Fnurban #36 : What's in a Name?

There's been something of a pause in hobby activities in the past few weeks - largely just due to 'daily life' happening, really  ( 'Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans..' as a working-class hero may, or may not, have said ).  A little progress on painting 6mm figures for the Risorgimento project, but nothing finished and alas, no gaming.  But there has been a little 'military history' interest, with a common thread, that being my family name. 

I think I was slightly aware that one of Wellington's staff in the Peninsular bore the name Barnes - I think I remembered him being mentioned at 'No.1, London', Apsley House, which is of course well worrh a visit if you are in central London. But recently, and  possibly after Jon Freitag's ACW Shiloh game that I took part in,  I happened to search on-line for 'General Barnes'. There was indeed an ACW character of that name, commander of the Union army's 1st Division, who disgraced himself at Gettysburg, I'm afraid. However,  I was more interested to see some details of the Napoleonic officer, Sir Edward Barnes (1776-1838).  His Wikipedia page makes a good introduction.  He seems to have had a distinguished military career, rising to be Wellington's  'fire-eating adjutant general'  in the Waterloo campaign, and was wounded in that battle. Subsquently he spent seven years as Governor of Ceylon, and was Commander-in-Chief in India in 1832-1833.   Here he is, in a portrait by William Salter 

Need I say there is emphatically no resemblance to me? ( except perhaps what is euphemistically called a  'high forehead' )  And no evidence of any family connection - my ancestors were all  lowly farm labourers in Norfolk at the time.  But I was struck by a couple of nice coincidences in his biography.  Firstly,  that he was briefly MP for Sudbury at the end of his life - Sudbury being my adopted home town. As an aside, he was first elected in a controversial by-election in 1834, which was covered by a young newspaper reporter named Charles Dickens, and probably inspired Dickens' fictional election at  'Eatanswill' in The Pickwick Papers.         

And secondly, General Barnes died at his home at Walthamstow in 1838, and is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church, Walthamstow. His gravesite is marked by a large monument, with an inscription giving details of his achievements in life.  It happens that before moving to Sudbury, I too lived at Walthamstow, for about 10 years ( I suspect his house was a bit grander than my Warner Estates maisonette ), and I must have walked past St. Mary's churchyard a good many times, all unknowing. It has occurred that I seem to be following my illustrious namesake around, and it might be fun to do a little research into his life and career. By way of a start, a few weeks ago I paid a visit to the church, and found the monument : 

 as you can see it's quite impressive, but alas the inscription is by no means easy to read

- but it's a start, at least. It might be nice to find out some more.  Perhaps my new friends at the National Army Museum ( well, I paid for a membership there, mainly to donate some money and to get a discount in the cafe when attending their talks! ) can help..

Another thread of research is a bit closer to home - I have done a bit of family history investigation  over the years, and have recently been passed copies of  the RAF service records of a relative (with whom I also share surname), who was a mid-upper gunner in Lancaster bombers in 1943 and 1944. I  have his service record document which records his joining up in 1942, and then the sequence of postings to various reserve, reception and training establishments, finally arriving at No. 57 squadron  at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire in late 1942.  Scampton is famous as the base at which No. 617  'The Dambusters' squadron was formed in early 1943, and several crews joined no. 617 from no.57 squadron, so my relative may very well have been familiar with many  'Dambusters', though he remained with No.57.  He stayed with the squadron until July 1943, so I assume he completed a 'tour' of operations, and then transferred to various OTUs (Operational Training Units), perhaps as an instructor, before joining no.9 squadron ( the RAF's senior bomber unit ) in July 1944.  

All that information is interesting enough, but what is really fascinating to me, is a series of copies of  the squadron's Operation Records, for operations which my relative took part in. These give the date and target of the mission, the number of the squadron's aircraft involved,  and a summary of how the operation went - and then a separate section for each aircraft, giving details of crew members, time 'up' and 'down', whether they reached the target, time and altitude of bombing, whether results could be observed, and bomb load carried. 

As an example, here is the squadron's summary for the operation undertaken on the night of 3rd/4th March 1843 :

BOMBING OPERATION: TARGET - HAMBURG
Seven aircraft were detailed to attack HAMBURG. All took off, but one returned early with rear turret u/s and an oil leak in one engine. The other six aircraft reached the target area. Visibility was good and all saw the River Elbe and the dock system. The P.F.F. markers were clearly seen and bombed. All crews report a good concentration of bombs on the markers and report huge fires which could be seen over 100 miles away on the return journey. All returned to base except 'M' which was sent on to Wittering to land on the long runway there because of the inability to get the flaps down for landing. It landed safely there. Photographs taken on this raid show a large mass of fires with little ground detail. Those plotted (in all squadrons in Command ) show that the main concentration of bombing must have been on the little town of Wedel on the Elbe about 12 miles West of Hamburg. 

