DESPATCHESSpring 2019

www.gbg-international.com

IN THIS ISSUE:Two-Wheel GuidesNever a Raid Like ItThe CWGC ExperienceBoudicca’s Last Stand

PLUSWelcome to Next Generation Partner

ANDField Guides - photos of guidesin action!

FIELDguides

02 | Despatches www.gbg-international.com | 03

ContentsP2 FIELDguides

P5-8 NEVER A RAID LIKE ITMemories of the London Blitz

P9-11 KENKARTE Window on the ‘Wild East’

P12-13 THE CWGC EXPERIENCEOpening June 2019

P14-15 GUILDpartnerNext Generation Travel

P16 GUILDmerchandise

P17 BOUDICCA’S LASTSTAND

P18-19 HAWTHORN RIDGECRATER ASSOCIATION

P20 PRIMARY SOURCEChurchill in 1919 on War Graves

P21-23 FIELDguides

P24-25 VALEDICTORY Professor Gary Sheffield

P26-29 LIBERATIONOFFENSIVEMemorial - Crossing of the River Lys

P29 EVENTguide 2019

P30 GUIDEbooks

Motorbikers can quite often been seenvisiting battlefields and it transpires thatthere are several Guild members who arebikers.

With a view to forming a biking groupwithin the Guild to promote two-wheeledrecces and site visits, we held an inauguralmeeting on a chilly Sunday 14 April. Wemet at Newlands Corner in the SurreyHills for coffee and a chat before a shortride over to Brookwood MilitaryCemetery. Eugenie Brooks gave us afascinating and informative tour of thecemetery, sharing several personal storiesof men buried there. After that we tookanother short ride to the White Hart inPirbright where we had lunch. By chance, proving what a small world itis, we bumped into Accredited MemberBrian Shaw there! Lunch over, we allwound our various ways home, except forPaul Kersey who was off to the Eurotunnelterminal in Folkestone en route to Dieppe.

Cover image: The striking Soviet War Memorial at Antakalnis War Cemetery outside Vilnius in Lithuania (Image Staff Ride Ltd)

Guiding the King on the Field of Naseby - Anthony Rich offers advice to the Royalist Cause

Guild motorbike enthusiasts at Brookwood Military Cemetery. L-R: Chris Gravestock, Marc Raven, Simon Collins, JaneCrossland, Paul Kersey and Eugenie Brooks. See article right (Photo, John Harris).

1939-45 Memorial to the Missing, Brookwood. L-R: John Harris, SimonCollins, Jane Crossland, Eugenie Brooks, Paul Kersey, Marc Raven andChris Gravestock. (Photo, Marc Raven and a co-operative passer-by).

GUILDmotorbikegroup

All in all, a successful first outing - thanks to all for turningout, particularly those for whom this was their first Guildmeeting, and to Eugenie for the tour and organising lunch.

Welcome fellow members and Guild Partners to theSummer 2019 edition of your magazine, Despatches. Thisissue has taken longer to collate than normal as so many ofour regular contributors report an exceptionally busySpring and Summer – they have all been out Guiding!

Firstly, on your behalf, I welcome Next GenerationTravel (NGT) as a new Guild Partner, the NGT Groupincludes our old friends at Anglia Travel, a partner articleintroduces NGT in this issue. The annual Anzac pilgrimagesand the Normandy 75 commemorations have certainly keptmany Guild Members gainfully employed. We havemaintained our usual coach-borne squadrons, seen a GuildBiker Chapter roaming the Western Front and even anamphibious element deployed off the coast of Normandy.We also have reports in from members operating furtherafield in both the Balkans and the Baltic.

This is a healthy level of activity in spite of the ongoinguncertainty surrounding Brexit and future Travel Regulation.Reports from our Partners suggest that the latter hascertainly affected the enthusiasm of some older battlefieldvisitors who place great value on the reassurance offered byexisting reciprocal health agreements between EU PartnerStates. The younger traveller is more concerned with dataroaming charges on their smart phones and other IT.Whatever the eventual outcome will be, reputable TourOperators and Sole Traders are emphasizing the need forcomprehensive and robust travel insurance. We are in regularcontact with our Guild Partners and ETOA, any travelrelated developments will be reported to the membership aswe hear them.

In previous Chairman’s columns I have mentioned thehuge potential for Social Media feeds when usedintelligently as a marketing tool. Suffice to say, the majorityof our members maintain a high standard ofprofessionalism and use SM responsibly. Twitter, Facebook

and the like are an extremely effective way to highlightwhat we do and, bottom line….they are an extremely cost-effective way of attracting potential clients. Sadly, there area few individuals in the guiding community who routinelymix their historical/battlefield related posts with postscontaining extremely bad language, political bile orinappropriate sexual content. Not only does thisirresponsible, fire and forget attitude show a total disregardfor the consequence of any such statement on thereputation of the individual, it also taints those aroundthem with the same unprofessional hue. The key thing toconsider is that any post on SM is irretrievable, it existssomewhere in cyberspace whatever you do to delete it. Theprevailing attitude seems to be that any expletive or insulton SM does not matter in the real world. The reality ofcourse is starkly different, battlefield travellers carry outresearch on potential Guides in the same way that anemployer researches a potential employee – routinelyviewing their Social Media Profile. Few who post corrosiveSM content pause to consider the fact that it is almostentirely open-source and therefore accessible to potentialclients and even children, including their own offspring inperpetuity. It does no harm to pause for a few secondsbefore posting an item on SM to check your spelling andmore importantly, to consider the nature of the content thatyou are about to launch into cyberspace – is it appropriate,would you be happy for your youngest relative to read it?

Finally - Wherever you all are in the guiding world, Ihope you are all enjoying your guiding, whicheverbattlefields that you tread and that if you meet a fellowmember take the time to say hello and share yourknowledge and experience – That is after all, what ourGuild is all about!

Mike Peters

04 | Despatches www.gbg-international.com | 05

OPENINGshot:THE CHAIRMAN’S VIEW

FIRSTcontact:www.facebook.com/battleguide

twitter.com/GuildofBG

www.Instagram.com/guild_bg

Guild ChairmanMike Peters

Ascot HouseNorwich RoadLittle StonhamIpswichSuffolk IP14 5DLUnited Kingdom

chairman@gbg-international.com

Material for publication in theSpring edition of Despatchesmust be with the Editor no later than 1st July 2019.

This is a deadline andsubmissions should be sent asfar in advance as possible.

All material should be sent via Guild Secretary Tony Smith at: secretary@gbg-international.com

Certain dates and raids during the London Blitz became indelibly marked in thememories of the citizens of London. There was the first day – ‘Black Saturday’itself – 7 September 1940 when the air raid sirens interrupted a beautiful latesummer afternoon and which signalled a major change in tactics by theLuftwaffe, the ‘Second Great Fire of London’ of 29 December 1940, when theCity of London faced it’s ordeal by fire and the two great raids of 16 and 19April 1941, which due to their sheer ferocity, became known to Londonerssimply as ‘The Wednesday’ and ‘The Saturday’, with no further explanationneeded to anyone who was there.

NEVER A RAID LIKE ITSteve Hunnisett

However, none of these raids compared to the night of10/11 May 1941. This was to prove the heaviest andthe last raid of the Night Blitz on London and as PostOffice engineer Reginald Matthews confided to theauthor Richard Collyer in ‘The City That Wouldn’tDie’, his 1959 account of the events of that fatefulnight, “There never was a raid like it, another one likethat and they’d have had us on our backs.”

The opening raids of September 1940 hadconcentrated on the eastern side of the metropolis,with London’s then massive dock system, theWoolwich Arsenal and the other industries strung outalong the Thames bearing the brunt, along with thecollateral damage to the tightly packed communities ofthe East End and Southeast London. However,following the Luftwaffe’s heavy daylight losses of 15September 1940, the Blitz was conducted almostexclusively by night, with the raids affecting the entirecapital. Closer examination of the Civil DefenceIncident Logs beyond this date shows every one of thecapital’s twenty nine Metropolitan Boroughs regularlyaffected to a greater or lesser degree.

