HMS BARFLEUR ROYAL NAVY BATTLE CLASS DESTROYER

FINLAND VS STALIN BATTLE FOR NORWAY BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

Inside the battle that threw Nazi blitzkrieg that Uncover the British Army's secret ISSUE 136
back the Soviet invasion conquered Scandinavia East German missions
 ISSUE 136

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OUR WEEKLY
NEWSLETTER

ANNA REID
Anna is a journalist and historian
with an expertise on Russia and
Ukraine. This month she spoke with
History of War about her latest book
A Nasty Little War on the West’s
flawed military intervention in the
Russian Civil War (page 62).

ANDREW LONG
Andrew is an expert on Cold War
history, with several books published
on the topic. On page 46 he recounts
the overlooked but thrilling history
of the British Army’s decades-long
intelligence operations in East
Germany, codenamed BRIXMIS.

© Alamy, Stacey Mutkin, Edoardo Albert, Andrew Long

EDOARDO ALBERT
A prolific fiction and non-fiction
writer, Edoardo has multiple books
published on the history of Anglo-

Welcome
Saxon England. On page 58 he
recounts an almost forgotten battle
Above: Home Guard
in the 7th century that defined the
volunteers patrol
a waterway in the English-Scottish border.
Trent Valley

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ritain’s Home Guard has long held the unfair reputation of being
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largely to the sitcom Dad’s Army (1968-77). In recent years the
real history of these units has been rediscovered, including the truly
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country’s defences. From protecting key industry and infrastructure from
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hundreds of thousands of men – many of whom were veterans of WWI
– were prepared to fight, kill and die in the defence of their home. One of
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is Andrew Chatterton, who recounts its origins, organisation and secret PAGE 24
operations over on page 26.

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Editor-in-Chief

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4
FRONTLINE
OPERATION WESERÜBUNG
12 TIMELINE
Desperate to open supply routes for vital
resources, the Nazis strike Scandinavia
16 PLOTTING THE ATTACK NORTH
Hitler’s High Command plan a daring
blitzkrieg into Norway and Denmark
18 SCANDINAVIA UNDER ATTACK
Though Oslo and Copenhagen fall quickly to the
German offensive, a tougher fight lay ahead 12
20 ALLIED FIGHTBACK 06 WAR IN FOCUS
A belated contingent of French, Polish and British Stunning imagery from throughout history
troops arrive to shore up Norwegian defences
26 RISE OF THE HOME GUARD
22 DEFEAT AND OCCUPATION From battle-seasoned veterans to determined
With France under attack, the Allies withdraw guerrillas: the real ‘Dad’s Army’ was no joke
from Norway, which endures years of occupation
MEDAL OF HONOR HERO
34 LUCIAN ADAMS
Armed with the trusty BAR and a handful of
grenades, this sergeant silenced three MG nests
GREAT BATTLES 38
38 TALI-IHANTALA
Finland’s victory against the Red Army marked
a turning point in the Continuation War
46 BRITS BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN
At the start of the Cold War a little-known British
Army intelligence unit snuck into East Germany
GREAT BATTLES
52 BATTLE CLASS DESTROYER
Too late to impact WWII, this design was still
a major advancement in naval engineering
58 ENGLAND VS SCOTLAND: FIRST BATTLE
Read about this seventh-century clash that
defined the border between two historic rivals
62 1918: RUSSIAN ROULETTE
58 Just as peace approached the Western Front, civil
war in the east prompted a doomed intervention 62
69 HOMEFRONT
70 COMPETITION
Chance to win a Tank Spotter’s Guide
72 MUSEUMS AND EVENTS
A roundup of activities and exhibitions
74 WWII THIS MONTH
Key Second World War events in photos
76 REVIEWS
The latest military history books and films
82 ARTEFACT OF WAR
46 Thomas Fairfax’s wheelchair

5
 in

SURRENDER IN KUWAIT
25 February 1991
An Iraqi soldier holds up a Quran while his comrades
wave white flags as they surrender to Saudi and US troops
on a road in Kuwait. In this phase of the Gulf War, Iraqi
forces used Kuwait’s highways in an attempt to flee the
country, primarily Highway 80 running from Kuwait City
to the Iraqi border – the same route used by the Iraqis
during their 1990 invasion. It became known as the
Highway of Death when coalition ground forces
and aircraft pulverised the retreating Iraqis.
Hundreds were killed or captured and
thousands of civilian and military
vehicles were destroyed.

6
WAR IN FOCUS

© Getty

7
 in

GONE SHOOTING
6 May 1941
A Spitfire fighter squadron practises clay pigeon shooting
as a Women’s Auxiliary Air Force officer operates the clay
pigeon trap. The pilots wear their life vests in case they are
ordered into the air at a moment’s notice. Such shoots
began in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) during the First
World War and were found to help fighter pilots improve
their reaction times and accuracy. The practice
continued during the Second World War. Most
notably, bomber turrets were built on the
ground with the machine gun replaced
by a shotgun, helping bomber
gunners get to grips with the
turret controls.

8
WAR IN FOCUS

© Getty

9
 in

BOGSIDE BURNS
August 1971
British soldiers patrol Bogside, Londonderry, while a lorry
blazes in the street. The area was a flashpoint during the
Troubles, including the Battle of Bogside (August 1969),
which sparked violence in Northern Ireland and led many
Catholic areas in Derry to become no-go zones for the
British Army and police. Bogside later became the
location of Bloody Sunday in January 1972, during
which the British Parachute Regiment killed 14
protestors. The British Army retook the Bogside
no-go area in the early hours of 31 July
1972 during Operation Carcan, part
of Operation Motorman.

10
WAR IN FOCUS

© Getty

11
 Frontline
TIMELINE OF

OPERATION WESERÜBUNG
Urgently needing to open supply routes to import resources from neutral Sweden,
Germany launches a treacherous operation to conquer Denmark and Norway

A German mechanised convoy

advancing near Trondheim

14 December 1939 – 1 March 1940 16 February 1940 7-9 April 1940

PLANNING ALTMARK INCIDENT 01 KRIEGSMARINE

INVASION
German command devises
The German tanker Altmark, carrying 299 Allied
prisoners, is cornered by three British destroyers and
strays into Norwegian waters. A party from HMS Cossack
DEPARTS
German ships depart
Operation Weserübung, an boards and searches the German ship. Upon opening one Wilhelmshaven and head
ambitious plan to invade Norway of the holds and calling out: “Are there any Englishmen towards Norway. They are
and Denmark simultaneously down there?” they receive a loud affirmative reply. divided into five task forces,
with landings from Narvik to “Then come up. The Navy’s here,” they call back to the each striking at a crucial
Copenhagen, spreading the entire prisoners. The men are released, prompting a heated port on the morning of
Kriegsmarine dangerously thin over diplomatic dispute between the UK and neutral Norway. 9 April. Grand Admiral Erich
the vast Norwegian Sea. The Nazis aim Raeder, commander of the
to capture the Danish and Norwegian Kriegsmarine, demands the
governments on the first day so ships return immediately
the Allies have no chance of after the landings to avoid
contesting the attack. Royal Navy attacks.

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, who

first raised the idea of invading Left: Allied prisoners on
Norway on 10 October 1939 the Altmark are jubilant
upon their rescue

12
 OPERATION WESERÜBUNG

TRONDHEIM SACRIFICE IN GERMAN DIFFICULTIES

CAPTURED 04
The German cruiser
NARVIK 05
Ten Kriegsmarine
IN THE SOUTH 06
Shore batteries prove formidable
Admiral Hipper is spotted destroyers steam into opponents for Task Forces 3 and
heading west near Ofotfjord, where they 4. The German cruiser Königsberg
Trondheim on 8 April. are challenged by two is heavily damaged off Bergen
The Royal Navy assumes ageing Norwegian and sunk by bombing a day later.
this fleet is going towards patrol ships: Norge and Meanwhile, the attack at Kristiansand
the Atlantic, so it moves Eidsvold. They refuse is forced into retreat twice and it
further from Norway. to surrender and takes a Luftwaffe bombing raid to
However, the following are sunk by German silence the defences.
morning, it attacks torpedoes. The German
Trondheim and takes the destroyers are then Right: A German anti-aircraft
gun is unloaded soon after the
port without a shot fired. clear to take Narvik. capture of Kristiansand

ENTRANCE
4.25am
TO OSLO FJORD 03 The heavy cruiser
Blücher sinks in
the Oslofjord
The Kriegsmarine enters Oslofjord with 16 ships, intending
to capture the Norwegian government before daybreak.
However, the new heavy cruiser Blücher is sunk by shelling and
torpedoes from the Oscarsborg Fortress on the approach to
Oslo. This forces Task Force 5 to land 50 miles (80km) south
of the capital. By the time it arrives in Oslo, the Norwegian
LANDING
3.55am
IN DENMARK 02
government has retreated inland with the gold reserves. German marines land at Gedser to cut
telephone lines, beginning the invasion of
Denmark. Soon after, Nazi troops attack
Copenhagen and another main assault

Images © Alamy, Getty

crosses the Germany-Denmark border.
King Christian X surrenders by 6am.

Below: German and Danish officers pictured

shortly after the fall of Copenhagen

9 April 1940
7 April 1940

ROYAL NAVY’S The Allied air attack fails but

RESISTANCE
The German fleet
makes it clear that Operation
Weserübung has been discovered

is spotted by an
RAF reconnaissance
plane and 12
Bristol Blenheim
bombers attack.
However, the Home
Fleet does not depart
until 8:15pm, 12 hours
after the initial reports,
and it fails to intercept
the Kriegsmarine,
which it believes is
attempting to break out
into the Atlantic.

13
FRONTLINE

SECOND NAVAL
BATTLE OF NARVIK
The Royal Navy battleship HMS
Warspite and nine destroyers
attack at Narvik. They sink or
force the scuttling of the eight
remaining German destroyers, and
the Warspite’s Fairey Swordfish
float-plane sinks U-64. Such naval
counter-attack operations leave the
SACRIFICE IN NARVIK 05 Kriegsmarine with just one heavy
cruiser, two light cruisers and four
destroyers fit for action once they
return to Germany.

A painting by Olaf Rahardt depicts

the German destroyer Erich Koeliner
DEFEAT IN CENTRAL NORWAY 08 in action in the Narvik Fjord

TRONDHEIM CAPTURED 04
GERMAN DIFFICULTIES IN THE SOUTH 06

CAPTURE OF VOSS 07

ALTMARK INCIDENT 01

13 April 1940
ENTRANCE TO OSLO FJORD 03 14 April 1940

Above: German infantrymen move an

artillery piece through thick mud during
efforts to attack Allied troops

ALLIED LANDINGS BEGIN

LANDING IN DENMARK 02

Allied ground counter-attacks

commence with British landings at
Harstad near Narvik, Namsos near
Trondheim (including French troops)
and Andalsnes, attacking Trondheim
from the north and south. But their
success is undermined by Wehrmacht
troops landing at the British rear.

14
 OPERATION WESERÜBUNG

WESERÜBUNG AT
THE NUREMBERG
TRIALS
Operation Weserübung is
challenged at the Nuremberg
trials for being preemptive.
The German defence retorts
with claims it was needed to
forestall an Allied invasion.
The International Military
Tribunal determines that there
was no threat of an imminent
Allied invasion before
Operation Weserübung and
that Germany had no right to
attack neutral Norway.
Raeder at the Nuremberg Trials
(second from left, back row),
where his role in Operation
Weserübung is challenged

ALLIED SUCCESS AT NARVIK OPERATION ARCHERY

After the retreat from Norway, code-named Operation Alphabet, the
Resistance to the German attack in northern Norway is more
Norwegian Government goes into exile. Resistance continues, and in the
successful. Two French and a Norwegian battalion recapture Narvik.
winter of 1941 a daring Combined Operations raid is launched against
However, the German invasion of France and the Low Countries
German positions on the islands of Vaagso, destroying logistical targets.
reduces the significance of progress made in Norway and this
success does not lead to further Allied gains.

A wounded British commando is helped

Smoke billows from burning buildings
onto a landing craft during the raid
beyond the railway track in Narvik

28 May 1940 27 December 1941

26 April 1940 28 April 1940 20 November 1945 – 1 October 1946

CAPTURE DEFEAT IN CENTRAL

OF VOSS 07
The Norwegian 4th
NORWAY 08
British and French forces arrive
Division, comprising in Namsos on 14 April and
6,000 men, is support Norwegian forces that
responsible for the have moved 81 miles (130km)
defence of western inland to Steinkjer. After the
Norway, mobilising town is destroyed by Luftwaffe
in Voss. After bombing and the surrounding
Images © Alamy, Getty, The Map Archive

initially resisting the area is occupied, the Allies

German advance retreat. Meanwhile, Norwegian
along the Bergen troops disband to avoid being
Line railway, taken prisoner.
relentless bombing
by the Luftwaffe French Alpine ski infantrymen walk
sees Voss fall to the to Namsos to evacuate after defeat
Nazi invaders. in central Norway

15
 Frontline

Ahead of his push west, Hitler launched a pre-emptive assault on neutral

Scandinavia to secure iron ore supplies and Nazi control of the North Sea

O
n 14 December 1939, far-right later, he was promised support if he staged a Neville Chamberlain had appointed Winston
Norwegian politician Vidkun coup-d’état in his home country. In return, he Churchill first lord of the Admiralty. Within
Quisling was invited to a secret would allow the garrisoning of German troops weeks of taking office, Churchill had proposed
meeting with Adolf Hitler. The in Norway, once he’d seized control, to protect mining Norwegian waters. If German iron-
encounter took place in the newly it against Allied invasion. It was an offer the ore ships could be forced out into the open
finished Reich Chancellery in Berlin. With its power-hungry Quisling found impossible to sea they could be seized or sunk. That, he
towering 17ft (5m) doors, gargantuan statues refuse. He and Hitler shook hands and in reckoned, would provoke the Germans into
and lofty ceilings, this monument to the might January 1940 the Führer instructed the German threatening Norway’s neutrality, allowing the
of National Socialism was designed to both High Command to draw up preliminary plans for Allies to violate it themselves with a pre-
impress and subjugate those who visited it. the conquest of Norway. emptive invasion of their own.
“On the long walk from the entrance to the The importance of Sweden’s iron ore His audacious scheme went by the name
reception hall,” its architect Albert Speer supply to the German war effort hadn’t of Plan R4. Although the overly cautious Allied
would later recall Hitler saying of it, “they’ll gone unnoticed in London, however. At the High Command was slow to put his idea into
get a taste of the power and grandeur of the outbreak of hostilities, Britain’s Prime Minister action, the Altmark incident convinced Hitler to
German Reich!” The building certainly had the delay his campaign in the west in favour of one
desired effect on Quisling. By the time his chat
with Hitler was over he’d agreed to betray his “WITHIN WEEKS OF TAKING in the north.
The Altmark was a German tanker that was
country, setting in motion a series of events
that would condemn it to five years of brutal OFFICE, CHURCHILL intercepted by a Royal Navy force led by the
destroyer HMS Cossack on 16 February. The
Nazi occupation.
Hitler had been encouraged to take the HAD PROPOSED MINING ship was carrying around 300 captured British
sailors and was run onto rocks. The attack took
meeting with Quisling by Erich Raeder, the
grand admiral of his Kriegsmarine. By then,
the war was only a few months old. Hitler
NORWEGIAN WATERS” place in Norwegian territorial waters and was in
clear violation of Norwegian neutrality. It didn’t
take Hitler long to react.
had conquered Poland and was now focusing On the morning of 20 February, he
his attention on planning the blitzkrieg that Members of the 3rd summoned General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst
would soon sweep through Western Europe. Gebirgsdivision (Mountain to the Reich Chancellery. He told him he had
Infantry Division) prepare
Raeder’s concerns over who controlled the for the imminent invasion until 5pm to come up with a conclusive invasion
North Sea, however, had got him thinking. If plan. Pushed for time, Falkenhorst went to the
the Kriegsmarine were to have any hope of nearest stationery store, bought a Baedeker
accessing the world’s oceans, it would need to tourist guidebook of Norway and planned an
control the North Sea. Keeping Norway’s naval operation based on the maps inside. Later
bases out of Allied hands, Raeder argued, was that afternoon, after adding the conquest of
essential to achieve that aim. Denmark to Von Falkenhorst’s to-do list, Hitler
Hitler also had another headache: he needed approved his plan. It was codenamed Operation
iron ore. Without it, his factories would be Weserübung, or ‘Weser exercise’, Weser being
unable to produce the vast quantities of steel the name of a northern German river.
required for the tanks, planes and munitions On 3 April, Quisling, who at one time
to keep his war machine going. Germany’s had served as the Norwegian defence
main supply had come from France, but with minister, travelled to Copenhagen for another
that now cut off by hostilities the significant clandestine meeting. This time it wasn’t with
quantities still being imported from Sweden Hitler, but with Colonel Hans Piekenbrock of
were more important than ever. And key to German intelligence. They met in room 343
maintaining this flow of iron ore into Germany of the luxurious Hotel d’Angleterre to discuss
was Narvik – a port in northern Norway from Norway’s military defence capabilities and
where it was shipped during the winter when command structure. Afterwards, Piekenbrock
Sweden’s ports froze. sent his report to his superiors in Berlin while
Quisling, who’d been flirting with the Nazi Quisling returned to Oslo to prepare his coup.
leadership since the mid-1930s, now found Six days later, on the morning of 9 April 1940,
himself welcomed into Hitler’s court. At the the Nazi invasion of neutral Denmark and
meeting on 14 December and another four days Norway began.

16
 OPERATION WESERÜBUNG

Appointed leader of the Norwegian

collaborationist government,
Vidkun Quisling returns the Nazi
salute in Oslo, c1940

Below: Election poster for Vidkun Quisling’s

Nasjonal Samling (National Assembly or
National Gathering) fascist party, 1930s
Images: Alamy, Getty

17
 Frontline

Hitler’s forces smash through Denmark and Norway in a grim

foretaste of the terrible fate awaiting the rest of Western Europe

German troops move past destroyed buildings in

the village of Haugsbygd, northwest of Oslo, where
Norwegian forces briefly held their advance

18
 OPERATION WESERÜBUNG

A
t 3:55am on 9 April 1940, neighbour to the north had been subdued in six an initial assault by dive bombers, a force
German forces landed by ferry in hours with negligible casualties on either side. of 110 paratroopers landed on the airfield
Gedser in Denmark and moved Strategically important because of its position – the first in history to make a combat jump.
north. German Fallschirmjäger on the Baltic Sea, Denmark would now be They quickly overcame what remained of
units, meanwhile, had made used as a staging area for the larger operation the defenders, seizing the airport by 9am.
unopposed landings taking Aalborg Airfield, the unfolding in Norway. Two battalions of German infantry were
Storstrøm Bridge and the fortress of Masnedø. A little earlier, at 4.25am, a German flotilla then landed by transport plane, and by the
At 4am, the German ambassador to Denmark, of 16 ships carrying an invasion force of afternoon Stavanger had fallen without a
Cécil von Renthe-Fink, phoned the Danish 2,000 troops entered Oslofjord. As it steamed single shot being fired.
Foreign Minister Peter Munch to explain the towards the Norwegian capital, gunners at Elsewhere in the country, the news was no
situation. German troops were in the process of the Oscarsborg Fortress opened fire on the less grim. German seaborne troops had seized
occupying Denmark to protect the country from leading vessel, the heavy cruiser Blücher. Over Arendal, Kristiansand and Egersund on the
an Allied attack. He demanded that Danish the next two hours, they pummelled it with south coast. Bergen and Trondheim on the west
forces stand down to enable talks about the artillery and torpedo fire, eventually sinking coast had also been captured, while 2,000
country’s future. Failure to do so, he explained, it in the narrow channel with the loss of elite alpine troops had taken the port of Narvik.
would result in the destruction of the Danish 1,000 German lives. This early victory played Norway’s military response had been minimal,
capital Copenhagen by aerial bombing. a crucial role in delaying the Nazi invasion, with many of General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst’s
Shortly afterwards, at 4:20am, a battalion allowing the Norwegian King Haakon VII and objectives being achieved without loss of life.
of German infantry from the 308th Regiment senior government politicians to flee the By 5.30pm, German forces had occupied
landed by sea in Copenhagen harbour. They capital and head north. Oslo and it was time for Nazi collaborator
swiftly overran the Danish garrison there Around the same time, the German Vidkun Quisling to make his move. At 7.30pm,
before advancing on Amalienborg Palace airborne invasion of Norway began. Two the far-right politician barged into the studios of
with the aim of capturing the Danish Royal companies of paratroopers were sent to the NRK radio station in the Norwegian capital
Family. The King’s Royal Guard fought off Fornebu Airport near Oslo. The paratroopers’ and made an announcement to the nation. He
the Germans’ initial attack and, as the mission was to seize the airfield. Once it was proclaimed himself prime minister of Norway,
Danish King Christian X and his advisors secure, two infantry battalions would then be declaring that a new government had been
pondered what to do next, propaganda leaflets brought in by transport aircraft. The airfield, formed. He also ordered Norwegian forces
were dropped over the capital demanding however, was obscured by heavy fog and the to lay down their arms. Later that evening,
immediate compliance. bulk of the airborne force returned to Aalborg at 10pm, he made another broadcast. In it,
An hour later at 5.20am an air raid on Airfield in Denmark, which had been captured he read out a list of his new ministers and
Værløse Airfield on Zealand effectively earlier that day. Despite the cancelled repeated his earlier assertion that the Germans
neutralised Denmark’s tiny air force. Further airdrop, some transport aircraft landed were not an occupying force but were there
resistance appeared futile. At 6am, the king anyway. A brief firefight with Norwegian to protect Norway against an Anglo-French
and his advisors surrendered to German troops ensued, and by 8.30am the airfield invasion. As promised, Hitler offered Quisling
demands, capitulating in exchange for the was under German control. his full support and demanded that King
promise of continued domestic political Meanwhile, 310 miles (500km) to the Haakon VII recognise the legitimacy of the new
independence. In what was to be Germany’s southeast, Sola Airfield outside of the city government. Haakon refused. By then, though,
shortest military campaign of the war, its of Stavanger was also under attack. After it was too late. Norway’s fate was sealed.

