Meanwhile, on the same day, in a hospital in East Sussex, my Uncle Edwin died. He was 94. Obviously, having done nothing newsworthy during his life, his death passed unnoticed by anyone outside his family. Fair enough – we can’t mark the death of every elderly citizen. And, like I say, he’d done nothing during his 94 years worthy of comment. Except perhaps, ensuring our continual freedom, the survival of our way of life and upholding our democracy. Oh, and along the way, he’d killed a few people.

You see, back in July 1944, Uncle Edwin, aged 21, crossed the English Channel, along with many other young men, and landed in France. Over the coming months, with a rifle in his hand, he walked eastwards across northern France, through Belgium, Holland and then into Germany. He saw and experienced things that no one should have to see or experience. He was shot at and he killed. He was a lieutenant, so had responsibility. He could also speak German, so one of his jobs on approaching terrified German households was to assure the women that his men were not going to rape them or bayonet their children.

My uncle joined up with three school friends whose surnames began with A, B and C (let’s say, Atkins, Bingham and Collins). All three were killed. For years, my poor uncle suffered terrible survivor guilt over this.

Uncle Edwin’s bravery didn’t end in 1945. In the early 1970s, he was standing on a train platform when he saw a woman jump onto the tracks in front of an incoming train. Without hesitating, he leapt down and tried to pull her free as the train hurtled towards them. Unable to do so, he lay on top of her, managing just in time to drag her limbs in, before the train whooshed over them. Afterwards, they staggered to their feet, both, I imagine, in a state of shock. The woman walked away. No words were exchanged. It took a year before Uncle Edwin mentioned it to his wife. Bravery doesn’t always have to be announced. Imagine if it’d had happened today – the incident would have been caught on CCTV, it would have gone viral and Uncle Edwin would have been an Internet sensation. He would’ve hated that.

Post-war, Uncle Edwin worked for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. One of his jobs was to help people find the graves of their loved ones, killed in action in faraway places. I remember, back in the 1970s, he helped our village shopkeeper get his wartime medals. The man had never bothered to claim them, but thirty years on, he was regretting it – my uncle came to the rescue. Such was Uncle Edwin’s status at the commission, he was awarded an MBE.

My father had died when I was quite young so Uncle Edwin, a frequent visitor to our home in Devon, became a bit of a father figure to me. He helped me with my homework, warned me not to smoke, and tried, without success, to understand the music of New Order and UB40.

In later life, Uncle Edwin was rather guilty of being one of these “I fought the war for the likes of you” men that youngsters, like me in the 1980s, used to mock. Now, with age and knowing what he and his contemporaries went through, I can understand their frustration. We, who have never known any different, take our freedom for granted.

I remember, in the eighties, believing myself to be a pacifist, I was shocked when he told me he and his peers cheered and celebrated when the news came through in August 1945 that the Americans had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But tens of thousands of people were killed in an instant, I protested. But it ended the war, he told me, it allowed Japan the opportunity to surrender, something they would never have done under normal circumstances. He and millions like him would have had to fight in Japan. The death toll would have been unimaginable.

Although Uncle Edwin talked about the war incessantly(!), he never talked about his role in it. But he did occasionally mention his friends, A, B and C. In January 2013, I phoned my uncle to congratulate him on reaching 90 (not that he was celebrating the fact) and I took the opportunity to ask him, rather nervously, if I could read his wartime memoirs, which I knew he’d written. Rather reluctantly, I think, he agreed.

What I read shocked and appalled me. It is not my place to recount his tales but let’s say I saw him a different light. I thought of myself at 21 – my main worry was how to gel my hair and whether I had the latest record by Bauhaus or U2. And here he was, as a 21-year-old, a hairbreadth from death for months on end. I’d always revered the man but now my admiration was magnified a hundredfold. What came across again and again – was his respect for the enemy. He didn’t see them as Germans or as Nazis, he saw them as young men, like himself, having to do a nasty and dangerous job on the orders of their superiors.

Luckily, Uncle Edwin retained his health right to the end. A couple of weeks ago, he had a fall and ended up in hospital. A week later, he died. His wife had died a decade earlier. He leaves behind a son, a daughter and a grandson, now aged 25 and embarking on a career in dentistry.

Seventy years on, Uncle Edwin is finally reunited with A, B and C. But what the heck – let’s read about Ian Brady – far more interesting.

Rupert Colley.

A little about me… I write historical fiction with heart and drama. If you’d like a taster, try my free short story, Elena. Be warned though, you may need your hankies!

Stay safe,

Best wishes,

Rupert.

The post Death of a Forgotten Hero first appeared on Rupert Colley.

The post Death of a Forgotten Hero appeared first on Rupert Colley.

