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Forgotten History

In the years following World War II, an audacious British plan would have used Nazi rockets to put a man in space.

In the summer of 1945, with the war in Europe over, Allied forces rushed to unravel the secrets of Nazi V2 rockets. These terror weapons, built by slave labourers, did little to affect the outcome of the war – but they had the potential to change the world.

“There was an unseemly scramble to get hold of V2 missile technology,” says John Becklake, former head of engineering at London’s Science Museum. “The Americans, the Russians, the French and us.”

The leader of Hitler’s Vengeance weapon program, Wernher von Braun, surrendered to American forces in May 1945 and was quietly spirited away to the United States. In the same month the Russians captured Von Braun’s research and test facilities at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast. The French, meanwhile, gathered some 40 German rocket scientists and engineers and the British assembled rockets for a series of test flights.

Known as Operation Backfire, the British program involved firing V2 rockets from the Netherlands to the edge of space before they splashed down in the North Sea. The experiment proved successful, with the missiles reportedly descending within three miles of their targets – more accurately than the Germans managed during the war.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/201...t-could-have-put-a-briton-in-space?ocid=twfut
 
Yesterday I bought a strange book at the Rotterdam book market. The book contains the Dutch translation of the Advent sermons cardinal Faulhaber gave in Munich, in 1933. It's about Catholic orthodoxy clashing with Nazi ideology. A strange story, difficult to untangle. And very strange to hold that history in your hands for just 2 euros:

http://uair01.blogspot.nl/2015/08/unsettled-fragment-of-history.html
 
Excellent review on your blog. Very unsettling.
 
Winkleigh World War Two watchtower for sale

A former aircraft watch tower at one of the RAF's most secret World War Two bases has been put up for sale.
The two-storey building at Winkleigh Airfield, Devon, along with 9.5 acres of land and disused outbuildings, will go under the hammer next month.

The airbase was built in 1940 on remote moorland to defend Britain's western approaches from the Luftwaffe.
It was so strategically important that its existence was officially denied.

The watch tower and land is being sold on behalf of the official receiver at Clive Emson Auctioneers on 22 September at St Mellion in Cornwall and has a freehold guide price of between £35,000 and £50,000.

The tower is listed by English Heritage as a Scheduled Monument.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-34092140

The OS maps show the disused airfield just a mile NW of Winkleigh village. It sits on moorland above a small stream that becomes Hollocombe Water and is a tributary of the River Taw. I'd love to buy a place like that, but I fear I'm now too long in the tooth for such a project.
 
Timeshift - Series 15: 1. The Trains That Time Forgot: Britain's Lost Railway Journeys

Timeshift journeys back to a lost era of rail travel, when trains had names, character and style. Once the pride of the railway companies that ran them, the named train is now largely consigned to railway history.

Writer and presenter Andrew Martin asks why we once named trains and why we don't do so anymore. He embarks on three railway journeys around Britain, following the routes of three of the most famous named trains - the Flying Scotsman, the Cornish Riviera Express and the Brighton Belle. We reflect on travel during the golden age of railways - when the journey itself was as important as reaching your destination - and compare those same journeys with the passenger experience today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...at-time-forgot-britains-lost-railway-journeys

Steam train fans will love this!
 
I've seen the odd diesel train with a nameplate on. They generally seem to hail from up North.
 
graylien said:
I've seen the odd diesel train with a nameplate on. They generally seem to hail from up North.
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Lots of engines have names.

But this prog was about Trains with names. The point is made that sometimes the Flying Scotsman was pulled by the Flying Scotsman loco, but not always..
 
Sometimes Forgotten History refers to major events, but often it includes smaller, more personal events too:
Astounded to see my picture in the Packet
Paul Armstrong / Wednesday 2 September 2015 / Letters

I was astounded to come across the picture captioned Mystery dockworkers' picture: names revealed, in your 31 December 2012 issue, showing a group of Falmouth Docks apprentices including me. I am listed as Brian??? and I was a cadet engineer employed by a shipping company doing work experience at Falmouth Docks for a couple of months in 1963.

