By The Power Of -

Pallets

Yeah.  Pallets.

     Sorry if you were expecting a quotation along the lines of "By the power of Grayskull!", which instantly dates you.  Art!

     I'm going to have to explain about this to you lot, aren't I?  Or I'll never get a moment's peace.  Okay, 'He-Man' is the alter-ego of Prince Adam, who is a workshy fop.  He-Man has a full-time job on his hands defending Castle Grayskull and his homeworld Eternia from the forces of evilllll, principally one Skeletor.  Art!

Skelly

     The original cartoon television series came out in 1983 and was so successful that it's been <ahem> 're-imagined' several times.  There was even a film, with Dolph Lundgren in the lead role.  Art!

It won an Oscar for Hairdressing

     This Intro might also have been called "The Fury Of The Forklift!" because what we are looking at here is LOGISTICS! to the elucidation of all.  As you should surely know by now, logistics is the supply of armed forces with whatever they need - usually summed up as 'beans, bullets and boots' by those with a gift for aphorisms.  You need to get the right stuff to the right place in the right amount, which is easier said than done.  Art!

Art!

     This movement of supplies by all NATO armed forces is done by loading via pallets, because this simplifies and makes the logistics process more efficient.  One or two men with a forklift can easily load tons of pre-packed pallets in a short time, and if Art will stop rubbing his Tazer burns -

     This is one of the South Canadian transport aircraft that constitute an air-bridge between their continent and air bases in Germany, and please note the two people visible at work.  Two men, not a hundred sweating grunts.  All the horizontal surfaces are covered in rollers to make the job of loading easy enough for one or two men to shift tons of cargo.  Art?

Ryan McBeth (yes his real name) pointed out another example, used to deliver artillery charges to the battlefield.  Art?  O stop whining!

     Note the pallet.  This load has 36 charge containers, being handled by three men - the two you can see here and the crane operator - rather than thirty-six men handling one container each.  Like I said, efficiency the goal.

     "Yes yes yes, Conrad, logistics blah blah blah efficiency guff guff guff.  Where is this leading?" I hear you ask, and pausing only to raise eyebrows at the lack of any insulting description of Your Humble Scribe, I shall explain further.

     How do the Ruffians manage their logistics?

     Poorly, is the overall analysis.  Conrad has seen countless videos and still photos from their SMO in Ukraine, with a plethora of vehicle types, yet NOT ONE SINGLE FORKLIFT!  The concept of 'palletisation' is completely alien to them.  Art!

     This is how they store ammunition: in wooden boxes, presumably because they have lots of trees, and all those boxes will have been hauled into position by a couple of sweating minions.  When they need to be moved, the sweaty minions will have the thankless task of moving them again.  As is clearly visible, they haven't been stacked with any great care and some have fallen over.  Conrad can tell what you're thinking: this is dated 2010, they MUST be more organised when on an active SMO?

     Er - no.  Art?

     This is why the Ukrainians always capture tons of Russian ammunition: because removing it would have to be done manually, box by box, and it would take ages.  Soldiers from the Red Army of 1942 would instantly recognise this kind of storage, which is not a good thing if your logistics are based on an 80-year old system.  Art!

Pallet is offended

     You know, I bet Ruffian supermarket logistics chains don't even use rollcages.  I know for a fact that Peter The Great had never seen a wheelbarrow before he visited This Sceptred Isle.

Hideously advanced Western technology

     Well, I think we've made Tsar Poutine weep salty tears into his borshcht enough for today.

The Tautology Of Idiots

Another tale from Youtube.  Original Poster's dad had built a wooden cabin out in wilds that he loved, but which neither wifey nor OP cared to visit.  Don't knock people who want a flush toilet and central heating.  Art!

     So they stopped the utilities, until they came to water.  The Water Fascists insisted that the only person who could authorise cessation of supply was the person whose name was on the bill.  Sending in copies of the death certificate, visiting to explain, completing next-of-kin forms, e-mails - nothing swayed the Water Nazis.  So they stopped paying the water bill.  Surprise!  The Water Dictators come back and say they're closing the account, the original bill-payer needed to come in to close the account in person and that's £100 please.

     Here the Malicious Compliance arrives.  OP goes to the Water Jackbooted-Scum and, in front of the entire staff, confirms with an utter jobsworth that the bill-payer needed to be there in person.  Art!

     OP produces one of these and a ceremonial urn containing their father's ashes, then begins to go through the process of summoning the spirits.

