Alan Allport's website

Monday, 20th 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.

On the sixth anniversary of the British occupation of Iceland, the owner of the English bookshop in Reykjavik writes to the Times to commemorate the servicemen who took their turn in the lonely garrison post during the war:

I was one of the many who on that memorable day roamed the streets of Reykjavik from morning to night to see what was taking place ... the spring and summer of 1940 were among the very worst within living memory, and the only shelters the men had at their time were their tents. It must have been a miserable life for them. But in spite of all these disadvantages, and even direct provocation, the proverbial British good temper and their genial humor remained unpeturbed, a moral victory of the first magnitude.

"I am 36 years of age and have done five years in the RAF," writes 'Another One of the Many' to Picture Post. "I was demobbed in November and returned to my old job as a grocer's assistant. I have the remarkable wage of £143 per annum. I asked for a higher wage, but it was a case of take it or leave it. I have been with the firm since I was fifteen."

Wednesday, 8th 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.

Lord Nathan, the under-secretary of state for war, assured the House of Lords yesterday that in future the separation of wives from their husbands serving in HM Forces overseas is to be reduced as much as possible, reports the Daily Herald.  The move has been prompted by the rapid rise in service divorces: 48,000 applications from servicemen still await a hearing, while it has been suggested that a further 200,000 marriages involving a soldier, sailor, or airmen are in peril. Speaking in the debate, Lord Elton recounted his experience as a prisoner-of-war in the 1914-1918 conflict. "Ever since then, I have been visited by a vivid and recurrent nightmare," he acknowledged: "I am again a prisoner of war. The war is endless, and I am irrevocably and wholly doomed to exile from my home and family. I always awake from it in acute mental agony."

LAC Brian Poole writes to his American penpal: “I’ve had some very grim news this week regarding demob. My trade is dropping behind in the general release numbers … that sort of smashes my hopes of being out in August into a thousand pieces.”

Saturday, 4th 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.

Ex-servicemen were warned in the House of Commons yesterday against fake agencies which are offering bogus jobs to the demobbed, reports the Daily Herald. Glasgow MP Sir James Hutchinson, a former French resistance liaison for Special Operations Executive, said that no amount of legislation would stop a fool and his gratuity from being parted: "Some people ask for trouble by investing in horses and dogs and other hazardous enterprises ... [but] a small group of unscrupulous people may well catch out men who are in no way fools but honest, plain, decent soldiers, sailors, and airmen."

The discussion took part during a wider House debate on unemployment. The Minister of Labour announced that in March 1946, 371,000 persons were registered unemployed across Britain. One problem is the geographical distribution of postwar job opportunities: while Scotland and South Wales continue to suffer from surplus manpower, in the West Midlands there are five jobs available for every two persons willing to fill them. London too is crying out for workers.

Flying Officer Charles Crichton, still awaiting demobilisation, writes to his mother from Iraq: "The German PoWs with us are nearly in the same boat as our men. They just sleep behind different sets of wire … I hear from [his brother] David that he is in a naval form of Belsen.”

Friday, 22nd 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 New Statesman considers whether compulsory military service ought to be continued in the indefinite postwar future:

The present lack of knowledge of the government's intentions is cruel to the young men who are being called up, and whose education or apprenticeship training is being interrupted for an indefinite period; and before it can decide whether to approve the prolongation of conscription into peacetime, the country is entitled to know what length of compulsory service is contemplated.

The argument that military service does a young man good will carry no weight. Apart from the interruption to civil life, time spent in 'square bashing' and in the atmosphere of a barracks room is much more likely to demoralize than to improve. This country will accept peacetime conscription only if it is convinced that it an absolute necessity and that service is confined to the minimum essential period ...

Wednesday, 20th 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.

Lieutenant-General Richard McCreery, former commander of the Eighth Army in Italy and General Alexander's chief of staff during the Second Battle of El Alamein, has been appointed commander-in-chief of the British Army of the Rhine in Germany, reports the Times. This new position became necessary because Field-Marshal Montgomery's replacement as commander of all British forces in Germany, Sir Sholto Douglas, is an airman.

The paper also notes that HMS Eagle, an Audacious-class aircraft carrier and currently the largest such vessel in the world at 44,000 tons displacement, was launched yesterday by Princess Elizabeth at the Harland and Wolff docks in Belfast. She is the fifteenth vessel of the Royal Navy to bear the name, her immediate predecessor being the Navy's first large through-deck carrier which was sunk by a U-Boat on the Malta convoy route in 1942. "The rain which had fallen earlier ceased about the Princess, a charming figure in a lime-great coat with hat to match, entered the well beneath the towering bows of the new ship," the Times gushes: " taking the bottle of Australian wine in both hands and crashing it against the bows of the ship, Princess Elizabeth said 'I name this ship Eagle. May God protect her and all who sail in her!' ... she could scarcely be heard for the cheering and the noise of ships' sirens and then the roar with which, at exactly the right moment, flights of Fleet Air Arm aircraft swept overhead and dipped in salute."

Monday, 18th 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.

"Half-way between Dortmund and Hanover, on the main road which has been superceded in part by the Autobahn, is the little town of Paderborn," begins the Times' military correspondent today. "To the north lies an area of heath and pine, with the lightest of soils, which had for some years been used by the Germans for Panzer and Panzer Grenadier training. Part of the Sixth SS Panzer Army carried out the final stages of its training for the Ardennes counter-offensive here." But now the site is used as the British Army of the Rhine's training centre. The reporter comments on a recent demonstration by the School of Infantry's tactical section:

I saw carried out one of the best small exercises I have ever witnessed, an assault on a farmhouse supposed to be occupied by a hostile rearguard, covered by all available infantry weapons - rifles, Brens, PIATs, and mortars - the rattle and roar and the billowing cloud of the smokescreen creating a realism unknown in the training of the past ...

The outstanding characteristic of modern Army training is the effort made to interest and attract the soldier. The trainer of today is avowedly something of a showman. He employs all the arts of the advertising agent and, like him, he has something to sell. Whether or not he is a trifle too popular, flags the walls with too many slogans, and turns out too many pretty and amusing gadgets in his shops, may be left to the discussion of the experts; but he succeeds in what he sets out to do. He does catch the soldier's attention ...

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.

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 ...