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THE LOWLANDER - PRESTWICK, DOH!
182 Plays10 months ago
Operation VARSITY, Operation PLUNDER ... we're crossing the Rhine, and the men of the 52nd Lowland Division don't have much time to themselves. Still, Andy and Merryn dig into the pages of The Lowlander, to find out what's going on this week in 1945 ...
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Transcript
52nd Lowlander Division: WWII Campaign
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.
The Lowlander Newsletter's Evolution
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello, Andy. Hello, Mary. Hello, hello. Back again to the Lowlander and we are picking out our favourite articles and news updates from the regular newsletter that was sent out to the men of the 52nd Lowlander Division, this time between the 26th of March to the 1st of April.
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, and we've noticed a little bit of a change with the Lowlander this week, and you'll notice it yourself as we get towards the end of the war. There's much less information in the Lowlander. And I think the reason is, and we're going to talk about later, is they're starting to move long distances very fast. And so some of that other information that they would have got, some of the little stories, some of the funny cartoons, et cetera, I think they maybe haven't got quite time to do that. But that may come out as we go along. But before we get into all that, can you tell us what else is going on in the war across the world
Operations Overview: Starvation to Varsity
00:01:28
Speaker
this week?
00:01:28
Speaker
I can indeed. The United States Army Air Force began Operation Starvation, laying naval mines in many of Japan's seaways. Hitler sacked Heinz Guderian as Chief of General Staff, last battlefield commander from the early days of the war who was still active.
00:01:45
Speaker
and replaced him with Hans Krebs and then moved his headquarters from the Reich Chancellery to the Fรผhrerbunker. And of course the British commandos began Operation Roast in an effort to push the Germans back to and across the river Po and out of Italy. But never mind all that, can you tell us please where the jocks are?
00:02:05
Speaker
I can hold on to your hats because things are starting to move. So we've spent the last couple of weeks waiting on the west bank of the Rhine and of course we reported in the last episode that the Rhine crossing has started and some of the units of the 52nd, specifically the
00:02:22
Speaker
157 Brigade and some of the battalions in there. They moved across the Rhine on the 25th and they actually went up and supported and linked up with the 6th Airborne Division which had landed on the east bank of the Rhine during Operation Varsity and they supported them and around a small town called Hamon Kelham. So that's a link up and in fact the the brigade was attached to 15th Scottish Division which is the first time that had happened.
00:02:48
Speaker
Now, once the rest of the division is over and finally the whole division get over by about the 30th of March, they then start to break out into the groups that are going to basically invade Germany proper. And if you can bear with me, I'll try and explain it as best I can. So 52nd Lowland Division are part of 12 Corps, our old friends from Operation Blackcock. And of course, Neil Ritchie is the commander of 12 Corps. Indeed.
00:03:17
Speaker
Of course, our favourite, although not necessarily very popular with a lot of other people. Now, 12 Corps has a job. What they're going to do is, once they get across the Rhine, they're going to move inland and then they're going to swing north, north-east.
00:03:31
Speaker
And what they're going to do is they're going to race to get as far and as deep into Germany as possible into the northern part of Germany, because that's the 21st Army Group area. Now, the other corps within the British Army and the Canadians are doing exactly the same. But 12 Corps specifically has the 52nd Lowland Division. It's got the 7th Armoured Division. It's got the 53rd Welsh Division. And it's also got the 4th Armoured Brigade, one of those independent armoured brigades. Are you with me so far? I am with you so far.
Tactics and Strategies: Divisional Advancements
00:03:59
Speaker
Now what's going to happen is the idea is that the armoured divisions across the British Army and the Canadian Army and the Poles, they're going to spearhead this attack. They're going to drive as hard and as fast as they can in their tanks to get as close to basically the cities of Bremen, Hamburg and then also up to the Baltic coast.
00:04:21
Speaker
and trailing as close as they can to them, armoured divisions are going to be the infantry divisions. What they're going to do is any resistance that the armoured division meets, the infantry divisions are going to take them on while the armoured divisions then push on even further. So a little bit complicated to understand, but it helps to understand what's happening next week. So for example, the 52nd Lowland Division,
00:04:47
Speaker
They detach one infantry brigade from the division and they attach it to the 7th Armoured Division. So if you can just imagine that. I will put up an organisation chart.
