Liquid History, HMS Arethusa, and the London Fire Brigade at Dunkirk

The River Thames has always been one of the main arteries of London. In 1940, the Thames was home to far more commercial traffic than we can see today, with five great expanses of enclosed docks on the north side of the river, the Surrey Commercial Docks to the south and all manner of wharves, power stations and the vast Woolwich Arsenal site strung out along either side of the tideway.

The Thames has always held a special place in the hearts of Londoners, who have used it for leisure, for work, for travel and have seen pageantry and tragedy unfold upon it in equal measure. It was described by the trade unionist and Labour MP John Burns as ‘Liquid History’ which is probably the most eloquent description of the river that has ever been penned.

Before the outbreak of war in 1939, the Germans had already begun aerial reconnaissance of likely targets along the river and today, we can still see these photographs which have been published under the somewhat distastefully named series Adolf Hitler’s Home Counties Holiday Snaps. Despite the trivialisation implied by this title, reconnaissance photography was a serious business which pre-war was often undertaken by concealed cameras aboard German civilian aircraft en route to or from London’s embryonic airports such as Heston and Croydon. In these photos, sites such as the Woolwich Arsenal, power stations, railways, docks and other potential targets were identified well before war was declared.

In those days before airborne radar sets and guidance beams, the best way for aircraft to find a target was to follow easily identifiable landmarks such as rivers and railway lines. London of course, has no shortage of the latter and the River Thames was and is an un-disguisable pathway to the centre of the capital and all a potential enemy had to do was to follow the course of the river from the Estuary to the centre of London. Today’s flyers call this Visual Flight Rules or 'VFR' and by using this method, it was inevitable that the Luftwaffe would be able to find their target when the time came.

When, at 4.30 p.m. on Saturday September 7th 1940, the sirens sounded to mark what proved to be the beginning of the Blitz, it was the course of the Thames that the bombers followed before unloading their bombs on the Woolwich Arsenal, Silvertown, West Ham Power Station and the Surrey Docks, lighting huge conflagrations that acted as beacons for the second wave of bombers that came that night. This was to be that start of fifty seven consecutive nights bombing and even after a brief lull in early December the bombers would continue to return right the way through until the night of May 10th/11th 1941. The docks and industries along the Thames were invariably part of the targets being attacked and with an un-knowing nod as to what was to happen some three years hence, the Luftwaffe gave the London dock system the code name ‘Hamburg’ and one can only wonder whether the irony of this was not lost on the Germans when the Allied air forces unleashed havoc on the German port city some three years later.

In 1940, the British anti-aircraft defences, although enthusiastically manned and well led by General Sir Frederick Pile – who incidentally would remain in this role throughout the war – were proving fairly ineffective against the German onslaught. The guns at this time were sighted in London’s open spaces such as Hyde Park, Blackheath, Southwark Park, Wanstead Flats and many similar places but being without the advantage of radar guidance, the chance of hitting a relatively fast moving bomber at night with only the assistance of searchlights to pick out the target, was fairly remote. As the war progressed, their performance and equipment was to improve drastically but in 1940 the anti aircraft or 'Ack Ack' guns’ crews needed all the help they could get. So it was that in November 1940, the cruiser HMS Arethusa (pictured), that had been refitting at Sheerness following arduous service in the Norwegian Campaign and covering the evacuations from France was moved to the Lower Pool of London, close to Tower Bridge to augment London’s defences. Her impressive anti-aircraft armament of eight four inch guns plus smaller calibre two pounder ‘pom poms’ joined in the nightly barrage against the Luftwaffe and although it was questionable whether they actually hit anything, they did have the advantage of forcing the bombers to fly higher and also of boosting the morale of the civilian population, who always liked to hear the sound of the guns firing back, despite the fact that on the principle of 'what goes up must come down’ the shrapnel caused by the shells fired were just as likely to cause death and damage to Londoners and their property as the German bombs.

Her brief stay in London ended in early 1941 and HMS Arethusa went on to enjoy further distinguished wartime service in the Mediterranean Fleet, on the Malta Convoys and at Normandy on D-Day before being eventually scrapped in 1950.

The sterling work of the London Fire Brigade, the Auxiliary Fire Service and later the National Fire Service in fighting the fires of the Blitz is well known and whilst everyone is familiar with the land-based fire engines and fire fighters, perhaps less well known was the small armada of fire boats, or what were effectively floating fire engines. Many of these fire boats were converted tugs and barges, hastily pressed into service on the outbreak of war but amongst their number was the purpose built fire float (as the London Fire Brigade called her) Massey Shaw (pictured) which was named after Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, first head of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, predecessor of the London Fire Brigade. Built in 1935 by J Samuel White’s Yard at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, Massey Shaw was designed to fight fires in peacetime along the vast expanses of London’s industrial riverside and was capable of pumping three thousand gallons of water per minute from each of her two Merryweather pumps. Now in 1940, she was fighting different kinds of fires – huge out of control timber fires in the Surrey Docks, exploding rum barrels that sent sheets of blazing spirits flying through the air, pepper fires, rubber fires, paint fires, the list was endless and the possibilities were unfortunately horrendous.

