Just Finished Reading: Narvik by Donald Macintyre (FP: 1959)

Spring, 1940. With the Second World War still in its earliest stages and the rush to get ready for the anticipated German onslaught in the West in full swing, a plan is devised to prevent the enemy taking control of Norway. This, it was believed, would deny her vast natural resources to the Germans and provide a launch pad into the Baltic and later Germany itself. With both time and resources in short supply it was decided to land troops along the Norwegian coast and garrison them there to prevent any similar action by the Axis. The fact that Norway was, at that point, a Neutral country bothered the British government hardly at all. As soon as Norway saw which way the wind was blowing, it was assumed, they would welcome the British as allies rather than invaders. But the British Navy’s breech of Norway’s territorial waters and her neutrality was hardly underway when the expected hammer fell with a detailed and co-ordinated invasion of Norway’s major ports and installations. Because of poor intelligence, confused chain of command and political vacillation an opportunity had been missed. Now the question was: What to do about it?

Essentially there was only two clear options: Withdrawal or Attack. Both had potentially dire consequences. The Norwegian armed forces, despite their willingness to fight the invader, had long neglected its military and was clearly unable to hold out for long. The idea that Britain could occupy and defend another country when it could barely defend itself was dangerously naïve but the Norwegians could not be simply abandoned to their fate. So, attack it was. A force of destroyers were sent to the vital port of Narvik – their mission to prevent any further troop landings and to secure the port for the Allies. Heading into the narrow confines of the Norwegian fjords with little opportunity to manoeuvre and without full knowledge of enemy numbers or disposition the operation was fraught with danger especially as detailed maps of the area were simply not available and running aground was a real possibility. But at least enemy numbers were expected to be low and resistance light. Those expectations however, as these things usually are, were wrong. Dead wrong.

For one thing the enemy knew they were coming. Radio intercepts had alerted German naval units that a substantial British presence was in the area. Knowing they were likely outnumbered the four German destroyers, one already severally damaged by Norwegian forces, lay in ambush waiting for the British attack. They did not have to wait long and the Royal navy attacked at dawn out of the mist and into one of the most famous engagements in its history. Outnumbered and outgunned the Germans attacked with vigour and daring. But to no avail. In short order the four destroyers of the German fleet were either sunk or sinking with heavy loss of life whilst the six British ships sustained comparatively light damage. Within hours the port of Narvik was clear of enemy ships and the troops already landed isolated and low on supplies. If a counter landing was arranged immediately there was a real possibility that Narvik could be taken with few losses. If. But returning to the fleet in triumph the victorious destroyers ran into the German relief force. Heavily outgunned themselves this time and fighting for their lives between narrow mountains of towering rock and snow a sustained fire-fight broke out. Two ships, HMS Hunter and HMS Hardy took heavy damage and reeled away sinking. The other four ships, unable to stop to offer assistance, fought tenaciously to break free finally reaching the comparative safety of open water, the waiting fleet, and the long struggle home for repairs. The first battle of Narvik was over and the Germans were back in control. But the German commander was aware how precarious his position was. Hundreds of miles from home base and with the world’s mightiest navy seemingly at his heels he had few choices and none of them good.

With two ships lost and more severally damaged decisions had to be made: Withdrawal or Reinforce. With the situation in the West deteriorating and the possibility of invasion a real one any more losses could have grave consequences but the opportunity to stop the German advance still presented itself. Their hold on Norway seemed light and their supply problems significant. It was decided to reinforce and land troops at various locations along the winding Norwegian coast. In conjunction with surviving Norwegian units, getting stronger by the day as their national call-up swung into effect, British troopships began arriving and unloading men and equipment – men untrained for winter fighting and equipment designed in the 1920’s unfit for the new style of modern warfare. But the ships and men needed defending as they disembarked most especially from air attack, something that neither the British army nor the navy had any great experience with. This was definitely about to change – in spades. As expected by the theorists between the wars, high-level bombing of manoeuvring ships had little effect and was, generally, easily avoided. Dive bombing whilst stationary in a narrow fjord with minimal warning – that was a wholly different experience. Those ships capably of elevating their guns high enough were rushed into service and came under concerted attack again and again through the hours of daylight. With captured airfields only minutes away and no allied air presence they began using the British ships as target practice and live-fire training exercises. Despite the best efforts of the gunners the inadequately armed ships survived more by luck and poor training on the German side than through force of arms. Ships dedicated to the anti-air role ran out of ammunition in a matter of days and had to return home to be rearmed and refitted. It was a sobering experience for everyone. 

