Great day yesterday with the Bristol Area IC in our March for Finley from Burnham-on-Sea to Brean Down. If you can spare a few pounds for this wonderful charity helping families with children in long-term hospital care, we'd really appreciate it. www.justgiving.com/page/bristol...

Great day yesterday with the Bristol Area IC in our March for Finley from Burnham-on-Sea to Brean Down. If you can spare a few pounds for this wonderful charity helping families with children in long-term hospital care, we'd really appreciate it. www.justgiving.com/page/bristol...

28th Aug, 1942. A Junkers 86R high altitude bomber, flying at around 40,000 feet, dropped a single 250kg bomb over Bristol, which landed on a car in the Broad Wier district at 9:20am. A nearby bus was seriously damaged by blast, while burning petrol from the car’s fuel tank engulfed two more. 🧵1/12

The Bristol Area IC (The Beaufighters) will be Marching for Finley on Sunday 31 August. It will be a great day out and should you wish to support us raising money for this fine cause please follow the link. click.contact.justgiving.com?qs=da0ac57f3...

Our latest museum tour is live now on the YouTube channel and wherever you get your podcasts. Last week we visited the fab Aerospace Bristol and were shown around by the Chair of Trustees, Sir Iain Gray. Check out the tour via the link below! youtu.be/N5R6e5NRy7s

The Duxford Big Wing is today marching to raise money for the Finlays Touch charity. Wish us luck! @whwcambridgeic.bsky.social www.justgiving.com/page/cambrid...

Elements of the Bristol Area IC (the Beaufighters) walking Stop Line Green from Bradford On Avon. A lovely walk . #wehaveways

Recently back from holiday in Vienna and made sure I took the family to see the Flak Towers in Augarten on the edge of the city. The size of them is just incredible.

Can't remember who posted this before but I loved this www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLqV... I've always found it hard to understand how the Charge of the Light Brigade fitted together but this did the job perfectly.

Table football (futbolín). The classic version was invented by Galician anarchist poet Alejandro Finisterre. While convalescing in Montserrat, Catalonia after wounded by a fascist bomb in Madrid in 1936. He felt sorry that the amputee kids couldn't play real football, so he came up with idea.

Richard Blair at the Estació de Francia last year reflecting on his father George Orwell's arrival here in the revolutionary city, and his escape six months later from the Stalinist police on 23 June 1937.

Thanks to wonderful documentaries like this 1985 ‘Lions Led by Donkeys’ you can still see and hear the voices of some of the men who lived through the 1st July 1916. youtu.be/NEZdlLBiA-A?... #ww1 #Somme109

#OtD 24 Jun 1943 a battle broke out within the segregated US military in the British village of Bamber Bridge. White military police opened fire on Black service personnel after they were unhappy about local residents supporting Black troops. stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7894...

The chances of anything coming from Iron Acton are a million to one they said. A great evening with the Bristol IC (the Beaufighters) and a rather good model from @gubb71.bsky.social @yanksinbristol.bsky.social Felix, Simon G.

Fantastic day yesterday at Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre and a ride on Just Jane. So much fun and highly recommended.

On this important #Maythe4thBeWithYou anniversary, let’s look at whether 21 Panzer Division’s counter attack at Sword on 6 June might have been more successful if they had deployed their AT-ATs on the left flank instead of the right. In this thread I shall consider…. 1/265

Great to meet you last night @philmcraig.bsky.social, thanks for the talk. As we discussed, my website is www.YanksinBristol.co.uk See you at WHWFest5!

A great evening in Chipping Sodbury with the Bristol Area IC and Phil Craig talking about his new book 1945:The Reckoning.

The post today has been absolutely bloody brilliant 😊 My (signed) copy of @lydiajane13.bsky.social's latest work has arrived. It's absolutely glorious and a much important addition to the historiography of RAF Bomber Command. Get yours here: mortonsbooks.co.uk/book/the-inv...

Here's one for you @jamesjhistory.bsky.social Bristol Beaufort and Beaufighters named for the USAAF after the many Bristols of the USA! All at RAF Filton. (NARA)

Really welcome news! And with 1% population owning half of England, this could be an important step towards distributing land more fairly

Charles Rogers has been whitewashed off the DOD website because of abhorrent incels who fear their own insignificance. Please, share his face & his Medal of Honour citation far & wide. My substack tomorrow will be on minorities and women who have won it because I’m furious achurchill.substack.com

Had a great visit to Portbury (near Bristol) HAA battery this week. The landowner pointed out a badger had dug up these items from where the huts once were: gin bottle with liquid still in it! Crockery with 'George VI' and '1944' on the bottom, a food tin, an ink pot and a perfume/aftershave bottle.

Just finished reading Normandy The Sailor's Story by @nickhewitt4.bsky.social #histbookchat Thought I had pretty good knowledge about the D-Day story but turns out there was a big chunk missing! Really great book.

