World War II

[JimW]

Nice feature on the AP site about some of the women serving in UK forces during the war, with links to a few individual stories, such as this codebreaker who learned German as a child from refugees working on the family farm: Pat Owtram used her language skills to listen in on German U-boats during WWII
Main article:

Barred from combat, women working as codebreakers, cartographers and coxswains helped D-Day succeed

The history of the D-Day invasion that changed the course of World War II is often told through the stories of the men who fought and died when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.

apnews.com

 

[manji]

Spent the afternoon watching "Occupied City" at the DocHouse..

Occupied City — Modern Films

It's a fascinating account of Amsterdam during the war, the Jewish deportations, and the resistance, with footage taken from COVID-19 onwards.

It’s on Amazon Prime. I’m going to watch it. Thanks.

 

[Idris2002]

Inspired by a post petee made on the DVD thread

 

[Hollis]

Took a day trip up to Bletchley a couple weeks back... amazing to think there's folk still alive who were there during the war.

 

[Chz]

Took a day trip up to Bletchley a couple weeks back... amazing to think there's folk still alive who were there during the war.

View attachment 442144

Bletchley is a great day out for anyone with a slight interest in history or general geekiness. Heck, the museum of computing was closed when we went (devastated!) but we still got a whole day in wandering around Bletchley Park anyhow, with kids in tow.

 

[davesgcr]

Took a day trip up to Bletchley a couple weeks back... amazing to think there's folk still alive who were there during the war.

View attachment 442144

Back in 1998 when I was local Operations Manager for North London Railways , I got one of our class 31's named "Bletchley Park - Station X" - and we got some "connected" ladies along for the occassion , and they were really superb company and a pleasure to meet them.

 

[Kaka Tim]

80th aniversay of the battle of arnhem/operation market garden/"A Bridge too Far".

Allies thought the whermacht were done in the west after their near destruction in normandy, rapid collapse and the fall of paris. Montgomery wanted a ligthing blow to launch the allies accross the rhine in holland (which formed a natural defenisve barrier between germany and france/belgium/holland) and end the war. The plan was to sieze a series of bridges via a vast airbourne assualt allowing the armoured ground forces to speed through into germany.
But this was a reckless, glory hunting, vanity project built on hubris. So many factors had to go right for it to succeed and this huge, complex logistical operation it was planned in about two weeks (D-Day was about 9 months in the planning)- meanwhile the germans were not about to give up and had stiffened their defenses.
The British airbourne forces were dropped 8 miles from thier objective (under the blase belief they would be facing a motely collection of ill equipped reserves - rather than two panzer divisons) and were left desperately figthing or surivival for over a week before the survivors (just 10% of the orginal force) managed to escape accorss the rhine. Depsite some extrordinary feats of arms (particulary the somewhat overlooked - and frankly insane - assault accross the river by the american paratroopers at nijmegen) it was a bloody faliure.
Montgomery should carry the can - but the subsequent narrative has all been about it being down to "bad luck" and a "nearly victory" and celebrating the heroism of the troops.
Great film though.

 

[Chz]

Monty was a great field commander, but planning this was frankly above his pay grade. I'd say the same for Patton - good reactions to changing field conditions and the men love him. Not a strategic planning bone in either of their bodies. It just isn’t the same thing, and to be good at both is rare.

 

[manji]

It's a bit like Finland. Not the biggest army in the world, but half the population are reservists and they're armed to the fucking teeth. Pair that with the only ways in being mountain passes, and it's a hard slog. You can't bring your numerical superiority to bear in mountain passes, and paratroops dropped in will get killed by the locals who all have a rifle in the cupboard and are trained to use it.

German paras dropped in the wrong parts of Sicily were massacred by peasants with pitchforks. War. A fully trained Fallschimjager. Hits the ground a skewered by a pitchfork. I’ve been reading and watching a lot about Sicily and it’s really got me thinking about war in general. The whole campaign was a complete series of fuck ups on both sides.
I’m not explaining it well ( had a stroke a couple of years ago ) but the Germans had 100% spot on intelligence and ignored it. German Paras landing on top of Allied encampments. Allies had the upper hand from the start yet through thier arrrogance, they couldn’t imagine how such a type of warfare would be succesful and made astoundingly stupid military decisisions.

A German campaign against Switzerland would result in huge casualties and completely detract from the remaining campaign

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

German paras dropped in the wrong parts of Sicily were massacred by peasants with pitchforks. War. A fully trained Fallschimjager. Hits the ground a skewered by a pitchfork. I’ve been reading and watching a lot about Sicily and it’s really got me thinking about war in general. The whole campaign was a complete series of fuck ups on both sides.
I’m not explaining it well ( had a stroke a couple of years ago ) but the Germans had 100% spot on intelligence and ignored it. German Paras landing on top of Allied encampments. Allies had the upper hand from the start yet through thier arrrogance, they couldn’t imagine how such a type of warfare would be succesful and made astoundingly stupid military decisisions.

