Lambert Wickes' contribution to the cause of American independence

US naval officer Lambert Wickes took the war to England's back door in 1777:

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Reprisal left St Nazaire to cruise in the [English] Channel in January 1777 - a miserable time of year in those waters, and consequently an excellent time for raiding. Wickes quickly took five prizes (three brigs, a snow, and a ship), which for him made it "a tolerable successful cruise." The snow, Swallow, was a mail packet from Falmouth bound for Lisbon, and fought for an hour before striking her flag. Men on both sides were wounded, but none killed. In Reprisal, the first lieutenant's left arm was shot off above the elbow, "and the Lieut. of Marines had a musket ball lodged in his wrist." [...] Benedict Arnold may have found the marines to be "the refuse of every regiment"; to others, they were an essential adjunct to operations, and Wickes's crew included a detachment of two of their officers and thirty men.

After selling his prizes in France to pay his crew and maintain his ship, Wickes was joined in April by the Continental brig Lexington (a name that would grace many American warships) and the cutter Dolphin. (She, incidentally, was an English boat, secretly sold to the American service from her home port of Dover.). In May the three vessels set off to try their luck, standing out across the Channel for the Irish Sea. In essence such raiding was identical to privateering; the only difference was that it was done by naval ships under official orders. But to a young naval officer, that probably made it close to ideal. It was daring, exciting, novel, and, when successful, profitable too. Few captains would ask for more in wartime.

Before they left the Bay of Biscay, the squadron encountered a British ship of the line, too powerful for them to challenge. Escaping, they were blown west of Ireland by a gale and took no prizes until three weeks after leaving port. By then they were back in the north side of the Channel; and in a single week they captured eighteen vessels. Satisfied with that, they headed for base and again met a British ship. Reprisal had eighteen guns; her opponent had seventy-four. In the chase that followed, Wickes scattered his squadron, and to lighten Reprisal threw all her guns over, until finally, believing it would increase her flexibility and speed, he sawed through some of her beams. It was a common idea at the time; but it was probably that which brought about his death. Though he escaped from the British once more, he was never able to tell his adventures to his grandchildren. Returning home in September, Reprisal foundered in a gale and was lost with her captain.

Wickes had been a brave man, and his death was a blow to the Continental Navy. Had he lived, he might well have outshone his more celebrated colleague John Paul Jones; and of the two, it could well be argued that Wickes was the more courageous, for when he conducted his pioneering raids, he (unlike Jones) had no guaranteed safe port in France. Wickes paved the way for Jones.

Today Jones is far more widely remembered, and in the context of the U.S. Navy's whole history, that is right [...] But at the time, Wickes's contribution to the immediate cause of American independence was far greater. This is not simply because he captured more prizes; they paid for his voyage, but little more. Instead, the true value of his voyage lay in its political consequences [...]

By helping to heat up Anglo-French antagonism, simmering since France's defeat in the Seven Years' War, Wickes brought vital French support for America that much closer. This was exactly what the American commissioners in Paris wanted, and the French were indeed growing visibly keener. During the summer of 1777, in the French port of Brest, an American privateer (General Mifflin, flying the "Grand Union flag") was saluted with nine guns by Admiral du Chauffault - the traditional signal of the navy of one sovereign state to another.

- Stephen Howarth, To Shining Sea: A History of the United States Navy 1775-1991, London, 1991, p.30-31.

What to do when your Fairey Fulmar is caught short by the Germans

Perhaps the [Fairey] Fulmar's weakest point was its lack of rear-firing armament; in some cases the crew improvised with such weapons as the Thompson submachine gun or a Verey pistol, but it has been said that the most unusual weapon was a bundle of lavatory paper. Held together by an elastic band this, when thrown into the slipstream, scattered in all directions causing the pursuers to break away in confusion.

- David Mondey, British Aircraft of World War II, London, 1994, p.103, describing the Fleet Air Arm's two-seat carrier-based fighter, the Fairey Fulmar.

A destroyer captain remembers Arctic convoy PQ 17

With regard to leaving the convoy, I simply said that I thought the Admiralty had made a complete balzup. They knew the Tirpitz, Hipper and heavy destroyers were at sea, had lost them by reconnaissance, assumed they were about to fall upon the convoy and had ordered 'Scatter'.