00:04:57
Speaker
And what this means is that the Armoured Division itself has extra infantry support to do that task. And then I mean with Armoured Brigade, they are then permanently attached themselves to 52nd Rowland Division to create exactly the same things. You've now got two mechanised divisions. They're motorised. Everybody's on vehicles. Nobody's walking. There's no trains and no horses or anything like that. And they're going to move as fast as they can.
00:05:21
Speaker
Now, to begin with, once they're over there, 157 Brigade attached to 7th Armoured Division. But then in next week, they go back into 52nd and then 155 Brigade, they then attach themselves to 7th Armoured. I appreciate that. That's quite a lot to take in. We will...
00:05:37
Speaker
do some diagrams or something to make you see what that looks like, maybe an org chart or something like that. But essentially, just it enables the British Army to move as fast as possible. And they're moving as hard and as fast as they possibly can to get to the first big physical barrier, which is something called the Dortmund Ems Canal.
00:05:56
Speaker
that will become more important next week. But just to say that from a decision that was moving, well didn't move anywhere really for the best part of a month, they're now going to move between about 70 and 100 miles in the space of a few days. Okay so I've got two questions because it feels like it's game on and things are starting to really get moving. The first question is how much in advance have they planned this change in structure?
00:06:21
Speaker
Oh yeah, so this is all part of Operation Plunder, which is not the airborne operation to cross the Rhine, but the ground forces. So this has been in planning really since they've cleared up the Rhineland operation veritable. This plan has sort of been put into force and a huge amount has been stored, there's air of stocks and all the rest of it being put in place.
00:06:44
Speaker
ready to support this. So everybody knows this is coming, everybody's ready
Role of Armored Divisions in Rhine Crossing
00:06:47
Speaker
to do it. The core commanders have had their briefings and so even the guys on the ground, they might not have a great understanding of the bigger picture but they know though they are supporting these armoured divisions and they know that their job is just to get as hard and as fast to the north of Germany as they possibly can because the quicker they get that done, the quicker the war is over.
00:07:06
Speaker
So this refocus is for sort of reallocation of the infantry to the armoured divisions. Is that a reflection of learnings or is it just, look, we're doing the sweeping motion now and we just want to get stuff done? It's a little bit of both, really. Actually, I mean, this is going way back into the dark days of just before the war and then after the war. The armoured divisions that the British had were always designed to be an exploitation force.
00:07:34
Speaker
rather than a battering round. So the idea is they get beyond the enemy and they charge forward and they gain ground and sort of move on faster over this open ground. You're going to say Blitzkrieg in a minute. Kind of, not quite the same, but kind of. Now, the harsh realities of the war as it came to them in 1940 and then
00:07:55
Speaker
And then eventually, to Normandy, they realised that that wasn't really what stood in. And what they slowly built up, although they'd obviously fought about it before, is having a much more balanced force, a force where you can mix and match your infantry and armour and your supporting arms depending on what your task was. And you start to get very, very good at this, especially after Normandy. It's a real wake-up call.
00:08:16
Speaker
OK, so just cutting in there, then let's find some perspective on the other side of the
Challenges in Germany: Resistance and Morale
00:08:22
Speaker
coin. As they're sweeping across and moving north towards Bremen, are they facing a ragged force that can see the end is nigh? Or is there still enough momentum coming from the opposite direction to make this bloody hard work? I mean, it's always hard work, but you know what I mean? Well, I think it's a bit of both. So the days of the Germans mounting mast
00:08:45
Speaker
coordinated counter-attacks, like they did in Normandy and they recently did in the bulge, they are all gone. The German army starts, basically from this point on, starts to really break down, especially in 21st Army Group area. The Americans still have some slightly larger forces to deal with, but the large-scale cohesive and coordinated defence starts to break down. That said,
00:09:08
Speaker
Resistance is still incredibly tough and the 52nd low end division are going to have actually some of their toughest battles coming up and along with the other parts of 21st Army Group. What the difficult thing is for a lot of the people when you read their accounts is not so much that it's they've got lots and lots of enemy to fight, but they'll drive for 20 miles with absolutely nothing happening. They'll turn a corner and from the small wood, there'll be an anti-tank gun.
