strafing civilians

[Stanford9]

You are absolutely right, during the Battle of Britain the British held a lot of balls... Best thing to do under the circumstances.. Need to keep your eye on things old chap... Eastbourne was home to many of the retiring (British) Indian Army, that lot wouldn't let a little thing like a few memsahibs being shot up get in the way of their balls, to busy polishing up their Military Two Step.

Back to the subject, here's a shot I picked up the other day:

Cars ditched during the flight out of Paris

ROUGH Ditched Cars west of Paris .jpg (185.05 KiB) Viewed 1214 times

[Trackhead M2]

You are absolutely right, during the Battle of Britain the British held a lot of balls... Best thing to do under the circumstances.. Need to keep your eye on things old chap... Eastbourne was home to many of the retiring (British) Indian Army, that lot wouldn't let a little thing like a few memsahibs being shot up get in the way of their balls, to busy polishing up their Military Two Step.

Back to the subject, here's a shot I picked up the other day:

ROUGH Ditched Cars west of Paris .jpg

Dear S9,
I am sad my AC/DC reference failed. The ditched cars was a matter of getting out of a obvious target.
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

[David Thompson]

A no-content post from Stanford9 was removed by the moderaror - DT.

[Lynn R]

While it has no specific mention of balls being interrupted (but oh, the public library!) here's a website with a bit about attacks on Eastbourne, including a few mentions of strafing.

http://www.eastbournecousins.com/eastbourneww2_1.htm

[Juha Tompuri]

Luftwaffe targetting refugees and some other topic related threads:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 17#p798617

Regards, Juha

[tonyh]

Were the balls held for charity, fancy dress, or pleasure?
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

If ACDC were around in 1940, I'm sure they would would have been attacked as they had the biggest balls of them all.

[David Thompson]

Let's get back on topic, and stay there.

[Stanford9]

Were the balls held for charity, fancy dress, or pleasure?
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

If ACDC were around in 1940, I'm sure they would would have been attacked as they had the biggest balls of them all.

In fact "Stanford9" did not write your quote "tonyh" the thread has been edited.

Before I came to France I lived halfway between London and the English Kent/ East Sussex coast, the area was, and doubtless still is, littered with both Luftwaffe and RAF remains. When we moved out of our 16th C house in Goudhurst the new owners found a small, unexploded but still live German incendiary bomb lodged in the roof timbers, either this was Luftwaffe "creep-back" (on a major scale) or targeting civilians, there was no nearby military target. My impression as a local councillor was that the corridor up from the English south coast to London and beyond was regularly and generally. targeted, and suspect that at times it happened the other way around too - thus the RAF order not to do it. I don't doubt that Eastbourne was strafed. Remember that this was Battle of Britain ground and doubtless it "got Luftwaffe pilots' blood up".

[Tango_One_One]

My mother-in-law, a schoolgirl at the time, was straffed in Beccles by a German plane. She said that she was very glad that she remembered what she had been taught in school and dived under a hedge.

[Stanford9]

Thank goodness for hedges, mother-in-laws always did get the thin edge of the wedge!

The photographs I purchase arrived in the post this morning and once I'd made a high res scan and cleaned it up a bit I had a good look at the photograph of the cars in the ditch above, I don't think there's any doubt about the first car being shot-up, but by Whom? Can't jump to conclusions. Have a look at it's rear side window:

CU shot-up cars copy.jpg (78.76 KiB) Viewed 906 times

The photograph was taken by one of the GEBIRGSJÄGER Rgt.100 during their time in France - it's just south west of Paris., that's the GEBIRGSJÄGER passing in the background

[Max]

My mother-in-law, a schoolgirl at the time, was straffed in Beccles by a German plane. She said that she was very glad that she remembered what she had been taught in school and dived under a hedge.

I also have a mother-in-law story.

She recounted the time in 1944 when she was in a column of civilians heading west from Szekesfehervar, Hungary on the way to Austria.
Her purpose was to meet with her husband who had been transferred there to develop munitions.[he was an industrial chemist]
He had contacted her to get out of Hungary and come west because "the Russians were coming"
She said that one day she was sitting on a pile of luggage on the back of a truck, when the column was straffed.
She had to sit there, unable to move because she was nursing her 6 month old baby. People who had jumped into the roadside ditches were killed, but she survived uninjured.
She said that the plane(s?) were American.

This was told to me 40 years ago and can no longer be verified. My wife [the baby] obviously has no first hand recollection and only remembers these few details told to her by her mother.
My mother-in-law was not a woman given to exaggeration and had no axe to grind against Americans.
She was very philosophical about the nature of war.