Snapper

It's alright for you lot. I am still trying to convince my wife to let me have a SMLE. We spent last week in a house on the Somme which had one on display and I kept staring longingly at it and she continued to misunderstand me....funny woman.

I've seen one in the bargain bin in my local ToolMart, or was it Aldis? £14.99. Great value. I bought twelve. Flogged the lot on EBay for £14.98. Still haven't got a clue what they are though.

You blokes are already a captive audience, it's getting the outside world to take more interest, even for just one day of the year, that matters most. Arlington would be fascinating. So many heroes. I hope you have a good safe trip.

Ors is a place I always wanted to go. I would have liked to have gone down to the canal where the Western Front Assoc have placed a memorial tablet at the spot Owen died. The cemetery plot always looks bleak in every photo I've seen, and was not to be dissapointed on my trip. For real WW1 expertise you need to see Tom Morgan's Hellfire Corner website and the WFA's. There is also the Long Trail Home and I always like Silent Cities, but this appears to be off air - maybe they have server problems like we did. The CWGC site is a mine of information and I often amaze people with how easy it is to place someone when they say "MY grandad was killed in World War One". The site covers 1914 to about 1948 (from memory). It is a shame they have not done Korea up to the Falklands yet..or beyond. Families of military casualties are offered a war grave which the Commission then maintain, but many choose not to. Personally, I think it is superb to wander round a churchyard and see a war grave standing out. It kind of marks out the person. From my commuter train to work I noticed two headstones in a small church at Bowers Gifford in Essex - a real tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. I drove the Iltis down there one day and sure enough, one was a sailor killed early in WW2 and the other was of a Captain K Boss MC, an Airborne Forces artilleryman who died in June 1945. How unfair is that? In a stupid way, I wondered if he might even be the unnamed British officer murdered by a drunk in Band of Brothers. But it is stupid to speculate - but it was some poor soul.

If you were to buy the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s guide map book to it’s cemeteries in northern France and Belgium, on some pages you would be confronted with a haze of numbered blue dots, each one a corner of a foreign field... A good example is Ors Communal Cemetery, a typical French village burial ground with the addition of a plot for British military graves from the Great War. On the morning of 4th November 1918, the British 32nd Division had been tasked with making a hazardous assault across the Sambre-Oise Canal. A number of battalions carried out the attack, including one from the Royal Sussex Regt; the 16th Lanacashire Fusiliers and the 2nd Manchesters. Two VCs were won that drab November day eighty-nine years ago. The first was won by 31 year old Lieutenant Colonel James Neville Marshall of the Irish Guards, who was attached as CO of the 16th Lancs. He came from Harlow in Essex and already held the MC & Bar. His citation reads: On 4 November at the Sambre-Oise Canal, near Catillon, France, when a partly constructed bridge was badly damaged before the advanced troops of his battalion could cross, Lieutenant Colonel Marshall organised repair parties. The first party were soon killed or wounded, but the colonel's personal example was such that more volunteers were instantly forthcoming. Under intense fire and with complete disregard of his own safety he stood on the bank encouraging his men and helping in the work. When the bridge was repaired he attempted to lead his men across, but was killed in the attack. Elsewhere on that day twenty-one year old 2nd Lieutenant James Kirk of the 10th but attached to the 2nd Manchesters showed immense bravery as he went to his death. His citation reads: On 4 November 1918 north of Ors, France, the battalion was attempting to bridge the Sambre-Oise Canal. In order to cover this difficult operation, Second Lieutenant Kirk took a Lewis gun and under intense machine-gun fire paddled across the canal and opened fire. Further ammunition was paddled across to him and he continued to provide cover for the bridging party until he was killed. His courage and self-sacrifice enabled two platoons to cross the bridge and prevented many casualties. Another officer,famous for altogether different reasons; was killed by a sniper as he led a raiding party that day. He was twenty-five year old Lieutenant Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC of the 5th Manchesters. His poetry needs no introduction. Ors on a wet October day is no beauty spot. The cemetery is reached down a small road and appears on the left just before a crossroads and a level crossing. The road from Ors leads to Cambrai via Le Cateau, where the British army conducted it’s famous holding battle of 1914 as the huge German armies swamped into Belgium and France to no avail. In the British war graves plot the visitor sees three rows of graves while the solitary grave of the valiant Marshall sits by a neat hedge. Owen and Kirk are at either end of row A (at the back). The row also includes Lance Sergeant Alfred Ernest Hall MM, from Godalming, of the 16th Lancs and Captain Angus McKenzie MC & Bar, aged 42 from Perth; Private TE Cliffe MM and Corporal C Syrett MM of the 2nd Manchesters. In row B you will find Captain CHJ Hulton MC of the 16th Lancs. Row C at the front holds the grave of the only man not to have been killed on Nov 4. He is Private A Buckley of the York & Lancaster Regiment who fell on Oct 25th. While the vast majority of burials are from the Lancs Fusiliers and the Manchesters, there are also graves for Private William Balmond of 1 Dorsets; Private E Webber of 32nd Bn Machine Gun Corps (Inf); Private FC Hudson of 2nd KOYLI and Private J Reed of the Highland Light Infantry all of whom died just seven days before the Armistice. There are four graves of Unknown Soldiers. While the church bells were ringing out for peace on November 11th, the parents of Wilfred Owen were at home in Shrewsbury digesting the news that their son was dead. If Ors is a fine example of a corner of a foreign field immortalised by Rupert Brooke then we are as well to see the reverse side of the coin; however patriotic we may be, and question as Owen did the old adage: How sweet it is to die for your country. God bless them all. Wear Your Poppy With Pride. DULCE ET DECORUM EST Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime- Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the waggon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. Wilfred Owen

