Dit dit dah...

But is anyone listening anymore?


Seen at Steve Graham's forthcoming auction, a tray of Morse keys.

How to ... build a brand-new castle

One of the areas of history I find particularly interesting is known as 'experimental archaeology', or, in more comprehensible terms, trying out historical methods and equipment to see how they really work and what is different to how we thing they work. Aristotelian bending the brain alone has its place, but as anyone who works with their hands will tell you, book learning and theory won't cover all you need to do the job for real.

Large examples of experimental archaeology include the modern replica of an ancient Greek Trireme, Olympias (details here) and the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (an earlier post on that here). In both cases they are not exact recreations of what they are exploring, but the compromises are (mostly) known and the lessons that have appeared as a result of building a recreation of 'the real thing' have changed our understanding of both Shakespearian theatre and Classical naval warfare - interestingly explaining some aspects of contemporary accounts that puzzled modern scholars and also opening avenues of questions and study previously unconsidered. I'd love to see Olympias in action, but maybe not be a rower (I'm too big to be an ancient Greek, since you ask) but I'm proud to have been a modern 'groundling' on the South Bank.

From the Chateau's website.

One might assume we know all there is to know about building a castle, and a new castle would be the ultimate in follies.

And they are building a castle, in France as the BBC reports:

Deep in the forests of central France, an unusual architectural experiment is half-way to completion, as a team of masons replicates in painstaking detail the construction of an entire medieval castle.

The ­Chateau de Guedelon was started in 1998, after local landowner Michel Guyot wondered whether it would be possible to build a castle from scratch, using only contemporary tools and materials.

What's interesting is what is coming out of the experiment already:

Experts are fascinated by what the experiment can teach about medieval building methods.

One example concerns lime kilns, used for making the mortar. Archaeologists had often wondered why they found traces of two separate kilns at construction sites.

Experience at Guedelon showed that, in a day's work, builders often needed to top up the mortar brought in from the main kiln with small amounts made close at hand. Hence the small second kiln actually inside the castle.

The discolouring of lime-based mortar is another revelation. Within one or two years of being laid, Guedelon's walls are already showing streaks of unsightly white where the lime is leaching.

Archaeologists think this is a clue to why medieval castles were very quickly plastered and painted: it was to hide the mess.

BBC

While currently it is being treated as an academically rigorous exercise, it started out as an 'eccentric pipe dream'. Also revealing is the need for a theoretical mediaeval 'owner' to centre the project around, rather than being able to run it as an abstract model. As one of the guides said:

"Funnily enough, we found that even though we knew we were being accurate, somehow the castle lacked soul. So we invented a character - the owner - who would have likes and dislikes, wanting this and not wanting that," says Ms Preston.

So how cool is that? Certainly it would add a je ne sais... mais exactement to studying a castle in school.

The BBC report here, and the official website is here and a Wiki entry here.

James

Seventy Years of 'Dunkirk Spirit'

Bombed on the beaches, British soldiers use Lee Enfield rifles to fire back at the German Luftwaffe. (BBC.)

It's 70 years since the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk from the temporarily-halted German forces between 26 May and June 4. It was officially 'Operation Dynamo' As is well known, much of the rescue work, coordinated and supported by the Royal Navy, was by the 'little ships' resulting in one of the rarest, and most cherished yacht badges seen since. (The St George's Cross flown from the jack staff is known as the 'Dunkirk jack' and is only flown by civilian ships and boats of all sizes that took part in the Dunkirk rescue operation in 1940. The only other ships permitted to fly this flag at the bow are those with an Admiral of the Fleet on board.)

Those fishing boats, ferries, yachts and dinghies ferried the soldiers from the beaches to the larger Royal Navy ships that could get no closer, and sometimes they took them all the way back - when the Channel must have seemed its widest.

This year 50 ships, many original survivors, set out to recreate that remarkably flotilla's incredible achievement.

In the middle of a war being lost, it was not a simple task, or one that was all good, nor as black and white as often portrayed. Herman Goering convinced Hitler that his Luftwaffe could finish off the soldiers on the beaches. The Royal Air Force (RAF) did their best, at significant cost, to stop them, but back and away from the beaches - a job often not appreciated by the soldiers bombed by those German bombers who got through. Time was bought by rearguard actions, particularly the 'last hope' garrison at Calais, dropped water and ammunition (but without hope of rescue or other relief) by a scratch force of RAF Westland Lysanders and outdated Hawker Hectors - two aircraft types named for military heroes of yore. Some French soldiers were rescued, others turned away - and later those rescued were mostly repatriated to France, after the French surrender.

