Steve................"The Old Sea Dog".................(retired)

"Send Them To Coventry"

 

I do not wish to give the impression that it was only the UK fighting WW2 in 1939/1940.  We had a lot of help.  Australia & Canada was in the main populated with ex-British people most of whom still had families in the UK.  These Nations had always came to our aid.  My Father was attached to the Canadians and was on Juno Beach for the "D" Day landings.  He speaks highly of the Canadian soldier.  I later served with the Australians and was based at RAAF Base Butterworh Penang Malaysia much later on and often it was these men who helped out in Cambodia. They (The Australians) were American allies in Vietnam.

 

With that well known tune "Waltzing Matilda" you should listen carefully to the words and when I explain that Matilda is in fact a machine gun you will understand that this is a musical record of the battle at Gallipoli where the Australians took massive casualties.

From many over-run Europeans countries, especially Poland, escaped many men who made their way to the UK and then volunteered to fight.  Even a free French army was assembled in the UK.  Some French however often collaborated with the Nazi regime and even set up a puppet government in Vichy.  There was a strong French resistance, but equally many Frenchmen would turn over a crashed pilot to the Nazis just to collect the bounty. It was difficult to know which side the French were on at times.

The Blitz was Hitler's way to bring the British to their knees. Now you have total all out war with no rules. Armament factories. shipyards, airfields, cathedrals, hospitals and schools were bombed almost daily.  There was no smart weapons in these days, just saturation bombing which makes no distinction .

 

Had Smart weapons existed I do not think it would have made much difference.  Total destruction was the order of the day.  Where cities were flattened and set alight almost every night.

 

People slept in Air Raid shelters & just hoped their house was still standing in the morning.  We have a phrase in the UK, "Send Them To Coventry" .  This means that you will never speak to that person again. Historians will explain that this phrase came from the English civil war, but cannot agree the definitive origin. This phrase is used daily today and most do not understand the origin.

 

The meaning of this phrase was to be brought up-to-date in the most brutal fashion. The British city of Coventry was so totally devastated on a nightly basis, that if men were sent there to try and help the population, you expected that you would never speak to them again. Going to Coventry was seen as a death sentence.

 

Many major cities were in ruins. The basic infrastructure broken with no power. No water or telephones.  Hitler got it wrong, this made the population even more determined.

 

Later Churchill told Air Vice Marshall Harris to oversee our Bomber command and take the fight on to German Soil.  Bomber Harris as he became known organised our bombers to take out as many targets as possible. The Heavy Water plant in Norway. This stopped Germanys experimentation with what we know today as nuclear weapons. The Famous "Bouncing Bomb" as 636 squadron took out major dams,"The Dambuster" march an accolade to these men..

 

Later in this war after the Americans joined forces with us. We collectively were able to mount huge bombing raids on major German cities. On just one night a thousand Bombers rained their destruction on a German city called Dresden. This created such a fireball that people in bomb shelters suffocated as the fire used up all available oxygen. The UK establishment always had a conscience about our bombing raids so much so that Bomber Harris was not given any recognition until just 2 years ago. I do not think the German command thought this way.

 

We were also were attacked with the V1 flying bombs. These unmanned flying bombs, with a ram jet as the engine, would fly overhead and providing you could hear the engine you were in no danger. But once the engine stopped (Lack of fuel), It was now falling .So now was the time to find a shelter pretty quick.  Later Hitler's command perfected the V2.  This was a rocket powered bomb. The first missile, its range was greater than the V1, was too fast to be shot down using an aircraft and could hit all major cities and dockyards in the UK.

 

We started covert operations to stop these on their launch airfields. After the right sort of sabotage many would explode on launching taking out the German launch crews as well as the launch site.

 

The eighth Army assembled in North Africa as "The Desert Rats" took on Rommel.  This was a fast moving war and Rommel the professional Soldier knew how to fight this terrain.  Rommel was never a Nazi and all British soldiers who fought that campaign had a healthy respect for this man. He was simply the professional.

One major area of concern was the transportation of fuel for the mechanised units in the desert.  We could never get this quite right as the containers we used to store petrol were not strong enough. Rommel never had this problem as his army had developed a superior storage for petrol. The first ones captured were quickly sent back to the UK to be copied. To this day this container is still used and in the UK is known as the "Jerry Can" ...Jerry being the slang word for a German soldier. 

 

Rommel was only defeated in this desert region after we reinforced our army to such a point that he could not hold us back.  Later in the War Rommel was in dispute with the Nazi Leadership. He was given an ultimatum.  Suicide or your entire family will be killed.  As an honourable man he took his own life & his family were spared.

 

But this was Hitler's way of treating his own War Heroes?.  In this time in the war it was often thought that Hitler was in fact now insane. There were attempts on Hitler's Life from within his own command but all failed.

 

Appeals to America resulted in "The Lease Lend" agreement. American agreed to lease  weapons to us for a rental charge and after the war was over we were to return them.  Silly agreement really as there would be nothing left to return.  Our "National Debt" was now a financial reality and even today that debt although reduced each year take a great slice of our tax pounds just to pay the interest.  In fact our current Chancellor (Gordon Brown) is selling off some of our gold reserves to help repay this debt owed to the world banks.

 

Now a personal word about money.  Throughout all wars Austria & Switzerland attempt to remain neutral. This is a sham.  Both are German speaking Nations and both get very rich handling the money, gold and other valuables looted in the war years.  Even today the Swiss are holding millions of dollars taken from the 6 million Jews that finished their life in the gas chambers.

 

Swiss secret banking laws are primarily there to protect the Swiss.  Personally I find both Nations so dishonest that I will never take a vacation in these countries. I will never set foot on their soil.

The Swiss did however host the conference called "The Geneva convention" which lays out the rules for how you should treat a prisoner of war. Tis a shame that most countries do not follow it.  The Swiss also gave us the red cross which incidentally is the Swiss flag with the colours reversed. The red cross is a good organisation run by the Swiss people, it has nothing to do with the Swiss governments as far as I can see.

 

Simply Steve

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