Images: Getty

A Danish Army artillery

crew prior to the invasion

19
 Frontline

Britain and France race to Norway’s aid as the two nations suffer
their first defeats and score their earliest victories of the war

A
t dawn on 10 April 1940, the force limped away, it had sunk nine vessels, to dislodge the occupiers. On 13 April, a fleet
Royal Navy’s 2nd Destroyer including two German destroyers, while leaving of nine destroyers, led by the battleship HMS
Flotilla steamed up Ofotjord in another four with heavy damage. Two of the Warspite and supported by aircraft from HMS
the middle of a snowstorm. The five British destroyers had been sunk, however, Furious, attacked the harbour. Running low
five ships, under the command while a third had been badly mauled. Both on fuel and ammunition, the eight remaining
of Captain Warburton-Lee, had been part the German naval commander Kommodore German destroyers moored there were in bad
of a force laying mines off the Norwegian Friedrich Bonte and Captain Warburton-Lee shape. In the battle that followed, three of
coast. At 4.20am, they attacked the German were killed in the fighting. the German ships were sunk and the other
ships moored at Narvik harbour, including Narvik now became a key target for the Royal five were scuttled by their crew. The cost to
ten destroyers, catching them by surprise. A Navy. A second, more powerful force led by the British force was three British destroyers
fierce battle followed. By the time the British Vice Admiral William Whitworth was dispatched damaged and two aircraft lost.

Ofotfjord was the scene of bitter

fighting as British and German
ships battled for control of Narvik

20
 OPERATION WESERÜBUNG

German forces had to contend with the

difficult Norwegian terrain and waterways

The fighting also killed around 1,000 Oslo in an attempt to link up with the German tanks, the Allied line began to collapse. By
German sailors. Without ships to man, the troops holding Trondheim 300 miles (480km) 5 May, the campaign to defend central and
remaining 2,600 naval personnel found to the north. eastern Norway was abandoned.
themselves stranded ashore. Renamed the The Norwegian forces, under the command The fighting in the north, meanwhile, took
Gebirgsmarine (Mountain Navy), they were of General Otto Ruge, tried to slow this advance on a different complexion. The Germans held
now pressed into service alongside the as they waited for Allied reinforcements to defensive positions in the mountains north
2,000 alpine troops based around Narvik, arrive and mount a counter-offensive. Initial of Narvik and in the port itself. Since the
under the command of General Eduard Norwegian resistance was stiff, but the German outset, however, Dietl’s position had not been
Dietl. With no experience or training, they advance, bolstered by an armoured battalion a strong one. Isolated and relying on resupply
soon found themselves fighting in freezing sent from Denmark, soon became unstoppable. from the air, his 4,600-strong force, over half
temperatures on land against not just the Allied reinforcements began to arrive of whom were sailors, faced a Norwegian
Norwegians but a combined force of British, from 15 April, landing at locations outside army almost twice its size. The Royal Navy
French and Polish troops. Trondheim and Narvik. With most of Britain’s controlled the sea approaches and, to the
Meanwhile in the south, the Germans fought best troops tied up with the Expeditionary north, the Allies had established a beachhead
their way out from their beachheads and Force in France, however, this scratch where reinforcements were arriving by the
tightened their grip on Norway’s interior. About force, made up in part by reservists, had day. At its peak, the Allied force in the region
15,000 Norwegian troops were mobilised to little armour or artillery support. Poor swelled to around 25,000 men. In addition,
stop this, but with no anti-tank guns or armour communications and the lack of a clear the Allies also enjoyed air cover from two RAF
and almost no combat aircraft, it was a war command structure also seriously limited fighter squadrons flying out of Bardufoss Air
the Norwegian military was ill-prepared to fight. its effectiveness against the enemy. Station in the Arctic Circle. A German relief
Within a week, the Germans had seized vital Despite this, the Anglo-French and column was on its way from the south, but
supply depots, established reliable lines of Norwegian troops slowed the German a lack of infrastructure and difficult terrain
communication and were in control of the air. advance north for the next two weeks. But meant that its progress was slow. Dietl’s
Germany’s domination of southern Norway was overwhelmed by German air superiority and position was fast becoming desperate.
absolute. Its forces now pushed north from with no effective defence against German On 12 May, the Allies made a major
breakthrough. An amphibious landing of French
Foreign Legionnaires supported by a squadron
of light tanks saw them drive the Germans out
of Bjerkvik north of Narvik. By the end of the
day, they had occupied Oyjord, circumventing
the German left flank and occupying the
peninsular directly opposite the port. The
Germans were forced to pull back and as the
situation grew worse, Dietl asked permission
to withdraw his troops into Sweden. Instead,
General Paul Nikolaus von Falkenhorst sent
around 1,000 paratroopers as reinforcements
and the Germans retreated into a shorter
defensive line. Fighting continued for the
next two weeks but Dietl couldn’t hold on.
On 28 May, Narvik was taken in a combined
Norwegian, Polish, French and British assault.
It was Germany’s first major defeat of the war.
Images: Getty

Left: French Foreign Legion troops proudly display

a captured swastika flag after the Germans were
driven out of Narvik in late May

21
 Frontline

Nazi victory in the north ushered in five years of occupation

characterised by collaboration and brutal retribution

H
itler’s conquest of Western intercepted off the north Norwegian coast. By contrast, Denmark fared better under the
Europe began on 9 May Scharnhorst and Gneisenau engaged them Nazi regime. Its government’s gamble to appease
1940. In a few short weeks, and in the battle that followed all three British Hitler rather than stand up to him initially
Luxembourg, the Netherlands ships were sunk. seemed to pay off. Unlike the other countries
and Belgium had all succumbed On land, meanwhile, those Norwegian they occupied, the Nazis were lenient with the
to his blitzkrieg. By 24 May, much of France troops who’d chosen to remain were ordered Danes. Their laws and institutions were left
was also in German hands and the British to disengage the enemy and German troops largely unchanged and its king and democratic
Expeditionary Force surrounded at Dunkirk marched into Narvik unopposed. At midnight government remained nominally in power. In
faced annihilation. With France about to fall and on 9 June, a formal capitulation agreement for exchange for a policy of cooperation with the
the threat of a Nazi invasion growing, the British forces fighting in mainland Norway was signed occupying German force, the country retained a
government decided to withdraw its troops from at the Britannia Hotel in Trondheim. A similar large degree of autonomy. Its Jewish community
Norway. Despite Churchill’s reservations, orders agreement signed in Bjørnfjell near Narvik was also left unmolested and, for a while, life in
were issued to draw up a plan. The evacuation followed and fighting officially came to an end. Denmark continued in relative normality.
was codenamed Operation Alphabet. Norway had resisted Hitler’s war machine As the war dragged on, however, the Danish
On 1 June, the Norwegian government was for a total of 62 days. It was the longest people grew increasingly hostile towards the
informed of the plan. A week later, on 7 June, any country, apart from the Soviet Union, German occupation. Over the years acts of
King Haakon VII and the Norwegian cabinet would manage to hold out against a Nazi violent resistance and civil disobedience
boarded the heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire at invasion during the war. By the time Operation gradually increased. During the summer
Tromsø, 125 miles (200km) north of Narvik. Weserübung was over, the Allies had suffered of 1943, they culminated in widespread
After arriving in London shortly afterwards, they over 6,600 casualties (over 1,300 of them strikes and public disturbances. The Nazis’
established the Norwegian government-in-exile Norwegian) and the Germans around 5,300. response was as brutal as it was predictable.
– a beacon of hope that would inspire Norway’s Not that the Norwegians had given up the The Danish government was dissolved and
oppressed citizens for the next five years. fight. Despite Vidkun Quisling’s hope that he martial law imposed, and so-called enemies
On 8 June, after blowing up railway lines could win over the Norwegian people, support of the state were rounded up and imprisoned,
and destroying facilities in the region, the last for his collaborationist government was all but deported or shot. By the time British forces
of around 25,000 Allied troops boarded ships non-existent. Realising Quisling could never liberated the country in May 1945, around
in northern Norway and were evacuated as deliver the pacified nation he’d promised, Hitler 3,200 Danish citizens had been killed.
Operation Alphabet was brought to a close. decided to replace him. On 20 September, Nazi In the aftermath of the war, Danish society
The unsuspecting Nazi leadership had little party official Josef Terboven was appointed was tormented by its decision to collude with
idea that an evacuation was taking place but reichskommissar for Norway. Nazi policies were the Nazis. Over 40,000 people were arrested for
by then had already launched Operation Juno. soon inflicted on the local population and control collaboration. Around 13,000 were convicted,
This naval offensive saw a Kriegsmarine battle was maintained through violence and terror. with 78 sentenced to death. In Norway, the
group, including the battleships Scharnhorst Despite this, the Norwegian people continued number of convicted collaborators was nearer
and Gneisenau, steam into the Norwegian Sea. to fight back, first through civil disobedience 5,000, with 30 receiving the death penalty.
Commanded by Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, its and then armed resistance. A militia known as Among them was the man who’d done so much
aim was to assist the German Army heading the Milorg grew from a small group of saboteurs to seal the fates of so many Scandinavians.
north in driving the Allies out of Norway. into a force of some 40,000 combatants. By Quisling was executed by firing squad on
After discovering that Narvik had been the end of the war, its activities ranged from 24 October 1945. To this day, his name remains
abandoned, however, Marschall’s ships set intelligence-gathering and raids to preventing a byword for treachery, not just in Norway and
about hunting down the fleeing Allied troops. the Nazi quest for an atomic bomb. For this, Denmark but throughout the world.
In the late afternoon, they found their quarry. it would pay a steep price – a total of 9,500
Below: Norway’s King Haakon VII (centre left) pictured
Around 5pm, the carrier, HMS Glorious and Norwegians would be killed during the course after his arrival in the UK. From June 1940 he led the
her escorts HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent were of the war. Norwegian government-in-exile

A rally of Vidkun Quisling’s far-right

Nasjonal Samling, Norway’s only legal
political party between 1942-45

22
 OPERATION WESERÜBUNG

Men from the Danish volunteer

free corps, created by the Nazis

“THE NORWEGIAN PEOPLE

in June 1941 to fight in the
German invasion of Russia

CONTINUED TO FIGHT BACK,

FIRST THROUGH CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE AND THEN
ARMED RESISTANCE”

Images: Alamy, Getty

23
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 Beginning as veteran volunteers in
Britain’s ‘Darkest Hour’, the nation’s
defence forces grew to take on a range
of dangerous and secretive roles
WORDS ANDREW CHATTERTON

26
 RISE OF THE HOME GUARD

Local Defence Volunteers in the Trent Valley

use privately owned boats to defend the
area’s inland waterways from the seemingly
imminent Nazi invasion, May 1940

“THE HOME GUARD WAS NOT MADE UP OF

“T
hey would have killed without
compunction.” This quotation is taken
from Mr Bunting at War. Written in
1942, Robert Greenwood’s novel ILL-EQUIPPED ‘CORPORAL JONES’ TYPES,
describes the wartime experience
of an ‘ordinary’ British civilian. It stems from a journey BUT WELL-ARMED MEN, MANY OF WHOM
Mr Bunting has on a train where he is surrounded
by people who have volunteered for various civilian
organisations. A majority, though, are members of the
HAD COMBAT EXPERIENCE FROM WWI”
Home Guard, who Bunting considers are “preparing
grimly to defend things they had cherished all their Walter Kirke, who was commander-in-chief Home Forces
lives and meant to stick to”. between September 1939 and May 1940, ordered in March
This represents the reality of the Home Guard, much 1940 a review of the lessons learnt from the Volunteer
more so than the BBC series Dad’s Army, which too Training Corps (VTC) – the First World War equivalent of the
many people see as an accurate ‘documentary’ rather Home Guard. The VTC was a relatively small force made up
than the comedy it actually is. The Home Guard was of just 350,000 (the number that Kirke thought would come
not made up of ill-equipped ‘Corporal Jones’ types, forward in 1940). However, it wasn’t until Churchill became
but well-armed men, many of whom had combat prime minister in May 1940 that things got moving, and
experience from the First World War and were still in by the time of the famous radio announcement, Kirke was
their 30s or 40s, with many others under 30 years no longer in charge of the Home Forces. It was the newly
old in reserved occupations that were vital to the appointed secretary of state for war, Anthony Eden, who
nation’s war effort. delivered the nationwide appeal. In his address on 14 May
Their roles have also been misunderstood and 1940, Eden explained:
underepresented over the past 80 years, with many
aspects almost completely forgotten. Even the origins “…in order to leave nothing to chance and to supplement,
of the Home Guard have largely been misunderstood. from sources as yet untapped, the means of defence
Before Churchill had got his feet under the table at 10 already arranged, we are going to ask you to help us, in a
Downing Street, he was writing to the Lord Privy Seal manner which I know will be welcome to thousands of you.
Sir Samuel Hoare about creating a civilian defensive force, Since the war began the government has received countless
even using the term ‘Home Guard’. Just a month into the war, enquiries from all over the kingdom from men of all ages
before the threat of invasion had raised its head, he wrote: who are for one reason or another not at present engaged
in military service, and who wish to do something for the
“Why do we not form a Home Guard of half-a-million men defence of the country.
over 40 (if they like to volunteer) and put all our elder stars “Now is your opportunity. We want large numbers of such
at the head and in the structure of these new formations? men in Great Britain who are British subjects, between the
Let these 500,000 men come along and push the young ages of 17 and 65, to come forward now and offer their
and active out of their home billets. If uniforms are lacking, service in order to make assurance doubly sure. The name
a brassard would suffice, and I am assured there are plenty of the new force which is now to be raised will be the Local
of rifles at any rate.” Defence Volunteers [LDV]. This name, Local Defence Volunteers,
describes its duties in three words. It must be understood that
It was not just Churchill who was keen to see whether this is, so to speak, a spare-time job, so there will be no need
there was scope to organise a civilian defensive force. Sir for any volunteer to abandon his present occupation.”

27
RISE OF THE HOME GUARD

“EDEN’S APPEAL HIT THE WILLING EARS OF

MANY OF THE MALE POPULATION AND THE
RESPONSE, FRANKLY, WAS REMARKABLE”
or the method by which the Germans were to be forced back
into the sea, as is often perceived.
The effectiveness of the German paratroopers
(Fallschirmjägers) had been demonstrated with the attack
on the strategically important Belgian Fort Eben-Emael. The
positioning of the fort meant that its artillery emplacements
dominated important bridges over the Albert Canal and
could have caused chaos for the invading forces. Instead,
Fallschirmjägers landed on top of the fort and took the
defenders completely by surprise. This action, combined
Local Defence Volunteer men such as with the apparent actions of the ‘Fifth Column’, meant that
those shown here were not required
to leave their full-time occupations
strategically important sites such as waterworks, railways,
factories and telephone exchanges across the UK needed
specific Home Guard units defending them. Not only would
His appeal hit the willing ears of many of the male these sites have those who worked in them defending them
population and the response, frankly, was remarkable. (meaning that their location and equipment knowledge
Some listeners had left before Eden had finished the would be particularly effective) but also allowed regular
broadcast, making their way to the local police station troops to be freed up for general defence.
where he had asked them to report and leave their names
and details. Within 24 hours 250,000 LDV men had been Organisation units
enrolled; by the beginning of June 1940, the total number of One example of such an organisation unit was the No 4
volunteers had increased to at least 300,000, with no signs Platoon (part of the 52nd Surrey (Surbiton) Battalion), which
of slowing up. By the end of the next month, 1,456,000 was “solely responsible for the ground defence of the
volunteers had registered. [water] works”, according to Paul Crook in his book Surrey
The role of the Home Guard initially at least was more Home Guard. The platoon was given strict instructions on
or less an observation one. Countering the threat from how to deal with anything out of the ordinary they might
parachutists was considered the main task; to see them see. These included “any attempt at unauthorised entry
float down, quickly communicate location and numbers to the works, lights being shown, suspected signalling to
and, when appropriate and possible, to try and hold up their obtain information. Any of the foregoing had to be reported
advance. They were also to hold key nodal points within their to the Police and to the Metropolitan Water Board Battalion
town or village (bridges, railway tracks, crossroads etc). By Headquarters, as well as No 16 Section Intelligence Corps.”
slowing down the advance the aim was to allow the regular Like water, the railways were a critical part of the
forces to recover and effectively counter-attack. The Home country’s infrastructure that needed guarding against the
Guard was never considered to be the last line of defence German invasion or enemy saboteurs. Southern Railway, for

28
 RISE OF THE HOME GUARD

example, had a huge amount of property to protect. It had

more than 35,000 steel bridges, 6,000-plus brick arches
and viaducts, and over 2,000 route miles (3,220km) of
track. Aside from these, 841 points of importance were also
identified as needing some form of protection, including
signal boxes, workshops, offices, depots and stations. This
was clearly too much for the regular troops to protect and
so the Southern Railway Home Guard sections had a critical
role to play. They were keen, too: within a week of Eden’s
appeal 18,000 Southern Railway men had volunteered, and
by stand-down in 1944 there had been 35,510 recruits.
Factories and other sensitive properties were also
guarded. Harold Goodwin and Company Ltd in Warley,
Worcestershire, was working with the Ministry of Aircraft
Production during the war. Had the Germans reached the
area, three men from the factory’s Home Guard unit had
been trained and instructed to “secretly immobilise all
vehicles and battery charging, hiding vital parts and denying Men from the London and
North Eastern Railway LDV
access to vital spares and tyres”, Malcolm Atkin explains in group pictured in July 1940
his book To The Last Man.
The Air Defence Research and Development Establishment
in Christchurch, Dorset, also had plans to carry out last- not happen in any invasion of Britain, some Home Guard
minute sabotage of the factory using the local Home Guard units were specifically tasked to dismantle petrol stations
unit, as Atkin details. This included: as the Germans came through. These Petrol Disruption
Squads were formed throughout the country. Importantly,
“…the destruction or removal of essential mechanisms to they were not to destroy the petrol stations, but rather
a hiding place, removal or destruction of war materials that dismantle them and hide the key parts to deny the invading
the enemy might use; concealment of valuable records or Germans access. Then, as the British counter-attacked,
destruction of them if copies were available elsewhere; the Home Guard units could replace the previously hidden
cutting off gas and electricity supplies; immobilising parts to allow British tanks to fill up and take the fight back
transport; ensuring that any stocks of fuel did not fall into to the Germans. The 7th Battalion of the Hertfordshire
enemy hands; and removing or concealing any currency.” Home Guard recorded their role: “The immobilisation of
petrol pumps at night by dealers was compulsory, and LDV
It is clear that the Home Guard’s role had been greatly units were responsible for seeing that the instructions
influenced by the Nazi blitzkrieg on mainland Europe and, were carried out.” Captain Alan Brock, 7th Hertfordshire
perhaps against our perceptions of Britain particularly in Battalion Home Guard, wrote in his history of the battalion:
1940, lessons had been quickly learnt. “They were also warned that they might also be called
One of these was the important role petrol stations upon to assist Military Units in the destruction of petrol
played in ensuring that the Germans could continue their stocks in an emergency.”
advance. In France, German tanks would simply stop at These are certainly not the ill-equipped old men that have
petrol stations, fill up and press on. To ensure that this did dominated our perception of the Home Guard. Not only were

Personnel from the Home Guard take

part in a training exercise, c.1940

29
RISE OF THE HOME GUARD

there expert squads guarding key infrastructure but other,

sometimes secret, groups that would have acted as guerrilla
fighters, much like the Auxiliary Units.