"Wars are not won by evacuations" Churchill reminded a relieved Britain, but though denuded of their arms, those soldiers were going to be the last line of defence for European democracy - after the Royal Navy and the force tested next - the RAF, soon to come though victorious by a narrow margin in the Battle of Britain, and the high water mark of fascist fortune.

Here in the Imperial War Museum, London, is one of the little ships of Dunkirk- in fact the littlest, Tamzine - sailed by amateur or professional civilian sailors that brought the soldiers off the beaches. Author.

Since then the Dunkirk Spirit has rightly been an iconic symbol in British culture.

The BBC report on the flotilla here. The BBC also present an audio-slideshow, including original accounts recorded in 1990, here.

Interestingly, the event has been a popular topic for children's authors. [Edited to add I've done a review of a pre-eminent example here.]

James

Anzac Day 2010

Last year's photos are here. This year's contribution is some (I hope) thought provoking quotes.

Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and served in military operations for their countries. Anzac Day is also observed in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.

Wikipedia.

It was lost on the night of bombardment before the first landing, lost in the first hour on the beach, lost on each of the two hundred and ninety-eight days that followed, lost in the planning at Whitehall, lost in the choice of the deranged Ian Hamilton, lost in the luck of getting the genius Ataturk as our principal foe.

Bob Ellis

Rear Admiral Steve Gilmore, the commander of the Australian naval fleet told the thousands gathered at central Sydney's Cenotaph for Sunday's Anzac Day dawn service that Australia's national identity was established at Gallipoli.

Rear Admiral Gilmore said the nation enjoys the freedoms it does thanks to the 1.8 million Australians who've served in military campaigns over the past 95 years.

Rear Admiral Gilmore said 102,000 Australian servicemen and servicewomen had made the ultimate sacrifice, and he asked that their contribution be remembered on this day.

"Because of Gallipoli our national identity was firmly established," he said, referring to Australia's best known military campaign.

Yahoo7 News

And many of us believed it, the audacious, denialist spin that a battle ill lost from which no good came was worth being in because it 'tested our mettle' and 'showed what game young men can do'.

Paul Keating, launching Graham Freudenberg's Churchill and Australia said Australia didn't have to prove anything. It already had the highest standard of living in the world, along with female suffrage, pensions, exemplary health care, a literate working class, good writers, athletes, musicians, painters, cartoonists. What was there to prove? That we could perish bravely in war, that great game of drongos?

'I have never gone to Gallipoli,' Keating said, 'and I never will. Kokoda is more my speed. There we fought, and won, a long battle that made a difference to our nation's future. That saved us from something, as Gallipoli never did.'

Bob Ellis, ABC.

War historian and author Roland Perry told the service that despite the horrific losses of thousands of young diggers, Australia had had a huge impact on the world stage during World War I.

‘‘The Turks had ruled the Middle East for 400 years but the Anzacs did more than any other force to change the map of the Middle East roughly to where it is today,’’ he said.

‘‘In the four years... Australia had a remarkable impact on the world stage never to be repeated.

‘‘But we are here today to remember the men and women of Australia and New Zealand who sacrificed and served in all wars, not just the Great War.’’

AAP, The Age.

What the Australians won at Gallipoli was huge respect, including from their enemy. It really is time we started making clear to young Australians that the Anzacs didn't die protecting Australia from being invaded. Rather, we were invading a country on the other side of the world - to wit, Turkey - with whom we had no difference as a people outside the larger politics of the day.

Surely it is time we owed Turkey, and Turkish Australians, that respect. Look at the respect Turkey shows our dead.

I ask this question most seriously. Does any country in the world - other than Turkey - permit a people who tried to invade it to commemorate the fact of that attempted invasion on their shores each year? I know of not a single one. Imagine if the descendants of the Japanese pilots who bombed Darwin held an emotional service beneath the Japanese flag on the shores of Darwin Harbour each year.

Martin Flanagan, The Age.

Organisers were hoping for a record 40,000 people at the Shrine of Remembrance, ensuring Melbourne’s dawn service remains as powerful as ever - 95 years since Aussie diggers landed at Gallipoli.

AAP, The Age

Trooper Mark Donaldson, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for services in Afghanistan, said it was vital young people take part in Anzac Day.

