Home Forums Air and Sea Air Harvest of Messerschmitts: The Chronicle of a Village at War, 1940

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  • #130477

    Picked this little gem up in a junk shop today for two quid. I first read it in 1981 and really enjoyed it. I’m more than enjoying it now after nearly forty years. With the revisionist claptrap of the last few years about the myth of an invasion that could never have happened it’d definitely stand a re-print…
    Some say we could have made the Fighter Command redundant in the summer of 1940 and let the nazis range far and wide over Blighty, dropping ineffectual bomb loads from their inadequate for the task bombers. Just sitting tight till adolf and his huns lost interest in our Septic Isle and started looking eastwards.
    If you get the chance buy this book and find out what the real experience was like in that historic summer.

    "Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

    "I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

    #130478

    "Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

    "I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

    #130704
    Avatar photodeephorse
    Participant

    With the revisionist claptrap of the last few years about the myth of an invasion that could never have happened it’d definitely stand a re-print… Some say we could have made the Fighter Command redundant in the summer of 1940

    Could you explain this a little further for me because I’m not certain I’ve understood your point.  What was the myth, that the invasion could have happened or that it couldn’t have?  And what, therefore, is the revisionist claptrap saying?  And who are these “some” making the claim about Fighter Command?  Thanks.

    Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

    #130716
    Avatar photozippyfusenet
    Participant

    Painting, “Luftwaffe”, Bronislaw Linke:

     

    You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

    #130717
    Avatar photodeephorse
    Participant

    It’s been a good few years since I last saw that painting.  Makes an impression.

    Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

    #130729
    Avatar photoThaddeus Blanchette
    Participant

    There’s been so much revisionism that everything is revisionist. Even the original version. But I get your point: whether or not an invasion was “technically” possible, the Brits certainly thought it would come at any moment and Hitler thought the Brits would cave to bombing. War occurs in people’s heads, as much as anywhere else. Only someone who’s lost all living memory of the summer and autumn of 1940 could say, with a straight face, that Sealion was never possible. Did it matter then? Not really. Not to the people involved.

    We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

    #130730
    Avatar photoThaddeus Blanchette
    Participant

    It’s been a good few years since I last saw that painting. Makes an impression.

    Indeed! I wonder that I have never seen it before.

    We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

    #130745
    Avatar photodeephorse
    Participant

    There’s been so much revisionism that everything is revisionist. Even the original version. But I get your point: whether or not an invasion was “technically” possible, the Brits certainly thought it would come at any moment and Hitler thought the Brits would cave to bombing. War occurs in people’s heads, as much as anywhere else. Only someone who’s lost all living memory of the summer and autumn of 1940 could say, with a straight face, that Sealion was never possible. Did it matter then? Not really. Not to the people involved.

    I understand and agree with this.  I was hoping that Harry would elaborate on what he wrote, but it doesn’t seem like he will.

    Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

    #130746
    Avatar photojeffers
    Participant

    I remember that book – I think it’s by Dennis Knight of Helmet and transfer book fame. I corresponded with Dennis when I was in my very early teens, mainly because I was using Helmet 1/350 models. He patiently answered my questions about his models and the Battle of Britain! That would have been around 1980/1.

    I think the ‘we weren’t in danger’ sort of revisionist theory is based on later research, which shows how ramshackle the German plans were and the effectiveness of the RN. All this requires hindsight because at the time invasion – or surrender through terror bombing – was considered a distinct possibility. Seeing as how Germany had ploughed through everybody else with ease, it wasn’t a great leap of imagination to think we would be next.

    More nonsense on my blog: http://battle77.blogspot.com/

    #130796

    I understand and agree with this. I was hoping that Harry would elaborate on what he wrote, but it doesn’t seem like he will.

    I’ll  have a go, recent publications have had to come up with a ‘new angle’ on the done to death epic of the Battle of Britain. Making out that it was a tad of a non event, with no way adolf and his huns could have marched up Whitehall, has become a favourite among recent scribblers.

    I’m more interested in the personal stories from that period, than the grand strategy cobblers. Tales of parachuting Nuns in jackboots, shot out P14s with 10 rounds for a Home Guard Platoon between ’em and wotnot…. in my opinion this gives you more of an experience of the period than the revisionist claptrap we get so much of today.

    I do often wonder, as blokes like me get into our sixties having known family and relations who lived through and related the thoughts and feelings of those epic long off days, if we’re not becoming lost voices?

    "Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

    "I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

    #130798
    Avatar photoThaddeus Blanchette
    Participant

    Of course you are, Harry.  WWII is definitely passing into the realm of history and that means losing touch with the lived experience — a good thing and a bad thing, imho. I’ve read some of the revisionist stuff and the revisionist stuff before that (the “Hitler could’ve easily won WWII if only he had….” stuff so well beloved by the likes of Ty Bomba).

    After this, there will be another and another revision. The next one will probably state the British won the war on their own through a combination of pluck and Bully Beef. Frankly, all this stuff is a tonic after twenty years of American “greatest generation” bs, so aptly parodied in “Churchill: The Hollywood Years”.

    At least we won’t get bored. Hell, 1917 shows things won’t disappear completely.

    We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

    #130843

    Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    In the light of current events in our little Septic Isle here’s a quote from  ‘Harvest of Messerschmitts’.

    Diary entry, 17th June 1940… France gave up.

    When this news came through at the Officers’ Mess at Acrise Place, Captain Max Wilson, the MO, was amazed as his fellow Officers burst into spontaneous cheering. He smiled nervously and glanced from face to face, but oddly couldn’t fully understand their sentiment. ‘We had just lost our last ally – I suppose they felt the French had become a liability over the last few weeks.’ It was the instinctive reaction of an island nation whose homeland had not been conquered for over 800 years. They would now withdraw into their island fortress and pull up the drawbridge.

    "Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

    "I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

    #130905
    Avatar photoDarkest Star Games
    Participant

    I’m more interested in the personal stories from that period, than the grand strategy cobblers. Tales of parachuting Nuns in jackboots, shot out P14s with 10 rounds for a Home Guard Platoon between ’em and wotnot…. in my opinion this gives you more of an experience of the period than the revisionist claptrap we get so much of today.

      This.  I much prefer personal accounts to overviews.  I don’t know if this is a result of preferring skirmish games, or vice-versa, but I don’t think you can quite get the real feel for a conflict without a grunts-eye-view.  I mean, you not only get the combat situation, but the emotional, social, and sentimental state of that point in the conflict.  You can’t have war in a vacuum, and it all adds up and impacts the boots on the ground.

     

    "I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

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