Wintringham and Osterley Park

The role of the Auxiliary Units has over the past decade
become more publicised. Highly trained, highly secret
patrols of civilian volunteers would have, for a short period
after the Germans entered their particular area, caused
chaos to hold up the enemy advance.
These men with their suicide missions, secret bunkers
and ruthlessness have become ‘headline grabbers’ as their
secret roles become better known. However, the fact that
the Home Guard had an equivalent force within its ranks
has been somewhat lost in the noise surrounding Colonel
Gubbins and his secret defensive force.
Part of the story of these groups starts before war had
been declared. Tom Wintringham had in April 1939 called for
12 divisions of volunteers from the ranks of ex-servicemen
and those too young to be called up. Wintringham had been
a part of the British Battalion of the International Brigades
fighting the fascists during the Spanish Civil War (1936-
39). His experience during this horrific conflict gave him an
advantage over many in the military establishment. With Hitler
and Mussolini supporting a fellow far-right potential dictator,
Franco, Wintringham had fought against men and machines,
many of which the defenders of Britain would be facing if the
Germans had invaded. He knew the levels of ruthlessness
needed and that many of the traditional methods of fighting
a war were no longer effective.
His passion for teaching the reality of modern war and
the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare in particular led him
to start a battle school at Osterley Park in West London,
opening on 10 July 1940. He invited members of the newly
formed LDV to attend and learn the lessons of the brutal
Spanish Civil War. It also helped to address some of the

Many members of the Home Guard worked

in reserved occupations that were crucial
to the war effort, such as coal mining

30
 RISE OF THE HOME GUARD

frustrations around a lack of arms and training that were

already building up within the ranks of the volunteer force.
However, Wintringham and his Osterley team’s left-wing
leanings meant that the battle school was not destined to
run for long. Five-thousand men came through its doors
between July and October 1940, learning the ‘dark arts’
which Wintringham considered crucial for defeating any
Nazi invasion of Britain. With mistrust of communists still
running high (at this stage of the war the Soviet Union
allied with Nazi Germany) Wintringham and his team were
incorporated into the War Office’s ‘mainstream’ training
which naturally took away the edge from the training. It did,
however, highlight to Home Guard commanders the potential
effectiveness of guerrilla sections.
Wintringham’s political affiliation also meant that he was
unable to join the Home Guard ‘proper’ and he died shortly
after the war aged 51. However, he had a substantial impact
on the way many in the Home Guard reconsidered the
potential of the force.

Home Guard guerrillas

Wintringham’s influence can even be seen in one of the
main factors that has done so much to negatively impact
the reputation of the Home Guard since the end of the war
– Dad’s Army.
In an episode named Brain vs Brawn, Colonel Pritchard
talks to Captain Mainwaring, Corporal Jones and Private
Walker about a new scheme the training major is setting
up, involving the younger, fitter men of the Home Guard.
Essentially, he wants to start a Home Guard commando unit
to search and destroy petrol dumps. Walker explains that
they’d sent Pike for an interview to secure a place in the
new group, but unfortunately he couldn’t find HQ!
Some younger volunteers were recruited As we’ve discussed, Dad’s Army is not a documentary, but
into ‘shock sections’ and given specialist
training in guerrilla warfare
this hint at an ‘alternative’ Home Guard highlights that these
volunteers were perhaps more complicated than the general

“HIGHLY TRAINED, HIGHLY SECRET PATROLS

OF CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS WOULD HAVE,
FOR A SHORT PERIOD AFTER THE GERMANS
ENTERED THEIR PARTICULAR AREA, CAUSED
CHAOS TO HOLD UP THE ENEMY ADVANCE”

31
RISE OF THE HOME GUARD

perception. It also hints at the fact that Jimmy Perry, the

creator of Dad’s Army, had been in such a ‘commando unit’ “HE WAS TRAINED TO FIT EXPLOSIVES AROUND
in West Hertfordshire.
Unlike the Auxiliary Units, which were very siloed patrols, THE A417 BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER SEVERN
some Home Guard guerrilla groups were openly affiliated
with their local battalions. Others, however, did have a veil AT MAISEMORE, WEST OF GLOUCESTER, AND
of secrecy over them. For example, in Leicestershire Allan
Hopcroft worked as a wages clerk at a factory that made
webbing side-packs, straps and backpacks for the regular
IF NECESSARY, BLOW IT UP”
forces, which was considered a reserved occupation. In found evidence of other such Home Guard ‘shock sections’
1940 he immediately joined up with his local LDV unit around Leicestershire including Ullesthorpe, Claybrooke,
in Quorn. After a few months he was approached by a Ashby Parva and Dunton. This suggests that Leicestershire
mysterious Lieutenant Whitford, who was contacting the was a hotbed for such groups but it could also point to
younger members of the local units. Hopcroft recalled that Home Guard guerrillas (separate from the Auxiliary Units)
Whitford told him: being in action across the country and there is increasing
evidence that this was the case.
“‘We don’t want to spread it around, but we are looking for Jim Bick was born in 1911 and by the start of the Second
some young, active men.’ He did not tell us what it was about World War was working on a farm in Gloucestershire in a
until we got into it. He said he wanted to form a ‘shock section’ reserved occupation. He joined the LDV immediately after
in dirty tricks. They wanted a silent section if the Jerries had Eden’s appeal, but only at the end of his life did he begin to
come. We’d have gone about in civilian clothes to raise havoc.” talk about the actual role he would have undertaken if the
Germans invaded. He told his son that he had a highly secret
This seems very similar to the experience Perry re- role in a group, linked to but separate from the Home Guard.
created in the Dad’s Army episode. Whitford began to He was trained to fit explosives around the A417 bridge over
train his young recruits and during this training (unlike the River Severn at Maisemore, west of Gloucester, and if
the Auxiliary Units during this period) Hopcroft and his necessary, blow it up. He also mentioned that there was a
colleagues continued to wear Home Guard uniforms with large set of weapons and explosives stored at a barn on the
the only distinguishing feature being the fact they wore farm at which he worked. All of this sounds almost identical
knives in their belts. to the role and tactics of the Auxiliary Units, except that no
Richard ‘Dick’ Whitford had been in the Merchant Navy such units were operating in that part of the country. As a
during the First World War, but between the wars had found serving member of the Home Guard it seems that Bick was in
himself in Palestine as part of the Palestine Police Force. fact part of a Home Guard guerrilla/sabotage section.
It was during his time there that he learnt the dirty tricks In Bedfordshire, George Manning admitted to his family
he was now passing on to his young Home Guard recruits. that he belonged to a subsection of the Home Guard. He
It was not just in Quorn that these guerrilla sections were worked at Igranic Electric in Bedford, and as this was a
being put through their paces. Historian Austin J Ruddy has reserved occupation he joined No 2 Platoon, Bedford Home

Home Guard men at the Wolseley

Motors factory in Birmingham parade
through the works gate, July 1940

32
 RISE OF THE HOME GUARD

A Lewis gun team from the Post Office

Home Guard practises battle drill, fire
discipline and weapon handling, 1943

Guard. However, it was in the 1950s that his family began to We know that leading members of the Auxiliary Units were
get the impression that there had been more to Manning’s getting a little nervous about the number of Home Guard
role than guarding nodal points. His sons remembered: guerrilla units being set up in their areas (mainly coastal
counties) and the archives have copies of letters sent
“We were walking in the open country to the south of Mile demanding that in counties where the Auxiliary Units existed,
Road, Bedford, and along a stream bank on the edge of no Home Guard guerrillas could operate. There were fears
Elstow Moor when my father told us to wait for a moment that they could impede the Auxiliary Units in their operations
and he would show us something. He picked up a solid stick or could accidentally cause a security leak if they happened
from a hedgerow and began scrapping the earth behind across an Auxiliary Unit Patrol. So we tend to find Home
some bushes near to the stream. He had to try the same Guard guerrilla sections inland or on the west coast where no
near other bushes before finding a metal ring covered by Auxiliary Units were operating. It is also likely that throughout
bushes. With some effort and much clearing of earth, he the war, as senior members of the Auxiliary Units left and
eventually raised a trapdoor and descended down a steel joined regular commands across the country, they too put
ladder into an underground chamber. into place unofficial Auxiliary Unit-like groups within the Home
“I well remember his words when he got to the bottom Guard structure.
of the ladder: ‘Good God – everything is still here – I must Dad’s Army has had a double-edged-sword effect on
get onto the army and have all this stuff removed straight the Home Guard. For a group that was never called upon
away.’ He would not let us go down in case some of the in direct action against an invading force, the sitcom has
explosives were dangerous.” allowed it to remain in the nation’s consciousness. However,
its depiction of a group of mainly elderly men who, although
This bunker sounds very similar to the Operational Bases undoubtedly brave, would have had little impact on the
utilised by the Auxiliary Units, but again with no such units German invaders has meant that many aspects of the Home
operating in Bedfordshire, it seems that Manning and some Guard’s actual and sometimes secretive role have been
of his Home Guard colleagues belonged to a guerrilla section. forgotten or ignored.
Another remarkable Home Guard guerrilla bunker story As Mr Bunting thought, these men were defending their
comes from Leeds, again an area where the Auxiliary families and a land that they had known all their lives. They
Units were not operating. Harker Brown told his family would have fought with ruthlessness in their villages, towns,
after the war that he was not ‘just’ in the Home Guard factories and strategically important points. They would
but in a separate section that was to disable locomotive have put petrol stations out of action to slow down the
factories in the area, putting them out of action before advance, and with the Auxiliary Units hitting the supply chain
the Germans could get hold of them. This is very similar this would’ve had a critical impact. Some, mainly younger,
to the factory units we’ve already discussed. However, members of the Home Guard would have emerged from
Harker’s group was based in a small underground room bunkers to hit at the invading force in a guerrilla role, a role
where food, weapons and ammunition were being stored. that has not been recognised for the past 80 years or so.
To gain access one had to climb through a rabbit’s hutch! We need to see the Home Guard within the wider
Images: Alamy, Getty

Again, the disguise and thinking around the bunker is very defensive picture. They were not isolated, under-armed,
similar to the Auxiliary Units but because of his location, useless old men, but an experienced and much younger
Harker instead must have belonged to a Home Guard group that would have played an important role within the
guerrilla section. overall defensive strategy.

33
HEROES OF THE MEDAL OF HONOR

Troops of the 3rd Infantry

Division advance into
Nuremberg, 20 April 1945

Lucian Adams (right) at

a ceremony to mark the
50th anniversary of VJ Day,
Lackland Air Force Base, Texas

34
 Heroes of the Medal of Honor

Armed with a Browning Automatic Rifle and hand grenades,

this lone sergeant silenced three enemy machine gun
emplacements in the mountains of northeastern France
WORDS MICHAEL E HASKEW

T
he slog was relentless. Through Woods. The 30th Infantry was poised Progress was always challenging due to
dark, deep forest and across to support the neighbouring 7th Infantry the terrain and the often inhospitable autumn
broken terrain, mountain peaks Regiment, moving to capture Hill 616 and weather, and of course the Germans were a
studded with bare hillocks, draws open Route N-420, the highway north of Le formidable foe. In the middle of heavy fighting,
and ridgelines, the US Seventh Haut Jacques Pas, where the 7th Regiment the forward progress of Company I was
Army had fought its way northward nearly 500 had run into substantial resistance, probably checked. Adams responded to an order from
miles (800km) from the French Riviera. from the German 716th Division and elements battalion headquarters. “Two companies of
The Germans had contested virtually every of the tough 201st Mountain Battalion. the battalion were cut off for about ten hours,”
mile of the advance since the Allies had come he recalled in a 1976 interview, “and finding
ashore in southern France during Operation out that we could not make contact with the
Dragoon on 15 August 1944, intent on cut-off companies, the battalion commander
supporting the D-Day offensive in Normandy made a request that we make contact.”
and opening the Mediterranean ports to Adams looked around for an appropriate
supply and reinforcement convoys. Once a weapon and borrowed a Browning Automatic
junction had been affected with the armies Rifle (BAR), one of the famed infantry weapons
advancing from Normandy, the Allies intended of the war. The BAR brought automatic fire to
to press further across the frontier of the Third the squad level in the hands of a single soldier.
Reich on a broad front, bringing the Second It fired .30-06-calibre bullets from a 20- or
World War home to Nazi Germany and striking 40-round detachable box magazine, and Adams
a fatal blow to the enemy. knew how to use it. He assembled his squad
In late October, after ten weeks of fighting, and moved out.
the veteran US 3rd Infantry Division had One of 12 children, Adams was a combat
battered its way northward through the Vosges veteran. His eight brothers were in uniform
Mountains to the vicinity of the French town as well. He had spent 18 months labouring
of La Bourgonce, with the village of St Die at Consolidated Iron Works, a manufacturer
identified as an immediate objective. While of landing craft, in his hometown of Port
high-ranking officers planned grand strategy, Arthur, Texas, before enlisting in the US Army
their aims were being prosecuted and in February 1943. Intense training, which he
advanced, as always, by small unit actions later credited for his survival in combat, took
on the ground. place at Camp Butner, North Carolina, and in
Two days after his 22nd birthday, 28 November 1943 he headed to Europe.
October 1944, Staff Sergeant Lucian Adams, The young squad leader quickly earned the
Company I, 3rd Battalion, 30th Infantry Staff Sergeant Lucian Adams of the US 3rd Infantry
respect of those around him. When the 3rd
Regiment, 3rd Division, was with his squad Division earned the Medal of Honor in the Vosges Division hit the beach at the Italian resort town
in an area noted on maps as the Magdeleine Mountains of France of Anzio in January 1944, Adams destroyed

35
HEROES OF THE MEDAL OF HONOR

Soldiers of the 30th Infantry

Regiment, 3rd Division, in France
in the autumn of 1944

a German machine gun emplacement and The rapid fire of the German machine guns

“I NEVER BROUGHT UP THE

earned the Bronze Star Medal. He was sounded like shredding paper, and in seconds
wounded and received the Purple Heart as three members of Adams’ squad were killed

FACT THAT I’D BEEN IN COMBAT

well. There had been talk of a Medal of Honor and six others wounded. Realising the gravity
for the action, but the morass of reports and of the situation, the sergeant took matters

MYSELF AND BEEN AWARDED

paperwork was apparently bogged down in the into his own hands. Rising up, he charged the
army’s bureaucracy. nearest machine gun nest, firing the borrowed

THE MEDAL OF HONOR.

No matter. Adams soldiered on with BAR from the hip and approaching within 45ft
Company I and found himself continually (14m). Enemy soldiers launched rifle grenades

BECAUSE I’M NO HERO,

in harm’s way. By late 1944, after two as he ran, and tree bursts scattered shrapnel
amphibious assaults, he was a proven combat and splinters in every direction.

I’M JUST AN EX-SOLDIER”

soldier. The task at hand that day in the “I could see the fire coming from the
Magdeleine Woods showed his willingness to machine gun,” he remarked. “I immediately
lead by example, displaying tremendous valour returned fire from my automatic weapon to the
in the face of a determined enemy. first machine gun emplacement and noticed
“I led a patrol to see what was the Staff Sergeant Lucian Adams that fire from that machine gun had slowed up.
obstacle, what was the strength that was To make sure that it was out of commission, I
cutting off the two companies,” Adams threw a hand grenade into the emplacement.”
remembered. “So I made my patrol, and I the company commander said, “you know The second German machine gun was only
noticed them on a roadblock… The enemy what’s up in the front, what’s ahead of us. You 15ft (5m) to the right of the one that Adams
had established a roadblock in which they take your squad, and you’re going to lead the had just silenced. Later reports indicated that
captured one of our halftracks and were company on this breakthrough to make contact he shot dead a German soldier who threw a
mending it, and they set up three machine with the two companies that were cut off.” hand grenade toward him, killed the enemy
gun emplacements on the roadblock, seeing Once again, Adams took his squad forward. soldier manning the second machine gun with
that our other two remaining companies could The reception was hot. a grenade of his own, and then cut down five
not contact the two cut-off companies.” “Immediately upon our line of departure we Germans running forward.
Not only were two companies of 3rd Battalion came under intense enemy fire, which was “Right behind was the third machine gun
cut off by the Germans, the battalion supply from these three machine gun emplacements emplacement,” said Adams. “I advanced
line had also been severed by the enemy. and this halftrack,” he recalled. “We had not to it within a very short distance and used
Adams scrambled back and reported the advanced five yards into our company when the hand grenades and also machine gun fire
situation to his company commander. The fireworks began, and immediately my buddies [probably BAR] and knocked it out.”
response was terse. “Since you were the one began hollering for medics. So we knew we The third machine gun had concentrated
that made the patrol and made the report,” were in for a battle.” fire on Adams from a distance of 60ft

36
 LUCIAN ADAMS

HISTORY OF WAR
MEDAL
OF HONOR
HEROES
IS ON SALE NOW

Adams (second from right) worked

as a US Veterans Administration
counsellor for 40 years

(18m), but the lone infantryman had closed where massive Nazi Party rallies had been
quickly. In just ten minutes he had destroyed held during the 1930s. A huge swastika
three enemy machine gun positions, killed that crowned the surrounding stadium was
nine Germans and captured two more. The covered with an American flag, and shortly
troublesome roadblock was cleared and after the presentation programme ended
contact with the companies previously cut off combat engineers blew the odious Nazi
was reestablished. symbol to pieces.
Adams was matter-of-fact while relating his The 3rd Infantry Division continued to
story and told his interviewers more than 30 battle its way through the mountains of
years after the encounter: “So that’s about it.” northern France and fought during the
Word of his incredible valour spread quickly reduction of the Colmar Pocket, the last
through the ranks of the 3rd Battalion, 30th vestige of German resistance west of the
Infantry, and he earned the nickname ‘Texas River Rhine. Adams remained with the 30th
Tornado’. This time, the recommendation for Infantry through these bitter engagements
the Medal of Honor made steady progress, and the Nazi surrender. He was discharged
and by the spring of 1945 Adams was from the US Army in September 1945, and
notified that he would receive his country’s accepted a postwar job with the US Veterans
highest decoration for courage under fire. The Administration (VA). He once commented: “In
untimely death of President Franklin D combat, I had no fear. None, until the events
Roosevelt on 12 April 1945 ended were over, and I began to realise how serious
plans for a ceremony at the and how dangerous the situations were.”
White House, and the Adams worked as a VA counsellor in
medal was presented San Antonio, Texas, for 40 years, assisting
to Adams by General many individuals who had faithfully served
Images: Alamy, Getty, Wiki / PD / US Gov

Alexander M Patch, their country. He also became an advisor

commander of the and consultant on veterans affairs to the
US Seventh Army. office of Texas Congressman Frank Tejeda.
The ceremony took In 2002, Adams was featured in a History
place on 21 April Channel documentary presentation on
1945 in the occupied Hispanic recipients of the Medal of Honor.
General Alexander M Patch, commander of
city of Nuremberg, He died in 2003 at the age of 80 and is
the US Seventh Army, presented the Medal Germany, on the buried at the Fort Sam Houston National
of Honor to Adams in November 1945 sprawling grounds Cemetery in San Antonio.

37
 Great Battles

Outnumbered and outgunned, the Finns’ spirited defence of a natural choke point
turned back the Red Army during the largest battle in the region’s history
WORDS LOUIS HARDIMAN

OPPOSING FORCES
VS
FINLAND SOVIET UNION
LEADERS LEADERS
CGE Mannerheim, Leonid Govorov,
Karl Lennart Oesch Dmitry Gusev,
TROOPS Aleksandr Cherepanov
50,000 TROOPS
TANKS 60,000-150,000
23 TANKS
ASSAULT GUNS 280
20 ASSAULT GUNS
AIRCRAFT 80
100 AIRCRAFT
800

GERMANY Note: The unusually

broad range in Red
LEADERS Army troops at
Kurt Kuhlmey Tali-Ihantala is due
TROOPS to underestimates
4,000 in Soviet sources
and overestimates
ASSAULT GUNS in Finnish sources.
20 There remains
COMBAT AIRCRAFT no consensus
111 on the number of
Soviet troops at
SUPPORT AIRCRAFT Tali-Ihantala.
43

38
 TALI-IHANTALA

L
ieutenant-Colonel Arvo Roininen, facing attack as soon as the Soviets deemed had refused to push further south during the
the Finnish 26th Heavy Battery the ground firm enough for its formidable Continuation War to seal the Wehrmacht’s
commander, jumped as his radio armoured columns. Should the Red Army trap during the Siege of Leningrad just 21
crackled to life. The date was 30 smash through the Isthmus, it would be free miles (33km) south of the Finnish border.
June, 1944, and reports were to break out across Finland. The nation would Mannerheim was highly reluctant to connect
coming in that the elite Soviet 63rd Guards once more fall under the shadow of Russian Finland to Nazi expansionism. Without support,
Rifle Division was making another attack. subjugation, having enjoyed independence for the siege had broken in January 1944 and the
Twenty tanks were ready to race forward and just 26 years. Meanwhile, swift victory was Red Army could advance north without having
smash through the Finnish lines. Roininen’s vital for the Soviets, who wanted to answer the to protect its supply lines to the south.
observers remained at the front under constant Finnish question before the end of the war and By 10 June, the ground was solid under the
bombardment, repeatedly shouting into their free up troops for the race to Berlin. T-34s’ tracks and Stalin launched the Vyborg-
radios: “Enemy tanks are in their jumping-off When the inevitable attack came, it could Petrozavodsk Offensive along the western part
points… all batteries fire!” Roininen passed the only be challenged from the north. The Finnish of the Karelian Isthmus. He hoped to take
message to the commander of artillery, who commander, Field Marshal CGE Mannerheim, Viipuri within 12 days before capturing Helsinki
called in a bombardment from every available by mid-July. The Red Army would then drive

“THEY ARE A SERIOUS,

gun. Shells screamed over the observers’ north and east to meet the remaining Finnish
heads and turned the tanks into flaming, troops in East Karelia. Although ambitious, this

STUBBORN, BLUNT PEOPLE

mangled steel while they were still at their plan seemed feasible. Across the 43.5 mile-
staging posts. One Soviet attack had been wide (70km) front, the Red Army had a huge

AND A SENSE MUST BE

repulsed, but several more were to come. numerical advantage of troops (4:1), armour
On the Karelian Isthmus, a narrow strip of (5:1), artillery (6:1) and aircraft (15:1).

