Newsletter - June 2018

[Rogernoble]

White Star Newsletter - June 2018

 Dear All

 We are now up to 103 members (31 March - 102) so I would like to welcome Malcolm Brown. There was an interesting postscript to the June lunch when I met up with an old client who I knew was involved in motor racing. It turned out he was a great friend of Bobby Bell’s and when I asked him about Malcolm he said he had a picture of himself and Malcolm in his Lola on the grid at Brands Hatch.

The search.
I am afraid that year end business commitments and arranging the June reunion at the Inn on the Lake have meant there has been little progress on this front in the quarter. I hope to start again shortly.

The Website.
For you all but especially the new members a reminder of the website access:http://hillsideschool.org.uk/site/index.php?page=news&type=view&id=andrewhs-blog%2Fhistory-1951-1969Martin has put an enormous effort into creating the web site so I would urge you to support him by signing on if you have not already done so. For all you struggling recycled teenagers like myself who want to add something the process is: Having registered and logged inGo to near to the top right hand corner of the opening page and you will see a little figure. Click on that.Then click on “my profile”.Then click on my “blog post”, fill in the title and your wording and then click the post button.The number of blogs continues to grow. 

White Star Magazines.
Martin who has successfully digitised them and they can be accessed through:http://hillsideschool.org.uk/site/index.php?page=catalogues&type=category&id=links-home%2Fwhite-star-digitised&keep_catalogue_links_root=6Martin is to be congratulated on what has been an enormous and sometimes frustrating project. It all makes fascinating reading after all these years.

 Lunch at the Inn on the Lake on 16th June.
We had a very enjoyable lunch at the Inn on the Lake in Godalming on 16th June.

June 18 Lunch.jpg

Thirty six of us plus Harvey White’s guide dog Sunny met there. We were all particularly pleased that the Whickers were represented by Robin who had kindly come over from Alderney. There seemed to be unanimous support for a re-run of the event in two years time.  Martin and Tamsin Koronka sitting with Jeremy Drakesford.I am in the process of acquiring a copy of the group photograph, which as soon as my aging brain can match up all the names with the pictures, I will put on a web site.GolfJack Fuller is looking to form a Hillside Golf team, possibly playing at the West Surrey Golf Club. If you are interested please contact Jack on johnfuller20@gmail.com.

Hillside Culinary delights.
I have drawn a blank this month so please can someone help me out for the next quarter. 

Literary Corner
The Victims of Yalta – Nikolai Tolstoy
My knowledge of twentieth century Russian history has been particularly influenced by three pieces of information. The first is a TV programme on the 1917 Soviet Revolution which centres on the Kronstadt sailors who became national heroes. By 1921 they had become disillusioned by the monster that they had helped create and revolted. The Red army were sent to deal with them across the sea ice to their fortified island. They were defeated and those not killed in the battle either died escaping to Finland across the ice or were marched into a forest and shot. The second was another TV documentary on the siege of Stalingrad. It is a story of epic courage which turned into a defeat for the German army which surely must have made a material contribution to the eventual defeat of the Nazis. The third occurred on a cruise to St Petersburg when I was following a yacht club friend through immigration. The officer started questioning him about an innocent sailing voyage he had made there thirty years before. This seemed to have produced a security file on him. The picture emerging in my mind was of a proud and heroic people governed by a gang of tyrannical thugs.Against this background I managed to acquire a copy of Nikolai’s book “The Victims of Yalta”. The background is best summed up by the summary on the fly leaf: “By the end of the second world war, nearly six million Russians were stranded in Germany. Some had been imported by the Nazis for slave labour, some were prisoners of war, some were anti-communists in German uniforms, and there were many women and children. Of the total, over three million were in territories overrun by the Western Allies. By a secret agreement made between Eden and Molotov in 1944, and confirmed by Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, these people were condemned to be sent back without choice to the USSR – which meant, for vast numbers, to such hell-camps as Vortkuta in the Arctic Circle. The victims were aware of what lay ahead. Their efforts to escape their fate included many suicides.A contributory factor in the story is that the Western Allies and Germany were signatories to the Geneva Convention which, in the main, both parties had adhered to, The Soviets had refused to sign up and treated German POWs appallingly and Germany retaliated. It is also important to understand the Soviets view of their forces who had been captured. As far as the Soviets were concerned any members of their forces who was captured, had not fought to the death and was therefore a traitor and could well have also become tainted by western democratic thinking. The vigour with which this principal was upheld is amply illustrated by Stalin’s repudiation of his son who was captured by the Germans.As the war progressed to its conclusion some 25,000 British and US personnel were rounded up by the Soviets while the Allies came across the millions of Russians referred to above. Faced with forcible repatriation they all had a pretty good idea of the fate that awaited them. The best they could probably hope for was a bullet in the head on arrival against torture or the hell of the Gulags and a long lingering death. With this prospect many committed suicide. Nikolai relates one harrowing story where a man goes into the wood with his wife and three children and shoots all of them including himself. The allied soldiers soon realised what was happening and complained bitterly, a cry which was picked up at the top of the army command. As well as their humanitarian concerns the soldiers were also no doubt conscious of the emerging Nuremburg rulings where “I was just following orders” was not raising much sympathy with the judges.Why did the foreign office not stop this atrocious policy? The implied threat was that the Allies might not get their prisoners of war back if the Soviets did not also get their people. The powers that be were desperate to keep all this quiet realising that there would be a public outcry if it was realised that millions of men, women and children were being sent to a horrible end. Nikolai argued very strongly that the Soviets were as anxious to keep this whole affair under wraps as the Allies were and a more robust response would have been successful and may have saved many lives. Two statements stuck in my mind as I finished reading the book:General Vlasov (White Russian) – “We are not a power factor; but to have trodden on our Russian hopes for freedom and for human worth, out of ignorance and opportunism, is something that Americans, Englishmen, Frenchman and perhaps Germans too, will one day regret”. How perceptive!The Western Allies had all, with one exception, been pretty mealy mouthed in response to the bullying Soviets. The exception was Liechtenstein, a country with no army and a police force of eleven men:“I (Nikolai) asked the Prince (of Liechtenstein) if he had not had misgivings or fears as to the success of the policy (frustrating the Soviets). He seemed quite surprised at my question. “Oh no” he explained, “if you talk roughly with the Soviets they are quite happy. That after all, is the language they understand””.We are talking of events that occurred more than seventy years ago and a book published in 1977. What relevance has it got in 2018? Throughout the forced repatriation the Soviets continually argued that they were welcoming back the people concerned with open arms, not-withstanding the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In almost all cases they accused the allies of holding the people against their wills and mistreating them. How many weeks not years do we have to go back to hear “of course we would not destroy our citizens with polonium or nerve gas and shoot down civilian air craft and why are you holding our people against their wills”.In this review I have only skimmed through a substantial volume. It is an extraordinarily well- researched book and so relevant today that one can’t help feeling that it should be compulsory reading for all new MPs. I have an article on Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s view of the book (very supportive) which I will put on the Hillside website with a copy of this article.

 Pictures
A number of people gave me pictures at the lunch. I need to sort these but I am now in a position to handle them as the search slows down.

Pal’s corner.
Jonathan Botting is continuing to evade us. We are pretty sure he is living in Bristol.Jack Fuller has now located ten of the 1963 hockey team. He is anxious to locate Jonathan (?) Weale to get the full team. Can anyone help?This is a regular feature for those looking for old friends so please let me know if there is anyone you would particularly like to trace.

Roger Noble