Monthly Archives: March 2023

by | March 29, 2023 · 6:16 am

My best friend, Widdle (5)

Last time,we were looking at what Widdle the Friendly Fox would eat and what he would turn his nose up at. Over time, we gradually built up a list of his likes and dislikes.

Physically, he was very thin and very wiry, but he was extremely strong for his size. If he pulled one end of a stick and you pulled the other, you could feel his muscles and his strength. Most of this came, in our opinion, because he wouldn’t eat bread or cakes. He wouldn’t eat curry or anything flavoured. He wouldn’t eat pizza. Even our local magpies wouldn’t eat pizza, incidentally. Widdle wouldn’t eat hamburgers, although we didn’t quite understand this. Perhaps he had his culinary standards. After all, the bar was set pretty high by our sausages (42% meat).

This photograph appears to show the biggest object Widdle ever managed to carry away. I have no idea what it was, but may have been a big bone or maybe some cut of meat that had gone past its sell-by date:

Raw bacon rind appears to be a delicacy in the fox world. Firstly, sniff what it is…

Don’t let it escape under any circumstances:

 

“A second piece? Don’t mind if I do!”

In the next picture, note the first piece of rind safely stashed on the floor. He didn’t find getting both in his mouth at the same time too easy!

 

“Cheese is different. You have so many dreadful flavours in cheese. So make sure you sniff it first….”

 

“Take hold of it carefully. It may crumble and you might lose some.”

“Sniff the next piece carefully. Just because the first piece was cheddar, that doesn’t mean they all will be.”

“Yes, it’s OK. I’ll take it, please. It’s good for the teeth, cheese!”

Not that Widdle would turn down proper meat.

“Would I like a bit of steak? You bet I would!”

“Mmm. Lovely!”

“Watch what you’re doing. Fingers at your own risk!!”

Widdle usually took all the food that was offered to him. He filled his mouth up with sausages, bits of meat and so on, and took them back to Mrs Widdle in the den. She would eat some and share the rest with her cubs. The largest litter I ever saw in our garden was four, with No 4, the smallest one, perhaps only two thirds the size of the others. Mum and Dad taught them their table manners. Any transgression got a sharp nip on the backside to emphasise the point.

Notice how, in the last three photographs, Widdle has a great gaping wound on his chest. As I mentioned, male foxes frequently fight each other, and they bite their opponent’s muzzle and fore-limbs. I don’t know how Widdle acquired this particular wound, but it didn’t take long to heal up.

On four occasions, Widdle had bad injuries to one of his front legs and he could barely walk. In a wilder world, he would not have managed to hunt and he would have died, but his friends stepped in with Sausage-Aid and he got over it. That gave him five lives instead of the usual one, a minimum of four or five years of life compared to the usual two or three, and as many as fifteen cubs produced, instead of the usual figure of between none and four.

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by | March 23, 2023 · 6:16 am

My best friend, Widdle (4)

Between approximately 2007-2010, our family had a completely wild fox as a friend. When Widdle came to you like this, you knew that he had only one thought on his mind. Sausages!!

These are the brand he preferred. We used to buy them at a frozen food supermarket called Iceland. We wanted a cheap, but nourishing, sausage for our furry friend, so we looked round most of the butcher-type shops in our suburb of Nottingham and finally made the decision to buy at Iceland where the budget sausages were 42% meat, easily the highest percentage in the world for the budget sausage. Dog food was even more unbelievable. All of the cheaper ones I looked at were full of “ash”. I’d really like to know why!

And what type of ash was it, that was included in so many dogfoods? Surely not the ashes of former dog owners? :

Sometimes Widdle was extremely polite, putting a fore-paw on each knee, showing you his pale brown eyes, and staring with a mixture of wistfulness and plain hunger:

On other occasions, he was a lot more forthright, explaining with his pointy teeth, that he was pressed for time, so could you crack on with it, please? After all, we both know how it’s going to end:

I wasn’t the only person who could feed him, but that perfect lunge was always his favourite method. Keep still and you were perfectly safe:

On occasion he was over excited and perhaps got some sausage stuck on his teeth. He would always want to clean it off straightaway:

He made several trips back to “The Den” to feed the family. On his last trip, the sausage or sausages were always for him, and he would get over excited and lick his lips in anticipation:

He was happy enough to eat leftovers. Here he has the carcass of a chicken, I think it is. Just look how, in this view, the early stages of his moult are easily visible:

This next picture comes seconds after the previous one. It catches Widdle in a strange pose. He has just heard a noise behind him and looks over to where the noise has come from. The angle makes it look as if he is being aggressive and snarling. But he isn’t. In actual fact, I never heard him make any noise of any kind. That pointy, sharp tooth is there though:

The noise came from next door’s cat, an old bruiser called Yin-Yang.  He was taken, as far as I know, as a young kitten, from a feral cat’s nest and brought up in a normal home. People always seem to think that foxes eat cats but Widdle and Yin-Yang didn’t ever take any notice of each other. Foxes are always extremely wary of a cat’s claws and the possibility of losing an eye in any fight with one.

