Hedy Lamarr Actress and Inventor

 

Hedy Lamarr, a 1940s Hollywood star,
developed a frequency-hopping radio
guidance system for Allied torpedoes,
laying the groundwork for today’s 
and Bluetooth technologies.

 Hedy Lamarr, a 1940s Hollywood star,
co-developed a frequency-hopping radio guidance
system for Allied torpedoes, laying the groundwork
for today's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies. 


Hollywood called her the most beautiful woman
alive. But behind the glamour she was inventing
technology 50 years ahead of its time. The Military 
ignored her. She died broke. Now her invention 
powers your phone. The Hedy Lamarr story nobody knows.

1940s. Hollywood calls her the most beautiful woman in 
the world. Hedy Lamarr. Movie star. Red carpets. Magazine 
covers But nobody knows what she does in her
spare time.

Born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna. At 19, she marries Friedrich 
Mondl, an Austrian arms dealer selling weapons to the Nozis.
He's controlling. Obsessive. She's trapped in a gilded cage.

But she's listening carefully at every dinner party.
Generals and engineers gather, discussing
weapons, torpedoes, radio control technology.
She absorbs everything. Remembers every detail.

1937. She escapes during a theater outing in London.
Flees to America.
Changes her name to Hedy Lamarr. Louis B. Mayer signs her to MGM.
She becomes o Hollywood sensation overnight.

1940. World War Two is raging. Nazi U boats sink Allied ships daily.
Radio controlled torpedoes keep getting jammed by enemy signals.
Hedy remembers everything from those
dinner parties.

She meets George Antheil at a dinner party.
He's an avant garde composer. Not a scientist. Not an engineer.
She explains her idea: Make radio signals jump between
frequencies so fast enemies can't jam them.

They work together at her house between film shoots.
Antheil understands timing from music. Hedy understands 
weapons from her first marriage.
Together they develop frequency hopping spread spectrum.

11th August , 1942. They file US Potent 2,292,387.
A secret communication system using 88 frequencies, synchronized 
like a player piano.
It would make Allied torpedoes completely un-jammable.
The US Navy reviews their invention. Too complicated, they say.
Too impractical. Impossible to manufacture.
They tell her to go sell war bonds instead
Use that pretty face for something more useful.

The potent expires in 1959. Unused. Forgotten.
Hedy continues acting, but her star fades
Roles dry up. She has no idea her invention will change
everything.

1980s. Engineers developing cellular phone
technology discover her frequency
hopping potent. 1990s. It becomes foundational for Wi-Fi.
Bluetooth. GPS.
Every wireless device uses her tech.
She never receives a cent.

1997. Finally, someone notices. She receives a Pioneer 
Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
She's 83. Nearly blind.
Refuses to appear at the ceremony.
Says on the phone: "It's about time."

19th January, 2000.
Hedy dies alone in Florida. Age 85.
Meanwhile, her frequency hopping tech
generates billions annually for tech
companies worldwide.
She never profited from any of it.

After her death, recognition finally arrives.
Inducted into the National Inventors Hall
of Fame.
Documentaries made. Books written.
The world realizes: She wasn't just beautiful
She was brilliant.

Every time you connect to Wi-Fi, pair
Bluetooth devices, or open GPS navigation,
you're using technology a Hollywood
actress invented in 1942.
The world only saw her face.
Her mind was changing the future.

They dismissed her because she was
beautiful, because she was a woman,
because she was an actress.
The military ignored her.
History nearly erased her.
But her invention outlasted everyone who
doubted her.
Hollywood called her the most beautiful woman
alive. The military called her impractical. But she 
quietly invented the technology that powers
bluetooth, and GPS. 

In the 1940s she was everywhere.
Red carpets, magazine covers, movie premieres.
But in her spare time, she read engineering manuals
and sketched inventions at her dressing table.

In the 1940s she was everywhere.
Red carpets, magazine covers, movie premieres.
But in her spare time, she read engineering manuals
and sketched inventions at her dressing table.

Born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna, she married an
Austrian arms dealer at nineteen.
He entertained generals and engineers who
discussed weapon systems over dinner.
She listened carefully and remembered every detail

I Hollywood called her the most beautiful
woman alive.
But Hedy Lamarr wasn't just a movie star. Between
filming scenes in the 1940s, she was sketching out
blueprints for something no one could imagine back
then: wireless communication.
She invented frequency hopping, a system designed
to guide torpedoes. The military ignored her. She died
broke.

Today, that same technology powers your Wi-Fi
Bluetooth, and your phone.
Beauty fades, but ideas last forever.

Hedy Lamarr was more than a movie
star.
While Hollywood adored her beauty, she was quietly
designing technology that would shape the next
century.
In 1942 she patented a secret communication system
based on frequency hopping.
It was ignored by the military and forgotten for
decades.
But her invention became the foundation of modern
wireless communication.
Every Wi-Fi connection, every Bluetooth signal, every 

GPS route traces back to her idea.
She died without profit or recognition.
Today, she is celebrated as one of the most brilliant
inventors of the twentieth century.
Sometimes the brightest minds are hidden in plain
sight.

Who Was Violette Szabo?

