1941 - 1950 page 4

Parts from the JU188 crash site recently recovered by Nicholas de Rothschild using a metal detector. (Photo: RM 2003)

An officer at the crash scene took this watch from one of the dead German aviators. Nicholas de Rothschild has a photo of the watch. (Photo of the photo: RM 2003)

The remaining pre-war greenhouses at Exbury are now dangerous and unused. The fictional Dev the dog was looked after by one of the kind fictional gardeners at HMS Mastodon. I am led to believe that the non-fictional gardeners at HMS Mastodon were also kind. (Photo: RM 2003)

The re-built jetty at Exbury where the fictional Janet Prentice used to catch LCVPs in Requiem. (Photo: RM 2003)

These stranded and rusting vessels are among the few, still visible, relics of WW2 at Exbury. (Photo: RM 2003)

Nevil Shute at work, in uniform,
disguised as Lieutenant Commander Norway on May 12 1944. ( IWM A23276)
Click for larger image

Pre June1944

Pastoral is finished.

The Royal Bath Hotel 1938. This hotel was used as a WW2 British naval training establishment. In Requiem For A Wren, Janet's father trains here as an aircraft spotter.
The small houses at the bottom of the cliff are bathing sheds on the beach. (Photo of a Photo: Mike Meehan 2005)

Jenny Knowles found this 1944 teacup saucer in the mud near Exbury House.
It appears to be standard military issue and it seems possible that it fell off a landing craft or tender boat.
There is a passage Requiem For A Wren / The Breaking Wave that describes Janet having a cup of tea whilst visiting a landing craft.
The stamp on the back says "G vi R 1944." (George 6 Rex 1944 = King George the 6th 1944)
Jenny was inspired to write a play based on Requiem For A Wren which was performed on location at Exbury.
(Photo: Jenny Knowles 2005)

Prior to D-Day Shute devises the Rocket Grapnel. This rocket propels the hook and 500 feet of line and features in the dramatic scaling of the cliffs at Omaha Beach on D-Day

June 06 - June 10 1944

Shute visits Normandy at H-Hour +10 resulting in an unpublished article Journey Into Normandy and some plot for Requiem For A Wren.

On June 06 1944 at H Hour +10 hours Shute arrived, as a journalist, at Mike Sector on Juno Beach. By then most of the fighting was over but there were still snipers about. This is Mike Sector of Juno Beach and depending on the time of the photo, Shutes ship might be one of these visible.
From Shute's description he came ashore near these craft and walked to the left along the beach and finally made his way into the town centre at top left. (Photo: PAF)

This is Mike Sector of Juno Beach from a German gun position. Shute wrote of investigating a German gun emplacement but described the gun as an old French 75. The muzzle of this gun looks too modern to me to be that particular gun and I suspect it is a German 88mm. Gun experts are very welcome to correct me. (Photo: PAF)

Juno Beach on D-Day.(Photo: PAF)

Shute returned to England in hospital ship LST 535. From Shute's description of many beached ships with army DUKWs (the amphibious vehicles on the right) able to drive right inside the ships through the bows, this photo, originally captioned as "Normandy, June 1944", would appear to be Juno Beach in Mike Sector on D+1 when Shute left on LST 535. LST 535 is the ship on the far right. (Photo: PAF)

June 22 1944

Shute attends trials of the "Lily" floating airfield at Stranraer. The trial used Bazooka practice rounds on a small sized "Lily" to simulate the loads of a Spitfire Mk VIII landing.

A Swordfish aircraft lands on a Lily Floating Airfield. ( TSW )

The Swordfish makes a rocket assisted take off from the Lily Pad floating airfield.

August 1944

Pastoral is published.

Shutist David Weir has identified the Old Corn Mill at Stamford Bridge near York as a model for Shute's fictional Coldstone Mill on the equally fictional River Fittel near Oxford in Pastoral. The mill building, the trout pool and a nearby railway overpass, a footpath in Pastoral, are all accurately described in the book. (Photo: RM 2003)