00:09:34
Speaker
company of infantry, maybe a couple of tanks and they'll be hit really hard, they'll take lots of casualties, then they have to get off, then they have to deal with that and then they're on the road again and again it's no enemy resistance and that starts to really play, weirdly psychologically it starts to play havoc for them because you never know what's going to happen whereas in some battles you know where the enemy are, you know it's to be expected, it's not nice but you can
00:09:58
Speaker
you can almost process that a lot easier. So there's all sorts of things going on, but big, I mean really certainly 12 core, they don't experience a big coordinated German counter attack at any point, but they do meet lots and lots of localised resistance.
00:10:15
Speaker
Some of it is literally just a couple of teenage boys with a Panzerfaust, which is a handheld anti-tank weapon, jumping out, firing at the tank and then running away. And then, you know, you've got a tank crew killed or maybe you've got a vehicle carrying some troops knocked out. And so they're still taking casualties all this time.
00:10:31
Speaker
So again, that idea of the change in tempo and pace, moving from a crescendo action, you know what you're moving towards, and turning it into a kind of staccato, oh, here we go again. No, now we stop. Here we go again. It's much harder to keep morale up in that second version, isn't it?
00:10:50
Speaker
Yes, it is very, very difficult and they're moving at such a pace as well that occasionally they have to stop to take a bit of breath. It's kind of like, you're familiar with the phrase, the great swan, which was when the Normandy battle was pretty much over and that huge leap towards the Belgium Dutch border. It's kind of like that, but with a lot more resistance along the way. And so people have to take breaks, they have to stop, they have to reorganise and then they move on. But for the next couple of days,
00:11:17
Speaker
It's pretty open and it's pretty clear and the roads and some people thinking, is this it? Is it over now? And of course, as we'll find out next week, and I think we're going to do a bit of a special next week because it's I think it's one of the busiest weeks of the 52nd lowland division's history and it's one of the most testing as well. OK, well, in all that downtime, certainly the jocks have got a moment or two to have a look at the lowlander. So shall we dive in?
Rhine Crossings and Allied Coordination
00:11:41
Speaker
I think we should do. So do I.
00:11:47
Speaker
26th March 1945. Great Allied assault gets underway. Last night came the news that four Allied armies are now crushing their way forward from their Rhine bridgeheads. In the north, the four bridgeheads established the previous day have now virtually been linked up into one complete bridgehead extending from Rhys in the north to the edge of the Ruhr in the south, a distance of roughly 30 miles.
00:12:12
Speaker
On our left, the 51st Highland Division have practically cleared Rhys after very severe fighting against enemy paratroopers. North of Vaisal, now cleared by one commander brigade, and the 15th Scottish Division have firmly linked with the airborne troops and forward troops of more than seven miles from the river. Well over the Little River Izel, thanks to a number of bridges captured intact by the airborne units.
00:12:36
Speaker
These men, it is revealed, dropped on Saturday in the middle of the enemy's artillery area. They caused great dislocation and captured 3,500 prisoners, including a complete artillery regiment.
00:12:50
Speaker
South of Vaisal, the Americans have taken the turn of Dinkslaken and are over the main road from Vaisal to the Ruhr. In all, more than 8,000 prisoners have been taken but resistance is said to be stiffening. Units of the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division have been identified in the north. Two light brigades are already in use and others are being built as rapidly as possible in spite of enemy shellfire. Mr Churchill has visited the 9th Army bridgehead and has also been
00:13:18
Speaker
Mr Churchill has visited the 9th Army bridgehead and has also been to Weasel. Sheth announced that amongst the units now over the rhinear, the Royal Scots, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the King's Own Scottish Borders, the Cameroonians, Gordon Highlanders, the Garland Sutherland Highlanders and the Black Watch. Fantastic! Progress!
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, we're over. Well, we mentioned this last week because of course it happened last week and we talked about it in the introduction, but this is Operation Varsity Plunder.
00:13:49
Speaker
And this is the first issue this week. And we should perhaps put in a description of the great map that appears on this page. I think it's probably one of my favorites of all the issues of video loading that we look at. It takes up about half the page. We've got Cleave top left. We've got Balkan top right. Bottom left we've got Gelden. And then bottom right we've got Oberhausen. And right in the middle we have a diagrammatic demonstration of little parachutes landing over a space of, or an area of about
00:14:19
Speaker
nine miles wide, I would think, which is actually quite a distance to try and plan a airborne landing if that's actually the ground they covered. But it gives us a really good idea of just where the US Army is and how they're moving forward and what's going on. We've got the Allied bridgehead shown, airborne army, and I think any lad who was looking at this map would be feeling quite cheery about the progress being made.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yes, and the good thing is it's got the two other Scottish divisions mentioned in it, the 15th and the 1st Highlands. And you've got, as we say, we've got the paratroopers there. That's the 6th Airborne Division and the US 17th Airborne Division. And yeah, it's a really, really good little map. And actually, I think they've traced this off a proper map somewhere.