The effect of this signal had been universal. There was no doubt in anyone's mind, from Admiral Hamilton downward, but that Tirpitz was just below the horizon. I finished by saying that in future we would do what we, on the spot, considered correct and now we were off to Rosyth to boiler clean and give five days' leave. 

This is a personal story of what happened to me, and I have said nothing as to what happened to the convoy after the disastrous signal to scatter. In brief 23 of the 34 merchantmen were sunk by U-boats and aircraft.

There has been much criticism of this operation, particularly from America. It is to be hoped therefore that my description of what it was like to be one of the six destroyers will at least help to clarify the facts.

It is an extraordinary thing that this catastrophic error of judgement was made personally by the First Sea Lord, the Head of the Navy, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound. My personal opinion is that, if someone like Admiral Cunningham had been at the Admiralty, he would have left the people on the spot to run the operation. If not, he would have waited until the Tirpitz was reported and if she was obviously heading for and near the convoy, he would have signalled something like, 'It is at your discretion to scatter should you be attacked by enemy surface ships.'

In the event an Allied submarine trap East of Bear Island was effective only in that two of the submarines reported the German squadron. The German Admiralty however, thought Tirpitz would be attacked by our aircraft carrier and ordered her to return to Norway. But, by this time, they knew the convoy had scattered, so whether Tirpitz would have attacked if the convoy had not scattered remains the big question of the tragic story of PQ 17. I also felt that as the merchant ships were going to almost certain destruction then we should have gone back and taken the same chance and we would have got some more merchant ships to Archangel, although we would probably merely have lost the destroyers as well once the oiler was sunk. Still we would have tried.

I can never forget how they cheered us as we moved out at full speed to the attack and it has haunted me ever since that we left them to be destroyed.

I had little faith ever after in the shore staff who directed operations at sea.

- Roger Hill, Destroyer Captain, London, 1975, p.50-51.

The above narrative is from the commander of HMS Ledbury, which was part of the ill-fated Arctic convoy PQ 17 in 1942, in which 24 merchant ships were sunk and 153 merchant mariners lost their lives. In the book's foreword, Lt Cdr Roger Hill writes that he had meant to write up his commands of HMS Ledbury, Grenville and Jervis after the war but lacked the spare time, but 'In 1965 my health cracked up, and deciding the children would have a happier life in New Zealand, we emigrated. I got a job as a "seagull" which is casual labour on the wharf, loading and discharging the rather few ships which call here at Nelson'. Later after this book was published he taught navigation at Nelson Technical College, farmed outside Nelson, and served on the Nelson Harbour Board. He died in Arrowtown in 2001. 

'Those two Australian stretcher bearers couldn't do enough for me'

A New Zealand infantryman writes of his escape from the front lines at Gallipoli in 1915:

'After I had covered a hundred yards or so I began to feel pretty bad; then an Australian spotted me. He wriggled over to where I was and told me to lie down while he tied up my wounds. Then he soused his handkerchief from his water bottle and spread it over my face. It was a scorching hot day, and what he did for me revived me tremendously. I lost so much blood, though. I did not seem to make further progress, so he got stretcher-bearers to come for me, real heroes.

My word, what a mistaken idea that some people have about the Red Cross boys! Do you know, I'd always thought they were inclined to be cold footed or something. I know better now. Those two Australian stretcher bearers couldn't do enough for me. They had me on the stretcher and were off with me before I had time to think. I begged them to lie down and wait until there was a lull in the firing, particularly as we had already learned that the Turks had no respect for the Red Cross men, but they said, 'No, you're shot and we've got to get you back as soon as possible; besides, we're too busy to wait.'

How they got back with me I don't know, for bullets whizzed all round and frequently they went zip-zip-zip over my prostrate body and between those two game chaps. They were completely fagged [i.e. tired] by the time they got me to the beach, but they would scarcely wait for a spell. They were off again in no time for more wounded men. They were game, those fellows, real game - fired at all the time and never a chance of hitting back or making cover. Like the rest of us, they're game'.

- Private B. Smith, Auckland Battalion, letter to his mother, printed in The Dominion 26 June 1915, quoted in Glyn Harper, Letters from Gallipoli, Auckland, 2011, p.102-3.

