1 post tagged “imperial war museum”

I was born at the beginning of World War II in 1939, and was 5 or 6 years old when it finished. I can remember bits of it as experienced in my little bush town in Australia. I can remember my father listening intently on our valve radio to the war news that used to come on after the regular news. As he was a rural worker he was unable to enlist in the war. He instead belonged to the Voluntary Defence Corp, a sort of Aussie Dad's Army. I can remember him keeping his .303 rifle in the wardrobe. My elder sister tells me that my mother also had poison doses for us all if we were invaded.

 I also remember my mother taking me "down town" to see the American convoys going through town. For the first time I became aware of black Americans, and can still see their broad smiles as they drove through town. The only other thing I can remember is my mother telling me she thought the war may be over because of the cheering that came from a house we passed as we walked down town.

So, I am always conscious in Europe and the U.K. of how much more those people suffered who were at the front lines of those terrible wars. I remembered driving over the Somme in France; imagining the Nazi flag flying from the Eiffel tower; and seeing the balcony of the Summer Palace in Vienna where Hitler announced to the Austrian people that they were now part of Germany.

So, a visit to the Imperial War Museum in London was a must. It is in Lambeth Road, Southwark. That building had originally been a psychiatric hospital, Bethlem Royal Hospital (otherwise known as "Bedlam"), located in St. George's Fields. And that is where the word "bedlam" originated. You just can't escape history anywhere in London. On the way to the Imperial War Museum we passed by a building that had been the home of Bligh of the Bounty, who was also one of the early Governors of the colony of New South Wales.

This is the entrance to the Imperial War Museum:

Imperial War Museum entrance

And these are some of the planes on display including the famous Spitfire which featured in so many of my boyhood stories.

Planes Imperial War Museum

 
 
And this is a rather sad exhibit among so many sad exhibits. It is the motor cycle that Lawrence of Arabia was riding when he was killed.

Lawrence of Arabias bike

There are many displays of various battles and wars, but the two displays that stick in my mind are of the Holocaust and the D day landing. The horrors of the Holocaust are sickening to see, and one wonders how otherwise civilised people could have descended to such depths. The observation that civilisation is but a thin veneer is illustrated there for all to see.

Probably the most poignant exhibit for me was the letter written on the morning of the D day landings by a young 20 year old soldier to his sister assuring her that he would be alright. He was killed that very day.