NETFLIX UK DARK TOURIST ATTRACTION.THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOS ,GL14 3NL … STEP BACK IN TIME WITH OUR UNIQUE GLOUCESTERSHIRE & UK POLICE MEMORABILIA PRIVATE COLLECTION, HERE ON DISPLAY.

ABOVE … A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO THE FIRST SERVING GLOUCESTERSHIRE  POLICEMAN TO BE KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY  IN 1861. SERGEANT SAMUEL BEARD WAS , AT THE TIME STATIONED HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL FOR SOME 16 YEARS .  THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICE FORCE WAS FORMED IN 1839, MAKING IT THE SECOND OLDEST COUNTY POLICE FORCE IN THE UK .

INCIDENTALLY , THE FIRST RECORDED DEATH OF A SERVING PARISH CONSTABLE (FORERUNNERS TO THE POLICE FORCE ) IN THE FOREST OF DEAN WAS  HENRY THOMPSON IN THE PARISH OF RUARDEAN , 14 MAY 1817 , AGED 31 .

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE HISTORY OF THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICE FORCE PLEASE CLICK ON  THE TWO LINKS HERE OR  HERE

BELOW …. A BRIEF LOOK AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FEATURING VARIOUS POLICE MANNEQUINS AND OTHER POLICE MEMORABILIA  DISPLAYS .

HERE’S  JUST  A BRIEF PICTORIAL INSIGHT INTO SOME OF THE BRITISH POLICE MEMORABILIA AND EPHEMERA ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL WHICH COVERS THE HISTORY OF THE POLICE THROUGH THE AGES .

THIS COLLECTION IS BELIEVED TO BE ONE OF THE LARGEST PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OF POLICE MEMORABILIA IN THE UK . WE HAVE HUNDREDS OF VINTAGE HAND PAINTED  TRUNCHEONS , RESTRAINTS , HELMETS, BADGES, UNIFORMS AND MUCH MORE .

SEE BELOW  FOR PICTORIAL SLIDESHOW OF A FEW EXHIBITS ON DISPLAY

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SEE BELOW VIDEO FOR EDUCATIONAL INSIGHT INTO THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH POLICE

A SUPERB PIECE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICE CRIME SCENE MEMORABILIA  ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL

JUST ONE OF A GREAT MANY BRITISH POLICE MEMORABILIA ITEMS THROUGH THE AGES ON DISPLAY IN ONE OF THE UK’S LARGEST PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OF LAW AND ORDER MATERIAL . 

BELOW IS  AN  IMAGE OF WHAT  IS BELIEVED TO BE ONE OF THE VERY FEW SURVIVING VINTAGE  GLOUCESTERSHIRE CONSTABULARY’S FINGERPRINT KITS (CIRCA 1940’S) . COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BOX, INKS, ROLLER, POWDERS AND BRUSHES ETC .ALSO VARIOUS APPROPRIATE  DOCUMENTATION FOR FINGERPRINT EVIDENCE PURPOSES . FOR MORE INFORMATION AND PICTURES RELATING TO THIS ITEM CLICK HERE

Picture By: Jules Annan Picture Shows:GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICE FINGERPRINT KIT CIRCA 1940’S Date 25TH September 2011 Ref: *World Rights Only* *Unbylined uses will incur an additional discretionary fee!*

A short history of British Police focusing on truncheon and armour – Arms in Action

ORIGINAL PAINTING BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN DEPICTING WPC YVONNE FLETCHER, WHO WAS FATALLY SHOT OUTSIDE THE LIBYAN EMBASSY , ST JAMES SQUARE, LONDON IN 1984 . THIS PAINTING IS ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL.

PC DAVID RATHBAND WHO WAS SHOT AND BLINDED BY RAOUL MOAT PERSONAL SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL

 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BRITISH POLICE

The word “Police” means, generally, the arrangements made in all civilised countries to ensure that the inhabitants keep the peace and obey the law. The word also denotes the force of peace officers (or police) employed for this purpose.

In 1829 Sir Richard Mayne wrote:
“The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime: the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of police must be directed. The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquillity, and the absence of crime, will alone prove whether those efforts have been successful and whether the objects for which the police were appointed have been attained.”

In attaining these objects, much depends on the approval and co-operation of the public, and these have always been determined by the degree of esteem and respect in which the police are held. One of the key principles of modern policing in Britain is that the police seek to work with the community and as part of the community.

Origins of policing

The origin of the British police lies in early tribal history and is based on customs for securing order through the medium of appointed representatives. In effect, the people were the police. The Saxons brought this system to England and improved and developed the organisation. This entailed the division of the people into groups of ten, called “tythings”, with a tything-man as representative of each; and into larger groups, each of ten tythings, under a “hundred-man” who was responsible to the Shire-reeve, or Sheriff, of the County.

