Horrible Histories

The following is a clip from a BBC history programme aimed at children.

It's riddled with factual inaccuracies, but the shrill, hectoring tone and the general anti-British content gives an interesting view of how the BBC views British history - and would like us to.

We actually fund this tripe.

A count of the lies and inaccuracies can be found in the comment section here.

Hat tip: Biased BBC.

11th November

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Today we pay tribute to all those who have fallen in defence of our country - and continue to follow their orders and do their duty, no matter how obscure or futile the cause.

God Bless them all.

Iraqi Spits on Hero's WWII Service Medals - Escapes Jail

A shocking story from Thursday's Daily Mail indicates just how little respect many of the "cultural enrichers" who have arrived in this country have for its history, its culture and its traditions - not to mention its citizens.

This is Company Sgt. Major Sam Steadman, wearing the medals he earned during his distinguished military career.

Among them are the Palestine Medal, The Africa Star, The Italy Star and the 1939-1945 Star.

During the Second World War, CSM Steadman, a paratrooper, saw action at Dunkirk and in North Africa. He had joined the Army at just 15 and was the first man in his Company to earn The Military Medal.

Mr Steadman died in 1991, and ever since his grandson Timothy House has attended his local Remebrance Day parade in Portsmouth, wearing his Grandfather's medals in his honour. He does this because he believes it is what his Grandfather would have wished for, and also because he believes his Grandfather's actions, and those of countless thousands like him, should be remembered and respected rather than forgotten.

In 2009, Mr House attended as usual, despite the fact he was recovering from a broken hip. After the parade he was standing outside a pub chatting with some friends, including a wheelchair-bound veteran of 91 he had agreed to accompany and look after so he wouldn't miss out on being able to honour his fallen comrades.

As he stood on the pavement, he was passed by this individual, Iraqi immigrant Serwan Abdullah, 23.

For absolutely no reason, Abdullah spat at Mr House, and his saliva landed on his Grandfather's medals. This modern day representative of Cool Britannia then "ran off".

Mr House was understandably furious, and the police were called. When they caught up with Abdullah, he admitted the offence, then claimed Mr House had spat at him first in a "racist attack," before responding:

"I am proud of what I have done. I have no respect for him. F*** him and f*** his medals."

Of course, the stock defence of every non-white scoundrel ("It was racist, innit guv") turned out to be a lie.

Abdullah walked free from court this week, having been sentenced to pay £200 in damages (£100 in compensation to Mr House and £100 in court costs) and to complete 240 hours of unpaid work.

This in spite of the fact that the magistrate, Stuart Chittendon JP, summarised Abdullah's actions thus:

"The offence you have been convicted of is particularly abhorrent to society."

Indeed, Mr Chittendon. What a shame then that you still felt no real punishment was required. I don't think giving a couple of weeks worth of benefits money back to the public purse (assuming he actually pays up, of course) quite cuts it. Evidently this is why I am not and never will be employed in the British criminal justice system.

The only defence Abdullah's lawyer seemed to offer is that "he now accepts he was not acting in self defence."

Big of him. Unfortunately there is no record of any regret or an apology, or even a cursory understanding of why his actions were wrong and deeply offensive. Not that I'm surprised - it's just worth pointing out.

Abdullah has previous convictions for shoplifting, failure to comply with a community order, battery and criminal damage.

Shocking, I'm sure. Still, at least when I'm an old man Abdullah and his ilk will be stealing paying my pension, assuming such a thing still exists - right?

Well, clearly not. Despite the fact Abdullah is happy to enjoy our generous hospitality for as long as we're stupid enough to provide it, he clearly despises everything about this country and what it stands for. What could demonstrate that more clearly (other than his long criminal record) than spitting on the medals of a military veteran?

The article informs us:

Falklands veteran Chris Purcell, a parade martial with the Royal British Legion in Portsmouth, described Abdullah's actions as 'despicable’.

The 50-year-old former petty officer said: "To spit on the medals of a man who fought for our country is disgusting. It's a huge insult."

Yes, it is. But that's just the point - Mr Steadman fought for Britain, for our country, for the British people (you know, those hideously white types who don't actually exist), including his own children and grandchildren.

He did not fight for a criminal Arab Muslim who thinks preying on infidels is his god-given right anyway, and simply can't believe his luck at just what the spoils for him actually are in our weak, degraded country.

He can do whatever he likes and get away with it, as he's proved, several times. Mr Steadman may have fought for many things, but he did not fight for that. For all Abdullah's faults, he can see he's not "one of us" - even though any of the other people in the article would risk prosecution for pointing that very simple and very obvious fact out. He's just here to use us, to leech off of us, because the sad truth is we will let him, and we will persecute anyone who says enough is enough.

