Our Land at War
Page 43
on his conning tower: The wreck of the battleship still lies on the bottom of Scapa Flow, almost upside down in 100 feet of water, with her hull only sixteen feet beneath the surface. As the bodies of her crew could not be recovered, she is a designated war grave, and at annual ceremonies Royal Navy divers place a White Ensign on her stern. In Germany Günther Prien became a national hero, but not for long: in March 1941 he and his submarine U-47 were lost.
to play for them: BBC PW A2692811.
Twenty-Three: On the Springboard
we were imitating: Fortitude South, pp. 63–5.
the hours of daylight: Ibid., p. 46.
more ambitious programme: The Double-Cross System, p. 142.
deception campaign: Double Cross, p. 175.
a campaign of assassination: Ibid., p. 186.
“hide the facts in order to trick us”: Ibid., pp. 290–91.
bottom of the English Channel: King’s Counsellor, pp. 224–9.
in the past four years: Ibid., pp. 224–30.
drop in the barometer: The Times, 5 June 1944.
excluded from the area: www.qe2activitycentre.co.uk/hms%20Cricket.htm
vehicles of every description: Past Forgetting, p. 162.
with the Lord’s Prayer: www.qe2activitycentre.co.uk/hms%20Cricket.htm
fingers crossed: Evidence for the Crown, p. 139.
landing in Normandy: Ibid.
we would later regret: Double Cross, p. 325.
‘extraordinary merits’: After the war MI5 spirited Garbo away to Venezuela, where he became a Spanish teacher and opened a bookshop. In 1984 he came to England to receive his MBE, and he died in 1988, content in the knowledge that his machinations had saved hundreds of lives and casualties on the Normandy beaches. In the words of Ben Macintyre, ‘he was a warrior who fought to save lives, not to take them, using words as his only weapons’.
Twenty-Four: Flying Bombs
destroyed by Allied bombers: Hansard, 6 July 1944.
talking to all and sundry: King’s Counsellor, p. 243.
poor, defenceless London: Ibid.
driven partridges: Ibid.
outside Tunbridge Wells: Eden Valley Museum archive.
before anyone came: War in the Countryside, p. 151.
to ruin tomato crops: FW, 7 July 1944.
with a bang!: Evidence for the Crown, p. 141.
a fanatical suicide: Ibid., p. 144.
rather striking: Ibid, p. 145.
‘almost with affection’: Hertfordshire Mercury, 18 September 1998. The last V-1 of the war also landed in the Hertfordshire countryside, on the morning of 29 March 1945.
of the London region: The Double-Cross System, p. 181.
Twenty-Five: Unfinished Business
moving off to the kill: I Am My Brother, p. 269.
will derive benefit: The Battle of the Land, p. 140.
‘united the nation as never before’: Ibid.
dug up in the fields: Details from Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, pp. 52–81. In April 1946 he read a newspaper report of the find, and was so excited that he immediately drove 120 miles to Mildenhall, where he talked to Gordon Butcher at length. Ford closed the door in his face. Dahl embroidered his account of the discovery with extra detail, but insisted that all the main facts were accurate.
stiff East Anglian clays: FW, 28 July 144.
the black earth of Suffolk: The silver is now exhibited in the British Museum.
what had been lost: The Times, 6 June 1944.
foxes or trees: FW, 11 August 1944.
blackbird and robin: All Hands to the Harvest, p. 207.
carried indoors and unloaded: FW, 29 September 1944.
they needn’t bother: FW, 8 September 1944.
and West Perthshire: Ibid., 7 July 1944.
effaced and forgotten: Ibid.,18 May 1945.
the amount blown out: Ibid.
concrete and modern materials: Ibid.
to wander about them: The Country Gentleman’s Estate Magazine, June 1943, p. 156.
twice on Sundays: FW, 19 January 1945.
orchard and dairy: Lady Denman, pp. 178–9.
general-maid-of-all-work-and-no-initiative: FW, 11 August 1944.
our post-war policy: FW, 11 March 1945.
any politician departs: Ibid., 3 November 1944.