HAMMERED INTO THEM”

land between Lake Lagoda and the Gulf of Gaining 62 miles (100km) in under two
Finland, the Finnish Army waited anxiously for weeks, the Red Army pushed the Finns back
the snow to thaw as winter turned to spring to the Viipuri-Kuparsaari-Taipale (VKT) line.
in 1944. Their national survival was at stake, Stalin, 10 June 1944 Running from the Gulf of Finland at Viipuri in the

© SA-Kuva

Finns man an anti-tank cannon

in the Tali-Ihantala forests

39
GREAT BATTLES

BATTLE OF TALI-IHANTALA
west, east to the Vuoksi River and southeast
to Lake Lagoda at Taipale, this was the last
substantial defence on the Karelian Isthmus.
The Soviets attempted to break through the
VKT line between Viipuri and the Vuoksi River,
a substantial challenge as lakes in the area
created multiple choke points that the Finns
would defend resolutely. However, it had level
ground that Soviet tanks could race along once
01 MANNERHEIM
APPEALS FOR HELP
Anticipating a Red Army attack on the
Finnish lines had broken. Predicting the armour- VKT line, Mannerheim asks Germany
focussed Red Army would gravitate towards for assistance. It provides the fighter,
such terrain, the Finns manoeuvred 14 of their dive bomber and ground-attack
22 units into the sector. What followed was Detachment Kuhlmey, the 303 Assault
the largest battle seen in Nordic history within Gun Brigade and the 122nd Division.
a battleground 7.5 miles (12km) wide and 9.3
miles (15km) deep: Tali-Ihantala.

The Soviet pocket

Officially, the Battle of Tali-Ihantala began on 25
02 THE BATTLE BEGINS
Following an intense
artillery barrage, Soviet tanks advance
June, yet this day was marked only by a feeble across the front. The Finnish 18th
attempt from the Red Army’s 109th Rifle Corps Division is shattered and beats a hasty
to break through the VKT Line. The battle started retreat north of Lake Kärstilänjärvi.
in earnest the following morning with a Soviet
bombardment lasting six hours. An artillery piece
was positioned every five metres in the most
active sectors and almost 400 tubes of artillery
and rockets were in action. Major-General
Paavo Paalu’s 18th Division, defending territory
03 AVOIDING
DISASTER
After almost being caught in
south of Lake Kärstilänjärvi, was shattered a pincer between the Soviet
and fell back under subsequent pressure from 64th and 45th Guards Rifle
the 30th Guards Rifle Corps. The elite 64th Divisions, the 18th Division
and 45th Guards Rifle Divisions led the attack, is at a point of collapse.
supported by amphibious tanks. Thick smoke The Finnish armoured
division and German StuGs
screens hid the disastrous situation and the
counter-attack and bring the
Soviet advance continued on both sides of Lake
Soviet advance to a halt.
Leitimojärvi. All seemed lost, as it appeared the
two Guards Rifle Divisions had caught the Finns
in a pincer. Under strain, the 18th Division had
been reduced to just 40 percent of its strength,
making a counter-attack impossible.
At the eleventh hour, reinforcements from
Colonel Albert Puroma’s 1st Jäger Brigade,
04 18TH DIVISION
WITHDRAWS
The Finnish 18th Division, cut
Major-General Ruben Lagus’ Armoured Division to 40 percent of its strength,
and the German Sturmgeschütz (StuG assault can finally withdraw when
gun) Brigade 303 saved Paalu’s men. They the 11th Division is brought
counter-attacked on the west side of the forward from the reserve.
45th and 64th advance, bringing the Red
Army’s progress to a halt and exacting heavy
casualties. Soviet records show losses of
1

05 SOVIET FORCES
Leonid Govorov, commander of the Soviet forces

AT RISK
Having advanced into a
pocket behind Finnish lines,
the 63rd and 64th Guards
Rifles Divisions are now at
risk of being cut off. The Finns
concentrate massed artillery
fire on the Soviet supply lines,
but fail to seal the trap as the
63rd attacks northward and
the 64th westward to force
the Finns back.

06 RETREAT TO IHANTALA
The messy and long line
© Getty

requires a great Finnish effort to defend. On

29 June Mannerheim grants permission for
a withdrawal to a new line to the north. This
is formed on 30 June, transforming a deep
pocket in their lines to a slight bend.

40
 TALI-IHANTALA

07 FAILED ATTEMPTS TO
BREAK THROUGH
The Red Army tries to take advantage
of the Finnish retreat with a concerted
week-long offensive. However, the Finns
achieve the greatest concentration of
artillery fire in their history and use
Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust personal
anti-tank weapons to great effect.

08 OFFENSIVE
CALLED OFF
On 13 July, Govorov receives
orders to pull five divisions back
to Leningrad and calls off the
offensive at Ihantala. The battle
7 comes to a halt. A week later,
German StuGs, aircraft and
6
5 infantry leave the Karelian Isthmus.

2 8

SOVIET UNION
FINLAND
GERMANY

20 JUNE 1944
28 JUNE 1944
30 JUNE 1944

“SOLDIERS! AT THIS MOMENT BETS ARE BEING PLACED ON FINLAND’S

DESTINY. EITHER OUR PEOPLE WILL BE LITERALLY SWEPT FROM THE SURFACE
Map illustration: Rocío Espín Piñar

OF THE EARTH, AS OUR ENEMY HAS PROMISED TO DO TO US, OR WE WILL

FIGHT WITH PERSISTENT SISU [TENACITY], SECURING OUR NATION’S FUTURE”
Daily order of Major-General Ruben Largus, commander
of the Finnish Armoured Division, 3 July 1944

41
GREAT BATTLES

over 1,000 men during the day and 38 Soviet attacked west to widen their gains and protect
tanks at night. The Finnish arsenal captured the supply lines. The Armoured Division finally
eight intact Soviet tanks, their crews having started to crack, and was saved with the
fled under heavy direct and indirect fire. Both arrival of fresh troops from the Finnish 6th
sides used the short stalemate that followed Division when the Soviets were just 0.6 miles
to relieve their exhausted units. The Soviets (1km) from Ihantala.
replaced the 45th with the 63rd Guards Rifle
Division; meanwhile, the Finns swapped the Finns fall back
devastated 18th Division with Major-General The extended pocket stretched the Finnish line
Juho Heiskanen’s fresh 11th Division. to breaking point. General Karl Lennart Oesch
The sunrise of 27 June cast an orange requested permission to retreat from this
glow over the lakes and plains of Karelia and indefensible mess on 29 June and Mannerheim
exposed the Red Army’s vulnerable position. agreed to a new line formed at Ihantala. The
Its 63rd and 64th Guards Rifles Divisions, two Red Army pocket would become a slight bend
of the Red Army’s most elite units, occupied in the Finnish line, a far preferable position for
a fragile pocket deep behind Finnish lines. a last stand. Under constant artillery barrage,
Encircling them would remove the Soviet the Finns fell back while Task Force Hanste,
offensive’s cutting edge, and the Finns began composed primarily of the 12th Infantry
by centring enough artillery fire on the pocket to Regiment, fought fierce rearguard actions. Its
turn it into a hellscape. efforts were heavily reliant on Panzerfausts and
Lagus’ and Heiskanen’s men then advanced Panzershreck, single-use anti-tank weapons
from the west while Autti’s 4th Division and developed by the Wehrmacht. According to
assault guns advanced from the east. Crashing Above: Field Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim, popular myth, commander of the 6th Division
down upon the Red Army defences, they the commander of Finnish forces at Tali-Ihantala General Einar Vihma toured the battlefield
reduced the corridor to less than 0.6 miles in his new Buick car, personally handing out
(1km) wide at points and brought the supply to crush the Red Army pocket the following Panzerfausts to rearguard units.
lines under direct fire. But the Guards Rifles day. Lagus’ Armoured Division was to advance Formation of the new line was completed
were never completely cut off, partially due to a along Lake Leitimojärvi’s eastern shores and by 30 June. Its foremost defensive asset was
lack of discipline in organising direct assault gun capture territory north of Tali. Further forces its 21 artillery batteries, the majority of which
fire. Many shells exploded harmlessly among planned to attack the Ihantala area, destroying were given to General Vihma to rain down
the trees and the StuGs frequently had to turn the isolated Soviet bridgehead. Yet these indirect fire on the Soviet tanks that would
back for more ammunition. efforts never began as the Red Army stole soon begin to push for Ihantala at the centre.
The weary assault gun crews and the initiative with a fresh counter-attack at Meanwhile, scores more Panzerfausts and
infantrymen finally caught a moment’s rest daybreak, expanding rather than shrinking the Panzershrecks were distributed among the
with orders to halt at sunset. Their leaders pocket. The 63rd Division pushed further into infantry. In sectors of the line that would come
met in the twilight to discuss a novel attempt Finnish territory to the north, while the 64th under heaviest attack, they created defensive

A German StuG assault

gun deployed in Karelia

Images © Alamy, Getty, SA-Kuva

42
 TALI-IHANTALA

HITLER’S GUNS IN FINLAND

The Wehrmacht kit that held back the Red Army tide
Below: Finnish troops pose
with Panzerfausts,

In spring 1944, the Finnish armoury was almost bare. Its

limited supplies of outdated planes, tanks and weaponry
stood no chance against the vast numbers of troops, planes
and tanks that the Soviets could field once the winter
stalemate was over. Germany stepped in to save its Nordic
ally while the Ryti-Ribbentrop Agreement – guaranteeing
that Finland would not pursue an independent peace with
the Soviet Union – was being negotiated. The Wehrmacht
provided their best equipment along with experienced
manpower to help defend against Red Army attack.
The Finnish Air Force, in particular, was in a desperate
situation. Soviet aircraft could run rings around its
outdated fighters, especially once the handful of modern
Messerschmitt Bf 109s at Finland’s disposal had been
shot down. A Luftwaffe detachment led by the close-air
support master Lieutenant-Colonel Kurt Kuhlmey doubled
the numbers of Finnish fighters. The detachment included
33 Stuka dive-bombers, 62 Focke-Wulf 190 (Fw 190)
fighters and a further 16 Fw 190 in fighter-bomber the T-34s. More Sturmgeschütz (StuG) assault guns and
configuration. In support were eight reconnaissance aircraft experienced crews were now in Finnish hands, equipped
and 35 transport planes. with a devastating 3in (75mm) cannon. Meanwhile, Finnish
Finnish forces were also vulnerable to Russian armour, infantry received anti-tank Panzershreck and Panzerfaust
which the Red Army had become reliant on due to its Below: Finnish infantry
shoulder-fired rocket launchers in the nick of time. In some
staggering losses of troops on the Eastern Front. Germany observe their handiwork with cases, they only had a short ten-minute briefing on how to
handed over its 303rd Assault Gun Brigade to take on German rocket launchers use them before heading into battle.

43
GREAT BATTLES

positions up to 2.5 miles (4km) deep with a

degree of elasticity against Soviet advances.

Defending the new line

A pattern developed across the days that
followed. As the sun rose, Red Army tanks
would roll forward in potent attacks. The
response from as many as 12 Finnish batteries
at any one time pushed them back, aided by
direct fire from Panzerfausts, Panzerschrecks,
tanks and anti-tank guns.
On a single day, hand-held weapons
destroyed 24 Soviet tanks in the Ihantala area
alone. Reino Lehväslaiho, gunner for the tank Finnish riflemen look
Sotka, remembers the constant cycle of attack for targets, ready
and counter-attack: “We slept under our tanks; with Panzerfausts
this was our home. We had no idea what time
it was. Somebody nudged us awake … Sotkas
to counter-attack!” When the Sun set, the when we were struck by seven enemy fighters, ability to communicate a single initial target and
surviving Soviet tankers rested. Meanwhile, Yak 9s… More Soviet aircraft kept appearing… corrections to a theoretically unlimited number
Russian artillery lit up the sky and softened the Everything turned into a crazy fireball… As of artillery batteries. At Tali-Ihantala, forward
Finnish resolve against the inevitable assaults soon as I got the first Yak in my sights, it went observers using Korjausmuunnin were able to
the following morning. plummeting down like a burning torch… four successfully call in artillery strikes from several
As the Finnish tankers pushed the enemy other enemy craft went the same way.” Wind batteries while Russian offensives were still at
back from the new line on the ground, Soviet, was finally injured on that sortie when an their staging posts. Having used this ingenious
Finnish and German aircraft buzzed in the skies. explosive round struck his cockpit. After making artillery tool during a tenacious defence in the
They fought relentlessly for air superiority so that it back to base, he was rushed to a field hospital most chaotic phase of Tali-Ihantala, the Finns
attack aircraft could strike unharried by enemy and never returned to the front. contained Soviet gains to a 6.2 mile (10km)
fighters. Finnish air ace and double-recipient Each fresh Soviet attack between 1-6 July deep and wide wedge. Sporadic Red Army
of the Mannerheim Cross, Finland’s highest was blunted, primarily due to the superior actions continued for a further week, but none
military honour, Hans ‘Hasse’ Henrik Wind, had Finnish artillery that fired over 12,000 shells were concentrated enough to threaten the
27 confirmed kills at Tali-Ihantala in the 13 days during the battle. The Finnish artillery owed its Finnish line, which had been bent but never
before he was wounded. Wind described his effectiveness to the ingenuity of the inspector of broken. Having petered out, the Soviet offensive
near-impossible task flying a Bf 109 within skies artillery, General Vilho Nenonen, inventor of the formally ended on 13 July 1944 when Marshal
packed with Soviet formations of up to 200 Korjausmuunnin (fire correction converter dial). Leonid Govorov transferred five divisions out
planes: “We had barely reached the Viipuri area This tool gave forward observers the unique of Karelia to assist at the Leningrad Front. The

Finnish troops advance alongside a captured Soviet

T-26 light tank early in the Continuation War

44
 TALI-IHANTALA

down 270 and the Luftwaffe 30, while another before Britain, France and the USA. The Finns
Assault gun commander Sergeant
Börje ‘Bubi’ Brotell (far left) sits with 115 were destroyed by anti-aircraft fire. In and Soviets created the Moscow Armistice
his crew. Brotell had 11 confirmed turn, the Finns lost just 12 aircraft, while on 14 September 1944, with the Soviets
enemy tanks destroyed at Tali-Ihantala the Kuhlmey Detachment lost 33. For the seeking significant reparations. Demands for
Finns, Tali-Ihantala saw them secure their compensation equivalent to $300 million,
sovereignty against all odds, facing down 10 per cent of Finnish land – including
the aggressively expanding Soviet Union – Karelia –and free access into Finland for the
a heroic effort popularised in the 2007 film Red Army appalled the Finns. However, with
1944: The Final Defence. national survival at stake, they signed the
The human cost of victory at Tali-Ihantala deal five days later.
was immense, with thousands falling to Even with the Moscow Armistice sealed,
the artillery shells that screamed across blood was still to be shed on Finnish soil. The
the battlefield for days on end. The Finns German Mountain Army had 214,000 men
suffered 1,350 dead, 6,000 wounded and stationed in Lapland, with just two weeks to
1,100 missing. Meanwhile, the Soviets are make it to the Norwegian border above the
estimated to have lost 6,000 dead and Arctic Circle before the Finns would attack.
22,000 wounded. These figures are the most Operation Birke, the Wehrmacht’s mission
commonly cited by historians of Tali-Ihantala, to leave Finland, planned for a gradual
Luftwaffe’s Kuhlmey Detachment and the 303rd and it should be noted that the Finnish and withdrawal while some forces remained
Assault Gun Brigade were recalled soon after. Red Armies both had motivations to hide the behind to secure mineral resources in the
The 303rd only took down a handful of Soviet true scale of their losses. north. As a result, most of the Mountain Army
tanks and fought only fleeting engagements, was still in the country when the fortnight
while the Luftwaffe forces had played a crucial Securing Finland’s statehood deadline passed.
role in preventing Soviet planes from achieving With the last shell fired on Karelian soil, The Soviets pressured the Finns to use
aerial superiority. Finland was safe – but only temporarily. force to expel Wehrmacht troops, beginning
The Siege of Leningrad had been broken the Lapland War. They fought the battles of
Aftermath in January 1944 and the Wehrmacht was Tornio and Rovaniemi, both of which pushed
The Battle of Tali-Ihantala was an unmitigated in a fighting retreat to the west. The Finns the Germans north. Most German soldiers
disaster for the Red Army. Becoming over- realised that their tentative grip on Karelia left Finland during November 1944 following
reliant on its armour, it deployed 280 tanks would eventually fail now that German forces these battles, and the final remnants of the
and 80 assault guns, losing 210 of these to the south had retreated. Going against Wehrmacht left the country on 27 April 1945,
against 26 German StuGs and 23 tanks and their agreement with the Third Reich, the shortly before the end of the war in Europe.
20 assault guns from the Finnish Army. The Finns opened up diplomatic channels with the Finnish soldiers raised the flag on the three-
battle in the air was just as calamitous for Soviet Union to broker an independent peace. country cairn on the border between Norway,
the Red Army’s 800 planes, of which 415 Negotiations suited Stalin, who wanted to free Sweden and Finland to mark the end of their
were destroyed. The Finnish Air Force shot up more troops for the race to reach Berlin involvement in the conflict.

Right: Swedish
volunteers operate a
machine gun during
the Winter War

FURTHER READING
Vesa Nenye, Finland at War: The Continuation
and Lapland Wars 1941-1945 (Bloomsbury
Publishing, 2016)
Henrik O Lunde, Finland’s War of Choice: The
Troubled German-Finnish Coalition in World War II
Images © Alamy, Getty, SA-Kuva

(Casemate Publishers, 2011)

Philip Jowett and Brent Snodgrass, Finland at War
1939-1945 (Osprey Publishing, 2012)
Claes Johansen, Hitler’s Nordic Ally? Finland and the
Total War 1939-1945 (Pen and Sword, 2016)

45
 B R I X M I S
BRITISH COMMANDERS’-IN-CHIEF MISSION TO THE SOVIET FORCES OF OCCUPATION IN GERMANY

WORDS ANDREW LONG

At the beginning of the Cold War, a peculiar
military mission began its work officially,
and unofficially, gathering intelligence
inside Soviet-occupied East Germany

Sergeant Ken Wike BEM jumps on a

moving train to try to determine the
calibre of the gun on a Soviet BMP-2, July
1983. Wike famously jammed an apple
over the muzzle to create an impression
which could be measured afterwards

46
 BRITS BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

The elusive Soviet T-80 main battle Soviet map showing a Temporary Restricted Area (TRA) between
tank, photographed on a TAC route Leipzig and Dresden for 22 May to 3 June 1973. The boundaries
mid-1980s. Finding the T-80 was were hand-drawn, allowing a ‘flexible’ interpretation by the
a key objective for the missions missions. Note that autobahns were not covered by TRAs

I
n September 1946, the British military government Formal liaison was an important part of BRIXMIS’ role,
of occupied Germany, and its Soviet opposite but very quickly the emphasis changed from liaising with the
number, signed an agreement formalising a Soviets to spying on them, an activity that continued every
military liaison between the two newly neighbouring day until 1990, when the approaching end of the Cold War
powers. The idea was to create a communications and new political realities in Europe made the job largely
channel to resolve disputes or misunderstandings which redundant. The Mission provided a unique window onto
could lead to, at best, a diplomatic incident – at worst, the Soviet and, to a lesser degree, East German military
a military confrontation. ‘Liaison’ created a pathway for the capability, behind enemy lines, and behind the Iron Curtain.

