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193-455: The Petroleum Warfare Department (PWD) was a government department established in Britain in 1940 in response to the invasion crisis during World War II , when Germany apparently would invade the country. The department was initially tasked with developing the uses of petroleum as a weapon of war, and it oversaw the introduction of a wide range of flame warfare weapons. Later in the war,

386-444: A blunderbuss , each guard carried a secure timepiece by which departure times at each stage of the journey were strictly regulated. In 1830 mail was carried by train for the first time, on the newly-opened Liverpool and Manchester Railway ; over the next decade the railways replaced mail coaches as the principal means of conveyance (the last mail coach departed from London on 6 January 1846). The first Travelling Post Office (TPO)

579-571: A lottery bond called the Premium Bond was introduced. In the mid-1960s the GPO was asked by the government to expand into banking services which resulted in the creation of the National Giro in 1968. When new forms of communication came into existence in the 19th and early 20th centuries the GPO claimed monopoly rights on the basis that like the postal service they involved delivery from

772-557: A proclamation 'for the settling of the Letter-office of England and Scotland', an event which 'may properly be regarded as the origin of the British post-office'. By this decree, Thomas Witherings (who had been appointed 'Postmaster of England for foreign parts' three years earlier) was empowered to provide for the carriage of private letters at fixed rates 'betwixt London and all parts of His Majesty's dominions'. To this end,

965-494: A sender and to a receiver . The theory was used to expand state control of the mail service into every form of electronic communication possible on the basis that every sender used some form of distribution service. These distribution services were considered in law as forms of electronic post offices. This applied to telegraph and telephone switching stations. In 1846, the Electric Telegraph Company ,

1158-471: A battery varied from just one drum to as many as 14; a four-barrel battery was the most common installation and the recommended minimum. Where possible, half the barrels in a battery were to contain the 40/60 mixture and half the sticky 5B mixture. A series of experiments investigated the possibility of burning the invader's barges before they could reach the English shore. The first idea was simply to explode

1351-675: A bell to attract custom was adopted by the Post Office and went on to be employed in major cities until the mid-19th century. In 1761 permission was given for the establishment of penny-post arrangements elsewhere in the realm, to function along the same lines as the London office, if they could be made financially viable; by the end of the century there were penny-post systems operating in Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh and Manchester (to be joined by Glasgow and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in

1544-545: A concerted effort was made to maintain a regular postal system for the conveyance of royal and government despatches (in times of peace as well as in time of war). To oversee the system, the king appointed Brian Tuke to serve as 'Master of the Postes'. By the 1550s five post roads were in place, connecting London with Dover , Edinburgh , Holyhead (via Chester ), Milford Haven (via Bristol ) and Plymouth . (A sixth post road, to Norwich via Colchester , would be added in

1737-642: A court ruling obliged the London Penny Post to come under the authority of the Postmaster General. Although now part of the GPO, the London Penny Post continued to operate entirely independently of the General (or 'Inland') Post until 1854 (when the two systems were combined). An attempt by Charles Povey to set up a rival halfpenny post in 1709 was halted after several months' operation; however Povey's practice of having letter-carriers ring

1930-498: A deep crater as an anti-tank obstacle. The Canadian pipe mine (later known as the McNaughton Tube after General Andrew McNaughton ) was a horizontally bored pipe packed with explosives – once in place this could be used to instantly ruin a road or runway. Prepared demolitions had the advantage of being undetectable from the air – the enemy could not take any precautions against them, or plot

2123-469: A destroyer flotilla. On 14 September, the old battleship HMS  Revenge was moved to Plymouth , also specifically in case of invasion. In addition to these major units, by the beginning of September the Royal Navy had stationed along the south coast of England between Plymouth and Harwich, 4 light cruisers and 57 destroyers tasked with repelling any invasion attempt, a force many times larger than

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2316-545: A fee. The trade in these 'ship letters' was acknowledged (and legitimised) in the Post Office Acts of 1657 and 1660. Attempts were made to levy Post Office fees on these letters and 'ship letter money' was offered to captains for each letter given to a postmaster on arrival in England in order for these charges to be applied; however they were under no legal obligation to comply and the majority of ship letters evaded

2509-509: A few Germans." PWD took inspiration from events that happened during the retreat to Dunkirk in June 1940. One example occurred when Boulogne was attacked in the early hours of 23 May and the road to Calais was cut. In the defence of Boulogne, a group of pioneers under Lieutenant-colonel Donald Dean VC , had improvised a road block made of vehicles and piles of furniture from bombed-out houses. An approaching tank began to push its way over

2702-644: A first-line division of the Territorial Army. Banks got on well with his commander, Major-general Giffard LeQuesne Martel . Banks admired his leadership and his enthusiasm for experimentation and improvisation. In October 1939, the division was sent to the Cotswolds , and in January 1940, it was moved to France. When Germany attacked in May, the division was heavily involved in the fighting around Arras and

2895-476: A flaming ribbon 880 yards long and 6 feet wide (800 m × 2 m) that could be towed at four knots. Neither of these experiments were carried forward to produce workable defences. The Suffolk did, however, provide a trial run for an even more ambitious idea - the invasion barges would be burned even before they left port. The plan was first floated in early June/July 1940 and became known as Operation Lucid . Three old tankers were quickly prepared as fire ships for

3088-512: A further one hundred 25-pounders manufactured in June. In addition, over 300 4.5-inch howitzers – 900 were modified in 1940 alone – and some 60-pounder howitzers and their modified 4.5-inch version as well as antiquated examples of the 6-inch howitzer were recovered from reserve after the loss of current models in France. These were augmented with several hundred additional 75-mm M1917 guns and their ammunition from

3281-594: A grain of salt. On the evening of the following day, Shirer arrived back in Berlin: I noticed several lightly wounded soldiers, mostly airmen, getting off a special car which had been attached to our train. From their bandages, the wounds looked like burns. I noticed also the longest Red Cross train I've ever seen. It stretched from the station for half a mile to beyond the bridge over the Landwehr Canal . [...] I wondered where so many wounded could have come from, as

3474-430: A hand bell. While postmasters were not obliged to deliver items to places outside the boundary, they could agree to do so on payment of an extra fee. In the 1780s, Britain's General Post network was revolutionised by theatrical impresario John Palmer 's idea of using mail coaches in place of the longstanding use of post horses. After initial resistance from the postal authorities, a trial took place in 1784, by which it

3667-409: A horse and cart or waggon, while the universities, along with certain municipal and other corporations, maintained their own correspondence networks. Many letters went by foot-post rather than on horseback. Footposts or runners were employed by many towns, cities and other communities, and had been for many years. A 16th-century footpost would cover around 30 miles per day, on average. At the time of

3860-597: A matter of minutes. There were two types of socket roadblocks. The first comprised vertical lengths of railway line placed in sockets in the road and was known as hedgehogs. The second type comprised railway lines or RSJs bent or welded at around a 60° angle, known as hairpins. In both cases, prepared sockets about 6 inches (152.40 mm) square were placed in the road, closed by covers when not in use, allowing traffic to pass normally. Another removable roadblocking system used mines. The extant remains of such systems superficially resemble those of hedgehog or hairpin, but

4053-534: A mile upstream from the bridge. Further out to sea, Inchmickery , 1.6 miles (2.6 km) north of Edinburgh, was similarly fortified. The remnants of gun emplacements on the coast to the north, in North Queensferry , and south, in Dalmeny , of Inchmickery also remain. The primary purpose of the stop lines and the anti-tank islands that followed was to hold up the enemy, slowing progress and restricting

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4246-543: A mine. By November, any invasion plan had been called off and Lucid was shelved. During August the corpses of about forty German soldiers were washed up at scattered points along the coast between the Isle of Wight and Cornwall. The Germans had been practising embarkations in the barges along the French coast. Some of these barges put out to sea in order to escape British bombing and were sunk, either by bombing or bad weather. This

4439-485: A more efficient system was put in place (albeit temporarily) to aid communications during his war with Scotland : a number of post houses were established at twenty-mile intervals along the Great North Road , between London and Berwick , to provide the king's messengers with fresh horses for each stage of the journey; in this way they were able to travel up to a hundred miles a day. Under King Henry VIII

4632-506: A nozzle secured by ground spikes. Flow was initiated by a pull string that opened a valve and ignition was provided by Molotov cocktails. The Petroleum Warfare Department soon received the assistance of Henry Newton and William Howard Livens , both known for designing mortars during the First World War. During the First World War, Livens had developed a number of chemical-warfare and flame-throwing weapons. The largest of his works

