The War in Dorset - October 1941
In October 1941 – filming of ‘The First of the Few’, a film telling the story of the Spitfire aeroplane, began near Christchurch. It starred Leslie Howard and David Niven, both returned from Hollywood to support the war effort since 1939. Niven rejoined the Army and around this time was working for the General Headquarters Liaison Regiment (known as ‘Phantom’) as Commander of ‘A’ squadron, informing Army HQ on coastal defences and invasion risk, and happened to be stationed near Poole. Leslie Howard may also have been employed by Intelligence – when he was killed in 1943 it appears that the civilian plane he was flying in from Lisbon was targeted by a German bomber, possibly because of his work supporting the Allied cause in Spain and Portugal (although Churchill had been scheduled to fly on the same plane).
On 11th October 1941 three of the crew of a crashed Wellington bomber were rescued off St Albans Head on the Purbeck Coast, Dorset. Chotie was still working nearby in the Land Army at Barnston Farm, Church Knowle.
On 21st October 1941 a German plane crashed into the side of Bindon Hill at Lulworth in Purbeck.
George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Dominion airmen stationed in Bournemouth on 23rd October 1941.
(From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing CompanyDorset Publishing Company 2004).
1st Airborne:
10th October 1941 – formation of the British 1st Air Landing Brigade which became part of the 1st Airborne Division on 31st October 1941. (See Chapter 5 Air Landing.)
The 31st Independent Brigade, recently returned from India and mountain-trained, was selected for conversion to an air land role and redesignated the 1st Air Landing Brigade. It was anticipated that the Brigade would be transported to a war zone either in gliders or in aircraft that would land on an airfield or suitable level strip of land so they were known as “Airlanding” and not “Gliderborne” troops.The initial task of 1 Air Landing Brigade Group was to carry out investigations into the problems of organisation, equipment and training of an air-landing formation.
On 29th October 1941 Frederick Browning, a protégé of Louis Mountbatten, was appointed to act as Commander of the Para-Troops and Airborne Troops that became 1st Airborne Division.
(From ‘Airborne Forces’ by Lt-Col T.B.H. Otway, D.S.O. London: Imperial War Museum, 1990 and ‘The Pegasus Patrol’ by Jack Turnbull & John Hamblett.)
22nd and 24th October 1941 – the assassination of two German military commanders in Nantes, France, resulted in large scale punishment killings.
Following the first violent act of the French Resistance in August 1941 French prisoners had been classified as ‘hostages’ to be executed in reprisal for any assassinations of the German military. When Feldkommandant Karl Hotz, commander of the occupation troops in Loire-inférieure, and the German Military Administration Advisor were killed by the Resistance on 20th and 21st October 1941 fifty local prisoners, mainly communists and other political detainees, were shot in retaliation for each assassination. Despite bribes and threats of further atrocities information on the assassins was not forthcoming.
On 29th October 1941 Churchill addressed Harrow School with his famous speech "Never give in".
30th October 1941 – beginning of the seige of Sebastopol. This port on the Black Sea continued to resist the Germans until June 1942.
31st October 1941- an American warship, the destroyer Reuben James, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat submarine while escorting a British convoy. The Americans had not yet entered the war.
Recent Comments