After The Battle, Issue 142

The first, and featured article, in this issue is titled ‘The Gleiwitz Incident’ which describes how, on the night of August 31/September 1, 1939, the German Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) staged a series of fake border incidents along the German-Polish frontier in Upper Silesia designed to give Nazi Germany an excuse for invading Poland.  The most prominent of these provocations was the seizure of the German radio station in the town of Gleiwitz.  Running to 22 well illustrated pages, this article also provides a review of the 1961 East-German movie ‘Der Fall Gleiwitz’ outlining some inaccuracies of the film using still shots.

‘From the Editor’ - Readers' letters and follow-up stories on previous issues which includes an interesting article concerning the identification of the machine-gunner from the 23^rd Infantry, 2^nd Division killed by a sniper; captured and made famous in a sequence of photographs by Robert Capra.

The following article titled ‘US Marines at Camp Balcombe’  describes how on January 5, 1943, the US 7th Marine Regiment, part of the US 1st Marine Division, arrived in Australia after having spent nearly four months fighting on Guadalcanal.  Weakened by casualties, malaria and fatigue, the men needed a respite and they were sent to Camp Balcombe for rest and recuperation.  David Mitchelhill-Green tells their story.

The following  article ‘Faking Monte Cassino’ explains that although many photos and lengths of cine film were taken during the battle of Cassino, which raged from January to May 1944, not all of the images were taken during actual combat or even near Cassino and uses a number of well-known examples to illustrate this. 

The final article, ‘Poteau Revisited’, describes how in December 1944, a German Kriegsberichter (war photographer) took a series of staged 'action' photos near the hamlet of Poteau, Belgium, that were to become emblematic of the fighting during the Ardennes offensive. Thirty-three years later, in December 1979, Jean Paul Pallud found the location and with the use of re-enactors restage these iconic photographs using the well-established ‘Then and Now’ format.