 

During the Second World War, Szabo was recruited by
the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to work as an
agent in German-occupied Europe. She spoke fluent
French and was sent to France in 1944, having been
recruited as an agent in 1942.


Szabo joined the SOE’s ‘F’ Section after the death of
her husband Etienne, who had been fighting as part
of the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. On her
first mission to France in April 1944, she acted as
courier to Philippe Liewer, whose resistance network
in the Rouen area of France had been uncovered by
the Gestapo. Violette’s job was to try to and
re-establish contact with members of the network
and gather vital intelligence.

Her second mission began on 07th June 1944, the day
after D-Day. She, Liewer and another agent
parachuted into south-west France, near Limoges, to
set up a new network with local resistance groups.

Three days later Szabo was on a courier trip with a
resistance leader known as ‘Anastasie’ when they
encountered German forces. Their car was stopped
at a road block and a gun battle took place. Violette
was captured but helped ensure that Anastasie was
able to escape. After capture, Szabo was brutally
interrogated in Fresnes prison in Paris before being
deported by train to Germany. During the journey the
train was attacked by British aircraft, and Violette and
another female prisoner took the opportunity - at
great personal risk - to take water to the male
prisoners.
Szabo was executed at Ravensbruck concentration
camp in early 1945.
Szabo’s story and those of other SOE agents feature
in our exhibition ‘Spies, Lies and Deception’, currently
on at IWM London. See the link in our bio for more.
The first photo shows Szabo and the second shows
her daughter, Tania, receiving her mother's
posthumous George Cross, 28th January 1947.

Herta Kasparova Czech Collaborator

  Herta Kasparova, a female
collaborator who worked with the Germans during the
occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War ll, at the
time of her execution by pole hanging...
Herta Kasparova was born on  01st June, 1923, in the
small Czech town of Trest', into a world that never
treated her gently. From birth, she lived with a visible
disability—a damaged right leg that caused a
pronounced limp. In a society that prized physical
normalcy and conformity, especially in the interwar
years, this marked her early. As a child and adolescent,
she was mocked, isolated, and made painfully aware
that she was seen as different. Long before politics
entered her life, she had already learned what it meant
to be vulnerable and watched.

When Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia,
survival often depended on language, usefulness and
proximity to power. Herta spoke both Czech and
German fluently, a skill that suddenly gave her value in
a brutal system. The Gestapo in Trest' used her as a
translator, placing her in rooms where fear dictated
every word. She translated documents and
interrogations, and later was accused of acting as an
“investigator,” reporting on suspected dissidents
within her own community. Whether driven by
coercion, fear, a desire for protection, or a fragile
sense of belonging, her role tied her fate tightly to the
occupiers.

After the war, the moral landscape shifted violently
and quickly. Collaboration trials swept through
Czechoslovakia, fueled by grief, rage, and a desperate
need for justice or vengeance. Herta was arrested,
tried, and sentenced to death. She was just 23 years
old.

On 13th September, 1946, at 6:38 p.m., she was
executed by pole hanging, a method designed not for
mercy but for spectacle and punishment. The
execution device was stark and imposing. When she
was brought before it, terror overtook her body. Her
legs collapsed beneath her, and guards had to lift her
upright. Witnesses noted her visible fear as the ropes
were tied, her chest strapped, her body raised. In her
final moments, the procedure was carried out with
calculated brutality, ending her life publicly and
decisively.

Jean Bartik ENIAC,

 CAPTURED IN FRANCE, TORTURED, AND SENT TO
RAVENSBRUCK, SHE WAS SENTENCED TO DEATH-TWICE-
AND NEVER SPOKE A NAME. MOST DID NOT SURVIVE
WHAT SHE ENDURED. BUT SHE DID SURVIVE.
LIBERATED IN ‘1945. SHE WALKED OUT ALIVE WHEN
SURVIVAL ITSELF WAS RESISTANCE.

 Jean Bartik entered computing
at a moment when no one even knew what the job was
called. In the 1940s, she and five other women were
assigned to the

ENIAC, a 30-ton machine built to
calculate artillery trajectories. It filled a room, roared
with heat, and had no programming language, no
manuals, no diagrams, and no precedent. What existed
was hardware—cables, switches, and panels—and the
expectation that these women would somehow make
it work.

Programming ENIAC meant thinking in pure logic.
Bartik learned to translate complex mathematical
equations into physical actions, crawling inside the
machine, rewiring it by hand, setting thousands of
switches, and debugging problems by sound and
instinct. When something went wrong, there was no
code to review—only miles of wiring to trace. They
weren't just using the machine; they were inventing
the very idea of how a computer could be instructed

Their most revolutionary achievement came when
they transformed ENIAC from a single-purpose
weapon calculator into the first stored-program
computer. This leap—allowing a machine to hold
instructions rather than be rewired for every task—
became the foundation of modern software. Yet when
ENIAC was unveiled to the public, the women who
made it function were largely ignored, mistaken for
models or assistants rather than architects of a new
field.

Bartik spent decades watching computing become
one of the most powerful industries in the world while
the women who built its foundations were erased from
its origin story. Only later in life did she begin receiving
recognition for what she had always known: that
modern computing did not begin with sleek code or
corporate labs, but with women who taught a machine
how to think before society was ready to credit them
for it.