     The Director of Water Obstruction Services unglues himself from his seat and the whole thing is sorted out in minutes.  Not before OP informs everyone present how STUPID they had been.

"The Sea Of Sand"

We shall finish the chapter with the tired Teuton staff officers working up plans to move out from Tripoli.

Picking up a pair of dividers, he measured distances across the map.

     "I think the Thirty-Third Recon Battalion can make the running to this place.  Mersa Martuba, way out in the middle of nowhere.  From there they can move north or north-east against the British lines of communication."

     Kapitan Hertz yawned.  Right.  Plot and plan to get a thousand men and all their equipment across the desert to a fly-blown speck of nothingness.  Nothing would probably come of it, anyway.

Twelve: Moving From A To B To A

The Doctor skulked across the beaten path between what he now deemed to be scientific buildings.  He had just been noseying in an archive, of sorts.  Perhaps it was designed to update new arrivals to Earth?  Aliens who came here via trans-mat from their wasted world, unfamiliar with circumstances here.  A refresher course in the wherefore and why.  Yet why would they remain uncertain of what they were leaving and where they were going?

     Staying any longer in the archive would be unwise, given the bio-vores now patrolling or simply accessing buildings.  To have remained there would have been risking discovery.

     There you go, from the prosaic to the not so prosaic.

I Found Another List!

This is from 'Digital Spy', who are pretty indiscreet for an espionage operation.  They had a list of '8 Movie Monster Even Scarier Than Pennywise The Clown From "It"' so let's have Number 8.  Art!

Pazuzu from "The Exorcist"

     Nope.  Not remotely scary, let alone scarier than Pennywise.  It looks like a monkey with sharp teeth to Conrad. 2/10 must try harder.

Finally -

Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom came to visit for Deggsy's birthday yesteryon, principally to help eat two 16" pizzas that were too big to fit whole into the oven.  Wonder Wifey had to trim them to enable cooking, and the trimmed bits alone made a separate pizza.  Art!

Family 2 Pizzas 0

     And with that we (and the pizzas) are done.

The DARTs Of Death!

Forgive Me For Being A Little Tasteless

However, if you wanted good taste and culture, then you are in altogether the wrong place.  Try Uncle Bernie's Victorian Brass Faucet Collectors Blog instead.  Don't tell them I sent you, we don't get on.

     NO!  This is not about '2000AD' nor 'Mach Zero', whatever gave you that idea?  Art?

Ah.  I see.

     No, what I want to talk about in this Intro - what's that?  Who is Mach Zero?

     O VERY WELL.  MACH Zero had his roots in 'MACH 1', which was an acronym for 'Man Activated by Compu-puncture Hyperpower', a process that gave him incredible strength, speed and stamina, aided by a computer implant in his brain.  The stories began as a knock-off of "The Six-Million Dollar Man" but became progressively darker in tone.  Art!

Not a chap to get on the wrong side of

     MACH Zero was an earlier guinea-pig who didn't have a computer implant and who went round the bend.

     There.  Happy now?  Thanks.  Thanks so much.

     ANYWAY I mentioned that there was scandal involved in the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system.  The system had a shortfall of $1 billion, which the executive director tried to skim from other rail projects after ignoring this financial black hole for eight months.  The project managers of said rail projects loudly complained, forcing DART to borrow more money.  Despite this matey continued in office.

     The other scandal was DART board president Lynn Flint Shaw resigning her position.  Art!

A train

     She owed $7,500 and tried to get out of this debt by using Dallas County District Attorney stationery and forging details, which got her arrested and charged with tampering with government documents.  When this got out she resigned her position with DART, which shows a degree of acknowledgement.

     This does NOT have a happy ending, because one month after her arrest her husband murdered her and then killed himself in a mutual murder-suicide pact, which is a bit grim.  All for $7,500, which can only be a fraction of her annual salary as board president.  What was she thinking?

Just to cheer you up a bit

Scambusting

To buck our spirits up a tad, let's get back to Mark Rober and his exposure of scamming arcade games.  These are games that pretend to be about skill or speed or strength, but which are nothing of the sort.  Art!

"Barbercuts"

     Because Mark is nothing if not thorough, he got the operator's manual for each of these games - not sure how he managed that - Art!