4825-548: A pair of massive concrete buttresses permanently installed at the roadside; these buttresses had holes and/or slots to accept horizontal railway lines or rolled steel joists (RSJs) . Similar blocks were placed across railway tracks because tanks can move along railway lines almost as easily as they can along roads. These blocks would be placed strategically where it was difficult for a vehicle to go around – anti-tank obstacles and mines being positioned as required – and they could be opened or closed within

5018-678: A plan to prevent their stocks being of use to the invader. On 29 May 1940, as the evacuation of the BEF was in progress, Maurice Hankey , then a cabinet minister without portfolio , joined the Ministerial Committee on Civil Defence (CDC) chaired by Sir John Anderson , the Secretary of State for the Home Office and Home Security . Among many ideas, Hankey "brought out of his stable a hobby horse, which he had ridden very hard in

5211-549: A regular mail-carrying service in exchange for a fee or subsidy. In the following century, packet services out of Falmouth began to sail to the West Indies, North America and other transatlantic destinations. Packet boats, however, were not the only means of conveying letters overseas: there had always been the option of sending them by merchant ship, and coffee houses had long been accustomed to receiving letters and packages on behalf of ships' captains, who would carry them for

5404-511: A regular public postal service came the need for waterborne mail services (carrying letters to and from Ireland, continental Europe and other destinations) to be placed on a more regular footing. ' Packet boats ', offering a regular scheduled mail service, were already in use for the passage between Holyhead and Dublin; but for letters to and from the Continent the post was entrusted to messengers, who would make their own travel arrangements. This

5597-430: A road. The pipes were steel, 1–2 inches (25–51 millimetres) in diameter and drilled with 1 ⁄ 8  in (3.2 mm) holes at angles carefully calculated to cover the road evenly. The perforated pipes were connected to larger pipes that led to a tank of fuel in a raised position. The fuel mixture was 25% petrol and 75% gas-oil that was contrived to be of no use as motor vehicle fuel should it be captured. All that

5790-667: A route of attack around them. Crossing points in the defence network – bridges, tunnels and other weak spots – were called nodes or points of resistance. These were fortified with removable road blocks, barbed wire entanglements and land mines. These passive defences were overlooked by trench works, gun and mortar emplacements, and pillboxes. In places, entire villages were fortified using barriers of Admiralty scaffolding, sandbagged positions and loopholes in existing buildings. Nodes were designated 'A', 'B' or 'C' depending upon how long they were expected to hold out. Home Guard troops were largely responsible for

5983-446: A section of sewer pipe 3 to 4 feet (91 to 122 cm) in diameter filled with concrete typically to a height of 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 m), frequently with a dome at the top. Smaller cylinders cast from concrete are also frequently found. Pimples, popularly known as Dragon's teeth , were pyramid-shaped concrete blocks designed specifically to counter tanks which, attempting to pass them, would climb up exposing vulnerable parts of

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6176-523: A series of inland anti-tank 'stop' lines. The stop lines were designated command, corps and divisional according to their status and the unit assigned to man them. The longest and most heavily fortified was the General Headquarters anti-tank line, GHQ Line . This was a line of pill boxes and anti-tank trenches that ran from Bristol to the south of London before passing to the east of the capital and running northwards to York. The GHQ line

6369-634: A short-lived attempt by the British to make a stand in the northern part of the country, Norway also fell. The invasion of Norway was a combined forces operation in which the German war machine projected its power across the sea; this German success would come to be seen by the British as a dire portent. On 7 and 8 May 1940, the Norway Debate in the British House of Commons revealed intense dissatisfaction with, and some outright hostility toward,

6562-529: A shortage of petrol, but because it might lead to large congregations of well-fuelled vehicles at popular places. In the event of an invasion, the British would be faced with the problem of destroying these stocks lest they should prove of use to the enemy (as they had in France). By mid-June, as a basic anti-invasion precaution, wayside petrol stations near the coast had been emptied, or at least had their pumps disabled, and garages everywhere were required to have

6755-429: A spontaneous ignition. This system had the advantage that it could be turned on and off repeatedly. The development of the flame fougasse (see below) provided a method of remote electrical ignition that could only be used once, but was virtually instantaneous. Some 200 static flame traps were installed, mainly by the employees of oil companies whose services were placed at the disposal of the government. In addition to

6948-502: A straight length of 500 yards (460 m) or more within five miles (8 km) of the coast or an airfield were considered vulnerable. These were blocked by trenches or, more usually, by wooden or concrete obstacles, as well as old cars. General Post Office The General Post Office ( GPO ) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in

7141-418: A strategy of static warfare, but it was soon perceived that this would not be sufficient. Ironside has been criticised for having a siege mentality, but some consider this unfair, as he is believed to have understood the limits of the stop lines and never expected them to hold out indefinitely. Churchill was not satisfied with Ironside's progress, especially with the creation of a mobile reserve. Anthony Eden,

7334-556: A system for the conveyance of foreign dispatches had been set up, organised by Flemish merchants in the City of London ; but in 1558, after a dispute arose between Italian, Flemish and English merchants on the matter, the Master of the King's Posts was granted oversight of it instead. In 1619, James I appointed a separate Postmaster General 'for foreign parts', granting him (and his appointees)

7527-441: A team of four horses, rather than six as was usual for a stage coach at that time). The long-established practice of 'riding post' was acknowledged through the provision of four seats inside the coach for passengers. The mail bags were carried in a locked box at the back, above which sat a scarlet-coated guard. While the coaches and coachmen were provided by contractors, the guards worked for the Post Office. As well as two pistols and

7720-726: A term used to describe hastily produced and unconventional anti-tank or infantry support weapons, including the Blacker Bombard (an anti-tank spigot mortar ), the Northover Projector (a black-powder mortar), and the Smith Gun (a small artillery gun that could be towed by a private motorcar). In mid-1940, the principal concern of the Royal Air Force, together with elements of the Fleet Air Arm ,

7913-572: A totally separate publicly owned corporation the following year as a result of the British Telecommunications Act 1981 . In 1986 the Post Office Counters business was made functionally separate from Royal Mail Letters and Royal Mail Parcels (the latter being rebranded as ' Parcelforce '). At the start of the 21st century the Post Office became a public limited company (initially called 'Consignia plc'), which

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8106-510: A vessel filled with oil, and this was tried at Maplin Sands , where a Thames oil tanker, Suffolk , with 50 tonnes of petroleum, was blown up in shallow water. Another idea developed was that the oil should be held in place on the water by a trough formed from coir matting. A machine formed the trough from a flat mat as it was paid out over the stern of a ship. Trials with the Ben Hann produced

8299-424: Is a matter of general concernment, and of great advantage, as well for the preservation of trade and commerce as otherwise". To begin with the Post Office was again farmed, nominally to Henry Bishop , but the deal was bankrolled by John Wildman (a gentleman of dubious repute, who kept a tight rein on his investment). Two years later Wildman was imprisoned, implicated in a plot against the King, whereupon Bishop sold

8492-465: Is likely that fewer than 250,000 were produced. A measure of mobility was provided by bicycles, motorcycles, private vehicles and horses. A few units were equipped with armoured cars, some of which were of standard design, but many were improvised locally from commercially available vehicles by the attachment of steel plates. By 1941 the Home Guard had been issued with a series of "sub-artillery",

8685-497: Is significant that the British Government felt sufficiently confident in Britain's ability to repel an invasion (and in its tank production factories) that it sent 154 tanks (52 light, 52 cruiser and 50 infantry) to Egypt in mid-August. At this time, Britain's factories were almost matching Germany's output in tanks and, by 1941, they would surpass them. On 14 May 1940, Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden announced

8878-727: The Battle of Britain . By the start of the war, around 20 Chain Home stations had been built in the UK; to supplement these and detect aircraft at lower altitudes, the Chain Home Low was also being constructed. Although much larger in size and with many more ships, the Royal Navy, unlike the Kriegsmarine , had many commitments, including against Japan and guarding Scotland and Northern England. The Royal Navy could overwhelm any force that

9071-710: The Leeward Islands was enjoined. The Irish post at this time operated as part of the GPO under a Deputy Postmaster General based in Dublin; but in 1784 an Act was passed by the Parliament of Ireland providing for an independent Post Office in Ireland under its own Postmaster General (an arrangement that remained in place until 1831). The established post roads in Britain ran to and from London. The use of other roads required government permission (for example, it

9264-539: The Post Office Act 1969 , which transferred its assets to the Post Office , so changing it from a Department of State to a statutory corporation . Responsibility for telecommunications was given to Post Office Telecommunications , the successor of the GPO Telegraph and Telephones department. In 1980, the telecommunications and postal sides were split prior to British Telecommunications ' conversion into