Yet still, for many, the siren-song of Leftism continues. Out of 30 comments on the Daily Mail article, one was the barely believable:

What you have to realise is that he has an opinion of Western culture based on his life in Iraq. He probably despises the WEST, and given the appalling way that some of our Soldiers have behaved out there towards the Iraqi people, who could blame him? Whilst not condoning what he did, he has EVERY right to protest about anything that he chooses - it's called Democracy.

- Sarah, Aylesbury, Bucks, 25/2/2010 10:15

Well, Sarah, if he despises the West so much, why did he come here? Since when has spitting at a group of people who are minding their own business then lying about the exact nature of the encounter to shift the blame counted as "democratic protest"?

If Sarah's so fond of democracy, perhaps she'll back a public vote on whether or not Abdullah should be immediately deported - after all, Iraq can do with all the democratic thinking it can get, and Abdullah can happily sit and ponder on just how much he despises the West - without it funding his lifestyle. Perhaps he'll be able to enjoy the benefits of Iraqi justice for bit, too.

Despite my disapproval of her aims, we should be grateful nonetheless for comments such as Sarah's; firstly it's the perfect window into the Leftist mindset, and secondly she almost admits too much, more than all the other bluster in the article put together - i.e. the West is currently letting in thousands upon thousands of people who despise it, and continue to do so whilst they are here and living off of it.

One would think we'd had enough warnings already.

A Tribute to the Last Tommy

This morning Harry Patch, 111, died peacefully at his nursing home in Somerset.

Harry was the last British survivor of the First World War, and the country's oldest man after 113 year old Henry Allingham passed away last week.

Harry Patch has a special claim to fame, however; he was the only one of (until recently) three surviving British veterans of the First World War to have seen frontline action in the carnage of the trenches. He was 'The Last Fighting Tommy'.

The Telegraph carries a tribute from Prince Charles:

Mr Patch, who was known as the Last Fighting Tommy, was the last living soldier to have fought in bloody battle of Passchendaele, at Ypres, in 1917 in which more than 70,000 troops died.

The veteran's death follows that of Henry Allingham, also a veteran of the Great War who died on July 18 at the age of 113.

Mr Patch, who was a machine-gunner in the Duke of Cornwalls's Light Infantry, died on Saturday morning at Fletcher House care home in Somerset where he was living.

The Prince of Wales was among the first to pay tribute to Mr Patch, telling the BBC: "The Great War is a chapter in our history we must never forget, so many sacrifices were made, so many young lives lost. So today nothing could give me greater pride than paying tribute to Harry Patch from Somerset.

"Harry was involved in numerous bouts of heavy fighting on the front line but amazingly remained unscathed for a while. Tragically one night in September 1917 when in the morass in the Ypres Salient a German shrapnel shell burst over head badly wounding Harry and killing three of his closest friends.

"In spite of the comparatively short time that he served with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Harry always cherished the extraordinary camaraderie that the appalling conditions engendered in the battalion and remained loyal to the end."

Here is an article, also from The Telegraph, which was published two years ago and explains Harry's life and service in more depth:

Henry John Patch would be notable simply by virtue of his 109 years on earth. When he was born, on June 17, 1898, the Marquess of Salisbury was Prime Minister and Queen Victoria had two and a half years still to reign. Kitchener was 11 weeks away from fighting the Battle of Omdurman and the outbreak of the Boer War lay 16 months into the future. H G Wells's latest work, The War of the Worlds, had just been published in book form following its successful serialisation in Pearson's Magazine.

But Harry Patch is more than a gerontological phenomenon. The man arranging his medals and sitting up straight for a photograph in the conservatory of a nursing home in Wells is the last British man alive to have served in the trenches during the First World War. The last survivor of Passchendaele, that three-month orgy of blood-letting in the mud of Flanders which began 90 years ago this month and commemorated by the Queen at Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium today. The last Tommy of the Great War.

When he is gone, the British experience of daily life on the Western Front will be no man's land. No living man's land.

There are two other men alive who served between 1914 and 1918, but neither experienced the living nightmare of the front line. Henry Allingham, born two years earlier than Mr Patch, served in France with the Royal Naval Air Service and occasionally visited the front to recover downed aircraft, while Bill Stone was called up for the Royal Navy only two months before the Armistice and did not see action.

Mr Patch takes no pride in being the last of the millions who fought and died amid unmitigated horror. His improbable status sometimes overwhelms him, reducing him to silent contemplation.

"The poor bloody infantry. Dead right. That's what we were. For 1/6d a day."

His speech is slow and deliberate; gentle, rusty Somerset. Kaiser is pronounced "Kay-zer", with a long "z".

That he is sitting here, listening to children in a nearby playground, is a testament to life's caprice. He should have died 90 years ago, on a black night in September 1917, with his mates. It would have been an unremarkable death: one more shredded body to add to three others.

