Category: History

British Homefront during the Second Word War: The Blitz.

London Blitz. (No source)

The aerial bombardment of British cities was commonly called the Blitz ( 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941) . The Luftwaffe Blitz on Britain began on the afternoon of 7 September 1940 when 348 German bombers with 617 fighter escorts targeted London during which 430 civilians were killed and 1,600 badly injured and attacks continued on London for the next 57 nights.

London police officers after helping rescue civilians during an air raid. (No source)

According to the Royal Air Force Museum, the most devastating raid on London took place on the night of 10/11 May 1941 between 11:02 pm and 05:57 am when 571 German bombers dropped 711 tons of high explosives, 86,172 incendiaries and the London Fire Brigade recorded 2,136 fires during which approximately 1,436 civilians were killed and 1,800 seriously injured. Apart from London the Luftwaffe began bombing Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry and Southampton. On 14 November 1940, 500 bombers destroyed much the old city centre of Coventry killing around 500 and during February and May waves of attacks focused on ports including Plymouth, Portsmouth, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Hull, Swansea, Belfast, and Clydebank.

V1 Flying Bomb British citizens called the ‘doodlebug’.

The first V1 flying bomb hit Grove Road, Bow in London at 4:25 am on 13 June 1944 destroying a railway bridge and nearby homes during which 6 people were killed, 30 seriously injured and 200 families made homeless.

Grove Road, Bow London (No source)

Blue Plaque in Grove Road.

V1 attacks killed 9,251 civilians and 17,981 were injured.

V2 Rocket.

On Friday 8 September 1944 the first V2 rocket launched from the Netherlands hit Staveley Road Chiswick, London. Three people were killed and 19 injured and the blast left a 30 foot crater. The youngest known fatality was Rosemary Ann Clark aged 3 whose parents were injured and died the same day at the West Middlesex County Hospital, Isleworth.

Staveley Road Chiswick.

Memorial in Staveley Road.

On 27 March 1945 at 7:21 am a V2 rocket exploded at Hugh Mansions Valance Road, Bow London killing 134 men, women and children.

Hugh Mansions (IWM)

Engine of a V2 rocket.

Over 3,000 V2 rockets landed in Britain and killed an estimated 9,000 civilians.

Around 6,725 V1 and V2’s were launched against Britain of these 2,340 hit London killing 5,475 civilians and injured 16,000.

Pilot Officer Osman McMillian RCAF KIA 24 September 1944.

Wreck of the Spitfire flown by P/O McMillian. (Colour by Piece of Cake, original image credit not listed)

21 year old Pilot Officer Osman McMillian from Windsor Ontario, Canada served with 441 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and was recently commissioned before being killed in action in Gelderland, Netherlands on 24 September 1944.

Osman McMillian before qualifying as a pilot and later commissioned. (Canadian Archives)

Letter to his mother informing her where her son was buried (Canadian Archives)

Pauline Trahan: SOE Agent.

I have recently been informed that on 4 February 2024 one of the last surviving members of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) French Section died at the age of 97. If her age is correct and was 17 when she parachuted into France, Nicola Pauline Marie Trahan was one of the youngest agents serving with F (French ) Section. RIP

NATO Exercise ‘Bold Guard’ and the Kiel Canal tragedy in September 1974.

On 11 September 1974 a mass NATO exercise called Operation Bold Guard took place in Germany which included an air assault by 540 paratroopers. The British contingent consisted of five waves of six Hercules aircraft from RAF Lyneham with men from the 15th and 4th Battalions of the Parachute Regiment TAVR along with heavy drop (Land Rovers etc).

According to an RAF Board of Enquiry, during the night drop that was part of a second wave 15 parachutists landed in the Kiel Canal of whom 6 drowned. A German Army rescue launched picked up 5 men and recovered 1 dead body. Eights days later four bodies were recovered with their life jackets inflated and the total number of recorded deaths is 6 (1 from 4 para and 5 members of 15 para.


British Home Front During World War Two.

Senate House.

Senate House in Malet Street, London WC1 close to the British Museum is an Arc Deco building built between 1932 and 1937 and is now the library and administration centre for the University of London. Most days of the week many thousands of people walk past this building and the general public along with students at the University of London are seldom aware of its wartime history.

During Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion of the British Isles, Hitler was so confidence of a swift victory and occupation of the United Kingdom he intended to use Senate House for the administration of Britain and the ‘ethically pure’ elements of British society would be selected to support what he ambiguously called ‘Political Peace’.

After the Luftwaffe was unable to gain air superiority during the Battle of Britain the invasion of the British Isles was cancelled and Hitler turned his attention to the Soviet Union. 

Roger Sabourin: Wireless Operator SOE French Section.

24-year old Roger Sabourin

Roger Sabourin was born in Montréal, Canada on 1 January 1923 and was serving with the Canadian Intelligence Corps before joining SOE on 2 January 1944 and trained as a wireless operator.

On the night of 2/3 March 1944 Roger Sabourin on his first mission to France to start a new circuit called BARGEE and Adolphe ‘Alex’ Rabinovitch on his second mission, the first of which he was lucky not to be captured by the Gestapo before escaping to England, parachuted to a drop zone adjacent to woodland.

