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THE LOWLANDER - DUN-DUN-DuuUUNN!!
169 Plays10 months ago
A busy week, building up to the advance on Bremen. Reports from the Far East, updates from the Italian Front - it's all go. Andy and Merryn dig into the Lowlander as the Allies head towards the end of the Second World War.
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Transcript
Introduction to WWII Newsletters
00:00:05
Speaker
From 1944 to 1945, the 52nd Lowlander Division is fighting its way across Northwest Europe. The writing is on the wall, but it's also on the page. The Army Education Branch sends a newsletter out to thousands of men, all pulling together, pushing the enemy back. This newsletter is called The Lowlander.
Favorite Articles and Writers
00:00:42
Speaker
Hello, Andy. Hello, Mary. Hello, hello. Back again with the Lowlander, picking out our favourite articles and news updates from the regular newsletter sent out to the men of the 52nd Lowland Division this week between the 9th and 15th of April. Yeah, and it's been a busy week and a busy month. It always strikes me how much writing Peter White does in With the Jocks for the month of April and the 52nd Lowland Division is in the thick of it. But we'll talk more about that in a minute. First, can you tell us what else is going on in the war
Global War Updates
00:01:11
Speaker
this week?
00:01:11
Speaker
quite a week for more than one reason. This is the week that the last B-17 rolled off the line at Boeing's assembly plant in Seattle. Chile declared war on Japan. The fifth US army opened a major offensive into the Po Valley and then it all gets a bit spectacular if you're picking up this rap from Wikipedia because rather incongruously we get an entry that tells us Ritchie Blackmore guitarist and songwriter for Deep Purple was born in Western Superman.
00:01:37
Speaker
and the first Canadian army captured Arnhem which is enough to give you a pause for thought anyway. Operation Opossum ended successfully with the rescue of the Sultan of Ternate and his family and out in the Pacific we have an Allied Commander unit Z Special Unit launching Operation Copper with the objective of capturing a Japanese officer for interrogation only to discover the location of two naval guns on Mushu Island in New Guinea.
00:02:02
Speaker
So there's plenty going on. Shall we find out where the jocks are, please, in northwest Europe?
Key Battles Toward Bremen
00:02:07
Speaker
They're still moving forward, but they're now the whole division is now across the Ems River and the Dortmund Ems Canal. They're now pouring north. But remember that 155 Brigade is attached to 7th Armoured Division and that 4th Armoured Brigade is attached to the remainder of 52nd Armoured Division. So they're all going off in the sort of their own directions. Basically,
00:02:28
Speaker
52nd Lowland Division is heading for the town of Verdun, which sits on the River Vaser. And the River Vaser, if you follow the River Vaser down from Verdun, 20, 30 miles away, there is the town or the city of Bremen. And that's ultimately the division's objective, although they might not know that yet.
00:02:46
Speaker
Now they're doing that and they're sort of operating just north of Osnabrook and they're going to be pouring across that country there. Veering off slightly west from them is 155 Brigade and they're heading up from their recent escapades in Ebonburin
00:03:02
Speaker
And they're going to actually get very, very close to Bremen, just on the southern bank or the southern shore of the River Vasa. And for those of you who have read with the jocks will know that Peter and his platoon end up in a tiny little village called Sudivay, where a couple of these men are killed by a direct hit by anti-aircraft guns, 88 millimeters.
00:03:23
Speaker
From then, weirdly, the 155th Brigade with 7th Armoured Edition will turn right and they will move a whole length of the River Vasa Pass Verdun to a small village called Retum. And Retum, as we've seen, really severe fighting with the 55th Welsh Division, of course, they're attached to the 52nd and the 7th Armoured at the same time.
00:03:46
Speaker
And there's a big battle there that was meant to be a massacre there. There was reports of it that as we found out, there actually is nothing. And 155 Brigade pour across that river. This is also where Peter and his platoon encounter the ambush, which is a very sort of striking chapter in the book Worth the Jocks. But yeah, on the 15th of April, it finds 155 Brigade in Valsrode and the remainder of the division just outside of Verdun. OK, so there's a lot going on. We better get started.
