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Molten steel being poured from the furnace into a ladle before being poured into the mould, Alston Foundry, Cumberland, England, May 1945.
Alston Foundry was established in 1940 as a subsidiary of the Sunderland crane manufacturing firm, Steel Co. Ltd. They were situated in the former buildings of the Alston Carpet and Woollen Mill, opposite the station, and operated two iron furnaces alongside two Bessemer steel converters.
Production revolved around supporting Britain's wa...r effort, with a primary output being the manufacturing of 3" mortar bomb casings. These were then sent to Oldham for filling with their explosive content.
With a workforce comprised largely of farmers and women, Alston Foundry produced a weekly average of 6,000 shells and one occasion achieved a staggering output of 20,000 in a single week. In total, the firm produced 1 million bomb cases.
The foundry also produced chain links for massive, sixty- foot-long, 20 link, boom defence chains for protection against submarines.
It was also involved in the construction of Mulberry harbours which were used for the D-Day landings in June 1944, the 74th anniversary of which was recognised last week, on the 6 June 2018.
Historical information and text: https://haltwhistle.org
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Lieutenant Edward 'Ted' Frederick Byrne, NX58832, from the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Squadron at Bumbum in the Ramu Valley, New Guinea, 20 October 1943.
Born on 23 May 1921, to William and Edith Byrne in what was then bushland at Campsie in New South Wales, Ted was the seventh child of a seventh child - his mother - and looked upon this unusual circumstance as being lucky. He did well academically at school, and was a keen cricketer at his local Croyden Park Club where he won...
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A Japanese prisoner captured near Nauro on the Kokoda Track, New Guinea, being cared for by Australian stretcher bearers. He had been overworked and was near starving when taken prisoner. Papua New Guinea, October 1942.
This image was a recent commission by the family of Arthur William Jones NX15616, the blond soldier depicted in the photograph.
Jones' service record has not yet been digitised by the National Archives of Australia so only some brief details are known of his...
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Bert Clarke and Archie McKenzie of Nepabunna Mission Station, Northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia, c. 1930-1960.
The Nepabunna Mission was established by the United Aborigines' Mission (UAM) on 20 square miles of donated land on the Balcoona Station in 1931 in the north east of South Australia.
In the late 1920s the UAM had begun searching for a permanent Home for the Aboriginal people of the area, collectively known as the Adnyamathanha. They had been displaced by col...onisation in the 1850s.
The Missionaries assisted with housing, schooling, health and other facilities at the Mission. A school building was established in the 1930s which was also used for church services.
Protector's reports show that a dormitory for Aboriginal children was constructed at Nepabunna early in the 1940s. However, due to the lack of a matron to oversee its use the dormitory had still not come into operation in 1948. At some time after 1948 a dormitory was used for children whose parents were working away from the Mission. An education Department school was built in 1963.
The Government took control of the Mission from the UAM in 1973 and four years later in 1977 Nepabunna was handed back to the Adnyamathanha people.
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This is one of a large number of portrait photographs taken by Australian anthropologist and photographer Charles Mountford (1890-1976) at Nepabunna, held by the State Library of South Australia.
Often details of the subjects are very scant, even down to the date when the image was taken; hence the large date range given here.
I'd welcome hearing from anyone who can provide more details of Bert and Archie.
Text: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au
Photographer: Charles Mountford
Image courtesy of State Library of South Australia
Flight-Lieutenant Mark Henry Brown and Pilot Officer Chatham of No. 1 Squadron RAF standing by the nose of a Hawker Hurricane Mark I at Wittering, Huntingdonshire.
Mark Henry Brown - nicknamed 'Hilly' - was the first Canadian fighter pilot of the war to become an 'ace'. He was born in 1911 in Glenboro, Manitoba, and left Canada to join the RAF in May 1936.
He fought in the Battle of France and subsequently during the Battle of Britain and, by the time this photograph was ta...ken, had shot down at least 18 enemy aircraft over France and Great Britain. In the following month, he was appointed Commanding Officer of No. 1 Squadron.
