Snapper

8 is 633 squadron. They've got Eric isn't Python. It might even be 633 squadron again without looking it up on IMDB. George Chakiris a Greek American who danced in West Side Story as a Puerto Rican kid, made a funny looking Norwegian pining for the fjords with Cliff Robertson. What a gem.

lovely

The Eagle Has Landed

Is this a location on the Op Bolero route? Superb looking museum. Is there room to add more stuff on the site (if found?). Too many questions. Looks like a worthy place to visit. When finally get my brain in gear viz posting snaps I should put some up of a memorial to a Liberator crew in a seafront car park (!) at Greatstone in Kent. Apparently some of the plane is visible out to sea at low tide during certain times of the year; shifting sands and all that.

This is superb. I think it is definitely a good idea to develop our own guide map to anything relevant to HMVF members.

Haven't been to Speen Bridge since 1990. It is a superb monument. I took a good few snaps (as always!!). There were good views of Ben Nevis from there, if my memory serves, and we were fortunate to see it with blue sky.

I'll sort my order out as soon as. I need to see how much money Stryker has to spare. (Joke).

I think they will get on. Stryker's mum still has an arms ban in the house, even though we sneaked in a few airsofts. But the Bren Gun and an SMLE can only be kept off site. No bleeding point, then.

Clive, I think you have put your point in as an informed and fair manner as possible and I don't think anyone can have any complaints. I am not sure if there is a way to advance this thread any further. I don't agree with MVT bashing - or any bashing for that matter - without foundation. The forum is the right place for people to have their say and long may it continue. Whatever club we belong to we have the right to take our views to the elected committees and air them at AGMs. It is wholly misplaced for anyone to take away the impression that this forum is here solely for the purpose of any named club bashing. There is plenty of serious and light hearted stuff on here that has nothing whatsoever to do with gripes or politics or partisanship. If it was, I wouldn't be here because I hate politics with a passion. Mark Barnes MVT membership no 13729

You may get your hands on older copies of Jane's directories. They used to lump armour and artillery in one volume and vehicles and logistics in an other. Formats change all the time. These books are never cheap - even the old ones- and the pics are generally company handouts or, in the case of unfriendly states stuff "grabbed" at parades and all in black and white. The technical stuff is useful. There are some odd Salamander Press books (or from other publishers) that are general guides to armour and artillery still floating about. Colour pix and potted histories included. These are the sort of "bargain" books you used to see on sale in factory outlet bookshops or in railway station book stalls. I think they can still be found.

Good news. Hope it all works out for you.

You have to be very careful. I would link to the official site if possible. At work we get lots of tv/film stills and what we call videograb images from agencies who make their money from copying tv progs/films. They always attach a disclaimer making it clear that they do not own the copyright and are simply providing a version as a service. This is how they make their money...I think that a similar disclaimer is OK in our case. But it's all about getting permission to use. The web has changed everything in many ways and I am not too sure how vehemently any film or tv company would be (excluding specifics like Fox's The Simpsons or any Disney - Buena Vista International) about policing their material. The adage about any publicity being good publicity does apply as a rule but the whole trademarks thing can be a painful matter.

9 is Battle of Britain - Barry Foster telling off his Polish charges on his way to being Van der Valk. The one about the pin is from the Great Escape - James Garner and the forger (name forgotten)......Unless you're probed the worst nightmares of your cinematic mind and gone for the version of the Four Feathers with Robert Powell and Beau Bridges (bloody awful).

The Blucher didn't last very long thanks to good Norwegian coastal artillery!! I recall oil from her is causing environmental problems in modern times.

Amazing. Don't let my son see this.

I was on the beach at Camber yesterday - the location for the film Dunkirk. My wife's family always holidayed there in the late fifties, sixties and seventies and rented a sea front house (they go for a price approaching a million now) - The beach cafe doubled as a first aid post in "Dunkirk" and the Strand in nearby Rye doubled as Dunkirk itself. The bit with the cockney machine gunner in the harbour was filmed there as was Richard Attenbrough's factory which is up the street from the police station. The Dunes at Camber really look like the beaches at Dunkirk. It was a good choice. I love the film.

2 is either Ice Cold In Alex or some other daft moment from Wild Geese. There are enough quotes in that one to fill a site. As it happens I sat down for an hour and several days on Thursday to watch a DVD of the truly risible Battle of The Bulge. God awful movie. My Dad took me to see it at the pictures: The Hammersmith Odeon!! Is that bit with the Panzerlied (+ invisible orchestra) the true lyrics??? The saving grace is always Telly Savalas and atleast the film did a good thing and launched him into Kelly's Heroes. Zulus, fahsands of 'em!

