Tag Archives: Le Havre

Diary Blog, 2 August 2025

Afternoon music

Honourable men, honourable soldiers

I happened to read the Wikipedia piece about Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann-Eberhard_Wildermuth.

On 12 August 1944 Wildermuth became “Fortress Commandant” of Le Havre in France. This came as a disappointment; he had hoped for a corps. Before taking his new command, however, he swore the ‘customary oath’ to Hitler: to defend the fortress to the last man, and only to surrender with the authorisation of his superiors.[3] This oath to Hitler was, broadly speaking, respected by Wildermuth. At his interrogation by the British in January 1945, he stated that his aim had been to deny the Allies the use of the port, and to tie down as many Allied troops as possible, and that this had been achieved to his own satisfaction, since two British infantry divisions and about 150 tanks were assigned to the siege of Le Havre for almost fourteen days. Furthermore, while Wildermuth personally surrendered to British troops on 12 September, after being wounded in the thigh, he refused to order the surrender of the garrison on the ground that as a prisoner of war he no longer had any authority to do so.[4]

Prior to the early September launch of the British-led Operation Astonia to take the port city Wildermuth had requested that French citizens be evacuated before heavy pre-assault naval and air bombardment commenced. His offer was rebuffed by Lt-General John Crocker, in command of the 1st British Corps which had laid siege to the city. Crocker would later argue that if Wildermuth cared about the civilian population, he could have surrendered the garrison before the bombing began, and that acceding to Wildermuth’s request would have served only the German interest, by gaining time and removing potentially disruptive French civilians from the defended fortress.[5]

[Wikipedia]

Another, but far more junior officer, Lieutenant William Douglas-Home (whose elder brother later became a Conservative Party prime minister), was also at Le Havre at the material time:

Despite his opposition to the policy of requiring the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany he was conscripted into the Army in July 1940 and joined the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment).[7] He went to 161 Officer Cadet Training Unit (161 OCTU) in the buildings of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where one of his colleagues was David Fraser. At Sandhurst, he was critical of the war, which he said had been unnecessary.[8] Douglas-Home was commissioned in the Buffs in March 1941.[9] While an officer he stood in the three parliamentary by-elections.

Douglas-Home was assigned to the 7th Battalion of the Buffs, which was converted to tanks as the 141 Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (141 RAC). In the Normandy campaign, 141 RAC was assigned to I Corps, a British formation within the First Canadian Army. In August, First Canadian Army was directed to mop up the German forces cut off in various sea ports in Normandy and Pas de Calais. In the first week of September 1944, the Allies moved against the port of Le Havre. A German garrison under Colonel Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth was dug in on the hill overlooking the city. Wildermuth had been ordered by Hitler to defend Fortress Le Havre to the last man, and not to surrender.

When the Allied forces invested the city in advance of the planned aerial bombardment and subsequent assault, Wildermuth asked the British commander if the French civilians could be evacuated from the city, but that request was refused. Lieutenant (acting Captain) Douglas-Home was near Le Havre, awaiting the completion of the aerial bombardment. He was to serve as a liaison officer in Operation Astonia, the Allied attack on Le Havre. On the second day after the aerial bombardment had started, he learned of the German request to evacuate the civilians and the Allied refusal. The consequences of the bombardment were apparent to the waiting Allied forces and Douglas-Home refused to participate in the attack. He gave two reasons:[citation needed]

  • The unconditional surrender policy, which he thought compelled the enemy to fight to the end.
  • The refusal of civilian evacuation was morally unacceptable to him.

which created a moral obligation for Douglas-Home and he declined to participate.

The aerial bombardment of Le Havre lasted four nights, killed over 2,000 French civilians, 19 German soldiers and levelled the city. The Germans surrendered after two-days’ fighting and I Corps moved on to Boulogne, which was also subjected to a heavy aerial bombardment. At that time Douglas-Home, who had been placed under supervision (he did not consider himself at that time to have been “arrested”) wrote to the Maidenhead Advertiser and the publication of his letter in the newspaper prompted his formal arrest and detention.

Because of the article in the Maidenhead Advertiser, the Allied forces besieging Calais allowed the civilians to be evacuated from the town before it was subjected to a heavy aerial bombardment and final assault. Dunkirk was allowed to remain in German hands, with the besieged force bottled up, until Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945. In the wake of the publication, the British became sensitive to indiscriminate bombing of occupied cities and towns, although that consideration was not extended to towns and cities in Germany.

