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Steven Sykes (artist)
Steven Barry Sykes (30 August 1914 – 22 January 1999) was a British artist, known for his Gethsemane Chapel in the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral. He was active in the British desert camouflage unit in the Second World War, and was responsible for the dummy railhead at Misheifa and for the effective camouflage and large-scale military deception in the defence of Tobruk in 1942. Early life Sykes was born in Formby, Lancashire. His father was a family doctor, A. B. Sykes of Ashhurst, Formby. He went to the Oratory School in Caversham, Berkshire and studied stained glass design at the Royal College of Art. He won a travel scholarship to France and Italy in 1936 and on his return he joined Herbert Hendrie's stained glass studio in Edinburgh. Sykes married artist Jean Judd in February 1940. At his death in 1999, he left two sons and a daughter. World War II camouflage Sykes's RCA tutor, Barry Hart, who knew Freddie Beddington, founder of the Camouflage Development and Training Centr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Formby
Formby is a town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 22,419 at the 2011 Census. Historically in Lancashire, three manors are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 under "Fornebei", Halsall, Walton and Poynton. Cockle raking and shrimp fishing lasted into the 19th century. By 1872, the township and sub-district was made up of two chapelries ( St Peter's and St Luke's), Birkdale township, the hamlets of Ainsdale and Raven-Meols and Altcar parish. The Section dedicated to Formby. Formby was built on the plain adjoining the Irish Sea coast a few miles north of the Crosby channel. A commuter town for Liverpool, Formby is also a tourist destination with day trippers attracted to its beaches, sand dunes and wildlife, particularly the endangered red squirrel and natterjack toad. The area is conserved by the National Trust, and designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. History Erosion of sand on the bea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate
The British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate (also known as the Camouflage Unit or Camouflage Branch) organised major deception operations for Middle East Command in the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. It provided camouflage during the siege of Tobruk; a dummy railhead at Misheifa, and the largest of all, Operation Bertram, the army-scale deception for the decisive battle of El Alamein in October 1942. The successful deception was praised publicly by Winston Churchill. These operations contributed to victory by diverting enemy attention from real targets to dummy ones, wasting enemy ammunition, preserving vital resources such as the single water desalination plant at Tobruk, and deceiving the enemy as to allied strength and intentions. Operation Bertram may have been the last army-scale physical deception ever to take place, since subsequent major deceptions, including those for the D-Day landings in Normandy, have included or consisted of electronic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, and " Duce" of Italian Fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919 until his execution in 1945 by Italian partisans. As dictator of Italy and principal founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired and supported the international spread of fascist movements during the inter-war period. Mussolini was originally a socialist politician and a journalist at the ''Avanti!'' newspaper. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but he was expelled from the PSI for advocating military intervention in World War I, in opposition to the party's stance on neutrality. In 1914, Mussolini founded a new journal, ''Il Popolo d'Italia'', and served in the Royal Italian Arm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benghazi
Benghazi () , ; it, Bengasi; tr, Bingazi; ber, Bernîk, script=Latn; also: ''Bengasi'', ''Benghasi'', ''Banghāzī'', ''Binghāzī'', ''Bengazi''; grc, Βερενίκη ('' Berenice'') and ''Hesperides''., group=note (''lit. Son of he Ghazi'') is a city in Libya. Located on the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean, Benghazi is a major seaport and the second-most populous city in the country, as well as the largest city in Cyrenaica, with an estimated population of 807,250 in 2020. A Greek colony named Euesperides had existed in the area from around 525 BC. In the 3rd century BC, it was relocated and refounded as the Ptolemaic city of Berenice. Berenice prospered under the Romans, and after the 3rd century AD it superseded Cyrene and Barca as the centre of Cyrenaica. The city went into decline during the Byzantine period and had already been reduced to a small town before its conquest by the Arabs. In 1911, Italy captured Benghazi and the rest of Tripolitania from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derna, Libya
Derna (; ar, درنة ') is a port city in eastern Libya. It has a population of 85,000–90,000. It was the seat of one of the wealthiest provinces in the Barbary States, and remains the capital of the Derna District, with a much smaller area. Derna has a unique environment among Libyan cities, as it lies between green mountains, the Mediterranean Sea, and the desert. The city is also home to people of mixed origins. The city was also the location of the famous Battle of Derna (1805), the first victory achieved by the United States Military on foreign soil. Occurring during the First Barbary War, the battle was fought between a force of roughly 500 US Marines and Mediterranean mercenaries and 4,000 or 5,000 Barbary troops. Parts of the city were taken over by Islamic State (IS) militants in October 2014. In June 2015 Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna defeated IS and took control over the town, before being expelled themselves by the Libyan National Army in the Battle of De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dudley Clarke
