Keeping up Moral

[Ponytail]

A postcard from Valentine & Sons Ltd the "Helpful Thoughts" series. 

To boost moral in the dark days Winston Churchill made this speech. 

[Ponytail]

From a family scrapbook, newspaper sources and actual dates unknown. Grandma was an avid "scrapbooker" sticking in what took her fancy. She loved the wartime cartoons but I hesitate to put them on as they may cause offence. 

Somebody made a recording of The Soldiers Bible and it became quite popular.

[MartinR]

I'd heard the Soldier's Bible many years ago from my late Uncle.  What brought a tear to my eye though was the Jervis Bay poem.  For anyone who doesn't know HMS Jervis Bay was a liner converted to an "armed merchant cruiser" by adding 7 6" guns.  She was protecting a convoy when the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer approached.  Although hopelessly outgunned and lacking in any armour she sailed straight for the cruiser at maximum speed to stop the cruiser getting to the merchant ships.  Of course she was put to the bottom with the loss of most hands, it was after all a "suicide attack".  The captain (obviously on behalf of the crew) was awarded a posthumous VC.  The citation reads:

Quote

"for valour in challenging hopeless odds and giving his life to save the many ships it was his duty to protect. On the 5th of November, 1940, in heavy seas, Captain Fegen, in His Majesty's Armed Merchant Cruiser Jervis Bay, was escorting thirty-eight Merchantmen. Sighting a powerful German warship he at once drew clear of the Convoy, made straight for the Enemy, and brought his ship between the Raider and her prey, so that they might scatter and escape. Crippled, in flames, unable to reply, for nearly an hour the Jervis Bay held the German's fire. So she went down: but of the Merchantmen all but four or five were saved."

See Wikipedia for a fuller description.