[Douglas-Home] served 8 months, initially in Wormwood Scrubs, then completing his term in Wakefield Prison.[11]

Captain Andrew Wilson, M.C. also served in 141 RAC. In his autobiography Flame Thrower, published in 1956, he recounts this incident and its consequences. Wilson wrote his story deliberately in the third person:

Even when he sailed with the regiment to Normandy, William had continued his private war-against-war. While headquarters were near Bayeux, he had written to the newspapers about some German ambulances shot up by British fighters. And what he had written was true. Wilson had seen the ambulances, riddled with bullets on the Tilly road.”

[Wikipedia]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Douglas_Home

Worth remembering at the present time.

Saturday quiz

Well, not so good this week: 3/10 (or 3 “and a third” out of 10 if using the same calculation as political journalist John Rentoul, who claims 2 “and a third”). I knew the answers only to questions 4, 8, and 10 and (like Rentoul) also guessed one word of no. 1. On a few other questions, I came close “but no cigar”…

The policy even fails on its own terms, because of problems of definition and determination.

Good God. Even worse than I had thought. Equivalent to Hiroshima, Dresden etc in WW2. The (Israeli) Jews, as well as (((those))) in the UK, USA etc supporting the devastation/genocide/ethnic cleansing, surely stand guilty of war crimes by any reasonable definition.

Wall. Squad. End.

[“NEW PIECE In my latest essay in @TheSun I ask –what holds a civilisation together? In Ancient Greece, Pericles warned they only survive if leaders maintain the trust of the people In Ancient Rome, Cicero warned states will soon collapse if they don’t put their own people first In Britain today? We are witnessing the very opposite of all this. An out-of-touch ruling class that’s imposing an extreme policy of mass uncontrolled immigration and broken borders on everybody else, prioritising foreigners and pushing its own citizens to openly revolt.”]

Only lunatics are now volunteering to be sent to the crumbling front-lines of the Kiev regime. A death sentence.

…and the half-Jewess and Israeli agent Ghislaine “Maxwell” has apparently been moved from a high-security prison to a “Club Fed” in Texas. Is that the prelude to a Presidential pardon? Looks as if the (((usual))) fix is in.

See also:

More about Jew-Zionist fanatic “Mark Lewis Lawyer”, Patron Law, Jewish barrister Beth Grossman etc

A pack of Jews, abusing the English legal system (yet again).

For background about previous Mark Lewis defaults, see also:

Lewis is both incompetent and dishonest. Anyone who employs him as a solicitor (if anyone still does) is an idiot.

Incidentally, and for those unaware of the matter, the above tweets refer mostly to the libel case Wilson v. Mendelsohn, Newbon (deceased), and Cantor. Wilson, an academic from the North of England, won his case despite a whole battery of Jews giving, in effect, perjured or tainted testimony. The witnesses (all Jews, all Israel fanatics) disbelieved by the trial judge included vituperative barrister Simon Myerson (dismissed, in effect, as part-time judge in 2024, because he was unable or unwilling to stop harassing people online), Daily Star scribbler Adam Cailler, one Joanne Bell (prolific on Twitter/X as “@jobellerina”), and Nathan Comiskey (another keyboard “warrior” for Israel) as well as the defendants.

Pete Newbon, one of the defendants, a sadistic and crazed Israel fanatic who trolled people mercilessly online, as well as committing various (other) crimes (his employer, a university, had already disciplined him for his appalling behaviour), committed suicide during the trial because he had not told his wife that their house was on the line. It appears that Mark Lewis and/or other Jewish lawyers had misled one or more of the defendants as to their downside risk. Dishonest, or simply incompetent? The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority is going to pronounce upon that soon.

Now, it seems that “Mark Lewis Lawyer” (solicitor) and Beth Grossman (Counsel, of Doughty Street Chambers in London) are refusing to disclose evidence about their behaviour during the course of the proceedings. It could lead to serious consequences for them, though Lewis is so washed-up now that it might not make much difference to him. Well, time will tell.

See also:

Something really has to be done about “the situation” in this country.

Late tweets seen

Order must be restored.

