A lifejacket on display in a museum showcase.
At least one Chindit - RAF signaller Arthur Willshaw - had a bright idea to help with the river crossings. He liberated a Mae West from stores and carried it with him throughout Longcloth. Later used by his kids as a seaside beach toy in the 1950s, and now in #IWMLondon.
A torpedo on display in a museum, seen from the front, showing four spring-loaded 'whiskers'
A German Type G7e TIII electric torpedo, on display at #IWMLondon.
An improved version of an unreliable earlier model, it carried a 250kg warhead at 30 knots, to a maximum range of 5km. Torpedoes like this were the U-boat force's primary weapon as they stalked Allied merchant shipping. #wartour
A tile mural on display in a museum shows Saddam Hussein, holding a rifle in his right hand, wearing a blue suit and dark hat. In the foreground the Dome of the Rock at Al Aqsa.
Tile mural of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from the port city of Umm Qasr, removed at local request by British troops following the US-led coalition's invasion of Iraq in 2003, on display at #IWMLondon.
Among other things, Hussein is remembered for starting a disastrous war with Iran. #wartour
A wooden figure of a Gurkha soldier
Close-up of a wooden figure of a Gurkha soldier.
A wooden figure of a Gurkha rifleman of the Burma campaign, on display at #IWMLondon. He wears a jungle green uniform with the 'golden arrow' patch of 7th Indian Division, and is armed with a Sten submachine gun. #wartour
A photograph of a large model battleship in a museum showcase.
Builder's model of the dreadnought battleship HMS Hercules, on display at #IWMLondon. HMS Hercules fought in the 1916 Battle of Jutland.
This model was badly damaged by German bombing during the Blitz in 1941, and was restored in time for the First World War centenary in 2014. #wartour
Gassed by John Singer Sargent
The Menin Road by Paul Nash
Over The Top by John Nash
Runway Perspective and De-Icing Aircraft by Eric Ravilious
Artworks on display in the Art, Film and Photography Gallery at #IWMLondon.
Gassed by John Singer Sargent (1919)
The Menin Road by Paul Nash (1919)
Over The Top by John Nash (1918)
Runway Perspective and De-Icing Aircraft by Eric Ravilious (both 1942)
#wartour
A name plate on a wooden fishing boat, with the name Tamzine picked out in white paint.
Name plate on 'Tamzine', a 14-foot fishing boat which was the smallest vessel to take part in the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk in 1940, on display at #IWMLondon. #wartour
A red-painted aircraft wreck, missing its wings and engine, on display on a museum plinth. On the wal behind itl a heavily inscribed Japanese flag.
Wreck of a Japanese Zero fighter aircraft, recovered in the 1990s from Taroa in the Marshall Islands. Also the yosegaki hinomaru inscribed personal flag of Asano Makoto 朝野誠, captured by 7th Battalion 16th Punjab Regiment during the 1944-45 Arakan campaign in Burma, on display at #IWMLondon. #wartour
A close-up shows a black metal aircraft fuselage marked with rows of hand painted red, white, blue and yellow Royal Air Force roundels.
Mission marks on a cockpit section of a Royal Australian Air Force Avro Lancaster heavy bomber named 'Old Fred' on display at #IWMLondon. With No. 467 Squadron RAAF this aircraft flew 49 operational sorties in 1943-44, inc. ops against Berlin and targets in France before D-Day. #wartour #AvHist
Three colourful ceramic jugs depicting men in uniform
Commemorative jugs depicting the Allied commanders towards the end of the First World War, on display at #IWMLondon.
In front, General John Pershing, US Army🇺🇸. Right, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, British Expeditionary Force🇬🇧. Behind, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Allied Commander🇫🇷.
#wartour
Close up of a large bronze eagle, with a bullet hole below the beak.
Face of a bullet-holed Nazi eagle from the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, on display at #IWMLondon.
#wartour
An artillery piece on display in a museum, pointing to the right.
A 13-pounder field gun on display at #IWMLondon, believed to be a composite of guns of L Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, damaged in action on 1 Sept 1914 at Néry in France when UK 1st Cavalry Brigade fought the German 4th Cav Div. L Battery received 3 Victoria Crosses for its role.
#wartour
A view of a rocket engine in a green-painted rocket. A mass of silver pipework surrounds a bulbous combustion chamber.
Engine of a German V2 rocket, an early ballistic missile, on display at #IWMLondon.
#wartour
A view of a ship model, seen from above.
A view of a ship model, showing a close-up of an inscription 'SOS HELP'
Close-up of the bow of a model ship showing the name San Demetrio.
