What was accrington like during the war?

[Neil]

Originally Posted by shillelagh

They are all dead now and there are times now i wish that i'd written their stories down when they were alive.

Pretty please tell us some stories.

[shillelagh]

Why do you want to know what it was like in Northern Ireland? How my mum nearly got caught smuggling and dumped the stuff she was bringing back and thought she saw the police so dumped it and 2 days later went back and picked it up when she knew they werent anywhere near?

[WillowTheWhisp]

I remember being told about someone who made a living moving cattle over the border. The same cattle, over and over again. Apparently there was a grant for importing them so they pocketed the grant and then smuggled them back over the border and brought the same ones back again the next day!

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by steeljack

. They flew from Germany to Ireland, then across the Irish Sea to Liverpool,
why did they fly to Ireland from Germany to get to Liverpool ?, There were no German bases in Ireland .......thats like saying you went to Accy to get to Ossie from Church

Because the Irish left all their lights on for the Germans to use as guide points navigating to Liverpool, they didnt have to fly in from southern England risking all the flak and night fighters to get to Liverpool and Manchester. Remember they didn't need to fly from Germany, they had bases in France as well, also submarine bases and doodlebug launch pads.
Walter

[Retlaw]

[quote=Tealeaf]The V1 was pretty much a speculative weapon which had no GPS or preplanned flight programme like the modern cruise missile, it was simply aimed in the direction of the target and came down when it ran out of fuel. The Ossy one was probably aimed at Manchester and veered off and overshot.

The doodlebug did have a guidance system, it had a small radio receiver built in which controlled the rudder. The Germans transmitted three different signals, the central one which was the supposed flight path, the other two signals were to correct the rudder if it veered off course left or right. The right hand signal (coming from the continent) was jammed by the British, causing most of them to crash in the North Sea.
Walter.

[steeljack]

Originally Posted by Retlaw

Because the Irish left all their lights on for the Germans to use as guide points navigating to Liverpool, they didnt have to fly in from southern England risking all the flak and night fighters to get to Liverpool and Manchester. Remember they didn't need to fly from Germany, they had bases in France as well, also submarine bases and doodlebug launch pads.
Walter

So the Irish Republic were giving aid to the enemy ? Wonder what Mr Churchill did about that .

[Less]

Originally Posted by Retlaw

The doodlebug did have a guidance system, it had a small radio receiver built in which controlled the rudder. The Germans transmitted three different signals, the central one which was the supposed flight path, the other two signals were to correct the rudder if it veered off course left or right. The right hand signal (coming from the continent) was jammed by the British, causing most of them to crash in the North Sea.
Walter.

Yes it did have a guidance system but nothing like what you describe, please try to search for real facts to back up your statements.
The truth is out there and often it's easier to find than you seem to think.

Below is how it worked taken from wikipedia

Guidance system

The guidance system was crude in construction but sophisticated in conception (and had a few flaws in execution). Once clear of the launching pad, an autopilot was engaged. It regulated height and speed together, using a weighted pendulum system to get fore and aft feedback linking these and the device's attitude to control its pitch (damped by a gyromagnetic compass, which it also stabilized). There was a more sophisticated interaction between yaw, roll and other sensors: a gyromagnetic compass (set by swinging in a hangar before launch) gave feedback to control each of pitch and roll, but it was angled away from the horizontal so that controlling these degrees of freedom interacted (the gyroscope stayed trued up by feedback from the magnetic field, and from the fore and aft pendulum mentioned before). This interaction meant that rudder control was sufficient without any separate banking mechanism.
There was a small propeller on the nose, connected to a long screw thread going back inside the missile. On this thread was a washer, and at the back end of the thread were two electrical contacts. As the missile flew, the airflow turned the propeller and hence the threaded shaft; the washer would be wound along the shaft as it turned. When it reached the electrical contacts it would make a circuit, which energised a solenoid attached to a small guillotine. This guillotine would cut through the elevator control cable which would in turn put the sprung-elevator into the fully-down position, putting the V-1 into a sudden dive. This was intended to be a power dive, but the abrupt negative-G (or perhaps simply the angle of the descent) caused the fuel flow to cease which stopped the engine. As there was a belly fuse as well as a nose fuse, there was still usually an explosion, although not always with the device buried deep enough to increase the effect of the blast. Sometimes the sudden dive system would fail and the missile would coast in on a flat trajectory; this led to a rumour that there were two versions, which was not so.
At the launch site the engineers would preset the starting position of the washer on the shaft according to the known distance to the target and an estimate of the headwind - rough-and-ready, but accurate. Once the distance and trajectory toward the target was determined, the V-1 was launched and left to its own devices until it reached its destination or was shot down. Many historians attribute the V-1 as the world's first operational cruise missile.

[Less]

Originally Posted by Retlaw

Because the Irish left all their lights on for the Germans to use as guide points navigating to Liverpool, they didnt have to fly in from southern England risking all the flak and night fighters to get to Liverpool and Manchester. Remember they didn't need to fly from Germany, they had bases in France as well, also submarine bases and doodlebug launch pads.
Walter

It may be that on occasion the Germans flew up the Irish Sea, but I have found nothing to substanciate that they flew over Ireland, (in fact they would have been in breech of Irelands neutrality if they had done), (if you look at a map that would have taken them miles out of their way!).