In May 1941 he was awarded a bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded the previous July. The London Gazette noted:
'This officer has commanded the squadron with outstanding success. He has destroyed a further two enemy aircraft bringing his total victories to at least 18. His splendid leadership and dauntless spirit have been largely instrumental in maintaining a high standard of efficiency throughout the squadron.'
It is reported that Brown was the first Allied pilot to fly a captured German aircraft, flying a Messerschmidt Bf 109 back from France to England to be evaluated.
In October 1941 he was posted to the Middle East, serving in Malta from where, on the 12 November 1941, along with Wing Commander Alexander Rabagliati, he led a strafing attack on the Italian airfield at Gela in Sicily.
During the attack, Brown's Hurricane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and his plane crashed at the airfield. A little while later, during a raid on Malta, an Italian aircraft dropped a message that Brown had been buried with full military honours. He is buried in the Cantania War Cemetery on Sicily.
His record details 17 enemy aircraft destroyed and four shared kills.
Photographer: S. A. Devon, Royal Air Force official photographer
Text and image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Daniel Ferry's public house at the base of Mount Errigal, the tallest peak in the Derryveagh Mountains, near the village of Dunleway in County Donegal, Ireland, c. 1884.
When this image was published on Flickr by the National Library of Ireland, one viewer came forward to note that their cousin had found a copy of the same photo in their attic, but with a description identifying those depicted.
It had been published in a local newspaper in 1979, with the caption:
...'We should have kept this photo for another five years; then we could say that it was taken a hundred years ago, in 1884.
It was taken in Dunleway, at Ferry's public house, on the left-hand side of the main road before you turn down at John O'Connell's new house. There is no trace of the house today.
The owner, Daniel Ferry, is on the right, feeding the horse. His wife, Nellie, is serving a drink to Michael Coyle, Arduns. The little girl is their daughter, Biddie, later to be Packie Gallagher's mother. The jaunting cart belongs to Colonel Hill of Gweedore Hotel.
The sign reads: DANIEL FERRY, licence for the sale of spirits and beer for consumption on the premises. Nellie seems to be breaking the licensing laws!"
While Ferry's public house has long since gone, the ruins of the small stone neighbouring building appear to still stand on the road heading down to Dunleway, off the R251 road.
Photographer: Almost certainly Robert French of Lawrence Photographic Studios, Dublin
Image courtesy of the National Library of Ireland
A little girl rescued from Masnières with a British soldier at Gouzeaucourt, 22 November 1917.
The northern French commune of Masnières featured in the 1917 Battle of Cambrai during which time it was briefly captured by the British on the first day of the battle, November 20, and held for twelve days to protect vital bridgeheads between Masnières and Marcoing.
However, despite these early gains, the British were forced to withdrawn in the face of the heaviest German counter-a...ttack against the British Expeditionary Forces since the beginning of the war, three years earlier.
This young French girl appears in several photos taken during the days British forces were in Gouzeaucourt, being carried by different soldiers.
A week later, at the end of November, Gouzeaucourt had fallen to the swift-advancing Germans.
Norman Cliff, of the Guards Division, writing in 1988, recalled being sent forward to try and halt the advancing enemy at Gouzeaucourt, and the sight that confronted them along the road:
'First we had to struggle through the flood of terrified men … nothing seemed to stem the torrent of frightened men with eyes of hunted deer, without rifles or equipment, among them half-dressed officers presumably surprised in their sleep, and gunners who had had the sense and calmness to remove the breech blocks from their guns and were carrying them in their hands. Many were shouting alarming rumours, others yelling “Which is the nearest way to the coast?”
Photographer: Lieutenant Ernest Brooks
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Wing Commander Reginald Wilfred Reynolds (right), Commanding Officer of No. 139 Squadron RAF, with his navigator, Flight Lieutenant Edward Barnes Sismore, and a de Havilland Mosquito Mk IV at Marham, Norfolk, England, 1943.
Born in June 1921, Sismore joined No. 105 Squadron in December 1942, navigating a De Havilland Mosquito alongside pilot Squadron Leader Reginald Reynolds.
Over the following 20 months, the pair would see little rest and make some of the most daring target...
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Men of the Royal Army Medical Corps buying "comforts" from the tent of a Greek hawker at Imbros, Greece, 1915.