See also:

Blog: The mercurial naval legacy of HMS Maori, 10 May 2020

Blog: 'Europe is mad. The world is mad', 25 June 2009

Blog: The Western Front, 11 December 2007

Liaising with the Jugoslav partisans

Guy was never admitted to these conferences which were held in Serbo-Croat without an interpreter. Nor was he informed of the negotiations with Bari. De Souza had all signals brought to him in cipher. The later hours of his mornings in bed were spent reading them and himself enciphering the answers. To Guy were relegated the domestic duties of preparing for the coming visit. As de Souza had predicted he found the partisans unusually amenable. They revealed secret stores of loot taken from the houses of the fugitive bourgeoisie, furniture of monstrous modern German design but solid construction. Sturdy girls bore the loads. The rooms of the farmhouse were transformed in a way which brought deep depression to Guy but exultation to the widows who polished and dusted with the zeal of sacristans. The former Minister of the Interior had been made master of the revels. He proposed a Vin d'Honneur and concert.

'He want to know,' explained Bakic, 'English American anti-fascist songs. He want words and music so the girls can learn them'.

'I don't know any,' said Guy. 

'He want to know what songs you teach your soldiers?'

'We don't teach them any. Sometimes they sing about drink, "Roll out the barrel" and "Show me the way to go home"' 

'He says not those songs. We are having such songs also under the fascists. All stopped now. He says Commissar orders American songs to honour American general'.

'American songs are all about love.' 

'He says love is not anti-fascist.'

- Evelyn Waugh, Unconditional Surrender, London, 1961, p.268-9.

"There's nothing in life like leading a company in action"

Guy returned a day early to see that everything was well with his company's arrangements. Walking through the almost empty camp at dusk, he met the Brigadier. 'Crouchback,' he said, peering. 'Not a captain yet?'

'No, sir."

'But you've got your company.' They walked together some way.

'You've got the best command there is,' said the Brigadier. "There's nothing in life like leading a company in action. Next best thing is doing a job on your own. Everything else is just bumf and telephones.' Under the trees, in the failing light, he was barely visible. 'It's not much of a show we're' going to. I'm not supposed to tell you where, so I shall. Place called Dakar. I'd never heard of it till they started sending me 'Most Secret' intelligence reports, mostly about ground-nuts. A French town in West Africa. Probably all boulevards and brothels if I know the French colonies. We're in support. Worse really - we're in support of the supporting brigade. They're putting the Marines in before us, blast them. Anyway it's all froggy business. They think they'll get in without opposition. But it'll help training. Sorry I told you. They'd court-martial me if they found out. I'm getting too old for courts martial.'

He turned away abruptly and disappeared into the woodland.

- Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms, London, 1952, p.274-5.

See also:
Blog: The dhobi technique, 12 October 2020
Blog: Putting El Alamein into perspective, 15 April 2020
Blog: Meet the gang 'cos the boys are here, 15 December 2014
Blog: If all else fails, we can Pee-at them, 15 July 2012

The dhobi technique

A dhobi - a more primitive but cheaper alternative to drycleaners - was set up by enterprising Egyptians on the edge of Maadi Camp, and soon attained landmark status with the New Zealanders, particularly after their uniforms arrived back beautifully pressed. It was probably just as well that initially the men did not know that the Egyptians achieved this by dampening the garments for pressing by squirting a mouthful of water over them.

- Alex Hedley, Fearnleaf Cairo, Auckland, 2009, p.31

The mercurial naval legacy of HMS Maori

Many people will be familiar with the Royal Navy's famous Indefatigable-class battlecruiser HMS New Zealand, which was paid for by the Dominion of New Zealand and donated to the British navy. It served with distinction in World War 1, in particular at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. But there have been other New Zealand connections in the Royal Navy's roll of warships throughout the decades.

Two in particular received the name HMS Maori - there were of course no macrons in those days - under the auspices of the Royal Navy's Tribal-class warships in the then-comparatively new destroyer class of vessels, or as they were originally known, torpedo-boat destroyers. However, neither of the ships named HMS Maori enjoyed a wholly fortunate career in the Royal Navy.

