Showing posts with label WW2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WW2. Show all posts

Monday, 16 November 2020

Motorbike Research from the 1920s, 30s and 40s for Under Dark Skies

I'm eighty-thousand words into writing a novel loosely based on my granddad's experience in World War Two.  He was in France in 1939 and 1940 during the Blitzkrieg and the Battle of France.  Weeks after Dunkirk he was still trying to make his way back to Britain from occupied France as continental Europe fell to the Nazis.

I've always found that period of the war interesting.  Germany had the initiative and everyone else was struggling to understand what armed conflict had evolved into after two decades of incredible industrial progress following the trenches of WW1.  The allies weren't proud of their losses early on and it has since become an embarrassing and forgotten period in history.  If you don't believe me, just look up how many movies and books came out of the final year of the war when the allies were winning.

The novel, tentatively called Under Dark Skies (though I'm not married to that title), tells the tale of my granddad's service in a Royal Air Force Hurricane squadron sent with the British Expeditionary Force to France to stop the inevitable German invasion.

I've tried to keep it as accurate as possible, but in the absence of any specific details (my grandfather was never vocal about his war experience), I'm taking some other influences and mixing them in, Quentin Tarantino style.  Inglorious Basterds is one of my favourite World War Two films and I love the liberties he took with history, so much so that it's tempting me to do the same.


Bill was a member of the RAF White Helmets and a handy gymnast back in the day.  I've taken his
hidden-to-me, life-long affection for motorcycling, mixed in a bit of Guy Martin and Steve McQueen, though I don't know that Bill's history needed it, but it's just how I like to write.  Back in university I got into a difficult to get into creative writing course.  Leon Rooke came in a few times to help us with our writing process and commented on my ability to convey action effectively.  I like flowing, scripted action and that is the backbone of this book.

The fictional Bill's war experience was also influenced by this news article I found in a 1941 newspaper about motorcycle based 'suicide squads' who wreaked havoc inside Nazi occupied Europe.

That's out of the Spokane Daily Chronical on Saturday, January 4th, 1941!

I've had a tough year at work and needed to find a way to work off frustration, so when I can't sleep at 5am in the morning I get up and escape into 1940 France, it's been a life saver.

One of the enjoyable side effects of writing an historical novel is that you end up doing a lot of research in order to look like you know what you're talking about.  I have an equivalent of a minor degree in history, but the digging you do when writing in a time period is much more nuanced, and this case, very motorbike focused.  Here are some of my favourite motorcycle specific research bits from writing this thing:

Motorcycle Focused Research from Under Dark Skies


1938 Triumph Speed Twin:  I was looking for a state-of the-art fast bike to use in France that would outrun a supercharged German Mercedes staff car (that was a good scene to write).  Triumph's Twin was a massive step toward modern motorcycles and an early candidate for the job, though not what I eventually settled on.

1930s supercharger speed record bike from Italy (I was looking up ideas for a customized 'uncatchable' suicide squad bike...


History of military motorcycles. 

Triumph 3HW, Triumph's WW2 bike has a history closely tied to company and Coventry's brutal experience in the war:  
Triumph History overall:


Inge Stoll: Bavarian motorcycle racer and sportswoman - I'm looking to diversify the cast a bit towards the end. It's hard to do in the British military of 1940:

Peugeot used to make motorcycles!  They were quite common in France in 1940 where I'm spending my time.  I needed a bike that a local would have, so I had a look at the Peugeot listings:
http://www.motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/classic_bikes/peugeot-classic-motorcycles.php
NSU was a German moto manufacturer.  German bikes have a very distinct style back then that was quite divergent from the lighter more handling focused British machines, though the NSU 351 OSL is a pretty little thing:  https://bikez.com/motorcycles/nsu_351_osl_1939.php

The operating manual for a T-100 Triumph Tiger!  I'm partial to Tigers and a chance to bring the T-100 that started the breed into the novel was too good to miss:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120420015718/http://www.klassiekrijden.nu/techniek/triumph-1939-tiger-speedtwin-deluxe-manual.pdf  The original instruction manual is really handy when I'm writing about details on the bike, like where the controls are.  I could just make it up, but then I might as well have just written a book about moon nazis in rocket-ships.

