by Colin Smith
Troubridge, Commodore Thomas, 363–5, 378, 381
troupes spéciales, 192, 196, 207, 215
Truscott, Brigadier General Lucien, 413–14
Tuck, Pinckney, 394
Tunis, 416
Tunisia, 3, 59, 112, 139, 169, 364–6, 370, 387, 389–90, 393, 395, 400, 404–5, 407, 409, 420, 424–6
Turkey, 93, 98, 165, 167, 171–2, 184, 187, 259–60, 270
Turks, 175, 195, 221, 230
Tuttlingen, 272
Tweedale, Corporal, 265
Typhon, 378, 382, 397–400
Tyre, 195–7, 201
U-boats, 38–9, 112, 115, 133, 168, 216, 288, 296, 331, 336, 356, 360, 366, 375, 395, 432, 434; see also Japanese submarines
ULTRA, 151–2, 171, 186, 188, 354
United Press, 141, 157, 273
United Press International, 379
United States of America, 9, 20, 22–4, 27, 35–6, 63, 74–5, 92, 113, 143, 145, 146–7, 285, 288, 290, 346–7
relations with Vichy France, 273, 275, 347, 394, 396, 407
US Army, 351
US Army Rangers, 391–2
US Coast Guard, 364
US Navy, 351, 365
US State Department, 90, 373
USS Augusta, 412–14
USS Brooklyn, 411–12
USS Buchanan, 276
USS Chenango, 413
USS Chicago, 332
USS Massachusetts, 363, 410–12
USS New York, 413
USS Ranger, 412, 414
USS Suwanne, 412
USS Trenton, 90
USS Tuscaloosa, 412
USS Wichita, 412
Uzès, 152
Vallat, Xavier, 30
Valmy, 212, 245, 259
van Engert, Cornelius, 261, 263
Vansittart, Robert, 91
Vatican, 14
Venus, 421
Verdilhac, Général Raoul de, 191, 223–5, 231, 235–6, 239, 241–3, 246, 269, 271, 273
Verdin, Captain Richard, 196
Verdun, 3, 5, 17–18, 20–2, 24, 29, 96, 156
Versailles, 27, 273
Vichy Radio, 393, 402, 417, 427
Vichy regime, 104–5, 138, 141, 156, 169, 184, 344–5, 349, 351–2, 355, 394, 396, 407, 416–17, 428–9
Victor comic, 432
Victoria, Queen, 9, 13–14
Victoria Cross, 32, 44–5, 230, 263–4, 275–6, 409
Vigerie, Henri d’Astier de la, 426
Villebois-Mareuil, Colonel Comte de, 10
Villers-Bretonneux, 25
Vogl, General Oskar, 362
Voix de Paris, 431
Völkischer Beobachter, 110
Volta, 37, 57–8, 80
Vuillemin, Sous-lieutenant, 184
Walasi, Sergeant, 34
Walton Hospital, 101
Walton Jail, 148
War Cabinet, 63, 94, 112, 146, 278, 288
Ward, Major General Orlando, 409
Waring, Captain Sam, 266
Warm Springs Spa, Georgia, 423
Warsaw, 90
Warwickshire Yeomanry, 175, 246, 255–6
Washington, 91–2, 277, 285, 350, 360–1, 394, 396, 407
Wasson, Thomas C., 113
Waterhouse, Major General George, 176
Waterloo, Battle of, 10, 16, 25, 36, 53, 128, 154, 232, 282
Watkins, Rear Admiral Geoffrey, 148–51
Watkins, Corporal, 302–3
Watson, Major John, 126
Watson, Pilot Officer, 181
Waugh, Captain Evelyn, 115, 135–6, 198–9, 392
Wavell, General Archibald, 146–7, 177, 170–4, 187–9, 192, 199, 201, 225, 232, 236, 272, 274, 288, 340
Waziristan, 311
Weatherall, Sergeant Stamford, 368–9, 371
Webb, Leading Seaman Albert, 52–4, 56, 101, 148
Wellington, Duke of, 35, 319
Wells, H.G., 28
Werth, Alexander, 27
West, Lieutenant Colonel Michael, 307–8, 316, 329, 343
West Africa, 330–1; see also French West Africa
Westernland, 114, 119, 121, 123–4, 126–8, 133
Westminster Abbey, 37
Weygand, Général Maxime, 4, 23, 93, 105, 138, 143, 147, 159, 346, 369–70
Wheeler, Corporal George, 277
Whitaker, Second Lieutenant, 302–5
White, Private, 266
Wiesbaden, 107, 110, 139, 395
Wilde, Oscar, 10
Wilkie, Wendell, 147
Williams, Charles, 18
Willmott, Sergeant, 319
Wilson, Captain Tom, 228–9, 231
Wilson, Woodrow, 24
Wiltshire Yeomanry, 175, 246, 250, 254–6
Winchester Castle, 289
Windsor Castle, 291, 293–4, 297
Wingate, Colonel Orde, 192
Woerner, Leutnant, 182
Wood, Lieutenant Brian, 310–11
Wright, Captain Jerauld, 361, 366
Wulisch, General Erich von, 415
Wurttemberg, 429
Yarmuk, river, 220
Ypres, Battle of, 35
Yugoslavia, 155, 189, 271
Yule, Ordinary Seaman, 320–1
Zanuck, Colonel Darryl, 401, 406
Zenobia, Queen, 246
Zionists, 165, 172, 192, 254, 262
Zola, Émile, 14
* Although Podensac itself is better known for the bitter orange vermouth marketed as Lillet, a favourite tipple of the Duchess of Windsor; also James Bond’s in Casino Royale.