Meanwhile, on the same day, in a hospital in East Sussex, my Uncle Edwin died. He was 94. Obviously, having done nothing newsworthy during his life, his death passed unnoticed by anyone outside his family. Fair enough – we can’t mark the death of every elderly citizen. And, like I say, he’d done nothing during his 94 years worthy of comment. Except perhaps, ensuring our continual freedom, the survival of our way of life and upholding our democracy. Oh, and along the way, he’d killed a few people.

You see, back in July 1944, Uncle Edwin, aged 21, crossed the English Channel, along with many other young men, and landed in France. Over the coming months, with a rifle in his hand, he walked eastwards across northern France, through Belgium, Holland and then into Germany. He saw and experienced things that no one should have to see or experience. He was shot at and he killed. He was a lieutenant, so had responsibility. He could also speak German, so one of his jobs on approaching terrified German households was to assure the women that his men were not going to rape them or bayonet their children.

My uncle joined up with three school friends whose surnames began with A, B and C (let’s say, Atkins, Bingham and Collins). All three were killed. For years, my poor uncle suffered terrible survivor guilt over this.

Uncle Edwin’s bravery didn’t end in 1945. In the early 1970s, he was standing on a train platform when he saw a woman jump onto the tracks in front of an incoming train. Without hesitating, he leapt down and tried to pull her free as the train hurtled towards them. Unable to do so, he lay on top of her, managing just in time to drag her limbs in, before the train whooshed over them. Afterwards, they staggered to their feet, both, I imagine, in a state of shock. The woman walked away. No words were exchanged. It took a year before Uncle Edwin mentioned it to his wife. Bravery doesn’t always have to be announced. Imagine if it’d had happened today – the incident would have been caught on CCTV, it would have gone viral and Uncle Edwin would have been an Internet sensation. He would’ve hated that.

Post-war, Uncle Edwin worked for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. One of his jobs was to help people find the graves of their loved ones, killed in action in faraway places. I remember, back in the 1970s, he helped our village shopkeeper get his wartime medals. The man had never bothered to claim them, but thirty years on, he was regretting it – my uncle came to the rescue. Such was Uncle Edwin’s status at the commission, he was awarded an MBE.

My father had died when I was quite young so Uncle Edwin, a frequent visitor to our home in Devon, became a bit of a father figure to me. He helped me with my homework, warned me not to smoke, and tried, without success, to understand the music of New Order and UB40.

In later life, Uncle Edwin was rather guilty of being one of these “I fought the war for the likes of you” men that youngsters, like me in the 1980s, used to mock. Now, with age and knowing what he and his contemporaries went through, I can understand their frustration. We, who have never known any different, take our freedom for granted.

I remember, in the eighties, believing myself to be a pacifist, I was shocked when he told me he and his peers cheered and celebrated when the news came through in August 1945 that the Americans had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But tens of thousands of people were killed in an instant, I protested. But it ended the war, he told me, it allowed Japan the opportunity to surrender, something they would never have done under normal circumstances. He and millions like him would have had to fight in Japan. The death toll would have been unimaginable.

Although Uncle Edwin talked about the war incessantly(!), he never talked about his role in it. But he did occasionally mention his friends, A, B and C. In January 2013, I phoned my uncle to congratulate him on reaching 90 (not that he was celebrating the fact) and I took the opportunity to ask him, rather nervously, if I could read his wartime memoirs, which I knew he’d written. Rather reluctantly, I think, he agreed.

What I read shocked and appalled me. It is not my place to recount his tales but let’s say I saw him a different light. I thought of myself at 21 – my main worry was how to gel my hair and whether I had the latest record by Bauhaus or U2. And here he was, as a 21-year-old, a hairbreadth from death for months on end. I’d always revered the man but now my admiration was magnified a hundredfold. What came across again and again – was his respect for the enemy. He didn’t see them as Germans or as Nazis, he saw them as young men, like himself, having to do a nasty and dangerous job on the orders of their superiors.

Luckily, Uncle Edwin retained his health right to the end. A couple of weeks ago, he had a fall and ended up in hospital. A week later, he died. His wife had died a decade earlier. He leaves behind a son, a daughter and a grandson, now aged 25 and embarking on a career in dentistry.

Seventy years on, Uncle Edwin is finally reunited with A, B and C. But what the heck – let’s read about Ian Brady – far more interesting.

Rupert Colley.

A little about me… I write historical fiction with heart and drama. If you’d like a taster, try my free short story, Elena. Be warned though, you may need your hankies!

Stay safe,

Best wishes,

Rupert.

The post Death of a Forgotten Hero first appeared on Rupert Colley.

The post Death of a Forgotten Hero appeared first on Rupert Colley.

Reginald Dyer (pictured) issued a proclamation banning any gatherings of four or more men and imposing an eight o’clock curfew. Those failing to comply risked being shot. Yet word reached Dyer that a gathering of about 5,000 men, women and children (Dyer’s estimate) had converged in a square at Jallianwala Bagh for a public meeting. The square was accessible only via a narrow gateway and otherwise was surrounded by walls. Dyer approached with a unit of about 90 soldiers, mainly Indians and Gurkhas. Although the gathering was unarmed and, it seemed, peaceful, Dyer feared that his small contingent of men would, if things got out of hand, soon be overwhelmed. Deciding attack was the best form of defence, he ordered, without warning, his men to open fire. Bedlam ensued.

