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.
German booby traps may have taken the lives of eight servicemen at a railway siding in Wiltshire on Wednesday, reports the Times. At the inquest at Postern Army Camp the commandant of the Central Ammunition Depot in Corsham reported that the explosion took place as American and German ammunition was being unloaded from one train while British ammunition was being unloaded from another parked alongside. "It is almost impossible to state the interior condition of the German stores," noted the commandant: "we have all heard of booby traps, and that is what we are assuming at the moment."
"A Soldier Finds Disillusion," reads the Daily Mail's feature article today on the experience of ex-servicemen dissatisfied with life in post-war Britain. "Seldom has so little been done by so many who are capable of doing so much," complains a recently returned soldier from Italy who has tried without success to find a job. A housewife from Walton-on-Thames adds: "I overheard a conversation between two women in a queue about their sons. These boys had told their parents while home on leave that when it was time to be demobilised they were going to stay in the Services because that way they would get a chance to get out of England: there was nothing worth staying for."
Why were they taking German ammunition to Britain in the first place? For testing, perhaps?
Posted by: Brett | Thursday, 07 January 2010 at 07:51 AM
Dunno ... if they were disposing of it, one wonders why they didn't just do it on the continent where it was (presumably) captured. Unless it was unloaded from a ship? Unfortunately, the Times sheds no light on this.
Posted by: Alan Allport | Thursday, 07 January 2010 at 09:46 AM