The tything-man system, after contact with Norman feudalism, changed considerably but was not wholly destroyed. In time the tything-man became the parish constable and the Shire-reeve the Justice of the Peace, to whom the parish constable was responsible. This system, which became widely established in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, comprised, generally, one unarmed able-bodied citizen in each parish, who was appointed or elected annually to serve for a year unpaid, as parish constable. He worked in co-operation with the local Justices in securing observance of laws and maintaining order. In addition, in the towns, responsibility for the maintenance of order was conferred on the guilds and, later, on other specified groups of citizens, and these supplied bodies of paid men, known as “The Watch”, for guarding the gates and patrolling the streets at night.

In the eighteenth century came the beginnings of immense social and economic changes and the consequent movement of the population to the towns. The parish constable and “Watch” systems failed completely and the impotence of the law-enforcement machinery was a serious menace. Conditions became intolerable and led to the formation of the “New Police”.

The Metropolitan Police

In 1829, when Sir Robert Peel was Home Secretary, the first Metropolitan Police Act was passed and the Metropolitan Police Force was established. This new force superseded the local Watch in the London area but the City of London was not covered. Even within the Metropolitan Police District there still remained certain police establishments, organised during the eighteenth century, outside the control of the Metropolitan Police Office, viz:-

• The Bow Street Patrols, mounted and foot, the latter commonly called the “Bow Street runners”.
• Police Office constables attached to the offices of, and under the control of, the Magistrates.
• The Marine or River Police.

By 1839 all these establishments had been absorbed by the Metropolitan Police Force. The City of London Police, which was set up in 1839, remains an independent force to this day.

HISTORY OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE

Time Line 1829 – 1849

Until 1829, law enforcement had been lacking in organisation. As London expanded during the 18th and 19th centuries the whole question of maintaining law and order had become a matter of public concern. In 1812, 1818 and 1822, Parliamentary committees were appointed to investigate the subject of crime and policing. But it was not until 1828 when Sir Robert Peel set up his committee that the findings paved the way for his police Bill, which led to the setting up of an organised police service in London.

1829	The formation of the Metropolitan Police Force on 29 September 1829 by Sir Robert Peel.

Sir Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne are appointed as Justices of the Peace in charge of the Force.1830PC Joseph Grantham becomes first officer to be killed on duty, at Somers Town, Euston. The Metropolitan Police ranks were increased considerably to 3,300 men.1831Further riots. A crowd attacks Apsley House, home of the Duke of Wellington, and break all the windows. The police eventually restore order.1832Richard Mayne, the Commissioner, tries to clarify the roles of the Magistrates and the Commissioners as the Bow Street Runners continue their existance.1833Coldbath Fields Riot (Grays Inn Road). A major crowd disturbance was dealt with by the Metropolitan Police with controversial use of force.

PC Robert Culley was killed at this event, and the jury returned a verdict of Justifiable Homicide.

1834The Select Committee designated with the task of inquiring into the state of the Police of the Metropolis reported ‘that the Metropolitan Police Force, as respects its influence in repressing crime and the security it has given to persons and property, is one of the most valuable modern institutions’

1835In October a fire breaks out at the Millbank Penitentiary and 400 Metropolitan Police officers and a detachment of the Guards are called to restore order. This prompted the press to call for the police to be put in command at all large fires.

1836The Metropolitan Police absorb the Bow Street Horse Patrol into its control.

1837Select Committee appointed to look into the affairs of the police offices. They also propose that the City of London be placed under the control of the Metropolitan Police.

1838Select Committee finally reports and recommends incorporating of Marine Police and Bow Street Runners into the Metropolitan Police and the disbandment of the Bow Street Office and other Offices. These were all agreed and put into effect.

1839The two Justices of the Peace, Rowan and Mayne are termed Commissioners by the Metropolitan Police Act 1839. Enlargement of the Metropolitan Police District by the same Act

.1840Gould Interrogation case in which Police Sergeant Otway attempts induced self-incrimination in the accused, which is immediately discountenanced by the Courts and Commissioner Richard Mayne.

1841Formation of Dockyard divisions of the Metropolitan police

.1842Formation of the Detective Department

.1843The Woolwich Arsenal became part of the area to be patrolled by the Metropolitan Police

.1844Richard Mayne, Commissioner, called to give evidence to the Select Committee on Dogs. He stated that in the Metropolis there were a rising number of lost or stolen dogs. In the preceding year over 600 dogs were lost and 60 stolen. He declared the law to be in a very unsatisfactory state as people paid money for restoration of dogs. ‘People pay monies to parties whom they have reason to believe have either stolen or enticed them away in order to get the reward…’ Mayne believed it to be organised crime.

1845The Commissioners, in returns to the Home Office, states that the aim of the Force was to have one Policeman to 450 head of population.

1846Plain clothes officers were frequently used at this time, but a June order made clear that two officers per division would be employed on detective duties, but that police in plain clothes must make themselves known if interfered with in their duty.