 - and again found that the arcade sets the jackpot for any number of games played up to 999 before anyone wins.  He also found that 'Grab With Claw' games - not sure what the correct genre name for these is, so if Art can oblige - 

 - the arcade will allow the claw to grab with full strength but then weakens the grip, causing the prize to drop, again thanks to having a pre-selected jackpot number of attempts.  Mark recommended grabbing stuff as near the drop chute as possible, as this takes the least amount of time, and you can drop your prize before the claw weakens.

Art! - O - never mind

Beating 5 Scam Arcade Games with Science - YouTube

     That's a link to the guide, please please please Subscribe and Like because we cannot risk Mark becoming another Hooded Claw due to low funds.

"The Sea Of Sand"

Yesterday we shifted focus and dwelt, not upon the Doctor, the British army nor the Italians, but newly-arrived staff officers from the Afrika Korps, ashore and planning in the Libyan port of Tripoli.

Their Chief Of Staff, General Von Dem Borne, wanted results quickly, and wouldn't accept any excuses if the plans weren't ready on time.  Besides which, General Rommel would be breathing down Von Dem Borne's own neck.

     The glamour of Africa, eh?  Burning the midnight oil in a pokey little flat requisitioned from the Italians.  Tripoli's harbour brought the scent of brine and oil to them, dusky and hot.  That, at least, was different from home.

     "The British aren't moving forward.  We can cut around them, outflank them and move south across the desert, the way they cut off the Italians," commented Brendrecke.

     "Please don't mention that in front of the Regio Esercito liaison officer, sir," asked Hertz, pleadingly.  "It's a huge embarrassment to them."

     Brendrecke gave his subordinate an arch look.

     "We're not here to support our Fascist allies because they need us to look splendid in a triumphal march, Kapitan.  If their toes are tender enough to dislike being stepped upon it's probably because they spent so much time retreating."

     He remembered how the Italians had behaved when the Afrika Korps arrived in Tripoli and paraded with the local Italian forces.  Respectful silence for the Germans, rioutous applause for the Italians.  Humbug!

     That last paragraph is entirely true.

That Cavernous Maw

You will remember, I hope, that Intro Your Humble Scribe did about mobilisation across various time periods.  Today I have an addenda to that.

     The First Unpleasantness did not end by Christmas, or when the leaves began to fall, and dragged on for years, which went against all military and political expectations.  Thus, over time, the standards by which men of mobilisation age were judged dropped, meaning that men who would have been laughed out of the recruiting office in the summer of 1914 were now liable for conscription.  You needed to muster millions of men to keep a multi-million man army fully up to strength, after all.

     Conrad was minded of a bitter political cartoon by the Teuton artist George Grosz.  Art!

     "KV" is the Teuton abbreviation for "Kriegsverwendungsfahig" - translated as "Fit for active service", and a satirical prod at the Teuton state's desperate search for more warm bodies to put into uniform.

     Hmmmmm reminds me of something, can't quite put my finger on it ...

Needles Not Needless Tunnel

A striking image came up on my log-in screen, it being the 'Needle's Eye Tunnel', which, if Art will oblige - 

     It's a single-lane tunnel blasted through a rock formation in South Dakota, and you will be as offended as I am that the road sign is missing an apostrophe.

     One wonders that they only blasted a single lane through the rock.  Hmmmm.  I see.  It was done in 1922 when cars were a lot less common than they are now, and because Highway 87 is narrow, has lots of bends and doesn't have anything but scenery en route, it's use is almost entirely restricted to tourists.  

     If you ever visit, be advised that the tunnel is 8' 4" wide and 12' 1" high*.  Art!

You're pushing it, matey

Ask A Staggeringly Stupid Question

I have previously mentioned that you get some outstandingly daft questions on the Quora forums, and have provided a couple of exampled.  Today I came across a real find.

Did Britain make tanks before World War I?

     I'm not sure whether to answer this, and if I do answer, whether to be sensible.

     For those unsure, Britain INVENTED the tank in 1916, right in the middle of the First Unpleasantness, so the answer is "No".  Art!

Finally -

It is the birthday of Deggsy, so Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom are coming to visit and have tea with us, which will mostly consist of two pizzas the size of dustbin lids (hopefully a lot tastier) and beer.  Expect a photograph or two of this event.

*  If you need it in Metric THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY!

If I Were To Say "DART"

By Now You'd Probably Roll Your Eyes

 - and respond "What is he misdirecting us to again?"

     No, really, do keep up, this is an hilarious Intro, promise, cross my fusion-powered pumping unit and hope to die.  Art!