German records show that of 541 bombersdispatched, no fewer than 505 reached London anddropped their bombs. The air raid warning wassounded at 23:00 and the first bombs fell at 23:02,hitting barges in the Royal Albert Dock. It was thebeginning of six and a half hours of bombing whichwas to see many London landmarks damaged ordestroyed and in excess of 1,430 Londoners killed,with a further 1,800 seriously injured.

Fires were soon raging across London, with themost serious centred on the area around the Elephant& Castle, with other serious fires raging in the vaultsbeneath Waterloo Station, in Fetter Lane, at CannonStreet Station, and along Queen Victoria Street in the

City of London. The London Fire Brigade recordsshow that almost 2,200 fires were started in London,of which twenty were considered to be ‘major fires’, inother words, requiring over thirty pumps.

At Cannon Street Station, a small group of railwayworkers were demonstrating that acts of heroism werenot limited to those in service uniform and the modestaccount of Driver Leslie Stainer of his own and hiscolleagues’ efforts to save rolling stock is worthy ofreproduction here: “The smoke from the fires blacked out the Moonand fires seemed to be everywhere and then thestation roof caught alight.To save the trains from catching fire, two engineswere coupled together, No. 934 and 154 and pulledout of Platform 8 onto the bridge. We stoppedtwenty yards ahead of the other train and then afterabout ten minutes we ducked down onto thefootplate. We counted three bombs; the last one wasterrific and very close. There was a terrific explosionand our engine seemed to roll; at first we thought ourtrain had been hit. The debris flew in all directions –we were very lucky. My Fireman said at the time‘Look out – we are going in the drink’ and I said ‘Ithought that my back week had come.’We looked round and found that the bomb hadmade a direct hit on the boiler of No. 934 engine andhad also blasted our train and turned part of thetrain onto its side. My Fireman and myself went tosee where the other driver (Percy Collins) andfireman were and I am pleased to say they had gotoff the engine in time. Then looking round, we foundour train had caught fire and the Firemen withbuckets of water tried to put the same out but it wasimpossible as a strong wind was blowing up theThames and the fire got the master. I uncoupled my

Guild MembershipSecretary - Tony Smith

TrenantonShutta RoadLooe Cornwall PL13 1HP United Kingdom

mbr.sec@gbg-international.com

Guild SecretaryJohn Harris

15 Broadhurst DriveKenningtonAshford, KentTN24 9RQUnited Kingdom

secretary@gbg-international.com

www.gbg-international.com | 0706 | Despatches

engine from the train and drew backabout two yards and scoured theengine and then crossed to the west ofthe bridge until dawn – watching thefires. It was just like as if Hell hadbeen let loose.I am pleased to say there was no oneinjured and we were all lucky to bealive. Every railwayman at CannonStreet was very cool and calm and allassisted in every possible way underthose trying and unique conditions.That is my account of the Blitz.”The fires in Cannon Street began to

spread eastwards along Queen VictoriaStreet, fanned by a strong easterly windand began to threaten Faraday House,which at that time contained the largesttelephone exchange in the world, aswell as a radio link with the USA. Thefirefighters of the London Fire Brigade,ably supported by their colleagues ofthe Auxiliary Fire Service began toestablish a firebreak at the site of 134Great Victoria Street, where an officeblock had been destroyed in a ‘normal’fire in 1939. Beyond here stood the

College of Arms and then Faraday House itself, whilston the opposite side of the street stood 100 QueenVictoria Street, the International Headquarters of theSalvation Army (known as IHQ), outside of whichstood a canteen truck, crewed by two femaleSalvationists, who had driven up from Barking inEssex with the express purpose of serving teas andother refreshments to the firemen and other CivilDefence workers hard at work in the City. One AFSfirefighter, George Woodhouse from Holloway laterremembered “two Salvation Army lasses who werehanding out cups of tea and a biscuit as if it was aSunday school picnic. I often wondered what the wordcourage meant, but on that night those two lasses hadit in abundance.”

Hydrants began to run dry as water mains werefractured and with the Thames at low tide, watersupplies were for a time dependent on a relay of tankervehicles bringing water from the Regent’s Canal. Untilthe tide began to flood on the Thames, this was onlysource of water and such was the importance ofFaraday House, the Fire Brigade was prepared to useexplosives to destroy buildings in order to create afurther firebreak. Fortunately, the tanker relay, coupledwith a change in the wind direction was sufficient,although IHQ could not be saved.

Further upriver on the south bank, Lambeth Palacewas on fire and on the north side of Lambeth Bridge theHouse of Commons chamber was similarly ablaze,victim of a mixture of high explosive bombs andcountless incendiaries. Fires were everywhere; inMarylebone, the Central Synagogue was burning out ofcontrol with the fires spreading to adjoining properties.ARP Warden Stanley Barlow was deservedly awardedthe George Medal for repeatedly entering burning

Fires blazing out of control at Goodge Street & Charlotte Street (left) and Goodge Street & Charlotte Street in 2018 (Author’s photos)

St Clement Danes Church today (top) and the church on themorning of 11 May 1941 (bottom) (Author’s photos)

Warden Stanley Barlow GM standing outside his Wardens’ Post at the RIBABuilding in Portland Place and the same scene today (Author’s photo)

www.gbg-international.com | 0908 | Despatches

KENNKARTE – WINDOWON THE ‘WILD EAST’Peter Edwards

The use of a family heirloom as a tour prop began when taking groups aroundsites of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Clients frequently asked about the chancesof escape – especially through the cemetery area – and, of course, conversationthen turned to survival ‘on the run’ in occupied Poland. As with so manywartime states, survival would depend upon identification, proving the rights ofresidence and rations and, in the case of occupied Poland, existence.

As an avid child-viewer of Secret Army in the 1970s,I was fascinated by the ritual recourse of the BelgianResistance to ‘Max the Forger’. As custodian of mygrandparents’ papers, I found myself in possession ofmy grandmother’s identity card or Kennkarte –exactly the sort of item Max was supposed toproduce. A real identity card, of course, tells far morestories than any TV drama prop.

First, there is the issue relating to survival inoccupied Poland. The Poles, being judgedUntermenschen, were only to be educated, accordingto Hitler’s wishes to “a point where they couldunderstand road signs and show an appropriate levelof deference to Germans.” In this environment,materials such as paper, coloured inks andphotographic paper and chemicals were in very shortsupply. A second photograph has been cut out of thedocument to be attached to my grandmother’sapplication for naturalisation as a British Subject – ifphotographic paper was in short supply amongst thevictorious powers in 1946, then it will have been likegold dust in occupied Poland. Furthermore, manypeople with the skills to create a forged document hadbeen killed in the decapitation of the Polishintelligentsia in 1939. The practical problems ofreproducing this document would have beenenormous and that is assuming contact was made witha forger. Procurement of old, stolen or blankKennkarten on the black market required largeamounts of money – something a fugitive was unlikelyto have. The best chance of survival after escape fromthe Ghetto was to make contact with partisanssympathetic to Jews and that in itself brought hugerisks. The Kennkarte provides a route to learningabout life outside the official occupied state.

