The Soviet invasion of Scotland!

Just a quickie, regarding this piece of news about Soviet maps of Scotland;

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland?articleid=4233962

This isn’t BS. It’s just not really “news”. Not only has the very guy mentioned been making maps like these available for at least three years, but the nature and extent of Soviet mapping is well known via other sources. Most notably, the National Library of Scotland acquired a significant proportion of the maps in February 2006;

“It was decided to collect a complete set (158 sheets) of 1:100,000 maps of Scotland as this scale is not published by the Ordnance Survey. All the available town plans at 1:10,000 (Aberdeen is displayed) have been purchased, together with specimens of maps at 1:200,000 (Edinburgh area is displayed), 1:500,000 and 1:1,000,000 scales.”

Full credit to the guy for acquiring his collection, but the way this has been reported makes it seem as though this is a unique discovery, and that it’s somehow a surprise that Scotland didn’t escape the same treatment as the rest of Europe. In other words, “well, duuuuh!”.

Most importantly, the headline is sensationalised to the point of meaninglessness. These are not “Maps to Occupy Scotland”, these are standard (for the era) military intelligence maps. The fact that Scotland was mapped as thoroughly as the remainder of the UK adds nothing to our knowledge of Soviet intentions to invade. They don’t in themselves suggest a Scottish entry point, and they don’t make the threat of UK invasion any more tangible than it already was. Sure, if the balloon went up, and the Soviet Union prevailed, the very end result would be invasion of every country in Western Europe (at least). How detailed the maps were has no bearing on the reality of Soviet invasion. But given Scotland’s military industrial significance, if there was such an occupation, it would be of a nuclear wasteland. Those of us who lived through the Cold War (which is of course, most of us) were only too aware of the real threat, and that threat was nuclear, not occupation. When you find yourself living in a nuclear wasteland with most of those you care about either atomised or dying of radiation sickness, a few (or even several thousand) Soviet troops coming over the horizon in NBC gear is pretty much the last thing you’re going to be worrying about.

Have a watch of this excellent 1965 film “The War Game“. It’s not news either, but it’s more of an insight into the Cold War than the subject of this post.

The Blood Groove

A straightforward piece of mythology this time. If you’ve ever looked at commercially available swords or knives on the internet (and who wouldn’t) you’ll see such marketing buzzwords as “battle ready” and “blood groove”. Sometimes they are recent inventions designed from the ground up to make the product seem more attractive - in this case, more warlike and gruesome. But “blood groove”, though totally bogus, has a much older usage within, and with relation to, Western armies.

The misconception is widespread all over the web and in real life, as applied to any edged weapon with an obvious channel or gutter running the length of the blade. Or part of it. Even the US Marine Corps Dictionary (here at answers.com) gives the classic definition:

“A groove in a fighting knife or sword to allow for blood to flow from a wound so that the blade can be removed easier (a significant concern in close combat).”

Other versions state that it’s to allow air in, which I suppose is the same argument - that suction is created after stabbing. You might even hear that the idea is to reduce the noise of the blade as it’s withdrawn! As sites like Sword Forum International have pointed out over the years, the argument is not only inaccurate in technical and historical terms (see below) but also with respect to physics and biology. The surface area of the blade is too little, and the friction between blood-slick wound and smooth blade too low for any real sticking to occur. When a blade does resist a simple withdrawal movement, a fuller, as the “blood groove” ought to be known, will do precious little to help. A smart twist of the rifle accomplishes far more, and has been taught for as long as armies have used sword or knife bayonets rather than the older thin socket type (which often also bore narrow fullers along two of their sides), or the spike bayonet of some more modern weapons (which have their own fluting in place of grooves).

In reality, the blood groove is nothing of the sort, and the correct answer has been out there online for at least ten years now. Given that the famous Roman gladius (primarily used for thrusting) never featured such a channel, and the early medieval sword (designed for slashing) always did, it’s clear that it served a different function. The answer involves straightforward physics - by removing metal from the middle of a blade you reduce its weight without compromising its strength too greatly. The same approach is used in engineering in the shape of the I-beam. With the later bayonets, there is a secondary function in that the square-cut groove also makes for a very secure fit in the sheath so that the weapon can’t be lost or rattle around, and moisture has a harder time penetrating.

A range of (sword) blade cross-sections, some with fullers.
Public Domain image from wikipedia - see myarmoury.com for more information

Whilst it’s easy to understand civilians getting the wrong end of the stick - they don’t tend to have to stab living things with edged weapons - surely the armed forces must know what they’re talking about? Well, not always. The use of swords in war was last seen amongst the first cavalry units to arrive at the Western Front in the First World War, before it was realised just how anachronistic cavalry had become. They typically would use long thrusting swords + the momentum of their mounts to kill enemy soldiers - any suction on the withdrawal wouldn’t even have been a factor due to this assistance in momentum. In fact any trooper studying the design of his weapon might well realise that the “blood groove” was actually helping to allow a stiff light blade that wouldn’t flex on impact.

Recruit. “EXCUSE ME, SIR, BUT HAVE THE GERMANS THE
SAME METHODS IN BAYONET-FIGHTING AS WE HAVE?”
Instructor. “LET’S HOPE SO. IT’S YOUR ONLY CHANCE.”
Punch, Vol 153, 1917

The origin of this myth lies instead with the infantry - specifically in bayonet fighting, or since this rarely occurred even in the 19th century, bayonet drill. By the end of the 19th century (arguably earlier), this savage piece of training was primarily intended to instil a warrior spirit, and to override the natural hesitation of a volunteer soldier to kill face-to-face. Its main practical purpose was the execution of wounded enemy soldiers following a battle. It remains a piece of military tradition that helps to maintain continuity and a sense of tradition. It’s a source of pride for many armies today, whether in rare instances of actual combat, or on the parade ground. The order to fix bayonets alone is a way to focus the mind and prepare for conventional engagement, close quarter battle with automatic weapons and grenades, or maybe even showing the enemy a bit of cold steel. Soldiers - army or marine - are closer to the enemy than any member of the armed forces, but even they have become somewhat removed from the act of killing by the range, accuracy, and sheer suppressive weight of fire that modern small-arms can achieve. Fixing bayonets makes it personal again, even if it never comes down to true hand-to-hand fighting.

