Page 18 - BBC History - September 2017

Your views on the magazine and the world of history
LETTERS

Was Ezekiel’s vision pope, there would have been no Solidar-
of a wheel within a ity, that without Solidarity there would
wheel in the sky an have been no change in Soviet policy
early UFO sighting?
towards eastern Europe, and without the
change in Soviet policy there would have
been no velvet revolutions in 1989.
The role of Pope John Paul II in these
events was recognised by all the major
figures involved, including Mikhail
Gorbachev and President Bush.
Any discussion of the collapse of the
communist bloc would therefore surely
be incomplete without some reference
to Pope John Paul II.
James J McDevitt, Edinburgh
LETTER
OF THE
MONTH Defeat at Dunkirk?
Ancient UFOs I write in response to your Dunkirk piece
(July). My late father was a Dunkirk
Julian Humphrys claims UFOs were the 19th and start of the 20th centu- veteran. Being in the merchant navy and
first reported earlier than we might ries; rockets in Scandinavia in the late having just completed an Atlantic run,
think (Past Notes, August). They were, 1940s; and spaceships more recently. he volunteered to cross the channel to
however, reported earlier than Julian Andrew Hudson, Cumbria Dunkirk in a small Thames tug.
Humphrys might think! Sightings date On arrival, drawn up on the beach was
back to biblical times, one example P We reward the Letter a Guards platoon “complete with shiny
being Ezekiel’s wheel. Meanwhile, of the Month writer with boots” who refused to get on the tug as
Greek and Roman literature refers to our ‘History Choice’ there were “no proper cabins for
fiery shields in the sky. book of the month. This officers”. Later, taking on board more
The descriptions tend to follow the issue, it’s Sugar: The grateful soldiery, my father was intrigued
World Corrupted, from
preconceptions of the period of to learn the reason for the high morale of
Slavery to Obesity by
reporting: wheels and shields in the army. Most had joined the army as
James Walvin. Read the
classical times; airships at the end of the only real alternative to unemploy-
review on page 69
ment and starvation, not to fight the
Germans. A quote by one of the rescued
Raj reflections disbelief when he smiled at them and soldiers was that being obliged to leave
Your feature The Bloody Road to Partition said: “They left India 50 years too early.” the heavy military equipment on the
(August) brought to mind something If anything, I was more astonished beach meant “no more soldiering outside
that happened while I was travelling in than they! of the UK for me”.
India with two American friends a Robert Readman, Bournemouth For the rest of his life my father never
couple of years ago. doubted that at Dunkirk the British
While in Jaipur we engaged the Papal credit empire had been defeated by the
services of an elderly university professor I thoroughly enjoyed David Reynolds’ resurgent Germany.
who supplemented his income by acting article on the Cold War in the July issue Meanwhile, my late mother was a
as a private guide for tourists. As he (What Brought a Thaw in the Cold War?). nurse at Dartford Hospital where a
drove us around on the second day, my However, I was disappointed that he number of Dunkirk casualties were
American companions, who can never made no mention of the influence of patients. She had noticed that evacuated
resist the opportunity for some gentle Pope John Paul II when discussing the soldiery “were coming back with
ribbing over Britain’s colonial past, founding of Solidarity in Poland in pockets full of French money
asked the professor for his views on the 1980, and the influence this had on that they’d made from selling
Raj, in full expectation of an subsequent events. Many would agree British army spares to the
anti-colonial diatribe. with the historian Timothy Garton Ash French underworld. They
Turning to them, he said: “You know when he said that, without the Polish were keen to get off the beaches
the worst thing the British did?” My with their money, but we were all
friends looked at me smugly, waiting for glad that Britain was out of the
Many credit Pope GETTY IMAGES
me to be put in my place. But the look John Paul II with a role in war with so few casualties,
on their faces changed to one of dismantling communism unlike the earlier war.”

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18 BBC History Magazine