#Manston

[guerrerense]

34070 Manston @ Bishop Sutton por David Cable Por Flickr: Mid Hants - Feb 24 / Matt and Warwick Charter with 34070 Manston taken at the Bishop Sutton tree with wonderful early light (DSC 5899)

[railwaycreature]

Here's a handful of the OCs I've designed faces for but haven't fully drawn yet :D Left to right, top to bottom they are:

Mallory the Snide Engine (LSWR T3, She/Her, No. 557)

Manston the Steam Giant Engine (SR Battle of Britain, They/He/It, No. 34070)

Sooty the Spunky Shunter (Class 03, He/Him, No. 3153)

Robert the Proud InterCity BMU (Class 810, He/Him, No. 810004)

Duster the Disguntled DMU (Class 150, He/Him, No. 150251)

Topher the Playful Diesel (Newbuilt, 2'3" gauge QR DH Class, They/Them, No. DH74)

[hiduprakyat]

this might be overly ambitious considering the four papers i have to finish by next week but. hear me out. what if i drew the entire lineup of characters from because of miss bridgerton

[leatherrepairsleedsinuk]

revive, repair, and revitalize. For all of your leather maintenance requirements, Leather Repairs Leeds is the place to go. Our knowledgeable staff is here to offer first-rate repairs, careful upkeep, and flawless service for anything from furniture to accessories. You can rely on us to revitalize your prized leather items.

[k-s-morgan]

"many people insist he was in the Blitz ( I don't mean fics, I don't mind that, I mean in canon discussions) so my post was specifically for the Blitz. For the 40's bomb, that you brought up, not my post, Tom left soon after, 7 days after. And as for the '44 bombings- Tom has already killed 4 people by that time- FOUR. I think it's safe to say death and suffering of the people around him wasn't one of his concerns.

Tom's fear of death doesn't have to come from bombing. Plenty of people fear death that had never been bombed. It is stated that his fear of death is because he thinks himself above all humans, it's in relation to his power, he says this to Dumbledore at 11 BEFORE ww2 started. He already said 'mom can't have been a witch because she died'. But yes, this post was about Dumbledore not sending Tom into the Blitz, like many people say, as if Dumbledore personally delivered Tom to the Nazis."

What do you think about this argument? I've written fics of Tom witnessing the Blitz. I thought that it was canon but I have had people argue that it is not. What do you think?

Hi! That's a really interesting topic, but one I came to dislike because it feels like most people have very black-and-white takes on it. I actually got involved in one of such conversations just recently. Maybe even the one you quoted from? I don't recall at this point.

Since I prepared a lot of materials for ATLWETD before writing it, I can give you a full answer supported by the research and some news clippings. It's going to get long, though!

So, first - the Blitz. Indeed, Tom never had to face it. It lasted from September 7, 1940 to May 11, 1941, and Tom spent this period at Hogwarts. However, the Blitz was neither the start nor the end of London bombings - and bombings of the surrounding areas and UK in general.

Citing from Mark Clapson, "Air Raids in Britain, 1940–45":

"A common misconception of the Blitz in the United Kingdom is that London was the only city under attack from September 1940 until the Nazis also turned their fire on other cities and towns in mid-November. Yet even before the Blitz on London began, other urban areas in the UK had been attacked from the air.

As the Battle of Britain drew towards a defeat for Germany, the first significant raid on a major British city took place in Cardiff and Newport on 10 July when over seventy German planes attacked the South Wales docks. In July and August, Birmingham, Coventry, Hastings, Liverpool, Newcastle and Southampton were all subject to air raids, signifying that when the main Blitz on the provinces began, industrial and coastal towns and cities were going to be key targets for the Luftwaffe … As Tony Mason shows, the first raid on Coventry had been on 18 August 1940, when both industry and housing were bombed."

Most of these locations are within the 200-300 km of London. Hastings is less than a 2-hour drive away. People don't live in a bubble, so hearing and reading about the bombings getting closer had to be terrifying for a child-Tom.

Now, getting even closer to London. The timeline taken from this website:

"16 AUGUST 1940

A series of raids were leveled against Norfolk, Kent and the Greater London area with airfields as the main targets, including Manston.

London suburbs were bombed, including Wimbledon and Esher, where shops and houses were hit. Bombs on Maiden, Surrey, railway station killed staff and passengers and put both lines out of operation. To the north, Gravesend and Tilbury were attacked, and bombs fell on Harwell and Farnborough aerodromes."

Tom would have definitely experienced the impacts of these bombings at least in some ways because the sound of explosions travels miles ahead. People would be in an increased state of panic, not knowing if London was going to be the next target any other second now.

