OLD SOLDIERS

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

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

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

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

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!

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?

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.
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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.