german

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15.9.40 [George Orwell]

September 15, 2010 in Aeroplane, British, Political, War-time, bomber, crash, fighter, german, shot down, snipe by orwelldiaries

This morning, for the first time, saw an aeroplane shot down. It fell slowly out of the clouds, nose foremost, just like a snipe that has been shot high overhead. Terrific jubilation among the people watching, punctuated every now and then by the question, “Are you sure it’s German?” So puzzling are the directions given, and so many the types of aeroplane, that no one even knows which are German planes and which are our own. My only test is that if a bomber is seen over London it must be a German, whereas a fighter is likelier to be ours.

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23.8.40 [George Orwell]

August 23, 2010 in Flanders, Home Guard, Notebook, Osterley Park, Political, Russia, Samuel Butler, Trotsky, War-time, air raid, alarm system, blimp, communists, german, lecture, planes by orwelldiaries

This morning an air-raid warning about 3 a.m. Got up, looked at the time, then felt unable to do anything and promptly went back to sleep again. They are talking of rearranging the alarm system, and they will have to do so if they are to prevent every alarm from costing thousands of pounds in wasted time, lost sleep, etc. The fact that at present the alarm sounds all over a wide area when the German planes are only operating in one part of it, means not only that people are unnecessarily woken up or taken away from work, but that an impression is spread that an air-raid alarm will always be false, which is obviously dangerous.

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5.7.40 [George Orwell]

July 5, 2010 in Churchill, German radio, Italian, Mers el-Kébir, Oran, Political, War-time, attack, fleet, french, german, submarines, warships by orwelldiaries

The almost complete lack of British casualties in the action against the French warships at Oran[1] makes it pretty clear that the French seamen must have refused to serve the guns, or at any rate did so without much enthusiasm…. In spite of the to-do in the papers about “French fleet out of action”, etc., etc., it appears from the list of ships actually given that about half the French navy is not accounted for, and no doubt more than half the submarines. But how many have actually fallen into German or Italian hands, and how many are still on the oceans, there is nothing in the papers to show…… The frightful outburst of fury by the German radio (if rightly reported, actually calling on the English people to hang Churchill in Trafalgar Square) shows how right it was to make this move.

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27.6.40 [George Orwell]

June 27, 2010 in Britain, Churchill, Communism, Falangist, France, Franco, Hitler, I.L.P., Italy, L. H. Myers, MOI, Madrid, Munich, Mussolini, New Leader, Petain, Political, Rab Butler, Russia, Russo-German pact, Samuel Hoare, Spanish, Stalin, Tangier, U.S.S.R., War-time, air raid, all clear, aristocracy, german, occupation, propaganda, recruiting campaign, ruling class by orwelldiaries

It appears that the night before last, during the air-raid alarm, many people all over London were woken by the All Clear signal, took that for a warning and went to the shelters and stayed there till morning, waiting for the All Clear. This after ten months of war and God knows how many explanations of the air-raid precautions.

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17.6.40 [George Orwell]

June 17, 2010 in Canada, Canada House, Gwen O’Shaughnessy, Paris, Political, Scottish private, Underground, War-time, evacuation, french, german, medals, navy, newspapers, patriotism, review, surrender by orwelldiaries

The French have surrendered. This could be foreseen from last night’s broadcast and in fact should have been foreseeable when they failed to defend Paris, the one place where it might have been possible to stop the German tanks. Strategically all turns on the French fleet, of which there is no news yet…

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