell the Victoria Cross. Despite these wins, today the Q-ships are not considered a particular success, for the obvious reason that five Q-ships were sunk versus every claimed U-boat, though the value achieved by putting U-boat commanders’ minds in doubt that a potential victim might be a highly dangerous Q-ship, thus preventing an attack, has perhaps been understated. 

www.britainatwar.com 107

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea

LANCE BOMB Entering service in April 1915 and issued in large numbers was the lance-bomb, which, fortunately for its intended users, does not appear to have been used in anger too often. The lance-bomb looks like a large spade, but with a large bullet shaped head. This head contained seven pounds of explosive, and the idea was that it would be thrown from a vessel to explode against the hull of a U-boat — which would require the U-boat to be extremely close to the vessel and its bomb thrower. Motor Launches used this device. These were ordered in large numbers (over 500) from the Elco Motor Boat Company from 1915 onwards in the USA and were used to patrol the coast around Britain as well as in the Mediterranean. They were just 75 feet long and travelled at 19 knots, and were fairly lightly armed, usually with just a single gun (mostly 3 pounders) and small arms such as Lewis machine guns (as well as the lance-bomb, of course), although they were provided with depth charges as they became available. The ability to locate submarines underwater was extremely desirable, and was something developed during the war but never perfected. Underwater hydrophones were used, initially from shore stations and

108 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: The U-boat U-7 pictured while under way. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

BELOW RIGHT: The U-boat U-111 pictured following its surrender at the end of the war. Completed at Kiel early in January 1918, U-111 undertook its first war patrol on 26 March that year. U-111 was unusual in that it was the only U-boat to sail with a clergyman, Marinepfarrer Wilhelm Meinhold, as a member of its crew.

fitted to warships from 1915, but with only limited success: the vessel had to be stationary with no machinery running to work, while their design meant the sound could be detected as coming as many as 180 degrees away from its actual position. A directional hydrophone entered service in 1917 that could be used at low speeds, and towed types were also tried. Despite their faults they were issued in large numbers, vessels often carrying several types to make up for the drawbacks of each. After a quiet few months following the cessation of the first unrestricted phase of submarine warfare, U-boat

Imperial German Navy commenced on 1 February 1917 and almost brought Britain to its knees. Merchant ships were being lost quicker than they could be replaced - the loss of foodstuffs and raw materials took effect quickly, and food shortages became commonplace in Britain. With the campaign at its height with 354 ships (or 834,549 tons) sunk in April 1917, the Admiralty were of the opinion that if the the U-boats were not stopped, Britain would have to surrender in November of that year. After seeming complacency with existing countermeasures through 1916, the sudden onslaught on the seas meant changes had to be made, and quickly.

operations started to ramp up through 1916 and early 1917. The battles of Verdun and the Somme, although causing huge losses for the allies, also took a heavy toll on the Germans. It became clear to them that if Britain’s supplies were heavily reduced or cut off then the island nation could be forced out of the war, leaving France to fight the war on the Western Front alone, and therefore possibly leading to surrender or victory on the battlefield. The second unrestricted phase of submarine warfare conducted by the

DEPTH CHARGES

(US LIBRARY

OF CONGRESS)

BELOW: Allied warships engage a surfaced German U-boat. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

What proved to be the most potent anti-submarine weapon, the depth charge, came into service in early 1915 but because development and supply were so slow it did not become truly effective until much later in the war. The first types were filled with a relatively small amount of explosive and would have to ignite very close to the enemy submarine to damage it significantly. The more advanced Type D depth charge was designed in June 1915 and first issued at the start

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea

of 1916. There were two versions – the Type D was filled with 300lbs of TNT and the smaller Type D* had 120lbs of explosive, to be used on armed trawlers, Q ships and Motor Launches. As well as being more powerful, the Type D and D* also had a more effective firing system, which could be set to explode at either 40 or 80 feet (12 or 24 metres, respectively) beneath the surface. The first depth charge ‘kill’ came on 22 March 1916 when the Q Ship Farnborough used them during its four-stage destruction of U 68. After first submerging the submarine with gunfire, it followed up with a depth charge, which brought the U-boat back up to the surface — pointing upwards almost vertically — and then sank U 68 again with gunfire, dropping two depth charges over it. Although U-boats continued to be attacked by depth charges when the opportunity arose (assuming the attacking vessel was fortunate enough to actually have a supply – for most of 1916 only two depth charges were to be allotted per vessel, later increasing to four by the end of the year), they could not be used to their best potential until every U-boat hunter was equipped with them. Depth charge throwers produced from 1917 increased their effectiveness further

1918 the average rate of use was 2,000 depth charges a month. Around 30 U-boats were claimed destroyed by the use of depth charges either solely or in conjunction with other methods during the war.

AIRSHIPS AND AIRCRAFT

TOP: Dazzle camouflage on an Allied warship — in this case the USS Nebraska in the US Navy’s yard at Norfolk, Virginia, on 20 April 1918. (US NATIONAL ARCHIVES)

ABOVE: A 1917 Thornycroft Depth Charge launcher.

by launching the charges 40 feet to the side of the ships, one fitted on each side and used together at the same time as two were dropped off the stern. The low production rate was a serious setback to the fight against U-boats. When Admiral Jellicoe became First Sea Lord in November 1916, one of his priorities was to increase the production of depth charges, however even as late as July 1917 only 140 depth charges a week were being produced when monthly usage was 100-300 (again, most likely owing to the available numbers limiting the opportunities to use them). By the end of 1917 production was up to 800 a week and increasing – just as well, as between June and November

Aircraft were a vital part of the fight against the U-boats. Their presence alone was a deterrent: it was a brave or foolish commander who would surface in the presence of an aeroplane or airship, which could then attack it and direct other aircraft or surface vessels to its location. A U-boat would not have to be on the surface to be spotted either; in the right conditions it could be seen, tracked and attacked while underwater. The endurance and ability of airships to lift heavy loads (compared to aeroplanes of the time) made them ideal anti-submarine aircraft. In February 1915 the Admiralty demanded a new, small airship specifically for hunting submarines in the coastal waters around Britain with an endurance of eight hours and a crew of two. The new design consisted of a non-rigid airship envelope, with the fuselage (including the original engine and propeller) of a Royal Aircraft Factory BE2 aeroplane suspended beneath that. Known as 

A photograph which, taken by a passenger on board the passenger ship SS Falaba, shows the German U-boat U-28 alongside. Moments after, Falaba’s captain, Frederick J. Davies, was hailed by the commander of U-28, Kapitänleutnant Baron Georg-Günther Freiherr von Forstner before his vessel was sunk by the U-boat, on 28 March 1915. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

www.britainatwar.com 109

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea

the ‘Sea Scout’, it was equipped with a wireless transmitter to report on submarines, as well as the capability to carry eight 16lb (7kg) bombs or a single 112lb (51kg) bomb. The basic design could be married to the fuselage from other aircraft types, and Armstrong Whitworth FK3 and Maurice Farman fuselages were also fitted. The larger ‘Coastal’ class airship was designed a few months later with an increased range and carrying capacity, and the ‘Sea Scout Zero’ entered service from 1917 as a replacement for the Sea Scout which was faster, more comfortable, able to carry more crew and armament and had a much more reliable engine. The use of machine guns on airships was not solely for defence; they were also used to explode enemy mines seen floating in the water (mine-laying submarines were in widespread use too, and these took a heavy toll on shipping just as much as torpedoes and guns did). Although no enemy submarines are reported as having directly sunk by an airship, they did assist in a number of those destroyed.

110 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: Surrendered German U-boats at Harwich in 1919. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

BELOW RIGHT: UC-97 at Toronto in 1919. BOTTOM LEFT: The moment that a German U-boat sinks an Allied merchant ship. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

BOTTOM RIGHT: A painting by the German artist Willy Stöwer depicting the sinking of the steamer Linda Blanche on 30 January 1915. En route from Manchester to Belfast, Linda Blanche was sunk.

