Ian Daglish

THE SMITH GUN

2011-07-11T11:19:00.005+01:00

As my friends well know, I have long been interested in invasions of Britain, and especially the story of 1940 and Operation SEA LION (Fall Seelöwe). Interested too when a recent BBC 'Antiques Roadshow' asked their military specialist what rare item he would most dearly like to discover. His answer: the Smith Gun.

In recent months I have tracked down two survivors of this rare weapon: one at the Imperial War Museum's Fort Nelson in Portsmouth; the other in the National Army Museum, Chelsea.

This remarkable innovation was designed by the director of a toy company for the defence of the British realm. The regular army would have nothing to do with it, but the Local Defence Volunteers (later 'Home Guard') thought it was wonderful. The most remarkable feature of this unusual weapon was the way of getting it into action. turned on its side, one of the large disc wheels became the base; the other the roof. The smoothbore barrel traversed around the axle. The gun could be towed behind a motor-cycle, though the placard warned: 'THIS SIDE UP - SPEED NOT TO EXCEED 20 M.P.H.'

2011 ABF TOUR

2011-05-18T10:56:00.001+01:00

Every year I support 'ABF The Soldiers' Charity' (formerly the 'Army Benevolent Fund') by volunteering to lead a battlefield tour. In 2011 we decided to stay in Britain. And whyever not, since the country is rich in battlefields! This year's tour covered 'Secret War'.

Yes, they really did!

First we visited Chicksands, Britain's Defence Intelligence and Security Centre (DISC). Within this high-security establishment are both the Intelligence Corps Museum and the Medmenham Collection. As a member of the Medmenham Club, I was pleased and proud to show our tour members this collection of aerial photo reconnaissance artefacts. The exhibits range from 19th Century balloons and kites to modern imagery.

Of particular interest is the unque 'Wild' (pronounced 'villt'). In 1940, Britain had only one working Wild-A5, the sole machine capable of extracting vital information from high-flying Spitfire sorties. So, a further two machines were acquired from Switzerland, smuggled through Germany to Sweden, dismantled, and flown to Britain in Mosquitos. On one of the last trips, the aircraft was almost bounced by a German fighter and very nearly needed to dump the bomb-bay cargo, including the engineer!

WILD A-5

Next stop Duxford. There is so much to see there, it is no surprise that two-day tickets are increasingly popular. As an Army group we started at the Land Warfare Hall.

Chrysler A57 Multibank 445 hp (Sherman M4A4)

Sturmgeschütz III

But of course as an active airfield the main theme of Duxford is aviation-related.

Lastly we spent a full day at Bletchley Park, 'Station X'. Here the German codes were famously broken, and radio intelligence intercepted by the 'Y Stations' (including Chicksands) interpreted. The 'Bombe' machine broke the ENIGMA code with its 156 million, million, million variations; and 'Colossus', the world's first semi-programmable computer broke the output of the high-level Lorentz coding machine. Rebuilt and functioning, Colossus can be viewed today, its hundreds of valves glowing and its paper tapes spinning around at 30 miles-per-hour! Here, the war was shortened by, quite possibly, a full two years.

the story of Panzer IV no. 535

2011-02-17T14:28:00.000Z

The front and back jacket illustrations of my latest book depict a wrecked Panzer IV of 5. Kompanie, 3. Panzerregiment. I have today posted some information about that tank in the section of my website devoted to 'Over the Battlefield Operation BLUECOAT'.

Download a Chapter

2011-01-26T10:50:00.000Z

To accompany a talk given at The Tank Museum, Bovington, on 27 January, I am making available a download of the chapter on which it was based. This is a brief study of German armour tactics in Normandy.

The piece is actually a draft preview of an Appendix to the forthcoming fourth volume in the 'Over the Battlefield' series: working title:

'TIGERS AND DESERT RATS IN NORMANDY'

For a limited period, this chapter will be freely available on the Dowloads page of my website.

If you have any comments, please feel free to use the 'contact Ian' facility on the website.

DANESFIELD

2010-12-20T14:06:00.001Z

I have just added a short piece about my recent visit to the Second World War A.C.I.U. at Danesfield to my website. It's under 'News'. If you would like any more info on the subject, please feel free to ask!

Happy Christmas.

