Evans Battlefield Tours, Keithjohnevans@hotmail. com (2025)

12/02/2025

Strange but true
Sergeant Masumi Mitsui emigrated from Japan and fought at Vimy Ridge. 1917.He earned the Military Medal at Hill 70.

Upon return, he had to fight for the right to vote.

In 1942, Canada called him an enemy alien, seized his farm, and forcibly relocated his family.

09/02/2025

Returned home from my most recent tour DDay experience and as per my previous trips the guests were excellent and enjoyed the whole thing .
Off again in 3 weeks for their d day experience.🇬🇧

01/02/2025

SS women arrive at an SS holiday camp in the town of Porąbka in what was then German-occupied Poland.
So there was not just men in the SS.

31/01/2025

🇬🇧- 29 January 1916 - ‘Mother’ (the prototype Mark I tank,) is demonstrated for the first time at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire.

40 officials witness the tank cross a variety of obstacles including a parapet, barbed wire, a waterlogged field, and trenches.

After a further trial in front of senior military and political figures, and a demonstration to King George V, an order for 100 tanks is placed on the 12th February – and the story of the tank truly begins!

🇬🇧

31/01/2025

THE Worst Disaster at Sea Ever

On the night of 30th January 1945, the German ocean liner MV Wilhelm Gustloff, carrying more than 10,000 passengers, was torpedoed and sunk in the Baltic Sea by a Russian submarine, in what became the worst-ever maritime disaster.

The Wilhelm Gustloff was built specifically for the German Labour Front’s “Strength Through Joy” programme, which subsidised leisure activities for German workers. Launched in the presence of Adolf Hi**er in May 1937, she departed on her maiden voyage on 24th March 1938. Over the course of 17 months, she went on around 50 cruises, transporting some 65,000 vacationers. At the start of WWII, the Wilhelm Gustloff was requisitioned by the German navy to serve as a hospital ship, before being converted into a floating barracks for the 2nd Submarine Training Division, based in Gdynia, Poland, in November 1940.

In early 1945, as the Red Army advanced on East Prussia, the Germans began a mass evacuation of German troops and civilians from the area. After four years at anchor, Wilhelm Gustloff left Gdynia just after noon on 30th January 1945, bound for Kiel. On board were an estimated 10,600 passengers and crew, the vast majority being civilians. Although originally part of a larger convoy, two ships were forced to turn back, leaving just one torpedo boat as an es**rt.

At around 7 pm, Wilhelm Gustloff was sighted by the Russian submarine S-13, commanded by Captain Alexander Marinesko, who followed the vessel for two hours before launching four torpedoes. At 9.16 pm, three of the torpedoes hit their target, causing the ship to list heavily to port. Most of the lifeboats were frozen in their davits, and only a small number could be lowered. Even then, the heavy list soon made even this task impossible, with many on board forced to dive into the freezing waters.

It is estimated that almost 9,400 people perished, either from the initial torpedo explosions, or subsequently, from being crushed as they attempted to flee the sinking vessel, through drowning, or freezing to death in the water. Only 1,239 people were rescued, making the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff the largest single loss of life in maritime history.

31/01/2025

Captain Albert Ball VC, DSO and two bars, MC, Mentioned in Despatches, Legion d'Honneur (France); Order of St. George, 4th Class (Russia).

Albert was born in Nottingham in 1896. His father was a successful businessman who served as Lord Mayor of Nottingham and would later be Knighted.

When he left school he studied at Trent College. When he finished his education he worked for a local engineering company.

When war was declared he enlisted in the 2/7th (Robin Hood) Battalion of the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment.

Frustrated by inactivity in England he saw a transfer to the Royal Flying Corp as the quickest way to get to the front.

After paying for flying lessons he obtained his Royal Aero Club certificate on 15th October 1915. He officially transferred to the RFC in January 1916.

He was posted to France on 18th February 1916 and joined 13 Squadron flying reconnaissance missions.

From May 1916 flying the Nieuport scout, first with 11 Squadron and then with 60 Squadron he rapidly accumulated combat victories. By the time he returned to the UK in October 1916 he was credited with 31.

After a period instructing he was posted to the newly formed 56 Squadron as a flight commander.

The squadron was equipped with the new SE5 fighter and arrived in France on April 7th 1917.

During a month of intense fighting Albert increased his tally of victories by 13.

