Download or read book Warwick at War 1939 45 written by Graham Sutherland and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Second World War broke out, Warwick already had public air raid shelters planned, gas masks were being distributed, and there was even a power struggle when Warwickshire County Council took control of the Air Raid Wardens from the police. Although Warwick was not a prime target for the Luftwaffe, nearby Coventry was and minor blackout regulations were rigorously enforced. St Mary`s Church was believed to have been used as a marker for the Luftwaffe, and when Coventry was attacked in November 1940, the flames could be seen from Warwick. Afterwards, refugees soon began arriving from the stricken city. Visiting American and Canadian troops were welcomed in their thousands, although other temporarily stationed service personnel were not always so popular, as their arrival coincided with a shortage of other local young men in the town and bigamy cases were not unknown. Meanwhile, rationing brought its own problems; the stealing of both petrol and ration coupons was not unheard of, while the shortage of petrol resulted in a rise in offences involving the use of bicycles, usually by service personnel. By late 1944, it was apparent the Allies had won the war and the Home Guard was stood down. Indeed, the celebrations for VE Day had been prepared long before victory was declared.

Download or read book Warwick at War 1939 45 written by Graham Sutherland and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Second World War broke out, Warwick already had public air raid shelters planned, gas masks were being distributed, and there was even a power struggle when Warwickshire County Council took control of the Air Raid Wardens from the police. Although Warwick was not a prime target for the Luftwaffe, nearby Coventry was and minor blackout regulations were rigorously enforced. St Mary`s Church was believed to have been used as a marker for the Luftwaffe, and when Coventry was attacked in November 1940, the flames could be seen from Warwick. Afterwards, refugees soon began arriving from the stricken city. Visiting American and Canadian troops were welcomed in their thousands, although other temporarily stationed service personnel were not always so popular, as their arrival coincided with a shortage of other local young men in the town and bigamy cases were not unknown. Meanwhile, rationing brought its own problems; the stealing of both petrol and ration coupons was not unheard of, while the shortage of petrol resulted in a rise in offences involving the use of bicycles, usually by service personnel. By late 1944, it was apparent the Allies had won the war and the Home Guard was stood down. Indeed, the celebrations for VE Day had been prepared long before victory was declared.

Download or read book Secret Warwick written by Graham Sutherland and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2022-09-15 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secret Warwick explores the lesser-known history of the town of Warwick through a fascinating selection of stories, unusual facts and attractive photographs.

Download or read book Tracing Your Birmingham Ancestors written by Michael Sharpe and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birmingham, the cradle of the industrial revolution and the world's first manufacturing town, is an important focus for many family historians who will find that their trail leads through it. Rural migrants, Quakers, Jews, Irish, Italians, and more recently people from the Caribbean, South-Asia and China have all made Birmingham their home. This vibrant history is reflected in the city's rich collections of records, and Michael Sharpe's handbook is the ideal guide to them. ?He introduces readers to the wealth of information available, providing an essential guide for anyone researching the history of the city or the life of an individual ancestor. His work addresses novices and experienced researchers alike and offers a compendium of sources from legal and ecclesiastical archives, to the records of local government, employers, institutions, clubs, societies and schools. Accessible, informative and extensively referenced, it is the perfect companion for research in Britain's second city.

Download or read book The British Army and the People s War 1939 1945 written by Jeremy A. Crang and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-18 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Second World War the British army absorbed approximately three million new recruits, the majority of whom were conscripts. Drawn from all occupational groups and social classes, the military authorities were confronted with the task of molding these civilians in uniform into an effective fighting force. This book analyzes the impact of this process of integration on the army as a social institution. Exploring such aspects of the army’s social organization as other rank selection, officer selection, officer promotion, officer-man relations, the soldier’s working life, army welfare, and army education, it assesses the ways in which the army changed in relation to its new intake, what the extent of any change that took place actually was, and how different the army of 1945 was to that of 1939.