With the only entrance blocked, there was no escape from the withering fire that lasted an entire quarter of an hour. People hid behind bodies, others were killed in the circling stampede. Dyer only ordered a stop when he feared his men would run out of ammunition. Without sanctioning any medical aid, Dyer ordered his men out. 379 were left dead, over 1,200 wounded. Dyer did not stop there; in the days that followed Dyer subjected miscreants, as he saw them, to public flogging.

Mistaken concept of duty

At the resultant enquiry, General Dyer was censured for ‘acting out of a mistaken concept of duty’ but survived unpunished. The British press was outraged – not by the lack of punishment but that the British establishment had failed to condone his actions. The Morning Post launched a campaign, raising over £26,000 for the beleaguered general, as they saw him; Rudyard Kipling being one such giver. Reginald Dyer quietly took early retirement and died eight years later humbled perhaps but unrepentant. Indeed, his only regret was that ‘I didn’t have time to do more’.

(Pictured, the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial).

Amritsar was systematic of all that was wrong in post-First World War British India. Mahatma Gandhi wrote of the massacre, ‘We do not want to punish Dyer; we have no desire for revenge. We want to change the system that produced Dyer.’

Amritsar confirmed an uncomfortable truism – that ultimately British rule in India was dependent on force.

Gathered together in one collection, 60 of Rupert Colley’s history articles, The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century. Also available in paperback and ebook formats.

The post The Amritsar Massacre – a brief outline first appeared on Rupert Colley.

The post The Amritsar Massacre – a brief outline appeared first on Rupert Colley.

Born in Naples on 11 November 1869, the future king was so short, the German kaiser, Wilhelm II, nicknamed him the dwarf, and, in private, Mussolini called him the ‘little sardine’. He ruled over an Italy that had been in existence as a unified nation only since 1871. Despite unification, Italy was a deeply-fragmented society, steeped in poverty and corruption, and ruled over by a succession of weak coalition governments. But, as a figurehead king, Victor Emmanuel III chose to ignore the affairs of state, preferring instead to focus on his vast collection of coins.

World War One

With the outbreak of war in July 1914, Italy initially adopted a position of neutrality despite having been in alliance, the Triple Alliance, with Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire since 1882. Victor Emmanuel favoured participation in the war, partly as a means of enhancing Italy’s reputation on the international stage. Italy duly entered the war in May 1915, not as allies of Germany and Austria-Hungary, but on the side of the Triple Entente allies – France, Russia and Great Britain.

Mussolini

After 1918, Victor Emmanuel again retired to the sidelines as Italy struggled to cope with the post-war instabilities of demobilization, unemployment and inflation. Socialists, communists, anarchists and the newly-formed fascists fought on the streets and on the farms in a vicious cycle of ever-increasing violence.

In October 1922, with the country on the verge of civil war, the rising star of Italy’s right, Benito Mussolini, led the fascist March on Rome, demanding to form a new government. At first, Victor Emmanuel resisted but then, fearing outright anarchy, bowed to Mussolini’s persistence.

The murder of a leading socialist politician and outspoken critic of the fascists, Giacomo Matteotti, in June 1924 almost caused Mussolini’s downfall. Many suspected Mussolini’s involvement and demanded that the king remove Mussolini from power. Ignoring the national outcry, Victor Emmanuel, more fearful of a socialist takeover, threw his support behind the fascists. Mussolini survived.

For the next 18 years, Victor Emmanuel watched without undue concern as Mussolini ruled the country. Following Italy’s invasions of Ethiopia (1935-36) and Albania (1939), Victor Emmanuel was made emperor of the former and the king of the latter. Having never visited either, he renounced both titles in 1943.

(Pictured, Victor Emmanuel III in 1936).

World War Two

Victor Emmanuel opposed Italy’s entry into the Second World War but was unable to prevent Mussolini from declaring war on France and Great Britain in June 1940. Three years later, on 24 July 1943, with Italy staring defeat in the face, the Italian Fascist Grand Council voted 19 to 8 (with three abstentions) in favour of a resolution to have Mussolini removed from power.

The following day, Mussolini kept his fortnightly meeting with the king, believing that the vote the previous evening was neither constitutional nor binding. He was much mistaken. Almost apologetically, Victor Emmanuel III dismissed the 59-year-old dictator: ‘My dear Duce, it’s no longer any good. Italy has gone to bits… The soldiers don’t want to fight any more… At this moment you are the most hated man in Italy.’