A photo of the news clipping from August 17, 1940, titled: Germans Bomb London Suburbs:

From this website:

"A still earlier, and better recorded, raid took place the night before, on 15 August. 30 bombers targeted RAF Croydon aerodrome, which was then considered part of Surrey rather than London. Several people were killed, with damage to the aerodrome and nearby housing."

The distance between Croydon aerodrome and London is just 10 miles. Again, this is something the impact of which Tom would have very likely heard personally - add to this the feeling of fear and uncertainty over when and where the next attack is coming, and you get a recipe for a serious psychological trauma. Tom was only 13 at this time.

From the same website:

"Many sources state that the first bombs to drop on London landed in the early hours of 22 August 1940, affecting Harrow and Wealdstone (technically not then in London, but within the London Civil Defence Area). These caused damage to two cinemas, a dance hall, bank and houses, but nobody was killed. A further strike on 24 August [in London] killed nine people, and prompted retaliatory attacks on Berlin."

So, by these accounts, Tom experienced the bombing of his city directly at least once and likely heard the impact of bombings from the suburbs at least twice. Could be more - there were several bombings close, and we have no idea where Tom was in those specific moments. He could be taking a walk to the West End, going to the suburbs with his orphanage, and so on.

He was lucky to miss the bombings that followed (until 1944), including the Blitz, but I really hate when people dismiss the psychological impact of seeing your city in ruins, witnessing the massive destruction, and not knowing whether the bombs are going to drop again today. It's not like the Germans announced, "Hey, the Blitz is over, you're safe now!" Of course Tom thought he might experience another bombing, and of course this thought scared him.

The summer of 1944 was terrible for London because that's when the V1 were dropped. Quoting from The Blitz Companion by Mark Clapson again:

"Yet during the summer of 1944 worse was to come, and it would manifest itself in a frightening new weapon. For some months rumours had been circulating in Britain about a flying bomb that had no pilot and which could be guided almost mysteriously through the air at great speed to attack the capital city. This was the V1, the ‘V’ standing for vengeance … The V1s killed over 5,000 people and injured 15,000."

The timeline for these attacks is here.

This one is trickier, though, because based on Harry's era, by 1944, Tom already came of age by wizarding standards. So there is an argument that he could finally use his magic and leave London. On the other hand, he was still a minor by Muggle standards, and we have no idea what Hogwarts rules and laws of his era stated - meaning that it can all be up to interpretation.

For those who prefer to imagine that Tom was there: maybe back in 1944, a wizard had to be 18 to be considered an adult, and the limit was dropped closer to Harry's era. Or there was a rule stating that Hogwarts students must continue to live in their assigned places up until they graduate, especially in a Muggle world - because if a minor disappears from Muggle care when they are still enrolled in a magical school, it could trigger the involvement of authorities, which might be something Hogwarts would want to avoid.

We can't make strong arguments here because the canon says nothing about these details. So, if someone wants to imagine that Tom missed the bombings in 1944, there are very logical reasons to support such a view, but if someone wants him to have experienced it, it's also easy to imagine.

Either way, whether Tom lived only through the bombings of 1940 or both 1940 and 1944, to deny that he was affected by the war is to reject the most basic human psychology, in my opinion. Anyone would be terrified when they are surrounded by destruction and death, when they are confronted with the idea of their own mortality and when they feel helplessly trapped. And Tom saw the war horrors every summer even when there were no bombings.

I'm a war victim myself, and I don't feel safe on the days my city is not attacked. Because I know that the situation can change every other second. The psychological effect of bombings is devastating even when you aren't physically affected.

Does Tom's trauma justify his canon actions in any way, though? Of course not. Did his war trauma cause his fear of death? I think it was definitely at least some part of it. How couldn't it be? It's exactly because he considered himself above others is that his fear could be this amplified. He probably hated sitting stuck in a dangerous zone with the people he despised, threatened by the beings he didn't consider proper humans.

Maybe the war didn't give birth to Tom's fear of death, but I think it obviously contributed to it heavily since, again, he was living in one of the very targeted places, and he lived through at least one London bombing.

Also, yes, I do think Dumbledore and Dippet were absolutely abhorrent for sending an orphan child to a war zone when it was so easy to give him shelter. They were responsible for Tom's well-fare, and this responsibility shouldn't disappear in the summer. Tom could have easily been killed - again, it's not like the Germans announced when they were going to bomb or not bomb London and other areas. Letting him stay at Hogwarts or finding some family to take him in - or an inn! - would have been beyond simple.

Dumbledore also definitely knew Tom is related to a Slytherin bloodline, so there had to be families willing to take him in for this alone. Sure, it could be dangerous in other ways for a child as self-focused as Tom, but he was still a child, and his safety had to come first.

