#warhistoryonline

[danopdf]

band of brothers behind the scenes, via warhistoryonline

[gemfyre]

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[sarahalexanderhistory]

Ypres 26th October 1916

My dear Mother

I have had such lovely big posts lately. Good old Morn is getting away at last. I wonder where he is at the moment. I am sure he will do well and he will be alright with Kenneth Pennington. Poor old Trevor, he will feel it more than ever now. I do wish he could get his knee better, to go with them. I do hope that Morn will go to East Africa, as that will give him more experience before coming over here. He is young but the older fellows always take care of the younger ones and besides there are many as young as he is.

All my relations are so good to me. I get parcels from David, Jessie and Effie, and Aunt Ada or Cécile send me the parcels from you two, and I often get letters from them and Joan who is at school. I think she is just the bravest girl that ever there was.

I have been so cheered up today. Leave will be reopening for us before long and I will be in one of the 1st or 2nd lot to go. This means that that I ought to get it in about 4 or 5 weeks from now. Now don’t worry about money because I have plenty to buy all I want, spend a little on theatres and things and have a decent bit left as well. So far, I have hardly taken out much from the Standard Bank and have over £60 there. My balance at Cox and Co is about £30 as well.

The other day an 8 inch shell landed about 6 feet from my little dugout and buried all my belongings under about 6 feet of earth and mud. My servant and I dug out everything however and nothing is any the worse. A few days before that there were two of us (officers) at the battery and Fritz was dropping 8 inch shells about the place. We were sitting in the mess and 3 shells fell within 50 yards of the place. After the third shell, we thought that perhaps we had better move. We hadn’t moved 15 yards when there was another moan and rush and roar. We crouched in the shell hole that we had jumped into while the rest of the world seemed to fall on us, and when we got up, there wasn’t a sign of the mess at all, but in its place, was a smoking crater. We managed to find nearly everything and before dark, had another mess built on the same site in the hole.

Since I have been at this part of the world, I have felt quite important. Been sniped at dozens of times and have been made to smarten my pace or drop into shell holes more times than I care to count. However, I have been using a rifle a little lately with effect. I think we will be going out to rest soon. Please excuse the short note, but it is late.

Will post this letter but write some more for the mail.

Love to all

Your loving son

Norman

[oww666]

trust the gov’t they said 

[usafphantom2]

The personnel required to keep one Avro Lancaster flying on operations, taken at Scampton, Lincolnshire. Front row (left to right); flying control officer, WAAF parachute packer, meteorological officer, seven aircrew (pilot and captain, navigator and observer, air bomber, flight engineer, wireless operator/air gunner and two air gunners): second row, twelve flight maintenance crew (left to right; n.c.o. fitter, flight maintenance mechanic, n.c.o. fitter, five flight maintenance mechanics, electrical mechanic, instrument repairer, and two radio mechanics): third row, bombing up team; WAAF tractor driver with a bomb train of 16 Small Bomb Containers (SBC), each loaded with 236 x 4-lb No. 15 incendiaries and, behind, three bombing-up crew: fourth row, seventeen ground servicing crew (left to right; corporal mechanic, four aircraft mechanics, engineer officer, fitter/armourer, three armourers, radio mechanic, two instrument repairers, three bomb handlers, machine gunbelt fitter): back row (left to right); AEC Matador petrol tender and two crew, Avro Lancaster B Mark I heavy bomber, mobile workshop and three crew.

more Lancaster photo's via link warhistoryonline:

http://www.argunners.com/avro-lancaster-bomber-21-extraordinary-photographs/

[bantarleton]

What could possibly go wrong either in this article or its comment thread @warhistoryonline?

[world-war-2-archives]

The Consolidated B-24 ‘Liberator’ waist gunner c.1944 ** Waist gunners were charged with the defence of the Liberator’s vulnerable sides through use of single 12.7mm machine guns. As such, these positions aboard Liberators suffered the most casualties by incoming fighters ready to strafe the large profile sides of the bomber. These two positions, left and right, were later staggered to compensate for each gunners firing arc. Unlike other turreted positions in the B-24, spent shell casings at these waist positions were not jettisoned from the aircraft automatically, forcing crew-members to clear their areas themselves. Since firing from these side-perspective positions required a great deal of hand-to-eye coordination via tracer rounds while taking into account target speed and the Liberator’s airspeed itself, waist gunners relied on simple targeting sights in the early years. Only later did they receive assistance in the form of compensating sights to help improve accuracy. ** (Colorised by Mike Gepp from Australia) Source : WarHistoryonline. Com

[cuckingfrazy]

[modern-mountainman]

You ok @warhistoryonline ?

Winston Churchill as a war correspondent for the Morning Post during the Boer War in South Africa, 1899. https://wrhstol.com/2MMzVUZ

[gemfyre]

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[sarahalexanderhistory]

Ypres 18 November 1916

My dear Mother

This letter is my Christmas letter to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I can hardly believe that this will be my third away from home. I wonder how many will be at home. Morn and I will be away but Trevor will probably be able to get leave to go home.