Although their endurance was shorter than airships, aircraft could attack a sighted U-boat much more quickly. The lack of reliability of early aircraft engines meant that land planes could only be used for patrols relatively close to shore, usually to 20 miles offshore at a maximum, and flying boats were soon realised as best suited for long range anti-submarine patrol. The first really suitable flying boats used were American built Curtiss flying boats, two being requisitioned by the Royal Naval Air Service at the outbreak of war, who were so impressed they ordered more. The Curtiss flying boats become known as ‘Americas’ in RNAS service and when used with the Rolls Royce Eagle, the Curtiss H12 variant (known as the ‘Large America’) had an endurance of six hours, the crew of four having four Lewis machine guns as well enough bombs or depth charges to make it a very strong threat to a U-boat. An improved design, the Felixstowe, based on the wings and tail of the Curtiss flying boats but with an improved hull entered service in late 1917 and gave good service through the war. RNAS flying boats took part in the destruction of six submarines along

with the earlier Curtiss types, and even three Zeppelins, together with a number of German seaplanes which soon realised that although a large target, the flying boats were not an easy kill — something German pilots would find again in the Second World War with the Short Sunderland.

SUBMARINES Despite the non-existence of equipment to locate an enemy vessel without using the naked eye, British submarines proved successful in attacking and sinking enemy U-boats. The first British submarine versus German submarine victory came on 23 June 1915. C Class Submarines patrolled with fishing trawlers — the trawler would be the decoy and go about its usual business, while the C Class submarine would remain submerged but connected to the trawler via a length of cable containing a telephone wire. If a German submarine should appear, someone on the trawler would alert the crew of the British submarine, which would detach from the cable and attack the German submarine. C24 sank U 40 off of Aberdeen in the action on 23 June 1915, and on 20 July 1915, C27 sank U 23.

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea

ABOVE: A surrendered German U-boat in a US Navy yard after the Armistice. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

Despite the initial successes, the Germans became aware of the tactic and so it was not used after October 1915. British submarines spotted German submarines fairly frequently, and although the number of successful attacks made seemed low compared to the number of sightings, an impressive total of 19 U-boats were sunk by British submarines during the war (although it went both ways, and a number of British submarines were sunk by U-boats too). This lead to the Admiralty deciding to construct a new design of submarine specifically designed to hunt U-boats. The new R class submarine could reach 15 knots whilst under water — faster than they could travel on the surface — and were equipped with six 18 inch (46cm) torpedo tubes firing forwards only, and no gun on the deck to reduce drag whilst underwater as much as possible. They were also equipped with a revolving directional hydrophone to try to detect enemy vessels underwater. Construction of destroyers continued through the war (and use of requisitioned trawlers, armed and equipped for their new role), and new anti-submarine types were designed and built too. The P-class sloops were built to be smaller than destroyers but able to undertake their escorting roles — they had a low profile to make them less conspicuous, and a hardened steel bow specifically for use in ramming surfaced U-boats. They were also armed with guns and rear firing torpedo launchers, replaced with depth charges as they came available. The larger PC class sloops were similar in terms of machinery and equipment but designed to look like merchant ships.

The Aubretia and Anchusa class sloops were also designed as purpose built Q-ships, and the Kil-class sloops which were entering service as the war ended furthered the deception by being doubleended, with the hull at the bow and stern looking very similar, and having a bridge at either side of the funnel. As well as the arming of civilian ships where possible, paint became an unlikely weapon in the fight against the U-boats. Lieutenant Norman Wilkinson of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve had been experimenting with painting ships in a certain way — not to make them invisible, but so the speed, course and distance of the vessel would not be as apparent when viewed through a periscope. It was widely applied to both warships and merchant ships from May 1917 onwards — after the war it was claimed not to be as effective as believed and may not have done much to reduce the number of ships lost, but if nothing else it

BELOW LEFT: The Type U13 submarine U-15 is rammed and sunk by HMS Birmingham on 9 August 1914. Despite the thick fog, an alert look-out on the cruiser had spotted U-15 stationary on the surface, her engines having apparently failed. Birmingham’s guns opened fire, damaging the submarine’s conning tower and periscope. At the same time, her captain, Captain Arthur Duff, ordered the cruiser’s engines to full speed. At the same time, the U-boat’s commander, Kapitänleutnant Richard Pohle, instructed his crew to dive, but his actions were too late. Moments later HMS Birmingham’s bows slammed into U-15. The U-boat rolled over and sank with the loss of all hands — 25 men in total. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

would have helped improve the morale of those serving on the ships, aware that at any moment a torpedo could come streaking towards them. Other methods of protecting merchant shipping included fitting them with smoke-screen systems or adopting sailing on a zig-zag course so that a U-boat could not accurately predict where a torpedo might hit.

CONVOYS EASE PRESSURE Escorted convoys proved an effective foil to the U-boat threat. It was found possible to take destroyers from the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow and the Harwich based destroyer force, as well as assistance from the US Navy following their entry into the war in April 1917. The first convoy to arrive in Britain arrived on 20 May 1917 from Gibraltar, with no loss, followed shortly after by the first from the USA, again with no loss. By August 1917 all homeward shipping from America, the South Atlantic and Gibraltar travelling less than twelve knots was convoyed. Faster ships still travelled alone as it was considered they could easily outrun the threat, but later faster convoys were implemented too. The convoys were a huge success - the number of ships lost dropped rapidly — although there were still lone ships that could be attacked, numbers of ships grouped together forced a reduced number of targets. Even if a U-boat did come across a convoy, the escort made it an unattractive target. Whereas a U-boat was likely to eventually come across a ship fairly regularly, with the convoy system it could go entire patrols with barely any sightings at all.  www.britainatwar.com 111

U-BOATS: TURNING THE TABLES First World War At Sea

Fortunately for the British (and Americans as their forces started to arrive in Europe) the Germans never did find a way of dealing with the convoys. A proposal to fit U-boats with radios and use them to direct U-boats to attack convoys in numbers in a method similar to the successful ‘Wolf Packs’ of the Second World War never materialised. The success of the convoy systems is clear in the numbers alone – from 26 July 1917 to 5 October 1918, just 0.9% of homeward bound ships in convoys crossing the Atlantic (74 ships, or 364,842 tons) were lost and 0.65% of outward traffic in convoys was lost (44 ships, or 289,446 tons). Such low percentages were seen on other convoys too, from West Africa, Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, and coastal convoys along the east coast of Britain. In 1918 a bold attempt was made to deal with the U-boats at source, to sink block ships and close off the U-boat bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend. The raids took place on the morning of 23 April 1918 following two false starts in the fortnight previously. At Zeebrugge, the Royal Marines and Royal Naval Division attacked and distracted the coastal guns. Two of the block ships were sunk in position in the channel leading to the lock gates,

although the third was so badly damaged it sunk before reaching the intending final destination. As the survivors of the raid were taken off and headed back to Britain, it was considered the raid had been a success. At Ostend the raid failed, the two block ships came under heavy fire and they sunk themselves outside the harbour entrance. Another attempt was made at Ostend on the night of 9 May using just HMS Vindictive as a block ship. As Vindictive approached the locks it came under extremely heavy fire, and with the Captain killed as the ship turned towards the lock, it ended up running aground where it was scuttled, not sufficiently to prevent access to the lock. Despite the bravery of those taking part (eight Victoria Crosses were awarded) and the heavy losses involved the raids at both locations failed to have any noticeable effect on U-boat operations – the Germans simply removed more of the mole and dredged around the block ships.