Recently found this: turns out my Great Uncle Brian was the first British serviceman ashore in Korea in 1950. My great grandmother's comment "There has always been a Davey in the Navy" is sadly no longer true. I get seasick!

Here's a happy Bristolian-American relationship for Valentines Day yanksinbristol.co.uk/merle-hagerm... or, if you prefer, a story of unrequited love yanksinbristol.co.uk/eugene-s-nor...

Do not buy this! This is not a Aux stand down lapel badge but a fake from a well known faker. Stay away!

Kent Battle of Britain Museum has less than a month to get the money together to keep these #BattleOfBritain aircrew medals in the hands of the public. Please consider giving anything you can in the 85th anniversary year of this iconic campaign. #FinancingTheFew www.justgiving.com/campaign/med...

Thrilled that my debut book, 'Eagle Days: Life and Death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain', will be published by @headofzeus.bsky.social in May! You can now pre-order here: geni.us/EagleDays Thank you SO much Dan Jones, my agent Georgina Capel & @iainmacgregor1.bsky.social ♥️ 1/4

I've put together a guided tour of some of the main sites used by the US Army in Bristol in the Second World War using the wonderful guidl app. Download details here yanksinbristol.co.uk/self-guided-...

G.I.s always had the best uniforms! American soldiers handing out presents to little Bristolians in December 1943. Merry Christmas everyone!

If I might be so bold, here are some ideas for late gifts based on wot I have had out this year. First, the Men At War paperback. It's been lovely seeing this find its audience from all sorts of people, military nerds (like me) to the LGBT+ (like me) community (1/4) uk.bookshop.org/p/books/men-...

#ChristmasPresents There's only one book (Little Sense Of Urgency) that covers *all* aspects of Market Garden in great detail. And why did it fail? That is presented in Lost At Nijmegen. I'm sure Santa will do his utmost to deliver these books to you, in time (pre-jump.nl 😉). PLEASE REPOST!

It's well-known black and white GIs were largely segregated in the US Army during the Second World War. One place this didn't happen was for patients at the 74th General Hospital based at Tyntesfield near Bristol, a deliberate policy of their CO, Colonel Tepperson.

As it's Valentine's Day, here's the most romantic Anglo-American story I've found for Bristol! yanksinbristol.co.uk/merle-hagerm...

Another little nugget from this book: around 100,000 GIs were billeted across south and southwest England resulting in complaints in only 0.1% of cases.

Anglo-American relations fact of the day: A quarter of the letters written by GIs from Normandy were sent to British homes - to girlfriends, former billet hosts and new friends. Reading this excellent book at the moment. #HistBookChat

Sounds like some Bristolians weren't too keen on the US Army in the city. Apparently this perma-graffitied rock on the Avon Gorge once had 'Yanks go home' daubed on it and was visible into the 1950s. Unfortunately, I can't find photographic evidence.

Just finishing reading this brilliant book by a toilet attendant who befriended the 'working girls' on the Downs from the 30s to 60s. It's being rereleased soon and is a completely different history of Bristol. Only a little about the US Army in WW2 and not complimentary! #HistBookChat

HMS Cossack as drawn by my late godfather in 1943 when aged 13. Found it in my grandmother's 'autograph' book yesterday. Given it was torpedoed and sank in 1941, I guess he must have drawn it from this very photo (found on Wikipedia).

Are you bored? Would you like to play with an interactive map showing all the 38,590 overseas entities holding English/Welsh real estate? With clickable thingies that let you identify where someone has unlawfully hidden their ownership... www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/01/16/o...

Such a privilege to explore the World War II air raid shelter under the St Nicholas Market in the centre of Bristol with the ‘We Have Ways’ Bristol Area IC. Duncan Mckellar was a wonderful guide and thanks to @yanksinbristol.bsky.social for making it happen!

I've just started reading this and it's very entertaining - still in the Phoney War #HistBookChat . And with my wife out last night I got to watch Battle of Britain to set the tone. Did get a request of 'Daddy, can you turn the TV down please?' though!

Do have a look at @yanksinbristol.bsky.social excellent website www.yanksinbristol.co.uk as mentioned in the latest edition of Battlefield 44 podcast.

Just completed this wonderful book about the US Army hospital near Bristol. Met the author before Christmas and he was lucky enough to interview many people who'd been there in the war. Almost no sign of the buildings today though. #HistBookChat

A scenic part of the Bristol & Clifton Golf Course. The red oval is where an old quarry was located and used as a tip for waste from Tyntesfield US Army Hospital. Covered and signed-off by the council as safe post-war! Many a used cast from a Normandy veteran lies beneath!

P-51 Mustangs being towed by US Forces for reassembly. This is in Liverpool but the same thing happened in Bristol. They arrived at Avonmouth Docks, were towed along the Portway, under the Clifton Suspension Bridge and up Gloucester Road to the USAAF site at Patchway.

Stills from 'Citizens of Bristol at War' as the US Army host displaced Bristolian children from BABS (British-American Bellows Society).