9457-757: The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ran ships out of Southampton to the West Indies and South America, the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company (aka the Cunard Line ) covered the North Atlantic route, while the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company provided services on eastward routes to the Mediterranean, India and Australia. From 1840 vessels carrying mail under Admiralty contract had

9650-722: The Secretary for Petroleum , to press ahead with experiments, with Hankey taking the matter under his general supervision. Donald Banks had served with distinction in World War I, winning the Distinguished Service Order and Military Cross . He joined the civil service, and in 1934, he was made Director-General of the Post Office , he then moved to the Air Ministry and served there as Permanent Under Secretary from 1936 to 1938. Due to overwork, Banks

9843-484: The Spanish Armada every parish was by royal command required to provide a footpost, and every town a horse-post, to help convey news in the event of an imminent invasion. By the early 1600s there were two options for couriers using the post system: they could either ride 'through-post', carrying the correspondence the full distance; or they could use the 'post of the packet', whereby the letters were carried by

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10036-630: The Strowger system for small and medium cities and towns. The telephone systems of Jersey and the Isle of Man , obtained from the NTC were offered for sale to the respective governments of the islands. Both initially refused, but the States of Jersey did eventually take control of their island's telephones in 1923. On 27 July 1896, Guglielmo Marconi gave the first demonstration of wireless telegraphy from

10229-646: The War of the Spanish Succession ). The distribution network was centred on the General Letter Office in London (which was on Threadneedle Street prior to the Great Fire of London , after which it moved first to Bishopsgate and then to Lombard Street in 1678). The incoming post arrived each week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; it was sorted and stamped : London letters went to

10422-744: The defeat of the British Expeditionary Force in France, and 1.5 million men were enrolled as part-time soldiers in the Home Guard . The rapid construction of field fortifications transformed much of the United Kingdom, especially southern England , into a prepared battlefield. Sea Lion was never taken beyond the preliminary assembly of forces. Today, little remains of Britain's anti-invasion preparations, although reinforced concrete structures such as pillboxes and anti-tank cubes can still be commonly found, particularly in

10615-460: The hedgehog defence and expected to hold out for up to seven days or until relieved. The areas most vulnerable to an invasion were the south and east coasts of England. In all, a total of 153 Emergency Coastal Batteries were constructed in 1940 in addition to the existing coastal artillery installations, to protect ports and likely landing places. They were fitted with whatever guns were available, which mainly came from naval vessels scrapped since

10808-452: The sole privilege of carrying foreign correspondence to and from London. (The separate Postmaster General appointments were consolidated in 1637, but the 'foreign' and 'inland' postal services remained separate in terms of administration and accounting until the mid-19th century). It was not until 1635 that a general or public post was properly established, for inland letters as for foreign ones. On 31 July that year, King Charles I issued

11001-426: The 'windows' where members of the public were able to collect them from the office in person (once they had paid the requisite fee), while 'Country letters' were dispatched along the relevant post road. The outgoing post went on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Postage was payable by the recipient (rather than the sender) and depended on the length of the letter and the distance it had travelled; each individual charge

11194-466: The 12th century a permanent body of messengers had been formed within the Royal Household of King Henry I , for the conveyance of royal and official correspondence. The messengers delivered their messages in person, each travelling on his own horse and taking time as needed for rest and refreshment (including stopping overnight if the length of journey required it). Under Edward IV , however,

11387-539: The 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver (which was to be of great importance when new forms of communication were invented); it was overseen by a Government minister , the Postmaster General . Over time its remit was extended to Scotland and Ireland, and across parts of the British Empire . The GPO was abolished by

11580-645: The 1830s). In 1801 the cost of posting a letter within the central London area was doubled; thenceforward the London District Post was known as the 'Two-penny Post' until its amalgamation into the General Post 53 years later. During the reign of King William III , the General Post Office created a network of 'receiving-houses', in London and the larger provincial towns, where senders could submit items. A Scottish Post Office

11773-508: The 1914–18 war – namely the use of burning oil for defensive purposes." Hankey believed that oil should not just be denied to an invader, but used to impede him. Towards the end of June, Hankey brought his scheme up at a meeting of the Oil Control Board and produced for Commander-in-Chief Home Forces Edmund Ironside extracts of his paper on experiments with oil in the First World War. On 5 June, Churchill authorised Geoffrey Lloyd ,

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11966-458: The Admiralty took over managing the long-distance routes out of Falmouth, while services to and from Ireland and the continent were increasingly put out to commercial tender. Eventually, in 1837, the Admiralty took over control of the whole operation (and with it the remaining Post Office vessels). Subsequently, contracts for carrying mail began to be awarded to new large-scale shipping lines :

12159-613: The Australian 6th Division were also deployed to the country between June 1940 and January 1941 as part of the Second Australian Imperial Force in the United Kingdom . The number of tanks in Britain increased rapidly between June and September 1940 (mid-September being the theoretical planned date for the launch of Operation Sea Lion) as follows: These figures do not include training tanks or tanks under repair. The light tanks were mostly MkVIB and

12352-429: The Beach , Hayward makes a compelling case for the view that the burning seas work was driven substantially by the needs of propaganda and was a sophisticated bluff that became Britain's first major propaganda success of the war. Writing just after the war, Banks said, "Perhaps the greatest contribution from all these variegated efforts was in building up the great propaganda story of the Flame Defence of Britain which swept

12545-423: The Birch Igniter, the pressure of the oil at the end of the pipe would squeeze glycerine from a rubber bulb; the glycerine would fall onto a container of potassium permanganate , which would then ignite spontaneously. Another method was to run a pair of small rubber tubes, down one of which would be passed acetylene and the other chlorine ; when, at the far end, these two gases were allowed to mix, there would be

12738-444: The British Isles (the nations of which had been unified under Oliver Cromwell as a result of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms ), stating that 'there shall be one General Post-Office, and one office stiled the Postmaster-Generall of England and Comptroller of the Post-Office'. The Act also reasserted the postal monopoly for letter delivery and for post-horses; and it set new rates both for carriage of letters and for 'riding post'. During

12931-441: The British sought to expand the Royal Navy , Royal Air Force , and Army, replace the equipment that had been left behind at Dunkirk, and supplement the regular armed services with volunteer organisations such as the part-time soldiers in the Home Guard . With many types of equipment in short supply, frantic efforts were made to develop new weapons – particularly those that did not require scarce materials. Although oil imports from

13124-412: The Chief Engineer's office at GHQ Home Forces read: "The PM is personally interested in it. It is something which can be provided without any adverse effect on the production of other equipment or on our War effort generally. It is unlikely that we shall have enough A/T weapons to cover all our road blocks for many months, if ever. These flame traps do at least give the Home Guard a sporting chance of frying

13317-400: The Commonwealth, what had been a weekly post service to and from London was increased to a thrice-weekly service: letters were despatched from the General Letter Office in London every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evening, while the inbound post arrived early in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Usually the recipient of the post paid the fee (and had the right to refuse to accept

13510-437: The Continent of Europe in 1940." The details of the story indicated the invention of a bomb that would spread a thin film of volatile liquid on the surface of the water and then ignite it. This rumour was whispered into attentive ears in neutral cities such as Stockholm , Lisbon, Madrid , Cairo , Istanbul , Ankara , New York, and other places, probably around late July or early August 1940. The burning-seas rumour appealed to

13703-410: The Crown). At Dover merchant ships were regularly employed to convey letters to and from the continent . A similar system connected Holyhead and Milford to Ireland (and by the end of the 16th century a packet service had been established on the Holyhead to Dublin route). Private citizens could make use of the post-horse network, if they could afford it (in 1583 they had to pay twopence per mile for

13896-522: The English coast or in rehearsals with boats and barges off the French coast the British had given the Germans a bad pummelling. The reports reaching Switzerland from France were that many German barges and ships had been destroyed and a considerable number of German troops drowned; also that the British used a new type of wireless-directed torpedo (a Swiss invention, the Swiss said) which spread ignited oil on

14089-611: The GPO (in particular the Hull Telephones Department (now privatised) and the telephone system of Guernsey ). The GPO took over the company on 1 January 1912; transferring 1,565 exchanges and 9,000 employees at a cost of £12,515,264. The GPO installed several automatic telephone exchanges from several vendors in trials at Darlington on 10 October 1914 and Dudley on 9 September 1916 ( rotary system ), Fleetwood (relay exchange from Sweden), Grimsby (Siemens), Hereford (Lorimer) and Leeds (Strowger). The GPO then selected