From many anecdotal accounts in print, oral history and online, it’s clear that drill sergeants throughout the 20th century made reference to the “blood groove” as a graphic way of interpreting the violence of combat and the need for well-learned drills to survive such an encounter and do brutal harm to the enemy. There would be no notion of stabbing one’s enemy and leaving it at that - you had to thrust, twist, and withdraw. The twist, explained as being another way to overcome the mythical suction, would be of real use, dislodging a bayonet stuck on or in bone or other tough bodily substances. It also makes more sense as a sequence of movements if there is a bridge between thrust and withdraw - like a combination of punches in boxing or a forehand/backhand in tennis. Talking about the blood groove fixes that step, and indeed the whole drill, in the mind - the perfect Derren Brown-style memory aid to assist muscle memory. It also psychs up a recruit in the absence of a real enemy or fellow soldier (sandbags being the preferred practice target for actual contact practice).

This meme was probably reinforced by real life experience (read Confirmation Bias) when a blade happened to stick briefly in bone, cartilege, or even the ground below the body. I suspect that it then passed from the military sphere to the civilian one during and after major conflicts - certainly the Second World War, probably the First, and quite possibly earlier than that, being reinforced each time soldiers came home on leave or at the end of a campaign. It’s happening again; I’ve heard it from serving and retired soldiers first-hand, and the exposure they’re getting in the media is another factor - a sergeant with the Royal Anglians in Ross Kemp’s recent fly-on-the-sangar-wall documentary trotted out the myth to Kemp, and presumably, to his recruits. In online discussion after the programme, some refused to believe that it wasn’t true, showing how well entrenched the idea is.

I think this is the origin of this myth - a tool to convey the visceral and aggressive nature of hand-to-hand combat to two main audiences. Firstly, to recruits already familiar with the concept of killing another man for a just cause: the idea further steels him for battle and instils a measure of blood-lust. Arguably its about conditioning a man to kill another - paper rifle targets don’t have the same effect. To civilians, it’s maintained so that we can explore this same dark side of human experience - one we’ll never know. Like watching a horror film - to be both excited and repulsed. I think both are valid things to do, but as with all myths, I’d rather people were told the legend, closely followed by the truth of the matter.

One caveat to finish with - it’s possible given the long history of the myth that at some stage, weapon designers or procurement officers really did belief that was the purpose of the groove, and continued to incorporate it for this reason. I’d like to see some evidence of this however. Regardless, the actual function served by the feature remained that outlined here.

Use Your Loaf

Mooching through some newsletters of the Arms and Armour Society today I came across a deeply sarcastic reference to a myth I’d never encountered before. It was with reference to Dan Cruickshank’s “What the Industrial Revolution Did For Us“. In a frankly hilarious scene that I’d really love to see myself, Cruickshank, dressed in a Napoleonic Rifleman’s uniform and in cover behind a tree, uses his long sword bayonet to skewer a loaf of bread and place his shako on top. He proceeds to wave this contrivance in the air in order to draw the fire of the enemy and allow his imaginary brothers in arms to pinpoint the location of the shooter and return fire.

Just, as they say, “wow”. As this blogger’s comment suggests, this doesn’t even pass the BS sniff-test, let alone stand up to analysis. But debunking myths is fun, so I thought I’d have a go at this one myself.

OK, firstly, where does this come from? It surely can’t have been made up by the programme’s producers, yet it’s not prevalent online, particularly not pre-2004 (air date of the programme in question). I found a permutation of the same myth on this site, but again, it’s a recent arrival online (2006):

The term “Use your loaf ” comes from WW1 when trench warfare played a large part in battle. Sniperfire was rampant so if a soldier who had been lying in a trench for some time and popped his head up to see if all was clear he’d be likely to lose it. So instead they used to stick a loaf of bread from their rations on their bayonet and raise that in the air instead. Just thought i’d share that one for ya readers.

Yes, thanks for that. Some sort of evidence might have been nice. Hell, just a reference to follow.

And so we have to go straight to alternative explanations. This one is easy. So easy, that people seem to prefer to assume it must be both older, more interesting, and more romantic. Hence the load of old trousers offered by Dan and the gang. The best and most parsimonious explanation is also to be found in just about every book on slang ever published. Not to mention on many, many more websites than the mythological explanation (for once!). “Use your loaf” is undoubtedly (20th century) Cockney rhyming slang…

Use your loaf.
Use your loaf of bread.
Bread = head.
Use your head.

If only Dan had.

I would say that this explanation immediately renders the BBC explanation redundant, but I suppose it’s just possible that the latter might somehow have been in currency before entering Cockney English. So let’s look at the history and the practicalities of the scenario.

The form of bread supplied in British rations of either period is unlikely to be the sort of large light-coloured loaf that we’re familiar with today. Most likely large dark coloured flat loaves or little rolls, especially if we’re talking about rations portable in a soldier’s knapsack or beltkit. Nothing large or “white” enough to pass as a British soldier’s noggin, even just as a filler. We also have to consider the reason for even using a lump of bread. If an enemy soldier can be confused by some bread and a hat on a bayonet, they can surely be equally bamboozled by the world-beating field expedient measure of…just using the headgear (or even the slightly more elaborate attempt being made by the US soldier in the opening image).

Then there’s the tactical advantage (if any) afforded by doing this. Granted, it makes a certain amount of sense in trench or even urban modern warfare, to do something like this to reveal the location of a sniper. Papier mache heads were certainly used in the First World War, as no doubt were more ad hoc measures. If there’s any truth in the myth, bread products notwithstanding, I think it lies in that conflict. But here, we’re talking about the age of linear tactics, smokeless powder, and brightly-coloured uniforms. Accurate individual weapons were in their infancy, making encounters between riflemen pretty rare. Your average infantry soldier fighting in an open field wouldn’t have the opportunity, means, ore the skill to engage a man hiding behind cover. Finally, even the rifles of the age were effective only at a couple of hundred yards. If you couldn’t glimpse your enemy (who, let’s remember, is already firing at you and therefore producing smoke and muzzle flash) in order to return fire at that range, I would suggest that getting him to fire one more shot at something that wasn’t you, wouldn’t help.

Needless to say, something like this scenario may well happened at some stage - but it was never doctrine, there’s no written evidence of it, and using a loaf to do it makes no logical sense.

So this was either a bad joke at the expense of the viewer, or just another example of lazy thinking, ignorance, and crap TV research. Which reminds me of the legendary cannon-firing dog of Fontenoy!

If she weighs the same as a duck…

I see that a recent petition to have Britain’s “last witch” pardoned (not, as this piece claims, all those convicted as witches), has been summarily dismissed by the Scottish Government. Although the petition itself attracted only 206 signatures, the comment from the politicians that the attempt “has no purpose whatsoever“, this might seem callous. Why not show compassion? Surely such people were innocent victims of superstition? Or perhaps even harmless self-identifying “wise women” or “cunning men” persecuted for their unorthodox beliefs? Well, many burned in Scotland before the 1735 Witchcraft Act was enacted were (the former at any rate). There is a separate petition (by the same man, to give him his due credit) to pardon those people. They are not who we are talking about here.

