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POW Object of the Month display

By Object of the Month

Our objects for this months are focusing on POWs (Prisoners of War) in this area during the Second World War. The treatment of prisoners during WW2 is a very deep topic as the experiences of these people can vary widely depending on country, nationality, location and even on a individual bases.

This photo on display here shows Jenkinstown Solport, Longtown which was used to houses POW mostly Italian ones. This kind of housing was not unusual for Italian prisoners especially after Italy surrendered and its later defection to the Allied side in late 1943 as there was a need for labour to support the Land Army in growing crops. The Italians were very interesting people and the Devils Porridge has records from many people who remember them. Many farmed the land but some did get involved in garden work as one Robert Jonhstone is reported to have had Italians gardening turnips when the war ended (they took it well apparently). After Italy’s position in WW2 changed many Italians were granted more freedom, which around this area apparently allowed them obtain bikes and attend the local cinema on very many occasion, though it was briefly interrupted by nails placed on the road by local boys. The trips might also have helped their English as despite having a generally warm relationship with many locals some recall struggling to teach them English especially when it came to playing games.

This new freedom clearly came with some free time as the wooden sculpture also on display shows, it is supposed to be Charlie Chaplin, maybe Oliver Hardy or mock of Churchill up to you.

 

The German POWs were met with a larger degree of reservation for self-evident reasons. Despite this it should be noted that Britian’s treatment of them was later considered to be within the bounds of the Geneva Convention, meaning they were provided with food and clothing though often of a inferior quality as war shortages worsened. Medical and dental care was also allowed by Germans who had the skills to provide it. The freedom of the German POW however depended on the colour code, a system which was designed to discover the seriousness of the person political views, most obviously their views on Fascism, those who held the strongest views were given less freedoms while other with lesser views would be seperated and attempts would be made to re-educate them on democracy. This even included real footage of liberated concentration camps which had a huge effect on some POWs. The presence of the Germans in society was not overly unpleasant but needless to say that some people did resent or felt uncomfortable in their presence, especially those with military experience. Despite this some did integrate well, one very impressive case was Fred Sichert a former paratrooper who was captured during the Normandy campaign and was brought to Longtown to work on farms, he would become living proof of the ability to turn POWs as during his time Fred would not only be trusted to deliver milk to the various locations but would also permanently relocate to Cumbria after the war.

 

And in true movie like fashion Fred would meet his future wife Isabella on one of his milk runs to the Crown Hotel, though back to reality Fred did have to write to the home office for a special license in order to get married, so not quite Romeo and Juliet but very heartwarming all the same.

Front cover of Gretna Parish War Memorial book.

Ken J. Stafford M.C. Lieut. R.F.A.

By Collections blog

 This will be the first in a series of posts commemorating those named on the Gretna and Dornock Parish WW1 War Memorials. Today we commemorate Ken J. Stafford M.C. Lieut. R.F.A.

 

Kenneth James Stafford, Military Cross, age 20, Lieutenant 37th Battery, 27th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.

 

Born in 1898 in St. Andrews, Fife. Son of the Reverend John Owen Stafford, Minister at Mochrum Parish Church and (for many years) at Gretna Parish Church, and of Mary Anne Tweedie Kerr Stafford.

 

Kenneth was educated at Carlisle Grammer School and at Clifton Bank School, St. Andrews. He enlisted in April 1916 was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in February 1917 and promoted to Lt. in August 1918. He was awarded the Military Cross.

 

“Lt. Kenneth James Stafford, R.F.A. (Spec. Res.) attd. 37th Battery, 27th Brigade. For great gallantry and devotion to duty on 4 November 1918 near Beaudignies, when his battery was heavily shelled, he went up to the position and remained there for some hours encouraging the men and attending to several who were wounded. He continued to do so after being badly wounded. Throughout these operation he set a fine example to those with him.

 

Died of Wounds – 14 November 1918.

 

Commonwealth War Grave – St. Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France. Also named the Mochrum Parish War Memorial in Port William, Wigtownshire.

 

Kenneth’s father, The Rev. John Owen Stafford was killed on 7 April 1941 in Gretna when a German Bomb hit the town’s Masonic Hall.

Mossband House with the Mossband Clock. This is an archive photo.

Mossband Clock Unveiling

By Archive

Look out for a Facebook live event happening Wednesday November 11th at 9.15am unveiling the new Mossband Clock display.

 

Last week the Museum was closed to install a major new display, the Mossband Clock. You might remeber seeing this clock on Mossband house until its demolition several years ago. Mossband House was the central HQ of HM Factory Gretna. The clock was the only part of the building that was saved when the house was demolished.