With Mussolini now arrested and held in captivity, Victor Emmanuel signed the armistice with the Allies on 8 September. A month later, having fled to the town of Brindisi, he declared war on Italy’s former allies, Germany.

Princess Mafalda

The king’s daughter, Princess Mafalda, married a prominent Nazi. When her husband fell out with the Nazi regime, he was arrested and Malfalda was interned in Buchenwald concentration camp, where she died on 27 August 1944.

Republic

On 9 May 1946, a year following the end of the war, Victor Emmanuel was forced to abdicate and leave Italy. He moved to Egypt. He named his son as his successor, Umberto II, three weeks ahead of a national referendum to decide on whether Italy should maintain its monarchy. On 2 June, the nation voted 54.3 per cent in favour of becoming a republic. After 85 years, the Kingdom of Italy was at an end.

Victor Emmanuel III died in exile in Egypt on 28 December 1947, aged 78. His son, Umberto II, died in Switzerland in 1983. (Benito Mussolini, meanwhile, was executed by Italian partisans on 28 April 1945).

Rupert Colley.

Read more about the war in The Clever Teens Guide to World War Two available as an ebook and 80-page paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstone’s, Apple Books and other stores.

The post Victor Emmanuel III – a brief biography first appeared on Rupert Colley.

The post Victor Emmanuel III – a brief biography appeared first on Rupert Colley.

Much of India, at the time, was governed by the East India Company. The monolithic, monopolizing commercial company with its own army had become the de facto rulers of the country on behalf of the British government. The town of Vellore, in southeast India, contained a large fort garrisoned by some 380 British soldiers and 1,500 sepoys. Incarcerated within the fort of Vellore, although in considerable comfort, were the sons, families and servants of Tipu Sultan, the former ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, who had been killed by the British in battle in 1799. (Pictured the Vellore Fort today)

Religious sensibilities

In 1806, as in 1857, the Indian soldiers, sepoys, feared the British were attempting to undermine their religions in order to convert them to Christianity. A new dress code, introduced in 1805 by the commander-in-chief of the Madras Army, General Sir John Craddock, forbade Hindu soldiers from sporting any caste marks on their foreheads, banned the wearing of earrings and proposed that turbans be replaced by a round hat. Muslim soldiers were to shave off their beards and trim their moustaches. Craddock, in issuing his directive, was going against advice from his Military Board who warned that local religious sensibilities be respected.

United by their grievances, Hindu and Muslim sepoys decided to act. An initial protest resulted in a number of sepoys being lashed.

But in the early hours of 10 July 1806, the rebel sepoys launched their main attack on the fort. The rebels looted and killed, and barged into the garrison’s hospital where they slaughtered men in their hospital beds. 200 British soldiers were killed or wounded. The sepoys declared the eldest son of Tipu Sultan their new leader, hoisting Tipu’s flag atop the fort.

Rescue

The British took refuge on the fort’s ramparts. One soldier escaped, took to his horse and galloped the sixteen miles to the garrison based at Arcot to call for help. A small relieving force of about twenty men, led by Sir Rollo Gillespie, quickly made their appearance at Vellore. (Born in Comber in County Down, Northern Ireland, a statue of Gillespie standing upon a 55-foot high column today dominates the town square, pictured).

Climbing up the ramparts to aid the stricken British still clinging on, Gillespie led a bayonet charge to keep the sepoys at bay. More reinforcements arrived in larger numbers, blowing down the garrison gates and setting upon the rebellious sepoys. By 2 pm, the rebellion had been quashed. Retribution was swift and merciless; executions plentiful. The Vellore Mutiny was over.

Tipu Sultan’s sons and their retinues were resettled in Calcutta. The British certainly did not want to risk them becoming a rallying point again.

Rupert Colley.

The post The Vellore Mutiny – a brief outline first appeared on Rupert Colley.

The post The Vellore Mutiny – a brief outline appeared first on Rupert Colley.

An Indian Sepoy, c1835.

By 1857, the East India Company, the monolithic, monopolizing commercial company that conducted trade in India and had become the de facto ruler of the country on behalf of the British government, ruled two-thirds of India. The remaining third was overseen by Indian princes who paid tribute to the British. That the East India Company could maintain its authority was down to the might of its huge army, consisting of 45,000 Europeans and 230,000 Indian sepoys. While most sepoys were glad and even proud to serve in the army, their loyalty to it always took second place to their religion

Religious sensibilities

Sepoys of all faiths were concerned for their respective religions. The prospect of being made to serve overseas, for example, alarmed Hindu sepoys as travelling over water was a compromise of caste. (Similar grievances led to a much smaller rebellion, the Vellore Mutiny, in 1806).

Their fears were not without foundation – there was among the British an evangelical element keen on converting the Indian masses to Christianity and persuading them to turn their backs on the ‘monsters of lust, injustice, wickedness and cruelty’, to use William Wilberforce (1759-1833)’s phrase to describe Hindu divinities. In the early nineteenth century, the British had outlawed various religious traditions and were now spreading their influence, building Christian schools and snatching orphaned Indian children to be brought up as Christians. (A Western education, the British believed, would eventually lead to greater responsibility and equip the Indian for eventual self-rule.)

