Little fragment of history.

[Skoshi_Tiger]

Picked up some second hand books a while back and just had a chance to look through some of them. One is a war time text "Aeronautical Engineering - A practical guide for everyone connected with the Aircraft Industry" published in England in the early 1940's

 

As I flicked through the pages I found a fragment of news paper that was used as a place marker.

 

 

One can only wonder what the full text was like or when it was written.

 

 

Cheers!

[AndyJWest]

For a start, the Wikipedia article on Ilya Ehrenburg:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Ehrenburg

 

 

 

Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (Russian: ???????

Edited January 5, 2013 by AndyJWest

[Skoshi_Tiger]

Andy,

 

Thankyou very much for the time you put into this. It is very much apriciated!

 

The other side is adverts.

 

 

Cheers!

[AndyJWest]

No problem Skoshi Tiger: If I'm going to have insomnia, I may as well do something useful - and Google-fu is good for the brain.

 

The ad on the left looks like it is for Kia-Ora: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia-Ora - which wouldn't help much, at first sight. The one on the right is for William Hollins & Company - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viyella. Not much use either, one would think, but sometimes the little details help - and it seems that both Kia-Ora and Viyella were regularly advertised in the Express during the relevant period. Then again, I'd expect that they were advertised in other papers too. However, I've not been able to find evidence of other national newspapers being published from Albion St Glasgow, which seems to confirm it is the Express, or at least one of Beaverbrooke's publications (and a little bit of History - Lord Beaverbrooke would have been the Minister of Supply in Churchill's government at the time the fragment was published)

 

At this point, unless I can find images of the Express at a higher resolution than the unreadable thumbnails I can access for free, I may be stumped, short of visiting the British Library, or handing over money to Express Group Newspapers - and I'd rather have my teeth pulled than do the latter (the Daily Express currently making the Sun look like journalism in comparison). Still Google-fu may yet pay off. I'll need to do a little more thinking. 

[Marco]

I have also had a little look into trying to identify this - up to now about 6 hours, sadly with little luck.

 

I agree with Andy about the approx date probably being during the week Monday 6th July - Friday 10th July 1942.

 

With a great overuse of Google I did track down one instance of the use of Ilya Ehrenburg's quote "A military mischance has befallen us. German tanks have broken through to Central Russia. The danger is great." for 9th July 1942 in an American newspaper under the banner 'Nazis Break Through Red Lines West Of Don -- Situation Grave'. Sadly nothing as yet in a British paper without, as Andy says, spending some money with the likes of the Express.

 

Link to American article:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19420709&id=ZAkeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=q0wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4118,2387628

 

Another here (also American):

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19420709&id=fwYtAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Z9QFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5216,1188418

 

~S~

Edited January 5, 2013 by Marco

[AndyJWest]

Great work, Marko - that seems to pin the date down pretty conclusively to within a few days.

 

The reason I think it is the 10th of July 42 edition of the Express is here:

(from the ukpressonline website http://www.ukpressonline.co.uk/ukpressonline/open/index.jsp - you have to register to do advanced searches, and you can still only see thumbnails without paying)

 

This is a thumbnail of that day's Express - note the headline "SHOCK [?] SWINGS SOUTH ALONG THE DON BANK" - thought I'm not 100% sure about the first word. The column layout for the bottom left of the front page seems to match Skoshi's fragment - note the paragraph breaks - as does the section of the back page also shown: and Ehrenburg's comments in the fragment seem to match the headline. Unfortunately, this would put the Kia-Ora advert on the bottom right of page 2, and the advert there is clearly for something else. Possibly though, this is a different edition - at that time the national newspapers used to revise layouts several times a day. A word-search for 'Ehrenburg' shows it as appearing on page 4 that day - though this will be derived from OCR data, and it may well have missed the word on the front page.

[Freycinet]

This is a thumbnail of that day's Express - note the headline "SHOCK [?] SWINGS SOUTH ALONG THE DON BANK" - thought I'm not 100% sure about the first word. 

 

I believe it is Bock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedor_von_Bock

 

Great sleuthing guys!

Edited January 6, 2013 by Freycinet

[AndyJWest]

Bock seems logical, Freycinet. I think we have this pretty well sown up now - though I'd like to check the paper sometime.

 

Anyway, it seems that Skoshi's 'fragment' ties in very nicely with BoS - as the troops that swung south along the Don would find themselves fighting for Stalingrad a few weeks later - though not under Bock's command, he having been given the boot by Hitler.

[Freycinet]

Btw Andy, I believe references to a second front were made pretty much from the start of Barabarossa.

[AndyJWest]

Btw Andy, I believe references to a second front were made pretty much from the start of Barabarossa.

 

You may be right - though I had the impression that it was mainly the UK Communist Party and it's allies that used the phrase to start with. Maybe this needs more Google-fu...

[Freycinet]

If you count the Soviet Union as the party's Allies, then yes!

[AndyJWest]

If you count the Soviet Union as the party's Allies, then yes!

 

What I meant was that 'Second Front' wasn't used much in the British mainstream press until some time after Barabarossa - but anyway, I'll see what I can find.

[Marco]

Haven't checked in for a few days, but by the look of it all is done and dusted.

 

Great eyesight you have there Freycinet.

 

~S~