He was part of a Lewis Gun team in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, a close-knit family drawn closer together by the knowledge that machine-gunners, by virtue of the mayhem they wrought among advancing infantry, were likely to receive no mercy if over-run.

That night, his battalion had been pulled out of the line and was moving to the rear over open ground when a German shell, a "whizz-bang", exploded. The young Private Patch was wounded in the groin by a shell splinter. One other member of the five-strong team survived. The others were blown to pieces.

"It killed Number Three - he came from Truro - and Number Four and Number Five. Jack and Jill we called those two. They came from Falmouth. Number Three was known as Maudy. There was an actress of that name. He had a good sense of humour."

Were they good friends? "All of us."

Did they look after each other? "Always."

The British Empire suffered 500,000 dead and wounded during the three months of Third Ypres, as Passchendaele is more properly known. The offensive was the brainchild of the British commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, and didn't take long to bog down in the morass created by incessant artillery bombardment and constant rain. Casualties mounted.

Between the start of the campaign on July 31 and its end on November 8, an average of 5,000 men a day were killed or wounded, and all for the capture of a few miles of desecrated land.

Harry Patch grew up in Coombe Down, near Bath. He left school at 15 and trained as a plumber. He was 16 when war broke out and reached 18 just as conscription was being introduced. Unlike many of the young men who smilingly signed up for death and dismemberment, he had no illusions.

"I knew what to expect. My mother had three sons. My oldest brother suffered from asthma. He didn't pass. My middle brother was a regular soldier. Royal Engineers. Serving in Africa. He was called home and wounded at Mons. I knew what it was going to be like: dirty, filthy, insanitary."

It met his expectations. There were the lice that clung to the body and the rats that gnawed fearlessly at bootlaces. And the mud. Thick brown liquid quite capable of drowning a man. The shell burst that killed his friends ended Mr Patch's three or so months in the front line.

"I can remember the shell bursting. I saw the flash, I must have passed out. The next thing I could remember was the dressing station. A wound in my groin. The nurse painted something around it to stop the lice getting at it. I was given a good hot bath. The lice came off - you could pick them up with a shovel - bloody things."

There was a shortage of anaesthetic and he had to be held down as the shell splinter was removed. The medical officer asked him if wanted to keep it as a souvenir. Mr Patch told him what he could do with it. "The fella in the next bed said to me, 'If he writes anything in that book, you're for Blighty.' Well, he did write in the book. I didn't believe it until someone came in and called my name and number. I went to Rouen."

During his recovery in Britain, he met his first wife. "Knocked her down. She was coming down some steps from the cinema and I was running for the bus and knocked her down. Picked her up, dusted her off and it started from that." They were married for 56 years and had two sons, both of whom have since died.

Mr Patch has few mementos from the war. He was too old to fight in the Second World War and worked as a sanitary engineer in American army camps in the south-west. He retired in 1963. Following his first wife's death in 1976, he married again at the age of 81. His second wife died five years ago.

His membership of that steadily diminishing band of British veterans of the war to end all wars has earned him audiences with the Queen and the French Légion d'honneur. A few years ago he was taken to meet a German veteran who had fought opposite him in Flanders. "Nice old chap. A pacifist. Same as me. Why did they suffer, those millions of men?"

The afternoon is wearing on and Mr Patch is tired. He pauses to listen to the children playing. What does it feel like to be the last of those millions, that army of ghosts?

"I don't like it," he says and then adds: "I sit there and think. And some nights I dream - of that first battle. I can't forget it.

"I fell in a trench. There was a fella there. He must have been about our age. He was ripped shoulder to waist with shrapnel. I held his hand for the last 60 seconds of his life. He only said one word: 'Mother'. I didn't see her, but she was there. No doubt about it. He passed from this life into the next, and it felt as if I was in God's presence.

"I've never got over it. You never forget it. Never."

Once more, see that humbling stoicism in the face of adversity. Once more, we mourn a man who seems to take with him so much of what made this country great.

Rest in peace, Harry.

You may be gone, but we will never forget the sacrifices you and your generation made for us.

Having said that, it would be nice if many of the politicians paying tribute to Harry remembered what he actually fought for - Great Britain and her people.

A Tribute to a Hero

Today it was announced that Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man and one of only two surviving British veterans of the First World War, as well as the only surviving founder-member of the Royal Air Force, died aged 113.



Here is an overview of Henry's life which was published in The Daily Telegraph, including the war memories which still haunted him:

He was haunted by a nightmare memory of falling into a trench on the Western Front.

With a clear mind, even as he reached his 113th birthday, he could recall the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Wright brothers' first flight two years later and seeing WG Grace bat sometime between 1903 and 1906, though he could not remember how many runs Grace scored.

His experience of the trenches came was when he was looking for the remains of aircraft that had been shot down.

"We were moving forward at night," he would recall. "I was very apprehensive. It was dark. One of those nights you got where the night time seems to surround you. There were booby traps everywhere."