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Soviet Sniper Rosa Shanina

 

 Smart, Beautiful, and Deadly:
19-Year-Old Soviet Sniper Roza Shanina with 59
Confirmed Kills, 1945

Roza Shanina, the Soviet sniper who captured global
attention at only 19 years old, achieved 59 confirmed
kills during World War ll — including 12 during the
Battle of Vilnius alone.

After her brother was killed in 1941, she volunteered
for the army and chose to become a front-line sniper.
She quickly gained a reputation for exceptional
accuracy and for performing doublets — hitting two
targets with two rapid shots.

By 1944, Canadian newspapers were calling her “the
unseen terror of East Prussia", and she became the
first Soviet female sniper to receive the Order of
Glory.

Despite Soviet orders to withdraw female snipers
from direct combat, Shanina refused to step back.
She repeatedly asked to return to the front line, even
writing to General Krylov and to Stalin himself. Her
request was denied, yet she went anyway — receiving
only administrative punishment, and continuing to
fight.

In her diary, she wrote about feeling “an unknown
force" pulling her toward battle, and about losing her
comrades one after another. She fully understood she
might be killed, but kept advancing.

On 27th January 1945, she was mortally wounded while
shielding a wounded artillery officer, and died the next
day — leaving behind deeply emotional diary entries
from a brave, strong young woman worn down by war
and loss.

Hitler without the moderates Fenruary 1938

Head of the Army and Everything 
The German press has returned to silence, said the BBC in one of its witty moments, 
and all is apparently well again in the Reich. 
The international situation has been little affected by the recent manifestation of 
disunity in Germany, but one thing remains  clear after all the excitement; A Dictator
is not necessarily as firm in the saddle as he appears to be, and as he would like the 
world to believe. appears to be, and us he would like the World to believe.

What Will Hitler Say?
The whole of Europe is wondering what Herr Hitler will say
to this Reichstag; on Sunday, when he is to make his first
public statement since the great changes in the chief offices
of State which have set him still more firmly in the saddle.

No Room For Criticism
It would seem that the general. effect of the upheaval is that Herr Hitler has removed 
from power high officials who were not entirely in sympathy with his policy, but reserved 
their right to criticised. Nazism has no room for criticism. In 1934 Herr Hitler disposed 
of his critics by having them shot; this time he has adapted the more humanised way of 
replacing them with men who will do his bidding without question.

The dramatic events of the beginning of the month brought into the light of day much ignore 
than was happening at the time. The true position of the last few years stands out clearly 
for all to judge. All during these years the Nazi Party has proclaimed that it hats stood
solidly and entirely for Germany, and that the throne on which Herr Hitler had installed 
himself by their energies  was without at flaw in its structure.
All was unity and perfection, and there were no critics i the Reich because there was 
nothing to he criticised.

Generals Dismissed
And yet, after rumours the strictest censorship could not suppress, the world learned 
that two of the main supports of this perfect organization had been set on one side, 
and a new kind of structure put in position to maintain it. The causes of this revolutionary 
change in the control of the Reich were so grave that the Commander-in-Chief and the Chief
of Staff (Marshal von Blomberg and General von Fritsch) of the most famous army in Europe 
had to surrender their high positions, together with thirteen other generals and many officers
of high rank. The Foreign Minister surrendered his high office and took a lower office in 
what is called a Secret Cabinet. The new Foreign Minister is Herr von Ribbontrop, who has 
been Ambassador in London and has  the advantage of knowing this country and its desire for 
World peace.

The immediate result of the changes is apparently that Herr Hitler has given himself more 
power than ever. He has made himself head of the Army, which he controls through National-
Socialist officers. He has put the Civil Service under a. more uniform  control than hitherto. 
In short, the new men and the new ideas have been brought to the test against the traditional 
ideas of the long established servants of the State, whether in foreign, military, or civil 
matters, and they have prevailed.

Only time can show what underlies this vast upheaval. Herr Hitler himself has frequently shown 
that he is averse from the reckless actions proposed by his fanatical followers. He porcelains
himself stronger today than in the past: can he continue to check his extremists without  
the support of the moderates who have gone.

The Crystal Gazer

 HlTLER’S FANTASY OF IMPERIAL DOMINATION


 " The German Chancellor" said Mr Chamberlain in the House of Commons on
01st September. " has not hesitated to plunge the world into misery in order to serve
his own senseless ambition." What form that ambition takes is described below.

  Just as 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm and his fellow Pan-Germans planned and worked for a
German Empire which should stretch from the North Sea to Bagdad and possibly far
beyond, so Hitler dreams of a great nazi dominion. Under Hitler however, the Drang
nach Sued-Osten (The Drive to the south east) of the Berlin Bagdad railway, of Mittel- 
Europa, has been reinforced by a religious urge.

