Father Le Courtois, parish priest at St. Jores, France, looking at the battle damage to the church and adjacent graveyard.  The picture was taken on July 7, 1944. texag57


Surveying His Parish

Young ladies of the Windmill Theatre, Piccadilly/Soho (London) - a sort of downmarket  London Moulin Rouge - in a staged propaganda photo showing them sleeping in the theatre basement during the Blitz.

The "Windmill Girls" preformed "racy" "tableaux vivants" - which amounted to standing around (absolutely still) on the stage in carefully staged "scenes", clad in ... very little.  Their proud postwar motto - "We Never Closed" - was rephrased by London wags as "We Never Clothed".  Never mind, along with the intervening comedy/music hall acts - good (by our standards) innocent fun.

Actually - apart from a short period in September, 1939 (during which all London theatres were required to close), the Windmill did stay open for the whole of the war, no doubt helping to boost the morale of British (men) of all classes in the face of the dreaded Hun.  BTW - any doubt as to the staged nature of this photo need only look at the makeup.  On the other hand - the Windmill was (is) bang in the middle of prime bombing target area.  The Girls showed great courage, in their own way, by continuing to work there, in particular, during the period of the 1940-'41 Blitz.  Best regards, JR.

Windmill girls ... keeping calm and ...?

Three Hitler Youth members, decorated for their meritorious actions in the course of an Allied air raid on Hamburg.  The specific date given in the Bundesarchiv caption - 1 July, 1943 - would be slightly wrong for what was the outstanding episode of Allied bombing on the city, the RAF's "Operation Gomorrrah", which involved repeated heavy night raids on the city between 24 July and 3 August, 1943.  These raids pretty well destroyed the heart of the city in enormous firestorms, and severely damaged its port, fuel refining and direct war industries - although these industries appear to have recovered much of their capacity quite quickly.  

The young man in the middle is wearing the Iron Cross, Second Class; the others the War Merit Cross, Second Class.  Presumably, this 'photo was taken at the presentation ceremony, as these medals were, on other occasions, normally worn as ribbons only.  The young man in the centre is also wearing a HJ Proficiency Badge (left breast); the lad on the left may be wearing a similar badge, though I cannot quite make it out.  

Sobering to think that all of these young men (the eldest of whom is unlikely to be older than 17 in this 'photo), would likely have found themselves in the Wehrmacht in some capacity before very long.  Best regards, JR.