Despatches winter2014 web

Afghanistan: a country in transition

Despatches

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Despatches IWM 1603

Number 19, Winter 2014

Left: Aerial view of fields in the rural landscape of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, 2012.

Cover picture: An Afghan National Police (ANP) officer and two mentors of the British armed forces at the Police Training Centre at Lashkar Gah, Helmand, 2013.

Pictures by Richard Ash/IWM.

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Comment Sir Francis Richards IWM Friends News IWM News Lives of the First World War Charlotte Czyzyk on a new Lives of the First World War Life Story Afghanistan: A Country in Transition Matt Brosnan’s overview of War Story: Afghanistan 2014 New Museum, New Displays Nigel Steel on the Atrium displays at the transformed IWM London First World War Facts Part two: the Home Front, with Terry Charman Undead Sun Sara Bevan on a new video installation for the First World War Centenary The Wounds of War Lyn Smith on the Friends Ambulance Unit during the First World War

30 A Lasting Impact Jenny Waldman reflects on 14-18 NOW, a major new UK cultural programme 34 The Story Behind the Picture by IWM photographer Richard Ash 36 Devils’ Alliance – The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939–1941 Roger Moorhouse looks at the legacy of the alliance in the early years of the Second World War 40 A History of the First World War in Objects Two more of the objects in IWM’s collections 42 In Search of the Lascars Ansar Ahmed Ullah on taking part in IWM’s Whose Remembrance? project 47 Friends Events 48 What’s On 50 First World War Essential Lists Reading list (novels and memoirs) 52 Books 56 Shop Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 3

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Comment I imagine most of you will have been as impressed and delighted as I was by the way in which the commemoration of the beginning of the First World War has captured the imagination of the British public. The Director-General and I attended the services in Glasgow Cathedral, with its special focus on the Commonwealth dimension, and in Westminster Abbey. Both were beautifully conceived and very moving, and one cannot turn on the television or enter a bookshop without being reminded how widespread and intense public interest has been. The government has made it clear from the outset of planning the centenary, not only that IWM would be leading the international Centenary Partnership (which now includes over 3,000 organisations in more than 50 countries), but that our Regeneration Programme, including the new First World War Galleries, would be the centrepiece and chief enduring legacy of the official centenary commemoration.

So pressure on us to deliver something extraordinary, and to do it on time and raise the money to pay for it, has been intense. It has not been an easy ride – Diane Lees and the project team under Ann Carter have had to work miracles to keep everything on track – but the results have more than justified every expectation. I hope very many of you will by now have seen for yourselves what has been achieved, both in reshaping the Lambeth Road building and in telling the story of the First World War in a new and much more compelling way. The public response has been extraordinary. Over a quarter of a million visitors came in the first month after reopening and we continue to attract more than 8,000 per day; and you will have seen the hugely positive reactions in the national press.

We are profoundly grateful to all those whose generosity has made this possible. Very substantial support came of course from the IWM Foundation, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the government. But the £250,000 contributed by IWM Friends, including several hundred enormously generous individual donations, has a special significance for the trustees and staff, simply because it comes from the Friends and we understand the depth of commitment to IWM that it reflects; I hope you feel the same pride and pleasure in what it has enabled us to do. Our most heartfelt thanks to you all.

Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ Registered Charity No. 294360 Telephone: 020 7416 5255 Email: friends@iwm.org.uk Website: www.iwm.org.uk/friends Honorary Members His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales His Royal Highness The Duke of York

Sir Francis Richards KCMG CVO, Chairman of IWM

Patrons The Rt Hon the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury The Archbishop of Westminster His Excellency the Secretary-General for the Commonwealth His Excellency the High Commissioner for Australia His Excellency the High Commissioner for Canada His Excellency the High Commissioner for India His Excellency the High Commissioner for New Zealand His Excellency the High Commissioner for Pakistan Her Excellency the High Commissioner for South Africa His Excellency the High Commissioner for Sri Lanka General Sir Peter de la Billière KCB KBE DSO MC and Bar DL Dr Alan Borg CBE FSA Field Marshal Sir John Chapple GCB CBE Sir Robert Crawford CBE Dr Noble Frankland CB CBE DFC Sara Jones CBE DL The Rt Hon The Countess Mountbatten of Burma CBE CD JP DL Sir Harold Walker KCMG President: Professor Sir David Cannadine Friends Council Members Chairman: David Long Major General David Burden CB CVO CBE Emma Burrows Tony Hine Diane Lees FMA FRSA Philip Middleton Donough O’Brien Professor Paul O’Prey Damien Spratt Foster Summerson Marina Vaizey CBE Margaret Watson Acting Head of Friends: Laura Whitman Acting Membership Officer: James Sallows Founder: Air Commodore Dame Felicity Peake DBE AE Editorial Committee Chairman: Marina Vaizey CBE Lindsay Ball Elizabeth Bowers David Long Emily MacArthur Amanda Mason Professor Paul O’Prey Hilary Roberts Kieran Whitworth Despatches Commissioning Editor: Victoria Thompson Copy Editor: Richard Fontenoy Assistant Editor: Laura Whitman Design & production: Smith+Bell www.smithplusbell.com Advertising: Media Shed www.media-shed.co.uk Print: Blackmore Ltd www.blackmore.co.uk To request additional copies or back issues call 020 7416 5372

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IWM FRIENDS NEWS

Friends’ AGM: Volunteers praised The Friends of the Imperial War Museum held their 28th Annual General Meeting on 29 October 2014.

In his speech, Major General David Burden, standing in for the Chairman, thanked the Friends President, Professor Sir David Cannadine, for opening the meeting. He thanked Victoria Thompson, Head of the Friends, who left the Society on 3 October 2014, for her hard work; in particular for her work on the Society’s Your Country Needs You fundraising campaign.

Laura Whitman, Membership Services Manager, was also thanked for her hard work.

The Acting Chairman said that a new Head of Membership to replace Victoria Thompson had been selected and it was hoped that they would be in post by December 2014.

The Friends’ magazine Despatches and the events programme both remain popular. General Burden thanked all of the Friends Volunteers for their significant contribution and stated how

important they are to the Society. The Friends Council Members were thanked for their ongoing contribution.

Although the amount of the pledge was not announced on the night, at a later date General Burden confirmed to the Director-General a pledge of £40,000 which would be applied to the Your Country Needs You campaign. The Friends raised a total of £277,000 for the Your Country Needs You display in IWM London’s new First World War Galleries, the largest contribution IWM Friends have made to a single project.

Major General David Burden, Emma Burrows and Foster Summerson were re-elected onto the Council. Each had made a significant contribution to the Society.

General Burden produced the IWM Friends business plan; Ms Burrows is our Honorary Legal Advisor and together with Mr Summerson has been active in amending the Society’s Constitution. Mr Summerson, a former IWM Volunteer

A tour not to miss...

70 years since the liberation of the Channel Islands: IWM Friends tour of Alderney: 13–16 April 2015 Alderney was the only Channel Island evacuated by its inhabitants before the Nazi occupation of 1940–1945, giving the Germans the opportunity to turn the island into an impregnable fortress. Guided by Trevor Davenport, author of Festung Alderney, the tour visits some of the most interesting and best-preserved German defences in the Channel Islands.

For further details, see page 47.

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himself, oversees the IWM Friends Volunteers.

Two new Council Members – Philip Middleton and Damien Spratt – were elected.

Mr Middleton is a management consultant with experience in marketing. He has a long-standing interest in military history and has been an IWM Friend since 2008, and is also a member of the Battlefields Association. Mr Spratt is a project manager at a digital marketing company and also a member of the Royal Navy Reserves. Mr Spratt has a keen interest in military history, particularly the Second World War, and has been an IWM Friend since 2007. David Sewell of haysmacintyre was appointed as the Society’s Independent Examiner.

The Director-General, Diane Lees, gave an overview of IWM achievements over the last year, the highlight of which was the re-opening of IWM London in July. The transformed museum was opened by HRH The Duke of Cambridge and the prime minister. It has experienced a high volume of visitors, on average 8,000 a day during the summer and over 10,000 visitors on 4 August 2014.

May 2014 saw the launch of Lives of the First World War, IWM’s major platform to create a digital memorial to tell the Life Stories of over eight million men and women from across Britain and the Commonwealth who served in uniform and worked on the

home front during the First World War. IWM North experienced an increase in visitor numbers due to the popular appeal of the exhibition From Street to Trench which opened in April 2014 and examines the impact of the First World War on the north of England.

HMS Belfast commemorated the 70th anniversary of D-Day in May by hosting a veterans’ event attended by the prime minister, the mayor of London and 42 veterans.

IWM Duxford also commemorated D-Day with the photographic exhibition, D-Day – The Last of the Liberators, featuring portraits capturing the emotional return of veterans to locations tied to their most profound personal memories of the Normandy campaign.

The Churchill War Rooms continued to attract a high volume of visitors and held a series of lectures based on Churchill in the First World War. The Director-General ended by thanking the Friends for the great support which they gave to IWM. After the AGM the writer and broadcaster Edward Stourton gave a fascinating talk on the subject of his latest book, which tells the story of hundreds of people who fled occupied Europe through the Pyrenees during the Second World War.

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IWM FRIENDS NEWS Family membership offers best value from January 2015 If you use your membership to enjoy great days out with your children, please remember to ask about upgrading to a family subscription when you renew from January 2015.

From January, we will be introducing an admission charge for children at our heritage sites: Churchill War Rooms, HMS Belfast and IWM Duxford. As a member and supporter of IWM, you will know how vital it is for us to raise as much money as possible from our admissions, shops and cafés.

All money generated by our visitors helps to maintain and preserve our historic sites and collections for future generations and allows us to tell the stories of the impact of war on people’s lives. Your ongoing membership support will help us reach more people with these important stories, while you continue to enjoy our branches and activities at the very best value.

LETTERS Please send all letters to Friends Office, IWM London, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ or email friends@iwm.org.uk

A young volunteer on the Somme Robert Capa’s iconic image capturing the apparent death of a soldier during the Spanish Civil War has long been thought the first photographic depiction of a man being killed in action. By contrast Geoffrey Malins’s footage of the death of a British soldier on 1 July 1916 has been largely overlooked. However, I wish to argue that this footage within The Battle of the Somme is of greater historical significance due to new evidence as to the identity of this soldier.

Analysing this film in 2007, I noted a soldier rising from the front line trench to run forward towards the Hawthorn Redoubt guarding the fortified village of Beaumont Hamel, followed by men of his platoon (Reel 3, Sequence 31, frames 2414 to 2846, approximate running time 23.8 seconds).

The film is of poor quality because of the technology

available for portable cine cameras in 1916. However, Sequence 31 clearly shows this soldier leading his platoon forward at a run, being hit by a shrapnel bullet, falling to the ground, trying to rise, then collapsing not to rise again.

Last summer I reviewed Siân Price’s book If You’re Reading This. Her brief biography of Second Lieutenant Eric Heaton called to mind a section in Malins’s autobiography where he recalled filming from his exposed position near the White City for the remainder of the morning, after Dr Bailey writes of the picture above: ‘The slope along which 2nd Lieutenant Heaton made his charge from right towards left where trees now grow in the Hawthorn Redoubt, photographed on 9 May 2013 from the actual site at the White City from where Malins shot his film.’

recording the famous scene of the explosion of the mine under the Hawthorn Redoubt.

His position was in direct view of the slope over which the British troops assaulted the crater left after the explosion.

The sequence in the film matches Price’s documentary evidence of the running charge of Heaton, and these parallels provide a strong argument that Heaton is the soldier fatally wounded in The Battle of the Somme.

This discovery is all the more notable considering Heaton’s heroic stature, as testified by Siân Price. As a volunteer, he willingly gave up a promising medical career to serve king and country and deserves to be remembered as more than inscriptions on a gravestone near where he fell at Beaumont Hamel. ● Dr George Bailey OBE Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 7

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Support us and enjoy an exclusive pass to all five branches By joining IWM Friends you are giving invaluable support to a range of projects that will help future generations to understand the causes, course and consequences of war. In return you can enjoy: Unlimited free entry to IWM London paying exhibitions including Horrible Histories: Spies (until 4 January 2015) and Fashion on the Ration: 1940s Street Style (from 5 March to 31 August 2015) Free entry to IWM Duxford* Unlimited free entry to Churchill War Rooms Unlimited free entry to HMS Belfast Despatches, the Friends magazine, delivered direct to your door Exclusive Friends events

To join or to purchase a gift membership please call us on 020 7416 5255 or visit iwm.org.uk/friends *except special events and Air Show days at IWM Duxford Discounts and free admission are at the discretion of IWM and IWM Trading Company

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SPECIAL OFFERS EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL OFFERS FOR FRIENDS

Private tours at IWM London Private tours are a perfect way to explore IWM London with exclusive out of hours access to the collections. Friends can book each private tour for up to ten adults at the special price of £270 (normally £300).

First World War Galleries Tour Highlights include a recreated trench featuring a Sopwith Camel fighter swooping overhead and a Mark V tank looming above. Discover the full history of the war as our guides reveal stories behind objects like the ‘White Feather’, the stuffed head of Tirpitz the pig and the Kaiser’s coat.

Atrium Tour Encounter key objects and examine their themes, links and stories on a tour that gives an insight into our collections,

from Second World War home front uniforms to the ‘Little Boy’ atomic bomb and twisted window frames from the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Art Tour Explore our unique collection covering the First World War to

Iraq and Afghanistan, with works by British artists including Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer and Steve McQueen.

Our guides describe how First World War artists turned propaganda into groundbreaking art, how Second World War artists lifted morale and reveal thought-provoking

contemporary responses to conflict.

How to book Each tour lasts approximately one hour. To book, please visit www.iwm.org.uk/events/ iwm-london/private-tours for more details and full terms and conditions.

First World War Galleries hardback now £25 This exciting new hardback tells the story of the Great War using artefacts, pictures and personal stories from IWM’s new Galleries, and is available at a special price for IWM Friends with a £10 saving until 31 December 2014.

Terms: Only available at IWM North and IWM London Shops, not online. Please show a valid Friends membership card when purchasing. No further discount applies to the book and must be bought separately. 10% Friends discount will still apply to all other products available from IWM Shops.

Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 9

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IWM NEWS First World War global touring exhibition For the first time ever, IWM will be touring a new exhibition around the world – The WW1 Centenary Exhibition, in partnership with iEC Exhibitions – to mark the First World War Centenary. The exhibition’s première will be at the Melbourne Museum in Australia on 17 April 2015 ahead of the centenary of the Gallipoli landings and ANZAC day.

