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War And Crime

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stuey | 14:15 Sun 28th Feb 2016 | History
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Here is an interesting article: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-33566789
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That's for sure. My mother was a cinema projectionist at the Odeon Kensington near were the Commonwealth Institute now stands.One evening there was an air raid (nothing new there) and she put the statutory warning across the screen that a raid was approaching and then stopped the film.Apparently the patrons went to the cinema's own basement shelter with...
15:27 Sun 28th Feb 2016

Juliet Gardner appears to support looting

///"There was a warden who was looking through a bomb-damaged home looking for survivors," said historian Juliet Gardner, author of Wartime Britain 1939-1945. "He and his team came across a bottle of brandy, he decided to share it with his men to boost their spirits. He was prosecuted for looting, which just seems ridiculous."///
Accidentallyl coming across a bottle of brandy is hardly lootiing

Consuming it, I suspect, is a tad dishonest to be fair.
Stuey
My father joined the Met Police in 1938 and served in Chelsea and West End Central throughout the blitz. I have still got an early newspaper cutting of one of his first arrests. He arrested a woman who tried to take her pet monkey into a public air raid shelter. Pets were forbidden and an uproar ensued amongst the shelter dwellers. My father arrived on the scene and the woman,I believe,refused to take her monkey out so was arrested for causing a breach of the peace.
Very lucrative times for night duty coppers in London.They called it glimming. When cabs pulled up outside night clubs and theatres the well paid and well drunk GI's and Officers would jump out and pull money from their pockets to pay the cabbies . Many a coin or note was dropped in the gutters so coppers would walk their beats at night shining their blackout torches along the gutter.
The Cafe de Paris was on my Dads patch when it got a direct hit in the blitz.
Fingers of the dead and dying were cut off by looters to steal their rings. :-(
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I have never seen "Dads' Army"; however, there is an interesting article following the one above about the war experiences of Arnold Ridley. Retro, that part about the fingers...Hard to believe, but I guess crime goes on.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1264532/The-blitz-70-years-Carnage-Caf-Paris.html

//The worst of human nature was in evidence that night too – amid the rubble and the chaos, unscrupulous looters were seen cutting off the fingers of the dead to steal their rings//
Stuey
The Major in Fawlty Towers was played by Ballad Berkley. He was a war reserve at West End Central and would come out of the theatre between performances having donned his Police War Reserve armband and steel helmet and do traffic point duty or whatever. My father was at the same nick as him (West End Central) and obviously came across him many times.
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It's amazing how many little personal side stories there are hidden away and overshadowed by such an enormous event as a war.
That's for sure.
My mother was a cinema projectionist at the Odeon Kensington near were the Commonwealth Institute now stands.One evening there was an air raid (nothing new there) and she put the statutory warning across the screen that a raid was approaching and then stopped the film.Apparently the patrons went to the cinema's own basement shelter with the staff.
My Mum had arranged to meet five of her old friends ,whom she had previously worked with on war work at Earls Court Exhibition centre ,at a Lyons Corner House at Kensington Hight Street/Earls Court Road junction after the film had finished and she had rewound all the reels.
Because of the air raid she resumed the film and was running late for her rendezvous with her old pals. When she finished the film she rushed to join her friends down the road but the Corner House had received a direct hit killing all the occupants. She lost 5 chums because of that raid and it was because of that raid that she survived and I was later born.
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An amazing story that is.
Interesting reading/ personal accounts Stuey.
excellent remiscences - thanks Retro
I am ready with a zillion should anyone show interest in German Prisoner of war camps ....

The cafe de paris carnage was because the bomb went down a vent by chance innit ?

The Beeb article I thought would be full of revisionist tree hugging re writing of history but I am glad that they kept to the party line that crime went up during the war. I was aware that you could be shot for looting and amaxed anyone did it ....

The last hangings for non capital crimes ( abolished by the 1861 Crimes reforms ) were ... Shepton Mallet Prison - two black GIs hanged for rape

[ Jackdaw - note: I dont want to know again that you think non capital crimes are something else ]
I don't get your point. Shepton Mallet was a US base. Rape was a capital offence in parts of the US at the time. The US had legal jurisdiction, with the proviso that any executions were carried out by British hangmen.
No Shepton Mallet prison is in the town or was ....

and as you know from Guantanamo - american law does NOT run in american bases outside the land of the free ( 1942 case supreme court apparently )

My point is I surprised that they were hanging people for erm non capital crimes during the war ....
oops treason well you know what I mean ....
-- answer removed --
thx retro I hadnt realised it was so many

I remember my father telling us about pulling the head off a hanged criminal if you got the weight thing wrong ....
Not me supplying the statistics. That is my good pal dive buddy. I just passed on my parent's blitz experiences. :-)
When two of Saddam Hussein's ministers were hanged one of them was decapitated in the process.
retro sorry lost concentration
looking at Navy School where spotty young men slack and get slung out of the services .... the streets of north manchester are full of those who wouldnt even get in for a try ....
Ah. HMS Raleigh. I lost concentration tonight and missed the whole episode. Watched catch up of Churchill's Secret and forgot about episode 3. Back to catch up tomorrow again!!

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