   Like the Kaiser, Hitler believes that he is inspired by God -- the "good old german god" 
of whom we heard so much in the last war -- but he displays a mystical fanaticism which
would have been altogether alien to the character of the Kaiser, brought up as he was on
the lines of Victorian evangelism. Hitler see himself as the captain of a crusade aiming
at the domination of Europe's lesser breeds by men of the pure Nordic or Ayran race. With 
fanatical fervour he has preached his gospel from a thousand platforms and in all the
seven hundred pages of  "Mein Kampf" -- than book which is put into the hands of every
newly-married couple in the Nazi Reich.

  There is imperialism enough in all conscience in "Mein Kampf," but it is still more clearly in
evidence  in that book which has been called the New Testament of Nazism - "The Myth of
the Twentieth Century," published in 1930 by Alfred Rosenberg, the Russian refugee of 
German extraction who greatly influenced Hitler in his most impressionable early years,
and who has become the priest and prophet of Pan-German Aryanism.

  In this remarkable effusion, which is now in its 110th edition and of which more than half 
million copies have been sold, Rosenberg visual

ises a German empire which shall i
include not only Germany but all the adjacent lands in which there is a German or an Aryan
population. First Austria, he prophesied, would come into the fold, and next the Sudeten
Germans; somewhat later the Teutons of Alsace-Lorraine, Switzerland,  Luxenberg, Belguim,
Holland, Poland, Lithuania, Russia and Hungary will follow suit. Sometimes the union will
be effected voluntarily; sometimes force of arms will be neccessary. But no obstacle, however
great, can stop this growth of Germany as the imperial power of ceneral and south-eastern Europe,

  Not only the German-speaking parts of the continent are to be come under the Reich. The 
Germans will play their part as the supermen of Nietsche's creed, and they will have their 
willing and devoted slaves many other races on their border lands. Denmark, Sweden, Norway,
and Finland are to form a "Northern Germanic Federation"; Jugoslavia, Rumania, and Bulgaria 
are to  constitute the "Balkan Protectorate"; Lithuania, Latvia, and Etsonia are to be a "Baltic
Dominion"; and finally, the Russian Ukraine, together with Ruthenia and the Polish Ukraine, will 
form the vast "Ukrainian Dominion.'

More Room for Germans!

  "We demand land and soil (Colonies) for the nourishment of our people and the settlement of
our surplus population," declares the third article of the original programme of the Nazi party,
issue in 1920, four years before the birth of "Mein Kampf"; and in "Mein Kampf" Hitler urges again
and again the German right to unhammpered expansion. Before the end of the twentieth century,
he says, the world shall see 250 million Germans flourishing in the heart of the European continent.
Nazi Germany's appetite for colonial expansion will not be sated until her bounds extend from
the Atlantic and the English Channel to the Black Sea, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.

   "Then the plough will be the sword," runs a passage in "Mein Kampf," "and out of the tears
of  war will grow the harvest of future days." 

The Plan in Operation.

     Step by step the great dream, fantastic though it may appear, has been carried into realisation.
Austria has returned to the Reich as Hitler and Rosenberg declared it should and would; the Sude-
ten Germans have returned, too, and Czechslovakia was wiped out inthe  process; the Germans in 
Memel and Danzig and the Tyrol have all returned or returning by one way or another to their
 "Homeland."

   Then somewhere, somehow, the plan has gone wrong. Instead of executing the Drang nach 
Sued-Osten to the oilfields of Rumania and the rich corn lands of the Ukraine, Hitler has flung his
 legions against Poland, which up to now has played very little part in the dreams of Pan-Germanism; 
in the map illustrating Rosenberg's scheme of German expansion, for instance, practically the whole
of Poland -- including even the Corridor -- is left outside the imperial limits.

   Moreover, in one of his most cynical moments, Hitler has shaken hand with Moscow, with the 
Bolshevik monster whom he has so often and so violently denounced, and so closed the door, for
the time, at least, on his expansion towards the south-east.

   The Kaiser in his day made a similar move. Just as Hitler has attacked Poland, so the last of the 
Hohenzollerns in 1914 swept through Belguim. And Hitler should have remembered that then Britain
stood by Belguim.   ... He should have thought of that -- and thought again.

General Gamelin 23rd September 1939

23rd September 1939
Gamelin -- Man of the Moment
Just as the last war the French people loked up to "Papa" Joffre and
to Foch, the Supreme Generallissimo, so today they put their trust in General
Gamelin, who has control of all the armed forces -- on land and sea
in the air -- of the Republic.

General Marie Gustav Gamelin was born in Paris in 1872, shortly
after France of the second Empire had crashed in Bloody ruin at
Sedan.  It is said that as a child, he played with toy soldiers in his
nursery, and today, when he attends a meeting of the Supreme War
Council, he sometimes glances across the road at the house in
which he was born.

The blood of the soldiers flows in his veins, although in his early
days he wanted to be a painter, and still today he is something
more than a dabbler in water colours. From the Military academy 
at St. Cyr, the French Sandhurst, he went to the Chasseurs, and after 
a term of service in Africa became military secretary to Joffre.