Finally, there is an argument that Tom was moved along with other children from London since it was supposed to be mandatory. This is also something that can be looked at from different angles. The reality of people following a law always differs from the theory of it. There were many issues with evacuations at that time. About 7,736 children died in London from the Blitz alone - not everyone could evacuate, especially the poor. Maybe the Wool's lucked out, maybe not. There are claims that only children within the ages of 5 to 14 were evacuated. But also, if Tom was moved, then there is no telling if he was more or less safe there since the location is unknown. It once again depends on what a specific person wants to imagine as a part of his life.

Now, anon, as for your fics in particular: if you wrote about Tom witnessing the Blitz, it's all right - I mean, the entire universe of Harry Potter is made up. Maybe, in a world where these characters might exist, the Blitz could have happened differently - why not? We have no idea about the dates of HP canon-Blitz. The events there don't have to take place in our specific world.

So, strictly speaking - yes, it's not canon, but more in relation to our world than to the world of HP.

[queer-scots-geordie-dyke]

Article here

At least 250 people who were detained at Manston asylum centre during a period when it was dangerously overcrowded and grappling with outbreaks of infectious diseases are suing the government for unlawful detention and other breaches of their rights.

They include a woman who had a miscarriage, a child whose age was recorded as five years older than he was, classifying him as an adult, and a teenager who was a victim of torture and trafficking.

The claims arise from a time when the Home Office’s site in Kent for processing people who had crossed the Channel on small boats was described by a senior union official as “a humanitarian crisis on British soil”.

The former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Neal, said the poorly managed and insanitary conditions there were so bad he was rendered speechless.

Andy Baxter, the assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, raised the alarm about conditions on the site in response to concerns from members of his union who worked there. After visiting, he described an unprecedented situation which more closely resembled a refugee camp in an unstable country than a Home Office temporary staging post for new arrivals to the UK in a tranquil corner of Kent.

At the time that Baxter said Manston was in crisis, marquees that were supposed to be used for a matter of hours before asylum seekers were moved to more permanent accommodation were used for more than a month in some cases. People slept on the dirty ground on pieces of sodden cardboard. There were outbreaks of diphtheria, a disease rarely seen in the UK thanks to vaccination, and scabies. One man died after contracting diphtheria while claims of guards assaulting asylum seekers were investigated by Kent police.

But it was only in the months after this bleak period – between June and November 2022 – that the full details of what happened there began to emerge.

Those bringing claims against the government include a 19-year-old from Sudan who was a victim of torture and trafficking, although his vulnerabilities were not recorded while he was detained at Manston for 33 days. He said he was often hungry and was only allowed one shower the whole time he was there. He was not given any change of clothes. He said that some of the officials he encountered at Manston told him to “go back to your country”.

Another claimant, a 17-year-old Kurdish boy from Iraq, was given a birth date five years older than his actual age, despite insisting he was a child. He was detained for 12 days.

A Syrian woman had a particularly difficult time. She arrived in the UK with her husband and their five young children, but when her husband complained to guards about the conditions at Manston he was removed from the site and placed in an immigration detention centre.

She did not know where he had been taken and feared he had been deported. She and the children spent 11 days in a freezing, filthy tent, and were only allowed to leave it to go to the toilet. When her children contracted a sickness bug that was circulating at Manston, she had nowhere to wash their vomit-stained clothes as there was a shortage of running water, so she tried to wash them using bottled water.

She herself vomited every morning and later discovered she was pregnant. She was unable to access medical care while in Manston, and when she was released and could seek treatment, it was discovered that the baby had died inside her. After she and her children were released from Manston, she was finally able to reunite with her husband but says that the impact of being detained in Manston continues to affect them all.

Emily Soothill of Deighton Pierce Glynn, who is representing some of those bringing legal action relating to their time at Manston, said: “We consider that our clients were falsely imprisoned and that the conditions in Manston were such that their human rights were breached. People seeking asylum are more vulnerable to physical and mental illness; they have the right to be treated with dignity and should not be detained in this way.”

Jed Pennington of Wilsons solicitors, representing others legally challenging their time in Manston, said: “The humanitarian crisis that unfolded at Manston in the autumn of 2022 is not what you would expect to see in a country with well-developed systems for accommodating refugees. Our clients want the truth about how it happened, who let it happen and how to prevent this from happening again.”

[pinturas-sgm-aviacion]

1943 05 Swordfish rockets 816 NAS- Roy Cross

By May 1943, No. 816 NAS was a seasoned Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm squadron with a history of anti-submarine and anti-shipping operations. Originally formed in October 1939 aboard HMS Furious with Fairey Swordfish for convoy protection, the squadron had seen action in multiple theaters, including Norway (1940), the Mediterranean (1941), and the Atlantic (1943). In early 1943, it was operating with Swordfish, likely the Mark II variant, which had been introduced that year with metal lower wings capable of mounting rockets—a significant upgrade for attacking surface targets. The squadron’s base of operations during this period is less certain, but it was likely shore-based at a southern England airfield, such as RAF Perranporth in Cornwall or RAF Manston in Kent, or possibly detached to an escort carrier like HMS Tracker or HMS Chaser, both of which it served aboard at various points in 1943.