For his actions during that remarkable period he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

But the award was made posthumously in June 1917 as Albert had been killed on 7th May.

The circumstances surrounding his death were never fully established.

What is known for certain is that he was seen pursuing a German aircraft piloted by Lothar von Richthofen of Jasta 11. The pair disappeared into a storm cloud and shortly afterwards the German made a forced landing with his petrol tank shot through. Albert was seen to crash after emerging from the low cloud base, inverted, in a shallow dive and with his engine stopped.

He was removed from the wreckage by a French girl and died in her arms.

During his remarkable combat career he mostly fought the enemy single handed. No odds were too great for Albert and he often tackled formations of 4, 5 or 6 enemy aircraft on his own.

He was mourned throughout the United Kingdom and his loss was a great blow to the morale of the Royal Flying Corps.

As a mark of respect the Germans buried Albert with full military honours and British prisoners of war were allowed to attend.

He lies today in the German cemetery at Annoeullin.

Albert Ball was 20 years old.

Postscript
A breakdown of Albert’s 44 victories shows the following:-
One balloon destroyed.
27 and one shared aircraft destroyed.
6 aircraft sent down out of control.
9 aircraft forced to land.

29/01/2025

Jewish soldiers in the German Army celebrate Hanukkah on the Eastern Front, 1916, during WW1 !
🇬🇧

28/01/2025

Plans now all in place for 4 tours now
3 to Normandy and
1 is the epic trip
To Belgium, Holland (Arnhem Battle of the bulge,,,Oh and more )🇬🇧

27/01/2025

Captain Cecil Arthur Lewis MC

Cecil was born in Birkenhead in 1898. His father was a Congregational minister.

He was educated at Dulwich College, University College School and Oundle School.

Aged 17 he enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps in December 1915 having lied about his age.

After a period of training he was posted to 3 Squadron in France.

He flew many missions during the Battle of the Somme.

For his actions during this period he was awarded the Military Cross.

The citation printed in the London Gazette in November 1916 read as follows:-
“For conspicuous skill and gallantry. He has done fine work in photography, with artillery and on contact patrols. On one occasion he came down very low and attacked a column of horsed limbers, causing casualties and scattering the limbers”.

After a period back in the UK he was posted to 56 Squadron. The unit was a fighter squadron and equipped with the new single seat SE5. It counted amongst its pilots the leading British ace at that time, Albert Ball.

The squadron flew to France on 7th April 1917.

Cecil fought many combats during the spring and early summer of 1917. Those fights were often against the elite German Jasta 11, led by Manfred von Richthofen.

During this intense period he was credited with shooting down 6 enemy aircraft out of control and sharing two others O.O.C.

He narrowly avoided death on 7th July when he received a flesh wound in the back.

He was posted back to the UK where he served with 44 and 61 Squadrons on home defence duties.

He returned to France on 18th October 1918 as a flight commander with 152 Night Fighter Squadron.

After the war he enjoyed a long and varied career. He worked in commercial aviation, was a flying instructor in China, a farmer in South Africa, civil servant, author and a founding executive of the British Broadcasting Company.

At the BBC he was a writer, producer and director.

Working in Hollywood he won an Academy Award for helping to write the screenplay for a film.

During the Second World War he joined the RAF and served as a flying instructor and later on other duties at home and overseas.

He joined the Daily Mail in 1956 as a journalist and retired in 1966.

In 1970 he settled in Corfu where he spent the rest of his life.

He died in 1997 aged 98. A life well lived.🇬🇧

27/01/2025

Why did England give the USA head of the FBI a knighthood.
Britain had its own version of the manhattan project , the plan to build a nuclear bomb, it began in 1941 codenamed Tubed Alloys . The scientists are the centre of this were all escaped Germans .
The main one being Klaus Fuchs
Who escaped Germany and settled in the uk , when war broke out in 1939 he was interned at first but was soon recognised by MI5 as a brilliant scientist, Fuchs was released to join the Alloys project and he was given Uk citizenship in 1942. Fuchs and others joined the Manhattan project in 1945 helping create the atomic bomb. By wars end there was an arms race with Russia. However Fuchs was found out by MI5 to be a Russian spy , he was sentenced to 14 years but only served 9 , on his release he returned to communist east Germany , Fuchs had given Russia the information to catch up in the arms race , they had the bomb.
In the USA J Edgar Hoover was immensely powerful and by 1950 was leading an anti communist crusade. Blaming Britain for allowing Fuchs to give information to the Russians. A massive diplomatic row went on .So to calm things down and Hoover in particular MI5 arranged for him to receive a knighthood. Hoover received it not in London but at the British embassy in Washington.
Hoover was very happy now .🇬🇧