I've been out to Shivering Sands on the good old Earl of Romney of the Maritime Trust, the former HMS Echo and sadly now scrapped. We did not go as close as the pix shown - but the forts are an amazing site. They can be seen from Leigh On Sea on a good day. The big windfarm also adds to the vista.

Just finished a paperback called Roberts Ridge by Malcolm MacPherson. This potboiler tells the tale of a battle in Afghanistan in 2001 involving US Navy SEALS, Army Rangers and Air Force spec ops chappies against Al Qaeda. The yanks had eight killed fighting high up on a very grim mountain called Takur Ghar. This is a good book, despite having the element of an airport departure lounge special about it. The writer is not gung ho and nor are the subjects. You really feel for the people involved. It shows the US forces at their very best and is worthy of a space on your bookshelves.

All good points. The German people were conned by their leaders and bought a lie. It is difficult to blame a people who were on the crest of a slump for not believing in promises which were often delivered to make the country a better place with belief restored. But the top cell of the Nazis wanted so much more and created a system whereby dissent and opposition was impossible. We do not know what it is like to live in a true police state in this country, a regime of a like not seen in the UK since the days of James I or Cromwell. But, the collective German suffering was in itself a means to an end to rid them and the rest of us of a conspiracy of pure evil. That it took too long and cost so much is the bleeding obvious. But to seek to cast blame onto our grandfathers is as much an insult to the anonymous British aircrew, soldiers and sailors (etc) lost achieving victory/liberation (call it what you like) as it perhaps is to the innocents burned to dust in the likes of Hamburg and Rostock. This is my last rant on this particular post.

Cheers Al.

I'm good at the writing bit, Alex, but I am still making tentative efforts at playing around with web stuff. I'll get my son to help me. He is well up to the task being 14! I would like to see sections for battlefields, monuments and museums (as one) and I think we will obviously have to be prepared for the MV section to expand. This is brilliant. We can write about practically anything. Jack, I'm more than happy to have a bash at editing if everyone is happy about that. Not sure how yet. But there is no point in ducking. I'll discuss further elsewhere. To All: Keep up the ideas please. Snapper (Mark)

Sorry for leaving out the Americans. We can share the blame or the glory depending on a particular viewpoint. The recent 100 BG histories on this site make me sure where I sit on that one. Nuff said.