NNNNNNEEEEEEYYYYOOOWWWWWW

     Meet the F106 Delta DART, a South Canadian fighter jet, designed as an interceptor to deal with incoming Sinister bomber formations.  These puppies were fast, as they had to be in order to intercept.  They excelled at this job because it was what they were specifically designed for.  They also carried the extremely frightening Genie ATR-2A air-to-air rocket, which was armed with an atomic warhead.  Art!

The Genie let loose from it's bottle

     Just in case, duty "Six" pilots wore an eyepatch over one eye, thus is blinded by the flash from a detonated Genie, they still had one good eye.

     Of course - obviously! - none of this is the DART we're talking about.  No, we are not going to continue with an article about fat men throwing fat arrows at a board, that would be too easy.  Instead we have another iteration.  Art!

     Say hello to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system, an agglomeration of buses, light rail, heavy rail and traffic lanes in the fair metroplex of Dallas and Fort Worth.  There is a touch of scandal about this system, which - we won't go into today.  Because this is not the DART of which Conrad speaks.  Art!  More DART!

     

     This, it seems, is a programming language tha  s  

                                                                              jjjjjjjjjjjjjj

                                                                                                 78978978
     Ooops!  Fell asleep.  Dull as unsalted Lurpack.  Art!

     Now we encounter the Double Asteroid Redirection Test - the DART that I intended to talk about.  This is one of a series of tests conducted by NASA and ESA to firm up data about preventing an asteroid (or other Near Earth Object) hitting Earth.  The plan focussed on the dual-asteroid Dimorphos and Didymos, with DART being directed to hit Dimorphos in order to see what happened.  Art!

     The spacecraft is not very sophisticated, as it's sole function is to hit as hard as possible.  The impact was filmed and even observed from those with pole positions on Earth, and let me just prod Art into action -

     The spacecraft was sending back a live feed of the asteroid's surface up until impact, whereupon it abruptly cut out, as one would expect.  Art!

"Dear all, having a wonderf -"

     There has been a minor yet unmistakable change in the orbit of Dimorphos thanks to the impact of DART although the exact details are somewhat hazy.  This is where HERA comes in.  HERA is a follow-up spacecraft that will travel to the Dimorphos-Didymos pairing and assess precisely what happened.  

     The point of all this is that, given sufficient lead time, NASA or ESA or JAXA could construct an interceptor that would move a potential impactor slightly, enough to miss planet Earth.  Yes, rather less dramatic than "Deep Impact" or "Armageddon" but at least you won't have to put up with orange filters or a slo-mo march towards the camera.

     Since talk of interceptors is where we came in -

A Word Of Warning

For the past couple of days we've been looking at not-quite-mad-scientist Mark Rober and his boyish enthusiasm in constructing gadgets that will cheat arcade games.  He also gave guidance on how to best play these games if you don't have a degree in mechanical engineering and years of experience at NASA.

     Then there are the games that involve no skill at all and which are rigged by the arcade.  Art!

     This is 'Cyclone' where you have to try and hit a jackpot light, which is merely one in big circle of lights that flash in sequence.  Mark had tested this previously with a backpack button pushing robot designed to hit the jackpot light with clinical precision.  Which still failed.

     This is because - Art!

     'Jackpot Winnability' - in other words the arcade set how many failed attempts occur before the game allows a winner.  Trust Mark to be thorough and obtain a manual for this machine.  OBVIOUS SCAM!

     We'll come back to this because you need to know where you're being scammed.

That Dog Buns! Crossword Again

I know I sound seething with rancour, which is utter cant as it's been generating blog content for at least a week.  Let's have another of Ol' Dot Sayers far too literary 'clues'.  "Grew long ago by river's edge; Where grows today the common sedge."

     And the solution?  "SEG"

     Have you ever heard of a plant called "SEG"?  Because I haven't.  It's not in my Collins Concise, and when Googled, all that comes up is a factory.  Art!

     I dunno.  Maybe you had to be there in 1928 to make sense of it.

"The Sea Of Sand"

We now take leave of absence from Albert and the Professor and jump merely in space to much further west.

Major Brendrecke swilled down another cup of coffee, laced with cognac.  His eyes were tired, his back was tired, his calves were tired and his mind felt very tired, too.  He had worn down a pencil making notations, marking the small-scale maps, drawing in lines for the prospective advance of the Afrika Korps, consulting and drawing up march tables, orders of battle, petrol and diesel consumption rates, ammunition scales, spare part inventories, way points, supply dumps and so on.  