END OF THE THREAT By summer 1918 U-boats were sinking fewer and fewer ships and the numbers of U-boats lost was rising. The British Army’s advances on the Western Front were making the Belgian U-boat bases untenable and they were evacuated

TOP LEFT: A deck gun on a surrendered U-boat at Harwich. (HISTORIC

MILITARY PRESS)

TOP RIGHT: A group of merchant men who survived the sinking of their vessel by a German U-boat.

(US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

RIGHT: Surrendered German U-boats at Harwich in 1919. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

BOTTOM LEFT: A contemporary painting shows the armed trawler Thordis about to ram a U-boat in the English Channel. On 28 February 1915, Thordis, commanded by Captain John William Bell, was steaming down Channel when the periscope of a submarine was sighted to starboard. Captain Bell at once came on deck, stopped his ship, and ordered everyone on deck. When the U-boat was sighted, he closed in and sent it to the bottom. He received the Distinguished Service Cross. (HMP)

112 www.britainatwar.com

in October 1918 – at the time, losses of U-boats were so severe they were making an average of just six patrols before failing to return. Despite facing defeat, Kapitänleutnant Emsmann took UB 116 and its crew on one final mission, in an attempt to sink as much of the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow as possible. Unfortunately for he and his crew, the Grand Fleet was no longer at Scapa Flow, and a remotely controlled minefield was lying underneath the surface in its place. UB 116 was detected and allowed to continue deep into the minefield, and the Shore Station controlling the minefield closed the circuit, destroying UB 116 on 28 October 1918, the last U-boat sunk off the coast of Britain during the war.

Even before UB 116 was destroyed a wireless message was sent to all U-boats on 21 October that attacks on passenger shipping must cease: the U-boats stopped their patrols and returned to base. After the Armistice all U-boats able to be put to sea were to be surrendered. The first U-boats arrived at Harwich on 20 November, and by December, 122 U-boats had arrived at Harwich and surrendered. A total of 178 U-boats had been destroyed or accidentally lost during the war, with the loss of just under 5,500 crew members. Their toll was 5,708 ships representing over 11 million tons of shipping capacity, and nearly 15,000 civilians killed on British ships alone. 

Tanks Times x4 F_P.indd 113

09/04/2015 13:31

Tanks Times x4 F_P.indd 114

09/04/2015 13:31

Tanks Times x4 F_P.indd 115

09/04/2015 13:32

Tanks Times x4 F_P.indd 116

09/04/2015 13:32

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



SNIPERS FIRING from concealed positions to pick off the unwary enemy moving around in trenches opposite was a phenomenon first encountered during the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War, more than 50 years before the First World War. Despite this, the art of sniping had not been developed by the British Army or its Commonwealth equivalents during the intervening period. Consequently, when the attempt to seize control of the Gallipoli Peninsula was rapidly transformed into trench warfare, the troops were unprepared for this form of fighting. The Turks, on the other hand, deployed snipers from the outset of the Gallipoli campaign. Their snipers experienced considerable success against the Allied forces, helped by the fact that for most of the time they had the great advantage of holding the high ground. When

BOOK OF THE MONTH

the Anzacs landed at Anzac Cove they were squeezed into a narrow strip of land that was almost entirely exposed along its length to snipers from above. The Turks were seasoned veterans of two Balkan wars and, in the words of the Australian historian Charles Bean, they were ‘deadly snipers’. The Anzacs quickly built trenches to provide cover from the Turks and gradually they began to adapt and fight back. One man in particular, Billy Sing, proved to be an expert marksman. John Hamilton describes how the hunting down of the enemy snipers was conducted. They operated in two-man teams, with one the observer and the other the shooter. ‘Each observer lay with his brass folding telescope looking for a target. Beside him lay the sniper with his rifle loaded and ready,’ writes Hamilton. ‘Together they concentrated so intently on some small area of trench or likely cover that the slightest change caught their attention. Points of reference

| RECONNAISSANCE REPORT

were established as markers, perhaps a solitary green pine tree or the grey-white of an old tree stump standing out against the yellowbrown soil. Then it was a matter of a quick direction by the observer, a snap shot by the rifleman, and it was all over in a single crack!’ Soon Billy Sing’s achievements became widely known amongst the Anzacs and they helped boost the spirits of the men. There was always, however, much scepticism over ‘kill’ claims made by snipers. As Sing’s reputation was regarded by the senior officers as being important to morale, each ‘performance’ by him was independently verified by a junior officer or NCO who would check the shot and record the kill. There was, therefore, little doubt over Sing’s claims, which, by the time the Anzacs withdrew from Gallipoli, amounted to more than 200 accredited kills. Even the Turks became aware that one man in particular was picking off their snipers and it is

GALLIPOLI SNIPER

The Remarkable Life of Billy Sing John Hamilton

Publisher: Frontline Books www.frontline-books.com ISBN: 978-1-84832-904-1 Hardback. 272 pages RRP: £19.99 Illustrations  References/Notes Appendices  Index 



believed that they chose their best marksman to hunt Billy Sing down – a man dubbed ‘Abdul the Terrible’. It was said that after each of the Turks who had been killed by the potential Billy Sing, he would examine the body to look at the fatal wound and try to reconstruct the shot. Inevitably, the moment came when Billy and Abdul came, if not face to face, then muzzle to muzzle. This is part of the description of that moment when Abdul spots Billy Sing: ‘That was what Abdul was waiting for. His big eyes staring, his rifle muzzle slowly rising up … But Abdul did not know the Australian sniper had seen him. ‘Gently the peephole widened, then dropped close around the rifle. Abdul waited with finger on trigger, just awaiting that loophole to open the least fraction more. And – a bullet took him between the eyes.’ Gallipoli Sniper is a thoroughly absorbing publication and is part of a trilogy by John Hamilton on the Gallipoli campaign. Rather than attempting to write about the whole operation, Hamilton has selected particular aspects of the fighting, which enables him to focus in detail upon his chosen subject. The result is a fascinating book. REVIEWED BY ROBERT MITCHELL

www.britainatwar.com 117

RECONNAISSANCE REPORT |

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

DUNKIRK 1940

Peter Hart

‘Whereabouts Unknown’ Tim Lynch



THIS FASCINATING book

gives us the inside story of

the 137th Infantry Brigade during

the fall of France leading up to,

and beyond, the evacuation from Dunkirk. Perhaps it will come as a surprise to some that fighting continued beyond Operation Dynamo and the ‘miracle’ of

Dunkirk and that evacuations continued from French ports

further west as troops tried to

fight a rearguard action as they

withdrew, falling back under the

perimeter of Cherbourg armed with

Even more surprising is the fact

nobody knew anything about’. They

being off-loaded for the BEF in

without stores or cooking utensils

after the Dunkirk evacuations.

and, as the men who led them, Major

that supplies were not getting

glorious affair, but the Pioneers could

although many of these supplies

as Lynch observes, by the time the

then loaded onto ships tied up

Cherbourg some two weeks beyond

home. However, it is the story of

of the ‘miracle’ had worn off. Men

that makes up the substance of

as returning heroes, albeit defeated

overwhelming German onslaught.

rifles and a single Bren gun ‘which

that we find supplies and fuel

had arrived on 10 September 1939

the Bay of Biscay ports during and

and finally left for home on 18 June

Some officers complained

Nightingale, observed: ‘It wasn’t a

through to them quickly enough,

be proud of their part in it.’ Indeed,

were simply being offloaded and

last ships began returning from

alongside them to be returned

the Dunkirk evacuation the novelty

the men rather than the materiel

returning from Dunkirk were treated

this engaging read.

ones. For the Pioneers they returned

equipped men of the Labour Divisions in the 137th were never meant

nobody knew or much cared what

to fight but had gone to France to

these were not the heroic fighting

support the BEF in its endeavours. In

men of the BEF but, instead, men who

the event, though, they were almost

had been labelled ‘useless mouths’

used as the ‘sacrificial lamb’ between

of the lines of communication. In

the infantry units and the advancing

fact, when Brigadier Beaman of the

The barely trained and poorly

German army and, as some of the first men deployed to France with the BEF they were also the last to leave – if, indeed, they got to leave at all. Certainly, they were first in, last out, and Tim Lynch draws upon official reports, diaries and personal accounts to tell the story of the chaos, terror

through ports or stations where they had been through and, after all,

137th later reported to the Assistant

Military Secretary of the BEF he was met with the surprised and almost disinterested: ‘Oh, did you see any fighting?’ Stragglers from this rag-tag band of soldiers continued to return home through the summer and autumn,

and heroism as experienced by the

with some having evaded capture

men of the 137th Infantry Brigade in

and made their own way down to

what is a ‘must read’ for those with

Spain, and eventually to Gibraltar, for

an interest in studying aspects of

repatriation home. Stories of heroism,

this grim period of Britain’s military

fortitude and determination abound.

history.

