Please read item description
After The Battle, Issue 141
The main feature article
of this issue, running to 32 pages, is titled ‘The OB. West HQ at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in which Jean Paul Pallud outlines how after seven months of 'Phoney
War', the Wehrmacht launched its attack in the West on May 10, 1940 and within six weeks
the Netherlands, Belgium and France had been defeated, as had the British Expeditionary
Force. The Armistice with France was signed on June 22 and hostilities ceased three days later.
Of the three army groups that had fought
and won the swift campaign, Heeresgruppe A was designated to remain in the West and Generalfeldmarschall
Gerd von Rundstedt and his staff soon established
themselves at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just west of Paris.
The following article is titled ‘RAF Target Mapping Centre at Hughenden Manor’. Hughenden Manor, well known as the residence of Victorian
politician Benjamin
Disraeli, was in the Second
World War home of the top-secret RAF target mapping centre known as 'Hillside'. Employing
a motley team of talented mapmakers, it was here, in the quiet scenery of the
Chiltern Hills, that all the target maps for Allied bombing missions were
produced. This 8-page article gives a well-illustrated
account of the important work carried out at this facility.
The concluding article
is ‘The Discovery
of HMAS Sydney’. On November 19, 1941, the
Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney - the pride and fame of the Royal Australian Navy - sank with all hands after a short but sharp naval battle with the German
raider Kormoran in the ocean off Western Australia. The ship and her entire crew of
645 men seemed to have disappeared without trace. It was Australia's worst
naval disaster, which left bereaved families across the nation. Karel
Margry tells us the tragic story and
gives an account of the finding of the wreck of the Sydney in 2008 which is
illustrated with photographs of the wreck on the seabed taken by the search
vessel.