Heavy rain in afternoon: John Alsop’s diary is now in the library at Newquay Zoo.
a fireworks display: www.lgchronicle.net/WW2.html
relief and thankfulness: FW, 11 May 1945.
the medical service: The Lady, 14 June 1945.
marvellous capacity for greatness: Evidence for the Crown, p. 148.
time to stiffen: Orwell, Diaries, p. 339.
as being ‘the enemy’: Richard Moore-Colyer in the Agricultural History Review, quoted in www.bahs.org.uk/AGHR/ARTICLES/54n2a8.pdf
one’s stride and enjoyed: Ibid.
equally strange: Action Stations, p. 32.
to be properly exploited: Country Notes in Wartime, p. 18.
Picture Section
September 1939: a London bobby marshals children for evacuation from the capital. To prevent parents following, they were not told where their offspring were going. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
A monkey, a teddy and a doll were the only consolation for children suddenly separated from home and family. Small wonder that they looked apprehensive. (Keystone Press/Getty Images)
Vigilance and quick reactions were the hallmarks of the Royal Observer Corps, here depicted manning a flimsy outpost in a watercolour by Eric Ravilious, one of the official war artists. (The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum, Bedford/Bridgeman Images)
In voice and in person, Vera Lynn was the Forces’ Sweetheart. She received a thousand letters a week begging her to sing ‘We’ll Meet Again’, ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ and other favourites. (Keystone Press/Getty Images)
A formidable organizer, Trudie, Lady Denman, commanded the Women’s Land Army, establishing its headquarters in her own house. Girls flocked to join, and by 1943 the organization was 80,000 strong. (Courtesy of NFWI Archives)
Potato-picking was one of the dirtiest and least favourite jobs cheerfully tackled by the Land Girls. The spade lugs on the tractor’s rear wheels gave it a grip in soft ground, but made it hellish to drive on hard surfaces. (Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans)
Land Girls learn the ins and outs of a tractor. Confounding sceptical farmers, many became not only good drivers but also expert mechanics, able to carry out their own maintenance. (Museum of English Rural Life, Reading)
All hands to the harvest: threshing, with the barn-worker in the foreground and the steam engine behind, was one of the great events of the farming year. (Museum of English Rural Life, Reading © London News Agency)
Lumber Jills – forestry equivalents of the Land Girls – did sterling work in woods and plantations, felling trees with axes and crosscut saws, and cutting up slender poles for pit props. (Fox Photos/Getty Images)
In the great drive to increase vegetable production, pea-picking and shelling were tasks for the whole family, young or old. (Fox Photos/Getty Images)
For people in rural Britain, the arrival of black American GIs was a revelation. (David E. Scherman/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Lord Woolton, the popular Minister of Food known as ‘Uncle Fred’, waged continuous propaganda campaigns urging people to be thrifty, to eat sensibly and to grow more vegetables. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Gert and Daisy – in real life Elsie and Doris Waters, shown here distributing cakes to bombed-out Londoners – were immensely popular radio and stage entertainers. (Planet News Archive/SSPL/Getty Images)
‘Queue, queue, queue,’ one woman remembered. ‘What patience and stamina we must have had!’ Housewives grew so addicted to queuing that they would join a line without knowing what lay at the end of it. (Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)