The British were also rapidly expanding Indian infrastructure on Western lines – expanding the network of railways and roads. The Hindus, in adhering to their caste system, could not tolerate such an imposition on their tradition – Hindus of differing castes could not share the same road, let alone the same train. The British, they assumed, were trying to destroy the caste system.

Unrest

The first symptom of unrest came in January 1857, when the recently-opened telegraph office in Barrackpore was burned down as a protest against the march of Westernized progress. Two months later, on 29 March 1857, a 29-year-old sepoy called Mangal Pandey (pictured), stoned with opium and brandishing a sword and a musket, urged his fellow sepoys to rebel. He wounded two officers by sword before turning the gun on himself, attempting to pull the trigger with his toe. He fired but managed only to wound himself. He was hanged for his efforts and was soon to become a martyr to the rebels’ cause.

The Rifle

But it was something rather mundane that sparked the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The sepoys had been issued with a new Enfield rifle. In order to use the rifle, the soldier had to bite off the end of a lubricated cartridge before inserting the powder into the weapon. The problem was that the grease used to seal the cartridge was made from animal fat – both cow, a sacred beast to Hindus, and pork, an insult to the Muslim soldiers. The East India Company made amends by substituting the forbidden fats with that of sheep or, instead, beeswax. Too late. The sepoys saw it as another example of a deliberate ploy to undermine their respective religions and to convert them, through this perfidious route, to Christianity. The fact this was not the case did nothing to squash the rumour.

On the evening of 9 May 1857, 85 Indian dissenters in Meerut, 40 miles from Delhi, who had been court-martialled for refusing to touch the new cartridges, were marched onto a parade ground, stripped of their uniforms, shackled with fetters and thrown into jail to serve sentences from five to ten years. Yet these were not recalcitrant men seething with anger but loyal subjects of the Company’s army who obeyed every order but simply could not defile their religion.

When, that evening, Lieutenant Hugh Gough (later a general and recipient of the Victoria Cross) was warned by a sepoy of the impending mutiny in Meerut, he rushed to tell his senior officers only to have his concerns brushed aside.

Mutiny

On the late afternoon of the following day, 10 May, as the British residents prepared to go to evening song, the Indian comrades of the imprisoned sepoys broke open the jail and together they revolted, dragging the British out and hacking them to death. The violence was swift and intense; civilians joining the sepoys in an orgy of killing and arson. (Pictured: a bungalow at Meerut being attacked).

None who came within sight of the enraged horde were spared – the sick, the pregnant and the very young were among the victims. Two particular atrocities inflamed the passions of the British – Mrs Chambers, a pregnant woman whose unborn baby was ripped from her womb, and Mrs Dawson, recovering from smallpox, who was burnt to death. Fifty or more were left dead. Come late evening, the rebels took to their horses and made for Delhi forty miles away.

Put the English to death

Upon arriving in the capital, the rebels sought to restore the old Mughal Empire and have the 82-year-old Bahadur Shah II as their figurehead. Bahadur Shah had had to suffer a demotion in title, the British stripping him of the title emperor and proclaiming him ‘merely’ the King of Delhi. Having been pensioned off by the British, he was content to wile away his remaining years writing poetry and painting. When the rebels made their demands, he reluctantly gave them his support and issued a proclamation declaring a holy war and urging his ‘subjects’ to rise up and ‘put the English to death’.

It would take two years and two months before the British were able to proclaim: ‘War is at an end; [the] rebellion is put down.’

*The name ‘Indian Mutiny’, as it was taught to generations of British schoolchildren, has a very Eurocentric ring to it; Indians prefer to call it the First War of Independence or the First Nationalist Uprising.

Rupert Colley.

Gathered together in one collection – 60 of Rupert Colley’s articles: The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century.

The post Indian Mutiny – a brief outline first appeared on Rupert Colley.

The post Indian Mutiny – a brief outline appeared first on Rupert Colley.

Built in Germany in 1935 the 800-foot long Zeppelin airship, the Hindenburg, was considered the height of sophisticated travel. It may only have travelled at 80 mph yet it still provided the fastest means of crossing the Atlantic – twice as fast as the speediest ship. It was akin to being on a luxury liner and had already made dozens of journeys across the Atlantic from Germany to Brazil or America and back. Of course, it wasn’t cheap – a one-way ticket across the Atlantic cost about US$400 (about US$7,000 / £4,500 in 2016).

With the Nazi swastika on its fins, it was named after the last president of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, who had appointed Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933, and who died in August 1934. Joseph Goebbels had, apparently, wanted the airship to be named the Adolf Hitler but the owner of the Zeppelin Company, Hugo Eckener, a known anti-Nazi, refused.

