Tag Archives: history

The fruits that won the war – Mulberry Harbours

June 9, 2017Articles, world war 2Arromanches, D Day, history, Mulberry Harbour, Normandy, World War 2, WW2Dorinda Balchin

If you holiday in France you may like to visit Arromanches on the Normandy coast. This was the site of one of the Mulberry Harbours, an amazing engineering feat which helped to change the course of the Second World War. The remains of the harbour can still be seen today.

Both the Allies and Hitler knew that an Allied invasion of Nazi held Europe was essential for the winning of the war. They also knew that any landing was unlikely to succeed without a safe harbour in Allied hands. Once the liberating forces had established a foothold on the Normandy coast enormous amounts of men and supplies would need to be landed to re-enforce the bridgehead before pushing on towards Germany. The problem for the Allies was that the Germans had occupied and heavily fortified all the ports on the northern coast of France. The disastrous Allied raid on Dieppe in 1942 showed that taking such ports would only be done with immense loss of life and would not be quick. What the Allies needed was access to a port that was not controlled by the Germans. Small fishing ports would not be suitable as the large ships needed to transport bulky supplies needed a deep port with harbourside cranes; the Allies therefore decided that if no such ports were available they would have to create their own.

The plan they came up with was simple yet would be incredibly complex to achieve – the construction of a new harbour the size of Dover at the site of the invasion. The plan was to prefabricate the elements needed in Britain before towing them across the English Channel and creating a harbour off the landing beaches. The schedule was to complete the construction within two weeks of the D Day landings in June 1944. Winston Churchill knew that there would be enormous problems with this idea but was determined that it should work if the invasion was to be successful. A trial of three competing designs for the floating harbour was set up in 1943 with prototypes built and tested on the Solway Firth. Once the design was finalised the War Office could begin the prefabrication of the concrete caissons.

The invasion of Europe began on 6^th June 1944, D Day, with thousands of Allied troops landing along the Normandy coast. Once the beachheads were secured the work on the floating harbours began, the first stage of which was to scuttle a number of old ships off the coast at Arromanches as temporary outer breakwaters (the Gooseberries) to protect the area where the harbour (the Mulberry) was to be built. The huge prefabricated caissons (water-tight concrete structures codenamed Phoenixes) were then sunk to provide the permanent breakwaters which would shelter the floating roadways and jetties. Once the completed Mulberry Harbour was in place the Allies could begin unloading the supplies which would be so vital for their victory.

There were actually two Mulberry Harbours towed across the English Channel to support the Normandy beachheads. Mulberry A was constructed at Omaha Beach whilst Mulberry B (nicknamed ‘Port Winston’), was constructed off Gold Beach at the town of Arromanches. Once assembled the harbours could unload 7,000 tons of supplies a day. Each incredibly complex harbour had masses of pontoons which supported around 6 miles of flexible roadways ending in huge pier heads supported by underwater ‘legs’.

An incredible feat of engineering had both harbours almost fully functional when they were hit by a storm on 19^th June. The Mulberry Harbours had been designed for summer weather not the worst storm to hit the Normandy coast for 40 years, and the harbour at Omaha beach was so badly damaged that it was beyond repair. This could have been a disaster for the Allied forces, but although the second Mulberry suffered some damage it survived the storm and continued to land supplies in support of the invasion. Although it had been designed to last for just ninety days Port Winston was in continuous use for ten months following D Day and in that time landed over half a million vehicles, two and a half million men and four million tons of supplies.

When the invasion had moved eastward and liberated ports from the Nazis the harbour was no longer useful and was abandoned. If you visit Arromanches today you can see the remains of the Mulberry Harbour from the beaches.

The scale and sheer audacity of the Mulberries took the Germans completely by surprise. At the Nurembeurg trials after the war Albert Speer, Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany, gave a German perspective on the Mulberry Harbours:

“To construct our defences we had in two years used some 13 million cubic metres of concrete and 1½ million tons of steel. A fortnight after the Normandy Landings, this costly effort was brought to nothing because of an idea of simple genius. As we now know, the invasion force brought their own harbours, and built, at Arromanches and Omaha, on unprotected coast, the necessary landing ramps.”

When we remember the troops who fought and died on the beaches of Normandy we should not forget those who designed and built the Mulberry Harbours which were so instrumental in making D Day and the invasion of Europe such a success.

The women who spied for Britain

May 22, 2017Articles, Heronfield, world war 2England, equality, espionage, France, Heronfield, history, Noor Inayat Khan, Odette Strugo Garay, secret agent, spy, Violette Szabo, Virginia Hall, women, writing, WW2Dorinda Balchin

The Invasion of France at the beginning of the Second World War is known as the Blitzkrieg – Lightning War – and it really was like lightning. It was just six short weeks from the start of the invasion on 10th May 1940 to the French signing an armistice with Germany on 22nd June. Yet although Germany had defeated the French army many French citizens were not ready to submit to the conquerors and so the British government set up the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Its instructions from Churchill were to ‘set Europe ablaze’ by helping to fight the Germans behind enemy lines.

Recruits to the SOE underwent commando training as well as learning how to use guns and explosives, to effectively sabotage enemy installations and transport, to use wireless radios, to be proficient in silent killing and unarmed combat. They also had to learn how to blend in and live in secret in occupied territory, sometimes for weeks or months at a time.

Many may find it surprising to know that women were members of the SOE right from the start. At first their role was only to work in the offices producing forged papers for the men who would be going into action (ration cards, passports etc.), or perhaps coding or de-coding messages from agents as well as transmitting these messages via wireless. It wasn’t until April 1942 that Churchill finally gave his approval for women to be sent as agents into Europe. Part of the reasoning for this was that women would be less conspicuous as they were always out and about – shopping or taking children to school etc. – men who were seen on the streets too frequently soon came to the notice of the Gestapo. So the SOE recruited women as wireless operators and couriers and, like the men, these women had to be proficient in the language of the country they were going to, know it’s customs etc. The ideal recruit would have spent some of their formative years in the target country and so would know how to ‘blend in’. In all 431 men and 39 women were sent as SOE agents to France during the Second World War, as well as agents sent to other occupied countries.