“S.-4 Whereby ignorant persons are frequently deluded and defrauded, if any person shall pretend to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, he shall be exposed to penalties.”
from The Witchcraft Act 1735 (sounds reasonable to me)

I can’t emphasise this enough. Those prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcraft Act were not witches, and they were not unfortunate victims of gossip and personal vendetta, either. They were self-proclaimed mediums and clairvoyants; the Sylvia Browne and Colin Fry equivalents of their day. They weren’t “real” witches, they didn’t think of themselves as witches, and they weren’t seen as such either. At least, not until the tabloid press of the time got hold of the story. No, they were, according to sceptics such as myself, con-artists and charlatans. As, after more than 100 years of searching, there is no evidence whatever that contacting the dead or seeing the future is even possible, I feel that anyone claiming to be able to do so and charging to do so, must be able to put up or shut up. Preferably, with a hefty fine or custodial sentence. These people are preying on the bereaved, after all. As such, I feel any pardon for a person convicted under the original Act would require some sort of retrial, which would be extremely difficult to accomplish these 60 years later.

As you might have guessed, Full Moon Investigations, the paranormalist group that organised the petition, consists mostly of psychic mediums - Spiritualists. This was, as this Independent article suggests, a political move by a religious group; an attempt to legitimise what they do. And as far as I’m concerned, what they do is to take money from the vulnerable and bereaved using simple fairground tricks. The clear intention was to obtain a pardon for medium Helen Duncan as a validation of not only their religion (which shouldn’t even be at issue here) but more importantly, of their primary income stream. Parallel efforts to have all “witches” convicted under the act also pardoned can be seen as a way to appeal to the emotion of a public who will assume that this has to do with the unjust “witch mania” I refer to above. To re-iterate, people convicted under the act were not convicted of witchcraft - this was no longer possible in law as of 1735. They were convicted of pretending to engage in what was still at that time (1735) referred to as witchcraft. The Witchcraft Act was actually a successful reformation of the horrific acts of the preceding 200 years, carried out under the 1536 Witchcraft Act that gave its name, but not its contents, to the later Act. For more on this see Vanessa Chambers’ piece here.

“Medium” Helen Duncan with a wholly convincing materialised “spirit”

Back to the case of Helen Duncan, who had already been convicted of fraud in 1933. The evidence against her in the 1944 case was damning. A good account of her story is on the BBC website. Much is made of her alleged prediction in 1941 (post-sinking but pre-announcement) of the sinking of HMS Barham. This is usually claimed as the materialisation (in the manner common to the time) of the ectoplasmic form of a sailor with the ship’s name visible on his cap. I think even believers in the paranormal today would struggle with the notion that this might be possible, especially given all that we now know about physical mediumship (check out this BBC documentary on the subject). Duncan was not especially good at it (or at least, wasn’t worried about sceptics seeing photos of her cheesecloth ectoplasm). Perhaps the name on the prop hat-band she made for the seance was indeed the Barham’s. Perhaps she had really did have a hotline to the spirit world and just decided for some reason to fake the materialisation to get that information across? Perhaps she simply chose a lucky name? Or more likely, perhaps she had been told by a survivor or other sailor? Many other ships witnessed the Barham’s loss, and Portsmouth was the biggest naval base in the UK. It’s even possible that a loved one told her - next of kin were officially informed in December that year - the same month that Duncan’s seance occurred. However she actually became aware of the incident, Duncan must have known that to pre-empt the news would enhance her credibility. Oh, and remember that cap-band? Well, Royal Navy sailor’s caps post-1939 were not permitted to bear the name of the ship. They simply read “H.M.S.” as can be seen in this photograph of one of the sailors tragically lost when the Barham went down. Duncan may well not have appreciated this fact when she fabricated the cap used in the seance. All of this assumes that the claim is accurate in the first place. It seems there may be some doubt that a cap-band was even seen at the seance, and that Duncan may simply have used cold reading techniques to recover the ship’s name from the widow present:

Mrs Duncan did not give the name of the ship, but extracted it from the sitter.
From “Spiritualism a critical survey” by Simeon Edmunds, via this pdf.

In any case this Barham claim is a somewhat of a red herring as far as the safeness of her conviction is concerned, even if Duncan’s propensity for “loose lips” did attract the attention of the authorities. It wasn’t the Barham “leak” that got her busted; her arrest did not take place until three years later. It’s interesting also to note that Churchill himself (understandably) thought the case a waste of resources at a crucial tipping point in the War;

I would hope that the Prime Minister at time of war would have been in the loop regarding the need to stamp out dangerous gossip if that was the goal of the prosecution. Perhaps as mediums claim, he was simpy sympathetic to her cause. Regardless, her conviction was NOT for revealing state secrets, but for taking (a lot!) of money (from bereaved people) for non-existent occult services, which is exactly what the Witchcraft Act was designed to restrict, and certainly what it was interpreted to mean by the 1940s. With the rise of the Spiritualist movement, the Witchcraft Act was in danger of criminalising a large number of people. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle helped ensure that mediums perceived as genuine could practice without threat of prosecution by backing a change in the law; the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951. The shift of emphasis that this created meant that mediums, as long as they played it safe and did away with the spirit cabinets and muslin of the old days, were home free. Today, psychic mediums positively rake in the cash and the adulation using techniques that though obvious, are not possible to prove as fraud under the 1951 act. This month, this act will itself be repealed, by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations Act 2007. This is an umbrella piece of legislation intending to stop people being misled into parting with their money. Who could object to this? Well, the Spiritualists are justifiably concerned that they might once again be unable to charge money for their “services”. Of course, they are playing this down and crying “religious persecution”, as they frequently and loudly do, regardless of the facts in evidence. This petition was clearly part of this agenda to head off any curtailment of this multi-million pound industry.

It remains to be seen whether this will be better or worse than the Witchcraft or Fraudulent Medium acts, and for whom. Until we find out, I can’t put it any better than this, from Emma-Louise Rhodes of badpsychics.com;

The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2007 will hopefully bring such acts of deceit to light and bring to justice those who have cruelly sought to exploit the bereaved and suffering for their own personal financial satisfaction.

Astrology wins World War 2!!!

