Britain at War – September 2023
English | 116 pages | pdf | 134.97 MB
Welcome at Britain at War Magazine September 2023 issue
Something I have in common with other historians is a certain desensitisation when reading about both heroic and tragic events of the past. That is not to say we become cold, warmongering hawks – in fact, it is the opposite. We are numbed by the words we read and the pictures we see because of the volume with which we consume them, but it is never a case of”a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic”.
Rather, we find constant reminders of the human stories at the centre of global events. Within these pages you will read about great disasters and greater successes, reckless gambits and selfless heroism, and about the wizards who by the turn of a screw won wars, often at great cost in the air, on land and on sea.
It angers me to be reminded – yet again – that not everyone sees human sacrifice that way. This distress is shared by Andy Brockman, who recently got in touch regarding rumours of renewed plundering of the wreck of HMS Prince of Wales in the South China Sea. Sadly, as Andy discovered, the battleship that serves as a grave to at least 327 men has been badly affected. We are now able to confirm that the same fate has befallen the
battlecruiser Repulse, on which 508 men lost their lives. In a tough feature, Andy updates us on these happenings and asks what – if anything – can be done to prevent it?
If there was ever a reminder needed about the human cost of
warfare, Melody Foreman has it. In her touching article Falling Star, she examines the loss of Belgian pilot Albert van den Hove d’Ertsenrijck, who fell from his Hurricane on September 15, 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain. If that were not tragic enough, his two daughters seemingly received no explanation as to Albert’s fate and assumed themselves abandoned. Melody finds out why he will always be remembered – including now by his girls.
I would like to welcome retired Royal Navy commodore and seasoned mine-warfare specialist Nick Stanley to the pages of BAW. Nick profiles the Algerine-class minesweeper, probably the finest vessel of its type to see action in World War Two.
He pays tribute to the gallant crews by looking through the lens of the 12th Minesweeping Flotilla. Theirs was a hard, uncompromising and unsung job – and too often overlooked.
And those are just three features in this rammed magazine issue, which I hope you enjoy. We also mark the birthday of the de Haviland Vampire and find out about the first Australian squadron to serve above the Western Front.
And while I hesitate to neglect mentioning our stories on the geniuses ofBletchley Park and the intriguing mystery following the death of Corporal of Horse John Shaw at Waterloo, I felt that voicing my outrage at the continued plundering of wartime wrecks took precedence on this occasion.
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