The huge number of warships in the Royal Navy over the years has required enormous numbers of vessel names. The process of naming these vessels was often dictated by historical precedent, with the Admiralty naming ships after famous battles and war leaders. But also as the Navy expanded it took on a more systematised approach, which was particularly important in the naval arms race in the leadup to World War 1 and the mass building programme during World War 2 to strengthen the Navy for the existential crisis of the Battle of the Atlantic. Many new names were required and the need for some sense of order and coherence was identified early on. For example, destroyers built around the same time would often be named with the same initial letter, such as the 1913-14 L-class destroyers including HMS Laertes, Llewellyn and Lochinvar, or for regional rivers around the British Isles, as in the 1903-05 River-class destroyers that included the riverine HMS Chelmer, Exe and Teviot.

The first Tribal-class of warships arose in the Edwardian decade and was named after often warlike tribes around the world, some with connections to the British Empire, and some not. The 12 destroyers in the class ranged from 850 to 1090 tons; early boats sported three 12-pounder guns, later augmented to five, while later boats were equipped with two four-inch guns. All vessels were equipped with two 18-inch torpedo tubes, and their turbines of between 14,000 to 15,500 horsepower could propel them at up to 33 knots to track down their elusive prey.

(In a hallmark of the practical approach the Royal Navy took to vessel names, in 1917 it took two damaged halves of two vessels of this class, HMS Nubian and Zulu, and merged them into a single working vessel that was renamed HMS Zubian).

The first Royal Navy HMS Maori was launched at William Denny & Brothers in Dumbarton in May 1909 after nine and a half months of construction, although it was not fully completed until November of that year. Crewed by 71 officers and ratings, the Maori was originally based at Harwich, but by the eve of World War 1 it was serving in the 4th Destroyer Flotilla, operating in the English Channel and the North Sea, where the Navy was engaged in bottling up the German surface fleet in its highly-defended ports. By 1915 Maori was serving with the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, and on 7 May 1915 it struck a mine and sank off Zeebrugge. The impact on naval history was negligible, particularly because on the same day the ocean liner RMS Lusitania, steaming off the Old Head of Kinsale in County Cork, was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, with the loss of 1195 lives, which was over half of those onboard. The outraged caused by the deaths of 128 American citizens in the attack was a direct contributor to the United States' eventual entry into the war on the Allied side in 1917.

The sinking of the destroyer attracted almost no attention in the New Zealand press at the time, which was consumed with the Gallipoli landings of a few weeks earlier. The only mention I could find was in the New Zealand Herald of 12 May 1915, which printed a grainy photo of the Maori, with the caption:

SUNK BY A GERMAN MINE AND HER CREW TAKEN PRISONERS BY THE ENEMY: THE BRITISH TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYER MAORI (980 TONS), WHICH FOUNDERED OFF THE BELGIAN COAST
The destroyer Crusader went to the rescue of the crew. The enemy opened fire from the batteries ashore, and the Crusader was forced to withdraw after being an hour and a-half under fire, abandoning boats containing seven officers and 88 men of both crews. The Germans report that all were saved and taken prisoners to Zeebrugge. 

HMS Maori (1909)

The second Tribal-class destroyers were a set of 16 vessels from 1937. Almost double in size to their Edwardian counterparts, these vessels displaced 1870 tons and were equipped with eight 4.7-inch guns plus four 21-inch torpedo tubes. Their 44,000 horsepower geared turbines achieved a top speed of 36 and a half knots. One of the second batch of Tribals being built at the Fairfield yards in Govan was given the name HMS Maori. The vessel was laid down in July 1936, launched in September 1937 (with the honours being performed by Mrs WJ Jordan, wife of the New Zealand High Commissioner Bill Jordan, who held the role from 1936 until 1951) and commissioned into the Royal Navy in January 1939 just before the outbreak of war.   

