Alan Allport's website

Friday, 8th March, 1946

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.

The Times comments on the first peacetime parliamentary discussion of the Navy estimates yesterday in Parliament, led by the First Lord of the Admiralty A.V. Alexander:

Mr. Alexander revealed that the construction of four of the battleships which were in hand in 1939, though little progress had been made with them, had been abandoned early in the war and would not be resumed: in all some £190 million had been saved since V-E Day by cancellation of warship building. One battleship only, HMS Vanguard, the design of which embodies many lessons drawn from recent experience, is to be completed ... the world is probably on the eve of great changes in the design of warships and, pending the trials with atomic bombs to be undertaken by the United States Navy this year, none can say today exactly what those changes will prove to be ... Mr. Alexander scouted the assertion that the appearance of the atomic bomb had destroyed the need for navies in the years ahead, and he wisely reminded the House that the standard of life in these islands depends today more than ever on the maintenance of free communication by seapower operating above, on, and beneath the water ...

 

Thursday, 7th March, 1946

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.

Protests in Sydney accompanied the departure yesterday of the former Japanese destroyer Yuizuki after it was revealed that she was carrying over 1,200 persons in far from adequate living conditions, reports the Times. The Yuizuki's mission is to repatriate a large number of Japanese prisoners of war and Formosan and Filipino civilian internees. Her departure from Sydney was delayed for five hours while Australian Army officers protested about the conditions on board the packed vessel. The ship's complement includes over one hundred children and fifteen stretcher cases, including two pregnant women. Yuizuki, which is 440 feet long, would normally carry a crew of 263. Her first port of call will be Finschafen, New Guinea, where she will stop for water.

The Times also reflects on a new White Paper outlining revised pay rates for officers in the fighting services, which is meant to simplify and streamline compensation and provide more attractive opportunities for regular service. The paper's concern is less with the details of pay than with continuing discrepancies in the recruitment styles of the different services:

The Navy, while granting a proportion of commissions to men of the lower deck, is to rely for its future officers chiefly on naval cadets entered through the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth between the ages of thirteen and fourteen ... the Army is to take its officers almost exclusively from the ranks, while the Royal Air Force system is to be something between the two with a leaning towards that of the Army. The anomily that a principle considered of sufficient value to be applied universally in the Army finds no place in the organization adopted by the Navy certainly seems to call for further elucidation.

 

Wednesday, 6th March, 1946

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.

The Queen has been demobbed, applauds the Times. RMS Queen Elizabeth, which was requisitioned into troopship service in November 1940, just eight months after her maiden voyage to New York, will arrive in Southhampton today and be promptly withdrawn from service until September to reaccouter her for a return to the transatlantic passenger trade. The Minister of War Transport announced that with the relaxation of demand for troop transport to and from the United States and Canada the famous Cunard liner is now surplus to requirements. He added (anticipating complaints from British servicemen still awaiting repatriation from the Far East) that given the Queen Elizabeth's unusual size and her inability to negotiate the Suez Canal she is not suitable for any other efficient troop transport role and her demobilisation will not affect the overall rate of release for overseas forces. During her military career the ship sailed over half a million miles, carrying at least 750,000 personnel. Her high cruising speed of 26 knots allowed her to outrun most U-Boat hazards and so travel alone without convoy escort.

Tuesday, 5th March, 1946

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.

Two British soldiers and six Egyptians were killed and another 213 persons injured in riots that broke out across Alexandria yesterday, reports the Times. The violence broke out an hour before noon when a crowd protesting against the British presence in the city assembled near the Atlantic hotel, which is used as a services hostel, and tried to tear down a flag. British authorities claim that some of the protestors then attempted to set fire to the building and policemen armed with buckshot were ordered to disperse the crowd. Later that day the crowd overran a British military police station nearby the hotel. Five men were on duty in the outpost and they opened fire; two were subsequently stoned to death, and one seriously injured. On Monday evening Cairo, the Times reporter notes, "presented the appearance of a dead city ...

The streets were deserted and dimly lit, the shopkeepers having covered their neon signs to prevent them from being smashed in case of violence ... shipping has been at a standstill [in the Canal Zone].

Monday, 4th March, 1946

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.

A writer from the lower deck to the Manchester Guardian comments on the "fantastic nonsense" that has been suggested about the recent incident when a group of naval ratings in New York refused to sail on RMS Queen Mary until decent accommodation and adequate toilet facilities were provided. "There was no violence nor threat of violence" during the demonstration, he insists: "no man left the pier, and there was no necessity to send out patrols to round up stragglers on Broadway or anywhere else. The men did not engage in undignified boasting. They returned to the ship not simply because an officer told them "not to be silly" but only because their demands were met ...

The demonstration would not have been necessary if several hundred written requests for interviews with commanding officers to state complaints had not been ignored.

Sunday, 3rd March, 1946

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.

