Classic Battlefield Tours

A knighthood for Flt/Lt (Ret'd) Colin S Bell DFC AE FRICS? In the New Year honours, Colin received the British Empire Medal, we believe he should have a higher award due to his wartime contribution and his charitable fundraising activities including setting a Guinness World record as the ‘oldest-ever participant in an abseil’ when he descended 280ft down the side of The Royal London Hospital for the Air Ambulance charity. We believe you should have received a knighthood and if you agree, please like this post.   Colin served in WW2 on operations as a Mosquito Bomber Pilot, where he carried out 50 bombing raids - all over Germany- 13 of them over Berlin as part of 608 Squadron (Pathfinder Group) based at Downham Market in Norfolk. 

The origins of the rank: Colonel By the end of the late medieval period, a group of "companies" was referred to as a "column" of an army. According to Raymond Oliver, c. 1500, the Spanish began explicitly reorganizing part of their army into 20 colunelas or columns of approximately 1,000–1,250 soldiers. Each colunela was commanded by a cabo de colunela or column head. Because they were crown units who are directly under the control of the monarch or sovereign of a country,[further explanation needed] the units were also confusingly called coronelas, and their commanders coronels. Evidence of this can be seen when Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, nicknamed "the Great Captain", divided his armies in coronelías, each led by a coronel, in 1508. Later, in the 16th century, the French army adopted this organizational structure, renaming colunelas regiments. Even so, they simply Gallicized colunela to the French colonel and pronounced it as written. The English then copied the unit and rank from the French. However, for reasons unknown, the English adopted the Spanish pronunciation of coronel, and after several decades of use shortened it to its current two-syllable pronunciation "kernel". Colonel is linked to the word column (from Latin: columna; Italian: colonna; French: colonne) in a similar way that brigadier is linked to brigade, although in English this relationship is not immediately obvious. With the shift from primarily mercenary to primarily national armies in the 17th century, a colonel (normally a member of the aristocracy) became a holder (German Inhaber) or proprietor of a military contract with a sovereign. The colonel purchased the regimental contract—the right to hold the regiment—from the previous holder of that right or directly from the sovereign when a new regiment was formed or an incumbent was killed. As the office of colonel became an established practice, the colonel became the senior captain in a group of companies that were all sworn to observe his personal authority—to be ruled or regimented by him. This regiment, or governance, was to some extent embodied in a contract and set of written rules, also referred to as the colonel's regiment or standing regulation(s). By extension, the group of companies subject to a colonel's regiment (in the foregoing sense) came to be referred to as his regiment (in the modern sense) as well. By the late 19th century, colonel had evolved to a professional military rank that was still held typically by an officer in command of a regiment or equivalent unit. Along with other ranks, it has become progressively more a matter of ranked duties, qualifications, and experience, as well as of corresponding titles and pay scale, than of functional office in a particular organization. As European military influence expanded throughout the world, the rank of colonel became adopted by nearly every nation (albeit under a variety of names).

Wishing you and your family a Happy and Peaceful New Year for 2025 From all at Classic Battlefield Tours James, Tim, Louise, and Kate

Sinking of HMAS Sydney On 19 November 1941, the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran engaged each other in a battle off the coast of Western Australia. Sydney, with Captain Joseph Burnett commanding, and Kormoran, under Fregattenkapitän ('Frigate captain') Theodor Detmers, encountered each other approximately 106 nautical miles off Dirk Hartog Island. The single-ship action lasted half an hour, and both ships were destroyed. From 24 November, after Sydney failed to return to port, air and sea searches were conducted. Boats and rafts carrying survivors from Kormoran were recovered at sea, while others made landfall at Quobba Station, 60 kilometres north of Carnarvon; 318 of the 399 personnel on Kormoran survived. While debris from Sydney was found, there were no survivors from the 645-strong complement. It was the largest loss of life in the history of the Royal Australian Navy, the largest Allied warship lost with all hands during World War II, and a major blow to Australian wartime morale. Australian authorities learned of Sydney's fate from the surviving Kormoran personnel, who were held in prisoner-of-war camps until almost two years after the war with Germany had ended. Controversy has often surrounded the battle, especially in the years before the two wrecks were located in 2008. How and why a purpose-built warship such as Sydney was defeated by a modified merchant vessel such as Kormoran was the subject of speculation, with numerous books on the subject, as well as two official reports by government inquiries, published in 1999 and 2009. According to German accounts—which were assessed as truthful and generally accurate by Australian interrogators during the war, as well as most subsequent analyses—Sydney approached so close to Kormoran that the Australian cruiser lost the advantages of heavier armour and superior gun range. Nevertheless, several post-war publications have alleged that Sydney's loss had been the subject of an extensive cover-up, that the Germans had not followed the laws of war, that Australian survivors were massacred following the battle, or that the Empire of Japan had been secretly involved in the action (before officially declaring war in December). Currently, no evidence supports any of these theories.