At the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, he held a position
on the Operation Branch of Joffre's staff. What happened then may 
be told in the words of "Pertinax," the distinguished French journalist,
writing in the column of the "Daily Telegraph":

               On the evening of  25th August there was a
         discussion regarding the proper course to adopt
         in order to stop the movement of the German army,
         then pointing towards the valley of the Oise ad Paris
         and threatening to outflank the French line on the left..
             General Berthelot, Deputy Chief of the General  staff,
          declared himself in favour of a counter-attack directed
          towards the north-west and aimed at the inner (i.e. left) 
          front of the enemy right wing, which was opposite the
          British divisions. As against this Gamelin speaking for
          the Operation Branch, maintained that the invader taken 
          in the rear by an army gathered in the region of Paris and
          advancing north-eastwards.  Joffre decided in favour of
          Gamelin, who drew up Order NO. 2 -- the seed of the
          Victory of the Marne.
              The operation however, was not put into action before
           the French armies had retreated behind the Seine. On the
           morning of 04th September, when the Operation branch met,
           Gamelin, examining the map on which the positions of the
            various Corps were laid out, observed that they "Capped"
            the German effectives -- in other words, that a sort of circle
            seemed to be sketched automatically round them.
               The favorable opportunity offered itself: it was was seizing
            without delay. The attack must be made at once, and the 
            proposed recovery along the Seine put aside. Such is the    
            story of the Order No. 6 of 04th September, the order which   
            led to victory -- again the work of Gamelin's pen.

 

 In the spring of 1918, he decided to leave the French G.H.Q. for the field
and was given command of a Brigade of light Infantry (Chasseurs) in
Alsace, and later of the 9th Division. At the time of the great March 
offensive of 1918 Gamelin's single division held the front -- if it may be
called  -- which gradually spread over eleven miles. In those terrible days
 of defeat and retreat, he was one of the last to yeild ground.

 After the war he held a command in Syria, and there again he achieved 
victory for France at a most critical moment, when with 5,000 men he
annihilated a fanatical mob of 100,000 Druses.

 Small of stature, with pink cheeks, reddish hair, steel blue eyes and a crisp
moustache, he is a typical French soldier. He  is always meticulously 
turned out, with his many ribbons and medals in his buttonhole. His favorable
phrase to be, "I am a philosoopher."  As Joffre said after the battle of the Marne,
in which Gamelin had, as we have seen, played so valuble a part:: "If the be
philosophy, it is time that all generals were philosophers." 

photo Top
Meeting General Lord Gort at Victoria Station, London, in the summer of 1939
photo bottom
On several occasion general Gamelin, French Generlissimo, has paid official visits to
 (Aldershot) England, particularly since it became appartent that the Franco-British cooperation of
1914-1918 might have to be repeated in tg=he faceof the menace of Nazi aggression.

Clark Gable Actor

 

A film legend who went AWOL from Hollywood in favor of the USAF

Hollywood has plenty of actors and actresses who have served their 
country in the United States military over the years. Jimmy Stewart, 
Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman, Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda... 
the list is lengthy.

Elvis Pressley probably had the highest-profile stint in the Army. 
The King of Rock and Roll got plenty of attention from the international 
press when he did an 18-month hitch in Germany in the 1950s.

But it’s doubtful any Hollywood actor — A-lister or otherwise — 
could quite match the unique military legacy of leading man Clark 
Gable. Gable had already soared to the peak of the acting world, 
starring in “Gone with the Wind” and winning an Academy Award for 
“It Happened One Night” by the time the United States was forced 
to jump into the World War II fray.

Gable was 41 years old and had recently lost his third wife, Carole 
Lombard, in a plane crash when he made the startling decision to halt 
his film career and join the Air Force. He was past the draft age at 
the time, but enlisted as a private in August of 1942 in Los Angeles. 
It was shocking news in Hollywood — can you picture Tom Cruise or Brad 
Pitt pulling the plug today and saying they wanted to give up their 
day jobs and head  to Basic Training?. Why would a Hollywood

Gable was sent to Officer Candidate School at Miami Beach, Fla., 
graduating as a second lieutenant. From there he went to aerial 
gunnery school and was eventually assigned to the 351st Bomb 
Group at Polebrook, England. Though he could have opted out of 
flying on any combat missions, Gable flew in at least five such
missions in B-17s, at least some of which he used to get footage 
for a film he was making for the military.

             |

His overseas stint ended in October of 1943 and he was relieved 
from active duty in June of 1944 after reaching the rank of major. 
By that point he was over the maximum age for combat. When he 
resumed his movie career, he was no longer able to fulfill all his 
AAF Reserve time commitments and resigned his commission in September 
1947.

One thing is certain about Gable, he knew how to pose for a photo!
He no doubt was the subject of many more portrait photo shoots 
than the average Air Force crewman, and the Hollywood alpha male 
knew how to look great in front of a camera. In addition to his 
posed studio shots, there are many fabulous photos of him hanging 
out of plane windows, saluting and doing other cool stuff that 
collectors and enthusiasts can enjoy. Nice photos of Gable in 
his uniform can be found for as cheap as $9.99, all the way up 
to $200-plus for vintage originals. Clark Gable, Hollywood stud, 
and military man. No matter how you treated Scarlett O'Hara, we salute you! *

Poland at the heel of the Conqueror

 Little more than a month after the first act of war, the Fuehrer of the Nazi Reich
entered Poland's capital as a conqueror. At almost the same hour the last of
the scattered outposts of Polish resistance hoisted the white flag of surrender.

