I have been to... The Imperial War Museum

Time for another update..  and SteveTheWargamer has been travelling..

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Had an opportunity to pop up to the smoke this week with a couple of beer drinking mates - the plan was to visit the museum (as they also have an interest in military history) and then go search for some pubs with decent beer..

Didn't start too well with the news that one of the trio wasn't going to be able to make it as a result of a medical issue with one of his AP's, and then we found the day definitely wasn't getting any better for some unfortunate who had had an altercation with the train directly in front of us, just as we were about to get in to London Waterloo.. 😔 Sum it all up, the train reversed, and then took a circuititious route back in to Waterloo, but the 90 minute journey turned into a 3 hour one..

By that point we were definitely in need of a beer so a stop off at "The Hercules", a Fullers pub, for a pint of "Grand Slam" was very much needed...  what can I say - first beer of the day, it was OK...  was it worth the £7+ per pint (😱) not really, but those are the London prices..  

Pushed on past the old Kennington Miniatures shop, which (funnily enough) was in Kennington Road, and the Museum comes into view... what I didn't know until afterwards is that the building the Museum occupies is not purpose built - it was originally the central portion of the old Bethlem Royal Hospital, a psychiatric institution known locally as "Bedlam". Entry is free by the way (to the museum anyway, and I guess the hospital as well..😏)...

I reckon the Museum must have one of the more dramatic entries!

As you pass under the two 15" naval guns..  

..not my picture - it was piddling down with rain and I wanted to get out of it! This one is courtesy of the Museum..

you push through the front doors and are presented with this vista..

...quite astonishing - those are all originals by the way..  the white thing is a Japanese WW2 jet powered bomb, a Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka Model 11 [clicky]. That thing was carried slung under a bomber and released once they were within reach of the target where the kamikaze pilot would then glide to the target before engaging the rockets for the last dive. Above it is a Mk1A Spitfire [clicky], and above that a Harrier GR5A [clicky] - this particular Harrier flew over 40 missions in Afghanistan before being withdrawn from service...

...and then skulking in the background..

...in addition to the V2, note also the square of brown'ish metal bottom right - that's all that
remained of a car from the site of  9/11.. 

..an original V2 [clicky] that was gifted to the museum in 1946 - you forget how huge these things were, look at the guy standing next to the rocket exhaust for scale ... a 100 of those a week - each with a 1000Kg warhead - were landing on Antwerp in December '44 as part of Hitlers Ardennes/Bulge offensive. Which begs the question, they were frightening for sure, but a drop in the ocean next to a fully loaded Lancaster that carried 14 times that, and came back, and could be used again. In military terms it seems to me to be the same difference as between playing the Lottery, or buying Premium Bonds - one is a one shot could win, the other can be used over and over for the win...  why did the Germans spend so much of their scarce resources and time on these things?

The Museum is on multiple floors and most of the ground and first floor are WW1/2 themed, loads and loads of exhibits, but these are the one's that caught my eye..

On the ground floor a RHA WW1 13pdr and limber [clicky]..  when I was a boy I had a spring loaded model of this (it may have been the 18pdr 😏), so it caught my eye...

This one has an amazing back story (it's worth clicking on the link) but in summary served with the 1st Cavalry Division in 1914 and was present at Le Cateau where it received the damage that can be seen ..

Note the shell scrape on the (lower) barrel..

..and then see what the shell did when it came through the gap in the shield..  trunnion completely destroyed..   and I don't want to even think of the damage this would also have done to the crew sheltering behind the shield in this area.. 

Note also the damage to the end of the muzzle...

Elsewhere..  the remains of a Zero (an A6M3) found 50 years after the war in the jungle on the island of Toroa by an archaeologist - amazing how well the aluminium shell has lasted - apparently they found a British bullet lodged in the air frame of this one, and the remains of a dried Lotus flower in the cockpit, carried by Japanese pilots for luck. ..

I was quite surprised at how big it was, but I had a look on Google afterwards and it is shorter than the Spitfire, but had a wider wingspan and only weighed 60% of the (more heavily armoured) Spitfire..

The mighty German 8.8 cm Flak 36/37 anti-aircraft/anti-tank gun, bloody enormous!