350 items from IWM’s worldrenowned collections will feature in the exhibition, which will enable people across the globe to discover more about the war that changed the world.

Drawn broadly from the narrative of IWM London’s new First World War Galleries, this new exhibition, designed by Casson Mann, will tell the overall story of the war: how it

started, how it was fought, what it was like for people at the time and its impact on their lives.

Visitors will come face to face with objects ranging from artillery shells and guns, via military uniforms and work clothes worn by munitionettes, to personal diaries, letters and artefacts.

A significant number of works of art from IWM’s extensive collection will feature throughout, including paintings by William Orpen, CRW Nevinson, Paul Nash and many others.

Objects on display in the exhibition will include a sketch made at dawn on 26 April 1915, just hours after the first assault on the Gallipoli peninsular, recording exactly what could be seen by the artist Herbert Hillier working from an observation balloon above Anzac Cove; and fragments taken from the aircraft of German air ace Manfred von Richthofen (the ‘Red Baron’) after he was shot down and killed, which were made into a souvenir to commemorate the event in 1918.

The American Air Museum in Britain has recently launched a new website dedicated to recording the stories of the men and women of the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) who found themselves serving their country from the UK during the Second World War. It also records the memories of the British people who befriended them. Visitors can browse, edit and upload their photographs to help build an online memorial to what historian Tom Brokaw called the ‘Greatest Generation’.

At its peak strength in 1944, the USAAF employed 450,000 Americans in Britain.

Most of us will immediately think of fighter pilots or bomber crews, but the majority of USAAF’s men and women were engaged on a much wider range of tasks, all of which were necessary to keep the aircraft flying. Nearly 30,000 never made it home.

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Commemorating the ‘Greatest Generation’

Collection of photographs sits at the heart of the website.

IWM acquired the collection in 2012 and began to make it available online in 2014 with the release of 5,000 images.

The remainder of the images will be released in batches as the cataloguing is completed.

The collection consists of approximately 15,000 prints and slides assembled by

aviation historian and East Anglian native Roger Freeman (1928–2005). Freeman was a farmer’s son who lived close to Boxted Airfield in Essex, used by the US Eighth Air Force during the Second World War. His teenage enthusiasm for the airfield developed into a life-long interest, and he published many highly-respected books on the US Air Forces in Britain while making his living as a farmer.

He collected images from veterans and official sources, identified and sorted them.

The majority of these images are black and white, but a significant proportion of them are in colour. The colour photographs in particular offer a fresh view of Second World War military life.

Visit the American Air Museum in Britain at www.americanair museum.com

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IWM NEWS OBITUARY: Roger Tolson

We will miss him Samantha Heywood, Director of Public Programmes, remembers the driving force behind the new Atrium at IWM London and much more.

Our much-loved friend and colleague Roger Tolson died on 11 February 2014, aged 55.

He joined the art department in 1994 and was responsible for some of our most challenging and brave exhibitions at IWM London.

These include Jeremy Deller’s Baghdad Car, a civilian vehicle wrecked by the Al-Muttanabi Street bombing of 2007 which he installed in the very centre of the museum’s Atrium; Steve McQueen’s commission Queen and Country, in which Roger and McQueen worked with 160 families whose son or daughter had been killed in Iraq to create a series of new stamps featuring each and every individual; and Roddy Buchanan’s eye-opening work Legacy, recording the deep and deeply conflicting traditions of two Glaswegian flute bands in their preparations for Northern Ireland’s marching season.

Latterly, Roger worked as the principal curator charged with completely re-imagining IWM London’s new Atrium.

He took this on with characteristic energy, expansiveness, creativity and intelligence. Who else would – or could – have made his own fuzzy-felt kit to plan the precise positioning of the Harrier, Spitfire, V2, Sherman tank, World Trade Center steel,

army kitchen, prefab house and training horse, among others, in this space? He loved this project, and was still writing object captions for it from his hospital bed just days before he died.

Since then, we have been reflecting on his many qualities. In all his work, however fractious or controversial in the making, Roger managed to make warm, generous friendships that lasted well beyond the end-of-project date. His favourite word was ‘intriguing’. Once spoken, we’d be given a glimpse into the inside of Roger’s mind – a mutable space full of philosophical concepts, colour, big horizons of possibility, sparkle and pixie dust. He thought in three dimensions and sometimes four. He thought freely and without borders. He sought meaning and purpose in everything, but thankfully also had a brilliant taste for the absurd. He took us – and the museum – to places we couldn’t have contemplated without him.

The museum feels a much smaller place without him, and it is a profound regret that he did not live to witness the re-opening of IWM London with his new Atrium at its heart.

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FIRST WORLD WAR LIFE STORY Charlotte Czyzyk, Lives of the First World War Life Story Co-ordinator, looks at the newly-added story of Canadian Army nurse Minnie Follette.

Since the launch of Lives of the First World War in May 2014, it has been a very busy and exciting time. There are now over 6.5 million Life Stories featured on the digital memorial, with more than 40,000 members piecing them together. Over the coming months, millions of additional individuals will be added from the Royal Flying Corps/Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, the Australian and New Zealand Imperial Forces, along with the records of almost 17,000 conscientious objectors.

IWM is also seeking to include home front workers and all those who contributed ‘their toil and sacrifice’ from across the British Empire.

Recently, the attestation papers of the 600,000 Canadian men and women who enlisted and played a crucial role in the war have been added to the site. Many remarkable Life Stories have emerged from these fascinating records, such as that of Canadian Nursing Sister Minnie Asenath Follette.

We can see from the records found on Lives of the First World War that Minnie was born on 11 November 1884 in Port Greville, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. A trained nurse, Minnie enlisted into the Canadian Army Medical Corps on 25 September 1914 in Quebec. From her attestation papers, we can learn that she was 29 years old, five feet five inches tall, and was of the Church of England religion.

Minnie worked at the 1st Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in France, where her priority was to treat men sufficiently for their return to duty or to stabilise them in preparation for transfer to a base hospital. Like many nurses who worked long hours treating the sick, Minnie herself became ill, suffering from nervous exhaustion and bronchitis. After recovering, Minnie was posted to work on hospital ships, including the SS Llandovery Castle.

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New records and moving stories

was sailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool. Despite displaying the Red Cross of a hospital ship, the Llandovery Castle was torpedoed by German submarine U-86, 114 miles south-west of Fastnet Rock. Accounts suggest that Minnie and other nurses managed to get onto a lifeboat, but drowned when it was dragged underneath the waves by the sinking ship. She was 33 years old.

Minnie is commemorated on the Halifax Memorial in Nova Scotia to those who have no known grave, but her family donated her portrait photograph to IWM Collections in her memory, and so it is now part of her Life Story on the permanent digital memorial.

Minnie has also been reconnected with her fellow nurses in a Lives of the First World

Minnie Follette – her family donated this portrait photograph to IWM Collections in her memory, and is now part of her Life Story on the permanent digital memorial.

WarCommunity called ‘Nursing Sisters who died on the SS Llandovery Castle’ (www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/ community/1155). Communities are a special feature available to Friends of Lives of the First World War, who can create and manage their own as a way to bring together the Life Stories of individuals connected to each other in a way permanently visible to everyone on the site. You can make and populate your own Communities by grouping together the Life Stories you are interested in.

More records are being added each month to help us to uncover the stories of thousands of individuals like Minnie Follette on Lives of the First World War. For further information please visit www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org

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Afghanistan: a country in transition IWM Historian Matt Brosnan gives an overview of War Story: Afghanistan 2014, a new exhibition at IWM London, with pictures by IWM Photographer Richard Ash. 14 â– Despatches Winter 2014

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Below: A British mentor teaches troops of the Afghan National Army (ANA) how to use mortars at Camp Shorabak, Helmand, 2013.

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Left: View of the outskirts of Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, 2014.

The end of 2014 marks the withdrawal of British and international combat troops from Afghanistan after thirteen years of war. While this is a significant step, it does not mean a neat conclusion to the conflict or the end of British and international involvement in the country.

Instead it represents a transition, as Afghanistan takes more control of its own affairs. The future of the country is delicately poised, with uncertainty over Afghanistan’s continued stability. The latest War Story display – the third in a series exploring British experiences in Afghanistan and the nature of the conflict – provides a snapshot of

Afghanistan at this transitional point.

The war in Afghanistan began in 2001, following the 11 September attacks on the USA carried out by al-Qaeda terrorists.

The initial aims were to target al-Qaeda and remove the extreme Islamist Taliban regime in Afghanistan that harboured them. Both of these were achieved in a rapid military campaign by coalition troops, predominantly from the USA and Britain. However, expanded NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) involvement in the conflict meant a longer-term commitment to Afghanistan and soon after the regime was removed, Taliban insurgents began to regenerate.

From 2006 to 2012, the war increased in violence. For British troops stationed in Helmand Province in the south of the country, many of the places they served – Sangin, Musa Qala, Now Zad, Nad Ali, Lashkar Gah – became bywords for intense fighting. For British troops on the ground, this often involved patrolling areas threatened by Taliban fighters who could seemingly melt in and out of their surroundings, as well as encountering the hidden dangers of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Since the beginning of the conflict over 450 British service personnel have died in Afghanistan, the majority killed during this intense period. ➜ Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 15

Afghanistan was handed over to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).

The Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) have conducted their own operations, with British and international troops in support. British troops have increasingly provided an advisory role, training and mentoring their Afghan counterparts.

This has included helping to establish and run the ANA Officer Academy (ANAOA), loosely based on the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, with involvement to stretch beyond the withdrawal of combat troops at the end of 2014.

Alongside security, there has also been work to develop Afghanistan politically, socially and economically. The British military, UK government departments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), charities and their international counterparts have worked with Afghan agencies to try to improve the lives of Afghan civilians. Some progress has been made. Elections took place in 2014, there has been investment in Afghan businesses and improvements have been made to the infrastructure and key services. There are more schools and health clinics and a more robust legal system. Yet the situation is far from perfect. So much depends on the new president and government, continued international support and investment and, vitally, on security being maintained.

It was in this context that IWM staff from the War Story project travelled to Afghanistan in March 2014. The trip involved visiting both Kabul and Kandahar, as well as the main British base at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province.

IWM staff took photographs and recorded film footage of this wide variety of locations, highlighting the contrasts between the urban sprawl of Kabul and the more rural and arid surroundings of parts of Helmand. They also conducted video interviews with members of the British armed forces, UK government departments, NGOs and Afghans working in both military and civilian capacities.

Some objects were also collected from individuals encountered on the trip.

It is this material that forms the basis of the new War Story display at IWM London. The gallery introduces this topic through photographs and a looped film providing a visual impression of 16 â– Despatches Winter 2014

Above: An Afghan instructor gives a skill at arms training session to cadets at the Afghan National Army Officer Academy (ANAOA) at Qargha, near Kabul, 2014.

British military mentors look on in the background.

Left: A portrait of an Afghan National Police (ANP) officer, 2013.

Right: An ANP officer and two mentors of the British armed forces at the Police Training Centre at Lashkar Gah, Helmand, 2013.

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➜ In 2013, responsibility for security in

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Afghanistan in 2014. Much of this footage was filmed while the IWM War Story team were travelling between locations in Afghanistan, demonstrating the contrasts in climate – from the heat of Helmand to the snow just outside Kabul – and also development. As the capital city, Kabul is the political and economic heart of the country, with a large and evolving population. The atmosphere in the more remote and rural provinces, including parts of Helmand, is quite different. Both the film and photographs in the display convey these contrasts, as well as highlighting the continued military activity.

The new display then looks at two main areas. The first is the handover of security and particularly the role of British troops in training and mentoring personnel of the ANSF. An interactive touchscreen contains clips of video interviews conducted with personnel ranging from the senior British commander in Afghanistan to non-commissioned officers, as well as policing experts and the Afghan commandant of the ANAOA. These clips offer individual perspectives on the security situation in Afghanistan, the training of Afghan soldiers and police officers, and where this leaves both the Afghan forces and the British military.

As Major General Richard Nugee, the Chief of Staff of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Joint Command, describes in one clip, Afghan forces played a more prominent role from 2013: ‘We stopped being at the front doing all the fighting with them in behind. They’re now at the front, and all we do now is advise them. So a fundamental change, and a fundamental change of culture’.

This has meant that British personnel have increasingly been training their Afghan counterparts, primarily by training Afghan instructors to then train their own cadets. Brigadier Bruce Russell, Chief Mentor at the ANAOA, describes his ➜ Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 17

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➜ hopes for this process: ‘If our legacy to this country can be to make sure that the Afghan National Army officers of the future are the very best trained officers that we can produce, and that they can produce for themselves, I think that’s an extremely fitting legacy’.

However, that process and that legacy are still very much in the balance. As other clips in the interactive demonstrate, training the Afghan soldiers and police officers of the future is challenging, with difficulties of the language barrier and complex cultural differences that require careful handling. Members of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL) highlight how illiteracy and corruption are problematic, as well as the need to make the ANP more community orientated. As with the ANA, progress has been made, but the security situation is still unsettled.

The second area that the display explores is development work in Afghanistan. This has taken place alongside military operations and needs to continue if Afghanistan is to become a more prosperous and stable country. An interactive touchscreen presents clips of video interviews with staff of UK government departments, NGOs and other organisations engaged in development. This offers insight into the progress made up to 2014 and how the future is delicately balanced.

At the time of the War Story trip in 2014, Afghanistan was in the middle of a complicated election process. As Andy Corcoran, a UK Political Officer in Afghanistan, commented in his interview, ‘the big caveat is that it’s not for us to get involved… But we do have a legitimate interest and stake in the outcome… and we want to see the country stabilised, and obviously the 2014 elections are a huge… part of that’.

A new president, Ashraf Ghani, has now been elected. Economic development is also vital and efforts have been made to invest in Afghan businesses. Abdul Basir Hotak describes how funding has helped his cashmere business and another interview highlights how the NGO Turquoise Mountain is trying to revive the Afghan crafts industry.

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Above: View of the British Military Cemetery in Kabul, 2014. The cemetery marks the deaths of British military personnel in Afghanistan during conflicts ranging from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.

Left: An Afghan trainer of the ANP teaches cadets at the Police Training Centre at Lashkar Gah, Helmand, 2013.

View of businesses in a street in Nad Ali, Helmand, 2013.

Economic development projects have tried to strengthen and expand Afghan businesses to encourage greater prosperity.

been successes. There are more children in schools and particularly more girls in education than ever before. New roads have improved everyday life, and the legal system has begun to tackle corruption and the drugs trade.