1847Statistics for the year were; 14,091 robberies; 62,181 people taken in charge, 24,689 of these were summarily dealt with; 5,920 stood trial and 4,551 were convicted and sentenced; 31,572 people were discharged by the magistrates.

The Metropolitan Police were still, despite their good record on crime prevention, facing discipline problems amongst their officers on the 18 divisions, with 238 men being dismissed in the year.

1848Large scale enrolement of Special constables to assist the Metropolitan Police in controlling the Chartist Demonstrations

.1849Authorised strength 5,493. In reality 5,288 were available for duty. The population at this time in London was 2,473,758.

Time Line 1850 – 1869

1850	Retirement of Sir Charles Rowan as joint Commissioner. Captain William Hay is appointed in his place.
1851	The Great Exhibition with its special crowd problems forces the police to temporarily form a new police division. The total manpower of the force at this time was 5,551, covering 688 square miles.
1852	Sir Charles Rowan, first joint Commissioner, dies. In his obituary note of 24 May The Times wrote: “No individual of any rank or station could be more highly esteemed or loved when living, or more regretted in death.”
1853	Lord Dudley Stuart, MP for Marylebone and a persistent critic of the police, suggests in Parliament that the police are not worth the money they cost. He recommends that they be reduced in numbers, and a higher class of officers be recruited to control the constables.
1854	Out of 5,700 in the Metropolitan Force, 2.5% were Scottish, 6.5% Irish. The Commissioner was not happy about employing these officers in areas of high Scottish or Irish ethnic concentrations.
1855	Death of Captain William Hay. Sir Richard Mayne becomes sole Commissioner.
1856	Detective Force increased to 10 men, with an extra Inspector and Sergeant.
1857	The Commissioner Richard Mayne is paid a salary of £1,883, and his two Assistant Commissioners are paid salaries of £800 each.
1858	First acquisition of Police van for conveying prisoners. These were horse drawn, and known as‘Black Marias’.
1859	Police orders of 6 January state “It is a great gratification to the Commissioner that the number of police guilty of the offence of drunkenness during the late Christmas holidays has been much lower than last year… In A, F and R Division only one man was reported in each, and in H Division not one man was reported in the present or last year..”
1860	Police begin the occasional use of hand ambulances for injured, sick or drunk people. Accommodation or ‘ambulance sheds’ are later provided for these in police station yards.
1861	Police orders on the 25 January made allowance for one third of Metropolitan Police officers in Dockyards “to be relieved each Sunday, to give them an opportunity of attending Divine Service…”

The Metropolitan Police act as firemen at the British Museum. The Superintendent in charge said of them “From their manner of doing the work, I should be inclined to place considerable confidence in these men in an emergency.”

1862Further expansion in the Metropolitan Police with the formations of the X and W Divisions in the west, and Y Division in the north

1863Drunkenness is still a problem in the force, and in this year 215 officers were dismissed for this reason

.1864Execution of 5 pirates of the ship ‘Flowery Land’ at Newgate. The Metropolitan Police supply nearly 800 officers to keep the peace.

1865Further extensions of the Metropolitan Police District in terms of the area patrolled in north east London.

1866 3,200 police under the command of Commissioner Richard Mayne were used to control a serious riot in Hyde Park. 28 police were permanently disabled, and Mayne was hit by a stone which cut his head open. He was forced to call in the Military to restore order

.1867The Metropolitan Police are severely criticised after Commissioner Richard Mayne ignores a warning about the Clerkenwell bombing by the Fenians. Mayne offers his resignation, but it is refused.1868Death of Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne. Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Labalmondiere acts as Commissioner.

1869Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Henderson appointed Commissioner.

Time Line 1870 – 1889

1870	The standard height for Metropolitan Police officers is raised to 5ft 8ins, except for Thames Division, where it is 5ft 7ins.
1871	As a result of frequent larcenies of linen, the Commissioner Edmund Henderson said, on the 21 April, “Constables are to call at the houses of all persons on their beats having wet linen in their gardens, and caution them of the risk they run in having them stolen…”
1872	Police strike for the first time. Various men are disciplined or dismissed, although these latter are later allowed back in to the Force.
1873	The Metropolitan Police acquire 9 new stations : North Woolwich, Rodney Road (Lock’s Fields), Chislehurst, Finchley, Isleworth, Putney, South Norwood, Harrow and Enfield Town.
1874	A survey of recruiting over a 2 year period showed that of those who had joined the force; 31% came from land jobs, 12% from military services, and 5% from other police jobs. The remainder came mostly from manual jobs. The majority of recruits and serving officers came from outside of London.
1875	New police offices at Great Scotland Yard are taken possession of on 4 October 1875 by the Detective and Public Carriage Departments.
1876	8 January the following order was released : “Relief from duty during severe weather – dufing the present severe weather as much indulgence as possible is to be given to the men on night duty, due regard being had to public safety..”
1877	Trial of the Detectives or Turf Fraud Scandal exposes corruption within the Force.
1878	Charles Vincent was appointed Director of Criminal Investigations, the reformed Detective Branch which became known as C.I.D.
1879	Initial rules for dealing with Murder cases, released on 7 June, stated “the body must not be moved, nor anything about it or in the room or place interfered with, and the public must be excluded..”
1880	Formation of the Convict Supervision Office for the assistance and control of convicts discharged upon license.
1881	Possibly London’s most famous police station, Bow Street, was rebuilt in this year.
1882	The growth of London and the area needing policing is illustrated in Tottenham, (Y Division) when 8 miles of new streets are formed in a year with nearly 4,000 houses on them.

