History Shall Be Kind

A British history, with the occasional words of wisdom from a book or two. Questions and queries are always welcome.

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On this day, 30 January, in 1972 thirteen civil rights demonstrators were killed by members of the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment on the streets of Derry, Ireland; fourteen more were injured. Another victim of the shootings died months later. In 2010 an inquiry found the killings ‘unjustifiable’ and police began a murder investigation.

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On this day, 26 January, in 1885 the British commander of Khartoum, General Charles Gordon, was killed during an attack by troops of the Mahdi, following a 10 month siege. The failure to relieve Gordon lay heavily upon the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, so otherwise popular he served in the position four separate times. Following a telegram of rebuke from Queen Victoria, which found its way to the press, he resigned - his party ruined.

Gordon died on the steps of a stairway in the northwestern corner of the palace. His corpse was decapitated and his head later transfixed between the branches of a tree - at the command of Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi. His body desecrated and thrown down a well, after the reconquest of the Sudan, in 1898, attempts were made to locate Gordon’s remains, but in vain.

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The de Havilland DH 106 Comet in flight, the worlds first commercial jetliner. 1952-1953

via reddit

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On this day, 24 January, in 1965 Sir Winston Churchill, aged 90, slipped quietly from the world after a life perhaps better lived than any other before or since. It had taken eleven strokes to fell the man, a lifelong enthusiast of fine alcohol, Cuban cigars, perilous situations and favorable odds. Exactly 70 years on, he had died on the same date as his father, Lord Randolph Churchill.

It was too full a life to abridge here in any reasonable way, and do any reasonable justice. He was however, a Victorian gentleman, progressive in thought for Britons and the people of her dominions. A writer of immense talent and poetic historian, a cavalry officer and wartime leader; he was the last lion of the British Empire.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ― Winston S. Churchill

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On this day, 21 January, in 1919 Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown was born. As a Royal Navy officer and test pilot, he flew more types of aircraft than anyone else in history, becoming the Fleet Air Arm’s most decorated pilot and holder of the world record for aircraft carrier landings - with 2407 landings on 22 different aircraft carriers. Captain Brown died on 21 February 2016.

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On this day, 18 January, in 1788 a British fleet of eleven ships and 800 convicts landed at Botany Bay, Australia. They created the first British penal colony, in Port Jackson - Sydney.

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The only Vickers Valiant B.2 ever built, first flying 4 September 1953. Intended as a pathfinder in nuclear war, an obsolete role, this all black beast clocked 640 mph at sea-level. It was undoubtedly the most capable strategic bomber ever built in Britain.

She was supposedly adorned her unique gloss black scheme after Vickers chief test pilot saw the design, approved and exclaimed: “And paint the fucker black.”

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HMAS Melbourne (R21) launches Fairey Gannets while conducting a replenishment at sea (RAS) with HMAS Vendetta and HMAS Voyager.

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Stern of the HMHS Britannic

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Today, 16 January, in 1982 Britain and the Vatican resumed full diplomatic relations after a break of exactly 447 years.

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On this day, 16 January, in 1945, with Berlin under massive Allied bombardment, Adolf Hitler moved into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker. Located beneath Hitler’s New Reich Chancellery in Berlin, it was the last of the Führer Headquarters to be used by Hitler. Here, during the last week of April that year, he married Eva Braun, before they turned to suicide. It was of course a must-see for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill three months later.

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An Avro York of the Royal Air Force sits at Tempelhof Airport during the Berlin Airlift. The Western Allies supplied the people of West Berlin by air alone for the duration of the near one year blockade by Stalin, from 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949. Yorks flew over 58,000 sorties – close to half of the British contribution.

The aircraft was developed from the wings, tail and undercarriage of the Lancaster bomber, given a new, much larger fuselage. It was an independent project undertaken by Avro, themselves seeing a need for a transport aircraft which they hoped could also find place in a post-war civil market. During the wars last few years individual Yorks were given to various VIPs including Churchill, who named his Ascalon - the lance or sword with which Saint George slew the dragon. The Viceroy of India and C-in-C South East Asia Command, Lord Mountbatten, also received one, repainted a light duck egg green.

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Chasing the Dragon: The British Empire, India & China.

The British Empire was infamously the most vast in history. By 1920 it governed 24% of the Earth's total landmass and a quarter of all people alive. Principally, the thing existed to ensure trade, make money, secure territory with access to certain commodities or natural ports.

In the 1600s tea arrived in Europe, a flavourful alternative to dangerous unboiled water, or alcohol. Britain secured numerous Caribbean colonies to produce sugar for the nation and between 1720 and 1750 black tea imports through the East India Company quadrupled. Business was booming, but there was a problem.

The public were demanding vast quantities of tea from the East India Company, which it procured from China, where there was little interest in European exports. The only acceptable currency was silver bullion, which faced a dangerous voyage from Britain, going around Africa through notoriously bad waters. Whether the silver got there or not, a deficit was building, with China profiting from Britain’s demand for tea.

In China opium use had been on the rise, something the Dutch East Indies Trading Co. encouraged. With the Battle of Plassey in 1757, Britain annexed the Bengal Presidency to its empire, securing east India. Accordingly, the East India Company inherited a monopoly on opium production. With the company £28 million in debt, as a result of the Indian war and British tea demands, they began auctions of opium in Calcutta - now Kolkata. As indigenous production of opium began to emerge in Malwa, west India, the East India Company’s monopoly was threatened, so Britain took control of India entire.

Chinese law banned the import of opium, forcing the East India Company to get creative. British merchants would buy tea in Canton (now Guangzhou) - China - on credit, then go back to India and sell Opium in Calcutta, then back to China to pay off their debts. British ships would smuggle opium into China where local merchants sold it on. The trade grew quickly and over time the East India Company became less subtle as the distant Qing government in Beijing held little authority.

More and more annoyed, the Qing government ultimately sent forces to destroy stocks of foreign opium firms in their factories. British traders demanded compensation from their home government, so British authorities sent expeditionary forces from India and forced a settlement. Chinese tariffs were fixed at a low rate, Hong Kong was ceded to Britain and the East India Company gained effective monopoly on the Chinese opium trade.

All sounds well, but Britain was now paying enormous sums to administrate in India, Singapore and Hong Kong, it was still importing huge quantities of tea and all was being offset only by the opium trade, which had prompted two wars. Opinion began to change in British politics by the 1800s, through humanitarian and financial logic. All told, the whole thing was still operating at a deficit, and they’d created an enduring social problem for China.

Britain had brought India into the Empire, hoping the sale of opium would offset the cost of her hunger for tea. They’d been wrong, in opium they were chasing the dragon.

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On this day, 15 January, in 1559 Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England at the age of 26. She was the daughter of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn and the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

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USS South Dakota in a portable dry dock. Pacific, 1945

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A Handley Page Victor bomber crew on quick reaction alert (QRA) scramble their aircraft for a mock nuclear strike mission.

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London police officers.