Essentially, the new display ends with a question mark. British combat troops will depart Afghanistan at the end of 2014, scarred by the losses of the conflict but leaving as some of the most experienced and best-equipped troops in the world.

There has been progress in Afghanistan, with better-trained military and police forces and improvements to everyday life. Yet with the security picture still

unsettled and ongoing development dependent on continued funding, it is impossible to predict the country’s future.

As UK Political Officer Andy Corcoran concluded, ‘[the] jury’s out to be honest…

There are so many factors that will determine the outcome… It’s just very, very hard to have a clear idea of what’s going to happen next’.

War Story: Afghanistan 2014 runs until 6 September 2015 at IWM London, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ, open daily 10am to 6pm (except 25, 26 December).

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picture credit to go here

Other interviews show how work has also been done to try to improve Afghanistan’s infrastructure – including building roads, schools and health clinics – and also public services and systems, from education to law. Again, there are challenges in all of these aspects. Infrastructure projects are dependent on improved security.

Building schools does not always mean being able to fill them with teachers and pupils, so education projects have to ensure that education is sustainable.

There is also corruption in public life, as well as a significant narcotics trade that needs to be tackled. Yet there have

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IWM London’s new Atrium – ‘We wanted to create a dynamic new central space that drew out the life stories of these objects, to release the energy and intrigue that each one holds for us’.

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Historian Nigel Steel on the Atrium displays at the transformed IWM London.

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New museum, new displays

IWM London’s new Atrium spaces are central to IWM’s wider vision of making our subject and collections more relevant and engaging to twenty-first century visitors.

The old Atrium, revolutionary in its time, had lost much of its coherence and meaning. The medium- to large-sized objects it displayed existed in isolation.

There was no link between them. We wanted to create a dynamic new central space that drew out the life stories of these objects, to release the energy and intrigue that each one holds for us. We saw the objects as speaking out loud about their role in history. Instead of the silence that existed before, the central feature of the new space for us would be a series of conversations between them. The Atrium would become a parliament of objects, with each one declaiming its significance and interest.

To do this we spent much of the last three years filling the planned new space with objects taken from the full range of IWM’s collections, including aircraft, tanks, cars, motorbikes, guns, helmets, large bombs, suicide bombs, petrol cans, airconditioning units, air raid shelters, sick bags, telephones, toys, artworks, books and oral histories. These myriad voices of war have been drawn together into focussed groups called ‘clusters’ and through each one we have laced an overarching historical narrative.

Our aim has not been simply to tell the story of conflict over the past hundred years. Instead we are looking to raise questions about this vast and complex subject, to provoke consideration and curiosity, to challenge people and surprise them, to make connections for them between what they already know and what they have yet to learn.

The result is not a traditional gallery, but a series of highlights, of snapshots, insights into the vast subject of global conflict since 1914. Moving through the new Atrium spaces is not like reading a regular book. The story has no clear beginning, middle and end. Instead, it is more like turning the pages of a family photograph album. Each one is a separate episode, but together they form a story.

There is an internal dynamic created by their arrangement and by the memories and associations they inspire.

Working briefly through the four levels, as you descend the stairs and enter Level 0, you see four key objects positioned on the floor. They include the iconic Nery Gun from 1 September 1914, reflecting both the bravery of its three VCs and its adoption by IWM from 1920 as a key object of remembrance. Above them are suspended two German V-weapons, the V1 doodle-bug and V2 rocket; and two British aircraft, a Spitfire Mk I with its rich Battle of Britain history, and a GR9 Harrier which saw service with the RAF in Kosovo and twice in Afghanistan.

The museum’s story now climbs up and around the building, progressing through time and the scope of our remit. Level 0 is embraced by the new First World War Galleries running from 1900 to 1929.

Above this, Level 1 covers the years surrounding the Second World War. Called Turning Points, its clusters highlight eight key moments of that war. They encompass both personal objects – like the trunk filled

by Leonhard and Clara Wohl before they left Germany, only to have their departure stopped by the outbreak of war in 1939, which led to their deaths in Auschwitz in 1943 – and larger pieces like the cockpit section of the Australian-crewed Lancaster bomber from 467 Squadron that flew 49 missions over Europe.

Moving up, echoing the words of the United Nations Charter, Level 2 is titled Peace and Security. It examines more discursively the long, complex history of wars since 1945. Many of the subjects covered are still unresolved – Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Korea, Cyprus, Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, we have used a number of artworks to provoke and question how and why things have happened. Objects range from the original casing of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945 to the Noah’s Ark toy made by a soldier on active service towards the end of the Second World War for his daughter far away. Like Noah, he too longed for a time when the floods would subside and he and his family could all be together again in peace.

Finally, among the art galleries on Level 3, are the Curiosities of War. In the spaces created by the new structural fins of the Atrium, objects have been placed individually or in pairs to reflect the unexpected and often unrecognised aspects of our remit. There is often danger and fear in silence. During the First World War, the wooden trumpets of sound locators listened intently into the darkness for the noise of approaching bombers. In 2002, radical artist and musician Bill Drummond wanted to protest against the declared ‘war on terror’. He advocated a day of silence as a protest. Communication would only be carried out by printed cards from a game called Silent Protest. The two items are linked by the nuances of silence.

The new Atrium is intended to be a place of provocation and contemplation, raising issues of morality, motivation and character as much as traditional history. It works through the conversations we have tried to set up between the objects. It is a new and, we hope, innovative space that will engage and intrigue. On its four levels it offers insights into the history of war and conflict and their impact on lives over the past hundred years, covering many, many subjects from today back to the outbreak of the First World War. Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 21

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FIRST WORLD WAR FACTS Continuing our regular series, IWM Historian Terry Charman shares some facts about the First World War on the home front and looks at how they shaped our society today.

PART 2: THE HOME FRONT

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■ The enrolment of policewomen was sanctioned by the Home Office for the first time in Britain on 29 October 1914.

■ Britain’s first official propaganda film Britain Prepared was premièred at the Empire Theatre, Leicester Square on 27 December 1915.

■ The government announced the rationing of coal, gas and electricity on 20 March 1918; and in a measure to conserve fuel, theatres and restaurants were ordered to close at 10pm.

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■ On 11 September 1914, the first air raid precautions were taken in London. The lights were ordered to be lowered and the lake in St James’s Park was drained so that it would not act as a bombing marker.

■ British Summer Time was introduced on 21 May 1916 for the first time and remains with us to this day.

■ The last German aeroplane raid on Britain took place on 20 July 1918 and the last Zeppelin raid on 5 August that year.

■ Petrol rationing began in Britain on 1 August 1916; that February, the government had appealed against the use of cars and motorcycles for ‘pleasure motoring’.

■ The Spanish flu pandemic, which cost far more lives than the war itself, peaked in Britain in the week beginning 28 October 1918, when 2,225 people died in London alone.

■ On 10 August 1916, the documentary film The Battle of the Somme was premièred at the Scala Theatre, London and went on general release on 21 August. Within a few weeks it was seen by 20 million people.

■ On 6 November 1914, Hans Carl Lody was the first German spy executed by firing squad at the Tower of London.

■ The first German air raid on Britain took place on 21 December 1914 when a single plane dropped two bombs in the sea off Dover. The first bomb was dropped on British soil on Christmas Eve, also at Dover. It exploded in the garden of Mr Thomas A Terson and knocked gardener James Banks out of a tree he was pruning.

■ On 11 September 1915, the first Women’s Institute opened at Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Anglesey. The WI had been founded on 16 June that year.

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■ A terrific explosion took place at the Venesta munitions factory at Silvertown in east London on 19 January 1917.

It killed 73 and injured 400.

Over 60,000 properties were damaged and the explosion was heard as far away as Salisbury in Wiltshire.

■ Rationing in Britain began in February 1918, at first in London and then nationwide from July.

It continued until 29 November 1920 when sugar came ‘off the ration’.

■ On 6 February 1918, the Representation of the People Act received Royal Assent, giving the vote to women (over 30 years of age) for the first time.

Right: Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Women’s Suffragette movement, being arrested in May 1914.

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■ On 10 December 1916, a Ministry of Food was established for the first time in British history with Lord Devonport at its head. A day later, the Ministry of Labour came into being, led

by Labour MP John Hodge.

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IWM CONTEMPORARY

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Pictures: Undead Sun © Jane and Louise Wilson

Curator Sara Bevan on a new video installation at IWM London to mark the First World War Centenary.

Undeadsun In October a new video installation by Turner Prize-nominated artists Jane and Louise Wilson opened at IWM London.

Undead Sun was commissioned to mark the First World War Centenary and offers a unique artistic perspective on this eradefining conflict.

During the First World War, the advent of aerial warfare and surveillance triggered rapid advances in optics and other technological innovation. Alongside these, new counter-measures in the arts of concealment and camouflage emerged. Alluding to the threat of exposure from above, Undead Sun explores ideas around technology and visibility. The film itself is shown within a specially-constructed installation, in which the viewer’s own movement and lines of sight are deliberately restricted.

Much of the imagery in the film is inspired by the visual culture of the period.

Many sequences are based on the artists’ extensive research in the IWM archives and reflect on the reconstruction of narratives surrounding the war. Uneasy, dream-like sequences are acted out against the ominous backdrop of a giant wind tunnel.

Staged vignettes offer glimpses of individual, human-scale dramas, as well as intimations of the darker side of society of the time. The tunnel itself evokes largerthan-life forces at work, suggesting the relentless and cyclical drive of events. The

rotating wooden blades of a fan return us to themes of the aerial and the air, but also hint at the visceral, elemental forces that the war unleashed: the terror of gas attacks, the violence of speed and social transformation.

This is the first iteration of an unfolding project commissioned to mark the centenary by Film and Video Umbrella for IWM, in partnership with the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) and Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

Working with Jane and Louise on researching this project in IWM’s archives revealed some fascinating aspects of our collections. This installation is a layered and refreshingly different meditation on specific aspects of the First World War, and I think visitors will be intrigued, surprised and perhaps disturbed by Jane and Louise’s film. This is exactly why contemporary art is so important for us at IWM, as it allows us to look at a subject through a new lens or from a different perspective, and continue to raise questions about a subject which, in this case, might initially appear to be very familiar.

IWM Contemporary: Jane and Louise Wilson, Undead Sun is at IWM London until 11 January 2015, open daily (except 25, 26 December) 10am to 6pm, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ. Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 25

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THE WOUNDS OF WAR

Historian Lyn Smith on the work of the Friends Ambulance Unit during the First World War.

© RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS IN BRITAIN, 2014

At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Britain had not been involved in a European conflict within living memory and few had any conception of what such a war entailed. The response, in the main, was enthusiastic, and young men – many under-age – flocked to the recruitment centres, eager to join the fight before it was over. There was, however, a small group of young British Quakers who decided that although their religious and humanitarian beliefs prevented them from entering the war in a fighting capacity, they could not stand aside in the midst of conflict. Although conscription was not introduced until 1916, they volunteered their services, anticipating the need for medical and humanitarian aid that war would surely create.

The Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) began with 43 and ended with over one thousand men, many of them nonQuakers; as it increased in numbers, the more diverse its work became. What the FAU offered was an outlet for those who believed that pacifism should show in action just what it is capable of by relieving the effects of war and demonstrating that there is another path to service. Military conscription for women was not considered in the First World War, but many Quaker women opted to work alongside the FAU as Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD) and in other humanitarian capacities. What distinguished FAU members from the Friends Relief Service (FRS) and other conscientious objectors (COs) engaged on alternative service after 1916 was that its members offered to serve alongside troops – a far too compromising situation for many pacifists, including some Quakers, to accept.

The work was divided into two main sections: the Home Service, which included valuable work in education and agriculture; and the Foreign Service. In October 1914, after a six-week training course at Jordans in Buckinghamshire, the first 43 volunteers set off for Dunkirk in France. The team, led by Philip Noel Baker, consisted of 40 young men, three

Portrait of Philip Noel Baker, circa 1920.

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doctors and eight ambulances equipped with medical supplies. Ten women nurses followed in December 1914. Initially, neither the Red Cross nor British Army personnel wanted to involve a group of pacifist volunteers in the war, but the situation changed dramatically when the Belgian Army collapsed in late October 1914. By November 1918 there were 640 members working on the European mainland, including women nursing staff.

The FAU (or ‘Unit’ as it became commonly known) arrived in France and Flanders with very little idea of where it was going or what its duties were. Its motto was ‘Find the work that needs doing. Regularise it later, if possible’. It established a comprehensive ambulance and hospital service in France and Belgium. In one hospital alone – the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Dunkirk – 12,000 patients were treated. Among many other services, 27,000 inoculations against typhoid fever were given in Belgium, which meant that the ravages of the disease were contained and not passed on to the troops. 15,000 Belgian refugees were also fed; effective systems of milk distribution and water purification were implemented; and vast quantities of clothing were collected and distributed.

Temporary schools and orphanages were also established.

The Unit set up FAU French convoys and ambulance trains in which its members worked with the French Army in the field throughout the greater part of the war. From early 1916, hospital ships in both the English Channel and the Mediterranean transported the sick and wounded from various theatres of war.

The experience in the Mediterranean – the only place where its members served in a theatre of war more distant than the Western Front – gave 40 FAU members an expanded field of service. Late in 1915, after Italy had entered the war, a separate Anglo-Italian Ambulance Unit was set up.

It is not possible to adequately cover the vast amount of work done by the Unit in the First World War; therefore the focus of this article is on a particular

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and lacking many of the basic necessities of medical treatment.

To relieve the pressure, the Unit took over part of a large building in Courtrai on 27 October. Known as the Ambulance du Fort, it had formerly been used as a military hospital by the Germans but was now empty except for the sisters of a religious order who occupied one wing as their convent.

The Unit had only just arrived when it was faced with an appalling situation.

During the retreat, German artillery had poured a large number of mustard and phosgene gas shells into the village of Avelghem and the surrounding area, with dire results for the civilians remaining there. Unaware of the danger, many of them had sought shelter in cellars, where they remained all night amid the penetrating gas fumes. It was

impossible to rescue the civilians until the next day, but throughout 28 October, FAU cars, reinforced by military lorries and ambulances, brought load after load of the gassed civilians to the hospital. In a few hours the long empty wards were crowded with stretchers and gasping victims continued to straggle in for days afterwards. There were far more patients than the staff could possibly deal with unaided.