Second, the document speaks clearly about thenature of Nazi occupation in the East. The first

language of the Kennkarte is German. The place ofresidence is outlined in accordance with NaziGerman administrative arrangements – not the use ofKreis. Major Polish place names have beenGermanised – Krakau for Kraków – although thetown of Jasło remains in Polish. This, in itself, ishistorically noteworthy. Kraków was to be preservedas a post-war German administrative centre, whilsttowns such as Jasło were to be razed. Indeed, over75% of Jasło was destroyed as the Germans retreatedin 1945. The expiry date of the old and new cards –18 June 1942 and 18 June 1947 are also instructive.Poland fell in September 1939 and the originalidentification was to last only until June 1942, bywhich time Hitler had intended to have completedthe conquest of Lebensraum. By this stage, manyPoles would simply be regarded as surplus labourand either left to starve or be exterminated. That thewar was not progressing entirely according to planby the summer of 1942 is reflected in the decision toextend the date of new Kennkarten, and byimplication the owner’s life expectancy, to 1947.Generalplan Ost had condemned the Slavs to death,but the scale of military operations in the Eastbought a stay of execution. Indeed, the stamp of theGeneralgouvernement can be seen across the centrepage; historians have alluded to this as nothing morethan Nazi Germany’s ‘racial dustbin’, which wouldprovide a pool of slave labour with the remainder leftto slowly starve. Thus, the Kennkarte allows for anexploration of the German military’s implementationof racial policy in the occupied East.

Finally, the document highlights the inconsistenciesof Nazi racial policy. My grandmother was born inHatzendorf, Styria, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire– her father was a railway worker and the familymoved to hostels as work required. Notice, too, that

buildings in order to rescue terrified shelterers – fifteen inone building alone owed their lives to him. Not far awayfrom here, the Queen’s Hall in Portland Place – theoriginal home of the Proms – was destroyed and whenSir Henry Wood picked his way through the rubble afew days later, all he could find undamaged was acymbal, although he was quick to point out “That’ssignificant. A cymbal is amongst the oldest musicalinstruments known to man. You’ll find it in the Bible.Even now, nothing can take its place in the orchestra.Its trumpets for victory, but the cymbal for a triumph.”

The Queen’s Hall was never rebuilt, with the Promsfinding a new home at the Royal Albert Hall, but onesignificant casualty of the 10/11 May raid did riseagain. The present St Clement Danes Church had beenbuilt by Wren in 1682 and was regarded, then as now,as one of London’s finest churches. Since 1910, it hadbeen under the stewardship of the Rev. WilliamHoratio Pennington-Bickford and his wife Louie, whowere greatly loved by their parishioners. It was one ofthe many buildings to succumb to German incendiariesand as the bombs continued to fall, the elderly couplewere seen to be weeping whilst watching the gradualdestruction of their church. Within weeks, bothWilliam Pennington-Bickford and his wife were deadand indeed the Reverend’s death certificate reads ‘Diedfrom a broken heart’, so distraught was he at the lossof his beloved church.

Post-war, the church was magnificently rebuilt asthe Central Church of Royal Air Force and was re-consecrated in 1958. The exterior of the church stillretains significant splinter damage as a reminder of itswartime past and near destruction, whilst the interiorhas been superbly restored to its former glory, withmany artefacts donated by the Royal, Commonwealthand Allied Air Forces, most notably perhaps, themagnificent organ, a gift of the USAF.

On the morning of Sunday 11 May 1941, the all-clear sounded at 05:52 as the last of the bombers

headed back across the Channel. The RAF nightfighters had managed to bring down just fourteenenemy bombers and it was clear that much remainedto be done in that department. In the meantime, blearyeyed Londoners began to emerge from their shelters tofind a devastated capital.

Marylebone Station was the only one of London’smajor rail termini to be open for traffic that morning.The others were closed either because the tracksleading to them had been severed, or the stationsthemselves were devastated. Euston, King’s Cross,Liverpool Street, Paddington and St Pancras managedto re-open on a reduced scale on the Monday morningbut Waterloo and Victoria remained closed for over aweek and then only reopened on a vastly reducedscale, with Waterloo not returning to anything like anormal service until early June. The damage to theLondon Underground network was immense, withnearly thirty miles of track having been destroyed. Thestretch of line between Baker Street and King’s Crossdidn’t reopen until 21 July and the East London Lineremained closed until 8 June.

On the roads, things were no better, with almostone thousand being closed on Sunday, many due tobomb craters or UXBs. All but two of the bridgesacross the Thames were blocked, with just Tower andLambeth remaining passable. Two bus garages hadbeen hit, in Poplar and Croydon with the loss of fourmembers of staff and 113 buses.

Industry too was paralysed, with the many factoriesvital to Britain’s war efforts out of action, although onthis occasion, the vast Woolwich Arsenal site inSoutheast London had not been hit. The destruction ofa huge gasometer in Kennington, one of those thatloom over the Oval Cricket Ground, meant that eventhose factories in South London that were undamagedcould not operate for over a week due to the lack of agas supply. Across the capital, 605 water mains andsewers were fractured, giving rise to the fear of atyphoid outbreak, although mercifully this did notmaterialise due to the excellent preparations already inplace for just such an emergency.

Whilst the clear-up was getting under way on theSunday morning, there was the lingering fear in theminds of Londoners that the Luftwaffe would surelyreturn that night and continue the destruction.Fortunately for the battered capital, the bombers didnot return and neither would they for the remainder of1941, or 1942 for that matter. The citizens of Londonweren’t to know as yet but Hitler was turning his eyeseastwards, towards the Soviet Union and London andits war-weary inhabitants were to get a respite. In theevent, this was to last until 1943, when sporadic ‘tipand run’ raids would commence, followed by the so-called ‘Baby Blitz’ of late 1943 and early 1944 andculminating in the Vergeltungswaffen attacks by V-1flying bombs and V-2 rockets in 1944 and 1945.

Splinter damage on the exterior of St Clement Danes Church(Author’s photo)

www.gbg-international.com | 1110 | Despatches

Styria was now firmly classed as Deutschland, havingbeen absorbed in the creation of Großdeutschland inthe period before 1940. This made my grandmothernominally German by birth and potentiallysusceptible to deportation as Volksdeutsch. Thisprobably also spared her life, since she held aMaster’s degree and had been a teacher in 1939,identifying her as an intellectual. A large number ofteachers, lecturers and other educated people fromthe Kraków area had been transported en masse toSachsenhausen for immediate execution in 1939, buta potential Volksdeutsch could be forgiven aneducation. Birth in Großdeutschland quite possibly

also discouraged the Nazi authorities from lookingtoo closely at my grandmother’s family which couldeasily have been defined as Mischling (mixed Slavand Jewish) by German racial classifications. Aboveall, though, she was, most likely, simply regarded aspeasant Untermensch and therefore disregarded. Mygrandmother’s address was simply Harklowa. Duringthe war, this was a tiny rural settlement without anextensive, well-ordered street pattern. After her homein Jasło was destroyed as part of German reprisals,she returned to the small family home in thecountryside with her sisters and their children andtried to survive off the land for the next six years.

Two questions, however,overshadow the discussion of thisartefact: is it military history and is itrelevant to battlefield history? Theresponse to the first question is anemphatic yes. The Kennkarte was aproduct of a military regime during aracial-ideological war, whose featureswere manifest in all aspects of Polishlife. The Kennkarte exists as astatement of what the German armywas aiming to achieve through itsefforts on the battlefield and it is alsoemblematic of the administrativeoccupation duties that huge numbersof German soldiers carried out from1938 to 1945. The second questionprompts a more esoteric response.The holder of this Kennkartewitnessed the fall of Poland, thelevelling of her marital home inGerman reprisals, the desultoryshooting of Jewish neighbours and the aftermath ofthe killing by grenade of fugitives she fed in thewoods. With a brother-in-law active in the AK(Polish Home Army and the largest resistance forcein that country), her shared home was frequented byAK soldiers and regularly visited by the Germanoccupation forces and their dogs. The area aroundHarklowa was bombed and civilians were alsomurdered in reprisals, to intimidate the Poles orsimply for sport. In 1945, two battles were foughtover the ground around her home and the lastGerman soldiers promised to kill all the inhabitantsof the home if the Red Army drove them west;fortunately, the Red Army despatched the Germansbefore they could make good their promise. She thenexperienced, first-hand, the behaviour of Sovietinfantrymen and, later, NKVD troops. Mygrandfather fought in the fall of Poland, the fall ofFrance and then in the North African and Italiancampaigns. He was highly decorated at MonteCassino and Bologna. He spent the years after 1945consumed by guilt derived from his belief that hiswar had been “easy” compared to that of his wifeand daughter. The Kennkarte may lack theimmediacy of military hardware, maps or diaries, butits three small pages stand as a catalogue of aEuropean racial-ideological war, where the linesbetween combatant and civilian were at their mostblurred – a stark contrast to war in the West. I beginany tour by explaining why soldiers were on theground in the first place and this document is areminder of the more inglorious side of war andmilitary policy that is in danger of slipping intoobscurity with the passage of time.