Allied Advances in Asia
00:04:19
Speaker
9th April 1945 Far East, Panorama From every one of the far-flung battle zones in the Far East come news of fresh successes. The new septuagenarian Prime Minister of Japan declared on taking office that the situation affords us no cause for optimism whatsoever. And he should know. Look at the battlefields from his angle and the reasons for his gloom become apparent.
00:04:42
Speaker
They do indeed. Burma, the vanquished units of the 15th Army as they struggle back from Magtilla to the foothills to the east, are being split into smaller groups. Party after party has been surprised and mown down by Indian troops. 80 miles to the west, patrols of the British 14th Army are probing through rice fields on the west bank of the Irrawaddy to the last oil wells held by the Japanese in Burma.
00:05:06
Speaker
Jap reinforcements including tanks are hurrying forward but past experience suggests they may be soon hurrying back. And now we go to the Philippines. The southern half of Mindanao has been overrun by the Americans who are now also holding and using four airfields on the Negros.
00:05:24
Speaker
From the Philippines, the US aircraft constantly sweeps the surrounding seas from Formosa to the Dutch East Indies. A Jap-like cruiser has been set ablaze off Java, six supply ships have been sunk in the South China Sea, and war plants on Formosa have been attacked. To Kyokukus. Kyokuk... Ryokus. Ryokus. Ryokus, right.
Kamikaze Tactics Discussion
00:05:49
Speaker
Yes!
00:05:51
Speaker
To re-accuse, US Marines on Okinawa, 350 miles from Japan, are racing along both coasts towards the northern tip of the island. Only in the south have the defenders been able to put up a fight. British naval forces are ranging at will of the Sakashima Group. Their carrier planes have shot down seven JAP aircraft and destroyed three more on the ground.
00:06:13
Speaker
Japan. Yesterday 50 super forts returned from the southern western tip of Kyushu. They were apparently not deterred by JAP attempts at interception the previous day. Close on 200 fighters, some of the rather antiquated design were shot out of the air by the 200 raiders on Friday. It's not looking good for Japan is it? It's quite busy isn't it? Yeah they seem to be getting battered all over. Well that's what happens, that's what happens when you do what you do.
00:06:39
Speaker
Is that, those 200 fighters, is that anything to do with like the little Kamikaze rocket things that were designed like V1s? I don't know actually. I think they were more aimed at the naval craft, but I think we might have to do a lot of research. Maybe somebody on Twitter or X or whatever we call it nowadays can help us.
00:07:02
Speaker
10th April 1945, Mexico.
Mexican Air Force's Role
00:07:06
Speaker
The Mexican Air Force is on its way to the Pacific to take part in the war on Japan. Poor old Japan. Question, do we know which side the Mexicans are on?
00:07:18
Speaker
Yes we do. The Aztec Eagles arrived in Manila Bay at the end of April 1945 and they flew nearly 800 combat sorties, about two and a half thousand or two thousand hours of flying time. Missions over Luzon, Formosa and what they did was they provided a lot of support for the U.S.
00:07:38
Speaker
Yeah, I know, I know I didn't know much about the squadron according to the sources played an important symbolic role inspiring national and cultural pride among Mexicans at home and helping to keep them invested in the war effort because of course they were contributed to the war effort because where a certain number of men had joined up and gone off to fight they were replaced not completely but there was an influx of Mexican workforce to help replace
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That was a comfortable.
00:08:19
Speaker
Bremen in sight.
Frontline Comparisons
00:08:21
Speaker
As the pattern of 21st Army Group's offensive unfolds in the west, a striking parallel can be drawn with the Eastern Front area this year. There, the Red Army rolled back the German flank, breaking through the sea first at one point, then another sealed off the defenders. Today the same thing is happening on the Western Front.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:40
Speaker
Farthest west, the 1st Canadian Army has completely isolated the defenders of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the other cities of the Dutch provinces west of the Züdeze. The enemy is fighting hard on the Issel River, but we have joined up with more groups of parachutists who are dropped on Saturday. Those who have not yet been relieved are being supplied by air.
