The Civilian Bomb Disposing Earl: Jack Howard and Bomb Disposal in WW2 by Freeman Kerin

Author:Freeman, Kerin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027100 HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781473857704
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2015-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

Colonel Dupui – an armour-plate specialist;

Colonel Ott – in charge of the experimental establishment at Bourges;

Captain Bichelonne – chief of staff to Mons Dautry;

General Blanchard – head of all gunpowder works in France;

General Mitignon – equivalent to Director General of Design.

When Dr Gough greeted Jack off the train his eyebrows rose in utter disbelief. Jack now sported a thick, dark, unruly beard of a fortnight’s growth, and was wearing his ‘trademark’ broad-brimmed black hat, a ragged trench coat and trousers slicked with oil stains. To Gough, Jack’s eyes looked bloodshot from a serious lack of sleep; he had the appearance of a resident from the seedy underworld of Marseilles.

After speaking with Gough, Jack made his way by taxi to the Ministry of Supply with two battered suitcases and some haversacks stuffed with designs for new machine tools, secret blueprints of scientific inventions, and papers of formulas of incalculable value from British officers in Paris and French laboratories. Exiting the taxi, Jack ordered the driver that on no account should he drive off but was to wait for him for as long as it took, and that might be a while. He was running on pure adrenaline.

The sleepy-eyed porter had never before seen such a fearsome sight in the early hours of the morning. Acting purely by instinct the porter pushed an application form across the desk towards Jack and told him to fill it in. Under ‘Reason for Interview’, the Earl wrote ‘Diamonds’. Against ‘Full Name’, he simply wrote ‘Suffolk’. The porter promptly stood more smartly, coughed discreetly then politely told the mad-looking man standing in front of him that he wanted his name, not his address.

Jack barked irritably, ‘And Berkshire! I need to see the minister right now.’ Jack was in no mood for bureaucracy. His open coat revealed two large pistols in a shoulder holster; he soon got what wanted. Herbert Morrison was out of London at the time so Harold Macmillan, the then Under Secretary at the MoS, was called.

The porter later confided to a reporter from The Sunday Despatch: ‘Mark you, sir. I thought he was some broken-down actor. And it’s worried I was over them suitcases. They might have been full of bombs, you know.’ The porter also stated that he had thought at the time the stranger’s chances of seeing the minster were nil, but he had done his duty and handed over the form for him to fill in anyway.

Harold Macmillan was at his small flat in London when the telephone rang at around 5.30am. It was the duty officer asking if he could come immediately to the ministry. When Macmillan reached his office he found Dr Gough and other officials waiting. With them was a young man of extremely scruffy appearance, yet he had a certain distinguished air about him. He was waving a cigarette about which he had carefully fitted into a long black holder.

After they had shaken hands, the young man quickly explained his purpose. He had brought with him a large consignment of industrial diamonds, some of which were in the taxi cab outside.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.