The Metropolitan Police at Devonport Dockyard illustrate the diversity of the role of the force as the Police Fire Brigade has its busiest year since formation with 6 major fires

.1883Special Irish Branch formed

.1884A bomb explodes at Scotland Yard planted by the Fenians. The Special Irish Branch are hit.

1885The strength of the force at this time was 13,319, but statistics show that only 1,383 officers were available for beat duty in the day. The population of London at this time was 5,255,069.Public outrage at the explosions at the Tower of London and Houses of Parliament. Two men are sentenced to penal servitude for life as a result.

1886Trafalgar Square riot forces resignation of the Commissioner Sir Edmund Henderson.

1887Major riot in Trafalgar Square, known as ‘Bloody Sunday’, the first test for the new Commissioner Sir Charles Warren, appointed the previous year.

1888Sir Charles Warren resigns after a dispute with the Home Office, and James Monro is appointed Commissioner in his place.

Jack the Ripper murders in the Whitechapel area.1889The last of the so called “Whitechapel” murders is discovered with the death in Castle Alley on 17 July of Alice McKenzie.

Time Line 1890 – 1909

1890	Opening of the new headquarters at the Norman Shaw Building on the Embankment known as New Scotland Yard.

Police strike at Bow Street Police Station.

Sir Edward Bradford is appointed Commissioner after the resignation of James Monro.

1891The Public Carriage and Lost Property Offices move from Great Scotland Yard to the new offices at New Scotland Yard on the 21 March.

1892Dismissals and rank and pay reductions were common at this point, and the case of Pc379A Best whose resignation on 21 July illustrates how the Metropolitan Police attempted to keep its men in order. He was “in possession of a tea-can, the property of another constable, obliterating the owners number, substituting his own name and number, telling a deliberate falsehood in connection therewith; and considered unfit for the police force

”1893PC George Cooke, a serving officer, is convicted for murder and hanged.

1894The Alphonse Bertillon system of identification comes into operation.1895To join the Metropolitan Police the following qualifications were necessary:

• to be over 21 and under 27 years of age
• to stand clear 5ft 9ins without shoes or stockings
• to be able to read well, write legibly and have a fair knowledge of spelling
• to be generally intelligent
• to be free from any bodily complaint

The bodily complaints for which candidates were rejected included; flat foot, stiffness of joints, narrow chest and deformities of the face.

1896Public Carriage Office and Lost Property Offices amalgamate under the designation ‘Public Carriage Branch’.

1897Metropolitan Police Officers granted a boot allowance instead of being supplied with boots. Police boots at this time were loathed, only Sir Edward Bradford, the Commissioner, believing them suitable.

1898After a series of assaults and the murder of PC Baldwin in the vicinity of the Kingsland Road, there are calls for the Metropolitan Police to be armed with revolvers.

1899High rate of suicides amongst officers. This is blamed by certain commentators on harsh discipline and insensitive handling of the men.

As the century draws to a close it is worth noting that the Metropolitan Police on formation in 1829 had a force of about 3,000 men, and by 1899 16,000. The population of London had grown from 1,500,000 to 7 million.

1900Construction of a new floating police station at Waterloo Pier.Lord Belper Committee inquire into the best system of identification of possible criminals

.1901The Fingerprint Bureau commences operation after the findings of the Belper Report. Anthropometric measurements under the Bertillon system are still used, but begin to decline in importance.

1902The coronation of King Edward VII makes major demands on the police, resulting in 512 police pensioners being recalled for duty. Extra pay, leave and a medal were granted to all serving officers.

1903Sir Edward Bradford retires as Commissioner to be replaced by Edward Henry.

19046 new stations buildt at East Ham, Hackney, John Street, Muswell Hill, North Woolwich and Tower Bridge. 1 is near completion and 2 other started. Major works take place on 23 other stations.

1905An article in Police Review mentions that Pc William Hallett of Y Division, who had retired after 26 years as a mounted officer, had ridden 144,000 miles or more than 5 times around the world in the course of his duty.

1906The Metropolitan Police at this stage in their history are on duty for 13 days a fortnight and have an additional leave of 10 days.