© Cectic.com - check out lost more strips here

Or not, as the case…is. I had expected today’s peddlers of pseudoscientific lifestyle bullshit to be over the moon (haha) to hear that the British Special Operations Executive had employed an astrologer in an effort to get inside Hitler’s noggin. But it seems that the astrologer in question, Louis de Wohl, is rejected even by his own. The excellent Bad Astronomer blog has some nice quotes on the guy. Nonetheless, it’s still being used to make mileage for the astrology movement in general terms - see here for a comment by celebrity planetary pontificator Jonathan Cainer, who focuses on the root claim that Hitler used astrologers. We’ll come to that later. The SOE story came to light as the UK National Archives released a new batch of WW2 records earlier this month. An interesting historical curio, to be sure, but its implications for the validity and credibility of astrology are for me summed up by this report.

As the BBC reported, the security services, MI5 and 6, were dumbfounded that other branches of the authorities appeared to be swallowing De Wohl’s line. They pointed out his dismal hit-rate with predictions. In fact SOE was entirely cynical about the exercise. Wohl’s handlers concluded that if Hitler was working from the astrological “playbook”, as it were, another astrologer ought to be able to provide some insight into the choices he was making. As Major Gilbert Lennox put it;

“It is entirely irrelevant whether we ourselves regard astrological advice as valuable or scientific or as useless nonsense. All that matters is that Hitler follows its rules”.

Unfortunately for SOE, there were two serious problems with their approach. Firstly, though Hitler was interested in things occult and supernatural, there’s no evidence beyond contemporary rumour, that he did in fact retain an astrologer or base his decision-making upon the ‘findings’ of that pseudoscience. He was, thankfully, able to make questionable and ill-advised choices without the intervention of such red herrings. The oft-made claim that Karl Ernst Krafft was Hitler’s personal astrologer is a stretch, to say the least. If anything, he was retained by Rudolf Hess, not Hitler, and had originally been employed for reasons of psychological warfare (which would not require any actual validity to the subject in question, just that its employment might confuse and worry the enemy). Elements of the Nazi leadership seem to have “kept an open mind” to the possibility of useful intel deriving from such sources, but this optimism didn’t last long and Krafft met with the same end as many unfortunates under the Nazi regime.

The other fatal flaw in the SOE plan was to assume any kind of internal consistency in astrology as a ‘field’. Had they analysed the claims made on its behalf, they would have seen that a prediction by one astrologist (in this case Hitler’s), would not reliably be replicated by another. This is partly because astrological pronouncements are largely arbitrary, and partly because (like cold reading statements) they can apply to anyone given enough subjective validation. See Derren Brown’s experiment demonstrating this effect.

In other words, the British government were scammed by an astrologer, just as members of the public are today on a daily basis. Authorities are not immune from failures in critical thinking, and have on occasion been suckered in other areas of pseudoscience and the paranormal. I for one would prefer that my tax-pounds are NOT put toward such research, given the total lack of scientific basis from which to begin. Leave that to these guys, or take Psychic Bob’s free and insightful predictions.

Did Churchill allow Coventry to be bombed in 1940?

©Imperial War Museum

(via spartacus.school.net)

This week saw the resurfacing of an old conspiracy theory regarding Winston Churchill’s alleged abandonment of Coventry to Nazi bombs in 1940. It’s come to the fore in the internet age through a much older medium - a play entitled One Night in November is being put on in the city that takes this hypothesis as its premise. You can read reports, employing varying levels of critical thought, at various news sites - The Times, the BBC, and the Guardian (who buy it hook, line, sinker, rod, and copy of Angling Times).

Before I reinvent the wheel - this comprehensive rebuttal by the Churchill Centre, and this response to Christopher Hitchens’ even more spurious claims of 2002, surpass anything I could turn out. Nothing brought up by the play However, I will sum up the main claims by the play’s author as they appear in the media, and the counters to these as offered by those more knowledgeable than myself:

Claim - A captured German airman named Coventry as an upcoming target.
Reality - This appears to be true. However, decisions on an appropriate response had to wait on corroboration for this anecdotal evidence. When that did arrive on the 12th of November, the time-frame was verified but the likely targets were not.

Claim - Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and/or Coventry were implicated as German targets by decrypted messages intercepted by Bletchley Park (and conveyed in secret to Churchill).
Reality - Records at the UK National Archives (file AIR2/5238) show that the Air Ministry was now aware of a large raid code-named “Moonlight Sonata”, but the primary targets were not successfully determined. When Churchill received the message himself, he interpreted it as a raid on London, and proceeded there to arrange a defence. A separate piece of intelligence naming three cities in the Midlands was not connected with the main raid of concern, though after the fact it would become clear that this was an oversight (which is why it is mentioned in the same documents).

Claim - Churchill was reluctant to order the RAF defence of Coventry lest the Germans realise that the Enigma decoding system had been cracked.
Reality - In fact the Germans never realised that the Allies had been routinely breaking their codes, despite many decisions in those four years being made in light of intercepted intelligence. As another conspiracy theorist astutely (if ironically) points out (p20), squadrons in the Battle of Britain had been directed freely in accordance with such intel just prior to the Coventry raid. To suggest that Churchill would make an exception in acting upon Enigma-derived intelligence because the target was “only” an industrial northern town, is to assume an unbelievable level of disdain for the lives of one’s own citizens. All to briefly extend the life of a cipher that would as a matter of routine be changed and require equally routine re-breaking by Bletchley Park. Shades of 9/11 Conspiracy there, I fear.

Also implied is that the RAF was even capable of successfully defending a given target in 1940, with its overstretched squadrons of obsolescent and misconceived night-fighters. Fighter Command was able only to play catch-up in 1940 - unable to effectively intercept (especially at night with no or limited radar sets), they often resorted to shooting down bombers on their way back from the target in an effort to reduce Luftwaffe materiel and manpower. Orders and doctrine along these lines were in place well before this incident.

As usual, facts are not on the side of the conspiracy theorist. To me it seems that these claims (like others) are kept alive by emotion, suspicion of authority, their relative plausibility, and a political agenda. NOT a body of evidence. The significant wartime and post-war suffering of Coventry and the Midlands seem to colour the playwright’s perception of history. He says that his “strong feeling” is that with foreknowledge of Coventry’s fate, Churchill made a “spur-of-the-minute decision” to let it happen. Unfortunately, the evidence to support this notion is thin on the ground, and the use of another unproven and refuted Churchill myth - that he deliberately allowed the Lusitania to be sunk, shows that the goal here is to turn “elite” history into social history. I commend that sentiment, but misrepresentation of the past is not the way to go about it. It can be argued that vital hints on the correct target were missed. Or even that they were ignored for fear that London would suffer instead. Arguably the establishment (including Churchill) would favour the defence of the capital over the industrial North. This is understandable, if unequal in retrospect. But to suggest conscious and deliberate action in letting Coventry be bombed, is unsupportable and seems to me to be political agenda, not an historical one. For example, did the majority of the city of Coventry really not see WW2 as “their war“? This is a bold claim to make on behalf of so many who are now voiceless, even if some did (and do) feel this way.

