Standing Well Back
1940-1950

Eccentric Military Umbrellas – Part 2

A few months ago I wrote a post about eccentric military umbrellas, here.

Here’s another proponent of the umbrella and one of the most remarkable men in WW2.  Mad Jack Churchill was an officer in the Manchester Regiment and subsequently the Commandos. Read his wiki entry here, it’s worth it, but this link has more heart and humour than wikipedia.

Here’s a quick summary:

  • Served in the Manchester Regiment in Burma in the late 1920’s early 1930’s.
  • Left the army in 1936 after a “spotty” career to be come a newspaper editor.
  • Rejoined in 1939.
  • Initiated an ambush during the BEF retreat to Dunkirk by shooting the lead German in a patrol with his longbow. No kidding.
  • Joined the Commandos. Led a raid ashore in Norway while playing the bagpipes and throwing grenades.  (He’s English, by the way)
  • Won an MC at Dunkirk, a bar to it in Norway, a DSO in the Salerno landings, again playing the bagpipes as he led the assault on the beaches, with an ancient Scottish sword around his waist. Later got a bar to his DSO too.
  • Led a unit of Commandos working with the Partisan’s in Yugoslavia (bagpipes again). Last man standing of 1500 men assaulting Brac when captured.
  • He tried to set fire to the plane taking him to Berlin.
  • Sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Escaped. Recaptured.
  • After the war qualified as a parachutist and served in Palestine with the Seaforth Highlnaders who perhaps appreciated bagpipes a little more. Significantly he led the attempted rescue of a Hadassah medical convoy besieged by hundreds of Arabs, in full dress uniform including kilt and spats.
  • Served on exchange in Australia and took up surfing.
  • And the umbrella bit – as a young officer during his first stint in the Army: He appeared on parade carrying an umbrella, a mortal sin. When asked by the battalion adjutant what he meant by such outlandish behavior, Churchill replied “because it’s raining, sir,” an answer not calculated to endear him to the frozen soul of any battalion adjutant.
  • Quotes:
    •  “In my opinion, sir, any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed.”
    •  “If it wasn’t for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years.”
    •  About a remarkable incident near Salerno where he and one other captured 42 Germans: “I always bring my prisoners back with their weapons; it weighs them down. I just took their rifle bolts out and put them in a sack, which one of the prisoners carried. [They] also carried the mortar and all the bombs they could carry and also pulled a farm cart with five wounded in it….I maintain that, as long as you tell a German loudly and clearly what to do, if you are senior to him he will cry ‘jawohl’ and get on with it enthusiastically and efficiently whatever the … situation. That’s why they make such marvelous soldiers…”
    • “You have treated us well,” he wrote to the German commander at Brac after only 48 hours in captivity. “If, after the war, you are ever in England and Scotland, come and have dinner with my wife and myself”
    • From Hong Kong after the war had finished: “As the Nips have double-crossed me by packing up, I’m about to join the team v the Indonesians,”
1970-1980

Left, Right, Anarchist and Nut Job

The history of IED attacks in the US is full of surprises. The two organizations responsible for the most IED attacks, numerically, in the last 120 years is the Puerto Rican separatists organization the FALN (in the 1970s and 1980s ) with 126 IED attacks that killed 6 people in total, and the Iron Workers Union who between 1906 and 1910 used 111 IEDs to attack industrial targets, then finally the “bombing of the century” as it was called, when it blew up the offices of the Los Angeles Times. The subsequent fire killed 26 people.

I have blogged before about union attacks in the period, clearly industrial relations were very much an issue then, but the volume of attacks is remarkable.  But remember at the time there were other violent attacks on going – the “black hand” extortion gangs in the New York area were very active, as were the early bomb squads in terms of responding to them.

The LA Times bombing was the fourth worst bombing (I think) in US history, after the Oklahoma bombing, the Wall Street bombing and the Bath School bombing – tell me if I have that wrong.

The LA Times device consisted of a suitcase of dynamite left on some sort of timer. It was reportedly set to detonate at 4.00 am when no-one was expected to be in the building, but detonated early at 1.07 a.m. The whole case is fraught, even now, with question marks and conspiracy theories.  Indeed even the defendants lawyer the famous Clarence Darrow was caught bribing a juror. The end result of the bombing and the subsequent trial was a considerable set back for the Unions in Los Angeles.

At the same time as the incident at the LA Times, another IED was found on a windowsill at the residence of the owner, General Otis and another targeting another opponent of the unions.

So, in terms of perpetrators, the most fatal bombings in US history are the responsibility in each case of domestic terrorists:

  1. Radical right wing extremist (Oklahoma Bombing) 168 killed
  2. Regular nut job (Bath School Bombing) 45 killed
  3. Anarchist extremists(Wall St bombing) 38 Killed
  4. Radical left wing unions (LA Times bombing) 21 killed

Of course the 9/11 attacks killed more, but they weren’t IEDs per se.

1910-1920

Kurt Jahnke: the legendary German saboteur

I’ve blogged before about the German sabotage campaign just before the US entered World War 1.    I’ve been digging slowly through much new material with regard to Kurt Jahnke.  Jahnke was one of the key German saboteurs operating in the USA before and during the First World War and along with his close colleague Lothar Witzke and a more distant colleague, Franz Rintelen, they played key roles in the extensive and, in my opinion, largely underestimated or unrecognized, IED campaign and associated disruptive activities in the period. This disruptive campaign involved extensive use of IEDs, biological warfare attacks (anthrax and glanders attacks on US soil), arson, encouraging labor disputes, encouraging Mexico’s entry into the war against the US, etc I’m building extensive files on this campaign, bit by bit.

