This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
Voting takes place in Great Britain today in the first general election for ten years. The result will not however be known for three weeks; once the polls close tonight all ballot boxes will be sealed until the postal votes of servicemen and -women overseas have been received. During this "curious interregnum," as the Times calls it, the Conservative caretaker administration will continue to govern.
Yesterday, reports the Times, the advance units of the 7th Armoured Division arrived in Berlin to take their place as one of the four Allied occupation forces stationed in the German capital. For the Desert Rats, "it must have seemed a far cry from Tripoli and Tunis as they came to their journey's end, the first British troops in history to enter Berlin as conquerors." They arrived "under the stony but none the less interested gaze of a fairly large crowd of Berliners who lined the route into the city from the west of Spandau."
Other news from Germany: in Minden, a 37-year-old RAOC officer pleaded guilty at a field general court martial on a charge of fraternizing with a German civilian (c/o the Times). According to the charge, the officer 'went for a walk in the woods' with a 23-or-24-year-old German woman, a soujourn that ended in sexual intercourse and (ultimately) arrest. His defence counsel noted that his client had been in Germany for some time and that "he did what many people might do if their strength of character was not sufficient to resist this temptation."
Churchill's a shoe-in!
Posted by: Brett | Sunday, 05 July 2009 at 02:06 PM
we have three weeks to wait - no spoilers please!
Posted by: Alan Allport | Sunday, 05 July 2009 at 02:20 PM