But before it became a transatlantic airship, the Hindenburg began its life as a tool of the Nazi propaganda ministry, run by Goebbels. In March 1936, ahead of a German plebiscite to rally support ratifying the re-occupation of the Rhineland, the Hindenburg was used to drop propaganda leaflets while blaring out loud patriotic music and slogans from huge loudspeakers and broadcasting political speeches from a temporary onboard radio studio. (The plebiscite returned a 99.8 percent vote in favour). On 1 August 1936, the Hindenburg made a special appearance flying above the Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony of the Berlin Olympics trailing an Olympic flag in its wake.

The Hindenburg‘s last journey

On its 63rd and last, fateful journey, the Hindenburg departed from Frankfurt on May 3, 1937, and was due to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the morning of May 6. But poor weather had delayed its landing by about twelve hours. The captain, Max Pruss, kept his passengers entertained by flying over New York City. (Pruss survived the disaster, dying aged 69 in 1960). The Hindenburg had a capacity for about 70 passengers but on this trip, there were only 36 passengers plus 61 crew.

At 7.25 p.m. the Hindenburg was trying to land by docking onto a 270-foot high mooring mast, from where it could be winched down to the ground. The flight was the first North Transatlantic trip of the year and TV and radio crews had gathered to record its arrival.

Radio reporter, Herbert Morrison (pictured), was describing the events when inexplicably the airship exploded into flames. The tail of the ship was soon engulfed but the Hindenburg remained level for a few more seconds before the tail began to drop. As the ship tilted, passengers and crew and bits of furniture were thrown against the walls; one passenger remembered being hurled 15 to 20 feet against a dining room wall and being pinned there by several others.

The Hindenburg continued to lurch as the flames spread at almost 50 feet per second. Many on board were able to jump for their lives. ‘Oh, the humanity,’ wailed Morrison, a phrase that entered the lexicon of American culture. Within just 37 seconds the Hindenburg had been utterly destroyed. ‘Approaching Lakehurst,’ reported British Pathé News in a bit of poetic reportage, ‘the Hindenburg appeared a conquering giant of the skies. But she proved a puny plaything in the mighty grip of fate. It almost seemed as if fate had set the stage for the horrible tragedy. A graceful craft sailing serenely to her doom.’

Casualties

Of the 97 people onboard, 35 died: 13 passengers and 22 crew, plus one ground crew member. But 62 did survive by jumping at the right time and running to safety. It wasn’t the first or worst airship disaster but the Hindenburg tragedy effectively brought the brief age of the airship to an abrupt end. Despite many theories, the exact cause of the fire remains a mystery but is generally believed to have been caused by an electrostatic discharge – in simpler terms, a spark that ignited leaking hydrogen.

Morrison’s commentary was married up to the film footage and flashed across the world. The two mediums ran at slightly different speeds so Morrison’s voice had to be speeded up to match the film, adding to its emotional intensity.

Here, is Herbert Morrison’s commentary with the accompanying footage on YouTube.

And, here. the text:

“It’s burst into flames! It burst into flames, and it’s falling, it’s crashing! Watch it! Watch it! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Get this, Charlie; get this, Charlie! It’s fire… and it’s crashing! It’s crashing terrible! Oh, my! Get out of the way, please! It’s burning and bursting into flames and the… and it’s falling on the mooring mast. And all the folks agree that this is terrible; this is the one of the worst catastrophes in the world. Its flames… Crashing, oh! Four- or five-hundred feet into the sky and it… it’s a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It’s smoke, and it’s in flames now; and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast. Oh, the humanity! And all the passengers screaming around here. I told you; it—I can’t even talk to people, their friends are out there! Ah! It’s… it… it’s a… ah! I… I can’t talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest: it’s just laying there, mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk and the screaming. Lady, I… I… I’m sorry. Honest: I… I can hardly breathe. I… I’m going to step inside, where I cannot see it. Charlie, that’s terrible. Ah, ah… I can’t. Listen, folks; I… I’m going to have to stop for a minute because I’ve lost my voice. This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

Herbert Morrison died, aged 83, in 1989.

Rupert Colley.

The post The Hindenburg Disaster – a summary first appeared on Rupert Colley.

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Born 10 March 1957, Osama bin Laden was one of 52 (or more) siblings born to his billionaire father, Mohammed, and his 22 wives. Osama’s mother, Alia, was 14 when she married Mohammed, his tenth wife, and 15 when she gave birth to Osama (‘young lion’ in Arabic). Osama was the only product of this union. His parents divorced soon after his birth.

Mohammed bin Laden had built from scratch a large building empire in Saudi Arabia and when, in 1968, he died in a helicopter crash – his vast fortune was distributed amongst all his children.

Osama bin Laden stood 6ft 5in tall and married the first of his four wives, a 14-year-old, when he was 17. He had 19 children, of whom his 22-year-old son, Khalid, was killed in the US attack that killed Osama in May 2011.