A young Quaker based in Dunkirk, Lloyd Fox, set out for Courtrai as part of a search party just as the disaster was unfolding: I drove alone across the Ypres battlefield to Courtrai, no sign of life except rats. It looked appalling: a vast sea of shell holes and creased up shattered vehicles and military equipment… At Courtrai, five FAU men and a doctor were installed in a large convent… ➜

© RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS IN BRITAIN, 2014

incident: the mass gassing of Belgian civilians. Images of soldiers suffering the effects of chemical warfare are familiar, but less well known is that of civilians who had been caught up in areas that had been saturated with gas.

The incident occurred towards the end of 1918, just after the German retreat from Courtrai in Belgium. Almost everywhere the situation was one of devastation, suffering, distress and urgent need. Supplies of food, already meagre, were dislocated by the destruction of infrastructure during the retreat. In town and country alike, sickness, including influenza, was widespread. It was during this challenging time that the Unit’s attention was drawn to the dire situation in the area, where hospitals found themselves overcrowded, understaffed

Volunteer workers from the Friends Ambulance Unit delivering bread, northern France, 1916.

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➜ Soon after I had arrived, army lorries

started to arrive full of gassed women and children from a valley I had previously looked down into on my way there. The Germans had soaked the place with mustard gas to hold up the British advance. Unfortunately civilians had gone down into their cellars – the worst place if gas is about. Over a period of two or three hours we had twenty lorry-loads of women and children, about a thousand altogether.

We spent a good deal of time dealing with those who had died, particularly children, taking them down to the convent’s mortuary. Most of those alive were lying in blankets on the floor, there were no beds, and just to make things a little worse for everybody, the Germans staged an air raid on the bridgehead at the bottom of the convent’s garden… The

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following day I was taken by an army doctor to a large hall in Courtrai where we found over a hundred gassed women and children. There was only one old woman caring for them, trying to give them drinks.

They were terribly affected by the mustard and phosgene gas which had practically destroyed the sight of most. Their eyes were swollen and their breathing was beginning to get very bad as the phosgene particularly affected their lungs. The object of our visit was to pick out twenty suitable cases for treatment at the convent. The army captain who took me round said, ‘I can do nothing, it’s up to you, you pick out the twenty that may have some chance of living and take them up to the convent’. And there was I, this youngster, given what seemed to be the chance of saving the lives of twenty of these people. All I could do was pick

Lloyd Fox pictured at his desk in the FAU headquarters, London, 1915.

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twenty of the toughest looking children – I thought they might have some chance of survival. I took them to the convent where they had a special gas unit to try to give them suitable treatment. I don’t think it was effective at all.

The following day, I remember seeing a gas orderly coming out in tears. He said, ‘ I just can’t stand it any longer, they’re choking to death and most of them are the children you brought in two days ago’.

I went in and the unfortunate children were black in the face, absolutely nothing could be done for them. We washed their eyes out with bicarbonate of soda. The Special Squad were bleeding them, but I think it was a waste of time and effort, they were too badly gassed to be saved. In all about eight hundred were killed by gas at that time. It passed more or less unnoticed. It was just at the end of the front. The war news was more concerned with the falling back of the Germans, but it was one of the worst episodes of civilian gassing in the war.

After the armistice in November1918, the Unit worked for another year on civilian relief and repatriation. Like other COs in the First World War, FAU members contributed to the growing peace movement in the inter-war period, and to the establishment of the Central Board for Conscientious Objectors (CBCO) which was vital in assisting the 60,000 COs in the Second World War. In 1939, Unit members such as Paul Cadbury and Arnold Rowntree were instrumental in reviving the FAU. Its 1,314 members, including 97 women, experienced a far wider field of service in the Second World War, ranging from the home front to places such as Finland, North Africa, Ethiopia and China.

During this year of commemoration of the First World War, we have been confronted with many horrific images and stories of that war – not least the futility and waste and the vast amount of suffering on all sides, both physical and psychological. It is important that the service of this unpaid, voluntary unit of Quakers who succeeded in mitigating the wounds of war is given recognition.

Although the French and Belgian authorities generously showed their appreciation to the Unit – 86 Croix de guerre were bestowed by the French, for instance – no medals were awarded to ordinary members of the Unit by the British government.

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A lasting impact 14-18 NOW is a major cultural programme taking place across the United Kingdom to mark the centenary of the First World War. During the summer of 2014 it launched its first series of events. 14-18 NOW’s Director, Jenny Waldman, reflects on the programme so far.

1 spectra by Ryoji Ikeda, 2014, view from Primrose Hill by Thierry Bal. Produced and presented by Artangel, co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and the Mayor of London.

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The aim of 14-18 NOW is to open up discussions about the First World War beyond those individuals who are already interested in that conflict and the ceremonial aspects which surround it. Perceptions of the war have been shaped to a great extent by the artists of the time, including poets, writers, painters, sculptors, photographers and film-makers, many of whom served, and who reflected on the war and its effects.

Their work had a profound and lasting impact. So it seemed appropriate to invite contemporary artists from the UK and around the world to explore the resonance of the First World War one hundred years later, as culture and the arts played such an important role in recording and interpreting the extraordinary and devastating events of the war.

Working with cultural organisations across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the aim was to commission special projects, selected to encourage people from every community to reflect on how the First World War has shaped today’s world and our attitudes to conflict now.

We could not have anticipated such an overwhelmingly positive response or such original and diverse ideas from these artists which revealed both familiar and new stories. Many different forms of expression were represented in the programme, including art, film, performance and poetry. ➜

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Dazzle Ship London

by Tobias Rehberger, 2014.

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➜ The idea to appoint an independent organisation to curate a programme came originally from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), who had been given responsibility for the First World War Centenary commemorations.

An approach was made to the Arts Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund to support the programme and IWM’s Director-General Diane Lees kindly agreed to host us.

We started working on the programme for 2014 in August 2013. We decided that the best approach would be to work with existing organisations in partnership and so one of our first actions was to talk with a large number of cultural organisations around the UK and work with them on any activities they were planning. We also approached artists who we wanted to work with. It was also important to ensure that we had events across the UK and not just London-based.

We looked for ideas which were both brilliant and original, but which would also appeal to large audiences; and those that had a historical context which could inspire the public to look into the subject in greater depth. A good example of this was a performance entitled Memories of August 1914 by the Royal de Luxe theatre company, which used giant puppets to tell the story of the Liverpool Pals Battalions. This performance took place over five days in July on the streets of Liverpool and was attended by more than

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one million people. It received a lot of media coverage and descendants of those who fought in the Liverpool Pals Battalions were interviewed by the BBC on what the performance meant to them; and for some this has started a journey into their own family history.

Some works in the series took a familiar story but presented it in a new way, such as Carlos Cruz-Diez and Tobias Rehberger’s Dazzle Ships, which adorned the rivers of Liverpool and London respectively. Ships camouflaged with geometric ‘dazzle’ patterns designed to confuse enemy U-boat captains would have been a familiar sight in the First World War, but the two artists chose to decorate the Edmund Gardner and HMS President (1918) with new designs, reminding local people and visitors of the crucial role ships played in the country’s wartime survival. The interpretation boards next to the ships provided information and a historical context.

With 30 commissioned works in the series, it is very difficult to select the highlights as each has its own merits, but even so there are some which really stand out for me.

The National Theatre of Wales’s production of ‘Mametz’, inspired by Owen Sheers’ poem ‘Mametz Wood’, was a sitespecific production performed in the ancient Great Llancayo Upper Wood, near Usk in Monmouthshire. It drew on material written by poets who fought in or

witnessed one of the war’s bloodiest conflicts – the Battle of Mametz Wood, in which 4,000 of the 38th (Welsh) Division were killed or wounded. It was a completely immersive and powerful experience, and the production has since been nominated for a Dylan Thomas Award.

On a much smaller scale was ‘Charlie Ward’, staged in an upstairs room at the Cinema Museum in London. In the darkened room were eight beds enabling eight people at a time to lie on them and look at the ceiling to see a Charlie Chaplin short film and listen to a sound installation. This was inspired by a story about a hospital behind the front line projecting Charlie Chaplin films onto the ceiling to boost the patients’ morale.

Another powerful production was ‘The Forbidden Zone’ by Katie Mitchell and Duncan Macmillan, which tells the tragic story of the Haber family. Clara Immerwahr gave up her career in chemistry when she married the Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber. When Haber’s research turned to the development of chlorine gas and its implementation at Ypres, Clara’s protests at this ‘perversion of science’ went unheard.

Some of our more high-profile projects enlisted the help of the public. Letter to an Unknown Soldier by Kate Pullinger and Neil Bartlett invited everyone to create a new kind of war memorial by writing a letter to an unknown First World War

Letter to an Unknown Soldier

by Kate Pullinger and Neil Bartlett.

soldier and submitting it to a dedicated website at www.1418now.org.uk/letter.

In having to write such a letter, the participants had to think very deeply.

Some 21,400 people wrote and submitted a letter, among them 50 writers such as Sebastian Faulks, Caryl Churchill and Benjamin Zephaniah.

On 4 August 2014, we launched Lights Out – an event designed for mass participation in which people were asked to turn out all the lights in their homes between 10pm and 11pm on that day and leave a single flame burning. A survey we took later indicated that 16.7 million people took part and that 65% of all adults in the UK were at least aware of the initiative. Although we thought that many would take part, these figures wildly exceeded our expectations.

As well as these major participative events for mass audiences, we held smaller events and exhibitions around the UK, such as an installation by the artist Anya Gallaccio at Orford Ness and Snape Maltings, inspired by the trials of aerial photography and bombing which the Royal Flying Corps conducted at Orford Ness during the First World War. It has been particularly gratifying that some of the commissions have the potential to continue into the future. The BalletBoyz production ‘Young Men’, which explores the theme of war and the bond which forms between men that train and fight together, will transfer to Sadler’s Wells in 2015, after premièring at The Roundhouse in the summer. Chloe Dewe Matthews’ photographs in the series Shot at Dawn, which are taken in the place and

at the time that executions occurred, will be shown on display in exhibitions in Edinburgh and at the Tate Modern after being published as a book in July.

What has been really exciting about the 2014 programme of events is the level of participation from the public. We chose each project because we thought that the artists would come up with something original and fascinating, and they did.

Because the 14-18 NOW programme is based at IWM, it has given the artists access to its archives and the research team, and the artists have benefited greatly from that.

Our next series of events will take place in 2016 and 2018. We are already working hard on the programme.

For further information on 14-18 NOW, please visit www.1418now.org.uk.

Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 33

PICTURE: DOM AGIUS

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THE STORY BEHIND THE PICTURE

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This photograph is of the entrance gate of the British Cemetery in Martyrs Road, Kabul, Afghanistan.

To the local people of Kabul it is Kabre Gora, or ‘the graveyard of foreigners’. The quiet cemetery houses memorials to British soldiers from the current and previous conflicts in Afghanistan.

I took this image on the most recent War Story trip in 2014 and it remains one of my favourite images.

Due to the ongoing security concerns in Kabul, we only had 20 minutes in the cemetery, as it is situated at the base of a hill.

If there were any lookouts positioned on the hill, it was thought that any longer would be enough time for a sniper to be alerted to our position, putting us at risk.

Taking photographs in this situation concentrates the mind and I was very conscious of my own breathing throughout the whole process.

With our private security team keeping an eye out, the War Story team set about documenting what we could.

As we were leaving the cemetery and just before we got back into our vehicles, there was a short break in the almost constant traffic and I managed to get this shot.

This image resonates for me because it has a poignant yet positive message.

Hopefully all the loss of life is in the past, behind the cemetery

wall; and the future of the country, however delicately balanced, is now up to the people of Afghanistan. For me this hope for a brighter future is represented by the man in the foreground. His yellow umbrella jumps out amongst the muted tones of the wall, road and snow-filled sky.

■ Richard Ash, IWM Photographer

Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 35

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ESSAY

Devils’ alliance – the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939–1941

Historian Roger Moorhouse, author of The Devils’ Alliance, looks at the continuing legacy of the pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the early years of the Second World War. Five years ago, all eyes were once again on Poland. On the afternoon of 1 September 2009, world leaders gathered on the Westerplatte, close to Gdansk, where the Second World War had witnessed its first shots 70 years earlier. Back in 1939, those opening broadsides were fired by the aged German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, which was in Danzig on a ‘friendship visit’, but nonetheless opened fire on a nearby Polish military fortress. In 2009, the world’s press waited to see which, if any, of the world leaders present would be firing broadsides of their own.

In truth, the exchanges on that sunny afternoon outside Gdansk were rather tame. Diplomacy prevailed and all sides broadly concurred on the horrors of the Second World War, the perils of political extremism and the guilt of the Germans.

German chancellor Angela Merkel struck a suitably humble 36 ■ Despatches Winter 2014

tone, thanking the Polish authorities for inviting her, citing European unity as a panacea for all totalitarian ills and stating that she bowed before the conflict’s 60 million victims.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin showed rather less humility. Sidestepping a number of rumbling controversies, he played the familiar tune of blaming Germany for the war and praising the heroic sacrifice of the Red Army.

Behind the headlines, the shadow boxing and the diplomatic platitudes, the speeches on the Westerplatte were still rather instructive. If nothing else, they gave a snapshot of the contemporary attitudes of European nations towards the war – that most seismic event of the twentieth century – showing how far some had come in confronting their complex, difficult pasts, and how far others still had to travel along that road.

Germany’s journey has certainly not been an easy one. As I

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The USSR’s Vyacheslav Molotov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, signs the treaty of non-aggression with Germany, August 1939. In the background is Joseph Stalin.

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ESSAY

have written before on these pages, it is one that has tormented and tortured generations of Germans and continues to loom very large in its national discourse – and rightly so. The process of coming to terms with the past even has its own word in German, the curious neologism Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

It was a process that, in truth, took some time to get going. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Germany had more pressing problems – the economy and the Cold War to name but two – and an objective engagement with the recent past was perhaps rightly seen as a luxury that the battered country could ill afford.

In addition, too many of those intimately related to the Nazi regime were still in the nation’s midst, either as politicians and industrial leaders or as fathers and grandfathers, for any honest assessment to take place. When it began, the process was not without acrimony. The student revolts of 1968, for instance,

were about many things, but to a large extent they were a generational rift, a pointing of the collective finger of youth at their elders. ‘What did you do during the war?’ was no longer an idle question; it had become an accusation.

From then on, Vergangenheitsbewältigung has gathered pace, driving the difficult national debate about the past and bringing Germany close to a point which might be described as normalisation – if such a thing were possible. In the Germany of today, German responsibility for the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities is written very large indeed. The public tone of debate is resolutely one of mea maxima culpa. The victims of the Nazis are prominently and publicly commemorated, as in the very heart of Berlin, with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe only a stone’s throw from the Brandenburg Gate.