It would be impossible to describe the ‘average’ female SOE agent as there was really no such thing. A recruit could come from an aristocratic background or be working-class, she might have only just left school or be a mature and experienced mother, she might be demure or a little wild; the one unifying factor was that they were prepared to go behind enemy lines as the only women to bear arms during the war. They knew what they were signing up for, the chances that they could be captured and tortured, sent to concentration camps or executed, but that didn’t stop them.

One of the first women to work for SOE was actually an American called Virginia Hall who was living in France when the Germans invaded. Although she was disabled (she had an artificial foot) she managed to escape to England where she was signed up by the SOE and went back to France as a ‘correspondent for the New York Post’ (America had not yet entered the war at this time and so was considered neutral). After some time the Gestapo became too interested in Virginia so she escaped over the Pyrenean mountains to Spain (which could not have been easy with her disability). When she got back to England Virginia joined the newly formed US equivalent of SOE, went back to France prior to D Day and, after the war, served in the CIA.

Another famous SOE agent was Noor Inayat Khan who was born in Russia, the daughter of an Indian prince and American. Noor grew up in Paris where she became known as a writer and musician, but when her family fled to England to escape the Germans she trained as a wireless operator with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. The SOE couldn’t ignore someone who spoke fluent French and could handle a wireless so they recruited Noor and she was sent to France in 1943. The network which she worked for was infiltrated and her colleagues arrested. Life was hard for Noor as she was forced to keep moving, finding a new place to stay every day in an effort to evade the Germans, carrying the all too conspicuous wireless with her. Noor continued to send reports to the SOE but her luck eventually ran out when she was betrayed and captured in October 1943. After spending months in solitary confinement Noor was sent to Dachau with three other female SOE agents where she was executed. Witnesses say that Noor spoke just one word at the end – liberté.

Violette Szabo came from a very different background to Noor Inayat Kahn, a cockney working-class girl who had spent some time growing up in France and spoke the language well. She was married to a member of the French Foreign Legion, Etienne Szabo, who died at El Alamein. Violette had a one year old daughter but didn’t hesitate when the SOE came knocking at her door and immediately agreed to be sent to France, knowing the risks involved. Like Inayat Khan, Violette Szabo was captured and executed (at Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1945).

Although 13 of the women who were sent to France by the SOE were executed by the Germans and 2 others died of natural causes the other 24 survived until the end of the war. One of these was Odette Strugo Garay. Odette had a Czech father and a French mother. She was recruited by the SOE in 1944 after her husband, who was a Finnish RAF pilot, was killed in an accident. After undergoing her training, including four parachute jumps, Odette was sent to France, (she didn’t receive her RAF wings as she had not completed five qualifying jumps). After a time in France Odette returned to England via the route through Spain and on the way met the head of the escape network, Santiago Strugo Garay, who was later to become her husband. After the war Odette and Santiago moved to Buenos Aires and it was there that she met the Air Attaché Wing Commander Dowling. During conversation she mentioned that although she had worked for the SOE and parachuted into France she had never received her RAF wings. He argued that her jump into France should count as a qualifying fifth jump and Odette finally received her wings in 2007. She wore the badge every day until her death in 2015, proud of the contribution she had made to the work of the SOE in France.

Monument remembering all women who played a part in winninng the Second World War

The 39 female SOE agents who served in France were ordinary women who did extraordinary things and, like their male counterparts, those who survived the war never sought the limelight but slipped back into civilian life as though their experiences during the war had never happened. They all felt that they were just doing their duty, no more than any other soldier who fought the Nazis. The women who went into enemy territory as agents of the SOE were pioneers – back at home women were working in the factories, taking over the roles of men who were away at the front, but the women of the SOE showed that not only could women do the work on the Home Front which had been done by men but that they could also fight like the men too. In my novel Heronfield Angeline is a radio operator who is parachuted into France by the SOE, her story is my tribute to the bravery of all women of any nationality who were prepared to put their lives on the line to preserve the freedom of others.

A British Game Of Thrones

May 6, 2017Articles, English Civil War, The Cavalier Historianbooks, Dorinda Balchin, Elizabeth I, England, English Civil War, historical fiction, history, History of Great Britain, James I, King Charles I, Mary Queen of Scots, Oliver Cromwell, Queen Anne, ScotlandDorinda Balchin

Imagine the scenario:
There was once a king of a northern country who had a distant claim to the throne of a country in the south. When the ruler of the southern land died childless the King of the North also became King of the South, and although there was one king to rule them both the two realms remained separate and continued with their longstanding enmities. When the king died his son came to sit on the thrones of both countries but the lords of the southern lands were not happy with how he ruled and so went to war against him. The land in the north supported the southern nobles for a time, then their support moved to the king, then shifted back to the nobles once more. Power ebbed and flowed until the king was finally captured and executed. What would happen now? Who would rule? Would the lands be united at last or continue divided and at war?

Sounds like the plot to a book in the style of A Game Of Thrones, doesn’t it? Yet this is real history. The history of Scotland and England. It is a history I had to grasp to enable me to write my novel ‘The Cavalier Historian’, and it is a part of the story which many people find fascinating. So, what was the situation between the two nations in the seventeenth century and how did that impact on the English Civil War?

Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and granddaughter of Henry VII, died childless. The next in line to the throne was James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots and great great grandson of Henry VII. James VI and I (as he is sometimes known) moved from Edinburgh to London; England and Scotland were now united under one monarch BUT this was a dynastic union only, the Stuarts reigned over two separate and distinct countries even though King James wanted them to be united as one.