I will happily do stuff on battlefield touring and bits of history, reviews etc. I am also more than happy to help out in every way with editing and presentation so we can develop a house style WITHOUT (and I want to be clear about this) affecting the personal aspect of peoples' input. I think this is the angle that most suffers in print and I think it is a shame. At the end of the day the idea is to share and have fun, so it has to be part of us not an adjunct. yap yap yap. Sorry, but I am quite passionate about making something where we can all share what we know and what we've done and care about. Nuff said.

The Dresden thing will just not go away, will it? The Russians requested that the Allies attack eastern German cities including Berlin, Chemnitz and Dresden. These locations were combined by the War Cabinet and the Air Ministry to create Operation Thunderclap. Bomber Command had been hitting Berlin for some considerable time and it is now accepted that the Battle of Berlin was probably a draw at best for the British. Therefore Harris was presented with the targets he had to hit. He had no qualms about killing Germans, it was what he was paid for, and he was an advocate of bombing as a means of defeating the Germans even though his hope this could be done without a ground war in the west was hopelessly redundant and flawed in principal from the outset. So, the RAF bombed Dresden by night. a big force with the Command at almost full strength. A decoy plan to lure the nightfighters away was entirely successful. The weather was right and the Pathfinders worked perfectly and the city was devastated. It was textbook "end to end" stuff. There have been lots of reasons given for the attack, citing the transport and local munitions industries. There have been genuine and wild efforts to guage the casualties. Dresden was just another major city of the Nazi Reich, it was there to be smashed. Harris had inherited a bombing policy he admittedly supported. He did not dictate targeting decisions as such and in the case of Dresden he obeyed a direct order from Churchill's cabinet. Dresden was the culmination of years of effort and sacrifice to take the war to the Reich - to destroy their military industrial complex. The bomber was Britain's only way of taking on the Germans for four years. By the end 900,000 German military personnel were on anti-aircraft duties instead of prosecuting the war elsewhere. 1.2 million men were working in reconstruction instead of in the factories. The entire aircraft manufacturing industry had been all but pushed into defensive aircraft production - as a tactical air force, a role it defined, the Luftwaffe was dead. 55,000 Bomber Command personnel died. I think it would be entirely wrong not to have sympathy for the German innocents, but they were actually victims of their system of government. It was said that the generals fought seven battles a year and the admirals seven battles a war; but Harris fought seven battles a week for three years. None of these facts make any of this "right" given the massive civilian suffering. I'm not sure I can add any gravitas by listing the cities the offensive is often labelled as a reprisal for. We could even start with Guernica. And if the Germans had won, their version of Nuremburg would have been equally conclusive but much more brutal for our leaders, civilian or otherwise. But surely we have no need to feel any guilt for the freedom our people won for us at such a cost. Needs as needs must. The bomber offensive was a war of terror against an unspeakably cruel State that happily waged war, genocide and enslavement on it's neighbours. Don't let modern day German "victim culture" gain any credence. It is a lie. Nothing more, nothing less.

Another quality item!

I think we have to give Tagg credit for joining the forum and having his say. I don't monitor the living history forums in the UK - what, if anything, do they say? I was at Beltring this year, when despite the orange smoke, it was clear that the "Germans" killed off the "Americans" including a padre, at the end of the church battle. This was carried out for public viewing of all ages and genders. I've said previously I admire the groups who put on these displays and I didn't hear any obvious complaints but do wonder where the line in the sand of all this is. To Tagg: please stay with our forum and have your say and share your interests and experiences from the USA. We have a robust and straightforward way of protecting our hobby at a time when our already draconian gun laws are set to be tightened and in a period when our popular media is at it's most stupid for some considerable time. British reserve also comes into this a bit (but not always). Also take into account that some in the UK military vehicle movement is still not at home with re-enactments or even living history, least of all with the Waffen SS. I think I've got this right and will happily be corrected. You will not escape elements of anti-Americanism in some aspects as much as we do not expect everyone to be an Anglophile. (If you browse around you will read explicit examples of heartfelt admiration for the US armed forces on this site which is right and proper). But what you will always get is honesty, real concern for our hobby and a drive to see things done in a way we are comfortable with. But you cannot please all of the people all of the time...as you have immediately noted!