AfterwordThe house in Harklowa listed on the Kennkarte.

Once very isolated, the house is now surrounded bynew-build weekend homes for the upwardly mobileof Kraków. The battlefield archaeology in the area isat risk of disappearing under patches of pebble drivesand breeze block walls. The difficulties of exploringlikely sites of fighting are compounded by thickundergrowth frequented by lyme disease-infesteddeer, but one day soon, I will unpick this site.However, my family does have a secret less than 50metres from this house. After the Red Army drovethe Germans out of Harklowa for the last time in1945, the Soviet infantrymen banished the family tothe cellar; an officer told them that his men had notslept under a roof for months and he had promisedthem shelter for at least one night. After a warningabout the behaviour of the NKVD troops whowould follow, the cellar door was closed. Mygrandmother emerged early the next morning, butthe infantrymen had already left. The wreckage ofthe battle lay all around the house. After the deadwere taken to a local military cemetery that stillholds the dead from the 1915 Gorlice-TarnówOffensive, there only remained the matter of dealingwith a large amount of discarded German ordnance.To this day, the nearby pond is still full of rifles,machine guns and a not insignificant quantity ofammunition, slowly degrading in the agriculturalslime that forms the pond’s bed. One can onlywonder at the thousands of other ponds like this inrural Poland…

www.gbg-international.com | 1312 | Despatches

THE CWGC EXPERIENCE –OPENING JUNE 2019, ARRAS,FRANCEPeter Francis, Media and PR Executive

An extraordinary organisation, an extraordinary experience

In June 2019 all that will change when theCommonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)opens its first ever visitor centre – The CWGCExperience – near the city of Arras in France.

The CWGC Experience is a unique new visitorattraction at the centre of the First World Warbattlefields. It will shine a light on the work of theCommonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) –the remarkable organisation at the heart ofremembrance of the war dead – giving visitors of allages a never before seen glimpse into the workings ofremembrance.

CWGC Director General Mrs Victoria Wallaceexplained; “We’re delighted, for the first time, to beable to share our story with everyone, at ourworkshop headquarters at Beaurains, near Arras inFrance. Here, we carve the world’s headstones; here,we restore architectural features, and here we still,almost every week, bring back the remains of soldierslost on the Western Front, which we recover from thebattlefields, ready for our member nations to identify.It’s a remarkable story – covering what we do not justin France but in over 150 countries and territories,mowing the equivalent of 1000 football pitches aweek as we tend the cemeteries and memorials.”

“We believe the centre will appeal to all those whovisit the Western Front and the battlefields - whether asa useful introduction, where you can find out moreabout the final resting places of relatives, or as a newlayer of understanding to add to every tour of our sites.”

“The CWGC Experience is emphatically not amuseum, or a historical review of what we did in theaftermath of the First World War – it’s about what wedo every day, and will continue to do into the future.Visitors will be able to see our headstone carvingmachines at work; watch as the forge fires up torestore bronze gates; follow the endless stream oflawnmowers and machinery coming in for servicing,and learn more about the artefacts that help point ustowards tentative identification of newly recoveredcasualties. With films illustrating our work, and an

audio guide, they’ll hear from the staff themselveswhat they do to make these special places.”

The CWGC Experience is unique – in thateverything and everyone you see during your visit arethe real people, doing the real work it takes toremember the war dead.

The centre will give visitors an up close andintimate look behind the scenes at the teams who stillwork painstakingly to care for the fallen.

From the story of how we still recover and reburythe dead today, to the skilled artisan craftsmen atwork maintaining the world's most impressive andrecognisable monuments and memorials, a trip to thebattlefields of the Western Front is not completewithout a visit to the CWGC Experience.

The CWGC Experience will open at the end ofJune 2019. Entry is free but larger parties – includingcoach groups – will need to book.

Visitors will take a self-guided tour, lastingapproximately 45 minutes to an hour (a free audioguide is available). At various points on the tour,visitors can pause and see into the areas coveringspecific aspects of the CWGC’s work – be it

headstone production, carpentry, blacksmiths ormaintenance teams – before moving to one of themost moving elements of the tour – the recovery andreburial of the war dead.

To this day, there are, on average, 40 discovery ofWorld War remains each year. In France, the CWGC’sstaff play a vital role in that initial recovery process.Out of respect no human remains will be on display –rather recovery, identification and reburial area is amoving and contemplative space where genuineartefacts will detail the care and painstaking workthat goes towards narrowing down an identity.

Regular special events and talks will supplementthe existing offering – encouraging visitors to comeback time and again.

We hope that visitors will find our story fascinatingand look upon our cemeteries and memorials in anew light – becoming lifelong visitors and supportersof our work.For more information see the CWGC’s website at

www.cwgc.org/visit-us

More people are visiting the cemeteriesand memorials of the two World Warsthan ever before. Yet for many of thosevisitors, how those cemeteries came toexist, their significance in remembrance ofthe war dead, and the story of who caresfor them and how, is not well known.

Find war dead Find Memorials

www.gbg-international.com | 1514 | Despatches

GUILDpartnerNEXT GENERATION TRAVELAlain ChisselI am delighted that the NGT Group, which includes Anglia has beenaccepted as a Guild Partner. Next Generation Travel are the innovativeparent company and driving force behind the UK’s fastest growingeducational travel brands; offering unique, immersive tours to youngpeople from 10 -21 years, designed to open minds and empower learning.

The Group consists of WST, based in Blackpool whorun the complete range of school visits includingGeography and MFL (Modern Foreign Languages)tours, and FHT based in Cambridge, who deal with theUniversity and Higher Education Sector. The Groupacquired Anglia in 2017 and has since gone on toacquire Study Experiences, Sport Experiences, andRemembrance Travel for Schools and Youth Groups.Between us, the Group will take around 80,000students on tour worldwide this year. This makes theNGT Group one of the top players in the educationmarket. In addition to the numbers they take, and inmy opinion far more important is the ethos behindeach company in the Group. All have a proven track

record of excellent customer service and quality ofproduct. NGT has also not tried to absorb thecompanies into one amorphous mass but instead keptthe individual branding understanding that this is whatcustomers want – as do we.

To members of the Guild, perhaps only Anglia andRemembrance Travel will be familiar names. Bothemploy the services of guides, many of whom aremembers of the Guild itself – some badged and somenot. WST and FHT do not currently employ guides butStudy Experiences and Sports Experiences do employTour Managers. The growth of Anglia in recent yearshas shown that in the education market, for history atleast, there is a growing trend towards schools using

companies that employ guides, for a whole manner ofreasons. This ranges from the expertise that they bringbut also from the tour management perspective, takinga huge amount of ;pressure off already overworkedteachers. Virtually every start up Tour Company in theeducation market now employ guides which is anindication of where things are moving.