"You have to keep it alive because if you don't pass it down and make sure they understand what it's about then it's going to be forgotten about," Trooper Donaldson told reporters in Sydney following the march.

Yahoo 7 News.

In 1983, when his yacht, Australia 2, won the America's Cup, owner Alan Bond acknowledged that at one stage his crew had been losing but added "it was just like Gallipoli, and we won that one".

It would be interesting to know exactly how that comment was received in lounge rooms across Australia. Did it feel "right" to most who heard it? My guess is that it did.

Gallipoli was a military disaster. We should note that in justice to the young men who died there. Do we owe them less than we owe those who die in bushfires like Black Saturday? We should also note it in justice to future generations. The voices that urged Australia into the invasion of Iraq were of the same character as those that propelled Australia to Gallipoli in 1914.

Martin Flanagan, The Age.

Many young families, including bleary-eyed children, came to the service. Lynda Brown said her seven-year-old son Callum had an obsession with war history.

‘‘I have been here before and I thought it was a good for him to come along and hopefully get rid of the romanticism of war and hear some stories and see that some people are upset,’’ she said.

AAP, The Age

Propaganda was involved in shaping the popular view of Gallipoli from the start. Take the case of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the man with the donkey. Within six weeks of his death, he had been conscripted into the propaganda war, a newspaper report describing him as ''a six-foot Australian'' with ''a woman's hands'' who said in a British-Australian accent, ''I'll take this fellow next.''

Simmo was a five-foot-eight Geordie with a stoker's hands who spoke in dialect and had fierce Labor politics. His first biographer, a fan of Churchill and acquaintance of Sir Robert Menzies, stripped him of his politics. There was no mention of boozing or fighting. The real Simmo was left in a grave at Gallipoli.

Martin Flanagan, The Age.

Too many of us have felt the effects, national and personal, of our nation's willingness to participate in foreign wars - because, as Australians, we bizarrely saw ourselves as foreign to our own homeland.

It is often claimed that our soldiers died for ''the freedom we enjoy today''. But to a sovereign nation, being truly free means being independent. Even as our monuments, ceremonies and memories of war endure, Australia is surely now mature enough to learn the lessons of its history and face the hard truths behind its myths.

Andrew Herrick, The Age

The Gallipoli peninsula and its pocket-handkerchief of a weatherworn battlefield is the site of a defeat for Australian and New Zealand soldiers (not to mention the British, the French, the Senegalese, the Indians and others from a lost empire), and a defeat that occurred long before any of us who might make the trip now were born.
...
The band of would-be gypsies, each of them Australian, made it to the Anzac commemorative site well before dawn, found a tiny spot on the lawn, laid out their Turkish carpet and hunkered down among thousands of other travellers for the cold wait, a fingernail moon eventually sliding over the crags and ridges, the Aegean Sea silvering.
...
No other people travel in such great numbers over such distances to such a curious destination.

Tony Wright, The Age.

It was Ataturk who declared to the mothers of Australia that their sons lay in friendly soil. A group of about 80 Turkish Australians march each year in Melbourne on Anzac Day. Anzac Day would not be the same without them.

Martin Flanagan, The Age.

Further thoughtful, rather than knee-jerk articles (on the dysfunctional relations between Australian politicians and servicemen and women) here, and on Australian's complex and conflicted relationship with the ease with which the country has gone to war and the remarkable limits of the real participation here insipred by a book critical of the Anzac legend.

James

Airlifts - Berlin to Haiti

Image by C-130 Hercules Flight Engineer Mark.
.
I'm sure all our readers will be well aware of the tragic events over the last week in Haiti. Over on my aviation writing blog here, I've put up a comparison of the current airlift into Port au Prince with the 1948-9 Berlin Airlift. While they are very different events, the historical comparisons and the importance and limitations of aviation in these airlifts is, I think, of interest.

Berliners watching a C-54 land at Berlin Tempelhof Airport, 1948. United States Air Force Historical Research Agency via Cees Steijger.

There has been a good deal broadcast over the issues at Port au Prince, but I was privileged to obtain some aircrew first hand accounts of the current efforts in Haiti, particularly in detail from my friend Brad Pilgrim, a loadmaster on a United States Air Force (USAF) C-17 transport aircraft. These insights are not the kind of thing that makes the news - the news version's nice and tidy (and perhaps less technical) and those trying to address Haiti's problems haven't got time to hear the stories. But you might like to gain an insight what it's like to ride alongside some of these crews, and what are some of the real problems and successes.