Ian

December update

2010-12-04T15:34:00.000Z

An American guest arrives at Southampton and I drive across the country to welcome him for a few days visit to England.

Where to start? Well, how about showing a vistor from a country a couple of centuries old... something built 4,000 years ago!

PS Also on my website I have recorded a visit to the British Army Small Arms Collection.

OCTOBER UPDATE

2010-10-18T12:14:00.000+01:00

SORRY to have been quiet for so long. A lot has been happening, and I shall review very quickly. July saw our Silver Wedding Anniversary. Joy would have liked to go to Mauritius but in line with the current Age of Austerity the Family Finances stretched as far as the Lake District. The Queens Head Hotel in Troutbeck is very highly recommended, and we enjoyed a circular walk around Ambleside and back over Wansfell Pike, with fantastic views the length of Lake Windermere.

As plans for my next book, the fourth Over the Battlefield, come together, I travel around gathering material and information. A trip to Shrewsbury to interview a former officer of the County of London Yeomanry (there's a clue!) permitted a brief march around the 1403 battlefield - it is well signposted with good paths.

Incidentally, if you would like a good book on British battles, including Shrewsbury, FREE!, just go to:

http://books.google.co.uk/books

and look for Brook, 'Fields of Battle'.

TARA: microfilm reader and monitors.

Next essential stage in the project was a long-awaited return to TARA - The Aerial Reconaissance Archives. No longer of course at Keele but residing at RCAHMS in Edinburgh. It's a long way from Cheshire, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to spend three full days trawling through sortie plots and extracting aerial images of various bits of the Normandy battlefields.

And now, one more long journey to yet another archive before I finalize my plans for the forthcoming volume. This time south, to Kew. Watch this space.

SMATS AFTER PADDY

2010-10-17T15:17:00.001+01:00

Paddy Griffith's untimely death occurred before the planned start of the new season of his South Manchester Tactical Society. A number of us resolved to keep the tradition going as we felt Paddy would have wished, even though we would no longer be meeting in his front room. Indeed, with a large room available in the nearby Didsbury Hotel, we now have the opportunity to extend the invitation to attend SMATS to a wider audience.

852 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester, Greater Manchester M20 2SG

tel 0161 4455389

Ian giving the first talk of the 2010-11 season

All are welcome, and to celebrate, we now even have a website!

http://www.smats.org.uk/

RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE

2010-10-17T15:06:00.000+01:00

One Sunday in late September found me back in Cambridge for a reunion lunch. For me, returning to Trinity College always feels like a homecoming. We had an address from the Master: Lord Rees of Ludlow, Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society. On the drive from Cheshire I had been listening (again!) to his 2010 Reith Lectures - absolutely fascinating words of wisdom about astrophysics and the future of mankind.

All freely downloadable at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/reith

By the way, for one of Ian's own contributions to the BBC, look at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7457795.stm

After the lunch I visited the Wren Library, where I sat my first-year college exams. On display there is the work of one of Martin Rees's predececcors: an original draft of Isaac Newton's 'Principia'. And nearby there's the no less impressive manuscript of that other classic: A A Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh'.

OLD SOLDIERS

2010-07-25T13:54:00.001+01:00

A departure from the Second World War and Normandy!

While wife and daughters were away, I got out the Napoleonic soldiers I lovingly created all those years ago during university vacations. I had a crazy idea of refighting battles using a scale of one figure to just ten men. Well, at least it meant the French could form a three-deep line.

The figures are 20mm scale, mainly the classic Hinton Hunt castings which were a pain to clean of 'flash', but exceptionally highly detailed.

OBITUARY: Dr Patrick George GRIFFITH

2010-07-11T12:57:00.002+01:00

On the morning of Friday 25 June, I was shocked to hear that my very dear friend Paddy Griffith had died.

As most will know, Paddy Griffith was an accomplished military historian, a serious academic with an unfashionable interest in wargaming as a means of understanding war and warriours.

I was delighted to discover eight years ago that Paddy lived close by and held monthly meetings at his home in a reinstatement of Charles Oman's Amateur Tactical Society. Since then, Monday evening SMATS has been an important event in my diary.

