Just what the Elke needs

[Helen]

Sorry Madam

I stand corrected - I only wanted to contibute to this aspect:
"Given that they didn´t yet use catapults for those floatplanes (or at least I´m unaware of catapults until the 1920s), I´d say we let him off with building a towed pontoon or barge to house the maintenance workshop, spares and stuff."

whether steam catapults were used in WWI or later
if my quotation is useless or uninteresting at all, I shall delete the post

Thanks former user,

It now seems relevant to the subject.

Thanks Dylan for your thoughts.

Helen

[former user]

I found the links, now:
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=180786

You really know how to pull a string   

[Plynkes]

I suppose this could go in Latest Book... but it pertains to this thread so anyway,



Late birthday present (Amazon or the Royal Mail fucked up apparently, this is the second one they sent, first one to get through, Boche commerce raiders must have got the other).

[Wirelizard]

Cool! I'd forgotten about this thread, but I was playing a card game a few weeks ago called "The Kaiser's Pirates", all about German commerce raiders in WW1.

Neat game, actually, with an entertaining mechanic in which all players play both German raiders (or even German Navy ships, if they're lucky) and the targeted merchantmen (and the Royal Navy anti-raider forces) at the same time.

The Wulf and wulfchen aircraft are represented, with the Wulf getting a special scouting bonus if it can deploy the plane!

[pilot]

these are such remarkable stories and a great inspiration for gaming.

[former user]

I am not sure if this belongs here - has anyone thought about these experimental combined cruiser/ carriers  ??

[Plynkes]

Er, yes: This whole thread is us thinking about them. Not quite sure what you mean.

[former user]

What I mean are heavy cruisers and battle cruisers experimentally converted to start planes, thus used in a double role. As far as I can remember, the aft section had a small flight deck or a catapult/crane and waterplanes were used in general.

I thought the thread was about converting civilian ships to carriers, but never mind - it seems the right place to discuss.

I recently aquired a ship hull from a 1:72 model (85 cm) and thought of building a cruiser (main artillery forward in a big turret, secondary artillery in turrets to the side), with a small flightdeck on the aft section with a hydraulic catapult. The idea is to build the model allowing the flight deck removable (possibly with the ability to set it on a trailer), with a spare main artillery turret to replace it, that can also be used as a coastal battery with the appropriate base.
This way I could use it as 2 ships, carrier trailer and coastal battery, depending on what I want to game, and I don't have to build and store 2 ship hulls that I never would use in a game anyway, unless I wanted to do Pearl Harbour.

but this is in no way historical, thus my question

[Dubar]

I suppose this could go in Latest Book... but it pertains to this thread so anyway,



Late birthday present (Amazon or the Royal Mail fucked up apparently, this is the second one they sent, first one to get through, Boche commerce raiders must have got the other).

My Welsh Grandfather was in the Mercantile Marine before and after WW1, during the war he was in the Royal Machine Gun Corp.  That's not a very good, full description but all the paperwork is put up at the moment.

Anyway, after he passed away back in the 60s my mom gave me all of his medals.  One of them had an inscription around the edge with the name Major J.W. Flood A.I.F.  She said my grandfather won it in a poker game.

I kept it for years without any idea of who Major Flood was or what A.I.F. meant.

Then a few years after the internet happened I dug the medal out of a footlocker I have and began searching, turns out Major John Wellesley Flood was a doctor in the Australian Imperial Force.  While on the internet I ran across the website Lost Medals Australia and got in contact with the guy that ran it.  I gave him all the data I had and he ended up locating a relative of Major Floods that currently lives in France.  I contacted him and sent the medal to him.  In return I received a copy of the book mentioned on the SMS Wolf.

Major Wolf and his wife Rose were taken prisoner when the Wolf commandeered the ship they were on, which I believe was the Matunga.  There's photos of the major and his wife standing on deck with the Wolf's captain.  Rose, from what the book depicts, was quite the party girl.

I never found just how my grandfather and Major Flood met, but it could have been on the ship (TSS Victoria) my Grandfather served on after the war when he went back into the Mercantile Marine.  Here's some info on my granddad:

Richard Meredith Richards

DOB – 1897 (1899?)

