THE SMITH GUN

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

 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

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

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.