As ever, if anyone reading this has some evidence in favour, or any corrections, please let me know and I will update this entry accordingly.

Rosslyn and the Loch Ness Monster

Nessie and Rosslyn - closer together than you might think…

No, I haven’t lost the plot. I’m just looking to coin a new expression; the ‘Nessie Effect’. This is when a heritage site embraces unsupported speculation in order to pay the bills. At Loch Ness it’s a real boost to the local economy. In the ’90s, it was on the order of $36 million dollars a year (rather less now admittedly). The downside is (arguably) that this level of focus on a piece of mythology (represented as plausible fact) distracts from the real treasures of the region and the country. But this isn’t really about Nessie. For that, you’d best head here or back to Google. No, I’m suggesting that the same phenomenon applies to many sites in Britain, but specifically Rosslyn Chapel (subject of many of my past posts).

I may spend a fair bit of time criticising unfounded claims about the past, but I recognise that they can bring in a lot of money that can benefit important sites like Rosslyn Chapel. It’s an ethical dilemma really. As a custodian of a cultural or historic thing, do you steadfastly stick to the known facts and struggle to get by? Or do you “sell out” by entertaining alternative history in order to keep the money rolling in?

I think the answer is to strike a balance. The Rosslyn Chapel Trust stock both serious and speculative books in the gift shop, and of course fiction like the Da Vinci Code. This does allow visitors to make up their own minds, and makes money from different audiences at the same time. Unfortunately, they go further and allow events like the live performances of the so-called Rosslyn Motet. You could argue that this is little different than a museum hosting a corporate event within its galleries, but the difference is that the latter do not passively endorse dubious claims about its exhibits.

For me, the Rosslyn approach is simply too uncritical, too laissez-faire. But from their perspective - why bite the hand that feeds? I really can’t blame them for it. But what does it say about your attitude to your visitors when you do this? Aren’t you casting them as gullible punters to be herded in, harvested for money, and sent on their way none the wiser? I for one would rather visitor centres strive toward fact-based interpretation as accredited museums are obliged to do.

But I’m just an armchair commentator. It’s not easy running a site like Rosslyn without significant external funding. And it’s clear that their approach has worked as far as increased visitor numbers and income, as this Scotsman article details. It remains to be seen whether this is used to its fullest potential.

Besides, let’s not forget the media’s role in peddling the pseudohistory that places like Rosslyn take advantage of. On that score, I was pleased to see from the linked article that the Scotsman has moderated its tone regarding the musical cubes ‘discovery’ that it reported on rather uncritically in 2005. The following year it even suggested that when the music was played, it might unlock a lost secret. I wrote a series of posts debunking these claims - see also Jeff Nisbett’s definitive article. Pleasingly, the latest media mention as linked above, is this:

Among Rosslyn’s many intricate carvings are a sequence of 213 cubes or boxes protruding from pillars and arches with a selection of patterns on them. It is unknown whether these have any particular meaning.

Many people have attempted to find information coded into them, but as yet no interpretation has proven conclusive.

Now that’s how to report speculative history. I wish more of those in charge of the UK’s cultural landmarks were so circumspect.

Kiss of death.

You can blame my other half and her fascination with vintage fashions for this one. It’s not pseudohistory by any means, but it’s something that screams “myth”! In fact, I’d love to see Adam and Jamie of Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” do some exhaustive testing. No, wait! Argh, where’s my Mind-Bleach(tm)?

Anyway, on with the entry. Said Other Half had been perusing the website of popular US cosmetics company Besame, and spotted this strange little factoid;

They may seem smaller, but they are recreations of a 1940s 55mm. bullet lipstick, crafted this way to fit in most bags of the period. Also, it is believed that the same molds were used during the war to make bullet casings.

Marketing hype, uncritically repeated myth, or historical fact? My interest was piqued enough to try and find out. The big question here is “what are they talking about”? Do they really mean a bullet cartridge case? These are certainly not moulded or cast, but neither would a lipstick casing be - it’s a tube of metal open at one end; this must be either rolled or drawn. The other possibility is that they might mean the actual lipstick tip, i.e. the lump of coloured cosmetic inside, which like a simple lead bullet, could indeed have been cast in a metal mould. With nothing better to do, I thought I’d try working out the approximate dimensions of an authentic 1940s lipstick tip, and seeing how it compares to the calibres of ammunition in mass production at the time.

This breakdown on the manufacture of a Besame lipstick shows an apparently original tube next to a scale, making it 50mm in total length. This is our first snag, as it’s clear that vintage lipsticks varied in size - the one in the technical drawing scales to 55mm long, which tallies with Besames’ description. It’s very tempting to use the 50mm figure in concert with the technical drawing, because by a nifty co-incidence, this works out at the same length as a .45 ACP pistol cartridge, standard ammunition in the Second World War. Looking at the cross-sectional drawing, the casing is almost exactly three times the length of the tip itself, making the charge 16.7mm long (rounded up from 16.6 recurring).

The 1940s vintage images used to calculate

the length of the lipstick “bullet”

How does this stack up against the main US rounds of the Second World War? Namely, .50 BMG machine-gun, .30-06 rifle, and .45 ACP pistol? Well, the first two have totally the wrong shape, being long, boat-tailed bullets intended to fly at supersonic speed over long ranges. They (or some lipsticks made from the same moulds) are also physically too long to fit in a lipstick case like the one above - the .50 is bigger than the whole lipstick! The .45 ACP FMJ pistol bullet however, clocks in at between .657″ and .667″ long, a range which more than takes into account the thickness of the copper jacket (no more than 0.07″ at the tip). A quick online conversion later and amazingly we have 16.7mm!!! This is rounded up from 16.69. Taking into account the variance in bullet length and the rather rough-and-ready method I used to establish the length of the lipstick charge, this is as good a match as one could hope for. Supporting evidence proved difficult to find online, but tantalisingly, this novel does mention the similar size and shape of a lipstick (whether tip or casing isn’t specified) to a .45 slug.