From memory it is on the road between Montreuil and Le Touquet it wpuld be on your right as you drive towards Montreuil. It wasn't a massive yard and isn't on the road that goes right past Etaples war cemetery (hope you've been there) but isn't so far away. I can remember there was a Leclerc very close by.

Another quality item from Steve. I don't know how you are collating this stuff but you deserve a big thanks. More please. This may be essentially an MV forum, but sharing this stuff is a fantastic idea. it should encourage everyone to have a go if you have it in you. You don't have to be Shakespear you just have to care.

I only nicked the info. In ATB they show how the film makers were allowed to wreck the place because some big redevelopments were in hand. I think the way this scene is filmed is the best in the movie, the tracking shot when the commandos break out to attack is fantastic. And not a word of it is mentioned by Cornelius Ryan. It was obviously a political decision to include French valour, but then why not? Kieffer and his men deserved it. If anyone does go to Port en Bessin, there is a fantastic patisserie by the harbour bit that does the most brilliant cakes and tarts - we ate ours in the rain sitting in the boot of our cars at Omaha. Happy days.

The Simca looks cool. What is it about the three colour camo on French MVs? I think I can put something similar on my Iltis. Might do even if I'm not supposed to because i like it. There aren't enough of this type of motor on the UK scene. So, there you go Jack. I've just spent your money for you. Alex - have you seen the MV dealer just outside Le Touquet? He has some good motors. He had plenty of Iltis and Renault trucks when I last passed by in 2004.

Well done to everyone who has taken positive action. You have to admire how a bit of open debate without a trace of vested interest - but complete concern for our wider interests - has got this done in little more than a couple of days. Brilliant. This is a salutary lesson to all members of this forum that however strongly you feel about an issue, you should air it. Do not be put off by anything.

The Longest Day was filmed entirely in black and white to take advantage of newsreel, but to confuse matters, all the publicity stuff was in colour. I did not see the film first time in 1963, but it was re-released with some fanfare in around 1969-70 and was shown for weeks at the Dominion Cinema in Tottenham Court Road( just off Oxford St for the non Londoners). There was a huge billboard for it at Finsbury Park in nth London to catch the attention of the expresses leaving Kings Cross. It was from the perspective of two helmeted German machine gunners looking down on the beach (presumably Omaha). I have wished for years that I had been old enough to snap it - but I was ten years old. There used to be a train-spotters stand there to watch the Deltics - but it was a haven of muggers and nonces even in those days). My parents took me to see the film at the Dominion - it was a highlight of my young life. In those days the big films had official programmes and I still have mine. All the stills are in full colour and look brilliant. I did not visit Normandy until 1975. We had one day in Arromanches being shouted at in the museum. I was the only kid interested in any of it and had to give our teachers history lessons. The rest of the time we visited sewage farms and gymnasiums (a twin town nightmare). I went back in 2003 and finally got to see Pegasus bridge and the church in St Mere Eglise for myself. My family and friends were with me - it was one of the happiest weeks of my life. The filmed battle of Oiustreham actually took place in Port-en-Bessin and included the film makers altering the famous Bazaar shop sign (a picture of Monty there is in ATB Normandy Then and now vol 2) to say Ouistreham which can still be seen today. I presume the Sherman was French army reserve stock...