Perhaps the best personal account of events on the Thames on the night of 7th September 1940 was given by Sir Alan Herbert, in command of the Thames Auxiliary Patrol’s vessel Water Gypsy, which was coming downriver: “Half a mile or more of the Surrey shore was burning. The wind was westerly and the accumulated smoke and sparks of all the fires swept in a high wall across the river.” He pressed on into the clouds of smoke: “The scene was like a lake in Hell. Burning barges were drifting everywhere. We could hear the hiss and roar of the conflagrations, a formidable noise but we could not see it so dense was the smoke. Nor could we see the eastern shore.”

Not only did the Massey Shaw fight fires during the Blitz. She had already earned herself a battle honour in May 1940 when she joined in the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. Originally sent across with a volunteer crew to fight the fires in the port of Dunkirk, she had a scare on the voyage across the English Channel, when in poor visibility her large water monitor on the foredeck was mistaken for the gun of a German fast patrol boat by a British destroyer which almost opened fire on her before realising her true identity. Fire fighting in Dunkirk proved to be a non-starter as the inner harbour area was so blocked with sunken ships and rubble as to be impassable but instead of returning to England, the crew decided to assist with the evacuation. The bulk of her service came off the beaches at Bray Dunes and La Panne, where she ferried some five hundred men from the beaches out to the destroyers and larger vessels waiting in deeper water but when the time came for her to return to England, she brought twenty eight British soldiers back to Ramsgate on 2nd June before heading back up the Thames to resume her London Fire Brigade duties.

Not retired until 1971, the Massey Shaw is still in existence and is currently being restored to her former glory, ironically at the old South Dock of the Surrey Docks where she fought fires seventy years ago. When restored, she will be a living memorial to the Blitz and the Dunkirk Evacuation and will hopefully be able to once again attend the Dunkirk ‘Little Ships’ return to the French port.

Published Sources:

Backs to the Wall – Leonard Mosley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1971
B.E.F. Ships before, at and after Dunkirk – John de S Winser, World Ship Society 1999
Cruisers of The Royal & Commonwealth Navies – Douglas Morris, Maritime Books 1987
London’s Docks – John Pudney, Thames & Hudson 1975
The Thames on Fire – LM Bates, Terence Dalton 1985
Pillar of Fire, Dunkirk 1940 – Ronald Atkin, Sidgwick & Jackson 1990

The Corpo Aereo Italiano, The Blitz and The Vienna Boys Choir

It is common knowledge that during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, the RAF was pitted against the German Luftwaffe, it is perhaps not so widely known that the Italian Regia Aeronautica also participated in the Battle and the Blitz, albeit in a small way and unhappily for the Italians, with pretty disastrous results that typified their standing alongside their German allies.

Italy declared war on Britain and France on 11th June 1940. Up until that point, cynics especially in Germany felt that the Italian dictator Mussolini had been hedging his bets before committing himself to the war. However, with a German victory now apparently assured, he decided that he wanted to take his place alongside Hitler on the winning side and to take his share of the spoils, especially in the Mediterranean, in which he eyed British and French possessions such as Malta and Corsica with envious eyes and where he also saw the opportunity to capture the Suez Canal and thus have access to British colonies in Africa.

However, following RAF bombing raids on the Fiat and Caproni factories in Genoa, Turin and Milan, Mussolini became very keen to become involved in the Battle of Britain and exact a measure of revenge. In July 1940, he offered units of the Regia Aeronautica to Hermann Goering but was diplomatically refused. However, he was persistent and after several further requests, Goering eventually relented and in early October 1940, a force known as the Corpo Aereo Italiano, consisting of seventy five Fiat BR. 20 Cicogna (or Stork) bombers supported by CR. 42 Freccia (Arrow) biplane fighters and a few Fiat G. 50 monoplane fighters were despatched to their base at Melsbroek in the Brussels area.

Their introduction to their German allies was hardly auspicious, with eight of the bombers being damaged by heavy landings whilst arriving at their new base. The bombers were from 13 and 43 Stormo or Squadrons, whilst the fighters were from 56 Stormo. For administrative purposes, and to fit in with the overall German system, the Italian squadron names were changed to the German KG or Kampfgeschwaders 13 and 43 and JG or Jagdgeschwader 56 respectively.

Their first foray into action was hardly a rip-roaring success either. A raid against Harwich and Felixstowe on the night of 24th/25th October 1940 saw three of eighteen aircraft deployed lost through accidents and the majority of the others failed to find their targets. Their next outing - a daylight raid on Ramsgate - was slightly more successful in so far that no aircraft were shot down but of the fifteen bombers used on the raid, three were heavily damaged by flak and at least one aircraft bombed Deal in error, with the bombs falling on the Royal Marines Depot, killing five Marines and a private from the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry.

On 11th November 1940, the Regia Aeronautica saw its first major combat with the RAF during the Blitz. Ten bombers escorted by forty two CR. 42s, the G. 50s and also with some German Bf 109s assigned set off towards Harwich. The raid was soon aborted due to poor weather but before the attackers could return to base, Hurricanes of 17, 46 and 257 Squadrons attacked and brought down three bombers and three fighters. A further four bombers were destroyed in forced landings, as were two fighters. A further eight Italian fighters landed with repairable damage in exchange for two British fighters suffering from slight damage. As this raid took place only the day before the British carrier-borne attack on the Italian battle fleet at Taranto, Winston Churchill was later moved to write that "They might have found better employment defending their fleet at Taranto."