RAF bikes of WW2 (some good photos in there):

BMW bikes in WW2:
... and sometimes you want to know how they sound:
... which is just like Jeff's tractor!  I'm sure there's a BMW that doesn't sound like a tractor, but I've yet to find it.

1930s vintage motorbikes riding across France:
This one was handy from a bike and a geography angle.  A nicely nostalgic thing too.

Motorcycling in 1936:

Scottish Six Days Trial ended up playing a part in Bill's backstory (so there is a bit of Ross Noble inspiration in there too).  I liked the idea of Bill's amateur riding background somehow elevating him from lorry driving but didn't want the flash of road racing.  I get the sense that Bill's motorcycling was frowned upon by family and was never recognized as something that might improve his lot.  SSDT seemed like a good amateur-accessible option that demonstrated not just exceptional bike craft but also a toughness of spirit:

German women in the 1930s seem quite sports driven.  Ilse Thouret was another Bavarian motorbike racer who looked like a real tough nut:
Bill was a freemason so I'm thinking about bringing on of these women in as a daughter of one (freemasons were killed in death camps as jewish sympathizers).  If the Craft gives you the willies maybe you can take some consolation in knowing that Nazis hated it.

I was looking for a retired French moto-racer who could help Bill sort out a modified 'uncatchable' bike.  Louis Jeannin was one of few French winners, having won the 350cc championship in 1932, but I was reduced to wikipedia for the only mention of him:    
I ended up giving him a shop at 16/18 Rue de la République, 57240 Knutange, France where Bill goes to pick up a modified T-100.  Jeanin raced Jonghis, which I'd never heard of, though they have an interesting history:

1939 Tiger T100 for sale at Bonhams!  If the book does well and Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Ewan McGregor and Orlando Bloom all pick up the movie rights (they're all big bike nerds) then I'll get myself that T-100:

Looking for a cheap bike a lower class Cockney kid would ride and came across the BSA Blue Star thumper:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_Blue_Star
Banger’s bike at home:
https://www.motorcycleclassics.com/classic-british-motorcycles/classic-bsa-motorcycles/1934-bsa-blue-star-zmsz19jazhur (est.) top speed 75mph.  Good nick name for a kid who rides a single cylinder banger.

1946 Triumph repair manual!  At the end of the war production lines were restarted with little updated because things were so exhausted.  This was a brilliant find as it details all sorts of bits and pieces that help me detail mechanical happenings accurately:

A Belgian sniper makes his way into the story and has become central to it.  I wanted him on something that spoke to Belgian industrial arts and came across the Gillet Herstal 720 AF - a state of the art machine that never saw wide production due to Belgium's invasion:
Gillet Herstal 720 AF motorcycle and sidecar (Belgian)
https://motos-of-war.ru/en/motorcycles/gillet-herstal-720-ab/ a great Russian resource on motos of war!

A fantastically named French combination option: The Moto Gnome Rhone with Dragon Porte sidecar!

I was looking for an alternate German Sidecar combo since everything has been very BMW focused on
the German side, then I came across the Zündapp KS 750, a combination so good that the German government asked BMW to build it instead of its iconic boxer (BMW refused):
A fine example of German modernist design.  They're big and heavy though (over 30% heavier than the svelt Belgian Gillet Herstal combination).

***

Those are just the bike related links.  I have more than a dozen pages of links and notes on all
sorts of mad details.  At one point I got lost in WW2 vintage brass blowtorches (they're paraffin fueled!):

When I wasn't looking up details on British warplanes that simply didn't work well, like the Fairey Battle that I'd never heard of before, I was digging deep into fasteners used during WW2 (Germany was metric which is a problem if you're working on a German vehicle in a British hangar).

Writing UDS has been a great trip at a time when I'm frustrated by people's response to a crisis and can't go on any other trips anyway.  Thematically this erupts out of the text with regularity.  This weekend we're off to try and take out Luftwaffe high command at the HQ of Fliegerkorps VIII in Roumont Château, near Libramont in southern Belgium (check out May 26th).  At this point the story is writing itself and I'm often surprised at the direction it takes.  In my best moments I'm reading it as I write it, lost in time.

