Month: September 2024

TH2023 Ep17 Deborah

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:43 — 16.2MB)

Season 2023 – Talk 17- Deborah

In ‘Deborah’ Jim Hastie tells us the story about the First World War Tank D51, Deborah.

Click a thumbnail below to view the image gallery that accompanies the talk.

Jim tells us that Deborah is a very favourite lady of his. He says that this is her story in the Battle of Cambrai, the first major tank battle in November 1917.

Deborah was a female tank. A part of D Battalion in the Royal Tank Corps.

Male and Female tanks:

150 tanks are built, 75 male and 75 female.  Male tanks have sponsons mounting a 57mm 6 pounder gun whilst female tanks have two cumbersome sponsons designed to carry two Vickers, water cooled, heavy machine guns.

Why Deborah? Tanks receive a name, often of wives or girlfriends, before their first battle. The names have the prefix HMLS – His Majesty’s Landship.

In 1917 there are two tanks with the name ‘Deborah’. This is the story of the second, now preserved in France.

Deborah II and Cambrai:

Second Lieutenant Frank Heap commands a new Mark IV female tank. Manufacturer number 2620, crew number D51 and the name Deborah with a crew of 7.

These tanks are not very reliable and Deborah is knocked out by shellfire. Today four of the crew are buried side by side at the British cemetery at Flesquieres Hill.

Recovery and display:

Cambridge schoolboy, Philippe Gorzinski, has a passion about World War I tanks and a desire to find relics in and around Cambrai.

In 1977 he meets local shopkeeper, Michael Bacquet, known locally as Iron Man. Iron Man contacts British service organisations and French civic authorities and a 60th anniversary reunion takes place. There are more than 60 men with an average age of 82 there.

In 1992,  their investigation takes them Marthe Bouleux, a teenager in 1917, who tells them about a buried tank.

Listen to Jim tell the full story and also talk about Talbot House, in Poporinge, a refuge for all service personnel irrespective of rank.

About this podcast:

This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History: Ancient, Medieval and Modern  Group.

This podcast is also available through Amazon Music,  Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher , Vurbl , You Tube and others.

AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use with this talk.

© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Group 2018 – 2024

USRJ S3 Ep32 We arrive in Chicago

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:30 — 16.0MB)

We arrive in Chicago –  US Rail Journeys Series 3 Episode 32

‘We arrive in Chicago’ completes our journey on the Texas Eagle. In 62 hours we have passed through cities and countryside, deserts and lush pasture, an amazing, ever changing, panorama.

Please click on a thumbnail to see the photographs that go with this podcast:

Leaving Pontiac:

Our stop in Pontiac is brief, a few seconds maybe and worthy of a Formula 1 pit stop.

Pontiac station hosts both the Lincoln Service, running between Chicago Union Station and the Gateway Transportation Center in St. Louis, and the Texas Eagle. The station has a single, low-level side platform and a modern station building for passengers. It complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Originally a stop on the Chicago and Alton Railroad the old station depot, built in 1901, was replaced with the current one in 2017.

The old station, one block north of the new station, becomes a pizzeria.

Joliet:

The railway reaches Joliet began in 1852, enabling the city to rapidly grow into a railway hub. In 1909 an improvement project removes level crossings and constructs a new Union Station.

Joliet Union Station opens in 1912, serving at its peak over 100 trains a day. The decline in passenger numbers in the late 20th century coupled with the increase in freight traffic leads to issues because of congestion.

The station is 37.2 miles from Chicago Union Station and in 2018 it is the 51st busiest of Metra’s 236 non-downtown stations, with an average of 996 passengers boarding on weekdays.

In 2024, Joliet is served by eight Lincoln Service trains (four each way) and two Texas Eagle trains (one each way), every day and in 2023 hosts nearly 60,600 Amtrak passengers.

We reach Chicago:

Our journey into Chicago takes us through a varied landscape. We see old industry pouring pollution into the atmosphere, narrow streets and run down buildings.

Conversely we also pass modern housing with pleasant gardens and then a yacht marina, home to leisure craft. In the distance there are the skyscrapers of the city, their top floors shrouded in the clouds.

For me the high point is the Canal Street bridge, also called the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, which is a vertical-lift bridge across the south branch of the Chicago River. Opening in 1915 it becomes an official Chicago Landmark on December 12, 2007.

To visit the Amtrak website please follow this link.

This podcast is also available through Amazon Music,  Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Vurbl , You Tube and others.