It was clear that the Italian aircraft, especially the biplane fighters with their top speed of 272 mph, were no match for the British Spitfires and Hurricanes which were nearly 100 mph faster. The German fighter pilots assigned to escort their allies were less than enthusiastic at the prospect of working with the Italians. The Germans were mostly combat hardened veterans used to flying the modern Bf 109 fighters which were on a par with the British Hurricanes and Spitfires, whilst their charges lumbered along at 267 mph in the case of the BR. 20 bombers with even the modern G.50 fighters only managing 293 mph.

Further small raids on Harwich and Ipswich followed but with no more success and on November 23rd, some of the biplane CR. 42s were attacked by Spitfires, with the predictable outcome of two being lost with more damaged with no British aircraft suffering damage in return.

In January 1941, the bombers were 'redeployed' - a diplomatic term for a retreat; the involvement of the Corpo Aereo Italiano had been an unmitigated disaster for the Italians. Their standing amongst their German allies, never particularly high, was already in decline and this situation was only to get worse in February 1941 following the capitulation of the 130,000 strong Tenth Army in North Africa to General Wavell's 30,000 strong Western Desert Force.

The Italian involvement in the Second World War was an unhappy one, with Mussolini's regime always being the junior partner to Hitler's Germany. Setback followed setback for the Fascist regime and in July 1943, following the Allied invasion of Sicily, King Victor Emmanuel dismissed Mussolini and appointed Marshal Badoglio in his place, who immediately sought an armistice with the Allies. When this was signed in September 1943, the Allies had toppled their first dictator and to add insult to injury, the Italians changed sides and declared war on Germany on October 13th.

In reality though, much of Italy remained under German control and the Italian campaign was one of the hardest fought of the entire war before the country was eventually liberated, with the final surrender of German forces in Italy only occurring on 2nd May 1945 - less than a week before the Allies were celebrating VE Day on 8th May 1945. On this very day, British troops crossed the Italian border into Austria and encountered a group of boys in the main square of the village of Hinterbichel. Some of these boys were dressed in Hitler Youth uniforms, whilst others were wearing leather shorts and traditional Austrian costume. The combat hardened British troops swung the machine guns of their armoured cars onto the boys, fearing a last ditch ambush as had been experienced elsewhere in their encounters with the Nazis. The boys, although understandably nervous, stood their ground and the British, seeing no concealed weapons held their fire. When the commander of the British armoured cars dismounted, the leader of the boys lifted his arms and the Vienna Boys Choir began to sing God Save the King. The Italian campaign was over.

Published Sources:

Last Days of The Reich - James Lucas, Arms & Armour Press 1986
The Battle of Britain - Richard Hough & Denis Richards, WW Norton 1989
The Battle of Britain - Richard Townshend Bickers, Salamander 1990
The Narrow Margin - Derek Wood & Derek Dempster, Tri-Service Press 1990

Sir Sydney Camm, the plane that won the Battle of Britain and the Jump Jet

Sir Sydney Camm, to put it quite simply was a genius. Born in Windsor on August 4th 1893, he was involved as a youngster in the design of model aircraft and gliders before joining the H.G. Hawker Engineering Company and presiding over successive designs starting with fabric skinned biplanes such as the Hart, Hind and Fury, then seeing in the monoplane age with the first eight gun fighter in the form of the Hurricane and eventually war winning designs such as the Typhoon and the Tempest before being involved at the dawn of the jet age with the Hunter and finally being responsible for the truly ground breaking design that eventually became known as the Harrier, the World’s first practical vertical takeoff or landing (VTOL) aircraft or ‘jump jet.’

Camm started his career as a Carpenter’s Apprentice with the Martinside Aircraft Company and later joined Hawker’s at Kingston in 1923 as Senior Draughtsman and rose quickly to the position of Chief Designer two years later. In this role, he was responsible for the design of what were for the time, traditional designs of biplane aircraft. This type of aircraft, of which the Hawker Fury was to prove the last, were still being produced as late as 1937 and as good as these traditional designs were, it was apparent to those with foresight, of whom Camm was one, that these aircraft would be no match for the modern monoplane aircraft being produced in Germany for the resurgent Luftwaffe and which were now seeing service in the Spanish Civil War.

So it was in 1934 that Camm started work on the design of an eight gun monoplane fighter aeroplane to be built to Air Ministry specification F36/34 which was to be powered by the new Rolls Royce engine later to become known as the Merlin. In tandem with Reginald Mitchell at Supermarine and one or two other far sighted individuals, just in time, the British were waking up to the threat posed by the Nazis.