People have had a lot to say about Paddy, at his funeral on Friday 9 July; also in a long obituary in The Times that same day. My abiding memories of him will be his enormous generosity and his fabulous sense of humour. Also, my first meeting with him. Sitting in the kitchen of this distinguished historian, sketching out my ideas for what was to be my first published book, I found him treating me as an equal. This was of course deeply flattering, but also the best encouragement I could have been given to carry on with the task.

Paddy's funeral was conducted - most ably - by a representative of the British Humanist Association. Nevertheless, if Paddy passes through St Peter's gate, the dice will shortly be rolling in Heaven.

TODAY'S UPDATE

2010-07-05T20:03:00.000+01:00

Just in case you miss it since they are at the bottom of the respective page, I have at last got around to updating the 'last' bits of Over the Battlefield: Operation GOODWOOD. Have a look.

TANKFEST 2010

2010-06-29T12:55:00.001+01:00

The annual 'Tankfest' took place over the weekend of 26 & 27 June, 2010. I was pleased to be invited to the Sunday event - otherwise my absence for a whole weekend and the cost of the 530 mile round trip would have been hard to justify to wife and daughters.

Let there be no doubt, Bovington has long been the best tank museum in the world - hence its title: 'The Tank Museum'. And however often you visit, there always seems to be something new. It is a delight to see the collection so well preserved. There are limits, of course. Some of the First World War tanks can barely support their own weight, let alone ever again be driven. But much of the collection remains mobile: oiled, fueled, ready to go. I recall an ex-Army friend entering the museum, inhaling deeply, and announcing, 'Ahh... the smell of tank sheds!'

The show begins - Bovington Historian David Fletcher adding commentary from the viewing tower.

Research confirms that most visitors do not know one tank from another. On a wet summer day, do they keep the children amused by seeing tanks or visiting Monkey World just up the road? So it makes excellent sense to preserve the most rare 'runners' for special occasions. Like Tankfest. Then, the discriminating audience is treated to the sight and sound (and smell, and dust!) of all our favourites.

And we all have our favourites. Many gravitate to the famous Tiger I. Personally, I am at least as much impressed by the sight of an immaculate Jagdpanther strutting its stuff. My guest on the day, David Schofield, confessed to a particular interest in the SU100. If pressed, I would say I was most pleased by the sight of the A11, Infantry Tank Mark I, 'Matilda'. Not only in good running order, but surrounded by a group of 1940 reenactment enthusiasts, delighted to have been given a 'real' 1940 tank to enhance their display.

PLEASE NOTE: Among other photos taken that day are a series of 'inside and out' shots, which will appear in the 'puzzles' section of my website.

HUNTING STURMTIGER

2010-06-25T13:49:00.002+01:00

Many who wargame the Second World War have a fascination for the weird and wonderful, and the Sturmtiger is one such. A heavily armoured platform for a 38cm naval mortar firing a 330kg bomb! The fact that this was entirely the sort of weapon the German army did NOT need in 1944-45 does not reduce its appeal for the wargamer. Nor does the fact that only a tiny number were even produced (*) deter wargamers from seeking accounts of Sturmtiger apprearing in action.

(* up to 18, of which barely half may have been completed)

One account that has been quoted by various people concerns the 1st Oxf & Bucks, at Gyhum, near Zeven, on 24 April 1945. While researching the use of the British Universal Carrier, this author became briefly intrigued by this tale and traced it to its origins. As is so often the case, all published accounts turned out to stem from one single source.

The source: 'View From a Forgotten Hedgerow'. The author: Desmond Milligan (comedian Spike's elder brother).

24 April found Corporal Milligan wading through a muddy field, weighed down by the Bren magazines he was carrying forward to the Carrier Platoon. British artillery shells and mortar bombs were streaming overhead while German mortar bombs were impacting all around. Then, Milligan became aware of something bigger 'incoming': 'With a mighty roar it spewed a giant column of earth and smoke that appeared large enouhg for an erupting Vesuvius.'

Then, the key to the story. 'Looking back today,' (i.e., 1993,a half-century later!) 'I believe that this was a 365mm mortar mounted on a Tiger tank.' Maybe it was. When I spoke to Desmond (on the telephone, to his home in Australia), he confessed that this was pure supposition, based on his reading long after the event.

Website Announced!

2010-06-24T13:43:00.002+01:00

They said it would never happen.

They were almost right.

