The Mistake in North Africa

Remember: Saturday the 5th of June, free presentation and Q&A.

 

Logistics is never sexy or exciting, but it is always vital to an army. It is even more important to an army operating in the deserts of North Africa. In this sun scorched wasteland there are no water supplies to fall back on, no large amounts of locally grown food and just as importantly no cover for what logistics you do have.

During the North African campaign in the Second World War both sides had a struggle with their logistical supplies. As your forces advanced across Libya you were in effect lengthening your supply lines, whilst the enemies’ lines shortened. This meant that your troops became worse supplied, while the defender was rolling in logistical support. This was in a large part what led to the early forward and back nature of the first years of the war in North Africa. One way to alleviate the problem to a degree was to capture the enemies supply bases. Petrol, food and water does not care who consumes it, it works either way. The Germans would have had the added advantage that they used quite a lot of British trucks to supply their lines, so the massive amount of spares they could capture would keep their logistics flowing.

Captured British trucks, re-captured towards the end of the African Campaign.

 

On the 24th of November 1941 during the German counterattack to Operation Crusader, Rommel launched his ‘Dash to the Wire’. A headlong drive straight to the Libyan border, ignoring Commonwealth units on their flanks. The following day the German attacks turned north-east and famously ran into the 1st Field Artillery Regiment, which cranked its 25-pounders down to zero elevation and held fire until the panzers were on them at short range. Salvo after salvo forced the Germans to retreat. A second attempt by the German tanks later that day met the same fate, the battered and decimated Royal Artillery 25-pounders threw them back.

 

However, when the majority of the Germans changed direction, some elements continued on their original course, into Egypt. Just three miles from the wire of the Libyan border was 50 Field Maintenance Centre (FMC), which contained a large portion of the supplies for 13th Corps. It also contained the Corps workshops, NAAFI and all the other myriad of supplies and functions that an army needs. There was also a POW camp with some 900 Axis prisoners, manpower the Afrika Korps could dearly use. To give an idea of scale, 50 FMC covered some 35 square miles! A massive store that would enable the Afrika Korps to drive even deeper into Egypt, slicing the forces involved in Operation Crusader off at the knees and giving the Germans a stunning victory.

Defending 50 FMC were the men of the RASC and a New Zealand HQ. Armed with nothing heavier than personal weapons, they had no defensive positions, indeed such a dispersed dump was impossible to fortify. Thus, at 0815 on the 25th, when the Germans arrived, after a brief firefight it was all over. The Allies were scattered or captured, and the Germans were in one corner of 50 FMC, and they quickly started refuelling and watering themselves from the stockpiles they came across.

Remember earlier when I said there was no cover in the desert? That meant that all of 50 FMC was heavily camouflaged to prevent it attracting hostile attention. Thus, when the Germans scanned the horizon, they saw no signs of the treasure that was in effect theirs. Not realising what lay around them, they thought they had captured a small supply cache. While the majority of the German column were refuelling, a scouting party was sent towards a local hill, nicknamed Beer Bottle Hill by the British.

The Germans ran headlong into the Commonwealth reinforcements. These consisted of the Central India Horse (a cavalry regiment), that was possibly still under strength after a mutiny in one of its squadrons the previous year. The CIH was mounted in carriers, although the sources do not mention if these mean Indian Pattern Carriers or the more well-known Universal Carrier. With them they had A Battery of the South African’s 2nd Anti-tank. This consisted of three troops of 2-pounders, and one troop of 18-pounders. All were carried Portee style on the back of trucks. Warned of the German approach the 2nd Anti-tank scattered into hull down positions and set up an impromptu firing line. Then a single Portee was ordered forward. The lone gun worked its way forward, hopping from dead ground to dead ground. Eventually it had a bead on a German halftrack, which it quickly destroyed. Believing a that contact had been made with an enemy force, and that the area had no significant features or reason to remain, the Germans remounted, and left 50 FMC. The Indians and South Africans followed, and were later reinforced by eleven Matilda’s from 42nd RTR to ensure security of 50 FMC.

 

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

 

Credits & Sources:

 nam.ac.uk and www.insidegmt.com

Talk Time

Those of you who have been paying attention will know that my next book is out in a couple of weeks. 'Defeating the Panzer-Stuka Menace' covers the entire story of Britain's love of Spigot Weapons, and covers what I could find of other countries Spigots.

