Alan Allport's website

Wednesday, 13th 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.

Sentence was promulgated yesterday (reports the Times) on Aircraftman Norris Cymbalist, a radio operator at RAF base headquarters in Singapore, for his alleged role in inciting the outbreaks of mutiny and insubordination that swept through air force stations in the Far East at the beginning of the year. Evidence was given at the court martial that the accused had called on 300 men at Kallang to 'strike' in sympathy with airmen who had already refused to oobery orders at nearby RAF Seletar, and that he had used insubordinate language to a Squadron Leader at the base. Cymbalist was sentenced to ten years penal service for his actions [in fact, he will serve only a fraction of his sentence after his conviction is quashed following a public-led protest movement].

Tuesday, 12th 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 today's Times comes an interesting article, prompted by the announcement that the Army will retain its wartime post of Scientific Advisor in the peace, on the quantitative problems of the recent conflict:

From the Ardennes fighting some astonishing figures were discovered about the results of the duel between the tank and the gun. Where towed anti-tank guns, unsupported by infantry, were engaged, one tank was destroyed to three guns lost; but where the guns were self-propelled two tanks were accounted for for each gun put out of action. Where the anti-tank artillery was supported by infantry the ratio was one and a half to one for towed guns, but with self-propelled guns six tanks were knocked out for each gun. Another subject investigated [by the Scientific Branch] was what loss in tanks the Germans would accept before breaking off an attack. It was found to be about 50 per cent. That is a high figure, but the Fifth and Sixth SS Panzer Armies were exceptionally good troops ...

Battle claims are often somewhat loose. In Normandy, there was an exceptional opportunity to examine them. It has generally been believed that the Mortain counter-offensive was stopped by rocket-carrying aircraft, but this version has been shown to do less than justice to the American soldier with his anti-tank gun and bazooka. Seventy-eight German tanks were found on the ground, against 252 claimed as put out of action. Of these 21 had been destroyed from the air (by rocket 15, by cannon four, by bomb two); 29 had been destroyed by ground weapons; nine had been abandoned intact; four had been blown up by the crews; and the 'cause of death' of the remaining 15 could not be determined. These figures should not, however, obscure the great moral effect of the Typhoons, which had the double effect of shaking the enemy and encouraging British and American troops ...

 

Monday, 11th 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.

Several British service personnel, including members of the ATS, were injured last night when a bomb went off in a Cairo cinema, reports the Manchester Guardian. The Miami Cinema was showing the new British production A Place of One's Own when the bomb exploded. Egyptian authorities are investigating.

In other news: the Guardian also reports on the manpower crisis in Britain's coalmines. Difficulties in persuading returning servicemen to return to the pits has left a shortage of 100,000 men. The present output of 175 million tons of coal per year will not, it is feared, allow sufficient expansion of British industry to employ the men now streaming back from HM Forces.

 

Sunday, 10th 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 Observer reports on the British government's plans to retire from some of its extensive defence commitments. By the end of June 1946, British troops will leave Lebanon, where they have been since the invasion of the then-Vichy colony in 1941. And all British and Indian personnel are to hand over security responsibilities in Java to Dutch troops during the next six months. This retrenchment will ease the enormous strain on the overstretched British forces across the world, especially given the turbulent political situation in both Lebanon and the Dutch East Indies.

The paper also notes that HMS Ajax, the Leander class light cruiser which became famous during the 1939 Battle of the River Plate, berthed at Chatham last night after a return trip to Montevideo, scene of her victory over six years ago. She soon sails to rejoin the Mediterranean fleet.

Saturday, 9th 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.

John Bull this week includes a long account of the crisis in British marriage brought about by wartime and postwar social upheavals:

One marriage out of every five in this country today is likely to end in divorce or legal separation ... now, the appalling congestion in the courts, the staggering increase in the numbers of broken marriages, are things that seem almost to be taken for granted. What has gone wrong?

[The problem is] war strain and the accumulated frustration of six weary years of worry. A solicitor who handles hundreds of cases will tell you that an analysis of most defended suits just now gives two main causes of the break: people are over-tired; people want to put the ugly years behind them. But they confuse the issue, blaming their domestic partner for what are really the world's ills.

A rather surprising, but recurring factor is the number of husbands who complain that they have to cook their own breakfasts. From such pettiness comes so many broken homes!

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.