Other, less obvious, monuments can be just as telling, such as the remains of Hitler’s former home – the Berghof – above Berchtesgaden, a toxic site much dynamited and long wished away by German authorities, which now boasts an official information board. The phrase ‘coming to terms with the past’ is just that – not just averting one’s gaze, but actively engaging with a challenging, painful narrative.

As Chancellor Merkel repeatedly made clear in her Westerplatte speech, Germany’s guilt for the war and the Holocaust will never be erased, but – through its own efforts and the passage of the generations – the country is at least now able to address its recent past with an ease and an objectivity that was unthinkable four decades ago.

Russia’s engagement with its wartime past is rather more complex. Indeed, it is so complex that many in modern Russia and beyond would prefer to pretend that there is no problem at all, and that Russia’s wartime history is nothing but a succession of glorious chapters of heroism and sacrifice. To be fair, there is no shortage of either in the Red Army’s wartime story; but there is much else besides, and therein lies modern Russia’s problem.

Take, for instance, the Nazi-Soviet Pact: Stalin’s 22-month flirtation with Hitler, which spurred the outbreak of the Second World War and enabled the Soviet dictator to extend his frontier westwards – with Hitler’s connivance – at the expense of his neighbours. The pact was no momentary dalliance; it was a thorough-going relationship between Berlin and Moscow, with four associated economic treaties, a follow-up political treaty and, of course, the Secret Protocol by which eastern Europe was divided up between the two.

Or consider the Soviet invasion, occupation and annexation of eastern Poland in 1939–1941, in the course of which countless thousands of Poles were arrested and persecuted, with at least 1.5 million of them being deported to the wilds of Siberia as punishment for imagined offences against Soviet rule.

Or consider the grim example of the 22,000 Polish army officers murdered in cold blood by Stalin’s executioners at Katyn and elsewhere in 1940, in a deliberate attempt – seemingly coordinated with Hitler’s Gestapo – to ‘decapitate’ Polish society, relieving that troublesome nation of its most bothersome elite. ➜ Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 37

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ESSAY ➜ Or consider the fate of the Baltic States, sovereign nations consigned to Soviet control by a stroke of Ribbentrop’s pen and then occupied, annexed and incorporated into the Soviet Union

by Stalin. As elsewhere, Baltic societies were torn apart by the experience of Soviet rule, with persecution and deportation becoming the horrific norm. For the Baltic States, Soviet rule would continue – with a brief, bloody hiatus of Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1944 – all the way to the Soviet Union’s eventual demise in 1991.

There are countless other examples, from the mass wartime deportations of Chechens, Tartars and others, to the bestial campaign of rapes visited upon German civilians at the war’s end and the brutal treatment of returning Soviet POWs post-war. But one point is surely clear: for all the heroism undoubtedly on show in other parts of their wartime story, modern Russians – if they are honest – must acknowledge that there is also much for them to question, even for them to be ashamed of.

So, some analogous process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung – or Preodoleniye proshlogo – is sorely needed in Russia. Why then, is it not already underway? There are a number of obstacles. The first is that the Soviet Union won. Its dominant narrative, and that of its successor state, Russia, is one of victory, victory against all the odds, victory in the life and death struggle against Nazism. Of this fact, Russians are immensely and rightly proud; but it nonetheless inhibits any more thoughtful and introspective analysis of what crimes the Soviet Union’s forces might have committed along the way.

The second obstacle is time. As I have shown above, after Hitler’s Reich collapsed in defeat in 1945, it took a good two decades before its crimes began to be seriously scrutinised by the German people. In Russia’s case, the USSR only collapsed in 1991, so by the same yardstick one should only have expected some early blossoming of Preodoleniye by perhaps the first decade of the twenty-first century.

And so it was: in part. The Russian organisation Memorial, though founded in the dying days of the USSR, was well established by that time, working on its proclaimed goal of promoting the ‘the revelation of the truth about the historical past and perpetuating the memory of the victims of totalitarian political repression’. Through an honest reassessment of the past, Memorial believed, civil society could be fostered and democratic principles more securely anchored.

Noble ideals, of course. But the third obstacle that Russia faced would rather scupper Memorial’s chances. Whereas very few persons of influence in post-war Germany lamented Hitler’s demise and wished to turn back the clock, the same could not be said in post-Soviet Russia. And, by the first decade of our current century a man had come to supreme power in Russia – Vladimir Putin – who publicly described the collapse of the Soviet Union as ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century’.

To a large extent, Putin is a product of his times. The rosy, heavily-edited narrative of the Second World War that he espouses is little different from the one propagated by the Soviet 38 ■ Despatches Winter 2014

Union right up to its demise. True to George Orwell’s dictum of ‘Who controls the past controls the future’, the USSR kept its historians – and thereby history itself – on a very tight leash.

Indeed, its iron control of the narrative only faltered in its final months, when under pressure from the runaway forces of glasnost and perestroika, Moscow was finally forced to acknowledge its authorship of the Katyn Massacres and the existence of the Secret Protocol to the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Yet, while freedom and democracy have since blossomed across a swathe of ex-Soviet eastern Europe, in Russia itself there have been precious few further advances; indeed retrenchment is very much the order of the day. Ex-Soviet archives are again off-limits to western scholars and even Memorial has found itself under enormous pressure from the Russian state.

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A German general and a Soviet tank brigade commander shake hands during a joint Nazi-Soviet parade in Brest-Litovsk.

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ESSAY

The Russian narrative of the Second World War today is essentially the same as that offered by Stalin, albeit minus the communism. It is a story of Nazi barbarism, Red Army heroism and civilian sacrifice, certainly; of Stalingrad and Leningrad and the hard-won defeat of Hitler. Tellingly, it is also a story that begins only in the summer of 1941, when the USSR was attacked by its erstwhile ally, Hitler. In this way, Soviet victimhood is effectively foregrounded, and many of the less flattering aspects of the earlier phase of Soviet involvement in the war are conveniently absent – the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the deportations of subject populations, the invasions of Poland and the Baltic States, the Winter War against the Finns; the list goes on.

These aspects rarely find a place in the Russian story of the war.

Where they are mentioned, in school textbooks or in serious public discourse, they are hedged with exculpation, obfuscation

and untruth. A good example was given at the Westerplatte by Mr Putin, who explained the Nazi-Soviet Pact away by juxtaposing it with the British and French actions at Munich in September 1938. Just as London and Paris ‘made a deal’ with Hitler, he helpfully explained, so too did Moscow. Such simplistic, misleading interpretations are, sadly, very much the norm in modern Russia.

All nations have blind spots in their history, of course. The role that history plays in providing a binding national narrative is an important component in the creation of civic and national identity, so to some extent it is inevitable that the more challenging parts of the story are sometimes omitted. In this respect, history’s role can be all the more important in times of economic and political crisis, providing a comfort blanket to a hard-pressed, disconsolate populace.

But modern Russia is not just committing sins of omission.

What is peculiar is its apparent desire to actively suppress those parts of the narrative of which it disapproves. Fearing perhaps that too many skeletons in too many closets might become a profoundly destabilising force, Moscow has resorted to the old Soviet tactic of seeking to control the past so as to better control the present.

In 2009, for instance, a Russian presidential commission was established to ‘counter attempts to falsify history’, along with legislation that enabled judges to imprison transgressors for up to five years. The choice of words is telling; the phrase ‘falsification of history’ is the same one that Stalin used in 1948 when desperately trying to deny western revelations about the existence of the Secret Protocol. Prime Minister Putin used the same phrase in his Westerplatte speech.

Then, as now, it seems, history is what the Kremlin says it is.

Though the presidential commission on the ‘falsification of history’ has been disbanded, its nefarious shadow stills looms.

Russian history has been firmly harnessed to the service of the state and few historians or publishers dare to go off-message.

Western historians should also take note of this harsh new climate. The example of the Finnish scholar Kari Silvennoinen, who was arrested at Moscow airport in 2013 and held without charge or explanation for 24 hours, does not inspire confidence.

Silvennoinen, incidentally, is one of Finland’s leading historians of the Winter War, one of the Kremlin’s numerous blind spots.

The need for a genuine Russian Vergangenheitsbewältigung is as pressing as ever. Russia still refuses to accept that its annexation of the Baltic States in 1940 was an invasion; it still describes its invasion of Poland in 1939 as a ‘liberation’ of oppressed peoples. The Soviet flag is still a common sight in Russia. Forty-seven per cent of Russians still profess to have a positive view of Stalin; he even came third in a TV poll in 2008 to find ‘the greatest Russian’. One can only imagine our collective horror if forty-seven per cent of Germans were to proclaim their admiration for Hitler.

Germany has very clearly come a long way in confronting the horrors of its wartime past. Russia, in contrast, has barely begun its journey along that road.

Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 39

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A HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN OBJECTS

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IWM Historian Nigel Steel looks at some of the objects in IWM’s collections which tell the story of the First World War.

Eric Rowden’s Christmas button On Christmas Day 1914, Eric Rowden was a 19-year-old corporal with the Queen’s Westminster Rifles (1/16th Battalion, London Regiment). It was one of the first Territorial battalions to go to France, arriving on 1 November 1914; and some weeks later, on 23 December, it entered the trenches at Armentières for its second tour in the front line. The next day was Christmas Eve, and Rowden and his fellow soldiers could hear the Germans opposite begin singing. That night not a shot was fired.

Christmas Day itself began frostily and with a heavy mist. There was some contact with the Germans but it was not until after Christmas lunch, when the mist had cleared, that large numbers of the ‘enemy’ were seen standing in no-man’s land. In his diary, Rowden noted: ‘I went out and found a German who spoke English a little and we exchanged buttons and cigarettes and I had two or three cigars given me and we laughed and joked together, having forgotten war altogether’.

He got the soldier with whom he exchanged buttons to write down his name, Werner Keil, and added his regiment, 179th Saxon, on a postcard.

The button still remains firmly attached to the same postcard a hundred years on, a testament to that extraordinary day.

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The B43 London bus pictured when it was at IWM London, before the museum’s regeneration.

London bus at the front Bus B43 was one of the first batch (1910) of B-type vehicles built for the London General Omnibus Company. Before the war it worked routes 8 (Willesden – Old Ford) and 25 (Victoria – Seven Kings) and carried up to 34 passengers. But in October 1914 it became one of the first buses requisitioned for service at the front, seeing service during the First Battle of Ypres. B43 survived the conflict, returning to its civilian role, and in 1920 it was selected to parade with a group of veteran drivers before King George V at Buckingham Palace – said to be the only time the King ever boarded a bus.

Bus B43 was withdrawn from service in 1924 and given to the drivers’ Old Comrade’s Association. Decorated with a brass radiator cap in the image of Bruce Bairnsfather’s famous wartime cartoon character Old Bill, it became a feature of

special events, parades and even old comrades’ funerals, until, on 30 April 1970, members of the association handed it over to the Imperial War Museum for safekeeping. Now on show at the London Transport Museum, Bus B43 remains a unique object – a pioneering piece of mechanical engineering unexpectedly drawn into the turmoil of war.

A History of the First World War in 100 Objects by John Hughes-Wilson (with IWM consultant Nigel Steel) is published

by Octopus in association with IWM. Available in IWM shops and the online shop priced £30. IWM Friends receive a 10% discount.

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Royal Indian Navy ratings on the mess deck of HMIS Sutlej, India, 1944.

In search of the lascars Ansar Ahmed Ullah explains how taking part in IWM’s Whose Remembrance? project led him to discover more about the South Asian sailors who served in both world wars.

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In 2012 I got involved with IWM’s research project Whose Remembrance?, a scoping study aimed at investigating and opening up understanding of the role of colonial troops and civilians in the two world wars.

Hundreds of thousands of Africans, Indians, Caribbeans and other people from former British colonies contributed to the winning of both wars. Their story remains under-researched and relatively little known. There are still many ways in which the colonial story has yet to be fully told.

A central objective of the project was to uncover emerging trends in work that has already been done or is currently underway; and to establish how IWM and other repositories of relevant information can contribute to a fuller understanding of different communities’ past heritage and history.

I was one of three external specialist researchers recruited to assist IWM to address how Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) visitors to the IWM’s physical and virtual sites can be increased; how fuller understanding by minority groups of past history can be developed; and to identify gaps in research and how these might be best addressed so as to allow the investigation and presentation of a more comprehensive and coherent story.

I chose South Asian seamen and more specifically those of Bengali origin who were from what is now Bangladesh, which at that time was the eastern half of Bengal province in British India. This was a natural progression from my last research project, ‘Bengalis in London’s East End’, that had looked at the first Bengalis to settle in London. I also knew that one of my grandfather’s cousins had been a seaman who had come to England in 1936.

From our research at the Swadhinata Trust, we know that Bengali seamen formed the first sizeable South Asian community in Britain. They settled in the Midlands, Cardiff and London’s East End close to the docks. These early Bengali seamen were commonly referred to as ‘lascars’. The word was once used to describe a sailor from the Indian subcontinent or any other part of Asia, but came to refer particularly to people from West Bengal and modern-day Bangladesh.

During the First World War, more lascars were needed to take the place of British

sailors who had been recruited into the Royal Navy. As a result, the numbers of Asian lascars grew further and by the end of the war, Indian seafarers made up 20 per cent of the British maritime labour force. The Indian Army was likewise a major contributor of men to the war effort, and nearly a million Indians served in that conflict. The Indian Army grew even larger during the Second World War, amounting to two and half a million men.

Close to Tower Bridge, in Trinity Square Gardens, near Tower Hill tube station, is Tower Hill Memorial, a monument that commemorates British merchant seamen who lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars. The total loss of seamen of all backgrounds in the First World War recorded on the memorial is 17,000. Indian sources, however, give a figure of 3,427 lascars dead and 1,200 taken prisoner. For the Second World War, Indian sources estimate that 6,600 Indian seamen died, 1,022 were wounded and 1,217 taken prisoner. It is also estimated that 30 to 40 per cent of merchant seamen during the Second World War were of colonial origin. Many of the names on the monument indicate seamen of Bengali origin, with names such as Miah, Latif, Ali, Choudhury, Ullah or Uddin.

However, these named individuals only represent the privileged few Bengalis employed as British crew members, and exclude some 4-5,000 lascars who died at sea and whose names were never known.