In New Generation, a journal for aspiring young writers both in and out of uniform, Peter Graham discusses the idiosyncrasies of wartime promotion. He remembers an excellent sergeant who had been turned down by the colonel three times for a commission because he was “too useful where he was ... six years in the army proper, I thought, probably two or three before the war in weekends, and all he had gained was the stripe-by-stripe, snail’s promotion to Lance-Sergeant, Paid Bombardier." Graham reflects: "What could I offer in balance but three months in the ranks, and eight months at an OCTU rewarded by a fortuitous pip?”

Meanwhile, Ray Allister receives a letter from the sweetheart of a demobbed soldier in this month's Modern Woman: “My fiancé has been in the army since leaving college. I have done well-paid war-work and saved. He is now demobilized and needs about 300 pounds to help him take a technical course. I have offered to lend him the money but he says no decent man borrows from a woman. In the name of common sense, why not?”

Saturday, 2nd March, 1946

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.

Rioters at Northallerton military prison detention barracks in North Yorkshire yesterday forced their way into one of the stores and set if on fire, reports the Times. Prisoners then climbed onto the roof and threw slates and bricks at guards. Armed soldiers were rushed from nearby Catterick to cordon off the prison. The fire is the climax to a series of increasingly disruptive events at Northallerton, to which prisoners from British occupied Germany have recently been transferred (and who have apparently been the ringleaders). On February 3, 16 men escaped from their barracks after morning church parade; a week later a further 16 men took the opportunity to escape through a damaged gate while comrades staged a disturbance elsewhere. Northallerton is not the only military detention barracks to experience trouble this year: on February 23, the famous Aldershot glasshouse was destroyed in a fire started by inmates, while seven men are still missing from Fort Darland military detention camp, near Chatham.

Friday, 1st March, 1946

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.

A Times leader reflects on the dramatic changes in technology and strategic mission which the British armed forces are having to wrestle with, now the war is over:

The aircraft carrier [appears ready] to take the place of the battleship as the major unit of the battle fleet.

For the Army the situation is more difficult still, since a large proportion of it is carrying out tasks of occupation, which are in effect police duties, calling for lighter weapons and equipment than those used in war and unsatisfactory from the point of view of serious military training. At the same time it has to prepare as best it can for the permanent tasks which these police duties interrupt, the defence of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, and to make sure that the heavy weapons which it must provide for that purpose are of the right kind.

The RAF has to face the extraordinary developments in aircraft of many types which marked the closing stages of the war and are likely to continue for some time. Behind all these are the uncertainties typical of the period immediately after a world conflict, in which the planner may feel he has been set to work on a moving stairway ...

Thursday, 28th February, 1946

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.

The Times, in playful mood, reflects on the war-winning importance of char:

Char has seen us a long way in this war. How peaceful, in retrospect, appears the desert brew, when some acknowledged master of tea-making, jealous of his prerogatives, cast the leaves into the disused petrol container with an almost hieratical gesture. Even when made with the brackish Tobruk water, with a dash of high-grade octane and sand to add picquancy, there was comfort in it. Later, in Europe, the untutored soldiery, with a lack of discrimination for the niceties, continued to take char where they halted, which was, as often as not, in the Grande Place of some newly liberated city. Here the smoke of their brew cans rose to high heaven, causing immense delight to small children, but drawing down the fulminations of the higher command, who held the practice to be undignified ...

End of month accounting: on June 30, 1945, there were 4,653,000 men and 437,200 women in His Majesty's armed and auxiliary forces.

During February, 1946, 288,202 men and 30,328 women were released under the Class A scheme; 26,921 men and 192 women were released under the Class B scheme; with 329,665 men and 31,886 women being released in total (including miscellaneous discharges on compassionate and medical grounds).

Overall, since the start of demobilisation, 2,093,907 men and 228,989 women have been discharged from HM Forces.

Data from Fighting With Figures: A Statistical Digest of the Second World War (HMSO, 1995).

Wednesday, 27th February, 1946

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.

Three RAF stations in Palestine were attacked last night by Jewish insurgents, reports the Times. At a little before nine o'clock twelve Halifaxes were destroyed or damaged beyond repair by explosive devices planted under the wings at Qastina Transport Command base; guards discovered a group of intruders within the aircraft dispersal area but were forced back under a hail of machine-gun fire. Around the same time at Petah Tiqva, there was an explosion in the middle of the aircraft dispersal area as a Spitfire burst into flames; another six Spitfires were destroyed in the ensuing fire, and again RAF sentries were pinned down by automatic gunfire. One hour later, the lights failed at Lydda Transport Command station and shortly afterwards assailants who had mingled with the crowd leaving the camp cinema threw grenades at parked aircraft, destroying two Ansons. A radio broadcast today from the Jewish insurgent forces acknowledged responsibility for the attacks, accusing the RAF of in intercepting ships carrying illegal immigrants to Palestine. Curfews have been introduced around all three bases.