I agree with you, Shane. The re-enactors/living history thing needs clarification. I think they have their own forum website - not sure what it says. I sometimes wonder if it is a bit of a usually harmless but wayward offshoot from the real world like paintball. (Like having your own omnipresent teenage son wherever you go, not just when you get home to the little prince). The MVT is not something I can say much about. I am a member and I admire it as an organisation immensely but I have never attended a national meeting or voted on anything - hardly proactive . Windscreen is fantastic, but I agree in principal that something dynamic is required - but not about money or anything like that. I want minimal politics and all the recent schisms in MVT and IMPS have been about dosh when it comes down to the nitty gritty. At least we're all skint in HMVF! - no committees or fees, no clubhouse, no magazine. (When we do we get our mugs and keyrings, Jack? ) This forum is the future. If we can encourage membership and start to do things less talk shop based and more hands on (no dirty jokes please) then there is no reason why we cannot be an additional voice - but never a rival to the MVT or IMPS. No wars please. But this will take time and will not be easy given the distances between us. I will be happy just to be able to meet up at the likes of Beltring next year and put faces to names in a convivial atmosphere. We won't agree on everything - but it will be good fun as time progresses.

I've just made it to Lance Corporal and I haven't had this much power since I was an assistant patrol leader (Buffalos) in the scouts (1st City of London - Lord Mayor's Own....) circa 1972.

Lots of good points have been made here and the chief one about events becoming places of entertainment is entirely correct. From an entirely selfish viewpoint, and for which I make no apology for, as a photographer I can tell you that getting good pix of battles is a nightmare. There is no tension - nobody is in any real danger (barring nettles, wasps and the odd hot shell-case). They are a spectacle. I know that many of the partiicpants take them very seriously and put a lot of work into them. I always have some difficulty separating re-enactors from living history. I know there are subtle and not so subtle differences - but can the public tell the difference? I doubt it. I think the hobby would be diminished without them but an occasional reality check is always necessary. The hobby needs the "Germans" in a big way. The more grizzly aspects of the SS cannot be skated over - but as said previously, we should just leave it at home. It does not mean the guilt of the war criminals is not acknowledged. I am not happy about the slightly more assertive lot "living" the life a bit too much; but then, I've also met some "Yanks" with similar outlooks. In any field of interest there will always be someone to lose the plot. I fully agree that we need to minimise the numbers.

Getting back to the main point here: I think the people who have posted these videos on the web are reckless in the extreme and I don't want to see them. The damage they can do to the whole hobby and to re-enactors in particular is massive. How many of us who don't "dress up" are asked if we are playing soldiers? Inevitably there is a miniscule element of truth to this, but the re-enactors are taking it a whole stage further with what they do in even normal circumstances. To then have some people make videos of mock war crimes beggars belief. We know the SS were brutal. As soldiers they were brutalised in training (just like the whole Japanese army). We know they massacred POWs - many of us have been to Le Paradis and Esquelbecq to see their early handiwork. But we don't need anyone to play act reminders of it. it also is entirely correct to recall that the SS got it back tenfold from some Canadian units (etc) in Normandy and thereafter. There were tit-for-tat killings of prisoners. Some allied units never took SS prisoners. Who can blame them? The SS were often a magnificent fighting force. They looked good, too; which is one reason they attract the attention of re-enactors. But they will never be anything other than tarnished. The actions of a few re-enactors surely diminishes the efforts of the majority, even of the SS unit portrayers - who, let's be 100% honest, are the ones who cause the most concern within the wider hobby. Personally, I admire the work of the likes of Second Battle Group - who are practically professional in their business. But loose cannons will not help any of us. it brings to mind a note I saw on a British forces forum mocking idiot re-enactors dressed as British officers trying to get serving soldiers to salute them. Bloody idiots. It is high time some people either grow up or find something else to do. I do not want to be associated with such behaviour. It has the potential to ruin everything as much as any gun ban. I agree totally with the correspondent wondering what the likes of The Sun or another tabloid would make of it. They would destroy us. Make no bones about it. I know how they operate. All you need is a flat news period without any nonsense to fill pages and they will be looking for victims. It was ever thus. Keep the sensible re-enactors on board - they are brilliant. But we need to offload the muppets pretty damned quick. I doubt if they would be welcome at any sensibly run event.