Warfare in News

Posted on Thursday 10th November

The investigation of the site where a Spitfire crash landed in 1941 found a remarkably preserved fuselage and 6 Browning machine guns.

The Spitfire was being flown by an American pilot named Roland 'Bud' Wolfe over the Republic of Ireland when it experienced engine failure. Wolfe parachuted safely to the ground and his plane smashed into the boggy Donegal hillside.

An excavation took place earlier this year as part of the forthcoming Dig WWII television series by 360 Production.

The soft peat soil and a layer of clay – and the inaccessibility of the site – created perfect conditions for preservation, and even the Rolls Royce Merlin engine was recovered, along with surviving artefacts such as the paper service manual and first aid kit.

A specialist team of Irish soldiers were present who later cleaned the weapons and straightened up sections which were damaged by the impact. They selected the best preserved body and assembled a gun to fire made up of parts from all of the Spitfire's 6, which had been underground for 70 years.

Historian Dan Snow, Dig WWII presenter, test fired the re-built machine gun remotely and using modern bullets to prevent jamming. More details and video footage of this can be seen on the BBC News website.

The machine guns will be made safe and added to a permanent display in Derry, where Wolfe was stationed, with the rest of the Spitfire.

Further Reading

Battle of Britain

Only £6.99

Battle of Britain

(Commemorative magazine)
by Roni Wilkinson

The Battle of Britain took place between July and October 1940.

The Germans needed to control the English Channel to launch their invasion of Britain. To control the Channel the Germans needed control of the air. This meant that they had to take on Fighter Command, led by Sir Hugh Dowding, of the Royal Air Force.

At the start of the war, Germany had 4,000 aircraft compared to… Read more...

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Dates in History

German forces cross the Somme River

24th March 1918

On March 24, 1918, German forces cross the Somme River, achieving their first goal of the major spring offensive begun three days earlier on the Western Front. Operation Michael, engineered by the German chief of the general staff, Erich von Ludendorff, aimed to decisively break through the Allied lines on the Western Front and destroy the British and French forces. The offensive began on the morning of March 21, 1918, with an aggressive bombardment. The brunt of the attack that followed was directed at the British 5th Army, commanded by General Sir Hubert Gough, stationed along the Somme River in northwestern France. This section was the most poorly defended of any spot on the British lines, due to the fact that it had been held by the French until only a few weeks before and its defensive positions were not yet fully fortified. Panic spread up and down the British lines of command, intensified by communications failures between Gough and his subordinates in the field, and German gains increased over the subsequent days of battle. On March 23, Crown Prince Rupprecht, on the German side of the line, remarked that The progress of our offensive is so quick, that one cannot follow it with a pen. The next day, German troops stormed across the Somme, having previously captured its bridges before French troops could destroy them. Despite having resolved to concentrate on weaker points of the enemy lines, Ludendorff continued to throw his armies against the crucial villages of Amiens (a railway junction) and Arras—which the British and French were instructed to hold at all costs—hoping to break through and push on towards Paris. By that time, German troops were exhausted, and transportation and supply lines had begun to break down in the cold and bad weather. Meanwhile, Allied forces had recovered from the initial disadvantage and had begun to gain the upper hand, halting the Germans at Moreuil Wood on March 30. On April 5, Ludendorff called off Operation Michael. It had yielded nearly 40 miles of territory, the greatest gains for either side on the Western Front since 1914. He would launch four more offensive pushes over the course of the spring and summer, throwing all of the German army’s resources into this last, desperate attempt to win the war. (www.history.com)

Further Reading

The Somme
(Paperback - 355 pages)
by Richard van Emden

The offensive on the Somme took place between July and November 1916 and is perhaps the most iconic battle of the Great War. It was there that Kitchener’s famous ‘Pals’ Battalions were first sent into action en masse and it was a battlefield where many of the dreams and aspirations… Read more at Pen & Sword...

Only £14.99 at Pen & Sword Books.

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