Book cover, out at the end of May

Of the top of my head, the following weapons at least get a brief mention:

UK:

• AEB bomb thrower, Arbalest, Bombard Experimental Gun, Bombard, Hedgehog, Hedgerow, Water Hammer, Mustard Plaster, Baby Bombard, Jefferis Gun, Stewblack Projector, PIAT, Petard, Denny Gun. Buffalo, Clarke Family (Tree, Ground, and Gun).

US:

• US Tree Spigot, Bigot, T30 57mm

German:

• Schwere & Leichter Ladungswerfer

Japanese:

• Type 98

Obviously, the book focuses o the British use, as we developed the technology the most and used it for the most things. I hope to challenge several of the myths about the subject as well. Originally, I had been invited to give a couple of presentations at the War & Peace show this year. However, Covid 19 caused it to be cancelled, and my presentations went with it.

I do have a talk on the PIAT lined up for later this year through the Royal Armouries, but nothing close to release date. 

My desk set up, ready to stream.

 So on Saturday 5th of June, at 1900 BST, I will be live streaming via Youtube, and giving a presentation. This will be followed by a Q&A session where we can chat, or you can ask obscure questions about spigot weapons. This week I've been sorting out the tech for it, getting a second monitor and all the software sorted. I have never done anything like this before, so at the very least me fouling up should provide some amusement.

Slide from the presentation... Answers in Youtube chat on the day? Or below if you want to see what you can get out of me.

To repeat:

1900 BST, Saturday, 5th of June.

On my Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNssB7al6ty0OUU2YvT7AGQ 

 

I hope to see you all there!

The Tank That Never Was

In the early 1960's the UK was looking at doing a joint reconnaissance vehicle with the French, as both our requirements matched closely in many respects. In the end the differences were too great, the main point of contention being the firepower, and the two nations went our separate ways. In the UK this lead to the British developing the CVR(T) family.

However, this brief foray into co-operative AFV design laid the seeds of co-operation had been sowed. At the time the British were just bringing the Chieftain into service. An unspoken rule of British weapon and tank design of the period was: when something enters service, you start working on its replacement. This is because tanks generally take about 10-15 years from start of the project to the vehicle entering service. Thus, with the recent near success of the reconnaissance project it was decided to approach the French with the idea to develop a new joint MBT. This would of course have the benefit of cutting costs.

After initial contact was made the French agreed that there might be something in the idea, and a working committee was established to take the next steps, and establish the ground work. As the committee meetings progressed the two sides became disillusioned with each other over a few matters, such as levels of armour protection, as the French thought the German idea of almost no armour and high speed was desirable, while the British wanted a robust tank to keep their men alive and survive the furnace of battle and trading shots with the Soviets, not running away from them at high speed! The latter comment obviously made the situation worse between the two sides.

UK delegation briefing notes on the subject of protection

 

Anyway, the ill will continued. The project was still unnamed after a three weeks of grumpy negotiations. The British, for example needed a name beginning with a 'C' as tradition demanded. Meanwhile French pride would not allow them to drive a tank named after a random British word. At every meeting of the committee the minutes of the meeting kept on coming back to this subject. Eventually, The British saw a path to a compromise. They offered to name the MBT project after a French town.The French discussed this, and at the next meeting agreed that this was acceptable. Finding it amusing that the Perfidious British would soon have an AFV named after a French town! The British delegation departed to draw up a short list and pick the town.

At  meeting number 13, on the 26th of August, the very last item in the minutes (item 46) was the name. The British spokesman, one Capitan G. Hunt, had been given the job of revealing the selected town's name. He stood, the French officers leaned forward to hear which of their towns was going to be used by the British. Cpt Hunt gazed around the assembled French officers and said simply 'Crécy'

 

Some of the above may not be entirely true, and I bet you could get the last half hour back as well... It should be noted when I told that story where a Frenchman could hear, the response was that he had heard the same thing, only the town named was 'Castillon', but I don't trust his sources!

The Bionic Man

If there’s been one common theme for the second half of the last century, it is of the US armed forces spending eye-watering sums of money on advanced research ideas, which seem aimed solely at transferring the dreams of Sci-Fi writers to the modern military. Invariably these projects worked, but the useful effect was so slight it meant the project failed.