In 1915, the island of Imbros - then under administrative rule by the Greek navy - played an important role as a staging post for the allied Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, prior to and during the invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.
A field hospital, airfield and administrative and stores buildings were constructed on the island. In particular, many AN...ZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) soldiers were based at Imbros during the Gallipoli campaign, and the island was used as an air and naval base by ANZAC, British, and French forces against Turkey. On Imbros was the headquarters of General Ian Hamilton.
On 20 January 1918, a naval action took place in the Aegean near the island when an Ottoman squadron engaged a flotilla of the British Royal Navy.
Patrick Shaw-Stewart, wrote his famous poem 'Achilles in the Trench', one of the best-known war poems of the First World War, while he was at the Imbros.
He seemed to enjoy speaking ancient Greek to the inhabitants of Imbros, at one of his letters he wrote: "here I am, living in a Greek village and talking the language of Demosthenes to the inhabitants (who are really quite clever at taking my meaning)."
Text: Wiki
Photographer: Lieutenant Ernest Brooks
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
An emaciated Wendy Pamela Rossini, 19, an internee at Stanley Civil Internment Camp in Hong Kong, photographed shortly after liberation in 1945. She shows the small quantity of rice and stew which served as rations for five people.
Already by 1939, following Japan's invasion of China some years earlier, the British Government had drawn up evacuation plans for the British and other European residents of Hong Kong.
The city's fall to the Japanese was viewed as inevitable and...
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Captain John 'Jake' Easonsmith (left), of the Long Range Desert Group, and F.J.W. McKeown clean their weapons during a break while on patrol in the Western Desert, North Africa, 25 May 1942.
John Richard Easonsmith was born in Bristol, England, on 12 April 1909, the son of a prominent local printer, George and his wife Daisy Easonsmith.
After leaving school, Easonsmith joined tobacco importer and cigarette manufacturer WD and HO Wills in Bristol, followed by a time working as... a salesmen in the wine trade for the Emu Australian Wine Company Ltd (clearly had good taste!)
With the outbreak of war, Easonsmith joined the 4th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment. He obviously showed a natural aptitude for the military, and by August 1940 he had been promoted to the rank of sergeant and recommended for a commission.
Following the completion of his officer training, Easonsmith was promoted to Lieutenant and by the end of year had been posted to the Middle East. Upon arrival, he was selected to serve with the newly formed Long Range Desert Group (LRDG).
Easonsmith's first command was of 'R1' Patrol, the New Zealand patrol who came to the aid of the equally recently formed Special Air Service (SAS) after their failed mission, Operation Squatter. Undertaken in heavy rain and strong winds, one of the aircraft was show down killing all 15 soldiers and the crew. Of the 65 SAS men who took part, only 22 made it back after trekking through the desert on foot for 36 hours.
In August 1941, Easonsmith had been promoted to captain followed by the announcement in January 1942 that he had been awarded the Military Cross.
The successful Barca Raid, noted in my earlier post depicting fellow LRDG soldier Nick Wilder, was carried out under Easonsmith's direction, commanding two patrols, the New Zealand 'TI' and the Brigade of Guards 'GI' patrols, along with elements of Popski's Private Army.
The success of this raid no doubt led to his promotion in October to major, and the awarding of the Distinguished Service Order in November.
Twelve months later, in October 1943, and promoted to lieutenant colonel, Easonsmith assumed command of the LRDG.
With the North Africa campaign now at its tail-end, the LRDG was sent to Leros to partake in the Dodecanese Campaign, an attempt by Allied forces to take the Italian-held Dodecanese islands in the east Aegean Sea - following Italy's surrender in September 1943 - and use them as bases against the still German-controlled Balkans.
During the Battle of Leros, Jake Easonsmith was killed in action on 15 November 1943, purportedly shot by a German sniper while carrying out a lone reconnaissance of a village. He is buried in the Leros military cemetery.
Photographer: Lieutenant Graham, No. 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Air hostesses Margery Lawless-Pyne and Pat Allen, Australian National Airways Ltd, posing for an informal portrait photograph on the tarmac, 2 July 1948.