With supplies from abroad threatened by U-boats, Government poster
s urged gardeners and farmers to grow all possible food at home. (The National Archives/SSPL/Getty Images, Heritage Images/Corbis, Topfoto, Museum of English Rural Life, Reading)
Paintings from the National Gallery were manhandled into the former slate mine at Manod, in Snowdonia, in purpose-built wagons. (Fred Ramage/Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Inside the cavernous mine the paintings were stored in six specially-built brick buildings, with air-conditioning to control temperature and humidity. (Fred Ramage/Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
On 27 November 1944 an accident in the bomb-storage area of the former gypsum mine at Faulds, in Staffordshire, caused the largest non-nuclear explosion the world had ever known, hurling two million tons of rock and earth into the sky. (© IWM, CH 3043)
As the war went on, more and more downed German aircraft littered the fields – but the presence of swastika-clad wrecks was of no consequence to sheep. (Museum of English Rural Life, Reading © Keystone Press Agency)
Passion-killer black tights were essential in the bitter winter of 1939–40 for the girls of Penrhos College, evacuated from Bangor to Chatsworth in Derbyshire, when skating on the lake in front of the great house. (© Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees)
RAF Medmenham, based in Danesfield House near Marlow, became the vital centre of Allied photographic interpretation, analysing films taken by aircraft flying high over occupied Europe. (© IWM, CH 16106)
Winston Churchill, here with his wife Clemmie, enjoyed visiting the London Zoo. (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
He was positively enchanted by Ming the panda, who began the war at Whipsnade but was then moved back to Regent’s Park. The animal, he said, ‘has exceeded all my expectations, and they were very high.’ (A. Cook/London Express/Getty Images)
In 1940, when Hitler was threatening invasion, farmers’ problems were increased by lines of obsolescent cars parked across fields to prevent glider landings. (Topfoto)
Juan Pujol García, nicknamed Garbo, was the mastermind behind the D-Day deception plan in 1944. The Germans believed he had 24 agents in England, when in fact he had none. (The National Archives, UK. KV2/70)
At Sidcup in Kent, after Doug Holland’s forge had been shattered by a bomb, he promptly set about rebuilding it. (Topfoto)
The country was safer than towns during the Blitz, but even so many farms were hit. Here, Land Girls help clear up after a strike. (Museum of English Rural Life, Reading)
Italian prisoners went out to the fields singing ‘O sole mio’ and ogling girls, but farmers found that they did far less work than Germans. (Museum of English Rural Life, Reading © Topical Press Agency)
Rubber tanks, which could be inflated with a stirrup pump in three and a half minutes, were an essential element in the Fortitude deception scheme before D-Day.
Index
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Aalborg 244
Abberley, Worcestershire 146–7
Abbeystead, Lancashire 306
Abboud Pasha 146
Aberystwyth 155, 191
National Library of Wales 187
Abwehr 367, 368, 376
Abwurfaktion 74
Achnacarry Castle 351–3, 354, 355
Adlerangriff (Eagle Attack) 105
Adlertag (Eagle Day) 105
Admiralty 184, 207, 338, 359
Advice to Animal Owners 51
Aeroplane 178, 201
Agricultural Labourers’ Union 10
Aintree race course 289
Air Ministry 30, 215, 273
Air Raid Precaution wardens (ARPs) 30, 58, 77, 100, 177, 302
air raids
animal casualties 112
bombing of Eire 111–12
coastal 104
false targets 111