00:15:03
Speaker
Well, you say that, but I can't think of many other maps where you'd actually see this tiny little icon of a parachute used to denote airborne army. Although, having said that, it is exactly the right symbol that you would see on a German equivalent. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good map. Yeah, it's a good map. 28th of March 1945, continuing the air news
00:15:33
Speaker
10-ton Tessie found a new target yesterday in U-boat shelters at Bremen. Other heavies attacked the railways at Paderborn, 50 miles east of Dortmund, and Benzel plants near Ham. By night, Coastal Command has been ranging up and down the Dutch, Norwegian and Baltic coasts, recording hits on seven U-boats, a destroyer and 14 other ships. Can you tell me what 10-ton Tessie is? 10-ton Tessie is a bomb.
00:16:01
Speaker
Well, yeah, but what kind of bomb? What's it? It'll need more than that. It is called the Grand Slam. Yeah. And how much does it have in it? How much explosives in kilos? Well, 10-ton, I would imagine. Yeah, 10,000 kilos, yeah. For an extra bonus point, can you tell me who invented the 10-ton Tessie? No, I can't, not off the top. Oh, come on. Oh, yes, I can, yes, I can. Barnes Wallace.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, as a little side hustle from his bouncing bomb, I think he developed this one. I think this one might have been more effective. Well, it's the Grand Slam, which was the huge bomb they developed for using on very heavily protected targets like U-boat shelters and underground complexes and things like that. And they used them basically from March 45 to the end of the war.
00:16:54
Speaker
And spoiler alert, I think we're actually going to see the KOSB in photos, aren't we, at the U-boat pens in Bremen? Well, not just the KOSB. In fact, most of the 52nd low end went through the U-boat pens at Bremen and then up to Bremenhaven as well. So, yeah. 26th of March, 1945.
Eastern Front: Soviet and Russian Advances
00:17:18
Speaker
Another Russian offensive.
00:17:20
Speaker
Last night, Stalin Order of the Day announced that yet another Red Army group has taken the offensive.
00:17:26
Speaker
This is the group commanded by Malinovsky until Bukin's right flank, advancing up to 40 miles from Budapest, northward to the Danube. His men have taken 400 places, including the towns of Erzagrom, Kisber and Tata, only 12 miles southeast of the important junction on the Danube, Comeron. 7,000 prisoners were taken and 250 tanks knocked out.
00:17:51
Speaker
A second order announced the capture of Heilin Gebel by Marshal Wazaliski. This time was the last one left and the doomed enemy fortress pinned against the Baltic coast. Other Red Army troops are within three miles of the Great Port of Danzig. In Silesia, Marshal Konyev has broadened his attack aimed at Morava Ostrava in the centre of the industrial area over the Czechoslovak border.
00:18:15
Speaker
What have you done with Andy? Where is he? Because there's no way you pronounced all of those right first time. Dear listener, what you don't realise is this is a re-record of this episode for all sorts of reasons. And one of them was the fact that every single Soviet or Czechoslovakian or Hungarian word there, I managed to mangle. I've been practicing.
00:18:42
Speaker
I mean, what do we say? I mean, it's the Russians do what Russians do, isn't it? Yeah, the Soviets, I should say the Soviets. And they're really I mean, this is March 45, they are very, very nearly into Germany proper and actually, before very long, they're going to be on the outskirts of of Berlin. But it's it's I mean, just the scale, we say this every time the scale is just unfathomable. Yeah, I think by the time we get to the capture of Heiligenbach, the writing's on the wall, isn't it?
00:19:11
Speaker
Definitely. Very different. Read all about it! News of the war! Excuse me, young man. Do you happen to have a copy of The Lowlander? We certainly do, madam. Would you like one? Well, I'd rather save the chilling. Could you tell me what the news is this week? Yeah, there's a special on this thing called Walking with the Jocks.