Pedipulator concept sketch

 

The first cropped up in the early 1960s from General Electric ltd. The idea was to build a sort of exoskeleton, that could serve as a truck for bad terrain. Named a ‘pedipulator’, and coming from the fertile mind of an engineer called Ralph Mosher. It consisted of a box body, containing a human strapped into the machine. There were direct mechanical links to the arms and the legs, allowing the machine to walk and work by mirroring the movements of the arms.

The pedipulator test rig. The legs seem to be on rails, so one assumes this was just to test the concept of leg movement.

 

A rough demonstrator idea was completed, which tested some of the functions, however, in 1964 the idea was scrapped. This was because the same technology had been switched to a much more promising idea, which was funded by the US Army. The vehicle had many names, such as ‘Quadruped’, ‘the walking truck’ and the official name ‘Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machine’, which was abbreviated to CAM.

The CAM on a climbing test. There is footage of this test and one can see that the front legs are vastly more controllable, as they are linked to the humans arms.

 

CAM was a four-legged vehicle, which had a limb controlled by each driver’s limb. Thus, the drivers two arms controlled the front two legs, and the rear were controlled by the driver’s legs. There was force feedback supplied to the controls so the driver could feel the surface he was touching, and how much pressure he was exerting. These controls were linked to a hydraulic system that ran to the legs. The problem with the system was the constant mental load of working out what limb to move next, and how to move it to cause the machine to move in the desired way, caused the operator to rapidly become exhausted. The maximum a human could manage was about 15 minutes. Getting it wrong would lead to the machine toppling over. This led to the cancellation of the program.

The Project Hardiman exoskeleton that was built.

 

Ralph Mosher also worked on Project Hardiman. This was a much more conventional exoskeleton idea, not too dissimilar in concept and implementation to the Powerlifter from Aliens. It started life as Project Handyman, which was a control unit that allowed two manipulator arms to be remotely controlled. It developed into a full wearable exoskeleton. It was even suggested that up to a 50ft tall version of the exoskeleton could be built. It is stated that it could lift 750lbs with just one arm, however, it weighed in at 1500lb, and more importantly had to be connected to an external power source to provide the hydraulic pressure needed.

There are of course literally hundreds, if not thousands of designs and projects, sometimes created by amateur inventors. However, I wanted to take a look at one more, simply because it worked… albeit, like all the others it failed because it didn’t provide a useful benefit.

The ASV. you can see the sheer number of primitive computers involved here.

 

In 1981 the US Army asked the Ohio State University to develop a program called the Adaptive Suspension Vehicle (ASV). This was similar to the earlier CAM, in that it was a walking truck. Interestingly, the pilot did not drive the vehicle. Instead, he told it the destination, and it used onboard sensors to read the ground in front of it and do all the rest of the calculations. This meant that the driver did not get as exhausted as he had in the CAM. The machine was controlled by a massive number of computers. There were seventeen in total, and six were assigned to controlling the six legs. These computers were Intel 86/30 128k, 8-bit machines. The top speed was 8mph, which it is reported led to a jarringly painful ride. Equally, although the ASV weighed nearly 3 tons its carrying capacity was just 485lbs.

But, consider this. People have kept chipping away at the idea of walking vehicles, and each generation they have tried and failed as the technology has not been mature enough. But eventually, someone succeeds, like Boston Dynamic’s robotic quadruped, which is still trying to find its exact niche but does actually work and offer a workable solution.

 

Would you like to know more? Well there's a fantastic website out there called CyberneticZoo.com, it has a great many such projects, and even footage of several of the designs talked about here, and more images. Just use the sites search bar.

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

 

Credits & Sources:

cyberneticzoo.com and www.ge.com,

Radar Gunsights

I've had this report sitting on my hard drive for some years. No idea what to do with it, so might as well use it here.

Centurion Mk.II

 

Essentially, the British strapped the radar dish from one of these, to the top of a Centurion Mk.II, and opened fire to see what would happen.

Page 1

Page 2

Final Paragraph, plus date.

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

Attack Boat

 In both World Wars the Germans very quickly, if they ever had it, lost control of the English Channel. This led to a rather unique situation where the Allies controlled the sea and could utterly batter the German forces on land with little worry of reprisals. As the Germans could not match the naval might of the Royal Navy, they had to resort to some unique technology to try and tackle the problem. A few weeks ago, we looked at one of these attempts in the Second World War, so now it is time to see what happened in the First World War.

 

HMS Earl of Peterborough, a Lord Clive Class monitor. Laid down January 1915, and commissioned in September of the same year!

