40th Anniversary of The Aldershot Bombing

On this day 40 years ago, Aldershot found itself on the frontline of a terrorist attack. At 12.40pm a blast tore through the 16th Parachute Brigade Headquarters. A stolen blue Ford Cortina had been packed with 200lbs of explosives by the IRA. Its spokesperson in Dublin said the attack was first in a series of operations aimed at British headquarters serving in Northen Ireland. Now its also seen as a reprisal attack for the lives lost in what's now called "Bloody Sunday", all be it a "Miscalculated" one.

The explosion hit in the very heart of the Army town. But by an irony not unusual in such situations, the only army officer killed in the attack – which was meant to target army officers – was Captain Gerry Weston, a Roman Catholic chaplain. He had recently returned from service in Ulster, where he had acquired a reputation as a successful peacemaker.

Six other civilians, who all worked in the mess, were also killed in the attack on February 22 1972: Thelma Bosley, Margaret Grant, John Haslar, Joan Lunn, Jill Mansfield and Sheri Munton.

I remember being told the story of the attack when i was younger, and I couldn't understand how War could come to my hometown in one afternoon, but of course sadly now, its a concept we're all familiar with.

The bomb wrecked the three-storey building, shooting a plume of grey-brown smoke into the air and shattering the windows of shops in the High Street.

In a bumper edition of the then Weekend News, published after the explosion, the true devastation of the event was described.

“Within seconds, ambulances and fire tenders were on the scene,” the news article read.
“And men from nearby barracks whose windows had been blown in had already dashed to the dust-shrouded wreckage to claw at the rubble with their hands to release the trapped victims.
“On the scene itself, the square mess building stood a mere skeleton – with a heap of rubble as high as the ceiling of the ground floor spewed out in front of it.
“Grey concrete dust covered everything and soon the grim-faced rescue workers took on as pale a look with the powder on their faces as the injured they dragged from the debris.
“Pieces of cars – including the one used in the attack – rained down on buildings up to 150 yards away and charred wreckage from the vehicles littered Pennefathers Road.”

Within 10 minutes of the blast, police and army personnel ringed the entire area and searched traffic in and out of the barracks.
More than 150 extra police were brought into Aldershot, from Thames Valley, Surrey and the Metropolitan, and an inquiry was immediately set up.

My Dad and Nan were having lunch about 1 mile away when it happened, they said they felt a VERY strong shake in the ground, and the deep blast sound reverberated in your ears for a while after. They knew immediately what had occured, it was only the plume of smoke seconds later than confirmed their fears. Looking out the front door, they saw debris raining down. 

Frightnenly, my Grandad was on route to the Parachute Officers mess (where he was working as an accountant after coming out of the army) when he was called back for a cup of tea by the kitchens cook at a Barracks up the road - because he always went through the kitchen door rather than the front. Horrible to think that fellow women army cooks up the road were killed only minutes later, he could have been in THAT kitchen instead. I don't think he could believe his luck that day. But for all my Dad&Nan knew, he was there when it happened. I can't imagine how frightening that must have been for all of them. He said missed it by about 5 - 10 minutes. Makes you think.

Hundreds of soldiers and civilians flocked to the scene, where eyewitnesses described people running from the building, covered in blood. It was within two hours of the bomb going off that the Official IRA claimed responsibility for the attack. The branch said the operation, which was the first of a wave of IRA bombings against army targets on the mainland throughout the 1970s, was carried out as a reprisal for the ‘murderous killings perpetrated by troops’ from the Parachute Brigade in Derry.
But it later backtracked when news reached Dublin that its operation ‘success’ had killed a Roman Catholic army padre, five female kitchen staff and a gardener. The Official IRA admitted a ‘miscalculation’ had led to the murder of the civilian mess staff.

Noel Jenkinson was convicted of the murders after a 21-day trial at Winchester Crown Court and died four years later in prison.

Today to commemorate the tragedy, a service is being held at the (usually sealed-off) memorial in the former Montgomery Lines barracks in Aldershot. The event, organised by landowners Grainger and Rushmoor Borough Council, takes place at 12.15pm.

