Strike Hard, Strike Sure; The Bomber Command Memorial

Strike Hard, Strike Sure (all images author's photos)

On the 28th June last, Her Majesty The Queen unveiled the new Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park, near Hyde Park Corner. The memorial attracted much attention from some quarters, ranging from the location in one of London’s Royal Parks, to the design and size of the memorial and even after seventy years, as to whether Bomber Command should be commemorated at all, given the controversial nature in some people’s eyes of the tactics used by the Command in the area bombing of German cities, even though these were the same tactics as used by the Luftwaffe only on a much larger scale and which the Nazis would surely have replicated had they been in possession of the necessary equipment. 

RAF Bomber Command seemed to attract controversy almost throughout the War; at the beginning the Command was equipped with mainly obsolescent twin engine designs which were totally unsuited for the tasks given to them of bombing German industrial and military targets. One early attack on German warships at Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbuttel was particularly disastrous with almost a quarter of the twenty nine aircraft despatched being shot down and with the bombs nearly all missing their targets. Ironically, the only bombs to do serious damage fell on the Danish city of Esbjerg, some 110 miles off course, where the two innocent people killed paid testament to the lack of training and preparedness of the crews.

The training of the men was to improve and the quality of the aircrew assigned to Bomber Command was never in doubt. The road to getting better and more suitable bomber aircraft was a long and tough one however. To begin with, like the Luftwaffe, the British bombers were mainly twin-engine and obsolescent designs but unlike the Luftwaffe who were operating from captured airfields in their newly occupied territories in France and the Low Countries, Bomber Command had to travel over almost exclusively hostile territory in order to reach their targets. The Hampdens, Blenheims and Whitleys were completely unsuited to the task and the Wellington, whilst being an ingeniously designed aeroplane from the genius of Barnes Wallis, could not on its own deliver a worthwhile bomb load over these distances. To begin with though, these aircraft were all that there were and the men had to make do with what they had. 

The centrepiece of the memorial

In the early days of the ‘Phoney War’ and after the early fiascos described above, the Command had nothing more lethal to drop than leaflets but following the Blitz on British cities and the change of politcal leadership in Britain, a re-appraisal of the Command’s role took place. It was quickly realised that the original plan for daylight precision bombing was not viable given the equipment available and the level of the defences. It was quickly decided to switch to area bombing by night, where the bombers would be safer from the German defences. This was the same lesson that had been learned the hard way by the Luftwaffe. As the war went on, Bomber Command was to continue to learn and to develop and would quickly leave its German counterpart trailing far behind.

One of the first developments were the night navigation aids called ‘Gee’ and ‘Oboe’, which were both radio beam aids which greatly improved accuracy. The obsolete aircraft types were steadily phased out with new four-engine ‘heavies’ coming into service, first the Stirling which was frankly not a success, followed by the Halifax and the supremely successful Lancaster, which was to become synonymous with Bomber Command. The manpower was greatly expanded, with large numbers of Commonwealth aircrew coming into play, along with many other Allied airmen – Poles, Free French, Czech and many others.

Aircrew looking skywards

The greatest change in the Command’s fortunes came with the appointment of Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris as C in C of Bomber Command in early 1942. His appointment coincided with the Area Bombing Directive of 14th February 1942, which ordered Bomber Command to target German industrial cities and the morale of the civilian population. The Command began to go on the offensive; the first German city to feel Harris’s wrath was Lubeck, which was firebombed by a modestly sized bomber force in March 1942. This was followed by Operation Millennium, when the city of Cologne was overwhelmed by a massive one thousand bomber force, in which attack Harris gambled the entire force of Bomber Command on the night of 30th/31st May 1942. The effect was shattering; the German civilian population was never allowed to feel secure and city after city began to tremble under the weight of Harris’s bomber force.

One of the many personal messages

There were many setbacks of course; for one, the Battle of Berlin as Harris dubbed it, did not result in the end of the war as he predicted but in a horrific sort of stalemate in which huge swathes of the city were destroyed at a cost of the lives of thousands of British and Commonwealth airmen. Hamburg, Dresden and Kassel amongst other cities were laid waste. Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Charles Portal, who as Chief of the Air Staff had been a leading advocate of area bombing, wrote post-war how he had visited Potsdam, a near suburb of Berlin and described how “Bert Harris removed the town of Potsdam in half an hour one night in April 1945.” So complete was the destruction that even Portal, a hardened airman well used to the horrors of bombing, was taken aback.

This victory of total bombing was not without cost; 55,573 British, Commonwealth and Allied members of Bomber Command died in carrying out their missions, as well as some 600,000 German victims of Allied bombing and 60,000 British victims of German air attacks. The controversy never left Bomber Command either; even at the time, there were those who questioned the morality of stooping to the same level as one’s enemy. After the destruction of Dresden, even Churchill began to distance himself from the policy of “bombing for terror’s sake alone” as he described it, although he was not responsible for the refusal of the incoming Labour government in 1945 to award a campaign medal for the “Old Lags” of Bomber Command as Harris had christened his ever-loyal aircrew. When he returned to power in 1951, Churchill made good his promise to honour Harris, who would accept nothing more than a Baronetcy and who would insist on wearing the Defence Medal, the same decoration as his men.

Lest we forget

Whatever the rights and wrongs and undoubted horrors of the Allied area bombing campaign, it was surely an outrage to continue to ignore the sacrifices made by the men of Bomber Command. Seventy years on, it looks as if no campaign medal will ever be forthcoming but at least the men now have a fitting memorial. Designed by Liam O’Connor, the striking memorial is built from Portland Stone and features as the centre piece a 2.7 metre high bronze statue, designed by Philip Jackson of seven bomber aircrew who have just returned from a mission and who are looking skyward, perhaps for their returning colleagues. The roof of the memorial is built from aluminium salvaged from a crashed Canadian Halifax bomber, discovered in Belgium (with the bodies of three aircrew still strapped in their seats) in 1997. The roof has been formed to evoke the Geodesic design of the famous Wellington bomber, a mainstay of the Command in the early years.

The memorial cost £5.6 million, which was raised by public donations as well as from substantial gifts from Lord Ashcroft, the businessman John Caudwell and from the late Robin Gibb, whose own father had served in Bomber Command. The result is a worthy memorial to the men of Bomber Command, as well as to the victims of all bombing during the Second World War.

When the memorial was officially unveiled by The Queen, some 6,000 surviving veterans and their families were present and no doubt many memories were rekindled during the course of the ceremony.

A glimpse of the roof formed from aluminium from a crashed Halifax bomber

When I visited the memorial a few days ago, I was extremely impressed by the design and execution of the monument, especially of the statue of the aircrew. I was also very moved by the many personal messages which had been placed at the feet of the aircrew and which made poignant reading, as well as reminding one that real people were involved here and that many memories still remain.

This is a fitting memorial, not only to the 55,573 brave men of Bomber Command but to all of the victims of bombing during the Second World War.

Lest we forget.

Published Sources:

Bomber Boys - Patrick Bishop, Harper Press - 2007

Bomber Command 1939-45 - Richard Overy, Harper Collins 1997

VCs of the Second World War - John Frayn Turner, Pen & Sword Military 2004

July during the Second World War

As we 'enjoy' our current wet summer, perhaps now is a good time to look back in history to see what was happening during the corresponding weeks during the Second World War. The month of July has always been one when the British civilian population at least, even in wartime, looked forward to some warmer weather and perhaps even a few precious days off. For those in the fighting services, wartime whether in July or December presented the same fears, trials and tribulations.