1907Clash between the Metropolitan Police and 800 Suffragettes outside the House of Commons on 13 February. Mounted and Foot officers are used to disperse them, and allegations of brutality are made.

1908Police Review reports “the authorities at Scotland Yard have been seriously discussing the use of dogs as the constable companion and help, and Sir Edward Henry (Commissioner), who regards the innovation sympathetically, considers the only crucial objection to be the sentimental prejudices of the public.”

1909The Tottenham Outrage occurs, in the course of which PC William Tyler and a 10 year old boy are shot dead by anarchists.

Time Line 1910 – 1929

1910	Radio Telegraphy used for the first time, resulting in the capture of Doctor Crippen.

The miners strike in South Wales results in many Metropolitan Police officers assisting to maintain law and order.

1911The Siege of Sidney Street results in armed Metropolitan Police officers taking to the streets with the military to deal with armed anarchist criminals.

1912Assassination attempt on the life of the Commissioner, Sir Edward Henry.

Establishment of the Metropolitan Police Special Constabulary on a permanent basis.

1913The Commissioner calls for legislation to be introduced to restrict the trade in pistols following the assassination attempt on his own life.

1914With the outbreak of war, 24,000 Special Constables are sworn in, and by the end of the year there are 31,000. Annual leave is suspended for the first year of the war.

Women Police founded in this year.

1915London Ambulance Service commences operation, taking over some of the duties originally performed by the Metropolitan Police. However, police in this year convey over 11,000 people to hospital.

1916The Commissioner Sir Edward Henry signs a Police Order in November stating that any member of the Metropolitan Police renders himself liable to dismissal by joining a union.

1917At this point in WW1, some 2,300 members of the Metropolitan Police were serving in the armed services.

1918Major strike of Metropolitan Police in search of better pay and conditions, and union recognition. Sir Edward Henry resigns as Commissioner, and is replaced by Sir Nevil Macready.

1919Macready crushes a further police strike.

Women Police Patrols appointed.

Formation of Flying Squad.

1920Sir Nevil Macready retires as Commissioner, and is replaced by Brigadier-General Sir William Horwood.

1921The Police Pensions Act comes into force, fixing an age limit for each rank at which retirement shall be compulsory.

Z Division formed on the South side of the River Thames.

1922Commissioner Horwood admits that many of the men taken into the force in 1919 to replace strikers and those in the armed forces have given trouble due to neglecting their beats and drunkenness.

The Commissioner also comments on the growth in consumption of methylated spirits, with 80 convictions this year.

Women Constables reduced to an establishment of 20.

1923First Cup Final at Wembley leads to major crowd problems, controlled by the Mounted Branch. Billy, the White Horse of Wembley, and his rider Pc George Scorey become a legend.

1924The Commissioner explains in his Annual Report how the social status of a Metropolitan policeman has been raised due to his conditions of employment.

1925The Metropolitan Police begin to withdraw from policing dockyards (including Rosyth, Pembroke, Deptford Dockyards) and War Department Stations.

Sir James Olive retires from his position as an Assistant Commissioner after 53 years service.

1926Attempt to assasinate Commissioner Horwood with poisoned chocolates

1927Public Carriage Office transfered to Lambeth

1928Retirement of Brigadier-General Sir William Horwood. Viscount Byng of Vimy appointed new Commissioner.

1929Centenery of Metropolitan Police celebrated with a parade in Hyde Park and inspection by HRH the Prince of Wales.

The Police Box system commences on an experimental basis in Richmond and Wood Green.

Time Line 1930 – 1949

1930	Large number of men posted to Motor Patrol work: 4 subdivisional Inspectors, 31 Sergeants, and 324 Constables.
1931	Commissioner Byng retires. Lord Trenchard appointed.
1932	Lord Trenchard abolishes the timed Beat System and sets out his thoughts about the Metropolitan Police Personnel recruitment and promotion system.
1933	Trenchard begins his programme for the improvement of Section Houses.
1934	The Metropolitan Police College opens at Hendon.

Metropolitan Police withdraw from Devonport Dockyard, bringing to a close its presence in HM Dockyards.

1935Metropolitan Police Forensic Laboratory opened.

Lord Trenchard retires as Commissioner, and Sir Philip Game is appointed in his place.

1936The Battle of Cable Street involves the Metropolitan Police in street battles with opposing political factions.

1937The 999 system is introduced.

1938Civil Defence starts with the formation of two Reserves in the event of war. The first are retired officers, the second Special Constables.

1939I.R.A. activity results in 59 explosions in the Metropolitan Police District. 55 people are convicted for these offences.

194098 Metropolitan Police officers killed during air raids.

Click here to read about the MPS officer murdered in Hyde Park during the war

1941Air raid bombings continue, and Holloway police station is destroyed. Somers Town, Sydenham and Brixton stations are too badly damaged to be used.

1942Police officers allowed to volunteer for the Armed Forces.