Let’s not get carried away. As I said, the stick in the photo is 50mm long, the one in the drawing, 55mm. We have no way of knowing whether 16.7mm was any kind of standard length. There are some other pretty big warning signs that this might simply be a coincidence. The tip of the lipstick was (and remains) a distinctive chisel shape to facilitate application. Of course, you could achieve this after moulding, but then why not make the die that shape to begin with (as they now do)? I think it’s significant that the nickname of “bullet lipstick” is clearly applied to the brassy, domed outer casing; I’ll come back to this shortly. Crucially, the diameter of the tip does not match a .45 bullet; It’s less than 10mm, whereas .45 equates to 11.46mm.

To get anywhere near to the bottom of this one we need to take a look at the manufacturing processes involved. Military bullets were not actually cast during the Second World War, as you might see in a Western where a gunfighter pours hot molten lead into a moulding tool, letting the cooled bullet blank fall out. Bullets today with their thin outer jacket of copper, are made as in WW2, where the metals are forced into a die (rather than mould) under high pressure (but not heat) in a process called “swaging”. Lipsticks, on the other hand, are moulded by pouring or injection. It is difficult to imagine that industrial swaging machinery would be of any use to a cosmetics maker, but conceivably the die could be adapted for use in casting lipstick tips. Assuming that Besame really were talking about the bullet-shaped lipstick casing, well, bullet cartridge casings aren’t made using either of the above methods. They are “drawn” from a metal disc. Perhaps it’s a simple misunderstanding of a similarity in manufacture process of lipstick casing and bullet casing, and the one being “moulded” from the other. it’s easy to imagine a myth growing up based on the bullet shape of a lipstick casing, ignorance of how they were made, and a misconception that bullets were still being moulded rather than swaged.

So, despite the apparent correlation between lipstick charge and .45 bullet, I think what we really have here is something like the statement “lipstick cases were made in a similar fashion to bullet cartridge casings”, becoming the phrase “it is believed that the same molds were used during the war to make bullet casings”. A bit of myth-creep. Throw in the obvious but superficial similarity of the finished lipstick to a complete round of ammunition, and you have your origin story. That’s just my assessment of course. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to stop writing about makeup, and buy some. Valentines Day presents don’t buy themselves.

Native American myth/tradition supports Bigfoot? A critical look.

Because it’s very much in the spirit of this blog, I thought I’d reproduce a piece by JREF forum poster “kitakaze” on the validity of claims about the Native American evidence for Bigfoot. It’s an interesting reminder of how history can be more easily co-opted to suit certain agendas by taking advantage of ignorance - ignorance of the past and of cultures and traditions alien to our own. Spurious claims are much more plausible when the audience has no frame of reference, and especially if they recognise that indigenous cultures are important to world history. This case, that Native Americans had Bigfoot myths, or even lived side-by-side with such creatures, reminded me of the Welsh Prince-Finds-America post I wrote a while ago. It sounds plausible, but once you start to do some research, or even just ask somebody who’s already done some, the names, places and people are shown to be just handy labels for some seriously wishful thinking. See what you think, and check the original thread for some comments:

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It is my assertion that Native American traditions do not support the existence of bigfoot and that what is put forth by bigfoot enthusiasts as evidence for the existence of bigfoot has been cherry-picked and misrepresented. In my opinion this at best amounts to a collection of boogeyman tales not significantly different than that of countless other cultures.

A good example of this is the lengthy discussion in the ‘Simple Challenge for Bigfoot Supporters‘ thread on the JREF Forums regarding kushtaka (kû’cta-qa), a mythical being in the traditions of the Tlingit people of northwestern North America. We were told that kushtaka was a well-known and supported term for bigfoot and after much discussion and examination by skeptics the claim was dropped after the ‘Land Otter Man’ nature of the myth was established.

More recently we were told of the bukwus of the Kwakiutl people of Northern Vancouver Island:

One tribe dresses as animals and all the animals are known creatures except the sasquatch or buk’wus as they call them. They just consider it another primate and think nothing strange about its existence.

This poster was apparently unaware of the legendary Thunderbird and its place in Kwakiutl mythology. As for the supposed sasquatch/bukwus, again, critical examination reveals…

From the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture:

Like the Dzoonokwa, Bukwus is a wild creature of the woods. Described as a “chief of the ghosts”, he tempts travellers to eat his food, which transforms them into wild spirits like himself. The Bukwus dance is performed during the Tlasula.

From northwestcoastnativeartists.com:

Bukwus, the wild man of the woods, is a supernatural ghost like figure. He is associated with the spirits of people who have drowned. He lives in an invisible house in the forest and attracts the spirits of those who have drowned to his home.

Bukwus also tries to persuade humans to eat ghost food so that they will become like him. The Bukwus was a significant character for the Kwakiutl people.

One of the main proponents of correlations between Native traditions/mythology and bigfoot existence is a lady we’ve enjoyed much discussion with on the subject in the past here, US Forest Service Archaeologist Kathy Moskowitz Strain. Kathy is a bright women with a fine sense of humour who has over the years invested much study on the matter. She has a book on the subject forthcoming that is due to be released sometime this year IIRC. Kathy is a well-known bigfoot proponent/researcher who has appeared on the History Channel series Monster Quest a number of times. She posts here under the handle ‘Hairyman’.

Here is a youtube clip of her speaking on Native myths/traditions and bigfoot on the ‘Gigantopithecus: The Real King Kong’ episode of Monster Quest:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vUThgEGxjEM

I find myself in disagreement with some key ideas of Kathy’s on the subject and think some can be illustrated by her comments in the above Monster Quest clip. For example, the statement “…as a scientist and archaeologist it doesn’t make sense to me that tribes would give names to imaginary creatures.” I find it difficult following Strain’s reasoning here. It seems to presuppose the idea that Native American cultures did not have mythical creatures when, as is clear with the example of the ubiquitous Thunderbird, we know this to not be the case.

She also states in the clip “that Native Americans have literally a hundred names for these creatures and I’m still discovering them.” Interestingly she then lists a few and includes the word ’sasquatch’ which we have often been told to be a native word. Once again, upon further examination the word turns out to be a neologism coined in the 20’s by a British Colombian school teacher, J.W. Burns:

Formal use of “Sasquatch” can be traced to the 1920s, when the term was coined by J.W. Burns, a school teacher at the Chehalis, British Columbia Indian Reserve, on the Harrison River about 100 kilometres east of Vancouver. Burns collected Native American accounts of large, hairy creatures said to live in the wild. Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark wrote that Burns’s “Native American informants called these beasts by various names, including ’sokqueatl’ and ’soss-q’tal’” (Coleman and Clark, p. 215). Burns noted the phonetically similar names for the creatures and decided to invent one term for them all.