July 1940

Field Marshal Alanbrooke (courtesy IWM)

The first July of the War saw Britain at bay; her army, defeated in France had withdrawn across the Channel, culminating in the evacuation from Dunkirk which completed in early June and with further withdrawals from the Channel and Atlantic ports up until the middle of that month when France capitulated on the 18th June. The British Army, licking it's wounds was beginning the process of rebuilding and re-equipping following defeat in France. At this time, a then little known Lieutenant General by the name of Alan Brooke was the recently appointed Commander in Chief of Southern Command, the area likely to bear the brunt of the expected German invasion. Brooke was somewhat daunted by what he found; his diary entry for 2nd July, following a visit to the 50th Division in the West Country read "The more I see the nakedness of our defences, the more appalled I am! Untrained men, no arms, no transport and no equipment........The ghastly part of it is that I feel certain that we only have a few more weeks before the Boche attacks!"

Brooke, supported by his subordinate commanders including a certain Major General Bernard Montgomery was a superb trainer of men and as the weeks and months passed, he was to prove instrumental in rebuilding the Army and can indeed be justly described as one of the founders of the recovery of the British Army which was to return to Europe in triumph a little under four years later.

At sea, the Royal Navy continued with it's routine tasks around the globe. North Atlantic convoys to be marshalled and escorted across the 'pond', the Mediterranean to police and an as yet peaceful Far East to patrol. Often employed on unglamorous duties, the Royal Navy was solid and dependable.

In the air, this week saw the opening of what we now describe as The Battle of Britain, a conflict that was to last until the end of October 1940 and which saw the beginning of the Blitz against London and other British towns and cities but which was to ultimately represent the first meaningful of the Third Reich in battle and which was to ultimately avert any threat of invasion to this country due to the inability of the Luftwaffe to wrest command of the skies from the RAF. Without such air supremacy, any invasion fleet would have been blown out of the water by the Royal Navy. 

July 10th 1940 saw the opening skirmishes in the Battle; Channel convoys were attacked and seventy German bombers attacked Swansea and Falmouth, killing thirty people and causing damage to shipping, railways and a power station. A train was also strafed near Newhaven in Sussex, killing the driver and severely injuring the Guard. The losses on each side reflected what was to become the pattern of the Battle; thirteen German bombers were lost for the loss of six British fighters. We shall return to this epic battle in the weeks ahead.

July 1941

One year later saw Britain in a much stronger position, although still standing alone. Brooke was still GOC Southern Command. Although the threat of invasion had largely passed, Brooke was still determined to get the Army trained to the peak of it's abilities. He was also beginning to have his first encounters with Winston Churchill, something which was to become all too familiar for him in the coming years following his promotion to Chief of the Imperial General Staff or CIGS - the professional head of the British Army. In North Africa, the Army had enjoyed it's only true successes against the Axis but had already fallen back following the dilution of it's forces into the Greek and Crete campaigns and had fallen back to Sollum leaving Tobruk beseiged and beginning the British association with those place names from the North African desert which were to become so familiar with both public and military alike over the next couple of years - Sollum, Tobruk, Sidi Barani, Bardia and of course, El Alamein amongst others. 

HMS Hood

The Royal Navy had fought another major action in May of 1941 when the German battleship Bismarck had made it's brief foray into the North Atlantic, sinking the pride of the Navy, HMS Hood but herself being overwhelmed by the Home Fleet a few days later. In the North Atlantic, the convoy battles continued unabated, although July 1941 saw the British enjoying the fruits of the 'Ultra' decrypts of the German 'Enigma' code traffic and at this time were able to successfully re-route convoys around Donitz's Wolf Packs and keep merchant ship losses to a minimum.

The RAF, with the Battle of Britain safely won and with the commanders of that battle, Dowding and Park scandalously dismissed, were embarking on the disastrous policy of 'leaning towards the enemy' with huge fighter sweeps over occupied France, resulting in heavy losses and proving that the new commanders Sholto-Douglas and Leigh-Mallory had learned nothing from the experiences of the Luftwaffe only a year previously. Fighters flying over enemy territory which were lost meant almost certainly losing the highly trained aircrew as well as the aircraft. Aircraft could easily be replaced but replacing the men was a different matter. RAF Bomber Command was not yet really able to truly go onto the offensive; in July 1941, it's main operations were still mining German ports and attacking German shipping, usually with unimpressive results. It's day was still to come.

July 1942

Britain was no longer fighting alone and the Second World War had become a truly global conflict. Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941 had brought the USA into the war. The subsequent loss of Singapore and Hong Kong as well as Britain's other possessions in the Far East had brought Great Britain into conflict with a new and even more unpleasant enemy than Nazi Germany. Somewhat bizarrely, Hitler declared war on the United States, thus ensuring ultimate Allied victory in the longer term. As with the beginning of the German war, this conflict also began disastrously for the Allies. When Singapore fell on 15th February 1942, the British and Commonwealth Armies lost 130,000 men as prisoners to the Japanese - the biggest disaster in British military history. The Americans had also suffered similar humiliating reverses in the Philippines, losing some 75,000 prisoners to Japanese captivity and with all the privations and brutality that went with it. 

The ruins of Cologne in 1945 (US Dept of Defense)

Russia had also been attacked by the Germans. Operation Barbarossa had commenced on 22nd June 1941 with the intention of invading Russia and taking them out of the war. Had this succeeded, the brief respite enjoyed by the British would have quickly ended, with the entire might and fury of the Nazis once again turned towards the west. It was therefore vital to keep the Soviet Union in the war and this meant keeping the Russians supplied. The Russian Convoys became a millstone around the necks of the Royal Navy as well as the merchant navies of the Free World. Convoy PQ17 was to become an infamous bloodbath, when the British Admiralty under the nit-picking direction of Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, ordered the convoy to scatter on 4th July 1942 due to faulty intelligence that German heavy units were at sea. This information was nonsense and the scattering of this convoy merely served up the vast majority of the convoy into the arms of the Luftwaffe and waiting U-Boats. Of the thirty six merchant ships that sailed from Reykjavik, Iceland on 27th June 1942, twenty three were sunk by U-Boat and air attack. Two more returned to Iceland, which meant that a mere eleven made it through to Russia. It was difficult enough to operate convoys through this part of the World when the daylight was permanent as it was at this time of the year but Pound's interference and faulty dispositions made this a shameful event in Allied naval history. As a result of this fiasco, the Russian convoys were to be suspended until the onset of darkness and it was not until September 1942 that the next Artic convoy was to set out. Future convoys were to be much more heavily escorted and the advent of the Escort Aircraft Carrier was also to help tip the scales in favour of the Allies.

By July 1942, RAF Bomber Command had a new chief. Sir Arthur Travers Harris, known to his aircrew as 'Butch' (short for Butcher) and to the public as 'Bomber' had assumed command in February 1942. He immediately changed the mindset of the Command by going onto the offensive and targetting German cities with the express aim of undermining the morale of the German civilian population. Lubeck had been the first German city to feel the Harris touch, when on 28th March 1942, the historic city centre perished in a firestorm. By 30th/31st May 1942, Harris had upped the stakes by unleashing the first 1,000 bomber raid on the city of Cologne. Germany was indeed beginning to reap the whirlwind and much worse was to follow for the German public in the months and years to come.

July 1943

By now, the Allies were firmly on the front foot in Europe at least. By the summer of 1943, the Axis forces had been cleared from North Africa and were looking forward to the invasion of Sicily. To try and throw the Germans off their guard, an ingenious if somewhat macabre scheme was hatched, which was called Operation Mincemeat, or perhaps better known as immortalised in the film 'The Man Who Never Was' in which the corpse of a fictitious 'Major Martin' was floated ashore in Spain from a British submarine. The body was loaded with fake documents which all pointed towards an Allied invasion of Sardinia, rather than the obvious choice of Sicily. It was a huge gamble but knowing that the Spanish regime was basically friendly towards the Nazis, it was a gamble worth taking. The Germans swallowed 'Mincemeat' and diverted vital Army units to face a non-existent invasion of Sardinia and whilst the invasion of Sicily was no picnic, many Allied lives were saved and the Allies had their foothold on mainland Europe.

