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THE LOWLANDER - RANCHO RELAXO
179 Plays10 months ago
Escapees, Remagen, the great what-is-a-tank debate, shenanigns in Kirkcaldy, the 52nd Lowland Division's attempt at self-sufficiency - and a brief encounter with Ben Affleck. It's all going on as Andy and Merryn dip into this week's issues of The Lowlander ...
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Transcript
War Updates and Responsibilities
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello, Andy. Hello, Meryn. Hello, hello. Once more into the breach and we are armed with copies of the Lowlander digging into the snippets and the updates provided to the men of the 52nd Lowlander Division between the 12th of March and the 18th of March in 1945. Yes, March. So things are slowly building to a conclusion. There's less chaos in the war. We know which way things are going now. And so that's getting reported regularly. Are things less chaos? Is there less chaos in the war? Well,
00:01:09
Speaker
I don't know, I think there is, because when we look at the Lowlander, what we're getting is reports of, you know, we're going this way, we're doing that, we're going the other. Right, let me start that again then. OK. Because I was unsure about as to the claim that there was a bold claim from Meryn that there is less chaos in the war. I want to make a note of that.
00:01:28
Speaker
Well, no, hang on a minute, because it's not like we don't know what he's trying to do now, is it? Right, OK. OK, fine. So give us a round up of the rest of the world news.
00:01:40
Speaker
So this week, the Red Army launched the Upper Silesian offensive. President Roosevelt said at a news conference that as a matter of decency, Americans would have to tighten their belts so that food could be shipped to war ravaged countries to keep people from starving. And all of the schools and the universities in Tokyo were closed and everyone over the age of six was ordered to do war work. But shall we find out where the jocks are? Tell us where the men of the 52nd Lowland Division are and what's going on, please.
Command Shifts and Strategic Movements
00:02:10
Speaker
Well, from the 12th, which is the first edition of the Lowlander this week, the 52nd Lowlander vision are on the west bank of the Rhine. All of the fighting on the west bank of the Rhine is now ceased. So the weasel pocket has been collapsed. Operation Veritable is over. And 52nd Lowlander vision are part of 12 core now. They were part of 12 core back in January during Operation Blackcock. And they have got a very specific job to do, building up to the crossing of the Rhine, which will happen.
00:02:39
Speaker
on the 23rd and 24th of March. So their job is to secure the West Bank. That means providing security protection, patrolling, checking vehicles and all the rest of it, making sure that nobody that's unauthorised is in the area, while the rest of 21st Army Group builds up for the crossing of the Rhine, which is a huge huge effort. They're even getting involved in things like helping the sappers get their bridging ready, moving the bridging into place,
00:03:08
Speaker
stacking up logistical stores and all the rest of it. So the whole division is getting involved in that. The artillery parts of the 52nd are also part of the corps and army group artillery. So they're firing already on targets on the east bank of the Rhine and the German side.
00:03:24
Speaker
And also one of the curious jobs that the 52nd have been roped into is as this area has been cleared of all civilians for security reasons, they're also getting involved in farming. So they are helping all the various different farm animals and they're congregating them into various different pens to look after them. That's an advantage for some of the lowland battalions who are actually a lot of the officers are farmers.
00:03:50
Speaker
and there's a huge thing in fact they end up there is a place called the 52nd Ranch where they're concentrating all of the farm animals and they're deciding what they can do with them milking them and looking after them but the real effort is really getting ready to support the rest of the British Army who are going to launch themselves across the Rhine in a week or so a couple of weeks. So they've gone through a couple of hierarchy changes here now they're part of 12 Corps where were they before
00:04:16
Speaker
Well, during Operation Veritable and the fighting around Atherton and even down into the diesel pocket at House Lou last week, they were part of 30 Corps. Yeah. And would they recognise the change in any other format? I mean, apart from officers knowing that, you know, the hierarchies changed. Yeah, it'd be part of your orders. We are now part of X Corps, whatever it may be.
00:04:39
Speaker
and also they would know the commander. The 30 Corps commander at the time was Brian Horrocks, everybody's favourite. Lots of people know him from things like A Bridge Too Far and things like that. And of course the commanding officer of 12 Corps is Neil Ritchie, who they've had in charge of them during Operation Black Hawk, but of course led the division for the two years that they were in the Cairngorms doing mountain division training.