Above: The ramp at Port au Prince Haiti. (US Defense. A high res version of the image is available here.) On this ramp area is a remarkable variety of aircraft. Some are familiar to us all from airports, others, like the US Coast Guard Hercules less so, and in the middle of the photo is an upright white tail between two grey ones. That's a C-54, one of the types used over half a century ago to save Berlin - as seen in the black and white image above.

I'll hand over to Brad. These views are his own, not official USAF or similar, and certainly worth sharing;

I landed there last night. I unloaded 130,000 pounds of rolling stock and food. We expected to carry out 250+ passengers. We were told that no passengers were on site. While we were getting ready to leave, a guy ran up and asked how long we could wait. I checked with my pilots and told him we had about an hour. He said a bunch of passengers had just shown up unexpectedly and they wanted to put them with us. I told him to get me as many as they could. ...

Brad Pilgrim.
I'd just like to publicly thank Brad and the others who responded to my request for feedback, and for their work in extraordinary challenging times. Read their stories in my other post here.

James

Women & radio wars - the Y Service's 'Corona'

Some aspects of warfare throw up the most bizarre events, even though the sequence leading to it might seem rationally inevitable.

Who would expect a British woman of reducing a German woman to fits of giggles (and to collapse from laughter herself) in the middle of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II?

In the latter part of that war, the night skies over Germany became a new kind of battleground where the aircraft of the RAF's Bomber Command were tackled by the night fighter aeroplanes of the German air force, the Luftwaffe. It was a bloody war with (in some measures) as much attrition on both sides as the Western Front in the Great War of 1914-18.

But this was a new kind of war in other ways.

It was the first war that was invisible, but as hard-fought as hand-to-hand combat; where men, and women, remote from the fighting, strove to give their colleagues an edge or advantage. And those advantages swung back and forth dependant on the newest technology, but also on the most unlikely of skills, and where only words and very quick wits were sometimes as powerful as other weapons. This was the war of the 'specials' -- now called electronic warfare -- but then a secret art known to few.

Radio operators in action in this uncaptioned Imperial War Museum image. (IWM)

These men and women were cramped into tiny rooms in the air or on the ground, staring intently into cathode ray tubes and manipulating dials, while their arena was huge - from Southern Britain to Eastern Germany.

One particular aspect of this was the 'Y service' where German speakers (men and women) were recruited in Britain to sit in cramped quarters and listen in (on captured German aircraft radios, where possible), eavesdropping on German transmissions between the night fighter crews and their ground-based controllers. Initially listening was all they did, using the information to revise counter strategies, but in a unique twist, the British based operators could intervene. The BBC, GPO (Post Office) and the RAF developed 'high power transmitters that bounced signals off the ionosphere deep into Germany.'

The Lancaster I NG128 dropping its load over Duisburg on Oct 14, 1944. The aircraft is carrying Airborne Cigar (ABC) radio jamming equipment, as shown by the two vertical aerials on the fuselage. (RAF Pathfinder Museum)

Another ingredient was an extra man aboard a Lancaster, using very secret radio equipment codenamed 'Airborne Cigar' or ABC. Peggy West, one of the women operators, tells us the story:

Then in October 1943 something quite different was introduced – 'Corona'. At Kingsdown, using those high power transmitters to reach far into enemy country, specially selected men and women began annoying voice interference on the 3–6 megacycle range. Pseudo controllers issued false tuning counts to prevent the Luftwaffe going operational, gave false fog warnings to get aircraft to land, read poetry, or relayed Hitler’s speeches to disrupt and frustrate, and gave direct, contrary orders to cause confusion.

Sam Brooks (on the BBC 'People's War' website) remembers:

The Germans tried all manner of devices to overcome the jamming, including having their instructions sung by Wagnerian sopranos. This was to fool our operators into thinking it was just a civilian channel and not worth jamming.

Back to Peggy:

Corona led to some amusing incidents. A German controller was trying to direct his aircraft to Kassel. Kingsdown’s 'ghost' was trying to stop them and told them not to take any notice of the Englander who was trying to confuse them. After an exchange or two, the German became pretty agitated, lost his temper, and swore. Our 'ghost' replied, “The Englander is now swearing” and was met by an infuriated shriek from Germany: “It's not the *%$#@$ Englander who is swearing, it's *%$#@$ me”!