Suddenly his foothold gave way: "I fell into a shell hole. It was full of arms, legs, ears, dead rats – a lot of dead, rotten flesh. I was up to my armpits in water. I can't describe the smell flesh and mud mixed up together.

"I turned to my left, and that's what saved me. It got shallower to the left, and I was able to lift myself out of the water. I lay there in the dark, not daring to move, cold and with my uniform stinking. I was frightened. I was scared. I was so relieved when it finally got light and I could move."

Despite such a gruesome experience, Allingham counted himself fortunate: "I think I had an angel hanging over my shoulders. I still do, I hope."

Henry Allingham was born on June 6 1896 in Clapham, South London. His father died when he was 14 months old, and his mother and grandparents brought him up.

He attended the London County Council School in South Lambert Road, which he left to become a trainee surgical instrument-maker at St Bartholomew's Hospital. However, the work was uninteresting, and he soon moved to a coachbuilder specialising in car bodies for Foden and Scammel.

Allingham tried to enlist on August 3 1914. But when he turned up at the Royal Engineers' recruiting office in Piccadilly, desperate to be a dispatch rider, he found 200 other men in a queue in front of him. Even though he had his own Triumph motorbike, he was told there was no chance.

His mother's illness persuaded to him to stay at home for a few more months, but after she died, he saw a plane over Chingford, and thought: "That's for me".

Joining the Royal Naval Air Service, he was rated Mechanic First Class on September 21 1915, and sent to Sheerness to complete his training with 14 other recruits, who included two Australians, a New Zealander and an American.

Stationed for two years at Great Yarmouth, Allingham maintained seaplanes, but frequently cadged rides in aircraft, occasionally sitting in the navigator's seat on fights over the North Sea.

Later, at Bacton, Norfolk, he lit flares to make landing strips for night fighters which were hunting German airships. Among the pilots whom Allingham remembered with great affection were Lieutenant Egbert Cadbury, DSC, DFC, and his commanding officers

Lieutenant-Commander Wyndor de Courcy Ireland and Lieutenant-Commander Douglas "Snakey" Oliver.

He recalled watching Oliver win the DSO in June 1916 for his single-handed attack on German cruisers which were shelling Great Yarmouth; on another occasion, he helped Christopher Wood tie himself into a BE2c so that he could loop the first loop.

Allingham was disappointed when King George V, on a visit to the station, spoke to several sailors but never got to him in the line.

He undertook several patrols in seaplane tenders which each carried a Tabloid, a small aircraft Tommy Sopwith had designed to win the Schneider trophy race in 1914. In naval service, the Tabloid had a detachable rear fuselage which Allingham had to assemble before hoisting out the aircraft on a derrick for take-off.

On patrols Allingham preferred the paddle steamer Brocklesbury which had better accommodation than the trawlers, where the bunks were in the fish-hold. On May 31 1916, he was in the armed trawler Kingfisher, whose seaplane was shadowing the German High Seas Fleet.

His memories were of British Dreadnoughts steaming past with their huge bow-waves, followed by the whole fleet, line astern. The shells from the Germans came straight for the ship, but they bounced right over the top "like ducks-and-drakes."

Allingham was not aware that he had taken part in an epic sea battle until Kingfisher returned to Great Yarmouth, where he heard the vicar offer a prayer of thanks for the "great victory of Jutland".

In June 1917 he helped form 12 Naval Air Squadron, flying Sopwith Pups, Triplanes and Camels, and was sent to France as reinforcements for the Western Front. 12 NAS was a training squadron, based at Petit Synthe, which in November became involved in operations over Passchendaele, the third major offensive of Ypres. He remembered "dotting around places like Hellfire Corner, Plugstreet [Ploegstert] and Pop [Poperinghe] looking for the remains of aircraft that had been shot down."

It was on one of these visits to the trenches that he fell into a shell hole at night.

Transferring to the RAF when it was formed on April 1 1918, Allingham was demobilised in 1919, and then went to work for Ford until his retirement. During the Second World War, this was a reserved occupation.

He tried to forget his wartime memories, never going to reunions or joining old comrades' associations until 2003, when he was asked to lead the parade at the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph.

As a concession to his age he was allowed to ride down Whitehall in an open-top 1911 Austin car at the head of the former servicemen and women who marched silently past the monument to the Glorious Dead. He was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur to add to his 1918 Victory and 1914-1918 campaign medals.

Wearing what had become his trademark crimson bow tie the following year, Allingham was applauded by the crowd as he insisted on standing to place a wreath, with only a little help from his escort.

He also crossed the Channel for the first time in 85 years to unveil a memorial to those who fell on the 90th anniversary of the war that was supposed to end all wars.

