SHINGLE STREET

[sid guttridge]

Hi Kibbo and Redcoat,

Many thanks. There is no substitute for hard facts and sources.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Kibbo]

Yes I know about the programm, the reporter rang me before it was made, in view of what she presented I am pleased I didn't offer any information. She also approached my co-researcher who I'm pleased to say felt the same way as me considering what she was proposing to broadcast
I have spoken to most of the folks that were on the prog prior to this time.
In short the program was crap and the researcher did not do her homework, she just took most things at face value instead of looking deeper.
I spoke to the reporter after the piece was recorded but prior to it's broadcast and told her some of what I had got, she in turn was most annoyed that I had not disclosed it for the prog. But if she cannot not do her research properly, why should I do her work for her?
The book is coming, watch out for it, all will be revealed even though one or two people out there think they are the only one's capable of researching this matter.
And no! the research does not ALL come from British records.

BE LUCKY AND TAKE CARE.

[jerijerod]

I've heard from someone here at the Imperial war museum that there are files locked in the strong room that remain secret and will never see the light of day again. There is exceptionally limited acess and less knowledge of whats there.
Do you think shingle street is in there?

[phylo_roadking]

THAT I would doubt. As a private institution it's technically even MORE vulnerable to a FOIA request (We have one too LOL) for they can't wave any "national interest" clause like the government can do. The government has a legal right to do that - keep files sealed "in the national interest", but the IWM doesn't have that authority. Get a document number and it may take a while but they'd have to front up. AFAIK the ONLY file material that's "immune" is private material belonging to an individual who can say no, but is held by institutions - like collections of private correspondance or diraries etc. given to uni or college libraries.

[sniper1shot]

Hey, they just found some hidden rooms in Gibraltar. I would guess anything is possible.
Reasons for not making it public could be interesting.
Guess we are waiting to 2010 then.

[jerijerod]

I don't think that it anything new will come out. I'm sort of dubious about the whole Shingle street affair anyway but IF it did happen the government still wouldn't let that get out. Maybe on the 100th anniversary.
Its odd the German government have never reported it either.
Still 2 years left

[Andy H]

Jeez this load of crap keeps coming around every so often.

My favourite is the evidence that bodies kept washing up on the shore months and tears later
Ask any pathologist what happens to the human body when submerged in water!-Amongst them is the fact that the human body comes apart at the joints as the flesh (turns to adipocere tissue) becomes a soapy/wax substance which is eaten by various marine organisms.

This conspiracy will continue along with the Moon landings, JFK and 9/11 etc

Regards

[phylo_roadking]

It's not the only rumour of "bodies in the Channel"...if you read Peter Fleming's Operation Sealion there were at least TWO more episodes of this ALLEGEDLY happening in the early Summer of 1940 - one of which urban myths was actually commented on by CHURCHILL in the Commons, adding to all the confusion!

[Martin Block]

Not that I'm really interested in this matter, but a few days ago I went through some older issues of the "After the Battle" magazine and stumbled across a rather interesting article about this "incident" in issue No. 84 (published 1994) on pages 48 to 52.

The author of the article is a certain James Hayward who apparently has thoroughly researched the matter and even published a book about it called "Shingle Street - Flame, Chemical and Psychological Warfare in 1940, and the Nazi Invasion that Never Was " (In 1994 the book was available from LTM Publishing, 40 Prior Way, Colchester, Essex, CO4 5DH).

If my understanding of the article is correct the the much talked about 'secret' file has already been declassified and the whole mystery has vanished into thin air.

Quote:
"At the PRO liese a slim, yellowing Ministry of Home Security dossier detailing "Evacuation of civil population from the village of Shingle Street in East Suffolk". Indexed as HO 207/1175, its contents were originally to have remained an Official Secret until 2021.
After 1974, this inexpliciable secrecy boggled minds across East Anglia. It was all to do with a secret bomb, some hinted. Others found room for the Ultra secret Then, in 1992, allegations that a German raiding force was burned to death there in 1940 exploded across the national press. The rumours soon spread to include fatal chemical warfare trials and a suppressed friendly-fire incident.
The result was the kind of undignified media scramble spurred by the Hitler Diaries. The next five months saw a public outcry, the tabling of questions in the House of Commons, the declassification of HO 207/1175 some 29 years ahead of schedule, and rigorous denials by the Ministry of Defense."

Here's another quote:
"... for in fact it formed part of a highly successful black propaganda exercise co-ordinated by the Directorate of Military Intelligence and section SO(1) of the Special Operations Executive. Launched at a time when Britain faced invasion almost undefended, these several potent rumors held first that a small German landing had been repulsed, and later that a large German landing had been bombed and incinerated halfway across the Channel, resulting in anything between 30,000 and 80,000 dead. Variants of these alluring Chinise whispers spread like wildfire, particularly across occupied Europe and America, and inevitably filtered back to Britain. Indeed, as the Chief Press Censor, Rear-Admiral George Thomson, confessed: 'In the whole course of the war, there was no story which gave me so much trouble as this one of the attempted German invasion, flaming oil on the water and 30,000 burned Germans'."

And finally another quote regarding the bodies washed ashore from a private of the 2nd Battalion, The Liverpool Scottish stationed in the area during the 'invasion summer' of 1940:
" '... the only German we saw was a dead airman whom we fished out of the sea and carried back to camp on a hurdle.' The German flyer, washed ashore at East Lane, Bawdsey on October 30, belonged to the same crew as a second man found near Hollesley that same day, as well as a third at Shingle Street on the 29th. A fourth crew member had washed ashore two days previously at Aldeburgh. All had been in the water for nearly a month, their Heinkel 111 having come down off the Suffolk coast on October 4. This sad crew, the only Germans officially acknowledged as having landed near Shingle Street during the Second World War, can hardly have posed any great military threat."

I just thought this might help to put an end to this stupid story. For anyone who wants to know more I highly recommend the article in After the Battle No. 84 and I'm sure the book by James Hayward will help answering any remaining questions. Bye, bye to another conspiracy theory!!!

Martin Block

[Martin Block]

P.S.: Well, I just realized that the BBC Radio Four report linked on the bottom of page 2 already referred to the same author so I could have spared myself this one. But didn't I tell I wasn't really interested in this urban legend anyway ...

Martin Block

[redcoat]

Its odd the German government have never reported it either.

Its actually blindingly obvious..........it didn't happen

Still 2 years left

I can't wait