I am however best qualified to talk about Anglia, acompany I started along with Ed Church (BadgedGuide – No 11) in 1997. Most of you will know useither personally or by reputation. Anglia hasemployed guides from the very beginning and now hassome fifty guides on our books. Interestingly, wediscovered that since we started, we have had 112guides wearing the Anglia badge! Some retire, othersdecide for personal reasons to do something else, andsadly, one died - the irrepressible Will Townend whoseaward I was honoured to present to Graeme Cooper atyour AGM Dinner recently.

The selection process to become an Anglia guide isquite a lengthy one and for a variety of reasons, not allsucceed. Being a schools based company our aim is toprovide guides that can engage with young people andenthuse and inspire them – a tall order! The selectionprocess starts with an interview by members of thetraining team, followed by a day trip to Ypres to watchguides working and to look at and note down theplusses and minuses of what they have seen. The groupthen discuss the good points and the bad that they haveseen and how perhaps it could have been done better.On the Monday morning, the training team discussand carry out a further sift of candidates. Phase 3 is athree-day training course centred in Ypres and theSomme where candidates are expected to deliver fifteenminute presentations to the other candidates based onour unique “Toolbox and Stand Notes” which wouldhave been issued before the course. They will be toldthat they are delivering to a particular school (a realcustomer of Anglia), which could range from SpecialNeeds, a deprived inner City school or Eton. Theywould be expected to present accordingly. All thecandidates are “boarded” on return to the office and a

considerable amount of time is spent on each personand their suitability. The course is not free – candidatespay a fee, which is returned should they fail the course.If they pass, the fee would be refunded after tensuccessful guiding days with Anglia. The next phase isthat they will attend a two-day tour with twoexperienced guides and they will be expected to delivertwo stands, one in Ypres and the other on the Somme.They will be critiqued not only by the two guides, butalso the school will be asked for their views as well.The guides will then be expected to write reports onthe candidate, which again will be discussed by thetraining team. The successful guide will then be“badged” as an Anglia guide and given corporateclothing. The new guide will be on trial for a period oftwelve months, during which time he or she will neverwork on their own until they learn the ropes. Guideswill be encouraged and supported and theirdevelopment monitored closely. This will culminate inan overnight observation by a member of the trainingteam to ensure not only are they delivering the productto the customer, but that their Tour Manager skills areup to standard. This will normally take place towardsthe end of their twelve-month trial period. The reportis detailed and is meant to be constructive and part ofthe report is dealing with where the guide sees himselfor herself going forward. If the report is in any wayunsatisfactory then a further observation will beundertaken by a different member of the training teamwithin twelve months. Guides will normally beobserved once every two to three years. Guides (by andlarge) enjoy the process and schools, who understandOFSTED really do appreciate it. The process tobecome an Anglia guide can take up to twelve monthsbut the opportunities the company offers as well as thepay and conditions make it an attractive proposition.

The future is looking good and the NGT group islooking forward to working with the Guild to ensurethat our guides and tour managers will be able to pursuetheir craft in Europe in the same way we currently do. Ihope to see many of you in the coming months.

www.gbg-international.com | 1716 | Despatches

GUILDmerchandiseWith the winter guiding season fast approaching now is the time to get your ordersin for your Guild clothing! All items are available with either the GBG logo orAccredited member badges. The range includes:

The easiest way to order is online via the Guild website – go to: www.gbg-international.com/shop/ and pick what you want in the sizes you want.

If you don’t want to pay online you can still send a cheque for the required amount to the Secretary at: Trenanton, Shutta Road, Looe, Cornwall. PL13 1HP

Polo shirts:

Sweatshirts:

Soft Shell Jackets:

On the first Saturday in March an intrepidcrew followed Eddie Smallwood aroundMancetter in search of where QueenBoudicca fought Roman legions. Battlingagainst the elements, about twenty folk inwet weather gear were entertained to awalk, talk and lunch.

BOUDICCA’S LAST STANDDavid Harvey

Eddie described how Boudicca’s Iceni tribe led anuprising against Roman rule on AD 60. Howhaving sacked London and St. Albans her armydefeated the Roman 9th Legion. In this majorrevolt it’s estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Romans andBritons died. The Romans responded bywithdrawing the two remaining Legions fromAnglesey. But where did the final decisive battletake place?

Eddie explained the likelihood of the RomanLegionary fortress at Mancetter as the primaryplace to search. We could see across the fields theA5 main road, the modern name for the Romanmain military road ‘Watling Street’. It made sensethat this would be the route by which the twoantagonists would approach each other for battle.So we walked around the terrain comparing whatwe could see with the contemporary account ofCassius Dio. As the rain set in we turned our backsto the wind, but were still enthralled to think wewere standing on such an important battlefield.

The battlefield tour ended with a most welcomehearty lunch in Mancetter village hall. This wasfollowed with a presentation, by Eddie, of a RomanLegionary’s armour and weapons. As guild memberslooked on we treated to vivid explanations of thefighting methods and technically advance Romanweapons.

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HAWTHORN RIDGECRATER ASSOCIATIONThe Hawthorn Ridge Crater Association Team 2019

2018 was quite a year for all involved in the association and somuch positive work and study has been undertaken. We all metas a group for the first time, early in the New Year of 2018, at avery cold, wet and very overgrown Hawthorn Ridge site. Fromthis first meeting of minds the seeds were sown for the comingyear and the plans afoot of what we would like to achieve.

After eighteen months, at least, of groundwork,discussions and meetings with the local landowners ofBeaumont Hamel and contacts formed with individualswith a passion for the subject and skills within varyingareas of work, we had finally reached this point.

There were many challenges ahead, but plans werenow put into motion to create a combined British-French association with the mutual intentions offirstly rescuing an iconic site from permanent lossand to then protect and preserve the area for years tocome, whilst also allowing visitors the opportunity tovisit in a safer and more accessible way. The localcouncil of Beaumont paid for a site survey toestablish the various land boundaries within thecrater area (there were five different landowners).After these were agreed upon they also granted someextra land along parts of the perimeter, to allow us tohave complete walking access.

Throughout the early months of 2018 work wasundertaken to clear as much brushwood and brambleundergrowth from the crater as possible, along withthe removal of dead and unsafe trees. The aim wasalways to maintain as many trees as possible tomaintain the integrity of the site, preventing collapseand slip. At the same time the access path to the sitewas lightly levelled, under strict guidance fromexplosive and archaeological experts, to make thewalk to the crater a little easier. The natural materialremoved from the crater was then chipped andmulched and recycled for use in maintaining thepath. This work was all undertaken voluntarily bythe association committee members and a number ofvolunteers who were some of the first to sign up !

In March the erecting of a boundary fence,separating the site from the surrounding farmlandwas begun, giving a controlled access to the site,

whilst respecting the surrounding property. This alsogave better access to the path leading to HawthornRidge Cemetery No.1. The exterior fence wascompleted by the summer. In May a team removedthe old and crumbling steps at the entrance to the siteand replaced them with safe and solid concrete steps,with the further plan of adding handrails - this wasalso undertaken in late September. A further

sampling and chemical analysis haveall been used in helping to paint apicture of what happened and whatthe resulting effects have been overthe following 100 years. Some of theresults are proving to be veryrevealing and exciting, and the planis for the universities to create theirown website listing the ongoingresults of their studies.

At the same time, we as anassociation, are in the process ofconstructing our own HRCA website,that will feature information andresearch around the site, whilst alsolinking to the university WebPages forall members to access. Again, we must

stress that we are all volunteers, with full time careers,so please bear with us in waiting...we are getting there!

In November we held the official inauguration ofthe crater and the handover of the site to the care ofthe association. It was a hugely successful event, withmore than a hundred people attending. Many localdignitaries attended, the event was predominantlyattended by French people, proving the totalcommitment by the local people to the project.There will be a ceremony at the crater on the 1

July 2019, and all subsequent years, with plans for asimilar event on the 13 November to support thecommemoration of the capture of the crater and thevillage. All are welcome and details will be issued inthe coming months.