 

 

The Facebook live event will start at 9.15am on Wednesday morning, if you are interested in watching this event the link to our Facebook page is below:

https://www.facebook.com/devilsporridge/

Roundabout near Gretna Gateway. This photo is from the past.

Old Gretna Drop-in Session

By Archive

A chance to talk with Judith Hewitt, Manager of The Devil’s Porridge Museum about objects in the Museum collection.  Judith will showcase maps, photographs and objects relating to Gretna in World War One.  Come along if you’d like to take a look and discuss any aspect of local history with her.

A child's Mickey Mouse Gas Mask on display in The Devil's Porridge Museum.

WW2 Gas Masks

By Collections blog

One of the gas masks which we have on display within the Museum is a kids Mickey Mouse gas mask from WW2. These masks were desinged to look like Mickey Mouse to appeal more to children and to encourage them to wear them. Children were asked to keep their masks within reach at all times, which meant they had to take them to school stored in a box with string on it to go over the child’s shoulder, they also had to keep them next to their bed at night and when they were doing general activities in the event of a sudden German gas attack. Kids were sometimes told to wear the masks in class while they were at school, presumably to get the children more used to wearing them so they wouldn’t struggle or refuse to put them on in the event of a gas attack. 10 million of these masks were made and distributed in 1938 in the event of the outbreak of war.

 

On display with the Childs Mickey Mouse gas mask is a gas mask for babies which is designed to cover the top half of the child and strap around them like a nappy which allows means only their legs are exposed. These gas masks were issued to every child up to 2 years old in 1938 when all citizens were issued a gas mask in the event of an outbreak of war. These gas masks were tied securely which made it air-tight, and had a big visor so that the child could see out of it. These gas masks were fitted with an asbestos filter which absorbed poisonous gas, attached to this was a rubber tube with a handle which was used to pump air into the mask which would be used by the child’s parent or any other adult present. Many paretn doubted these masks as they were very skeptical about putting their child in a completey air tight mask. There were also reports that during demonstrations babies fell asleep and became unnaturally still inside the masks. It is likely that the pump didnt push enought air into the mask and the babies came close to suffocating, luckily this was never put to the test.

 

These two gas masks were made safe by a professional from Kadec Asbestos Management with some of the other gas masks we had kept in the Museums store cupboard. This was kindly funded by Museums Galleries Scotland and allows us to better our Museum collection by making the gas masks we have in our possession safe for public viewing and for staff who work with the objects.

 

WW2 National Defence Pocket Book

By Collections blog

This Pocket Book is from WW2 and covers a wide range of subjects which anyone fighting in WW2 would need to know such as labelled gun diagrams showing where everything is, Navy, Army and Air Force badges and a morse code guide. This post highlights some areas of the booklet and future posts will follow which will cover some of the other pages in the booklet.

 

 

This page shows the Army, Navy and Air Force ranks and also shows the morse code alphabet and numerals so that soldiers can send secret messages and understand incoming communication.

 

 

This page shows all of the military conventional signs which would be seen on a map, it also shows instructions on how to read maps and setting a map to find a location.

 

Here is the contents page which shows everything in the booklet that would need to be known by soldiers serving in the Armed Forces. We will be posting more of the pages that caught our eye in the coming weeks such as the Royal Navy ships, Rifle mechanism, bren gun description and the knots, bends and hitches.

 

Postcard of HMS Iron Duke and Admiral Jellicok.

HMS Iron Duke

By Collections blog

This postcard from WW1 shows HMS Iron Duke and Admiral Jellicoe. Admiral of the fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl of Jellicoe was a Royal Navy Officer. He fought in the Anglo-Egyptian War and the Boxer Rebellion and commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 during the First World War. His handling of the fleet at that battle was controversial. Jellicoe made no serious mistakes and the German High Seas Fleet retreated to port, at a time when defeat would have been catastrophic to Britain, but the public was disappointed that the Royal Navy had not won a more dramatic victory given that they outnumbered the enemy.

 

HMS Iron Duke served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet during the First World War, including at the Battle of Jutland. There, she inflicted serious damage on the German Battleship SMS König early in the main fleet action. In January 1917, she was relieved as fleet flagship. After the War, Iron Duke operated in the Mediterranean as the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet. She participated in both the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War in the Black Sea and the Greco-Turkish War. She also assisted in the evacuation of refugees from Smyrna. In 1926, she was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, where she served as a training ship.