Download or read book Browned Off and Bloody minded written by Alan Allport and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than three-and-a-half million men served in the British Army during the Second World War, the vast majority of them civilians who had never expected to become soldiers and had little idea what military life, with all its strange rituals, discomforts, and dangers, was going to be like. Alan Allport's rich and luminous social history examines the experience of the greatest and most terrible war in history from the perspective of these ordinary, extraordinary men, who were plucked from their peacetime families and workplaces and sent to fight for King and Country. Allport chronicles the huge diversity of their wartime trajectories, tracing how soldiers responded to and were shaped by their years with the British Army, and how that army, however reluctantly, had to accommodate itself to them. Touching on issues of class, sex, crime, trauma, and national identity, through a colorful multitude of fresh individual perspectives, the book provides an enlightening, deeply moving perspective on how a generation of very modern-minded young men responded to the challenges of a brutal and disorienting conflict.

Download or read book Dundee at War 1939 45 written by Craig Armstrong and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Second World War a number of industries in Dundee were of importance to the war effort. The jute industry, which had previously dominated the local economy, had suffered badly during the 1930s. However, the war gave a temporary boost to the industry with as the material was in high demand for use in sandbags. The shipbuilding industry was also important, with the Caledon Yards being busy throughout the war. The yard refitted two Polish submarines at the beginning of the war and constructed a number of Castle and Loch Class frigates, as well as a number of merchant vessels. With its strategic importance it was believed that Dundee would be an obvious target for the Luftwaffe. Fortunately, however, Dundee escaped relatively unscathed and the city itself was only bombed on twenty-four occasions. Dundee also played a significant role in the war at sea, the city being home to a major Royal Navy submarine base, HMS Ambrose. Consequently, sailors came to be an important part of the wartime scene in Dundee and came not only from Britain and its Empire, but also from France and Norway. A great many Dundee men and women served in the armed forces during the war and the city suffered many casualties, but many also received decorations as a result of their bravery. Amongst them was Wing Commander Gordon Hugh Malcolm, who received the first RAF VC awarded for action in North Africa.

Download or read book Cumbria at War 1939 45 written by Ruth Mansergh and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A comprehensive view of the important part Cumbria played in WWII, including a detailed look at the warships built in the Barrow Yard.” —Firetrench The outbreak of war marked a new era for the people of Cumbria. Many young men and women enlisted in the Forces, while older people joined the Home Guard or became Air Raid Precaution Wardens. Children from cities were sent to Kendal to escape the threat of bombing raids, members of the Women’s Land Army began to arrive on at the local farms, and Silloth airfield near Carlisle trained thousands of pilots from allied countries. The first sign of German interest in the important shipbuilding town of Barrow-in-Furness was in May 1936, when a rigid airship and passenger aircraft flew very low and slowly over the Furness rooftops. Vickers shipyard became a target for enemy bombing and eventually more than 10,000 houses were damaged or destroyed by the Luftwaffe during the Barrow Blitz that took place during April and May 1941. Extensively researched, the book takes a detailed look at the ships built in Barrow, memorials in the city of Carlisle and towns and villages across Cumbria, and remembers the brave dead of Second World War. Overall, this is a poignant testimony to the momentous efforts, bravery, self-sacrifice and determination of the people of Cumbria during the Second World War, who sought to find normality in a reality so far removed from anything they had ever known. “In this fascinatingly good read, Ruth has captured the spirit and uncertainty of all Cumbrians in those stressful years.” —Cumbria Family History Society