00:09:02
Speaker
The second pocket is taking shape and the 4th Canadian Armoured Division thrust towards Emden. By early yesterday morning it was within 25 miles of the port and still going strong.
00:09:12
Speaker
Between Emden and Bremen, young paratroopers and panzergrenadiers, reinforced with new SS formations are striding desperately to contain the Guards Armoured Division and the infantry on its right. But both tanks and infantry have made progress during the last 24 hours and are inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. Meanwhile, the 7th and 11th Armoured Divisions have overcome stubborn resistance in broadening and strengthening the dagger that points at Bremen. On the left of the Vaser, the Desert Rats are getting astride the roads which lead to the city from the west.
00:09:42
Speaker
Veldershausen, some miles to the south west, has been occupied and late messages state that we are in sight of the ruins that were Bremen. East of the Reyser, Nienburg has been taken and armour with the 6th Airborne Division on its right flank is swarming across the flat country north of Hanover.
00:10:00
Speaker
The going is good already and the six is 12 miles beyond Leine, two towns taken yesterday, Fuhrerberg and Bissendorf mean that the paratroopers have completed half of the journey from the Rhine to Berlin and are 60 miles southwest of Hamburg.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah, I'm still chuckling here with the Canadians because we don't we don't think about when Arnhem was actually taken. We just know when it was. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's it. I mean, it actually it takes till April 1945 for them to sort of finally decide they're going to cross that river and capture it. And of course, so the Canadians, including the Poles and the Czechs, and we mustn't forget those two as well. They're part of the Canadian army. They're sort of rolling up that west coast and heading towards towards Edmonton, which of course is the mouth of the River Ems, which we talked about last week.
00:10:44
Speaker
But of course, the big thing here is the 7th Armoured Division because of course they have got 155 Infantry Brigade and it mentions how they're in sight of the southern remains of what used to be Bremen, of course, because it's been bombed. And that is, of course, that's 155 Brigade that are actually there. They're in Sudvie, as we mentioned in the introduction, and they're just looking over the river and slowly they will be replaced by 3rd Infantry Division as they move east and then rejoin the 52nd Lowland Division.
8th Army in Italy: Conflict Significance
00:11:14
Speaker
So this is quite a detailed report and I think one of the questions that we had was how much do people actually know about what was going on? But I think my take on this is probably more than they're letting on because in the same way that you trust the press core and an education branch to shape
00:11:32
Speaker
what's put onto the page, they also shape what's not put onto the page as well. So one of them, it's not so much about journalists protecting their sources, but there is a certain amount of, well, we can know what's happening and we don't need to tell everybody about it. I would say it's fairly obvious that there's two main cities in the 21st Army Group area, which is Bremen and Hamburg. And if you're very close to Bremen, I think you could probably
00:11:58
Speaker
It doesn't take the brains of an archbishop to work out, oh we're going for Bremen. Yeah and obviously the next one is Hamburg. Do you want to just cover off why Bremen was such a target though?
00:12:09
Speaker
Well, in this part of Germany, there are really only two very large cities, and that's Hamburg and Bremen. And of course, both of them are strategically important. They're really centers of the whole sort of area, sort of, you know, their regional sort of important cities. But both cities lie on large rivers. So Hamburg sits on the Elbe and Bremen sits on the Vaser. And these are huge rivers. These are kind of the only real access that the Germans have to the directly to the North Sea.
00:12:39
Speaker
It's got submarine pens, it's got aircraft factories and as well as seats of regional government. So they're kind of natural. If you look at the Northwest German plane, you actually think, ah, that's the only show in town, really.
00:12:56
Speaker
11th April 1945. The 8th gets its opportunity. The 8th Army is on the move again. For weeks, units that had fought from El Alamein to Ravenna have waited patiently to complete their task by driving the Germans from northern Italy.
00:13:13
Speaker
Late on Monday evening they swarmed across the Sonia River near Lugo. This small town lies 15 miles west of Ravenna and one third of the way from there to Bologna, pivot of the entire German defence line. Storming their way through sick minefields and cunningly sighted defences, our men went quick.