Assigned to convoy escort service with the Mediterranean Fleet, HMS Maori played a role in the seesawing balance of military power in the region as the Allies were forced out of Greece and Crete, and as battles raged in North Africa. It also joined the ill-fated Norway campaign, in which the Royal Navy's destroyers served bravely but were exposed due to a lack of air cover. In its most distinguished battle honour, in May 1941 the ship also participated in an night-long torpedo harassment of the rampaging German battleship Bismarck. The destroyers Maori, Cossack, Sikh and Zulu peppered the enormous Bismarck with torpedo fire and illuminating it with star-shells into the next morning, causing no direct harm but preventing the battleship's crew from gaining any rest that night. The Bismarck would go on to be sunk later that day; Maori assisted by rescuing some of the few German crew to survive the sinking, picking up 25. Along with the Cossack's 85, the two ships saved nearly all of the mere 114 German survivors of the sinking; almost 2100 men perished with the ship.

Maori also played an important role in the Battle of Cape Bon in December 1941, off the coast of Tunisia (not to be confused with the other Battle of Cape Bon nearly 1500 years earlier in the 5th century AD). With three other Allied destroyers, HMS Sikh, HMS Legion and the Dutch HNLMS Isaac Sweers, HMS Maori participated in a daring sneak attack, catching the Italian light cruisers Da Barbiano and Di Giussano unawares at close range. Carrying 72 tonnes of supplies and aviation fuel on their decks, the Italians were unable to fight freely. HMS Maori's guns struck Da Barbiano, the Italian admiral Toscano's flagship, in the bridge. Both Italian cruisers and the admiral were lost, as were 817 Italian naval personnel; only around 640 were rescued. 

However, the Mediterranean was a high-risk posting, and HMS Maori's luck eventually ran out. On 12 February 1942 under the picturesquely-named Commander Courage, she was at port in Valletta, Malta, when an attack by German aircraft sunk her at her moorings. Fortunately only one serviceman lost their life in the attack, but for Maori the war was over. She would later be raised and re-sunk in a safer location in July 1945, and the wreck has subsequently become a Maltese diving attraction.

Due to wartime censorship the New Zealand press appears to contain no word of the sinking, but the previous month the ship enjoyed a more convivial event: the Royal Navy crew's first visit from actual Maori soldiers. The destroyer welcomed aboard 32 soldiers from the Maori Battalion, with the Herald reporting on 12 January 1942, 'Distinguished Service Commander Jonas said he welcomed the Maoris because of the fact that since the launching of H.M.S. Maori in 1938 none of the ship's company had met a member of the Maori race, but they had heard much of the exploits and fighting qualities of the Maoris in Greece, Crete and Libya'. There was also a ritual exchange of gifts, with the Maori presenting the Battalion men with the naval ensign the ship had flown during the victory over the Italians at Cape Bon: 'Major T. Love, of Wellington, accepted the Ensign on behalf of the Maori Battalion. He then led the Maoris in a rousing haka. Major Rangi Royal, of Rotorua, on behalf of the battalion, presented Commander Jonas with a swastika flag which the Maoris had captured from Rommel's staff'. 

HMS Maori (1937) [source]

See also:

Blog: The international naval flotilla, 19 November 2016

Blog: In fear of the Tsar's navy, 5 November 2011

Blog: Royal NZ Navy 70th anniversary, 2 October 2011

Blog: Chatham Historic Dockyards, 5 August 2010

Blog: Nauticalia in Portsmouth, 12 April 2007

Putting El Alamein into perspective

The Second Battle of El Alamein has entered history as the starting-point of the counter-offensive of the Western Allies which ultimately carried them into central Germany. The sum of that achievement has rightly been called a "mighty endeavour", and everything has to have a beginning. For a perspective, however, it is well to recall that the Axis forces at El Alamein consisted of four weak German divisions and eight Italian divisions of varying but generally unimpressive quality (a total of some 50,000 Germans and 54,000 Italians). The Axis forces on the Eastern Front in 1942 amounted to 232 divisions, of which 171 were German (including 24 Panzer divisions) - a manpower total running into millions. Against the attenuated Panzerarmee Afrika, the British Eighth Army brought 11 divisions (four armoured), 195,000 men, with crushing superiority in guns and tanks. And the Desert Air Force immediately established its own crushing superiority in the air.

- John Terraine, The Right of the Line: The RAF in the European War 1939-1945, London, 1985, p.384.