* The third VC went to Lieutenant Richard Stannard, a 37-year-old Royal Navy Reserve officer from the merchant fleet. His anti-submarine trawler Arab was the only one of twelve to survive a campaign in which Stannard had distinguished himself on numerous occasions including a single-handed attempt to put out a fire in a dockside ammunition dump. Already bomb-damaged, almost out of anti-aircraft tracer and limping out of a fjord, Stannard refused to surrender his ship to the pilot of a Junkers 88 who, evidently sickened by the slaughter, flashed a Morse message. When the German lost patience and attacked, Stannard got his Lewis gun crew to hold their fire until the last moment and shot it down. Then he got the Arab home.
* Named after Paul Teste, 1917–18 fighter pilot and Aviation Navale pioneer, killed in 192.4 flying a prototype single-engined biplane bomber in which he was contemplating an Atlantic crossing.
* ‘Rarely has so generous a proposal encountered such a hostile reception,’ observed Churchill.
* A class of warship is named after the first one of that type to be built, in this case the Bretagne. It was known that another of her class, the Trovence, was in Mers-el-Kébir but they were almost identical and it would have been impossible to tell which was which from the air.
* After a gunfight some 300 British merchant seaman off ships sunk by the Graff Spee were rescued from the German tanker Alt-mark, one of the raider’s support vessels, by a boarding party from HMS Cossack which pursued her into frozen Norwegian waters.
* Monsieur and Madame Caillaux both had famous acquittals. In 1914 his second wife and former mistress Henriette shot dead Gaston Clamette, editor of he Figaro, because she feared her husband might die in a duel with him over his threat to publish compromising letters. Clamette took four bullets in an obviously premeditated killing and the guillotine loomed; but it was declared ‘an uncontrollable female crime of passion’ and she was freed, a gross miscarriage of justice eclipsed by the murder on the same day of an archduke in Sarajevo.
* Kordt was an anti-Nazi who had risked his life urging Britain to defy Hitler over Czechoslovakia.
* Some fifty years later, those of us who witnessed, at the end of what became the First Gulf War, the carnage US aircraft had inflicted on Saddam’s retreating army at Kuwait’s El Mutla ridge were startled how the tale, already bad enough, grew in the telling.
* One Me no was salvaged and, until the RAF ran out of spare parts, spent the rest of its war mock dogfighting in Egypt.
* Under this sch
eme settlers worked in small groups to develop fruit and dairy farms and Britain and Australia shared the price of their passage out as well as jointly funding the settlements which were in the south-west of the state.
* Ireland’s rugby team is recruited from both sides of the border. In 1938 Mayne was also selected to play in the British Lions’ (as they became known) first tour of South Africa playing in 2.0 out of 24 provincial and test matches. On his return to Newtownards he had been fêted as a local hero and presented with a gold watch.
† When war broke out in 1939 Sir Walter offered his services ‘in any rank’ and was appointed as a liaison officer with an Indian Army unit fighting against the Italians along the Libyan coast. In the course of this he was captured, reputedly while firing his pistol at a tank, but within a few months was repatriated in a prisoner exchange after the Italians decided he was ‘too old to be dangerous’. On his return Cowan was attached to the Commandos with whom he would win his second DSO forty-six years after being awarded the first.