"I never went back," he said. "I wanted to forget it. I did forget. But, of course, there are some things you can never forget. The veterans' association asked me if I would go back. I didn't want to show any disrespect to my old pals. I had to go for them." He was presented with a gold medal and the freedom of St Omer.

Henry Allingham outlived his wife Dorothy, a nurse whom he met while he was in hospital with a cracked rib at Yarmmouth during the first war and their two daughters; his grandchildren tried to persuade him to move to United States, but he insisted on remaining in his flat overlooking the front at Eastbourne, saying "I love England".

He would attribute his longevity to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women" then add that there had only been one woman for him – his beloved wife, who died in 1970.

The BBC presents a short tribute to his life in pictures here.

Mr Allingham was much celebrated during his later years, and rightly so.

With his passing, however, we should not forget the sacrifices that people of his generation made for us and this country. When he was asked how he'd like to be remembered his reply was:

"I don't. I want to be forgotten. Remember the others."

What he meant was that we should remember all of those who never came back - those who couldn't dream of seeing their 21st birthdays, never mind reaching 100.

In that sentiment, he reveals just what was so humbling about him. He represents everything which was once great about this country.

Rest in peace, Henry.

Perspectives on the D-Day Anniversary

At the D-Day commemorations on Saturday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the following:

"Sixty-five years ago in the thin light of grey dawn, more than 1,000 small craft took to a rough sea on a day that will be forever a day of bravery.

On that June morning the young of our nations stepped out on those beaches below and into history. As long as freedom lives their deeds will never die. On D-Day the sounds of liberation on the march were heard across Europe.”

Ironic for a man who has done more than most to undermine freedom in this country and eradicate its unique character.

This anniversary is seen as a victory for freedom. In many respects, the ultimate victory for freedom.

But freedom can only exist when the will to maintain it exists. Regular contributor Dr. D commented:

With people like this less than 70 years ago, it is hard to understand why the UK is allowing itself to be overrun today. These people did not just rollover and accept servitude.

In many respects he is correct. It seems the erosion of our identity and the holes in our knowledge of history has a lot to do with our current woes, including the double-edged threat posed by Islam and mass immigration.

We have lost our will in the face of a brutal, implacable foe. Historically, those who lack the will to survive do not survive. Why should they?

GalliaWatch provided more food for thought on this subject.

Compare this, the speech given by Winston Churchill to Parliament on 4th June 1940 in which he promises that Britain will never surrender, to remarks by an ancient but until now forgotten enemy of Western Civilisation.

A brief transcript:

"Even though large parts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."

Now, a quote taken from our oldest enemy and modern threat to freedom - Islam.

Sura (9:29) - Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya tax with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

The Islamic scripture:

"Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace."

Here is what Churchill, who fought in the Sudan, had to say about Islam:

“How dreadful are the curses which Islam lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.

Far from being moribund, Islam is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science -the science against which it had vainly struggled -the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

I suppose the message here is that freedom is not free. As we reflect on the events which occurred over 60 years ago, it might be pertinent to take stock of what is happening in our major cities today.

Anniversary of the D-Day Landings

Commemorations for those who died in and those who survived the D-Day landings, the largest invasion fleet the world has seen, have been going on since yesterday.

Yesterday British paratroops were honoured by a German Bundeswehr band and cheered by French veterans and civilians. These men were dropped ahead of the landing beaches a few hours before the main assault to capture bridges and neutralise concrete gun emplacements.

Of 750 men from 9 Para dropped to spike the gun batteries at Merville, just 150 actually reached the target, many of them wounded. They still managed to destroy the guns before they could decimate British forces landing on Sword Beach, however.

To honour them, men of the current Parachute Regiment did a jump, some from a Dakota of the era.

At midnight the men of the Ox and Bucks light infantry who landed by glider to capture the crucial Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal were commemorated.

This was followed by a huge firework display all along the 60 mile front of invasion beaches were so many British, Americans and Canadians lost their lives.

Over 17,000 Britons were killed during the invasion.

All week veterans of each nation have been honouring each other; taking flags and banners to war cemeteries to remember fallen comrades in moments of quiet reflection, interspersed with applause and tears from crowds of onlookers.

Some amazing stories have come to light; here is the tale of Charlie Truman, 91, whose life was saved by a framed photograph of his wife Joyce.

Grandfather Charlie Truman, now 91, survived a machine gun attack on the beaches of Normandy thanks purely to the silver-framed photograph.

He was one of 150,000 Allied troops who landed on the shores of Northern France on June 6 1944.

As a 26-year-old infantryman with the Suffolk Regiment, he was one of the first soldiers to brave shells and mines of German-occupied territory.

A mile inland from Sword beach, Charlie was mown down in a burst of machine gun fire as his company stormed a German stronghold with fixed bayonets.

But the bullet flying towards his chest was deflected by the silver frame holding a picture of his young wife Joyce - that Charlie had stashed next to his heart just hours before.