Despite initial high hopes the tide was turning. After initial setbacks the Germans began to push forward and squeeze the British/Norwegian and French Alpine troops away from their objectives and back towards the ports they had landed at. With things going badly in France it was decided to finally withdrawer under the cover of the Navy and a handful of aged Gloucester Gladiator biplane fighters and hurricanes launched from a precious aircraft carrier off shore. The battle for Norway was over but the fighting was far from done. Blind luck prevented the returning troop convoy from running into German naval units but the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and her pair of escorting destroyers were not so lucky. Chanced upon by German heavy naval units Scharnhorst and Gneisenau they calmly began targeting the carrier at their leisure. With the carrier sinking, its sister ship sunk and calls for help jammed the captain of destroyer HMS Acasta had only one option. Calling for full speed and making heavy smoke he reassured his crew that they were not running from the enemy no matter how the odds looked. Emerging from its own smoke Acasta launched her torpedoes at point black range against the enemy. Back in smoke she turned again for a second attack and, as her torpedoes emerged from their tubes, she was repeatedly hit by devastating fire from the German capital ship and exploded with the loss of all but one man. But the desperate and heroic attack had not been in vain. One of the torpedoes had struck the Scharnhorst a crippling blow putting her out of action for many months to come making her unavailable for any possible invasion of Britain. Together with other losses sustained in the Norwegian campaign the German navy was sorely under resourced to undertake such a thing and this must have weighed heavily on any decision to advance Operation Sealion.

Told with great verve and passion this was a fascinating look at an early Royal navy operation in WW2 and one of which is, these days, hardly remembered next to the events in France and, of course, Dunkirk. But despite its fumbling start and ultimate failure this ‘side show’ taught the navy in particular important lessons that would stand it in good stead in the dark years to come and it most likely guaranteed that the planned invasion of Britain had simply become too difficult to contemplate in 1940. For which, I think, the whole world can be thankful. Definitely recommended. 

Cartoon Time.

Victorian nymphs painting back on display after censorship row

From the BBC

2 February 2018


A gallery is to put a Victorian painting of naked adolescent girls back on display after a row over censorship. Manchester Art Gallery said it took down Hylas and the Nymphs by JW Waterhouse (pictured above) to "encourage debate" about how such images should be displayed. But critics accused curators of being puritanical and politically correct. The painting will return on Saturday. "It's been clear that many people feel very strongly about the issues raised," Manchester City Council said. The 1896 painting was removed a week ago in an attempt to rethink the "very old-fashioned" way images of women's bodies were exhibited as "either as passive beautiful objects or femmes fatales". Curator Clare Gannaway said: "It's not about saying these things can't exist in a public gallery - it's about saying, maybe we just need to challenge the way these paintings have been read and enable them to speak in a different way." Visitors were invited to write their views about the decision on sticky notes and post them in the vacant space.

But after a backlash, the city council, which runs the gallery, announced that the painting would return to the wall. The gallery's interim director Amanda Wallace said: "We were hoping the experiment would stimulate discussion, and it's fair to say we've had that in spades - and not just from local people but from art-lovers around the world. Throughout the painting's seven day absence, it's been clear that many people feel very strongly about the issues raised, and we now plan to harness this strength of feeling for some further debate on these wider issues." The gallery is now planning a series of public events "to encourage further debate".

Speaking on Thursday, Clare Gannaway denied that the gallery was censoring the picture, but there were strong reactions on social media and in the art world. "Removing art due to political concerns is exactly censorship," wrote Gary Brooks on Twitter. "I think you can spark a debate without removing the painting," said Ben Perkins. Professor Liz Prettejohn, who curated a Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 2009, told BBC News: "Taking it off display is killing any kind of debate that you might be able to have about it in relation to some of the really interesting issues that it might raise about sexuality and gender relationships. The Victorians are always getting criticised because they're supposed to be prudish. But here it would seem it's us who are taking the roles of what we think of as the very moralistic Victorians." The painting's initial removal was filmed to be made into a new piece of video art for artist Sonia Boyce's exhibition at the gallery in March. Postcards of the painting were also taken out of the gallery shop. The furore came two months after two sisters started a petition asking the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to remove, or at least reimagine the way it presented, a painting by Balthus of a neighbour's daughter in an erotic pose. The sisters said the Met was "romanticising voyeurism and the objectification of children". The museum refused to remove it, saying it wanted to encourage "the continuing evolution of existing culture through informed discussion and respect for creative expression".