14282-516: The GPO came to be viewed less as a revenue-raising body and more as a public service . The Post Office Savings Bank was introduced in 1861, when there were few banks outside major towns. By 1863, 2,500 post offices were offering a savings service . Gradually more financial services were offered by post offices, including government stocks and bonds in 1880, insurance and annuities in 1888, and war savings certificates in 1916. In 1909 old age pensions were introduced, payable at post offices. In 1956

14475-622: The German Navy could muster but would require time to get its forces in position since they were dispersed, partly because of these commitments and partly to reduce the risk of air attack. On 1 July 1940, one cruiser and 23 destroyers were committed to escort duties in the Western Approaches , plus 12 destroyers and one cruiser on the Tyne and the aircraft carrier Argus  (I49) . More immediately available were ten destroyers at

14668-495: The Home Guard laid on a demonstration. The petrol valve was opened and created a huge spray, which reached the opposite side of the road. I think the original idea was that a limited amount of petrol would be released, but the valve remained open. An army Sergeant with a Very pistol fired a round (from the top of the Goods Yard) into the pool of petrol in the road dip, while fuel was still coming out at force. It created one of

14861-418: The Home Guard was armed with guns in private ownership, knives or bayonets fastened to poles, Molotov cocktails and improvised flamethrowers . By July 1940 the situation had improved radically as all volunteers received uniforms and a modicum of training. 500,000 modern M1917 Enfield Rifles , 25,000 M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition were bought from the reserve stock of

15054-599: The Middle East had stopped and most oil for Britain came from the United States, no shortage of oil existed at the time; supplies originally intended for Europe were filling British storage facilities and full tankers were kept waiting in American ports. The amount of petrol allocated for civilian use was strictly rationed and pleasure motoring was strongly discouraged. This was not, at least initially, because of

15247-582: The Netherlands, but were then outflanked by the main attack that came behind them through the Ardennes Forest by highly mobile Panzer divisions of the Wehrmacht , overrunning any defences that could be improvised in their path. In fierce fighting, most of the BEF were able to avoid being surrounded by withdrawing to a small area around the French port of Dunkirk . With the Germans now on

15440-454: The PWD experimented with "setting the sea on fire" by burning oil that was floating on the surface. It was immediately appreciated that the possibilities of such a weapon lay not only in its ability to destroy the enemy, but also in the propaganda value of the terror of fire. In 1938, an Enemy Publicity Section , created for propaganda to be sent to the enemy, was formed by Hankey and a new section

15633-454: The Peace had been ordered to arrange appointment of two to three foot-posts in every parish for the conveyance of letters), though in practice precise details were often left to the local postmaster. On the return journey to London, bags of letters would be picked up from each post-house on the way, and taken to the General Letter Office to be sorted for despatch. With the establishment of

15826-486: The Petroleum Warfare Department was created. The Petroleum Warfare Department started on 9 July 1940 in three small rooms. They were independently administered and financed with a few staff entirely lacking in technical knowledge. Hankey and Lloyd were not alone in their interest in the development of petroleum warfare weapons; encouragement came from the highest quarters. In August, a note from

16019-669: The Poles. By 1 October, Poland had been completely overrun. There was little fighting over the months that followed. In a period known as the Phoney War , soldiers on both sides trained for war and the French and British constructed and manned defences on the eastern borders of France. However, the British War Cabinet became concerned about exaggerated intelligence reports, aided by German disinformation , of large airborne forces which could be launched against Britain. At

16212-622: The Post Master General obtained a court judgement that telephone conversations were, technically, within the remit of the Telegraph Act. The General Post Office then licensed all existing telephone networks. The effective nationalisation of the UK telecommunications industry occurred in 1912 with the takeover of the National Telephone Company which left only a few municipal undertakings independent of

16405-463: The Post Office.) The expansion of the service beyond the main post-roads was in no small part due to the enterprise of the Deputy post-masters themselves, who were allowed to profit from branch services which they established and operated. In this way, the network of 'by-posts' greatly expanded in the 1670s: in 1673 Blome could write that 'there is scarce any Market-Town of note [which does not have]

16598-494: The Postmaster General. Alongside money orders, postal orders were introduced in 1881, which were cheaper and easier to cash. Postal orders and money orders were vital at this time for transactions between small businesses, as well as individuals, because bank transfer facilities were only available to major businesses and for larger sums of money. In 1840 the Uniform Penny Post was introduced, which incorporated

16791-770: The Research Section of the Telegraph Office, which had its origins in innovative areas of work being pursued by staff in the Engineering Department. In the 1920s a dedicated research station was set up by the GPO seven miles away in Dollis Hill ; during the Second World War the world's first electronic computer, ' Colossus ', was designed and constructed there by Tommy Flowers and other GPO engineers. The Telegraph Office

16984-680: The SOE. Subsequently, in September 1941, responsibilities for political warfare was taken away from the SOE with the formation of the Political Warfare Executive . Although PWD would go on to work on burning floating oil, a plan was hatched to spread the story that such a weapon already existed even before the first trials were performed. Writer James Hayward has made an extensive study of this curious story; in The Bodies on

17177-656: The Secretary of State for War, suggested that Ironside should be replaced by General Alan Brooke (later Viscount Alanbrooke). On 17 July 1940 Churchill spent an afternoon with Brooke during which the general raised concerns about the defence of the country. Two days later Brooke was appointed to replace Ironside. Brooke's appointment saw a change in focus away from Ironside's stop lines, with cement supplies limited Brooke ordered that its use be prioritised for beach defences and "nodal points". The nodal points, also called anti-tank islands or fortress towns, were focal points of

17370-453: The U.S. armed forces, and rushed by special trains directly to Home Guard units. New weapons were developed that could be produced cheaply without consuming materials that were needed to produce armaments for the regular units. An early example was the No. 76 Special Incendiary Grenade , a glass bottle filled with highly flammable material of which more than six million were made. The sticky bomb

17563-455: The UK. The responsibility for the 'electric telegraphs' was officially transferred to the GPO in 1870. Overseas telegraphs did not fall within the monopoly. The private telegraph companies that already existed were bought out. The new combined telegraph service had 1,058 telegraph offices in towns and cities and 1,874 offices at railway stations. 6,830,812 telegrams were transmitted in 1869 producing revenue of £550,000. London's Central Office in

17756-527: The US. Some sources also state the British army was lacking in transport (just over 2,000 carriers were available, rising to over 3,000 by the end of July). There was a critical shortage of ammunition such that little could be spared for training. In contrast, records show that the British possessed over 290 million rounds of .303 ammunition of various types on 7 June, rising to over 400 million in August. VII Corps

17949-413: The United Kingdom of which about 6,500 still survive. Some defences were disguised and examples are known of pillboxes constructed to resemble haystacks, logpiles and innocuous buildings such as churches and railway stations. Open areas were considered vulnerable to invasion from the air: a landing by paratroops, glider-borne troops or powered aircraft which could land and take off again. Open areas with

18142-487: The armies in the west stopped fighting three months ago. As there were only a few porters I had to wait some time on the platform and picked up a conversation with a railway workman. He said most of the men taken from the hospital train were suffering from burns. Can it be that the tales I heard in Geneva had some truth in them after all? The stories there were that either in attempted German raids with sizable landing-parties on

18335-406: The battery of drums where the party was standing failed to go off. The experiments led to a particularly promising arrangement - a 40-gallon steel drum buried in an earthen bank with just the round front end exposed. At the back of the drum was an explosive which, when triggered, ruptured the drum and shot a jet of flame about 10 ft (3.0 m) wide and 30 yd (27 m) long. The design

18528-533: The beginning of World War II, in September 1939, little fighting occurred in the West until the German invasion of France and the Low Countries in May 1940. Following the fall of France and the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the beaches at Dunkirk in June 1940, Britain was threatened with invasion by German armed forces in 1940 and 1941 . In response to this threat of invasion,

18721-481: The benefit of the conveyance of letters to and fro'; he went on to list, County by County, both the 'Stages' on the post-roads (of which there were over 140) and the Post-towns on the branch roads (which by then numbered over 380 in total), where members of the public were able to leave letters with a Post-Master 'to be sent as directed'. Before long moves were made to incorporate the by-posts (and their income) into

18914-531: The burning-seas story became embellished to the point where the story included a German invasion attempt thwarted by the ignition of oil on water. American war correspondent William Lawrence Shirer was based in Berlin at the time, but in mid-September, he visited Geneva , Switzerland. News coming over the near-by border of France is that the Germans have attempted a landing in Britain, but that it has been repulsed with heavy German losses. Must take this report with