Our aims are, and alwayswill be, to preserve andprotect the site, whilsthonouring respectfully, themen of all nationalities whoserved there. This site waswithin weeks of possiblybeing used as a farm wastespoil dump...fortunately wegot there in time.

We hope you will all visitthe site in the near future toview our work and hope youwill continue to support theassociation, all donations arereinvested in the maintenanceand upkeep of the site. Allcommittee members whentravelling to work on theproject give their time forfree and fund their owntravel and accommodation.

delineation fence, of a simple two strand wireconstruction was erected with our partners, locallandowners, in the autumn. This also included asingle safe path into the crater for viewing purposes.A further couple of days of brush removal was alsoundertaken in October.

This more or less completed the heavy, landscapingside of the project...from here it is just a case ofmaintaining the site on a yearly basis to keep the feel ofthe area but allowing good all round visitor viewing.

Throughout the year, the association has also beenworking alongside the Universities of Stafford andKeele, who are undertaking an ongoing study of thecrater and its immediate surrounds. Dronephotography, ground penetration radar scanning, soil

FIELDguides

Eugenie guiding a D-Day landing craft veteran on one of today's Royal Marine amphibious craft.

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The Chairman dropped in for a Quality Assurance Check on Glenn Stennes beside Lake Doiran in the Republic of North Macedonia. Mike reports cold beer and a warm welcome were received on the Salonika Front.

This primary source will be useful to every WW1 Western Front GBG Guide.

PRIMARY SOURCE CHURCHILLIN 1919 ON WAR GRAVESJohn Hughes-Wilson

From The Times: May 30, 1919

In a written answer to Mr Wignall, who suggestedthat parents whose sons have been killed during thewar should have permission to erect memorial stonesover their graves on condition that the dimensions ofthe cross or headstone should not be greater thanthose of the headstones recommended by theCommittee, Mr Churchill says:

“I regret I have no power to grant this permission.The responsibility rests with the Imperial War GravesCommission. The Secretary of State for War is ex-officio chairman, but otherwise it is entirelyindependent of the War Office. I may say that theaim of the Commission is to give effect to the desireexpressed at the Imperial War Conference in 1917that the Empire should accord equal honour to allthose who have made the same sacrifice in thecommon cause.

A small section of the public has applied forpermission to erect memorials of their own choosingbut apart from the practical difficulties, which arenot fully realized by those who have not seen thecemeteries, the Commission feel that the erection ofindividual memorials, varying according to taste andmeans, would be incompatible with a corporatecommemoration of the citizens of the Empire whofought and fell together in her defence.

The Commission have asked those who object totheir scheme to defer pressing their requests until the

three experimental cemeteries under construction arecompleted, when it will be possible to judge of theeffect of the scheme as a whole.”

The Parliamentary Committee of the Trades UnionCongress sent a letter to the Prince of Wales, who isPresident of the Imperial War Graves Commission:

“Representing some four and a half millions ofworking people, we urge most strongly that thenatural desire of those who can afford it to put upmemorials of their own choosing on the graves oftheir dead should not be allowed to interfere with theprinciple of equality of treatment.

The war has been fought and won by all classesjoined equally in the suffering and sacrifice of life.This should be symbolized in the memorials inhonour of our sons, and we would appeal to thosewhose means enable them to bear the cost of privatemonuments to set aside their individual preference.”

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Classic Soviet iconography in Lithuania, for scale, the image shows Guild Member Julian Whippy at the base of the huge statuesat Antakalnis War Cemetery (Image Staff Ride Ltd)

John Harris (left) and Dudley Giles at Utah Beach inNormandy on a D-Day 75 tour.

Deere in the Dardanelles - Rob Deere using the terrain model at Ecebat to brief a Royal Navy Group on Ottoman defensivedispositions in 1915.(Staff Ride)

Wiltshire Army Cadet Force contingent beingbriefed by Tim Stoneman before going ‘Over theTop’ to attack the Schwaben Redoubt.

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VALEDICTORYMESSAGEProfessor Gary Sheffield

I stepped down as Honorary President at the AGM inJanuary. I was very touched by the number of kindcomments and good wishes, and was very pleased andhumbled to be made a Life Member. I certainly haveno intentions of losing touch, although it is goodpractice for a retired President to stay away frommeetings for a period of time, to avoid breathingdown the neck of his successor – even although weshare an office at the University of Wolverhampton!

I was very honoured and flattered when asked tobecome President. At first, I wasn’t sure, but Ithought about it, looked at the state of the Guild,and then decided it was an organisation that I wouldbe proud to represent. I confess that I wasn’t amember at that stage. I had attended the initial openmeeting in the National Army Museum when theGuild was set up some years before, but for variousreasons decided not to join. One thing that deterredme was the impression that it was a bit of an army

officers’ and ex-officers’ clique. If that was true then,it was not true by the time that I became President,and certainly is not so now. However, the ‘ex-officers’drinking club’ image does linger to some extent in theoutside world, and I think it is important that Guildmembers do all they can to dispel this misleadingimpression. In fact, we have an increasingly diversemembership, and we are all the stronger for it.

In my time as Honorary President, I have watchedwith pleasure as the Guild has grown and developed.The Guild Chairman throughout my time of office,Mike Peters, deserves much credit for this. Very earlyon we decided that my role, apart from theceremonial aspects, would be work ‘behind thescenes’ on behalf of the Guild, and to offer advice toMike and other officers of the Guild. Sometimes theyasked for this advice, on other occasions I gave itunasked, but of course they were free to ignore it. I’dlike to thank Mike and everyone else in the Guild for

making my term of office a pleasure.Battlefield tours and staff rides have been part of

my life for a very long time. I went on my firstorganized tour (with the Holts, to the Western Front)in 1984, as a postgrad, and two years later as ajunior lecturer in the Department of War Studies,RMA Sandhurst was involved in leading a tour toNormandy. Since then I have lost count of thenumber of tours I have lead. The furthest flung onewas a private tour of Maori Pa in New Zealand. Myfavourites are Gallipoli, and Wellington in thePeninsula. Oddly, the one tour I have never done,leading or otherwise, is Arnhem – so my bucket listremains incomplete, and I am open to offers! Thetours that I have done most are variations on theSomme and Normandy. I like to keep them fresh byadding different stands, or looking at existing standsfrom different angles. Of course, moving beyond 1July 1916 or 6 June 1944 can be a challenge. I’venever done it, but I’ve often thought a 2 July 1916 or7 June 1944 tour would be interesting. Of course, therecces are often more enjoyable than the actual tours.I remember two in particular with fondness. In 2003I went with two friends to the Somme area, and werecced 12th Division’s actions in the Hundred Days.Around the same time I did a Normandy recce forthe (then) Army Junior Division of the Staff College,and walked/drove the route of Operation Epsom. But

perhaps the most memorable tour was for a privateparty – I did the 2nd Munsters at Etreux in 1914 as aTEWT. As no one in the party actually knew thestory, it enabled me to build up the dramatic tension!

A few words to finish. Battlefield tours areabsolutely invaluable as educational tools – whetherovertly, as in taking parties of school students to theWestern Front as part of the First World Warcentenary, or as part of the leisure industry. They cando great good, or great harm. Incompetent or biasedguides, or those who lack knowledge of up-to-datehistorical research on their subject, can be extremelydamaging. I’m not suggesting that you need a Ph. Dto be a good battlefield guide – although theincreasing number of guides who are taking MAs isvery encouraging, and I have had the pleasure ofsupervising several guild members’ dissertations – butguides do need to be abreast of current research. TheGuild offers an excellent way of keeping up to date.And of course, the rigorous process of becoming abadged guide has been vital in driving up standardwithin the industry. That is why the Guild ofBattlefield Guides is such an important organisation.I have been proud to have been your HonoraryPresident since 2012, and I will continue to be astrong supporter of the Guild in the future.

