All quiet.

     The Chillingham Home Guard parade for inspection before setting off on patrol.

German's Invasion planning meeting ....

It had been a while since Von Tiddenheim had been to Paris for a meeting with the general staff to go over the plans for the invasion of England ; he had been busy finalising the details for his forces, now he was ready to present this to his staff...

 

The german general Von Tiddenheim, commander Army Group C, has called a planning meeting for his staff, to go over the invasion plans. They have a light lunch then move into the main room where they look at the map table ....

Well gentlemen now you've had a good look at the maps, we need to focus on our allotted objectives, as shown on the main map in black....

Out main port of departure will be Cherbourg. We land between Poole and Lyme Regis, move inland northwards to Bristol then Gloucester, with secondary objectives of Salisbury and Swindon.  We also protect the flank of the main force moving on London and beyond. Your thoughts .....

On the road to Wareham ....

Henry Smith (german spy) had walked along the road to what he thought was Wareham - however it was Wool, he stayed the night in the Black Bear Inn. The weather being good he decided to continue to Wareham on foot rather than take the train.

Late in the afternoon, he seemed to be lost, he saw a schoolgril approaching and asked her the way..

Smith: Can you tell me the way to Wareham in Dorset ?

Schoolgirl: Same as you wears'em any where else mister ...

The girl giggled and ran past him into the nearby cottage. Her response evoked a wry smile from Smith, Smith knocked on the door of the cottage, a woman answered the door and gave him directions ..and also advised him that there was an escaped lunatic in the area....

Smith walked for about a five minutes own the road, as he turned left at the crossroads he ran into a dishevelled man - as he looked closer he realised the man was in a straight jacket - must be the poor unfortunate man the woman told him about... the man was muttering in some sort of german  .... he looked familiar though ... then it dawned on him, back hair small black moustache, put him in the right clothes at a distance you could have mistaken him for Hitler ... Smith hoped the poor man was not prone to violence ...

Smith was uncertain what to do next; however a plain coloured van passed by and pulled up just down the road and out got a doctor and nurse who ushered the poor unfortunate into the back...

The young doctor approached Smith ....

Doctor: are you alright ?

Smith: Yes thanks

Doctor:Can we give you a lift ? we're going to pass through Bournemouth.

Smith: Can you you drop me off in Poole ?

Doctor: Of course, you can sit up front in the passenger seat...

Smith followed the doctor back to the ambulance and got in - off they went......what a stroke of luck thought Smith a free ride. During the journey Smith had a strange idea - was the man in the back the result of a failed attempt to create a double of Hitler, he dismissed the idea and sat back and enjoyed the ride...

England stands ready

      At the end of the pier at Freezingham two squaddies stand, armed, with a rifle and ten rounds of ammunition each. Inside the old amusement arcade they have laboriously constructed an inner fortress of hollow timber walls and shingle from the beach,
  the latrine stands inside the old Punch and Judy stand,
  prompting cries of " That`s the way to do it"  whenever it is used.
    Their task is not to hold the pier against the invader, but by means of their radio, call down artillery fire upon the beaches from the nearby batteries on Brownsea and behind Christchurch.
   Indeed, with their line of retreat across a single plank bridging the gap the engineers have blown in the pier, it seems a place to stand and die.
   ` Why us?" asks Gunner Adams,

    "Cos were `ere lad, nobody else` replies Bombardier Harris.

They are not alone in holding the front line.

  Further along the coast, where the River  Piddle reaches the sea, Others are standing guard, watching and waiting. Ready for Anything.

Need anything guv ?

Henry Smith (aka Heinrich Schmidt) trudged across country and came to a farm track which he followed for a while - he spotted a ramshackle building where the track joined a road ...

.. as he approached the road...a man in an old trenchcoat tried to acost him saying "Want something guv ? cigarettes, petrol coupons ...?"; Henry Smith responded with a curt 'No thanks' and turned left onto the road (phew he had nearly said 'Nein danke' - must think in english he repeated to himself...). He followed the road for a short distance then he could see a town - might be Wareham he thought and continued on his way ....