Unlike the more technologically advanced Spitfire, the Hurricane was an evolutionary design and the biplane ancestry was clearly apparent on closer inspection. Although it was quickly fitted with metal skinned wings capable of supporting the eight .303 machine guns, the fuselage was of a traditional design with steel spars supporting a fabric covering of linen tightened with dope. Ironically, although this design was outdated, it did mean that the Hurricane was able to withstand a tremendous amount of punishment and still be capable of relatively quick repair. Conversely, it did mean that whilst many bullets and cannon shells would pass through the fuselage without exploding, the aeroplane was also prone to catching fire when these shells hit the fuel tank and many Hurricane pilots in the Battle of Britain would suffer what became laconically known as ‘Hurricane Burns’ when their largely fabric covered aircraft caught fire. Sir Hugh Dowding, head of RAF Fighter Command, would insist on Hawker’s retrofitting the Hurricanes with self-sealing fuel tanks using a material called ‘Linatex’ which would drastically reduce these types of incidents and which a short-sighted Government (some things never change) had omitted from the original design on cost grounds at the expense of the lives of the men that flew them.

Whilst the Spitfire was the undoubted glamour puss of the RAF during and after the Battle of Britain and a wonderful far sighted design in its own right, the Hurricane at this time provided the backbone of Fighter Command with far more Hurricanes than Spitfires in service. In spite of being slower than its main antagonist, the Messerschmitt Bf109E, it could out-turn it, especially when dogfighting at lower altitudes and was responsible for many such ‘kills’ during the Battle, as well as bringing down many enemy bombers.

The only Victoria Cross won during the Battle of Britain - indeed the only VC won by a member of Fighter Command during the War - was won in a Hurricane, when on 16th August 1940 Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson, having seen his own aircraft hit and himself being wounded in an eye, remained in the blazing cockpit of his Hurricane in order to shoot down a Messerschmitt Bf110 over Southampton. Only once the enemy aircraft was destroyed did he bail out and to add insult to his terrible injuries, he was then fired upon by the local Home Guard despite his protests that he was an RAF fighter pilot. Nicolson survived this incident and wounds eventually healed, later served in Southeast Asia flying Beaufighters before tragically being killed on 2nd May 1945 when the Liberator aircraft in which he was travelling crashed into the Bay of Bengal following a mechanical failure.

After the Battle of Britain, the Hurricane made the transition into a cannon armed, ground attack fighter and served with great distinction in North Africa, Malta, Burma and the Far East as well as in the European theatre, where as well as fighting over occupied Western Europe, it also fought on the Eastern Front with the Soviet Air Force, having been supplied to the Russians under Lend Lease. The Hurricane also served at sea on the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers as the Sea Hurricane as well as on CAM Ships (Catapult Armed Merchant ships) and as such was responsible for the defence of many convoys bringing vital supplies to Britain. In total, some 14,500 Hurricanes of all marks were constructed, mainly at Hawker’s factory in Kingston but also with a significant number being built in Canada.

With the RAF in Europe, the Hurricane was supplanted by two more of Camm’s Hawker designs, the Typhoon and the Tempest, both of which were instrumental in giving the Allies air supremacy over the Luftwaffe following the Normandy invasion and striking terror into the hearts of German land forces whenever the sound of their engines were heard overhead. The Tempest was for a time, the fastest piston engined aeroplane ever built, being capable of speeds well in excess of 450 mph. Apart from their ground attack duties, the Tempests were used on ‘anti diver’ patrols over Southern England in which they were responsible for shooting down large numbers of German V-1’s which would otherwise have wreaked havoc on London. Of the 9,500 V-1s launched against London, some 638 were shot down by a handful of Tempests, which was the largest number shot down by a single type of aircraft, although it should be mentioned that a further 1,316 were shot down by Mosquitos, Spitfires, Mustangs and with a nod to the future, the new jet powered Meteors.

The jet engine was clearly the way ahead and after the war was over, Camm turned his hand to the design of these sleek new fighters, with the Hunter being the favourite of many schoolboys (this writer included) and RAF fighter pilots and which formed the mainstay of the RAF’s fighter force in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

However, it was the Harrier that was arguably Camm’s most revolutionary design; able to take off from non-airfield locations such as motorways, this was the ideal aircraft for the nuclear age which was quickly embraced by the Americans and built by them under licence for the US Marine Corps as the AV8B. The Harrier in its carrier borne guise as the Sea Harrier also ensured British victory in the Falklands War and has only been recently retired by a short sighted, parsimonious government (where have we heard that before?)

Sydney Camm was knighted in 1953 for his services to the aircraft industry but never really retired and at the time of his death in 1966, was working on the design of an aircraft capable of travelling at Mach 4. It is indeed a sobering thought to consider that this man started working at Hawker’s only twenty years after the Wright Brothers pioneering powered flight. He was indeed a truly remarkable man.

Published Sources:

Dowding of Fighter Command - Vincent Orange, Grub Street 2008
Hurricane - Leo McInstry, John Murray 2010
The Big Show - Pierre Clostermann, Cassell 2004
The Most Dangerous Enemy - Stephen Bungay, Aurum Press 2000

Lord's at War

With cricket in the news due to the victorious exploits of the England team in Australia, perhaps now is a good time to write about Lord's Cricket Ground in wartime, then as now headquarters of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), English cricket and surely the spiritual home of the World game, as this was and remains the ground at which every player around the World wants to play.

