Boltar wrote:

Interesting header on that page. For the sake of balance perhaps
you'd be
interested in having a banner reading out the previous and latest
civilian
murders by the Ba'ath party? Just a thought.

Nothing to stop you doing it on your own website, if you want.

True , but then I'm not interested in making juvenile political points

The recent illegal invasion of Iraq is, without doubt, more important than
something that happened a lifetime ago... One is of passing historical
interest; one is of current day-to-day import

Stimpy wrote:
Boltar wrote:

Interesting header on that page. For the sake of balance perhaps
you'd be interested in having a banner reading out the previous
and latest civilian murders by the Ba'ath party? Just a thought.

Nothing to stop you doing it on your own website, if you want.

True , but then I'm not interested in making juvenile political
points

The recent illegal invasion of Iraq is, without doubt, more important
than something that happened a lifetime ago... One is of passing
historical interest; one is of current day-to-day import

You can hardly dismiss the Second World War as "of passing interest". Its
long-term effects probably have more impact on your day-to-day life than
the Iraq war.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

(Nick Cooper 625) wrote in message . com...
That's quite funny, considering that you're the one who's bleating the
most about this.

Am I missing something or was I not kill filed? Guess your kill file works
about as well as your political point scoring.

Nope, you're _still_ missing it. Here's a clue: My tax never paid the
wages of Saddam Hussein, his henchmen, his allies or the Ba'ath Party.
Keep thinking about it until you get it, although if it makes your
brain hurt too much, you might need to lie down in a nice dark and
quiet place for a bit.

Ok , I'll admit I didn't get it. I assumed you were making a comparison between
the morality of invading iraq against that of WW2 (cliched but at
understandable) but actually you're just whining about having had a few quid
of your tax money going towards paying a squaddie somewhere. Oh well, don't
give up the day job.

Well, try not to lose too much sleep over it. You can, though, take
solace in the fact that a whole ten months after the banners were
added, you have earned the distinction of being the very first person
who has tried to pick a fight over them.

I expect most people just immediately rolled their eyes, mentally pigeon holed
you and moved on.

B2003

(Boltar) wrote in message om...
(Nick Cooper 625) wrote in message . com...
That's quite funny, considering that you're the one who's bleating the
most about this.

Am I missing something or was I not kill filed? Guess your kill file works
about as well as your political point scoring.

I changed my mind when I realised your comedy potential. Notice that
you've also missed the point about how I'm posting, as well.

Nope, you're _still_ missing it. Here's a clue: My tax never paid the
wages of Saddam Hussein, his henchmen, his allies or the Ba'ath Party.
Keep thinking about it until you get it, although if it makes your
brain hurt too much, you might need to lie down in a nice dark and
quiet place for a bit.

Ok , I'll admit I didn't get it. I assumed you were making a comparison between
the morality of invading iraq against that of WW2 (cliched but at
understandable) but actually you're just whining about having had a few quid
of your tax money going towards paying a squaddie somewhere. Oh well, don't
give up the day job.

Dear me, you're still missing the point, aren't you? I don't begrudge
any British squaddie his wages ( know too many to do that); but I do
begrudge the lives of every single one of them needlessly killed as a
result of Blair's pandering to Bush's glorified PR exercise.

Well, try not to lose too much sleep over it. You can, though, take
solace in the fact that a whole ten months after the banners were
added, you have earned the distinction of being the very first person
who has tried to pick a fight over them.

I expect most people just immediately rolled their eyes, mentally pigeon holed
you and moved on.

Well, it's certainly clear which one you belong in.

Two weeks ago, Nick Cooper wrote:
I'm currently wading through the wartime daily bombing reports for
"key points," sifting out all the LU-related railway incidents ...

Also almost finished identifying by name the vast majority of the
wartime fatalities on LU property, including - on an even more
melancholic note - a certain amount of myth-shattering r.e.
Bounds Green.

"Rails Through the Clay" says that at Bounds Green "19 shelterers
were killed and 52 injured ... when a bomb reached the platforms of
the Piccadilly Line, which is ascending at this point to reach the
surface just beyong the station." This was on 1940-10-13, the day
before the bomb at Balham that killed considerably more people.
There's myth to shatter here?
--
Mark Brader | "I do not want to give the impression I spend all
Toronto | my time on the Internet, but in the right hands
| it is a wondrous tool, and in the wrong hands
| it is an even better one." -- Cecil Adams

My text in this article is in the public domain.

(Mark Brader) wrote in message ...
Two weeks ago, Nick Cooper wrote:
I'm currently wading through the wartime daily bombing reports for
"key points," sifting out all the LU-related railway incidents ...

