There Are No Real Winners In A War

World War 2 Bomb Damage - St. Paul's from Paternoster Row, London

I was going through some old mementos my mother had hoarded away in a case. Amongst the photos, birthday cards and so on was a newspaper from May 8, 1945. This was VE-Day - Victory in Europe. But there are no real winners in wars. One of the articles in the newspaper illustrated this. It was written by Roma Sherris, the heading being 'Mrs.J puts out her bunting'.

Mrs. James is 60. She's small with rather a pointed face, and her eyes are dark and bright like a bird's. By profession she is a charlady.

This is not, you may think, a particularly distinguished or remarkable portrait. But for me - and I have known her a good many years now - Mrs. James is a symbol.

In 1939 Mrs. James three sons joined up [to go to war]. Tom was twenty-five, Dick was twenty-three and John, her 'baby' only nineteen.

Mrs. James was extremely proud and, like every other mother, a little frightened. Not that she ever said anything about that. It would have been 'soft.' And Mrs. James hates anything 'soft or sloppy' as she calls it.

When she came to work she would bring their photographs and presents in a canvass shopping bag. A picture of Tom, the good-looking one, standing outside an estaminet , with his arm round a pretty French girl's waist. A chromium brooch from Dick, with his regimental arms in the middle. And a gleaming apricot cushion-cover with a camel and palm trees stamped on it, from John, in the Navy.

One brilliant summer's morning in 1940 Mrs. James came to work a little late. She looked very small and pale in her old black coat and the hat she always wore, with a dagger hat-pin and black osprey trimmings.

She took a telegram out of the old canvass bag and handed it to me. Tom had been killed, fighting in France.

"That's was, that is," was all she said. Then she started to do the washing up.

A week later she had another telegram. During the evacuation of Dunkirk Dick's ship, bringing him home had a direct hit. He was killed instantaneously.

After that Mrs. James began to work furiously. "Keeps your mind occupied," she said. After her morning's charing she would go to a forces canteen to wash up. During the lunch hour she did her shopping and queued for fish and vegetables for her daughter, who was having a baby.

She seldom talked about Tom and Dick. I don't think she could trust herself and she was so frightened of being 'soft.' But she wore Dick's regimental badge proudly on her shabby coat and a pendant with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it, which Tom had sent from Paris.

Last year [1944] Mrs. James had her last telegram. John had been drowned.

After that I thought she was going to pieces. She became incredibly thin and nothing would induce her to stop working. She never talked about herself but all the life had gone out of her bright eyes.

Then the flying-bomb raids started and Mrs. James became a different woman. She was really angry about them. All her old fighting spirit came back. And the day her ceilings came down her invective and sarcasm against such an unmilitary weapon of war were a joy to hear.

Her daughter got bombed out and Mrs. James brought her and the baby to live with her. Quite soon after that she started producing photographs of the baby out of her canvass bag when she arrived in the morning.

The other day I passed her house. She was balanced precariously on the top of a ladder fixing bunting over the front door.

"You look very happy Mrs. James," I said.

"I am," she replied. "Well we've got a lot to be thankful for, haven't we? After all. we've won the war."

I wanted to say, "You've won the war, Mrs. James," but I didn't she would have thought I was being 'soft'.

Sometimes we forget what others have done for us.

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The Holman Projector Coincidence From World War 2

A Navy Wren with a Holman Projector

An unusual coincidence story about something called a Holman Projector, which was used in the early days of World War 2 by ships as a defensive weapon against low flying attacks from German planes. The story is from Maurice Cross from England.

When I joined a motor torpedo boat in Lowestoft in 1941, I noticed a drain-pipe gadget behind the stern.

I asked a seaman gunner what it was, "It's the Holman Projector," he said.

"What does it do?" I asked. He told me.

"What!" I exclaimed, "you drop a hand grenade down the tube and when a Messerschmitt comes roaring down, you try to judge the split second to flip the grenade up?"