  On 05th October, while the smoke was still rising from the ruins of the city so terribly 
ravaged by his bombers and artillery the Fuehrer made his triumphal entry into Warsaw. For
some days before men and women of civilian population had been conscripted to help the 
labour corps of the invaders in cleaning up the place. ‘The streets had been swept, the 
debris piled in heaps, and the more dangerous structures demolished.

  Nazi taskmasters had also seen to it that such inscriptions as “Death to the
German invaders,” scribbled on the bare walls, were obliterated, and others—
“Death to Poland,” for instance—substituted. Then the Gestapo had made, of
course, most careful round-up of all the dangerous or suspicious elements.

 

Polish representatives are receiving conditions of surrender after the white flag had been hoisted over the city. 

  The Fuehrer travelled from Berlin to Warsaw by air, and after inspecting the
guard of honour at the air-port he drove into the city to the Plac Wolnosci
situated in the diplomatic quarter. The immediate neighbourhood was decorated
with green garlands, and there was little to remind the conqueror of the havoc
that the siege had wrought. From those sections of the city, the suburbs and the
business quarter, where the destruction had been most terrible, the parade was
carefully shepherded.

  At the close of the proceedings, the Fuehrer issued an Order of the Day,
thanking the troops which had been engaged in the Polish conquest. It read:
“On September 1 you fell into Tine, in compliance with my orders. to protect our Reich
against the Polish attack. In exemplary comradeship between army. air force and navy you
have fulfilled your task. You have fought courageously and valiantly

  "Today I was able to greet the troops that have participated in the conquest of Warsaw,
today concludes a combat in keeping with the best traditions of German soldiery. ‘Together
me the German people proudly thank you. In unshakable confidence the nation again looks
10 its armed forces and its leaders.

 “We remember our dead who, like the 2,000,000 dead of the Great War. sacrificed their lives 
that Germany might live. Under banners fluttering in proud joy everywhere in Germany we stand
together more closely than ever and are tightening our helmet bands. . . ." 

 

‘The fortress of Modlin made a gallant stand against the Nazis, but eventually surrendered, negotiations being opened on 27th September. In this photograph German bombers are making an onslaught on the position to prepare for an infantry attack. On the right of the column of smoke that rises from the bombs, is a portion of the fortress. 

 In his speech in the Reichstag the next day, Hitler announced that Germany’s
losses in the Polish campaign had been 10,572 killed, 30,322 wounded, and 3,400
missing. “ With the fall of the fortresses of Warsaw and Modlin,” the Fuehrer
went on, “‘and the surrender of Hela, the Polish campaign is ended.” The result
of the struggle had been the complete destruction of all the Polish armies.
"Now,” he added, “ 694,000 prisoners. have begun to march towards Berlin.”

A little later he paid a tribute to the German navy which had carried out its

duties in the “ battles” around Westerplatte, Gdynia, Oxhoetf, and Hela.

  Shortly before, the German High Command had announced the surrender of the
last remnant of the Polish Army—a little force of some 8,000 men who had held
out at Kock, east of Deblin, to the southeast of Warsaw, under General Kleber.

  While the carefully-groomed German soldiers were goose-stepping in triumph
past the Fuehrer, in another quarter of Warsaw troops of the disarmed garrison
were still trudging on their way to the prison camps. A little more than a month
before, the city they were leaving had been their country’s pride, the home of a 
million people. Now it was half destroyed; its streets were strewn with the rubbish   
of its palaces and humble homes alike; many of its great buildings were little more
than shells, smoke-blackened and bomb-shattered; great numbers of its people 
had suffered a terrible death

 

 

Nazi riflemen, occupying a point of vantage
near the capital, are picking off stragglers of the Polish army as they leave the doomed city.

  Through the ruined streets, as soon dark fell, prowled bands of looters. The
worst of the plunderers, indeed, did not have to wait till nightfall, for in their
rapine they were acting under the orders of the conquerors, breaking open the
closed homes and shuttered shops, and stealing from them valuable furniture,
paintings and brie-a-brac to be dispatched to the Reich as spoils of war.

  There were strange tales of members of the Warsaw underworld having been
patronized by the Nazi conquerors—of being fed and clothed with the good things
torn from those who until a few days before hail been set high above them in
the social scale.
 
  Such Robin Hood tacties, however, did little to ingratiate the conquerors with
the conquered, and the bad feeling was intensified by the conduct of members
of the German minorities in Poland, who openly gloated over the triumph of the
invaders, and of the officers — many of them were very young and quite fresh to
service conditions—who were creating what was described as a reign of terror
in the country districts, seizing the crops and any provisions on which they could
lay their hands.

  Everywhere, moreover, there were the agents of the Gestapo looking for those
who refused to disclose stores of food and fuel, and those suspected of still
being patriotic after all their city and country had gone through.

Sorry "Triumph" in a City of the dead. 