[OK. This almost literally made my blood boil. Despite the denial of censorship that’s exactly what this was. It was because the late Victorian idea of beauty doesn’t gel with the early 21st century’s idea of inclusivity. Maybe that’s true. But, and I can’t stress this too much, so bloody what! It’s ART. It’s ART from another age. Indeed it’s ART from a culture – even if it is our own – that many people would find alien. It’s ART from another world. Most importantly it’s ART. You can’t censor art because you don’t like what it says or it disturbs you. Parts of arts job is to disturb its viewers. When the first examples of modern art began being shown in public they almost (apparently) caused a riot because they were so different from anything that had gone before. People actually fainted in front of some of it because it was so strange. Once you start removing art works that do not pander to the latest cultural fads or beliefs you go down the road of Soviet Realism (which I actually think was often excellent art) where creating any work of art was a political act and artists of all stripes ended up in prison or worse. Or you get mass burnings of all kinds of art in pre-war Germany considered decadent or, even worse, Jewish. I know we seem to be drifting (or being pushed into) a more Puritan age but this kind of thing cannot stand. ART is ART. If you don’t like it then leave it alone. Go do something else and leave actual ART lovers to enjoy things some people simply can’t understand.]

Cupid's Arrow.............. 

Just Finished Reading: Being Mortal – Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande (FP: 2014)

We all die in the end. No one should be any more aware of this than the author, a surgeon in Boston and professor at Harvard Medical School. But even he, with all his training and experience still struggled with the reality of death, its personal nature and our cultures rather perverse relationship to this most natural of events. More than anything, when death comes up close and very personal, he realises that the way we die is often far more important in what he thought was the primary function of medicine – to prolong life almost at all costs. It took a family tragedy with the diagnosis of his father with a rare form of cancer to make him realise that quality of life and quality of death is far more important than simple, and simplistic, quantity of life. So he did what any decent scientist would do – he investigated the phenomena, did his research and sought out the advice of experts in the field. What he came up with both surprised him and gave him hope that we don’t need to leave this world in a hospital bed, surrounded by strangers whilst being strapped to countless machines. There are other, better and more dignified, ways to meet our end.

Slowly realising that his profession, one he had joined in the expectation of helping people live long, happy and productive lives, was often the cause of rather than the solution to, a significant amount of pain and anguish was a revelation. Especially in the treatment of cancer we spend an inordinate of time, resource and money fighting something that, by its very nature cannot be beaten. More often than not, the medical profession will try drug after drug and procedure after procedure knowing full well that the prognosis is not good and that the odds of even recovering some functionality – never mind a full cure – are vanishingly small, and yet they try, not wanting to give up hope of a miracle and, to be honest not wanting to look bad. But giving false hope is, more often than not, worse than no hope at all. At least with the knowledge that time is short the patient can make their peace with the world and, plan their demise in the fashion that they would like it to go – with a brain not addled by aggressive chemicals and with, above all else, dignity and some element of personal control.

Using examples of hospices and organisations dedicated to allowing people to die in a way they choose rather than one which is done to them – no matter their personal circumstances, beliefs or needs – this is a deeply moving, sweetly sad and often amazingly uplifting book. One example struck me in particular. A new administrator at a nursing home wanted to try and improve the environment and did so by bringing in plants to add some much needed life into what was a very sterile environment. After that minor achievement he then persuaded the committee to allow several cats *and* dogs to be made available for residents to jointly keep. But he then pushed things further with the idea that each resident should have a bird – in their room. That was hundreds of birds. After much hard work and expectation of disaster the opposite happened. Patients who were on the edge of death got better, drug prescriptions dropped, life expectancy increased in spite of that and even residents who had not spoken a word in months began instructing the nurses about their birds needs and began offering to walk the dog. Then they had a crèche attached for the staff’s children and a nearby college was encouraged to send over students interested in caring for the elderly. Friendships across generations flourished and the nursing home became the very opposite of the sterile, lifeless place it had been before such a short time before the new resident doctor/administrator had arrived. If you had to die away from your family, for whatever reason, I could think of a lot worse places than one with the sound of children’s laughter in the corridors and the soft purring of a cat in your lap as you played a slow game of chess with someone less than a third your age trying not to be distracted by your stories of the decades before they were born. When the alternative is to end this life insensible on drugs and kept alive, if you can call it that, by machines pumping your blood and inflating your lungs long after they bought would have stopped in the natural order of things – well, it’s no real alternative at all is it?

This is most definitely a thoughtful and most thought provoking book. We’re all aging whether we like it or not. I don’t feel old most of the time but the signs are there. I’ll be 58 in a few short months so it’s no real surprise that thoughts turn in the direction of how things will end. The regular reminder of mortality when my heroes are starting to die off with all too steady predictability concentrates the mind in a way I never thought possible. Personally I’d rather go out laughing at someone’s off-colour joke than in a chemically induced haze that fogged the line between life and death so much that even I wouldn’t realise I’d died if someone didn’t tell me. Despite not exactly being a subject that we talk about, never mind think about much, this is an important book for everyone as we approach our own demise. Highly recommended.

Welcome to one of my Favourite Months on SaLT - Love & Relationships Month, what with Valentine's Day just around the corner. But don't be too worried.... my regular readers will know that things won't get *too* soppy..... So, enjoy and go hug a loved one!

Cartoon Time.

Is it Spring yet?