The RAF's bombing offensive continued. The famous Dambusters raid had occurred in May 1943 but for the rest of Bomber Command, German cities remained the main target. In July 1943, 115,021 tons of bombs were dropped by the RAF alone on German cities. The USAAF added to the weight of bombs by daylight.

On the Eastern Front, the Battle of Kursk started on 5th July 1943 and was to ebb and flow until 23rd August by which stage both sides had fought themselves to a standstill. Kursk was to see the largest tank battle in history, with each side employing in the region of 3,000 tanks.

July 1944

The Normandy landings had taken place on 6th June 1944. Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious invasion in history. By July 1944, the Allied armies were still building up their strength and were in danger in becoming bogged down in the bocage country around Caen. Whilst ultimate Allied victory was probably never in doubt, the fear of the warfare becoming a static affair was always at the back of Allied minds. The ground commander, General Montgomery was coming under pressure for his perceived over-cautious approach. This pressure was not only forthcoming from some of his American colleagues but also from those on the British side who should have known better, some of whom like the airmen Tedder and Coningham were driven by an intense personal dislike of Montgomery. The British General was never an easy person to understand or to get along with and was by this stage of his career a hugely conceited character, although undoubtedly 'a winner'. It is to the immense credit of the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower that he allowed Monty to continue in command, although his relationship with the British General was never an easy one. 

On the Home Front, the first V-1 Flying Bomb had fallen on the Capital on 13th June 1944. By July, despite improved countermeasures, they were still falling regularly on London. On 18th June, the Guards Chapel had fallen victim with the loss of 121 lives in the worst single incident involving these weapons. On 30th June another of these weapons had fallen in the Aldwych between Adastral House, home of the Air Ministry and Bush House with the loss of some 46 lives. It was clear that whilst the conventional Blitz was long over, London was being subjected to a new terror of 'robots' as these bombs became known. The capture of the Pas de Calais launch sites put paid to this threat in September 1944 but it had been extremely unpleasant while it lasted, with some 6,000 becoming victims to these weapons. Worse was to follow later in the year when the first of the V-2 rockets was to fall on London and this particular weapon was to blight London almost until the end of the war in Europe. On the Eastern Front, the Russian advance continued relentlessly, with the German Army Groups Centre and South being destroyed in the Lvov and Belorussian offensives.

At sea, the focus of the war in Europe remained the convoys across the Atlantic and to Russia and the U-Boats, although on the back foot, were far from defeated. The fleet facing the Japanese started to build and on 17th July, the submarine HMS Telemachus destroyed the Japanese submarine I-166 in the Malacca Straits. The submarine war in this theatre was the prelude to much wider ranging operations both in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

July 1945

The European War was over; Germany had unconditionally surrendered in May 1945 and the Allies were now faced with administering a ruined country and with the first murmurings of distrust within the great alliance with the Russians which was to culminate in the distrust and the eventual start of the Cold War.

On July 5th 1945, the first General Election was held in Great Britain for almost ten years. Winston Churchill, who had led the country to victory in the wartime coalition government was widely expected to be returned to power. The counting of the votes was an unusually protracted affair since the hundreds of thousands of servicemen's votes had to be returned to the UK for counting. However, when the count was complete and the result was announced on 26th July, Churchill had been voted out and the Labour Party under Clement Attlee had been voted into power in a landslide victory. The British people wanted change and no return to the social injustices of the 1930's and they saw Attlee rather than Churchill as the man most likely to introduce these changes and to bring Britain into the modern age.

Churchill had been attending the Potsdam Conference, the final meeting of the so called "Big Three" and had returned home for the result, no doubt expecting to return to the conference shortly afterwards. It was not to be and Mr Attlee was to take his place as Prime Minister alongside Harry Truman, himself newly installed as American President following the passing of Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. This Conference was to shape postwar Europe and the administration of Germany for the next 45 years.

In the Far East, the war against the Japanese continued and was expected to continue for possibly another two years, culminating in a conventional land invasion of mainland Japan, which had it occurred, would have cost the lives of many hundreds of thousands of Allied servicemen. The Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were to dramatically shorten the war by avoiding the need for an invasion. The 240,000 civilian casualties as a direct result of the bombs as well as the many thousands of subsequent deaths from radiation burns and other related illnesses are the subject of another debate.

Rangoon had fallen to the British Fourteenth Army in May and the remainder of Burma was liberated by the end of July. The final campaign in the Tenasserim Province cost the Japanese ten thousand troops at minimal cost for the British. The next stage of the campaign was to have been an amphibious assault to re-take Malaya but once again, the Atomic Bombs forestalled this, although the operation, codenamed 'Zipper' was still undertaken post-war as the quickest method of occupying Malaya.

At sea, the East Indies and British Pacific Fleets were in the thick of the action and although the latter fleet tended to be overshadowed by the vast American effort in this theatre, it was nevertheless the largest fleet ever put together by the Royal Navy and acquitted itself was great distinction. On 17th July, the British Pacific Fleet, aka Task Force 37 was operating as part of the US Third Fleet, attacking airfields and shipping north of Tokyo and would be at the forefront of the action right up until the Japanese surrender on August 15th and beyond.

So, as we can see the month of July throughout the Second World War was often the backdrop for momentous events in history. Obviously a blog such as this can merely scratch the surface in describing the events mentioned above. To study them in more detail, the following source reading is recommended.

Printed Sources:

The Black Bull: From Normandy to The Baltic with 11th Armoured Division - Patrick Delaforce, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1993
Bomber Command 1939-45 - Richard Overy, Harper Collins, 1997
Decision in Normandy - Carlo D'Este, Penguin,  2001
The Forgotten Fleet - John Winton, Douglas-Boyd, 1989
Hitler's U-Boat War - Clay Blair, Cassell, 2000
The Narrow Margin - Derek Wood with Derek Dempster, Tri-Service Press, 1990
War Diaries 1939-45 Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke - Alex Danchev & Daniel Todman (ed.), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001
The War at Sea - John Winton (ed.) - Hutchinson, 1967

What My Dad did in The War

LAC Ronald Hunnisett

Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War? So read a recruiting poster for the 1914-18 conflict, which showed two small children with their father. The little boy is playing soldiers on the floor, whilst the little girl, sat on her father's lap is asking the question of the uncomfortable looking daddy, who obviously had not taken part in the fighting. It was a clever poster, designed to ensure that men would come forward to join the colours. This of course, was in the days before conscription was introduced, which was much fairer method of ensuring that nobody could duck out of the process.

Nearly twenty one years after the end of the Great War, the World found itself plunged into another conflict and a chance sighting of the poster mentioned above set me thinking about the role played by my late father, Ronald Hunnisett and the many millions of ordinary men like him that played their own small part in great events of history. 

Ron's own wartime service began on 27th April 1939, when he enlisted in the Territorial Army, joining his local Royal Artillery Regiment in his native Hastings, which at that time was still equipped with horse drawn 18 pounder artillery pieces dating from the Great War. It was not until shortly before the outbreak of war that the unit was mechanised and eventually upgraded to the superb 25 pounder field guns.

Dad was just an 'ordinary Joe' and would have been the first to admit that in comparison to some, his wartime service was modest but the truth is, that because of my Dad and his generation, we are now able to enjoy the freedom that we now take for granted. In short the World as we know it exists thanks to these men and women. Dad would never have described himself as a hero but what he and his generation did was nothing short of heroic. Many were not as lucky as Dad, who despite the disruption to his life, did at least live to see the peace returnand to enjoy the fruits of victory.

