Events

The Lecture Series 2007

This autumn, 2007, the Second World War Experience Centre held its eighth annual evening lecture series on the theme of The Experience of War in the Twentieth Century. As in recent years the series was generously sponsored by Serco Defence, Science and Technology and the lectures were held in the splendid surroundings of the Long Gallery of Harewood House, Leeds, and the State Apartments of The Royal Hospital, Chelsea.

Once again our Trustee, Dr Hugh Cecil, managed to obtain the services of four eminent speakers to give the lectures.

The first speaker at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea on Tuesday 2^nd October was Ben Macintyre, Writer at Large and Associate Editor on The Times newspaper and the author of five non-fiction history books, talking on ‘Agent Zigzag: Eddie Chapman, The Most Extraordinary Double Agent of The Second World War’. The speaker was introduced by Professor M R D Foot, who himself has much knowledge and experience in the field of espionage. Ben Macintyre gave a most entertaining lecture covering many aspects of Eddie Chapman’s wartime activities. The audience learned that he was a colourful character, a professional safe blower whose experience and expertise was sought by the Germans to be used to blow up the de Havilland Mosquito factory at Hatfield and a British ship in Lisbon harbour. He spent a long time in Norway gathering information for the British and made a lifelong friendship with one of his German handlers. After the interview there was an animated series of questions all expertly fielded by the speaker, the lecture attracting a good audience despite the miserable nature of the weather outside. The vote of thanks was given by Dr Hugh Cecil which included a resume of the aims, work and objectives of The Centre. After the lecture copies of Ben’s book Agent Zigzag were sold and copies were signed by the author.

The second lecture was held in the Long Gallery at Harewood House, Leeds, on Tuesday 9^th October. The speaker was Peter Liddle, the very recently retired Director of The Centre and author and co-author of several books on The First and Second World Wars, talking on “For you Tommy the War is over”…Not Necessarily So: Escape and Evasion in Europe’. The speaker was introduced by our Trustee Major General Henry Woods. Peter’s lecture was exclusively based on material held by The Centre including letters, diaries and the transcribed interviews of men who were captured and their efforts either to successfully escape or make the best of a bad job. The lecture was particularly well illustrated with slides from the Centre’s holdings. Among the large audience was Stan Hope, a former Centre volunteer and one of the subjects of the lecture who had evaded capture throughout a long journey southwards through France until finally betrayed and captured almost on the Spanish border in the Pyrenees. Stan was happy to relive his experiences to interested parties later. After a lively question and answer session the vote of thanks was given by Dr Hugh Cecil who paid tribute to Peter’s outstanding work in first establishing The Liddle Collection, a First World War archive, and then with Hugh himself founding The Second World War Experience Centre in 1998.

The other speakers addressed good audiences at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. The third lecturer, on Tuesday 30^th October was Patrick Bishop, the war correspondent and author of Bomber Boys : Fighting Back 1940-1945 and 3 Para, talking on ‘Night and Day: Strategic Bombing - the Rationale and the Reality’. The lecture was introduced by our Trustee Ian Smith, whose father served in Bomber Command completing many operations, who expressed his lifelong interest in the subject. Patrick Bishop’s lecture covered Britain’s strategic bombing of Germany at night and the Americans’ operations during daytime. The way in which crew formations took place and which produced the strong sense of comradeship was explained. It was pointed out that although Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris has been subsequently criticised for the policy of blanket bombing of Germany it was his superior, Sir Charles Portal, who was principally responsible for devising the policy. Following on from this there was mention of the current attitude towards the raid on Dresden, but the feeling among the crews who Patrick had interviewed was that it was a fully justified raid on a legitimate target. After an interesting question and answer session the vote of thanks was given by our Trustee Dr Hugh Cecil. After the lecture Patrick Bishop was on hand to field further questions from members of the audience and copies of his books were sold and signed by Patrick.

The final speaker on Tuesday 13^th November was David Stafford, prolific author, former member of the Diplomatic Corps and now Project Director at the Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars at Edinburgh University, talking on ‘Europe 1945: Victory, Retribution, Liberation’. The lecture was introduced by our patron, The Most Hon The Marquess of Salisbury, who mentioned the aims of the Centre, the nature of the material held and the continuing need for fundraising. This lecture dealt with the chaos that was Europe at the end of the war. Those who had managed to survive the camps had no country, home or families to return to, particularly in Eastern Europe where these people were no longer wanted and which was the last place to which many of the survivors wanted to return. The work of the journalist Robert Reid was mentioned, who was with Patton’s American Army when Buchenwald was liberated and the fact that despite the presence of American troops in Bavaria patients in a mental hospital continued to be killed, the last victim of the Nazis being a four year old boy several months after the end of the war. So for many peoples final victory was a hollow victory. It was a most stimulating and interesting talk followed by the customary thought provoking series of questions and answers. The evening was concluded by a vote of thanks given by the Chairman of Trustees, Rhidian Jones, who summarised the 2007 lecture series and outlined the Centre’s plans for a tenth anniversary fundraising appeal in 2008.

So ended what had been another very successful season of lectures. Once again the combination of excellent speakers and the impressive and historic surroundings of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and Harewood House attracted gratifying support for all four lectures. The Centre is indebted to Hugh Cecil for his hard work and success in recruiting eminent speakers, the people who worked so hard behind the scenes in such areas as ticket sales etc, the staffs of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea and Harewood House for their help and to the Governor of the Royal Hospital and the Trustees of the Harewood House Trust for making their venues available.

Carolyn Mumford
Audio Tape Transcriber

The Eighth Annual Lecture Series was sponsored by Serco Defence and Aerospace.