Just Finished Reading: Shooting in the Dark – Riot Police in Britain by Gerry Northam (1988)

For most of the history of the British police force individual ‘bobbies’ have been armed with no more than a wooden truncheon, their authority and their own wits. Mostly this was enough. The public respected the police and saw them, by and large, as someone there to protect them. Even criminals saw them, mostly, as someone to respect. Of course there have long been armed criminals but few resorted to fatal violence against the police and those who did where both vilified and treated with heavy sentences. Then came the 1960’s and an era of large scale protest. The police coped, mostly, and relied heavily on large numbers of (again) unarmed police to restrict any public disturbance to a minimum. But it couldn’t last.

With increasing terrorist activity from the IRA and other groups throughout Europe as well as political upheaval and increasing political violence at home the police authorities themselves began to wonder and worry that their membership was at increased risk of injury or even death. Added to this was the concern that the increasing number of women officers could be in enhanced risk of serious attack. Respect for the ‘thin blue line’ was, it seemed eroding year by year. At first the changes were unobtrusive. The design of the traditional helmets was changed to make them tougher giving enhanced protection against thrown missiles. Likewise the material used in the uniform was upgraded to provide better fire protection from the increasing use of petrol bombs during rioting. But such subtle changes were nowhere near enough. During a series of urban rioting in the early 1980’s television audiences saw unarmed and clearly under equipped police driven (however briefly) from the streets under a hail of rocks and other objects that they fended off with bin-lids. It was a pitiful sight that deeply disturbed the establishment and, to be honest, a good portion of the public. Something had to be done and done it was – although largely behind closed doors and without much in the way of oversight.

Of course the British police had much experience to draw on from, for example, the French CRS anti-riot squads and the RUC in Northern Ireland. The idea of a dedicated riot police force was rejected as both too extreme and too expensive. Likewise the more military response in Belfast and other areas was considered too controversial and too confrontational. So the police looked elsewhere – Hong Kong. The Colonial Police in that exotic urban environment had a great deal of experience in riot control and could offer comprehensive advice on details such as armoured Land Rovers, the use of ‘snatch squads’ and CS gas not to mention ‘baton rounds’ and plastic bullets. Such advice was eagerly sought and incorporated into the classified Public Order Manual then distributed to Chief Constables around the UK. An intensive training programme followed with thousands of officers and senior officers training in simulated environments against real people (other police officers) using real rocks and real petrol bombs. The next time a riot and public disturbance happened the police were ready and it showed.

Which, as the author maintains, was part of the problem. The police had indeed become semi-professional riot police and had, seemingly, moved from a force operating by consent to one operating by force of arms – and all without a hint of public debate. It was this fundamental change in role and the secrecy surrounding it that the author aimed to expose to the world. Interviewing many of the people involved in the programme, including some of its critics on the inside, this is a detailed (and sometimes over-detailed) analysis of how we got here (in 1988!) and the way it seemed to be going with the increasingly apparent para-militarisation of the police and the slow drift into an occupation force dedicated to the suppression of revolt and dissent.

But hindsight is a wonderful thing. Looking back from 2018 we can see that most of his fears were unfounded. The police might be much better today at managing public disorder and coping with urban riots - to say nothing of responding to terrorist incidents - but they have not morphed into the paramilitary occupation force the author feared. Still most of the police are unarmed most of the time. The number of armed officers has certainly increased as has their level of individual protection with light body armour fitted as standard issue but this has been a slow, gradual process and may actually be trailing public opinion on the subject. Seeing armed police today – including those at airports or outside public buildings with automatic weapons (usually the H&K MP5 or MP7) no longer causes comment or even a second glance. I clearly remember in the early 1990’s when the government brought in the idea of a ‘ring of steel’ in central London where I worked which included roving road blocks. Walking along, minding my own business one lunchtime, several unmarked transit vans stopped in the road and seemingly dozens (so probably around 10-14) police armed with machine-pistols emerged, took up positions on either side of the street and started pulling cars over. It was astonishing to see and people stopped and stared as it went on. By the third time I’d seen this in action people around me didn’t even slow down or comment on what was happening mere feet away. We’d already adapted to the new reality. Likewise seeing an armed police officer in my local supermarket who had popped in to pick up a few supplies before going back on motorway patrol. Odd, but barely worth talking about.

So, despite the fact that the author’s polemic stand now seems rather quaint, this slice of political history is still very much worth reading as an insight into the mind-set of both the police at that time and the dissenters who, wrongly in my opinion, saw what they thought would inevitably give rise to paramilitarism. I don’t believe that the police themselves want it (as evidenced in a recent survey inside the police about the regular carrying of guns) and I don’t think that the public would stand for it without a very good reason – after appropriate public consultation. An interesting read but probably only for those actively interesting in the history of riot police.