00:05:03
Speaker
So yeah and one of the roles of a leader is to make sure that everybody within the division knows who you are and who you're actually working under if that makes sense. So I think that's what I'm coming back to is that the jocks on the ground sitting in a trench, how long would it have taken them to realise that Richie is now back at the top of the chart as it were?
00:05:25
Speaker
Oh, they would have got it in their daily orders. By the way, that's part of the orders process. Now, if the question is, do they care? That's a very different question and that's open to debate. But the core itself doesn't necessarily make that much difference. The core is more of an administrative body to control two or three divisions in the field.
00:05:52
Speaker
the culture doesn't change. Yeah and well it might do a little bit but it probably not and actually in terms of the infantryman at the bottom or the you know the driver or it doesn't make any difference you're still you're still experiencing the same danger and the same privations it's just a different person's in charge at the top. Okay well should we get going then and find out from the
Media and Historical Narratives
00:06:13
Speaker
Londoner this week? I think so. All right
00:06:19
Speaker
12th March 1945, West and East. Hour by hour the Remagen bridgehead is growing larger, stronger and more menacing for the enemy. Overhead fighters are constantly circling and on the ground 2,000 yards advanced yesterday deprived the German gunners of the only remaining heights from which they might maintain close observation on our crossings. Links to the south
00:06:42
Speaker
and Honeff to the north were among seven places which fell during the day, and General Hodgy's men now man a nine-mile stretch of the right bank in strength. Artillery to support them has been rolling across the bridge, resistance is piecemeal. Counterattacks delivered by groups of tanks and orderly-assorted infantry and Volkssturm have met the fate they deserved and might expect. So we touched on this last week, didn't we? Yep, yep. We didn't actually talk about the bridge at Remargan.
Maurice Chevalier's War Controversies
00:07:10
Speaker
Well, we did them a little bit. We mentioned it was the Ludendorff Bridge, isn't it? Which is named after the famous general. We talked about how they managed to get some troops across before anything was, you know, before it was severely damaged. Although, obviously, eventually, it does actually fall into the fall into the rain itself. Yeah. So do you know the film The Bridgette of Margin?
00:07:33
Speaker
Oh, you can ask me about films now, aren't you? Yeah, I know. I know. Neither of us like war films. I just can't get into them, but yeah, you know, it's just got that fur in it. That fella being Robert Vaughan. That's the one. He's a chairman of that, isn't he? That is the extent of my knowledge. Yeah, well, I think it's worth mentioning because it reminds me, at least, of the other fella. What's the other fella called? Ben Affleck. Yeah, yeah.
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, so his film Argos. Do you remember his film Argos? I don't think it's Argos. I think that's a shop that you can buy things from a catalogue. What's it called then? I think it's Argos. It's taking us to March to get to our strength, which is film 50.
00:08:21
Speaker
OK, so admission number one, we're absolutely crap at war film, both of us. But in Affleck's film, if I remember rightly, OK, he his big idea was, well, let's go in under the cover of putting a production team in to bring the hostages out. Yes, yes. So I hadn't realised until I was just wandering around the internet the other day.
00:08:43
Speaker
that Volper, who was producer or director or whatever of Bridget and Margin, he was accused of being a CIA spy in exactly the same way and the reports were going around that he was taking arms and troops into Prague to perhaps get involved in what eventually happened in 1968 which was the Russians coming in. He suffered all the problems that Affleck then sort of
00:09:13
Speaker
came up with as a solution. Because in Argus, the actual film, that is based on the true story of Argus. Argus, not Argus. That is based on a true story isn't it? It's the set level of a production company. Well I never, I mean I didn't watch war films that much when I was a kid. I know this is something on a Second World War podcast you're not meant to admit.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, I know, but you as a supper, I think this is one of the films that you should be interested in because the actual bridge, the Ludendorff Bridge, right? That was the, what do you call it? The Davler Road Bridge that they used for the film. They raised it by 14 feet. They added two towers and put all the girders. They blasted an 80 foot tunnel out of the hillside as part of the scenery. And because there was no CGI to speak of, they built the false church. I think they bought an entire village as well so that they weren't blowing up cardboard they were blowing.
00:10:08
Speaker
It's a really really good film apparently. I mean if you want to talk about brilliant stories of failed bridge demolitions or demolitions that went wrong, the Sitang Bridge in Barmran 1943 is the one you look at. That's the thing you need to make a film about.