19107-427: The coast of France, it became evident that an urgent reassessment needed to be given to the possibility of having to resist an attempted invasion of Britain by German forces. The evacuation of British and French forces ( Operation Dynamo ) began on 26 May with air cover provided by the Royal Air Force at heavy cost. Over the following ten days, 338,226 French and British soldiers were evacuated to Britain . Most of

19300-542: The coast to illuminate the sea surface and the beaches for artillery fire. Many small islands and peninsulas were fortified to protect inlets and other strategic targets. In the Firth of Forth in east central Scotland, Inchgarvie was heavily fortified with several gun emplacements, which can still be seen. This provided invaluable defence from seaborne attacks on the Forth Bridge and Rosyth Dockyard , approximately

19493-725: The coastal counties. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland ; two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany , launching the Second World War . Within three weeks, the Red Army of the Soviet Union invaded the eastern regions of Poland in fulfilment of the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany. A British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was sent to the Franco-Belgian border, but Britain and France did not take any direct action in support of

19686-463: The country. The 1850s also saw the widespread introduction of red-painted post boxes where the public could deposit their outgoing mail. Few other organisations (either of state or of commerce) could rival the early Victorian Post Office in the extent of its national coverage. Its counters began to be relied upon for providing other government services (e.g. the issuing of licences of various types); and increasingly (and significantly) in this period,

19879-490: The creation of the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) – later to become known as the Home Guard. Far more men volunteered than the government expected and by the end of June, there were nearly 1.5 million volunteers. There were plenty of personnel for the defence of the country, but there were no uniforms (a simple armband had to suffice) and equipment was in critically short supply. At first,

20072-503: The cruiser tanks were A9 / A10 / A13 . The infantry tanks included 27 obsolete Matilda MkIs but the rest were almost all the very capable Matilda II . The first Valentine infantry tanks were delivered in May 1940 for trials and 109 had been built by the end of September. In the immediate aftermath of Dunkirk some tank regiments, such as the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards , were expected to go into action as infantry armed with little more than rifles and light machine guns. In June 1940

20265-414: The dark imaginations of both friend and foe. Soon, interrogation of captured Luftwaffe pilots revealed that the rumour had become common knowledge. German armed forces began experimenting with burning floating oil. On 18 August, they ignited 100 tons of floating oil; it burned for 20 minutes producing heat and copious smoke – this was almost a week before the first successful British ignition. In Europe,

20458-626: The defence of nodal points and other centres of resistance, such as towns and defended villages. Category 'A' nodal points and anti-tank islands were usually garrisoned by regular troops. The rate of construction was frenetic: by the end of September 1940, 18,000 pillboxes and numerous other preparations had been completed. Some existing defences such as mediaeval castles and Napoleonic forts were augmented with modern additions such as dragon's teeth and pillboxes; some Iron Age forts housed anti-aircraft and observer positions. About 28,000 pillboxes and other hardened field fortifications were constructed in

20651-480: The defence. In the event of invasion almost anything that was not a fighter would be converted to a bomber – student pilots, some in the very earliest stages of training, would use around 350 Tiger Moth and Magister trainers to drop 20 lb (9.1 kg) bombs from rudimentary bomb racks. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War the Chain Home radar system began to be installed in

20844-442: The defended side being especially steep and revetted with whatever material was available. Elsewhere, anti-tank barriers were made of massive reinforced concrete obstacles, either cubic, pyramidal or cylindrical. The cubes generally came in two sizes: 5 or 3.5 feet (1.5 or 1.1 m) high. In a few places, anti-tank walls were constructed – essentially continuously abutted cubes. Large cylinders were made from

21037-529: The department was instrumental in the creation of the Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation (commonly known as FIDO) that cleared runways of fog allowing the landing of aircraft returning from bombing raids over Germany in poor visibility, and Operation Pluto , which installed prefabricated fuel pipelines between England and France soon after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. At

21230-417: The early 17th century.) Each post-house on the road was staffed by a postmaster , whose main responsibility was to provide the horses; he would also provide a guide to accompany the messenger as far as the next post house (and then see to the return of the horses afterwards). In practice most post-houses were established at roadside inns and the innkeeper served as postmaster (in return for a small salary from

21423-475: The end of July, a dozen additional destroyers were transferred from escort duties to the defence of the homeland, and more would join the Home Fleet shortly after. At the end of August, the battleship HMS  Rodney was sent south to Rosyth for anti-invasion duties. She was joined on 13 September by her sister ship HMS  Nelson , the battlecruiser HMS  Hood , three anti-aircraft cruisers and

21616-448: The end of the First World War. These included 6 inch (152 mm), 5.5 inch (140 mm), 4.7 inch (120 mm) and 4 inch (102 mm) guns. Some had little ammunition, sometimes as few as ten rounds apiece. At Dover, two 14 inch (356 mm) guns known as Winnie and Pooh were employed. There were also a few land-based torpedo batteries. Beaches were blocked with entanglements of barbed wire , usually in

21809-485: The enemy by surprise. Both Livens and Newton experimented with field-expedient versions of the Livens projector using commercially available five-gallon drums and tubes. Newton experimented with firing milk bottles filled with phosphorus using a rifle. None of these experiments were taken forward. However, one of Livens' PWD demonstrations, probably first seen about mid-July at Dumpton Gap, was more promising. A barrel of oil

22002-619: The establishment of the Penny Post, the only location where letters could be posted in London was the General Letter Office in Lombard Street .) The receiving-houses were often found in public houses, coffee houses or other retail premises. Deliveries were made six or eight times a day in central London (and a minimum of four times a day in the outskirts). The innovation was a great success, and within two years

22195-507: The extra charges. In 1680 William Dockwra and Robert Murray founded the 'Penny Post', which enabled letters and parcels to be sent cheaply to and from destinations in and around London. A flat fee of a penny was charged for sending letters or parcels up to a pound in weight within an area comprising the City of London, the City of Westminster and the Borough of Southwark ; while two-pence

22388-450: The fiercest of fires I have seen, destroying the grass banks, the railway sleeper fence, scorched the telegraph poles and burned the surface off the road. Very effective! This little episode (about 1940-41) was never repeated! A static flame trap allowed a length of road, typically 60 to 150 ft (18 to 46 m), to be covered in flame and smoke at a moment's notice. The weapon was a simple arrangement of perforated pipes placed alongside

22581-417: The first decade of nationalized telegraphy created two levels of service. High-status circuits catering to the state, international trade, sporting life, and imperial business. Low-status circuits directed toward the local and the provincial. These distinct telegraphic orbits were connected to different types of telegraph instruments operated by differently gendered telegraphists. 1909 saw the establishment of

22774-431: The flame fougasse called the "demi-gass" was a fougasse barrel placed horizontally in the open with an explosive charge underneath that would rupture the barrel and flip it over towards the target. Another variant was the "hedge hopper", a fougasse barrel on its end with an explosive charge underneath that would send it bounding over a hedge or wall; this made the hedge hopper particularly easy to conceal. A further variant of

22967-420: The form of three coils of concertina wire fixed by metal posts, or a simple fence of straight wires supported on waist-high posts. The wire would also demarcate extensive minefields , with both anti-tank and anti-personnel mines on and behind the beaches. On many of the more remote beaches this combination of wire and mines represented the full extent of the passive defences. Portions of Romney Marsh , which

23160-407: The government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain . Two days later Chamberlain resigned and was succeeded by Churchill. On 10 May 1940, Germany invaded France . By that time, the BEF consisted of 10 infantry divisions in three corps , a tank brigade and a Royal Air Force detachment of around 500 aircraft. The BEF and the best French forces were pinned by the German attack into Belgium and

23353-449: The ground. Gas tubes for chlorine and acetylene gas were provided for ignition. The resulting jets of flame had a range of 60–70 ft (18–21 m). Because a shortage of pumps existed – they were badly needed for fighting fires started by bombing – a simpler type of mobile flame trap was also designed. This consisted of a number of 12-inch (30 cm) diameter pipes welded shut to make a 12-foot (3.7 m) long cylindrical drum, which

23546-412: The guides from one post house to the next in a cotton-lined leather bag (although this method was only available for royal, government or diplomatic correspondence). The guides at this time were provided with a post horn , which they had to sound at regular intervals or when encountering others on the road (other road users were expected to give way to the post riders ). At the start of the 16th century

23739-514: The hedge hopper idea was devised for St Margaret's Bay , where the barrels would be sent rolling over the cliff edge. In all, some 50,000 flame fougasse barrels were distributed, of which the great majority were installed in one of 7,000 batteries mostly in southern England and a little later at 2,000 sites in Scotland. Some barrels were held in reserve, while others were deployed at storage sites to destroy fuel depots at short notice. The size of