Hugo Junkers - aircraft designer who refused to work with the Nazis Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works), was one of the mainstays of the German aircraft industry in the years between World War I and World War II. His multi-engined, all-metal passenger- and freight planes helped establish airlines in Germany and worldwide . In addition to aircraft, Junkers also built both diesel and petrol engines and held various thermodynamic and metallurgical patents. He was also one of the main sponsors of the Bauhaus movement and facilitated the move of the Bauhaus from Weimar to Dessau (where his factory was situated) in 1925. Amongst the highlights of his career was the Junkers J 1 of 1915, the world's first practical all-metal aircraft, incorporating a cantilever wing design with virtually no external bracing, the Junkers F 13 of 1919 (the world's first all-metal passenger aircraft), the Junkers W 33 (which made the first successful heavier-than-air east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic Ocean), the Junkers G.38 "flying wing", and the Junkers Ju 52, affectionately nicknamed "Tante Ju", one of the most famous airliners of the 1930s. When the Nazis came into power in 1933, they requested Junkers and his businesses aid in the German re-armament. When Junkers declined, the Nazis placed him under house arrest in 1934 and eventually seized control of his patents and company. He died the following year. Under Nazi control, his company produced some of the most successful German warplanes of the Second World War.

The Construction of HMS Victory In December 1758, the British Prime Minister, William Pitt the Elder, requested the building of 12 ships, including a first-rate ship that would become Victory. In 1759, the Seven Years' War was going well for Britain; victories had been won on land at Quebec and Minden and at sea at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. It was the Annus Mirabilis or Wonderful Year, and the ship's name may have been chosen to commemorate the victories or it may have been chosen simply because out of the seven names shortlisted, Victory was the only one not in use. There were reservations as to whether the choice was appropriate as the previous ship of that name had been lost with all hands in 1744. Around 6,000 trees provided the timber for the ship and 150 men were required to assemble her. Of the wood used in her construction, 90% was oak and the remainder was elm, pine , and fir, together with a small quantity of lignum vitae. The frame was held together with six-foot copper bolts, supported by treenails for the smaller fittings. Once built, it was normal to cover the frame and leave it for several months to allow the wood to dry out or "season". French naval power had been severely weakened by the events in Quiberon Bay however and there was no immediate need for Victory which was left for nearly three years. This additional seasoning had a beneficial effect on her subsequent longevity. Work restarted in autumn 1763 and she was floated on 7 May 1765, having cost £63,176 and 3 shillings, the equivalent of £10.9 million today. During the 18th century, Victory was one of ten first-rate ships to be constructed.

Ship money Ship money was a tax of medieval origin levied intermittently in the Kingdom of England until the middle of the 17th century. Assessed typically on the inhabitants of coastal areas of England, it was one of several taxes that English monarchs could levy by prerogative without the approval of Parliament. The attempt of King Charles I from 1634 onwards to levy 'ship money' during peacetime and extend it to the inland counties of England without parliamentary approval provoked fierce resistance. It was one of the grievances of the English propertied class in the lead-up to the English Civil War. The Plantagenet kings of England had exercised the right to require the maritime towns and counties to furnish ships in time of war, and this duty was sometimes commuted for a money payment. Although several statutes of Edward I and Edward III, notably their confirmations of Magna Carta, had made it illegal for the Crown to exact any taxes without the consent of Parliament, the prerogative of levying ship money in time of war had never fallen wholly into abeyance. In 1619, James I aroused no popular opposition by levying £40,000 (equivalent to £7,500,000 in 2023) of ship money on London and £8,550 on other seaport towns. In 1628, Charles I, having prorogued Parliament in early summer and after he assented to the Petition of Right, proceeded to levy ship money on every county in England without Parliament, issuing writs requiring £173,000 to be returned to the exchequer. This was the first occasion when the demand for 'ship money' aroused serious opposition. As matters deteriorated in England and Scotland starting with the Bishops' War, ship money proved to be insufficient to finance the king's military needs. It was later stopped by the Long Parliament when they voted the Ship Money Act 1640. Finally, half a century later, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, the Bill of Rights of 1689 prohibited all forms of extra-parliamentary taxation.