Part of the problem which James I faced was that the Scottish Church would not accept the High Anglican Church of England. When his son, Charles I, succeeded him he introduced a Scottish version of the English Prayer Book in 1637. The Scots responded with anger and rioting, culminating in a meeting of the National Covenant in 1638 which overwhelmingly objected to the prayer book; and when the General Assembly met in November 1638 all bishops were expelled from the Scottish Church which became fully Presbyterian. Charles put together a military force to bring the Scottish to heel, but didn’t like using soldiers from his southern kingdom to invade his northern one, so a settlement was reached under the ‘Pacification of Berwick’. The peace didn’t last for long, hostilities broke out again and Charles’s English forces were defeated by the Scots at the Battle of Newburn.

This was how Charles I found himself to be the king of two kingdoms with a history of dislike for each other and widely differing views on religion. Once civil war broke out in England, with parliament looking to exercise more control over the king, his taxes, and the religion of the country, things got even more complicated. The English Parliament entered into a ‘Solemn League And Covenant’ with the Scottish Church and Scottish troops played an important role in the defeat of Charles I, constantly playing one side against the other from the outbreak of war:

22^nd August 1643 Charles I raised his standard in Nottingham, formally declaring war on Parliament.

August 1643 The Solemn League And Covenant promised to preserve the Scottish Church and reform religion in England and Ireland in return for Scottish help against the king.

6^th May 1646 Charles I surrendered to the Scots in the hope that they would support him as their king against the old enemy, England. At the same time he was trying to negotiate with the English Parliament – unaware that the Scots were doing the same!

30^th January 1647 The Scots handed Charles over to the English Parliament and he was imprisoned at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire.

November 1647 The king escaped but was soon re-captured. From his prison Charles I carried out secret negotiations with the Scots, hoping for uprisings in England to coincide with an invasion from Scotland which would free him and put him back on the throne.

28^th December 1647 An ‘Engagement’ was signed, with the Scots agreeing to support the king as long as he imposed the Presbyterian Church on England for three years.

Spring 1648 The uprising began in Wales and England, but the Scottish forces were delayed which enabled Cromwell to put down the Royalist forces throughout most of the country although the king’s forces held out under a long siege in Colchester. When the Scots finally invaded they were defeated at the Battle of Preston on 17^th – 19^th August 1649. This effectively brought the Second English Civil War to an end.

Charles I was in prison in England throughout this second war, and at the defeat of his forces was put on trial for treason, and executed. With the death of Charles I Cromwell invaded Scotland and brought it into his Commonwealth, but after his death Charles II became king and Scotland became an independent country once more. It wasn’t until 1707, during the reign of Queen Anne, that the ‘Acts of Union’ were signed in England and Scotland in which the two separate states with their different legislatures but with the same ruling monarch were ‘United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain’.

With such complex relationships between Scotland and England, as well as divisive politics and religion within England itself, it was perhaps inevitable that there would be conflict under Charles I. It is a period of history which makes for a great story and I thoroughly enjoyed the research I conducted for my novel ‘The Cavalier Historian’. I hope my readers will find the novel equally enjoyable!

Horror in the beech forest – the liberation of Buchenwald, 11th April 1945

April 11, 2017Articles, world war 2Buchenwald, concentration camps, Elie Wiesel, history, US 89th Infantry Division, World War 2, WW2Dorinda Balchin

Would you like to visit somewhere called ‘Beech Forest’? It sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? But our impressions change immediately we find out the German for ‘Beech Forest’ – Buchenwald. Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of that infamous place.

The concentration camp at Buchenwald was built just 5 miles north of Weimar, on the slopes of Ettersberg mountain, and was the largest complex of its kind in Germany with a main camp as well as 139 subsidiary camps and extension units. Established before the Second Wold War began, most of the original inmates of the camp were criminals or political prisoners who arrived in July 1937. The number of prisoners rapidly increased during 1938 when ‘undesirables’ who opposed the Nazi ideal or were considered to be antisocial elements were incarcerated in Buchenwald. After the outbreak of war in 1939 the numbers of inmates increased dramatically when many Polish prisoners were interred. It is believed that around 239,000 prisoners from 30 countries passed through the hell of the Buchenwald camps during the eight years from 1937 to 1945. No-one knows exactly how many people died there as some of the records were incomplete, but estimates range from 43,000 to 56,000. The conditions in the camp were horrendous, many of the inmates died of disease or because of medical experimentation, and over 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war were shot in an area of the camp designed for that specific purpose. These estimates of the numbers who died don’t include the inmates who did not survive the death march from Buchenwald in April 1945, or the camps which they were moved to.

Prisoners during a roll call at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
— US Holocaust Memorial Museum

The prisoners held in Buchenwald were an amalgam of the kinds of people whom Hitler believed had no place in his Reich – Jews, the mentally and physically disabled, Roma gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah’s witnesses, political prisoners, prisoners of war, homosexuals, criminals – but rather than simply killing them as happened in many of the other camps, these people were used as forced labour in local factories which were a part of the German war effort (mainly armament factories), or in the Buchenwald quarry. Like Auschwitz there was a slogan above the gates at Buchenwald; in Auschwitz the sign read Arbeit macht free which translates as ‘work sets you free’, in Buchenwald the message was Jedem das Seine, the literal translation of this phrase is ‘to each his own’ but the understood meaning in German is much more sinister – ‘everyone gets what they deserve’.

As World War Two was finally drawing to a close in the spring of 1945 the prisoners in Buchenwald began to hope that they might actually survive their ordeal. On 4^th April the US 89^th Infantry Division liberated the subcamp at Ohrdruf as they moved eastwards towards the Russian armies which were advancing from the opposite direction. By this time the Germans knew that they could not win the war and, with the Allies getting ever closer, the 6^th April saw the start of the evacuation of over 28,000 prisoners from Buchenwald and the satellite camps in an effort to hide what had been happening there. Almost 8,000 of these prisoners died during the march to other camps further east. Some of the prisoners who remained in Buchenwald had built a secret short-wave transmitter and were able to send a Morse code message on 8^th April saying ‘To the Allies. To the army of General Patton. This is the Buchenwald concentration camp. SOS. We request help. They want to evacuate us. The SS wants to destroy us.’ Only three minutes later they received a reply – ‘KZ Bu. Hold out. Rushing to your aid. Staff of Third Army.’ Most of the SS had already fled and, on receiving this message, the jubilant prisoners took control of the camp, effectively freeing around 21,000 of their fellow inmates.