23932-503: The horse, plus fourpence per stage for the guide), but it was primarily designed for the relaying of state and royal correspondence, or for the conveyance from one place to another of individuals engaged on official state business (who paid a reduced rate). Private correspondence was often sent using common carriers at this time, or with others who regularly journeyed from place to place (such as travelling pedlars ); towns often made use of local licensed carriers, who plied their trade using

24125-593: The importance of a properly coordinated system for sending information to enemy countries. The Permanent Secretary (most senior civil servant of a department) at the Air Ministry to whom the note was addressed was Sir Donald Banks, who would later head the PWD. On 25 September 1939, Department EH was mobilised to Woburn Abbey where it joined another subversion team known as Section D that had been formed by Major Laurence Grand . In July 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill invited Hugh Dalton to take charge of

24318-483: The inhabitants of the nation. At that time there were 182 Deputy Post-Masters (or 'Deputies') in England [and Wales], most of whom were stationed at the 'Stages' or stops which lay along the six main post-roads; and under them were sub-Post-masters , based at market towns which were not on the main post-roads but to which the service had been extended. (The sub-Post-masters, unlike the Deputies, were not employed by

24511-590: The insistence of Winston Churchill , then the First Lord of the Admiralty , a request was made that the Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces , General Sir Walter Kirke , should prepare a plan to repel a large-scale invasion. Kirke presented his plan on 15 November 1939, known as "Plan Julius Caesar" or "Plan J-C" because of the code word "Julius" which would be used for a likely invasion and "Caesar" for an imminent invasion. Kirke, whose main responsibility

24704-465: The item if they did not wish to pay); the charge was based on the distance the item had been carried so the Post Office had to keep a separate account for each item. After the Restoration , the Post Office Act 1660 ( 12 Cha. 2 . c. 35) was passed (the previous Cromwellian Act being void), confirming the arrangements in place for the Post Office, and the post of Postmaster General, and emphasizing

24897-477: The latter's accession to the throne as King James II , this income became part of the hereditary revenues of the Crown ; and subsequently, under the growing scrutiny of HM Treasury , the postal service came increasingly to be viewed as a source of government income (as seen in the Post Office (Revenues) Act 1710 , which increased postal charges and levied tax on the income in order to finance Britain's involvement in

25090-575: The lease on to the King's gunpowder manufacturer, Daniel O'Neill ; after the latter's death, his widow the Countess of Chesterfield served out the remainder of the original seven-year term (so becoming the first female Postmaster General). Meanwhile, under the terms of a 1663 Act of Parliament, the 'rents, issues and profits' of the Post Office had been settled by the King on his brother, the Duke of York, to provide for his support and maintenance. Following

25283-517: The mail bags from one post-house to the next; the postmaster at the next post-house would then record the time of arrival, before transferring the bags to a new horse, ridden by a new post-boy, for the next stage of the journey. On the outbound journey from London, the mail for each Stage (and its associated Post-towns) was left at the relevant post-house. Arrangements for its onward delivery varied somewhat from place to place. Witherings had envisaged using 'foot-posts' for this purpose (in 1620 Justices of

25476-524: The messengers appointed by the said Thomas Witherings', thus establishing a monopoly, which (under the auspices of the Royal Mail ) would remain in place until 2006. Under the Commonwealth the Post Office was farmed to John Manley and John Thurloe , successively. In 1657 an Act of Parliament entitled Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland Settled set up a postal system for the whole of

25669-506: The national network: 'Riding Surveyors' were appointed in 1682, to travel with the post and scrutinise the Deputies' income and activity at each Stage (particularly in relation to by-letters); in later years the Surveyors served as the GPO's inspectorate , tasked with maintaining efficiency and consistency across the network (until they were finally disbanded in the 1930s). It was usual for each postmaster to employ post-boys to ride with

25862-507: The network of post towns served by the General Post, and at the same time did much to reform its workings. In 1772 the Court of the King's Bench ruled that letters ought to be delivered directly to recipients within the boundaries of each post town at no additional cost. Often a messenger with a locked satchel would be employed by the postmaster to deliver and receive items of mail around town; he would alert people to his presence by ringing

26055-548: The new arrangement, the King commanded 'all his postmasters, upon all the roads of England, to have ready in their stables one or two horses [...] to carry such messengers, with their portmantles , as shall be imployed in the said service', and they were forbidden from hiring out these horses to others on days when the mail was due. Furthermore, it was enjoined that (with a few specific exceptions) 'no other messenger or messengers, footpost or footposts, shall take up, carry, receive or deliver any letter or letters whatsoever, other than

26248-469: The newly formed Special Operations Executive (SOE). The mission of the SOE was to encourage and facilitate espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines, or as Churchill put, it: to "set Europe ablaze". Among those present at the first summit meeting of SOE on 1 July 1940 were Lord Hankey, Geoffrey Lloyd and Desmond Morton – people who would be instrumental in the formation of the PWD just a few days later. Department EH and section D later became SO1 and SO2 of

26441-436: The next few days and consulting with other soldiers, Banks found both professional scepticism and enthusiasm. Banks, a man who said he preferred the prospect of real fighting over "Whitehall warfare", was not himself keen and his first instinct was to suggest that petroleum weapons should be developed locally. Lloyd would have none of it and Banks was ordered to report to him for special duties. On 9 July, cutting through red tape,

26634-556: The obstruction, as Dean wrote: We were prepared for this ... I had some lorry petrol tanks punctured with a pick, the tank being unable to shell us during its crushing climb, and we set fire to the lot. A sheet of flame went up, and the tank backed hastily off ... Our roadblock burned for quite a while, and allowed for a further block to be made under cover of smoke. The newly formed department quickly made arrangements for some practical experiments at Dumpton Gap in Kent. These were

26827-471: The operation under the command of Augustus Agar VC with Morgan Morgan-Giles as his staff officer. Each ship was laden with over 2,000 tons of flammable oils and a miscellany of leftover explosive devices. Although the operation was started several times in September–October 1940, the attempts were thwarted by bad weather, unreliable ships, and finally, one of the destroyers in the group was damaged by

27020-436: The packet ship services. Since the 1780s these had been run on behalf of the Post Office by private contractors, who depended on supplementary income from fee-paying passengers in order to make a profit; but in the 19th-century steamships began to lure the passengers away. At some considerable cost the Post Office resolved to build and operate its own fleet of steam vessels, but the service became increasingly inefficient. In 1823

27213-813: The personnel were brought back to Britain, but many of the army's vehicles, tanks, guns, ammunition and heavy equipment and the RAF's ground equipment and stores were left behind in France. Some soldiers even returned without their rifles. A further 215,000 were evacuated from ports south of the Channel in the more organised Operation Aerial during June. In June 1940 the British Army had 22 infantry divisions and one armoured division. The infantry divisions were, on average, at half strength, and had only one-sixth of their normal artillery. Over 600 medium guns, both 18/25 and 25 pounders , and 280 howitzers were available, with

27406-423: The pits are shallow: just deep enough to take an anti-tank mine. When not in use the sockets were filled with wooden plugs, allowing traffic to pass normally. Bridges and other key points were prepared for demolition at short notice by preparing chambers filled with explosives. A Depth Charge Crater was a site in a road (usually at a junction) prepared with buried explosives that could be detonated to instantly form

27599-503: The presence of an enemy that enjoys air superiority is very dangerous. However, the RAF would have kept several advantages, such as being able to operate largely over friendly territory, as well as having the ability to fly for longer as, until the Germans were able to operate from airfields in England, Luftwaffe pilots would still have to fly significant distances to reach their operational area. A contingency plan called Operation Banquet required all available aircraft to be committed to

27792-483: The privilege of being badged and designated as Royal Mail Ships (RMS). In 1838 the Money Order Office was established, to provide a secure means of transferring money to people in different parts of the country (or world), and to discourage people from sending cash by post. The money order system had first been introduced as a private enterprise by three Post Office clerks in 1792, with the permission of

27985-422: The public and economic benefits of a General Post system: "Whereas for the maintenance of mutual correspondencies, and prevention of many inconveniences happening by private posts, several public post-offices have been heretofore erected for carrying and recarrying of letters by post to and from all parts and places within England, Scotland, and Ireland, and several posts beyond the seas, the well-ordering whereof

28178-619: The regiment received the Beaverette , an improvised armoured car developed by order of the Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook , and former holiday coaches for use as personnel carriers. It did not receive tanks until April 1941 and then the problematic Covenanter . Churchill stated "in the last half of September we were able to bring into action on the south coast front sixteen divisions of high quality of which three were armoured divisions or their equivalent in brigades". It