But at last, I felt the http://www.iandaglish.co.uk/ website was about ready to announce to the world.

I am sorry it's not a 'dot.com'. I have got the domain name, but the people I got it from do not seem able to host it properly, and frankly I'd rather get going without waiting for them to exdigitate.

Anyway, welcome. Come in and have a look around. And do feel free to post any comments, here on the blog or via the contact page on the website itelf!

Ian

STICKY BOMBS?

2010-06-21T17:01:00.001+01:00

Researching some local history for a book of historical anecdotes we are compiling about our village, I came across some fascinating pieces in the local newspaper.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FRIDAY, June 27, 1947
Local MP (Member of Parliament) Lt.-Col. Bromley-Davenport, speaking during the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill, urged removal of the purchase tax on tooth brushes: ‘a poor bill [which] already has too many teeth in it’.and then...
LOCAL FIRM’S STICKY BOMB CLAIM
A submission to the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors has been made by Messrs Kay Brothers, flypaper manufacturers of Stockport. Chemist H. J Hartley was involved in the design and development of the ‘Sticky Bomb’ of which 2,500,000 were made.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This sparked a thought. Some time ago I wrote a piece for a magazine about 'sticky bombs'. I then looked on the Internet. To my great dismay, website after website confuses true 'Sticky Bombs' (= the British ‘Grenade, Hand, Anti-Tank No. 74’) with the stockinet 'Gammon Bomb', named after Captain R J Gammon, MC (Jock), and used extensively by both British and American paratroops in Normandy.

Surprise, surprise. The culprit misleading so many people is that all-time accurate (NOT!) movie 'Saving Private Ryan'. In which people apparently extemporize explosives, socks, fuses, and some sticky tar to create a firework capable of destroying a Tiger tank. Or at least... a T34 thinly disguised. Oh dear.

If any reader would like to read my original article, about actual 'Sticky Bombs' and more!, please feel free to request a copy via 'contact me' on my website.

MEDMENHAM

2010-06-15T13:26:00.007+01:00

Saturday 20 June, I was present at the Annual General Meeting of The Medmenham Club held at the Joint Services Intelligence HQ at Chicksands. As well as visiting the excellent museum there, I made some very interesting contacts.

One man present had flown Swordfish (the famous 'Stringbag' biplane) in the Battle of the Atlantic. With 836 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, he flew off decked-over oil and grain tankers. The oilers had no hangars, only room for three aircraft kept on the flight deck, exposed to the elements as well as missed approaches! No wonder an Atlantic crossing rarely ended with a full complement of aircraft. The job, incidentally, was to fly around the convoy spotting U Boats, occasionally attacking but more often forcing them to stay submerged, where they could not overtake the convoy for a night attack.

Another interesting contact was a remarkably young looking gentleman who fought from Normandy to the end with the 2nd (Armoured) Grenadier Guards. Most interesting of all, Frank was in the Recce Troop, in Honeys and latterly in 1945 in Chaffees. As so ofen, the Grenadiers' Recce Troop gets not a word in their regimental history. So, a useful source. More on this later!

Normandy June 2010

2010-06-14T10:36:00.002+01:00

I just returned from a successful week in Normandy!

I normally would avoid the 6 June media scrum, but was invited to present my books at the second annual book fair ('Salon du Livre') at Tilly-sur-Seulles. The fair was a great success, both for the organiser Stéphane Jacquet, and for the exhibitors. My good friend Kevin Baverstock captured the event with a spectacular image which you can view at: http://www.kbaverstock.co.uk/salondulivre

Why avoid 6 June? Well, I find it rather annoying that the media turn out in force on 6 June then all go home the next day. For (most of) the soldiers who landed in 1944, 6 June was not the end, but the beginning of a long and bitter campaign. It was to drag on for seven weeks, during which time loss rates equalled the First World War. And only in hindsight do we see that it was 'only' seven weeks. There were serious fears that the campaign might turn into prolonged trench warfare.

I even heard recently a veteran who landed with the 'follow up' formations some time after 6 June expaining that he was at 'the D Day landings'. He was not trying to mislead; the media have simply reduced the whole campaign to the single, sexy brand name.

Maybe my books on the Normandy campaign would sell better if we plastered 'D Day' over the covers. Hmm... maybe not.