1943In an attempt to curb housebreaking, the Commissioner Sir Philip Game asks people not to keep furs, saying “they are no doubt warmer, and look nicer than a tweed coat, but a live dog is better than a dead lion.

”1944Looting reaches an all time record.

1945Sir Philip Game retires and is replaced as Commissioner by Harold Scott

.1946The Metropolitan and City Police Company Fraud Department is formed.

1947Metropolitan Police face a deficiency of 4,730 men as a result of the war.

1948Indictable crime rate falls to 126,000 crimes, but this is still 40% higher than before the war.

1949Lord Oakseys committee reports on police pay, recommending small increases and London weighting.

Time Line 1950 – 1969

1950	The Metropolitan Police Roll of Honour is unveiled at Westminster Abbey by the Queen, displaying the names of officers killed in the 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 wars.
1951	Commissioner Harold Scott introduces training of cadets aged 16 – 18 to become police officers.
1952	The Dixon Report advocates many changes in the Metropolitan Police, including greater civilianisation.
1953	Sir Harold Scott retires, and is replaced as Commissioner by Sir John Nott-Bower.
1954	Serious understaffing problems, with the force consisting of only 16,000 and needing an estimated 4,000 men, mainly Police Constables.
1955	Formation of the Central Traffic Squad, consisting of 100 men.
1956	Flying Squad makes over 1,000 arrests, a record since its formation.
1957	New Information Room opens at New Scotland Yard.
1958	Sir John Nott-Bower retires as Commissioner. He is replaced by Joseph Simpson.
1959	Indictable offences reach over 160,000, the highest recorded to date.
1960	Traffic Wardens introduced.

Criminal Intelligence Section and Stolen Motor Vehicle Investigation branches established.

1961The Receivers Office moved from Scotland House to new premises at Tintagel House.

The Minicab arrives on the London scene, and the Metropolitan Police obtain 24 convictions for illegal plying for hire.

1962The rate of indictable crimes for this year reaches an all time high – 214,120.

The series ‘Police 5′, designed to prevent crime, begins on BBC.

1963The Commissioner, Joseph Simpson, stresses the need for the Beat system to reduce motorised patrols and deter incidents of crime.

The first computer to be used by the Met (an ICT 1301) was set up in the office of the Receiver for use on pay and crime statistics.

1964The worst year so far this century for crime, with over a quarter of a million indictable crimes.

Regional Crime Squads formed.

Police face major criticism and complaints as a result of the Challenor Case, in which a policeman was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and made infamous for planting evidence

.1965Special Patrol Group formed consisting of 100 officers. It arrested 396 people in its first 9 months of operation.

1966The Commissioner’s Office and the Receiver’s Office are combined.
3 Metropolitan Police officers murdered at Shepherds Bush.

1967The headquarters is moved from the Norman Shaw Building to a new building in Broadway, just off Victoria Street. The name of New Scotland Yard is retained.

Norwell Roberts joins the Met as the first black police officer. He retired after 30 years service with the rank of Detective Sergeant and received the QPM in 1996.1968Sir Joseph Simpson dies in service, and is replaced as Commissioner b

y John Waldron.

1969MPS officers sent to offer assistance in the Anguilla crisis.

Serious Crime Squad becomes permanent.

Time Line 1970 – 1989

1970	Clear up rate on indictable crimes reaches 28%, the best since 1957.
1971	The Commissioner (John Waldron) in his annual report said “With deep and lasting traditions the Metropolitan Police is an impressive institution by every standard and in any company in the world.”
1972	Sir John Waldron is succeeded as Commissioner by Robert Mark.
1973	Robert Mark works to restore the integrity of the Metropolitan Police, and 90 officers leave as a result.

Mark establishes better relations with the media by setting out a policy of openness.

Women police are integrated directly into the force.

1974The Peel Centre at Hendon is modernised and reopended as the Training School

.1975Robert Mark makes an appeal on television for ethnic recruits.

Balcombe Street and Spaghetti House sieges were both brought to successful conclusions by the Met.

1976Major riot at Notting Hill Carnival, in which more than 400 officers and civilian staff were injured.

1977David McNee becomes Commissioner after the retirement of Sir Robert Mark.

1978An inquiry into police pay by Lord Edmund-Davies results in higher allowances and better pay to officers.

1979The Metropolitan Police celebrates its 150th Anniversary.

A new Force Inspectorate is formed, to provide a close and continuing assessment of the efficiency of all units of the force.

1980Iranian Embassy siege brought to a successful conclusion after co-operation between the Met and the Special Air Service Regiment.

Formation of Metropolitan Air Support Unit with its own Bell 222 helicopter.

1981Brixton Riots involve the Metropolitan Police in the largest civil disturbance this century.

1982Sir David McNee retires as Commissioner to be replaced by Sir Kenneth Newman.