I was also contacted during my researches by a gentleman from Portsmouth whose grandfather came to Britain as a seaman and had served in London during the war. The gentleman passed me information about his grandfather’s soldier service book, which gave his unit as the Indian Pioneer Corps.

While I was aware that IWM did not hold personal records, I was hoping to find out

more information about his grandfather’s unit. On contacting IWM’s collections, I was informed that it was difficult to trace any information about the Indian Pioneer Corps as it was not a front line unit, but there was a good regimental history in their archive.

Armed with that information, I visited IWM’s research room. I found a very useful brochure on the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps and an excellent book by a brigadier. The corps was formed in 1939 to assist with the clearing of obstacles, the smoothing of roads and to execute repairs. Furthermore, I found papers by a colonel who had commanded the Pioneer Corps. 80 Company, the unit that my contact’s grandfather had served in, was active during the Blitz in London, and was established in early 1940 to attract Indian residents in Britain.

Although it was anticipated that the London docks would be a fruitful area for recruitment, the numbers were never as great as hoped for. The highest number of Indian other ranks at its peak in June 1941 was only 172. I also came across film footage of Indian members of the corps (recruited mainly from lascars at docks and ports) clearing up Sloane Street underground station in London after an air raid.

I spent a fair amount of time browsing IWM’s online catalogue. Typing in the word ‘Bangladesh’ produced 57 items, mostly books but also some photographs, for example of an old navy ship that had been sold to the Bangladesh Navy; of the Bangladesh Army training abroad and with the UN; and some films, mainly of Chittagong. I was not expecting to find a large collection, as Bangladesh did not exist as an independent state during the First and Second World Wars. Interestingly, I came across a film showing the 81st West African Division fighting the Japanese at Mowdok, India (now Bangladesh). I wasn’t previously aware of African troops fighting in Bangladesh.

Typing in ‘Bengal’ produced 687 results, from a photograph of a woman’s handbag (with the Bengal Light Infantry badge) to young boys playing. There were RAF Hawker Hurricanes lined up in Chittagong, photographs of the RAF flying over Bengal and of 99 Squadron RAF based at Jessore in northern Bangladesh.

I then came across a photograph of a Bengali in London in 1940, titled ‘Turkey ➜ Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 43

Above right: Cooks with some of their specially-prepared dishes on their way to the mess at Stamshaw Training Camp, Portsmouth, 8 July 1942.

Right: Visitors to Butetown in Cardiff for the opening of the new mosque enjoy a meal at The Cairo café in 1943.

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➜ in London’, referring to a Turkish restaurant on Frith Street in 1943 (see opposite page). The photograph featured a Miah Jorif (I suspect they got his name the wrong way round; it would normally be Jorif Miah), a waiter at the Istanbul restaurant in Soho at work at the salad table, which, according to the original caption, is ‘the pride and joy’ of his heart.

The caption stated that Miah was originally from Bengal and had been in Britain since 1940.

Another photograph titled ‘Muslim Community: Everyday Life in Butetown, Cardiff in 1943’ (right, bottom) showed visitors to Butetown for the opening of the new mosque enjoying a meal at The Cairo café. In the photograph are ‘Abdul Aziz, from Calcutta, who runs a café in South Shields, Mrs Aziz and their daughter Joynob, Mrs Annie Nian, with her son Kenneth and Azin Ulla, a seaman from Bengal’. This was my first discovery of a direct reference to a Bengali seaman.

I also came across an Indian seaman (though perhaps not a Bengali) named Zavier Fernandez from Bombay who was injured when the Russian convoy in which he was sailing was attacked. He was photographed in hospital in 1942, undergoing a process of rehabilitation.

Another photograph showed a seaman who seemed to be a Bengali by the name of Mohamed Maberzak (I am assuming his last name is spelt incorrectly and perhaps should be Mubarak) being treated at the same hospital ( see opposite page).

I knew from my previous research that most Bengali seamen worked in the engine room as ‘donkeywallahs’ (named after the so-called ‘donkey engines’) and that those who greased and oiled machinery were known as ‘telwallahs’.

Others supplied the furnace with coal and disposed of the ashes. The working conditions were harsh and hot, and many

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Above right: Miah Jorif, a waiter originally from Bengal, at work at the Istanbul restaurant in Soho in 1943.

Right: Indian merchant seaman Mohamed Maberzok reading a letter while recovering in hospital after being wounded on the Arctic convoys to Russia.

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The Flag Officer commanding the Royal Indian Navy has sent a message to the personnel of Bengal saying, ‘We are all proud of you.’ Crowds flocked to the waterfront to see the minesweeper, which bore scars of the battle.

The Bengal ’s company included men from widely-separated parts of India, including Punjab and Bengal.

In a BBC broadcast in 1942, General Wavell spoke highly of the contribution of Indian forces: The Indian Navy and the Air Force are growing in numbers, equipment, skill and reputation. Men who broke the Italian line at Sidi Barrani, men who stormed the heights of Amba Alagi, men who took Damascus in the face of great odds, men who fought the rearguard actions in Malaya and Burma, men who stood and stand against the Germans, men who now protect India on all fronts from her foe, men who fight as

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seamen died of heat stroke and exhaustion. You can imagine my delight at discovering a photo of three stokers of the Royal Indian Navy on the mess deck of the sloop HMIS Sutlej in 1944 (see page 42).

We also knew from research that many Bengali seamen worked as cooks. I came across a photograph of the Royal Indian Navy training at Stamshaw, Portsmouth in 1942, showing cooks with some of their specially-prepared dishes on their way to the mess (left, top).

The Whose Remembrance? team recommended that I take a look at some of the collections held at IWM Duxford, the former Battle of Britain airfield, where there are large stores of archives. In particular I was recommended to investigate the BBC Monitoring Reports, transcripts of what came over the radio during the Second World War. Rather interestingly, there are transcripts from the so-called ‘Freedom stations’ – which were broadcast during the war against the British government’s line – a useful source for students of India’s independence movement.

Transcribed broadcasts archived at Duxford included some relating to the India/Burma border area conflict, tribesmen serving with the British, a Japanese boat sunk by the US, Eastern Bengal (referring to today’s Bangladesh), refugee camps, Chittagong, Dhaka, Comilla (incorrectly spelt Kumila), Sylhet, Bengal Premier, air raids on Calcutta and Eastern Bengal, the Bengal government, the minesweeper HMIS Bengal and disturbances by locals in 1942.

The Bengal broadcast was made by the BBC on 30 November 1942. It read: Heroic RIN minesweeper Bengal returns to port. The minesweeper belonging to the Royal Indian Navy which sank a Japanese tanker about 1,000 miles South of Java has arrived at an Indian port.

comrades side by side whatever their tasks be – these are the defenders of India in her hour of danger … who fight alongside British and Allied troops [;] these are true representatives of India’s nationhood.

Wavell went on further to say, ‘As their representatives I proclaim to you my admiration for them, my pride in them and my trust in them! By their valour we shall conquer’. We also see General Wavell in film footage where he welcomes Indian political leaders to a conference.

Moreover, the same film has clips of Indian merchant seamen repatriated from German prisons back to Calcutta. This was the second film sequence that I came across during my research that featured Bengali seamen.

South Asian historians who are studying India’s independence and the partition would find the Duxford collection hugely useful as a source of evidence to crosscheck or to use as a supplementary source. Duxford has a wealth of archival documents, including the proceedings of the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials, which are of interest to me as Bangladesh itself is at present proceeding with war crimes trials relating to the Bangladesh War of 1971. Within the Tokyo trial papers I came across a Bengali judge, Radhabinod Pal, who represented India.

In my short period of research I found only a handful of direct references to Bengali seamen or lascars, but that is not to say there are no other references in the vast collections at IWM. Research is a very laborious and time-consuming task. One would need to probe further into the collections for a larger find. I might also add that the collection at IWM is not just about war or the military arsenals, but covers a whole spectrum of the social impact of war, especially the destruction, devastation, death and tragedy it brings upon humanity, and reveals human triumph against all the odds.

With the First World War Centenary celebrations underway in Britain and around the world, I am sure that there will be a great deal more to discover about the experiences of South Asians who served during that war. The discovery and documenting of the lascars’ contribution to Britain’s war effort should be seen as an important part of Britain’s history.

You can read more about IWM’s Whose Remembrance? project at www.iwm.org.uk Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 45

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To book tickets for IWM Friends’ events please complete the enclosed application form or call us on 020 7416 5372/5255. All events include a donation to IWM Friends St Clement Danes Carol Service 7 December 2014, 2.30pm Meet at RAF Church, St Clement Danes, Strand, London WC2R 1DH Tickets: Free (members only) Tickets will be issued in early December.

Members’ Open Evening 21 January 2015, 6.45pm–9.30pm IWM London An opportunity for members to have exclusive access to IWM London after hours when closed to the general public. Members can view the new First World War Galleries and the café and shops will be open. The shop will offer an increased Friends discount on this evening only of 15% (usually 10%).

Tickets: Free (members only).

Visit: RAF Museum 4 February 2015, 2pm–3.30pm RAF Museum London, Grahame Park Way, London NW9 5LL A guided tour of the museum’s new exhibition First World War in the Air. IWM Friends: £12, Guests: £15, includes tea and coffee and a slice of cake on arrival.

Talk in the Tea Room: The First World War Home Front 12 February 2015, 3pm The Tea Room, IWM London Terry Charman, IWM Senior Historian, gives a talk on the First World War home front based on his book The First World War on the Home Front.

IWM Friends: £12, Guests: £15, includes cream tea (a freshlybaked buttermilk scone, homemade jam, organic Cornish clotted cream and a pot of tea).

Visit: Firepower, The Royal Artillery Museum 25 February 2015, 2pm Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, London SE18 6ST A guided tour of Firepower, with its extensive collection of heavy equipment from the nineteenth century to the end of the Cold War. Preceded by a talk by the museum’s curator entitled ‘Valour – The Story of the Victoria Cross’.

IWM Friends: £12, Guests: £15.

Visit: Bentley Priory 4 March 2015, 2pm Bentley Priory, Stanmore HA7 3GA A visit and guided tour of Bentley Priory, the headquarters of Fighter

Command during the Battle of Britain, which was re-opened as a museum in September 2013.

IWM Friends: £12, Guests: £15, includes tea and coffee on arrival.

Visit: The Gurkha Museum 12 March 2015, 12 noon–4pm The Gurkha Museum, Peninsula Barracks, Romsey Road, Winchester SO23 8TS A lecture, ‘Gurkhas on the Western Front’ and guided tour of the museum given by a curator and a viewing of a short film on Gurkha recruitment.

IWM Friends: £15, Guests: £17, includes a sandwich lunch.

Visit: First World War Themed Day in Oxford 17 March 2015, 11am–3.30pm Meet at Habakuk Room, Jesus College, Turl Street, Oxford OX1 3DW A visit including a two-hour guided city walk on Oxford in the First World War and a visit to Jesus College for a talk on the Royal Flying Corps.

IWM Friends: £35, Guests: £38, includes a self-service two course hot lunch in Jesus College Hall.

Talk: Identifying The Few 18 April 2015, 2pm IWM London Geoff Simpson, author of A History of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association: Commemorating The Few, outlines the clamour that ‘The Few’ be recognised.

Controversy surrounded wartime awards, including the 1939–1945 Star with Battle of Britain Clasp, and he examines the ongoing work of compiling an accurate list of those entitled to the Clasp.

IWM Friends: £8, Guests: £10, includes tea and coffee.

Visit: Orford Ness 22 April 2015, 1.30pm Meet at the Quay, Quay Street, Orford,Woodbridge,Suffolk IP122NU A guided tour on a trailer bus of Orford Ness, where the Ministry of Defence conducted secret military tests during both world wars and the Cold War. IWM Friends: £25, Guests: £28.

Walk: War Memorials in Central London – a Remembrance Walk 28 April 2015, 2pm–4pm Meet on the concourse of Victoria mainline station, London

IWM FRIENDS EVENTS December 2014 to June 2015 From Victoria station, where the body of the Unknown Warrior started his journey on 11 November 1920, to Westminster Abbey, where he was laid to rest later the same day. On the way, Blue Badge Guide Mike Armitage will tell the stories behind memorials to individuals, military formations and entire nations.

IWM Friends: £15, Guests: £17.

Visit: RAF Air Defence Radar Museum 6 May 2015, 12 noon RAF Air Defence Radar Museum, Near RRH Neatishead, Horning, Norfolk NR12 8YB A guided tour of a once-secret radar installation which was at the centre of Britain’s air defences from 1941 to the end of the Cold War, only closing in 2004.

IWM Friends: £15, Guests: £17, includes tea and coffee on arrival.

Visit: Military Tour of Highgate Cemetery 14 May 2015, 10.45am Meet outside the West Cemetery, Swain’s Lane, Highgate, London N6 6PJ This special guided tour, led by a military historian, explores a range of significant nineteenth century military burials in an area not usually accessible to the

public. Price includes access to the East Cemetery.

IWM Friends: £20, Guests: £23.

Colonel’s Review 6 June 2015, 10am Horseguards, Whitehall, London The parade does not start until 11am, but it is essential for security reasons to be there by 10am.

IWM Friends: £15, Guests: £17.

Visit: The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst 9 June 2015, 2pm–4.30pm The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Camberley, Surrey GU15 4PQ A guided tour of RMA Sandhurst, the British Army officer initial training centre, including the chapel and rooms within the Old College.

IWM Friends: £20, Guests: £25, includes tea and coffee on arrival.

Visit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission 17 June 2015, 11am Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 7DX Meet the staff at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and find out more about their work.

IWM Friends: £10, Guests: £12, includes tea and coffee on arrival.

Tour: Alderney – 70 years since the liberation of the Channel Islands 13–16 April 2015 Itinerary Day 1 – Arrive by air from Southampton (direct trains from London Waterloo) with a welcome drink at the Braye Beach Hotel and introductory talk by Trevor Davenport, author of Festung Alderney.

Day 2 – Visit the Alderney Museum and tour of the island, including the Victorian forts and remains of German labour camps. We will look at the island from the view of the invaders and the workers who built the fortifications; film screening of L’île d’Adolphe. Day 3 – Visit Strongpoints Türkenburg and Josephburg/ Fort Grosnez/ Marinepeilstand 3 (known locally as the Odeon) and the adjacent 88mm flak battery and Strongpoint Biberkopf. We will consider German technical prowess in building the fortifications, and possibly from the sea. Day 4 – Journey home.