28371-578: The removable roadblocks consisted of concrete anti-tank cylinders of various sizes but typically about 3 feet (0.91 m) high and 2 feet (61 cm) in diameter; these could be manhandled into position as required. Anti-tank cylinders were to be used on roads, and other hard surfaces; deployed irregularly in five rows with bricks or kerbstones scattered nearby to stop the cylinders moving more than 2 ft (0.61 m). Cylinders were often placed in front of socket roadblocks as an additional obstacle. One common type of removable anti-tank roadblock comprised

28564-418: The required pipes and valves could be obtained from the gas and water industries with little modification required beyond drilling a few holes. In general, gravity was all that was required to provide sufficient pressure for the fountains of oil but, where necessary, pumps were provided. Later versions were a little more sophisticated; remote ignition could be achieved in a variety of ways. In one system, called

28757-460: The rest of the realm). Witherings was required to extend the new system to other post roads 'as soon as possibly may be' (beginning with the routes to Oxford and Bristol, and to Colchester, Norwich and Yarmouth); and provision was also made for the establishment of 'bye-posts' to run to and from places not directly served by the post road system (such as Lincoln and Hull). The new system was fully and profitably running by 1636. In order to facilitate

28950-555: The roof of the Telegraph Office in St. Martin's Le Grand. The development of radio links for sending telegraphs led to the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904 , which granted control of radio waves to the General Post Office, who licensed all senders and receivers. This placed the Post Office in a position of control over radio and television broadcasting as those technologies were developed. By 1900 house-to-house mail delivery

29143-654: The route of an attack. The need to prevent tanks from breaking through was of key importance. Consequently, the defences generally ran along pre-existing barriers to tanks, such as rivers and canals; railway embankments and cuttings; thick woods; and other natural obstacles. Where possible, usually well-drained land was allowed to flood, making the ground too soft to support even tracked vehicles. Thousands of miles of anti-tank ditches were dug, usually by mechanical excavators, but occasionally by hand. They were typically 18 feet (5.5 m) wide and 11 feet (3.4 m) deep and could be either trapezoidal or triangular in section with

29336-455: The royal proclamation instructed him to establish 'a running post, to run night and day', initially between London and Edinburgh, London and Holyhead and London and Plymouth, 'for the advancement of all His Majesty's subjects in their trade and correspondence'. (A similar system, running between London and Dover, had already been established by Witherings as part of his administration of the foreign posts, and he himself had proposed its extension to

29529-429: The rumour machine inflated light casualties to proportions of strategic consequence. British anti-invasion preparations of World War II British anti-invasion preparations of the Second World War entailed a large-scale division of military and civilian mobilisation in response to the threat of invasion ( Operation Sea Lion ) by German armed forces in 1940 and 1941 . The British Army needed to recover from

29722-440: The ships that the Germans had available as naval escorts. The British engaged upon an extensive program of field fortification. On 27 May 1940 a Home Defence Executive was formed under General Sir Edmund Ironside , Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, to organise the defence of Britain. At first defence arrangements were largely static and focused on the coastline (the coastal crust) and, in a classic example of defence in depth , on

29915-471: The source of some excitement for witnesses, who included the pilots of enemy planes. Many of the first ideas to be tried proved fruitless, but experience quickly led to the development of the first practical weapon - the static flame trap. I lived in Longniddry from 1927 until my wife and I moved [away] ... twenty years ago. [...] It was on a platform high up in the trees opposite a dip in the road between

30108-653: The south coast ports of Dover and Portsmouth , a cruiser and three destroyers at Sheerness on the River Thames , three cruisers and seven destroyers at the Humber , nine destroyers at Harwich , and two cruisers at Rosyth . The rest of the Home Fleet  – five battleships, three cruisers and nine destroyers – was based far to the north at Scapa Flow . There were, in addition, many corvettes , minesweepers , and other small vessels . By

30301-486: The south of England, with three radar stations being operational by 1937. Although the German High Command suspected that the British may have been developing these systems, Zeppelin detection and evaluation flights had proved inconclusive. As a result, the Germans underestimated the effectiveness of the expanding Chain Home radar system, which became a vital piece of Britain's defensive capabilities during

30494-484: The south of London and comprised 1st Armoured and 1st Canadian Divisions with the 1st Army Tank Brigade . IV Corps was based at Latimer House to the north of London and comprised 2nd Armoured , 42nd and 43rd Infantry divisions. VII Corps also included a brigade, which had been diverted to England when on its way to Egypt, from the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force . Two infantry brigades and corps troops including artillery, engineers and medical personnel from

30687-399: The southeast of England. Any airfield that was in danger of being captured would have been made inoperable and there were plans to remove all portable equipment from vulnerable radar bases and completely destroy anything that could not be moved. Whatever was left of the RAF would have been committed to intercepting the invasion fleet in concert with the Royal Navy  – to fly in

30880-431: The static flame traps, mobile units were created. The main design used an otherwise redundant 200–300-imperial-gallon (910–1,360 L) tank mounted on the back of a 30 cwt lorry, just behind the cabin. In the middle of the remaining space was a petrol-driven pump and either side of this was stored 75 ft (23 m) of armoured rubber hose. Two nozzles were provided with a primitive sight and with spikes for pushing into

31073-610: The top for the attachment of barbed wire. There was also a tetrahedral or caltrop -shaped obstacle, although it seems these were rare. Where natural anti-tank barriers needed only to be augmented, concrete or wooden posts sufficed. Roads offered the enemy fast routes to their objectives and consequently they were blocked at strategic points. Many of the road-blocks formed by Ironside were semi-permanent. In many cases, Brooke had these removed altogether, as experience had shown they could be as much of an impediment to friends as to foes. Brooke favoured removable blocks. The simplest of

31266-474: The two key innovations of a uniform postal rate, which cut administrative costs and encouraged use of the system, and adhesive pre-paid stamp. Packets (weighing up to 16 ounces (450 g)) could also be sent by post, the cost of postage varying with the weight. The reforms were devised and overseen by Rowland Hill , having been initially proposed in Parliament by Robert Wallace MP . A book post service

31459-402: The two old telegraph poles. My recollection is that the tank was as high as the telegraph poles. A vertical pipe from the tank was connected to a horizontal pipe fixed to the top of the wall. This pipe had a line of small holes along its length. Opening a valve inside the wood allowed the petrol to escape under a considerable pressure head. I only saw this Flamme operated once. Army personnel for

31652-449: The vehicle and possibly slip down with the tracks between the points. They ranged in size somewhat, but were typically 2 feet (61 cm) high and about 3 feet (91 cm) square at the base. There was also a conical form. Cubes, cylinders and pimples were deployed in long rows, often several rows deep, to form anti-tank barriers at beaches and inland. They were also used in smaller numbers to block roads. They frequently sported loops at

31845-472: The water and burned the barges. Those cases of burns at the station this morning bear looking into. The following day, Shirer heard about further train loads of wounded soldiers. A plausible explanation for these wounded is that they were hurt in RAF bombing raids on ports of embarkation. Such raids were certainly going on, though it seems they were generally fairly ineffective and no records of significant German casualties have been turned up. It seems likely that

32038-473: The world's first public telegraph company, was established in the UK and developed a nationwide communications network. Several other private telegraph companies soon followed. The Telegraph Act 1868 granted the Postmaster General the right to acquire inland telegraph companies in the United Kingdom and the Telegraph Act 1869 conferred on the Postmaster General a monopoly in telegraphic communication in

32231-511: Was a glass flask filled with nitroglycerin and given an adhesive coating allowing it to be glued to a passing vehicle. In theory, it could be thrown, but in practice it would most likely need to be placed – thumped against the target with sufficient force to stick – requiring courage and good fortune to be used effectively. An order for one million sticky bombs was placed in June 1940, but various problems delayed their distribution in large numbers until early 1941, and it

32424-478: Was calculated in London and entered into a book, which went with the letters on the road, indicating the amounts due from each postmaster for the letters delivered into his care. At first the new postal network was not especially well publicised; but in his 1673 publication Britannia , Richard Blome sought to remedy this by describing in some detail the geographical disposition of the new 'general Post-Office' , which he called an 'exceeding great conveniency' for

32617-413: Was charged for items posted or delivered in the surrounding 'country' area (which included places such as Hackney, Newington, Lambeth and Islington). The Penny Post letter-carriers operated from seven main sorting offices around London, which were supplemented by between four and five hundred 'receiving houses' in all the principal streets in the area, where members of the public could post items. (Prior to

32810-512: Was constructed. Essentially, this was a fence of scaffolding tubes 9 feet (2.7 m) high and was placed at low water so that tanks could not get a good run at it. Admiralty scaffolding was deployed along hundreds of miles of vulnerable beaches. The beaches themselves were overlooked by pillboxes of various types . These were sometimes placed low down to get maximum advantage from enfilading fire , whereas others were placed high up making them much harder to capture. Searchlights were installed at