[“In case you’re not from the UK, this weekend there are yet more public protests against broken borders and mass immigration —in Islington, Manchester, Newcastle, Cannock, Portsmouth, Southampton. The mainstream media barely report on them. Politicians ignore them. But such is the level of public disillusionment with what is happening to our country that these protests are now becoming a persistent feature of our national life, which in itself shows both how out-of-touch the political system, and how febrile our once unified and stable society, have become.“]

[“Bookmark this tweet. And trust me. What Labour are about to do is approve ALL asylum claims so they can make it look like they are dealing with the backlog, while taking illegal migrants out of hotels and putting them in private housing to try and hide the costs. This is not dealing with the backlog. It will only incentivise many more to come. It will end up being a total disaster, much like their hapless “smash the gangs” strategy which I said in May 2024 would also be a total disaster.“]

As I have been predicting for a couple of years now on the blog…

As if that ridiculous monkey knows anything. Still, for once he is right, probably. The war may continue for another year. The Kiev-regime frontlines may last out that long, but in the end will crumble and collapse. Russia can take and should take all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper.

Historical video with music

[Marshal Zhukov inspects the ruins of the Reichstag in 1945 Berlin— don’t allow the Zelensky Jewish cabal, or American adventurists, to drag you into a similar situation]

Late talking point

Late music

[“Bitter is my native land“]
[Levitan, 1882, Vladimirka]
[“Let’s say goodbye, even if it hurts…”]
[painting by Victor Ostrovsky]

Diary Blog, 4 March 2022, including Birmingham Erdington by-election result

Morning music

On this day a year ago

Birmingham Erdington by-election

I had completely forgotten about the by-election at Birmingham Erdington, occasioned by the unexpected death of the sitting MP, Jack Dromey [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Dromey] from sudden heart failure.

Birmingham Erdington has been a fairly safe Labour seat since 1945. In every election since then, Labour has won, with the Conservative Party in second place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Erdington_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections.

Even in the 1979 General Election that swept Margaret Thatcher to power, Labour held on in the constituency by a couple of points (46% to the Conservative’s 44.5%).

Labour’s highest point was in 1945 (60.8%), but it scored 58.8% in the Tony Blair “landslide” of 1997. Labour did almost as well (58%) in 2017, at a time when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader.

Labour’s vote share in 2019 fell back to 50.3%, and in the recent by-election rose to 55.5%.

The Conservative Party peaked, scoring 68.1%, in 1931, but fell back, apparently terminally, after Labour won the seat in 1945. The lowest point was reached in 2005 (22.8%). Since then, the Conservative vote has been in the 30-40% range (38.4% in 2017, 40.1% in 2019, and 36.3% in this by-election).

The by-election attracted 12 candidates, the highest number in the history of the constituency. but apart from the two main System parties, none retained the deposit. The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition [TUSC] topped the list at 2.1%.

Interesting to see the Greens and LibDems doing badly: Greens 1.4%, their worst result in the constituency since they first stood, in 2015.

The LibDems have pegged out, at least in this constituency. In the 2010 days of Cleggmania, they scored 16.2%. By 2015, after the Con Coalition, the same LibDem candidate could only manage 2.8%. That fell back further to 2% in 2017, recovered slightly to 3.7% in 2019, but fell again, disastrously, to a mere 1% in this by-election.

There were no social-national candidates, though the pseudo-nationalist “alt-Right” set-up, Reform UK (the reincarnation of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party), achieved 1.7% (4th place).

Overall, my view is that the by-election shows a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the electorate. The turnout was pitiful, a mere 27% (nearly half of that in 2019, and less than half of the 2017 turnout). Only just over a quarter of those eligible bothered to vote.

The Labour vote-share rose slightly, the Conservatives’ fell back slightly. The real winner was apathy or, perhaps, disgusted cold-shouldering of a fake “democracy”.

Incidentally (?), demographics may account for part of the result, in that the new MP is a West Indian, a Labour councillor and former NHS nurse, aged somewhere in her early sixties, who has called for a black uprising in the UK:

Near the end of the 2022 by election campaign, remarks made by Hamilton in 2015 were uncovered by GB News where she suggested she was torn between a democratic vote and an uprising to enable black people to get what “we really deserve in this country”.[4] The comments led to calls from some Conservative MPs for her to be suspended by the Labour Party, who responded saying the remarks were taken out of context.[5]” [Wikipedia].