In 1939, this famous old ground had already been in existence since 1814 and was well established as the home of cricket. The domestic cricket season had already come to an abrupt end on 1st September 1939 - two days before the declaration of war - and the ground was becoming a hive of activity as many of the buildings on the adjoining Nursery Ground were requisitioned by the RAF. This part of the ground was to be used by 903 Squadron Balloon Barrage, part of London's defences against low flying enemy aircraft. At the opposite end of the ground, many of the buildings at the Pavilion End were used as the RAF's No. 1 Aircrew Reception Area, where many new recruits had their first taste of service life with many of them later making the ultimate sacrifice. Today a small unobtrusive bronze plaque on the pavilion records this fact. The ground was also used as Auxiliary Fire Station 11V of the AFS and the excellent Lord's Museum today contains some wonderful photographs of the usual collection of converted London taxis converted into makeshift fire engines parked at the perimeter of the playing area.

Although many test cricketers who had previously graced the hallowed turf such as the Middlesex players Bill Edrich, Jack Robertson and Denis and Leslie Compton as well as other England players like Len Hutton and Hedley Verity of Yorkshire had left their counties to join the fighting services, cricket at Lords still carried on, albeit in a reduced form and with a leaning towards inter service matches. These matches were of huge importance, not just for the morale of the public but also to demonstrate that whatever the Nazis could throw at Great Britain, cricket and cricketers could not and would not be intimidated in the face of tyranny.

One of these inter service matches was tinged with tragedy - a match between the Home Guards of Surrey and Sussex, held on July 23rd 1942 was abandoned when Andrew Ducat, the former Surrey & England cricketer (and England footballer) died at the crease from a heart attack whilst batting for the Surrey Home Guard. He had been retired from cricket since 1931 and was aged 56 at the time of his death. He had become a sports journalist and his tragic record remains that of being the only player in history to die during a match at Lord's.

To counterbalance the sadness of this event, in 1944 came another incident which showed both defiance and humour in equal measure. On July 29th 1944, the Army played the RAF in a representative match and whilst Middlesex and England batsman Jack Robertson was at the wicket batting for the Army, the unmistakeable sound of a V1 Flying Bomb could be heard approaching the ground. To make matters worse, the engine cut out and for a short time it looked as if the missile would land on the cricket ground. The players threw themselves to the turf, with one of them taking shelter behind the stumps! Fortunately for all concerned, the doodlebug fell harmlessly short of the ground in Albert Road, near Regent's Park. Starved of 'live' sport these matches were always well attended by Londoners and off duty service personnel and when play resumed, Jack Robertson hit the second ball after the re-start - a long hop from Bob Wyatt - for six. Not surprisingly, the crowd erupted at this show of defiance from the Middlesex and England opening batsman.

The famous ground was not always immune from damage. On October 16th 1940, at the height of the First Blitz, an Oil Bomb fell onto the outfield at the Nursery End near the sightscreens. When the bomb burst open, it revealed the photograph of a young German officer, across which was written the message 'With Compliments.' The only other direct damage sustained was when one of the houses owned by MCC, 6 Elm Tree Road, which adjoined the ground was destroyed by a direct hit also during 1940.

There were other incidents such as the time when one of the resident barrage balloons went out of control and wrapped it's cable around Old Father Time, bringing the iconic weather vane tumbling down from his lofty perch onto the seats of the Grand Stand. There was also an incident straight from the script of 'Dad's Army' when the local Home Guard was reported to the MCC Committee for using the garden of another of the Club's houses, this time at 2 Grove End Road, for 'bomb throwing practice.'

As the war went on, some of those illustrious names who had graced Lord's before the war made the ultimate sacrifice and were never to return. Kenneth Farnes, a fast bowler of Cambridge University and Essex had first played for England in 1934 but was still only 30 when his plane crashed on a night flying exercise in 1941.

Then, in July 1943 arguably the most famous English sportsman to fall in the Second World War, Hedley Verity of Yorkshire and England was killed whilst serving with the Army in Sicily. Aged 38, he was a Captain in the Green Howards and was leading his men in an assault on a German strongpoint when he was struck in the chest by mortar shell fragments. His men last saw him on the ground, his head being cradled by his batman and murmuring 'Keep going, keep going and get them out of that farmhouse.' He died a few days later on 31st July 1943 in an Italian POW Camp Hospital at Catania - his last words were said to have been 'I think I have played my last innings for Yorkshire.' An excellent off spinner, Verity had a special connection with Lord's, having taken 15 wickets against Australia in the 1934 Ashes test match at the ground, including 14 in one day and dismissing Don Bradman twice in the game, which incidentally was the only time in the 20th Century that England beat Australia in a Lord's test match.

In August 1944, Maurice Turnbull, who was a fine all round sportsman, captain of Glamorgan, an England cricketer and who had played rugby, hockey and squash for Wales, was killed instantly by a sniper's bullet at Montchamp in Normandy, aged 33 and with probably many more years of international cricket ahead of him after the war had fate not intervened.

In May 1945, when victory in Europe was won, the Secretary of MCC, Sir Pelham Warner arranged what became known as the five 'Victory Tests' - not test matches in the conventional sense - but three day matches, England v Australia, three of which were played at Lord's - the others were at Bramall Lane, Sheffield and at Old Trafford, Manchester. These matches were played in front of huge crowds who had been starved of cricket and who were treated to a festival of attacking, open cricket, played in a tremendous spirit. The series was drawn two matches each, with one drawn match and the exuberant play seemed to reflect the joy and relief that the players and spectators alike felt on emerging from the war into a hopeful peace. Cricket had survived and for those players who had served in the war, the game was put into perspective by the great Australian all-rounder Keith Miller, who had served on operations over Germany as a Mosquito pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force and who once when asked about the pressures of playing test cricket famously replied 'I'll tell you about pressure. Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not!'