The Mujahideen

Bin Laden first visited Afghanistan during the early weeks of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-89) and helped organise the supply of men, arms and money for the Mujahideen fighting the Soviet invaders.

Following the withdrawal of the Soviet Union in February 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia a hero for having contributed to the Soviets’ defeat. During the late eighties, possibly 1988, bin Laden formed Al-Qaeda, meaning ‘the base’.

Following the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1990 the threat to Saudi Arabia seemed real. Bin Laden offered the Saudi king Mujahideen fighters to help defend the country but the king declined the offer and instead allowed 300,000 US troops onto Saudi soil from where they could attack Iraq. Bin Laden heavily criticised the Saudi king to the point his country of birth revoked his citizenship and had him banished.

Al-Qaeda

In 1992, bin Laden migrated to the Sudan and from there built up Al-Qaeda. In 1996 bin Laden was forced to leave the Sudan and he returned to Afghanistan where he met the Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban. Omar reputedly married bin Laden’s daughter. Bin Laden became the Taliban’s financial benefactor and helped organise their push on Kabul in September 1996.

In 1998 bin Laden issued a fatwa calling on Muslims throughout the world to “kill Americans wherever they are found”. Following the 1998 suicide bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, US President, Bill Clinton, demanded that the Taliban hand over bin Laden. But the Mullah Omar refused to comply. Bin Laden’s support for the Taliban obligated Omar’s loyalty and to have handed him over would have violated his deep-rooted sense of hospitality.

Despite several rumours of his death since 2001, bin Laden was still alive until US intelligence finally tracked him down, living in a three-storey house within a fortified compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan, 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Death of Osama bin Laden

On May 2, 2011, a small team of elite US Navy Seals stormed the house – its objective: to kill Osama bin Laden.

The 24 Seals took off from their Afghan base in Bagram in Black Hawk helicopters specially modified to reduce rotor noise. Flying in low to avoid radar detection, the helicopters swooped into the compound.

The Seals had been practising for weeks on a mock-up of the triangular compound, fortified on all sides by a twelve-foot wall topped with barbed wire.

In a 38-minute operation, the climax of which was a seven-minute firefight, three men and a woman were quickly dispatched, while the Seals homed in on their target. (Amongst the victims was bin Laden’s 22-year-old son, Khalid).

Bin Laden and a woman (later confirmed as one of his wives) were found in his bedroom unarmed and wearing pyjamas. Having shot his wife in the calf, the Seals shot bin Laden first in the chest (the “stop shot”), then the head (the “kill shot”). The pyjamas were later found to have 500 euros sewn within.

Thousands of miles away, in Washington DC, President Obama and his staff (pictured) watched the ruthless proceedings via cameras mounted on the helmets of the Seals.

“Geronimo EKIA” (enemy killed in action), reported back a Seal, using their codename for bin Laden. “We got him,” said the President.

Having confirmed through DNA the identity of Bin Laden, the body was flown out to the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier. Bin Laden was not to be buried anywhere that could become a shrine. After the reading of Islamic passages, his body was buried in the North Arabian Sea.

President Obama addressed the nation and America celebrated. It may have taken nine years, seven months and 19 days but the US had finally got justice over a man that had cast such a long shadow over their recent history. Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was dead.

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Only six days before, Confederate forces under General Robert E Lee had surrendered to General Ulysses S Grant, effectively bringing to an end the American Civil War.

John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth (pictured), who originated from a famous family of actors and was himself regarded a fine actor, had lived in the North throughout the war but, a great believer in the institution of slavery, his loyalties lay firmly with the Confederate South.

In March 1865 Booth had hatched a plan to kidnap the president but the plan came to nothing. However, following Lee’s surrender, Booth’s determination to punish the man he saw as responsible for the war and the ending of slavery hardened.

On hearing that on the evening of April 14, Good Friday, Lincoln would be at the Ford’s Theatre watching a performance of the farce, Our American Cousin by British playwright Tom Taylor, Booth quickly devised a new plan. Together with two companions, Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt, Booth planned a triple assassination – of the president, the Vice-President, Andrew Johnston, and Secretary of State, William Seward.

Come 10 pm, the agreed time, the three men went to work. Atzerodt, however, backed out whilst Powell broke into the home of Seward and attacked the Secretary of State with a knife. Seward survived but bore the facial scars for the rest of his life.

Ford’s Theatre

Meanwhile, at Ford’s Theatre, during the third act, Lincoln’s bodyguard had slipped away to get a drink. It was incredible piece of luck for Booth who had broken into the theatre earlier in the evening and had tampered with the outer door to Lincoln’s box. Now, just gone 10 pm, armed with a pistol and a knife, Booth opened the outer door and wedged it shut from within.