Early in 1936, Ivan Holyman approached the Adelaide Steamship Company, owners of Adelaide Airways, with a view to an amalgamation of his own Holyman's Airways, aiming to become Australia's most powerful airline.
Adelaide Airways had recently taken over West Australian Airways and the new combine would thus effectively contr...ol airline traffic between Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.
With funding from the Orient Steam Navigation Company a new Australian National Airways was registered on 13 May 1936, and began services under its new name on 1 July 1936.
When Australia entered World War II in 1939 the Government of Australia requisitioned ANA's four DC-3s, leaving it to battle on with its assortment of lesser aircraft.
However, ANA was soon operating a network of services around Australia on behalf of the war effort. It operated a large number of Douglas DC-2s, DC-3s and even at least one rare Douglas DC-5, mostly on the behalf of the American forces in Australia.
In the post-war period, ANA faced severe competition in the form of the state-owned airline Trans Australia Airlines (TAA). ANA had hitherto enjoyed a near-monopoly on domestic air transport.
From the start, TAA was a better run airline. It particularly made better choices of aircraft than ANA. Ivan Holyman stuck to his relationship with Douglas, buying Douglas DC-4s and Douglas DC-6Bs, while TAA opted for Convair 240s and Vickers Viscounts.
By the mid-1950s TAA had driven ANA close to collapse. Holyman had wanted to expand overseas but the government's ownership of Qantas prevented this. He bought shareholdings in Cathay Pacific and Air Ceylon, but ANA aircraft were never seen on international routes.
In 1952 the conservative Menzies government declined to close TAA down, instead it provided ANA with finance to upgrade its fleet to compete with TAA. At this point Holyman opted for DC-6Bs while TAA went for the more attractive Viscount.
When Sir Ivan Holyman died in 1957 the shareholders offered to sell out to the government, in order that ANA merge with TAA and some smaller airlines. The government declined.
After initially dismissing his offer, the ANA board began talking with Reginald Ansett, head of the much smaller Ansett Transport Industries; with its main interstate operation Ansett Airways.
Finally, ANA was sold to Ansett, on 3 October 1957, for £3.3 million. The two airlines were merged to form Ansett-ANA on 21 October 1957 and the name was retained until 1 November 1968 when it was renamed Ansett Airlines of Australia.
Text: Wiki
Photographer: Whites Aviation
Image courtesy of Whites Aviation Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand
Trans-Australia Airline pilot Captain James Andrew Hepburn DFC, with South Australian branch manager, Reginald Max Rechner, 2 September 1948.
Rechner, who had served with the Royal Australian Air Force during the war, was appointed as TAA's branch manager the previous January.
His appointment came only three months after the airline's inaugural flight on 9 September 1946, carrying 21 passengers, from Laverton Air Force Base near Melbourne to Sydney, a flight that took three h...ours five minutes.
The pilot on that inaugural flight was also Captain Hepburn, himself - like many commercial pilots in the immediate post-war period - a veteran.
Holding the rank of Wing Commander, Hepburn was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in 1944, for 'courage and skill on numerous operational sorties'. An Air Force Cross (AFC) followed on a few months later.
The establishment of TAA in the late 1940s broke Australia's domestic air transport monopoly, held by Australian National Airways (ANA). They expanded rapidly, becoming a defining presence in the Australia airline sector during the following decades. However in 1986, TAA was renamed Australian Airlines, before it was ultimately merged with Qantas in September 1992.
Rechner was interviewed by Ken Llewelyn about his service with 11 Squadron Royal Air Force (RAF), 1 Operational Training Unit (OTU) RAAF and the City of Adelaide (Citizen Airforce) Squadron, 1939-1960, in July 1993.
The interview, held by the Australian War Memorial, has been digitised and is available to listen online:
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C282966
Photograph: Whites Aviation
Image courtesy of National Library of New Zealand
Captain Nick Wilder, NZ 21988, who served with both T-1 and T-2 patrols with the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), poses with a Vickers 'K' Gas-operated machine gun on a Chevrolet 30-cwt truck, Western Desert, North Africa, May 1942.
Wilder was involved in Operation Caravan, a subsidiary of Operation Agreement under which four simultaneous raids were carried out against important Axis Lines of Communication positions in September 1942.