At 3.15pm on 11th April 1945 four soldiers from the 6^th Armoured Division of the US Army were the first Allies to reach Buchenwald where they were greeted as hero’s by the survivors, some of whom even found the strength to throw their liberators in the air in celebration. (The clock at the entrance gate of Buchenwald is now stopped at 3.15 as a memorial).

Although the prisoners were delighted at their liberation and able to celebrate for a short time, most of them were so ill that the Americans wondered if they would survive to enjoy their freedom. As Edward Murrow reported for CBS – ‘I asked to see one of the barracks. It happened to be occupied by Czechoslovaks. When I entered, men crowded around, tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses. There were 1,200 men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description…As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others, they must have been over 60, were crawling toward the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it.’

The American soldiers were hardened men who had fought hard all the way from the beaches of Normandy but Buchenwald was almost beyond their comprehension, when Eisenhower entered the camp he said that “Nothing has ever shocked me as much as that sight.” The American liberators described finding lampshades made out of human skin and being shown where the land had been fertilised with the ashes of the dead. These horrific sights influenced their attitude when they arrived in Weimar the next day. The civilians in the town, just five miles from the camp, said that they hadn’t known what was happening there even though they had seen thousands of trains arriving laden with prisoner and none leaving. Elie Wiesel, arguably the most famous survivor of Buchenwald, later said that some of the inmates took jeeps and drove into Weimar where the American GI’s stood by and watched as the newly liberated men looted homes, killed German civilians, and even raped some of the German women. After what they had seen the soldiers felt little inclination to intervene and stop the former prisoners from taking their revenge.

Sadly, the liberation on 11^th April 1945 was not the end of Buchenwald as a concentration camp. Between then and 10^th February 1950 it was a ‘special camp’ run by the Russian NKVD. Finally, in October 1950, the Russian authorities decided to demolish the camp although parts were retained as a reminder of the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the Second World War. Today those remains contain a memorial and museum to the memory of the thousands who died in one of the most notorious of all concentration camps.

During the Second World War Buchenwald was the destination for many spies and resistance fighters who were captured in occupied France. In my novel Heronfield Tony was a member of the SOE and, as such, would have been sent to Buchenwald. I found writing that particular section of the book harrowing although the words I wrote in no way reflect the true horrors that the prisoners endured. In my own simple way I hope that my work can be seen as a tribute to all those who were sent to Buchenwald and other concentration camps simply because of their race, politics, religious beliefs or disabilities.

Sources

Official Memorial Site, Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation.

Film footage from 1945 inside Buchenwald Concentration Camp, British Pathé.

Buchenwald, jewishgen.org.

Guide to the Concentration Camps Collection, Leo Baeck Institute, New York City 2013. Includes extensive reports on Buchenwald collected by the Allied forces shortly after liberating the camp in April 1945.

Holocaust Research Project

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Road Between Us by Nigel Farndale

April 5, 2017Book reviewsAfghanistan, author, Book reviews, books, gay, historical fiction, history, homosexuality, LGBT, literature, Nigel Farndale, novel, World War 2Dorinda Balchin

1939: In a hotel room overlooking Piccadilly Circus, two young men are arrested. Charles is court-martialled for ‘conduct unbecoming’; Anselm is deported home to Germany for ‘re-education’ in a brutal labour camp. Separated by the outbreak of war, and a social order that rejects their love, they must each make a difficult choice, and then live with the consequences.

2012: Edward, a diplomat held hostage for eleven years in an Afghan cave, returns to London to find his wife is dead, and in her place is an unnerving double – his daughter, now grown up. Numb with grief, he attempts to re-build his life and answer the questions that are troubling him. Was his wife’s death an accident? Who paid his ransom? And how was his release linked to Charles, his father?

As dark and nuanced as it is powerful and moving, The Road Between Us is a novel about survival, redemption and forbidden love. Its moral complexities will haunt the reader for days after the final page has been turned.

‘The Road Between Us’ is a thought provoking novel which touches on subject matter which can make it uncomfortable reading at times. Following the stories of a father and son (one during the Second World War and the other set in the present day) Mr Farndale weaves a picture of love and loss, of discrimination and cruelty, yet also of loyalty and hope. During the war Charles loses his commission for ‘conduct unbecoming’ and spends the rest of the conflict searching for and attempting to rescue his lover, Anselm, who had been deported to Germany for ‘re-education.’ In the present Charles’s son, Edward, is released after eleven years in captivity and is also searching for love and hope, both of which he has buried deeply in order to survive his long period of isolation and deprivation.

Mr Farndale has approached the difficult subjects in his novel with respect and sensitivity. His descriptions of place and character are vivid, making the reader feel as though they are there and drawing them into the story. Even though some of the subject matter is difficult I found myself wanting to read more, to discover what made these characters tick and how they came to terms with aspects of their lives which were so troubling at times. It is the mark of a great novel to keep you reading under such circumstances, the key here being the believable characters who are drawn so sympathetically.

The historical context of ‘The Road Between Us’ has been well researched which gives a depth of plausibility to the story – the ‘re-education’ workcamps, the treatment of homosexuals etc. The dialogue has an authentic ring which brings the characters to life, dialogue which reflects the authors understanding of human psychology and encourages the reader to look deeper into themselves. All in all, this is a very moving story and compelling reading; it has a great narrative, the feel of both thriller and love story, intelligent and literary writing.

If you like historical novels which explore the human condition with depth and sensitivity then I heartily recommend ‘The Road Between Us’ to you.

(I have deliberately avoided going into details of this story as it would be difficult to do so without spoiling it for you!)