Altogether, an excellent book and a

Without a doubt, some of the men of the Labour Divisions bought precious time and often paid with their lives (or captivity) in order to buy precious time for the rest of the BEF and fought on long after the last of the Little Ships had pulled away from Dunkirk. For example, we read of men of 1 Company, No 10 Docks Labour Company, who manned the

118 www.britainatwar.com

recommended read. REVIEWED BY ANDY SAUNDERS

Publisher: The History Press www.thehistorypress.co.uk ISBN: 978 0 7509 6227 8 Softback: 221 pages RRP: £12.99 Illustrations  Appendices 

References/Notes Index 



 THIS REALLY is a great read, with Peter Hart’s boundless energy and enthusiasm for his subject making the book extremely compelling. Based upon interviews and memoirs, many of which are stored at the Imperial War Museum and are at the heart of the text, it has good pace and is thoroughly accessible. It is a revisionist work seeking to examine the Great War and challenge the myths and misconceptions that have become entrenched in the popular psyche. The Old Contemptibles, The Mad Minute, The Retreat from Mons, The Christmas Truce, all are laid open to examination and the question is asked and answered, were these stories really as the British have perceived them for so many years? Each part of the 1914 campaign is examined; Mons, Le Cateau, the Retreat from Mons. The Battle of the Marne is an eye opening and thought provoking chapter. The Battle of the Aisne chapter is grinding, seemingly unending and grim. The Ypres chapters convey the desperation of the fighting that ebbed and flowed around the old city. The Christmas Truce chapter is excellent, the episode a favourite of many who wish to over sentimentalise the Great War. That there was a pause at Christmas is hardly surprising as the festival was and is important to large sections of the Belgian, French, British and German nations. The intense fighting could not go on without rest and by the time December and the cold weather arrived the armies had been at it hammer and tongs for nearly five gruelling, killing months. Therefore, the static war of the siege line trenches, the onset of cold winter and the festival of Christmas provided a natural, if unplanned, break. Nonetheless, Peter Hart starkly reminds us that Christmas 1914 on the Western Front was not all carols, football, presents and chocolate bars. Both sides used subterfuge under cover of the localised truces to gain advantages and gather intelligence. Both sides still killed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Presents and offers of friendship were used to lure the unwary to their deaths. In some parts of the line there were no truces – sentimental this chapter is not. Publisher: Oxford University Press www.oup.com ISBN: 978 0 19 998927 0 Hardback: 480 pages RRP: £22.99

ARDENNES 1944: HITLER’S LAST GAMBLE Antony Beevor

 BY A writer who needs no introduction to those with an interest in military history this book has been compared to Beevor’s masterpiece Stalingrad and is certainly likely to become the definitive work on the subject of the Ardennes campaign. When Hitler launched his offensive on 16 December 1944 in the snow covered forests and valleys of the Ardennes on the Belgian/French border he began the biggest battle of Western Europe with more than a million men involved. However, the Wehrmacht was already a broken and spent force and Beevor takes us, blow-by-blow, through its painful progress and examines in a most readable style every detail of the tactics, strategy and personal experiences of this momentous battle. Publisher: Penguin Books www.penguinbooks.com ISBN: 978 0 670 91864 5 Hardback: 455 pages RRP: £25.00

BROWNED OFF AND BLOODY MINDED The British Soldier Goes To War 1939–45 Alan Allport

 WITH 3.5 million men serving in the British Army at the height of the Second World War it is surprising that this remarkable aspect of social history has been largely ignored in terms of looking at the experiences of those same men. Mostly, they were conscripted civilians who had absolutely no idea what life in the army had in store for them. How they coped with it, and how the army coped with them, is all here; issues of class, sex, crime, national identity along with loneliness, homesickness and boredom are examined. It is a well-researched and beautifully written study, and one which gives us a valuable insight into the workings of the army throughout the war and, particularly, the disrupted lives of the men who made up its ranks and faced the challenges of a brutal and disorientating conflict. A recommended read. Publisher: Yale University Press www.yalebooks.co.uk ISBN: 978 0 300 17075 7 Hardback: 395 pages RRP: £25.00

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

SOWARS AND SEPOYS IN THE GREAT WAR 19141918

JUNE 2015 ISSUE

ON SALE FROM 28 MAY 2015

Captain Ashok Nath



CLASH IN THE DESERT:

FOR ANYONE with an

THE BATTLE OF KNIGHTSBRIDGE

interest in the history,

badges and battle honours

The Battle of Gazala in late May 1942, resulted from the almost simultaneous attempts of the British and Axis forces to launch offensives in the Gazala sector of North Africa. Unfortunately, the exposed British left flank, to the south of Bir Hacheim, presented Rommel with an inviting opportunity for a bold manoeuvre; one which he did not refuse. The men of the South Nottinghamshire Hussars describe what happened next.

of the Cavalry and Infantry

Regiments of the Indian Army in the First World War Sowars and Sepoys in the Great War 19141918 is an absolute must.

The author Ashok Nath, himself

a former cavalryman, is an acknowledged authority on the history and iconography of the Indian Army, and has recently self published this ground breaking, lavishly illustrated book which most clearly summarises the background and class composition of each regiment in order of precedence together with details of their dress uniforms, badges, battle honours and activities during the Great War. The book also includes a regimental index which helps unravel the complexity of relating the titles of Cavalry and Infantry Regiments and their individual regimental battle honours during the Great War period with their present day titles. But it is the 1,200 full colour, mostly life size, high resolution illustrations of every headdress and pagri badge, shoulder belt plate, shoulder title and button which really mark this work as an exceptional reference source. The author has drawn on a very wide range of published and private sources and had access to the major public and private collections of Indian badges of the period. Appendices list infantry regimental centres; the combatant strength of the Indian Army in August 1914 and November 1918 and a fascinating

THE DEBS OF BLETCHLEY PARK AND OTHER STORIES Michael Smith

 THE WORK carried out at the

top secret Bletchley Park codebreaking centre, and particularly the pioneering efforts of Alan Turing, are now universally famous. Less well known, perhaps, is the work of the 12,000 staff employed at Station ‘X’, 9,000 of whom

| RECONNAISSANCE REPORT

summary of recruitment of the, so called, martial races of the time. Finally there is a useful Appendix listing the major sources consulted. Sowars and Sepoys in the Great War 1914-1918 is far more than a badge recognition guide and I have no doubt it will become the standard work on the subject and a lasting tribute to the largest volunteer army of all time which sustained over 60,000 fatal casualties and earned 11 Victoria Crosses for gallantry during the War. Field Marshal Sir John Chapple allowed the author to include illustrations from his

THE DEVIL IN THE DUSK

own extensive badge collection which is now in the Indian Army Memorial Room at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and comments in his Foreword that ‘this book takes forward the historical records of the Indian Army’. All proceeds will be go towards further research into the military history of Asia. REVIEW BY BRIG(RETD) CLIVE ELDERTON CBE

Publisher: Nathfoundations, 2014. ISBN :978-91-637-7225-2 Hardback, 280 pages [email protected]. RRP: £75 Illustrations  Appendices 

References/Notes Index 

It was a clear night in late spring 1918. A Bristol F.2A fighter was patrolling over London when its two crew saw a dark shape below them at 10,000 feet. As Robert Mitchell reveals, the pilot of the Bristol fighter described what happened next in a letter that survives to this day – as does part of that aeroplane.

