Air Raid Precautions for Animals - Home Office pamphlet 1939

Prior to the start of the Second World War, the Home Office in the UK issued a range of pamphlets to held prepare the populace for the outbreak of war. These ranged from how to put up an air raid shelter in your garden, to first aid, to somewhat more unusual topics.

The leaflet below is entitled 'Air Raid Precautions for Animals'. As many businesses still relied on horses to move materials, rather than lorries, such a leaflet was actually required. It also includes information on protecting cattle and pets. And, rather inevitably, the final chapter does give advice on how to put a wounded animal out of its misery...

This copy came from a shop in Hastings. I haven't seen this one before, but I assume they were fairly well distributed. I will try and post some additional pages soon.

German POWs in England June 1944 - but where?

This photo was one of a batch of press photos I purchased from an auction from a seller in the US.

Dated 11th June (1944) it shows columns of German POWs in a barbed wire compound

The photo was taken by 'Shivers' of the US Signal Corps. The caption, stamped on the rear of the photo, says:

Here's one Hitler promise which came true - in part. These Germans set foot on English soil, but not quite according to the Fuehrer's plan. Instead of coming as conquerors, they reach England as prisoners of war and arrive in ever-increasing numbers as the Allied Forces move onto the Continent. 

There is a SHAEF Field Press Censor stamp, a 'Confidential' stamp, and a handwritten note 'Cut on fold'.

But where was the photo taken? 

The first clue was the fact the photo was taken by the US Signal Corps, and the two men in the centre of the photo, marching down the column, are in US Army uniforms.
 
The US Army used a number of ports in England to supply their troops during the campaign in North West Europe. And while these ports were used to despatch materials to the Continent, they were also used to receive wounded and POWs.


One of the largest and busiest ports used by the US Army for supplies was Portland, in Dorset. Other ports were further away from Normandy, or where being used by the British Army. So I thought this may be the place. I was also aware that there were US Army hospitals in the Weymouth area where POWs were also treated and these POWs were obviously captured in Normandy due to the date.
 
The big clue is of course the houses in the background. These have been edited by the censor, and any published version of the photo would not include these, to ensure the location was difficult to identify. They back onto a large cliff or hill, and in front there is a graveyard or cemetery.

So, with these ideas I turned to Google Maps. Portland is correctly called the Isle of Portland - it is not an island separated from the mainland, but it is a large limestone 'isle' joined by a thin strip of land. It has one of the largest man-made harbours in the world, and is a Royal Naval base.

A quick check of cemeteries on the island identified the location of the photo. It was taken on ground in front of the Strangers Cemetery at the northern tip of the isle.

The large houses are still there - as can be seen in the image above, but the POW compound has been wiped away, with an estate of houses and new roads in its place. The compound would have been immediately behind the wall on the left of the image. Unfortunately the new houses make any attempt at a comparison photo impossible.

The new roads have however kept some reflection of history in their names - Officers Field and Victory Road.

Dunkirk #3 - last unseen photos from my collection

Since the last post I put up, there has been a bit of interest in my Dunkirk photos (to say the least), and they've been featured on the websites of the Daily Mail, the Express, the Sun, the Mirror and Bild, plus an article in the printed version of the Times.

I am of course pleased, and amazed, by the level of interest in them, but the articles don't link back to the blog unfortunately, so whether people will see the new photos below - I don't know!

Anyway, here are three final photos. Two are taken from a ship, looking towards Dunkirk and De Panne. The last one is another of captured troops - in this instance men from a Scottish Regiment - and I am sure someone will inform me which one. This is one of my favourite photos, purely for the expressions on the POWs faces - of defiance.

I hope you've found these interesting - I'll be posting items regularly from now on - when I get a chance!

Oil tanks on fire in Dunkirk, with clouds of billowing smoke visible for many miles.

Albert Henry Powell was a lorry driver in the Royal Signals and had been in France since January 1940. His unit was attached to the 3rd Corps, Medium Artillery HQ. He was on the beach, and describes his experiences in an account on the BBC People's War site:

"On the beaches we huddled together in the sand dunes for protection from the constant bombing and machine gunning from the air. The bombing was ineffectual, just blowing up loads of sand, but the machine gunning was another matter. 

Lying across the scene was a huge cloud of smoke coming from the oil tanks on fire in Dunkirk."

This photo is captioned 'La Panne' however it seems that it is most likely to be the oil refinery to the west of Dunkirk (thanks @dunkirk1940).

The expressions of these POWs show a mixture of fatigue and defiance. I believe these men are from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders,therefore this photograph may have been taken after the fall of St Valery en Caux, but this is an educated guess so feel free to correct me.