‘The Road Between Us’ can be found on Amazon

You can find out more about Nigel Farndale on his website

You can read more of my Recommended Reads here

Hitler’s guidebook – The Baedeker Raids

March 27, 2017Articles, world war 2Baedeker Guidebooks, BaedekerRaids, Bombing, England, Germany, history, WW2Dorinda Balchin

Have you ever used a Baedeker Guidebook when on holiday? The first of these travel guides was published in the 1820’s and were a ‘must have’ for travellers. But did you know that there was a series of air raids on England during the Second World War which got their name from these guidebooks? So why did the Germans use these books to target historic towns and cities in Britain during the spring of 1942?

The intensive bombing of the German blitz ended in May 1941 when Hitler re-targeted his resources on his invasion of Russia; this meant that attacks on Britain were confined to hit-and-run raids on coastal towns. At the same time night bombing by the RAF was being scaled down as it was felt that the type of raids which targeted individual factories or military bases were ineffective. It was not until March 1942 that the RAF resumed their raids with new heavy bombers, improved navigation, new tactics, and a new commander, all of which helped to make these attacks much more devastating than those carried out earlier in the war. Instead of the previous attempts at precision bombing of factories and power stations the focus was now on area bombing. Planes would target a single area where there was not only the possibility of destroying military targets and factories but also affecting the morale of the civilian population. On 28^th March 1942 the RAF bombed the city of Lűbeck in northern Germany. The historic centre of the city, known as the ‘Old Town’, consisted mostly of wooden buildings and was almost totally destroyed; over 1,000 people were killed.

Mass grave for the victims of the bombing of Lubeck

Nearby Rostock was bombed a month after the destruction of Lübeck. The two attacks shocked the Nazi leadership, and also the civilian population of Germany who had suffered little under previous RAF raids. The change of British tactics was very effective; Goebbels said that “the damage was really enormous” and “it is horrible… the English air raids have increased in scope and importance; if they can be continued for weeks on these lines, they might conceivably have a demoralizing effect on the population.” He described the raid on Rostock as more devastating than those before, saying “Community life there is practically at an end… the situation is in some sections catastrophic… seven tenths of the city have been destroyed… more than 100,000 people had to be evacuated… there was, in fact, panic.” Hitler was furious and determined that the Luftwaffe would retaliate in kind. On 14^th April he ordered that “the air war against England be given a more aggressive stamp. Accordingly when targets are being selected, preference is to be given to those where attacks are likely to have the greatest possible effect on civilian life. Besides raids on ports and industry, terror attacks of a retaliatory nature are to be carried out on towns other than London.” Hitler’s aim was twofold, as well as revenge for the RAF raids he hoped that such attacks would break the morale of the British people and lead to a swifter end to the war.

The first retaliatory raid took place on Exeter on 23^rd April. Much of the city was damaged and around 80 people were killed and 55 wounded. The next day Baron von Sturm (a spokesman for the German Foreign Office) said “’We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide.” von Strum’s comments led to the raids being called the ‘Baedeker Raids’ by both the Germans and the Allies. Although Goebbels agreed with the tactic he was furious with von Strum for his thoughtless, off-the-cuff comment. Goebbels had wanted to take the moral high ground, describing the British attacks as ‘terror bombing’, but now von Strum had effectively admitted that the Germans were deliberately targeting cultural and historical sites. Exeter was bombed again within hours of von Strum’s statement. A third raid on Exeter took place on 3^rd May when high explosives, incendiaries and parachute mines were dropped by 90 planes, devastating the city’s shopping centre. 163 people were killed and 131 seriously injured in the attacks on the town which was poorly prepared for such raids, as were the other locations chosen from the guidebook. (Intersetingly, Hitler forbade any bombing of the beautiful Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire as it was the place where Churchill had been born; Hitler was determined to live there after he had invaded and subdued the UK).

Each of the Baedeker raids involved between 30 and 40 bombers which flew two sorties each night. This meant that each raid would begin with a period of bombing lasting one and a half to two hours. There would then be a lull of two to three hours while the Germans returned to base to re-arm and re-fuel. Finally, another bombing run like the first.

Exeter was not the only city to be targeted. 400 people were killed in raids on Bath on two consecutive nights (25^th + 26^th April), during the raid the railway station was put out of action and communications severely affected. After the raids on Bath Goebbels reported that Hitler intended to “repeat these raids night after night until the English are sick and tired of terror attacks” and that he “shared [Goebbels’] opinion absolutely that cultural centres, health resorts and civilian centres must be attacked… there is no other way of bringing the English to their senses. They belong to a class of human beings with whom you can only talk after you have first knocked out their teeth.”

The 27^th of April saw 90 tons of bombs dropped on Norwich; the city was attacked again on the 29^th. In all, 222 people died during these raids on Norwich. It was the turn of York on 28^th April when high explosive bombs and incendiaries caused a huge amount of damage, including the destruction of the medieval Guildhall. In May there were more raids on Cowes, Norwich, Hull, Poole, Grimsby and Canterbury. The RAF responded by sending 1,000 bombers in a massive raid on Cologne.

The German raids on historic cities in England during April and May 1942 were responsible for 1,637 civilian deaths and left another 1,760 injured. Over 50,000 homes were destroyed along with some important buildings such as the Bath Assembly Rooms and the Guildhall in York. But the raids did not cause as much damage as Hitler had hoped, and rather than breaking the morale of the British people it strengthened their resolve to defeat the enemy at all costs. German bomber losses were high and this, coupled with the need for Hitler to reinforce his troops in North Africa and Russia, resulted in a scaling back of attacks to hit-and-run raids on the coast. The Luftwaffe did occasionally raid towns and cities of historic and cultural importance in the months that followed (Ipswich, Poole, Norwich, Bristol, Swansea and Colchester), but these raids were much smaller (about 20 aircraft instead of 40+) and the damage was more limited; even so, by the end of the year over 3,230 people had been killed and 4,150 injured in German air raids on Britain. There were some attacks on towns of no military or strategic value in 1943, but by 1944 the Germans gave up their ‘Baedeker Raids’ as they were ineffective and the losses to the Luftwaffe were unsustainable. London once again became the target, along with the ports which Hitler believed would be used for the Allied invasion of Europe.