00:10:28
Speaker
because the guy that made the decision to blow the bridge did so under such extreme circumstances, and he had an annual fistula which was causing him no end of trouble. So that's the story you want to make a film out of. Back on track, remember to be a sack of style, thank you very much, and moving on. 13th March 1945.
Military Honors and Complexities
00:10:53
Speaker
Half of German 7th Army destroyed.
00:10:56
Speaker
General Patton's 3rd Army is continuing to clear the north bank of the Moselle and the enemy now holds less than 50 miles of it between Treves and Koblenz. The remnants of its 7th Army are trying to desperately withdraw across the river, but official estimates say that half of the Army has been wiped out as a result of General Patton's drive through the Eiffel.
00:11:17
Speaker
Well, I think there's a bit of a half-life thing going on here because I'm pretty sure that a lot of the German 7th Army was destroyed at Fleck. Well, yes, and it's kind of sort of like what we're talking about in the introduction when we said it's kind of an administrative thing. 7th Army itself, as it was, was pretty much wiped out in Normandy. Then it was reinstated around the core of survivors for the Battle of the Bulge or the Ardennes Offensive. Again, pretty much destroyed. And then it's kind of reinvigorated
00:11:47
Speaker
for this final defense of Germany. So yeah, it's been destroyed more than half, several times. So a question for you, right? Because the editor here is building articles from various reports that are coming in somehow. So when somebody somewhere says, oh, you know, half the German Seventh Army has been destroyed, where is that pyramid of figures, that pyramid of estimates coming from? As in, that's it, we've eliminated half of them.
00:12:16
Speaker
Well it could come from all manner of sources. Again one of the issues with the Lowlander is we've got some ideas of where the sources are. It's a combination of the general status updates which will be briefed out to troops through the division and then the brigades and the battarians and the companies and all the rest of it. Some of it is in the official publications but also in the news. So we suspect that the editor of the Lowlander is picking stuff up from the newspapers which are
00:12:44
Speaker
fairly easily accessible in Northwest Europe because there's constant... Yeah, exactly, yeah. So there's a combination of everything. I suspect the claim half and the way it's presented is probably from a newspaper report or a newsreel or a radio report. So it's like a circuitous information stream. You know, the reports, what is allowed to be reported in the newspapers back home.
00:13:13
Speaker
is ending up on the front lines influencing the perceptions of the troops who are wandering towards the enemy and going, aren't you? Half the enemy, half of this army is destroyed. Whereas that may or may not be the truth. Yeah, and as I was in the National Archives recently and I spoke to you about it last week, I actually found a briefing note from a company level, so a squadron or a company level, briefing to their troops
00:13:39
Speaker
and we can see that they've taken direct quotes out of the Lowendor. So it's the first time we've actually done the full circle. It's actually, maybe the troops aren't always getting the Lowendor, but somebody is and the Lowendor is getting it, probably news reports. But also you get intelligence reports. Now it's unlikely intelligence reports would be reported in the Lowendor, but eventually that stuff will filter through and then you can port it.
00:14:04
Speaker
Half, it's very hard to say, because the actual 7th Army itself, the administrative part of the 7th Army, doesn't properly surrender until the 8th of May, obviously, you know, the end of the war. So it's hard to say, but they're definitely surrendering. A lot of them are surrendering, that's obvious. 13th March 1945
00:14:29
Speaker
The Home Office has refused to grant a visa to Maurice Chevalier, who was to have visited England to appear on the stage. What level of collaboration is it? Well, the question is, was he collaborating or not? He was refused a visa. Do you know how much he was on? A week?
00:14:47
Speaker
He was refused a visa to enter Britain for a series of shows that he was going to do and he was on a salary of four and a half thousand dollars a week. That's a lot of money now it is. I know, remember footballers were still only on £7 a week. So Chevalier, what do you associate Chevalier with?
00:15:08
Speaker
He's one of those people I've heard of. I know he was in films. Yeah. And it's like one of the things I've just, we've just had a prep for the episode. Have a look at me. He doesn't look French. He looks very glitzy and very Hollywood. But I don't know. I was also reading that he was actually, he served in the French army in the First World War and was actually wounded and captured. But I was completely unaware of the accusations of collaboration.