LINGO
discussion of issues and resolution of disputes before they Several ‘tours’ were despatched each day across the
escalated out of control. The agreement, which became Glienicke Bridge in marked vehicles and wearing uniform,

CHEAT
known as the Robertson-Malinin Agreement (RMA), created allowed to roam freely (apart from nominated Permanent
reciprocal missions in the British and Soviet zones, Restricted Areas, or PRAs, and Temporary Restricted Areas,
accredited to the respective commander-in-chief, and or TRAs) across East Germany, observing and covertly

SHEET
remained in place, unaltered, until German reunification. photographing what they saw. In reality, these tours were
The British Mission was called the British Commanders’- a finely tuned intelligence collection machine, comprising
in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces of Occupation in three BRIXMIS personnel: a tour officer, who was in charge
Germany – BRIXMIS, BRX, or to those who served in it, the of the team, and responsible for photography; a tour NCO,
Mission. The Soviet equivalent in the British zone of West
Germany was known as SOXMIS, and similar agreements
who was an expert in recognition of enemy equipment, and
kept a detailed log of their findings; and a highly skilled army
BRI X MIS
BRITISH
were made in 1947 with the Americans and the French, (normally Royal Corps of Transport) or RAF driver, who was C O M M A N D E R S ’- I N -
creating the US Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) and the also responsible for providing security while the others were CHIEF MISSION TO
Mission Militaire Française de Liaison (MMFL). Together concentrating on their targets. THE SOVIET FORCES
with BRIXMIS, they formed the Allied Military Liaison Their job was to gather intelligence on the Soviet O F O C C U PAT I O N
Missions (AMLMs). and East German order of battle (ORBAT), training, IN GERMANY
The Mission had two headquarters: a forward HQ in manoeuvres, tactics and exercises, and any form of new
Potsdam, the Mission House, inside the Soviet Zone (later
the German Democratic Republic); and a rear HQ, located at
equipment. They responded to tasking from British Forces,
Germany Joint Headquarters (JHQ) at Rheindahlen, near
RM A
ROBERTSON-
the Olympic Stadium in West Berlin. The only way Mission Mönchengladbach in the far west of West Germany, and MALININ AGREEMENT
personnel could cross from West to East was via the from the various departments at the Ministry of Defence (THE ANGLO-
Glienicke Bridge (the ‘Bridge of Spies’), running the gauntlet in London responsible for military intelligence. BRIXMIS SOVIET AGREEMENT
of Soviet guards and closely watched by the East German was in a unique and very important position – being able to ENABLING LIAISON
secret police, the infamous Stasi. Their opposite number in observe the opposition at close range and in their natural MISSIONS OF EACH
Potsdam was the Soviet External Relations Branch (SERB), surroundings – and formed a valuable part of NATO’s early N AT I O N I N S I D E
staffed mainly by GRU and KGB officers. warning system. With BRIXMIS and the other AMLMs THE OTHER’S
OCCUPIED ZONE)
“THESE TOURS WERE A FINELY TUNED INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION MACHINE” A ML M
A L L I E D M I L I TA R Y
LIAISON MISSIONS
Images: BRIXMIS Association, National Army Museum Archive

SERB
SOVIET EXTERNAL
R E L AT I O N S B R A N C H

PRA
PERMANENT
RESTRICTED AREA
TRA
TEMPORARY
RESTRICTED AREA

Above: Soviet 2S3 Akatsiya 6in (152.4mm) self-propelled Above: Soviet MiG-25 FOXBAT interceptor fighters photographed O R B AT
tracked gun-howitzer, as photographed from a BRIXMIS from a BRIXMIS plane at Werneuchen air base, where half of the O R D E R O F B AT T L E
aircraft, with Soviet soldiers looking on, January 1990 runway was inside the Berlin Control Zone, and half outside

47
BRITS BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

Soviet R-17 Elbrus (NATO: SS-1C SCUD-B)

nuclear and chemical warhead-capable
tactical ballistic missile photographed at the
Euper polygon (training ground) in the GDR

Above: The deliberate ramming of a BRIXMIS tour car carrying Brigadier Learmont, Chief BRIXMIS, by a © Stasi Unterlagen Archiv (formerly BStU), Das Bundesarchiv
12-ton NVA truck. They were saved by the strength of the car and a small tree that stopped them from rolling

The wreckage of Opel Admiral No. 7 after being rammed by a 4.5-ton

NVA truck, trapping the tour NCO inside with a badly broken leg, 1976

48
 BRITS BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

watching day-to-day movements inside the GDR and building

up a pattern of normal activity, they would be the first
to notice something abnormal, signs of possible Soviet
invasion of Western Europe.
These indicators of hostility were carefully monitored by
NATO, and AMLM tour reports were an important piece of the
West’s intelligence ‘jigsaw’. As well as routine activity, the
missions sought out (or stumbled upon) the latest military
equipment coming out of the Soviet Union – in Mission
parlance, new KIT. As a frontline formation, the Group Soviet
Forces in Germany (GSFG) received the latest and best
materiel coming out of the Soviet arms industry, from main
battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers, surface-to-air
missiles and their associated radars, and aircraft.
Although some new items were held back in the Soviet
Union for security reasons, other KIT was either openly
deployed or sneaked across East Germany on carefully
tarpaulined railway flatbed trucks. For particularly sensitive Above: BRIXMIS could be observed at barracks, training areas, TAC routes
equipment, the rail routes were sometimes put into Chipmunk WG486 flying (cross country routes), and in-transit across the country.
Temporary Restricted Areas (TRAs) so the KIT could arrive past Brandenburg Gate, An air tour, on the other hand, concentrated on aircraft,
1990. Although the Berlin
unobserved before being swallowed up into one of the Wall had come down, helicopters, air defence systems and their associated
huge Permanent Restricted Areas (PRAs) dotted across the aerial photographic radars, and therefore spent most of their time in and around
country. The missions went to great lengths to try to intercept sorties continued airfields or sneaking up to surface-to-air missile batteries.
these KIT trains and work out what they were carrying. Both types of tour had their own particular challenges and
Until the last few years of the Mission, when efforts were dangers – where possible, observation and photography
integrated, tours were organised as ground tours, led by the would take place from the tour car, but sometimes it was
army, or air tours, led by the RAF. Although they used the necessary to go on a foot recce, considerably increasing the
same vehicles and (mostly) the same equipment, they went risk of discovery and detention.
about it in different ways. A ground tour concentrated on the As well as the camera equipment, tour vehicles had
Soviet ground ORBAT including command and control, troop to carry food for three people for up to five days in the
formations, training, exercises and equipment – the latter field, and camping equipment. Apart from the early years,
including tanks, APCs, combat engineer vehicles, trucks, when personnel stayed in hotels, it was policy for the tour
amphibious operations, artillery and small arms. These officer and NCO to sleep outside in tents, whatever the
weather. The driver always slept in the car with the doors

“BOTH TYPES OF TOUR HAD THEIR OWN locked for security. Camping spots (Z-platz) were carefully
reconnoitred, and all evidence of their stay was removed so

PARTICULAR CHALLENGES AND DANGERS” the spot could be used again.

The Great Game

COMMIES ON CA MER A
While BRIXMIS had the right to operate inside East
Germany courtesy of the RMA (PRAs and TRAs
notwithstanding), the Soviets and East Germans did their
best to disrupt its intelligence-collection activities, a sort
The primary means of collecting seven days a week to produce thousands
of poacher versus gamekeeper relationship, but with the
intelligence was by photography, and of prints (black and white, and later
tour personnel had to become expert colour), enlargements and colour slides threat of lethal violence.
photographers. Initially they used to be reviewed by the Mission’s technical The East Germans deployed their brutal and ubiquitous
Prakticas, followed by Leicas, before experts, sent to its ‘customers’ at JHQ secret police, the Stasi, to follow and try to stop the AMLMs
settling on Nikons and embracing Rheindahlen or the MOD, and included from going about their (sort of) lawful business. It was
the compact 500mm and 1,000mm in their reports. To squeeze the most down to the skill and cunning of the AMLMs to evade this
mirror lenses as they became available. out of their photography, tours used surveillance, using well-practised tactics and the enhanced
The Mission had its own in-house specialist film and developed special performance of their highly modified cars to lose the
photographic laboratory, which worked photographic techniques. opposition. This evasion often involved high-speed chases
along the East German autobahns, country roads and also
off-road. Escapes were sometimes very kinetic, and it was
not unheard of for Mission cars to nudge the opposition
away during high-speed manoeuvres.
The situation with the Soviets was much more Images: BRIXMIS Association, National Army Museum Archive

complicated. They too deployed their forces to disrupt the

AMLMs’ efforts, and tours deemed to have acted ‘illegally’
would be detained, effectively put under arrest by the Soviet
komendant, the local garrison provost marshal. If a tour was
stopped by the East Germans, the tour officer would refuse
to engage with them, demanding to see a Soviet officer,
preferably the local komendant.
Some detentions were amiable, or even farcical, but
others could quickly turn nasty – because the tours carried
no two-way radios, their HQ (and families) in Berlin would be
A BRIXMIS tour ‘in action’ in unaware they had been detained, relying on SERB to locate
their Mercedes G-Wagen, 1988.
The tour officer photographed them. Although the tour vehicle was meant to be inviolable
targets from the back seat, while (like a diplomatic bag), cars were sometimes broken into
the tour NCO logged sightings and all the tour equipment stolen, to be shown off later on
from the front passenger seat East German television. It was down to the tour officer to
negotiate their release, and because of this, tour officers

49
BRITS BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

were normally Russian linguists, trained to interpreter level intended to control the busy airspace above Berlin, gave
as part of their preparations to join the Mission. Western Allies the right to fly around the Berlin Control
The extremes of behaviour, however, were normally Zone, a 20-mile-wide (32km) radius centred on the old
tempered by the principle of reciprocity – whatever you Kammergericht (Supreme Court) building in the West Berlin
do to us, we can do to you – an act against one of the district of Schöneberg. It soon became clear that a bird’s
Western AMLMs operating in East Germany could, in theory, eye view of Greater Berlin could yield valuable intelligence,
be repeated against SOXMIS or the other Soviet Military as a high proportion of the Soviet and East German
Liaison Missions operating in West Germany. Although ORBAT and command-and-control was located within that
it was strictly against the terms of the agreements, it 1,257-square-mile (3,255-square-km) circle, including
was generally understood that the Soviet Military Liaison some PRAs. Using the de Havilland Chipmunk T10 two-seat
missions supported espionage activity against NATO trainer aircraft based at RAF Gatow, the British airfield
members, servicing dead-letter boxes, arms caches and in West Berlin, the Mission began photo reconnaissance
meeting agents, over and above their legitimate liaison and flights in the mid-1950s. The Chipmunk was a highly Below: SSgt Graham
intelligence collection activities. It was therefore not in the manoeuvrable and relatively stable photographic platform, Geary BEM lifts the
Soviets’ interests to curtail AMLM activity in the GDR. piloted from the rear seat, with the observer/photographer cover off a Soviet 6in
For an individual officer, the ultimate sanction for sat in the front. (152.4mm) 2A65 'Perm'
gun-howitzer on the gun
‘misbehaving’ in the eyes of the Soviets was to be declared The flights were meant to operate at 1,000ft (305m), but line at a range, allowing
persona non grata (or PNG), which banned him from entering pilots often took the Chipmunk much lower, allowing the detailed photography of
the GDR, effectively ending his time with the Mission. Given photographer to take detailed images of the KIT on display the gun’s settings, 1990
the time taken to train a tour officer (sometimes more than
two years before they even arrived in Berlin), it was a costly
and inconvenient outcome. However, a PNG in one of the
missions would, in theory, automatically result in a PNG in
their opposite number – a form of self policing.

Into the red skies

Touring was not restricted to the roads, fields and forests
of East Germany. A separate 1945 agreement, which was

“RAMMINGS WERE COMMONPLACE,

WITH TOUR CARS BEING RUN OFF THE
ROAD DURING CHASES OR DELIBERATELY
TARGETED IN AN AMBUSH”

BRIXMIS personnel regularly

socialised with their opposite
numbers at SERB. This image
is from 1987, taken at the
Potsdam Officers’ Club, with
SERB officers (typically GRU
or KGB) sporting British caps

50
 BRITS BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

inside barracks and in transit across the city, using a variety

T OUR
of long lenses. Valuable intelligence was acquired by flying
over vehicles undergoing maintenance, including confirming

V EHICLES
the calibres of guns by photographing the writing on the
boxes of ammunition! The operation was classified secret,
and the intelligence top-secret, given the political sensitivity
of the four-power controlled city.
Flights were sometimes buzzed by Soviet helicopters, or Apart from the cameras and lenses,
had flares fired at them, but were only fired on once, with a the most important piece of equipment
flight in 1975 being hit by a rifle bullet, striking the propeller used by tours was their vehicles. They
spinner and missing the (single) engine and cockpit by only needed to transport the teams of
a few feet. The Chipmunks were meticulously maintained at three in reasonable comfort, provide
Gatow and only once, in 1957, suffered an engine failure, the ‘office’ space for the intelligence
with the aircraft recovering safely to Tempelhof in the collection, transport the large amounts
American sector. In addition, the top-secret photographic of equipment needed for their three-
reconnaissance flights along the three air corridors between or four-day missions and, most
West Germany and West Berlin operated by 60 Squadron RAF importantly, be the means to evade the
Percival Pembroke aircraft contributed to the aerial picture, opposition. Initially using Humbers, they Corporal Wayne Fury picks ears of maize
and ground tours could be deployed to investigate items of settled into a long relationship with the from the radiator grill of his Opel Senator
interest spotted from these covert reconnaissance flights. West German Opel marque, running after driving across a field. Note the high-
Touring was a dangerous business and despite the Kapitäns, then Admirals, and finally visibility BRIXMIS numberplate
pseudo-diplomatic protection of the AMLM agreements, Senators. The cars were powerful, had
tourers were often subjected to physical violence by the decent tyres and ran on higher-octane observation platform, despite being
Soviets and East Germans, sometimes extreme and in Western fuel, but were also extensively draughty and unreliable.
two cases lethal. Rammings were commonplace, with tour modified to suit the very robust driving The arrival of the Mercedes 280GE
cars being run off the road during chases or deliberately style needed on tour, much tougher Geländewagen, or G-Wagen, in late
targeted in an ambush. than would be permitted anywhere else 1979, however, gave the Mission the
In 1976, tour NCO Sergeant Bob Thomas was trapped in the British military, closer to rallying ultimate tour vehicle: fast enough on the
in his vehicle with a badly broken leg after being rammed than normal motoring. road (although not as fast as the late-
by a 4.5-ton truck during a chase. In 1982, Chief BRIXMIS They were maintained by the model Opel Senator saloon), amazing
Brigadier, John Learmont, was lucky to survive an ambush Mission’s in-house workshop and at 14 off-road performance, Mercedes
with a 12-ton East German truck. However, in 1984 another Field Workshops, REME, at Alexander reliability and a roomy and comfortable
ambush claimed the life of MMFL driver Adjudant-Chef Barracks. The early vehicles were all ‘office’ for the tour members. The
Philippe Mariotti, the AMLM’s first fatality. In 1962 an RAF two-wheel-drive and relied on the built-in electric-powered winch also
tour driver, Corporal ‘Duggie’ Day, was badly injured when power of their engines and the steel made vehicle recovery much easier, as

Images: BRIXMIS Association, National Army Museum Archive

his car was raked with automatic weapons fire, and in 1985 ‘panzer plates’ which were welded opposed to the manual hand-winches
a USMLM tour officer, Major Arthur ‘Nick’ Nicholson, was underneath the car to ride over difficult used on the saloon cars. The most
shot dead by a Soviet sentry while investigating a T-80 tank terrain. The Mission trialled a four- famous modification to the tour cars
shed. Tours faced these risks every time they crossed the wheel-drive (4WD) Safari Land Rover was the ingenious custom lighting
Glienicke Bridge, and it is a testament to their skills, bravery in the late-1960s, but after it was panel, sometimes called the ‘James
and professionalism that more tour personnel were not written off in a road-traffic accident it Bond switch’, which allowed the driver
killed or seriously injured. wasn’t replaced. It was not until the or front seat passenger (the tour NCO)
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the approaching re- mid-1970s that a reliable 4WD solution to manually control the vehicle’s lights:
unification of Germany, the Mission’s days were numbered. presented itself – the Ferguson Formula to turn everything off at the flick of
Although Soviet forces would remain in Germany until (FF) conversion, which converted the a switch or turn on individual lights
1994, the Mission was stood down in October 1990, a Opel Admiral executive saloon car into to mimic a motorcycle or the dim
day before re-unification, after 44 years of continuous an off-road beast. Around the same headlights of an East German Trabant.
operations. According to a senior official at the Ministry time, the Mission also started using Sometimes the cars were driven with all
of Defence: “BRIXMIS was a unique organisation which the new Range Rover, which was very lights turned off and the driver wearing
operated in a unique period of history, and its products capable off-road and offered a higher night-vision goggles.
were uniquely valuable.”

BRIXMIS tour cars were driven hard, often

off-road and in rally-like conditions. This Opel
Senator had underbody protection and was
BRIXMIS
AND THE
converted to four-wheel-drive

SECRET
COLD
WAR
BY ANDREW LONG
IS ON SALE NOW

51
 Operator’s Handbook

The Royal Navy’s formidable vessel was the pinnacle of decades of design
developed to meet the rigorous demands of the Pacific Theatre
WORDS MARK WOOD

TAKING AIM SUBMARINE KILLER OPEN BRIDGE

Twin 4.5in (114mm) The Squid triple-barrelled, The main superstructure
QF Mk III gun turrets deck-mounted anti-submarine housed an open bridge
mounted with all-round mortar replaced the Hedgehog with a lattice mast aft and
firing capability on in 1943 and was effective up gantry-mounted DCT fire
BD Mk IV mountings. to 825ft (250m). control system for the guns.

T
he Royal Navy’s Battle Class destroyers were designed Armed with twin 4.5in (114mm) QF Mark III main armament, torpedoes
specifically for war in the Pacific against the Imperial and, crucially, the Bofors 40/60 Mk IV anti-aircraft gun in its stabilised
Japanese Navy. The previous ‘war emergency’ destroyer Hazemeyer mounting with a Type 282 radar, they were a formidable
programme produced 112 ships that were adequate addition to the Royal Navy’s Far East Fleet. Due to delays, caused for
given the circumstances but were lacking in hull size and the most part by a shortage of parts for the fire control systems, only
firepower. Considered by the Admiralty to be unsuited to the war in the HMS Barfleur saw action against the Japanese and was present at the
Far East, naval architects were tasked with devising a vessel with speed, surrender of Imperial Japanese forces in Tokyo Bay in September 1945.
versatility and the ability to hold its own against surface and sub-surface The 1943 builds were upgraded with more advanced fire control systems,
foes, but principally air threats. Named in honour of battles fought by better armament and the Squid anti-submarine mortar, and the Battle
England and Great Britain, these ships were built in three groups, loosely Class hulls continued into the 1960s, refitted with the evolving technology
referred to as the 1942, 1943 and the two 1944, or ‘Australian Battle’ of the day. It is testament to the superb design that in several modified
builds, HMAS Tobruk and HMAS Anzac. variations, some ships were still held in reserve into the 1970s.

52
 BATTLE CLASS DESTROYER

BATTLE CLASS DESTROYERS

COMMISSIONED 1943
ORIGIN BRITAIN
LENGTH 379FT (116M)
RANGE 4,400NM (8,100KM)
ENGINE PARSONS GEARED
STEAM TURBINES
CREW 308
ARMOUR NONE
PRIMARY WEAPON 2 X TWIN 4.5IN
(114MM) DP MK IV
SECONDARY WEAPON 1 X 4IN (102MM)
MK XXIII; 4 X 1.6IN
(40MM) BOFORS
MK IV (HAZEMEYER)

Above: HMS Camperdown

anchored off Plymouth. It “ONLY HMS BARFLEUR SAW ACTION
AGAINST THE JAPANESE AND WAS
served with the Home and
Mediterranean Fleets before
being scrapped in 1970

PRESENT AT THE SURRENDER OF

IMPERIAL JAPANESE FORCES IN TOKYO
BAY IN SEPTEMBER 1945”

Illustration: Nicholas Forder

DEADLY TORPEDOES
Twin 21in (533mm) Mk IX
torpedo tube mountings
provided the Battle Class
with the ability to take on
much larger warships.

Right: HMS Corunna enters

Images: Alamy

Portsmouth Harbour for the

final time prior to paying off
and being broken up at Blyth
in Northumbria

53
w

OPERATOR’S HANDBOOK

Left: Ordnance Wrens reassemble the breech

of a QF Mk XXIII gun. The starshell gun was
only fitted to the first six ships of the class

The Royal Australian Navy Battle Class Destroyer

HMAS Tobruk preparing to come alongside in
Sydney Harbour, February 1943

ARMAMENT
The main armament of the
Battle Class was a development
of an older design originating
between the wars. The original
idea for a 4.7in (119mm) gun
was superseded by a decision
to use a slightly lower calibre
4.5in (114mm) weapon, which
although smaller, used a heavier
shell with superior ballistic
qualities. The four twin 1.6in
(40mm) Bofors were based on
the Hazemeyer mounting, a
Dutch design which stabilised
the weapon during firing,
resulting in improved accuracy.
Air defence was augmented by
two single-mount 2lb (1kg) Mk
XVI Pom-Poms, while offensive
capability was increased by two
quad tube 21in (533mm) Mk
IX torpedoes. A 4in (102mm)
QF Mk XXIII gun was aft of
the funnel for firing starshell 1942 batch destroyer HMS Barfleur
illumination but was fitted only patrolling in the Pacific Ocean, July 1945
to the first six vessels.