[Elsewhere in Terraine's book, he makes the entertaining observation that 'Lord [Bernard] Montgomery had a way of enunciating principles of war as though he had not merely personally brought them down, like Moses, from the high mountain, but had also had a large hand in inscribing them up there']

See also:
Blog: Meet the gang 'cos the boys are here, 15 December 2014
Blog: If all else fails, we can Pee-at them, 15 July 2012
Blog: His finest hour, 16 September 2010

Honour & glory are excellent things, but so are silver & gold

[The Cruisers & Convoys Act 1708, which concerned naval prize money, and which was still in force during the Napoleonic Wars] laid down the proportions into which the value of the prize was to be divided. There were certain Droits of the Crown, but these were kept in reserve; in general, the full value of the prize, ship and cargo, went to the captors, as follows: the captain had three-eighths, of which he gave one to the flag officer under whom he served; the other officers, down to sergeant of Marines, had three-eighths, in three categories which ensured that the more senior had the bigger share; and the remaining two-eighths went to the rest of the crew, again shared according to seniority. Nor was this all: in the case of warships captured or destroyed, Admiralty paid head-money at the rate of £5 per head of the enemy crew at the commencement  of the engagement. This was to encourage doubtful captains to engage warships rather than seek the easier and more lucrative merchant prizes; moreover, a successful engagement with a warship meant probable promotion, which never rewarded captors of merchantmen [...]

[As a result of the October 1796 action in which the frigate HMS Naiad captured the treasure-laden Spanish frigates Santa Brigida and Thetis late of Vera Cruz, the prize money granted was lavish]. Besides a cargo of valuable commodities such as cochineal and indigo, the two ships had between them about a thousand boxes each containing 5000 silver dollars, besides odd bags and kegs and some gold. There can have been few literate persons in the squadron who were not doing pleasing little sums during the short voyage to Plymouth, where they arrived on the 21st November. The treasure was conveyed in sixty-three wagons to the citadel of Plymouth, and thence to London. The prize-money was divided thus:

Each Captain: £40,730
Each Lieutenant: £5091
Warrant-Officers: £2468
Midshipmen, etc.: £791
Each Seaman & Marine: £182

One has to consider that the rate of pay per annum did not exceed £150 for a frigate captain, £75 for a lieutenant, and £12 for an ordinary seaman. A captain would have to serve for 250 years to earn the money he picked up in a couple of easy days; and even the humblest seaman could set himself up in a cosy pub. It was very wise of the Admiralty to allot these astounding prizes; it was like the football pools and the lotteries: I know that the chance is remote, but all the same, people have in fact won such prizes, and why should the next one not be me? Honour and glory are excellent things, but so are silver and gold; and if all are to be had in the same engagement, let us go heartily about it!

- James Henderson, The Frigates, London, 1970, p.119-121

See also:
History: In fear of the Tsar's navy, 5 November 2011
History: Chatham Historic Dockyards, 5 August 2010
History: Nauticalia in Portsmouth, 12 April 2007

Thomas Frederick Duck

Aircraft fuselage fabric design from a 156 Squadron Pathfinder Force Lancaster bomber with a predominantly New Zealand crew. They flew over 60 missions over Europe, and brought Mr Duck with them when they returned home safely. Exhibit on display at the Air Force Museum at Wigram, Christchurch, photographed 14 April 2017.

Mr Church, the Jeweller

Former Howden Jeweller's, Victoria St, Hamilton

On a recent visit to the centre of Hamilton to admire the new statues, I passed the building that hosts my cousin's Nimbus Media (upstairs) and the Scotts Epicurean cafe (downstairs). The building still displays the name of its founder, the long-standing Hamilton jeweller Herbert Henry Howden, who had it built in 1902. Threatened with demolition in the greedy 1980s, the building was saved after a public outcry, and was most recently put on the market in 2014.

Keen to investigate the history of the site, I checked out Papers Past to see if anything interesting had been reported over the years. Nothing cropped up for the building in my brief search, but one of Howden's employees did prove noteworthy: a minor military hero from World War 1.

Duncan Macdonald Church was born in Ashburton in Canterbury in 1884, to Duncan and Florence Church. His father was born in Tasmania and died in Ashburton in 1909, while his mother was born in Kaiapoi in 1859 and died in Ashburton in 1941.