     "Enough," he said to his equally tired assistant, the lanky Swabian captain, Hertz.  Their NCOs had long gone to bed.

     "Agreed, sir," said Hertz.  He spoke fluent Italian, which was why he was here in Tripoli instead of manning that border post at the Brenner Pass.  "The General can make big sweeps over a map with his hand, but it's up to us to to make them work."

     Brendrecke sighed.  True enough!  They had to work out how to get the Fifth Light Division and the Fifteenth Panzer Division to El Aghelia, alongside their 'gallant Italian allies'.  Together with ammunition, spare parts, fuel, water, radio interception units, Luftwaffe liaison, artillery, more water, breakdown and recovery units, a field bakery - the list was endless.

     The life of a staff officer: unglamourous yet vital.

"The War Illustrated"

I thought we'd have a photograph that illustrates how aircraft on an aircraft carrier operate, and a bit of routine submarine logistics.  Art!

     A top you can see Swordfish reconnaissance aircraft being brought up from the below-decks hangar which is where they were stored before being needed.  Exposure to the elements on deck meant they were kept below whenever possible.  You can see how aircraft on a carrier were modified to have their wings folded, enabling efficient storage.  Below that is a submarine being 'bombed up' as the phrase went.  For smaller targets or targets ashore, the submarine would surface and use it's 4" gun to engage, since a shell is a whole lot less expensive than a torpedo.

     Notice the absences: the caption doesn't mention the name of either vessel, nor what the date was, nor where the photographs were taken.  OpSec in action.

Finally -

Nearly time for lunch and Conrad is wondering what to have, because yes, I have that stew to consume, and there's at least enough left for four people, but a little variety would be nice.  One supposes that's what happens when you make enough for eight people.  Plus I can't leave it too long or it goes mouldy.  Eat some freeze some I think.

     Pip pip!

Mobilisation Iteration!

Not What You're Thinking

Currently there's a lot of clips floating around social media about the Ruffians trying to mobilise reservists, who seem to be middle-aged alcoholics to a man.  However, you can thank the M8s and the Teutons for the whole process of mobilisation, which has it's roots in conscription.  Art!

Go on.  Call them 'Cheese-eating surrender monkeys.'  I dare you.

     After the French Revolution, the M8s were at war with basically the rest of Europe, whose monarchy and nobility felt a neck-twinge or two thanks to the guillotine.  So they needed a big army, which was a problem because they didn't have one.

     Enter the 'Levee En Masse'.  This was a law that meant every man from 18 to 25 was liable for service in the army, whether they wanted to be or not.  National Conscription, as we British would call it.  This generated a huge army of not-very-good soldiers, who were not quite bad enough to perform poorly on the battlefield.  

     The process of conscription was almost universally adopted across Europe, allowing even a third-rate military like that of Serbia to put more men in the field, and a lot quicker, than Britain, who sniffily maintained a purely volunteer force.  The Russian army when mobilised was bigger than the population of some of Europe's smaller nations.  Art!

Prussian tourists at play

     Then we come to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, where the Prussians used a highly-developed and controlled railway network to amass their various armies on the French border, where they surprised the French generals with 1) their size and 2) the speed with which they appeared on the borders - 460,000 men within 18 days.  Art!

M8s and Teutons having a bit of a spat

     This exemplifies what South Canadian General Forrest said about winning a battle - "Get there first with the most".

     By the time the First Unpleasantness broke out, mobilisation had become an unstoppable beast, with minutely-planned schedules for trains arriving at stations to collect troops, whose numbers would include freshly-arrived reservists, and then delivering them to the border by the million.  One British general, 'touring' Europe before the outbreak of war, noticed German railway stations with enormous platforms capable of handling thousands upon thousands of - er - 'passengers', out in the middle of nowhere, but by sheer coincidence right next to the French or Belgian border.  Art!

     These mobilisation plans were utterly inflexible.  The hapless Hapsburg Emperor wanted only to mobilise against Serbia, and was sternly admonished that such a ridiculous notion was impossible, and mobilisation against Ruffia WOULD go ahead.  Plus, once a single European nation began to mobilise, a domino effect took place as their opponents also mobilised, because failing to do so left one in peril of being overwhelmed.  Art!

Dream on

     Jake Broe, a Youtube vlogger, compiled a series of clips showing Ruffian mobilisation, including this one.  Art!