00:19:38
Speaker
It's about this tour to Germany and the Netherlands. Sounds interesting. Tell me more. Well, yeah, in October 2024, you open a bus, you go over there, you have a look at the battlefields that Peter White, the author of With the Jocks, went round in the 52nd lowering division. That catch your fancy, does it, love? I say it rather does. I'll have two copies.
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, you can either read a copy now or in the future you can go on this thing called the Internet and you can go to www.walkingwinnajox.co.uk Marvelous! Read all about it, news of the war!
00:20:28
Speaker
26th March 1945.
Jewish Brigade and Parliamentary Debates
00:20:31
Speaker
Jewish Brigade in Italy. It is announced that an all Jewish brigade is now in action with the 8th Army. Although a million Jews are serving in the armed forces, this is the first time they've been into action as a complete unit. Now I don't know anything about this.
00:20:49
Speaker
I feel like I should. I have heard of the Jewish Brigade and this is going to be a little bit of a lesson to me to go and find out because I don't know anything about them. And of course, I mean, you and I have been to God knows how many Commonwealth war graves, 70s and we've seen obviously the Jewish headstones and it's always, I think,
00:21:09
Speaker
Certainly, it's always quite poignant because you realise why you're there and what you're seeing and you see somebody who's Jewish, worried. And I think as well, I'm aware of Jewish people serving in various different units of the 52nd Lowland Division. But I'm tremendously ignorant of the Jewish Brigade. I think there's one court and we had a very quick look at some of the stuff just before we read this article. But the commander of British 10 Corps,
00:21:36
Speaker
praise the Jewish Brigade's performance. He said the Jewish Brigade fought well and its men were eager to make contact with enemy by any means available to them. Their staff work, their commands and their assessments were good. If they get enough help they certainly deserve to be part of any fuel force whatsoever. Well that's our homework then, isn't it? Find out a little bit more about the Jewish Brigade. 30th March 1945. In Parliament yesterday.
00:22:04
Speaker
Lords and Commons are now enjoying the Easter recess, but the former at least has been warned that they may be recalled if the situation warrants it. Sir Stafford Cripps sent Scottish MPs off for the vacation with a flea in their ear. He refused to yield an inch on the future of Prestwick.
00:22:23
Speaker
The government, he said, cannot afford ยฃ6 million for its conversion to a first-class airport and the new station in West London must remain the terminus for transatlantic routes. He promised that Prestwick would be an important subsidiary and that Scotland would receive a fair share of continental and internal air traffic.
00:22:46
Speaker
2,252 farmers have also been dispossessed in wartime for bad cultivation. The figure is not as serious as it sounds, however, for it represents only 63% of the farming community. Now then. A couple of things. Yes. You go first. I have been to Pressweek. I can confirm that they didn't invest in it. I think the argument is, because that is
00:23:13
Speaker
That is the actual, so when you're coming over from North America, that is the place that they used to refuel, Presswick. So rightly they thought, well, we're really important. But of course, not long after this, they've already invented the jet engine and then before long we've got jet airliners and Presswick obviously doesn't become as important strategically or globally as it was during the time of war. So that kind of makes sense.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, referring to Hansard from the reports of what was actually said in Parliament on the day, Crips goes on and he says that Prestwick's been very satisfactory indeed. I don't think anybody's going to controvert that opinion. And it's been built up by years of effort and employs some 5,000 workers. Well, I don't think it was 5,000 workers. It may have been 5,000 workers in the area.
00:24:06
Speaker
He goes up, really goes into detail. It's a cradle of Scottish history and it may be of interest to the house to know it is adjacent to the barns of Eyre where William Wallace experimented with the first incendiary bombs and successfully at ease the barns to the ground after he'd securely tied the English side. He gets really quite emotive about it. Right, we're going to gloss over the accent.