The English Channel in May 1943 was a critical theater for disrupting German maritime supply lines, particularly as the Allies prepared for the eventual invasion of northwest Europe. German shipping in the Channel included coastal convoys, E-boats (Schnellboote, fast attack craft), and smaller vessels supporting the Atlantic Wall defenses. No. 816 NAS, with its Swordfish, would have been tasked with targeting these vessels, often under Coastal Command’s direction, to degrade German logistics and protect Allied shipping. The Swordfish’s ASV (Air-to-Surface Vessel) radar, operational since 1941, allowed it to locate targets in darkness or poor weather, making night missions a hallmark of its operations.

Equipped with rockets or bombs (torpedoes were less common against smaller Channel targets), they would patrol a sector between Start Point and Ushant, hunting for a German convoy reported by reconnaissance or Ultra intelligence.

In such a mission, the Swordfish would fly low, around 50-100 feet, using ASV radar to detect a target—say, a group of armed trawlers or an E-boat flotilla escorting supplies from Cherbourg to Boulogne. Upon sighting, the lead aircraft might signal an attack, climbing to 500 feet to fire rockets in a shallow dive, aiming to disable engines or ignite fuel stores. The others could follow with 250-lb bombs, targeting additional vessels or scattering the convoy. Success might be sinking one or two ships (100-500 tons each) or forcing the rest to disperse, with the flight returning under cover of darkness to avoid Luftwaffe interception. Losses were a risk; a Swordfish could be downed by flak or a night fighter, though German air cover in the Channel was waning by mid-1943.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Crews of No 137 Squadron RAF pose with a mascot in front of their Whirlwind Mk I fighter bombers at RAF Manston, Kent. March 5, 1943.

[usafphantom2]

27 November 1940. Messerschmitt Bf109E '4101, Black 12’, of Leutnant Wolfgang Teumer from 2/JG51 attacked by Spitfire of 66 Squadron’s Flt Lt George P Christie DFC over the Thames Estuary, damaging the radiator and radio. It belly-landed at Manston.

@ron_eisele via X

[deutschland-im-krieg]

Captured Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6/U2 "White 16", W.Nr. 412951, Pilot Leutnant Horst Prenzel, Staffelkäpitan (Squadron leader) of 3./JG 301, 21.7.1944, RAF Manston. While flying a Wild Saue night fighting mission over England, Prenzel and another pilot landed by mistake thinking they were over Germany. Prenzel was uninjured and made a POW. The aircraft was damaged during testing and was scrapped. For more, see my Facebook group - Eagles Of The Reich

[railwaycreature]

Found this nice image of Manston with some Swanage Railway apprentices so I gave them their face :))

[aimeedaisies]

Court Circular | 11th December 2024

St James’s Palace

The Princess Royal, Patron, Shaftesbury, this morning visited Netteswell Rectory, Manston Road, Harlow, and was received by Mr Vincent Thompson (Deputy Lieutenant of Essex).

Her Royal Highness this afternoon visited Brightlingsea Museum, Dove House, Station Road, Brightlingsea, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Essex (Mrs Jennifer Tolhurst).

The Princess Royal, Colonel-in-Chief, Intelligence Corps, later visited 1 Military Intelligence Battalion at Merville Barracks, Colchester, Essex.

Her Royal Highness, President, Racing Welfare, this evening attended a Carol Concert at Tattersalls, Terrace House, 125 High Street, Newmarket, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Suffolk (Clare, Countess of Euston).

The Princess Royal, President, Racing Welfare, afterwards attended a Dinner at the Jockey Club Rooms, 101 High Street, Newmarket, and was received by the Hon Peter Stanley (Deputy Lieutenant of Suffolk).

[guerrerense]

34070 dep Horsted Keynes JB charter image 7 lo res por Jeremy de Souza LRPS Por Flickr: 34070 'Manston' arriving and departing Horsted Keynes on the Bluebell Railway, as part of a Jon Bowers photo charter on 16 Oct 2023. 'Manston' is seen passing West Country class 'Blackmore Vale' at the north end of the station.

[monkeyssalad-blog]

RAF Hawker Hurricane Mk IIB BE505 G-HHII XP-L Hurribomber by Chris Murkin Via Flickr: RAF Hawker Hurricane Mk IIB BE505 G-HHII XP-L Hurribomber Painted in the colours of RAF 174 squadron based at RAF Manston which was formed from Hurribombers in March 1942. Photo taken at the Imperial War Museum Duxford Cambridgeshire 28th February 2025 HAA_0334