Ron's first overseas service was as part of the ill-fated expedition to Norway. Things didn't go quite according to plan; the ship carrying the guns was sunk, so my Dad's unit arrived in Norway without their most vital equipment. Ron didn't speak much of this aspect of his service, so I guess that perhaps he saw things that he didn't particularly wish to dwell upon but after a short time, he was evacuated back to the UK with his unit in order to re-equip. Some leave followed, during which time on a visit to London with an Army friend, he met the lady who was to become his wife and my Mother. The young lady concerned, who was to become Doris Hunnisett worked with and was a close friend of my Dad's friend's wife and though they met in the summer of 1940, it was to be another four years before they were to meet again and be wed after a long distance courtship. 

During this leave period, my Dad spent a couple of nights fire watching with my Grandfather, who was an ARP Warden and following this leave, it was overseas again when he embarked at Liverpool on the troopship "Athlone Castle" to head for the Middle East. The convoy sailed on 10th September 1940 and it was about this time that Ron somehow acquired a camera and though against the regulations, he began to keep a photographic record of his overseas service. The "Athlone Castle" formed part of convoy AP3/1 and sailed via the Cape and Aden to Suez where Dad disembarked to begin nearly four years service in North Africa. By this time, Ron was serving with 9 Amphibious Operations Battery, Royal Artillery and looking at his photographs, one can see that although his unit wasn't at the front line, he did see service at places that became household names in the Desert War. Places such as Mersa Matruh, Siwa and El Alamein feature in his album. There are shots of knocked out tanks, 25 pounder guns, a 'pranged' Kittyhawk fighter that was once flown by the Australian 'ace' pilot Nicky Barr and the German mobile gun that was knocked out by Private Adam Wakenshaw of the 9th Bn., Durham Light Infantry in an amazing action that earned the 28 year old Geordie a posthumous Victoria Cross and which enabled his unit to withdraw in safety.

Knocked out tank - Mersa Matruh

Somewhat unusually, in December 1941, Dad transferred from the Army to the RAF Regiment. He was never very forthcoming about the reasons behind this but always stated it was simply a case of volunteering because he and a mate had heard that the RAF boys slept in beds with sheets, whereas in the Army they only had blankets! I could never get any more out of him than that, so maybe it was as simple as that!

Dad's RAF service was basically uneventful, although he was at El Alamein for the second battle and remembered vividly the massive artillery barrage that preceeded the battle. His later service was away from the front line and he spent time in Trans-Jordan (as that country was then known) as an instructor and later in Jerusalem and Habbaniyah before as he described it in his album 'The day I waited for' came along and Ron returned to the United Kingdom, arriving back at Greenock on 6th June 1944, when a certain other operation was beginning at the other end of the country!

Dad was then posted to RAF Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, which could not have been a more different environment than the North African desert. In September 1944, Ron was married to Doris and the newly married couple enjoyed a weekend's honeymoon in Stornoway. Dad's service record at this time shows him undertaking an Embarkation Assistant's course in preparation for his unit's departure for the Far East and the Japanese war. Fortunately for Ron and many more like him, the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki precluded the need for him to venture overseas once again and the remainder of his service was spent quietly in the UK before he was demobbed in July 1946.

Dad didn't speak much of his wartime service to me at first, although when he realised that I was genuinely interested, he did open up a little but only to talk of the happy times he had. Whenever he met up with friends from his wartime service, then they would talk and many is the time I remember Mum raising her eyebrows and commenting "Here we go, back to the Desert!" as some of the more well-worn stories were wheeled out!

After his demob, Dad eschewed the chance of joining the Metropolitan Police as he felt that he had "spent enough time in uniform" but instead worked in the Merchant Navy, mainly in a shore based role for the next thirty five years before spending his final working years with the London Borough of Greenwich until his retirement in 1987. Sadly, Ron passed away in 1990 aged 68 without being able to enjoy very much of his retirement.

My Dad's medals

Dad would never apply for his wartime medals as he rightly felt that he shouldn't have to apply for something that were rightfully his and that had been earned by nearly seven years of service to his country. However, some twenty years after his passing, I did apply for them and today his modest array of medals are proudly on display at my home to remind me both of him and his wartime service. Ron didn't perform any heroic acts and his service was unremarkable but he and millions like him gave up a large chunk of their youth in order to preserve the freedom of subsequent generations. My Dad was a hero to me and we owe all of his generation a huge debt of gratitude.

I have uploaded some of Ron's wartime photographs onto the Flickr photo-sharing site and they can be viewed by following this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveumpire/sets/72157623028521951/

I'd also be interested in hearing of the wartime exploits of the ancestors of any of the followers of this blog, so if you have any stories to pass on, please let me know.

Published Sources:

Arnold Hague Convoy Database http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/hague/index.html

Unpublished Sources:

Author's family reminiscences

The Mighty Hood and the pursuit of Battleship Bismarck

I had planned to publish the following entry last weekend but laptop problems precluded this, hence the slightly belated recognition of the anniversary of this action.

KMS Bismarck (Bundesarchiv photo)

Last weekend marked the seventy first anniversary of the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck following an epic six day sea chase following her break-out from Norway, during which time just about every major unit in the Royal Navy was involved in the hunt for this threat to British sea power. During this chase, Bismarck also obliterated the pride of the Royal Navy, the battlecruiser HMS Hood in a short action which saw the loss of over fourteen hundred of her ship’s company leaving just three survivors to be plucked from the icy North Atlantic.

The origins of the Bismarck can be traced to the rise to power of the Nazis. During the Great War, the Imperial German Navy had challenged the Royal Navy for supremacy at sea although following their tactical defeat at Jutland had rarely ventured from their home ports except when proceeding to Scapa Flow for their ignominious surrender in 1918, an event which haunted the officers of this service, including one Erich Raeder, at that time holding the rank of Fregattenkapitan or Commander. By the time the Nazis came to power in 1933, Raeder was an Admiral and the man chosen by Hitler to head the Kriegsmarine as the reconstituted German Navy was to be known. Hitler vowed to build a new High Seas Fleet and although Raeder did not support the Nazis or agree with their ideals, the promise of heading this new fleet was too hard for him to resist. 

 Erich Raeder (Bundesarchiv photo)

At the heart of the ideal was ‘Plan Z’, a scheme for a balanced fleet of battleships, pocket battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and of course submarines designed to challenge the Royal Navy, still at that time by far the largest in the World. The Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz were amongst some of the first vessels in this new fleet. To build a new fleet virtually from scratch takes time but there seemed no cause for hurry, for Hitler had assured Raeder that conflict with England would not come before 1945, by which time this new fleet would be virtually complete. Like most of Hitler’s promises, this one was to go seriously awry and when war came in 1939, the fledgling Kriegsmarine, could in Raeder’s own words, do little to the British “except to demonstrate to them how to die gallantly.”

It was against this background in August 1940 that Bismarck was commissioned at her builders, the famous Blohm & Voss yard in Hamburg. Despite their numerical disadvantage, it was planned that Bismarck should form a powerful squadron with her sister and the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and to make a foray into the Atlantic creating havoc amongst the British convoy routes. This mission was planned for April 1941 but this formidable squadron was never to see action. Gneisenau was torpedoed in Brest harbour and subsequently bombed whilst under repair, Scharnhorst needed boiler repairs and Tirpitz was late in being completed by her builders. A scaled down version of this sortie was therefore planned, with the giant battleship teaming up with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen to mount the raid. Hitler, anxious to avoid the loss of his precious ships was wary of the whole idea but reluctantly went along with the plan and the two ships duly sailed from their Norwegian hideout on 21st May under the command of Admiral Gunther Lutjens.

The British had been aware of the vessels hiding away in the fjords and had organised photographic reconnaissance aircraft to capture them on film. Once they had been found to sail, the hunt was on and Admiral Sir John Tovey, commander of the British Home Fleet, ordered the battlecruiser HMS Hood and the newly commissioned battleship HMS Prince of Wales to sail from Scapa Flow and intercept the German vessels in the Denmark Strait. Although powerfully armed, Hood was effectively obsolete, having been designed during the Great War and although scheduled for a major rebuild to bring her up to modern standards, the war had come too soon to allow this and she had had to continue in her un-modernised condition. To compound the problem, Prince of Wales was fresh from the builder’s yard and indeed, still had workers from Cammell Laird’s shipyard aboard ironing out snags in her main armament amongst other things.