Adolphe ‘Alex’ Rabinovitch

It was originally believed the reception committee, members of the resistance at the drop zone to assist them, were from ARCHDEACON circuit that had been infiltrated but later research discovered they had been dropped to SORCERER circuit that had been infiltrated and was being run by the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence) as part of their deception to capture incoming agents.

When Sabourin and Rabinovitch were taking off their parachutes, through the moonlight they saw a German soldier and immediately ran into the woods and during a brief firefight two German soldiers were killed but Sabourin and Rabinovitch were wounded and unable to continue their escape.

After lengthy interrogation by the Gestapo Rabinovitch was transported to Cross-Rosen concentration camp in Poland where he was executed on 2 March 1944. Sabourin was executed at Buchenwald camp on 14 September 1944. Thirty-seven allied officer were also killed that day along with Canadian SOE officers Frank Pickersgill, Ken Macalister and French SOE agent Robert Benoit.

Pickersgill and Macalister

Robert Benoit

During an investigation into missing agents after the war it was discovered that Sabourin, Macalister, Pickersgill and Benoit had been executed by slow and painful strangulation by piano wire after being suspended from hooks on the walls of the Buchenwald camp crematorium.

Buchenwald camp crematorium with hooks on the walls for strangulation.

Operation Banner (Northern Ireland). On 31 January 1984 RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) officers Thomas Bingham and William Savage were among the 319 officers killed by terrorists (9,000 injured) during the ‘Troubles’.

From the BBC Archives.

Thomas John Bingham aged 29 and William Richie Savage from East Belfast were travelling in an unmarked police car on Newry Road when they were killed by a 1000 lb bombed detonated 600 yard away.

Francis André aka Gueule Tordue, Twisted Face and Crooked Mouth: Klaus Barbie’s most loyal collaborator.

Francis André (Musée de la Résistance Nationale)

Much has been written about Hauptsturmfuhrer Klaus Barbie, the head of the Gestapo in Lyon who became known as the “Butcher of Lyon” after personally torturing men, women and children, but little as been written about Francis André.

Francis André was born in Lyon on 25 February 1909. At school he gained a reputation for intimidating other children and his face was disfigured during a car accident when he was a teenager and after leaving school became a petty criminal with a long record for robbery, swindles and assaults.

Photograph taken after the war when he was arrested for war crimes.

During the Second World War he was exempt from military service because of deafness and left facial paralysis and continued his criminal career. In June 1943, three years after France was occupied, he was approached by a senior officer of the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, the intelligence arm of the SSS and Nazi Party, to lead a small movement of collaborators in Lyon called the Anti-Terrorist Movement (MNAT) to work against the resistance, Jews, freemasons, Jehovah Witnesses, and people the SD believed were ‘ethnically’ inferior.

The MNAT engaged in a campaign of assassinations, intimidation and its members also looted homes and shops following arrests. ’Crooked Mouth’ is known to have killed 20 members of the resistance and placed signs on corpses saying, “Terror against terror. This man pays with his life. MNAT assassinations are justified by the law of retaliation responding with murder to murders committed by resistance fighters. Signed MNAT.”

A police report written after the war states, summary killings were the dominant activity of the MNAT. They believed all jews were rich in the pretext of their robberies, in addition many of them had taken refuge in Lyon with their transportable goods such as jewellery, cash, gold etc and used this statement to justify their persecution and arrest of jews.

Crooked Mouth left the MNAT and became Klaus Barbie’s trusted personal assistant and like Barbie enjoyed torturing men, women and children and during his trial after the war in January 1946 at the Court of Justice in Lyon Crooked Mouth admitted to killing 120 people whilst working with Barbie and was later estimate the figure was around 160.

A French journalist who attended the trial wrote, “His stranglers hands run over his mouth with every question he was asked. A gesture that seemed to wipe away the horrors of the answers… He was the abominable murderer, Barbie’s most loyal collaborator, a blood thirsty beast, the most sinister collaborator in the Lyon Gestapo”.

After being found guilty for treason, mass murder and other war crimes, on 9 March 1946 Crooked Mouth was executed by a French firing squad.

Alan Malcher.

Irene Arckles: Air Transport Auxiliary Pilot during WW2.

(DB colour from original unknown B&W image)

Irene Arckless was described as an ordinary working class girl determined to obtain her pilots licence who passed her flying test just before the start of the Second World War. During the war she was a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary delivering all types of aircraft from factories to operational RAF airfields throughout England.
On Sunday 3 June 1943 she was flying a twin engine Airspeed Oxford when one of the engines malfunctioned during take off and crashed into a house on the outskirts of Oxford. Arckless was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.  

27-year-old Irene Arckles is buried at Carlisle, Stanwick Cemetery. Ward 2. Section A. Grave 31. (Commonwealth War graves Commission)

Brian Stonehouse: SOE Wireless Operator. Nine minute film interview released in 1997.

Brian Stonehouse was 24-years old when he parachuted into France on the night of 1 July 1942. This interview briefly examines his war service in France but leaves out many of the difficulties he faced and overcome as a clandestine and his experiences after being incarcerated in five concentration camps. Brian Stonehouse died in London on 2 December 1998 at the age of 80.