BOMB HUNTER BRAVERY 

were women. In this fascinating book, Michael Smith explores the often extraordinary stories of the women who were employed there; essential cogs in the codebreaker’s machinery that ensured vital intelligence to the Allies. Some were ‘Debutantes’, others more ‘ordinary’ although even one stripper was alleged to be among their company! They were certainly an incredible set of women and this is their very readable story.

When a delayed action bomb fell in the heart of an East Anglian city street 75 years ago it sparked a major UXB incident that resulted in no fewer than three awards of the newly-instituted George Medal. Steve Snelling highlights a wartime drama in Theatre Street as he chronicles the exploits of some of Britain’s bravest bomb-hunters.

Publisher: Aurum Press www.aurumpress.co.uk ISBN: 978 1 78131 387 9 Hardback: 298 pages RRP: £20.00 www.britainatwar.com 119

MAY 1945

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

Though the war in Europe was rapidly coming to an end, the fighting in the Far East continued. On this day, British forces in the Sittang Valley approached Pegu. There were also paratrooper landings on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River with the intention of capturing Rangoon.

1

At 22.30 hours German time, a newsreader on Radio Hamburg announced that Hitler had ‘fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery'. Großadmiral Dönitz was announced as his successor.

1

As part of Operation Dracula, a composite Gurkha parachute battalion landed on Elephant Point at the mouth of the Rangoon River. Once they had secured the coastal batteries, minesweepers cleared the river of mines. The following day, the Indian 26th Division was landed on both banks of the river. As the Japanese had abandoned Rangoon several days earlier, the 26th Division quickly occupied the city, seizing its vital docks without opposition. A link-up with the Fourteenth Army followed four days later.

1

 THE END OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS

On the morning of WEDNESDAY, 9 MAY 1945, the German Harbour Protection Vessel, FK01, with three German officers on the bridge, two Kriegsmarine and one Wehrmacht (seen here), made its way out from St Helier to the recently arrived HMS Beagle which had dropped anchor in St. Aubin’s Bay. On board HMS Beagle were the Commander of Force 135, Brigadier A.E. Snow, and the remaining members of the British team tasked with negotiating the German surrender. Closely following FK01 was a motor launch carrying the Bailiff of Jersey, and other Crown Officers, which also headed out to HMS Beagle. Also on-board was Generalmajor Rudolf Wulf, the commander of the 319th Infantry Division which garrisoned the Channel Islands, and two of his staff officers. Once on board HMS Beagle, Generalmajor Wulf signed the document of surrender on behalf of the German forces on Jersey. Similar events were unfolding on Guernsey. As the launch carrying Generalmajor Wulf made its way out to HMS Beagle, it passed a Royal Navy motor launch heading in the opposite direction. Despatched by the Captain of HMS Beagle, the launch headed into St. Helier Harbour. As it passed the pier heads, the gathered crowds could see that the men on board were wearing Royal Navy uniforms and let out rapturous cheers: the moment of liberation had arrived. (COURTESY OF DAMIEN HORN; THE CHANNEL ISLANDS’ MILITARY MUSEUM)

120 www.britainatwar.com

3

Troops of the Red Army made contact with American troops on the Elbe, to the west of Berlin, with British troops to the north.

4

Instructions were sent to all German U-boats at sea informing their captains that they were to cease attacking and sinking enemy ships. The German commanders were also ordered not to scuttle or damage their boats in any way. At 04.45 hours the crew of Consolidated Catalina ‘X’ of 210 Squadron, flown by Flight Lieutenant K.M.Murray, spotted the periscope and snorkel equipment of the Type VIIC U-boat U-320 west of Bergen, Norway. The Catalina immediately attacked. A pattern of four depth charges was dropped, after which oil was seen in the surface. The U-boat was so badly damaged that it was scuttled by its crew two days later. U-320 is described as being the last U-boat lost as a result of direct action in the Second World War. Between 3 September 1939 and 8 May 1945, RAF, USAAF and United States Navy aircraft (operating under Coastal Command control) had participated in the destruction of 207 U-boats and sunk 513,804 tons of Axis shipping (amounting to 343 ships). A total of 5,866 aircrew and 1,777 aircraft were lost on operations.

7

Having not received the instructions transmitted on 4 May, Kapitänleutnant Emil Klusmeier, captain of the Type XXIII U-boat U-2336, attacked the vessels of Convoy EN491, which had departed Hull on 6 May bound for Belfast via Methil. Two ships were sunk — SS Sneland I and SS Avondale Park — off the Firth of Forth. Canadian-owned but British-manned, Avondale Park was the last British Merchant Navy ship to be sunk during the war. Two of the crew of 38 were lost.

7

The agreement for total and unconditional surrender of German forces was signed at the headquarters of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, near Rheims. The German delegation was led by General Alfred Jodl, chief of the Operations staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (the German High Command). The surrender was subsequently ratified in the presence of senior Allied officers at the Soviet headquarters in Berlin on 8 May.

7

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

MAY 1945

 HAMBURG CAPTURED

The Battle for Hamburg was the last major engagement of the war in the West. The British VIII Corps, after having crossed the River Elbe, bore down on Hamburg where the German 1st Parachute Army was determined to fight on despite the inevitable, and imminent end of the war. The 7th Armoured Division led the way, meeting stiff resistance, but by 28 April had reached the outskirts of Hamburg. Though the 1st Parachute Army was a mixture of Volkssturm, sailors, firemen, police and even Hitler Youth as well as regular troops and SS, the Germans were not prepared to give in and fierce house-to-house fighting ensued. Gradually the defenders were pushed back and the Royal Horse Artillery was able to shell the city. This was a clear indication to the Hamburgers that the Allies were on their doorstep. On WEDNESDAY, 2 MAY, following orders from Großadmiral Dönitz a deputation from the city came out to offer its surrender. Hamburg was formally occupied by British troops the next day. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

 MONTY SIGNS THE SURRENDER

On FRIDAY, 4 MAY 1945, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery signed the Instrument of Surrender of the German forces in in the Netherlands, in north-west Germany (including all islands), and in Denmark, as well as all naval vessels in those areas. Of the ceremony, Montgomery later wrote: ‘In that tent on Luneburg Heath, publicly in the presence of the Press and other spectators [the event was filmed by Pathé News and recorded for broadcast on radio by the BBC with a commentary by the Australian war correspondent Chester Wilmot], I read out in English the Instrument of Surrender. I said that unless the German delegation signed this document immediately, I would order the fighting to continue. I then called on each member of the German delegation by name to sign the document, which they did without any discussion.’ (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

The Royal Observer Corps was stood down and re-formed on a peacetime basis. At this point there were a total of 1,420 Royal Observer Corps posts and 40 operations rooms, manned by 32,000 personnel.

8

In what is described as the last sea battle of the Second World War, warships of the Royal Navy’s 26th Destroyer Flotilla, participating in Operation Dukedom, a search and destroy mission, attacked and sank the Japanese cruiser Haguro in the Strait of Malacca. Haguro was the last major Japanese warship to be sunk during the war. Lord Louis Mountbatten described the action as ‘an outstanding example of a night attack by destroyers’.

17

Despite the end of the war in Europe, the reality of that victory was highlighted by the announcement that the ration of bacon, cooking fats and soap were all to be cut. The weekly ration of cooking fat was halved from two ounces to one ounce; that of bacon reduced from four to three ounces; and soap rations were cut by an eighth.