A planning meeting....

General Von Tiddenheim commander german Army Group C, had been summoned to Army Group A headquarters for a meeting to review the invasion plans (the venue a small château to the north-west of Paris.)

 

Up early in the morning, he waited impatiently for his staff car...

The car finally arrived, a rebuke was given to the driver for being late ...

After a short journey to the railway station, von Tiddenheim boarded his train - the general put his feet up and sat back enjoying the view from the window .....

On the journey he mulled over his approach to the meeting it would give him an opportunity to possibly request some additional units - some of the new Panzer III's would be nice - but he didn't give much for his chances of getting them - what he really wanted was some airborne troops - he would have to argue his case well to get them ... he also wanted to ensure he got the latest intelligence reports....

Land blessed land.

He woke from his exhaustion a few times in the next few hours, at the first he was even further away, later a sea mist came down and he did not have the foggiest idea where he was, but finally as dawn was beginning to colour the sky, Henry bumped ashore in Southern England.
    Time was against him, by now he should be far inland, waiting for the morning to move onward to Wareham and thence to approach Poole harbour from inland.
    Not knowing quite where he was, it was imperative to hide all traces of his landing. Taking his knife he slashed holes in the dinghy and pulled it out to sea before weighting it with rocks and sand.

    He turned and walked inland draggind a skein of seaweed behind to mask his footprints, only to walk straight into a line of barbed wire a few yards above the waterline.

    As the light improved his initial thoughts that this feeble defence line would not stop a single German soldier faded, he could make out the universal skull and crossbones sign of a minefield.
   It could only be a score of yards wide but he had to cross before it was light enough for the defenders to see and shoot him.
     Ducking beneath the wire he took his first tentative step....

Land ho 1

Glancing back at the U-boat as it sank beneath the waves, Heinrich gazed northwards towards the coast.
    The tide was running from the West at about 4 knots, the wind from the East at about 3.

  He turned the prow towards the shore, about half a mile away and dug the paddle deep into the water.
For the first few minutes he made progress until a sudden gust of wind drove him back.
 He turned into the wind and paddled on, a surge of tide swept him westwards parrallel with the shore, another swept him in towards the beach, only for a change in the wind to force him back out to sea.

  He could feel his strength ebbing, wearily he paddled on, the waves cast him this way and that, the wind veered and backed like a mad thing, the tide surged and ebbed. His strength was failing fast,

   Was this how his illustrious military carreer was to end?

               

....er this for a game of soldiers.

And so Heinrich Schmidt found himself in a small rubber dinghy a few hundred yards off the coast of Southern England.
  As the U- boat slid beneath the waves he realised the naval intelligence of the tides  was badly wrong.

Instead of being able to drift landwards with the tide, he found himself fighting a maelstrom of wind and tide, He steeled himself for the effort and prayed that his strength and energy would be sufficient to get himself safe to shore where he could adopt his true persona of Henry Smith, Traveller in Ladies Underwear.

A very private war.

      A few all too short miles away on the other side of the channel, another general and his staff were studying the same maps,
     Ludwig von Tiddenheim, Commanding Army Group West, looked around the room at his staff and pondered the future;
     Von Bearstein, Alte Fritz and the others were all capable Commanders, but he was all too well aware that half the struggle would be against his own high command, There were just not sufficient resources for the Grand Master Plan and he as the sacrificial left flank was unlikely to get much of what he needed in materiel.
    Seperated from the main landings by the Isle of Wight and Southampton Water and tasked with driving north west to Bristol, thus cutting off the entire South West, would place him and his men in the invidious positon of having two or more fronts on which to fight.
    Against him he expected to find a well prepared defensive position under the command of a commander of equal expertise,
    This had all the makings of a very private little war!

    His hopes of success rested on his chief Engineer, Rorsaach could be relied upon th see things a little differently from others and come up with a Very Cunning Plan.

    But his first need was for intelligence.