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  • 1 month later...

I'm not exactly reading this book that has just arrived from Russia. I have just looked at the pictures many of which I recognise! It is all in Russian but is about the history of water supply in military service, that has been a crucial factor in the history of conflict and mankind in general.

About a year ago I received an email from Russia inviting my co-operation which I thought at first might be a scam. But the writer seemed genuine and promised me a copy of the book when it was published. It duly arrived with 15 stamps on it, so being quite heavy it would not have been cheap to post.

The problem is that last year I had a computer crash and lost all emails. So I would l like to thank the four authors for sending this signed copy to me but I am unable to do so. It is very bad form not to thank someone for a gift but I hope the authors may see this and accept my thanks as I believe they first found me on HMVF.

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I'm re-reading "Zwischen Metz und Moskau" by Karl Knoblauch.

It chronicles the author's experiences as an infantryman in Alsace during the Battle of France, then his subsequent transfer to the Luftwaffe where he retrained as a navigator and flew as part of a Ju 88 crew undertaking long-range reconnaissance and ground attack on the Eastern Front. 

 

9783881897198: Zwischen Metz und Moskau: Als Soldat der 95. Infanteriedivision in Frankreich und als Fernaufklärer mit der 4.(F)/14 in Russland

Edited by John F
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  • 1 year later...

This has just arrived, a heavy 359-page book but with a broken spine, well used but complete for only £2.99

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It is fascinating to look through on several levels from the historical point of view because of the military aspects & as a radio amateur who mainly uses Morse code. In addition to that as a book collector it has some interesting features, by identifying the '51' code in the imprint I can see it is a Board of Trade publication not an Admiralty book.

Judging by the price a 'serious book collector' would not value it at all. But I am a serious book collector, but I want the content & the experience of handling a well used book. I don't collect books as an investment to stay on a shelf never to be read for fear of devaluing it. Books, whilst we still have them, are there to be read!

But I suppose there is a tendency for unused things to have high value, it just seems inherently sad that toys that have never been played with are so highly regarded. Yet the whole function of the item has failed.

I have a Manual of Field Engineering 1883, it was in such good condition that it looked as if it had never been read. Even by gently peering in I have cracked the spine covering, not a major tragedy, the greatest tragedy is not to have read it. Amongst the nuggets I found the details of wire entanglements but not with barbed wire. Although American cattle men were using barbed wire it had not been absorbed into military engineering. Anyway end of rant!

This has thousands of 3-letter codes to be used in signalling that was to simplify communications. The instructions in the last entry 'WBA' are sobering!

 

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  • 5 months later...

I collect War Office Lists that should not be confused with Army Lists. This edition was published in April 1914 has no references to MI 5, MI 6 etc because at that time they did not exist as such.

The WO collection of intelligence was through the Director of Military Operations with Sections MO 1 -MO 6 under the authority of the Department of the Chief of Imperial General Staff.

By 1919 MO X had formed to include some intelligence roles and a Director of Military Intelligence had formed within the Department of the Imperial Chief of General Staff with sections MIR (a-c), MI 1 (a-g), MI 2 (a-b), MI 3 (a-e), MI 4 (a-d), MI 5 (a-h), MI 6 (a-d), MI 7 (a-d), MI 8 (a-d), MI 9 (a-e) and MI 10.

All quite complicated stuff that was to get ever more complex with time!

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  • 3 weeks later...

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The cover makes reference to the fictional Q Branch giving the impression it would be about SOE, MI6, MI19 etc but no it was entirely about the American OSS & subsequently the CIA.

There wasn't much technical detail, it was mainly about personalities. The SOE had only a scant mention & the impression given was the resistance forces in Europe were primarily organised by the OSS.

Apart from the content the were two other irritations. The text was mainly New Times Roman but some lines at the start of some paragraphs were wholly or partly in something like Calibri. The other irritation - was the use of a hyphen - in the place - of commas or - just added willy-nilly. Not the way I was taught English.

A curious story was that the sign off used by a telegraphist who sends a co-joined SK in Morse Code. It tells the tale of a spy who was caught out by instead sending VA. These two pairs co-joined in Morse Code are exactly the same!


 

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On 3/11/2023 at 10:42 PM, 79x100 said:

I may be busy for a while.

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I have a few of these Brown Bros. catalogues - atic stored since given in 1971,  also there are some IIRC thicker & better ones by  ELRCO  (East London Rubber Co. Ltd.)   don't think I have looked at them since given - old civvy stuff & no military.

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  • 5 months later...

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I bought this book because I was born just after WW2 in Teignmouth that is the other side of the river to Shaldon. It is interesting to read of the arrangements for the defence of this bit of coastline. There are many names in the list of Home Guard personnel that I can remember from my boyhood there.

I can remember seeing remnants of rusting defences on the beach & I well remember the gun emplacement in the Ness overlooking Teignmouth. That remained there until the late 1960s & I can remember a ring of substantial bolts on the floor that I see from the book supported a 4.7-inch Quick Firing Naval Gun made in Japan in 1917.

The crews to man this & the other gun nearby were drawn from quite a wide area & at a time when there were few telephones it was a complicated procedure to mobilise the crews. I have no wish to infringe the author’s copyright, so this is a summary of the mobilisation orders:

Ring Mr H ask him to give message to Gunner T who lives next door.

Gunner T proceeds to Mill Lane to warn Bdr D who has list of men he has to warn.

Gunner T then warns Gunner H has list of men to warn on his motor-cycle

Ring Sgt B ask him to warn the Shaldon men via his NCOs who have a list men to warn

Ring Mr M at Commercial Inn Bishopsteignton “ask him if he would be good enough to message Sgt S”

Sgt S who has instructions to warn Gunner B

Ring Gunner D who has names & addresses of three men to warn

Ring Gunner C who has name & address of one man to warn

Ring Battery ask Capt C for the van to make several trips to West Teignmouth Church & return them to the battery.

Shaldon men are to make their own way direct to the Battery

On mustering all men will report to Battery Office & sign the Attendance Book.

 

There are lists of men that formed the Home Guard & other units.

I can remember there was an electrician who used to do work for my parents. He was full of yarns about the war how he had various secret duties & claimed he had met Churchill at the Royal Hotel on the sea front. My mother & most others thought this was utter nonsense. But as the years went by it was revealed that Churchill had indeed stayed at the Royal Hotel meeting Eisenhower to discuss the progress of invasion plans. Our electrician was in an Auxiliary Unit & had some quite serious duties to perform if the need arose. I just wish I had listened to his tales & I wish his courage had been more widely recognised by the town.

My other recollections of the time were visits to Slapton Sands where there no significant vegetation on the hillsides, just burnt tree stumps it was only decades later that the truth was revealed about what really happened there. I also remember seeing rows of abandoned Nissen huts on Bovey Heath, my father & I looked inside one to see stacks of leather items just turning mouldy. Nobody seemed to have stolen much, there was no graffiti & none of the few windows were smashed. It would be a rather different scene these days, I think.

A nice little book that brought back some strange memories of people & places.

 

 

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