33003-436: Was demonstrated that a mail coach departing from Bristol at 4pm would regularly arrive in London at 9 o'clock the following morning: a day and a half quicker than the post horses. As a result, the conveyance of letters by mail coach, under armed guard, was approved by Act of Parliament. Mail coaches were similar in design to the passenger-carrying stage coaches , but were smaller, lighter and more manoeuvrable (being pulled by

33196-549: Was established in 1695 (although the post-road to Edinburgh continued to be managed from London); in 1710 the Scottish and English establishments were united by statute . By virtue of the same Act of Parliament (the Post Office (Revenues) Act 1710 ), the functions of the 'general letter office and post office' in the City of London were set out, and the establishment of 'chief letter offices' in Edinburgh, Dublin, New York and

33389-492: Was far from reliable, so in the 1630s Thomas Witherings set about establishing a regular Dover-Calais packet service. By the end of the century additional packet services had been established between Harwich (off the Yarmouth post road) and Helvoetsluys , between Dover and Ostend / Nieuport , and between Falmouth and Corunna . The packet services were generally arranged by contract with an agent, who would commit to provide

33582-403: Was filled with 43 imperial gallons (200 L) of petrol-oil mixture and pressurised with an inert gas. Five of these cylinders could be transported on the back of a vehicle, and at a weight just under 1,000 lb (450 kg), could be deployed reasonably quickly wherever an ambush was required. The cylinders would be placed at intervals along a road, each with a short length of hose leading to

33775-628: Was formed to control the Home Forces' general reserve, and included the 1st Armoured Division . In a reorganisation in July, the divisions with some degree of mobility were placed behind the "coastal crust" of defended beach areas from The Wash to Newhaven in Sussex . The General Headquarters Reserve was expanded to two corps of the most capable units. VII Corps was based at Headley Court in Surrey to

33968-474: Was formed under Sir Campbell Stuart , who was a former editor of The Times newspaper. Being allocated premises at Electra House , the new section was dubbed Department EH. During the Munich crisis of 1938, a number of leaflets were printed with the intention of dropping them over Germany. The leaflet drop never took place, but the exercise prompted Department EH to issue a note to the Air Ministry insisting on

34161-618: Was given lighter duties, including a mission to Australia to advise on aircraft production and a job at the Import Duties Advisory Committee . During this period, Banks was in the Territorial Army Reserve . When hostilities broke out in September 1939, the advisory committee was abolished and he was free to serve in the armed forces. Banks was soon posted as air attaché to the quartermaster general of 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division –

34354-471: Was intended to protect the capital and the industrial heartland of England. Another major line was the Taunton Stop Line , which defended against an advance from England's south-west peninsula. London and other major cities were ringed with inner and outer stop lines. Military thinking shifted rapidly. Given the lack of equipment and properly trained men, Ironside had little choice but to adopt

34547-408: Was introduced in 1837, and these began to be widely used enabling mail to be sorted in transit; TPO operation was greatly aided by the invention in 1852 of a trackside ' mail-bag apparatus ' which enabled bags to be collected and deposited en route . By the 1860s the Post Office had contracts with around thirty different rail companies. The development of marine steam propulsion inevitably affected

34740-417: Was introduced in 1848, and parcel post in 1883; that same year the term 'letter-carrier' was replaced with ' postman ' in the GPO's official nomenclature. By the 1850s the postal system was described as having become 'universal all over the three kingdoms: no village, however insignificant, being without its receiving-house'. In 1855 a network of 920 post offices and 9,578 sub-offices were in place around

34933-402: Was later withdrawn to the coast. Banks later recalled looking out to sea from a clifftop and seeing "an awe-inspiring sight [...] A few miles away an oil tanker had been bombed or had struck a mine. Masses of the blackest smoke pillared up into a gigantic pall in the sky while in the vast lake of fire, spreading it seemed for miles on the water a flame blazed and leapt like an angry volcano [...] I

35126-425: Was often to recall that scene in subsequent days of Flame Warfare". The division was evacuated to England . Early in July 1940, Banks was summoned to the presence of Geoffrey Lloyd, who explained the vision that Hankey and he shared: "Flame all across Britain" he said, "ringing the coasts, spurting from the hedges and rolling down the hills. We will burn the invader back into the sea." Considering Lloyd's ideas over

35319-434: Was only after much lobbying that a 'cross-post' between Bristol and Exeter was authorised, in 1698; previously mail between the two cities had to be sent via London). In 1720 Bath postmaster Ralph Allen , who had a vision for improving the situation, took over responsibility for the cross-posts (i.e. routes connecting one post road to another) and bye-posts (connecting to places off the main post roads). He greatly expanded

35512-437: Was reminiscent of a weapon dating from late medieval times called a fougasse - a hollow in which was placed a barrel of gunpowder covered by rocks, the explosives to be detonated by a fuse at an opportune moment. Livens' new weapon was duly dubbed the flame fougasse. The flame fougasse was demonstrated to Clement Attlee (Lord Privy Seal), Maurice Hankey , and General Liardet (GOC 56th Division) on 20 July 1940. A variant of

35705-435: Was renamed ' Royal Mail Group plc' in 2002. In 2012 the counters business (known as ' Post Office Limited ' since 2002) was taken out of Royal Mail Group, prior to the latter's privatisation in 2013. The privatised holding company (Royal Mail plc) was renamed International Distributions Services plc in 2022. In the medieval period, nobles generally employed messengers to deliver letters and other items on their behalf. In

35898-410: Was required to trigger the weapon was to open a valve and for a Home Guard to throw in a Molotov cocktail creating an inferno. The ideal location for the trap was a place where vehicles could not easily escape, such as a steep-sided sunken road . Some trouble was taken with camouflage; pipes could be hidden in gutters or disguised as handrails; others were simply left as innocent-looking plumbing. All

36091-416: Was simply blown up on the beach; Lloyd was said to have been particularly impressed when he observed a party of high-ranking officers witnessing a test from the top of a cliff making "an instantaneous and precipitate movement to the rear". The work was dangerous. Livens and Banks were experimenting with five-gallon drums in the shingle at Hythe when a short circuit triggered several weapons. By good fortune,

36284-494: Was slightly damaged by a German bomb in 1917 and in 1940, was set alight during the London Blitz , destroying much of the interior. It reopened in 1943. By the 1950s, the volume of telegraph traffic had declined and the Telegraph Office closed in 1963. In 1984 the new British Telecom Centre was opened on the site. The Post Office commenced its telephone business in 1878, however the vast majority of telephones were initially connected to independently run networks. In December 1880,

36477-498: Was the Livens large-gallery flame projector , which could project burning fuel 50–60 m (160–200 ft). His best-known invention was the Livens projector : a simple mortar that could throw a projectile containing about 30 lb (14 kg) of explosives, incendiary oil, or most commonly, poisonous phosgene gas. The great advantage of the Livens projector was that it was cheap; this allowed hundreds, and on occasions thousands, to be set up and then fired simultaneously, catching

36670-484: Was the planned invasion site of Operation Sea Lion, were flooded and there were plans to flood more of the Marsh if the invasion were to materialise. Piers, ideal for landing troops, and situated in large numbers along the south coast of England, were disassembled, blocked or otherwise destroyed. Many piers were not repaired until the late 1940s or early 1950s. Where a barrier to tanks was required, Admiralty scaffolding (also known as beach scaffolding or obstacle Z.1)

36863-429: Was the source of a widespread rumour that the Germans had attempted an invasion and had suffered very heavy losses either by drowning or by being burnt in patches of sea covered with flaming oil. We took no steps to contradict such tales, which spread freely through the occupied countries in a wildly exaggerated form and gave much encouragement to the oppressed populations. – Winston Churchill From its earliest days,

37056-413: Was to contest the control of British airspace with the German Luftwaffe . For the Germans, achieving at least local air superiority was an essential prerequisite to any invasion and might even break British morale, forcing them to sue for peace . If the German air force had prevailed and attempted a landing, a much-reduced Royal Air Force would have been obliged to operate from airfields well away from

37249-527: Was to reinforce the BEF in France, had very limited resources available, with six poorly trained and equipped Territorial Army divisions in England, two in Scotland and three more in reserve . With France still a powerful ally, Kirke believed that the eastern coasts of England and Scotland were the most vulnerable, with ports and airfields given priority. On 9 April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway . This operation preempted Britain's own plans to invade Norway. Denmark surrendered immediately, and, after

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