After St. Paul’s I headed to the IWM. Contrary to what people may think, these museums don’t glorify war, they try to explain why they were fought, how they were fought and the results and consequences. Sure, there are impressive weapons displayed like these deck guns from WWI, but the museums are so much more.
The main lobby here has a mixed display from various eras and then works from WWI up to present day conflicts.
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There are numerous interactive and video displays none of which translate easily into my format so you’ll have to see for yourself. The WWI exhibit dealt with not only the causes and horrors but also how the war in mainland Europe affected those back home in Britain. The WWI exhibit very graphically describes life and death in the mud of France with many movies showing the actual troops in their environment. This next display shows items woman wore. Scarfs became fashionable as they began to work in factories in large numbers replacing men who headed of down Folkestone’s Remembrance Road or into the air. Scarfs kept hair out of machinery. Armbands indicated some forms of authority and helmets when in more dangerous jobs.
Signs and posters began popping up to encourage recruitment and support.
And they even developed equipment to provide air in shelters. This one needed someone on the attached bike to provide the power.
The WWII exhibit begins with a movie about Operation Overlord the code name for the invasion of Normandy. And specifically Operation Neptune more commonly known as D-Day. If you go to my 2015 posts you can see where I visited Gold (British) and Omaha (American) beaches. The weapons were becoming more sophisticated, a euphemism for deadly, and customized for need like this two man Italian sub.
The sub was attached to a large one for transport to the attack area then the crew, wearing rubberized suits and breathing apparatus powered to the target where they placed an explosive devise to the hull of their mark.
Mini bulldozers were needed to clear beaches.
And motorcycles with sidecars for running messages and orders about.
And planes were no longer the small biplanes of the first world war. This was a Lancaster bomber
There was a large exhibit on the Holocaust. Many pictures of naked people as the Nazis new that stripping a person of their cloths and cutting off all their hair also removed dignity and humanity. I tried to capture some of the images like a bulldozer plowing dead, naked Jews into a man grave or a woman being forcibly stripped on a street but I could not bring myself to press the shutter.
When someone compares anyone or any group to Nazis they are wrong. There is nothing that compares (maybe Pol Pot or Christian Crusaders excepted) to the inhumanity that those who called themselves Nazis brought upon themselves. I don’t know which was worse, which the more horrific, what was done or that people could do it.
Jesse Owens, a black and therefore naturally of an inferior race to the Arians gave two fingers to Hitler.
A model of Auschwitz the death camp. Jews got off the train in the rear of the model and were gassed to death in the foreground.
And inhumanity didn’t stop with the Nazis. Guantanamo carries on the tradition.
Chair used to force feed prisoners.
Edmond Clark was allowed deep access and gives us the following:
See if you can visualize these famous/infamous images
“War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing”
Edwin Starr, 1969
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