"Of course not," he shouted his eyes wild. "We're not raving idiots! The only time we fired it live, the dodgy compression unit just flopped the grenade over the top and it dropped on my feet. I almost died of shock!" His face paled. "If Taff Evans hadn't kicked it over the side, we'd have been holed like colanders!"

Such is the long arm of coincidence, that after the war. working in Bath, I used to go to a cafe behind the Pump Rooms. I shared a table most days with the same chaps, one a boffin from the Admiralty,

One day I told them the story of the amazing Holman Projector and rounded it off with the comment: "I wonder what kind of gormless twit in the Admiralty accepted it for the Navy?"

The boffin raised his eyes from his crossword and said, "I was responsible for that project!"

"Oh!" I said and downed another forkful of Welsh rarebit. He never sat with is again.

~ Maurice Cross, England.

From Wikipedia: The Holman Projector was an anti-aircraft weapon used by the Royal Navy during World War II, primarily between early 1940 and late 1941. The weapon was proposed and designed by Holmans, a machine tool manufacturer based at Camborne, Cornwall. A number of models were produced during the war years, but all worked on the principle of a pneumatic mortar, using compressed air or high pressure steam to fire an explosive projectile at enemy aircraft.

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A Curious Coincidence About The Warning Of World War 2

Soldiers of the German Wehrmacht at the border
crossing between Poland and the Free City of Danzig, 1 September 1939

Here's a letter I came across that was sent to The Glasgow Herald on July 17, 1939. It is headed "A Curious Coincidence". (As a side note World War 2 began on the 1st of September 1939.) Here's the letter:

Sirs, It is a well known fact that history has a habit of repeating itself. and curious coincidences do occur. I write to draw attention to the fact that on July 20 to 27 1914, the British Medical Association met in Aberdeen. Before the meetings were over doctors were called away for military service in the Great War [World War 1].

Within a week's time the British Medical Association again meets in Aberdeen - the first since 1914. Does this interesting coincidence presage an approaching Armageddon?

The European situation today is far more dangerous for us than in July 1914. The existence of the British Empire is at stake. Within weeks we could be in a life-and -death struggle with Germany, and no mercy will ever be shown us this time. If the dragon's teeth get a grip of this country, those patriotic men and women who say they cannot give time for National Service, as it interferes with their golf, tennis etc. will sing a different tune, it they sing at all.

Many will regret that Mr Churchill's warning went unheeded for years, that conscription was not introduced last September, and that the Minister of Propaganda, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, was not in being a year ago instead of at the last minute when it seems all too late.

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Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Remarkable Coincidence

A quite remarkable coincidence story from my cuttings. This one is from Mr V.L Coombes of Devon, England and features his brother.

My brother Murray was in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry and fought right through the North African campaign. Subsequently his unit was sent to join the fighting in Italy.

He was riding in a convoy to Monte Cassino when a couple of enemy planes strafed the lorries. Murray threw himself into a ditch at the side of the road.

However, it was already occupied by a soldier lying face down in the mud. When the bullets stopped whizzing overhead, the original resident turned around and said, "Hello Mur, nice of you to drop in!"

Despite the muddy face, Murray recognised him as the lad who, years before when children, had spent years sitting beside him in a double desk in our small school and whom he had not seen since the day they left.

Now, there's a coincidence!

~ Mr V.L Coombes

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World War II Aircraft Engine Coincidence

Wright Duplex Cyclone engine

A coincidence story from Dennis Parratt from World War II

In 1946 I was stationed at RAF St Thomas Mount, Madras and had to visit Avadi MU (Maintenance Unit). It was one of the biggest supply depots in the then British Empire and held equipment for all three services to be used in the planned invasion of Singapore (that due to the atomic bomb being dropped on Japan never took place).

White there, I went into a mess for a meal and, out of the thousands of personnel, found myself sitting next to a Taffy Jones who I had known in the UK at Stafford MU.

I asked him what he was doing in Madras, and he told me that at Stafford two years earlier, he was crating up Wright Duplex Cyclone aircraft engines for the Far East.

He had only recently arrived in India and - would you believe it - he was unpacking those same engines and smashing up them under drop hammers.