HMS Hood in 1924 (State Library of Victoria)

At 05:52 on the 24th May 1941, HMS Hood opened fire, closely followed by her consort. Bismarck returned fire; her shooting was remarkably accurate and with only her fifth salvo, struck Hood a mortal blow with her 15 inch main armament. Her thin deck armour penetrated, Hood simply exploded – her magazines detonating and breaking the graceful battlecruiser in two. She sank in seconds and just three survivors were later pulled from the water by the escorting British destroyers. Of the remaining 1,415 men of her ships’s company, not a trace, not a single body was to be found. The pride of the Royal Navy had gone. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen then shifted their fire to the Prince of Wales, which in turn was also heavily hit but not before the British battleship had hit the German vessel hard, piercing one of her fuel tanks, causing her to leave a tell-tale stream of fuel oil in her wake and more importantly limiting her range and scope for further operations.

The secrecy of the mission blown and the German battleship seriously damaged, Lutjens decided to abandon the sortie and make for the French Atlantic port of Brest. Prinz Eugen was detached and slipped away undetected by the shadowing British cruisers, whilst Bismarck forged her way to safety. The British used their huge numerical superiority to bring in ships from all over the Atlantic and even from the Mediterranean. The aircraft carriers Victorious and Ark Royal launched strikes with their venerable Swordfish torpedo bombers and it was a strike from the latter carrier, which was to strike Bismarck what proved to be a mortal blow.

A fortunate torpedo strike hit Bismarck right astern and disabled her steering gear, causing her to steam an erratic and ultimately circular course. She could only await her doom, as almost within touching distance of Brest and air cover but in appalling weather, she was tracked down by the Royal Navy. Tovey’s flagship HMS King George V  had rendezvoused with another battleship, HMS Rodney and prior to this, Bismarck had been harried by British destroyers, attempting to further slow her with torpedoes. Shortly after daybreak on the 27th May, the British battleships opened fire and between them began to pulverise the once proud super-battleship and by 10:00 had reduced her to a blazing wreck, with hundreds of men dead and dying. Tovey called on any of his ships with torpedoes remaining to use them on Bismarck to finish her and shortly after 10:40, having been hit repeatedly by torpedoes fired by the cruiser Dorsetshire, the former pride of the Kriegsmarine slid beneath the waves, leaving hundreds of men in the water.

To paraphrase Lord Nelson, humanity after victory has always been the predominant feature of the British Fleet and following the demise of the Bismarck, the victors set about rescuing the vanquished survivors but in a final tragedy, one of the lookouts aboard Dorsetshire, spotted what he thought was the periscope of a U-Boat. Fearing the worst, the British abandoned the rescue attempt and scattered, having rescued just one hundred and ten men, one of whom later died. There was no U-Boat, although one was soon to arrive and managed to pick up a further three men with a German trawler rescuing another two. Out of a total of two thousand two hundred men aboard Bismarck, there were just one hundred and fourteen survivors.

This article is dedicated to those men of Hood and Bismarck, the pride of their respective fleets, who did not return to their home ports.

Published Sources:

The Battle of The Atlantic - John Costello & Terry Hughes, Collins 1977

Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Bismarck - Ludovic Kennedy, Cassell 2001

The War at Sea - Julian Thompson, Sidgwick & Jackson 1996 

Barnes Wallis, Guy Gibson and The Dambusters Raid

This week marked the sixty ninth anniversary of the RAF's raid on the great dams of the Ruhr, that has gone down in British folklore as The Dambusters raid, and which has been commemorated in the magnificent film of the same name with that music, composed by Eric Coates.

Wing Cdr. Guy Gibson and his crew (courtesy IWM)

The raid itself, although executed with great expertise and determination by Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC and his men of 617 Squadron, was in retrospect, only partially successful and was only achieved at tremendous cost. Of the nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers that set out from RAF Scampton, eight failed to return - a loss rate of forty percent. More important was the human cost; fifty three RAF aircrew were killed and three more taken prisoner. On the ground, two of the three targetted dams - the Mohne and Eder Dams - were breached but a third and arguably the most important - the Sorpe Dam - proved impossible to break. None the less, the damage caused was severe; German industry was severely disrupted for a matter of months although quickly recovered due to the failure of the RAF to mount follow-up raids on the dams whilst repairs were being undertaken. Ironically, for such an industrial target as these dams, much of the damage caused was to German agriculture. Vast areas of arable land were simply washed away by the ensuing flood waters and was not usable again until the 1950s. The loss of life on the ground was also high, with some 1,600 people being killed but again with supreme irony, many of these were Prisoners of War and forced labourers working in the Ruhr industries and therefore to the Nazis, supremely expendable.

Despite this debateable success, the raid proved a great fillip to the British public who were anxious to see the battle taken to the Nazis and also demonstrated to Stalin that the RAF were capable of mounting a sustained bomber offensive that could help take the pressure off his beleagured eastern front until such time as the Allies could open a genuine second front by means of an invasion of western Europe.

Much has been written and broadcast about this raid and it is impossible in a blog of this nature to discuss every facet of the raid in great detail but we can examine some of the people involved and how Operation Chastise to give the raid it's official name came into being.

Barnes Wallis

It is important to remember that the raid came out of an initial concept of a weapon designed by Barnes Wallis, who was the Assistant Chief Designer at Vickers. Wallis was a proven designer of quality and innovative designs such as the Wellington bomber with it's geodetic construction of huge strength that was capable of absorbing massive punishment and still being able to fly home. His initial concept of the Bouncing Bomb was of a ten tonne weapon designed to skim the surface as an anti-shipping device. The skimming aspect came out of a need to be able to skip over protective booms and nets, something that a conventional torpedo or mine was unable to do. The weapon was also quickly seen as a viable means of attacking the great dams of Germany - targets that had been identified as early as 1937 by the RAF planners in selecting targets when war with that country began to look inevitable. Testing of the bomb, firstly a scaled down version at the Building Research Establishment in Watford and later at the disused Nant-y-Gro Dam in Wales, convinced Wallis that the ten tonne concept was neither viable (no aircraft existed at the time capable of carrying such a weapon) nor necessary. Once he realised that a smaller version capable of being carried by the existing Lancaster bomber would suffice, full scale trials were carried out at Chesil Beach in January 1943. Wallis now had to sell his idea to the powers that be within the RAF, which effectively meant getting the scheme past the formidable head of Bomber Command, Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, who was notoriously opposed to anything that diverted resources away from his beloved area bombing plan and to whom scientists like Wallis were often dismissed as 'Panacea Merchants.' Indeed, Harris wrote initially that he felt that this scheme was "tripe of the highest order." However, this skepticism was not to last; Harris and his superior, Sir Charles Portal were sufficiently impressed upon meeting Wallis that Harris authorised the formation of a special squadron to undertake the mission. As a result, 617 Squadron was born and selected to lead this elite formation, was a 24 year veteran RAF officer - Wing Commander Guy Penrose Gibson.

Gibson had been born in India in 1918 but had returned to England with his parents, aged six, in 1924. He had joined the RAF in 1936 and had become a Pilot Officer in 1936. On the outbreak of war in 1939, Gibson was serving with 83 Squadron, flying Hampden bombers on raids into Germany and in July 1940 had won his first DFC. On completion of his first operational tour of 27 missions, instead of taking the usual six month rest from operational flying with a training unit, or desk job, Gibson volunteered for further flying duties with Fighter Command, flying Blenheim night fighters. He enjoyed great success in this role and on termination of his night fighter duties in December 1941, was awarded a bar to his DFC - effectively a second award of this coveted medal. In January 1942, he finally accepted a position as Chief Instructor at an Operational Training Unit or OTU, being posted to 51 OTU but in April 1942 was promoted to Wing Commander and posted in command of 106 Squadron in Bomber Command, flying the new Avro Manchester and later Lancaster bombers. After completing a further 46 sorties, he was selected to lead the new 617 Squadron to be based at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire.

