David and Chris- Wasn't Coventry the town that Churchill had to sacrifice to not disclose that Blechley Park had broken the German Enigma code? I've often thought- how would you like to make that decision? I think you folks call it a Morton's Fork. Churchill was quite a man and a great hero in my view.Chris, I grew up in Coventry, with the ruins of the old bombed out cathedral next to the new one. And yes, I remember many of the items on your list, but not all (no button crusher in our house), so I must be your junior. I left in '69 (with my parents; I was only 10)
David
Average Age Of Site members
Catman wrote:
neverfoundthetime wrote:
Neil will have Matt arm the holy hand grenade and blow us all out of here.:laugh:@ Dave:I used to visit Coventry in the60's and 70's to see relatives and I remember there was still much talk of the war as Coventry got hit so badly. Burned into the consciousness of the people. You are right, there were still ruins around. I saw Liverpool in the 60's and it looked like they just started clearing up in places! That's why I say, thank God for the Beatles... we really needed that new Zeitgeist.Chris, I grew up in Coventry, with the ruins of the old bombed out cathedral next to the new one.
@ Chas: Oh God Chas, don't start with Manty P! We'll never get out of here alive (he says, as we does his silly walk all around his laptop)! Neil will have us deported (can you do that from a website?)
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neverfoundthetime
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Bill, Radio Caroline! I remember it very well. Was that where Kenny Everret started? I guess they all started there. I just watched THE BOAT THAT ROCKED down at the open air cinema on Lake Zürich last week. Wonderful night, great weather, great film. It was based on Radio Caroline, I believe. Great film great story... very funny. Anyone seen it?
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neverfoundthetime
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@Bear: Coventry was indeed the City that copped it that fatal night. One of Churchill's most anguished decisions. Many died. He had to avoid letting the Krauts know about the radio beam fix and new radar as far as I remember my history. Enigma was marine and submarine codes. I think Enigma was cracked later... but I may have my knickers in twist on this one.....
neverfoundthetime wrote:
Chris, one of those Radio Caoline "PIRATES" was a former boss and a very dear friend of mine. His name is John Ross-Barnard. I still talk with him at least once each week. He makes all the Radio Caroline conventions and he sent me lots of pictures of the making of "The Boat That Rocked". And YES, Kenny Everret was part of that group.
Bill, Radio Caroline! I remember it very well. Was that where Kenny Everret started? I guess they all started there. I just watched THE BOAT THAT ROCKED down at the open air cinema on Lake Zürich last week. Wonderful night, great weather, great film. It was based on Radio Caroline, I believe. Great film great story... very funny. Anyone seen it?
Chris, one of those Radio Caoline "PIRATES" was a former boss and a very dear friend of mine. His name is John Ross-Barnard. I still talk with him at least once each week. He makes all the Radio Caroline conventions and he sent me lots of pictures of the making of "The Boat That Rocked". And YES, Kenny Everret was part of that group.
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neverfoundthetime
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Hey Bill that's just great! The film was really funny... know anything about who the characters were based on?
neverfoundthetime wrote:
Coventry, industrial city in the British midlands attacked on the night of 14/15 November 1940 by German bombers employing, for the first time, their Pathfinder Force, KG100, and the X Gerat beam system for finding their target.
ULTRA intelligence and prisoner of war information forewarned the British of a major Luftwaffe operation (MOONLIGHT SONATA) against a number of their cities. These included Birmingham, Coventry, and Wolverhampton, but the information was not correlated and there were also indications that the targets might be in London and the south of England. In any case, it was impossible to tell which would be attacked first and the ENIGMA signals giving their direction to the stations emitting them were not broken in time. By 1500 on the day of the raid the beams were found to intersect over Coventry, but electronic counter measures failed to work as the jammers were incorrectly set. The fact that Coventry was to be the target that night was passed on to RAF Fighter Command but 'British counter measures proved ineffective:' of the 509 bombers the German Air Force dispatched to Coventry, 449 reached the target and only one was certainly destroyed'. This failure probably hastened the scheduled departure of Crowling from Fighter Command and from it grew the myth that Coventry was left to the mercy of the Luftwaffe in order to protect the secret of ULTRA.
Twelve armaments factories and much of the city centre, including the 14th-century cathedral, were destroyed, and 380 people were killed and 865 injured.
I guess I should stick to US history! LOL!
Well, as usual, I bought into a myth. Here's the real story:@Bear: Coventry was indeed the City that copped it that fatal night. One of Churchill's most anguished decisions. Many died. He had to avoid letting the Krauts know about the radio beam fix and new radar as far as I remember my history. Enigma was marine and submarine codes. I think Enigma was cracked later... but I may have my knickers in twist on this one.....
Coventry, industrial city in the British midlands attacked on the night of 14/15 November 1940 by German bombers employing, for the first time, their Pathfinder Force, KG100, and the X Gerat beam system for finding their target.
ULTRA intelligence and prisoner of war information forewarned the British of a major Luftwaffe operation (MOONLIGHT SONATA) against a number of their cities. These included Birmingham, Coventry, and Wolverhampton, but the information was not correlated and there were also indications that the targets might be in London and the south of England. In any case, it was impossible to tell which would be attacked first and the ENIGMA signals giving their direction to the stations emitting them were not broken in time. By 1500 on the day of the raid the beams were found to intersect over Coventry, but electronic counter measures failed to work as the jammers were incorrectly set. The fact that Coventry was to be the target that night was passed on to RAF Fighter Command but 'British counter measures proved ineffective:' of the 509 bombers the German Air Force dispatched to Coventry, 449 reached the target and only one was certainly destroyed'. This failure probably hastened the scheduled departure of Crowling from Fighter Command and from it grew the myth that Coventry was left to the mercy of the Luftwaffe in order to protect the secret of ULTRA.
Twelve armaments factories and much of the city centre, including the 14th-century cathedral, were destroyed, and 380 people were killed and 865 injured.
I guess I should stick to US history! LOL!
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neverfoundthetime
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Thanks for the history lesson Bear! We're just Muppets, what do we know!