Alan Allport's website

Wednesday, 15th May, 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 Manchester Guardian reader whose son, who has spent five years in the Middle and Far East and who is currently stationed at a transit camp in Egypt awaiting demob, comments on the repercussions of next month's Victory Parade in London:

[Quotes letter from son] “We are now at this place, which could more properly be called a ‘dump’. After 5.5 years overseas I have never seen anything like it – even in Burma – the food and service are frightful, whilst ordinary facilities don’t even exist. It seems very much in the air at present at to when we are likely to get away. We were told by one of the staff that we would have to be here for at least three weeks as the ‘victory parade’ personnel must have priority! It seems as though the question of our release is a minor detail and that we have served in the Territorials and right through the war all over the world for nothing.”

Monday, 11th 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 notes that the Home Secretary is preparing a formal statement to the Commons about future action to prevent the unlawful possession of firearms. This has been prompted by concern about the large number of weapons being returned from the European continent by homecoming servicemen, many of which have ended up in the hands of criminals. "There are thought to be a great many more than after the war of 1914-18, and their possession constitutes a serious public danger." 'Souvenir-collecting' has been severely discouraged by the military authorities, but continues regardless.

A letter from 'A Service Mother':

May I quote from a letter just received from Holland? 'We went to see the Airborne Cemetery which is at Oosterbeek about three miles from Arnhem. It was here that the main airborne landings took place. Every child in Oosterbeek has been given two graves to look after, and they have planted tulips on every grave.'

Tuesday, 22nd January, 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 disused former RAF transit airfield near the tiny Middlesex hamlet of Heathrow is to be redeveloped to become a 4,000-acre civil aviation hub and London's major airport, reports the Times. The existing main runway will be extended from its present 9,000 feet to 15,000 feet, and "if necessary there will be room for further runways." When completed, it's believed that Heathrow will be second in size and capacity only to New York's Idlewild airport, currently under construction on Long Island.

Also in the Times: today sees the first reunion of the so-called 'British Battalion,' an ad hoc unit assembled from the heavily depleted ranks of the 1st Leicestershires and the 2nd East Surreys in December 1941 as they conducted the long and tragic fighting withdrawal down the Malayan peninsular to Singapore. After the battalion surrendered to the Japanese it remained a single unit in captivity. It is hoped that more than 400 survivors and dependants will attend the commemoration at Chelsea Town Hall.

Thursday, 27th December, 1945

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 notes that Britain's first post-war Christmas passed quietly. "The family circle, reinforced this year by the return - in many cases, after absences of five or six years - of fathers, brothers and sisters from war service, was, as in the more carefree days, the centre of Christmas celebrations." Aside from some rain on Tuesday morning the holiday was mild, dry, and green. A threatened Boxing Day strike of train drivers in London failed to materialise, allowing the capital's citizens to enjoy a varied programme of outdoor sports and indoor entertainments. Thousands of people could be seen walking in London's parks.

For the first time since its almost total destruction by a flying bomb in June 1944, a service was held on Christmas morning in the Guards Chapel in Wellington Barracks, or rather in a Nissen hut which temporarily encloses the site. The singing was accompanied by the band of the Coldstream Guards.

Saturday, 22nd December, 1945

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 reports the death of General George S. Patton, commander of the American Fifteenth Army and former commander of the US Third Army, who died in Heidelberg yesterday evening from injuries incurred in a road accident near Mannheim on December 9. Despite the general's many celebrated run-ins with British wartime heroes such as Field Marshal Montgomery, the paper's obituary is judicious, calling him "one of the most brilliant and successful leaders whom the war produced:

In spite of many idiosyncrasies, which included the free use of a cavalryman's tongue - "you have never lived until you have been bawled out by General Patton," his men used to say - was a fundamentally serious soldier, offensively minded and bent on the single object of defeating his enemy. He affected a smart and sometimes striking turn-out, and was insistent that those under him should also maintain a smart and soldierly appearance.

The Manchester Guardian comments on the relationship between demobilisation and the reorganisation of higher education. Generous government grants are now available to ex-servicemen for training at university or institutes of higher technical education - £160 per year, with an extra £110 for married men and £40 for each child - but few so far have taken up this offer. Up to October 31, only 7,605 out of the 700,000 eligible had applied.

Monday, 12th November, 1945

 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.

 

Yesterday was the first Remembrance Day to be commemorated since the end of the war, and as the Times notes the official act of memorial in Westminster Abbey was a "deeply impressive" ceremony, "simple and beautiful"; trumpeters of the Life Guards sounded the Last Post and Reveille, delimiting the two minutes' silence, and from the steps of the Henry VII Chapel behind the altar they played the long, low-pitched cavalry calls "with loving deliberateness." [This will be the last occasion on which Remembrance Day is marked on November 11; from 1946 onwards it will be replaced by the second Sunday in November, Remembrance Sunday. Coincidentally this year November 11 happened to be a Sunday, thus allowing for a smooth transition].

 

In less elevated news, the Times also reports from Munster on the trial of six British officers accused of stealing 3,900 bottles of wine and spirits from a German wine store. Lieutenant William Brown, former assistant camp commandant at the British Control Commission HQ in Bunde, was found not guilty and immediately released; the verdict on the remaining five remains to be promulgated pending confirmation. Defending officer Major Shaw argued that "there would be horrible scandals if investigations were made into how the wine cellars of every officers' mess in Germany were stocked." One of the defendants, an Army chaplain, has complained that even if he is acquitted of all charges he has been so "branded by press publicity" that he will have to resign the charge of the parish he left to join the army in March 1940.