British Battle news blog

‘Last Enemy’ Memorial to Battle of Britain pilot Richard Hilary

1st August 2015 By JohnkMack

The Memorial to Richard Hilary

Crossing the Border into Scotland from Coldstream a sign on the main road points off to this memorial to the wartime pilot Richard Hilary.

Hilary wrote what has been called one of the best books to come out of the Second World War.

Portrait of Richard Hilary after his recovery from injury by Eric Kennington

Described as ‘arrogant and aloof’ Hilary, after education at Shrewsbury and Trinity Cambridge, joined the RAF as a fighter pilot in 1939 flying Spitfires.

On 3^rd September 1940 Hilary was shot down as he made his fifth ‘kill’.

Hilary suffered bad burns to his face and hands before parachuting to the ground. He underwent months of reconstructive surgery as one of A.H. McIndoe’s ‘guinea pigs’.

Resuming flying Hilary crashed in a Bristol Blenheim with his radio operator/observer Sergeant Wilfred Fison at RAF Charterhall near Greenlaw, Berwickshire, the site of the memorial on 8^th January 1943. Both were killed.

During his period of recovery Richard Hilary wrote ‘Last Enemy’ a record of his experiences before and after his injury. It is a sobering account of the journey into and partially out of the despair of disfiguring and disabling injury. ‘Last Enemy’ is dedicated to one of his nurses Denise Paterson who was present at the dedication of the memorial on 6^th November 2001.

The Plaque behind the Memorial to Richard Hilary. Beneath the Plaque is a runway light from RAF Charterhall

Hilary is commemorated by Trinity College with a literary prize and an annual lecture.

Supermarine Spitfire Mark I 1940

Lord Griffiths’ Jagdpanzer

31st July 2015 By JohnkMack

Lord Griffiths MC’s Jagdpanther in the Land Warfare Hanger at the Imperial War Museum Duxford

In a previous incarnation I conducted a legal mediation. The mediator was the retired law lord Lord Hugh Griffiths MC.

Seeing a book I was carrying Lord Griffiths asked me if I was interested in military history. I said I was. He asked me if I went to the Imperial War Museum. I said I did. Lord Griffiths told me that a German tank he had helped to disable in 1944 was in the Imperial War Museum. It was uppermost in his mind because his grandson had returned from the IWM and announced ‘Grandad your tank is in the Imperial War Museum’.

Once we had disposed of the mediation Lord Griffiths told me what happened.

As a subaltern in the armoured 2^nd Battalion Welsh Guards in late 1944 in the wooded park to the east of Brussels Lord Griffiths was given the task of eliminating some German paratroopers on the unit’s flank.

A Welsh Guards Cromwell Tank in 1944 (not Lord Griffiths’)

Griffiths’ Cromwell tank made short work of the paratroopers in their half-track carrier and was returning when his gunner said ‘Sir. There’s a bloody great tank behind us.’ At that moment a shell ‘parted Griffiths’ hair’. His tank did a handbrake turn off the track into the woods.

Cutting through the woods Griffith’s tank cautiously approached the main track and poked its gun barrel out. Another round roared past. The Cromwell scuttled across the track and describing a wide ‘U’ came back towards the main track. There they waited for the German tank.

Lord Griffiths MC

Their attacker was one of the first German Jagdpanzers (tank destroyer with a formidable 88mm gun) in action against the British. The Welsh Guardsmen could hear the powerful engine as the Jagdpanzer advanced slowly along the main track.

The Jagdpanzer appeared to their front crossing the track entrance. Griffiths ordered ‘Fire’.

The response was a spatter of machine gun rounds. In his nervousness the gunner had the gun on the wrong setting. Switching to main armament the gunner fired three armour piercing rounds in quick succession into the disappearing Jagdpanzer. All three hit the area of armour over the Jagdpanzer’s engine. The German crew dismounted and legged it into the woods leaving the disabled Jagdpanzer.

Griffith’s tank returned to their unit in some satisfaction.

The next Lord Griffiths heard of the Jagdpanzer was from his grandson in 2012. It seemed that as the first Jagdpanzer to fall into Allied hands and almost completely intact it had been removed to Bovington for assessment and in due course given to the Imperial War Museum.

Once the mediation was finished I hurried to the Imperial War Museum. There just inside the entrance was the Jagdpanzer. In its rear off-side was a cluster of three neat shell holes. A plaque rather obliquely attributed its downfall to Lieutenant Griffiths of the Welsh Guards.