Cost IWM Friends and guests: £480 (single room use £580), includes return flights from Southampton to Alderney, transfers and tours, bed and breakfast accommodation, three-course dinner on one evening and a cinema viewing. It is possible to extend your stay or to fly from different UK airports, including Gatwick and Manchester, to Alderney via Guernsey.

For further details contact Laura Whitman on 020 7416 5372.

More information at www.visitalderney.com and www.brayebeach.com Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 47

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WHAT’S ON

November 2014 to June 2015

For further information visit www.iwm.org.uk

LONDON Lambeth Road,London SE16HZ 020 7416 5000 Open daily 10am to 6pm (except 24, 25, 26 December) To buy tickets for charging exhibitions and events visit the website or call 020 7416 5439.

IWM Friends receive free, unlimited entry to all charging exhibitions.

EXHIBITIONS IWM Contemporary: Jane and Louise Wilson – Undead Sun Until 11 January 2015 A new video installation by Turner Prize-nominated artists Jane and Louise Wilson. Undead Sun has been commissioned by IWM to mark the First World War Centenary. The work explores perspectives on visibility, technology and the reconstruction of narratives during that time.

Truth and Memory: British Art of the First World War Until 8 March 2015 A major retrospective of First World War art including work by some of Britain’s most important artists of the twentieth century.

War Story: Afghanistan 2014 Until 6 September 2015 The voices and experiences of British troops, members of the Afghan security forces and UK government and NGO workers give an insight into this transitional period, providing a snapshot of a pivotal point in the country’s history through the personal stories of those on the ground.

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Horrible Histories®: Spies Until 4 January 2015 A family exhibition focusing on Second World War spies and spycraft.

Tickets: IWM Friends: Free, Adults: £6.20, Concessions: £4.40, Children: £3.30.

A Family in Wartime The story of the Allpress family in the Second World War. FAMILY EVENTS Suitable for children of all ages with parental supervision. Free, drop-in events.

The First Christmas 20–23 and 27–31 December 2014 11am–12.30pm and 2pm–4pm A communal art event making Christmas tree decorations inspired by Princess Mary gift tins.

Find out what it was like on active service and on the home front at Christmas 1914, when the popular belief that the war ‘would be over by Christmas’ was challenged.

Introduction to the Holocaust 24–25 January 2015 11.30am–12.30pm and 2.30pm–3.30pm A free discussion and replica object handling session is a useful starting point for families who wish to learn about the Holocaust. Suitable for children aged 11+, but note that the Holocaust Exhibition is recommended for children aged 14 and above.

Print It: Truth and Memory 14 –22 February 2015 11.30am–12.30pm and 2.30pm–3.30pm A free family printing activity in our art studio. Draw your favourite artworks on display in Truth and Memory and then transfer your design into a print you can keep.

Object Conversations Every Sunday 11am–12.30pm and 2pm–4pm View and handle objects from IWM’s collections.

PUBLIC EVENTS Truth and Memory Gallery Talk 6 December 2014; 3 January, 7 February and 7 March 2015 Starting at 11am, 1pm and 3pm A free guided tour around Truth and Memory, the largest exhibition of British First World War art in almost 100 years.

IWM Contemporary: Jane and Louise Wilson – Artists’ Talk 10 January 2015 2.30pm Turner prize-nominated artists Jane and Louise Wilson discuss the influences on their video installation Undead Sun, marking the centenary of the First World War. The artists will talk about researching at IWM and other inspirations, while locating the work in the context of their wider practice. Tickets: Adults: £7, Concessions: £5, IWM Friends: £5.

CHURCHILL WAR ROOMS Clive Steps, King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AQ 020 7930 6961 Open daily (except 24, 25, 26 December) 9.30am to 6pm Admission: IWM Friends: Free, Adults: £17.50, Concessions: £14.00, Children under 16: Free.

EXHIBITIONS Undercover – Life in Churchill’s Bunker First-hand accounts of those who worked in the Cabinet War Rooms during the Second World War. EVENTS Lates at Churchill War Rooms: Churchill’s Birthday 27 November 2014 7pm–10pm (doors 6.30pm, last admission 9pm) Churchill War Rooms opens its doors for a night of entertainment and a rare chance to explore this historic site after dark. Enjoy a drink with friends and food from our pop-up bar. The gift shop will be open, selling vintage gifts and souvenirs.

Guests receive a complimentary gin cocktail or soft drink on entry and a slice of birthday cake.

Tickets: Adults: £17.50, Concessions: £14.

HMS BELFAST Morgan’s Lane, Tooley Street, London SE1 2JH 020 7940 6300 Open daily (except 24, 25, 26 December) 10am to 6pm (1 March to 31 October), 10am to 5pm (1 November to 28 February) Admission: IWM Friends: Free, Adults: £15.50, Concessions: £12.40, Children under 16: Free.

EVENTS D-Day Family Trail Until 31 December 2014 Learn about the important role HMS Belfast played on D-Day. Tattoo T-Shirts Dates between 14–22 February 2015 11am–12.30pm and 2pm–4pm Design a t-shirt inspired by traditional Navy tattoos.

Cracking Codes 10 and 11 January 2015 11am–12.30pm and 2pm–4pm Intercept messages, map hazards and make up your own code.

DUXFORD Cambridgeshire CB2 4QR 01223 835 000 Open daily (except 24, 25, 26 December) 10.00am to 6.00pm Admission: IWM Friends: Free, Adults: £17.50, Concessions: £14.00, Children under 16: Free.

Tickets for the events listed below can be purchased online at www.iwm.org.uk or by calling the box office on 01223 499 353 EXHIBITIONS: D-Day – The Last of the Liberators Until 31 December 2014 A collection of photographic portraits

by Robin Savage featuring some of the last surviving Normandy veterans.

EVENTS VE Day Anniversary Air Show 23 and 24 May 2015 2pm–5.30pm Tickets: Prices to be announced.

The VE Day Anniversary Air Show pays tribute to the men, women and children who endured six years of conflict in the Second World War. Join us as we commemorate the 70th anniversary of VE Day and the people who made victory possible.

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NORTH The Quays, Trafford Wharf Road, Trafford Park, Manchester M17 1TZ 0161 836 4000 Open daily (except 24, 25, 26 December), 10am to 6pm (1 March to 31 October), 10am to 5pm (1 November to 28 February).

EXHIBITIONS From Street To Trench: A World War That Shaped A Region Until 31 May 2015 A major exhibition exploring the north-west of England during the First World War. WithDraw WaterWay Gallery display from 21 February 2015 Display marking the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, using new drawings created in situ exploring how life continues during and after their departure.

Reactions14 Exhibitions IWM has been commissioning artists to create responses to conflict since the First World War. Reactions14 gives contemporary relevance to the war.

Reactions14: Chava Rosenzweig Until 4 January 2015 A powerful installation of hundreds of porcelain stars fired in a gas kiln, commissioned by IWM North, explores the impact of the Holocaust on second and third generation survivors, how it has shaped lives and the complex relationships between processes of forgetting and remembering, destruction and creation.

PUBLIC EVENTS Poetry Workshop with Zaffar Kunial Saturday 13 December 2014 10.30am –4.30pm (suitable for all levels of ability) Join poet Zaffar Kunial in examining IWM North’s special exhibition From Street to Trench, and search for stories and objects to inspire your own poems.

Tickets: Adults: £69, Over-60s: £66, Concessions: £55.

Book online at www.poetryschool.

com/courses-workshops/faceto-face/iwm-north-poetryworkshop.php Perspectives14: Sport 14 December 2014 2pm–3pm (ideal for ages 14+) As the centenary of the Christmas Truce football match approaches, Professor Emeritus Tony Mason examines sport during the First World War on both the Western Front and the home front.

Free, booking required at quaytickets.com TimeStack Handling Sessions Daily at 12.30pm A great opportunity to get handson with objects from IWM’s collection in these themed 20minute object-handling sessions.

A Closer Look: From Street to Trench Dates up to 31 May 2015 Find out about life in the northwest of England during the First World War in this 20-minute tour of our special exhibition From Street To Trench.

A Closer Look Tour: The Berlin Wall Sundays to Tuesdays between 16–30 November 2014 A tour of our collections to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

A Closer Look Tour: Christmas Truce Dates between 1–31 December 2014 A 20-minute tour exploring the Christmas Truce between British and German soldiers in the First World War. A Closer Look Tour: Christmas Blitz Dates between 15–23 December 2014 Mark the anniversary of the devastating Manchester Blitz in this 20-minute tour exploring the theme of the Second World War Blitz on Britain.

FAMILY EVENTS Berlin Wall Saturdays and Sundays between 15–30 November 2014 Discover tales of bravery in interactive storytelling sessions Oskar’s Journey. Be inspired by the artistic expression and messages of unity created by those who left their mark on the Berlin Wall. Drop in to a craft activity to create your own messages and graffiti-style artwork.

What A Performance: Violet’s War 6 and 7 December, 13 and 14 December 2014

11.15am, 12.15pm, 1.15pm, 2.15pm (all ages) Special family-friendly performances dramatising stories of wartime life. Hear the story of Violet, a British woman living through the dramatic events of the First World War. Family Days: Manchester Blitz and The Christmas Truce Every weekend throughout December, plus school holidays 20 December 2014–2 January 2015 (excluding 24, 25, 26 December when IWM North is closed) Activities throughout the day (all ages) The whole family can get involved through craft activities and object handling. Join the family storytelling at 10.30am and 1.30pm. Get creative in the open studios and make something inspired by IWM’s collections.

Create your own artwork inspired

by Second World War images and posters to mark the anniversary of the Manchester Blitz; learn about the Christmas 1914 Truce on the Western Front and decorate your own fabric ball; or decorate a gift box inspired by the Princess Mary gift tins sent to soldiers during the First World War.

What’s on around the UK

Below is a list of exhibitions to which IWM has loaned objects.

RAF Museum RAF Museum London, Grahame Park Way, London NW9 5LL 020 8205 2266 www.rafmuseum.org.uk Enduring Relationship Until 14 July 2015 A history of the Royal Air Force and the Royal Air Force of Oman from 1918 to the present day.

Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths & Museum Buddle Street, Wallsend NE28 6HR 0191 236 9347 www.twmuseums.org.uk Coal, Ships & Zeppelins: North Tyneside in the First World War Until 26 April 2015 An exhibition about the Swan

Hunter shipyard, which built many of the British First World War warships.

Barber Institute of Fine Arts University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TS 0121 414 7333 www.barber.org.uk Rebel Visions: The War Art of CRW Nevinson Until 25 January 2015 CRW Nevinson’s images of the battlefield and its soldiers.

Hatton Gallery Kings Road, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU 0191 208 6059 www.twmuseums.org.uk Screaming Steel: Art, War and Trauma 1914–1918

Until 13 December 2014 Creative responses to the psychological trauma suffered by artists and poets during the First World War. Manchester Art Gallery Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3JL 0161 235 8888 www.manchestergalleries.org The Sensory War 1914–2014 Until 25 January 2015 An exhibition on how artists have interpreted and communicated the impact of war on the human senses, body, mind and the wider environment over the last century.

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FIRST WORLD WAR ESSENTIAL LISTS Our regular column featuring First World War-related lists of essential literature, poetry, film, theatre, music and television box sets. Please submit your suggestions to friends@iwm.org.uk or send them to: Friends Office, IWM London, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ.

READING LIST

NOVELS AND MEMOIRS The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan (1915) After a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger in May 1914, Richard Hannay stumbles into a hair-raising adventure against the clock, pursued across the country by police and a cunning enemy. Hannay’s life and the security of Britain are in peril, and everything rests on solving the enigma of the thirtynine steps. Filmed many times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935.

Le Feu: Journal d’une Escouade/Under Fire by Henri Barbusse (1916) Journal-like, anecdotal and episodic, following a squad of volunteer soldiers and semiautobiographical; written when still enlisted during a period when Barbusse was working at the French War Office in 1916.

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (1918) The soldier of the title is an upper-class officer who is sent home to his family country house suffering from shell shock and amnesia. He can only remember his life up until the age of 21 and has forgotten his glamorous, cold and similarly upper-class wife, so instead still thinks himself in love with a plainer, warm woman of more humble background.

Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos (1921) American war novel in realist style; Dos Passos volunteered in July 1917 for SSU 60 of the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps, working as a driver in France and Italy; broadly considered anti-war in sentiment.

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The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek (1923) Hašek served in the 91st Infantry Regiment of the AustroHungarian Army; satirical and partly inspired Joseph Heller’s novel Catch 22; first translated into English in 1930 and the most translated of all Czech novels.

Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford (1924–1928) A powerful story in four parts about love, betrayal and disillusionment in a time of horror and confusion by one of Britain’s finest novelists.

Ashenden: or The British Agent by W Somerset Maugham (1928) The stories collected in Ashenden are rooted in Maugham’s own experiences as an agent, reflecting the ruthlessness and brutality of espionage, its intrigue and treachery, as well as its absurdity.

Im Westen nichts Neues/All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (1928) This novel typifies the disillusion, disaffection, futility, grim conditions, mud and trenches that became the dominant themes of the view of the war in the 1920s and 1930s. It was almost immediately dramatised in Lewis Milestone’s Oscarwinning film in 1930.

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon (1928) First of the semiautobiographical George Sherston trilogy, using a novel format to explore Sassoon’s own upbringing and experiences as an officer in 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers. Initially published anonymously because Sassoon was unsure how a book of prose would be received, it soon became a set text in British schools.

Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden (1928) Poet Edmund Blunden records his experiences as an infantry subaltern in France and Flanders.

Blunden took part in the disastrous battles of the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele, describing the latter as ‘murder, not only to the troops, but to their singing faiths and hopes’.

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The Middle Parts of Fortune (also Her Privates We) by Frederic Manning (1929) A novel based on Manning’s personal experiences in 7th King’s Shropshire Light Infantry as an educated private who declines the opportunity of a commission, remaining detached, aloof and enigmatic.

Set during the Somme offensive, the book was published anonymously at first and then in an expurgated edition in 1930 as Her Privates We. Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington (1929) One of the great First World War anti-war novels, based on Aldington’s pre-war life in literary and artistic circles and on his wartime service in France as an officer in the Royal Sussex Regiment.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1929) Part tragic romance between US soldier Frederic Henry and British nurse Catherine Barkley, part more general tragedy set on the Italian Front, based on Hemingway’s personal experience. Filmed in 1932 (starring Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper) and 1957 with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929) An autobiographical work that describes at first-hand the great tectonic shifts in English society following the First World War.