Gibson was not universally popular; he was something of a martinet and mixed socially only with fellow officers, rather than with his NCOs. He was known by his squadron subordinates, only half affectionally, as 'The Arch Bastard' but his professionalism and devotion to his duty was never in doubt and for all of his disciplinarian traits, he was also thought to be fair minded and reasonable towards his men and understanding of their problems. 

Having selected the leader, the squadron members had to be chosen and Gibson selected twenty one bomber crews from within 5 Group, Bomber Command and as well as British crews, Gibson picked men from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, making 617 Squadron a truly Commonwealth affair.

'Upkeep' bomb at IWM (courtesy IWM)

The Bouncing Bomb, codenamed Upkeep was designed to be delivered from low level, at night - from a terrifying sixty feet at an airspeed of 390 mph, so low flying practice was relentlessly pursued until the squadron could deliver the bombs faultlessly. At this frighteningly low altitude, the Lancasters altimeters were not sufficiently accurate and so a system of light beams, designed to converge at sixty feet was devised, as well as a simple aiming device designed to line up on the towers on the dam walls, when the bomber was at the correct distance from the dam to release the bomb.

Time was now pressing; the combination of optimum water levels in the dam and full moonlight was on the night of 16th/17th May 1943 and so after the final full scale practices over Derwent Water at the end of April, the Upkeep bombs were delivered to the squadron on 13th May. Such was the secrecy surrounding this mission, that it was only on the 15th May - the day before the mission - that Gibson's deputy, Flt Lt John 'Hoppy' Hopgood, his two flight commanders, Sqn Leaders Harry Maudsley and 'Dinghy' Young, together with his bombing leader Flt Lt John Hay, were briefed as to the targets. The remainder of the crews were not briefed until immediately prior to the mission but such had been the intensity of their training, the actual names of the targets were unimportant - the work to reach and hit them had already been done. It just remained to put the training into effect.

On the evening of 16th May, the Lancasters took off and followed carefully planned routes over Holland and Germany at one hundred feet. The squadron had been divided into three formation - one for the Mohne and Eder Dams, one for the Sorpe Dam and the third as a mobile reserve to replace any aircraft lost or to attack secondary target dams at the Ennepe, Schwelm and Diemel sites. As related earlier, the Mohne and Eder Dams were destroyed and breached - the politically incorrect codeword 'Nigger' (the name of Gibson's black labrador dog) for the Mohne and 'Dinghy' for the Eder being radioed back to Bomber Command as a sign of success. The Sorpe Dam was a tougher nut to crack; the bombing approach was difficult and being an earthen dam, rather than the more usual concrete walled variety, the Upkeep bombs energy was absorbed by the walls and only relatively minor damage was caused. All the bombs were used up and there was no alternative but the remaining Lancasters to return home.

As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the human cost was high. Some 1,600 lives were lost on the ground, mainly due to the advancing deluge. The RAF losses amounted to forty percent - an appalling figure which could not be sustained. Barnes Wallis was essentially a peaceful man but one who recognised that Nazi tyranny had to be destroyed whatever the cost. Despite this, Roy Chadwick, the designer of the Lancaster, recalled seeing Wallis in tears when he learned of the losses of so many "wonderful young men."

So ended Operation Chastise - a mission that was to enter British and RAF folklore but what became of those involved that night?

Wing Commander Guy Gibson was awarded the Victoria Cross, the nation's highest military honour, for his role in the planning and execution of the Dams Raid and was immediately removed from flying operations and sent on a lecture tour of the USA, as much as anything as a way of keeping this young hero out of harm's way. This lecture tour took place at a time when the first USAAF airmen were coming home tour-expired after 25 missions over German territory and during questions following one talk, Gibson was asked how many missions over Germany he had undertaken. When he replied "one hundred and seventy four", there was a stunned silence in the room. Despite this respite, Gibson was anxious for a return to operational flying and in 1944 was posted as a Master Bomber based at RAF Coningsby flying Mosquitos. On 19th September 1944, Gibson's luck ran out and he was shot down - possibly in a friendly fire incident - over Steenbergen in Holland. Gibson was just 26 years of age.

Barnes Wallis, despite his peace loving nature, devoted himself to finding methods to destroy Nazi Germany, devising ever more powerful bombs. First came the Tallboy weighing in at 6 tonnes and then the truly awesome Grand Slam which was a devastating 10 tonne weapon. Both of these bombs were aerodynamically shaped for deep penetration and their description as 'Earthquake' Bombs was very apt. Many highly important strategic targets such as V2 and V3 launch sites, submarine pens, railway viaducts and perhaps most famously, the German battleship Tirpitz fell victim to these fearsome weapons. Wallis also devised a refinement of the Upkeep weapon, named Highball, which was specifically designed as an anti-ship weapon to be used in the Far East but which was not deployed before the end of that war. Post war, Wallis continued his design work and was a great champion of swing-wing technology, as well as being a design consultant for the Parkes River Radio Telescope in Australia. Wallis also continued his aircraft design work but possibly because he had seen so much death at close quarters during the Dams Raids, used models as much as possible during his test works, so as not to expose his test pilots to unnecessary dangers. Barnes Wallis was knighted in 1968 and died aged 92, in 1979.

617 Squadron Badge

617 Squadron RAF continued during the war as Bomber Command's elite unit, being selected for precision attacks on the Dortmund-Ems Canal, U-Boat Pens and the aforementioned raid on the Tirpitz on 12th November 1944. The leaders of the squadron in these post-Gibson days were Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC and later Wing Commander Willie Tait. After the war, the squadron re-equipped with the Avro Lincoln and later entered the jet age with the Canberra and the V-Bomber era with the Avro Vulcan. The squadron continues in service to this day, now equipped with the Panavia Tornado and has seen action in the Gulf War in 1991 as well as in Iraq in 2003. The squadron badge and motto 'Apres Moi Le Deluge' is a nod to the past and the reason behind the original formation of the squadron.

Some revisionist historians would have us believe that the Dams Raid was a waste of time, resources and valuable lives. Whilst there may be some mileage in this argument, there can be no doubt that in 1943, the raids provided a major boost to British morale and also demonstrated to our Russian allies that a sustained Allied bombing campaign was a serious proposition. The raid did cause massive damage to the Nazi war industries, even if for only a relatively short period of time and did demonstrate to the Nazi heirarchy that nowhere in the Reich was safe.The raid was also a further demonstration of British technical innovation as well as the great skill and determination of Gibson and his men in carrying out the operation.

To Barnes Wallis, to Guy Gibson and to the men of 617 Squadron, we owe a huge debt of gratitude - especially to the fifty three men who did not return from the night of 16th/17th May 1943.

Published Sources:

Bomber Command 1939-45 - Richard Overy, Harper Collins 1997

Bomber Boys - Patrick Bishop, HarperPress 2007

Bomber Harris - Henry Probert, Greenhill Books 2001

Dambusters - Max Arthur, Virgin Books 2008

War and The Weather

The recent and regular deluges of rain have forced Neil and I to cancel a couple of our scheduled Sunday walks and it is fair to say that we have been thinking of renaming our business 'Blitzwaders', so bad have things become. However, the recent interventions of the weather are a ready reminder of how easily the best planned operations of war can fall foul of the elements and also how good or bad fortune with forecasting of the weather could easily spell the difference between an operation running smoothly or going catastrophically wrong, with all of the associated implications.