00:13:33
Speaker
Our men quickly established a bridgehead on the broad front. 15th Army Group's communique gives no further details, but the enemy is already admitting penetrations in the Lugo area. Before the attack went in, Allied air forces had pounded enemy forward positions and dropped many tons of fragmentation bombs.
00:13:53
Speaker
over 3,000 sorties were flown and yesterday our planes were out again in great strength. On the western seaboard the fifth has improved its positions with naval support near Masa. Correspondents state that our allies are already probing into the suburbs and have occupied a village four miles to the northeast.
00:14:15
Speaker
I thought that was a good map and then you you you disappeared me of that that opinion explain why it's not a very good map okay so on this page of the lowlander at the bottom in the bottom um eighth of the page on the right hand column we have a small map which is is not so much an overlay more of an indication of the rough topography of italy and i've got to tell you that for some reason bologna has moved modern has moved and imola and foley are a bit closer together than they are in real life
00:14:43
Speaker
However, it does give the men of the 52nd the soldiers an indication of the kind of terrain that the 8th is gaining ground in because they're coming out of the mountainous region and into the plains above. I'm so surprised that this stays in the war that
00:15:05
Speaker
And I think this is the whole point, I'm surprised how much fighting is still going on in North Italy. Really, you kind of wonder what's the point? People are still dying in North Italy and I suppose just the presence of the British and the Americans and Canadians and New Zealanders is enough surely to hold the Germans in position.
00:15:26
Speaker
thus keeping them away from the Western Front but you just think I mean there's people still dying there at this late stage in Italy which is not a side show because that's an unfair thing to call it but at the same time it seems very wasteful. Isn't this one of the points that's expressed so often by the guys in command down there which is just give up, just stop.
00:15:48
Speaker
you know, you spent all this time putting the defences in and line after line to stop us moving northwards up this, up this, you know, the spine of the Italian peninsula. And there comes a point when it's all going to cock in the north, just give up already. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's another, well, there's not quite a month, maybe sort of three and a half weeks of fighting to go. So so many people will die.
00:16:16
Speaker
13th April 1945. The 9th Army is across the Elbe.
Crossing the Elbe River
00:16:22
Speaker
Allied troops are across the Elbe, the last big river before Berlin. The U.S. 2nd Armoured Division, part of General Simpson's 9th Army, is forced to crossing somewhere in the region of Magdeburg. The exact position is not yet revealed, but it is known that the division, after bypassing Brunswick, capturing Wolfenbüttel. The driving east parallel to the Autobahn reach the Elbe near Magdeburg on Wednesday,
00:16:45
Speaker
Beyond the river lies some 65 miles of flat open country broken by a few small streams and on the east of that is the German capital, Berlin. Infantry falling up on this great armoured thrust were last reported in Halberstadt, less than 30 miles southwest of Magdeburg. Others are fighting inside Brunswick itself which is bypassed to both the north and the south. It's completely isolated and its garrison are putting up heavy rearguard action.
00:17:11
Speaker
To the north, 2nd Army troops have crossed the Allar River at two points. The 53rd Welsh Division is across the north of Retham and the 11th Armoured Division using assault boats that's over 30 miles west of Sela, where fighting is going on in the western outskirts.
00:17:27
Speaker
Late reports say the town is clear. Between the Ems and the Vaisar, enemy resistance continues to be tough in isolated spots, but on the main enemy appears to be slowly pulling back his line, roughly Emden-Odenberg-Bremen, where he possibly hopes to hold and thus deny the use of the North Sea ports to the Allies.
00:17:44
Speaker
Now we should perhaps just reflect there on Retum for a moment because it's not that often we see a little village or town called, it's not that big a place, but it's not that often we see a little village or town called out like that and we did give it a heads up in the introduction. So do you want to just tell us a bit about Retum?
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, so Retum sits on the river Allard. Now the Allard is a tributary of the Vaser, and we mentioned that in the introduction. It's quite a big river, it's quite flash flowing, and it's kind of one of the targets for the 55rd Welsh division, who are of course part of 12 core, which 52nd loaned etc are
Myth of Retum Massacre
00:18:16
Speaker
in.