In my novel, Heronfield, Bath holds a special significance for two of the main characters, and it is through the eyes of Sarah that we see the significance of the bombings, and the resilience of the civilians whose resolve was strengthened rather than broken by the Baedeker Raids.

Grayling, A. C. Among the dead cities

Price, A. Blitz on Britain 1939–1945

Terraine, John The Right of the Line

The poisoned witches – a scientific explanation for witchcraft

February 20, 2017Articles, English Civil War, The Cavalier Historian17th century, Arthur Miller, English Civil War, ergot, Grauballe man, history, Linnda Caporael, LSD, Maurice Moss, poison, Pont St Esprit poisoning, rye, Salem witch trial, science, The Crucible, Warbouys, witch, witch trials, witchesDorinda Balchin

What would you do if someone told you that there was a witch living in your town or village? Most people in the western world of the 21^st century would smile and treat it as a joke at best, and at worst as someone trying to stir up trouble. But things would have been very different in the past.

During the Middle Ages witches were thought to be behind many illnesses from fevered nightmares to sick animals and dying children. This supposed interference in the natural order of things was known as bewitchment and struck at regular intervals, blighting the lives of thousands of people over hundreds of years.

During the period of the 15th to 17th centuries bewitchment reached epidemic proportions with over 40,000 men, women and children in Europe being executed as witches. It was not only the poor who believed in witchcraft, even well-educated people of the time feared the supernatural and the Vatican sent out a decree warning people against bewitchment. England was no different to the rest of Europe and many witch finders made it their life’s work to hunt down witches, one actually took 250 people before the courts in just two short years. Witches were greatly feared, and witchcraft was punishable by death.

220px-uk_warboys_sidea A well-known example happened at a manor house in the village of Warboys near Cambridge in 1589 when a mysterious illness struck down the five little daughters of the Throckmorton family and seven of their maidservants. The illness bore all the hallmarks of witchcraft, and fear spread throughout the village. The distraught family called in doctors and church leaders to try to diagnose what was wrong (at the time many doctors were willing to accept the idea of witchcraft after all other available explanations for an illness had failed). The sick victims at Warboys had all the classic symptoms of bewitchment – hellish visions, often of wild animals (one said she saw a cat tearing her flesh off); the bodies of those affected went into violent fits and writhed in agony on their beds. Once it was decided that witchcraft was the source of the problem someone had to be blamed and, as with most cases at the time, it was an innocent local misfit, Alice Samuel, who was singled out. Standard practice was to torture a witch, who would often be branded or held under water; witchcraft was so feared that it didn’t matter how much the accused suffered as any method used to see the curse of bewitchment lifted was deemed totally acceptable. Many people believed that if you scratched a witch to draw blood it would help to relieve the suffering of the person who had been bewitched and so this was done to Alice on several occasions. After a year of continuous pressure Alice Samuel finally confessed to being a witch. As punishment, and to keep the village safe in future, she was hanged, along with her husband and daughter.

Another well know incident of witchraft happened in Salem on the east coast of America. The Salem Witch trials of 1692 played out in a very similar way to the Alice Samuel case, and Arthur Miller later wrote about what happened in his play The Crucible. In December1691 many settlers in Salem had been struck by a horrifying disease, similar in its symptoms to what happened in Warboys and, as in England, it was believed that the Devil was responsible. The town doctor was convinced that what was happening was the result of witchcraft, particularly as eight girls said that they had been bewitched; for the next year the young girls regularly testified in court against other town members. Based on the evidence of the children 152 people were imprisoned on charges of witchcraft, and although none of them confessed 19 men and women were found guilty and executed as witches.

So what was going on? Was there simply a widespread primitive belief in the devil and witchcraft, or was there something else behind these incidents? Professor Linnda Caporael is a Behavioural Psychologist who studied what happened at Salem. Many people believe that the girls had made it all up, but Linnda could think of no reason why they would have done that, or kept up the pretence for so long. The more she studied, the more she began to believe that most of what the girls had experienced had not been faked, particularly when they suffered from severe convulsions. Another factor which made her question accepted belief was that the girls were not the only ones to have experienced visions, many other men, women and children in the village reported hallucinations to the doctors and clergymen. When Linnda re-read another account it made her think that the symptoms were very similar to those experienced by people who had taken LSD (acid) which is an hallucinogenic drug from the 1960’s. People who have taken LSD say that they experience hallucinations like living nightmares which are very similar to what the victims of witchcraft said in Salem. This left Linnda with one big question – if the cause of witchcraft was LSD, where had the drug come from?

220px-albert_hofmann_oct_1993 — Albert Hofmann

LSD did not exist in the 15^th to 17^th centuries, in fact it was not until 1943 that the Swiss neuro-physiologist Albert Hoffman experimented with a natural fungus called ergot whilst looking for medical applications for a drug. As part of his experiments he made an extract from the ergot fungus, accidentally spilling some of it onto his hand. Within hours he began to hallucinate. When he finally recovered from the horrific hallucinations he set to work and derived LSD from the extract.

Linnda Caporael began to look at ergot poisoning as a possible explanation for bewitchings. The descriptions of the effects of the drug on people which she found in medical books matched the symptoms from Salem and she was convinced that she had found an explanation for witchcraft in nature. The next question, then, was how the settlers had come into contact with the drug? As it was not only the settlers in Salem who were affected by witchcraft but their animals as well (cattle acted strangely and died of no natural causes) Linnda began to wonder if a food common to both humans and animals could be the source, so she began looking at grain. The dominant crop in Salem was rye, so the question now was to find out how ergot could have got into the rye fields. To help her Linda looked at the work of fungal toxicologist, Professor Maurice Moss.

A fungus contaminates its host and gradually replaces the original seed with its own material so, Linnda surmised, if the rye in the fields was contaminated with ergot then the bread would have been contaminated too. This was important to her theory because the nerve toxins now contained in the bread would account for the hallucinations, pin pricking sensations, the feeling of insects crawling beneath the skin and the powerful fits which meant that the sick people could barely be held down by their friends and family. Ergotamine (taken from the word ergot) is a drug used in Holland to treat migraines and has been shown to have constrictive powers which can lead to convulsions, and to the blood draining from the skin causing pricking sensations.