1983With the aid of the MPS Policy Committee Sir Kenneth Newman devises a new statement of the Principles of Policing, and in doing so changes the emphasis from the primary objectives of policing established by Richard Mayne and Sir Charles Rowan in 1829.

1984PC Jon Gordon lost both legs and part of a hand in the IRA bomb attack on Harrods in 1983. On 10 December 1984 he resumed duty by walking unaided up the steps to his new office.

Whilst policing a demonstration in St James’s Square, WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot in the back and mortally wounded by shots fired from the Libyan People’s Bureau. WPC Fletcher’s murder led to the creation of the Police Memorial Trust, an organisation dedicated to placing memorials at the locations of fallen officers

1985Tottenham Riots (also known as ‘Broadwater Farm’ riot) result in the murder of PC Keith Blakelock.

1986Identification Parade screens introduced at Clapham police station.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act comes into force in January.

Mounted Branch celebrates its 150th anniversary.

1987Sir Kenneth Newman retires, and is replaced as Commissioner by Peter Imbert.

1988The Commissioner stresses the need for close community liaison between the Police and Consultative Groups to foster the police / public partnership.

1989‘Plus Programme’ launched to improve the corporate image and quality of the service of the Metropolitan Police. It significantly altered attitudes within the MPS, and included the Statement of Common Purpose and Values.

Time Line 1990 – 1999

1990	Riot in Trafalgar Square mirrors the 1887 riot in the same location.
1991	Sector Policing introduced, involving a team of officers with a continuing responsibility for the same small community area or sector.
1992	First 5 year Corporate Strategy published in February.
1993	Sir Peter Imbert retires, and is replaced as Commissioner by Sir Paul Condon.

Operation Bumblebee introduced on the 1 June and has a considerable impact on burglary in the capital.

The Charter is launched in September, defining the role of the Police and public expectation

1994Metropolitan Police Service key objectives established for the first time by the Government, plus key performance indicators.

1995Metropolitan Police Committee formed on 1 April.

Crime Report Information System (CRIS) introduced. It revolutionises the means of recording crimes.

1996‘The London Beat’ published.

The MPS launches its Website at www.met.police.uk. Click here to find out more about this website.

1997Installation of N.A.F.I.S. the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

1998The Metropolitan Police launch the Policing Diversity Strategy in response to the majority of issues raised into the Inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. The aim is to provide better protection to ethnic communities from racial and violent crime and demonstrate fairness in every aspect of policing.

1999The handling of the Greek Embassy siege demonstrates the professionalism of the Metropolitan Police Service.

Time Line 2000-2009

2000	Sir Paul Condon retires and is replaced as Commissioner by Sir John Stevens. Sir John issues his Policing Pledge for Londoners.
2004	Wednesday 29 September was an historic day as the Met celebrated 175 years of policing London.
2005	Sir Ian Blair becomes Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
2008	Sir Ian Blair resigns from the post of Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
2009	Sir Paul Stephenson becomes Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police

HERE’S A FEW ITEMS HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL ….

NETFLIX UK DARK TOURIST ATTRACTION. ‘WHERE GOOD & EVIL COLLIDE, WHERE FANTASY MEETS A BRUTAL REALITY’…. WITH THE BIRTH OF ISIS. IT’S ALL HERE AND MUCH MORE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK … A DISTURBINGLY VOLATILE MIX OF MYTH AND REALITY AS THE DARK SIDE AWAKENS IN THE FOREST OF DEAN.

ABOVE: OIL PAINTING BY LITTLEDEAN JAIL’S IN-HOUSE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN HERE ON DISPLAY WITHIN OUR DARK TOURIST ART GALLERY .

PLEASE BE WARNED … THIS EXHIBITION ALONG WITH THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OR THOSE EASILY DISTURBED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ….

With some of the scenes from the new Star Wars film ” The Force Awakens” having been filmed at Puzzlewood here in Coleford ( not too far from Littledean Jail) , we have ourselves now  added an intriguing and volatile mix of myth and reality with our own insight into THE FEDAYEEN SADDAM ( Saddam Hussein’s “Men of Sacrifice”) . This was an Iraqi paramilitary militia and personal bodyguard division formed by Saddam’s equally brutal dictator son Uday, who were  accountable only to Saddam and Uday .

THE FEDAYEEN SADDAM ENFORCERS wore a helmet that was designed by Uday  to mirror the helmet worn by Star Wars villain Darth Vader. Also the all black uniform , though without the “Darth Vader” cape .

Both Saddam and his son Uday were keen fans of  Star Wars films . Even Saddams infamous “Hands of Victory ” monuments at the gateways to Baghdad, to celebrate the defeat of Iran in the Iran – Iraq War…  were based on the “Empire Strikes Back ” film poster image (see below) depicting Darth Vader holding  crossed Lightsabers .

