The Battle of Mons was the first major action of the British Expeditionary Force of the First World War. It was a subsidiary action of the Battle of the Frontiers, during which the allies fought the Germans on the French border.
I don’t know the source of this short film documentary and consequently I am unable to credit the film maker.
Whilst looking for German shipping hiding in Norwegian fjords, Coastal Command aircraft were forced to dive steeply between precipitous, snow-capped mountains. On December 5th, 34 Mosquitoes of Coastal Command, Banff Wing, armed with cannon and rocket projectiles, attacked enemy shipping lying in the eastern end of Nordgulen Fjord Norway. The aircraft dived from a height of 5,000 ft to mast height at an angle of 45 degrees at a speed of over 300 miles an hour. They also had to run the gauntlet of flak from merchant vessels averaging 3,000 tons each and two escort vessels were attacked – all the ships were left burning. (Film includes good aerial shots of a Mosquito of No. 248 Sqn RAF and attacks on ships in fjord.)
Another clip of the same attack.
The Aden Emergency was against communist insurgents, the National Liberation Front For the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) and the National Liberation Front who were supported by the Soviet Union and the United Arab Republic.
During the campaign 92 British military personnel were killed and 510 wounded. The conflict then developed in the mountainous Radfan region where dissident local tribesmen raided roads connecting Aden with the town of Dhala near the Yemen border.
Photograph of Private Wally Fraser (centre) of B Company East Anglian Regiment who was killed clearing mines on 31 December 1964. His name appears on the Regimental Memorial.
Lewis started his combat tour on the Western Front with only 20 hours in his log book and the following BBC interview was recorded before his death on 27 January 1997 in London.
Eugene Bec (field names Hughes, Borer, Raymond Perrin, Francis Eugene Labrousse) was born in England and had duel British and French nationality. He received his secondary education in Boulogne and served with the French Air Force between 1925 and 1927. When was was declared in 1939 he joined the French Army and was attached to the French liaison staff with the British Royal Armoured Corps in France and after failing to be evacuated during Operation Dynamo (Dunkirk) he eventually escaped to England in 1942 and began his SOE training the same year.
On 28 May 1944 he arrived in France by parachute to join HEADMASTER 2 circuit as their weapons instructor which was operating in the Sarthe department and according to reports this was an agricultural area that had not suffered from the German occupation and this not only made recruitment difficult there were also limited areas where weapons could be dropped and hidden. Despite these setbacks HEADMASTER 2 formed two large resistance groups in the Forêt de Charnie and Forêt de Berc and from these areas the circuit conducted sabotage operations in and around Le Mans.
On 15 June 1944 members of HEADMASTER 2 were captured by German forces and handed to the Gestapo and after being tortured a member of the circuit called Philippe was forced to provide the location of the resistance base in the forest and the following day over 100 German soldiers attacked Bec’s encampment and after killing the German commander and fourteen of his men during a firefight Bec and his men were forced to withdraw. During their escape Bec and three members of the resistance were ambushed and killed and their bodies were later recovered by the resistance and buried in a graveyard in Le Mans. The ceremony was photographed by surviving members of HEADMASTER 2 and a copy was sent Bec’s father who was living in Ruislip, Middlesex. The photograph showed three coffins, two draped with the Tricolour the other with a Union Flag. The graves were covered with flowers to show, as Buckmaster (Head of F Section) later wrote “how grateful the French appreciated the gallantry of the British officers who had volunteered to work with them”.
Emmet Dalton of The 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 16th Irish Division who won the Military Cross during the battle talked about his experience.