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.

ww2dbaseA retired widower with three adult children, Alan's interests now include studying the equipment, weapons, aircraft etc. from the Second World war and compiling articles for this website.

Photographs/Maps Contributions

See all 17 photographs of Alan Chanter

Timeline Contributions

Alan Chanter has also contributed 3,230 entries in the WW2 Timeline. A small sample of his timeline contributions is shown below.

» 17 Sep 1940: The British Royal Air Force resumed operations at RAF West Drayton, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom for radar training, thus forcing the WAAF recruit depot at that location to relocate to Harrogate, Yorkshire, England and later to Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England.

» 26 Jun 1917: The US 1st Division (soon to be known as the "Big Red One") consisting of the 16th, 18th, 26th and 28th Infantry regiments arrived in France.

» 30 May 1925: The colourful radical nationalist Moeller van den Bruck (author of the 1923 book "The Third Reich" - soon to be utilised to describe Germany under the Hitler Regime) shot himself whilst confined in a psychiatric hospital.

» 6 Jul 1921: A truce was signed between the British Government and the IRA to allow negotiations to take place. The Nationalists wanted an independent Republic whilst the Lloyd George offered to create an Irish State with Dominion status under the king. As the weeks went by Lloyd George gradually won over the Irish delegates and finally obtained agreement (except for the status of Ulster) by an ultimatum - Peace or War. The Nationalists did not challenge it.

» 19 May 1941: British Army Sergeant Nigel Leakey was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross after being killed in action single-handedly knocking out Italian tanks in Ethiopia.

» 25 Jan 1945: Germany announced the biggest evacuation in military history when the first of what would grow to be up to two million troops were withdrawn by ship through the Baltic from Preußen (Prussia) and Pommern (Pomerania). The evacuation continued until the end of the European War.

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