Published Sources:

The Lost Seasons: Cricket in Wartime 1939-45 - Eric Midwinter, Methuen 1987
Double Century, The Story of MCC and Cricket - Tony Lewis, Guild Publishing 1987
Wisden at Lord's - edited by Graeme Wright - John Wisden & Co/MCC 2005

Dr Johnson's House and The Second Great Fire of London

This week's guest blogger is Blitz historian and fellow Blitzwalker Neil Bright.

Christmas 1940 had passed without incident. However, Hitler had spent the Yuletide with his senior staff in Boulogne questioning why Britain had not come to the peace table following the Blitz on British cities, particularly London during the autumn and winter months of 1940.

The less than festive atmosphere in Boulogne prompted the now famous attack on the City of London carried out by aircraft of Luftflotte 3 and Luftflotte 2 which was to become known as the “Second Great Fire of London.” It is well documented that the Thames was subject to a neap tide and because of the Christmas break and with the attack being carried out on a weekend, there was a skeleton fire-watching staff across the capital.

Some 136 bombers were involved in the raid and approximately ten and a half thousand incendiary bombs rained down on the City in the opening of the attack and by the time the last bomb was dropped some one hundred fires were raging on both sides of the Thames. The wind was particularly high whipping sparks from building to building and temperatures of the fires reached 1,000 degrees. Fortunately bad weather made any further raiding that night impossible.

Many of the City’s famous and historic buildings were razed to the ground or severely damaged. Among the casualties were nine livery company halls including the Haberdashers, Coachmakers, Girdlers and Barbers Halls. Among the City churches, St Giles was gutted along with St Lawrence Jewry and St Alban Wood Street to name but a few. The historic Guildhall lost its Courtroom, the statues of Gog and Magog were lost along with some 25,000 books from the Library. The book industry around Paternoster Square was devastated.

One famous building which has a remarkable story to tell was Dr Johnson’s House in Gough Square. Dr Samuel Johnson was the renowned compiler of the famous dictionary as well as playwright, author and wit. Phyllis Rowell was the curator of the house, which had been restored and re-invigorated by the Harmsworth family some years before.

Mrs. Rowell opened the house as a rest centre for the Fire Services and as Harry Stone, one of the firefighters to benefit recalled, Mrs. Rowell “was never without a tea-pot in here hand, providing practical comfort to her local firemen.”

Musical evenings, concerts and readings were arranged. There was even a string quartet (pictured) formed by members of the service who had been members of the London Symphony Orchestra. On numerous occasions there was standing room only as the music of Dvorak and Mozart seeped into the rafters. The quartet even performed at 10 Downing Street, although their esteemed host nodded off during the performance. Celebrated poet and firefighter, Stephen Spender also gave a stirring talk on Scandinavian poets and the actor Felix Aylmer reminisced on his long career. One of the Fire Fighters, Edward Gathergood, even married Mrs. Rowell’s daughter, Betty.

Dr Johnson’s House had come through the Blitz unscathed until 29 December 1940. but now Phyllis Rowell recalled how “all Hell let loose around 6.15pm as incendiaries rained down.”

Their cottage next to the house received the first strikes of incendiary bombs just as her family was sitting down to dinner. Betty busied herself by climbing a ladder and pushing off the bombs with a broom, but many had lodged in unreachable places. Gough Square was now ablaze, but Dr Johnson’s House had not yet been hit.

The water main had been struck and it was apparent that the area had to be evacuated with the family being ordered to the Daily Mirror Shelter in Fetter Lane. The family collected up Dr Johnson’s letters from the house together with part of the china plus some personal effects.

The journey was fraught with danger as masonry and other debris was falling at a rapid rate, plus the air was full of sparks. To make matters worse, Mrs. Rowell’s mother had a mild heart attack during the hazardous journey.

A rumour went around that Dr Johnson’s house was in flames, but fortunately the firefighters had found a large water tank in the area from which water was transported in canvass tanks to Gough Square and a jet of water was directed on to the roof of the house and more water was relayed up the stairway into the attic. Oil from a nearby factory had earlier compounded the situation.

The damage was remarkably little; some paintings were water-damaged and some furniture was destroyed.

Further damage was sustained later in the War by flying bombs landing in the proximity and sadly the Firemens’ rest centre had to be closed down.

Today, the House is open Monday to Saturdays and it is very much worth a visit, with a very knowledgeable and friendly staff. There is also an excellent gift shop.

Published Sources:

The Blitz Then and Now Vol. 2 - editor Winston Ramsey, After the Battle 1988
Dr Johnson’s House and the National Fire Service during the War - Harry Stone
Dr Johnson’s House during the War - Phyllis Rowell

Oil painting by Reginald Mills by kind permission of Dr Johnson’s House

The Angel of Cable Street

This week's blog is guest written by my fellow Blitzwalker, Neil Bright, who tells us about one of the heroines of the Blitz.

