A selection of photographs of the war memorial in the French town of Bailleul, near the Belgian border.
The memorial commemorates the fallen from the town of World War One and World War Two.
It is in a backstreet near the town hall.
It appears to be the remains of a ruined church.
These photographs were taken in early April 2014.
Picked up this photo recently. It was probably taken in the Rhyl area of north Wales during WW1.
There were training facilities at Llandudno and Kinmel Park which were used not only by Welsh troops but also units such as the Accrington Pals.
Anyone have any idea to what unit they might belong?
This amazing photo from the 1941 blitz on Cardiff shows a man taking liquid refreshment in the bombed-out shell of his home.
It looks like he’s got a flask full of tea. But I suppose it could be something stronger.
And who would blame him!
In February 1941, Swansea became the first place outside London to suffer three consecutive nights of bombing.
During the dark nights of February 19, 20 and 21 the bombers came back almost constantly, killing 230 people and injuring more than 400 more.
Ports like Swansea had become priority targets for the Luftwaffe.
On duty in the city that February 1941 was Elaine Kidwell, a 17-year-old who had lied about her age to become one of the youngest air raid wardens in Britain.
During one of the raids she almost lost her life when a parachute mine exploded.
“Everybody was blown, and I was blown right across the road, crashed into a wall, and I didn’t have any breath in me,” she told me a few years ago. “Anyway I was coming around and I went into my pocket, and I wish I hadn’t it, because I’ve had my leg pulled about it ever since, I took my lipstick out and I put it on.
“I got my breath back, and he said to me – one of the wardens did – ‘That’s your armour, isn’t it?’. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘As long as I’ve got my lipstick on I can face anything!’
Lovely new five star review for ‘Farewell Leicester Square’ on Amazon:
“Good Story, Well Written, Recommend, Well Edited…
“This book starts with an intrigue and in the present time but quickly moves back to WWII and a different perspective, that of the Channel Islands, the only part of the UK to be occupied by the Nazis during WWII.
“It quickly pulled me in and was full of pathos, well told and a story that flowed well with some twists and turns that took me off track but I pulled myself back quickly.
“It was a story I didn’t want to end and I enjoyed the book and would like a sequel!”
Currently reading Sarah Helm’s book ‘A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE’.
It’s a fascinating portrait of the SOE officer who looked after agents heading into the field.
The remarkable Noor Inayat Khan features prominently.
Noor (she later used the name Nora) was born in 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother. The family moved to Paris, where she was educated. She later worked writing childrens’ stories.
Noor escaped to England after the fall of France and in November 1940 she joined the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force). In late 1942, she was recruited to join SOE as a radio operator.
In June 1943 she was flown to France to become the radio operator for the ‘Prosper’ resistance network in Paris, with the codename ‘Madeleine’. Many members of the network were arrested shortly afterwards but she chose to remain in France and spent the summer moving from place to place, trying to send messages back to London while avoiding capture.
In October, Noor was betrayed by a Frenchwoman and arrested by the Gestapo.
In November 1943, she was sent to Pforzheim prison in Germany where she was kept in chains and in solitary confinement. Despite repeated torture, she refused to reveal any information. In September 1944, Noor and three other female SOE agents were transferred to Dachau concentration camp where on 13 September they were shot. Noor was 30.
For her courage, Noor Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949.
Remarkable footage of the moment SS war criminal Erich Priebke was confronted by a television journalist in 1994.
Priebke died at the age of 100 earlier this month. He was under house arrest in Rome.
He had found himself back in Italy after this confrontation in which Sam Donaldson of ABC doorsteps him in Argentina.
As a result of the interview Priebke was extradited to Italy and sentenced to prison for his part in the 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre in Rome.
Hi all
This photo is in my family’s collection but we don’t know anything about it, other than the fact that it was taken in ‘Londonderry, Northern Ireland’ at around the time of the First World War.
Can anyone identify any information in it? Something about the uniform, the buttons?
Any help gratefully received!
Jon.
2005. Terrorists target London in an attack which makes headlines around the world.
Elsewhere, a fishing boat makes a remarkable find: a World War II bomber, hundreds of miles from where records show it disappeared.
The two events combine when journalist Jon Kilkade takes a blood-curdling phone-call.
It describes a suicide mission to destroy London. Not in 2005, but during the chaotic final months of the Nazi Third Reich.
The action in this fast-paced novel switches from occupied Jersey to the lives of SOE and Resistance fighters in Belgium.
At its heart is a deadly circle of Nazi fanatics intent on creating a final blitz which would see the people of London wiped from the face of the earth.
A riveting thriller in the tradition of Jack Higgins and Alistair MacLean.
jon kilkade 