Download or read book Arnhem 1944 written by Dilip Sarkar and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-11-30 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The airborne battle for the bridges across the Rhine at Arnhem ranks amongst the Second World Wars most famous actions inspiring innumerable books and the star-studded 1977 movie. This book, however, is unique: deeply moved, the author provides a fresh narrative and approach concentrating on the tragic stories of individual casualties.These men were killed at different junctures in the fighting, often requiring forensic analysis to ascertain their fates. Wider events contextualize the authors primary focus - effectively resurrecting casualties through describing their backgrounds, previous experience, and tragic effect on their families. In particular, the emotive and unresolved issue of the many still missing is explored.During the course of his research, the author made numerous trips to Arnhem and Oosterbeek, traveled miles around the UK, and spent countless hours communicating with the relatives of casualties achieving their enthusiastic support. This detailed work, conducted sensitively and with dignity, ensures that these moving stories are now recorded for posterity.Included are the stories of Private Albert Willingham, who sacrificed his life to save civilians; Major Frank Tate, machine-gunned against the backdrop of blazing buildings around Arnhem Bridge; family man Sergeant George Thomas, whose antitank gun is displayed today outside the Airborne Museum Hartenstein, and Squadron Leader John Gilliard DFC, father of a baby son who perished flying his Stirling through a hail of shot and shell during an essential re-supply drop. Is Private Gilbert Anderson, who remains missing, actually buried as an unknown, the author asks? Representing the Poles is Lance-Corporal Czeslaw Gajewnik, who drowned whilst escaping the hell of Oosterbeek, and accounts by Dutch civilians emphasize the shared suffering sharply focussed by the tragedy of Luuk Buist, killed protecting his family. The sensitivity still surrounding German casualties is also explained.This raw, personal, side of war, the hopes and fears of ordinary men thrust into extraordinary circumstances, is both deeply moving and revealing: no longer are these just names carved on headstones or memorials in a distant land. Through this thorough investigative work, supported by those who remember them, the casualties live again, their silent voices heard through friends, relatives, comrades and unpublished letters.So, let us return to the fateful autumn of 1944, and meet those fighting in the skies, on the landing grounds, in the streets and woods of Oosterbeek, and on the bridge too far at Arnhem.Now, the casualties can tell their own stories as we join this remarkable journey of discovery.

Download or read book Genealogy of the Purchase Family in Britain and Southern Africa written by Nancy R. Purchase and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating book covering fourteen generations of the extended Purchase family. The Purchase ancestors from England were related to Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon from London and were missionaries to Southern Africa. They settled in Northern Rhodesia and raised their families under very primitive conditions. In addition to instilling Christian principles into local Africans, they taught them common farming and building skills. The descriptions of confrontations with wild animals and interactions with native Africans are at times riveting. Successive generations of Purchases spread out all over the world.

Download or read book The German Fleet at War 1939 1945 written by Vincent O'Hara and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German Fleet at War relates the little-known history of the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet with a focus on the sixty-nine surface naval battles fought by Germany's major warships against the large warships of the British, French, American, Polish, Soviet, Norwegian and Greek navies. It emphasizes operational details but also paints a broad overview of the naval war. The book addresses the lack of information about the specifics of naval engagements in World War II and provides a database of naval engagements for comparison and analysis, but unlike most reference works, it has a continuous narrative and a theme. The result is a unique overview of the German and Allied navies at war that provides new appreciation of their activities and accomplishments.

Download or read book Battle over the Atlantic written by John Quaife and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-03-30 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outbreak of World War II, somewhat by accident — and just as the first shots of the war were fired — young Australian airmen from the Royal Australian Air Force were engaged in operations that would become known collectively as the Battle of the Atlantic. Arguably lesser-known than air campaigns in other theatres, large numbers of Australians who volunteered for service with Royal Australian Air Force, found themselves fighting in this battle. Australians were there at the outbreak and many would go on to fly some of the final missions of the war in Europe. This book captures some of the experiences of the Royal Australian Air Force members who served with Coastal Command and, through the weight of numbers alone, stories of the Sunderland squadrons and the Battle of the Atlantic dominate the narrative. Being critical to Britain’s survival, the battle also dominated Coastal Command throughout the war but Australians served in a surprising variety of other roles. The nature of many of those tasks demanded persistence that could only be achieved by large numbers of young men and women being prepared to ‘do what it took’ to get a tedious and unrewarding job done. Over 400 did not come home.

Download or read book GHQ Liaison Regiment A Nominal Roll with Short Biographies written by ASHER PIRT and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2010-02-10 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains a nominal roll of former members of a specialist but incredibly important Second World War unit designated General Headquarters Liaison Regiment. Its codename was Phantom. The roll also includes former members of No.3 Military and Air Mission and GHQ Reconnaissance Unit. This is the author's first attempt to produce a nominal roll of former members since the Second World War and they include Officers and Other Ranks that the author has come across in researching a definitive history of GHQ Liaison Regiment. It includes detailed biographical information where possible, Honours and Awards to various former members of the unit. The nominal roll is now fairly complete.