Barnet and Millie Billig were a young Orthodox Jewish couple who had escaped the Pogroms which occurred in Russia and other parts of Europe at the turn of the late 19th century and having fled to England, settled above a newsagent’s in Hanbury Street in London’s East End. Not long after their arrival the first of the couple’s children, Esther was born. There followed Levi, Hannah, David, Miriam and Rebecca. Two further children died at a very young age.

Barnet worked extremely hard to provide for his young family; initially as a Newsagent and later as a cigarette and a cigar maker. Barnet was keen that his children study hard and it was evident at an early age that the children were gifted. Barnet bought many books for his family and in no time the living room resembled a library. The Billig children were not allowed to play out in the street with the other children of the area but instead they were encouraged to read. Barnet’s insistence that the children diligently adhered to their books and studies paid off. Four of the children became doctors - Hannah, David, Miriam and Rebecca.

Hannah was born on 4 October 1901. In 1912 at the age of 11 she won a scholarship at Myrdle Road Central School. Her hard work at the school brought her a scholarship to London University. Following graduation she went on to the Royal Free Hospital where she qualified as a doctor in 1925. This type of profession for a woman was still very much scoffed at in the 1920s as it was thought to be a waste of time for a woman to put in a great deal of work only to give it up only to get married and have children. However Hannah was offered a position at the Jewish Maternity Hospital in Underwood Street.

After two years at the hospital, Hannah thought it was time to strike out on her own and she opened a small surgery at Watney Street in Shadwell, where her caring nature made her extremely popular with her patients. It must be remembered that there was no National Health Service in the 1920s and 1930s and therefore patients had to pay for treatment and medicines. Hannah treated everyone who came to her whether they could pay or not. She would often be seen riding around Wapping and Shadwell on her bicycle late into the evening to go and see housebound patients. Often she would pick up a prescription herself and ride back to the patient’s house with it.

She moved to a bigger surgery at 198 Cable Street in Shadwell in 1935 and about this time her rounds were also made easier by the purchase of a Morris Cowley. Hannah’s popularity increased as the years passed, particularly with children, who she would often take for a ride in her car when picking up prescriptions. In addition to her long surgery hours, which started early in the morning and finished often at 10 o’clock in the evening, she was on call as a Police Doctor.

As war broke out in 1939 Hannah became busier and busier. She was in charge of all the air-raid shelters in Wapping. Her bravery was unsurpassed as she would go out to tend her patients as the bombs were dropping.

Hannah was called out to tend to the injured at a blast at Orient Wharf in Wapping on 13 March 1941. As she was working another blast blew her off the steps of the shelter. As she tried to get up she realised that one of her ankles was badly injured. Unperturbed she bandaged it and carried on tending to the injured. She carried on for four hours until all of the injured were taken hospital. One further bomb only landed twenty yards from her. It was only later that it was discovered that the ankle was broken. For her bravery at Orient Wharf, Hannah was awarded the George Medal by King George VI. She was a local heroine and it was now the people of Wapping and Shadwell gave her the title of “The Angel of Cable Street.”

In 1942 Hannah joined the Indian Army Medical Corps with the rank of Captain. She spent much of the early part of her time in Assam treating the wounded and sick soldiers who had retreated following the Japanese Army’s advances in Burma. As well as wounds there were diseases such as Malaria and Typhoid to be dealt with. She didn’t only devote her time to the Army, but also to the local victims of the war and the multitude of refugees fleeing the conflict. One respite for Hannah was that she was able to meet up with brother David and sister Rebecca who were also both with the RAMC in India.

One of the tragedies caused by the war in this part of the world was a rice crop failure in 1944. The local farmers would sell their rice crops without keeping any back for themselves. The failure meant that the government had no reserve stock and the people starved. Hannah and her medical colleagues worked tirelessly with the many illnesses that the starvation brought

Hannah was awarded the MBE in the 1945 honours list. She wrote to the Palace explaining that she was too busy to come along and collect the award and asked that they post it to her.

Hannah returned to her practice in Cable Street in 1946. Times were still hard with rationing still in force. However the birth of the National Health Service in 1948 did bring some relief to the long-suffering poor of the country.

Hannah harboured no secret of her desire to retire to her spiritual home, Israel. Brother David had retired there and having bought a plot of land in Caesarea, Hannah retired there herself in 1964. This followed a farewell party for Hannah at the Bernhard Baron Settlement on 24 March 1964 and the presentation of a cheque to spend in her new country.

Once settled in Israel Hannah became restless and started work at the clinic at Baka-el-Garbiya near her home; treating Arabs and Jews alike. She worked on for another twenty years before ill health caught up with her. Hannah died peacefully in a retirement home on 11 July 1987. She is buried in Hadera Cemetery.

Published Sources:

Hannah Billig, The Angel of Cable Street, Rosemary Taylor - Privately Published 1996
British Medical Journal - Volume 295
Hackney Gazette - numerous issues
East London Advertiser - numerous issues

London Transport Carried On

The current cold snap that we are experiencing brings to mind last year's snow which paralysed public transport in London and led to hysterical headlines in some of the tabloids that a few centimetres of snow had achieved what Hermann Goering had failed to do in 1940 - i.e. to stop London's buses!

