Tanya Wynn - Kent at War 1939–45
Here you can read online Tanya Wynn - Kent at War 1939–45 full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2019, publisher: Pen and Sword, genre: Non-fiction. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Romance novel
Science fiction
Adventure
Detective
Science
History
Home and family
Prose
Art
Politics
Computer
Non-fiction
Religion
Business
Children
Humor
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
- Book:Kent at War 1939–45
- Author:
- Publisher:Pen and Sword
- Genre:
- Year:2019
- Rating:4 / 5
- Favourites:Add to favourites
- Your mark:
Kent at War 1939–45: summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Kent at War 1939–45" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
This comprehensive account of the southern English county during WWII covers everything from the Dunkirk evacuations to the Battle of Britain and more.
Located along the English Channel, the southeastern county of Kent played a significant role in the Second World War. This volume covers Kents many contributionsboth civilian and militarythroughout the conflict. The chronicle details how the Dover Patrol kept Allied shipping safe in the English Channel, as well as the preparation and aftermath of the Dunkirk evacuations of May 1940, with all of the vessels leaving from and returning to Kent ports and harbors.
Kents numerous airfields were of vital importance during the Battle of Britain between July and October 1940. The Richborough camp, set up in 1939 at the old First World War Kitchener barracks, provided safe haven to thousands of German and Austrian Jewish refugees. This book includes never before published letters written to one of the camps residents during his stay there.
Historian Tanya Wynn also discusses the countys military hospitals and pow camps, its Victorian Cross and George Medal winners, and the restricted areas that adorned the coast as the people of Kent battened down the hatches, knowing that they were the very first line of defense in case of a German invasion.
Located along the English Channel, the southeastern county of Kent played a significant role in the Second World War. This volume covers Kents many contributionsboth civilian and militarythroughout the conflict. The chronicle details how the Dover Patrol kept Allied shipping safe in the English Channel, as well as the preparation and aftermath of the Dunkirk evacuations of May 1940, with all of the vessels leaving from and returning to Kent ports and harbors.
Kents numerous airfields were of vital importance during the Battle of Britain between July and October 1940. The Richborough camp, set up in 1939 at the old First World War Kitchener barracks, provided safe haven to thousands of German and Austrian Jewish refugees. This book includes never before published letters written to one of the camps residents during his stay there.
Historian Tanya Wynn also discusses the countys military hospitals and pow camps, its Victorian Cross and George Medal winners, and the restricted areas that adorned the coast as the people of Kent battened down the hatches, knowing that they were the very first line of defense in case of a German invasion.
Tanya Wynn: author's other books
Who wrote Kent at War 1939–45? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Tanya Wynn
Tanya Wynn
Hans-Adolf Jacobsen
Bryan Phillips
Shaw Frank
Kent at War 1939–45 — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Kent at War 1939–45" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
YOUR TOWNS & CITIES IN WORLD WAR TWO
KENT
AT WAR 1939-45
YOUR TOWNS & CITIES IN WORLD WAR TWO
KENT
AT WAR 1939-45
TANYA WYNN
EDITED BY STEPHEN WYNN
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by
Pen & Sword Military
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Yorkshire Philadelphia
Copyright Tanya Wynn, 2019
ISBN 978 1 47388 7 404
eISBN 978 1 47388 7 428
Mobi ISBN 978 1 47388 7 411
The right of Tanya Wynn to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.
Pen & Sword Books Limited incorporates the imprints of Atlas, Archaeology, Aviation, Discovery, Family History, Fiction, History, Maritime, Military, Military Classics, Politics, Select, Transport, True Crime, Air World, Frontline Publishing, Leo Cooper, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing, The Praetorian Press, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe Transport, Wharncliffe True Crime and White Owl.
For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail:
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
Or
PEN AND SWORD BOOKS
1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA
E-mail:
Website: www.penandswordbooks.com
Contents
Prologue
Kents war time involvement
King George VI bestowed the award of the George Cross on Malta during the Second World War because of the heroism and devotion shown by the islands people during the great siege they underwent throughout the early months of the war, whilst being bombed almost incessantly by the Luftwaffe.
That being the case, it is amazing that the part Kent played in the war does not appear to have been fully appreciated, because if it had been, it would surely have been deemed worthy of a similar award. It is not overstating the case to suggest that Kent played a pivotal role in the war, an effort that deserves to be fully remembered and commemorated and in this book I will look at as many of the countys achievements as possible.