Anyway, here they are, both sharing the same bits of the same chicken. Yin-Yang lived to be around seventeen or eighteen years old. He died in my daughter’s arms after some macho hero deliberately drove his car over him in front of our house. Yin-Yang was deaf, so he didn’t hear the car horn.

 

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by | March 17, 2023 · 6:16 am

Hendon objects 1

As you may have seen from previous blog posts, in 2010, I went with my family to the RAF Museum at Hendon. I did a whole series of articles, all of them based around one particularly iconic aircraft. In this case it is the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter which you can read about here:

https://johnknifton.com/2018/07/27/the-messerschmitt-me-262-at-hendon/

If you want to read about any of the other aircraft, it would be easiest to search the whole blog for them. They were the Avro Lancaster, the Bristol Beaufighter, the Bristol Beaufort, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, the Gloster Meteor, the de Havilland Mosquito, the P-51 Mustang, the Short Sunderland, the Supermarine Southampton and the Supermarine Walrus.

It wasn’t all aircraft at Hendon, though. There were lots of identified non-flying objects and various pieces of metal rescued from aircraft as they awaited their turn in the scrapyard.

The famous German battleship, the Tirpitz, provided a battle flag:

There is also a decorated metal door from the ship’s interior. The ship itself was sunk on November 12th 1944 with the loss of up to 1204 sailors’ lives:

Here are the medals of Herman Goering the man in charge of Hitler’s Luftwaffe. As with many objects of this type, they are kept under glass and difficult, if not impossible, to photograph without reflections being included:

Here is the wall of an RAF hut, taken down carefully to preserve the artwork left on it by an anonymous artist. It shows a Short Stirling, the RAF’s first four engine bomber:

The particular aircraft in the picture is a Short Stirling Mark III of 199 Squadron based at North Creake in Norfolk. Its squadron letters were EX–N and its serial number was LJ531 and its name was “N-Nan”. At 2219 hours on June 16th 1944, the crew took off to accompany 162 Halifaxes, 147 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitoes on a bombing mission which targeted the synthetic oil plant at  Sterkrade between Duisburg and Essen. They carried no bombs, but instead were to use their Mandrel, a noise jammer, to overwhelm the signals from the German Freya and Würzburg radar sets. Between them, nine such aircraft were capable of creating a 200 mile gap in the Germans’ radar coverage.

In the official records, the aircraft was “lost without trace” but modern sources on the internet suggest that it was shot down by Unteroffizier Josef Ottrin (Bordfunker/radar operator) to Feldwebel Trenke, of the 6./KG 51, some fifty miles north of Ostend. This incident took place at 02.00 hours at an altitude of 14,800 feet. They had taken off from Soesterberg in the Netherlands in a Messerschmitt Me 410 A-1/U2 to carry out an armed reconnaissance of London, probably to find targets for the new wonder weapons, the V-1 and the V-2.

All the crew of “N-Nan”were killed. They were:

Thomas Wilson Dale RNZAF (pilot, aged 25), the son of James Murray Dale and Maude Mary Dale of Wellington, New Zealand.

John Martin Watts (flight engineer, aged 19), the son of John and Ethel Rosetta Watts, of Caxton, Cambridgeshire.

Ronald Joffre Whittleston RNZAF, (navigator, aged 28), the son of Arthur William and Grace Whittleston and the husband of Frances Hellena Bertha Whittleston, of Frankton Junction, Auckland, New Zealand.

Kenneth Matthew Francis Swadling, (bomb aimer, aged 21), the son of Frank and Louise Marie Swadling, of Wembley Hill, Middlesex.

Francis Charles Brittain, (gunner, aged 21), the son of Charles Frederick and Hazel Margaret Brittain, of Kilburn, Middlesex.

Frank Lofthouse, (Mandrel specialist operator, aged 23), the son of Albert and Miriam Lofthouse, of Lupset, Yorkshire

John Critchley Higginbottom, (gunner, aged 21), the son of John Elliott Higginbottom and Lilian Jessie Higginbottom, of Streatham Hill, London.