The original picture is a colour slide taken on my camera by someone else. I must have been asked to provide a print for someone, which would be where your copy came from. I still have the original colour slide and I am holding it some 52 years after it was taken. I was friends with Mike and John Gregory and in the evenings and weekends we helped out at Sunshine boat hire operating from the Town Quay. I decided to search further and was saddened to come across a 2014 issue reporting the passing of both Mike and John. I have lived in Melbourne since 1968 when my wife and I emigrated. Had I known that John had been living in Western Australia I would have attempted to contact him.

Brian Cooperwaite

Through thepacket.co.uk website
 
Not so much forgotten, but barely known outside the USSR/Russia - long article:

Seva Novgorodsev: The DJ who 'brought down the USSR'
By William Kremer BBC World Service

Any list of the BBC's biggest radio DJs must include Seva Novgorodsev, famous all over the former Soviet Union for broadcasting pop music across the Iron Curtain and poking fun at the regime. On Friday, after 38 years on air, he hung up his headphones for good.

A mellow late-night-radio voice floats over the horn introduction to Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke. "Good evening and welcome from London," come the words in Russian. "Today we will focus on the most popular records of the week, both in Britain and the United States."

With those words, broadcast late in the evening on Friday 10 June 1977, Seva Novgorodsev began his career as the BBC's DJ for the Soviet Union. Over the next four decades, he would become an unofficial - and definitely unwelcome - ambassador for Western popular culture behind the Iron Curtain.

In the 1980s it's thought that 25 million people regularly tuned their shortwave radios to hear Seva's crackly broadcasts of David Bowie, Queen and Michael Jackson on the BBC Russian Service. The influence of these programmes, arriving at the end of the Soviet era, was enormous.
At that time, his four-letter first name was as well known in Russia as the three-letter name of the organisation he worked for.

Always well dressed, with - latterly - a mane of white hair, Seva cut a striking figure in Bush House, the World Service's stylish but shabby HQ until 2012. But now, at the age of 75, he is retiring - his final show was on Friday.

When he left the Soviet Union, Seva was a successful jazz musician, who had learned the saxophone and clarinet at naval college. After paying 500 roubles each - about five months' salary - he and his wife were permitted to exchange their Soviet passports for pink exit visas in 1975.

He came to the BBC in March 1977, joining a diverse group of Russian artists and scientists who found themselves translating news reports from English and reading them on air.

Seva's music show represented a different way of interacting with the audience. His chatty, improvised style was influenced by English-language presenters such as Terry Wogan and John Peel. But, to begin with at least, Seva's programmes were meticulously prepared and scripted. He timed the intros to all the songs he played and crafted links that fitted perfectly.

"Then gradually I started to insert some jokes," he recalls. "I knew that people were bored stiff in Russia, especially the young people, who were under oppression of their family, of the school, of their youth party organisation. And Russia is a huge country and especially in provincial places, life is excruciatingly boring."

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34157596
 
The BBC's "Who Do You Think You are?" is a great source of 'forgotten history' stories. But often they find that someone's great-grandfather was a successful fish-merchant (or whatever) in some British shire or other, but it's rare to find ancestors who were part of national history. But this one is very different:

Who Do You Think You Are? - Series 12: 7. Frank Gardner

Journalist Frank Gardner was very close to his late mother and is keen to know more about her side of the family. Frank's mother always told him that the family arrived in Britain with the Normans. Frank sets off to discover if there is any truth in the rumour. Along the way, he traces his family tree back to his ten times great-grandfather Sir Michael Stanhope - a knight of the Tudor court - who was accused of treason. But Frank's journey doesn't end there, and he is astonished to discover that his mother's suspicions are closer to the truth than he could ever have imagined.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06dpx7f/who-do-you-think-you-are-series-12-7-frank-gardner

Recommended by rynner!
 