00:15:35
Speaker
So he was what you might call an all-round entertainer and a bit of a lad, quotation marks. Yeah, he was captured in the First World War and he served a bit of time as a POW and that kind of culminates in the decisions not to give him a visa but in a sort of roundabout way because he had several dalliances but he eventually settled down with a woman, a dancer called Nita Raya.
00:15:58
Speaker
And she was Jewish, and the Germans wanted him to play for them in Berlin, but he refused. He kept citing poor health as the reason why he couldn't perform for them. But they made threats against his wife and her family. So he agreed to perform for them.
00:16:18
Speaker
some kind of twisted irony here. His performance took place in the same place where he'd been kept a prisoner of war, 25 years earlier. The French mistrusted him completely. And we mistrusted the, you know, anybody the French mistrusted and we said, no, you actually still kind of
00:16:38
Speaker
doing what the Germans want here. So there was a significant amount of doubt about his allegiance. And in fact, the one of the women that he did set up with earlier in his life, Miss Thanget, she acted as a double agent for the French and the Germans. So he kind of had form in being open to that kind of situation. The states refused him a visa in 1951.
00:17:05
Speaker
because he'd signed the Stockholm Appeal, which was the thing against the use of nuclear weapons. But they did eventually let him in in 1955. Yes. Yeah, I just thought, obviously, that his association is with communism. So he had a little bit of a roller coaster ride from a potential club break. I mean, he should have teamed up with PG Widows. They would have had a great time.
Memoirs and Historical Reflections
00:17:32
Speaker
God. That's a call back.
00:17:38
Speaker
13th March 1945 Brigadier Maclean who dropped by parachute into Yugoslavia in 1943 as head of our military mission to Marshal Tito has been awarded the Yugoslav Partisan Star First Class and as the first British soldier to receive this award. I mean, that's one area that I'm not sure of the murky world of Yugoslavia in the Second World War. It gets very confusing and there's all sorts of shenanigans going on.
00:18:07
Speaker
Well, for one, the editor's insistent on putting a hyphen between Hugo and Slavia just to make the point. OK, so you know who this is, don't you? Well, I've again, he's one of those people who's sufficiently clear and I've heard of. And he's a he's a conservative MP or a conservative unionist MP. And I'm sort of vaguely aware he's involved in all sorts of shenanigans, sort of sneaky, beaky shenanigans in the second world. But I don't I don't know a great deal about him.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's a real shame, actually, because people mention names like David Sterling all the time. But he took part in one of Sterling's earlier missions on the raid on Benghazi Harbor. Right. He was with Alston and Cooper and Johnny Rose. And at the last minute, Randolph Churchill, which put a kind of a question. Yeah, yeah, yes.
00:19:02
Speaker
The dots are joining. The dots are joining. But yeah, he was kind of a favorite of Churchill, really. And he kept in close contact all the while while he was involved in running messages backwards and forwards to Tito. The McLean Mission, Macmas, which always reminds me of Brixmas, but that's a whole other story. Yeah. Now, I want you to give me a categorical answer. You cannot you cannot you can't deliberate. I want an instant answer.
00:19:31
Speaker
Is he the inspiration behind James Bond? Yes or no? No. OK, good. All right. And here's another categoric question for you. Have you ever read Eastern approaches? No.
00:19:45
Speaker
I see. So his memoir of the early years, sort of 43, that forms the third part of Eastern approaches. It is well worth reading. If you're not keen on memoirs... I like them.
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah, we both invest a lot of time in Peter White's memoir, but for anybody who's not sure about memoirs, Eastern Approaches is just brilliant, because it ties so much together outside the military sphere. It's not just about what I was doing, where I was going and why. There's a lot of it about why I was there as well. Well, I'll consider myself told and I will make sure I get a copy of Eastern Approaches. Hi, Hallie Dett.
00:20:38
Speaker
In the bleak landscapes of historical remnants, where the echoes of war times do resonate, lies an odyssey in the depths of human strife. Step into the realm of reality where time melds with memory on a journey unlike any other.
00:20:59
Speaker
Join us walking with the jocks, a pilgrimage tracing the path of Peter White and the 52nd lowland division through the raw triangle and the rind end.
00:21:14
Speaker
from the 11th to the 14th of October, 2024. Immerse yourself in hallowed grounds where valiant Scottish soldiers once tread, traverse ancient trenches, haunted forests and solemn graveyards, where fallen slumber eternally touch the waters of the mighty Rhine,
00:21:39
Speaker
witness the scars of battle etched upon silent edifices. This is not merely a tour, it is an encounter with the raw essence of human experience. Find solace in the whispers of history as you confront the fragility of existence, dare to confront the stark realities of war.