William  McCreadie  Latimer, (gunner, aged 19) the son of George C. Latimer and Mary Latimer, of Garlieston, Wigtownshire in Scotland

Also on display at RAF Hendon are the medals won by Guy Gibson, the Squadron Leader of 617 Squadron at the time of the famous Dambusters raid. On the left is the highest British award for gallantry, the Victoria Cross. The usual price at auction for this famous medal is usually around £500,000-£700,000. Guy Gibson’s personal medal, though, would be worth many millions.

And here’s the insignia on the collar of his dog, a big Black Labrador, which was run over and killed by a mystery car at the exact same moment as Gibson was leading the squadron in the attack om the Möhne dam.

The lettering reads:

“SQ.D.N LDR

C.P.GIBSON.D.F.C.

R.A.F.   

89 SQDN

His dog was buried at RAF Scampton and here is his grave today:

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by | March 11, 2023 · 6:16 am

Enigma (1)

In previous posts I have occasionally written a review of a book which I found particularly interesting. I have then related to the reader what the author found to say, in an effort to whet the potential reader’s appetite so that, hopefully, he or she might want to buy the book. This time, I decided to select an extremely interesting book which was not only fascinating but which taught me a great deal and introduced me to things that I had never previously known.

In this category belongs…….

“Code Wars

How ‘Ultra’ and ‘Magic’ Led to Allied Victory”

by John Jackson

One of the best things about this book is that it doesn’t try to instruct you on how the German “Enigma” machine encoded its messages. Such subjects are way beyond the capabilities of my brain and I enjoyed being able to read the book without proving to myself that I was a complete thickhead. Incidentally, along with encoding important messages, I also find Quantum Mechanics an equally impossible subject and most of Relativity too, even though much of the latter topic is getting on for being around a century old nowadays.

This is an Enigma machine. It’s a bit like one of those old fashioned portable record players, but without the turntable.

To spare my readers’ feelings, and my own, I have therefore decided to concentrate on the method by which we eventually acquired our knowledge of this famous German code, along with putting a special emphasis on the events in World War Two which turned out differently from how they might well have done, thanks to the British knowledge of Enigma.

After all, from 1945-1975 at least, nobody was aware of Enigma because it was still top secret. Before 1975, more or less every event in the war which unfolded in a particular way because Enigma had had a role to play in it, had to have a different story invented to explain its outcome. If you don’t understand that, don’t worry, you’ll soon see what I mean.

In the years immediately before the Second World War, the invention of the Enigma code machine had not really interested the British at all. Nor were the French or the Americans particularly bothered either.  No, it was the Poles who realised how crucially important the knowledge of the Enigma codes would be, if  a second world war broke out, as seemed likely.  For this reason, the Poles had, at the first opportunity, bought a commercial Enigma machine, in late 1932. Yes, you saw it right! Late 1932.

The purchase was made by Antoni Palluth of the Polish Cipher Bureau. In his private business life, he was also the co-owner of the AVA radio manufacturing company. AVA always wanted to help the Cipher Bureau as much as possible, and by February 1933, the company had back engineered their own replica of a commercial Enigma machine, and then produced a prototype according to the specifications of the three Polish “Five Star Codebreakers”. More of them. later.

Here’s the rather handsome Mr Palluth….

Four years previously, in 1928-1929, the Poles had worked out for themselves that the codebreakers of World War One would not be clever enough to crack the new type of codes now being introduced. What was needed were not men with secret pens and bottles of invisible ink which people kept throwing away because they thought they were empty, but whizz kid mathematicians with first class degrees at the top universities in the land. So the Poles cast around and found their own three whizz kid mathematicians and gave them the job. Their names were Marian Rejewski, Jery Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski. And here they are……

The Poles’ reward for taking the initiative like this was a bizarre event, a once in a lifetime event, an unforgettable occasion when, even though it wasn’t Christmas, Santa Claus brought them a very special present indeed.  It was a gift from God, a present from heaven.

Events began to kick off, when somebody rang up Anton Palluth, now the Head of the Cipher Bureau, and told him that a rather peculiar, rather large, parcel had been sent in error to Warsaw’s main Post Office.  Nobody knew what it was. Nobody had a clue. When the Great Gift was opened, they found that it was a military grade Enigma machine, brand new, state of the art.

Somebody, somewhere had committed a war-changing boo-boo.

This crass mistake was way beyond building the fastest jet fighter in the world and then slowing it down by putting bomb racks on the wings. No, this was the first steps in a process which would save the lives of millions of people and shorten the war by at least a couple of years.