In the First World War the Royal Navy had a series of bombardment monitors which would sail up and down the coast bombarding targets at will. A prime target was Zeebrugge. Thus, the Germans deployed a unit to the area equipped with Fernlenkboot’s, (FL-boat). These were small boats, with a 1,500lb explosive warhead and two fuses, although a third fuse would be fitted later to cause the craft to self-destruct if it missed its target. The FL-boat could reach some 30 knots, powered by a powerful petrol engine of advanced design. This engine was based on the 400hp engine designed by Victor Despujols before the war. In 1914 he would use a similar craft to set the world speed record on the Seine river. However, before that the boat was used for racing, and doing extremely well. Then one day at a race in Monaco the French boat did not show up, leaving a German, named Schmidt to easily win. An investigation was held, and it was found that the French boat had been sold to the Germans, with the backing of the Bosch representatives at the port. These were acting on behalf of Siemens, and very shortly the boat was at the Siemens works being analysed and reverse engineered.
Controls for the boat were done via a cable, this was about 12 miles in length, and signals to turn to port or starboard were transmitted down the cable. The drum with the cable on it weighed some 1,800lbs! Guidance for the craft was done by a plane shadowing it. It would relay directions back to base using morse code. The base unit would then steer the boat.

A FL-boat being unloaded from a railway car.

 

Late in December 1916 a British monitor was spotted sailing along the coast, so a FL-boat was prepared, the engines started, and the boat sent on its way. After about 10 miles the boat entered a circle and remained in that hard turn. It soon became clear that it was not responding to signals. A German destroyer had crossed the path of the boat and severed the wire. To prevent the boat falling into enemy hands it was destroyed by a German warship.
Over the next few months, the extra fuse was added to self-destruct the craft should the cable be cut. In February 1917 there was another attempt, however the fuse failed and self-destructed the craft before it reached the target. 

A FL-boat and its concrete hangar built at Zeebrugge to protect them.

 

In March 1917 the Germans tried something a bit different. A FL-boat was launched, but the cable drum and control unit were loaded onto a trawler. This allowed much more range. The target of this FL-boat was the Belgium town of Nieuwpoort. The FL-boat functioned perfectly and struck the concrete mole at the harbour. It is not recorded if the warhead exploded or not, however, the British stated that it did no damage, and at least some of the wreckage was recovered, which gave the British sufficient information to understand the weapon. 

 

Thus, when on the 6th of September the British monitor M.24 saw a speed boat heading towards her, the crew had a good idea of what was heading towards them and opened fire. On the sixth salvo from the assorted weapons on board, and at a range of 300 yards, the FL-boat was obliterated. However, on the 28th of October HMS Erebus and nine destroyers were steaming off the Belgium coast when they were attacked by a FL-boat. There are no details of what occurred in the run up to the attack, but none of the escorts or the monitor were able to sink the boat, and it struck the side of the ship. The resulting explosion killed two sailors and wounded fifteen more. The damage was limited to ripping some 50ft of the torpedo bulge off the side, but otherwise left the ship undamaged. A final attack in November was foiled when the boat was seen approaching, and then destroyed by HMS North Star. 

HMS M.15, sister ship to HMS M.24

 

The idea of the FL-boat would re-appear with added technology in the Second World War with the Linsen craft. These were a pair of high-speed motorboats. One was crewed by two sailors, while the other was an explosive boat. One sailor would steer their own boat, while the other controlled the explosive boat by radio. There are conflicting sources that state some of the FL-boats had radio control fitted, which adds to the confusion if they were or not. 

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

 

Credits & Sources:

www.standingwellback.com, 

The Future

We need a bit of a chat I'm afraid.

Earlier in the week I posted a thread on my Facebook page. Simply put, I have running out of time to do everything in a week. At current, as well as all the normal stuff people have to do, eg: Job, family etc, I have to also shoe horn in work on books and work on articles for here. In addition I have started studying for my degree.

For the last few years I've had a job which was fairly relaxed, and could do some of my work there. However, I have changed jobs at the start of last year, but furlough meant I had some spare time while working from home. This allowed me to keep the work rate up. However, for the last couple of months I've been back at work full time. Equally, the work load on my degree is going to increase massively over the next years.