00:18:16
Speaker
And the Welsh division actually captured around about the 13th and 14th of April. It's a really, really tough fight for the town. The Germans are really putting up heavy resistance. They're actually Marine infantry, which you don't see that much in the war. The German Marines who are, I suppose, sort of like the US Marine Corps, but they're not really. They're basically naval troops.
00:18:41
Speaker
And the reason why they're there is because Bremen, which is the nearest big city, is a naval town and they were defending there up until this point. There's really severe fighting. The Welsh finally get into the town and apparently there's some sort of massacre that happens there and there's even a little memorial stone and then there was a big news article about it. But the massacre doesn't actually exist, does it Meryn?
00:19:03
Speaker
No, it doesn't. So Brian De Grino is partly responsible for this, I guess. He did an illustration of this massacre, alleged massacre, for the Illustrated London News. And it's kind of a double page spread. It's fairly well known as an illustration. And it, among other things, shows a German SS officer. Beestly. Beestly Germans.
00:19:27
Speaker
kicking bodies for sign of life and SS executioner with captured Bren gun and purportedly rounded up the Welsh, put them against the wall and cold-blooded murder took place which shocked the world. What happened was the Welsh were captured and among the survivors one of the lads fabricated a little bit of
00:19:49
Speaker
colour shall we say? You can't trust squadies honestly but it's actually one of those things that becomes memory and actually gets sort of baked into how people remember stuff because of course Peter Whitecock talks about it with the jocks because he crosses the river
00:20:04
Speaker
at Retum on the 15th of April and also in Mountain and Flood they mention it and it becomes one of these facts and of course it isn't a fact I mean it's even a memorial stone but yeah so that's Retum but actually the reason why we looked at this article is on the front page of the 13th and that is the map and I think it's one of the best maps in the Lowlander
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah. And the reason for that, apart from the fact that it takes up five, six of the page, is that it is a map of the entirety of the Northwest of Europe. And it shows, well, what we'd call ranging lines, plotting lines, the kind of thing you'd see on. If I say it's the shock waves from a bomb going off, then that should try and help visualize it. The point of impact being bell in and the shock waves, as it were, dotted lines,
00:20:56
Speaker
extending out right the way across into France. Kablens up Cologne, Düsseldorf, right up to Arnhem, the top left hand corner. And it's a really good indication because they are also marked off in 20 mile, on a 20 mile scale of just how much ground has been taken, how much is still to go. And yeah, it is just a great map.
00:21:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it shows we talked about Magdeburg and how the Americans are across the Elbe at Magdeburg. Incidentally, Magdeburg was the launch. So when you're in the Cold War, if you wanted to get to Berlin from West Germany, Magdeburg was the entrance point. You would go through Magdeburg and then on the Autobahn.
00:21:40
Speaker
there, and it just demonstrates how close it is to Berlin. But it shows you how far they've come, as you said, from the Rhine. We've got weasel there, and we've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. So we've got sort of 12 increments of 20 mls from weasel on the Rhine to Magneburn. And that's happened in under a month. It's amazing. You had to take both gloves off to do that, didn't you? I did do. Yeah, yeah.
00:22:11
Speaker
13th April 1945.
Luftwaffe Leadership Speculation
00:22:14
Speaker
Purge of the Luftwaffe. Hitler seems to be having some trouble with his airmen. It is reported that a number of officers, including Ermager Spährer and Colonel Richthoften, have been executed as a result of protests against the way in which the Luftwaffe is being sacrificed.
00:22:32
Speaker
It is believed that the very high death rate among pilots transferred to jet fighters has led to some very outspoken criticism. A fatal thing in Nazi occupied Germany. Am I meant to be happy that they're getting killed, bumped off? Who's the good one here? I don't know.
00:22:54
Speaker
neither of them and it's all bollocks to be honest with you. Speller had his moments, I mean he was head honcho for the Air Force in North Africa while Rommel was doing his thing and in 44 he was trying to keep things together in case of an invasion and as we know by the time we got to what middle of last year, June 19th
00:23:10
Speaker
1944 the Luftwaffe wasn't in its prime but he was dismissed from his post in 44 in August, acquitted Nuremberg, went to a not a retrial but another trial in Munich in 49 where the court determined he was never a member of the Nazi party and he died in 1953, he wasn't executed at all.