00:22:07
Speaker
for its shadow lies in the essence of our shared humanity.
POW Escapes and Soldier Perceptions
00:22:14
Speaker
You must visit walkingwiththejocks.co.uk to embark on this unforgettable expedition. Prepare to confront the depths of reality as you walk in the footsteps of the jocks.
00:22:38
Speaker
13th March 1945 36 prisons of war are still at large in the Bridgend area of South Wales. 70 escape from a camp by tunnelling but 34 have been recaptured. See everybody talks about the Great Escape but I think there's a much better case for making a film about Bridgend.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yes. Well, do you know what? Since doing the law I'm now aware of Axis prisoners escaping. We did just a few months ago on some Italian prisoners escaping in Scotland in winter, which was not their smartest move. Yeah, I know. So this is Bridge End in Wales?
00:23:17
Speaker
Yes. Is it technically in Wales? I think it is technically in Wales and I think most of them were actually recaptured in the end but the reason why I picked this article out is the map. Now there's no map printed in the Lowlander.
00:23:30
Speaker
Yeah, but I have tracked down a map that is that is pertinent to this story because there were there were two of the two of the German prisoners, Karl Ludwig and Heinz Herzler. They escaped through the tunnel and they ended up about eight miles from Bridgend in a village called Hlandharren.
00:23:48
Speaker
the fifth
00:24:08
Speaker
said oi oi lads what you doing and arrested them and took them down to the local police station. And he was fascinated by what the men were wearing because one of the men on the on the on his shirt tail, he'd got a map.
00:24:23
Speaker
when they had been taken across to Island Farm at Bridge End, they'd been taken across in pretty much open railway carriages and on one of the walls of the railway carriages there was a map of Britain and its railway system and what this
00:24:43
Speaker
enterprising young German man had done is whipped his shirt off and traced the map onto his shirt tails and there is still there is still a photograph of that map and I will find it and we'll put it in the show. I just think it's brilliant. Oh in fact I'll tell you what else there is there's um oh I'll track it down there's a recording there's a a radio broadcast recording announcing that the prisoners have escaped and I'll track that now. I think we need to do that but it's what it's really interesting because the
00:25:10
Speaker
I mean you know proper historians wouldn't consider this but if you think about the war the films about the great escape and then you know the one with the you know the gymnastics voting horse and all that sort of stuff it's always plucky British ingenuity etc etc but by definition you have to then uh credit the Germans with that as well regardless of why they're imprisoned in the first place which we probably won't get into now but the fact is it takes a hell amount of sort of ingenuity and and sort of um
00:25:40
Speaker
and sort of desire to escape one of these camps. It's definitely worth looking into because we don't really know about it at all, do we?
00:25:48
Speaker
Well, the other one that always amuses me is I'm pretty sure it was in the Imperial War Museum. You know how you wander around the museums and you read these signs on the wall and you sort of take some of it in and you ignore most of it. I remember seeing something years and years ago about the fact that there were thousands of SOE operatives that were parachuted in and did this and that undercover and this mission and that.
00:26:11
Speaker
relatively, and not even relatively, but by comparison, only maybe hundreds of successful German infiltrations into Britain. And occasionally I scratch my head and go, really? Could it really be that disparate proportion?
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting. You don't really get to hear about that, but it's definitely interesting. I think the tactic that the Allies used is the POW camps in places that once you escape, you very quickly think, I'll probably just go back inside Ayrshire and South Wales.
00:26:52
Speaker
I can say that because I'm from Ayrshire.
Tank Warfare and Military Technology
00:26:54
Speaker
I know, but we're not going to have any failure with the world, for God's sake. This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the midnight news for today, Sunday the 11th of March, and this is Alderdell reading it. 70 Germans escaped from a prison-of-war camp at Bridger and Glamorgan last night. So far, 23 have been recaptured.