Next time we see what Anton Palluth did with his gift from God, and he didn’t put it on ebay.

 

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by | March 5, 2023 · 6:16 am

“Die Rote Armee” means “the Red Army” (2)

Last time I was showing you the front page of a propaganda leaflet I had bought on ebay. They were dropped in its tens of thousands from aircraft of the Red Air Force in an effort to persuade the German defenders of Berlin to surrender. After all, the defenders numbered just 766,750 and the Red Army had a gigantic 2,300,000 men on the case. Many of the defenders of the city were not really soldiers anyway. These three were apparently postmen:

Anyway, here’s the front of the leaflet :

Just as a matter of interest, the Russians do not call the Second World War by the same name that we do. They call it :

Великая Отечественная война

The first word is “Vyelikaya” which means “great”.

The second word is “Atyechyest-vyennaya”, a six syllable word which means “patriotic” and has its origins in the word “atyets” which means “father” (just like “patriotic” in actual fact)

The third word is “Vai-ná” which means “war”.

Here’s the back of the leaflet, where the word “wird” proves to be the second word of a sentence begun on side one:

If you remember, the pamphlet was reminding the Germans that the Soviets had won all of the battles at Stalingrad, Leningrad, Kishinev, Kursk, Minsk and Warsaw and had completed the crossings of the Rivers Volga and Oder. Now it is time for Berlin and the River Spree. The pamphlet continues with more of the same. If the Red Army has won in Stalingrad, Kursk and Warsaw, the last few troops on the banks of the Oder will not be a problem……

“Festungen zwischen Wolga und Oder gäb es Kessel: In Stalingrad und bei Tscherkassy, bei Kischinev und in Bjelorußland, in Budapest und Ostpreußen. Jenseits der Oder ist heute die ganze deutsche armee zwischen zwei Fronten in einem riesigen Kessel zusammangetrieben.”

“There would be fortresses between the Volga and the Oder: in Stalingrad and near Cherkassy, near Kishinev and in Byelorussia, in Budapest and East Prussia. On the other side of the Oder, the entire German army is now driven together between two fronts in a huge encircled area.”

The promise is repeated in the next section, but to this is added the fact that not only is the Red Army some two million+  strong but there is also the question of two other armies, the American and the British:

“Die Rote Armee hat alle deutschen Kessel zwischen Wolga under Oder zusammengehauen. Zusammen mit den Engländern und Amerikanern wird sie auch mit dem Kessel jenseits der Oder fertig werden.”

“The Red Army have cut down all the German encircled areas between the Volga and the Oder. Together with the British and Americans, it will also deal with the encircled area on the other side of the Oder.”

And here’s the very last river, the Spree, which flows right through the middle of Berlin. Right past the Re9ichstag building:

And then we come to the crunch. The whole point of the pamphlet…….

“Soldat!””Soldat!”

“Soldier!”

 

“Warte nicht, bid die Russen, Engländer und Amerikaner von Osten, Westen, Norden und Süden her Hitlers letsten Kessel zusammanhauen.”

“Do not wait until the Russians, British and Americans from east, west, north and south together, smash to pieces Hitler’s last encircled army.”

 

“Sieh zu, daß Du Dich rettest, ehe es zu spät ist !”

“Make sure you save yourself before it’s too late!”

 

“Gib Dich gefangen und du bist gerettet !”  

“Give yourself up and you will be saved!”

 

“Mach von nachstehendem Passierschein Gebrauch.”

“Use the pass below.”

“Dieses Flugblatt gilt als Passierschein für deutsche Soldaten und Offiziere, die sich der Roten Armee.”

“This leaflet is valid as a pass for German soldiers and officers who join the Red Army.”

It also contained that information in Russian…

“Эта листовка служит пропуском для немецких солдат и офицеров при сдаче в плен Красной Армии”

Which means….

“This leaflet serves as a pass for German soldiers and officers when surrendering to the Red Army.”

Alas, it didn’t all work out very well for all of the German POWs in Sunny Siberia:

According to the Soviets, 381,067 German POWs died in Russian camps (356,700 Germans and 24,367 men of other nationalities).

The West German government found that of 3,060,000 German prisoners, a total of 1,094,250 perished in the camps of the Soviet Union.

Historian Rüdiger Overmans calculated that there were 3,000,000 German POWs in the USSR, and the “maximum” number of deaths was 1,000,000.

And of the ones who did survive, the very last was released in 1956. Every single one had been busy rebuilding a shattered Soviet Union.

And to end with, let’s take another look at the Soviet “Photograph of the Month” for May 1945:

 

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