Speaking from his home in Crowland, Lincs., Charlie said luck and love had combined to save his life that day.

He said: 'I was darned if I wasn't going to have that picture of Joyce with me in the battle.

'The bullet hit a corner of the silver frame and deflected through the arm of my tunic. The doctors told me later that it definitely saved my life.

'It was only much later when I'd recovered that I saw the damage to the picture and realised I'd be dead if I hadn't been carrying it.'

Charlie and Joyce met and courted at local dances in Crowland before marrying on Christmas Day in 1940.

During the war Charlie carried a photo of Joyce with him in an envelope, but was given a silver frame to keep it in by a family he billeted with in Weymouth just before D-Day.

As the troops made their way across the Channel they were told to leave their packs in a heap on the boat.

But Charlie could not bear to risk losing his beloved photo, so on a last minute impulse tucked it in his tunic for safe keeping.

He said: 'There was no guarantee I would get my pack back. I don't remember being scared but I wanted Joyce with me.

'I didn't know that it was going to make the difference between life and death.'

The nine-inch by four-inch solid silver frame still bears the mark of where a tracer bullet aimed directly at Charlie's heart deflected off the metal and hit his arm instead.

Another bullet caught him in the lung but he was picked up by army medics and ferried back to the Royal Hospital Haslar in Portsmouth.

There he hovered between life and death and doctors sent five-months pregnant Joyce a telegram to say her husband was seriously ill and could die.

Charlie was even taken off resuscitation and read the last rites, before the thought of his unborn child pulled him through.

In hospital, he showed Joyce his photo and it was only then that the couple realised the bullet-scared frame had saved his life.

They went on to spend 61 years of married life and have two daughters together before Joyce's death in 2001.

The frame now sits in pride of place in the regiment's official museum in Bury St Edmunds in honour of her memory.

Colonel Tony Slater of the Royal Anglian Regiment, which was created in 1964 after the Suffolk and Norfolk regiments merged, said Charlie's story was incredible.

He said: 'It is a fantastic bit of history and another important part of the story of the Suffolk regiment.

'When they landed on D-Day their objective was to take a hill three miles inland, codenamed Hillman after the car, going uphill in the open air towards heavily fortified Germans.

'What started with Charlie Truman being wounded and the luck of the photo frame saving him went through to extraordinary acts of bravery by many of his comrades that day.

'The regiment was in the thick of heavy fighting in Normandy and Charlie was one of the lucky ones.'

Colonel Slater said of the 650-strong battalion that landed on D-Day around 120 were killed and three of four times that many were injured.

He added: 'It is incredible talking to these men who survived how much was down to pure luck.

'It was a case of the man standing 10 yards away got hit by a bullet and they did not. There was no rhyme or reason to it.'

Five D-Day veterans and 91 serving members of the Royal Anglian will attend a ceremony on Hillman hill in Normandy tomorrow to commemorate those who died.

Frail Charlie, who suffers poor eyesight, will visit Crowland war memorial and mark the day in the company of fellow veterans.

For me, this sums up everything. A hundred thousand individual stories locked together to make history. It is surprising just how much is down to luck and chance.

God bless, Charlie, and God bless each and every one of those men who fought for freedom that day - especially those who paid the ultimate price and didn't come back to tell their tale.

Zimbabwe Begins Repatriating White Britons

Five hundred British passport-holders left destitute in Zimbabwe by the disastrous policies of Robert Mugabe are finally getting the help that they deserve from the British government.

The group have had their assets and savings destroyed by hyper-inflation and the man made economic crisis in Zimbabwe. They include former colonial administrators, civil servants and British settlers.

They will be flown home at the expense of the British taxpayer, resettled here, as will as given full state pensions and entitlements. For once, I think this is very good news.

From the Telegraph:

Fred Noble, a 78-year-old Scot, will return to Fife this weekend, 51 years after he and his wife departed with £100 for what was then Britain’s Crown Colony of Southern Rhodesia. He worked for Rhodesian Railways, retiring on a pension with medical aid 13 years ago.

“I helped more people than helped me and I deserve a Christian burial. I don’t want to get ill in Zimbabwe,” said Mr Noble, who lost his wife four years ago and was the second pensioner to apply for “repatriation” at the British Embassy.

Mr Mugabe’s bankrupt regime stopped paying his pension five years ago, leaving Mr Noble dependent on his investments.

When Zimbabwe’s inflation reached more than 230 million per cent, the value of his portfolio plunged to less than a penny.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, we paid taxes, invested for our old age. My wife used to say, 'All this place has is sunshine, we are wasting our lives here’. My sister, Gwen in UK, sent me £1,600 and it’s gone now,” said Mr Noble. “I was second to apply to go and we had two weeks to prepare to leave.”