19th November

It has been snowing a little but it is thawing now and is jolly cold outside. I expect it is a hot day at home. The whole country here is one great quagmire, from the rain and the shells. My clothes are very warm, but I haven’t many changes. My servant is very good though and always has a dry change for me.  I would be very glad though if you could send me a pair of sox about every 3 weeks. I got the muffler and wear almost always, night and day. The gloves that I bought in Amiens are beautifully warm.

Leave has been reopened for us, so I will be going in a few weeks. I hope I will buy some more winter clothes then. I won’t want much more though, only a couple of vests and underpants and shirts. I will also want a new tunic and long boots to wear on “occasions” and leave. My old ones have had such a rough time, that they are hardly presentable. Don’t worry about money, because I have plenty at present.

The other day I was on a small reconnaissance and visited a bombing post which was about 35 or 40 yards away from the Bosch. I looked over the parapet and at the same instant a Fritz looked over his parapet. I smiled at him, but he bobbed down. I then got a rifle and waited for him, but he put up a periscope up, so I put a bullet though it and smashed the glass. I then waited for another man, who would persist in looking over, about 100 yards away. Immediately he looked over, I fired and knocked his hat about 6 feet in the air. Later on, I got another one for a dead cert. I have now got one German for every Tatham who has been hit in this war, and one for myself, in case of accidents. Of course, this excludes all those hit by the cattery, but I expect they are a good number.

I am not sure when I go on leave, but if it is not closed again I will probably go in about 4 weeks from now – By Jove, just about Christmas time. It will be fine if I go then.

Old Fritz took a violent dislike to our battery and especially my new dugout the other day. He shelled us from 10 am until 4.30 pm with 4.2 in. 5 .9, and 16 in. naval high velocity guns. The 4.2’s were the most accurate and 3 dropped right against the walls of my dugout, while a good many others were all round the place. The 5.9’s were not sure of the place and searched around, getting in at times and wide other times. The naval gun only fired 8 shots and had evidently not allowed enough for wind, as they all fell about 100 yards away. The holes made by them are about 15 – 20 feet across and the same depth. They have left us pretty well alone since that day as they evidently think that we are completely blotted out. We will not be in this position very long – very little longer as a matter of fact, but are not going far.

We are all very happy in this mess. They all call me Chars (short for Leuchars) and they all pull my leg about every possible thing they can think of. I happened to mention that this would be my third Christmas away from home, so they pretend to be fearfully sympathetic and are going to do all sorts of wonderful things for me.

Younghusband knows a good many people in England and has given me an address of a private hospital to which I must “insist” on being taken to if I get wounded. The one place is 7 Seamore Place, London, and is Lady Inchcape’s hospital, and the other is 17 Park Lane, run by Dr. Shields, both of these people are friends of Younghusband.

The wild Irishman (Mahony) had to go to an O.P. and stay the night there tonight, to his disgust, but he has a good dugout and a fire in a brazier so is quite well off.

It is Sunday night and just 9.30 pm, so I expect Father has just come back from Church and is seeing the papers he did up this morning for me are in the old kitchen ready to go in the morning. I do love getting them and read almost every word of them, including advertisements.

All the others have gone to bed so I must follow them. I wish you all very Merry Christmas and let’s hope that we all spend the next one together at Highacre, which is just the loveliest place on earth. I am so glad Mr. Pascoe spent a short time there.

I will probably write a short note again tomorrow.

When I get leave I will write tons of interesting news.

Your loving son

Norman

P.S. Good old Fort has been awarded the Military Cross!

[usafphantom2]

Sherman tanks move up past a crash-landed Spitfire, for an attack on Tilly-sur-Seulles, 17 June 1944. The Spitfire’s squadron code – ‘VZ’ – indicates it belongs to RCAF 412 Squadron, which operated the Spitfire IXb during this period.(warhistoryonline)

[xcompanysource]

Thank you so much for uploading all the episodes, it means SO much to me!

cont.. But I didn’t quite get it - why do they keep mentioning Bergen and Oslo - did something happen there, did they have people there? I was just wondering if you know what they said about it - I just didn’t get it haha

of course!!! I do my best

I know, I am feeling a bit of disappointment too - I understand what you mean, in the first season, we were always on the edge of our seats waiting for what would happen next. In this season, it all feels kind of slow even though the action is there…. I just don’t know :( For me personally, though, the show is lacking a lot with Tom gone hahah. He was my favourite character, though, so I could be biased…

As for Norway - the history major in me is about to break free! Are you ready for it?? HISTORY LESSON TIME!!

During WWII, the Allies did a super cool thing called Operation Bodyguard, which was, in essence, a whole series of “fake news” (ha) that was fed to the Nazis to make them think invasions were happening somewhere other than the planned invasion of Normandy. There were a bunch of different sub-categorical deceptions within Bodyguard, which you can read about here in a briefing by Major Richard Ricklefs. The main one for our intents and purposes, though, was part of Operation Fortitude, or specifically, Fortitude North - the so called invasion of Norway. They literally fed fake information through planted notes, radio chatter, and - surprise - through soldiers who were being tortured and questioned. Sound familiar?

Here’s a sweet lowdown of the deception plan on History.com, and another cool article on WarHistoryOnline. And this article is more general info about the whole of Operation Bodyguard.

Kind of unrelated, but here’s a cool article about Norwegians on DDay that I thought you might like!