2 Comments
User's avatar
Philip Hamlyn Williams's avatar

The leapfrogging of technology has distant echoes from the First World War and aircraft. Like drones these were new and the Germans and British engineers competed on all aspects of the aircraft: speed, the ability to fire a machine gun through the propellers and radio communications with the ground troops. I record an anecdote in my book Dunkirk to Day. This tells the story of the leaders of army supply in WW2 who had also served in WW1.

Graham's avatar

My Grandfather was exactly that ! Machine Gun Corps in what he used to call the 'Great War' then Ministry of Supply in WW2 , in Liverpool once the Americans started seding boat loads of whatever, organising the distribution, getting bombed a lot to the point where he sent the family, who'd relocated with him to Liverpool, away to Leeds .. why Leeds I was not sure !

Never asked enough questions of course, when I had a chance, though in my experience that generation didn't much want to talk about it, had to be the right moment .....