Brigadier Dudley Wrangel Clarke, ( – ) was an officer in the British Army, known as a pioneer of military deception operations during the Second World War. His ideas for combining fictional orders of battle, visual deception and double agents helped define Allied deception strategy during the war, for which he has been referred to as "the greatest British deceiver of WW2". Clarke was also instrumental in the founding of three famous military units, namely the British Commandos, the Special Air Service and the US Rangers. Born in Johannesburg and brought up near London, Clarke joined the Royal Artillery as an officer in 1916 but transferred to the Royal Flying Corps after finding he was too young to fight in France. He spent the First World War learning to fly, first in Reading and then Egypt. Clarke returned to the Royal Artillery in 1919 and had a varied career doing intelligence work in the Middle East. In 1936 he was posted to Palestine, where he helped organise the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neil Ritchie
General Sir Neil Methuen Ritchie, (29 July 1897 – 11 December 1983) was a British Army officer who saw service during both the world wars. He is most notable during the Second World War for commanding the British Eighth Army in the North African campaign from November 1941 until being dismissed in June 1942. Despite this, his career did not end. Ritchie later commanded XII Corps throughout the campaign in Northwest Europe, from June 1944 until Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) in May 1945. Origins Born near the Essequibo River in British Guiana on 29 July 1897, he was the second son of a Scottish planter, Dugald MacDougall Ritchie (1861-1925), and his wife Anna Catherine Leggatt (1860-1946), daughter of an English farmer. His elder brother was Alan MacDougall Ritchie, later a brigadier in the British Army, and he had two sisters. Early life and First World War After growing up in Malaya, he went to England and was educated at Lancing College and the Royal Military College, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eighth Army (United Kingdom)
The Eighth Army was an Allied field army formation of the British Army during the Second World War, fighting in the North African and Italian campaigns. Units came from Australia, British India, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Free French Forces, Greece, New Zealand, Poland, Rhodesia, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Significant formations which passed through the Army included V Corps, X Corps, XIII Corps, XXX Corps, I Canadian Corps and the II Polish Corps. History North Africa The Eighth Army first went into action as an Army as part of Operation Crusader, the Allied operation to relieve the besieged city of Tobruk, on 17 November 1941, when it crossed the Egyptian frontier into Libya to attack Erwin Rommel's Panzer Army Africa. On 26 November the Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command, General Claude Auchinleck, replaced Cunningham with Major-General Neil Ritchie, following disagreements between Auchinleck and Cunningham. Despite achieving a number of tactical s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Trevelyan
Julian Otto Trevelyan (20 February 1910 – 12 July 1988) was an English artist and poet. Early life Trevelyan was the only child to survive to adulthood of Robert Calverley Trevelyan and his wife Elizabeth van der Hoeven. His grandfather was the liberal politician Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, and his uncle the historian George Macaulay Trevelyan; he is the great-uncle of his namesake, Julian Trevelyan the pianist. Julian Trevelyan was educated at Bedales School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read English Literature. Artistic career He moved to Paris to become an artist, enrolling at Atelier Dix-Sept, Stanley William Hayter's engraving school, where he learned etching. He worked alongside artists including Max Ernst, Oskar Kokoschka, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. In 1935, Trevelyan bought Durham Wharf, beside the river Thames in Hammersmith, London. This became his home and studio for the rest of his life and was a source of artistic inspiration to him. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Camoufleurs
A camoufleur or camouflage officer is a person who designed and implemented military camouflage in one of the world wars of the twentieth century. The term originally meant a person serving in a First World War French military camouflage unit. In the Second World War, the British camouflage officers of the Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate, led by Geoffrey Barkas in the Western Desert, called themselves ''camoufleurs'', and edited a humorous newsletter called ''The Fortnightly Fluer''. Such men were often professional artists. The term is used by extension for all First and Second World War camouflage specialists. Some of these pioneered camouflage techniques. This list is restricted to such notable pioneers of military camouflage. Surrealist artist Roland Penrose wrote that he and Julian Trevelyan were both "wondering how either of us could be of any use in an occupation so completely foreign to us both as fighting a war, we decided that perhaps our knowledge of pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flimsy
The flimsy, officially known as the Petrol, Oil and Water can, was a World War II fuel container used by the British Army. They held of fuel, which allowed them to be moved by a single person. The flimsy was well known for leaking; when used in the North African Campaign, some flimsies leaked 20%, and in some cases over 50% of the fuel they carried over a journey. One quartermaster reported that his of fuel had been reduced to just over the journey; and was informed that even this was a "good effort". The problem with the containers was the crimped or soldered seams, which easily split during transportation, especially over the rocky desert terrain in North Africa. Containers were stacked on top of each other during shipping, and the upper layers crushed those below, resulting in fuel flowing freely in the bilges, with the resulting poisoning and fire risks. The favoured use by soldiers for the flimsy was as a small stove which could be used to heat meals and tea for the cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