There’s enough for a couple of books, and frankly I’m a bit overwhelmed and the material demands much more beyond a short blog.  For those of you who haven’t heard of him, here’s a very brief potted history of Jahnke:

  • 1888 Born Gnesen in West Prussia
  • ? Enlisted in the German Navy
  • ? worked in Peking as a member of the International Customs service, possibly as a German Agent
  • 1909 Emigrated to the USA
  • ? Enlisted in the US Marines and served in San Francisco, Pearl Harbor and the Philippines
  • ? Discharged for medical reasons (malaria?)
  • 1912 Posted to the German Consulate in San Francisco as a diplomatic official
  • 1912 onwards – developed connections with China whilst in the San Francisco post
  • 1916. Almost certainly involved in the Black Tom explosion, New Jersey
  • 1916 Strongly suspected of fomenting and encouraging labor strikes in San Francisco
  • 1916 Claimed to be responsible for sinking 14 allied munitions ships
  • 1917 Almost certainly responsible for the Mare Island munitions depot explosion near San Francisco.
  • 1917 Involved in other bombings on the US east Coast
  • 1917 After declaration of war, operated from Mexico with numerous plots
  • 1923 Undertook sabotage attacks against occupying French forces in the Ruhr, Germany
  • 1920’s Possibly involved with official, but secret German collaboration with Russian forces
  • 1920’s Possibly recruited as a Russian agent
  • 1934 Formed the Jahnke Buro , a semi-official intelligence agency, aka “Abteilung Pfeffer” Possibly responsible for handling of a German agent in the US embassy
  • 1939 By this date Jahnke’s “Abteilung Pfeffer” was under direct control of Rudolf Hess.
  • 1941 – After Hess’s flight to Britain he “retired” . Some reports suggest he was fired in 1940
  • 1943? – Tempted out of retirement by Walter Schellenberg, head of the Nazi’s foreign intelligence department to return to intelligence activities.  Suggestions he opened a dialogue with Allied intelligence agencies in 1944
  • 1945 – Fled to Switzerland
  • 1945 – Returned to Germany, arrested and tortured by Russian SMERSH
  • 1945- Killed by SMERSH or perhaps not till 1950… or perhaps not at all… suggestions that he worked for one Russian intelligence agency but was arrested by another in a  turf war. Suspected by everyone of being a double agent of one sort or another.

As one might expect with such a full and complex life, establishing the truth is nigh on impossible.  Certainly Jahnke at times claimed responsibility for things he probably hadn’t done, such as the sinking of the USS San Diego, which he claimed responsibility for to the Russians interrogating him. Other things about Jahnke worth considering, which I’m digging at:

  1. Could he have played a part in the 1916 “Preparedness Day bombing” in San Francisco
  2. If so, could he be involved in the 1921 Wall St bombing (there’s a possible connection)
  3. Details of his sabotage attacks on the Ruhr in 1921
  4. Details of the explosive devices he employed
  5. Details of the China connections
  6. Details of US and UK operations in Mexico to counter his activities (quite a bunch of stories there)

There’s lots more to come.

1900-1910

Multiple suicide bomber attacks in 1904 or 1905

This is very intriguing – a second hand report about Japanese troops using multiple suicide bombing as a tactic against the Russians in 1904 or 1905. I’ve spent a few hours looking for a primary source or even a better secondary source and can’t find one – vague references to the tactic but no specifics.  Fascinating in its implications.   Rather than lift the story, here’s a straight image from the book, as is.

 

1900-1910

A most unusual IED attack from the Russo-Japanese war

I’ve found a new source of interesting historical explosive incidents that will fill several blog posts.  But I couldn’t resist posting this story straight away. (It’s a little apocryphal I admit). Stand-by for more from this source.

During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, a certain Russian officer was an impatient, overbearing martinet. He took particular pleasure in treating his Chinese servants with the utmost of harshness, for the slightest delinquency or indeed for no reason at all.  One of his favoured forms of punishment was to dismiss his servants and as they left kick them roundly around the backside as they left through the door.

 On of his servants became very irritated with this treatment, and one day related the circumstances to a man he met who happened to be a Japanese spy. The spy gave the Chinese servant much sympathy and promised him a solution – a pair of padded breeches which he would supply himself the following day. A rubber hot water bottle was filled with absorbent cotton wool and topped up with nitroglycerine. An initiation system using a percussion cap was fitted alongside such that any blow would cause detonation. The unfortunate Chinese servant was oblivious to this, thinking that he had a fine, but bulky new pair of trousers which would protect him. 

At the next meeting the servant inadvertently spilled a little tea on the officer’s uniform. Thereupon the master raged and raged and dismiised the servant in the usual way, but with perhaps a little more precipitation than usual.

One of the officer’s legs was blown off, an arm was crushed, four ribs were broken and the Russian was unconscious for a good period of time. When he came to, he found himself a prisoner of the Japanese who had overrun the hospital.  The Chinaman, well, he was never seen…

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