22

President Truman reported to Congress on the total supplies sent under Lend Lease as of March 1945. The British, he stated, had received 12,775,000,000 tons, whilst the Russians 8,409,000,000 tons. Reverse Lend Lease, mostly British, was 5,000,000,000 tons.

22

Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the coalition government resigned. The date for a general election, the first for some ten years, was set for 5 July 1945.

23

www.britainatwar.com 121

LOND Several London stations, such as Arsenal, Barbican and Waterloo have names that reflect military activity but their collective contribution to the greater good in the Second World War was significant. They were far more than bomb shelters, as Martin Dixon explains.

T

HE STORY begins in World War I, when aerial bombardment first became a feature of warfare. Using Zeppelin airships and, later, Gotha bombers, Germany attacked the eastern part of England – and London in particular. The intended targets were docks, ports, barracks and military stores. Because bombing accuracy was low, there were inevitable civilian casualties. Estimates suggest that around 1,500 civilians died with perhaps three or four times that number injured. Understandably in these circumstances, Londoners started retreating underground into tube stations to avoid enemy bombs; given the relatively low power of the weapons, even cut-and-cover stations offered relatively good protection. This small-scale informal usage was the seed for the eventual widespread use of the network in the Second World War. Adapting tube stations for other purposes also had its genesis in the earlier conflict. Aldwych station (which opened as Strand in 1907 and was known as such until 1915) was 122 www.britainatwar.com

never the busiest of stations and its eastern platform had been disused since 1914. As the German programme of aerial bombardment continued, the opportunity was taken to store some of the National Gallery’s paintings on this platform to protect them until hostilities were over. In the inter-war period and the early days of the war itself, official government policy was to discourage the use of London Underground stations as air-raid shelters. There were a number of reasons, some practical and some psychological. From a practical standpoint, most stations had no toilet provision and it was feared that widespread use might cause the spread of disease. In addition, the likely difficulty of operating the railway network with thousands of shelterers crowding platforms caused unease. The government also feared what became known as ‘deep-shelter mentality’, where those who descended into safe havens would decide to stay put and be lost to the war effort. In the event, many Londoners ignored this policy and simply bought a tube ticket and stayed underground to shelter. 

MAIN PICTURE: Suburban stations in Essex were brought into service for wartime production. The three thenunfinished Central Line stations at Wanstead, Redbridge and Gant’s Hill were used as the main entrances for the five miles of tunnels surrounding a facility used by the Plessey Company to make aircraft parts.

NDON

www.britainatwar.com 123

SECRET UNDERGROUND LONDON Subterranean war effort

HOLBORN

ALDWYCH

ABOVE RIGHT: Aldwych Station (known as The Strand until 1915) was never the busiest of London stations and its eastern platform had been unused since 1914. It therefore became a convenient storage space for some of the treasures of the National Gallery. It is one of the few sites that can be visited today, under the direction of the nearby London Transport Museum.

One disused section of the network was an exception to the policy. At Borough, disused running tunnels (abandoned in 1900 when the Northern Line was extended to Moorgate) were pressed into service by the Borough of Southwark from June 1940 as a dedicated public shelter with a capacity of around 8,000. Six access stairways were constructed along the length of Borough High Street and toilet and first aid facilities were installed. At the end of the line, the station tunnels at King William Street (similarly redundant when by-passed by the Moorgate extension) were also pressed into use as a private shelter for 2,000. This smaller shelter lay beneath the commercial properties of Regis House and King William House and was accessed directly from their basements.

ABOVE LEFT: Dormitories at Holborn Station. Churchill himself met and sometimes slept at the similar Down Street dormitories until the end of 1943.

POLICY CHANGE On 8 September 1940, the night of an intense German raid in the early days of the Blitz, a large number of people defied officials and troops to shelter underground at Liverpool Street station. This incident in particular, and popular opinion more generally, forced the government to reverse their policy and a structured approach to the use of operational underground stations

124 www.britainatwar.com

as public air-raid shelters emerged. From now on, many stations were equipped with bunks, lavatories and basic catering. The tube network itself was used to bring in refreshments for shelterers. On top of this, a programme which led to the construction of eight purpose-built deep-level shelters (each accommodating 8,000) was set up — a project fully described in Britain at War of July 2014. One estimate is that 170,000 people used the tube network as a shelter during the Blitz, with perhaps 60,000 using them on a regular basis. Henry Moore — an official war artist — made these scenes familiar with his dark images in gouache and ink. At the time these were said to have been drawn or at least inspired from life but more recent research suggests that many were based on photographs published in magazine articles.

THE DISASTERS The downside of mass shelters was, of course, that if a direct hit or other disaster struck then casualty numbers could be immense. On 14 October 1940, just after eight o’clock in the evening, a large bomb penetrated Balham tube station to a depth of around 30 feet and exploded in the cross passage above the platforms. As well as the immediate

destruction, the explosion fractured both water and gas mains which made rescue more difficult and possibly increased the death toll. A total of 66 people perished, a disaster today recorded by a memorial plaque at the site. Over the months of the Blitz, tube stations were the scenes of a number of other tragedies when enemy bombs landed on station sites. The second worst death toll occurred at Bank in January 1941 when 56 people perished. And yet the largest single disaster to befall these tube shelters had nothing to do with direct enemy action. At Bethnal Green on 3 March 1943 the air-raid sirens sounded shortly after 8.15pm. Passers-by joined those exiting cinemas and pubs and made their way to the underground station for shelter. Perhaps 2,000 people had made the journey when disaster struck. A swathe of people surged forwards and down the stairs from the street deep into the station. It is believed that the trigger for this stampede was the firing of a nearby anti-aircraft rocket battery. The volume of people funnelling down the stairs caused people at the front to fall and those that followed also tripped and lost their footing; still, the crowd surged forward. When the emergency services eventually managed to complete their rescue, a staggering 173 people had died.

SECRET UNDERGROUND LONDON Subterranean war effort

‘BURLINGTON’

BROMPTON RD.

The precise details of the Bethnal Green disaster were not made public at the time in an effort to manage public morale but the station stairway now has a plaque recording the disaster and an appeal is under way to fund a memorial sculpture.

UNDERGROUND MUSEUMS As well as protecting people, areas of the underground network were also used to shelter other valuables – in particular some of the contents of London’s famous museums. The Piccadilly Line shuttle service from Holborn to Aldwych was suspended in September 1940 and the station platforms used by Westminster as an air-raid shelter. The running tunnels, however, held treasures from the British Museum — including the Elgin Marbles — for the duration of hostilities. This accommodation was shared with the Victoria and Albert Museum who stored part of their ceramics collection in the Aldwych tunnels. Of course, many museum artefacts were dispersed to sites well outside London but another station used for storing museum exhibits was Piccadilly Circus, where disused passageways held works of art from the Tate Gallery and from the London Museum. Part of the shelter at Borough, described above, was used to store valuables from the London Borough of Southwark.

CENTRAL PRODUCTION Several parts of the tube network were used in a much more active rather than passive role. In 1940 tunnel extensions to the Central Line were nearing completion beyond Leytonstone. The Plessey Company, based in nearby Ilford, was working flat out for the war effort and suggested that these be converted into an underground factory making aircraft parts. Occupation of the tunnels was phased from 1940 to 1942 and the three unfinished stations at Wanstead, Redbridge and Gant’s Hill were used as the main entrances for the five miles of tunnels. For the rest of the war the factory operated around the clock with 2,000 workers occupying around 300,000 square feet. The facility made a huge contribution to aircraft production, with output including wiring looms, pumps, radios and engine starters numbering in the tens of thousands. Post-war, all the components of the factory were removed from the tunnels and converted back as originally intended to operate as an extension of the Central Line. Several other underground factories were built across Britain, chief amongst them Drakelow (Rover), Corsham (Bristol Aeroplane), Longbridge (Austin), Rochester (Short Brothers)

and Westwood (Royal Enfield). The contribution made by the Plessey factory is, however, believed to be the greatest.