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Visualisation Helped Him Escape from A WW2 Prison Camp To Wilshire Boulevard

Popular self-help books are always on about using visualisation techniques to attract the things we desire. True enough, they can work. As that song goes, "If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?"

Visualising and concentrating on something, however, can be something more than this. In The Power of Your Subconscious Mind Joseph Murphy gives a significant account which led to several coincidences or synchronicity, this follows but in my own words:

Visualisation helped a Dr. Lothar von Blenk-Schmidt to save his sanity during his imprisonment by the Russians in world war 2. The doctor had previously been an electronics engineer but was now forced to labour in coal mines, having to shift something like 300 pounds a day. If prisoners failed to do their quota they had their food rations cut.

To relieve his despair he began to concentrate on his escape to America, determined that his subconscious mind would find a way. He wrote. "I would imagine I was walking down Wilshire Boulevard with an American girl whom I met in Berlin prior to the war."

In his imagination he drove his imaginary American automobile up and down the boulevards of Los Angeles, saw himself in restaurants and made his vision highly and vividly detailed. As he said, "These pictures in my mind were as real and natural to me as the trees outside the prison camp."

This dreaming gave him hope and helped to retain his sanity and strength during difficult times.

Then an odd sequence of events occurred. One morning, after shouting out his number the guard was called away. When the guard returned he repeated the same number, and the next man stepped forward. Blenk-Schmidt realised there were now two number 17s on the list and he would not be missed.

With good fortune on his side he managed to walk out of the camp undetected. First he survived by fishing and hunting wild fowl and later hitched rides at night on coal trains heading for Poland. Once there he was helped by friends and eventually reached Lucerne in neutral Switzerland.

At the Palace Hotel he met an American who invited him to be his guest in Santa Monica, California. This led to his dream coming true, down to the last detail, even to an American wife - the identical girl he had met in Berlin prior to the war! When he first arrived in Los Angeles he described how the chauffeur of the man he befriended drove him down Wilshire Boulevard just as he had imagined while in the Russian camp.

Dreams really can come true.

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How Egg Custard Saved His Life

This is a story from the BBC's WW2 Wartime Memories Archives and was submitted by Genevieve. It tells of how an egg custard saved a life.

Let me set the scene. It is 1941, at the start of the Blitz, the 10th of January. The place is Southsea in Portsmouth near the railway lines at Fratton. Our family consisted of my dad George, my mum Rene, my elder sister Muriel, and I am Roy who had his 5th birthday a few months earlier. Dad worked as a printer and travelled daily to Gosport, and in the evening served as a member of the ARP (Air Raid Precautions), that much maligned band of people who are so badly served by the TV image.

On this particular evening during which the air raid warning had sounded, we had finished our tea and Dad was talking about going on duty, but Mum said that Dad was to have his egg custard before he left as she had made it especially for him. At that time fresh eggs were in short supply in the City. Dad dutifully ate his pudding and, while he was eating, two loud explosions suddenly shook the house and it was remarked that 'they were close'. Having finished his pudding, off he went.

From conversations afterwards it appeared that one of the explosions was a bomb that destroyed the ARP Post that Dad would have been in. At least one Warden was killed and one buried for a long time. Dad would not talk about this incident or any other subsequent events. But thanks to the egg custard, his life had been saved.

We remained in Southsea for the duration and suffered damage to our house, but that is another story. The story of the incident of the Egg Custard remained buried as a memory only to be revived by the history projects programme.

WW2 People's War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar

An Unexpected Message WW2 Coincidence

St. Paul's from Paternoster Row, London in WW2.  Photo: © Mike Perry

A coincidence from World War II: November, 1940.

One of the war-made coincidences took place in Tuscaloosa. Mrs. Roberts of Holt, a native of England, received an unexpected message from her family in London via a motion picture newsreel.

Mrs. Roberts hadn't heard from her two sisters or any other relatives in England for many months. This caused her some concern, when seeing the news reports of the bombs being dropped on London.