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Sunday, 7 June 2020

Dream Ride: help me by liking this post!

I applied to Motorcycle Diaries Dream Rides 2020 Contest based on the research I'd done around my Granddad's service in World War 2:

If you have a moment, like and share this post: https://www.facebook.com/MotoDiaries/posts/1676582355842212?__tn__=K-R

If I get enough votes I might actually get to ride through Northern France on a period, 1930s motorcycle and see the many places Bill passed through with his squadron as they were decimated escaping from the Nazi blitzkrieg before Europe fell.



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Sunday, 11 November 2018

Sabbatical Rides: Following Grandad On The British Expeditionary Force

I've previously written about and done a fair bit of digging into my Grandad Bill Morris's World War 2 service in the RAF.  His time spent in France with the British Expeditionary Force before the Nazis invaded in 1940 highlights a forgotten piece of history.  Weeks after Dunkirk had pulled most of the troops out, Bill's RAF squadron was still flying a fighting retreat against overwhelming odds.

 By comparing various historical documents I've managed to cobble together the strange course Bill's squadron took during this desperate retreat.  Spending a year following in his footsteps would be a pretty magical experience and a brilliant way to spend a sabbatical away from work.

 Conveniently, from a sabbatical time-off scheduling point of view, Bill landed in France in September, 1939 in Octeville and proceeded north to set up an air base in Norrent-Fontes near the Belgian border.  They then wintered in Rouvres and as battle commenced were fighting out of Reims before retreating south and then west around Paris, quickly setting up  aerodromes for his squadron's Hurricanes and then breaking them down and moving on while under constant fire.  They were supposed to get out on the Lancastria in Saint-Nazaire (another forgotten piece of World War 2 history), but Bill was late getting there (operating heavy equipment means you're not at the front of the line).  He saw the ship get dive bombed and sunk - the biggest maritime disaster in British history, with most of his squadron on it.  He spent the next two weeks working his way up the coast before getting out on a small fishing vessel and back to the UK at the end of June, just in time to get seconded to another unit for the Battle of Britain.  Being able to trace Bill's steps would be a powerful journey.

Bill was an RAF military policeman who worked in base security, but his handiest skill was his ability to drive anything from a motorbike to a fuel bowser.  It'd be cool to use the period technology Bill used to retrace his steps through France.

This sabbatical ride would have to happen between July of one year and the August of the next.  Following Bill's time in France I would be landing in Octeville from the UK in September, hopefully on a period bike.  My preferred ride would be a 1939 Triumph Speed Twin, though an RAF standard Norton 16H would be equally cool.

 If I couldn't find a period bike I'd try and source a modern descendent of the Triumph or Norton.  Triumph is actually coming out with a new Speed Twin shortly, so that's an option.  Meanwhile, Norton is coming out with the Atlas, which would be a modern take on the do everything 16H.

 I'd arrange to stay in the places Bill did at the same times he did over the winter and spring.  With many days at various locations in rural France, I'd have a chance to find the old aerodromes and make drone aerial imagery of each location, hopefully finding evidence of this war history hidden in the landscape.  I wonder if I'd be able to see evidence of the Lancastria's resting place from the air.  With time to get a feel for the place, I'd write and record the experience as I moved slowly at first and then with greater urgency in the spring around Paris, through Ruaudin, Nantes and Saint-Nazaire before ending the trip in Brest at the end of June when Bill left, almost three weeks after Dunkirk.
The research so far on Bill's World War 2 service in France, the Battle of Britain in the UK and then into Africa!
Living in France for most of a year would offer a cornucopia of travel writing opportunities and the historical narrative I'm following would let me experience a lot of local colour in order to research a fictional novel I've been thinking about writing based on Bill's World War 2 experience.

 To get ready for this I'd get Bill's full service record and research the whens and wheres of his experience on the continent during the Phoney War and through the Fall of France.  

 When all was said and done I'd pack up the bike and ship it back home to Canada where it would always be a reminder of the year I walked in my Grandad's footsteps.