An 'atmospherically lit' Messerschmitt Bf 110 night fighter, one of the Luftwaffe's main types in the role, in the RAF Museum, Hendon. Author.

The British had an operator aboard a Lancaster jamming (or distracting) German ground transmissions. To 'spoof' them, he might work with a British operator broadcasting in German, from Kingsdown while pretending to be the 'real' German controller. Confusing? Very.

When a 101 Squadron Lancaster with its ABC 'Special' was shot down over Berlin, the Luftwaffe assumed Kingsdown’s 'Corona' voice interference came from that ABC equipment. They reasoned, correctly, that the RAF would not allow women to fly operationally over Germany and switched to women ground controllers. Since we had anticipated that, we did the same.

An uncaptioned photograph of a woman operator - probably radar rather than radio - on the Imperial War Museum website. (IWM)

So the real female German controller had a British based female 'spoof' controller relayed onto her German wavelength to distract and misdirect her and her night fighter crews. The frustration of the previously-mentioned male German controller was encountered by his female successor:

One of our girls got into a similar battle of wills, the only difference being that both women ended up laughing with each other and had to shut down. We all enjoyed the incident very much – but did wonder what happened to the lass over there!

Such moments of bizarre amusement were few in such a terrible war, but who could ever have predicted such an event ever coming to pass?

James

Peggy West's account of the work of the Y Service can be found here, as part of a 2003 conference on the Air War in Europe at the Australian War Memorial. More on the Y Service on this page from The Secret War's website, and some of the background to the RAF's special aircraft can be found here on 100 Group. More firsthand memories on the excellent BBC People's War Website can be found here, with an ABC Operator and a WAAF Y Service operator.

Jousting

Nottingham Castle, 1990s.

Sport is war continued by other means. Unlike today when it's usually involving a ball, maybe sticks, in the good old days it involved men poking each other with very big sticks, while charging each other on horses....

It was a joust, a mix of pageant, martial training and a rather impressive time, I suspect. Today you can see jousts put on as an entertainment with stuntmen, and is intended to be a bit less bloody than the originals, where the denouement could be very bloody.

Omaka, NZ, 2007. " This one's bust."

Today it's for demonstration, and the lances have, usually, splintering ends of light wood. You can see in the pictures some shields are convex, used to glance off and for practice or war, while the concave ones were used to capture the opposing knight's lance and unseat him.

In conversation the other day, I realised I was very lucky to have seen a number of jousts over the years, including my first in the moat of the Tower of London in 1972 when I was very young. Much better than A A Milne, and a great place to start at a formative age!

Warwick Castle, 1990s. Wallop.

Ever since then, 'my' arms would involve a double-headed eagle. Sadly I have no photos from then. Nor can I currently find the photos of the joust and mediaeval pageant in Sherwood Forest, that I visited in the early 1990s. That was pretty good too, and not many people can claim to have seen archers in action at the Major Oak, Sherwood Forest...

However I have found photos taken at a joust at Warwick Castle - appropriate as it was the home of 'The Kingmaker'.

Warwick Castle.

Next was a night joust at Nottingham Castle (which isn't, but that's another story) and they are rather like the early C20 paintings of certain schools with 'all action' in them...

Nottingham Castle.

Last, but not least is the lunchtime joust in the middle of an airshow (quite bizarre) in New Zealand - about as far from where jousts took place for real, unlike the venues above which did at least have them for real in the past.

But the Kiwis put on quite the show. Note the splintered lance below...

Two above, Omaka, NZ.

It can still be quite dangerous today, but it's a lot more fun and impressive than most pointy ball games if you ask me. But then there's something about knights...

James

Guest Poem: 'Special'

Today we have a guest spot, with a poem by Ross, kindly supplied in return for the gift of a Moleskine notebook last year. When asked if we could publish a poem or two, Ross said: "I've thought about it and would be delighted, so I'm including in the body of this email the 'latest' draft of 'Special'."

So, dear reader, here we are.

SPECIAL

I'm down at last – through squelch

and patronising signs –

'Landowners Welcome Caring Walkers' –

to find him at the bus stop.



He 'likes my bonnet' (the

Ashes sunhat you gave me, Son)

and straight off I know he's military –

and the accent isn't Yorkshire –


'Canadian –

Army man – World War Two…'



'You must've been young!'