RAILWAY EXECUTIVE Several central London tube stations were closed in the 1930s for different reasons. Firstly the footfall through them was low and their profitability questionable. To compound this, the introduction of escalators to replace lifts at busier stations necessitated the construction of new entrances at the top of a slope rather than vertical shafts. In a number of cases these new entrances emerged very close to the neighbouring station, thereby challenging its viability. Lastly, as lines were extended into the suburbs, London Underground was keen to produce attractive journey times for passengers to and through central London; cutting out some stations helped this aim. Down Street, between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park (originally Dover Street) on the Piccadilly Line was one such victim and closed in May 1932. However, the site was to continue to pay a vital railway role throughout World War II. In September 1939 the UK’s railways came under the control of the Railway Executive Committee (REC). The REC coordinated the nation’s railways, including managing capacity, 

ABOVE LEFT: Brompton Road Station, halfway between South Kensington and Knightsbridge had closed in 1934 when escalators were installed at Knightsbridge. During the war it became a complex site under military control. ‘Gun Operations Room VI’ was the insiders’ codeword for the next-door Gladstone pub. ABOVE RIGHT: Nothing to do with London, Burlington was the codename for the secret location in Corsham, Wiltshire which would house an alternative seat of government in the event of nuclear attack in the 1950s.

www.britainatwar.com 125

SECRET UNDERGROUND LONDON Subterranean war effort

‘WENTWORTH’

DOVER STREET

ABOVE RIGHT: During 1939 the old platforms at Down Street (formerly Dover Street) were separated by vertical brickbuilt walls from the running tunnels which still carried through trains. Every inch of usable space was converted to offices, kitchens, telephone exchanges and dormitories. ABOVE LEFT: It wasn’t just London that the tube system protected. When GHQ Signals moved to Wentworth Golf Course in Surrey, an underground bunker was constructed, using standard LPTB cast iron tunnel linings as these were more readily available than ordering new materials.

the running of special services and the response to bomb damage. In order to operate in all conditions, protected accommodation was sought and the disused station at Down Street was selected. During 1939 the old platforms were separated by vertical brick-built walls from the running tunnels which still carried through trains. Every inch of usable space was converted to offices, meeting rooms, kitchens, telephone exchanges and dormitories. A short length of platform was left in situ so that officials could enter and leave via the Piccadilly Line. For a period, until dedicated accommodation was provided, the main conference room also doubled as an emergency War Cabinet meeting room and Churchill met and sometimes slept at Down Street until the end of 1943. In addition to providing accommodation for the Railway Executive, London Transport themselves built underground offices. Just one station away at Green Park, offices were created in disused lift shafts and corridors (made redundant after escalator installation). The LT Chairman, Heads of Department and support staff were to occupy these in the event of their headquarters at 55 Broadway being rendered unusable.

126 www.britainatwar.com

Finally, at Holborn, a disused Aldwych branch platform was converted into office and sleeping accommodation for London Transport operations managers.

POWERHOUSE The control for the electricity supply to London and the South East in the 1930s was located adjacent to Bankside Power Station (now the successful Tate Modern art gallery). The site managed the national grid, designed to ensure that supply matched demand across the nation. Its above-ground location created a huge vulnerability and the CEB (Central Electricity Board) sought out a protected site from which to operate. St Paul’s Station on the Central Line opened in 1900 as ‘Post Office’ so named due to its proximity to the headquarters of the General Post Office. Just as at Green Park, the installation of escalators in the 1930s left a legacy of disused passages and lift shafts. These were fitted out by London Transport to provide an astonishing eight storey control centre. The already narrow 23-feet diameter lift shaft was protected by an 18-inch concrete lining and the shafts capped with concrete slabs to protect against direct hits. The complex contained rooms that controlled supply (ie power stations)

and distribution (the grid itself). Instruments monitored production and loading levels and an extensive telephone network provided communication with other centres around the country as well as within the region. Power supply for the control centre was duplicated and further resilience provided by access to LT power, a standby generator and even a bank of batteries. Belt, braces, and even a piece of string! Other rooms were used for staff accommodation including a dormitory and canteen and although the site was officially known as St Paul’s Centre it was christened ‘The Hole’ by those who worked there. It operated throughout the war even through the almost total destruction of the above-ground buildings that were unsympathetically replaced post-war by the controversial Paternoster Square development.

BATTERY POWERED Yet another station which was closed in the 1930s was Brompton Road, located between South Kensington and Knightsbridge on the Piccadilly Line. It was opened in 1906 and had a familiar ox-blood glazed-brick station building adjacent to Brompton Oratory. It finally closed in 1934 when installation of escalators at

SECRET UNDERGROUND LONDON Subterranean war effort

‘PORTLAND’

KING WILLIAM ST.

Knightsbridge further shortened the distance between the street accesses to the two stations. During the build-up to war, the site became of interest — not only because of the underground areas but also the two storey station building above. In fact the London Passenger Transport Board managed to grant authority to two separate organisations to use the space – the Victoria and Albert Museum and the War Office. Assuming that the War Office might have ammunition and explosives on site – and finding this at odds with protecting National treasures — the V and A withdrew and the War Office bought the site for £24,000 in November 1938. The military plans were quite ambitious and essentially involved setting up the underground site as the Gun Operation Rooms (GOR) for the Inner London Defences. The GOR would control all of London’s anti-aircraft guns and barrage balloons. As at Down Street (above) the platforms were bricked off apart from a small section for authorised passengers. These platform sections were used for communications and staff accommodation. One of the two lift shafts had four floors inserted and a series of operations rooms occupied these; access was from the adjacent emergency spiral staircase,

with emergency exits through trapdoors in the floor to the next level. The second lift shaft was divided into two ‘D-shaped’ segments. One half continued to be used as a ventilation shaft and the other as a series of semicircular support rooms. The two lift shafts were also, of course, securely capped with concrete. The operations rooms were manned by the army but under operational control of the RAF (11 Group at RAF Uxbridge) to try and minimise incidents of ‘friendly fire’. As well as the four operation rooms within the lift shaft, two others existed. Gun Operations Room V was an emergency room at platform level but is not believed to have been used in anger. “Gun Operations Room VI” was certainly used as it was the jocular name for The Gladstone – the neighbouring pub – where off duty staff would take refreshment!

FURTHER AFIELD As well as London Underground’s own property being repurposed for the war, the organisation also had a role outside the capital’s tube network. A number of wartime protected structures were built that used London Transport pre-cast tunnel linings. These are easily identified as they are nearly

always marked with LPTB (London Passenger Transport Board), along with the manufacturer, size, and number of fixing holes. After the evacuation of Dunkirk, GHQ Home Forces was formed to prepare for the invasion of Europe. GHQ Signals sought accommodation outside central London and Wentworth Golf Course in Surrey was chosen. Alongside the clubhouse an underground bunker was constructed, using standard LPTB cast iron tunnel linings as these were more readily available than ordering new materials. Twin tunnels of around 25 feet diameter and 100 metres length were constructed with a service tunnel between them about 10 feet wide. It seems likely that platform tunnel linings were used for the former and passenger subway linings for the latter. Access was provided via a slope shaft direct from Wentworth House (now the golf clubhouse). In time, GHQ Home Forces became GHG 21st Army Group and Wentworth became SHAEF (Rear) ie Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force providing support and administration to the operational command. SHAEF (Rear) moved to Europe following the successful invasion in June 1944 which in due  course allowed Wentworth to be

ABOVE RIGHT: Standard tunnel linings were also used to line the access tunnels of the Naval and Communications HQ at Portland, Dorset. ABOVE LEFT: Station tunnels at the now disused King William Street Station were typical of those used as shelters.

www.britainatwar.com 127

SECRET UNDERGROUND LONDON Subterranean war effort RIGHT & BELOW: Tube stations were used as mass shelters to great effect during the Blitz. Their versatility and effectiveness in other areas of the war effort is less well known.

