World War II Database

ww2dbaseAlan Chanter was born in London in 1947. Enlisting in the British Army in 1967, Alan saw service in Germany and Northern Ireland and visited Berlin and Cyprus. Rising to the rank of Staff Sergeant, he was twice introduced to members of the Royal Family and awarded both the General Service Medal with clasp for Northern Ireland and the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. Retiring from the Army in 1989, Alan took employment in a factory manufacturing components for machine tools until his job became redundant in 2002.

ww2dbaseAlways interested in History (particularly that relating to the Military), in 2001 Alan began writing short items for a number of History-based Internet Newsgroups. Whilst unemployed this developed into some rather lengthier essays.

ww2dbaseAlan now resides in Lincoln (founded by the Romans) and is married with three adult children. He is currrently employed, part-time, as a driver for a local Taxi company.

Last Major Revision: Jan 2007

Photographs/Maps Contributions

See all 8 photographs of Alan Chanter

Timeline Contributions

Alan Chanter has also contributed 3,141 entries in the WW2 Timeline. A small sample of his timeline contributions is shown below.

» 13 Sep 1943: Private Richard Kelliher won the Victoria Cross in New Guinea for knocking out Japanese positions to rescue his pinned down Australian comrades. Only six months before, Irish-born Kelliher had been court martialled for cowardice under fire, although the conviction had been quickly quashed.
» 26 Nov 1940: No. 826 and No. 829 Squadrons of the British Fleet Air Arm embarked on carrier HMS Formidable for convoy escort duties to Cape Town, South Africa. Read More
» 13 Mar 1945: In a statement to Parliament, Sir James Grigg, the British Secretary of State for War, praised the achievements of the British Army over the previous months but announced that it will be necessary for another call up, for military service, men from civilian life (including from those previously in reserved occupations) in order to continue the war against Japan once Germany has been defeated.
» 18 Jul 1944: German Luftwaffe Hauptmann Werner Thierfelder, commander of the special test unit (Eprobungskommando) tasked with evolving tactics for the new Me 262 jet-powered fighter was killed when his plane crashed in flames near Landsberg, Germany. The cause of the crash was not determined, but it was likely to be either a mechanical failure or due to poor fuel quality. Read More
» 4 Mar 1941: British landing ships HMS Queen Emma and HMS Princess Beatrix, escorted by five destroyers, landed 500 British Commandos, Royal Engineers, and Free Norwegian troops at four ports in the Loftoten Islands, off Narvik, Norway at dawn. Operation Claymore, the first large scale commando raid of the war, saw the destruction of fish oil factories (along with 3,600 tons of fish oil, used for high explosives) and nine merchant ships. An unexpected bonus was the discovery of coding rotors for the Enigma cryptographic sysyem found aboard German trawler Krebs. The raiders withdrew without a single casualty along with 228 German captives.

Did you enjoy this article? Please consider supporting us on Patreon. Even $1 per month will go a long way! Thank you. Share this article with your friends:   Facebook   Reddit   Twitter   Digg   Google+   Delicious   StumbleUpon   Stay updated with WW2DB:   RSS Feeds

Visitor Submitted Comments

Show older comments

All visitor submitted comments are opinions of those making the submissions and do not reflect views of WW2DB.

Posting Your Comments on this Topic

Your Name
Your Email
	Your email will not be published
Comment Type	General comment/question Additional information about this page Looking for more information on this topic Looking for information about my relative
Your Comments
Security Code

Note: We hope that visitor conversations at WW2DB will be constructive and thought-provoking. Please refrain from using strong language. HTML tags are not allowed. Your IP address will be tracked even if you remain anonymous. WW2DB site administrators reserve the right to moderate, censor, and/or remove any comment. All comment submissions will become the property of WW2DB.