On 05th October  Hitler visited Warsaw and watched the triumphal march of Nazi troops in the Plac Wolnoscl, which by a strange irony
means "Freedom Square. " This photograph shows the troops converging on the saluting base along the Aleja Ujazdowska in the aristocratic quarter of Warsaw, and the one which had been least damaged by the fury of war. The streets were lined with troops, but the entire absence of  civilians was an eloquent reminder that Warsaw to them a city of the dead.  In the foreground is the Three Crosses church with soldiers on the roof to guard against possible "incidents." 

HOW BRITAIN IS WINNING THE U-BOAT WAR

Remarking how strange a thing it was for him to sit at the Admiralty again after a
quarter of a century and find himself ‘* moving over the same course against the same
enemy,’’ Mr. Winston Churchill on 26th September  gave the House of Commons
this spirited and highly encouraging account of the anti-submarine campaign.

R. CHURCHILL began by saying that the war at sea opened with some
intensity. Then he reviewed in masterly fashion the various aspects of
the campaign, extracts from his speech being printed here.

All our ships were going about the world in the ordinary way when they were set upon
by lurking U-boats carefully posted beforehand. In the first week our losses in tonnage were
half the weekly losses of the month of April, 1917, which was tho peak year of the
U-boat attack in the late war.

That was a very serious proportion. We immediately replied in three ways. First. we
set in motion the convoy system. This could be very quickly done for all the outgoing ships, but
it took a fortnight to organize from the other end a convoy of homeward-bound ships. This
convoy system is now in full operation both ways.

The convoy system is a good and well-tried defence against U-boat attack, but no one can
pretend that it is a complete defence. Some degree of risk and a steady proportion of losses
must be expected

There are also other forms of attack besides U-boats—attack by surface craft and attack
from the air—against which we must be upon our guard. Every precaution is being made to
cope with such attack, but we cannot guarantee immunity. We must expect further losses.

Arming the Mercantile Marine
Our second reply to the U-boat attack is to arm all our merchant vessels and
fast liners with defensive armament both against the U-boat and the aeroplane. For a
fortnight past armed ships have been continually leaving the harbours of this
island in large numbers. Some go in convoy, some go independently.
This applies not only to the United Kingdom but to our ports all over the world.

Thus, in a short time, the immense mercantile marine of the British Empire will be armed.
As we usually have 2,000 ships in salt water every day, this is a considerable operation.
All the guns and equipment are ready at the various arming stations, together with a pro-
portion of trained gunners to man them and give instruction ...

Our third reply is, of course, the British attack upon the U-boat. This is being delivered with
the utmost vigour and intensity.

A large number of attacks have been made by our flotillas and hunting craft. There are, of
course, many false alarms, some of them of a comical character, but it is no exaggeration to
say that attacks upon German U-boats have been five or six times as numerous as in any equal
period in the Great War, when, after all, they did not beat us.

The Prime Minister mentioned last week the figure of six or seven U-boats destroyed. That
was, as he said, probably an under-estimate, and since then we had some fruitful days.

One-Tenth of U-Boat Strength Destroyed
But even taking six or seven as a safe figure, that is one-tenth of the total enemy sub-
marine fleet destroyed during the first fortnight of the war, and it is probably o quarter,
or perhaps even a third, of all U-boats which are being actively employed. All these vessels—
those sunk and those which have escaped—have subjected themselves to what is said to be the
most trying ordeal any man can undergo in wartime. A large proportion never return home,
and those who do have grim tales to tell.

The British attack upon the U-boats is only just beginning. Our hunting forces are getting
stronger every day. By the end of October we expect to have three times the hunting forces
which operated at the outbreak of war, while at the same time the number of targets open to
U-boats upon the vast expanse of the seas and oceans will be greatly reduced by the use of
convoys, and the U-boats’ means of attacking them will become heavily clogged and fettered.

In all this very keen and stern warfare the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm have
played an important part, both in directing and hunting destroyers upon their quarry and in
actually attacking it themselves,

It was to bridge the gap between what we had ready at the beginning and what we have
ready now that the Admiralty decided to use the aircraft carriers with some freedom in
order to bring in the unarmed, unorganized, unconveyed traffic which was then approaching
our shores in large numbers . . .

In the first week our losses by U-boat sinkings amounted to 65,000 tons, in the second to
46,000 tons, and in the third to 21,000 tons.
In the last six days we have lost 9,000 tons...
 Meanwhile, the whole vast business of our world-wide trade continues without appreciable
diminution or interruption. Great convoys of troops are escorted to their various destinations.
The enemy ships and commerce have been swept from the seas. Over 2,000,000 tons of German
shipping is sheltering in German or interned in neutral harbours.

Our system of contraband and control is being perfected, and so far as the first fortnight
of the war is concerned we have actually arrested, seized and converted to our own use
67,000 tons more German merchandise than have been sunk in ships of our own.

Even in oil, where we were unlucky in losing some tankers, we have lost 60,000 tons in the
first fortnight and have gained 50,000 tons from the enemy, apart from the enormous additional
stores brought safely in in the ordinary way.

Again I reiterate my caution against over-sanguine deductions. We have, however, in
fact got more supplies in this war, this afternoon, than we should lave had if no war had been
declared and if no U-boats had come into action. I am not going beyond the limits of prudent
statement when I say that at that rate it will take a long time to starve us out.