54
 BATTLE CLASS DESTROYER

DESIGN
The primary purpose of the Battle Class
Destroyer was air defence for Allied
task groups in the Pacific against the
air power of the Imperial Japanese
Navy. British destroyers had long
suffered with inadequate long- and
close-range air defence and the design
of the vessel was carefully considered
to accommodate this task. The main
armament had improved arcs of fire
and elevation, achieved by placing the
main superstructure further aft than
on previous designs. The Battle Class
ships were far larger than the standard
destroyer and were considered in some
ways a replacement for the Tribal Class,
which had suffered grievous losses
during the Second World War.

Right: The Mayor of Rotterdam boards HMS Solebay

during the ship’s visit, July 1949

A drawing of the Parsons geared

steam turbine illustrating how the
propellor shaft was driven

ENGINES
Battle Class propulsion was provided by
twin Parsons geared steam turbines, with
two Admiralty three-drum boilers working
two shafts producing 50,000 steam horse
power. The two boilers were sited in separate
boiler rooms, one beneath the forecastle and
the other aft, behind which the main engine
room was situated. The boiler rooms were
kept below atmospheric pressure to provide
‘forced draft’ and had to be entered via air
locks. Abaft the engine room was a gearing
compartment in which the turbine outputs
were geared to drive the two shafts.

HMS Armada and HMS Vigo

(foreground) simultaneously
refuelling from the Royal
Fleet Auxiliary Blue Ranger
Images: Alamy

off Malta, 1952

55
OPERATOR’S HANDBOOK

SERVICE HISTORY
The Admiralty’s original intention was for the
first eight ships of the Battle Class to serve with
the 19th Destroyer Flotilla of the Pacific Fleet.
However, only Barfleur saw action against the
Japanese, arriving in theatre in July 1945 and
deploying as part of the destroyer screen for
the aircraft carrier HMS Indefatigable for air
operations against airfields and installations.
Remaining with Task Force 37 until the
surrender of Imperial Japan, Barfleur took part
in repatriation operations of former POWs and
civilians before sailing home to Britain. HMS Above: Iranian naval ship Artemiz, previously
Hogue was featured as an extra in some of the HMS Sluys. It was again renamed Damavand in
scenes in the iconic film Sink the Bismarck! 1985, before being scrapped in 1996
and in 1959 was accidentally rammed by the
Indian light cruiser Mysore, which damaged the
bow, killing one and injuring three other sailors.
The remaining Battle Class vessels were “CADIZ AND GABBARD
employed in the more mundane tasks of
gunnery and sonar trials and in NATO exercises WERE SOLD TO PAKISTAN
in the Atlantic. In 1957 Cadiz and Gabbard
were sold to Pakistan being renamed Khaibar BEING RENAMED
and Badr respectively, the former was sunk in
a missile attack during the Indo-Pakistan War KHAIBAR AND BADR
of 1971. HMS Sluys was sold to Iran in 1966,
becoming the Artemiz. The class was slowly RESPECTIVELY, THE
phased out, the last two ships Barrosa and
Matapan being scrapped in 1978 having been FORMER WAS SUNK IN A
in service and on the reserve list for a total of
35 years each. MISSILE ATTACK DURING
THE INDO-PAKISTAN
WAR OF 1971”
The only Battle Class destroyer to see action,
HMS Barfleur, prior to deployment to the Far East
still painted in Atlantic camouflage

56
 BATTLE CLASS DESTROYER

Below: A Mk IX torpedo being loaded into its tube. The Battle Class vessels
were equipped with torpedoes primarily to take on battleships and cruisers

INTERIOR
With its greater-than-average length for a Royal Navy destroyer, the
Battle Class afforded more internal space to its engine and boiler rooms
and steering gear compartment, which took up most of the aft end of
the ship past the engine exhaust (funnel). The main crew messes were
sited amidships directly below the main superstructure on decks two
and three aft of the transmitter room and main communications office,
with the officers’ cabins and wardroom forward. Directly below the
ship’s company accommodation were the main armament magazines,
with secondary armament forward of these and anti-submarine mortar
ammunition and torpedo room sited aft.

HMS Dunkirk in 1963 with the

Mediterranean Squadron off
Malta, prior to returning to Britain
Images: Getty, Alamy

57
 ENGLAND VS SCOTLAND
The

At the end of the 7th century, a battle you’ve probably never heard of
took place between two emerging nations, soon to be historic rivals.
The fighting settled a border that still endures over 1,300 years later
WORDS EDOARDO ALBERT

58
 THE FIRST BATTLE

T
he red brick Roman walls of Carlisle loomed
high over Cuthbert. The bishop of Lindisfarne
had only arrived the day before, after a long
and weary journey, and already his worthy hosts
insisted that he come to see a fountain, built
by the long-gone Romans and set into the city wall, that still
flung water into the air.
“Bishop Cuthbert, this way,” said one. “The Roman
fountain is just here.”
But as he turned to look at it, Cuthbert went pale. As if on
the verge of fainting, he grabbed his staff and leant on it.
His hosts, alarmed for their guest, fanned air over him
and sent for water. But Cuthbert turned haunted eyes
towards them: “Now, as I speak, the battle is fought.”
It was 20 May 685. A Saturday. The men and women
listening to him looked around nervously. A few weeks
earlier, their king, Ecgfrith, ruler of Northumbria, had set off
north from his stronghold at Bamburgh with his warband
to ravage the holdings of Bridei, king of the Picts. For
the last 50 years, under a succession of warrior kings,
Northumbria had been the most powerful realm among
Britain’s patchwork of kingdoms, its kings hailed as
bretwalda – wide rulers over the other kings in the land. But
King Ecgfrith had suffered a defeat six years earlier at the Above: Detail from the With whispers and nods, they allowed raiders to pass over
Battle of Trent against the rising power of the Mercians, Aberlemno stone, showing into Northumbria. In the game of thrones of 7th-century
bearded, long-haired foot
leading to the loss of the kingdom of Lindsey (roughly soldiers facing a helmeted Britain, weakness was fatal.
modern-day Lincolnshire). Only the mediation of Theodore, rider. Ecgfrith’s men, unlike Ecgfrith moved quickly to correct this impression.
the archbishop of Canterbury, a Greek who had been sent later Anglo-Saxon armies, To demonstrate his power and his reach, in 684 he
from Rome to take charge of the church in England, had fought on horseback dispatched a military expedition to Ireland to ravage the
prevented further bloodshed between the two kingdoms. kingdom of an Irish king who had lent support to his
The battle had been utter carnage with Ecgfrith’s younger enemies in Britain. The expedition laid waste to much
brother among the dead. of County Meath, its plundering extending to the many
With the south closed to him, Ecgfrith had turned churches that dotted the country.
his eyes north. In 671, he had defeated the
Picts at the Battle of Two Rivers, leaving so
many bodies in the water that, according to
the annalist, his army was able to ride dry-
hooved over their bodies. In the aftermath
Nechtansmere or
of the battle, Ecgfrith had installed a relative
of his, Bridei mac Bili, as ruler of the Pictish
Dun Nechtain?
kingdom of Fortriu. As a client king and relative The battle was first recorded as Ecgfrith’s fall in the annals
to the king of the Northumbrians, Ecgfrith saw Bridei’s of the time before later writers named it for the lake
role as keeping his people from raiding into Northumbrian besides which it occurred: Crane Lake in Welsh accounts,
territory and stumping up the tribute in gold and goods Nechtan’s Lake (Nechtansmere) in Northumbrian records.
required annually of a subject king. Unfortunately, the location of the lake was lost, leaving
For a decade and more, Bridei did just this, helping to the battle site uncertain. However, Irish annals gave the
ensure the flow of gold that early medieval kings such battleground as Dun Nechtain (Nechtain’s Fort), a name
as Ecgfrith required to cement their rule. This was a that has survived in two locations in Scotland: Dunnichen in
society where gifts flowed from the king to his favoured Angus and Dunachton in Badenoch.
The Dunnichen site has many Pictish sites in the vicinity
warriors, earning their loyalty and service in return. The
that were ripe for ravaging, as well as the Aberlemno
treasures of the Staffordshire Hoard reveal just how
stone, but the geography does not match the “inaccessible
rich these gifts were.
mountains” described by Bede. Dunachton has the
But following Ecgfrith’s defeat at the Battle of Trent, geography but little other reason for Ecgfrith and his army
his subject kings sensed weakness and began to object to be there. The jury remains out.
to the tributes Ecgfrith’s messengers required of them.

“IN THE GAME OF THRONES DUNACHTON

OF 7TH-CENTURY BRITAIN,
WEAKNESS WAS FATAL”
DUNNICHEN
Left: Helmets were relatively rare pieces
of armour, but those that were made
Images: Alamy, Getty

were usually exquisitely crafted

Right: This sword, based on items found
in the Staffordshire Hoard, shows the
splendour of such Anglo-Saxon weapons

59
ENGLAND VS SCOTLAND

While the raid was a political success for Ecgfrith, it

proved a spiritual disaster. According to the monk annalists
of the time, such an attack by one Christian king upon
another could not fail to incur God’s wrath. No less a
figure than Cuthbert predicted that this would be the case.
Cuthbert combined the heroic spiritual disciplines of the
Irish monks with gifts of healing and prophecy that made
him the pre-eminent religious figure of his day. Speaking
to Ecgfrith’s sister, he had predicted that the king would
die within the year.
We can track Ecgfrith’s final movements of that fatal
year with surprising exactness. In autumn of 684 he was
at a church council on the River Aln, where Cuthbert was
appointed bishop. Cuthbert was consecrated bishop in
York on 26 March 685, with the king almost certainly in
attendance along with Cuthbert’s brother bishops.
Then, on 23 April 685, we have an extraordinary physical
record of Ecgfrith’s presence in Jarrow. In the church of
St Paul that still stands there is a dedication stone, with
an inscription carved in Latin, that records the church’s
dedication by King Ecgfrith and Abbot Ceolfrith on the 9th
day before the kalends of May in the 15th year of King
Ecgfrith: 23 April 685.
Standing alongside the king, the abbot and the monks,
there was a 12-year-old boy. His name was Bede. He would
spend his entire life at the monastery based at Jarrow and
its twin church of St Peter at Wearmouth, becoming the
greatest scholar and historian of his era. The dedication
stone, the oldest in Britain, is still there in the church of
St Paul, now set into the north porch.
Having seen his name graven in stone in this new
monastic establishment, Ecgfrith travelled to Bamburgh,
gathering his warband as he went. From Bamburgh, he
headed north, intending to bring ruin down upon Bridei.
Success must have seemed certain. Ecgfrith had ensured
divine favour by supporting the foundation of a new
monastery. His warband was composed of trained and
experienced warriors, armed with the finest weapons of
the time. The law code promulgated by the king of Kent
a couple of decades later defined an army as a group
of more than 35 men: this was a time of small, highly
trained armies, not the mass levies of the later
Viking Age. Ecgfrith likely travelled north with
no more than a few hundred warriors.
What a sight they would have been.
Riding on horses, wearing brightly dyed
clothes with their round, painted shields
and weapons glittering with gold and
garnets, they were an army designed to
draw attention. Armed with spears and
swords, they pressed on, laying waste
to the possessions of the king of Fortriu
as they went.
The kings of Northumbria had
extended their control northwards
over the previous decades until they
controlled the central belt of Scotland,
including the stronghold at Edinburgh
and probably Stirling too. Defeating
Bridei would establish Ecgfrith’s
control over all the region north of the
central belt, something not even the
Romans had achieved. The English

Right: The battle stone in Aberlemno that

possibly depicts the battle. Most scholars
now date it to a century later but this does
not rule it out as a memorial to the battle
Far right: Cuthbert was living as a hermit
on one of the Farne Islands when he was
appointed bishop of Lindisfarne. It took
a personal visit from King Ecgfrith to
persuade him to take up his bishopric

60
 THE FIRST BATTLE

Serpent swords
The Staffordshire Hoard revealed
in gold and garnet detail the
wealth an early medieval king such
as Ecgfrith bestowed upon his loyal
warriors. But it was not just the sword
fittings that were rich: the weapons
themselves were masterpieces of the
swordsmith’s craft. With the armies of
the time consisting of only a few score
men, it was vital that they had quality
weapons. To do this, Anglo-Saxon
smiths developed the skill of pattern-
welding to forge swords that were
among the best ever made.
A sword must marry contradictory
requirements: it must be hard, so that
it can retain a cutting edge, yet flexible,
so that it does not break in battle. With
iron ore of variable quality, Anglo-Saxon
swordsmiths learned how to forge-weld
billets of iron together, twisting them
over each other and hammering them Above: The magnificence of Anglo-Saxon war gear is
out repeatedly until the impurities in conveyed well by this sheathed sword and seax (dagger)
the iron were spread evenly through the

“ARMED WITH SPEARS AND SWORDS, THEY RODE

weapon rather than being concentrated
in one place, where they would produce

NORTH, LAYING WASTE TO THE POSSESSIONS OF

a fatal flaw.
This process also produced a pattern

THE KING OF FORTRIU AS THEY WENT”

to the final weapon that marked it out
as individual, a weapon worthy of a
name and a history. Seeing an enemy
drawing such a weapon, you would
know that he wielded a sword capable would have established political control over a Scotland that
of inflicting horrific wounds on a foe. did not yet exist. But it all went horribly, disastrously wrong.
A body excavated from the cemetery at Overconfidence probably did for Ecgfrith. Thinking Bridei’s
Bamburgh revealed, in graphic detail, forces no match for his own, he pursued the Picts as they
what such weapons could do: the were apparently routed – only to find himself caught in a
victim had been cut diagonally almost prepared trap. Ecgfrith was killed, along with the greater
completely in two, from the left shoulder part of his warband. Their bodies were despoiled, the rich
down to his right hip. weapons and armour they wore stripped from their bodies
by the victorious Picts.
Below: These sword fittings from the The monks who recorded the battle in the annals of
Staffordshire Hoard show the wealth displayed the Irish, as well as Bede in his history, were not much
by Anglo-Saxon warriors on campaign: they have interested in the details of the battle, only in its results.
been described as ‘psychopathic peacocks’! But in a churchyard in Aberlemno there is a carved stone
Right: A later example of a North-European, which may be our only visual representation of a 7th-century
possibly Scandinavian, pattern-welded sword
battle. It shows mounted warriors, wearing helmets similar
to the Anglo-Saxon helmet excavated from Coppergate
in York, facing infantry with beards and long hair, armed
with spears and spiked shields. At the bottom-right of the
stone, at the end of the battle story, the body of one of the
horsemen lies on the ground, pecked by a raven.
Unlike later Anglo-Saxon armies, Ecgfrith’s warband
fought from horseback. But the Picts lured them into an
area where they were surrounded, the horses hemmed in
and their riders cut down.
Ecgfrith’s death brought a sudden and complete end to
Northumbria’s northern expansion. The king left no sons
and his younger brother had died at the Battle of Trent.
Bridei, victorious, was able to impose a Northumbrian king
more to his liking: Aldfrith, a half-brother to Ecgfrith who had
Images: Alamy, Getty

lived most of his life as a scholar in Irish monasteries.

Installed as king, Aldfrith pursued a policy of peace
with his neighbours while fostering scholarship within his
kingdom: his reign saw the beginning of Northumbria’s
cultural ascendancy even as its political power waned.

61
 Q&A WITH ANNA REID
Image: Stacey Mutkin

As WWI reached its bloody crescendo, a foolhardy intervention was launched into
Russia’s civil war – a move that descended into sinister complicity and defeat

A
WORDS LOUIS HARDIMAN s the Great War was coming to spoke with History of War about the intervention
a close, a new perceived threat troops’ experiences of the conflict, their
faced Europe: Bolshevism. exposure to the White Army’s anti-Semitism
Standing in the way of the ‘Reds’ and how intervention contributed to interwar
were the ‘White’ Russians: European instability. She also shares her
a jumbled amalgamation of monarchists, reflections on the current Russo-Ukraine War
republicans, conservatives, liberals and and the lessons from the Russian Civil War.
leftists. Already bruised and bloodied from the
trenches, British, American and French troops How did the British respond to the first reports
were thrown into this chaotic civil war that of the Bolshevik coup and the outbreak of the
could not have been further from the grinding Russian Civil War in 1917?
stalemates of the Western Front. The February Revolution was greeted joyfully by
In 2023, Anna Reid released her riveting all the Allies because everyone thought Russia
work on the intervention in the Russian Civil was going to steamroll over the Austrian and
War, A Nasty Little War, now in paperback. She German armies due to its natural resources

British and Czechoslovakian servicemen

man a gun on the Archangel front

62
 RUSSIAN ROULETTE

and enormous population. When Tsar Nicholas

II abdicated and handed over to the civilian “THE BRITISH OFFICERS Ukrainian grain and the coal mines of Donbas,
as well as to the large stocks of military
centre-left government, the other Allies
welcomed it as he was a disliked character in REGARDED THE WHITES AS supplies that the Allies had been supplying
Russia. They were piled up in Murmansk,
the West. People saw him as this blood-stained
autocrat and Russia as a politically backward DRUNKEN, DISORGANISED AND the Arctic Sea port, and Vladivostok on the
Russian Pacific Coast. The Allies were terrified
country. There were great hopes for the new
government, but it never really managed to REACTIONARY. MEANWHILE, it would all get handed over to Germany in the
peace negotiations.
take power because, at the same time, there
were the Soviets and grassroots committees THEY SAW THE BRITISH AS The first step in what later became the
full-scale intervention was landing marines
springing up at every workplace, including the
army. The collapse of the army accelerated with IGNORANT AND ARROGANT in Murmansk and Vladivostok and occupying
the ports to take control of the warehouses.
mass desertions, and trains full of soldiers left
the front to go back home. MONOGLOTS. ALL THESE That was in the spring/summer of 1918 and
everything progressed from there.
Everyone could see the Provisional
Government’s days were numbered, but the
Bolshevik takeover was a complete surprise.
THINGS WERE TRUE” Most British troops called up to the intervention
had already fought on the Western Front and
They were a tiny, little-known revolutionary bring him into power, was “Peace, Land, would have to continue fighting after the
splinter group. None of the diplomatic corps in Bread”, and it was immensely popular because Armistice. How did they react to this situation?
Saint Petersburg had anything to do with Leon Russia was utterly war-weary. He started peace Before the Armistice, the career soldiers
Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin. They were just cranky talks that were hard for him politically because among them were furious at being pulled out
exiled pamphleteers and everyone assumed he had to give away all of Ukraine and the from the main scene of action on the Western
that they would only last a few weeks, swept Baltics, a significant chunk of the old Russian Front. They wanted to be in at the kill to see
away by somebody else who was more credible Empire, in exchange for peace. Germany beaten. Instead, they were sent off
and better established. That didn’t happen Lenin managed to push this through his to this sideshow in Russia, which they saw
and it took Paris, London and Washington Central Committee, but it was as a demotion. Meanwhile, non-career
time to come to terms with the fact the touch and go. This was soldiers and the rank-and-
Bolsheviks were there to stay. appalling news for file had had enough of
What dismayed the Allies was the Allies. Germany the Western Front.
when the Bolsheviks started peace now had access They saw Russia
talks. Lenin’s slogan, which helped to Baltic timber, as a picnic and

Left: ‘Denikin’s Gang’ Below: British officers in Archangel,

Below: The widespread brutality
depicted waving a White 1919. After the Armistice, senior
against Jews in Eastern Europe at
Russian flag which military personnel considered a posting
the end of WWI sparked protests
proclaims “Smash to active service in Russia as good for
on the streets of Britain
workers and peasants” their career prospects