One afternoon, out of the blue, Mrs. Roberts decided to go to a local theatre, something she hadn't done for a long time. She was somewhat amazed and delighted when a newsreel showed her two sisters, several of her cousins and an uncle, in a London air raid shelter. One of the sisters even sent her a message saying, "Hello. We are all well and happy here, and where Mr. Hitler can't get us."

Mrs. Roberts had not actually seen her relatives since she moved to the USA in 1920 following her marriage to a US citizen.

Story source: The Tuscaloosa News.

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World War Bombs Coincidence

I was looking through some archives and came across what was described as a Remarkable Coincidence in The Age, Dec 7, 1940:

A Remarkable Coincidence

A bomb from an early morning raider fell in the same garden at Dover as that in which the first enemy bomb ever dropped in England landed on Christmas eve 1914.

The 1914 bomb which was only a ten-pounder, was thrown over the side of the German plane and blew a gardener out of the branches of a tree which he had been pruning. He wasn't hurt.

The 1940 bomb fell, also in December, within a few feet of the same spot in the same garden, causing no casualties.

In the same archive I also read the following snippet. Nothing really to do with coincidence or synchronicity but it amused me.

Size Isn't Everything

Mr H.G Wells, who is regarded as one of the brainiest men of the present generation, has a small head.

He said recently, "My head is small - I can cheer up nearly everyone of my friends by just changing hats; the borrowed brim comes down upon my ears and spreads them wide."

The famous French author Anatole France, who died in 1923, at the age of 81, was a man of fairly robust figure, but his brain weighed considerably less than that of the average French man. When his brain was examined after death, it weighed 1017 grammes, whereas the brain of an average French man weighs 1409 grammes.

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Synchronicity In The Air In Cornwall

RAF Davidstow Moor Memorial Museum

Here's a story from 67 Not Out reader Billhook. He mentions two previous posts: The Magic Of King Arthur And Tintagel Castle Cornwall and Coincidence Of The Two Flying Fortress Airmen From Ludington - you will see how these fit into his story.

"Just read your thread on Cornwall and the bit about King Arthur's Castle. Before that I had been reading the story of the two Flying Fortress Airmen and their synchronicity.

My mother was a Wren at Treligga [in Cornwall] where she was marking targets for Typhoons as they practised rocket firing. Father was in Coastal Command at Davidstow Moor [also in Cornwall] flying Warwicks and they met in the bar at King Arthur's Castle hotel.

Mother always tells the story of how one misty day a Flying Fortress came to the airfield at Treligga with its wheels down to attempt a landing. Really the grass strip was only a 500 yard emergency landing field for the Typhoons in case anything went wrong with the rocket tests.

The leading Wren went out with a Very light to ward him off but the plane landed, quite easily I believe as it was a tail dragger. The Wrens went out to greet the plane but the American crew aimed their guns at them as they thought they had landed in France!

The next day they took every bit of excess weight off the plane, guns ammo,bombs and flew with just a pilot and navigator. There was a holding of breath when it disappeared over the cliff and a sigh of relief when it climbed into view again.

Exactly the same thing happened with another lost Fortress on the same day a year later.

Mother still has the newspaper cutting.

I went to visit some friends in Rock [Cornwall] last summer and we thought we would go and have a look at father's old base at Davidstow..to my great surprise there is a museum there and there is a hangar dedicated to the Wrens of Treligga and on the wall is a picture of my mother aged 17 loading a volunteer on a stretcher into an ambulance!

A lot of synchronicity in the air around there I think!"

My thanks to Billhook.

For more Cornwall Photos and Posts: Mike's Cornwall

Coincidence Of The Two Flying Fortress Airmen From Ludington

Boeing Y1B-17 in flight

Wars seem to bring about coincidences. Here's a true story from World War II which involves two men from Ludington, USA.

Lieut. Gordon Erickson, from Ludington, had his Flying Fortress blasted to pieces over enemy territory. He ultimately worked his way back through underground channels, first to Spain and then on to England.

