Tag: history

Historical, Wartime Memories, World War2 Comments

Rationing and the Merchant Navy

Johnny Jones - Nonagenarian Author

WARTIME MEMORIES No 4 I remember Rationing, and here is why it happened: Before the war, Britain imported two thirds of its food from it’s Dominions, principally Canada. This included half of its meat and most of its cheese, sugar, fruit, wheat and some other foodstuff. Its oil came mainly from Trinidad, Mexico & Venezuela. Right from the start of WW2, in order to carry out Hitler’s plan to starve the Britain into surrender, minefields were laid, and packs of German U boats – as well as surface raiders and aircraft – were sent out to hunt down and sink … Continue reading Rationing and the Merchant Navy

Historical, RAF, Scotland, World War8 Comments

The First Air Raid on Mainland Britain in WW2

Johnny Jones - Nonagenarian Author

Wartime Memories No.3 German bomber of the period – (Heinkel He 111 H) CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF THE EARLY LUFTWAFFE AIR RAIDS *This shows a deliberate change in German bombing policy, from attacking air defences to trying to demoralizing the civilian population. DATES OF AIR RAIDS ON EDINBURGH DURING WW2 WHAT I REMEMBER When, as a 5 year old, I was ‘helping’ my father to apply criss-crosses of Scrim (adhesive tape) to the windows of our North facing second floor tenement flat in the Bonnington area of Leith. (Scrim tape applied to the inside of a window was used to protect … Continue reading The First Air Raid on Mainland Britain in WW2

Historical, RAF, Scotland, Wartime Memories14 Comments

I was there!

Johnny Jones - Nonagenarian Author

Wartime Memories 2 History records that, for a period of eight months, from September 7th 1940 until May 11th 1941, Nazi Germany subjected Great Britain to a campaign of, intense bombing: Blitzkrieg. During which time the Luftwaffe carried out continuous air raids on London and other strategic targets across the length and breadth of the U.K. What is not so well known though is that almost 11 months before that, on 16th October 1939, the first air raid on the U.K. had already taken place and that it had happened in Scotland. * 1.1 THE INCIDENT I came into this … Continue reading I was there!

General, Historical, Old Edinburgh, RAF, Scotland, Wartime Memories, World War13 Comments

Guns Galore!

Johnny Jones - Nonagenarian Author

Wartime Memories No.1 Not long after the end of the Second World War, under the starlit sky of an early autumn morning, a chuffing, puffing old railway engine, enveloped in a cloud of steam, shunted a clanking train of open topped freight wagons into the railway siding just to the North of Bonnington Toll in Edinburgh. With the wagon’s brakes secured, the engine steamed off to get on with its next task, leaving the sidings deserted, eerily silent and hidden from view behind the high random rubble stone wall that borders Newhaven Road. Later, with the sun creeping over the … Continue reading Guns Galore!