Linnda then turned to look at the environment which, again, supported her theory. Ergot thrives in wet, damp soil, and in 1691 the Salem crops had been planted in low marshy ground. For a mass infection of the harvest to take place it would have needed a warm wet spring and summer; the spring of 1691was stormy and wet and was followed by a wet summer, the crop grown in Salem was rye. Most of the sickness was on one side of the village where the homes backed onto the western farms with swampy marshlands. Rye was also the staple diet in Europe in the Middle Ages which, if Linnda Carpoael is correct, could explain the witch persecutions which took place so frequently; particularly as the poor peasant classes were hit most, and rye was their staple diet.

An historian by the name of Professor Mary Matossian has mapped outbreaks of witch trials which were localised in Britain – these were mainly, but not exclusively, in Essex and East Anglia – the surprising result is that the outbreaks coincided with the main rye growing regions. As the weather conditions at the time were different to today, with wetter and warmer summers, the conditions were ideal for the formation of ergot on rye.

Supporting scientific evidence for this theory about the causes of witchcraft comes from the ‘peat bog man of Grauballe’. He was buried in a bog in Denmark during the Iron Age and found in 1952. The man had been murdered with a knife and club then dumped naked into the bog – his throat had been cut from ear to ear and a blow to the right temple had fractured his skull. Although this sounds brutal this ritual was often carried out if someone was thought to be possessed by demons, the fracturing of the skull would allow the demon to escape and the victim could rest in peace. A post mortem was carried out on the Grauballe man in 1952 and his stomach contents showed that his last meal had largely comprised of ergot. Chemical tests on a gut sample showed that ergot alkaloids were present, therefore the man would have been hallucination, convulsing, vomiting etc. and would probably have been killed as a witch.

The most recent case of a mass poisoning happened in 1951 when an entire village in France had ergot poisoning caused by infected bread. In Pont St Esprit (Provence) in August of that year 250 people were struck down, several were taken to hospitals and psychiatric asylums in the weeks which followed. They were sick, had stomach cramps, couldn’t sleep, suffered from violent convulsions and terrifying hallucinations. Many had to be strapped down to stop them jumping out of windows to escape their torment. At least five people died during the outbreak and when ergot poisoning was finally found to be the cause many people did not believe the explanation. The Bishop of Nimes was called in to exorcise the devil from the bakery which had been the source of the outbreak. Interestingly, a dog which had been fed on scraps of the rye bread ran in circles and was biting at rocks until it broke its teeth on them and then died. This was an exact parallel to what happened to the animals in Salem.

So, was witchcraft really a problem in the past, or were bewitchments caused by ergot poisoning?

I am fascinated by the fact that scientific research is constantly revealing more about our past. I have come to believe that the misinterpretation of ergot poisoning is responsible for reports of witchcraft over the centuries, and this is what lead me to write the conclusion to the story of Rebekah and Simon in my novel ‘The Cavalier Historian’.

The greatest defeat in British military history – the fall of Singapore 15th January 1942

February 15, 2017Articles, world war 2Australia, Charles G W Anderson, history, HMS Prince Of Wales, HMS Repuse, Japan, Malaya, Pearl Harbor, Singapore, WW2Dorinda Balchin

Today is the 75^th anniversary of one of the worst defeats in British military history, the fall of Singapore during the Second World War.

Japan in the 1930’s was a country looking to expand its influence in the Far East, and the Allies tried to halt Japanese campaigns in China by imposing sanctions. These actions were effective and oil reserves in the island Empire were soon rapidly depleting. With the situation becoming ever more serious the Japanese felt that they had to do something to secure their vital resources so plans were put in place to attack Great Britain and the United States. These attacks would open up the way for an invasion of the Dutch East Indies which were rich in oil.

singapore

At the southern end of the Malay Peninsula is the island of Singapore. Nicknamed the ‘Gibraltar of the Far East’ it was the key to British defence strategy in the Far East and it was believed that the island was impregnable. Britain’s possessions in Asia would have been vulnerable without a strategic military base to protect them, and this role fell to Singapore where the expensive defences were completed in 1938. Japan was seen as the only country which could possibly be a threat in the area, but the British believed that the Japanese army was inferior to their own and only capable of defeating the backward Chinese.

Japan did not believe that they were any way inferior to the West just because their culture was different. They refused to accept interference in their designs on China and so made almost simultaneous Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and in north Malaya and Thailand which led to Britain declaring war on the Empire on 8^th December 1941.

PEARL HARBOR,HAWAII: The USS Shaw exploded after being struck during the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941.

The defences at Singapore were manned and the forces ready to repel an attack by sea so the British were taken completely by surprise when the Japanese attacked overland. The Allies believed that the Malayan jungles were impassable to a military force, but the Japanese were aware of this and so made their way through the jungles and mangrove swamps of the peninsula, taking no prisoners to slow their advance. Japanese aircraft attacked the airfields in Singapore, destroying almost all of the RAF’s frontline planes and leaving the island with no air defences. In an attempt to halt the Japanese, the battleship ‘Prince of Wales’ and the cruiser ‘Repulse’ put to sea from Singapore on the 8^th December and headed north to the enemy landing sites. On the 10^th both ships were sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers, delivering a crushing blow to British forces, and British morale back home. The east coast of Malaya was left exposed and the Japanese were able to continue their landings unopposed. Only the army could stop the invasion now.

Lieutenant General Percival led the Allied forces of 90,000 men, the majority of whom had never seen combat. The Japanese forces, on the other hand, were led by General Yamashita; most of the 65,000 men he commanded were much more experienced than the Allies, having fought in Manchuria against the Chinese. Moving swiftly on foot and stolen bicycles the Japanese were ferocious, killing captured and wounded soldiers, torturing and killing Malays who had helped the Allies. The British forces were shocked by the brutality of the enemy and, after the fall of Jitra on 12^th December 1941, retreated towards Singapore. Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaya, was captured by the enemy on 11^th January 1942; the Allies continued to fight fiercely even though things were looking increasingly bleak for them. One example of the determination of the defenders happened at Bakri where Lieutenant Colonel Anderson fought the Japanese for five days (18^th – 22^nd January). It was only when his men ran out of ammunition that he was forced to retreat, leaving behind about 150 wounded Australian and Indian soldiers. These men were later all killed by the Japanese. Anderson was awarded the Victoria Cross for his leadership in the fighting and withdrawal.

