air patrol

These British Home Guards have mounted their Northover Projector on a little cart, and are posing with it in anti-aircraft mode.  This would appear a little optimistic, to say the least.  The Northover Projector was one of the weapons designed in Britain, promoted by Churchill and (reluctantly) accepted by the War Office as one of the stop-gap to fill the void in anti-tank weapons suffered by the British after Dunkirk.  It normally fired a glass anti-tank grenade; the propellant was old-fashioned gunpowder (black powder), and ignition was by means of a simple black powder cap.  Even on the level, range was scarcely 100 yards Imperial - 60-80 yards was probably more realistic.  As to using it as an anti-aircraft gun, well, let's just say that the Home Guards would have been lucky if the grenade had not just looped back onto their heads, with probable scorching consequences.  I note, by the way, that is seems to have been common from other Home Guard 'photos, the Sergeant has approptiated what was probably the unit's one and only Thompson SMG !  Best regards, JR.

Home Guard Hope Springs Eternal ...

Squadron Leader P H "Paddy" Dunn, the Commanding Officer of No. 80 Squadron RAF, sitting in the cockpit of his Gloster Gladiator at Sidi Barrani, Egypt. According to IWM this photo was taken a few days after leading “B” and “C” Flights in a major engagement with Italian fighters over Bir el Gobi, Libya, on 8 August 1940, in which they claimed nine Fiat CR.42s shot down for the loss of two Gladiators. Dunn himself was credited with two CR.42s shot down within a few minutes of the start of the fight. Victor Sierra