     That's right, accommodation in the open air.  In late September.  "The quartermaster sold all the tents to camping shops" no doubt.  Then there's one reservist who came aboard the bus clutching valuable supplies.  Art!

"Vanya had a drinking problem.  He could never get enough."

     And there's these three stalwarts.  Art!

     All staggeringly drunk.  Von Moltke would cry into his sauerkraut if he could see this lot.  Ruffian mobilisation: organised by Monty Python.

The Return Of Rober

Mark Rober, that is, the mechanical engineer who was developing ways to beat arcade games.  This time it was 

GAME FOUR: Air Hockey

Conrad enjoys playing this game because all it requires is brute force.  Art!

     Mark came up with a build that includes a scanning camera and micro-computer, which was able to analyse the puck's direction and work out how to counter it.  Art!

     The backpack is stabilised by a pair of neodymium magnets, which essentially weld it to the deck when powered on.  Art!

     Well, it worked but remains pretty dull.  Next!

GAME FIVE: The Punching Bag

Ah yes, the classic one that men cannot resist, because they have to prove who is the Alpha Male, especially if there has been any gin involved.  Art!

Problem?

Solution!

     In fact it was rather a let-down, because even though it punched a lot harder than unadulterated Mark, his big beefy assistant managed to still do better.  This is where Mr. Rober got devious, because he worked out how the machine calculated force and came up with a work-around.  You see, there is a beam-break sensor that works out how fast a gap travels past it; the harder the punch, the shorter the time and the greater the force calculated.  Art!

     FYI that's a headless Pez dispenser with a cutaway card.  Mr. Rober calculated that when the Pez dispenser retracts, it will do so with sufficient speed to confuse the sensor into thinking it's been punched by Superman - so he substituted his gimmick and - Art?

     It worked.

"The Sea Of Sand"

We had cut back to Albert and Professor Templeman, who had arrived back at Mersa Martuba just as the Italian Sahariana company puts in an attack.

"Is that another battle with the aliens and their weapons?" asked Albert.

     "How on earth should I know!" growled the Professor angrily.  "We'll just have to sit and wait it out until daylight and see what's going on at the depot."

     Without a weapon, he felt like adding, before realising that a Webley revolver had little chance of stopping one of the big glass tank vehicles that had killed Bourgebus.  Of all the things to happen to him!  Physical proof that intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe, one of the biggest discoveries in the history of the human race, let alone science, and he couldn't communicate the facts elsewhere, couldn't research further -

     "Professor!" interrupted Albert, tugging on the other man's arm.  "I asked, what can we do?"

     "Eh?  Oh, sorry Albert, I was a million miles away."  He sighed.  "As I said before, we need to wait and see, and we can't see anything until daylight."

     Albert nodded, then started in alarm as the Professor burst out laughing.

     " 'A million miles away'!  I think I accidentally made a joke."

     The laughter stopped as abruptly as it started.

     "Sorry, Albert.  I - I think seeing Pierre killed was more of a wrench than I realised."

     The Professor slumped back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose.

     Albert sighed.  The night, he felt, was going to be a long one.

No More Astronomy Photographs

Actually there was one, which looked dull and boring so I'm not putting it up.

     However!  There are still lots of crossword clues for that Lord Peter Wimsey crossword as dreamed up by Ol' Dot.  Here's another baffling one.  "More than mind discloses and more than men believe; (A definition by man whom Pussyfoot doth grieve" (5).

     And the solution?  SCENT.

     No, I don't understand it either.  I think Dot was worried about how clever she'd been because she explains it's from a poem by G.K. Chesterton.  Art!

"The War Illustrated"

Recall, if you will, that the cover date for Issue 164 was October 1st 1943.  The events within came from almost a month previously, thanks to both Operational Security and the duration of travel from the Med to This Sceptred Isle.  Art!

     The invasion of Italy took place on 3rd September 1943, with the Italian government deposing Mussolini and declaring unconditional surrender.  This was an unpleasant surprise to the Teutons, who had suspected that their partner was up to mischief but had no proof of just how perfidious they were.

     It was also a major problem for the Teutons, as the Italian occupation forces in the Balkans and Greece went home, or in some cases joined Yugoslav partisans.  The Teutons then had to find men to fill these gaps, and also to rush them south in Italy to halt the Allied advance.

Finally -

Time for lunch!

That is all.