That one was very good.
But if you go back far enough most people are related to some famous and powerful people; in fact it is almost inevitable. My missus' family has traced their line back to Bishop Hooper, who was burnt at the stake by Mary I.
Here's an account of the burning by none other than Charles Dickens, in the fantastically gory A Child's History of England (he must have been the Terry Deary of the day)
The next day, Hooper, who was to be burnt at Gloucester, was brought out to take his last journey, and was made to wear a hood over his face that he might not be known by the people. But, they did know him for all that, down in his own part of the country; and, when he came near Gloucester, they lined the road, making prayers and lamentations. His guards took him to a lodging, where he slept soundly all night. At nine o’clock next morning, he was brought forth leaning on a staff; for he had taken cold in prison, and was infirm. The iron stake, and the iron chain which was to bind him to it, were fixed up near a great elm-tree in a pleasant open place before the cathedral, where, on peaceful Sundays, he had been accustomed to preach and to pray, when he was bishop of Gloucester. This tree, which had no leaves then, it being February, was filled with people; and the priests of Gloucester College were looking complacently on from a window, and there was a great concourse of spectators in every spot from which a glimpse of the dreadful sight could be beheld. When the old man kneeled down on the small platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed aloud, the nearest people were observed to be so attentive to his prayers that they were ordered to stand farther back; for it did not suit the Romish Church to have those Protestant words heard. His prayers concluded, he went up to the stake and was stripped to his shirt, and chained ready for the fire. One of his guards had such compassion on him that, to shorten his agonies, he tied some packets of gunpowder about him. Then they heaped up wood and straw and reeds, and set them all alight. But, unhappily, the wood was green and damp, and there was a wind blowing that blew what flame there was, away. Thus, through three-quarters of an hour, the good old man was scorched and roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and sank; and all that time they saw him, as he burned, moving his lips in prayer, and beating his breast with one hand, even after the other was burnt away and had fallen off.
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Once home the two fastest men in the world faced heavy repercussions and death threats.

But time, in the end, proved that they had been right and they became champions in the fight for human rights. With their image restored they collaborated with the American team of Athletics, and a statue of them was erected at the San Jose State University. Peter Norman is absent from this statue. His absence from the podium step seems an epitaph of a hero that no one ever noticed. A forgotten athlete, deleted from history, even in Australia, his own country.
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The white man in that photo.

griot-magazine-peter-norman-white-man-in-that-photo-black-power-salute-1024x1473.jpg
 
I guess this is forgotten history, since I've never heard mention of this photo before:

Photo of Iceberg That Sank the Titanic Up for Sale
November 26, 2012
By ANTHONY CASTELLANO
Anthony Castellano via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

An auction house is selling a black and white photo of the iceberg that experts say the Titanic struck shortly before it sank on its maiden voyage.
The photo was taken April 12, 1912, two days before "the unsinkable ship" met her demise when she hit an iceberg shortly before midnight April 14, killing 1,502 people.

The photo shows a huge iceberg with a distinctive elliptical shape. The photograph was taken by the captain of the S.S. Etonian, according to RR Auction of Amherst, N.H. The caption reads, "Copyright. Blueberg taken by Captain W.F. Wood S.S. Etonian on 12/4/12 [April 12, 1912] in Lat 41° 50 N Long 49° 50 W. Titanic struck 14/4/12 [April 14, 2012] and sank in three hours."

There were no photos of the iceberg before this one emerged, but two Titanic crew members drew sketches of the iceberg that they saw April 14. Both sketches are similar to the elliptical shape of the iceberg in the photo, according to RR Auction.

The coordinates scribbled on the photograph are not far from where the wreckage of the ship lies on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

"In my professional judgment, this iceberg is the one that sunk the Titanic," Titanic artifact collector Stanley Lehrer told the Daily Mail.
Lehrer is noted for his collections of rare Titanic artifacts that have been displayed around the world.
"The captain took the pictures because he was fascinated with the unusual shape of the iceberg. This particular iceberg had an ellipse on the top right of the iceberg," Lehrer added.