With the reconstruction of the London Imperial War Museum the Jagdpanzer was moved to the Land Warfare Hanger at Duxford. It has been positioned so that the shell holes cannot be easily seen. The plaque referring to Lord Griffiths and his Welsh Guards tank crew has gone.

What Lord Griffiths did not tell me was that he received the Military Cross for this exploit.

Lord Griffiths MC’s Jagdpanther in the Land Warfare Hanger at the Imperial War Museum Duxford showing the three shell holes that disabled it

Spectacular British Propaganda: the Blenheim Tapestries

27th July 2015 By JohnkMack

Battle of Blenheim 1704 http://www.britishbattles.com/spanish-succession/battle-blenheim.htm

There is no doubt that the Tapestries at Blenheim Palace at Woodstock in Oxfordshire are the most spectacular propaganda for British Eighteenth Century Clout.

Forcing the Lines of Brabant

After his campaigns in the Low Countries the Duke of Marlborough commissioned the tapestries from Tapestry Weavers in Brussels to commemorate his successes at the Battles of Blenheim in 1704, Oudenarde in 1708, Malplaquet in 1709 and Donauworth and forcing the Lines of Brabant and the sieges of Bouchain, Wynendael and Lille. They hang in the State Rooms at Blenheim Palace.

Interestingly there is no Tapestry marking the Battle of Ramillies in 1706.

Account of the Battle of Blenheim is at http://www.britishbattles.com/spanish-succession/battle-blenheim.htm

Account of the Battle of Ramillies is at http://www.britishbattles.com/spanish-succession/battle-ramillies.htm

Account of the Battle of Oudenarde is at http://www.britishbattles.com/spanish-succession/battle-oudenarde.htm

The Battle of Oudenarde 1708 http://www.britishbattles.com/spanish-succession/battle-oudenarde.htm

Account of the Battle of Malplaquet is at http://www.britishbattles.com/spanish-succession/battle-malplaquet.htm

The Battle of Malplaquet 1709 http://www.britishbattles.com/spanish-succession/battle-malplaquet.htm

Scotland’s Nemesis; Battle of Flodden 9th September 1513

22nd July 2015 By JohnkMack

Map of the Battle of Flodden 9th September 1513 by John Fawkes http://www.britishbattles.com/anglo-scottish/battle-flodden.htm

On the way north to St Andrews I stopped at the battlefield of Flodden, 9^th September 1513, the battle at which the flower of Scottish nobility headed by King James IV perished at the hands of King Henry VIII’s English army led by the Earl of Surrey.

Battle of Flodden by Burne-Jones

The battlefield is just south of Coldstream on the English-Scottish border.

The memorial cross is situated on the hill that formed the English position.

Flodden was a catastrophe for Scotland destroying most of the ruling elite in one day. The lament ‘The Flowers of the Forest’, played at many funerals, was written to commemorate the battle.

See the British Battles account at http://www.britishbattles.com/anglo-scottish/battle-flodden.htm

Battle of Flodden: Modern view from the English position across the valley to the Scottish position at the beginning of the battle and from which the Scots advanced to the attack.

Battle of Flodden: Branxton Church behind the English left

Battle of Flodden: The memorial cross positioned at the centre of the English position at the Battle of Flodden 9th September 1513

Coppinger of Jutland

16th July 2015 By JohnkMack

Captain Cuthbert Coppinger DSC RN the commanding officer of HMS King Alfred, the RNVR training station, in the middle of the front row with his dog training staff and trainees in 1945

I and three others lived in a cottage in Twyford Hampshire for our last year at Southampton University in 1969. In the other half of the sprawling brick and flint building lived Captain Cuthbert Coppinger RN Retd.

Captain Coppinger told us he had been at the Battle of Jutland (31^st May 1916). After the Great War he attended a reconstruction of the battle using German records. He asked a moderator ‘What is that ship over there on its own in the German Fleet?’ The moderator said ‘HMS Canterbury’. ‘Good Lord,’ said Captain Coppinger, ‘I was the navigating officer on HMS Canterbury’.

Light cruiser HMS Canterbury that fought at Jutland on 31st May 1916. Lieutenant Cuthbert Coppinger RN was awarded the DSC for his conduct as navigating officer of the ship during the battle

It was a good story. What Captain Coppinger did not tell us was that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his conduct at Jutland as the navigating officer of the ship that led one of Admiral Hood’s advance light cruiser squadrons.