'Eighty-five. Work with young folks.'



As if that explains something!



I guess I must look…

interested, so the conversation…

lecture – let's be frank – it's

after all his job now: 'Historical Speaker on

Army Matters'… well, whatever it is, it

continues on the bus all the way down

to the grey-brown valley foot!



When he dings to alight, I've

heard about his First Special Force

experiences, seen his personal,

engraved medallion on a delicate

gold chain around his seasoned

neck, and we've agreed the kids

just need to be 'taken there

with words' and how you have to 'be

careful putting it right' –

they'll understand in time that

'sometimes questions can't

be answered': If Wilhelmina –

'Smart-arse kid, sometimes the girls

are just as bad…' asks

'Did you kill?' she gets to stand in for

the man who knows and

answer for him –

'Do you want to tell these kids you killed their…

father?'

'…No…'

'Brother…'


'…No…'



'Cousin?…'



'By the time I get to "Uncle" Wilhelmina's

usually in tears.

All that stuff's mine to know

and live with. Nobody knows –

not family, not friends…'



But as he tosses a jaunty salute

past the bus window from the pavement,

I know.

Ross Kightly

Images: Top - Yorkshire bus stop; Halifax station at the bottom of the hill and descending mist.Both Bev. 'Here you are - don't lose it again' victory & peace in Europe, by Zec, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, James.

The Poet's Pistol

The poem, the gun, the flower, the silence and the flu.

Poppies in Oxfordshire. B&J.

In the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, I chanced upon a small case featuring an apparently unremarkable example of the Colt Browning M1911 pistol.

McCrae's pistol. J.

It had belonged to John McCrae, a Canadian medic who, in his own words endured "Seventeen days of Hades!" working (one cannot imagine how) at a dressing station on the banks of the Yser Canal in Flanders in 1915, a year into the most cataclysmic war humanity had ever created.

After burying the remaining bits of a friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, the following day McCrae sat down and wrote a poem, in part inspired by the poppies that were growing in the shell-tossed earth.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The poem, after nearly being thrown away, and rejected by the first magazine it was sent to, was published by another. (Here is a version in McCrae's own hand.) It resulted in the use of the poppy in memoriam and for fund-raising for those soldiers in need from 1918 to today. The poppies are commonly seen across the Commonwealth, but particularity Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and, of course, France. Both poem and poppies have gone on to stand for the terrific losses and tragedy of the Great War.

A minutes silence, and flag at half-mast at Echuca, Vic, 2006. J.

The idea for the minute's silence which is normally observed on the 11th of November, can be credited to Australian journalist, Edward George Honey, who believed it might make an appropriate remembrance of the fallen.

Honey published a letter in the London Evening News on 8 May 1919 under the pen name of 'Warren Foster', in which he appealed for a silence amid all the hoopla celebrating the end of the War. It was not adopted however, until Lord Milner forwarded a suggestion from his friend, the South African Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, to the King's private secretary for a period of silence on Armistice Day, 11 November, 1919, in all countries of the British Empire. (There is a remarkable online resource on the Great War here.)

The interior of the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne. Used for just about everything, since 1880, in 1918 this was an emergency flu hospital. J.

It is perhaps ironic that the doctor McCrae was to die of pneumonia in January 1918 while still serving. Many of his medical companions, weary from the Great War went on to face a far greater scourge of humanity, the great influenza pandemic of 1918. While 20 million were killed in W.W.I, estimates place the deaths in the pandemic at anywhere between 40 - 100 million. I'm not aware of a single memorial to the medical and other workers who did their best in the face of such a cataclysm.

Sadly it is now necessary for the Canadian Armed Forces (and, I'm sure all the others) to produce multiple page PowerPoint displays explaining how to wear your poppy. Likewise the Royal Canadian Legion (and, I'm sure all the others) find it necessary to produce a 59 page PDF document about how to collect for the poppy fund.

French trench with a donkey and poppies. This is the only colour photograph (one of two processes used at the time) known to show poppies on the battlefield, and was taken in 1915 by an official French war photographer.

We seem to still be able to commit war, and bureaucracy, yet winning the peace, and managing viruses seems beyond us.

And lastly, for those interested in the early colour photography of the First World War, there is an excellent selection here, and more at the Australian War Memorial site here.

These are not poppies, but Australian Frank Hurley's photo of an Australian Light Horseman picking anemones in Palestine seems appropriate.

James