Research Links to date:

Bill's service record research:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PiN1LBIt0sBOa3uYNF6R7WI-5TP-jgOSPu9lrJlzVuU/edit?usp=sharing
Map of Bill's Squadron movements in France: https://goo.gl/maps/hRr3aRAUFTM2
RAF squadron research: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-XGAS0ajnEVGmJ_8-aATYDJrPWUHoWri8AILsNd1pN8/edit?usp=sharing


We could totally blend.  All of Bill's grandkids in period
kit and riding period vehicles...
Follow Up:  What would be even cooler would be to have my brothers and cousins come along for part or all of the trip.  For the non-motorcyclists the option to drive period trucks and military vehicles would be on hand - though a surprising number of Bill's grandkids ride.

 There is an annual D-Day Festival in Normandy in May and June that celebrates period vehicles and dress.  Even if I could get Bill's grand-kids together just for that it would be a memorable event.
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Friday, 16 March 2018

Walking In Bill's Footsteps: 1940 France

I'm going to build this one in stages.  Putting together the research in order to eventually build a map of my grandfather's path through 1940s France will take some time.

 The goal is to work out how my granddad, William Morris, worked his way through France as the British Expeditionary Force and the French military collapsed under the weight of the German Blitzkrieg during the Battle of France.

 What I know so far:  
Bill was already a member of the RAF when the war began.  He was able to operate everything from heavy trucks to motorbikes and found himself supplying Hurricane squadrons in France as a heavy lorry operator.  Being stationed in France as a part of the British Expeditionary force in 1939/40, when the Blitzkrieg began he started to make his way to the coast.  He got close to Dunkirk at the end of May but the chaos made it look like a bad idea, so he kept pushing south, avoiding the fast moving German Panzer divisions that were pushing into France in huge leaps.
The rough map so far on Granddad Bill's escape from German occupied France in 1940
Sinking of the Lancastria in the National Maritime Museum
He got down to St  Nazaire by mid-June and witnessed the sinking of the Lancastria - where more people were killed in a single sinking than in the combined losses of the Titanic and the Lusitania; it's the largest single maritime loss of life in British history.

 By this point it must have seemed like the world was ending.  Here's a quote from the man himself:

 “When Paris was made a free city (June 11th) the British Expeditionary Force had to evacuate and make for St. Nazaire. The roads were clogged with retreating troops and equipment. What couldn't be carried was destroyed. We arrived in St. Nazaire in the afternoon just in time to see the ship that was to carry us out destroyed by dive bombers. An officer directing traffic suggested we try to make for Brest. We arrived there two days later just as the last ship was preparing to leave, I had to leave my German Shepherd behind on the docks as there was no room for her on the boat.”

 Bill got out of France through Brest on June 13th, 1940 - over two weeks after Dunkirk.  From May to June, 1940, Granddad saw more of France than he probably intended.  His unit was disbanded due to losses, but I'm not sure which squadron he was attached to.  A number of them were decimated trying to battle BF109s with biplanes.  The few Hurricane squadrons could stand up to the Messerschmidts but were badly out numbered and inexperienced.  If the documents I've got are accurate and he was providing support to a Hurricane squadron east of Paris, then there are a number of candidate RAF squadrons who were based around Reims.

 At some point the planes and air crews must have taken off and left the support people, including Bill, to try and find their own way out.  He had been missing for so long and so many British soldiers were lost in the Battle of France, that he was declared missing or dead.  When he got back on British soil and was given leave, Bill headed straight home to Sheringham in Norfolk where he waited on the street for my grandmother to walk by on her way to work.  She must have been stunned to see that ghost standing there.  Bill always had a flare for the dramatic.

 This is the opening chapter in a war story Bill never talked about, but I've been trying to piece back together from existing details.  A couple of interesting things could come out of this...

 1)  Build up a map of Bill's route through France in 1940.  Put together a collection of World War 2 era British bikes and ride them from the air field he was stationed at and follow the meandering route he may have followed, stopping at the places we have evidence he was, eventually ending where he escaped the continent.  I've got two brothers and several cousins, all direct relatives of Bill's, who could do this ride with me.