RR Auction expects the photo graph to sell for $8,000 to $10,000 when bidding opens Dec. 13. The photo is one of more than 400 items from the Titanic that are up for bidding.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/photo-of-iceberg-that-sank-the-titanic-up-for-sale/
 
Titanic lifeboat biscuit sells for £15,000 at auction

A biscuit which had been aboard a lifeboat on the Titanic has sold at auction for £15,000.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the Spillers and Bakers Pilot cracker, from a survival kit in a lifeboat, was "the world's most valuable biscuit".
It was bought by a collector in Greece.

A photograph purporting to show the iceberg that sank the ill-fated liner sold at the same auction for £21,000. The picture was taken by a steward on another ship which passed the iceberg.
Mr Aldridge said they were among the most "collectible and iconic" Titanic items to be sold.

The auction, at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire, also saw a "loving cup" presented to the captain of the Carpathia, which came to the Titanic's aid, also sell for £129,000 to a UK collector.
It was given to Captain Arthur Rostron by survivor Molly Brown, paid for by donations from wealthy passengers after the disaster.
Mr Aldridge said the price paid for the cup made it the third most valuable item associated with the Titanic story to have ever been sold.
He said: "The interest in the items reflected the worldwide nature of Titanic memorabilia. They captured collectors' imagination".

The biscuit was saved by James Fenwick, a passenger on the Carpathia which picked up Titanic survivors.
He kept it in an envelope complete with original notation, "Pilot biscuit from Titanic lifeboat April 1912".

RMS Titanic had been four days into a week-long Transatlantic crossing from Southampton to New York when the supposedly "unsinkable" ship struck the iceberg on 14 April 1912.
The ship sank less than three hours later at around 02:20 on 15 April.

The [iceberg] photograph was captured the day after the luxury liner sank in the Atlantic, killing more than 1,500 people.
It was taken by the chief steward of steamer the Prinz Adalbert, who was at the time unaware of the tragedy that had occurred the previous day.
It comes with a previously unpublished statement from the photographer, who describes seeing scrapings of red paint on the side.
The estimated guide price had been between £10,000 and £15,000.
Mr Aldridge described it as an "incredibly fascinating relic of the disaster."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34626108
 
rynner2 said:
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the Spillers and Bakers Pilot cracker, from a survival kit in a lifeboat, was "the world's most valuable biscuit".
It was bought by a collector in Greece.
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I think there are a few contenders for that title....
150 Year-Old Civil War Hardtack
Curator Matt Anderson shows a very old piece of food from the Minnesota Historical Society’s collection: an original piece of hardtack from the Civil War. It’s one of the more bizarre items in the collection, and an edible that was made to last.
 
If biscuits could speak . . .

"Captain, we'll never get out of here alive!"
"There's only one thing we can do, son!"
"It's the last biscuit we've got, Sir. I've been saving it."
"Well I've been saving it too, Private Buns."
"I was saving it for my girl but I guess I'll never meet one now."
"Right, Buns. Last one off is a cissy who ain't never gonna be resurrected on that day of DNA Rapture!"
"They might recreate us all, Sir! If you could just stop licking it." :eek:
 
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JamesWhitehead said:
If biscuits could speak . . .

"Captain, we'll never get out of here alive!"
"There's only one thing we can do, son!"
"It's the last biscuit we've got, Sir. I've been saving it."
"Well I've been saving it too, Private Buns."
"I was saving it for my girl but I guess I'll never meet one now."
"Right, Buns. Last one off is a cissy who ain't never gonna be resurrected on that day of DNA Rapture!"
"They might recreate us all, Sir! If you could just stop licking it." :eek:
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Far too much time and thought went into that JW :D
 
Man from Lizard uncovers memoirs of his aunt - a real-life suffragette
By WBGraeme | Posted: November 14, 2015

THE fascinating story of a real-life suffragette who took direct action for the cause has been uncovered by her nephew from the Lizard.
Peter Waterfield, 91, has rediscovered his aunt's unpublished memoirs, which detail her time as a militant campaigner.

She was directly involved in disrupting meetings, stopping motorcars carrying Cabinet ministers and smashing shop windows.
The story of how Gladys Mary Hazel joined the movement early last century is mirrored in the new film starring Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan.