00:27:20
Speaker
Hundreds of troops, police and civilians have been taking part in the search and it is thought that the men may have found cover in the Welsh hills and sparsely populated valleys or in the caves and sand dunes on the coast a few miles from the camp. Many former home guards living in the area have volunteered to help in the search. 14th March 1945 War Report
00:27:47
Speaker
In introducing the Army estimates in the Commons yesterday, Sir James Grigg surveyed a year of unbroken victory for British and Allied arms. No campaign had ever gone more according to plan than our Normandy landings and breakthrough. The speed of the advance he attributed largely to our tanks. With the latest ammunition, our 17 pound tanks are superior to anything the Army has, the enemy has,
00:28:14
Speaker
including the tiger and there is only one tiger to every five of our 17 pounders.
00:28:20
Speaker
Now, I'm not sure that's actually correct, you know. Well, well, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, technically, they plan to get to Paris by out of Normandy by D plus 90. I think Paris by D plus 90. And they got there by D plus 71. So, but I think the people who did the fighting normally would maybe argue with that.
00:28:45
Speaker
in fact, it was particularly difficult. Although there's been some revision of how we understand the Normandy battles, but I think to say gone more according to plan, no, sorry, I'm waffling, let me say, no campaign had ever gone more according to plan than our Normandy landings and breakthrough, I think is a wild statement.
00:29:06
Speaker
Well, as is the speed of the advance, he attributed larges to our tanks. I mean, even that close to what was happening and what had happened over the 12 months proceeding. To make a statement like that puts an awful lot of faith in armoured vehicles, isn't it? It wasn't just down to being better mechanised. So there's lots of things, again, to unpack there.
00:29:29
Speaker
The Allied tanks today are, as a very generalisation, are much more mechanically reliable. The, what? Go on. Sorry, I thought you were actually doing a proper, like, stop talking now. Okay.
00:29:44
Speaker
So generally speaking the Allied tanks are more mechanically reliable they are used using mass production methods all the rest of it which has its own advantages and the guns are generally okay and the German tanks are viewed as much more technical perhaps a little bit better armed armored and all the rest of it which is kind of sort of true but the interesting thing is the vast majority of
00:30:08
Speaker
Tank losses aren't down to tank on tank engagements. That's actually, it's not rare, but it doesn't happen that often. It's more anti-tank weapons against tanks. And that's certainly what the Allies found and certainly what the Germans found when they actually eventually massed their armor and used it in some of the Normandy battles.
00:30:24
Speaker
So it's a little bit more complicated than that. It is true about the 17-pounder ammunition, because what they're actually talking about there is the discarding Sabo rounds, which is a long, thin, very heavy, almost arrow-like dart which fires out of the 17-pounder gun, which is a big gun.
00:30:41
Speaker
and that will go through just about any armour you can find. So hang on a second, when they attribute those to our tanks, 17 pounder tanks, what are they including in that classification? That's the other thing, we're not entirely sure because the only, well,
00:30:58
Speaker
By the time this report was written, the tank, the most common use of the 17-pounder on a tank was the Sherman Firefly, which is a Mark IV Sherman tank with a Firefly 17-pounder gun on it. That was normally one per armored troop. So four tanks and a troop. Three of them would be the 75-mil gun. This is British, by the way, not American, and a 17-pounder.
00:31:24
Speaker
But the anti-tank regiments in an armoured division or an armoured brigade would have, they look like tanks but they're not tanks and that would be something called the Achilles or the British version of the M10 and it's a tank destroyer and that carried a 17 pounder as well.
00:31:47
Speaker
Also, here we go. So the infantry divisions had an anti-tank regiment attached to the Maroia Artillery anti-tank regiment. And during Normandy, they would have the 17-pounder anti-tank gun, which is like gun on wheels, but you know, not a tank.
00:32:07
Speaker
And then later on in the war, they were replaced with something called an archer, which is a 17 pounder self-propelled anti-tank weapon. And it's basically on a Valentine tank. And weirdly, it points in the opposite direction, so it reverses into the position. So there's lots and lots of different uses of the 17 pounder.
00:32:26
Speaker
you would assume from this report he's talking about the Sherman Firefly to run in the war and just actually maybe a few weeks before this report came out you've also got the A34 Comet tank
00:32:41
Speaker
That is very similar to a Cromwell. It's very fast and it's got a 17-pounder gun on it. It was seen as probably the best tank that the British developed in the war, although only really saw a little bit of use really at the end of the war for the last few weeks. So yeah, in that one short bit of the Lowlander, we've got all sorts of information that's kind of right and not right at the same time, if that makes sense.