Part of the crew of HMS Canterbury in 1916: Lieutenant Cuthbert Coppinger DSC RN is not obviously in the photograph

The citation stated that the award of the DSC was for ‘navigating the ship in the coolest manner from a very exposed position under extremely heavy fire’.

In the 1930s Captain Coppinger was the Senior Royal Navy Officer on the North China Station on HMS Capetown. From this service he was awarded the French Order of Maritime Merit for the rescue of survivors of the steamer ‘Yolande’ wrecked on the coast of Shantung on 6^th March 1938.

Battleship HMS Malaya commanded by Captain Cuthbert Coppinger RN in 1941

During the Second World War Captain Coppinger commanded HMS Malaya, the Queen Elizabeth class battleship that took a considerable hammering at Jutland as one of Admiral Evan-Thomas’s Fifth Battle Squadron.

At the end of the Second World War Captain Coppinger was the last commanding officer of HMS King Alfred the training station for RNVR officers, Brighton Swimming Baths in peaceful times.

Captain Coppinger died a few years after we had known him at Twyford. He had a voice like a foghorn and was a committed Catholic. His booming voice could be heard across the garden addressing a pair of questing Jehovah’s Witnesses ‘And do you go to church like we do?’

Map 32 from the Official Account of Naval Operations in the Great War Volume III showing the position at 6.26pm on 31st May 1916 at the height of the middle phase of the Battle of Jutland. HMS Canterbury is in the bottom right corner with the German Battle Line turning towards her

Aussies at the Battle of Jutland

8th July 2015 By JohnkMack

Were there any Aussies at the Battle of Jutland on 31^st May 1916? There should have been a battle cruiser’s crew of Aussies. HMAS Australia was part of Second Battle Cruiser Squadron based at Rosyth. Unfortunately on 24^th April 1917 HMAS Australia was in collision in dense fog with HMS New Zealand in much the same area as the Battle of Jutland was to take place a month later, putting Australia in ‘dockyard hands’ for two months.

British Armoured Cruiser HMS Defence lost at the Battle of Jutland 31st May 1916

There were however three Australians on the armoured cruiser HMS Defence, the flag ship of First Cruiser Squadron; Sub Lieutenant George Paterson, RAN, Midshipman Joseph Mack, RAN and Stoker 2^nd Class Mortimer Froude.

The German naval authorities refused to include armoured cruisers in the High Seas Fleet line of battle on the basis that they were insufficiently gunned and armoured.

Jutland showed how right they were. From Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot’s First Cruiser Squadron three of the four ships were sunk at Jutland: the flagship HMS Defence, HMS Warrior and HMS Black Prince, with few survivors.

All three Aussies on HMS Defence were lost.

In addition a Roman Catholic Padre Patrick Gibbons was attached to HMS Indomitable for the battle and Gunner (Warrant Officer) John Gill served on the battleship HMS Benbow, flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee’s Fourth Battle Squadron. Both survived.

HMS New Zealand fought in the thick of the Jutland battle being part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty’s Battle Cruiser Fleet. She was a British ship donated by the New Zealand Government. On a pre-war visit to the Dominion a Maori chief presented a Maori kilt to the ship with the direction that the captain wear it whenever the ship was in action. The ship’s crew insisted that the captain complied with this requirement. Whenever the ship went into action a member of the crew would look onto the bridge to confirm that the captain was suitably clad so he could reassure the rest of the crew.

Picture of the Battle of Jutland by the German Wartime Marine Artist Claus Bergen. The ships in the foreground are German capital ships. To the left of the picture in the distance HMS Defence can be seen exploding after being repeatedly struck by large calibre German shells.

Information on the Australian personnel from Naval Historical Society of Australia website.

Some War Memorials in the South of France

11th August 2014 By JohnkMack

War Memorial in Salvagnac.

It was interesting and touching to see the contrasting memorials in a small and impoverished town like Salvagnac, which did not put the names of its fallen sons on the commemorative plaque for its Great War memorial, and in Albi with its fine basilica. The Saint Salvy area of Albi has its own plaque in the parish church.

War Memorial in Albi.

War Memorial in Saint Salvy, Albi.

Spent several hours in the town of Moissac on the Tarn River, with its memorial to its 300 dead in the Great War. The detachable plaque has enabled the name of the town’s single casualty in Afghanistan to be added to his fellows from the First and Second Wars and the colonial wars in Algeria, Morocco and Indo-China.

War Memorial in Moissac.

