Kicking off my new series looking at how the UK was defended during the Second World War, I'm going to start by looking at a period before war had even been declared!
youtu.be/NmK8S2HV-lA
#secondworldwar #secondworldwarhistory #ww2 #ww2history
Could they have harnessed enzymes to do this? I'm thinking along the lines of how yeast has been cultivated and used for bread etc.
What better way to start the weekend than recording a video looking at why the role of the Regular and Territorial Army have largely been forgotten?
#SecondWorldWar #History #WW2
youtu.be/yztlRdOGKGw
SIP grenades? Quite common towards end of 1940 but issued extensively to Regular and TA, as well as HG.
Well, they had plenty of matches for lighting 'molotov cocktails'!
Also used interchangeably with petrol bomb.
Yep, same thing.
Another unit to add to the the ORBAT and list of 'Units that did stuff the Home Guard didn't do but are believed to have done today'.
It's certainly earlier than I thought! I had seen mention of AT ditches for the GHQ Line being maintained into mid-1941, so assumed that the line was still developed. Clearly not. I will be doing a video later which looks at who operated the GHQ Line, and I think you can predict who it wasn't!
Something a bit different. Let's see what an image can tell us about the operation of a 6-pounder anti-tank gun within a pillbox.
A moan about shrapnel thrown in for good measure 🤣
youtu.be/LrNkwwujIMA
#WW2 #History #Archaeology
I can only think of only a handful of defences built within Northern Command that would make up the GHQ Line. I'm still looking to confirm, but from my understanding the GHQ Line itself was completely mothballed in mid-1941 at the latest.
Northern Command had put little effort into building the GHQ Line in the first place, instead focussing on demolition belts and a strong coastal crust.
It’s nice to get confirmation of how short-lived the construction of the GHQ Line was. Northern Command and Scottish Command were both ordered to no longer develop their respective sections of the line on the 3rd of August 1940.
I'm going to start using Substack more for content. Please do check it out.
substack.com/@chriskolonk...
Here's part of the file-
Other than tracing the Igloo Shelter type, I haven't been able to trace the manufacturer.
No worries. One of the reasons they are so rare is that they are mis-IDd as AW turrets. MOD archaeologists didn't believe me when I pointed out that an AW they found wasn't one, but changed their mind when they were sent the IWM images. I since traced the shelter type with NORCO/SCOTCO records.
Best I can do at the minute 🤣
AW also has a lifting lug on the top. Trying to find my photos I took of a couple of AWs.
AW is also a single plate, rather than two plates likes the Igloo.
Yep. An Allan Williams rotates on a turret ring. The AW is also larger than an Igloo Shelter.
You can see how the shelter continues much further into the ground, while the Alan Williams turret had a turret ring onto which it was mounted. I think the Igloo Shelter sections were also thinner.
That's deffo not an Alan Williams turret 😜 It looks like an Igloo Shelter, which the army tested as an observation post in both Northern Command and Scottish Command. Not very common and extremely rare today.
And a nice overview of how the city was to be defended. In depth, with a mobile reserve. Not the linear, static defence that is often believed to have been common today.
By October 1940, the 9th Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment had been brought into the city's defences.
And a nice demonstration that the Home Guard weren't the only units for defence. Here are the units that would have defended Norwich in August. Unfortunately the role of the 125th AT Regiment, the Infantry Training Corps Norfolk and the 50th (Holding) Battalion Norfolk would be overlooked today.
Something you sometimes hear is the apparent scarcity of supplies for the defence of the UK. This allotment of ammunition from the files relating to the defence of Norwich in August 1940 shows that things weren't quite as bad!