A caption panel entitled 'San Demetrio model'. Caption reads 'In November 1940, the British oil tanker MV San Demetrio was attacked by a German cruiser. The crew escaped in three lifeboats. Two days later 16 sailors in one lifeboat found themselves drifting back to the ship, which was miraculously still afloat. They boarded, put out the fires and steered the damaged ship back to Glasgow. This model of the San Demetrio was used in the film based on the true story released in 1943, which showed the crew's courage and determination against the odds.'
A ship model of the oil tanker MV San Demetrio, built for the 1943 film San Demetrio London, on display at #IWMLondon.
In November 1940 San Demetrio was carrying a cargo of aviation fuel when she was shelled and set on fire by the German cruiser Admiral Scheer. But the ship refused to sink...
A mass of small silver ship models, suspended on cables.
Part of a three-dimensional chart of Allied merchant shipping sunk by German submarines ('U-boats') during the Second World War, on display at #IWMLondon.
A photograph showing a tree with bouquets of flowers, a war memorial, and a museum, at night.
Leaving the office this evening. Foreground a tree planted as a Holocaust memorial, with flowers recently laid for #HolocaustMenorialDay. Beyond it, the London Soviet War Memorial, and #IWMLondon.
A gallery at IWM London. A member of staff adjusts a camera on a tripod.
In for some filming. In the showcase at #IWMLondon, a Mae West life jacket used by an RAF wireless operator who served on the first Chindit expedition in Burma in 1943.
A screen reading 'Welcome to Game-Changing Synergies: Exploring the cultural and societal value of video games'.
Dons academic hat. #IWMLondon
Seeing this I was immediately reminded of Laura Knight's painting 'The Nuremberg Trial, 1946', currently on display at #IWMLondon. Like the Low cartoon, and absolutely searing indictment of the savagery wrought by the Nazi defendants.
High res: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...
A photograph of artefacts in a display case.
A photograph of a damage blue Royal Air Force uniform jacket.
Today in 1940 Pilot Officer Frederick Harrold, flying a Hurricane with No.501 Squadron RAF, is shot down and killed.
His jacket, recovered personal effects inc. a key, religious medallion, fragments of his aircraft & a telegram received by his father, on display at #IWMLondon
#BattleOfBritain85
Place's Victoria Cross citation closes:
'The courage, endurance and utter contempt for danger in the immediate face of the enemy shown...during this determined and successful attack were supreme'
The wreck of Place's submarine was later salvaged, and is now on display at #IWMLondon.
Nice to see this. Regular followers will know that one of John Dundas's Spitfires - #SpitfireR6915 - is on display at #IWMLondon
An oil painting depicting an imagined scene of the Battle of Britain.
One for #BattleOfBritainDay - Paul Nash's 1941 oil painting 'Battle of Britain', now on display at #IWMLondon.
As a fleet of sinister black bombers approach, Royal Air Force fighters rise to meet them & a dogfight leaves a sweeping tangle of contrails. #BattleOfBritain85
Painting: IWM ART LD 1550
For those men who did get to the lifeboats, subsequent survival chances varied greatly depending on weather, sea state, proximity to land and other ships, and whether their radio operator had had a chance to signal a dis-tress call before the ship foundered. In the well-trafficked North Atlantic, half of crews were rescued within an hour of their vessel being sunk, two-thirds within one day. But one in five was adrift for more than a week. Survival chances were excellent in the first forty-eight hours but then gradually declined, and fell precipitously after fifteen days. There were some extraordinary exceptions to this. Two of the original seven survivors of the SS Anglo Saxon lived through a seventy-day, 2,800-mile lifeboat voyage in the summer of 1940. Weather conditions mattered a great deal to survival chances. If the sea temperature was below 5° C, there was a one-in-four chance of dying of hypothermia and exposure before you could be rescued.
The SS Anglo-Saxon jolly boat, on display at IWM London.
Reading a bit more of @alanallport.bsky.social's #BritainAtBay about the Battle of the Atlantic. The story of SS Anglo Saxon always gives me pause, not least because the Anglo Saxon jolly boat - survivor of a 70-day oceanic voyage - is on display at #IWMLondon.
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Good thread by Mr Bull. Reminded me of this poster advertising a 1925 Armistice Night Carnival Ball at the Royal Albert Hall, now on display at #IWMLondon.
#IWMcollections PST 5180.
A photograph of a magnolia tree coming into flower, with a bluesky and the the dome of IWM London in the background.
Magnolia tree flowering in today's spring sunshine in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, near #IWMLondon.
A photograph of a reproduction map showing planned German invasion routes to England.
#SecretWarPlans on display at #IWMLondon
With the passing of the last of The Few, a look at #SpitfireR6915 at #IWMLondon. 13 of the Few - inc. two Poles and two Americans - flew this Spitfire on 57 sorties during the 1940 Battle of Britain, destroying & damaging numerous enemy aircraft, & several times were forced down with battle damage.