Group Captain JM Stagg RAF

Perhaps the best known example of weather forecasting affecting an operation of war was during the run-up to 'Operation Overlord' - the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. So important was the impact of the weather on this monumental operation, that General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, had a meteorological department attached to his staff. The man chosen to be at the head of this organisation was Group Captain JM Stagg RAF, a somewhat dour Scotsman, upon whose shoulders the success or failure of the mission rested, surely just as much initially as the military prowess of Eisenhower, his planners at SHAEF and any of his field commanders. The operation was originally scheduled for June 5th but on this day, the winds were at hurricane force, with low cloud making flying operations impossible and seas too rough to ensure that the vast naval convoys would reach the other side of the Channel in the right order, or at all. It was therefore, an easy decision to postpone the operation but not so easy to decide how long to postpone for. This is where Stagg's expertise came in. At 4 a.m. on the morning of the 5th June, the planners met again; it was still blowing a gale outside and the rain was lashing against the windows, yet Stagg was able to predict a break in the weather the following day, allowing a brief period of acceptable weather for the invasion to proceed. The alternative was to wait another fortnight until the 19th June, which was the next time that the tides would be favourable enough to repeat the operation. It was a huge risk - the weather on the 6th June that Stagg was forecasting was barely acceptable - but to wait another fortnight was unthinkable and so with the simple words "OK, we'll go", Eisenhower gave the go ahead for the operation. The rest, as they say, is history. The Allies got ashore, established a bridgehead and gave themselves a springboard to liberate occupied Europe and cleanse Germany of the Nazis.

What is perhaps not so well known is what happened on the alternative date of the invasion. On the 19th June, the most violent storm for over 40 years swept up the Channel and combined with the spring tide, created a tempest that the locals had never seen the like of before. The temperatures were the equivalent of November - a cold one at that - and the storm ripped apart the American 'Mulbery' temporary harbour and severely damaged the British one, thus causing major disruption to the Allied supply lines. The storm raged for three days and had the invasion been attempted during this period, it would surely have ended in disaster. Had Group Captain Stagg got his weather forecast wrong and had Overlord failed as a result, the implications for Western civilisation do not bear thinking about.

Four years earlier, the weather was also generally kind to the Allies during 'Operation Dynamo', the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force and their French allies from Dunkirk in late May and early June 1940. Despite the success of this operation, a huge number of British, French and Polish troops remained to be evacuated from France and so 'Operation Cycle' was put into effect. From the port of Le Havre, a further 15,500 British and French troops were successfully brought back to Britain but at the small fishing port of St Valery en Caux, the weather intervened and demonstrated just how much operations of war, as well as anything man-made, was at the mercy of the elements. It had been hoped to bring out the 51st Highland Division from this port but this crack division had been delayed in falling back and by the time the reached the port, some twenty four hours later than scheduled, patchy fog and reduced visibility ensured that the vessels sent to rescue the soldiers lost contact with each other and the shore. The delay caused by the weather and also by the late arrival of the troops at the port meant that the Germans captured the high ground overlooking the port and evacuation proved impossible. Fewer than 2,500 soldiers were evacuated, mainly wounded and other troops but the bulk of the 51st Highland Division were forced to surrender, the majority of whom were to spend five long years in German captivity.

Another famous example of the weather intervening to destroy an operation of war was during the German invasion of the Soviet Union, although it is fair to say that this was only the final nail in the coffin for the ultimately ill-fated 'Operation Barbarossa' as the invasion was officially known. Indeed, it could be argued that the weather became a factor precisely because the wheels were already coming off the German advance. Hitler had been confident, indeed over-confident of a quick success, so much so that he had discounted the need for his soldiers to be equipped with clothing suitable to withstand the severe Russian winter weather. The harsh weather also affected machinery as well as men; weapons malfunctioned, engines froze and the whole operation ground to a halt. The casualties on both sides were enormous but the Soviets prevailed and the 'Battle of the Century' was slowly but relentlessly won by the Red Army.

At sea, poor weather could sometimes ironically be a help. Many an Allied convoy prayed for rough seas to keep the U-Boats away. Relying on their surface speed during daylight hours to shadow the convoys and pounce at night, rough seas meant that the submarines had to remain submerged and fall out of contact with their prey. Poor weather, especially in the days before radar and full air cover, meant that ships could 'hide' in the vast expanse of the North Atlantic whilst their hunters searched fruitlessly for them. This could cut both ways though; the chances of survival in an open boat following a torpedoeing in a North Atlantic gale were slim. On the Arctic convoys, the weather could be ferocious in the extreme. Convoy RA64 in February 1945 sailed in the most appalling weather throughout and was scattered by hurricane-force winds. In such conditions, it was not unknown for ships to simply break apart. In such conditions, the chances of being picked up were remote and the chances of survival in the boiling seas were even slimmer.

In the air war, operations were equally at the mercy of the elements. Bombing, especially at the start of the war, was not an exact science. Poor visibility meant that bombs would miss their targets, although when bombing a large target such as London or Berlin, this was not especially important, as bombs dropped over an urban area would invariably find a target of sorts. When the weather did intervene, it could sometimes mean the salvation of a target and saving of lives on the ground. On the 29th December 1940, the Luftwaffe set the City of London ablaze in a great fire raid that became known as the Second Great Fire of London. The damage wreaked was enormous but a planned second wave of bombing mercifully did not materialise due to poor weather back in France that prevented the aircraft from flying. The weather again intervened in the summer of 1943 during the so-called Battle of Hamburg. The bombing of this great Hanseatic port city has been covered many times, including this blog and was given the macabre title of 'Operation Gomorrah' by Sir Arthur Harris, C in C of RAF Bomber Command. From an Allied point of view, the raids were largely a successful operation. The human cost was appalling but on the night of 2nd August 1943 - the fourth and final British raid of the operation - the elements combined with the RAF bombers to produce a truly apocalyptic scene. The RAF bombers appeared over the city in the midst of a huge thunderstorm, and to the beleagured citizens of Hamburg, the combination of bombs falling, lightning flashing and thunder echoing amid the explosions of the bombs, produced scenes more hellish than ever. 

Apart from Group Captain Stagg mentioned above, meteorologists played a prominent part in the Second World War on both sides. The Germans had U-Boats stationed in the North Atlantic on weather ship duties, passing on the prevailing conditions to the Wolf Packs. They also had a weather station on Spitsbergen until it's capture by the British in 1941. The British weather station there was subsequently shelled by the German battleship Tirpitz in 1943 thus demonstrating the importance attached to these low-key but vital outposts. As would be expected, RAF Bomber Command also had it's own meteorological staff, headed by Group Captain Magnus Spence, another seemingly dour Scotsman. Appearances were deceptive however, as when questioned about his christian name by Bomber Harris, Spence merely replied that at the time of his birth, Spence's father had been suffering "from a severe attack of Norse mythology!"

In the early days of the Third Reich, the sun shone regularly at the great Nazi rallies, so much so that the German people used to call warm sunshine 'Fuhrer Weather.' Although the elements themselves favoured neither side, we have huge reason to be thankful for the likes of Group Captain Spence and all of the Allied meteorologists during the Second World War. Their works, largely unsung and behind the scenes laid the path for the ultimate victory.

Printed Sources:

The Battle of The Atlantic - John Costello & Terry Hughes, Collins 1977

BEF Ships, before, at and after Dunkirk - John de S Winser, World Ship Society 1999

Bomber Harris: His Life and Times - Air Commodore Henry Probert, Greenhill Books 2001

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy - Anthony Beevor, Viking 2009

Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind - Sean Longden, Constable 2008

Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg 1943 - Keith Lowe, Viking 2007

The Lonely Leader: Monty 1944-1945 - Alistair Horne with David Montgomery - Pan 1995

A War of Words

Winston Churchill

"War is Hell" said General William Sherman in a speech to the Michigan Military Academy in 1879. Although he was speaking of an earlier generation of conflict, Sherman's words have been repeated regularly over the years and still hold true to this day. The Second World War brought this hell to the civilian populations of the combatant countries like no war had done before, as well as to the traditionally long-suffering fighting men at the front line.