FEB 1914 – MAY 1915 - (SS?) ORIANA      STEWARD   LIVERPOOL

(FROM CONTINUOUS CERTIFICATE OF DISCHARGE BOOK)

ENLISTED - MAY 19, 1915   CHESHIRE YEOMANRY      PRIVATE

DISCHARGED – FEB 5, 1919

(FROM DISCHARGE CERTIFICATE)

      CORPS      REGIMENT No.      RANK
CHESHIRE YEOMANRY      1670         PRIVATE
MANCHESTER REGIMENT      40456      PRIVATE
MACHINE GUN CORPS      24922      PRIVATE


MEDALS/BADGES:      BRITISH WAR MEDAL
               MERCANTILE MARINE MEDAL
               VICTORY MEDAL
               SILVER WAR BADGE (517947)



JUL 1919 – TSS VICTORIA      ASST STEWARD



Catalogue reference WO 372/16 

Here's some photos of Major Flood's medal.  I also have his service record.

[Plynkes]

Thanks, Dubar. I love these little fragments of history we unearth about our forebears, or from local war mermorials, etc.


(You know, I had entirely forgotten about this thread, it's quite the oldiie.  I missed your post back in January. Sadly my Great War projects are all lying dormant right now. The Once and Future Project, let's hope.)

[Dubar]

Always glad to provide some insight!!!

I wish I could get in the "Way Back Machine" and talk to my granddad, to hear his stories of The Great War and to find out exactly how he came about getting Major Flood's medal.

I only met him once, when my Welsh mom took me and my brother to Chester England to visit back in 1956 on the ship SS Ile De France.  He would take me with him to get fish & chips and while we waited would have a pint or 2!!!

He also would give me one of those huge English pennies to bet with when his buddies came over to bet on the horse races (can't recall if it was on TV or radio).  My pick never won, but I raised such a stink they would each give me a penny just to shut me up LOL!

He and my grandmother owned a corner store in Chester, living upstairs.  About all I can recall of that was every Monday the bakery man would come around and deliver bread, cakes, etc, including some black licorice shaped like a baby and coated in sugar.  One morning we woke up to find my uncle's cocker spaniel Juno had knocked over the container and had licked all the sugar off the licorice!!!

My uncle (my mom said he was a British tank commander in WW2) and his dog were there because I had spent 2 weeks with him and my aunt in London, where they lived.  When we left he put me and Juno on a train and said "I'll be right back, I've got to get the tickets".

When he came back the train was gone, he had put both of us on the wrong train!!!  I believe the train was headed to Scotland instead of Chester and they radioed ahead and got them to stop while he caught the next train.

I was one scared yank kid on a train full of people who I could not understand (and couldn't understand me I'm sure, with my southern Virginian drawl).

It all got straightened out in the end and it gives me a story to tell to my grandkids.

My mom and her sister (uncle's wife) were both nurses (aides) in WW2, dad was in the 9th USAAF.

[Plynkes]

It's sad when family history gets lost. I did sit up many nights with my grandmother, getting her stories of the war years out of her.

She lived on a farm during WW2, and had so many recollections of that time. Rationing, the black market, Black GIs* and Italian POWS (who she loved) coming to the farm, and also German POWS (who she hated), and also Land Girls being entirely useless and often being sent away for getting pregnant! I wish I had talked to her even more while I had the chance, and also other relatives whose war stories I never got to hear. Oh well, can't be helped now.



*The boxer Joe Louis was stationed five miles from where she lived, but she never mentioned him coming to visit, sadly.

[Dubar]

My mom was in Coventry when it got bombed, had a scar on her leg from the shrapnel that got too close.  I have the piece of metal she says was the bit they took out of her but I have no idea if it's the real deal.  She said all she ever did was take severed legs and arms to the incinerator and cleanup after they patched someone up.

She said she also hated the Germans, but 3 of her best friends were German when I was growing up.  The family across the street was named Griesbach, the father would tell me about stories his dad would tell him about his time during WW1.  He was not in it but the family was the subject of much hatred here in the states during that time.

I have quite a few bits of stories but they're all WW2 related, maybe I'll post on that board.