To fund his new life in Britain, he will sell his 1967 car and a television for about £250. But some prized possessions will stay behind. “I have an elephant-skin waistcoat - I was a dandy you know - and two pairs of handmade shoes, the best Rhodesia produced,” said Mr Noble. “I’ll give them away. I will take photos, the Bible my wife gave me and my Robbie Burns.”

Anne Budden, 83, is leaving the land of her birth because she can no longer bear to be “a burden on my daughters in Zimbabwe”. She added: “Their husbands are nearing retirement age. They keep on saying I should change my mind, but I must go. My hip operation took my last money. Our three pensions, on which we lived well, disappeared about five years ago.”

Mrs Budden, who was widowed two years ago, lives in a rented flat in Harare, paid for by another daughter in Britain. “I have a lovely life, shielded from what is going on outside, with space, nice people, and my own garden, and I will miss that and especially my two daughters in Zimbabwe who protect me from hardship.”

Although she has spent a lifetime in Africa, Mrs Budden has always cherished her attachment to Britain. “I am leaving the country of my birth but going to the land of my ancestors,” she said. “I love the Queen and I have a daughter in the UK.”

She will move to Farnborough, near another friend from Harare who will also leave this weekend. “We need to support each other as we start new lives,” said Mrs Budden.

British diplomats in Harare have quietly identified pensioners with British citizenship and no means of support. But the Embassy declined to comment on the official repatriation scheme.

About 1,500 other Zimbabwean pensioners have no foreign citizenship, no family and no means of escape. As each penniless Briton departs, a new charity will be able to give more help to those who are left behind. The charity, Zimbabwe: A National Emergency (ZANE), will be their only lifeline.

VE Day

According to the Mail, when French President Nicholas Sarkozy gave a speech yesterday to commemorate the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny and the unconditional surrender of Hitler's forces, he made not one mention of Britain's sacrifices during the conflict, despite lavishing praise on US forces.

I would like to pay tribute to all those who contributed to Europe's freedom; Britain, the US, but also those who so often get overlooked - troops from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Rhodesia (all of whom were represented in the Battle of Britain at least); Canada; the free Poles, the free French and the free Dutch.

I think it is quite clear to see that Nicholas Sarkozy is not a man who knows a lot about, or at least interprets very much from history.

Statue of Sir Keith Park Deemed 'Too Traditional' for Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth has been empty since it was constructed in 1841.

In the mid-90s, someone came up with the bright idea of using it to showcase contemporary art, and some pretty hideous concoctions ensued; there was a statue of a pregnant, naked disabled woman, a plastic cast of the plinth placed on top in a kind of mirror image, and a strange model of a tree with its roots wrapped around the plinth.

The next bright idea has seen members of the public apply for the privilege of waiting in a queue and taking it in turns to stand on the plinth for an hour in the pose of their choice.

Is this nonsense really becoming of Trafalgar Square, built to commemorate one of Britain's greatest naval victories?

Not really.

But planning officials at Westminster Council disagree. They claim that the 'provocative art' is actually the highlight of the square, and the rest is quite boring. They said as much when they turned down a proposal to place a statue of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, head of Fighter Command over South East England and London during the Second World War, on the fourth plinth, saying it was 'too traditional' and would 'clash' with the other rubbish they already have planned.

New Zealander Sir Keith is the man whose strategic genius is credited with winning the Battle of Britain. The vanquished Germans called him 'the defender of London'.

It seems even helping to defeat Hitler doesn't buy you much favour with the trendies these days.

Sir Keith is exactly the sort of man who should be standing in Trafalgar Square. He was an air ace in the First World War, but also fought as an ordinary combat soldier. Here is a brief run down of his extraordinary life and service to this country:

Sir Keith, a New Zealander, fought in the First World War as an artillery man at Gallipoli and the Somme.

On 21 October 1916, Park was blown off his horse by a German shell. Wounded, he was evacuated to England and graded 'unfit for active service'.

In 1940 he was made Air Vice Chief Marshal in charge of RAF 11 Group Fighter Command, responsible for fighter defence of London and the South East.

During the Second World War, the Germans called him 'the Defender of London'.
After the aerial battle was won he served in Egypt, Malta and south-east Asia. He died in 1975, aged 82.

RAF pilot Douglas Bader, who fought in the Battle of Britain, said that 'the awesome responsibility for this country’s survival rested squarely on Keith Park’s shoulders'.

He also found time to fly around Britain in 1919, an age when air travel was still in its infancy.

The mealy mouthed bureaucrats at Westminster Council will find space in Waterloo Gardens at St. James's for Sir Keith's statue, and will place him so he appears to be gazing east, eternally scanning the sky for enemy aircraft.

Despite Sir Keith's heroism and contribution to the war effort, he is not widely known in Britain.

One of the commenters on the article opines:

I'd much rather see modern art then ANOTHER statue of some war hero. There are too many of these around.
- Harry, London, 5/5/2009 17:05

There's gratitude, eh?