A German campaign against Switzerland would result in huge casualties and completely detract from the remaining campaign

Switzerland?

 

[manji]

Switzerland?

I was using the example of the problems the Germans had in Sicily to what they may have encountered if they had invaded Switzerland.

 

[Kaka Tim]

do you mean crete rather than sicily? Germans were the defenders in sicily.

 

[bcuster]

 

[T & P]

Watching a new documentary on Sky about the Blitz, and not for the first time it has occurred to me that the 'incoming raid' and 'all clear' sound alerts used in Britain in WWII sound pretty similar. Not identical, but still pretty similar. Couldn't they have come across with a more distinct 'all clear' sound? Or was it the case that once the raid alert had been rung, there would be silence until the raid was over, so by the default the next time any alert was sounded it could only mean they were telling you it was an all clear?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Watching a new documentary on Sky about the Blitz, and not for the first time it has occurred to me that the 'incoming raid' and 'all clear' sound alerts used in Britain in WWII sound pretty similar. Not identical, but still pretty similar. Couldn't they have come across with a more distinct 'all clear' sound? Or was it the case that once the raid alert had been rung, there would be silence until the raid was over, so by the default the next time any alert was sounded it could only mean they were telling you it was an all clear?

Dunno.

Think they were distinct enough.

And not sure the air raid sirens would have been easily able to make two completely different sounds.

 

[Pickman's model]

Watching a new documentary on Sky about the Blitz, and not for the first time it has occurred to me that the 'incoming raid' and 'all clear' sound alerts used in Britain in WWII sound pretty similar. Not identical, but still pretty similar. Couldn't they have come across with a more distinct 'all clear' sound? Or was it the case that once the raid alert had been rung, there would be silence until the raid was over, so by the default the next time any alert was sounded it could only mean they were telling you it was an all clear?

Yes

 

[T & P]

Yes

Thank you for your confusing contribution. I might have to mark you down as an enemy agent living in our midst

 

[bcuster]

 

[spitfire]

Not all heroes carry PPSh-41s.

The inspiring scientists who saved the world’s first seed bank

The long read: During the siege of Leningrad, botanists in charge of an irreplaceable seed collection had to protect it from fire, rodents – and hunger

www.theguardian.com

 

[Hollis]

I've been reading Andrew Robert's "Churchill" for the last few months... highly recommend it. It's a monster.. but the chapters on SWW are superb - and certainly give a different persepective to pure miitary history books. Interesting that despite Churchill's high popularity rating throughout the war there was still political maneouvering going on up to 1943 with people positioning themselves in the event he "screwed up".

 

[T & P]

Watching the new film Blitz right now and it prompted me to wonder what the official government advice was for people who didn’t live near a bomb shelter. Was there a cut-off distance, so if you live within a 1/4 mile of a shelter you were instructed to run for it, but if any further you were told to stay put and hope for the best?

I visited Chislehurst Caves a couple of years ago and was struck by the fact that it’s so vast it can relatively comfortably house thousands of people, the government refused point blank to let people use it and it took many months of protests and civil disobedience before they relented.

I’d like to think that at least people with no means to buy a home shelter were provided with one by their local authority, if there was no nearby subterranean shelter for them to use…

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I’d like to think that at least people with no means to buy a home shelter were provided with one by their local authority, if there was no nearby subterranean shelter for them to use…

I'm currently reading 'The Battle of London, 1939 - 45', by Jerry White which mentions shelters, although not sure it's mentioned specific advice what to do. i think by a certain point, there were shelters close to everywhere, with communal shelters in areas where people wouldn't have shelters in the garden. air raid precautions was set up in 1937, but started getting taken more seriously after munich 1938.

'running past' blog (fairly localised on the lewisham patch) has a piece about ARP here.

This confirms that Anderson shelters were issued free to households with a weekly income of less than £ 7 a week

Although shelters you could dig / build in your garden weren't a lot of use if you didn't have a garden, past tense has more on this, including the stepney communist party organising an outing to the savoy hotel's shelter in 1940.

The later indoor Morrison shelter was also free to lower income families.

To put the income in to perspective, a London tram driver was on a bit more than £ 4 a week at the start of the 1939 war and that was a fairly good working class wage at the time (bus men got slightly more than that but I don't have a figure to hand.)

This (on an isle of dogs history site) has more about cellars, church crypts, railway arches and trench shelters as public shelters, and also a picture of a brick / concrete communal street shelter.

and some blocks of (private) flats built in 1938 / 39 had an air raid shelter as part of the design - there's a surviving one in east sheen