Similarly Tech. Sgt. Harry Eastman had his plane, a Fortress, also blasted to pieces over enemy territory in much the same general field of action. He too succeeded ultimately in getting through enemy-occupied territory by various means.

When Sgt. Eastman walked into an Army air force headquarters in London to report his safe return, he learnt from the officer that another man, from some city in Ludington, Mich., USA, had come in just ahead of him.

It was a highly improbable coincidence - two men in London, both from the same 'unknown' community in the United States, one coming on the heels of the other, both having 'flown out and walked back,' as the airmen put it.

Source: Ludington Daily News - Dec 6, 1943

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Were The World Wars And World War III Planned By The Illuminati?

Photo Source: Flickr

I can't remember hearing about Albert Pike before but, as there is statue of him (photo above) outside Judiciary Square in Washington, USA, I guess he must have been important enough to warrant this.

He lived from 1809 to 1901 and is said, by some, to have forecast the two world wars and a possible third. Others will say though that he actually helped to set into motion the circumstances for the wars - with the aid of the Illuminati disguised within the Freemasons. Yes. a conspiracy theory.

Whether Pike was prophetic or an instigator, the story about him and three world wars is based on a supposed letter between him and Giuseppe Mazzini, dated August 15, 1871. No actual proof has been established regarding the authenticity of such a document. But, of course, there wouldn't be if there was manipulation going on behind the scenes by the likes of the Illuminati - or whoever.

Anyway, lets see what was written about these three world wars - and how they would allegedly be brought about. These are quotes from the said letter:

First Word War
"The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the "agentur" [agents] of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions."

Second World War
"The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm."

Third World War
"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the agentur [agents] of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion."

"We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time."

In the above extracts it will be noted that Nazism and Zionists are mentioned - which wouldn't have been known at the time of the letter being written. This is generally explained away by saying that the Illuminati created these organisations - and thus knew of them in advance of them being general knowledge.

Many will say that most of this is codswallop but it has been established that Pike was an important Freemason and immersed himself in re-writing the rituals of Freemasonary and he became the Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite Masons. He is also said to have been a Satanist and a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Giuseppe Mazzini

As for Giuseppe Mazzini the recipient (or sender) of the aforementioned letter he was 33rd degree Mason and was supposedly selected by the Illuminati to head their worldwide operations at that time.

I'll leave it there as I don't think blog posts should be too long, but I'm sure - if interested - you'll find lots more information on the Internet.

There is a copy online of Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry here.

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Remembering On Armistice Day

Today is Armistice Day in the UK, known as Remembrance Day in some countries and Veterans Day in the USA. The symbol for remembrance in the UK is the red poppy, thus my photo above.

The following are simply bits and pieces I found in a case, when my mother died, appertaining to the world wars.

My dad didn't pass the fitness examination to join up for World War II, so he did his bit in the Civil Defence and below is the certificate he was given when the war was over.

The following is a letter I have published before. It's informing my Aunt Ella that her fiance had been killed in action. It's not that clear but it reads:

Ella English & Leslie Moat

"Dear Miss English,

I am so grieved for you to hear the War Office report that Sapper Leslie William Moat, 2008731, The Royal Engineers (1st Parachute Squadron), is now presumed to have been killed in action.

It seems so hard that you should have this distressing news after all your anxiety, and I beg you will accept the very deep sympathy of everyone in this Department on your sorrow.

Yours sincerely.
Margaret Ampthill"

Aunt Ella never married.

The sketch below is from an Uncle's autograph book. It is dated 1932 with the caption 'Lest We Forget' and was remembering World War I.

Next is a letter to a relative saying he had deferment from Military Service, during World War 2 as he was doing important, necessary work in England.

A newspaper from 1945: VE-Day.

The photo is of VE-Day celebrations. There's a note which says: "Cheering crowds were so thick in and around Piccadilly Circus, London last night that the traffic came to a standstill."

For my mother to have retained these bits and pieces they must have been meaningful to her.

I am far removed from being a military person but I feel emotional about the things others have gone through, and for all those lives cut short.