We all ought to be thankful that back then duty counted and there were 'so many' around willing to sacrifice everything to defend this country and what it stood for.

J. G. Ballard 1930 - 2009

The British fantasy writer James Graham Ballard died on 19th April at the age of 78.

His unique and often controversial work coined the term 'Ballardian', such was its impact and originality.

Among his most famous works is the novel 'Empire of the Sun', a fictional work which draws heavily on his own experiences as a civilian internee of the Japanese military during the Second World War.

Born in Shanghai's International Settlement, he was 13 when the Japanese invaded and his family were sent to Lunghua Civilian Assembly Centre.

Japanese war crimes and brutality during that period are fairly well-documented, particularly regarding Chinese civilians and Western POWs. However, it is not widely known in the West that over 200,000 Western civilians, mainly Dutch, British, American and Australian were captured and interned by the Japanese for the duration of the war.

Many suffered terrible abuses, and there were summary executions, widespread starvation and mistreatment and even cases of Dutch and Australian women forced into prostitution for Japanese soldiers.

In 2008 Ballard released his memoirs of this period, and they are well worth the read. The Mail published a serialisation on Saturday.

Ballard recounts how he knew something of the horrors which were happening around him, but being very imaginative and being a child gave him some much needed escape; he started ff in awe of the Japanese, particularly the pilots, but found a new fixation when American Mustang pilots would fly low over the camp on their way to bombing raids.

He managed to take mainly positive experiences from his ordeal, and treated the internment as a bit of an adventure. It must have had profound effects deep down, however, because much of his fiction was filled with themes such as the misery of modernity and the limits of the human mind.

Here is an extract:

Looking back, it puzzles me that my parents decided to stay in Shanghai when they must have known that war was imminent.
But the cotton works were my father's responsibility and duty then counted for something.

In March 1943, my parents, four-year- old sister and I were interned with other foreign civilians at Lunghua camp, a former teacher training college outside Shanghai, where we remained until the end of August 1945.

Our assembly point was the city's American Club. There we found a huge press of people, mostly British, sitting with their suitcases around the swimming pool, many of the women in their fur coats.

Some of the men carried nothing apart from the clothes they were wearing, confident that the war would be over within days. Others had strapped tennis rackets, cricket bats and fishing rods to their luggage. Together we waited at the tables where Americans had once sipped their bourbons.

Then we were taken to Lunghua, my last real childhood home, where I would spend the next two-and-a-half largely happy years.

Many found his work controversial; he is best known for 'Crash' a novel about the sexual fetishism derived by a couple from car crashes.

However, many of his lesser known works were truly great works of fiction, despite their often eerie detachment from all known reality.

Ballard was not only a great writer who will be sadly missed, but a member of the dwindling group of people who remember a Britain before what we have now, who knew there was worse than the 'evils' of Western civilisation - because they had the misfortune to experience it first hand.

Rest in peace.

The Great Escape

In March 1944, 'Harry', one of the many tunnels built by interred Allied airmen in Stalag Luft III in Żagań, Poland was completed satisfactorily. The events that followed, by all measures courageous and tragic, would become the stuff of legend - spawning the film 'The Great Escape'.

Many of the US airmen who helped to build the tunnel were transferred just before it was considered safe, so on the evening of 24th March 1944 - a moonless night, therefore considered most desirable - 76 men managed to escape from German captivity, many of them all too briefly.

The tunnel came up short of the pine forest it was supposed to lead into, but 76 prisoners managed to go through it and emerge outside the camp before the 77th man was spotted by a guard and stopped at 5 am on 25th March.

The 76 men who escaped comprised 21 British, 6 Canadians, 6 Poles, 5 Australians, 3 South Africans, 2 Dutchmen, 2 New Zealanders, 2 Norwegians, a Belgian, a Greek, a Lithuanian, a Czech and a Frenchman.

Of these men, 73 were recaptured; the only ones to reach Allied territory and safety were the 2 Norwegians, Per Bergsland and Jens Müller, and one of the Dutchmen, Bram van der Stok.

It is said that Hitler initially ordered all of the 73 men who were found shot, but relented under pressure from Goering. As it was, 50 were still murdered, selected by General Artur Nebe.

17 of the survivors were sent back to Stalag Luft III, 2 to another PoW camp, whilst 4 were sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp to be worked to death. However, they managed to escape again, tunneling past double electric-fences, razor wire and specially trained guards, although they were recaptured.

They included Sydney Dowse, who died in April 2008 and 'Jimmy' James, who died in January 2008.

A small ceremony took place earlier at the site of the camp, in memory of the brave men who died.

These men and thousands like them encapsulate the spirit of this country, its history and our civilisation. They refused to give up their status as free men and submit to tyranny, no matter what the personal cost.

May they rest in peace.