A couple of weeks ago I was helping 12 Mechanized Brigade with their battlefield study in Italy.  Battlefield Studies are taken seriously in the armed forces and are considered important exercises.  They’re being largely axed as part of the stringent defence cuts taking place at the moment – after all, they’re an easy and obvious cut to make if you’re a mandarin looking at areas to shave off expenses.  However, to do so seems to me extremely short-sighted.  In this instance, it was the chance for the new Brigadier to spend some time with his component unit commanding officers and senior majors, for everyone to get to know one another, bond and importantly, share ideas.  These are intangible gains, but important ones nonetheless – 12 Brigade is almost as large as a division and at the moments, its units are spread around the country.  Gelling in this way is essential and the cost insignificant when compared to the truly gargantuan costs of other areas of the military. Read more…

Or rather, it does for some but not for me!  I’ve recently written an article for Fly Past Magazine comparing the two marks that were available in 1940, the Me109E and the Spitfire Mk I, in which I came down in favour of the Messerschmitt.  This has prompted a number of letters to Fly Past’s editor, Ken Ellis, two of which he has published in this month’s edition, one agreeing with my argument, the other vehemently not so.  The latter is from Mark Laity in Belgium.  ’The idea that after 70 years anyone is going to come up with anything truly new about the Battle of Britain is unlikely, although with so much literature already available the need to appear to offer something different is also self-evident!’ he begins.  I completely disagree – there’s tons of stuff out there, because for the most part, people have only ever looked at comparatively narrow sources and generally only from one side.  I wrote the book equally from the German and British perspective not because I was desperate to appear to offer something new but because I wanted to have a clearer picture of what was going on myself.  I can assure you, I’m a Spitfire lover and it pained me greatly to say that the Me109E was better.  I wasn’t doing it to be alternative and unnecessarily provocative but because those were the conclusions I drew having examined the evidence.   Read more…

Someone has sent a message wondering about the official dates of the Battle of Britain and asking how it was that these were agreed upon.  He suggested that because of the Blitz which continued into May 1941, we should look at the Battle as being longer than has been traditional. Read more…

I’ve just come back from Dunkirk where we’ve been filming for the new Battle of Britain documentary I’m working on and got up horribly early to catch the wrecks that can still be seen at low tide.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t early enough and already as I began a piece the tide was snapping at my heels.  Annoyingly, I fluffed my lines a bit and so we decided to come back again later that evening just before the tide had turned.  It was still pretty overcast – which was appropriate considering the thick smoke and cloud that covered Dunkirk during the evacuation – but the light was much better and most importantly, the wrecks were lying there for all to see.

I have to admit, I found it incredibly moving to see them there.  We did a piece beside  the remains of a small wooden ship, but we also had a good look at the Devonia, a pre-war Bristol Channel paddle steamer that had been commissioned by the Navy in 1939 and converted into a minesweeper.  Joining the 7th Minesweeping Flotilla at Granton, she carried out a number of operations before heading to help with the evacuation on 30th May.  She had been helping lift men from the beaches at La Panne but came under heavy air attack and although was not directly hit, suffered a number of near misses which caused no small amount of damage – and enough to make it unlikely that she would be able to make it back across the Channel.  Instead, her skipper was ordered to beach her.

The Naval Staff History claims she was run aground to help as a makeshift pier at La Panne, but she’s now at Bray Dunes, so presumably the location of her beaching in the official history is incorrect.  I must ask Steve Prince at the Naval Historical Branch if he knows the reason for this…

(This picture was taken by Andy – see his other shots on WW2TALK).

I had a fascinating day last week down at Millport, near Plymouth, where the world’s last S-Boat is housed and where it is, thankfully, being painstakingly restored.  I’m making a film about the Battle of Britain at the moment for the BBC and so we were down them filming it and getting the expert views of local naval historian, Dr Harry Bennett.  All I can say is that it is an absolutely awesome beast of a vessel.  Harry put it rather well.  He said that if the Spitfire aeronautical perfection in terms of design and appearance, then the S-Boat was nautical perfection.  Certainly, its curves were very handsome, and although a pretty big 36 metres long, it really did look a thing of feline beauty.   Read more…