The Patriot’s Progress by Henry Williamson (1930) Short, semi-autobiographical novel typical of the disillusioned tone of the period. Williamson was most famous for Tarka the Otter and for his political views, which led him to joining Moseley’s British Union of Fascists in 1937, having developed an admiration for Hitler in 1935.

Biggles by Captain WE Johns (1932–1999) Captain WE Johns’s adventures of Squadron Leader James Bigglesworth have been enjoyed by children for generations. Johns and others wrote nearly 100 Biggles books until the last was published in 1999.

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933) In 1914 Vera Brittain was eighteen; as war was declared, she was preparing to study at Oxford. Four years later her life – and that of her whole generation – had changed in a way that was unimaginable in the tranquil prewar era, as recounted in this first part of her memoirs.

Paths of Glory by Humphrey Cobb (1935) Arguably the premier anti-war novel of the twentieth century, describing the court-martial of four French soldiers for cowardice during a pointless frontal assault on a German

HISTORY AND NON-FICTION

Recommended by IWM Friends 1914: Fight the Good Fight – Britain, The Army and The Coming of the First World War

by Allan Mallinson (Bantam, 2013) Allan Mallinson explores and explains the grand strategic shift that occurred in the century before the war, the British Army’s regeneration after its drubbings in the Boer Wars in South Africa, its almost calamitous experience of the first twenty days’ fighting in Flanders, up to the point at which the British Expeditionary Force – the ‘Old Contemptibles’ – took up the spade in midSeptember 1914 when the war changed from one of rapid and

brutal movement into the more familiar vision of trench warfare on the Western Front. ● Recommended by General Sir Christopher Wallace July 1914 – Countdown to War

by Sean McMeekin (Icon Books, 2013) A revolutionary account of the genesis of the First World War, July 1914 tells the gripping story of Europe’s countdown to war, from the bloody opening act in Sarajevo on 28 June to Britain’s final plunge on 4 August, showing how a single month – and a handful of men – changed the course of the twentieth century.

fortress. It was made into a powerful movie by Stanley Kubrick in 1957, starring Kirk Douglas.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo (1982) A horse witnesses the deadly chaos of the First World War from both sides of the trenches in this acclaimed children’s novel. War Horse was adapted into a hugely successful stage play in 2007 and filmed by Steven Spielberg in 2011.

The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker (1991–1995) Army psychiatrist William Rivers treats shell-shocked soldiers at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland before sending them back to the front. In his care are poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen; and Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. Regeneration was filmed in 1997, starring Jonathan Pryce.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (1993) Set before and during the Great War, Birdsong catches the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale.

My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You

by Louisa Young (2011) Moving between Ypres, London and Paris, this is a deeply affecting, moving and brilliant novel of love and war, and how they affect those left behind as well as those who fight.

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BOOKS

Many of the featured books are available in IWM shops and online at www.iwmshop.org.uk where Friends receive a 10% discount.

Mission success in fictional form And Some Fell on Stony Ground

by Leslie Mann Published by Icon Books in association with IWM And Some Fell on Stony Ground is a fascinating fictional tale, written by Leslie Mann and based on his own experience as a rear gunner, shot down over Düsseldorf in 1941. The recently-discovered manuscript offers a unique insight into the operational lives, and deaths, of members of Bomber Command during the Second World War. With an informative contextual introduction written by Professor Richard Overy (fresh from his own success with The Bombing War ), And Some Fell on Stony Ground offers a powerful testament to the stoicism, courage and ultimate fragility of the men of Bomber Command, and to the women who supported them.

Mann’s alter-ego Pilot Officer Mason is posted to fly the obsolete Whitley bomber, with its inadequate navigational aids and a dubious success rate at hitting, or even locating, targets. Preoccupied by an ever-increasing list of colleagues lost and bedevilled by inept instructions, Mann paints Mason’s growing melancholy with an empathy born of real experience.

His descriptions of Mason’s ritualistic approach to pre-flight operations – or, rather, delaying them – are particularly vivid. In Mason’s words, ‘a trip missed gives you one more day’.

Personal survival is a key theme throughout the novel. Only the lucky and those who take no chances have a hope of coming through alive, and the inevitability of death disallows close relationships.

Nevertheless, there are moments of connection – Mason’s empathy for the bereaved girlfriend of a fellow airman, for example, is made all the more affecting by an accompanying observation that she has ‘no official status like a mother or a sister’, and her grief is thus solitary and unrecognised.

Mann’s depiction of operational flying is gripping.

Minor details – such as the aluminium ladder clamped inside the rear door of the Whitley, invariably ignored by the crew who prefer to ‘yank themselves in at the front’ – lend the narrative a quiet authenticity. Even Mason’s inner ramblings, intended to self-distract, offer food for thought – just how 52 ■ Despatches Winter 2014

many silk worms does it take to make a parachute?

Once airborne, Mann’s hold on the reader tightens.

As the Whitley approaches its target and the flak opens up yet again, the dialogue remains low-key but electric. Ultimately, Mann’s thesis is clear: for Pilot Officer Mason and all the air crews of Bomber Command, mission success and personal survival were largely a matter of chance.

Some purists might be dissuaded from reading Mann’s work because it is presented as fiction. This would be a mistake. And Some Fell on Stony Ground is written with considerable knowledge and insight. It is an important story, and one that the use of fiction probably made less painful to tell. It stands as a tribute to Bomber Command, and is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the experience of its airmen during the Second World War. Gordon Thorpe ISBN: 9781848317208 Hardback: £10

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BOOKS

Vivid and compelling The Great War: The People’s Story

By Isobel Charman Published by Random House in partnership with IWM A hundred years after the start of the First World War, this compilation, based on extensive research its author did for the ITV series, accomplishes something so vivid and compelling that it is nearly unputdownable. It is dedicated to the eyewitness accounts of those whose diaries, letters and published narratives are the threads around which this substantial history is wound.

Here are the long-gone surgeon, trade unionist, farm labourer, servant girl, vicar, actor, aristocrat, military officer, classicist, political activist and diplomat; their personal lives, relationships and hopes, intertwined with cataclysmic events at home and at war. The human interest is particularly captivating as stories stretch across society, from the privileged upper classes down the spectrum. As might be expected, it was women’s lives that changed the most as they went to work in unexpected ways on the home front.

We are also reminded that bearing striking witness was not exclusively the prerogative of the privileged and rich: exchanges between servant Emily Chittick and farmworker Will Martin as they courted are memorable. Will was killed by a sniper’s bullet at Arras in 1917; Emily’s last five letters to her fiancé were returned unopened.

We start with the quotidian, as our subjects go about their lives, little heeding the coming cataclysm. In spring 1914, young Cambridge graduate Alan Lloyd, an Edwardian gentleman and passionate fan of 54 ■ Despatches Winter 2014

rowing, missed the annual Boat Race in order to see his fiancée Dorothy. They little knew that, for the first time in its history, the Boat Race would not be run the following year. Elsewhere, patriotic working-class carpenter Reg Evans was reunited with his family after years in an orphanage when his widowed mother was too poor to keep him. Markedly effective and brave in the war, Reg was decorated for his courage. Shot in the jaw in 1916, his extreme facial wounds meant that he was one of those treated by the pioneering plastic surgeon, New Zealander Harold Gillies. He remained, however, indomitably optimistic.

The narrative is chronological, week by week, year by year, exploring each cluster of lives, but somehow keeping everything straight, the individuals brilliantly lit against the backdrop of momentous events. We witness the stories in parallel, with quotations from diaries and letters set against newspaper headlines. The whole is studded with facts and statistics, so that the reader is always aware, as our cast of characters are mostly not, of the broadest historical scope. We know

what is going to happen, as they don’t.

The sheer, determined patriotism is striking; Alan Lloyd writes to Dorothy, ‘I don’t want to fight a bit now I have you, but a man must try and be a man in these times’. Two years later he was killed in action. Helen Franklin, from a well-off Anglo-Jewish banking family, was unusually highly-educated – for a woman – and she became ever more aware of the complexities of history unfolding before her. She was to become a medical aide, doing chores like washing up for the first time in her life. Eventually active in Labour politics, she was astonished to be fired from a wartime factory for trying to introduce trade unionism.

James Butlin from Dorset became an officer before he finished his Oxford classics degree, treating the war at the beginning as just a fine lark: he was to survive and have, among all our cast of characters, perhaps the most successful of middle-class lives. At the peak of the social pyramid was Lady Diana Manners, who four years later married an upper-class survivor, Alfred ‘Duff’ Cooper; she too became a hardworking nurse interspersed with interludes of luxury.

The continual fascination of these real tales, so gracefully presented, makes for a striking composite portrait, combining a mosaic of individual lives against the events that are their shared history.

Marina Vaizey ISBN: 9781847947253 Hardback: £20

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BOOKS & DVDS Also recommended

The First World War A-Z Published by IWM From artillery to zeppelins, from Churchill to Versailles, The First World War A-Z provides an extensive yet bite-sized overview of the First World War in a pocket-sized guide for both experts and beginners. The alphabetical entries cover not only some of the key personalities, battles and tactics, but also more unusual facts about slang, songs and superstitions, which all had a part to play during the war. Written by staff at IWM and inspired by the stories and first-hand accounts found within its world-class collections, The First World War A-Z is an indispensable guide.

ISBN: 9781904897859 Hardback: £9.99 The Story of the First World War for Children

By John Malam Published by Carlton Books in association with IWM The First World War was the world's first ‘total war’. Although large-scale conflicts like the Napoleonic Wars had ranged across many territories, the scale of the First World War was unprecedented. It was also the first war between modern,

industrialised nations and mechanised warfare saw new and terrifying weapons deployed for the first time, including aircraft, tanks, zeppelins, giant warships and poison gas. Now, on the centenary of the start of the First World War, this factpacked information book relates the unfolding events and the human stories in a way that brings history vividly to life.

ISBN: 9781783120215 Hardback: £14.99 Voices of the First World War Produced by Go Entertainment in association with IWM Voices of the First World War tells the complete story of the war, from mobilisation to armistice, through the eyes and voices of the men and women who lived through it. From the British Tommy fighting in the trenches to the Land Girls helping to feed them; from the flying aces risking their lives in the air, to the women working in the dangerous munitions factories. A must-have for anyone interested in the First World War. DVD (100mins) £9.99

The British Spy Manual The War Office Published by Aurum Press in association with IWM Subtitled The Authentic Special Operations Executive (SOE) Guide for WWII, this wartime spy manual details the tactics SOE agents used for surveillance, demolition, covert communications and neutralising the enemy. Read how Churchill’s secret saboteurs and spies learned their trade craft from the original textbook issued during the war, from camouflage to signals, concealing weapons caches and constructing booby traps.

Full of colourful and imaginative drawings, photographs and diagrams on techniques such as how to make an exploding suitcase to make-up techniques for disguise in the field, the manual is a unique piece of British military history.

ISBN: 9781781314029 Hardback: £16.99

Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 55

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IWM SHOP

Visit our new shops in IWM London for unique and inspiring gifts.

56 â– Despatches Winter 2014

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IWM SHOP The IWM Shop includes presents for all occasions, with a number of new items for Christmas and unique gifts based on the Spitfire. As a Friend you enjoy a 10% discount. To use this discount online, simply register and email iwmshop@iwm.org.uk to confirm your Friends membership before you purchase.

3 Supermarine Spitfires T-Shirt £17

Metal Spitfire Model £520

Duxford Spitfire Hip Flask £15

Embroidered Christmas Cards x8 £8

St Nicholas and Reindeer Garland £5

Santa in a Blue Aeroplane Decoration £6

Sprint Black Alarm Clock £35

Family Bingo Game £20

Winchester Radio £75 Winter 2014 Despatches ■ 57

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AND FINALLY At the start of October Victoria Thompson left her post as Head of Friends, a position she held for ten years, to join the War Memorials Trust as their Head of Fundraising.

She reflects on her time at IWM.

The greatest museum in the world

IWM HU 65885

On my first day at IWM I was asked whether I had a connection to the museum’s subject matter. I replied that, aside from a great uncle who fought in the First World War, I had none. I think about this answer now and am embarrassed by how naïve it was.

I had visited IWM London several times before, but it was primarily to view its exceptional collection of twentieth (and now twenty-first) century art, which was the period I had specialised in as an art history student. Had I been more familiar with the rest of the collections, I would have realised sooner that it is a social history museum, not a military museum, which examines the impact of modern conflict on the lives of the people who lived through it. When considered in that context, I, like so many other people, have a connection to its subject matter.

Although none of my family served in the Second World War, it changed their lives significantly. My father, his parents and two younger brothers lived in south London. At the outbreak of war the children were evacuated to Swansea.

Evacuees at the station.

58 ■ Despatches Winter 2014

No family wanted to take three boys aged eleven, nine and seven together, so they were split up and sent to live with different families. The youngest brother was chosen early on and was looked after by a couple who had wanted children but had not been able to have any. He was welllooked after and encouraged in his studies, and he remained in touch with that family throughout his life. But my father and his middle brother, being older, were some of the last children to be selected, and both went to homes where they were merely tolerated.

My father was so miserable that he tried to run away several times. Unlike many children who returned to London in January 1940, they remained in Swansea throughout the war, because my grandmother had contracted tuberculosis and was sent to hospital to recuperate – they would not see her for four years.

During this time their house was bombed, and because my grandfather was away working on a War Department base in Shropshire, it was looted and they lost almost everything they owned.

Towards the end of the war, the family were reunited and re-located to Shropshire. In many ways they were fortunate – none of them had been killed or injured – but the psychological scars of this experience remained with them, to the extent that some forty years later my father still found talking about that period of his life very difficult.

This is why I think IWM is so important – it allows us to understand and to empathise with everyone’s experience of war, even once the living memory is no longer there. In my own case I was deeply moved while visiting IWM’s Family in Wartime exhibition and looking at the testimony of a 10-year-old evacuee about waiting in the church hall for a family to take him in. His description is agonising, and when I read it I think of how my father and his brothers must have felt in the same situation.

What I think is remarkable about the Family in Wartime exhibition is that it enables us to understand the human experience of war through one family.

Over the years I have really valued the opportunity to meet so many IWM Friends and learn about their relationship to our subject matter and what the museum means to them.

I simply cannot think of another museum in the country where almost every visitor has a personal connection to an aspect of the collections. It is this human element which I believe illuminates history and makes IWM the greatest museum in the world.

It has been an enormous privilege to have worked here, and never more so than when a spectacularly-transformed IWM London re-opened in the summer.

I am inspired and truly grateful for the considerable support that you have given to IWM as Friends and it has been a great pleasure to meet so many of you.