The Schermuly
The word 'Schermuly' is synonymous with an illumination parachute flare but where does it come from? William Schermuly was born in 1857 going to sea on HMS Warspite and a…
Air Supply in the Burma Campaigns
In the series on logistics I briefly touched on air despatch or aerial delivery in the Burma campaigns of World War II. This paper from the USAF Library goes into some…
The Cult of the Imperfect
I watched Castles in the Sky over the weekend, the story of Robert Alexander Watson-Watt and the invention of radar staring Eddie Izzard. A great story of British innovation and…
The Story of FRES – A Summary
Where do you start with a summary of the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES)? THIS SERIES HAS BEEN REPLACED WITH A MORE IN DEPTH STUDY, LINK BELOW http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/from-scimitar-to-fres-to-ajax/ I suppose…
Ronald Reagan Normandy 1984
Of all the stuff floating around the internet for the recent 70th anniversary of D Day, and there was mountains of really excellent material, I saw a reference to this…
Another Inglis Bridge in die Wild
As the fine readers of Think Defence know, bridges are a particular interest here at TD Towers. One of the precursors to the famous Bailey Bridge was the much less…
The Funnies of D Day
Always a favourite at TD Towers, the Imperial War Museum have a great collection if if images, a short extract of which are below http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-funny-tanks-of-d-day
Exercise Tiger Underwater Survey
Exercise Tiger (Operation Tiger) was the code name for a series of pre D Day practice runs at Slapton Sands on the Dorset Coast in 1944 that sadly resulted in…