The final book of the trilogy on army supply

The final  book of the trilogy on army supply
The third of my books on army supply

Monday, 20 March 2017

A Prequel to War on Wheels

My new book, Ordnance on equipping the British Army in WW1, is to be published by The History Press in June 1918.

Exploring the story,  there is a strong thread of lessons waiting to be learnt. Some were, but, for others, it wouldn't be until WW2 that they bore fruit.

Alongside the lessons, are great examples of human effort overcoming shortfalls in the organisation and of human ingenuity solving endless problems.

The scale of everything was vast: so big that one constraint was a shortage of raw materials needed to produce all manner of materiel. Not enough leather for saddlery was just one such example. In order to save metal, shell cases were gathered in their thousands for re-use. Salvage became a huge operation, not just to make good shortages but also in the interests of economy.

Millions of tons of explosive used in countless variations and sizes of ammunition were stored in conditions ranging from the mud of the western front to the scorching sun of the desert and freezing cold of the mountains. Deterioration was inevitable, but men had, by hand and without protection, to render them safe and ready for use. Fatal accidents were inevitable.
The war memorial at Chilwell, remembering also those who lost their lives in a massive explosion at the Shell Filling Factory on 1 July 1918.




Wednesday, 1 March 2017

Children supplying the army in WW2

In the summer of 1943 the Derby depot had found itself unable to deal with the volume of material it was receiving and so Brigadier Robinson had the imaginative idea of seeing if school children on their summer holidays would help.

The Derby Evening Telegraph ran an article on how these school children helped to prepare for the invasion. What shone out from this was the enthusiasm and skill of all concerned including the teachers. One girl took on the challenge of sorting a cupboard full of 30,000 boxes by size. Another group packed in three hours what their army supervisor had thought would take days. The children didn’t complain of boredom since it was an activity quite different from their daily round.

It wasn’t just in the Midlands. The Twickenham times ran this story.

Pupils of Twickenham County School for Girls and Hampton Grammar School have shown a fine sense of patriotism by giving up their Easter holiday to do war work…boys and girls aged from 14 to 16, are working morning and afternoon for the Army in packing spare parts for tanks and other Army Vehicles. …some scholars pack the spares into cartons while others seal, label and pack the cartons into boxes ready for shipment.

Elsewhere it was reported that pupils from Eton had also leant a hand at the Feltham Depot.