As I have repeatedly blogged, the Labour Party core vote is now the “blacks and browns” and/or the public service workers. That is now being reflected, increasingly, in Labour Party MPs too. Look at this one, a West Indian woman who is or was an NHS nurse.

In fact, the new MP, though increasingly typical of the Labour Party, is not typical of the constituency: “The constituency is predominantly white working class and very deprived.” [Wikipedia].

I do not see this result as betokening a Labour Party revival under Jewish-lobby puppet Keir Starmer. Unimpressive.

[Paulette Hamilton, the new MP for Birmingham Erdington]

Ukraine

As far as can be gleaned from the msm, Russia’s glacial offensive is finally starting to take control of some major locations, such as the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which supplies a quarter of the electricity in Ukraine.

Slowly, the odds are moving in Russia’s favour. Cities are starting to be taken, albeit at a terrible cost in suffering and damage; strategic targets such as power plants are being captured. Food has pretty much run out in those cities east of the Dnieper still controlled by the Kiev regime.

I had not expected the Zelensky regime to last this long. However, the taking of Kiev, which has been delayed (perhaps deliberately, so that many of its inhabitants can flee, which must help the Russian side of this conflict), will probably soon happen. When it does, Zelensky and his cabal will flee, or be captured (or killed).

If Zelensky et al flee to Lvov, it raises the question (noted by me in past weeks) of whether Putin will try to take over the western two thirds of Ukraine as well. I had assumed not, thinking that any Lvov government would be weak, economically strapped, and unable to cause Putin many problems, even if recognized by the Western allies as the “legitimate” government of the whole of Ukraine de jure, even if a puppet government based in Kiev were to rule a third, perhaps nearly a half, of Ukraine, de facto.

Now, I am not so sure. Any Lvov government headed by Zelensky or his group would now be supplied with advanced weaponry by the Western allies. There would be a long and vulnerable front splitting Ukraine. The Lvov regime forces would be more motivated than those of the Russian occupation in the east.

On those premises, Putin might eventually decide to go for broke, and try to occupy, or at least devastate, the rest of Ukraine. He may calculate that he has little to lose. After all, Russia’s reputation in the world has (via the biased reportage of the Western msm, so be it) already now been trashed, and Russia’s stock, both metaphorically and literally, could scarcely fall any lower.

Historical note

[William] Douglas-Home was assigned to the 7th Battalion of the Buffs, which was converted to tanks as the 141st Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps. In the Normandy campaign, the 141st Regiment was assigned to I Corps (a British formation) within the First Canadian Army. In August, First Canadian Army was directed to mop up the German forces cut off and trapped in various seaside ports in Normandy and Pas de Calais. In the first week of September 1944, the Allies moved against the port of Le Havre. A German garrison under Colonel Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth was dug in on the hill overlooking the city. Wildermuth had been ordered by Hitler to defend Fortress Le Havre to the last man, and not to surrender.

When the Allied forces invested the city in advance of the planned aerial bombardment and subsequent assault, Wildermuth asked the British commander if the French civilians could be evacuated from the city, but that request was refused. Lieutenant (acting Captain) Douglas-Home was near Le Havre, awaiting the completion of the aerial bombardment. He was to serve as a liaison officer in Operation Astonia, the Allied attack on Le Havre. On the second day after the aerial bombardment had started, he learned of the German request to evacuate the civilians and the Allied refusal. The consequences of the bombardment were apparent to the waiting Allied forces and Douglas-Home refused to participate in the attack. He gave two reasons:

The unconditional surrender policy, which he thought compelled the enemy to fight to the end.
The refusal of civilian evacuation was morally unacceptable to him.
which created a moral obligation for Douglas-Home and he declined to participate.
..

The aerial bombardment of Le Havre lasted four nights, killed over 2,000 French civilians, 19 German soldiers and levelled the city. The Germans surrendered after two-days’ fighting and I Corps moved on to Boulogne, which was also subjected to a heavy aerial bombardment. At that time Douglas-Home, who had been placed under supervision (he did not consider himself at that time to have been “arrested”) wrote to the Maidenhead Advertiser and the publication of his letter in the newspaper prompted his formal arrest and detention.