I look forward to meeting you on the battlefields.

Always keen to attempt to get away from the Western Front and spread the Guild Gospel...Gary working extremely hard inBridgetown Barbados!

www.gbg-international.com | 2726 | Despatches

LIBERATION OFFENSIVE OCT1918– MEMORIAL TO THECROSSING OF THE RIVER LYSGil Bossuyt

This is not so special a picture, but we are standing at a place on which – throughresearching and our memorial project – a spectacular, but almost unknown story can betold today. I don’t think many battlefield guides will know this place, I would be happyto introduce it to you all.

I am on the absolute right of the picture, with aScottish-Northern Irish group at our brand new 36th(Ulster) Division Memorial at the banks of the RiverLys in Bavikhove (Flanders). Standing at theMemorial marker stone, you look over the exactplace where the 36th (Ulster) Division crossed theriver Lys, in October 1918.

I am happy to see that some British groups visitingthe ‘classic’ WW1 regions of the Somme and theYpres Salient, are now making this surprising detourfor our Memorial and its story. I live nearby, and Iam – of course - very proud to take them around.

The Memorial was inaugurated on August 18th,2018. The Carnmoney ‘Pride of the Hill’ Flute Bandcame over to take part in the ceremony, to memorisea chapter from the First World War that was about tobe forgotten…

The events that took place here unraveled bit by

bit, while I was researching for my book on theLiberation Offensive around the Lys in Flanders. Iwas not only amazed by the events themselves, butalso by the precision with which everything waswritten down in various diaries. I studied the finaloffensive in this region reading the reports fromBelgian, British, French and German sides.

While researching I got in touch with PhilHamilton from Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland,and a few weeks later (it was in May, 2017), we met,and visited some places in the region.

The idea for the memorial came from Phil, a fewmonths later. And thanks to good cooperation withthe local authorities, we could realise this project.

It was the Belgians, who first got to the banks of theLys and liberated Bavikhove and Ooigem, on October16th, 1918. Starting from the old frontline at Ypresthey had - together with French and British troops -

www.gbg-international.com | 2928 | Despatches

this spot, killing four men instantly, and woundingseveral others. Sapper James Hutton and driverColdridge died here on the river bank. They areburied in ‘Harlebeke New British Cemetery’.

In the most dangerous and chaotic circumstancesthe Field Companies managed to build a bridge, andget soldiers (Royal Irish Rifles, Royal InniskillingFusiliers and Royal Irish Fusiliers) across the river.

What followed were hard battles to get a footholdin Beveren-Leie, Desselgem and further on to theLeemput, Molenhoek and Belgiek. The French on theleft were far behind, so the left flank of the 36th(Ulster) Division was stretched out too long, and wasvery vulnerable. It turned out in a very difficultsituation around Waregem and Anzegem.

When the 36th Division was taken out of the lineat Anzegem on 27 October, they were completelyexhausted and had lost many valuable men. AtHarlebeke New British Cemetery there are - at least -120 men who crossed the Lys at this very place, andlost their lives between October 19th, and October,27th, 1918.

Among them: many who survived the Somme andPassendale ... and hoped for a quick end of the war.But they never came home. The memorial is meant tobe a lasting memory of these dramatic events. For thevictims from all sides: British, German, French andBelgian. To make us reflect on how brave people canbe, but also what people can do to each other.

With groups visiting the memorial, I always takethem to ‘Harlebeke New British Cemetery’, to go andvisit the men who fell in these last actions. Lots oftheir stories are mentioned in my book, which is inDutch. There is lots of interest from Northern Irelandand Great Britain to get it translated in English…

Any groups who want to come over, do nothesitate to contact me : gil.bossuyt@skynet.be or0032.479.29.29.08, or www.frontaaltours.com

driven back the Germans. The retreating enemy hadblown up all existing bridges over the river.

On October 18th, the 36th (Ulster) Division tookover from the Belgians here to implement theeffective crossing plans. In the direction ofHarelbeke, on the right flank, was the 9th Scottishdivision. On the left flank were the French, startingfrom the canal Ooigem-Roeselare.

You would hardly recognize this place 100 yearsago: on the other side there were no woods, but alarge meadow, with a high road behind it and thesmall village of Beveren-Leie. In the farms and housesacross the river were German machine guns, whowere spying every movement and did everything todisrupt the preparations for the crossing.

It is important to know that in this final phase of thewar, the German army was NOT a panic-fleeing army.It was still a deadly opponent, who retreated verysystematically. During these last weeks of the war, theyregularly hit back strong, and caused many casualties.

In the night of 19 to 20 October, a joint crossing ofthe river by British and French troops was planned.This place in Bavikhove, with this favourable riverbend, which allowed much coverage from the flanks,seemed the ideal place to build a bridge to the otherside.

In the hours before the crossing, the 121st FieldCompany had hidden its material in a farm you cansee very clear from the memorial. The 150th FieldCompany had put their material in reserve in anotherfarm within short distance.

Of all the troops on the Lys, the Irish were the firstto cross. At 19.25 they started the dangerousoperation. After a few boats were towed to the otherside, the Germans noticed the British actions: somelight flares went into the air and the machine gunsbegan to rattle.The German artillery also started itsheavy shelling on this bank.

A moment later, a German artillery grenade fell on

EVENTguide 2019-2022-25 Jul - Normandy 75 Conference, University of Portsmouth - Chris Finn

26-30 Jul - Guild Recce - Redcoats in the Pyrennes - Graeme Cooper

9 Aug - Badged Guides Dinner, London - Graeme Cooper

28 Sep (TBC) - Validation Day, Windsor - Tim Stoneman

7-11 Oct - Berlin Recce - Chris Finn

6 Dec - Guild Christmas Lunch, UJC London - Andy Thompson

31 Jan - 2 Feb 2020 - Annual Conference Maidstone - John Harris

www.gbg-international.com | 3130 | Despatches

PANZER ACEThe Memoirs of an IronCross Panzer Commanderfrom Barbarossa toNormandyBy Richard Freiherr von Rosen

There are an abundance of GermanMemoirs available to the readertoday and the impending wave of

WW2 Anniversaries will no doubt trigger adeluge of reprints. If you are going to buy one, take agood look at this remarkably crafted account of the waras seen from the turret of all types of Panzer. This bookcontains over 400 photographs, a detailed narrative andnumerous maps and documents. The authors begins hiswar as a gun layer on the diminutive Panzer II, fightsthrough Barbarossa, Kursk, Normandy and finally endsthe war on the King Tiger in the last battle for Hungary.Outstanding!

Published by Greenhill Books LtdRRP £25.00hardback, pp390

FIGHTING FOXCOMPANYThe Battling Flank of theBand of BrothersBy Terry Poyser and Bill Brown

If you like your military history andthe soldier’s eye level and a blow byblow narrative of combat at thetactical level, then this book is foryou. The authors have meticulously

researched the experience of a single US ParachuteInfantry Company and followed them from formation toD-day and through Holland to VE Day. The maps are idealfor the Battlefield Guide walking the ground, in the case ofSt Mere Eglise, placing individual parachutists on the townplan. Although it is a parallel track to the legendary EasyCompany, there is enough new information to make it arefreshing read. Highly Recommended!