In the early days of the war as evacuated children from London came flooding into the county, thousands of its young men were leaving to go off to war as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
In 1939 the old First World War Kitchener Army Camp at Richborough was re-opened to house some 4,000 German Jewish refugees, who had been allowed to leave Nazi Germany.
In May 1940, with British, French and Belgian troops fighting a rearguard action in France, just to survive, the Local Defence Force, which went on to become the Home Guard, was created in towns and cities across the country, including Kent.
The army camp on the Isle of Grain was a prominent location, protecting as it did the mouths of both the River Thames and the River Medway from any potential threat of German amphibious assaults. Its anti-aircraft batteries also added to the numerous defensive positions dotted around the south and south-east coast line of Great Britain.
Nearly all of the 800 vessels which sailed across the English Channel to assist with the Dunkirk evacuations between 26 May and 3 June 1940 as part of Operation Dynamo, left from Sheerness. Collectively their sterling efforts saw some 330,000 troops who had gone to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force, rescued from the beaches at Dunkirk in northern France. If those fighting men had been killed or taken prisoner by the Germans, there is every chance that the war would have been over at that time, with Britain and her Allies being on the losing side, a once proud nation defeated after less than a year of fighting, reduced to being incorporated into part of Germanys burgeoning new world order of the Third Reich.
The Battle of Britain which followed hot on the heels of Dunkirk, and took place between 10 July and 31 October 1940, did so mainly over the skies of Kent. The battle was a determined attempt by Nazi Germany to compel Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement and bring a swift end to the war in their favour. With her main enemy out of the way and America still nowhere near entering the fray, Germany would have had a clear run at extending her empire across a forlorn and greatly weakened Europe, with Russia clearly as her new target.
Many of the aircraft and pilots that fought in the Battle of Britain flew out of many of the airfields across Kent such as Biggin Hill, Detling, Eastchurch, Hawkinge, Manston, Lympne, and Rochester. Most of these airfields were actively targeted by the Luftwaffe in the early months of the war.
Although Kent experienced numerous bombing raids on many of her towns and cities throughout the war, Canterbury was the recipient of a particularly hellish air raid on the night of 1 June 1942 which resulted in the loss of many of her historic buildings.
Reculver Bay, in the district of Canterbury, was used to test prototypes of the bouncing bomb, designed by Barnes Wallis, and which were subsequently used in Operation Chastise, the bombing of the Mhne, Sorpe and Edersee dams in the Ruhr valley, on 16 and 17 May 1943.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, 185,000 troops left Britains shores and headed for the beaches of Normandy, as part of Operation Overlord. In the build up to D-Day, Operation Fortitude, which was an audacious deception, managed to convince the enemy that the Allied invasion of North West Europe would take place in the Pas de Calais region. The day before the D-Day landings, the false invasion fleet left Dover just after midnight, ensuring that many German divisions remained in the Calais area. June 1944 also saw Kent become a victim of Germany in her military death throws, in the shape of well over 1,000 Flying Bombs or Doodlebugs, which landed across the county. This was followed up by the even more powerful V2 rockets later the same year.
The end of 1944 saw Operation Pluto, a plan to run an oil pipe line across the English Channel in support of the Normandy landings and the invasion of Europe. As Britain and her Allies pushed German forces back towards their own country, a constant supply of fuel was needed for the tanks, other vehicles and aircraft that would assist in that venture.
In the following chapters, I will look at some of these events in more detail.
CHAPTER 1
1939 The War Begins
Richborough Internment Camp
In the violent November 1938 Pogrom often referred to as Kristallnacht, nearly a year before the beginning of the Second World War, the Nazi authorities in Germany came up with a novel way to make money. It involved rounding up some 30,000 Jewish men and holding them against their will, in concentration camps. Their crime in the eyes of the Nazi Party was straightforward and unquestionable: they were Jewish. That was it. The men were given hope with the proviso that if they could acquire an entry visa for a foreign country, then they would be released from their internment and allowed to leave Germany. However, there were two catches. The required visas cost money, for some it was simply a price that they could not afford and secondly the acquiring of these visas had to be done expediently and was not an open-ended offer by the German authorities. For most of those who were released from their incarceration in the concentration camps, at such places as Buchenwald, it was on the understanding that they would finalise their affairs and leave Germany within six months.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
Similar books «Kent at War 1939–45»
Look at similar books to Kent at War 1939–45. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Hans-Adolf Jacobsen
Bryan Phillips
Shaw Frank
Reviews about «Kent at War 1939–45»
Discussion, reviews of the book Kent at War 1939–45 and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.