63
RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Men from the 339th Infantry fire a

salute over the graves of US soldiers
on Memorial Day at the Allied burial
ground in Archangel, 1919

were relieved to board the troopships and the same time, the intervention troops were when needs must and a lot of young women
guard some warehouses. There was a holiday carrying out requisitions, particularly transport. who were desperate to get out of the country
atmosphere on the troopships off to Murmansk I came across a diary where a soldier had were ‘husband hunting’. The officers had a
and Archangel. taken a photograph of himself in a little cart terrific time, a whirl of tea parties, dances,
Only a few months later, the Armistice was with a pony and his driver. Underneath, he had charity do’s, picnics, race tracks and ballet
signed. This left the career soldiers happy to be written: “Requisitioning transport, weeping performances. Some long-term friendships
in Russia, because that was where there was women a sad but necessary daily duty.” were formed and when the Allied troops did
still active service and promotion prospects. One mustn’t idealise these relationships, but disappear with their tails between their legs,
Meanwhile, the conscripts and rank-and-file what comes through in the diaries was that the lots of them helped their new Russian friends
were thinking: ‘What on Earth am I doing in intervention troops were very admiring of the to establish themselves abroad.
Russia? I don’t care about it, it’s none of my resilience, resourcefulness and toughness of the However, relations between British
business, the war is over.’ From the winter of local peasants. The soldiers appreciated how and American officers and their Russian
1918-19 onwards, soldiers were refusing to they coped with their winters and how skilful they counterparts were bad from the off. The British
leave barracks to entrain back to the front. were with an axe. The local people could put up officers regarded the Whites as drunken,
Sometimes they would obey orders to attack a bridge or a blockhouse in a day. The soldiers disorganised and reactionary. Meanwhile,
the first time, but if the attack failed they would were interested in all the technicalities of Arctic they saw the British as ignorant and arrogant
refuse to attack again. Most of the soldiers’ life and would do neat little diagrams of fish monoglots. All these things were true. There
strikes were small-scale and hushed up, but traps and special sled designs. was a lot of British condescension. They had
larger ones had court marshals and soldiers Yet we should remember that the American come out of the First World War and they
sent home and to prison. The famous one was troops brought Spanish flu to Russia. After thought: ‘We’ve beaten the Germans, we’ve
the Yorkshire Regiment, where several dozen landing, they carried it to Archangel and won the proper war and now we’re sorting out
men ended up in jail on Dartmoor. Murmansk, on barges down the River Dvina and all these Russian peasants. We could do it with
along the railway from Murmansk. The medical our hands tied behind our backs.’
What did the British troops make of Russia corps did their best to treat the locals, but it They quickly discovered they had bitten off
and the Russian people? was a drop in the ocean. The civilian death more than they could chew; the situation was
The places where the Allies were actually living rates soared and the Spanish flu is the single horribly complex. Russia was a tough country to
were mostly in little Arctic villages south of worst thing the intervention did to the civilian occupy and their White Russian partners were
Archangel and Murmansk. They were forest- population in the north. hopeless. Most of the soldiers were keen to get
bound, log cabin settlements in the wilderness, out as quickly as possible, but not everybody,
usually near vast woods and great rivers. They What was life like for the intervention’s as some had signed up to the cause, [believing]
were billeted in Russian households. Reading officer class? Bolshevism was a threat that would spread
soldiers’ diaries and letters, lots of touching The officer class had a vibrant social life west and overturn the established order in their
friendships arose. At Christmas, the soldiers because they were greeted by the middle-class home countries.
would put together Christmas trees and give refugees who had ended up on the outskirts
presents to the kids and they’d take people of the old Russian Empire, having fled Moscow Describe the prevalence of anti-Semitism
for their first ride in motor cars. In return, local or Saint Petersburg. They were welcomed during the war…
priests would come to bless the soldiers’ as saviours and possible tickets out of the This was the most shocking, revelatory and
barracks at Easter and local girls would perform country. A British or American contact could newest part of writing the book. In spring 1919,
dances. It was an unequal relationship as, at get a middle-class refugee onto a troopship Germany and Austria withdrew their troops

64
 RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Mutinous British soldiers demonstrate against being sent to British troops in Vladivostok. Many of the rank-and-file General Edmund Ironside, the commander of
Russia, January 1919 bitterly resented being posted to Russia after WWI British forces in Archangel

from Ukraine. Into this power vacuum piled a

whole bunch of different forces: the Red Army,
[Anton] Denikin’s White Army, the Polish Army CHURCHILL AND
THE INTERVENTION
and various warlords. There was utter chaos
in 1919 and Kyiv changed hands 12 or 13
times in the course of the year. Atrocities were
committed by all sides and Jewish people were
particularly scapegoated.
Between 100,000-200,000 Jewish civilians
His reputation shattered by the First World War, Winston
were murdered in 1919, including by the White
armies, which the intervention was supplying
Churchill tried to use the chaos in Russia to save face
and propping up in the south. The British were Having been promoted to Minister for Britain supported Denikin in the south and
not directly fighting like they were in the north, War after the Armistice, Churchill was sent supply ships to Novorossiysk.
but were transporting boatloads of supplies into desperate to rescue his military standing In our conversation with Reid, she
after the disaster of the Dardanelles in reflects on the impact of Churchill’s
Novorossiysk and thousands of troops were
1915. As first lord of the Admiralty, he had interventionism on his career. “Churchill
starting new battalions, training up machine
proposed knocking the Ottomans out of carried on supporting the intervention until
gun crews and helping with logistics. The
the war by threading his fleet through the well after it was obvious that the Whites
British were absolutely vital to the White cause narrow Dardanelles Strait and capturing had failed,” she says. “He became identified
and had the lever over Denikin. If they’d really Constantinople. What followed was an with the intervention, which was one
wanted him to stop the pogroms, they could unmitigated catastrophe for which Churchill reason he lost his Dundee seat in the 1922
have done so simply by threatening to withdraw shouldered most of the blame. General Election. It was a working-class
support. Instead, they turned a blind eye. By the time he was back in the Cabinet, constituency where the ‘Hands Off Russia’
Those pogroms have been completely the war with Germany was over and the movement was strong. Generally speaking,
overshadowed by the Holocaust and are not Russian Civil War was the only remaining the intervention consolidated Churchill’s
as much discussed. However, there’s an battlefield on which he could restore his reputation as an irresponsible military
excellent book by Jeffrey Veidlinger called name. He became the ‘cheerleader-in-chief’ adventurer. When he started sounding the
for intervention, arguing that it could bring alarm on Nazism in the early 1930s, it was
the Reds’ mass terror to an end while giving easy for the people that were inclined to
Intervention forces man little attention to growing concerns about appease Hitler to say the claims were just
an outpost during the the viability of the Whites. Under his aegis, Churchill being Churchill.”
Siberian winter, 1919

65
RUSSIAN ROULETTE

HMS Caradoc’s gun crew braves freezing White Russian General Anton Denikin meets British White Russian Admiral Alexander Kolchak sits
temperatures on the Baltic Sea Major-General Frederick Poole with British officers on the Eastern Front, 1918

In the Midst of Civilized Europe, which uses the Denikin was honest and doing everything he reasonable and relatively apolitical sorts, but
materials drawn at the time that were whisked could to stop it. This was complete nonsense. then I’d come across these nasty and witless
off to New York and documented what went on He never sacked the commanders responsible anti-Semitic jibes and it was a jolt. That is
town by town. Veidlinger makes the argument and the pogroms carried on while he remained present in practically all the letters and diaries
that they were a rehearsal for the Holocaust in power. Denikin’s original Memoirs were very and it wasn’t just the belief that Jews were
and the propaganda used was similar in the anti-Semitic and, like most Whites, he equated behind the revolution, which was extremely
same places. People became desensitised Judaism to Bolshevism. That’s all toned down widespread. It was distaste towards Jews and
to the massacres of civilians. They had seen in the translations into French and English, Jewishness, anti-Semitism in its purest form...
Jews being rounded up and killed as a child in which were published later on once Denikin
their hometown by occupying troops, probably had gone into exile. What was the impact of Allied intervention
several times over. They or their parents The British never called Denikin’s bluff on on the balance of power and instability in
had probably joined in the looting of Jewish the pogroms. In Westminster, politicians lied interwar Europe?
shops and homes afterward. The same thing about them. There was a group of MPs that I think the intervention did [contribute to the
happened again in 1941-42. brought up the pogroms again and again, but instability of interwar Europe]. It gave a boost
Winston Churchill would dismiss the claims as to the far-left. For example, French sailors
Why did the Allies fail to do anything to stop misinformation and Bolshevik propaganda. He mutinied at Sevastopol in the spring of 1919.
the pogroms? would claim Denikin was doing his best and the The French had occupied Odesa the previous
These massacres were happening slightly off- important thing was to beat the evil Bolsheviks. December and high-tailed it away only a few
stage, away from the cities where the British Churchill loved an animal metaphor, and months later because a Ukrainian warlord was
had headquarters and depots, in smaller towns Bolsheviks to him were vipers, cockroaches, about to take the city.
20-50 miles (32-80km) away. British missions monkeys, baboons and all that kind of thing. A couple of weeks after that, the sailors
in the cities were flooded with Jewish refugees Meanwhile, the Civil Service waived off on the French battleships mutinied, locking
and delegations, who came to the intervention petitions and complaints from London’s Board their officers in the cabins, hosing down the
commanders with detailed reports. They were of Jewish Deputies in the same way. It was a most unpopular ones and replacing the French
very well documented, including the dates and shameful episode. tricolour with the red flag. Some of them
casualties of specific pogroms. One knows anti-Semitism was prevalent, but even rowed ashore to join a pro-Bolshevik
But the British claimed they were it’s quite a shock when you come across it in demonstration. They were brought back under
exaggerations, naming them ‘excesses’, the officers’ private papers. I’d be reading and control by Greek troops and sent back to
as was the euphemism of the day. It was a take a liking to these men who were resourceful, France. Two of the mutinous sailors went on
‘bad apple’ argument based on the idea that cheery in the face of discomfort and seemed to be French Comintern representatives and

“THE TRUE HEIR TO THE HOPELESS, GHASTLY WHITES IS VLADIMIR PUTIN”

Russian peasants plough a field
using a British tank captured
during the intervention

66
 RUSSIAN ROULETTE

they got seats in the National Assembly. One The true heir to the hopeless, ghastly Whites
of them joined the Red Brigades in Spain. They
were the leading lights of French communism
is Vladimir Putin. He’s the same sort of old-
fashioned Russian nationalist who uses all the
‘HANDS
OFF
between the wars. iconography, like the double-headed eagle and
Another destabilising element to the the Russian tricolour. That’s what he harks
intervention was the Freikorps. The Allies back to and he has said explicitly that he’s

RUSSIA’
came to an agreement with Germany that they trying to build the Empire and reconquer a bit
would leave their troops in the Baltics to stop of the world he believes belongs to Russia
the Red Army from taking over. The German irrespective of what the Ukrainians think.
general up there, Rüdiger von der Goltz, was That’s the same sort of blinkered and irrational
a real imperialist with dreams of seeing the
Reich rebuilt in the Baltics. He called up
imperialism that the Whites displayed.
The primary reason the Whites failed was
After the Armistice,
demobilised soldiers to join him, forming the
irregular Freikorps, who were extremely brutal
that they would not make any concessions
to the non-Russian nationalities. At various
popular resistance
and ill-disciplined. They rampaged around
the Baltics, burning, looting and killing until
points, they could have cooperated with the
Finns, Georgians and the Ukrainians, and the
to intervention in the
they finally went home to Germany, by which
time they were nihilistic, fighting for fighting’s
Allies were always urging them to do so. In
that case, they would very likely have taken
East grew in Britain
sake. The Freikorps drifted into the various Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as the Finnish Intervention in the Russian Civil
far-right militias like the Brownshirts and Army was the greatest force in the region. But War was hardly a secret before
Blackshirts. They tried to launch coups against whenever the intervention asked the Whites the Armistice as thousands
the fragile new Weimar Republic and remained to do this, the response would be: ‘Finland, of troops were sailing east
a destablising force throughout. who do they think they are?’ There was this on troopships. Yet, the British
extraordinary chauvinism and it’s exactly what Army ensured that those who
Putin is displaying now. He simply doesn’t knew operational details kept
Do you think that there is a relevant
their exact destinations secret,
comparison between Allied intervention in the understand what Ukrainians are and he’s
especially in letters home. Such
Russian Civil War and the West’s position in living in this dream world, which I think will
was the level of discretion that
the current Ukraine War? eventually be his undoing. the men sent down to Baku
I don’t think there is. The lazy lesson to draw The one big win from the intervention, became known as the ‘hush-
would be we shouldn’t mess around in that part which had a positive long-term effect, was hush brigade’.
of the world at all and military intervention in the independence for Estonia and Latvia, which When the Armistice came into
former Russian Empire is a bad idea. That’s not was helped by a British squadron in the effect in November 1918, the
true, and the West ought to support Ukraine with Baltic Sea and some soldiers on land. Those government lifted censorship
everything it has. Ukraine is not White Russia. It countries hung on to their independence before and the public was suddenly
is a good and viable cause, a democratic country the war and you can see how that brief period aware of the vast extent of the
with values we share. Over the last two years, of independence made a difference. They were intervention. Simultaneously,
Ukraine has shown how incredibly united, brave able to get their economies back on track political life was starting up
and strong it is. [after the fall of the Soviet Union] much quicker again. Reid tells History of
than the other Soviet republics and are now War: “The papers could start
members of NATO and the EU. This is the kind writing and people could start
of help we need to be giving Ukraine today and demonstrating. The ‘Hands off
not get distracted and turn a blind eye to what Russia’ began on both sides
Russian occupation means as the intervention of the Atlantic. It pulled in a
did with the pogroms. broad spectrum of the left,
including lots of big names: the
Pankhursts, EM Forster, figures
from the arts as well as from
politics. They held mass rallies,
in the Albert Hall in particular.”
The Hands off Russia
movement continued to grow
and Sylvia Pankhurst wrote
in August 1919: “Hands Off
Russia has found its way into the
resolution of every labour and
socialist propaganda meeting
and literature about Russia has
been more eagerly read than any
other.” They scored their most
significant victory in May 1920
against attempts to transport
arms to Poland aboard the
SS Jolly George. East London
Images: Alamy, Getty

dockers refused to load weapons

onto the freighter, which was
forced to leave without them.

67
HOME FRONT

74 BATTLE FOR PARIS

Eighty years ago this month fighting
broke out in the French capital as the
German army began to withdraw

70 76 82
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 HOMEFRONT

BATTLE FOR FRANCE

A
I
n the summer of 1944, the Allied campaign first to establish a bridgehead,
then to break out further into France, deployed a range of unique armoured
vehicles – and were up against the Third Reich’s formidable panzers. You
can read all about them and more in World War II Tank Spotter’s Guide from
Osprey Publishing, which catalogues and compares 40 iconic armoured
vehicles from around the world and throughout the conflict.

TIGER I NORMANDY
JUNE 1944
The Tiger is widely recognised as
© Felipe Rodríguez. Osprey Publishing

the most famous tank of the war.

Although prone to mechanical
problems, it was highly successful
in tank-versus-tank combat. In the
west, hardly any of the Allied tanks
were a match for it, and it could
only be defeated at very close range
or by specialist armoured vehicles.

“THE CHURCHILL WAS

VITAL IN SUPPORT OF THE
© Felipe Rodríguez. Osprey Publishing

INFANTRY IN NORMANDY”

CHURCHILL AVRE NORMANDY JUNE 1944

The Churchill was revered by its crews for its stout
armour and ability to manoeuvre on steep hills and in
deep mud. The tank was vital in support of the infantry
in Normandy, where its multiple-bogie suspension
allowed it to navigate the difficult bocage terrain.

CROMWELL MARK IV
1ST POLISH ARMOURED
DIVISION 1944
The Cromwell first saw action in
Normandy, where it proved itself in speed
and reliability when the 7th Armoured
Division advanced some 68 miles (110km)
in just one day. Despite the limitations on
the production of its impressive Rolls-
Royce Meteor engine, it served extensively
in the final years of the war.

70
 BATTLE FOR FRANCE: A TANK SPOTTER’S GUIDE

JAGDPANZER IV FRANCE
AUGUST 1944
‘Jagdpanzer’ is technically a category of

© Felipe Rodríguez. Osprey Publishing

German armour rather than a specific vehicle,
a tank destroyer mounting a heavy anti-tank
gun. The two most famous Jagdpanzers
were the Jagdpanzer IV and the Jagdpanzer
38(t). The Jagdpanzer IV entered the war in
1944 in an attempt to improve Germany’s
armour-killing presence in the face of Allied
numerical superiority.

M5A1 LIGHT TANK

WIN
UTAH BEACH 1944
The M3 light tank was the
first US tank to see service
in the Second World
War, and was known to
the British as the Stuart.
A COPY

© Felipe Rodríguez. Osprey Publishing

Upgrades to the hull and
engines resulted in the M5 OF WORLD
WAR II TANK
light tank in autumn 1942.
Although light tanks were
nearing obsolescence by
SPOTTER’S
GUIDE!
the start of the war, the M3
and M5 series remained in
use throughout the conflict.
History of War has
three copies to
give away. For your
chance to win, visit
TIGER II FRANCE 1944 historyanswers.
Thickly armoured and co.uk or scan the
powerfully armed, the Tiger II QR code here.
or ‘King Tiger’ first saw action
© Felipe Rodríguez. Osprey Publishing

in Normandy in 1944, and

was the ultimate heavy tank
of the conflict. However, it
was hampered by a lack of
numbers and by manpower
issues, with crews who’d never
used the type being assigned
to them on the way to the front.

SHERMAN II (M4A1) DD TANK GOLD BEACH 1944

Sherman DD (Duplex Drive) tanks were designed to ‘swim’ from
offshore craft, driven through the water by propellers powered by
the main engine, in order to support the first waves of infantry.
By D-Day, eight Allied units were equipped with variants of the
‘Swimming Shermans’, but the tank’s performance was mixed.
© Felipe Rodríguez. Osprey Publishing
© Peter Sarson. Osprey Publishing

71
 HOMEFRONT

Poignant D-Day artwork on display in Buckinghamshire, immersive exhibits

at Newhaven Fort and the world’s only running Tiger I
D-Day artwork arrives in the UK
Stowe Gardens to host Standing with Giants’ 1,475 silhouettes honouring the British casualties at D-Day
Visitors to the British Normandy Memorial who died on 7 August 1944 aboard the those who have fallen so we can live the
near Ver-sur-Mer have been moved by For sinking hospital ship SS Amsterdam while lives we have today. Using outdoor art is
Your Tomorrow – The People’s Tribute, an helping to save 75 men. Having both received a great way to do this,”
art installation by the artist and founder posthumous commendations, they are the September will mark the first time the full-
of the charity Standing with Giants, Dan only two women featured on the British size installation has been seen in the UK.
Barton. It features 1,475 silhouettes styled Normandy Memorial. It is expected to take 15 days for
on Second World War personnel, one for Tanya Brittain, general manager of Stowe the installation to be set up across the
each British loss on D-Day. With the display Gardens, says: “This September will be an expansive 245-acre (99-hectare) site, and
in Normandy coming to an end in August, opportunity to remember family, friends and you can contact the National Trust if you are
For Your Tomorrow – The People’s Tribute colleagues lost in conflict situations over the interested in volunteering to help. Once set
is set to be moved to the National Trust’s past 80 years. Stowe has a rich military history up, the installation can be viewed by visitors
Stowe Gardens in Buckinghamshire. This and we look forward to welcoming visitors this to Stowe Gardens from September to mid-
follows a trial last year during which Stowe autumn to experience this poignant outdoor art November, with free entrance for National
Gardens displayed a small number of the installation against the stunning backdrop of Trust members. The installation will be
silhouettes ahead of its completion for the Stowe’s historic landscape gardens.” open during standard hours, with additional
D-Day 80th anniversary commemorations. Barton, who directed the construction sunrise (6am to 8am) and twilight (5:30pm
You can volunteer to take part in moving of the life-sized silhouettes by volunteers to 7:30pm) viewings on selected dates.
the installation. using recycled materials, says: “Our ethos
The installation includes two female
silhouettes representing Sister Mollie
at Standing with Giants is to value life, to
understand and appreciate why we have our
For more information visit
Evershed and Sister Dorothy Field, nurses freedom, and to remember and pay tribute to www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe
Images © Jules and Bean

For Your Tomorrow – The People’s Tribute

art installation will be open to visitors from
September to mid-November

72
 MUSEUMS & EVENTS

Immersive exhibits coming to Newhaven Fort

The historic fortress has unveiled plans for new interactive
displays as part of its £7.5 million restoration
Right: Experiences
While closed for the largest restoration project in its long history, on the Home Front
Newhaven Fort has been considering ways to come back stronger in can be explored
in a brand-new
2025. New immersive experiences will uncover forgotten personal interactive exhibit
stories and transport visitors back in time. They are a chance to Below: The
experience everyday life in Sussex during the Second World War introductory room
years, allowing you to step into the shops, railway stations and air raid to Newhaven Fort’s
shelters that shaped daily wartime life. Featuring personal accounts upcoming First
World War display
from Newhaven Fort’s history, the interactive exhibits will focus on local
women’s role on the Home Front, from female munitions workers to the
‘land girls’ of the Women’s Land Army.
Alongside these fascinating personal stories, the reopening of
Newhaven Fort will also include Sussex Front Line. This new exhibition
introduces Sussex’s role in the opening stages of the Second World War
and its critical contribution to Britain’s defence and victory.
Lindsay Lawrence, general manager of Newhaven Fort, says: “Our focus
has been to uncover stories which have not been told before, including
stories from women who played a wide-ranging role in the war effort here
in Newhaven and were vital in keeping the country going.”
The planned interactive exhibits are currently being constructed this
year alongside the milestone restoration project. Newhaven Fort is
expected to reopen in early 2025, featuring the new exhibitions and
experiences and a refurbished battery observation post with views

© Form Atlarge
across the Sussex coast.

