Snapper

YES PLEASE FRIENDS - PLEASE POST UP MORE. Combined graves happen for all sorts of reasons, sometimes for space - but more often because the two corpses cannot be identified separately. My Great Uncle Les was in a grave with two others, but when the cemetery in Belgium was tidied up the Army Graves Unit were able to separate the three of them. Sometimes these combined graves only contain partial remains - often the case with aircrew. Many graves end up in official plots because they are usually men who are not local. Some find their way into the general local cemetery and these may be local men or who have a connection. The CWGC always offered to supply a headstone which they would then maintain. Some families opted for their own memorials and this is why you see people, often aircrew killed in the UK, buried with normal headstones. It's a mix and match affair. The CWGC do help maintain graves taken beyond the dates 1914-1947 but these stones differ by having clipped corners of some sort. Designs differ. You will also see that armed forces personnel also have similar stones in private settings supplied by their families. It's not difficult for monumental masons to get them done. It all adds up to a ball of confusion. The one constant are the people commemorated. They matter more than any of the details.

Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese on Christmas Day 1941 after intense fighting. The British had set up a hospital at St Stephens College and there were a great many casualties and staff there. The Japs over-ran the hospital and in a frenzy of violence, murdered the patients and male medical staff and brutalised and then murdered the nurses. It was a bloodbath. I think I'm correct in saying an exact figure for the deaths is not known. In the following days the Japs had prisoners collect and burn the bodies of the people they had murdered. This memorial in Stanley Cemetery marks the grave of some of the victims. Those named are: Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Duncan Ralph Black OBE. Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. Husband of A. L. Black. SD Begg is: Nurse Eileen M Begg, Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. Daughter of Frank and Alice Cumming; wife of Stewart D. Begg, of Westminster, London. HT Buxton is: Nurse Alberta Buxton. Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps –the wife of Lieut Henry Buxton, 38, of 2 Bty HKDC. He died on 18/12/1941. WJ Smith is:Nurse Marjorie Mary Moore Smith. Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. Daughter of John R. M. Brinnicombe and E. E. Brinnicombe; wife of Brigadier W. J. L. Smith, of Downderry, Cornwall. Capt TN Whitney is: Captain Peter Norman Witney. 28. Royal Army Medical Corps B.A. (Cantab.), L.R.C.P. (Lond.), M.R.C.S. (Eng.).. Son of Dr. Ernest William Witney, J.P., and Lottie May Witney, of Whitstable, Kent.

Sergeant Roy Henry Mark Crook came from Leigh-On-Sea and is buried in the churchyard of St Laurence And All Saints, which stands at the end of the runway of Southend Airport. The church was built in the eleventh century and a few years ago airport planners wanted to physically move it a few hundred yards or so to extend the runway. The local authority wasn't having it. Now the airport has been sold to Stobarts. As Rochford aerodrome it had been a fighter base during the war.

Ken Farnes was one of England's best fast bowlers of the immediate pre-war period and took sixty wickets in the 15 Tests he played. He died on a night flying exercise. He was 6 feet five tall and must have had quite a presence. He came from Gidea Park in Essex.

Re: Sniper One. Agreed. One of the few really good mordern British warfare books. More to come in the reviews section soon because there have been a flood of the things from Iraq and Afghanistan. The book was actually ghost written by Tom Newton Dunn of The Sun, which is a trade secret. He did a bloody good job and is a really nice bloke. I'm just reading a book called Eight Lives Down by Chris Hunter, an ATO in Iraq whose book covers the same time as Sniper One and includes Beharry and co.

Welcome Gord, Nice to have Prairie Command represented. We have had Western Command blokes here in the past. You have an interesting fleet there. Glad you find HMVF an interesting spot and I trust you'll stick around. MB

Absolutely right. I went to an all boys secondary school in Hackney from 1970-1975 and I can tell you for certain it was a place where you learned to live or die pretty damned quick and I do not exagerate - we had two suicides and I was the classmate of two future murderers an armed robber and several other ne'rdowells. I attended one massed identity parade where a girl from a local school who was gang-raped attempted to ID her attackers (she was hooded). I was attacked with a hammer by one of the aforementioned murderers when I was fourteen. The headmaster blamed me for being anti-social. It beggars belief, but all this genuinely happened to me before I was sixteen years old. At a friends school a gang used to mug boys by holding them out of the third floor window and shaking the change out of their pockets. Tom Brown was still with us. So things aren't really much worse today in my experience, it's just that none of the above got into the papers. My father swept all the violence I suffered at school under the carpet and it all began with the end of corporal punishment when the caning master was retired. I don't suggest corporal punishment is a good idea. I got plenty at home and it didn't do anything to stop me becoming a petty criminal with the feral gang of morons I ran with. I drew the line at violence. I've never been good at it. I believe education should come in many forms and some sort of national service is a strand of it. I went into the army voluntarily - big mistake, it was an escape which did not work for me. Jack is right about FOCUS. There are ways of achieving it. I had to wait decades. But we all get there in the end. End of rant. MB