Over time, Burns’s neologism “Sasquatch” came to be used by others, primarily in the Pacific Northwest. In 1929, Maclean’s published one of Burns’s articles, “Introducing British Columbia’s Hairy Giants,” which called the large creatures by this term.

Here is a partial list (from here) of tradtional Native names from the eastern United States provided by Strain that are supposed to represent bigfoot:

The list is not all there is, just what picked out quickly from a list of several hundred:

Tribe - Traditional Name - Translation

Alabama-Coushatta - Eeyachuba - Wild man
Algonkian - Yeahoh- Wild man
Caddo - Ha’yacatsi - Lost giants
Cherokee - Kecleh-Kudleh - Hairy savage
Cherokee - Nun’ Yunu’ Wi - Stone man
Chickasaw - Lofa - Smelly, hairy being that could speak
Chippewa - Djeneta` - Giant
Choctaw - Kashehotapalo - Cannibal man
Choctaw - Nalusa Falaya - Big giant
Choctaw - Shampe - Giant monster
Comanche - Mu pitz - Cannibal monster
Comanche - Piamupits - Cannibal monster
Creeks - Honka - Hairy man
Iroquois - Ot ne yar heh - Stonish giant
Iroquois - Tarhuhyiawahku - Giant monster
Iroquois/Seneca - Ge no sqwa - Stone giants
Menomini - Manabai’wok - The Giants
Micmac - Chenoo - Devil cannibal
Mosopelea - Yeahoh - Monster
Ojibwa - Manito - Wild man
Seminole - Esti capcaki -Tall man
Seminole - Ssti capcaki - Tall hairy man
Seneca - Ge no’sgwa - Stone giants

Here’s another list of Native American names alledged to correlate to bigfoot compiled by Kyle Mizokami, Henry Franzoni, Jeff Glickman. Some examples of some of the more ambiguous entries:

Name>Tribe>Translation

Skanicum - Colville Indians - “Stick Indians”

Steta’l - Puyallup/Nisqually Indian - “Spirt Spear”

Qui yihahs - Yakama/Klickitat Indian - “The Five Brothers”

Kushtaka - Tlingit Indian - “Otter Man”

Tah tah kle’ ah - Yakama/Shasta Indian - “Owl Woman Monster”

Gilyuk - Nelchina Plateau Indian - “Big Man with little hat”

Ge no’sgwa - Seneca Indian - “Stone Coats”

Atahsaia - Zuni Indian - “The Cannibal Demon”

Misinghalikun - Lenni Lenape Indian - “Living Solid Face”

Wsinkhoalican - Lenni Lenape Indian - “The Game Keeper”

Hecaitomixw - Quinault Indians - “Dangerous Being”

Yé’iitsoh - Navajo Indians - “Big God “

It’s nice that they have a great big list put together but one wonders how they established a link to bigfoot or if it just ‘felt right’.

One of the prime examples that I have seen put forward by bigfoot enthusiasts countless time is Dsonoqua, The Wild Woman of the Woods. A classic boogeyman type figure, she is a mythical being of the Kwakiutl people of the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the adjacent BC coast who is said to be a stealer of children.

One thing that is a bit frustrating is the wide variation of spellings of Dsonoqua when rendered in the Roman alphabet. Here is a link to the Kwakiutl Tales Index collected and translated by Franz Boas circa 1910, which contains this entry entitled “The Dzô’noqwa”.

The tale is somewhat reminiscent of The Brothers Grimm’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’.

This is from reknowned Canadian artist Emily Carr’s book ‘Klee Wyck’ (1941) entitled ‘D’Sonoqua’, and below are some images [- see whether you think Dzô'noqwa/D'Sonoqua, or any other claimed Native American depictions of "bigfeet", objectively fit with the Sasquatch/Bigfoot myth, or whether they are part of a rich mythological tradition in its own right - bshistorian].

I think what you have here is the classic case of footers highjacking a native myth and trying to wrench it into bigfoot evidence. It seems clear from all that I’ve seen so far that dsonoqua was held by the Kwakiutl to be a boogeyman type figure and not the representation of a species of 8ft giant bipedal primate that they shared their land with. I will look further into this.

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Thank you for those observations, kitakaze - needless to say (and for what it’s worth!), I agree. Anyone stumbling across this piece should check out the JREF forum for further and future discussion of these claims about the “bigfeet”, and more besides.

The Ladies From Hell

There’s an important difference between history and tradition. Both are ways of seeing and presenting our collective past, but tradition is not bound to comply with either objectivity or historical accuracy. Nowhere is this creative and imagination spin on the past more prevalent and important than in the annals of the world’s military forces. Tradition and history are both key binding elements that keep groups of otherwise diverse individuals together with a common purpose and sense of continuity. It can be very difficult to separate fact from fiction, especially once a particular meme has been written as regimental history. Tradition also helps soldiers deal with the difficult jobs they have to do; not least, killing other people and not being killed themselves. Fighting men like to be assured that they are both on the side of good, and more than capable of facing whatever hardships lie ahead. Because soldiers very often have more in common with their enemies individually and culturally than it might be healthy for them to admit, the bare bones of objective history won’t always do in the context of regimental and unit history. Which brings me to the subject at hand - nicknames. Specifically, the name “The Ladies From Hell” as applied to the kilted units of the British and Canadian armies in the First World War (another claim for the Canadians can be found here). Clearly this is meant to paint the men in question as something out of the ordinary; soldiers so tough that they can cross-dress and still be shining examples of fighting manhood.

This traditional image, as a feature of the propaganda of Empire, was parodied in the irreverent film Carry On Up The Khyber, released just four years after the rather more “on message” Zulu. Given how rare the variant nickname “Devils in Skirts” is in the literature, I have a feeling (unconfirmed!) that it was the Carry On team who coined that version as a deliberate subversion of “Ladies from Hell”. In any case, today you will find both names in use to describe the Highland soldiers of the past. I say “the past” because the kilt made its last operational appearance at Dunkirk in 1940, though it continues to be worn with more formal uniform and in pipe bands as a symbol of identity, with all the connotations and gallant actions that this recalls. The Highland warrior, as reinvented in the early 18th Century by the British Army, is a truly iconic figure.