* Eton College celebrates 4 June as its foundation day because it is the birthday of its benefactor King George III.
† The Admiralty’s explanation was that the ‘abundance of white buildings made comparison with the Army map, on which only one was marked, useless’. RAF photo-reconnaissance was accused of compounding this by taking pictures of the wrong beach. At least one of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve sub-lieutenants who commanded the three landing craft realized that they were heading too far south but, according to Lieutenant Garland, turned down the Commandos’ entreaties to correct his course on the grounds that he was under strict orders not to break formation with the other landing craft.
* Another version has it that after a starving West African garrison was reduced to eating real monkeys all canned meat became the same.
* When Garland visited the site later he discovered that one of their ranging shots had started ‘a mini avalanche’ that had almost buried the gun beneath a pile of earth from which stuck a pair of feet.
* The Admiralty reprimanded Tothill for attacking without support, noting that French long-range gunnery was ‘significantly superior’ to the norm in His Majesty’s destroyers.
* He was told he should have used rifle slings to make a line across the river and sent his heavier weapons first. One of his sergeants suggested Macpherson be awarded a George Medal for life saving but this was turned down, possibly because a non-swimming Commando was not quite their public image.
* While Keyes is unstinting in his praise of the ‘great dash and determination’ displayed by Lance Corporal Dilworth and the other Australians in the boat party and admits that he would never have got to the north bank without them, he is less than kind about the performance of Captain Caro and C Company generally. (Dilworth belonged to another company.) But Keyes, the son of a hero, determined to be the same, was dealing with a civilian soldier, an accountant, some twelve years his senior who wanted to do the best by his men in a campaign that had started with excessive expectations of a pushover.
* Soon tanks would have telephones attached to their exteriors so that accompanying infantry could communicate.
* After much soul searching Dr Patterson, having told the Commando’s second-in-command what he was going to do, had informed Brigadier Festing who acted immediately.
* Used by pre-war long-haul pilots to stay alert, Benzedrine was handed out by all three British services though some infantry battalions thought it affected marksmanship and barred it, while individuals often refused the drug because it could have hallucinogenic side effects. Others thought it kept them alive.
* One Maryland crew shot down on the east coast made an enterprising escape. Major Ken Jones (the SAAF used army ranks) and his four companions had walked away from a crash-landing taking with them the Vickers K machine gun from their rear turret. It was carried by Navigator ‘Bull’ Malan, the biggest member of the party and younger brother of the RAF fighter ace Sailor Malan. On a narrow path through thick bush the South Africans heard what turned out to be a French officer and eight Malagasy riflemen approaching. Jones told his crew to hide and remained where he was.
‘You are my prisoner,’ announced the Frenchman in English.
‘No, no, Monsieur le capitaine. You are my prisoner,’ replied Jones, who then broke into Afrikaans, ‘Bull – los maar ‘n paar skote (Fire a few shots)’, at which Bull obliged with a brisk overhead burst with his Vickers.
‘Monsieur, I am your prisoner,’ agreed the sensible French officer and they adjourned to a nearby lighthouse where the keeper was persuaded to radio the Royal Navy in Diego Suarez which sent a minesweeper to collect them all.
* Charged with espionage, his court martial had been presided over by Général de bridgade Guillemet, Annet’s Commander-in-chief. Before sentencing him to five years’ hard labour Guillemet summed up the case for the defence. ‘Lieutenant Simpson-Jones, as I understand it, you arrived in the island because your ship caught fire and you had to abandon it and land as a survivor. When you tried to leave the island you chose a boat which leaked so much that it sank and you had to be rescued by fishermen who brought you ashore and, just at the moment we were arresting you, you managed to fall into a gold fish pond. Don’t you think that in the next world war you might do better to join the artillery?’
* According to one of the Commandos Clark caused some concern by fiddling with the firing mechanism and asking, ‘How the hell do you work this thing?’
* ‘Bless ’em all’, a sanitized version, became quite a hit and was sung by Gracie Fields, among others.
Copyright
A WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
This ebook frst published in 2010 by Orion Books
Copyright © 2009 Colin Smith
The right of Colin Smith to be identifed as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 0 2978 5781 5
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