and family pets 122
farms 106
fighter stations 107–8
flying bombs 379–88
as free entertainment 107
German cities 105, 109
London 108–9
major cities 109
Scotland 103–4
southern England 105–6
stray bombs 113
survivals 110–11
wearing of helmets 110
aircraft 1
Avro Lancaster 240–1
Bristol Blenheims 236
Dorniers 104, 118, 283
Flying Fortresses (B-17s, B-24s) 260–2, 264
Halifaxes 245
Hampdens 240, 244
Heinkels 104, 118, 301
Hurricanes 131, 179, 244, 286
Junkers 104, 223, 244, 246
Messerschmitts 104, 107
Mosquitoes 7, 202, 380–1
Spitfires 107, 131, 244, 283, 380–1
Stukas 104
Wellingtons 240
Whitneys 240
airfields
accidents, crashes and casualties 244, 245, 246, 260–1, 262
construction 237, 238
demand for 239
living conditions 239–40
locations 235–6, 242–5
provision of piped water 237–8
relations with the locals 243
requisitioning of land 238–9
rest and relaxation 243
WAAFS’ role 245–6
see also Royal Air Force (RAF) bases
Aldershot race course 290
Aldred, Captain 305
All Blacks 286
Allenheads, Yorkshire 306
Allied Central Interpretation Unit (ACIU) 379
based at Danesfield House 199–200, 202
Allingham, Margery 36–7, 68, 110
Almondbank (Perthshire) 94
Alsop, John 403–4
Amazon Defence Corps 67
American Air Command 273
Americans
advice given to 248–50
effect on the landscape and local communities 247–8, 258–9, 260
arrival of airmen 257–65
arrival of GIs 247–57
attacks on and by 254–5
billeting of 250
cooperation with the British 264–5
departure of 390
fascinated by rusticity of surroundings 262–3
off-duty entertainment and drinking 250–1, 263, 265
predatory behaviour 251–2
problem of VD 256
rape by 257
reaction to black GIs 252–4, 255–6
rescued by barking of collie dog 399
segregation 253–4
vandalism perpetrated by 258–9
war babies 265–7
Anderson, Sir John 290
Anderson, General Kenneth 332
animals 122
casualties of war 112, 122
deer 308–10
rabbits 64–5, 95, 144–5, 411
rats and mice 95–6, 145
squirrels 410–11
Annsmuir 87
Ansell, Diana 41–2
Anstey Hall, Nr Trumpington 100
anthrax 357–9
Antrim 254
Apley Hall, Shropshire 64–5, 95
Appleton house, Norfolk 223
Arisaig 350
Arisaig House, Inverness-shire 199, 347
Arnold, Ralph, A Very Quiet War 82
ARPs see Air Raid Precaution wardens
Arundel, Sussex 329–30
Astor family 13
Attlee, Clement 407
Audley End House, Saffron Walden 198–9
Auxiliary Air Force 286
Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) 164, 382
Auxiliary Units 84, 86, 87, 88, 183
Aveton Gifford, Devon 340
Axmouth, Devon 69
Babington Smith, Constance 200–2
Evid
ence in Camera 201
Bacon, Muriel 362
Baden-Powell, Lord Robert 114
Badminton House, Gloucestershire 174, 218–22
Badminton, nr Bristol 35, 220–3, 224
Baedeker guides 109
Baedeker raids 109
Bainbridge, Jack 246
Balcombe Place, Sussex 154
Ballater 172
Balmoral 224
Bangor 35, 191, 322
Banks, Fred 163
Barber, Derek (later Lord Barber) 21, 23
Barber’s folly, Moreton-in-Marsh 21
Barlow, Sir John 395
Barnehurst, Kent 283
Barnes, Maurice 144
barrage balloons 380, 387
Barrow-in-Furness 159
Basham, Ben 386–7
Basing Park, Hampshire 173
Basset, Dora 383
Bates, H. E. 36, 108
Bath 109, 224, 257
Royal School 48
Bath Farm, Lancashire 158
Bath, Henry Thynne, 6th Marquess 48, 212
Battle of Britain Day (1941) 108–9
BBC 99–100, 149, 152, 248, 321
Beal Grammar School, Ilford 47–8
Beauchamp, William Lygon, 7th Earl 72
Beaufort, Henry Somerset, 10th Duke 221, 224–5, 297
Thoughts on Hunting by the Duke of Beaufort 297–8
Beaverbrook, Lord 131
Beddow, Barbara 174–7
bees 97, 147–8
Beesthorpe Hall, nr Newark 305
Beeston, Jolly 20
Belfast 42, 303
Mater Hospital 303
Royal Victoria Hospital 303
Belfrage, Bruce 100
Bellanaleck, Co. Fermanagh 42
Bennett, Peggy 227