Yep it's on the upper floor of the main gallery at Lambeth. MB

I worked with a bloke who did his two years at Royston barracks in the RAOC. He said it did him good, but he was a natural shirker and had a temper when he didn't get his way. His life revolved around the Lodge and getting what he wanted. The funny thing is he used to stare at one of the production managers at our place and eventually brought in a group shot of him from his NS days and realised the guy had been in his unit. The other bloke was unhappy. He had recognised my colleague straight away but saw his time in the army as the very worst period of his life and didn't ever want to discuss it. My boss at the Melody Maker had done two years in the East Surreys. He had gone in as some sort of teddy boy wide boy and although he was a deeply socialist pacifist member of the Woodcraft Folk etc, he said he enjoyed it and was proud of his days skulking around on foot patrols on the German border with his Enfield revolver and not a lot else. His funniest story was of a trench digging exercise on the Plain or somewhere where one of his colleagues buried his Sten gun and they never found it. I think NS has it's merits, but the thought of giving quality weapons training to some of the scum we have in our country these days scares me...I think there are civil projects they could do, but I'd certainly have some in the military. My own son would jump at the chance...but he's nuts. MB

Saw something similar traversing the Beltring roundabout in about 1999. Looks genuine and very interesting. Something different. I like. MB

Yep. If you visit, ask to see the bikes that belonged to the late Vic Taylor. I visited his house after he passed away, he kept seven or more on a pristine white carpet in his lounge. He was an amazing engineer. He had been a draughtsman for Lesley Brothers and had drawings and prototypes of the Matchbox range in the house in addition to his own model railway engines. He used to take the old clockwork Hornby things and add all the plumbing, and so on, in brass. Amazing. I have no idea what the family did with it all. MB

Top name, indeed. Welcome to the Friendly Forum. MB

Welcome Roberto. Good to have you here! MB

A130 halfway between A127 and A12. If you find Southend on your atlas and look for the A127 trunk road to London (or for that matter the A13) you will see the A130 going north towards Chelmsford. Battlesbridge is just before Rettendon on the map going north as you follow it. There is a large mill there which is now an antiques centre, as described, and the Plough and Sail pub. Battlesbridge is actually reached off the OLD A130, but look at a map and it will all make sense. I was there last weekend and I like the place. MB

I've sent our condolences to Dave Marian, his engineer who did a interview for HMVF a while back. MB

He always came across as an unassuming gentleman. No flashy stuff. What a bloody shame. I never met him. God bless him. MB

Amazing....it has to be seen. Jack, hire the coach....

I think the word I am looking for is WOW! - what a fantastic collection. I can remember buying the Airfix kit of the SM79 from the old Beatties store at High Holborn in about 1974. great stuff! MB

Have a word with him Rick.

Not another one. Welcome to the Friendly Forum. Enjoy. MB

Agreed. I want one. But it's only on a pre-lottery win list...so no delusions intended. I'll make do with seeing them at the Hop Farm this year. Hopefully we can get one in the HMVF photoshoot if we manage one this year. (Note to Snapper - organise the thing properly this time and get your cameras set up properly. Note to every one else - if it takes place it should not come as a surprise). MB

You might be right...but, I loved the thing. It made me smile.

I sit, corrected.

I like Google - you can find people. Pilot Officer Emil Fechtner DFC is mentioned in Martin Sugarman's interesting website devoted to Jewish pilots and aircrew from the Battle of Britain. What's not to like? He tells us that Fechtner was born in 1916 and escaped from the Czech Air Force on 15.03.1939 whereupon he joined the French Foreign Legion. Having escaped France he joined the newly formed Czech 310 Squadron (Hurricanes) at Duxford on 12.07.1940. He crashed in an accident on Aug 1st and again on the 15th after a collision. Between Aug 26 and Sept 18th he shot down two Bf110s and two Do215s and damaged another 110. He was awarded the DFC in 16th October, one of the first two Czechs to receive the medal, but was killed following a collision with Pilot Officer Jaroslav M Maly which occured at 1510 when they were formating during 'wing patrol' on October 29th. Fechtner's machine was no P3998 while Maly was flying P3707 which was damaged but repairable. Fechtner was first buried at Royston, but was later transferred to the Czech plot at Brookwood. In 1991 he was promoted to Colonel in memoriam. I've taken additional info from Battle of Britain Then & Now (first edition) which carries a similar snap of Fechtner's grave and from a translated Czech site. To contradict the time of death, another Czech site tells us: On 29th October 1940 during took off to patrol over Maidstone was his Hurricane I P3889 (NN-S) late. At the height of 600 metres he wanted to marschal into formation and he begin to climb. He didn't know that his plane was too close to other Hurricane piloted by F/Lt Jaroslav Maly. At 13.55 the propeller of F/Lt Maly's Hurricane cut off rudder of his plane which immediately turned on his back and crashed near Whittlesford. (F/Lt Maly made crash landing on field near base with damaged propeller and he was wounded on his head and on one arm.) Had we known that Jaroslav Maly is buried close by having died in 1941, we would have found him to photograph his grave. So we have a reason to go back.