I've recently realised that I've not touched the work on my next book for a couple of months. Simply because I don't have the time. That means I have to free up time somewhere. Short of abandoning my books and research, or my degree, the only wiggle room is the weekly article. This is not something I take lightly, as since 2013 I've only missed two weeks. There was even an article on the week I got married and was on my honeymoon.

What I am trying to say is that articles will now be rarer. I will aim for two per month, but I can't promise even that. I will try to provide some form of content though. Over on Facebook or Twitter (@History_Listy) I normally post pictures or stuff I've encountered and use them for a basis of discussion. I am contemplating an Instagram account to post some of my own collection of historical pictures up as well. Each week I will try to find something for here.

Next week we have an article on the German struggle for the Channel in the First World War, and how they felt that technology could solve their problems.

However, this week, It will have to be a short piece.

In the Second World War the Allies needed to clear lots of German minefields. Somewhere along the way someone suggested they use jet engines fixed to tanks.

Valentine chassis with a nice big blower.

 

Which also came in dual-engine versions

 

And on other chassis (I think this is a Canadian experiment, separate to the English ones above).

The problem with the design was it blasted the mines out of the soil and flung them everywhere. In essence hurling exploding frisbees all over the place, which was seen as a huge negative, and very dangerous.

Of course during the harsh winter of 1946-1947 the tanks found a new and much safer usage, as snow blowers.

On a related note, while looking for info on the above I found this interesting newsreel film about clearing mines laid during the war with water jets.

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

Firefighter

 Between 2130 and 2145 the airfield at RAF Metheringham reverberated to the sound of hundreds of Merlin engines. One by one the Lancaster's of Bomber Command lifted into the dark sky. Their target for tonight was Schweinfurt, the location of the infamous ball bearing plants that the Americans had so disastrously failed to smash the previous October. Now on the night of 26th April 1944, the RAF were to have another crack at the target. Previous attacks by the RAF had met with little success, and Harris had avoided the target until he was forced to do so. Now there was a stream of bombers in the air heading to the German city again. 

A Lancaster getting Bombed up at RAF Metheringham

 

One of the Lancaster's in that stream was registration ZN-O of 196 Squadron, flown by the Canadian Flying Officer Frederick Manuel Mifflin. This was his 30th mission, and thus the completion of his tour of duty. The same applied to the rest of his crew, who had been together since training, with one exception. Sergeant Norman Cyril Jackson had been part of the crew from the start, however, this was his 31st mission, as he had acted as a replacement flight engineer on a different aircraft two days earlier. Despite receiving a telegram that morning saying he had become a father, he decided to remain with his crew and fly an extra mission.

F/O Mifflin

 

The mission was a disaster. There was a strong wind that scattered the Pathfinder’s markers. Equally, there was a fault in the master bomber’s radio, so that he could not control, or guide in the bombing. It was also a full moon, without any real cloud, so the bombers were sitting ducks. After ZN-O released its bombs, she made a climbing turn from 21,500ft heading to 22,000ft, and headed for her base. It was at this point disaster struck. A FW-190 night fighter came hurtling in and strafed the aircraft. Sgt Jackson was knocked over by a blow, as he was wounded by shrapnel in the shoulder and leg. Worse still the attack had started a fire in the starboard wing between the inner engine and the fuselage, right above a fuel tank. If it reached the fuel tank the Lancaster would become a fireball. 

Z-NO in flight on an earlier mission.

 

Sgt Jackson volunteered to exit the plane by the escape hatch and tackle the fire with a handheld fire extinguisher. Wounded, and in the 200mph slipstream it was almost certain that he would be unable to regain the inside of the aircraft. Even so, he tucked a fire extinguisher into his life jacket and began to clamber out of the escape hatch. As he was exiting his parachute rip cord caught and the parachute deployed inside the cockpit. This would mean that if he fell off the plane the parachute may not deploy properly, or it may become tangled on the aircraft, either outcome would likely lead to his death. Keep in mind that he knew he was unlikely to be able to re-enter the aircraft. Several of the crew attempted to control the parachute inside the cabin, and even use it as a sort of safety line as Sgt Jackson edged to safety.

Suddenly the plane gave a lurch and Sgt Jackson slipped, he fell down the side of the plane, hitting the wing. He managed to grasp onto an opening in the leading edge of the wing, however, the impact caused the fire extinguisher bottle to fall out and disappear into Germany. He was lying in the fire, so he beat at it with his gloved hands futilely.