So where does this colourful nickname come from? The traditional story, which you can find all over the web, including the official British Army website, goes like this. German troops, respectful and even outright fearful of these strange and fearsome warriors, who paradoxically, by their cultural standard were also transvestites, coined the name as an expression of these feelings. The problem is that, as with other such names that are attributed to an awestruck enemy in or immediately after time of war, is that the historical sources are very one-sided. A German historian, Benjamin Ziemann, asserts that the Germans were no more or less afraid of kilted troops as any other Allied unit, and claims of some official list of “most capable” enemy forces are unfounded. This caused a bit of an indignant reaction from Scots, and they have a point in that Ziemann’s refutation does nothing to address the perceptions of individual German soldiers. So this leaves quite a gap for the “Ladies from Hell” to hide in. Ziemann himself admits that there was commentary upon kilted soldiers that expressed at least curiosity, if not any special measure of respect.

The biggest problem with the whole story is not the outright lack of evidence. There are many sources, and many of these are contemporary, right back to 1917, so this is no latter-day rewriting of history that we’re dealing with. Poems of the day use it, and an entire book (191 uses the name for a title. Rather, it’s that all of the sources are what students of the urban myth would call “FOAF” or Friend of a Friend. They mostly refer to other Allied soldiers using the term, whereas what we would wish to see as quality (though still anecdotal) evidence, is a claim to have heard this from a captured enemy. Likewise I can find little reference from German sources of this term. There are brief mentions here and here, the latter actually a mocking reference to the skirt-like kilt. Perhaps after the fact, the Germans were understandably reluctant to admit to their respect for the “kilties”? This would be unusual though, because German memoir writers that have been translated into English are not backward about coming forward with such sentiments though. Especially a phrase as ambiguous and potentially ironic as “Ladies from Hell”. It needn’t be read as a compliment. In fact one theory says that it was originally a good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon piss-take, “reclaimed” by the Jocks when they heard about it. So why would German writers hide it? I should point out that John Gibbons’ “Soldier and Sailor Words and Phrases 1914-18″ gives this explanation;

“..: Highland Regiments. Kilted troops. A name coined in the War by the German newspapers and adopted among the German troops on the Western Front.”

Some sources even claim that the nickname was official, something for which there is no corroborating evidence. “Private 12788” by John Jackson (a soldier’s memoirs of the Great War) that mentions the….

“…devil’s ladies, as the Kaiser himself had named us”.

However, I can find no further leads on either of these suggested German origins. If any German readers can point me to these sources, if indeed they exist, I would be very grateful. Meanwhile, and in the absence of testimony from PoWs, we have to ask how a private soldier would have known that this nickname had been bestowed. Something from the Allied press of the day perhaps? The alternative is that the name was an organic military myth, originating within the ranks. Whatever the case, the idea was propagated by these men during and after the war, but attributed to their enemy.

So is this just a piece of Allied propaganda? History being written by the victors? There is evidence that, like other unit nicknames, it may well have begun as such. But the culprits are not the armed forces. Then, even more so than today, civilian and soldier alike had limited access to news from the front. For all but the most senior officer and politician, it came from the media; the newspapers. A lack of concrete information, due to censorship and lack of sensational stories, led to some creative licence increasingly being taken, especially where it gave readers what they wanted - made them feel that the war was being won. Military commanders were of course quite happy for this mild form of propaganda to be put out. This was especially true of the American media, whose civilian audience were even more removed from the reality of war than Britons.

And so, two of the earliest references to the “Ladies From Hell” actually comes from an American newspaper - the New York Times, which refers to a visit by the pipe bands of Canadian contingents of the Gordon Highlanders:

“..it will be New York’s first glimpse of a really numerous body of Highlanders in uniform, who have earned from the Germans the nickname of “the ladies of hell”.

And from the edition of the following day..

“The Germans already know what they look like, and they call them ‘the ladies of hell’”.

This is significant because the first (or at least, most definitive) appearance of another contemporary military nickname, that of “Devil Dogs” to describe the US Marines, was also in the New York Times (see here). Direct reference is made to the Highlanders;

“Gee, those guys rank us with the ‘ Ladies from Hell,’” declared a grizzled old marine sergeant, swelling with pride when he heard the new title.”

The German origin story for “Devil Dogs”, or “Teufelhunde”, has been debunked, not least by H. L. Mencken as this site relates;

In The American Language (1921) Mencken comments on the Teufelshunde term in a footnote: “This is army slang, but promises to survive. The Germans, during the war, had no opprobrious nicknames for their foes. The French were usually simply die Franzosen, the English were die Engländer, and so on, even when most violently abused. Even der Yankee was rare. Teufelhunde (devil-dogs), for the American marines, was invented by an American correspondent; the Germans never used it.“

I think he’s right. Despite a shared cultural history, snappy epithets were not in the German lexicon. They did not even typically differentiate between soldiers of the British nations, using “Englander” as a catch-all. Now, note in the header of original article the anonymous attribution to a “German writer”, and the generally vague nature of the full story. Similar media (in fact, New York Times!) origins can be argued for the other main nickname of this type in the Great War; the French “Blue Devils“. The same anecdotal quality is reflected not just in the paper, but in all mentions of the “Ladies” idea, right down to this recent US attribution that claims it’s a translation from the German. It’s always “as the Germans/Boche/Hun call them”, and never with reference to a German source or anecdote featuring one. To me, this suggests that the press were happy to plant the seeds of catchy new PR-friendly anti-German ideas in the minds of servicemen and those at home. Word of mouth as well as newsprint, would assure the meme a place in history, and victory over the Germans would make its origin unquestionable. The “noble savage” view of the Scottish Highland soldier in other media of the day was certainly bolstered by this idea.

I’d just like to touch again on the possibility of an organic military origin. It’s possible that other units, eyeing the “kilties” with a mixture of awe and amusement, might have conferred the nickname first, with the papers picking it up later and changing the origin for effect. The Indianapolis Star (not free unfortunately) for Wednesday 27th of March 1918 tells us that;

“‘Ladies From Hell’ is the cheerful name given to Scotch soldiers in kilts by their associates at the front”.

Bearing in mind the later date of the piece, this is just as likely to point to a media origin as to the ranks. You be the judge. What we can say is that these three names were almost certainly bestowed by friendlies, not the enemy.

In closing, I’d just like to stress that whatever the source of this classic nickname, this and other military nicknames are not “BS” history. Though by my estimation we are in the realm of tradition and folklore rather than pure history, we can’t have one without the other. The very existence of the name is a fascinating insight into the social history of the Great War and tells us a great deal about concepts of our own military and national identity rather than that of our former enemy. And though these names are not proof of the terrible fighting prowess of the Highlander, the US Marine, or the French Chasseur Alpins, the exploits of those men should, and do, speak for themselves.