I, for one, haven't got a clue who it is. I would ask that if this is a long standing or "senior" member of the MVT; they use the forum for the best reason and stand their ground using their own name. At the end of the day they do not have to answer to anyone but the MVT membership which happens to include a large slice of HMVF members, too. The MVT has done some fantastic things and commitment to the MV world remains paramount. I think any committee role in a club is a poison chalice regardless of what the hobby is. There will always be a number of people who are unhappy with progression in a given direction or with modernisation from all perspectives of what that means - for or against. Politics is a fact of life and I am sure none of us is starry eyed enough not to believe that politics will not effect the management of HMVF at some point. It always happens. I've never contributed anything to Windscreen. All I do is read it from cover to cover, warts and all. No publication is perfect. There is always room for improvement. Maybe I am being naive. But I cannot see why the major clubs cannot use HMVF as a way of gauging the MV world at large and reaching their own memberships, in addition to using their own machinery; to get the widest response to questions of how the hobby might progress and what we all need to do to keep things on an even keel and keep the wolves at bay. Honest debate should be encouraged and not seen as a threat to any organisation. I just hope that everyone sees this forum in the correct light.

Interesting. Whiting has been discussed on the forum before. Views of him appear mixed. However, this is a very important chapter from the command point of view, because taken in conjunction with command decisions made up to and during The Bulge it shows that some of the senior Americans were really as much use as a chocolate fireguard, and, as I have droned on before; they won the histriography battle, too. Britain made the numbers up. How many British soldiers were killed/wounded during the Normandy campaign and then later after the Rhine crossing. Try reading a copy of No Triumphal March - I've forgotten the author. I read a Southend library copy, have yet to find my own. More heartbreak for our country, inspite of victory. The Americans killed in the Hurtgen Forest were betrayed by the vanity of their commanders. Nothing new in that under any flag. But they lived a lie and have rarely been brought to book, passing the buck on to Monty and the Brits or indulging in a bit of quiet fratricide. As for Eddie Slovik, if you get a rare chance to see The Victors, you will see his execution played out with Frank Sinatra singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. A stunning bit of cinema.

Me too! Fantastic stuff, Joris. Brilliant snaps. Thanks for going to the trouble of posting them.

The Campbeltown was one of fifty destroyers swapped for bases in the Caribbean in 1940. She was the USS Buchanan. There was a film based on the raid called Attack On The Iron Coast. This had Lloyd Bridges as the inevitable "Canadian" leading our commandos. It was B movie stuff, but is a gem of sorts. I've always thought the commandos in the film were the basis for the 1/76 scale commando set from Airfix!! Move on your interest to St Georges Day 1918 and the raid on Zeebrugge. The publicists had a field day with the banner "Eleven VC's before breakfast" but the truth is 3 of these were won a week later when the loons came back and attacked Ostend. They were giants. The leader of all this was Roger Keyes who was the combined ops king of the early war until they gave the job to Mountbatten. He had connections. He gets good publicity for St Nazaire. But then came Dieppe.....

Totally agree. There used to be one in a boat yard in Leigh On Sea. Do you know that one Tony??

Some years ago when I was a lot younger and fitter, I was living in a large flat in a Georgian house in Stoke Newington in Hackney. We had a new landlord who had put some sea containers in the yard and these were frequently the target of burglars. I shot one of them with an air rifle. Right up the tradesmens (the landlord was delighted). But they persisted and one evening I was coming home from the local pub when the alarms went off. Being an idiot I sailed in to investigate. No burglars. But someone called in plod and said a gang of men were raiding the place. The cops snuck up on me and my two mates in glorious style; beat me to the ground - nearly strangled my pal Scott and sat on my mate Tim. Once we had explained ourselves and proved who we were they spent half an hour going over Tim's Austin 1800 and settled on doing him for a dodgy brake light. Their efforts were not in vain.

Robin Niellands' Battle For The Rhine 1944 gives a superb account of the American command failures and the immense bravery and fortitude of the troops involved. I suppose in some ways it may be deemed comparable in terms of suffering to The Somme, but numbers alone make this unlikely. in real terms the attrition rate of British infantry battalions in Normandy was much worse than practically all American situations as our army was bled white to achieve the breakout and there were no replacements in any number to fill the gap. These losses were catastrophic for the British Army. This point is argued in the classic Six Armies In Normandy which everyone should read. In point of fact, nothing in the west can be "worse than the Somme" or Third Ypres in overall losses; quite apart from Verdun, Chemin Des Dammes or even the huge loss of life the French endured in Artois at Vimy and Notre Dame de Lorette in 1915.

Went the Day Well is a gem. It is interesting seeing a very young Thora Hird popping off the Huns with an SMLE. I can't remember which one, but I've also seen another film that may have had an influence on Harry Patterson/Jack Higgins. Personally, I love the Eagle Has Landed in both film and book formats. Larry Hagman was an inspired choice. Has anyone seen the old Arnhem film - I think it was called Theirs Is The Glory or the classic David Lean stuff with David Niven? The titles evade me - mental block.