00:24:31
Speaker
All right, then let's move quickly on into something I didn't find in Hansard. And that's this peculiar note about 63% of the farming community being represented or having been dispossessed. Now, the truth is that a lot of farmers were turned out of their holdings under war emergency powers. And that's slightly different to dispossession because it was the acquisition of land for airfields, for use offline in fields and lands
00:25:01
Speaker
that would have been better used for the war effort than actually for agriculture. I don't know where he's got this from. I cannot find the figure in Hansard anywhere. It reads as though some farmers were not very good at cultivating stuff, therefore they got selected to be built or not. Again, that doesn't even make sense because if you're building an airfield it's not because it's bad cultivation, it's because it's got the right sort of
00:25:29
Speaker
Apography to put an airfield. So I am I was kind of looking at that and I was thinking what is it? I have a suspicion that this is a bit of news that has ended up in the in Parliament yesterday Column and and while it may have come from some kind of official source. I don't think it was stated in Parliament Yeah, and actually as we said
00:25:53
Speaker
there is much less stuff in the Lowlander this week. It just doesn't have the same content it did before and I wonder if sometimes they're just plopping stuff in there without really thinking about it. I think the other thing, it will concern because there's actually quite a lot of the Lowlander division, a lot of the officers because it was a territorial division are actually farmers or landing on farmers. Maybe that's why it's in there.
00:26:15
Speaker
Well, that's the other thing I was going to come to, is that for the jocks who would have been reading this, just to have something like that sat on the page with no context around it might have been quite alarming to some extent. So yeah, good and bad.
00:26:35
Speaker
29th March 1945 and we're going to stay in the Commons because it seems as though that's where all the news is coming from. Tributes to the late Earl Lloyd George came from all parts of the House yesterday. The Prime Minister said that many people were unconscious of how their lives have been shaped by measures brought about by Lloyd George, who would always be remembered as a great social legislator and a great war leader.
00:26:59
Speaker
Lloyd George, he concluded, was the greatest Welshman produced by that race since the time of the Tudors.
00:27:07
Speaker
The Prime Minister also announced with regret that the Joint Undersecretary for Air, Commander Brabner, is now missing in a flight to Canada. Commander Brabner, who is the member for Hyde, is 33 and has won the DSO and DSC in this war. Mr Eden was also asked how the Allies proposed to try the leading war criminals in view of the fact that no international court exists.
00:27:33
Speaker
He replied that they would be punished by joint decision of the Allies. He was then asked what instructions had been given to British soldiers who might one day be confronted with the Fuhrer, were they to shoot him or bring him back alive. The Foreign Secretary said he was quite prepared to leave that to the judgment of any British soldier.
00:27:55
Speaker
Well, we sort of know the answer to that. Obviously, the British army didn't capture Hitler. In fact, nobody captured Hitler. His body was burnt and buried just outside his bunker in Berlin. However, the British army did capture Henry Himmler. He was sort of dressed as a normal soldier, but when they captured him and they processed him, he came clean.
00:28:15
Speaker
He was the head of the SS and clearly one of the most horrible men in history. And they didn't shoot him because they had instructions and they had a process and what they were doing was getting people ready to put them into what would become the Nuremberg trials.
Nuremberg Trials: Capturing Senior Nazis
00:28:30
Speaker
So that sort of answers that question, doesn't it really? It does. And it also reflects what happened with the Americans when there was a GI had written home, as it were, to say, look, if we ever catch Hitler,
00:28:44
Speaker
can I be the one to punch him on the nose? And Patton scrawled across the letter and when the reply went back and went, hmm, yep, pretty much you can have him and do what you want with him. Yeah, yeah, well, Patton wasn't the best. It came to emotional reactions and stuff. But I mean, the thing is, of course, that they had instructions that especially senior Nazis had to be captured, they had to be processed and they had to be put on trial.
00:29:12
Speaker
And then and of course that became the Nuremberg trials and the subsequent trials after that. So so actually probably this is March, probably the time that question was asked in Parliament, the powers that we had probably already come up with that process and already thought about it. OK, so two other quick things here. One is Lloyd George, of course. And we've actually got footage of his his his coffin being transported on a funeral hearse
00:29:40
Speaker
to be buried, so we'll put that up on the Twitters. And the other thing was Commander Brabner. Now... No, nothing about Commander Brabner.
00:29:48
Speaker
Commander Brabner was one of the shining examples, also it is said, of amateur flyers, men who would walk miles to go and take their regular flying lessons before the war. And he was also one of the Joint Undersecretaries of State for Air, and he'd won the DSO in Crete and the DSC in Malta. But the plane that they went down on, he and Air Marshal Sir Peter Drummond, Sir John Abraham, who was Deputy Undersecretary of State at the Air Ministry, Jones, who was Director of Public Relations, there was a guy from the Ministry,
00:30:17
Speaker
This was a flight that had some serious men on board. It left England for the absorbs on Monday night. It left RAF Northalt. It had a refueling stopover at a luscious airfield. But the last contact with it was at RAF Prestwick. So there we go, Prestwick again.