Mr Waterfield, from St Martin, said: "I lost my mother when I was only two in a boating accident in Canada.
"My father decided he could not cope with a two-year-old, so I went to live with my mother's sister, Gladys Mary Hazel.
"She was a single woman and I was very lucky – she was a wonderful person.

"I remember a time, I was quite young and must have been reading a book about prison, and I asked her: 'Do you know anyone who has been to prison?'
"She burst out laughing and said: 'I've been to prison many times'." :D

It was only in later life that Mr Waterfield, a lay reader in the Meneage area, uncovered how his aunt had taken up the fight against the establishment in her early twenties.
Distressed by the suffering of the poor, particularly women and children in Birmingham, Ms Hazel joined the movement after attending a noisy public meeting with famed suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.

Mr Waterfield said: "My aunt used to say it was ridiculous that people like her – she was a graduate and very clever individual – could not vote but the gardener did have a vote.
"She always told me there were terrible moments of great pain and humiliation but she said, for instance, once she went down New Bond Street and smashed all the windows of the rich stores there. She said it was the most exciting time of her life." :twisted:

Ms Hazel was arrested many times for obstruction, vandalism or disturbing the peace.
She was jailed in the notorious Holloway Prison and became friends with Emily Davison, who famously later died after attempting to grasp the bridle of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby in 1913.

Mr Waterfield added: "I am immensely proud of my aunt, of her courage and her religious conviction which got her through difficult circumstances in an amazing way."

etc...

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Man-Liz...uffragette/story-28156332-detail/story.html#1
 
Tonight on Ch4, 8pm to 9pm:

Building Hitler's Supergun: The Plot to Destroy London
RT Review by David Butcher
This is one of those stirring documentaries that promise tales of Second World War operations that have “never before been told”. In the later stages of the war Hitler ordered the creation of the largest gun ever, the V3, designed to fire shells at London from a massive emplacement in a hillside on the French coast.

And in a race to knock out the supergun, the Allies dreamt up their own hi-tech weapons. The Americans devised a remote-controlled heavy bomber packed with explosives (an operation in which the man “born to be president”, Joe Kennedy Jr, died), while the British drafted in Barnes Wallis, the genius behind the bouncing bomb. His idea? A weapon that would trigger an earthquake.

About this programme

Hugh Hunt examines how the Nazis built the largest cannon in history during the Second World War, a 25-barrelled artillery piece built into a French hillside. He performs a series of experiments to determine how the weapon worked and whether it could have fulfilled its intended purpose - destroying London in its entirety. He also examines plans by the Allies to destroy it, including drone bombers and earthquake-causing weapons.
 
rynner2 said:
Tonight on Ch4, 8pm to 9pm:

Building Hitler's Supergun: The Plot to Destroy London
Click to expand...

I just watched this - an excellent programme. I knew all about the V1 and V2, and the big guns that Hitler installed near Calais to bombard Dover, but I'd never heard anything before about this Supergun, named the V3.

Well, as we in Britain are not now speaking German, you'll realise the supergun was destroyed before it could be used. The allies had two separate plans for this - the British using a Barnes Wallis Earthquake Bomb, and the Americans using a television-guided remote controlled aircraft packed with HE (effectively the world's first attack drone).

I'll leave you to catch up on the drama. But I thought it was the best hour's TV I've seen in a long tine.
 
rynner2 said:
I just watched this - an excellent programme.
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It was indeed, extremely good.

I had never heard the tragic Joe Kennedy story before. Nor had I realised about the multi-detonation shell phased acceleration design- the 300 shells per salvo would've been the end of London in one day.
 
WAR PLAN RED

600px-War_Plan_Red.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red

Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Red was a war plan created by the United States Army and Navy in the late 1920s and early 1930s to estimate the requirements for a hypothetical war with the United Kingdom (the "Red" forces). War Plan Red discussed the potential for fighting a war with Britain and its Empire and outlined those steps necessary to defend the Atlantic coast against any attempted mainland invasion of the United States. It further discussed fighting a two-front war with both Japan and Britain simultaneously (as envisioned in War Plan Red-Orange). War Plan Red was not operationalized and did not have presidential or Congressional approval. The United States can only declare war in congress, and in this period of U.S. history, it made no war plans. President Herbert Hoover was known as a pacifist.