For more information visit: www.newhavenfort.org.uk

See a Tiger in the wild tank it appeared alongside in the 2014 film Fury. After witnessing
this spectacle, there is plenty more to see on Tiger Day. Further
displays will see the Panzer III, Comet, Chaffee and more take to
The world’s only running Tiger I to be put through its the arena, while the Tank Park is your chance to get close to the
paces in at The Tank Museum in Dorset museum’s static displays.
In addition to seeing these vehicles in action, some lucky guests
The Allies captured Tiger 131 on 24 April 1943 after a shot from a will get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ride in the Tiger.
Churchill tank jammed its turret and the crew fled. After acquiring The Tank Museum will hold a raffle to choose the winners, with
this largely intact example, the Allies had new intelligence on all proceeds going towards upkeep on the museum’s collection.
exploitable weaknesses in its design. Tiger 131 was transferred Museum curator David Willey says: “Tiger 131 is the [most] famous
to The Tank Museum in 1951 and is now the only Tiger I running, tank in the world and there are a lot of tank fans who will jump at
requiring 200 hours of maintenance for every hour in action. the chance for a ride in this Second World War icon.”
It runs publicly twice a year – Tiger Day Spring and Autumn – the You can purchase tickets to Tiger Day online now, and every
latter held on 28 September this year. At Tiger Day, you can watch ticket comes with an annual pass. Entrance is free for Gold Friends
a 30-minute display, seeing 131 face off against the Sherman membership holders.

Below: Tiger 131 puts on a display during Tiger Day Autumn 2023 Below: Tank Museum staff and volunteers prepare 131 for Tiger Day

Images: © Getty

For more information visit: tankmuseum.org

73
 HOMEFRONT

O R L
W D
Polish Home Army
2

W
insurgents fire at
2

A
Wehrmacht forces
0

To commemorate 80 years since the Second World War, History of War will be taking
a look at some of the key events taking place during each month of the conflict

BATTLE FOR PARIS

An uprising by the French Forces of the Interior
August when the Germans attempted to
leave their fortified positions and Adolf Hitler
responded with an order to inflict maximum
began in Paris on 19 August following radio damage on the city. The battle ended after
broadcasts on the Allies’ advance towards Allied forces started to enter Paris on 24
the capital. While limited to skirmishes on August, often greeted by civilians singing La
the first day, barricades began to go up on 20 Marseillaise. A formal capitulation was made
August and Parisians organised a consolidated on 25 August by Dietrich von Choltitz, the Nazi
resistance. Fighting peaked on 22 and 23 military governor of Paris.
Images © Alamy, Getty

Members of the French Forces

of the Interior during the battle
to liberate the capital

74
 WWII THIS MONTH… AUGUST 1944

WARSAW UPRISING
ERUPTS
On 1 August, the most extensive military effort
by a European resistance movement during the
Second World War, the Warsaw Uprising, began.
Coinciding with the Wehrmacht’s weakening
grip on Poland, the Polish Home Army aimed
to liberate Warsaw before the Soviets to
secure their sovereignty. They intended for the
uprising to last a few days before the Red Army
entered the city. However, the Red Army halted
its advance in Warsaw’s eastern suburbs as
Stalin was concerned a successful revolt would
disrupt his plans to control Poland after the war.
After 63 days of fighting without substantial
outside support, the Home Army capitulated to
the Germans on 2 October.

NAZI ATROCITIES UNCOVERED SOVIET VICTORY

On 10 June 1944, 643 primarily French civilians were killed by the SS
in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre, an act of collective punishment for IN OPERATION
French Resistance activity. Raymond J Murphy, a B-17 navigator shot down
in late April 1944, discovered the aftermath while being hidden by the BAGRATION
On 19 August, the Red Army’s
French Resistance. Murphy finally made it back to England on 6 August and
submitted his report nine days later. It features the handwritten addendum: Operation Bagration in Eastern
“… I saw one baby who had been crucified.” Europe finished, concluding the
greatest defeat in German military
American soldiers enter the
history. In just over a month, 28 of the
ruins of Oradour-sur-Glane 34 divisions of the Army Group Centre
had been destroyed, causing 450,000
German casualties and a further
300,000 troops to be captured. The
Russian forces took vast swathes of
Soviet, Baltic and Polish territories
and discovered the horrors inflicted
on the occupied populations,
during which entire cities had been
destroyed and villages depopulated.

The Parade of the Vanguished in Moscow,

featuring 57,000 German prisoners
captured during Operation Bagration

BATTLE OF THE FALAISE POCKET

In early August, German Army Group B, consisting of the 7th Army and 5th Panzer
Army, was in turmoil as Allied forces broke through their lines in multiple areas.
Hitler initiated Operation Lüttich, a counter-offensive that only served to drive Army
Group B deep into the Falaise Pocket. General Bernard Montgomery ordered the
Allied armies to converge on the German forces, trapping them by 19 August and
capturing around 50,000 German troops and 500 tanks and assault guns. The
remnants of Army Group B managed to retreat across the Seine, bringing the Battle
of Normandy to an end.

Three French boys

look at a knocked-out
German tank after the
fighting in the pocket

75
 Our pick of the latest military history books

THE IMPOSSIBLE ALLIANCE THAT WON THE WAR

THIS ABSORBING PAGE-TURNER LAYS BARE THE BIG THREE’S SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP IN WWII
Author: Giles Milton Publisher: John Murray Press Price: £25 (Hardback) Released: Out now
This is a tour de force in wartime diplomacy – Milton is
a historian who writes with all the verve of a seasoned
novelist gripping the reader from the very start. He charts
with aplomb the forging of an unlikely Anglo-American-Soviet
alliance during the Second World War and its subsequent
collapse. Although the creation of this marriage of convenience
is well-covered ground, Milton brings a fresh and all too human
perspective to the desperate shuttle diplomacy designed to
bring ideological enemies together. If it had not been for the
actions of Hitler there is no way democratic capitalist America,
democratic imperialist Britain and totalitarian communist Russia
would ever have united in common cause. It was the power of
personality that helped to nurture this fragile relationship.
Milton puts the reader firmly in the room through the eyes not
only of Churchill and Roosevelt but also the other key players
such as millionaire Averell Harriman, the US Ambassador
to Moscow; flamboyant Archibald Clark Kerr, the British
Ambassador; and their staffs. Furthermore, he has mined the

Above: Stalin’s unpredictable behaviour

swung from hostile to amenable
“CHURCHILL FOOLISHLY GAVE STALIN CARTE BLANCHE IN EASTERN
EUROPE, THEREBY SOWING THE SEEDS FOR THE COLD WAR”
and back again, infuriating Winston
Churchill, who even threatened to cut
all ties with the Soviet leader

76
 REVIEWS

CRIMEAN QUAGMIRE
letters and mementos of Harriman’s daughter Kathy,
who accompanied him on the adventure of a lifetime.
Her youthful insight provides a fascinating picture
of what foreigners experienced in the Soviet capital,
which included a surprising amount of partying.
As Milton rightly highlights, keeping this improbable
alliance on track involved determination and grit. THE STORY OF HOW THE PIONEERING WAR REPORTING OF WRITERS LEV TOLSTOY AND
Stalin by baffling turns proved hostile and amenable, WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT CONFLICT
making dealing with him an often nerve-wracking
experience. An affronted Churchill on at least one Author: Gregory Carleton Publisher: Hurst Publishers
occasion was prepared to cut all ties, until the impact Price: £27.50 (Hardback) Released: August 2024
of such a course was spelled out to him. Milton
shows that both Churchill and Roosevelt grossly In the mid-19th century, the long- and upset the accepted norms of how
overestimated their influence with Stalin. Both naïvely standing enmity between the world’s people die in battle and revealed these
believed that they could bend him to their democratic two great empires, Britain and models to be hollow clichés.
way of thinking. And they indulged in childish one Russia, erupted into open hostility, Thanks to their writings, after
upmanship when it came to jostling for position, which and it was only a question of time Crimea death in combat was seen in a
did neither of them any favours. before these two rivals for global different light. In how they recorded and
Milton writes with a light touch and perhaps treats supremacy confronted one another represented it they sought to emphasise
Churchill too leniently when it comes to the infamous on the battlefield. The two-and-a-half- death in its most raw, unadorned state,
so-called ‘naughty document’. In this, Churchill foolishly year series of engagements known no matter if it ran afoul of censors or
gave Stalin carte blanche in Eastern Europe – thereby as the Crimean War was triggered went against public taste.
sowing the seeds for the Cold War. Likewise, Milton by the Russian occupation of the The Crimean War put an end to
only briefly touches on the alleged Nazi plot to kill the Turkish vassal states of Moldovia the dominant position of Russia in
Big Three when they gathered in Tehran. Unfortunately and Walachia. Shortly afterwards, southeastern Europe, while the cooling
Roosevelt’s high-handed attempts at being impartial at Britain and its ally France declared of Austro-Russian relations became
this conference simply alienated and sidelined Churchill. war on Russia. an important factor in subsequent
This did much to undermine the special relationship the Author Gregory Carleton makes a European affairs. Stripping away the
two men had so diligently forged. Stalin though was only convincing case that Crimea changed romanticism of the Napoleonic era
too happy to divide and rule. forever the face of modern warfare, of European warfare, Russell and
Despite all the massive aid shipped to the Soviet with the introduction of a plethora of Tolstoy exposed official government
Union at great cost, Stalin was never really grateful for technological ‘firsts’: the railway, the lies and cover-ups in reportage that
Anglo-America help. All he wanted was the opening of telegraph, photography, steam-powered shocked readers, revealing that their
the Second Front to facilitate him ploughing his way ships, long-range artillery and the first loved ones were dying needlessly. The
to Berlin. The Soviet dictator had one thing in mind use of landmines, among other types of scandalous condition of the troops
and one thing only – the future security of the Soviet new weaponry. and the wounded was described
Union. He would be the true victor of the Second Carleton’s narrative focuses on two in shocking detail. This was an
World War with the partition of Europe. The Stalin eye witnesses to these events who, unprecedented showdown between
Affair is a thoroughly entertaining page-turner and is from opposite sides of the trenches, the voices of private individuals
highly recommended. ATJ catapulted the world into a new, and their rulers. Russell and Tolstoy
unprecedented type of war, one of became the drivers of a revolution
words as much as weapons. One in war reporting as they tried to
of these observers was William Howard understand and convey what happened
Russell, the Irish correspondent who in the trenches of Crimea. JS
was destined, according to the author,
to become the father of modern
journalism. The other was the famed
Russian nobleman and novelist Lev
Tolstoy. Carleton describes how they
introduced the world to images of war
it had rarely seen before, “images
that clashed with a centuries-old
tradition derived from Homeric models
that had made the battlefield an
exalted place, knowing only glory,
courage and worthy sacrifice”.
The sheer number of belligerents
made this a global conflict in which
several lines of clashing ideological
and geo-strategic interests flared up
almost without warning and resulted
in nearly one million dead. Russell and
Tolstoy kept returning their readers to
the fact that the war made no sense.
It was not a battle for national survival,
nor did it stem from dynastic struggle.
The two reporters’ descriptions drove
the idea of the Crimean quagmire
into the public mainstream. Their
Images © Getty

Like his British counterpart, writing displayed an honest treatment

Roosevelt overestimated the
of violent death, the sine qua non of
influence he had on Stalin
all wars. Both men directly challenged

77
 REVIEWS

THE KILLING GROUND

A FRESH AND DETAILED STUDY OF ONE OF ANCIENT HISTORY’S MOST INFAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS
Author: Myke Cole & Michael Livingston Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Price: £25 (Hardback) Released: Out Now
In The Killing Ground: A Biography of the mountains (Mount Kalidromos) above
Thermopylae, authors Myke Cole and it which meant that it did not have to be
Michael Livingston offer an analysis of, traversed at sea level.
perhaps, the most famous battlefield of Many of the actions were, in fact, defeats
antiquity. Yet as well as the battle between for the defenders, from 480 BCE to the
the Greeks (led by the Spartans under Second World War – it was not an impregnable
King Leonidas) and the Persians in 480 pass. The routes through the mountains
BCE, however, there have been 27 military above it – the Anopaia Pass – provided the
actions at the pass of Thermopylae between Persians, Celts and others a route around
the sixth century BCE and 1943. the main pass so that they could emerge and
For some of these actions we have attack the defenders from two sides, front and
very little detail. More has been written rear. That said, in some cases the pass has
on the 480 BCE battle than all the other been held successfully – such as against the
combined, even the battles of the Second Huns in the fifth century. Perhaps the Huns
World War, where the pass was once again did not know their history and were turned
held unsuccessfully, this time by Allied and back without knowing of the alternative routes
Commonwealth troops against invading around the main route. own feet on the soil where so many other
Axis forces. The pass at Thermopylae Cole and Livingston’s analysis and use of warriors of the past have trod. Both men have
was narrow in antiquity, only 164ft (50m) sources is meticulous and their exploration military experience and provide their analysis of
wide at its narrowest point, and it was of the subject sure – they provide translations the ground as well. Although not the final word
the main route into mainland Greece from and an examination of the various events that on the most famous battle of Thermopylae, this
the north. It was not the only pass but it are second to none. The main point of the book book provides almost the only word on many
was the favoured one. What’s more – as is “a battle is its ground” – a point made by of the other actions fought there and should
several of the military actions and battles both authors in their other work. They visited provide any reader, academic or generalist,
there showed – there were routes through Greece and walked the pass(es) and put their much to ponder. MD

THE PIANO PLAYER OF BUDAPEST

‘A TRUE STORY OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVAL, MUSIC AND HOPE’ THAT WONDERFULLY BLENDS
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE WITH INTIMATE MEMOIR
Author: Roxanne de Bastion Publisher: Robinson
Price: £22 (Hardback) Released: Out Now
In this powerful and often deeply moving around him as war approached, Stephen led
book, musician Roxanne de Bastion something of a playboy lifestyle.
uncovers the remarkable story of her He received a rude awakening, however,
grandfather, Istvan Bastyai von Holtzer, in October 1942, when he was drafted into
later known as Stephen de Bastion. The a labour unit and sent to the Russian front
story unfolds against the backdrop of in support of the Nazi invasion. It was an
Hungary before and during the Second experience Stephen not only survived but
World War, tracing Stephen’s remarkable somehow managed to escape from, walking
journey from a celebrated pianist to a through Ukraine to get back to his home in
Holocaust survivor. The book is based on Budapest. His life, however, was about to
archival material left by Stephen, including take an even darker twist. In March 1944, the
cassette tapes discovered by the author in Nazis invaded Hungary. Up until that point, the
her late father’s belongings. country had been an ally of Germany, but with
These recordings, along with its government now seeking to disentangle
unpublished memoirs, letters and various itself from the war, Hitler ordered his troops
other documents, helped de Bastion to occupy it. Along with 440,000 other
reconstruct her grandfather’s life. Born Hungarian Jews, Stephen now found himself
into a family of wealthy textile merchants, arrested and deported. Dispatched into the Stephen’s piano has come to represent both
Stephen was raised in a secular Jewish Nazi concentration camp system, he would continuity and hope. It also provides a deeply
household. As the eldest of four, he was end the war a survivor of both Mauthausen personal link between the author and her
expected to follow in his father’s footsteps, and Gunskirchen. grandfather, a man she only knew through the
but a beautiful Blüthner piano in their After the war, he returned to Budapest, fragments of his life story that she discovered.
Budapest penthouse apartment held far where he was reunited with his beloved Through meticulous research de Bastion does
more appeal for him than the prospect of Blüthner, which had also somehow a stunning job of filling in the gaps of that
going into the family business. Stephen’s miraculously survived the devastation. When story. The resulting narrative is a unique blend
musical talents flourished early, leading Stephen moved to Stratford-upon-Avon in of historical account and personal memoir. But
to a successful career as a composer and 1948 to start a new life he brought the piano it is more than that – it is also a powerful and
performer in the Hungarian capital, working with him. It was later inherited by his son, illuminating portrait of a man whose enduring
on films and in night-clubs. Blissfully who in turn left it to his daughter, the author hope and love of music helped him survive the
ignorant of the political situation unfolding of this incredible tale. By the end of the book, darkest hour in human history. NS

78
 REVIEWS

A FORENSIC EXAMINATION OF THE LONG SHADOW CAST BY CHILDHOOD ABUSE SET AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF THE THIRD REICH
Author: Matt Graydon Publisher: Cranthorpe Millner Price: £12.99 (Paperback) Released: 20 August 2024
Everyone likes to imagine that if they’d been brought up in Germany In an interesting twist, Bachmann ends up a prisoner in England and,
under the Nazis they would have been a member of the resistance. The when his captivity endures past the end of the war, he finds himself the
simple truth is that most of us, like the vast majority of the Germans object of the attention of an Englishwoman, whom he eventually marries.
who found themselves in this situation, would have gone along with Graydon enjoys playing with Second World War stereotypes; few
things. It was not a case of the 1933 election and straight into the of his Germans are the Nazi fanatics who are staples of the movies.
Holocaust but rather a slide, steep but a slide nevertheless, into Rather, he sets out to represent the messiness of human lives and
totalitarianism. Once down in the pit it was too late to resist. motives, where the line between good and evil does not run through
The protagonist – you can’t really call him a hero – of the novel countries, or political parties but rather through each human heart.
Leaving Fatherland is one such German. Oskar Bachmann is a bookish In this he succeeds well, particularly in his portrayal of Bachmann,
boy from a middle-class German family, normal in most respects save a man shaped, like his country, by an abusive and violent authority
one: his father beats him. Not the corporal punishment normal for the figure. As such, the book functions as a novel of metaphor, one
time but rage-fuelled beatings that leave the boy bruised and bleeding. man’s life acting as a representation of Germany’s own relationship
Leaving Fatherland is, above everything else, an examination of the with its violent past.
life-long effects of childhood physical and emotional abuse. It follows It’s only on his deathbed that Bachmann learns, finally, why his father
Oskar through a life spent trying to understand why his father abused beat him all those years ago. The abuse made Bachmann passive,
him while leaving his brother untouched. In Oskar’s case, this abuse emotionally distant and cold, a stranger to his own children. There are
translates into a pronounced passivity: things generally happen to no easy answers, only the life-long struggle to overcome the sins of the
Oskar rather him initiating them, from childhood friendship through father that the next generation might be freed from the dead weight of
marriage (to an English woman following the war) to family breakdown. history. In this, Graydon succeeds very well. EA
His life story is set in the context of the Nazi rise to power and his own
attempt to escape their long shadow. He sails to the United States to
study psychology only for the pull of nation and family to call him back.
Graydon portrays the deadly gravity of 20th-century patriotism very well,
as Bachmann is reeled back into a war he was desperately trying to
escape. Like so many others, Bachmann finds himself fighting, as a pilot
in the Luftwaffe in his case, until he is shot down.
Below: The gripping novel explores Germany’s descent
into Nazi tyranny and the impact it has on one man
Image: Getty

79
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 N E X T M O N T H

UNDER SIEGE AT

80 years on: Blow-by-blow account of how

the Airborne seized victory from disaster
in their heroic defence at Oosterbeek
Image © Getty

O N S A L E 5 S E P T E M B E R
 ARTEFACT
of

The National Civil War Centre’s most treasured artefact is a poignant reminder
of the dangers faced by the conflict’s commanders, who led their men from the front

T
homas Fairfax, the Parliamentarian commander-in-chief pivotal in
creating the New Model Army, was only in his 50s when he started using
this wheelchair in the 1660s, turning the handles on the armrests to
move around his home. The 13 wounds he’d picked up in battle, along
with arthritis and a kidney stone, debilitated the fearsome warrior, who
frequently credited God for his fortune in surviving numerous military engagements.
Always keen to throw himself into the thick of it, Fairfax was first injured when Sir
Thomas Glemham led a surprise attack on his quarters in Wetherby. Not yet fully
dressed, Fairfax and four of his men defended themselves against eight cavalrymen.
A shot glanced off Fairfax’s head – had his assailant’s aim been better, his military
career would have been over before it had barely begun.
His second wound was much more severe, picked up during a cavalry engagement in
Selby marketplace. Shot in the wrist, Fairfax almost passed out from blood loss. After
receiving treatment, he got back in the saddle and rode 20 hours to Hull. His fourth
wound, suffered while leading the siege of Helmsley Castle, was the
most serious. A superb long-range shot struck Fairfax on the
shoulder and it took three months for him to recover.
Fairfax overcame this injury and was soon back in the
fight, taking command of the New Model Army at Naseby.
He continued to throw himself into battle despite being constantly
troubled by his wounds, arthritis and a kidney stone, but these
ailments caught up with him during the Interregnum. Fairfax’s last
military engagement saw him lead an uprising with General George
Monck – from a coach rather than horseback.
Soon after, Fairfax began to use two handle-driven wheelchairs,
on which he became increasingly reliant. He spent his final
years reading and writing in his home near York until his death
on 11 November 1671. Fairfax’s wheelchair can be seen at the
National Civil War Centre in Newark.

Left: Fairfax’s wheelchair,

currently loaned to the
National Civil War Centre by
his descendents
Right: Fairfax led the
Images: Getty, National Civil War Centre

Roundheads to victory over

the Royalists at the Battle of
Naseby on 14 June 1645

Fairfax’s wheelchair is on display now at the National Civil War

Centre, open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm. The wheelchair
is one of dozens of artefacts that tell the story of the seismic
changes brought about by the English Civil War, which continue
to shape our country.
For more information, visit nationalcivilwarcentre.com

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