00:33:09
Speaker
I'm almost sorry I asked. So one of the reasons for asking was I kind of sort of circumvented all the detail and went straight to the bottom of the paragraph really, which is when he says the speed of the advance he attributed largely to our tanks. I kind of assumed that under the heading tanks he was including goodness knows what. But from a language point of view,
00:33:31
Speaker
It fascinates me that the communications going out to the troops and also into the press start this notion of taxonomy and for outsiders the perception of what is and what is not. I'm not being funny about this at all. What is a tank and what is not a tank
00:33:49
Speaker
You have to have that pyramid top-down view of taxonomy, as in an armoured vehicle with a 17-pounder is a tank, an armoured vehicle without a 17-pounder is not a tank. It's just... I'm waffling. It's OK. I'll shush now. No, no, no. You were going somewhere there. So up until the point you're saying, what is a tank? Yeah. So the type of gun on the vehicle isn't necessarily related to whether it's a tank or not.
00:34:19
Speaker
No, no, no. So it's kind of, it's even, even that, just saying it's, yeah. And even just saying it's got tracks and a gun doesn't necessarily mean it's a tank island, which is even more confusing. I suppose, I suppose in the heart of it, the the Great Swan, which is, of course, once they broke out of Normandy and they basically drove across the width of France up into Belgium, that is definitely where the Allied vehicles
00:34:46
Speaker
were an advantage for the Sherman's and the Cromwell's. They could do a lot of road miles on their tracks and the fuel supply was adequate enough to keep them going as far and fast as they
Domestic Issues and Social Observations
00:35:00
Speaker
possibly could. So in that respect, that's correct.
00:35:05
Speaker
OK, and the other thing that I'm presuming is correct at this point is their assumption that there is only one target to every five of our 17 pounders. But I think we can leave that for another day. Yeah, that's a different discussion altogether.
00:35:22
Speaker
15th March 1945, News out of Scotland by Mary Hill. An important ruling affecting servicemen has been given by the Sheriff Principal at Kirkaldy. Deciding a case before him, he said that when her husband is serving overseas,
00:35:41
Speaker
I'm sorry, hang on, hang on, I'll get there. Deciding a case before him, he said that when her husband is serving overseas, a wife has no authority to dispose of his furniture. I want to know the case that this is based on.
00:36:02
Speaker
Well, so do I, because I've got this picture of her in her curlers leaning against the door jam, you know, rifling through £2 notes and going, ah. She's so sideboard, isn't she?
00:36:15
Speaker
I mean, is it because she thought he wasn't coming home? Well, quite possibly. Quite possibly. That's the underlying current here, isn't it? If you've got no money and if you've resorted to selling your furniture because you either think somebody's not coming home or you've been told somebody's not coming home.
00:36:35
Speaker
OK, that's one thing, but actually getting that to a case where the husband has now come home and he's so hacked off that he's taken it to the sheriff principal and said she sold the sideboard and I'm pretty miffed off about it. That's another thing else. I think there's something else going on in that that marriage. I think there's some subtext there. I'm going to be I would be doing my country with a disservice. Maren, if I didn't pick you up on the pronunciation of Cacadi, it's Cacadi.
00:37:04
Speaker
What did I say? You said Cacaldi. Oh, did I really? Yeah, I mean, I mean, we've always managed to alienate the Welsh today. So let's not alienate the Scots. OK, I tell you what, we'll carry straight on then with another story in News from Home. This chief constable of Aberdeen does not favour licenses in new housing areas until there is a new outlook towards public houses.
00:37:30
Speaker
He is pleased, however, with the fall in drunkenness in Aberdeen last year. But then there was very little liquor and after July, even fewer troops to drink it. Well, you know who that's a reference to, don't you? Go on. That's the 52nd loan division. Yes, it is. They were based in Aberdeen, sure. And in July, they shipped it out.
00:38:00
Speaker
18th March 1945. Our congratulations are offered to the government for repairing 680,000 bomb-damaged houses, or 94% of the target this winter, and to the women of Scotland for producing 64,000 babies last year, the highest total since 1930. Our congratulations naturally extend to their husbands too. We will move on from that without passing any comment.
00:38:32
Speaker
And finally we go to this week's thought for the day from the 18th of March 1945. There is nothing which has not been better before being ripe. Publius Cirrus. Yes and no.
