- as it concerns things going bang with considerable frequency and lethalness. Yes, we are talking about the Second Unpleasantness here as it concerns that boardgame I've been harping on about, Beda Fomm.
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| NO, Art! Not a "Bed of Foam" |
This is probably one of the most important battles you've never heard of. Shall I explicate further? Yes? Thanks for the permission but I was going to anyway*.
Cast your mind back to Early 1941. The Italian 10th Army was in full retreat from it's short invasion of Egypt, where it had, to put it in a technical phrase, been given "a right shoeing". They were following the coast road, and being followed by the British Western Desert Force. Perfidious Albion sent a small blocking force across the desert, which arrived at Beda Fomm minutes before the first Italians did.
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| The British heavy cruisers go into action |
There then followed a desperately fought battle with the British being grossly outnumbered, but well dug in; and the Italians were arriving piecemeal and very disorganised. Fortunately for the British, the rest of the 7th Armoured Division arrived literally in the nick of time.
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| The aftermath |
And that was the end of the Italian 10th Army. El Duce was rather surprised, unpleasantly so, as his somewhat gimcrack empire looked distinctly shoddy at this point. His best pal Adolf was also unpleasantly surprised, so much so that he sent Rommel and a couple of armoured divisions to prop up Mussolini. This commitment was what we call "open-ended" because it went on for years and swallowed up endless resources.
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| The surrenders begin |
More Of Matters Murderous
I am enjoying "Father Brown" at present, but I do wonder. I also wander, but we'll ignore that for the moment. There is a murder in almost every episode, and at 10 episodes per season and 5 seasons, were talking at least 50 deaths - in the episode just watched there were three. I don't think we ever got a total for the population of Kembleford, although it can't be that many; it's a small parish.
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| - and getting smaller all the time |
Picture-perfect it may be on the surface, eh? yet you still have to run the risk of becoming that 5% of the population who have been done away with.
This reminds me of my own invented town of Eden Underwoood; chocolate-box pretty on the outside, yet full of sinister undercurrents beneath the surface.
"Flight Training News"
Another glimpse of a sub-culture you never knew existed. Although, if you stop to analyse the Pond's population of pilots, they have to be trained somewhere. You can't simply sit in a cockpit and know how to fly an aircraft. Not unless you're Joe 90 or Neo.
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| Not for me, thanks |
FTN is a monthly publication, with a definite agenda when it comes to contents. There would be articles about legislative or funding or technical issues that affected flight training; a featured article by Lembit Opik - an MP with a pilot's licence -; a couple of analytical articles about accidents; a collection of humourous shorts and a swathe of adverts. You can, for example, get a commercial passenger multi-jet licence in South Canada, if you can spare £19,000. Yes, getting a pilot's licence is an expensive business.
The Special Brigade
More of matters murderously martial. The Special Brigade was the British Army's gas warfare unit in the First Unpleasantness, and they definitely put the "gas" in "Ghastly". It was commanded by Colonel Foulkes, who had the express intent of reducing the cost of killing our Teuton brethren to four shillings and sixpence each. A chap with a vision, Col. Foulkes.
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| Colonel Foulkes. Probably plotting how to finish off the foe for two-and-sixpence |
Not a very nice vision if you happened to be the opposition. Using intelligence information, the Colonel would track specific German units and deliberately target them with a gas attack. He would follow them up and down the trenchlines over time and gas them again and again and again. The luckless 1st Bavarian Reserve Regiment was attacked in this way, 15 times; the 1st Guards Reserve Regiment 12 times; the 156th Regiment got off lightly by comparison with only 10 attacks.
Nor is that all. O no! The Colonel's vision extended to German units that had been transferred from the Eastern Front and which were thus unprepared for the extreme intensity of the Western Front.
Frankly, I am glad he was on our side ...
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| Captain Livens. You can see the gears going round in his head, can't you? |
* It is my blog after all.
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