And for the aircraft in which my relative flew : 

Time up : 19:15, down 00:31. River Elbe identified and T.I. markers seen. Bombed concentration of markers at 21:35 hrs from 20,500ft. Bombing was concentrated around the markers. Bomb Load:  1 x 4,000lb H.C. + 96 x 30lb I.B. 

[  'P.F.F.' means Path Finder Force,  'T.I.' is Target Indicator, 'H.C.' I think means 'High Compression' (i.e High Explosive )  and 'I.B.' is Incendiary Bomb ]

I have Alfred Price's excellent introductory book Battle Over The Reich about the RAF and USAAF bombing campaigns over Germany, and he specifically discussed this raid - stating that the Pathfinder Force aircraft had problems with their new H2S centimetric radar sets, which were supposed to give an accurate picture of the features on the ground over which they were flying. The H2S operators were confused by low tides uncovering sandbanks which 'produced the appearance of  a river narrowing far downstram of Hamburg' . Also at Wedel 'Army engineers had dammed a small mill stream nearby to produce a large lake resembling in shape the Alster Lake in the centre of Hamburg... the majority of the raiders released their loads on the decoy, obliterating Wedel itself and several of the nearby villages' .  It seems from the squadron summary above that the failure of this mission was very soon known to Bomber Command.  No consolation to the unfortunate inhabitants of Wedel of course - and those of Hamburg had only a temporary reprieve before the horrors of the highly successful ( from the RAF point of view )  Operation Gomorrah in the following July.

I think the above gives a flavour of the information I am looking through - and perhaps the mixture of fascination and unease which they give.  I suspect that a big factor in our interest in military history ( or any history come to that ) is to consider 'what was it like to be there', and the sort of details available here help hugely in creating a picture in the mind of what the young men ( my subject being only about 20 at the time ) involved were going through,  and also, it must be said, of the destruction that they brought to the cities and people of Germany (look at the 'bomb load' details for just one aircraft,  multiply by several hundred aircraft  per operation, and think of the effect of them on the ground: huge fires which could be seen over 100 miles away ).  The amount of information available on-line on the RAF bombing campaign is impressive, including  from the  International Bomber Command Centre at Lincoln, which I now hope to visit. The records I am looking at give the ID number of every aircraft involved, and so far  a simple on-line search has easily turned up information on the fate of each one of them - suffice it to say that the operational life of a Lancaster bomber in 1943, even if not actually lost in action, was usually  measured in months.  Very sadly, the same goes for the crews, and the fascination of following my late relative's tour of duty is overshadowed by the knowledge that he 'failed to return' from a mission in July 1944, aged only 21. 

 

As an illustration of perhaps the 'small world' of Bomber Command and the amount of information available,  the above picture is from Wikipedia's page on 57 Squadron, and depicts  Flying Officer R.W. Stewart, a wireless operator on a Lancaster of No. 57 Squadron based at RAF Scampton speaking to the pilot from his position in front of the Marconi T1154/R1155 transmitter/receiver set :  it so happens that my relative flew on one mission in the same aircraft as F/O Stewart.  I am gradually reading through the records I have been given and transcribing extracts involving my late relative - it really is a very interesting, and sobering, exercise. When I was 20, living at a university and doing the final year of my degree seemed fairly stressful - I really didn't know I was born, did I? 

Aside from that, there has been a tiny bit of hobby activity, as I have made very small steps forward with painting my recently-acquired  Commission Figurines figures ( from their Napoleonic and ACW  ranges) for the 1859 Austrians vs. Piedmontese war in Italy, 

 

Here they are on the coffee-stirrer painting sticks ( always keep your coffee stirrers, I have a bundle of 'em ).  So far they've been primed, the infantry have been given their tunics/greatcoats and the cavalry horses have been painted. Still quite a long way to go, and xmas shopping, card-writing  and socialising has been getting in the way a bit, but  I will try to keep finding some time for them. 

I'm hoping to squeeze in one more post before Xmas, even if it's only a picture of a small Xmas tree - and maybe a little more painting progress. There is even a rumour of possible remote gaming.. we shall see.  Until then, keep well and enjoy the mince pies, everyone.