00:30:38
Speaker
I know a bit of an omen but it just disappeared it completely disappeared and the reason that this raised eyebrows was that this was an aircraft that had already been modified, lengthened and the engines had been upgraded and the tail had been changed with single large tail fin and it had been used as personal transport for Churchill and for other VIPs such as Louis Mountbatten. There was no real reason why this plane should have gone down but it just disappeared, just disappeared.
00:31:08
Speaker
Well, if you start making adjustments to airframes, you quite often get accidents long term because lots of issues. And I want to get into the details of that. But well, did you know that his sister Jean was also killed in the Second World War and she she was actually killed when a V1 rocket or bomb hit her where she was living in London. I did not know that. I do know.
00:31:40
Speaker
1st April 1945, on Japan's doorstep.
Pacific Focus: Okinawa and Beyond
00:31:44
Speaker
Wave after wave of American carrier planes have again swooped down on Okinawa midway in the chain of islands between Formosa and Japan.
00:31:52
Speaker
They sent to the bottom or damaged 46 ships and destroyed 87 planes. Meanwhile, a task force from the Royal Navy specifically is keeping up a constant bombardment of the southernmost group, the Sakashima. Super forts have carried out two more raids on Japan proper. One was against the northern island of Kyushu, the other against Nagoya.
00:32:13
Speaker
No, it doesn't actually say Okinawa, it says Okinawa Shima and that is the correct name for Okinawa. And I've got some lovely maps of Okinawa Shima as it's described by, that were made by a member of the 928th Engineer Aviation Regiment and I will post one of those on Twitter. Yes, but everybody else knows it as Okinawa.
00:32:34
Speaker
that everybody else knows Okinawa. OK, so here's a question for you. How many of the jocks would have known where Okinawa was? Well, I think it very unlikely they would have known where Okinawa was exactly other than it's near Japan. However, it would have been something in the back of the mains, because if you think about 21st Army Group, the last fully formed, fully sought and reserved infantry division to to become part of 21st Army Group and start fighting in Northwest Europe was the 52nd Lowland Division.
00:33:04
Speaker
And so there's a feeling within the division itself that once the war is finished in the West, once Germany has finally been defeated, they're probably likely to be the first troops to be sent over there. Today, I've not found any official documents about that. In fact, the Commonwealth contribution to the eventual invasion of Japan, which thankfully never had to happen,
00:33:31
Speaker
it doesn't actually mention the 52nd loan, although I think a lot of the troops from the 52nd would have been stripped out of them and posted out there. So I think it's like anything in this, they've probably got one eye on it, especially as they're getting towards the end of the war in Europe, and a lot of people are thinking, I might end up out there.
00:33:50
Speaker
I'm just trying to remember, I'm sure back in one of the first editions of the Lowlander that we looked at. In fact, I know which one it was. It was where we were talking about the Lowlander Club Room in Bergen Op Zoom. There's a piece of text that says you can be reading or you can visit the club room to recover and recuperate and read issues of the Lowlander in preparation for wherever we're going, Germany, France or Japan.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so they might not know exactly where Okinawa is, but I think they have an idea It's probably near Japan. Thank God they never had to go there because I think I think that a lot of people suggest it would be horrendous
00:34:29
Speaker
Of course this is the start of the Battle of Okinawa which went from the 1st of April to the 22nd of June 45. The American Army, the American Marines and the Army but also there was a Commonwealth contingent as part of the British Pacific Fleet and they were involved in that and the late Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, he was actually there. He was part of the Pacific Fleet.
00:34:57
Speaker
And finally, we go to this week's Thought for the Day from the 26th of March, 1945.
Inspirational Moments in The Lowlander
00:35:03
Speaker
Our business in the field of fight is not to question, but to prove our might, Homer. And it's not Homer Simpson, is it? Oh, I mean, I was going to go into my Homer Simpson impression, but fine. Apparently not. It's from Homer's Iliad, those 15,000 or so words that he put down. And you've read the Iliad, haven't you? I haven't read the Iliad, but I've read The Odyssey.