00:23:31
Speaker
And as for Rick Topham, we're not talking about Manfred, the Red Baron, we're talking about his brother, Wolfram, and he died in captivity. He had a brain tumor, died as a prisoner of war in July 1945. So I don't know what the low number is on about, to be honest here. Well, it's kind of this kind of rumour control when you get to this stage in the war, there's all sorts of rumours that he's been bumped off and shot. And of course, I mean, really, the Luftwaffe is a Nazi organisation and people often forget that. I mean, there are
00:23:59
Speaker
There are sort of lots of ties with the Nazi and of course having Göring was in charge of it for a very long time. Although at this point I think he's done a bunk, hasn't he, about the stage of the war. So the question I'd ask here is one that goes back through almost every, well not almost, but every issue of the lowland without exception. That's the Army Education Corps is on a mission. It's on a mission not only to spread information
00:24:23
Speaker
that keeps people up to date but actually to motivate people as well and there's a whole there's a whole discourse here about motivating them to do what when they come back to Britain and who devotes more because because some of the things that are reported are significantly anti-tory and significantly pro-lever which is not a surprise but when when you get pieces like this which just launch in with size 11s and go yep left left was being purged and people are being executed isn't this a good news
00:24:50
Speaker
high death rates, outspoken criticism. Even though now we look back and go, no such thing as a good Nazi, you have to put your square hat on here and go, hmm, but it would help if there was a little bit of integrity around the reporting. You can't stop army rumour control. That's impossible. True.
00:25:17
Speaker
14th April 1945.
Political Shifts in Scotland
00:25:20
Speaker
The Scottish nationalists now have a representative in Parliament. The candidate, Dr Robert MacIntyre, has been elected in the Motherwell by-election. He polled 11,417 votes, a majority of 617, over his Labour opponent. Yeah, but he lost a seat three months later.
00:25:40
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's what I was going to say. And I think in the interests of political discourse, we move on rather quickly from Scottish nationalism versus Labour. I'll tell you what else we'll do as well. We'll move on quickly. But there is also just a one liner written on this page in upper capitals. Stop press. Super fortresses raid Japan again. That's the entirety of the article. That's it. But I mean, also I thought that that was pretty much happening every single day anyway. So it's yeah, yeah, we know
00:26:16
Speaker
Sunday the 15th of April 1945.
Introduction to Jibwa Journal
00:26:20
Speaker
Hold on a minute. This isn't the Lowlander. This is the Jibwa Journal. What have you done here? Why have you slipped this in?
00:26:26
Speaker
Well, this is a little bit of a surprise. Well, let's go back to a couple of years ago when I was in the archives and I was searching for the 6th Battalion, Helen Le Inferties War Diary. So at this point, 6th Battalion HLI was part of 155 Brigade. And if you remember back, and I know you've been taking notes a couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that 155 Brigade was attached to the 7th Armoured Division for most of April. Well,
00:26:55
Speaker
Clearly, they'd stopped getting hold of the Lowlander and because they were part of the 7th Armoured Division, they started picking up the 7th Armoured Division's newsletter. What's fascinating is it looks exactly like the Lowlander but just has a different title. It does indeed, it does indeed. But the Jaboa being the little rap chappy.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, they're funny little creatures. I've been in the Middle East and actually they're funny little things, a little sort of almost like a rat, mouse type thing, but with really, really large back feet, which are quite funny. And they got big on tails and they're actually dopey. They'll just come up to you. And that's why they keep getting eaten by things like camel spiders. But anyway.
00:27:33
Speaker
7th Army Division was part of the 8th Army actually, we talked about earlier in the episode, they were the desert rats, the original desert rats and they had the Jaboa, the desert rat as their divisional symbol and in fact the units in the British Army today that still have the desert rat from that legacy and they're called Jaboas and of course they called their newsletter the Jaboa Journal. I think the really interesting thing and you picked up on this as well is it's exactly the same format as the Lowlander which suggests
00:28:02
Speaker
that there is a template or a certain amount of news either gets shared and put into an approved format for sharing to the men.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, and actually the difference between this and Lowlander is they give the addition number, and this is addition number 307. So by my rough calculations, that goes all the way back to Normandy, because of course the 7th Armoured Division fought in Normandy. So somewhere out there, there are other copies of the Jabour Journal.