Grand Battery Grand Battery (Grande Battery, meaning big or great battery) was a French artillery tactic used during the Napoleonic Wars. It involved massing all available batteries into a single large, temporary one, and concentrating the firepower of their guns at a single point in the enemy's lines. Substituting the volume of fire for accuracy, rate of fire, and rapid movement, it was rarely used in the wars' early years. As the quality of artillery crews and their horses declined, it was employed more frequently during later (post-1808) campaigns. The Grand Battery was often concentrated against the enemy's center. An early example is at Austerlitz in 1805, when Napoleon ordered a "roar of thunder" before the main assault upon the Pratzen Heights, which split the coalition's lines in half. Another example of the tactic in use was Alexandre-Antoine Hureau de Sénarmont's aggressive use of his guns at the Battle of Friedland (1807), which was a major factor that won the battle. The same tactic was used during the Battle of Wagram in 1809, where a grand battery of 112 guns successfully halted an Austrian counterattack. At Borodino in 1812, it was again used to break a counterattack. It failed to break the strong Russian positions and earthworks in the center along the Rayevski Redoubt. At the Battle of Lützen (1813), it succeeded in breaking the Russo-Prussian center, ahead of the main assault by the Imperial guard. In 1815 at Waterloo, the famous opening barrage of the Grande Batterie failed to break the center of Wellington's Anglo-allied army due to his deployment of most of his forces behind the reverse slopes of the rolling hillside and the fact that the ground was still wet and muddy, preventing the usual effects of the bouncing cannonballs.

Nuts In December 1944, the German army launched the surprise attack that became the Battle of the Bulge. Brigadier Genera McAuliffe commanded the 101st and its attached troops. At Bastogne, the 101st was besieged by a far larger force of Germans under the command of General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz. On 22 December 1944, von Lüttwitz dispatched a party, consisting of a major, a lieutenant, and two enlisted men under a flag of truce to deliver an ultimatum. Entering the American lines southeast of Bastogne (occupied by Company F, 2nd Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry), the German party delivered the following to Gen. McAuliffe: To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne. The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Ourthe near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands. There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note. If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term. All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity. The German Commander. According to those present when McAuliffe received the German message, he read it, crumpled it into a ball, threw it in a wastepaper basket, and muttered, "Aw, nuts". The officers in McAuliffe's command post were trying to find suitable language for an official reply when Lieutenant Colonel Harry Kinnard suggested that McAuliffe's first response summed up the situation well, and the others agreed. The official reply was typed and delivered by Colonel Joseph Harper, commanding the 327th Glider Infantry, to the German delegation. It was as follows: To the German Commander. NUTS! The American Commander. The German major appeared confused and asked Harper what the message meant. Harper said, "In plain English? Go to hell." The choice of "Nuts!" rather than something earthier was typical for McAuliffe. Captain Vincent Vicari, his personal aide at the time, recalled that "General Mac was the only general I ever knew who did not use profane language. 'Nuts' was part of his normal vocabulary." The artillery fire did not materialize, although several infantry and tank assaults were directed at the positions of the 327th Glider Infantry. In addition, the German Luftwaffe attacked the town, bombing it nightly. The 101st held off the Germans until the 4th Armored Division arrived on 26 December to provide reinforcement.

Wishing you and your family a very Happy Christmas and peaceful New Year From all at Classic Battlefield Tours James, Tim, Louise, and Kate