Also almost finished identifying by name the vast majority of the
wartime fatalities on LU property, including - on an even more
melancholic note - a certain amount of myth-shattering r.e.
Bounds Green.

"Rails Through the Clay" says that at Bounds Green "19 shelterers
were killed and 52 injured ... when a bomb reached the platforms of
the Piccadilly Line, which is ascending at this point to reach the
surface just beyong the station." This was on 1940-10-13, the day
before the bomb at Balham that killed considerably more people.
There's myth to shatter here?

Definitely, quite apart from the fact that the bomb demolished houses
above the tunnel, causing the collapse, rather than it actually
reaching the platforms.

Most sources - including the plaque on the platform itself - say 19
people, specifically 16 Belgian refugees and 3 British citizens. Many
writers have come up with prosaic - almost romantic - accounts of the
aforementioned Belgians fleeing the invasion of their country, forming
a little enclave at the "unpopular northern end" southbound platform
(the escalators come down to the opposite end of the platforms), etc.

In fact, the civilian casualty records of the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission - which are arranged by borough - show only 16 people
killed in the station itself, with one more dying in hospital the next
day:

13/04/40 - "Died at Tube Station, Bounds Green Road" (Municipal
Borough of Wood Green):
BOULLE, FRANCINE (age 5) [Belgian Subject]
JEMMETT, ALBERT GEORGE (Age 67)
JEMMETT, CHARLOTTE SARAH (Age 58)
JEMMETT, FLORENCE MAY (Age 23)
KINGATE, HENRY MARK (Age 59)
MANDALL, HENRY MARK (Age 8)
MANDALL, PAULINE LOUISE (Age 18 months)
MANDALL, RACHAEL LOUISE (Age 11)
MEARS, WINIFRED JESSIE (Age 35) [W.V.S. worker]
NECCHI, GIULIO (Age 9)
NECCHI, MAFALDA (Age 15)
NECCHI, MARK JOHN (Age 41)
NECCHI, ROSE (Age 40)
WATTS, ELLEN MARY (Age 64)

14/04/40 - "Died at Tube Station, Bounds Green Road" (Municipal
Borough of Wood Green):
NEUCKERMANS, ROBERT JOSEPH AUGUSTE (Age 26) [Belgian Subject]
VAN HAELTER, DAVID (Age 28) [Belgian Subject]

14/04/40 - "Injured 13 October 1940, at Tube Station, Bounds Green
Road; died at Friern Emergency Hospital" (Urban District of Friern
Barnet):
MANDALL, WILLIAM ALFRED (Age 33)

In addition, four people were killed in the houses above the station:

13/04/40 - "Died at Cedars, Bounds Green Road" (Municipal Borough of
Wood Green):
BOWDICH, BARBARA ANTOINETTE (Age 11, died at Cedars, Bounds Green
Road)
PAGE, MAUD JEAN (Age 35, died at Cedars, Bounds Green Road)
PAGE, MOYA (Age 16 months, died at Cedars, Bounds Green Road)

13/04/40 - "Died at Cranbrook, Bounds Green Road" (Municipal Borough
of Wood Green):
NORRIS, CHARLES VICTOR (Age 63, died at Cranbrook, Bounds Green Road)

So, you've got 17 people killed or fatally wounded in the station,
only three of whom were Belgian. Of the rest, the surnames are either
British or Italian. I still need to check a few things r.e. this
particualr incident, so I've not yet added the above details to my
web-page, but those for most other fatalities are available:

http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/...ra/lu/tuaw.htm

It seems unlikely that there are another 13 Belgians unaccounted for
by the CWGC, or that anyone could have overlooked the "extra" ten
(plus one fatally injured) Brits at the time, so in all probability
this is a simple confusion at an early stage of "16, of whom 3 were
Belgian" with "16 Belgians plus 3 others." I've also had sight of a
1943 report on damage done to tube tunnels by bombing, and even that
notes both totals and that there is some disagreement over the number
of casualties.

The reason the wrong figures have gained such common currency is
because Charles Graves used them in his 1947 book 'London Transport
Carried On' (a.k.a 'London Transport at War'). Graves seems to have
relied a lot on "immediate" contemporary witness reports held by
London Transport, which in this respect are more annecdotal than
accurate. The nationality of most of the victims seems to have been
attributed merely to the fact that the collapse was at the end of the
platform where most/all of the Belgians were. The CWGC, on the other
hand, had the benefit of being informed once the victims were properly
identified afterwards. Unfortunately, it seems that many other
subsequent authors have simply relied on Graves's account. It was
only when I contacted the CWGC asking if they could do a database
extract of all civilians killed at tube stations that what actually
happened became apparent.