On fire and getting badly burnt with no means of tackling the blaze, Sgt Jackson lost his grip and was swept through the fire. However, the crew inside did not realise what had happened for a few critical moments. Thus, Sgt Jackson was dragged behind the aircraft in its slipstream, while the parachute was in the fire. Realising the danger, the crew had no choice but to let the parachute out as well they could. Sgt Jackson was seen to tumble away from the Lancaster, his parachute partially inflated, and on fire.

Sgt Jackson

 

On board the plane, F/O Mifflin realised their plane was doomed and ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft. Both F/O Millfin and the rear gunner (Flight-Sergeant Norman Johnson) died in the attempt to bail out, although the rest of the crew made a safe landing.

Sgt Jackson smashed into the ground heavily, there was just enough of his parachute left to keep him alive, although two thirds of it was burnt. He did break his ankle in the impact. The next morning, he crawled some distance and found a German house, whereupon the man who answered the door started yelling about a ‘Churchill Gangster!’. Despite this Sgt Johnson was taken prisoner and spent 10 months in hospital before being sent to Stalag IXC at Mühlhausen. Sgt Jackson attempted to escape at least once, before being recaptured. Some sources talk about a successful second attempt, others that he was still at the camp when it was liberated by the Americans. For his actions Jackson was awarded the VC. After the war he became a travelling salesman of Haig Whiskey, although his hands were permanently and badly scared from the burns received. He would eventually die in 1994. 

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

 

Credits & Sources:

www.backtonormandy.org, www.abct.org.uk and www.findagrave.com

The Second Blitz

Overnight on the 16th/17th of January 1943 there was a RAF bombing raid on Berlin. There is always a ‘however’ though. In this case other sources suggest such a raid never took place. But it does seem likely that it happened as, by all accounts, it made Hitler very very angry. 

What Hitler wanted to see...

 

Like the last time popular myth has Hitler getting all shouty over an air raid on Berlin, his immediate reaction was to order the Luftwaffe to raze London to the ground. Now, the Luftwaffe was faced with a bit of a problem. Since the end of the Blitz, they had been conducting raids on the UK but had largely avoided the London area. A squadron about to be transferred to the Eastern Front was given a stay of execution and kept in the west to take part in the attacks against London. More planes were sourced from training units. Even when they had arranged every airframe they could, the Germans still found themselves with under 100 bombers, so each bomber would attack, return to base, re-arm and fly a second sortie. As this was to be the first major air raid on London since 1941 the Germans wanted it to be impressive, a second Blitz.

The Germans even got lucky with the British defences. After a year of no attacks they were not entirely ready. For example, the barrage balloons of the RAF were winched close in and not fully deployed. That night as the bombing commenced two WRAF’s at a balloon site were horrified to realise that a stick of bombs was heading straight towards them. 

Cpl Dyson and ACW Beeson crewing their winch.

 

Corporal May Dyson and Aircraftwomen Peggy Muncy Beeson were manning their winch trailer during the bombing. As the bombs rained down about them, they calmly continued to winch out their balloon to the designated height. Even when a large bomb hit just to the left, followed by one to the right they stayed at their posts ensuring their balloon was fully deployed. 

...and pictured standing in one of the two craters that bracketed their winch trailer.

 

Some sixty fires were lit, but all were small and easily contained. To further the Germans embarrassment, most of their pilots got lost and missed London. It is reported that just 40% of the bombs dropped by the Germans even landed within the London Civil Defence area, which is a rather impressive feat in of itself! The only success was at Greenwich when one bomber got lucky and caused heavy damage to a power station there. It cost the Germans six planes shot down, four of which were by the same pilot. Acting Wing Commander Cathcart Michael Wight-Boycott, flying in a Beaufighter, won a DSO for his actions. A newspaper, the Daily Herald, made the following report of the events:

‘I stood yesterday on the edge of the biggest bomb crater that I have ever seen.  It measured sixty feet across and the whole roadway was gone.  This Street of Devastation (Lytcott Grove) echoed to the picks of the rescue squad still feverishly digging for a seventy year old woman known to have been in the back kitchen of one of the houses.  The most memorable escape of the night was of a nineteen year old, Mr P. Garrett.  He was in a first-floor room when the bomb fell.  When the dust cleared, he found himself in a ground floor kitchen at the back of the house with a kitchen cooker on his chest.  He was unharmed!  One of the crew of a German bomber shot down parachuted to safety, stole a car, and was stopped by the police and arrested near Maidstone.’