25/01/2025

One of the Most Decorated Heroes of WWII

In 1939 Charles Hazlitt Upham, of Christchurch New Zealand, volunteered for the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Enlisting at the age of 30, Charles was quickly promoted to Sergeant and in 1940, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, and went to serve in Greece, Crete, and later, North Africa. Upham was honoured with the Victoria Cross for his actions during the Battle of Crete. This honor was awarded to Charles in October of 1941.

"During June and July of 1942 Upham once again displayed valor and courage while leading his men at Minqar Qaim and Ruweisat Ridge in the North African desert. At Ruweisat Ridge he was wounded and captured by the Germans. After trying to escape from captivity several times Upham was sent to the notorious Colditz Castle prison in Germany during 1944. Following his liberation in 1945, military authorities decided that his actions at Minqar Qaim and Ruweisat Ridge merited the addition of a bar to his VC." - New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage

Upham is considered to be one of the most decorated heroes of World War II, as he is the first and only combat soldier to be acknowledged with two Victoria Cross honors. He is also the only ANZAC soldier to receive this distinction twice.

"Upon his release from Colditz in 1945, Upham went to England to track down Mary McTamney, a Red Cross Nurse from Dunedin, New Zealand, and in June 1945, they were married. Returning to New Zealand, Upham resisted all attempts to lure him into politics. When friends and neighbors raised 10,000 pounds to buy him a farm, he declined the money and gave it to start an endowment for scholarships to sons of ex-servicemen. He would obtain a resettlement loan from the government to purchase a farm in 1946, in Rafa Downs, some 100 miles north of Christchurch, where he had worked before the war. Despite his war wounds causing him some physical trouble, he became a successful farmer. Upham was extremely shy, and tried to avoid all publicity, often turning down requests for attendance at memorial events, but only relented when he received a personal appeal from New Zealand's Prime Minister. He and his wife would have three daughters, including a pair of twins." - Ancestry Database and The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage

Charles Hazlitt Upham died on November 22, 1994 at the age of 86. He lies in rest at St. Paul's Anglican Church Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand. Over 5,000 people attended his funeral. Lest We Forget.
🇬🇧

24/01/2025

Stretcher cases boarding Number 7 Ambulance train.

In the early days of the First World War, casualties arriving back in Britain were taken from hospital ships at Southampton to the nearby military hospital at Netley.

However, as more and more casualties began to arrive, ambulance trains took passengers to newly opened hospitals across the country.

By 1918, the railway companies had built 20 ambulance trains for use in Britain and 31 for the continent. The continental trains were carefully designed to carry more passengers over longer distances.
🇬🇧

24/01/2025

The Sphere - Saturday 16 December 1916.

He Could Not Bear to See the Wounded Left Unattended." - Officer's Report.

HOW PRIVATE FYNN OF THE SOUTH WALES BORDERERS WON THE VICTORIA CROSS DRAWN BY M. UGO, 1916.

The very gallant conduct for which Private Fynn was awarded the V.C. is thus described by an officer in his regiment. "My first sight of him was when he was running across the open under heavy fire. Bullets were as thick as bees around an overturned hive.

He crossed and re-crossed with materials to dress the wounds of the men he went to assist." Subsequently Private Fynn carried in one of the wounded men, and afterwards returned with a comrade and brought in a second under very heavy fire from the enemy.🇬🇧

20/01/2025

The legend of Woodbine Willie.

Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy MC

Geoffrey was born in Leeds in 1883. The son of a vicar he was one of nine siblings.

He was educated at Leeds Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin.

In 1905 he became a curate and by 1914 was the vicar at St. Paul's, Worcester.

When war was declared, fired by patriotism and a sense of duty, he offered himself as an army chaplain.

He lived with the men in the trenches, shared their experiences and spoke to them in their own rough language. They loved him for it. He became famous for dispensing woodbine ci******es as well as spiritual help and comfort.

It is estimated that he gave away over 850,000 ci******es at his own expense earning him the nickname ‘Woodbine Willie’.