Church became a jeweller by trade, and married Vera Condon in Feilding on 4 October 1916. He was working for Howden in his Hamilton shop when he enlisted on 2 February 1917. At the time he was nearly 33 years old, which is old for an enlistment this late in the war, but his military record revealed that he had previously been rejected for service due to haemorrhoids. (His enlistment medical inspection must have been favourable, because it listed his 'apparent age' as 24).

He departed Hamilton by train for Trentham on 6 March 1917 to join the 27th Reinforcements. Later that year on 2 September Vera delivered the couple's first child, a son, Duncan Macdonald Brownell Church (1917-95). By that time Duncan senior was safely in England, having travelled on the Willochra to Devonport and then on to Sling Camp. Leaving for France in late September 1917, he joined the New Zealand Division at Etaples, being posted to the 2nd Battalion of the Auckland Regiment on 11 October.

Almost a year later Church would display acts of gallantry that earned him the Military Medal. His citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. During the operations at Grevillers on the 24th August and at Bancourt on 30th August and 1st September Private Church acted as company runner and displayed great courage and resource under very heavy fire. On the 1st September when not required as a runner he voluntarily carried out wounded men under very heavy machine-gun and sniping fire.

The 24th was the beginning of the New Zealand Division's involvement in the 2nd Battle of Baupaume, which saw heavy fighting to push the Germans out of the town. It was one of the Division's most costly engagements of the war, with over 800 deaths and 2300 wounded. 

According to the Waikato Times of 3 December 1918, Church was 'well known in Hamilton, where for some years he was in the employ of Mr H. Howden, jeweller, [and] has been awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in action'. He was later promoted Corporal in January 1919 (with a temporary promotion to Sergeant for few weeks), and was eventually discharged from the Army back in New Zealand in July 1919 after two years and 15 days of service, to reside at 6 Rostrevor St, Hamilton, just around the corner from Howden's Victoria St jeweller's shop.

Corp Duncan Church MM (source)

Church and his wife would go on to have four sons. Duncan Church died in Hamilton on 6 April 1937, aged 53. His obituary from the New Zealand Herald of the following day reads:

The death occurred this morning of Mr Duncan Macdonald Church, of Hamilton, in his 54th year. Mr. Church was born in Ashburton and came to Hamilton when a young man. He served in France during the war with the Waikato Company of the Second Auckland Battalion, and was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in the field. Mr. Church was a keen cricketer and was well known among Hamilton players. He is survived by his wife and three sons.

A fleet in being

International naval flotilla assembled in the Waitemata Harbour for inspection by the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy, in honour of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Royal New Zealand Navy.  Viewed in light drizzle from the end of Princes Wharf.

Anzac Day eve street parade

Video of this afternoon's lunchtime parade from Parliament to the new Pukeahu Memorial Park, with plenty of WW1 vehicles - most of which are from Peter Jackson's personal collection. It was perfect capital weather for it!

Sorry mate, I'm actually rather out of shape at the moment

Source: John Christopher, British Posters of  the First World War, Stroud (Gloucs.), 2013.

Bring out the big guns

A Singaporean Army 155mm self-propelled howitzer stops traffic as it crosses the narrow Manawatu River bridge just south of Foxton, on the way north from the port of Wellington to Waiouru for artillery practice, 1 January 2015.

See also:

Military: Cadets at Parliament, 9 November 2014

Military: Commemorating the 100th anniversary of WW1, 4 August 2014

Military: Royal Marines Band, 30 September 2013

The tars react to Omdurman

From Rudyard Kipling's A Fleet in Being (1898, subtitled 'Notes of two trips with the Channel Squadron'), an account of Royal Navy sailors' reaction to fleet signals detailing General Kitchener's major victory in the Battle of Omdurman against Mahdist forces in the Sudan on 2 September 1898:

One peaceful morning the Yeoman of Signals came to the captain's cabin at the regulation pace, but with heightened colour and an eye something brighter than usual. 'Signal from the flagship, sir,' said he, reading off the slate. 'Omdurman fallen: killed so many, and wounded so many.' 'Thank you,' said the captain. 'Tell the men.' On this, I went forward to see how the news would be received. We were busy painting some deck-houses, and the work continued to an accompaniment of subdued voices--the hushed tones of men under the eye of authority. Word was passed to the lower deck and the stokehold: and the hum of talk rose, perhaps, half a note. I halted by the painters. Said one, dipping deep in the white lead: 'Um, ah! This ought to make the French sickish. Almost 'ear 'em coughin', can't you?' Said another, reaching out for the broadest and slabbiest brush: 'I say, Alf, lend us that Khartoum brush o' yours.' After a long pause, stepping back to catch the effect of a peculiarly juicy stroke--head a little aside and one eye shut: 'Well, we've waited about long enough, 'aven't we?' Bosun's mate with a fine mixture of official severity and human tolerance: 'What are you cacklin' for over there! Carry on quiet, can't you?' And that was how we took the news of the little skirmish called Omdurman.
- Rudyard Kipling, A Fleet in Being, 1898

Today Omdurman is a suburb of the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

Meet the gang 'cos the boys are here, the boys to entertain you

Today's special find in the second-hand bookstore was this fine example of New Zealand social history: The Songs We Sang, by Les Cleveland and the D Day Dodgers, on Kiwi Records (LA-3). It's in excellent condition, and contains 11 examples of military tunes belted out in quick succession. You can hear the recordings here, and that website thinks the LP was released in 1959 - it's not clear from the disc itself, which is not dated. Historian Jock Phillips has written an excellent biography of Cleveland, who turns out to have been a multi-talented chap who (amongst other things) was a lecturer in the Political Science department at Victoria University of Wellington.

The back cover of the LP contains a blurb for each of the tracks. Here's the one for track 4, side 1: My Africa Star:

This is a satire based on one of the red-hot grievances of the New Zealand Division in the Middle East. The Eighth Army was formed in September, 1941. To qualify for a small metal figure eight which was worn with the Africa Star ribbon, it was necessary to have served in the Eighth Army on or after October 23, 1942. But the formation had been fighting for a year prior to that arbitrary date, so that all those men who had been knocked out with wounds, invalided out with illness or transferred to non-operational units were denied this small but significant award. Some of them were veterans of the first desert battles and their remarks were often voluble and loud when they saw less-worthy soldiers—including girls serving ice-cream in army canteens and "those who were in Palestine"—wearing "the eight".

Les Cleveland died in January 2014.

See also:

History: NZ Film Unit - Behind Our Planes (1942 WAAF short) 

TV: It Ain't Half Hot Mum theme

TV: Don Estelle & Windsor Davies - Whispering Grass

Cadets at Parliament

150 cadets from around New Zealand commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Cadet Forces, on the steps of Parliament, 9 November 2014.

Democratised connectivity & modern conflict

Connectivity has huge effects on conflict: democratizing and weaponizing communications technology, and putting into the hands of individuals a suite of lethal tools that used to belong only to nation-states.

In August 2011, for example, in the Libyan coastal city of Misrata, school children used mobile phones to mark Gaddafi regime sniper positions on Google Earth, allowing French warships off the coast to target them. In the same battle, rebels used smartphone compass apps and online maps to adjust rocket fire in the city's streets. Syrian fighters use iPads and Android phones to adjust mortar fire, and video game consoles and flat-screen TVs to control homemade tanks. Snipers use iPhone apps and cellphone cameras to calculate, then record, their shots.

The technology writer John Pollock has brilliantly described the role of online activists in the Arab Spring, not only for political mobilization, but also for logistics and tactical coordination -- as in April 2011 when Libyan rebels, at night in the open field, planned an assault on a rocket launcher via a multinational Skype hookup. None of this would have been possible a decade ago.

This democratized connectivity will increasingly allow distant players to participate directly in conflicts. For nation-states, we see this "remote warfare" trend in the Predator remotely piloted aircraft, which can be flown from the other side of the planet through satellite uplinks. But non-state groups can play the same game: In 2009, Iraqi insurgents pointed ordinary satellite TV dishes at the sky, then used Skygrabber, a $26 piece of Russian software, to intercept the Predator uplink. The guerrillas had hacked the Predators's control system, far easier than shooting down the actual aircraft.

- Dr David Kilcullen, 'The Future of War? Expect to see urban, connected, irregular 'zombie' conflicts', Foreign Policy 'Best Defence' blog, 28 May 2014