Download or read book U Boat Attack Logs written by Daniel Morgan and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2011-11-09 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Second World War over 250 Allied warships from a dozen navies were sent to the bottom by German U-boats. This ground-breaking study provides a detailed analysis of every sinking for which source material survives from both the Allied and the German sides, resulting in detailed treatment of the fate of 110 vessels, with the remainder summarised in an extensive appendix. Uniquely, each entry is built around a specialist translation of the relevant segment of the war diary (log) of the U-boat in question, taken directly from the surviving originals – remarkably, this represents the first large-scale publication of the U-boat war diaries in any language. The book offers a wealth of new information, not only with respect to the circumstances of the sinkings from both the Allied and German perspectives, but also to the technical environment in which they lived as well as the fate of the crews. The entries include background details on the vessels concerned and the men involved, with a selection of rare and carefully chosen photos from archives and collections around the world. Each entry is itself a compelling narrative, but is backed with a list of sources consulted, including documents, published works and websites. A decade in the making, this is probably the most important book on the U-boat war to be published for many a year

Download or read book York at War 1939 45 written by Craig Armstrong and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-05-05 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: York has often been overlooked when it comes to Britain’s wartime experience. The city was not though to have many industries of great wartime importance and it was not a part of the initial evacuation scheme. Yet this does not accurately reflect the wartime contributions of the city, as several of its large confectionary factories were converted to wartime use, while it was also a key rail hub, forming a vital link in the national network. Unbeknownst to the people of the city, York had been selected as the latest target in the Luftwaffe’s Baedeker Raids. In a short, sharp, blitz raid in the early hours of 29 April 1942, more than 3,000 houses were destroyed or damaged and almost 100 people killed while others were left seriously injured. Wartime York had a particularly close connection with the RAF as the city was surrounded by airbases. People became very used to seeing the uniforms of men and women from Bomber Command and the city was to prove very popular with airmen seeking relaxation. Places such as Betty’s Bar became infamous as airmen of almost every Allied nationality came to blew off steam. The nearby presence of the airfields also meant that the people of York and the surrounding area were witnesses to tragedies when aircraft crashed on their return to the bases.

Download or read book Aspects of Arnhem written by Richard Doherty and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2023-09-30 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost 80 years on the battle for the Arnhem Rhine crossing remains controversial. Opinion on its justification and success differs widely. This superbly researched book, written by two acknowledged experts, takes a wide-ranging examination of Operation Market Garden from the strategic, operational and tactical level. The role of the Allied commanders involved is scrutinized with surprising results. For example, US General Brereton’s pivotal role has seldom been mentioned, yet he is revealed as responsible for choosing landing and drop zones. The record of airborne forces, both German and Allied, prior to September 1944 raises questions and the doubt that many senior commanders, including Eisenhower, had as to their effectiveness is highlighted. The parts played by VIII and XII Corps of Second Army and General Dempsey, its Commander are scrutinized, as are the actions of local commanders and troops on the ground. Both those with a deep interest in military history and the layman will find much to inform and satisfy them in this valuable and at times provocative account.

Download or read book Debrett s Peerage and Baronetage 2019 written by Susan Morris and published by eBook Partnership. This book was released on 2020-04-20 with total page 7460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage is the only up-to-date printed reference guide to the United Kingdom's titled families: the hereditary peers, life peers and peeresses, and baronets, and their descendants who form the fascinating tapestry of the peerage. This is the first ebook edition of Debrett's Peerage &Baronetage, and it also contains information relating to:The Royal FamilyCoats of ArmsPrincipal British Commonwealth OrdersCourtesy titlesForms of addressExtinct, dormant, abeyant and disclaimed titles.Special features for this anniversary edition include:The Roll of Honour, 1920: a list of the 3,150 people whose names appeared in the volume who were killed in action or died as a result of injuries sustained during the First World War.A number of specially commissioned articles, including an account of John Debrett's life and the early history of Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage, a history of the royal dukedoms, and an in-depth feature exploring the implications of modern legislation and mores on the ancient traditions of succession.