He went into the thick of battle, believing that as a padre he had to be where death was closest.

He would crawl into No Man’s Land to comfort dying men and give them a final smoke.

He soon became disillusioned and wrote poetry that reflected the harsh realities of war. His poems were published in a book ‘Rough Rhymes of a Padre’ which sold 30,000 copies in a few months. He provided a voice for the men whose experiences he shared in the trenches.

He was at the front during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and for his actions during the attack on the Messines Ridge in 1917 he was awarded the Military Cross.

The citation read:-
“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He showed the greatest courage and disregard for his own safety in attending to the wounded under heavy fire. He searched shell holes for our own and enemy wounded, assisting them to the dressing station, and his cheerfulness and endurance had a splendid effect upon all ranks in the front line trenches, which he constantly visited”.

He was a socialist and after the war worked tirelessly to improve the lives of the poor.

He died in Liverpool on 8th March 1929.

Thousands attended his funeral in Worcester. As the coffin passed by many ex-servicemen threw packets of woodbine ci******es on to it. Many more were thrown into his grave.

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was 45 years old.🇬🇧

18/01/2025

A football player who was killed at the Somme.

Born: 27th November 1877
Died: 7th October 1916

The big Welshman had made numerous appearances for a number of professional football clubs, including Everton and Stoke City as a goalkeeper. Roose also played international football for his home nation of Wales. His playing career, however, would come to an end at the outbreak of war.

Leigh Roose joined the British Army in 1914 as a private soldier in the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving in both the Western Front and Gallipoli. When he returned to Britain in 1916, he enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers, again as a private soldier and was sent to France. His goalkeeping abilities and his natural strength of having a bigger frame made him a noted gr***de thrower.

However, during a German flamethrower attack, Private Roose was caught up in the smoke and fire. Despite his clothes being burnt, he refused to go to the dressing station and carried on using his rifle to great affect and throwing gr***des until his arms could no longer. Leigh Richmond Roose would die in unknown circumstances during the final weeks of the Battle of The Somme.

Leigh Richmond Roose in his goalkeeper kit whilst playing for Stoke City FC 🇬🇧

17/01/2025

Defenders of Rorke's Drift.

Corporal William Wilson Allan B Coy, 2nd Bn, 24th Regt.

He had joined the 24th Regiment at Aldershot in 1859. He was about 35 years old, a sergeant who had recently been reduced in rank to corporal for being drunk on duty.

At Rorke's Drift, Corporal Allan and another man (Frederick Hitch) kept communication with the hospital open, despite being severely wounded. Their determined conduct enabled the patients to be withdrawn from the hospital, and when incapacitated by their wounds from fighting, they continued, as soon as their wounds were dressed, to serve out ammunition to their comrades during the night.

He later achieved the rank of sergeant for the second time.

He died of influenza on 12 March 1890 at 85 Monnow Street, Monmouth, at the age of 46. A fund was set up to help the family, his wife, Sarah Ann and his seven children. He is buried at Monmouth Cemetery, Monmouthshire.

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the South Wales Borderers Museum, Brecon

🇬🇧

16/01/2025

Walt Disney
The beloved Walt Disney contributed to the military and American war effort in a unique way. When he first attempted to join the service in 1918 to fight in World War I, the U.S. Army turned him down because he was only 16 at the time. Disney and his creative ways won out, as he forged the date on his birth certificate and was able to join the American Ambulance Corps, a division of the Red Cross. Just days after the war ended, his outfit was shipped off to France where he was assigned to an evacuation hospital and drove trucks and ambulances. He also served in the actual military during World War II. This time, his true talents were put to use creating propaganda cartoons and instructional videos for soldiers. The special unit was appropriately called the “Walt Disney Training Films Unit.”

15/01/2025

Plans all in place for 2 trips to Normandy one in Feb then early March
Then late March is a big trip
Going to Belgium and Holland
Includes Ypres Arnhem and Bastogne , going to be epic .
2 further trips pending to Normandy ,
Busy busy 🇬🇧

Evans Battlefield Tours

12/02/2025

09/02/2025

01/02/2025

31/01/2025

31/01/2025

31/01/2025

29/01/2025

28/01/2025

27/01/2025

27/01/2025

25/01/2025

24/01/2025

24/01/2025

20/01/2025

18/01/2025

17/01/2025

16/01/2025

15/01/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share