The retreat forced the Allies into an ever smaller area of the peninsular until the British and Australian troops finally crossed the causeway which separated Singapore from Malaya and prepared to make their last stand on the island, destroying the causeway behind them. Churchill ordered that a strong defence should be put up and surrender was not to be considered until there had been ‘protracted fighting’ to try to save the city. The British believed that the Japanese would attack Singapore across the Johor Strait; unsure of just where the attack might come Percival decided to position his men so that they could defend the entire coastline, stretching to some 70 miles. He had overestimated the strength of the enemy and this spread his resources too thinly so that they could not adequately defend any one section of the line. When the attack came on the 8^th February 1942 many of the defenders were too far away to influence the battle, and Percival was reluctant to move them closer in case the Japanese attacked on a second front. 23,000 Japanese attacked with surprising speed and ferocity, while the British continued to doggedly defend Singapore. On the evening of 10th February Churchill sent a cable to Wavell, saying: ‘I think you ought to realise the way we view the situation in Singapore. It was reported to Cabinet by the C.I.G.S. [Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Alan Brooke] that Percival has over 100,000 men, of whom 33,000 are British and 17,000 Australian. It is doubtful whether the Japanese have as many in the whole Malay Peninsula … In these circumstances the defenders must greatly outnumber Japanese forces who have crossed the straits, and in a well-contested battle they should destroy them. There must at this stage be no thought of saving the troops or sparing the population. The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs. The 18th Division has a chance to make its name in history. Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honour of the British Empire and of the British Army is at stake. I rely on you to show no mercy to weakness in any form.’ This was a forceful, no holds barred message which could not be ignored; even though the Allies had lost their food and fuel supplies to the enemy Wavell told Percival that the ground forces were to fight on to the bitter end, and that there should be no general surrender in Singapore.

Japanese troops on bicyclces — Japanese troops on bicycles

On 14^th February the Japanese broke through part of the Allied defences and advanced towards the Alexandra Barracks Hospital. The staff there could see no hope of rescue and so decided to surrender, sending a British lieutenant with a white flag to talk to the Japanese; he was bayonetted to death. The Japanese troops then entered the hospital and immediately killed around 50 patients, some of whom were lying on the operating table; doctors and nurses were also murdered. The following day about 200 male staff members and patients (many of them walking wounded), were taken to a nearby industrial area where they were murdered. A small number of the men survived by playing dead and were able to report this atrocity at the end of the war.

By the morning of the 15^th the Allies were almost out of food and ammunition. There was a heated conference of the senior commanders who reluctantly agreed that there was no hope of victory and the garrison should capitulate. Percival formally surrendered at 17.15. This was the largest surrender of forces led by the British in history. 100,000 Allied men (British, Australian, and Indian) were taken prisoner when Singapore fell. A number of the prisoners were held in Changi Prison where many of them died, but the vast majority were shipped out to work as forced labour for the Japanese, some in Japan itself, some on the Sandakan airfield, and thousands on the infamous Burma railway (around 9,000, or 9% of those taken prisoner, died on the railway).

It was not only the Allies who suffered at the hands of the Japanese. A large percentage of the population of Singapore was of Chinese descent and many of these people were massacred by the victorious invaders. No one knows how many civilians were killed, the Chinese of Singapore said it was 50,000 although the Japanese said it was closer to 5,000 (historians believe this estimate to be too low, based on the actions of the Japanese in places like Nanking, and the true figure will never be known).

The shocking surrender of the British forces in Singapore showed the world that, despite expectations, the Japanese army would be a major player during the war. The conflict in the Far East continued after the war in Europe had been won and was only to end with the devastating attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. British forces had planned to liberate Singapore in 1945 but the war ended before they could carry out their attack. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally in September 1945 and British, Indian, and Australian forces moved back into Malaya and Singapore. The Japanese commander, General Yamashita was tried by a US military commission for war crimes; he was convicted and hanged in the Philippines on 23 February 1946.

Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the "Tiger of Malaya," is arraigned before the War Crimes Commission in Manila, pleading not guilty. He will be confined at New Bilibid Prison until his trial, October 29, 1945, in Manila. Here, Major A. S. "Jack" Kenworthy, Military Police prison officer, delivers Gen. Yamashita to the residence of the Philippine High Commissioner, where Yamashita was held for arraignment in the first step of the war-crime trials to be held in the Pacific. The arraignment was open to the public. Yamashita was brought from his cell in New Bilibid Prison in an ambulance for security reasons. The legitimacy of the hasty trial has been called into question by many, as considerable evidence pointed to the fact that Yamashita was either not aware of the atrocities that were committed, or was unable to properly control his soldiers due to communication disruption caused by the U.S. Army during their offensive. One of the atrocities in Manila was even carried out by a unit that disobeyed his orders to retreat. Following the Supreme Court decision, an appeal for clemency was made to President Truman. The President, however, declined to act and thereby left the matter entirely in the hands of the military. In due time, General MacArthur announced that he had confirmed the sentence of the Commission and on February 23, 1946, at Los Banos Prison Camp, 30 miles south of Manila, Tomoyuki Yamashita was hanged. — Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the “Tiger of Malaya

There are few survivors of the fall of Singapore still alive today, 75 years later, but that doesn’t mean we should forget. Perhaps we can take a few moments today to remember all those who died or suffered life changing experiences either during the battle or in the three years of Japanese ruled which followed.

War memorial in memory of the civilian victims of the Japanese occupation of Singapore

Dorinda Balchin – Author

The official website of Dorinda Balchin