Iron Duke remained on active duty for only a few more years; in 1930, the London Naval Treaty specified that four Iron Duke-class battleships be scrapped or otherwise demilitarised. Iron Duke was therefore converted into a gunnery training ship; her armour and much of her armament was removed to render her unfit for combat. She served in this capacity until the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, when she was moored in Scapa Flow as a harbour defence ship. In October, she was badly damaged by German bombers and was run aground to avoid sinking. She continued to serve an anti-aircraft platform for the duration of the war, and was eventually refloated and broken up for scrap in the late 1940’s.

The front cover of a manual of rifles book.

Manual of Rifles

By Collections blog

This Booklet was recently donated to the Museum and explains the different parts and the operating of different kinds of rifles. These bookelts were published from 1940 onwards and include diagrams of many World War One rifles.

 

The first rifle which is featured in the booklet is the P14 Service Rifle. The Rifle, .303 Pattern 1914 (or P14) was a British Service Rifle of the First World War period. A bolt action weapon with an integral 5-round magazine, it was principally contract manufactured by companies in the United States. It served as a sniper rifle and as second line and reserve issue until being declared obsolete in 1947. The pattern 1914 Enfield was the successor to the Pattern 1913 Enfield experimental rifle and the predecessor of the US Rifle M1917 Enfield.

 

The Short Magazine Lee Enfield Rifle is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main fiream used by the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th Century. It was the British Army’s standard rifle from its official adoption in 1895 until 1957. the WW1 versions are often referred to as the “SMLE”, which is short for the common “Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield” varient.

 

The Ross rifle is a straight-pull bolt action .303 inch-calibre rifle that was produced in Canada from 1903 until 1918. The Ross Mk.II (or “model 1905”) rifle was highly successful in target shooting before World War One, but the close chamber tolerances, lack of primary extraction and overall length made the Mk.III (or “1910”) Ross rifle unsuitable for the conditions of trench warfare, exacerbated by the often poor quality ammunition issued. By 1916, the rifle had been withdrawn from front line service, but continued to be used by many snipers of the Canadian Expiditionary Force until the end of the war due to its exceptional accuracy.

 

 

Postcard of HMS Bulwark and its vice admiral.

HMS Bulwark

By Collections blog

This postcard shows HMS Bulwark with Vice Admiral Lord Charles Beresford. Beresford was the second son of John Beresford, 4th Marquess of Waterford, thus despite his courtesy title as the younger son of a Marquess, he was still eligible to join the House of Commons. He combined the two careers of the Navy and Member of Parliament, making a reputation as a hero in battle and champion of the navy in the House of Commons. He was a well know and popular figure who courted publicity, widely known to the British public as “Charlie B”.

 

HMS Bulwark was one of five London-class pre-dreadnaught battleships built for the Royal Navy at the end of the 19th century. The Londons were a sub-class of the Formidable-class pre-dreadnaughts. Completed in 1902 she was initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet as its flagship. The ship then served with the Channel and Home fleets from 1907-1910, usually as a flagship. From 1910-14, she was a reserve in the Home Fleet.

Following the start of the First World War in August 1914, Bulwark along with the rest of the squadron, was attached to the reformed Channel Fleet to protect the British Expeditionary Force as it moved across the English Channel to France. On 26 November 1914 she was destroyed by a large internal explosion with the loss of 741 men near Sheerness; only a dozen men survived the detonation. It was probably caused by the overheating of cordite charges that had been placed adjacent to a boiler-room bulkhead. Little of the ship survived to be salvaged and her remains were designated a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

Illustration of a Sopwith Strutter plane.

Plane Postcards

By Collections blog

Nieuport 11c1

The Nieuport 11 entered service with the Aviation Militaire in the summer of 1915. A small, single-seat biplane which quickly earned the nickname of ‘Bebe’ it was also used by the RNAS and from March 1916 served with the RFC on the Western Front providing more than a match for the Fokker monoplanes. The Macchi Company built 640 in Italy where they became standard fighters and were also used in Albania. Others served in Belgium and Russia.

 

Sopwith 1 ½ Strutter

This aircraft was used extensively during the Great War by the RNAS, RFC, French, Belgian and United States air services on a range of duties whcih included fighter-reconnaissance, bombing, ground attack, coastal patrol, anti-submarine work and photo reconnaissance. It operated on the Western Front, in Macedonia, Italy, the Aegen area and Russia and was flown from aircraft carriers, battleships and battle cruisers. the 1½ Strutter was the first British service aircraft with an efficient syncronised forward-firing armament. About 1500 were built by eight British manufacturers and some 4500 completed by the French.

 

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