White Feather Girl Gets A Spanking

Here's a tongue in cheek story about white feathers. As regular readers will know I've published a lot of posts on this theme.

"I am intrigued by people's accounts of finding white feathers and their belief that they came from the wings of angels. I had a similar experience more than 70 years ago. It was during World War II in 1943, when I was 16, but people said I looked older, more like in my mid 20s.

I had a pet goldfish called Jonah at the time, who was my best friend.

One day, a bomb landed nearby and Jonah's bowl shattered. I found him hours later, in the morning.

Later when I went to the front door, I found that a white feather had come through the letter box.

When the post arrived there was a letter with no message, just another white feather. And when I walked down to the cinema later in the day, a young lady walked up to me and, without speaking, handed me a white feather. She walked off before I could thank her.

Three white feathers in one day. Had Jonah found another friend, and were they watching out for me?"

~ Brian Reynolds, Kent.

As you may know, the story above refers to how white feathers were handed to those who some regarded as cowards for not signing up to fight in the two world wars. Mistakes were often made, as can be seen by the newspaper cutting on the right, where a girl got a spanking for her error of judgement.

Why Was A White Feather Given To Cowards?

Here's an answer to that question from the Ottawa Citizen of Feb 10, 1977.

"It's a stigma that comes from cock-fighting. The breeding of a gamecock showed in its plumage. Pure bred birds were strictly red and black, and only pre-bred cocks fought well. Even one white feather in the tail of a fighting cock branded it a cross-bred and, according to the wisdom of the pits, a coward.

Cowards of the human variety, especially those somehow shirking military duty were said to be 'showing the white feather' Though more often in romantic literature than in real life, they were sometimes sent in an unsigned letter containing a white feather to shame them into action - or just to shame them."

The Badge.

Going back to the case of the girl who received a spanking for giving out a white feather. This may seem a light hearted cutting but the handing out of white feathers became something of a problem. They were often handed out to men who were far from being cowards. So much so that a badge - the Silver War Badge - was created for men who were officially excused from being in one of the British armed forces. Perhaps they were unfit, had been injured in action or were doing valuable and necessary jobs within civilian life.

So, there we are white feathers with a difference from being found following a loved ones death or even simply falling out of a white bird.

P.S. In Brian Reynolds story above he mentions about white feathers coming 'from the wings of angels'. Personally I have never actually thought this to be the case.

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Captain Who Rescued Him In World War II Also Saved His Sister's Life

World War II produced many unusual stories and coincidences. Louis Goldman from Hove in England has a story to add to the collection.

The scene was set in a German prisoner of war camp in May, 1945. Mr Goldman was a prisoner in the camp, one of the walking wounded. He had been injured in the D-Day invasion, and was then captured and marched from a labour camp in Poland, through Czechoslovakia to another camp near Nuernberg. Towards the end of the war an American unit moved in and took over.

Goldman was in a weak physical condition but was excited at the thought of release. He asked one of the American soldiers if, by chance, any of them were from Toledo, USA - his sister had moved there.

He was introduced to a Captain Bernard Shuer who took his name and details. .

Mr Goldman was flown home to England for a reunion with his family and for medical treatment, so he didn't think any more about Captain Shuer.

About ten years later, however, he heard from his sister, Sylvia Ziegler, in the USA, who had been seriously ill which required surgery. She told Goldman her life was saved by a fine physician - a Dr Bernard Shuer. Yes, the very same man who helped free her brother!

Mr Goldman made a visit to the USA and met Shuer, along with his sister, and they talked together of their war experiences.

Footnote: Going back to World War II Goldman was listed as being 'killed in action' during the D-Day invasion and his family even received condolences from the British government. His name was entered on his school's honour roll for men killed in action. Strangest of all though, is that he has a grave in France marked for him, where another unidentified soldier is buried.

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The Coincidence Of The WW2 Nurse And The Truck Driver

The following is a true coincidence story taken from 'WW2 People's War' about Jerry Clements of Middlesbrough as told by Joan Bilton in 1974.