War Plan Red was developed by the United States Army following the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference and approved in May 1930 by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of Navyand updated in 1934–35. In 1939, on the outbreak of World War II and Britain's war against Nazi Germany, a decision was taken that no further planning was required but that the plan be retained. War Plan Red was not declassified until 1974.

The war plan outlined those actions that would be necessary to initiate war between Britain and the United States. The plan suggested that the British would initially have the upper hand by virtue of the strength of theRoyal Navy. The plan further assumed that Britain would probably use its Dominion in Canada as a springboard from which to initiate a retaliatory invasion of the United States. The assumption was taken that at first Britain would fight a defensive battle against invading American forces, but that the US would eventually defeat the British by blockading Britain and cutting off its food supplies.
 
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"Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Red was a war plan created by the United States Army and Navy in the late 1920s and early 1930s to estimate the requirements for a hypothetical war with the United Kingdom (the "Red" forces)"

Hmm... with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Let's hope some dumbo Republican doesn't become the next US president and then tries to reinstate this plan.
 
rynner2 said:
I just watched this - an excellent programme. I knew all about the V1 and V2, and the big guns that Hitler installed near Calais to bombard Dover, but I'd never heard anything before about this Supergun, named the V3.

Well, as we in Britain are not now speaking German, you'll realise the supergun was destroyed before it could be used. The allies had two separate plans for this - the British using a Barnes Wallis Earthquake Bomb, and the Americans using a television-guided remote controlled aircraft packed with HE (effectively the world's first attack drone).

I'll leave you to catch up on the drama. But I thought it was the best hour's TV I've seen in a long tine.
Click to expand...

It was indeed an excellent programme.
 
rynner2 said:
"Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Red was a war plan created by the United States Army and Navy in the late 1920s and early 1930s to estimate the requirements for a hypothetical war with the United Kingdom (the "Red" forces)"

Hmm... with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Let's hope some dumbo Republican doesn't become the next US president and then tries to reinstate this plan.
Click to expand...
Indeed, this was after we'd been allies in the 1st World War.
Staggering.
 
Kargil war: Pakistan planned to drop nuclear bomb on India during conflict, says former CIA officer
A former CIA analyst revealed the information in an obituary for Sandy Berger, a former national security advisor to President Clinton
Emma Henderson

Pakistan planned to deploy nuclear weapons against India during the 1999 Kargil War, according to former top White House official.

The information was revealed after former CIA analyst, Bruce Riedel, wrote an obituary for Sandy Berger who died of cancer on Wednesday. Mr Berger and was a former national security advisor to the then American President Bill Clinton.
The CIA had warned President Clinton of the plans, which formed part of the daily top secret classified briefing on July 4, 1999, when he was scheduled to meet visiting Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Mr Riedel wrote: “The morning of the Fourth, the CIA wrote in its top-secret Daily Brief that Pakistan was preparing its nuclear weapons for deployment and possible use. The intelligence was very compelling. The mood in the Oval Office was grim.
“Berger urged Clinton to hear out Sharif, but to be firm.
“Pakistan started this crisis and it must end it without any compensation. The president needed to make clear to the prime minster that only a Pakistani withdrawal could avert further escalation.

“Sandy knew Clinton better than anyone, his natural inclination was to find a deal. This time, no deal was possible, it must be an unequivocal Pakistani climbdown.
“It worked. Sharif agreed to pull back his troops. It later cost him his job: the army ousted him in a coup and he spent a decade in exile in Saudi Arabia. But the risk of a nuclear exchange in south Asia was averted.
"It was Berger's finest hour."

The Kargil war took place along the Pakistan-India Line of Control (LOC) in Ladakh, in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The infiltration of Pakistani armed forces into Indian Territory, led by General Ashraf Rashid initiated the conflict.
The Indian army managed to recapture the majority of the Indian side of the LOC.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ficer-sandy-berger-bruce-riedel-a6758501.html
 
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