First of all may I wish everyone Yuletide greetings and hope despite the weather you had an enjoyable Xmas. This update is a fairly hefty one to make up for the fact that I didnt do one in November.
CONGRATULATIONS !!
I would like to start off by congratulating Paul Oldfield on gaining his badge. An event that occurred while he and many of us were attending the very enjoyable AGM and Annual Reunion at Bovington in Dorset in late November. Well done Paul.
FUTURE SW REGION GBG EVENTS
WILTSHIRE MILITARY TRAIL - 12 FEBRUARY 2011
The next SW event is scheduled for the 12 February. The theme for the day will be a Wiltshire Military Trails and we will start with a visit to the Wardrobe Military Museum in Salisbury. I am working with the Curator at the Museum to organise a talk about the value of Regimental Museums as research sources for Guides as well as a general tour of the Museum. The Museum’s website is the - http://www.thewardrobe.org.uk/
I expect the visit to the Wardrobe to start at 10.00 and last a couple of hours we would then drive over to Fovant to have a pub lunch and see the Fovant badges. Through Peter Lockwoood's good offices I am now hoping that we can get a presentation by someone from the Fovant Badges society. After lunch and our talk we can walk up to see the Military badges.
The day should finish at about 3.30 giving people plenty of time to travel home.
I have already sent out an e mail on Dec 18th asking for people to express interest just before Xmas. I am pleased to say I have had 5 positive responses so far. Can I ask those of you who havent replied to respond and do so asap even if it is to confirm you c'ant attend. If you didnt receive my e mail can you also please tell me. As the Curator at the wardrobe has volunteered his services I would like to see at least 8 people attending. If we drop below 5 I will sadly have to cancel the event.
SEDGEMOOR - MARCH/APRIL 2011
It remains my intention to work with Chris Scott to run a day event focused on the Battle of Sedgemoor in March or early April. Detailed planning for this will start in the New Year.
OTHER EVENTS TAKING PLACE IN THE SW AREA
D DAY CLUB EVENT 19 MARCH MIDDLE WALLOP
On behalf of the D Day Club (http://theddayclub.org.uk/#/events/4537040974) - Bob Darby has kindly extended an invitation to all SW group members to attend their next event which will be at Middle Wallop. This event will be led by SW Group GBG member Steve Elsey. Those members who want to attend ( & I hope to to so) should contact Bob directly.
TALKS AT THE RAC MUSEUM AT BOVINGTON
Members may be interested in learning that the RAC Museum has a programme of talks given by Military historians and authors. There are 2 events in the next couple of months these take place at 1930 at the Museum
27 January 2011 - Ian Daglish "German Armoured Tactics after D Day" . Ian is a well known author who has published several books on Normandy including 2 in the well regarded Battleground Europe series.
24 February 2011 - R Doherty "Only the Enemy in Front" (A talk about the Reconnaissance Corps in WW2). Richard is the author of at least 15 books most focused on Irish Military history including works on the North Irish Horse and the 38th Irish Brigade in WW2.
Details of these and other events can be found under the Events Diary heading on the RAC website- http://www.tankmuseum.org/
OTHER WIDER EVENTS
The diary for events run by or for GBG members in 2011 is filling up gratifyingly but also very alarmingly (for our proposed Sedgemoor day) rather too fast. Thus in addition to those events previously mentioned we have Frank Baldwins Education Weekend on 4-6 February in London and Chris Finns Airpower Weekend on the 25-27th March. We also have the Defeat in the West Battle Recce tour being organised by Terry Webb and Bob Darby from the 25-27th February.
I will be on the latter tour and as the proverabial guiding Virgin will be presenting the stand known variously as the Hardifoot bunker, Cresswells bunker or Le Peckel Blockhouse. Wish me luck! I am very light on sources or information from or about the German side of story so would welcome any information fellow guides could point me to.
RESEARCH SOURCES ON THE INTERNET
I had long since intended to highlight useful internet based research sources and this was well before I read with interest Mike St Maur Sheil's editorial for December Battle Guide. In his editorial Mike sensibly highlights both pluses and minuses about of the world wide web as a source for information.
I personally have never seen "content" on the internet as different to any other source of information available to me- but perhaps that is my background as an historian. It has be treated with scepticism and its author, originator, context, bias, and accuracy should be considered carefully and tested against other sources.
While I recognise that there are issues with bias, factual accuracy, sheer volume on the web the tools it provides more than compensate for these drawbacks. I thus make no apologies for saying I am an unashamed passionate advocate of using the internet albeit use it with care. That means in terms of teaching those who already know how to suck eggs following some general guidelines
- Ensuring you install and maintain excellent virus checking software such as Norton or Macfee there are others but these 2 are well regarded & I have used them
- You treat anything that offers you something FREE on the internet with the same caution as an offer for a free weekend holiday at a Marriot resort in Spain!! (sadly yes it was Marriott trying to get me to go so they could sell me a time share)
- You realise that there are alot of nasty people out there who really do want to access your private information so be suspicious of any un- invited e mail
- If you do register with a website provide as little personal data as possible
WEBSITE REVIEW
FOOTNOTES
http://www.footnote.com/ A new website which has already digitized thousands of records from the US national records. known as NARA. The site was the result of a formal but non exclusive agreement between the US Archivist and a private company to provide improved access to US records. Some records are free but the majority require you to pay a fee. A monthly sub is about £7 and I recommend you sign up only for 1 month. Be aware of the automatic renewal feature which is set to ON this will automatically renew your membership after 30 days.
A key benefit for me in my own research has been that FOOTNOTE provides on line access to many of the Foreign Military Studies documents - reports on German units in WW2 authored by German Army Officers under the supervision of the US Army Historical branch. These provide a valuable though generally biased (officers tend inevitably to put their "spin" on things) view of WW2 actions. As these documents are generally accessible only at the Archives and cost a great deal to copy. This site has enabled me to access some very useful reports on German units in Tunisia.
Well I have now run out off time - that all for this blog folks hope it has been useful, thought provoking and informative.
My very best wishes for a Happy New year to you all
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