Sitting with the president was his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and two companions – a Union Army major, Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris. Booth was familiar with the play being performed and waited nervously for a particular piece of dialogue he knew would raise a roar of laughter.

Thus always to tyrants

Then, at the right moment, as laughter filled the theatre, Booth swung open the inner door and shot the president in the back of the head. Mary screamed and caught her husband as he slumped forward. Rathbone jumped up to prevent Booth’s escape but the assassin slashed him with a knife before jumping from the box and landing heavily on the stage, fracturing his left ankle and shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis” – Latin for “Thus always to tyrants”, the state motto of Virginia.

By now the audience was aware of something terrible happening. Rathbone, his arm bleeding profusely, yelled, “Stop that man!” But too late. Before anyone could react, Booth had exited through a stage door and to a horse tied up outside.

Doctors within the audience rushed to Lincoln’s aid, pushing aside the screaming Mary. But immediately, on seeing the wound, they knew it was fatal.

Deciding not to carry the president back to the White House, they carried him across the street to a house of rented rooms and lay the president down on a bed. (Being so tall, he had to be laid out diagonally). Mary, by now hysterical, had to be removed.

At 7.22 the following morning, Easter Saturday, April 15, President Lincoln died. He was 56. Following a prayer, the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton famously said, “Now he belongs to the ages”.

The Funeral Train

Lincoln’s body, draped in a flag, was taken to the White House, whilst all around, the church bells rang out. After lying in state in a heavily-decorated open coffin, he was transported by train to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. The body of Lincoln’s third son, William, who had died aged 11 in 1862, was exhumed and placed on the train alongside the body of his father.

Travelling at a top speed of 20 mph the train stopped at various cities, starting at New York, where Lincoln’s coffin was taken off the train and laid in state. Finally, after 13 days, and having travelled 1,654 miles, the whole route lined with mourners, the train arrived in Springfield.

Footnotes

John Wilkes Booth was finally tracked down, hiding in a barn in Virginia. His pursuers, having set the barn alight, shot the fugitive. Fatally wounded, Booth was dragged from the blaze and died three hours later. He was 26.

As a sad footnote to this story, Major Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara, did marry, moved to Germany and had three children. However, Rathbone succumbed to mental illness, and in December 1883, he shot and stabbed Clara to death and tried to commit suicide. Rathbone spent the rest of his life in an asylum, dying in 1911.

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The post The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln – a summary first appeared on Rupert Colley.

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The sepoys had been issued with a new Enfield rifle. In order to use the rifle, the soldier had to bite off the end of a lubricated cartridge before inserting the powder into the weapon. The problem was that the grease used to seal the cartridge was made from animal fat – both cow, a sacred beast to Hindus, and pork, an insult to the Muslim soldiers.

The East India Company, the monolithic, monopolising commercial company that conducted trade in India and had become the de facto rulers of India acting on behalf of the British government, made amends by substituting the forbidden fats with that of sheep or beeswax. Too late. The sepoys saw it as a deliberate ploy to undermine their respective religions and to convert them, through this perfidious route, to Christianity. The fact this was not the case did nothing to squash the rumour.

The first symptom of unrest came in January 1857, when the recently-opened telegraph office in Barrackpore (now Barrackpur, about 15 miles from Kolkata, or Calcutta) was burned down as a protest against the march of Westernization.

Two months later, on 29 March 1857, also at Barrackpore, a 29-year-old sepoy called Mangal Pandey, staged, in effect, a one-man rebellion. Born 19 July 1827, Mangal Pandey had joined the 34th Bengal Native Infantry regiment of the British East India Company, aged 22, in 1849.

Religious frenzy

Mangal Pandey (pictured), apparently stoned with opium and brandishing a sword and a musket on a parade ground, urged his fellow sepoys to rebel and vowed to kill the first white person he saw. Sure enough, when a mounted British officer appeared on the scene, Pandey shot at him but managed only to fell the horse. He then slashed at the officer with his sword, injuring him, and next wounding the officer’s adjutant. Another officer ordered a junior native officer to subdue and arrest Pandey but was met with refusal.

An officer in charge, General Hearsey, who later described Pandey as having being in the throes of a ‘religious frenzy’, appeared on the scene and, waving his pistol, managed to restore order. Pandey, finding himself alone, turned his musket on himself, pressed it against his chest, and, using his toe, pulled the trigger. Although injured and having set his tunic ablaze, he failed to kill himself and was promptly arrested.

Court Martial

Pandey was court martialled on 6 April. At his hearing he insisted he had acted alone and in the name of India. He was due to be hanged on 18 April but the British, fearful of further unrest, brought forward the date of execution and Pandey was hanged on 8 April 1857.

Deemed unreliable and a disgrace, Pandey’s regiment was disbanded but Pandey had become a martyr to the rebels’ cause.

127 years later, on 5 October 1984, the Indian government issued a stamp commemorating Mangal Pandey and his solitary act of defiance.

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