That night the RAF visited Berlin once again, 8,000lbs of bombs and hundreds of incendiaries fell on the German Capital. 

The German attack resumed on the 20th, this time in daylight and at low level. Around noon thirty-two BF110’s took off and conducted distraction sweeps along the south coast. At the same time mixed in with the confusion twenty-eight FW190A’s armed with a single bomb roamed about the south of England giving the impression of air strikes directed towards somewhere in Kent or Sussex. The British air raid warning system alert was only given when authorities could tell where the raid was heading, with all these aircraft giving the impression of a flight to Kent, it came as a surprise when twelve FW190’s detached from the main group and headed for London. Once again, the balloon barrage was winched in close for essential maintenance. As the fighter bombers crossed Beachy Head the order to get the balloons to 6,500ft was given. By this time, it was too late, as the German craft were over London less than a minute after the order was given. The warnings failed to filter down to the light flak crews or the air raid sirens.

The twelve FW190’s were ordered to strike targets of opportunity, each carried a 500kg bomb. One pilot, Hauptmann Heinz Schumann, spotted a large three story building as he hurtled along above the rooftops. He extended away, turned and made an attack run scoring a perfect hit. It was a school. As there had been no warning given, none of the children had been sheltering, and were instead at lunch. Thirty-eight were killed, along with six adults. Another sixty were injured. Rapid response from the Civil Defence was supplemented by Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, as well as Canadian Engineers from nearby bases. 

The bomb site at Sandhurst Road School

 

 

Interviews with pilots involved in combating the air raids. Keep in mind this is a period newsreel so will have a bit of a bias.

Overall, this attack was much more successful, starting a fire at a gas holder, hitting a large warehouse and getting three bombs into another power station. However, the attack had been costly. Fourteen aircraft of the total of sixty were destroyed, with another three probables and eight damaged claimed by the British. 

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Credits & Sources:

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The Chaos of Retirement

 As some of you know, I do my articles a week in advance of when they're needed.Well last weekend I inadvertently became a bit busy, and so am relying on random documents for this weeks content. The problems last week do give an amusing story though, which will start after the documents.

This week I think I'll post the sales brochure for the BAC Swingfire missile. This was pretty early in development when they were still expecting there to be both an heavy and light version of the missile, alternatively named RACswing and INswing (Long and Medium Range respectively), denoting which branch of the British Army was to use it. This was dated 4th June 1964.

(Yes, that's a Swingfire mounted to a Saracen)

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Now onto last weeks fun and games! It all started a few months ago. I noticed that my old trusty PC has started to slow down, lag and the occasional crash. Some of the USB ports have stopped working and she's been through two house moves. She was also becoming incapable of running some programs. This PC has been with me for nearly a decade, all three of my books, and most of my articles and research have been done on her. So I decided it was time to retire her. I ordered a new PC, even managed to get a 3060 put in it (which is a hell of an upgrade from the GTX 660 in my old PC!). It arrives, and I figured Saturday morning that I could do a quick swap of the tower unit, spend a couple of hours battering all the useless crap that Windows includes out of it, and installing programs Etc. My Old PC would get moved to my Wife's desk, and likely only get turned on twice a month for a bit of gentle web surfing, a fitting retirement for the old girl.

First surprise, It's a lot bigger than I was expecting, I seem to have brought the equivalent of the black monolith from 2001. Then the issues started. My monitor is even older than my PC, dating from about 2009. The 3060 only has HDMI ports, my monitor had no idea what one of them was. 

I then head out to PC World to buy a new one, it's at this point things started to really go wonky. First the Highways Agency had decided to close the dual carriage way that was my best route. With the Diversion routed down a narrow city centre street. The traffic jam was rather impressive.

When I get to PC World, I find out it is click and collect only due to the pandemic. It'd be really embarrassing if part of my day job included checking shops to make sure they're obeying the CV19 regulations, such as click & collect wouldn't it? Things would be made even more embarrassing by my wife asking as I went out 'Are you sure they're open?'...

Anyway, I start browsing on the phone and every monitor is out of stock, eventually the lady on the door takes pity on my dumb ass and goes to see what they have in stock. So I order it, and head home, avoiding the closed road. Get home, get the monitor in place aaaaaand, no HDMI cable. So back to PC world I go. But it's all sorted now.