00:35:27
Speaker
Which is the sequel? Is it a sequel? So this again, the editor has a penchant for just taking things out of context. It's a great piece, smack in the middle of it. And I'm going to read just a couple of lines either side of it, because if the jocks had had the whole thing, I think they would have got far more from it.
00:35:48
Speaker
Wounded, we wound, and neither side can fail, for every man has equal strength to rail. Women alone, when in the streets they jar, perhaps excel us in this wordy war. Like us, they stand, encompassed with the crowd, and vent their anger impotent and loud.
00:36:07
Speaker
Cease, then, our business in the field of fight is not to question but to prove our might. To all those insults thou hast offered here, receive this, my answer, to my flying spear. I got that. I understood that. Yeah, well, I think the jocks would have had a little bit more fun with it with the idea of women being a bit more wordy than the men.
00:36:32
Speaker
I will say one thing, I mean, when you do read Homer, it is actually very readable, even though it's, what, 2,000, I don't know, 3,000 years old, something like that? No, it's ancient. But it's interesting that the editor keeps going back to the phrases that are just simple motivation for the men, really. You've got to keep fighting, you've got to keep on track. I think the other thought for the day this week comes from the Quran, doesn't it? And it's, what does it say? It just says,
00:37:00
Speaker
God is with those that persevere. Well, you can't get simpler than that, can you? Oh yeah, it's very simple. I prefer the Homer one just because it says a little bit more. But yeah, no, I think it's fine. I mean, these thoughts are there. I do wonder how many of them genuinely read it or took the mickey out of it. I don't know. I mean, it's a nice thing to have in it. It's an interesting thing, but I wonder whether it had the same impact that the football scores have.
00:37:29
Speaker
And on that note, I think we should say goodbye. Don't you, Mary? I do indeed. All right. I'll catch you next time. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Lowlander. The Lowlander was written, produced and presented by Andy Aitchison and Meryn Walters. This was a hellish good production.
00:38:11
Speaker
And now we go to the classified football results for the week commencing the 26th of March, 1945. English League Cup North. Accuton Mill, Bolton 4. Barnsley 3, Rotherham, Mill. Birmingham 2, Northampton 2. Bradford City 4, Sheffield United 3. Chesterfield 3, Halifax 1. Crewe Alexandra 2, Man City, Mill.
00:38:41
Speaker
Going to Nill, Newcastle 3 Derby 2, Leicester, Nill Doncaster 2, Bradford, Nill Everton, Nill, Liverpool 1 Lovells, Nill, Cardiff, Nill Man United 4, Barnsley, Nill Stoke 3, Burry, Nill West Bromwich Albion 3, Bristol City 3 Wolves 1, Aston Villa, Nill
00:39:09
Speaker
Wrexham 2 Blackpool 2 English League North Chester 4 Preston North End 1 Gateshead 4 Sunderland 2 Groomsby 4 Lincoln 2 Huddersfield 1 York 0 Middlesbrough 1 Hartlepool 3 Notts County 1 Coventry 2 Oldham 2 Southport 0
00:39:39
Speaker
Rochdale 4, Trammere Rovers 1 Sheffield Wednesday 2, Blackburn 0 Swansea 1, Bath City 0 Walsall 2, Port Vail 0 English League South Oldshot 1, Tottenham Hotspur 2 National 0, Reading 2 Brentford 2, Fulham 3 Chaunton 2, Brighton 1
00:40:09
Speaker
Chelsea 3 Southampton 4 Crystal Palace 2 Millwall 1 Queens Park Rangers 1 Portsmouth 0 Watford 1 Watford 1 Luton 1 West Ham 1 Claptonurian 0 Scottish League South Albion 1 Hibernian 8 Celtic 1 Partik Thistle 2 Volkuk 5 Clade 1
00:40:40
Speaker
Hamilton 2 Queen's Park 4 Arts 2 Motherwell 4 Moreton 1 Ayrdeonians 0 St. Merman 3 Dunbarton 1 3rd Larnock 2 Rangers 4 Scottish League North East Aberdeen 2 East 5-2 Dundee 4 Abroath 2 Dunfermant 3 Dundee United 1
00:41:07
Speaker
Wraith Rover 6 Hearts Mill Rangers 3 Falkirk 2 This concludes the classified football results for the week commencing the 26th of March 1945 I think we could do a football special I don't know what to say to that
00:41:40
Speaker
went in there and they just saw the pretty Germans off. They were hellish goods.