The four raids were against Tobruk (Agreem...ent), Benghazi (Bigamy), Jalo oasis (Nicety) and Barce (Caravan). The LRDG, although supporting all the raids, were responsible for the attack on the Italian forces at Barce. It was the only successful attack of the four.
In order to reach Barce, the group had to travel some 1,859km (1,155 miles) over 11 days to reach their objective, splitting up into two raiding parties to attack the airfield and barracks respectively.
An after-action report written by Captain Wilder he observed that the Italians were:
...waiting for us, but they seemed to be very panicky and their fire was very wild.
Based on Wilder's report it was thought that T1 patrol had destroyed or damaged 32 aircraft, mainly bombers. Official Italian figures quote 16 aircraft destroyed and seven damaged.
Wilder succeeded Capt. Bruce Ballantyne, who I posted a few weeks ago, as commander of T-Patrol.
* Once again, a grateful thanks for John Valenti, chief historian with the LRDG Preservation Society, for identifying Wilder.
Photographer: Lieutenant Graham, No. 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Two soldiers of a Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) patrol on a road watch in North Africa, 25 May 1942.
** Thanks to Jack Valenti, chief historian at the LRDG Preservation Society, the soldier on the right has been identified as Sgt. John 'Jack' R. Shepherd, NZ #1328, 2 New Zealand Division Cavalry Regiment. Check out their page for more on the LRDG - http://www.lrdg.org
Still hoping we can positively identify the solider on the left; we have a suggestion it is Jake Easonsmith.... Any other wants to offer ideas?
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The LRDG - founded in June 1940 and originally known as the Long Range Patrol (LRP) - was a British reconnaissance and raiding force, established to fight back against the Italians in the Libyan desert campaign.
Initially founded heavily by New Zealanders, they were soon joined in the ranks by Southern Rhodesian and British volunteers, with new sub-units being formed. The LRDG never numbered more than 350 men, all of whom had volunteered for the work.
Except for a period of 15 days, they operated continuously throughout the Desert War campaign, from 1940 through until 1943, behind Axis lines. Here, they assisted other Allied elite forces such as secret agents and the SAS in their desert crossings.
One of the LRDG's most vital roles was carrying out the task depicted here - 'Road Watch' - during which they clandestinely monitored traffic on the main road from Tripoli to Benghazi, transmitting the intelligence to British Army Headquarters.
We had some luck recently identifying New Zealander Captain Bruce Ballantyne, of T Patrol, from otherwise obscurity.
Anyone out there recognise these two gents?
Photographer: Lieutenant Graham, No. 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Lieutenant Albert Sachs, South African Air Force, seconded to No. 92 Squadron RAF, sitting on his Supermarine Spitfire Mark VIII at Canne, Italy.
On 30 November 1943, Sachs recorded in his Sortie Report:
'I was flying Yellow 3. At 0935 I saw 10+ 109s and 190s which we had been warned of by Control, bombing along the secondary road parallel with the Sangro River towards the River mouth.
...I dived on them and as I approached they turned and began straffing the road towards the mountains. I closed in on a 190 and fired several bursts from quarter astern and astern from 250 – 50 yds. He dived N.W. along the side of the mountain and after seeing strikes on the cockpit I saw the A/C half roll and it crashed in the vicinity of H.1898.
I then broke slightly up as a Warhawk was on the 190s No 2s tail. The Warhawk fired several shots none of which hit the E/A. He then broke up and I closed in on the 190 and fired a burst at quarter astern from 100 yds. getting strikes on the wing roots, as I was firing the Warhawk flew through my sights so I broke away and then lost sight of the 190. I then rejoined the Patrol.
I claim One F.W 190 destroyed. One F.W 190 damaged.'
On 5 December 1943, Sachs scored the 99th and 100th victories for his Squadron when he shot down two Focke Wulf Fw 190s near Pescara, before colliding with a third Fw 190 and being forced to bale out.
After a period as a flying instructor in the United Kingdom, he returned to Italy to command No. 93 Squadron RAF from September 1944 to February 1945.
Photographer: Flying Officer B. Bridge, Royal Air Force official photographer
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