Douglas-Home was charged at a Field General Court Martial held on 4 October 1944 that, when on active service, he disobeyed a lawful command given by his superior officer (contrary to Section 9 (2) of the Army Act 1881). He conducted his own defence. Regrettably neither the Field Court Martial nor Douglas-Home had a copy of the new edition of the Manual of Military Law, which had been prepared and published in April 1944 but not distributed to the troops in Normandy. Prior to April 1944 a British soldier accused of refusing to obey an order had no defence available that the order was illegal. Even had that been brought to the Court-Martial’s attention, the grounds of objection by Douglas-Home for refusing to obey Colonel Waddell’s order were rejected as he had to admit that the order, to act as a liaison officer, was not illegal. His argument, that he was being required to take part in an event which was morally indefensible, fell on deaf ears. He was convicted, and sentenced to be cashiered and to serve one year’s imprisonment with hard labour. The proceedings lasted two hours”.”

[Wikipedia]

Douglas-Home, later a playwright, was also the younger brother of the British Prime Minister of the early 1960s, Alec Douglas-Home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Douglas_Home.

So, there we have it. British invaders killed 2,000 French civilians in Le Havre (and another 3,000 in Caen, and many elsewhere). That is without even counting the perhaps 800,000 German civilians killed in 1939-45 by Allied bombing alone.

As for the Americans, both in WW2 and up to the present time, we need not even go there…

The Russian invaders of Ukraine, if sinners, are not the only sinners.

[Berlin 1945, after initial clearing of rubble post-war]
[Dresden 1945]
[Unter den Linden, central Berlin, mid-1945]
[Hamburg, late 1945]

Tweets seen

Ecce the quality of the American top leadership (and the general level of the American public)…

More tweets seen

More music

More tweets

Yet another “death from suspected heart attack” of someone not old, and in apparent good health. There seems to be an absolute epidemic (?) of such deaths. I wonder whether this cricketer, like most of those reported on, was “vaccinated”, “boosted” etc? Odds-on he was.

Strange…I do not recall Brown saying anything like that when NATO bombed Belgrade, or attacked a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa…

Looks like he has a nice house for himself and his weird wife. Pity that he impoverished so many British people.

Nick Griffin seems to suffer from the same ideological confusion, if that is indeed why he seems to be singing the same song.

The city in question has been called “Kiev” for centuries. Not “Kyiv” or, as the BBC and Sky now seem to think is correct, “Keeev“.

I am rather outside the exact debate, on the personal level, having not eaten meat since the age of 21 or so (1978), though I still occasionally had chicken, quail etc until about 2005, as well as products such as foie gras.

A debate which should engage all those still buying and eating meat.

Leaving partisan politics aside, one has to respect those who sacrifice their time, effort, and sometimes lives, to help animals, particularly those suffering because of wars or conflicts in the human sphere.

[invasion of Ukraine: apparent state of play as of yesterday, 3 March 2022]

As previously blogged, Russia has to control the Black Sea littoral. That must put the focus on Odessa. In fact, about 25%-30% of the population there is Russian, though I daresay that they will be keeping their heads down.

At the same time, the most important Russian objective, psychologically, must be Kiev, even if the Zelensky regime flees to Lvov.

Hitler’s biggest mistake or failure on the Eastern Front in the Second World War was to try to take Moscow, Leningrad, and the Ukraine, simultaneously, in 1941. The better idea would have been first of all to decapitate the Soviet regime by an all-out drive on Moscow.

In 1941, the German advance came within a relatively few miles of Moscow. In fact, the point of furthest advance, at Khimki, is now Moscow outer suburbia.

I recall, on my first visit there, in 1993, being astonished at passing the “tank trap” memorial now there, en route from the old Sheremetyevo airport into Moscow, and seeing how close it was to the city. I think that my driver arrived at or near the Kremlin only about 20 minutes after we passed that memorial.

Moscow in 1941 was in a state of panic for days, as the Germans advanced. High-ranking officials fled with their families. Many have said that, had the Germans been able to land even a modest parachute force in those days, the Soviet regime would have crumbled. It was never to be.

The Russians must take Kiev while the preponderance of military force is on their side. They will then be able to link up with forces near Dnipro (former Dnepropetrovsk) along the river Dnieper. If they can do that, then all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper will fall.

Gavin Williamson

Williamson has been knighted. Strange.

My Deadhead MPs blog piece about Williamson (now updated):

Late tweets

Russia? Siberia? And they say the English are eccentric!

Late music