Thanks for reading!

Katie

Little Wooden Huts

I recently purchased a set of "photographs" off Ebay which were described as "Little wooden Aldershot huts built to shelter Kitchener's Army over the winter".
The seller also said:"I know nothing else about these, the various images from the whole box look like the owner was practising his photography, I may be wrong therefore listed to see if they are of interest".
The picture online wasn't great, but I thought they could be a nice addition to the collection. Once they arrived, let's say I was slightly surprised!

They are 5x7 sized prints, but each had a negative attached to the reverse, as they are 'portrait' aligned, they are actually from a moving image camera.



The first image gives a clue to it's origin:



As you can see in the bottom corner, it belongs from a Pathé cinema production, which first began in 1896 by French brothers Charles, Émile, Théophile and Jacques Pathé. During the first part of the 20th century, Pathé became the largest film equipment and production company in the world as well as a major producer of phonograph records.







As you can see from the other four prints, the scenes are of the construction of 'Kitchener's Army' huts following the outbreak of the First World War. They were otherwise known as the "New Army" or even "Kitchener's Mob" and were (initially) a volunteer army formed after recommendation by the then Secretary of State for War, Horatio Kitchener. I'm sure you will all recognise him from this campaign:



Kitchener predicted that the war would be long and brutal (unlike the popular belief of "it'll be over by christmas!") so set about preparing a force of newly-trained divisions to be used after the first wave of troops. He fought off any concerns, and refused to use the existing territorial army for the basis of the new regiments as many of its members had volunteered for "Home Service" only, he didn't deem them suitable prototypes. The territorial army lacked equipment and took time to form when needed.

This NEW army was used to form Battalions under existing British Army Regiments. These were put to practice in the Battle of the Somme and Passchendaele, where the Field Marshal General Haig used them in a risky and highly criticised attrition strategy.

All the five New Army groups were made up of volunteers, and at the beginning, due to huge numbers wanting to sign up, the queues ran a mile long outside the recruitment offices. It was due to this influx of soldiers they had to build quick accommodation for them, hence these Aldershot "Little Wooden Huts". Almost 2.5 million men volunteered for Kitchener's Army.







Needless to say, by 1916, when the news of these controversial war tactics had been leaked back home, the queues were no longer stretching around the block. Moral and enthusiasm was lacking, therefore Britain had to begin conscription like the other great powers involved in WW1.

AND, excitingly, after searching through the Pathé online archive, I have found the exact film that my negatives come from! It's only a 30second clip, but it's still exciting to think I own some of the stills.

(WOODEN HUTS) - British Pathe

(WOODEN HUTS)

The description of the film reads:

"Aldershot, Hampshire?

Construction on military base. Several identical small wooden buildings are under construction. Horse pulling wagon carrying building supplies, pan to a long building with just the frame built, worker leaning over in foreground using pickaxe. Foundations of more new buildings at right.
Army huts now built and painted a dark colour, soldiers and army officers mill about outside huts.
American cataloguer's note: maybe these are extra barracks built at Aldershot during World War One to accommodate huge volunteer army."


For me, these images are another fantastic example of the "Home Front" approach to warfare, and the feeling of misplaced optimism about their situation. No-one could have guessed the brutality of what was to come, it was still almost seen as an adventure. Those still at home were still unaware of what was occurring on those foreign fields, they probably had in mind the glory days of the British Empire and all those long ago battles we had won with glorious men on horseback. For these Aldershot men, it wouldn't have been long until they found out the truth for themselves.

Hope this provided another good insight into my Aldershot exploration.

In other news, I have an interview at Winchester University this week....exciting times!

Thanks,

Katie

New Aldershot Glass Negatives

Good evening!

I was lucky enough to win some more glass plate negatives featuring Aldershot, the seller couldn't tell me much about them apart from they were taken around 1920, so in the aftermath of WW1 when troops would have been returning back to town. It was a bit of a gamble as they only photographed one of the slides on ebay, so i had no idea what the other 3 were like, but turns out I was lucky with my gamble! (anyway, for £2.99, it was well worth the risk!)

