The ceremonial unveiling of the Guards Memorial on the St James' Park side (west side of Horse Guards Parade) central London. The text on the IWM site associated with this picture runs entirely contrary to that of other records of the event, so here is what appears to have happened. Before we do that, it is only fair to say that this IWM page shows the Memorial in a much better light and should be visited to achieve a fair balance IWM MemorialThe event took place on Saturday the 16th October 1926, unveiled by HRH Prince Arthur the 3rd son of Queen Victoria and brother of Edward VII, who was a Field Marshall in the British Army during WW1: Princess Elizabeth was just a few months old being born in April 1926. This is a quote from Wikipedia's site on the subject matter. The Prince "accompanied by the 100-year-old veteran of the Crimean War General Sir George Higginson, with a dedication by Rev. H. J. Fleming, who became senior chaplain of the Guards Division when it was formed in 1915, and a benediction by the Chaplain-General to the Forces, Rev. Alfred Jarvis, and a march-past by 15,000 serving and former guardsmen. The memorial suffered bomb damage in the Second World War, and some was left unrepaired as "honourable scars."As one can see from the picture on the right, Beefeaters also attended the ceremony as did many members of the Royal Family including the Prince of Wales. At the unveiling the two union flags, one covering the front and one the back of the Memorial collapsed to reveal the beautiful shrine.Most of us will know about the Victoria Cross and that it was made from the bronze in melted down Chinese guns at least from 1914, and not, as originally thought, from Russia guns engaged in the Crimean War in the mid-19th century. Here is another case of melted down enemy guns to salvage the bronze element, for the bronze name plates on the Guards Memorial come from German captured guns in WW1.This very small page also should be read, especially the note on an old post card at the bottom Guards Memorial Horse Guards Parade | The ceremonial unveiling of the Guards Memorial |
Lonely Malta | 1942. Lonely Malta the most bombed heavily populated small island in the world, then and since. |
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Laurence Field | Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Laurence Field, GCB, KCMG born to English parents serving with the army in Ireland.Served from 1884 until 1933, qualifying as a torpedo specialist. He was involved in the Boxer Uprisings in China in 1900 and in WW1 he was the CO of the battleship HMS King George V engaged at Jutland as the flagship of Admiral Martyn Jerram who Beatty publicly criticised for not supporting him as darkness fell - Admiral Jerram retired in 1917. Admiral Field was applauded for the great skill shown when handling the KG V under great difficulties. He went to be the C-in-C Mediterranean and then the First Sea Lord. He had a very active career with much time spend at sea in capital ships (battlecruisers and battleships). For his services he was awarded many foreign high honours. Promoted to rear Admiral almost immediately after the end of WW1. He is famously known for his command of the Empire Cruise flying his flag in the Hood, which lasted for 308 days. I show pictures of that cruise on my web page HMS Hood World Cruise. He more than ably handled the Invergordon mutiny of September 1931, forcing the Admiralty Board to a rethink on the severity of the proposed cuts in pay. He encouraged the banning of the 10 year rule in which planning and defence spending were geared to what a committee thought would happen in the next ten years before increasing navy estimated. Quite often they decided peace would prevail, often getting it badly wrong. He died of cancer at the end of WW2 at his home in North Yorkshire. He was 74. |
Milton Thomas, Able Seaman, kia in WW1 26 Oct 1917 RNVR RND Howe Battalion | Lieutenant (E) A E Cortlett RN with wife and baby |
Captain MacLachlan | Captain MacLachlan inspecting divisions of the quarter deck of the battleship HMS Royal Oak. Note her secondary weapons (5"?) top right trained on the beam. |
Engineer Commander S A MacGregor OBE R.N. Flotilla Engineering Officer Malta. | Engineer Commander S A MacGregor |
Lieutenant A J W Pitt | Lieutenant A J W Pitt, RN, Commander of HM Submarine TAKU, from 10th October '42 to 7th May 1944 |
German naval machine guns | German naval machine guns unit parading for the Kaisers visit in 1904. |
H.M. King George V | WW1. H.M. King George V in France at Cassel, a town in northern France overlooking Flanders France, looking over to a crashed aircraft with a very bent and broken propeller. |
Lieutenant Commander Malcolm David Wanklyn
| The iconic Lieutenant Commander Malcolm David WANKLYN VC, DSO and Two Bars centre, a very famous WW2 submarine ace, hero with his crew of HM Submarine UPHOLDER at their Mediterranean base LAZARRETO, Manoel Island, Marsamxett Harbour, Malta.British U-Class and S-Class were tiny cramped submarines, and I remember as a naval boy on my first ship HMS Tintagel Castle at Portland, going onto the resident submarine depot ship at Portland, HMS Maidstone in 1955, mother-ship to the Second submarine flotilla (U and S class boats), and having an acquaint in HM submarine Upstart. Within a couple of months of having that experience, HM submarine Sidon blew up alongside the Maidstone leading to the deaths of thirteen men.The accolade of being possibly the most successful submarine captains of the allies resonated throughout all allied navies, and although grudgingly was acknowledged by the enemy submarine navies as being the master of the kill. He sank 16 enemy ships. He served his country from 1925 until 1942, and in that year he and his famous submarine was reported as missing, soon to be known as lost (14th April), which he had joined on the 8th August 1940 after two extremely brief periods in submarines Otway and H32. This incomparable submarine captain was just 30 years of age.The ace submariner won his Victoria Cross for the sinking of the Italian Liner 'Conte Rosso' in 1941. She was indeed a civilian liner but on this occasion she was packed to the gunnels with Italian troops and their equipment heading south to North Africa to join up with German forces fighting our Desert Rats, and she was escorted by many destroyers to make sure she made a safe and satisfactory land fall. The troopship sank and Upholder then endured a strong counter-attack in which 37 depth charges were dropped in 20 minutes, before she got clear. By the end of 1941 Lieutenant-Commander Wanklyn had sunk nearly 140,000 tons of enemy shipping. It is estimated that 1300 people perished but the Italian story was cloaked in mystery albeit they admitted that the civilian liner was a troop ship and therefore an enemy combatant eligible and likely to be attacked and sunk. Seemingly some researchers in Axis shipping data claim (on line) that the troopship had a crew of 280 and with 2449 troops some of whom may have been Germans. Italian pre war printed data shows the Conte Rosso as having 208 first class berths, 268 second class and 1890 third class berths. We know that the troopship, a relatively small vessel when compared with ocean going world luxury liners, was off Sicily and the wreck site is well documented.
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Mass burial at a cemetery in the tropics. | Mass burial at a cemetery in the tropics. |
Chief Wren Telegraphist WRNS. WW2 in Ceylon. | CWRN Telegraphist |
Lady Shirley alongside jettyLady Philomena a Hull Lady Class fishing trawler |
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