SUBTERRANEA BRITANNICA Subterranea Britannica is a UK society and charity whose interests include all manner of underground structures, from the Neolithic to the nuclear age. Sub Brit (as often abbreviated) arranges day conferences and visits to interesting sites in the UK and overseas. Members receive a regular magazine Subterranea, full of news, articles and photos. MORE INFORMATION INCLUDING MEMBERSHIP DETAILS AT WWW. SUBBRIT.ORG.UK. PHOTOS BY NICK CATFORD UNLESS OTHERWISE CREDITED.

returned to golf with a distinctly less menacing sort of bunker. Standard tunnel linings were also used to line the access tunnels of the underground Naval Headquarters and Communications Centre at Portland in Dorset. Portland Bay has a long naval tradition and came under aerial attack during the war. The protected facility was built in the early 1940s to house the Port’s Headquarters which reported directly to the Commander in Chief at Fort Southwick in Portsmouth. Possibly the climax of Portland’s history was the embarkation of tens of thousands of Americans of Force O, bound for Omaha Beach, in June 1944. It is likely that telecommunications tunnels built beneath Whitehall and elsewhere also used standard tube lining segments but as they are still in use by the government, their exploration will have to wait until another day. Other structures built post-war (including 1950s ROTOR Radar Stations), also used London Transport tunnel linings as part of their construction. One final example of a London Transport asset being re-purposed for the war effort is particularly intriguing. Pre-war, the Bath Stone quarries beneath Corsham in Wiltshire were in full production. One of the

128 www.britainatwar.com

largest was Spring Quarry, which covered an impressive 90 acres. Spring Quarry, along with many others, was requisitioned in late 1940 and allocated to the Bristol Aeroplane Company for use as an underground factory. The planners realised that getting thousands of workers in and out of the factory would be a pinch point and consequently ordered escalators to be installed in two of the slope shafts (designated ‘A’ and ‘C’). However the lead time for the escalators due to material shortage was unacceptable and so two orders made by London Transport were redirected to Spring Quarry. They were originally ordered pre-war for St Paul’s and Holborn and although a replacement was installed after the conflict at Holborn, the initial destination of the St Paul’s example remains as a staircase to this day!

THE SITES TODAY Although many of the stations mentioned are fully accessible today, disused passages and stations are usually off-limits. One notable exception is Aldwych, which is regularly opened to visitors by the London Transport Museum. Specialist groups such as Subterranea Britannica gain occasional access to other sites but such trips are usually few and far between. The

society’s website, however does provide visit reports and images from earlier visits. Observant passengers travelling on the tube today can spot the bricked up disused platforms at, for example, Down Street and Brompton Road. Quite a number of stations bear plaques that testify to their wartime service, including Balham, Bounds Green, Borough and Bethnal Green (as stated, the Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust is raising funds to erect an above-ground memorial to the disaster at Bethnal Green). As for wartime factories, passing through the Central Line between Wanstead and Gants Hill, it is difficult to visualise the intensity of wartime electronics production. However a number of intermediate access and ventilation shafts are still visible on the route. Millions of people are aware of the role that the London Underground played in sheltering civilians during the Blitz. Few realise, however, that when the war started this was strictly against policy. It only came about because of the pressure brought to bear by ordinary people and their actions. Seventy years on, those who experienced the subterranean comforts are few and far between but their place in history is assured. 

END GAME BURMA

THE BURMA AIR CAMPAIGN

By Michael Pearson Available from the publishers Pen & Sword Ltd

Authors invited to submit manuscripts all categories

Tel: 01226 734555

New Authors welcome

Website:

www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

JUNE ISSUE Copy deadline – Monday 11th May On Sale Date – Thursday 28th May

Also available from Amazon.co.uk / whsmith.co.uk / Slim’s Meiktila. Slim’s Masterstroke M Maste aste sterstr rstr st oke k att M eikt ik ila ebay.co.uk The campaign to break the Japanese hold on Burma. plus all good bookshops and online retailers.

BOOK PUBLISHING

Th struggle stru t ggle truggle gg to overcome overcome me The theformidable Japanese Army Air Force.

Both available in hardback and e-book format – Kindle / Kobo etc mikepearsonwriter.co.uk

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

Publishers for over 100 Years

Militaria Fairs

STOCKPORT ANTIQUE ARMS, ARMOUR, MEDALS & MILITARIA FAIR.

Saturday 9th May 2015 Saturday 3rd October 2015

To Advertise here please call

Amie Spooncer Tel: 01780 755131 email: [email protected]

Classified Marketplace

Publishers

Books

The First W NO.10

rld War in Objects

THE AYRTON

TREnCH FAN AS WELL as the manufacture of personal anti-gas equipment, such as the Hypo Helmet described in last month’s issue, the authorities were soon receiving suggestions as to how else troops might be helped to beat the threat of gas warfare. For example, one individual writing in the engineering journal Cassier’s Magazine in July 1915 suggested installing a system of propellers to create ‘counter air-currents which would carry the gasses back into the German lines’. Sir Hiram Maxim, in a letter to The Times in August the same year, proposed firing incendiary bombs in the path of the gas cloud, the intention being to drive the gas up with the rising hot air currents. Some of the ideas were more simplistic. The scientist Hertha Ayrton applied the knowledge she had discovered about currents and vortices to design a fan to push the gases out of the trenches — the Ayrton Trench (or Anti-Gas) Fan. An original Imperial War Museum exhibit caption states that the device ‘was in daily use at the Front … for clearing dug-outs, shell-holes, mine

The fan was presented to an ‘Inventions Committee’ which Field Marshal Sir John French had established at the BEF’s GHQ. Major-General Charles Foulkes, who in 1917 became Director of Gas Services, later recalled the subsequent trial: ‘The fan was found to have no appreciable effect whatever on the gas cloud: in fact, it was actually worse than useless, as with the type of [gas] helmet then worn (as with all others) any exertion on the part of the man wearing it reduces the degree of protection it affords owing to the more rapid rate of breathing.’ Aryton’s design was duly rejected by the committee. However, noted Foulkes, ‘such was the influence that had been enlisted [in favour of the device, particularly in the British press] that five thousand of the fans were ordered at once, two hundred for each mile of front’. Foulkes’ assessment of the fan was borne out by experience, as Private Bernard Livermore once recalled: ‘A new device had been issued to rid the trenches of gas; gigantic flat fans, like fly swotters [sic]] on long poles. One had to walk along duckboards, flapping gas in front of one by beating it on the ground. We flapped the gas — if there was gas — round the traverse; there we met a man from the next bay flapping it stoutly into our territory!’ By the time production ended, 104,000 Ayrton fans had been issued, the device remaining in use, in decreasing numbers, until 1918.

ABOVE: A drawing from a 1918-dated US Army manual which provides instruction on the use of trench fans. Major-General Charles Foulkes recalled that the Americans, ‘finding the fans part of the British trench equipment, and very naturally adopting British methods while evolving their own, ordered fifty thousand’ Ayrton Trench Fans. (HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS)

craters, etc., of the foul gases that always accumulate in them under shell fire … They are made of waterproof canvas stiffened with cane, with a wooden handle. The blade has a semi-rigid centre, with loose end and side flaps, and the back has an extra very limited hinge in it to enable it to accommodate itself to the varying shapes of the backs of parapets, corners of traverses etc. They are 3 feet 6 inches long, have a blade 15 inches square, weigh less than 1lb., can be folded and carried in the braces behind the pack.’

130 www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: US troops under training on the use of trench fans. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

War & Peace F_P.indd 1

18/03/2015 11:07

Historic Promotions F_P.indd 1

09/04/2015 10:56