As always, if anybody can tell me more about these (as i have been getting so many extra visits since my post on Frith Hill, so lots of you must be as interested as i am!) please do leave a comment or email me at: info@katiebedlow.com, I always want to learn more!





Those white tents are becoming quite iconic to me now!

I also struck gold with these two portraits, they were both obviously determined to get it right! I also love the use of the old wooden chair against the prickly hedge, quintessentially English!!





I am planning to ask advice at Uni about how I should approach printing from my collections of glass negatives, perhapes hand printing them myself could give them a new dimension and help make my intentions clear...because right now i feel like a bit of a mad collector lady (which of course, I am, but if i could make use of it, even better!)

Hope for those of you also researching Aldershot history, this proved useful!

Thanks for reading!

Katie

Aldershot History - Frith Hill

As some know, I am currently undertaking a research project of the Hampshire and Surrey area during the first and second world wars. Obviously, Aldershot has a rich and proud military history, but i am more interested in digging out lesser-known events and areas, particularly the few prisoner of war camps that featured on the heathland very near my home. I was lucky enough to discover a 'Magic Lantern' glass slide on Ebay, which depicted (very unclearly in their original picture) a photograph taken of a very early camp of German prisoners. I managed to buy it, and after a long wait for it to arrive, I have finally scanned it in. Here is the first one to show you the slide casing details,



As you can see, there was a clear headline of "The Great European War" - referring to the First War of 1914-1918. The second line reads "German Prisoners at Aldershot" but does not provide a date.

After my own research (which could very well be incorrect, but I'm pretty confident!) I believe this to be a photograph of the 'Frith Hill' prisoner of war camp which was created in Aldershot during August 1914, as there were no other specifically built prisoner of war camps built in Britian at the time. It was a disused industrial area, in a suitable position due to it's closeness to the coast and rest of the south's road access. It was initially used to process prisoners before they were passed to various locations around the country.

I scanned the glass plate and managed to get quite a good result, considering it's nearly 100 years old! I chose not to edit out the damage to the plate, as i find it all part of it's interest!



My research leads to believe that there were both German and Austrian prisoners at the camp, and the description's i have found of "vast wire fencing and guard posts linked by telephones" fits the picture well enough! Inside the camp, they lived in the same bell tents as the British Army. Inside the camp there was also a post office a hospital and sports areas. The prisoners and internees received the same food ration as the British Front Line troops, which of course, wasn't the case for the captured British prisoners by Germany. This is what interests me about these British camps, it was a completely different environment to those abroad. I agree that it must have been awful for the prisoners to have been kept away from their homeland and families for so long, but no evidence states that they were mistreated. I was relieved to hear this, as i would have hated finding out a more unpleasant story about a place so near to my home!

I asked my Grandad about these camps which were in the area during World War 2, and he confirmed that the later camps involved the prisoners in the agriculture of the area, with German and Italian soldiers helping in the surrounding farmland.

Apparently, there was 6 successful escapes from Frith Hill, which caused serious alarm to the surrounding areas, with thousands of police and soldiers joining the search to find them. Only one evaded their capture, and escaped the camp.

In four years, only 3 or 4 inmates died at the camp, and were buried nearby. I would be interested to see what lies on this area now,

I know of later camps being build on the common land very nearby, so that is my next research venture, but to find such an early example is very exciting!
The picture is very telling of the fear, the barbed wire fence in the foreground preventing the photographer from approaching, and the men clasping at the fence is of course, upsetting. I wonder if it was taken by a soldier or civilian? For a local of the area, it must have been quite a spectacle to behold, and i would imagine, a very frightening prospect.

Now, for the record, this is simply for my own historical understanding, I obviously find these events upsetting, however, we can't deny the past, and also, one must remember that the English camps were very different to those over seas. Considering my paternal Grandmothers side of the family were Jewish and living through each of the world wars, I do not take this matter of history lightly, but that is another story all together! But I find it very important that we learn as much as we can about our (not so distant!) past.

I hope for those familiar with my local area, that was useful!

Thanks for reading!

Katie