00:38:47
Speaker
You do know who Publius Cirrus is, don't you? Yes, yes, yes, he's a Roman fella. So the editor here has made two barely forgivable mistakes because it's not Publius Cirrus, it's Publilius Cirrus and he's also misquoted the maxim, right? He was brought to Rome from Antioch, he was Syrian, and by his wit and his talent, so it alleges,
00:39:15
Speaker
He won the favor of his master who granted him manly mission and educated him. He became Rome's answer to, I don't know, not Elon Musk. He became Rome's answer to, if you were going to tweet about something publicly as serious as your man, okay? He became best known for his sententia, his maxims, his little, little short, snippity kind of memorable statements. And you know a lot of them, things like,
00:39:48
Speaker
I was just going to say then that you got in there first.
00:39:51
Speaker
Ignorance is bliss, honor among thieves, least said soonest mended, and other minor hits like Saxon Volutum non-obductly termed musko, such as Rolling Stone gathers no mask. But this one, this one, it's not there is nothing that's not bitter before it is ripe. He says there is no fruit that is not bitter before it is ripe.
00:40:14
Speaker
Which is slightly different, isn't it? Which is just very barely, but slightly different, yes it is. So the editor has done a disservice there by discrediting his ability to put words together, I think. But yeah, it's publically a serious thought for today. There's nothing, there is no fruit that has not been better before being ripe. I think on that note, we should probably call it a day, don't you? I do indeed. Alright, I'll see you next time. Yeah, bye bye. Bye.
00:40:46
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Lowlander. The Lowlander was written, produced and presented by Andy Anderson and Mirren Walters. This was a hellish good production.
00:41:17
Speaker
And now we go to the classified football results for the week commencing the 12th of March 1945. English League Cup South. Arsenal 0, Millwall 1. West Ham 1, Chelsea 2. English League South. Clapton Orient 1, Southampton 0. Crystal Palace 3, Aldershot 1. Portsmouth 3, Watford 4.
00:41:45
Speaker
Queens Park Rangers 1 Brentford 1 Reading 3 Brighton 2 English League North Cup English League Cup North Chester Nell Rules 4 Crew 2 Stoke 2 Gateshead Nell Newcastle 3 Hartlepool 1 Darlington 3
00:42:15
Speaker
Manchester United 2 Halifax 0 Mansfield 1 Knotts Forest Wrong Mansfield 1 Nottingham Forest 0 Middlesbrough 2 Sunderland 1 Portville 1 Wrexham 1 Tramirovers 1 Liverpool 2 West Brom 6 Northampton 0 English League North Bath 1 Bristol City 0
00:42:45
Speaker
Birmingham 0, Aston Villa 3 Bolton 3, Burry 3 Blackburn 4, Rochdale 0 Blackpool 0, Barnsley 2 Bradford 5, Huddersfield 0 Cardiff 6, Swansea 2 Chesterfield 2, Doncaster 0 Derby 3, Sheffield United 2 Everton 3, Preston 0
00:43:14
Speaker
Grimsby 4 Hull City 0 Leicester 2, Coventry 2 Levels 1, Aberarmour 4 Oldham 1, Barnley 2 Rotherham 2, Bradford City 0 Sheffield Wednesday 1, Leeds 1 Southport 2, Atkinson 2 Stockport 4, Manchester City 1
00:43:45
Speaker
Scottish League Cup South Albion 1, Rangers 3 Celtic 1, Clyde 1 Dumbarton 2, Motherwell 2 Hamilton 3, Aeryonians 2 Hibernian 3, 3rd Lornach 1 Partik 1, Falkok 2 Queen's Park 2, Moreton 1 St. Maranell, Hart 1
00:44:14
Speaker
Scottish North East League Dundee United 3 East 5 1 Falkirk 1 Dundee 2 Hearts 1 Dunfermline 0 Wraith 1 Aberdeen 4 Rangers 3 Arbroath 0 This concludes the classified football results for the week commencing the 12th of March 1945 Would you mind saying Hearty Pool 1 Darlington 3 please?
00:44:46
Speaker
Hartlepool 1, Darlington 3. Thank you. Because you gave him zero and I think that's what I'm talking about. Monkey house, that's what the culture did, you know that? No, I didn't know that. No, I don't want to know. I don't want to know. They went in there and they just saw the bloody Germans off.
00:45:15
Speaker
My head is good.