Hard and Bitter U-Boat War
Now I must speak about the character of this warfare. From time to time the German
U-boat commanders have tried their best to behave with humanity. We have seen them
give good warning and also endeavour to help the crews to find their way to port.
One German captain signaled to me personally the position in which the British ship was
sunk, and urged that rescue should be sent. He signed his message ‘‘ German submarine.”’
I was in doubt at the time to what address I should direct the reply. However, he is now in
our hands, and is treated with all consideration.

But many cruel and ruthless acts have been done, continued Mr. Churchill. There was the
“Athenia” .... There was the “ Hazelside,” 12 of whose sailors were killed by surprise gunfire
in an ordinary ship, whose captain died in so gallant a fashion, going down with his vessel.

We cannot at all recognize this type of warfare as other than contrary to all the long-
accepted traditions of the sea and to the laws of war to which the Germans have in recent
years so lustily subscribed. . . .

In all the far-reaching control that we ourselves are exercising upon the movements of
contraband no neutral ship has ever been put in danger and no law recognized among civilized
nations has been contravened. Even when German ships have deliberately sunk themselves
we have so far succeeded in rescuing their crews.

All the more we respect the resolute spirit of the officers and men of the mercantile marine,
who put to sea with alacrity, sure that they are discharging a duty indispensable to the life of
their island home.

German Maschinenpistole 40 (Machine Pistol 40 / MP 40)

The MP 40 descended from its predecessor the MP 38, which was in turn based on the MP 36,
a prototype made of machined steel. The MP 36 was developed independently by Erma
Werke's Berthold Geipel with funding from the German Army. It took design elements
from Heinrich Vollmer's VPM 1930 and EMP. Vollmer then worked on Berthold Geipel's MP 36
and in 1938 submitted a prototype to answer a request from the Heereswaffenamt (Army
Weapons Office) for a new submachine gun, which was adopted as MP 38. The MP 38 was a
simplification of the MP 36, and the MP 40 was a further simplification of the MP 38, with
certain cost-saving alterations, most notably in the more extensive use of stamped steel rather
than machined parts. 

The MP 40 was often called the "Schmeisser" by the Allies, after the weapon designer Hugo
Schmeisser. Schmeisser had designed the MP 18, which was the first mass-produced
submachine gun. He did not, however, have anything to do with the design or development of
the MP 40, although he held a patent on the magazine
The MP 40 submachine guns are open-bolt, blowback-operated automatic arms. The only
mode of fire was fully automatic, but the relatively low rate of fire enabled single shots with
controlled trigger pulls. The bolt features a telescoping return spring guide which serves as a
pneumatic recoil buffer. The cocking handle was permanently attached to the bolt on early MP
38s, but on late production MP 38s and MP 40s, the bolt handle was made as a separate
part. It also served as a safety by pushing the head of the handle into one of two separate
notches above the main opening; this action locked the bolt either in the cocked (rear) or
uncocked (forward) position. The absence of this feature on early MP 38s resulted in field
expedients such as leather harnesses with a small loop that were used to hold the bolt in the
forward position.
The MP 38 receiver was made of machined steel, but this was a time-consuming and
expensive process. To save time and materials, and thus increase production, construction of
the MP 40 receiver was simplified by using stamped steel and electro-spot welding as much as
possible. The MP 38 also features longitudinal grooving on the receiver and bolt, as well as a
circular opening on the magazine housing. These features were eliminated on the MP 40.
One unique feature found on most MP 38 and MP 40 submachine guns was an aluminum,
steel, or Bakelite resting bar or support under the barrel. This was used to steady the weapon
when firing over the side of open-top armored personnel carriers such as the Sd.Kfz. 251 halftrack.
A hand guard, made of a synthetic material derived from Bakelite, was located between
the magazine housing and the pistol grip. The barrel lacked any form of insulation, which often
resulted in burns on the supporting hand if it was incorrectly positioned. The MP 40 also had a
forward-folding metal stock, the first for a submachine gun, resulting in a shorter overall
weapon when folded. However, this stock design was at times insufficiently durable for hard
combat use.


Cartridge 9×19mm Parabellum
Effective firing range: 100–200 m
Maximum firing range: 250 m
Rate of fire: 500–550 rounds/min
Place of origin: Nazi Germany
Barrel length: 251 mm (9.9 in)
Overall length 833 mm (32.8 in) stock extended, 630 mm (24.8 inches) stock folded
Weight 3.97 kg (8.75 lb
Unit cost: 57 RM (1940); 230 EUR current equivalent
Designer: Heinrich Vollmer; Berthold Geipel
Produced 1940–1945
No. built 1,100,000 (estimated
Manufacturer Steyr-Mannlicher
Erma Werke
Haenel
Variants MP 36
MP 38
MP 40
MP 40/1
MP 41



A modern round consists of the following:
1. bullet, as the projectile;
2. cartridge case, which holds all parts together;
3. propellant, for example gunpowder or cordite;
4. rim, which provides the extractor on the
firearm a place to grip the casing to remove
it from the chamber once fired;
5. primer, which ignites the propellant.