Taking aside the usual hysteria associated with certain parts of the tabloid press, on this occasion they did have a point, because during the entire period of the Blitz, the Luftwaffe never managed to completely stop London's transport system, although naturally on occasions severe dislocation and disruption did take place.

In 1940, public transport in London was administered and operated by London Transport, a nationalised body responsible for London's buses, tubes, trams and trolleybuses. The suburban railways were run by the so called 'Big Four' railway companies - the Southern, Great Western, London Midland & Scottish and London and Northeastern Railway Companies - although in wartime they were effectively nationalised under the Railway Executive Committee's aegis. For the purposes of this article, we shall concentrate on the services operated by London Transport and how they were affected by enemy action and how they rose to the challenges posed by the war.

The first precautions taken actually came during the Munich Crisis of 1938 when minds were quickly concentrated by the prospect of war and the danger posed by enemy bombing. It was quickly realised that the tube tunnels under the River Thames were vulnerable to bombs and that a single lucky hit on any one of these tunnels could flood half of the Underground system. As a result of this realisation, a network of flood gates was designed and installed at all of the strategically placed tunnels under the Thames and were in place in time for the commencement of the Blitz in September 1940. These gates could be operated manually from each of the actual locations but were more normally controlled from a Central Control Room at Leicester Square Station, from where it was also possible to monitor the state of the tides so that it was not always necessary to close all of the gates when an alert sounded. When the gates were closed during an alert, signals were automatically changed to danger to stop trains being trapped and a replacement bus service was operated wherever possible to link the cross river sections closed off. During the entire war, only one of the under river tunnels was breached by a German bomb and this was a disused tunnel on the Hampstead Branch of the Northern Line at Charing Cross. Fortunately, nothing had been left to chance and this particular tunnel had been sealed with concrete before war was declared.

Despite their depth, even the tubes were not invulnerable to bombing and we have covered the use of London's Tube stations as shelters within a previous article on this blog but suffice to say that Bank, Balham, Bounds Green, Moorgate and Sloane Square Stations were severely damaged with serious loss of life. On many other occasions, stations were near missed and lines were blocked but despite the damage and loss of life, services were always restored, sometimes within hours, sometimes within weeks but even in these extreme cases, alternatives were always available and disruption was kept to a minimum.

All of this seems improbable in today's health and safety obsessed culture, when even a light snowfall can cause all of London's buses to be taken off the road, so perhaps it seems even more improbable to observers seventy years on to note that during Air Raid alerts in 1940, it was left to the bus or tram driver's discretion whether to carry on or not. What would normally happen when the Alert sounded was that the driver would give his passengers the opportunity to disembark but would then normally continue unless the bombing became very adjacent, at which time he would stop at the nearest public shelter to disgorge his passengers until the bombers had passed. Occasionally though, the drivers would heroically press on regardless of the bombing and one of these occasions was reported by Stan Collins, a tram driver who recounted his experiences in his book 'The Wheels Used to Talk To Us.'

"We were at Kennington on the 18s when bang went the sirens, so I stopped the tram and turned around and said 'Ladies and Gentlemen, the sirens are going. Anyone who wants to go down the shelter, there's one just up the road.' One old boy asked me if I was going down the shelter. 'I am not,' I said, 'I am going to fight my way home.' 'Good, the driver's going on, the driver's going on.' he told everyone. He was ever so excited, just like a little schoolboy. Nobody got off, so we tootled along Brixton Road, dropping them off, dropping them off. When I stopped at the bottom of Brixton Hill, the old chap asked me if he could get out of the front door. He wasn't supposed to in the blackout but the tram was still full and he couldn't get through the back, so I opened the air door and let him off the at the front. Just as he's getting off he puts a pound in my hand and says 'There you are driver, this is for a drink and thank you for getting me home.' When we were reversing at the end of the journey, I told Alf (my conductor) and gave him half but Alf told me that the old chap had run around the back and given him a pound as well. They used to be pleased to get home."

Despite this effort, Collins also recounted another occasion when things didn't go quite so smoothly when he was driving a tram during another air raid in the Battersea and Clapham areas.

"I took it very steady. I'd got the wind up, little butterflies in my stomach and very gently we came around the curve (into Cedars Road.) We took it very gently up Cedars Road in case the switches blew out and onto the level. I said to old Alf, 'Thats it, we're in the clear now' but halfway along Long Road, we came up behind a string of trams, about ten of them, right upto Clapham, so we were stuck. There was nothing we could do, we couldn't go back, we'd have to see it out. I could have cried. Anyway, we walked along this line of trams but couldn't see any drivers or conductors until we came to the cafe at the Plough which was open all night. By then it was getting on for 2 a.m. and we were stuck there until the All Clear went at about 5 a.m. that morning."

There were countless similar stories both above and below ground level, some heroic and some more mundane but all of them showed London Transport's workers, both male and female to be truly dedicated towards helping keeping London moving despite the worst that could be thrown at them. London Transport truly carried on.

Published Sources:

London Transport at War 1939-45 - Charles Graves, Almark Publishing 1974
The Wheels Used to Talk To Us - Stan Collins and Terence Cooper, Tallis Publishing 1977
Routes to Recovery - Ken Glazier, Capital Transport, 2000