Ireland being a Neutral Country had neither the need nor the obligation to turn out their lights, (just as Switzerland didn't), but it is doubtful that the Germans needed the assistance of the combined Irish 60watt bulbs to guide them over the targets. The Germans had very good radio guidance systems to put their planes where they wanted them to be.

I have tried to find facts to back up the claims you have made, but cannot, I have in an earlier thread asked you for facts but so far you have failed to produce any.

If you could show some reference to your claims, then we would all end up knowing a little more about the history of that period, if however you are only working on speculation and hearsay then you are doing history a disservice.

Please, all it takes is a few seconds on the net to check for the facts, (you have the facilitys in front of you or you couldn't connect to this site), and this will be of great help to the many people on here that would like to learn more about an important time in History.

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by Less

It may be that on occasion the Germans flew up the Irish Sea, but I have found nothing to substanciate that they flew over Ireland, (in fact they would have been in breech of Irelands neutrality if they had done), (if you look at a map that would have taken them miles out of their way!).

Ireland being a Neutral Country had neither the need nor the obligation to turn out their lights, (just as Switzerland didn't), but it is doubtful that the Germans needed the assistance of the combined Irish 60watt bulbs to guide them over the targets. The Germans had very good radio guidance systems to put their planes where they wanted them to be.

I have tried to find facts to back up the claims you have made, but cannot, I have in an earlier thread asked you for facts but so far you have failed to produce any.

If you could show some reference to your claims, then we would all end up knowing a little more about the history of that period, if however you are only working on speculation and hearsay then you are doing history a disservice.

Please, all it takes is a few seconds on the net to check for the facts, (you have the facilitys in front of you or you couldn't connect to this site), and this will be of great help to the many people on here that would like to learn more about an important time in History.

Do you call surfing the internet research.

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by Less

Yes it did have a guidance system but nothing like what you describe, please try to search for real facts to back up your statements.
The truth is out there and often it's easier to find than you seem to think.

Below is how it worked taken from wikipedia

I don't need to surf the internet. If you believe every thing you see on the internet, then your more gullible that most. I built my first radio controlled aircraft back in the late 1940's. I got the information from and article in the Aeromodeller. IT WORKED. I still have the radio receiver somewhere in the attic.
Walter

[cmonstanley]

Originally Posted by Less

It may be that on occasion the Germans flew up the Irish Sea, but I have found nothing to substanciate that they flew over Ireland, (in fact they would have been in breech of Irelands neutrality if they had done), (if you look at a map that would have taken them miles out of their way!).

Ireland being a Neutral Country had neither the need nor the obligation to turn out their lights, (just as Switzerland didn't), but it is doubtful that the Germans needed the assistance of the combined Irish 60watt bulbs to guide them over the targets. The Germans had very good radio guidance systems to put their planes where they wanted them to be.

I have tried to find facts to back up the claims you have made, but cannot, I have in an earlier thread asked you for facts but so far you have failed to produce any.

If you could show some reference to your claims, then we would all end up knowing a little more about the history of that period, if however you are only working on speculation and hearsay then you are doing history a disservice.

Please, all it takes is a few seconds on the net to check for the facts, (you have the facilitys in front of you or you couldn't connect to this site), and this will be of great help to the many people on here that would like to learn more about an important time in History.

it is quite open knowledge that some of the irish supported the nazis as the royal navy were always stopping ships with arms heading for the ira plus hitler was in coclusion with some of the vatican....fact

[Less]

Originally Posted by Retlaw

Do you call surfing the internet research.

It's a better start than making it up as you go along, which so far seems to be your research. I can't see how the remains of a remote control model in your attic proves anything.

I again ask you for facts to substansiate your claims. that the Germans flew over Ireland to get to Liverpool etc.

If they did that, then we all learn something new, if they didn't then stop corrupting History.

[Less]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

it is quite open knowledge that some of the irish supported the nazis as the royal navy were always stopping ships with arms heading for the ira plus hitler was in coclusion with some of the vatican....fact

If you had read the whole thread, you would see that it has already been mentioned that some Irish people wanted the Germans to win.

[Less]

Originally Posted by Retlaw

If you believe every thing you see on the internet, then your more gullible that most.
Walter

Just a couple of quick questions.
If you think I'm gullible for using the internet to attempt to find or confirm a few facts, (though I will never take the word of just one site), why do you expect me to believe the uncorroberated statements that you put on?
Surely because I want you to confirm as fact you're little contribution to the internet I and other members are probably not as gullible as you assume?

Because you seem reluctant to confirm the facts behind your statement can I ask if any other member has found any details of what Retlaw has said about the luftwaffe flying over Ireland?
The reason being if it is true I really would like to know, but I would also hate a post on accyweb to be found by someone and them putting it on another site saying 'Germans flew over Ireland', I saw it on the web so it must be true! If there is no substance to this 'fact'.

[Retlaw]

[quote=Less]It's a better start than making it up as you go along, which so far seems to be your research. I can't see how the remains of a remote control model in your attic proves anything.

I again ask you for facts to substansiate your claims. that the Germans flew over Ireland to get to Liverpool etc.

They did'nt fly over Ireland, they flew over the Irish sea, all the lights on in Southern Ireland aided navigation. Ask your self why the flight path was over Accrington, Burnley and Clayton, why the dummy buildings on Burnley Moors and on Hambledon Moors in Accrington.

Walter