00:28:33
Speaker
On the back page, just sort of jumping forward for a second, I note that there's a bit of a role reversal here in terms, and I don't know whether this is reflective of the 7th Armoured Division or not, but there's a bit of a role reversal in that the Lowlander focuses on football and we get the occasional mention of god, religion and sermons, and it's completely transposed for the desert rats. I think there's half a page dedicated to a two-minute sermon and just a couple of lines for the football.
00:29:00
Speaker
It's the the Reverend S.B. Wingfield Digby SCF. Yeah and we're not going to do any stories from the Jaboora Journal this week but next week we've got quite a few additions so I think we're going to pick some stories out of there. 15th of April 1945 America
00:29:23
Speaker
President Roosevelt was buried yesterday in the grounds of his Hyde Park estate.
Roosevelt's Burial Coverage
00:29:27
Speaker
President Truman, members of the government, the Earl of Athlon representing HM King and Mr Eden representing the British government were among those present. A salute was fired by guns lined up in front of his library for which he would be quested to the nation. And finally we go to this week's thought for the day from the 14th of April 1945.
00:29:51
Speaker
If we are true to ourselves, we need not mind Bonaparte. Nelson. Napoleon and Nelson on the same page. You do know who Napoleon and Nelson were, don't you?
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah, even I know that. All right, okay. Well, their careers overlapped during the French Revolutionary Wars. And this is a peculiar little quote because the only place that I can find it is in a book that was published in 1975, and it's called Arthur Bryant's Years of Victory, 1802, 1812. And there's no context for it. There's no reference. There's no happy little superscripts chappy pointed to some, some, you know, archival
00:30:26
Speaker
File folder is just one sentence on a page So do we think he said it then?
00:30:33
Speaker
Well, you know, I have my doubts. The only thing that comes even close to it is Willie Shakespeare when he says, if we are true to ourselves, we cannot be false to anyone. But I was surprised that you chose that one because I did think you might go for the thought for the day from the 16th, which is when things are going badly in battle, the best tonic is to take one's mind off one's own troubles by considering what a rotten time one's opponent must be having.
00:31:03
Speaker
Field Martian, Lord Wavell, because I'm going for Wavell now, not Wavell or Wavell. You've gone in between the big debate people, is it Wavell or Wavell? It's Wavell. God, that'll start a fight somewhere. It will. Alright, on that note, I think we'd better wrap it up this week, don't you? Yeah, I think we'd better. Alright, see you next time.
00:31:31
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Lowlander. The Lowlander was written, produced and presented by Andy Aitchison and Mirren Walters. This was a hellish good production.
00:32:02
Speaker
All classified football results for this week have been suspended due to the international England vs Scotland. Today Scotland meets England again at Hamden Park. These are the teams. Scotland, Brown, Queen's Park. Harley, Liverpool. And Steven, Bradford. Busby, Liverpool. Captain Harris, Chelsea. And Macaulay, West Ham. Waddell, Rangers.
00:32:29
Speaker
Borgen, Hibernian, Dodds, Blackpool, Black Hearts and Liddell, Liverpool, England, Swift, Man City, Scott, Arsenal and Hardwick, Middlesbrough, Sue, Stoke, Franklin, Stoke and Mercer, Everton, Captain, Matthews, Stoke, Carter, Sunderland, Lawton, Everton, Brown, Charlton and Smith, Brentford.
00:32:58
Speaker
Alan Brecht describes the Scottish selection choices as...
Football Match and Closing Banter
00:33:03
Speaker
And just to confirm for our listeners, there were 133,000 people in attendance to witness the fact that England trounced Scotland 6 to 1.
00:33:25
Speaker
Right, that's it. You can all just piss off and you can finish the lawn to yourself, Mary. Thank you very much. Good night. Good night. They went in there. They just saw the bloody Germans there. The hell is good.