Military pictures by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

11th August 2014 By JohnkMack

French Army Artilleryman tightening his girth by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1878.

Visited Toulouse-Lautrec country last week: Albi on the Tarn River in South of France.
In his early days, before moving to the flesh pots of Montmatre in Paris, TL painted some fine military subjects, clearly from the local ‘Quartiers de Cavallerie et d’Artillerie’: Chasseurs à Cheval and Gunners.
Interesting that TL was painting military figures in the terrible years immediately after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

Head of a grey horse by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1882.

Starting in his greatly disabled childhood, TL developed a considerable talent for painting horses, before turning to the absinthe-soaked dancing girls and battered roués of Paris and Bordeaux.

Dr Tapié de Celeyran by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1894.

The first ‘Sandhurst’ at Marlow in Buckinghamshire

31st July 2014 By JohnkMack

The front entrance of Remnantz, Henley Road, Marlow, home of the first military college.

This week I visited the predecessor to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In those days I don’t think there was much concern as to whether it was a ‘College’ or an ‘Academy’. It was established at Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire in 1799, at the recommendation of its first commandant, Colonel John le Marchant, as an adjunct to the senior institution for training army staff officers in High Wycombe. The Academy was situated in Remnantz, a large house on the road to Henley, catering for around 300 cadets for the British and East India Company armies, until its removal to Sandhurst in Berkshire in 1812.
Although the west wing of Remnantz was demolished when the house was purchased by the Brewery family of Wethered in 1825, much of the original house remains.

John le Marchant in the uniform of an officer of light dragoons, 1790.

Le Marchant was an important influence in the re-organisation and training of the British cavalry arm in the Napoleonic Wars, drafting new regulations and designing a sword.
In August 1811, as major general, John le Marchant went to Spain to command the Heavy Cavalry Brigade in Wellington’s army, comprising 5th Dragoon Guards and 3rd and 4th Dragoons. Le Marchant was killed immediately after his decisive charge against the French left wing at the Battle of Salamanca on 22nd July 1812 (see
http://www.britishbattles.com/peninsula/peninsula-salamanca.htm)

A regiment of British Dragoon Guards in Spain at the end of the Peninsular War by Orlando Norie.

Remarkable War Memorial in All Saints Church High Wycombe

28th July 2014 By JohnkMack

The memorial to Lieutenant Viscount Wendover in All Saints Church, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

This extraordinary memorial in All Saints is to Lieutenant Viscount Wendover, Royal Horse Guards, mortally wounded at the Second Battle of Ypres during the desperate dismounted attack by the 8th Cavalry Brigade on 13th May 1915 to recover the British trench line, lost to the German advance during a heavy bombardment. Wendover died in Boulogne on 19th May and his body brought home by his family, a practice subsequently banned by the army.
The memorial, high up on the east wall of the church, comprises the sword, spurs and heraldic devices of the 20 year old viscount, with a brass plaque. Above these relics are a standard and trumpet with banner of the Blues. It must be unprecedented for a regiment to provide such important artefacts for a memorial.

The Royal Horse Guards Standard and Trumpet over the memorial to Lieutenant Viscount Wendover in All Saints Church, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

The dismounted attack by the three regiments of the brigade, the Royal Horse Guards, the 10th Hussars and the Essex Yeomanry, is described in the Essex Yeomanry history of the war: ‘At this moment a group of Germans fled from the positions they were holding, and someone holloaed, “Tally ho! Yonder they go.” As a response to the view holloa the whole line, the Essex on the right and the 10th Hussars on the left, rose as one and rushed the hill. The going was deep, but no one halted until the trench was reached as were also a series of holes which the line degenerated into on the right. Very heavy casualties were suffered in both regiments..’
The Royal Horse Guards attacked in the charge on the right of the Essex Yeomanry. Each of the three regiments lost around 10 officers and 150 other ranks in the charge. The commanding officers of the 10th Hussars and the Essex Yeomanry were killed.
In All Saints there is also a memorial to a VC from Wycombe Royal Grammar School, Lieutenant Frederick Youens, Durham Light Infantry, killed in 1917.
A surprising find in All Saints was a memorial to Captain Edward Kennedy RN, father of Ludovic Kennedy, who rejoined the Royal Navy in 1939 at the age of 60, and was in command of the converted liner HMS Rawalpindi off the Faroes, when Rawalpindi encountered the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Kennedy refused a demand to surrender and fought his ship until it was sunk by shellfire, going down with it.