However, apart from the bloodshed and horrors that inevitably come with warfare, the Second World War brought with it many memorable words, both spoken and written, that have gone down in history. Some of these words formed parts of rousing oratory, designed to inspire, to motivate and to celebrate great feats of arms, or to express the feelings of a nation in time of grave crisis. Great Britain was blessed with having a leader of the calibre of Winston Churchill, who was not only a great and inspirational wartime Prime Minister but was also a great orator. He made many great speeches and has been quoted many times but one particular speech, made on June 18th 1940, immediately after the fall of France, when the British Army had barely escaped from that country lacking nearly all of it's heavy armament and equipment, and when this country was facing possible invasion and oblivion in the face of Nazi tyranny, is arguably the greatest of them all and I make no apology for repeating part of it again below:

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

This was a masterful speech, designed to inspire, to reassure and to express defiance in the face of Hitler and his cronies. Apart from the speech quoted above, Churchill's words covered just about every aspect of the six years of the Second World War and have been amply recorded elsewhere. Churchill's deputy in the coaltion government was the Labour Party leader, Clement Attlee, who in peacetime had described Churchill thus:

Fifty percent genius, fifty percent bloody fool.

Richard Dimbleby (Getty)

 Moving away from politicians, this conflict was the first to be recorded in the mass media of the radio and cinema newsreel and thus, many reporters became household names, such as the BBC's Richard Dimbleby (right) and Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, both of whom regularly put their lives on the line to bring the story of the day home to the listeners. One such report came from Richard Dimbleby, who had travelled aboard a Lancaster bomber of 106 Squadron under the command of a certain Wing Commander Guy Gibson (of later Dambusters fame) on a raid to Berlin on the night of 16th/17th January 1943. His report was broadcast on the BBC a few days after his safe return and is a fascinating record of what was a nightly job for the men of RAF Bomber Command:

It was quite a long raid as the Wing Commander who took me stayed over Berlin for half an hour. The flak was hot but it has been hotter. For me it was a pretty hair-raising experience and I was glad when it was all over though I wouldn't have missed it for the world. But we must all remember that these men do it as a regular routine job.

One can only imagine the mental and physical turmoil that Dimbleby was going through when penning his report but he went on to describe the actual bombing run:

At last our bomb-aimer sighted his objective below and for one unpleasant minute we flew steady and straight. Then he pressed the button and the biggest bomb of the evening, our three and a half tonner, fell away and down. I didn't see it burst but I know what a giant bomb does and I couldn't help wondering whether such a man as Hitler, Goering or Himmler or Goebbels might be cowering in a shelter. It was engrossing to realise that the Nazi leaders and their ministries were only a few thousand feet from us and that this shimmering mass of flares and bombs and gun flashes was their stronghold.

 Dimbleby closed his report with the following tribute to the boys of Bomber Command:

Perhaps I am shooting a line for them but I think that somebody ought to. They and their magnificent Lancasters and all the others like them are taking the war right into Germany. They have been attacking, giving their lives in attack since the first day of the war. "Per Ardua ad Astra" is the RAF motto and perhaps I can translate it as "Through hardship to the stars". I understand the hardship now. And I'm proud to have seen the stars with them.

It should be noted that Richard Dimbleby flew and reported on twenty bombing raids, a remarkable feat for a civilian, considering that a full 'Tour' for Bomber Command consisted of thirty such missions. Not all reporters survived; on the night of 2nd/3rd November 1943, JMB Grieg of the Daily Mail and Norman Stockton of the Sydney Sun were both killed when the separate aircraft of 460 Squadron in which they were flying were shot down over Berlin. On the same night, two American correspondents were also flying. Lowell Bennett was also shot down but survived to become a prisoner of war and the only one of the four reporters to survive and return was arguably the greatest of them all - Edward R Murrow.

Edward R Murrow

Murrow had already become a legendary figure for his reports during the London Blitz. His radio pieces, describing life in London under fire had brought the plight of the British people into the living rooms of the American public and evoked much sympathy when that country was still neutral. Now the United States was a combatant country, Murrow was where he had always been - in the front line bringing the stories of the war home to the public. His reports from the London Blitz have been covered previously in this series so instead read part of his report from the liberated concentration camp at Buchenwald in 1945:

Permit me to tell you what you would have seen and heard, had you been with me on Thursday. It will not be pleasant listening. If you are at lunch, or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done, now is a good time to switch off the radio, for I propose to tell you of Buchenwald. It is on a small hill about four miles outside Weimar, and it was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany, and it was built to last.

There surged around me an evil-smelling horde. Men and boys reached out to touch me; and they were in rags and the remnants of uniform. Death had already marked many of them but they were smiling with their eyes. I looked out over that mass of men to the green fields beyond where well-fed Germans were ploughing.

Harrowing enough stuff, but worse was to follow, for Murrow was then shown the children:

....hundreds of them. Some were only six. One rolled up his sleeve, showed me his number. It was tattooed on his arm. D-6030 it was. The others showed me their numbers; they will carry them till they die. An elderly man standing beside me said "The children, enemies of the state." I could see their ribs through their thin shirts. The children clung to my hands and stared.

Murrow's broadcast described in as graphic detail as he dared, exactly what he had seen and heard that day. Murrow was a hardened reporter but also a deeply humane person and walking around the camp with fellow correspondent Charles Collingwood, he was simply overwhelmed by what he saw and was deeply traumatised by the experience. Murrow's eloquent report closed thus:

I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only a part of it. For most, I have no words. If I've offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I'm not in the least sorry.

Sometimes a journalist could gain a 'scoop' by simply being in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on one's point of view. Such an fate befell Cecil Brown, the CBS correspondent in Singapore, who accepted an invitation to go to sea aboard HMS Repulse, which along with HMS Prince of Wales was expected to repell an expected Japanese invasion of that colony.  Before the British ships could find the Japanese, they were discovered by Japanese aircraft, which promptly sank both vessels, thus demonstrating once and for all, the superiority of aircraft over the battleship. Nearly seven hundred British seaman were killed but Brown was rescued and back in Singapore, was able to file the story of a lifetime back to CBS. Brown's later reports were extremely critical of the attitude of the British colonial types in Singapore and as a result, he was expelled from the colony, which probably saved him from Japanese captivity when they invaded the Malayan peninsular in early 1942.

Whilst it was the serious broadcasts and speeches which rightly made their mark on the Second World War, even the darkest of times can produce humour. Some of the funnier moments of the war were recorded in the signals sent between HM Ships at sea, sometimes during moments which would later go down in history. For example, after the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941, the following signals were exchanged:

From Captain of Destroyer Flotilla to C in C Mediterranean:

HAVE ITALIAN SURVIVORS INCLUDING THE ADMIRAL. HE HAS PILES.

Reply from C in C Mediterranean:

I AM NOT SURPRISED

The C in C Mediterranean was Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, who was well known for his somewhat lavatorial sense of humour.

Perhaps we should close with the person with whom we started but this time with an example of Churchillian humour. When leaving a somewhat stormy meeting with General de Gaulle, Churchill turned to Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff and said:

How can one do business with a man who looks like a pregnant llama surprised in the act of taking a bath?

We shall just have to use our imaginations!

Published Sources:

Bomber Boys - Patrick Bishop, Harper Press 2007
The Berlin Raids - Martin Middlebrook, Viking 1988
Make a Signal - Jack Broome, Putnam 1955
World War II on the Air - Mark Bernstein & Alex Lubertozzi, Sourcebooks 2005