The month was November, and the year 1945. The war in Europe over, and Hiroshima still fresh in the memory. All over the world service men and women were picking up the pieces and dreaming of demob.

North Africa was teeming with prisoners of war and refugees. Algiers was busting at the seams, and among the allied forces in the town was a recently arrived contingent of WAAF’s (Womens Auxiliary Air Force). They were there to assist in the running of No 2 General Hospital, some miles from the town.

On this night a party of these girls - and I was one of them - waited by the hospital gates for transport to take them to a dance at the Sgts. Mess, RAF Blida. The transport was late, and some of them drifted back to their billets. Eventually the truck arrived and in a short time set off for Blida.

As the truck travelled along the 19 year old driver prepared to go over a level crossing. All appeared to be normal, barriers raised and green lights showed. As he drove onto the crossing he was horrified to see an engine speeding down the line and almost on top of them.

In desperation, he wrenched the wheel over to the right and hit the gate post.

The young driver, unhurt but badly shaken, went to get help. He was later to get an official commendation for his skill and prompt action in a serious emergency. Regaining consciousness days later I found I had been the most seriously injured WAAF, having a fractured skull.

Years passed, and I have lived in many parts of the country. My husband got a job with British Steel Corporation and we moved to Middlesbrough. On recommendation of colleagues at work, he decides to take his car to a motor engineer in the town centre.

As it was a Saturday, I went along with him to leave the car and do some shopping. As the repair proved to be easily remedied, we waited for the engineer to complete the job.

As the three of us chatted, a chance remark channelled the conversation into reminiscences of the war.

The engineer, Jerry Clements, had been in the RAF and served in Algiers. A look of amazement spread over his face as I described the ill-fated trip to that dance 29 years before. When the story was told, he spoke quietly.

"I was the driver of that lorry"!

WW2 People's War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC.

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The Curse Of Tutankhamen's Trumpets: Did They Start World War II?

While trawling through the archives of old newspapers, for another purpose, I came across a story about a largely unknown curse from Tutankhamen's tomb.

Back in 2011 I wrote a post, The Curse Of The Pharaohs, about how many of those associated with the opening of the tomb appeared to be cursed. The following story, however, tells of the curse of the Pharaoh's war trumpet.

It all started, it seems, with a producer working on the staff of Radio Cairo in 1939. He had the bright idea to celebrate the Mohammedan New Year: a blast from one of the silver trumpets found in Tutankhamen's tomb - the trumpeter to stand on top of the Pyramid of Tutankhamen!

Permission was given, and the two huge trumpets, each four or five feet long, were brought from the Cairo Museum.

From the first, it appeared that the proposed broadcast was under an evil star. No musician could get a note out of either trumpet. At last one man was discovered who claimed he could make the trumpets play.

He did. Watched by a group of fascinated Radio Cairo executives, he blew into one of the trumpets and produced a piercing, ghostly wail, which no human ear had heard for over 3000 years. He also cracked the priceless instrument.

All the same, he was permitted to try the other trumpet. It responded. Again came that high, unearthly wail. The producer was satisfied. His broadcast would be a sensation. However ...

The musician fell on the steps of the museum and sprainded an ankle. The programme had to be postponed. When, some time later, the musician was well enough, he was helped to the top of the pyramid. Microphones were rigged. All was ready. But interference hadn't ceased. Twice the crew failed to reach the pyramid - automobile accidents. Then came a breakdown at Radio Cairo. Atmospheric conditions grew steadily worse. But at last, it happened. The New Year had gone by, but all radio sets were tuned for the eagerly awaited event.

The trumpet sounded. It curdled the blood of frightened listeners - an eerie, sinister, fiercely menacing howl, a note not of this world.

And next day came the letters - thousands of them - for all Egypt had trembled. The ancient silver instrument was Pharaoh's war trumpet.

Six months after that eerie blast, World War II broke out!

Coincidence? Curse of the Pharaohs? Wisest are they who grant that they do not know.

Source: The Milwaukee Sentinel - Aug 29, 1954

Below is video of a 1939 BBC recording of the trumpets.


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