Films like Chris Nolan's Dunkirk shine a light on the often ignored
early moments of World War 2.  There is more work to be done.
We could do it on the 80th anniversary of the Battle of France in May and June of 2020.  It's a forgotten moment in the war that is often misunderstood and mocked historically.  The French didn't surrender (in fact they bloodied the nose of an otherwise technically superior German force and vitally weakened it prior to the Battle of Britain.  There would have been hundreds more German planes and thousands more personnel available for the Battle of Britain had the French military and British Expeditionary Force not fought as they had in France.  Bill's journey would be an opportunity to highlight a lot of that forgotten and misunderstood history.

2)  This is the first part of William Morris's rather astonishing path through World War 2.  His improbable survival (he was the member of multiple units that got disbanded due being decimated in battle) is the only reason I'm here today, and I find the serendipity and skill involved in that fascinating.  Had Granddad not survived the war he would never have fathered my mum in 1946.  Our family exists as it does today because of his survival.

 A longer term goal would be to put together a based-on-true-events narrative of Bill's experiences during the war, from his time in occupied France, to his work retrieving wrecks during the Battle of Britain, to his years in the desert in the later half of the war, his story sheds light on a working man's experience in the conflict.  So often the attention has been on the wealthier officer class of pilots and commanders, but this is a look at World War Two from the trenches (so to speak).  It's a war far more people experienced than the scientists and upper class types did.

 3) If the book got written, it'd make for one heck of a TV or film series!

 Meanwhile, the research continues...
The Norton 16H in RAF blue (once the war began they
just churned out army green ones).  The TV show would
have myself and my cousins - all the current descendents
of Bill Morris, following his trek through 1940s France.
BIKE RESEARCH:

Norton 16H in RAF colours (up to 1940, army green after that…)
https://www.nortonownersclub.org/history/1936-1945-wd


 BSA M20
http://www.classic-british-motorcycles.com/bsa-m20.html

 Triumph Tiger 100 (not used in service but might have been found in 1940s France)
http://gregwilliams.ca/a-history-of-triumphs-tiger-100/
1940 Battle of France WW2 RESEARCH:

 A paper I wrote for a history course at university in 1996:   https://docs.google.com/document/d/14N2QfA8P8UQP_YK426gUZlGNbP7NNCcJcsd31OAaDVQ/edit?usp=sharing
Statistics on the Battle of France:
http://www.historynet.com/fall-of-france

 Some photos of Hurricanes in France in 1940...
Hawker Hurricane RAF 501 Sqn SD being refueled by a bowser at Bethenville France 11th May 1940



73 Squadron


Bloodiest Battles of WW2:
http://www.militaryeducation.org/10-bloodiest-battles-of-world-war-ii/

The WW2 soldiers France has forgotten
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32956736
Aircrafts and bases of the Royal Air Force on May 10, 1940
https://ww2-weapons.com/raf-squadrons-in-may-1940/

Get a copy of military service records:


RAF french bases in 1940 May - by June they were all gone...
Berry-au-Bac (France)
Merville (France)
Douai (France)
Poix (France)
Rosieres-en-Saneterre (France)
Reims (France)
Lille (France)
Betheniville (France)
Villeneuve-les-Vertus (France)
Conde-Vraux (France)
Berry-au-Bac (France)
Reims (France)
Vintry-en-Artois (France)
Abbeville (France)

RAF in France 1940, (Fighting against Odds)
Hurricane Squadrons in the Battle of France
"British losses in the Battle for France:  68,111 killed in action, wounded or captured. Some 64,000 vehicles destroyed or abandoned and 2,472 guns destroyed or abandoned."
Armée de l'Air - Order of Battle, 10th May 1940
Traces of World War 2 - Royal Air Force, Battle of France 1940
RAF base Marham history
Royal Air Force - Order of Battle, France, 10th May 1940
A simulation of the Battle of France in 1940:
Mapping the Maginot line RAF supporting stations in France:
MUSEE DU TERRAIN D'AVIATION DE CONDE-VRAUX 1939 / 1945
Association Maison Rouge
http://amrvraux.com/

Abandoned and forgotten airfields in France:
http://www.forgottenairfields.com/france/picardy/somme/poix-en-picardie-s1121.html

 OTHER RELATED RESEARCH:

 Moto-raids into occupied France (from a January 1941 article): might be good as a chapter piece between the BoF, the Battle of Britain and heading off to the desert...









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