Review by Mike Peters

Published by Casemate RRP £14.99paperback, pp344/16 Illustrations

BREATHTAKINGSPECTACLEA Written and PictorialHistory of IX TroopCarrier Command inEngland during WWII

Vol1: The 52nd TroopCarrier Wing By Adam G.R. Berry & Hans Den Brok

If there is an aspect of WW2 history that can trulyjustify the overused description of being forgotten,perhaps the contribution of the Troop-Carryingformations of all the Allied Air Forces does come close?We tend to pay them lip service and focus on the actionsof the more glamorous units that they delivered intobattle by glider and parachute. This exceptional newvolume goes a long way toward redressing the balanceof available history. Highlighting in an initial volume the52nd Troop Carrier Wing USAF, this is a completehistory of one of the most experienced Transportformations of the war, covering every aspect of the livesof its personnel both in the air over Europe and on theground in England. It features a staggering amount ofdetail based on extensive research. Sure to be acclaimedas the benchmark work on the subject.

Published by Overlord Publishing RRP £65.00hardback, pp600

ARMS AND ARMOUROF THE ENGLISHCIVIL WARSBy Keith Dowen

This is a period of military historythat many of us know surprisinglylittle about. Every now and againI do have to plunge into it and findmyself scrabbling around for reliable, accurate and aboveall with time pressing, concise source material. Well, thisnew book will now be at the top of my English Civil Warlibrary, it really is very good. It is extremely wellillustrated throughout and the narrative is readable andinformative. The chapters cover the organization,equipment and armaments of the Armies of the period ina logical and accessible style. Simply put, it lives up to itsbilling as an Arms & Armour Guide.

Published by Unicorn Publishing GroupRRP £12.99paperback, pp96

LESSONS FROM THE MUD55th (West Lancashire)Division at the Third Battleof YpresEdited by Paul Knight

There are numerous official andunofficial Divisional histories,this one is unusual in its origin andits format. Originally compiled by the GOC, GeneralJeudwine in the immediate aftermath of two separateattacks by his own division. The history was compiledusing an extensive combination of Official Reports, WarDiaries, Maps and most importantly, a broad spectrum ofOfficer and Soldier Narratives. The latter give a realinsight into the reality of the Great War and robustlychallenge the outdated myth of the Chateau General.Carefully edited and well presented, this is a usefuladdition to any Great War collection. Certainly avaluable resource if planning a trip to the Salient.

Published by HelionRRP £35.00paperback, pp463

NIEUWPOORTSECTOR 1917The Battle of The DunesBy Kristof Jacobs

It was quite refreshing to find anew book on the Great War that really didexplore a less well-known corner of the Western Front.This latest title from the Uniform Press is pleasantlyabsorbing in its level of detail; it really draws the readerin right from start to finish. The comprehensive andinformative narrative is lavishly supported with hordesof photographs, maps, trench maps and diagrams; a realtour de force. This would be an absolutely ideal additionto any Western Front Guide’s library, well worth theprice. Don’t go to the dunes without it!

Published by Uniform PressRRP £28.00paperback, pp326

GUIDEbooks:THE D-DAYTRAINING POCKETMANUAL, 1944Instructions on AmphibiousLandings, Glider-BorneForces, Paratroop Landingsand Hand to HandFighting.Edited by Dr Chris McNab

The rapidly approaching 75th Anniversaryof Op Overlord will inevitably trigger the release of wavesof low-grade recycled books about D-day. I have not beenlooking forward to that part of the commemorations atall, so it was a pleasant surprise to receive this excellentcompilation. The subject matter gives some great insightinto the Doctrine of the day, the minute detail packed intoeach of the chapters is genuinely fascinating and useful tothe Normandy Guides out there. Great value for money,unreservedly recommended for Battlefield Guiding.

Review by Mike Peters

Published by Casemate UKRRP £8.99hardback, pp160, 30 Photographs &

FROM THE RIVIERATO THE RHINEUS Sixth Army GroupAugust 1944 – February1945By Simon Forty & Leo Marriott

Following on from their earliersuccessful battlefield guidebooksCasemate have released this new

guide to US operations in SouthernFrance and beyond. Suffice to say the quality level hasbeen sustained in all respects, lavish illustrations, mapsand detailed historical narrative blend together well toproduce a comprehensive guide. This is likely to be anarea of interest for the Tour Industry once Normandy 75is over; it is already attracting an increased level ofmilitary interest. This book signposts the route awayfrom Op Anvil/Dragoon to much more interesting sitesfurther inland.

Review by Mike Peters

Published by CasemateRRP £25.00hardback, pp192

In each edition of Despatches, we will be introducing amember of the Guild. In this edition, it is PaulColbourne.

1. How long have you been interested in battlefieldsand what was it that initially attracted your interest? I have always had an interest in military history beingone of the ‘Airfix’ generation. My unhealthyobsession with the First World War began some 30years ago on a family holiday to France. A commentby my wife’s late grandmother about ‘our Thomas isin France’ led me finding out who he was and wherehe was buried, a challenge back then but now thatrecords are digitised this process is a lot morestraightforward. We visited the cemetery and paidour respects, took some photos to show grandma andwent back to our daily routine. I could not helpfeeling I owed Thomas a little more so beganresearching his service. He had served on the WesternFront with the DLI form April 1915 to October 1918so following his movements across the W F has takenme to most of the major British battlefields.

2. Have any experiences stood out? Guiding a privategroup last year called ‘The Jolly Boys’, 7 gentlemenwith age’s ranging from 68 to 76, they had a tastefor good food and expensive wine. Pre tour meetingestablished three great uncles to follow, the 100thanniversary of one’s death would coincide with thevisit. I was not expecting them to be as moved asthey were, both emotionally as individuals and as agroup. Research had provided me with some out ofthe way locations and with the aid of Linesman I

Name: Paul Colbourne

Age: 56

Nationality: British

Home Location: Rugby,

Warwickshire

Tour Company: Backroads Tours & Independent

Validating: Intending

10 Questions:

New members who have been welcomed to the Guildbetween Summer 2018 and the date of publication.

was able to provide some quite extraordinarymoments for ‘The Jolly Boys’ that becameunforgettable for me.

3. What do you enjoy the most about battlefieldguiding? The personal touch, finding that littlenugget that helps people connect with the past. Beingout in the fresh air connecting with people who havea genuine interest in what you have to say.

4. What is your favourite stand, location or battlefieldand why? For me it has to be the Somme,particularly the area around High Wood. I feel aconnection with the area that is difficult to explainbut I am sure I am not alone.

5. Which battlefield would you like to visit in thefuture? Gallipoli.

6. What have you enjoyed the most about being amember of the Guild? The networking and thewillingness to share information and knowledge. Jo Hook has always been extremely helpful alongwith our Chairman Mike.

7. If there was a fire and you could only save onebattlefield-related book or prop, what would yousave and why? Thomas’s soap tin, the only directlink back to him. It is also full of other bits.

8. What type of group do you think is the mostchallenging to lead on a tour? I would have saidschools until I took ‘The Jolly Boys’. All well-educatedand successful business men with independent mindswho were difficult to get going in the morning, arguedamongst themselves constantly, were forgetful andhad somewhat regressed back a few years when awayfrom home. They were quite special.

9. What’s the best tip, story or nugget of informationyou have been given by a fellow battlefield guide?Entertain your guests and never forget it is their tour,be prepared to be flexible.

10. What is the funniest or most dramatic thing youhave seen on tour? A couple in a passionate tangledembrace at Courcelette British Cemetery. I think theywere there for the sunset.

NEWmembers:Mark AdamsLucy Betteridge-DysonGuillaume BlondeauPeter BoyleWayne CookAnthony CoyleDavid DalrympleGraeme DavisJames Davis

Steve DaveyJonathan DavyPaul DugganRupert Hague-HolmeNoel HannanNeil HoughamJean-Francois HussonGraeme JonesYaiphaba Kangjam

James KirkbrideEmmett KeyyNeil KnowlesGary MartinColm MurphyHeloise O’DonnellRichard ParsonsGreville RamsayGeoff Reason

Lisa RichardsonJon SandisonAn SauveurAlexander SmithRonald StassenRussell TuckerAndy WallaceMatthew Whitchurch