...but such a high profile...  I had no idea by the way that the first iteration of this gun dated to WW1 (the Flak 16 version)

...and speaking of Lancaster's..  this is the nose section of "Old Fred" a Lancaster Mk. 1, which flew 49 sorties over enemy territory during 1943 - 1944 with 47 Squadron (RAAF)..  I was hugely taken by the sheer amount of Perspex, and the simplicity of the fittings..  make no mistake they were brave men...  but I wondered why they stopped at 49 and didn't do the 50?

....on the car restoration YouTube sites they call this (following) "patina" 😁This is a Chevrolet truck used by the LRDG [clicky] and only discovered in the Egyptian desert in 1980..

...it's a Chevrolet WB (Wide Body) 30cwt four by two, and the markings on it when it was found indicate it was operated by the New Zealand contingent of the LRDG, and was abandoned sometime mid-1941..  this one was named by Trooper Clarkie Waetford (who was in W Patrol) as "Waikaha"

..the remains of what I think is a circular Union Jack on the tail..

Next - one of my favourites in my WW2 miniatures collection are the Peter Pig German motorbikes so this was a draw.. a BMW R75 750cc with sidecar.. no known history but the Museum does known that the grey paint job is incorrect for the age of the motorbike, as it is a late war model..

....and last of all - how can you not love a Sherman? 😏When this one [clicky] was given the Museum they had no idea of the history, but when they stripped the paint back they found the markings for a tank that would have been in the 2nd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, Guards Armoured Division. It's the M4A4 variant (it had a longer engine) and dates to 1944/45 in Western Europe...  note the additional pieces of armour welded on the side (to protect the driver I think - there's the same on the other side to protect the bow machine gunner who was backup driver) and also in front of the their respective hatches on the front of the tank..

...and that was it with the pictures as from here we went to the Holocaust Gallery which describes the various pogroms and industrial killings of ethnic and political groups (but of course mostly the Jews) not only by the Nazi's, but also by the Russians - it's a sobering visit - hugely informative, and tries to explain the timeline of how the Nazi's escalated from political prisons like Sachsenhausen when they took power to the inception of the death camps exemplified by Auschwitz..  it describes the Nazi's preoccupation with eugenics, racial purity and all the rest of the shit show they used to justify the killing.. not a place for photo's but I found it hugely informative, sad, sobering as I said, but also depressing - we as human kind are still doing it...

Last stop was almost a palate cleanser in comparison, one of their special exhibits at the moment is to do with Britain's involvement in independence conflicts after WW2 - called "emergencies" by the British government (apparently for insurance reasons, as calling it a war would invalidate insurance of any British civilians in the area!) the exhibition covers the emergencies in Kenya, Malaya, and Cyprus...  very good I thought - I learnt a lot more than I knew about all of them - the Cyprus part of the exhibition was particularly good, of the three of them, the ramifications of that "emergency" are still felt to this day, and still not resolved.. 

Time for some more beer, and after an "OK" pint in the local Wetherspoons (mostly to get some food) the final stop of the day was a pub from my bucket list..

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is in Fleet Street. The current pub dates from 1667, when the original pub that was on the site from 1538 got burnt down in the Great Fire - it's an absolute belter and is one of the last of the old London Chop houses. It's owned by the Sam Smith's Brewery so we were drinking their Old Brewery Bitter, about as traditional a British bitter as it's possible to get these days! Very tasty, and the pub lived up to all the expectations - pubb'ier than a pub thing, a right rabbit warren of wood panelled rooms with squashy sofas, chairs, and comfortable benches, coal fires, and a ceiling that's been painted by 300 years of nicotine smoke..  lovely...

...we were in this bar, couldn't get my own picture as one, it was full of people, two it was too dark, and three I was busy slurping beer... 😏

😍

Brilliant day out, only improved by the fact that the train home was quick, and not delayed!

Further reading stuff if you're interested:

• https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/big-guns-londons-imperial-war-museum-195081 - some history on the two 15" guns at the entrance
• https://truck-encyclopedia.com/ww2/us/chevrolet-WB-30cwt.php - excellent review and descriptions of the Chevy trucks used by LRDG
• https://theliberatingkind.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/m4a4-willie-pusher-ii/ - more detail on the Sherman
• https://ye-olde-cheshire-cheese.co.uk/about/

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...