Here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , and new for 2016 … we have pieced together ” The Dark Side of the Fedayeen”exhibition, This to compliment Saddam and Uday’s fascination and interest  with Star Wars phenomena . This being alongside various other Star Wars signed memorabilia , action figures and also on a more serious note, the brutal acts of the Fedayeen and the Iraqi regime .

NOT FORGETTING OF COURSE THAT AFTER THE FALL OF SADDAM’S REGIME IN 2003 , THE FEDAYEEN AND SOME 100 OR SO OF SADDAM’S CHIEF COMMANDERS BECAME THE FOUNDERS AND LEADERS OF THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIS), FOR WHICH IS STILL VERY MUCH  CONTROLLED   BY SADDAM HUSSEIN’S FORMER  CHIEFS SOME 13 YEARS OR SO LATER .

 

THE VIEW OF MANY IS THAT WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT SADDAM HUSSAIN’S IRAQI REGIME TO RULE IT’S OWN COUNTRY AS THEY FELT FIT TO DO SO . . 

TO A GREAT MANY ….A SEEMINGLY COSTLY AND POINTLESS WAR AGAINST A CULTURE AND RELIGION THAT MOST OF THE WESTERN WORLD DO NOT UNDERSTAND AND YET HAVE SEEMED FIT TO INTERFERE IN.

THIS HAVING RESULTED IN A TRAGIC LOSS OF A GREAT  MANY LIVES ON ALL SIDES. MANY ARGUE THAT WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE GOT INVOLVED IN THIS EQUALLY SEEMINGLY NEVER ENDING WAR? 

 Above  from left: ORIGINAL STAR WARS FILM POSTER ADVERITISING “THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK” PICTURED HERE ALONGSIDE SADDAM HUSSEIN’S INFAMOUS “HANDS OF VICTORY ” MONUMENTS AT THE GATEWAYS TO BAGHDAD , IRAQ

Fedayeen Saddam (فدائيي صدام) was a paramilitary organization loyal to the Ba’athist government of Saddam Hussein. The name was chosen to mean “Saddam’s Men of Sacrifice”. At its height, the group had 30,000-40,000 members. 

BELOW: THE ORIGINAL STAR WARS DARTH VADER HELMET ALONG SIDE AN ORIGINAL FEDAYEEN SADDAM ( SADDAM’S MEN OF SACRIFICE ) HELMET . THEY CERTAINLY MIRROR EACH OTHER AS  WAS UDAY HUSSEIN’S WISH

  BELOW ARE VARIOUS INFORMATIVE AND INTERACTIVE ILLUSTRATIONS AS FEATURED HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL , UK 

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ABOVE IS A SLIDESHOW OF SOME OF THE FEDAYEEN SADDAM ( SADDAM’S “MEN OF SACRIFCE”) UNIFORM AND OTHER ASSOCIATED EXHIBIT ITEMS ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

The Fedayeen Saddam was not part of Iraq‘s regular armed forces but rather operated as a paramilitary unit of irregular forces. As a result of this, the Fedayeen reported directly to the Presidential Palace, rather than through the military chain of command. Whilst paramilitary the Fedayeen were not an elite military force, often receiving just basic training and operating without heavy weapons. In this they were somewhat similar to the Basij of Iran or Shabbiha militia of Syria.

Much like other paramilitaries, the Fedayeen was volunteer based and the units were never given an official salary. As a result, most of the members resorted to extortion and theft of property from the general population, even though the members had access to sanction-evading trade and high quality services (i.e. new cars, hospitals reserved for officials, expensive electronics) and a general standard of living considerably higher than that of the average Iraqi of the time.However, they were ordered not to threaten or harm any government officials. This group wasn’t religious or anything so it had a mix of sunni and Shia minority.

ORIGINAL FEDAYEEN SADDAM UNIFORM ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL

ORIGINAL FEDAYEEN SADDAM UNIFORM ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL

The Fedayeen were among the most loyal organizations to the government of Saddam Hussein and were a politically reliable force against domestic opponents. The Fedayeen played a role in the 2003 war, resisting the American invasion.

BELOW: An original oil painting depicting notorious ISIS Executioner “Jihadi John” unmasked .

BELOW: An original oil painting depicting notorious ISIS Executioner “The Bulldozer ” unmasked .

The secret to ISIS’s success: Over 100 former Saddam Hussein-era officers run jihadi group’s military and intelligence operations in Iraq and Syria

• Intelligence source said 100 to 160 former Iraqi army officers with ISIS 
• The 2003 US led invasion of Iraq led Saddam Hussein to allow foreign fighters to join the resistance against the invaders 
• ISIS’s deputy leader Abu Muslim al-Turkmani was an Iraqi army major 

Once part of one of the most brutal dictator’s army in the Middle East, over 100 former members of Saddam Hussein’s military and intelligence officers are now part of ISIS.

Now they make up the complex network of ISIS’s leadership, helping to build the military strategies which have led the brutal jihadi group to their military gains in Syria and Iraq.

The officers gave ISIS the organization and discipline it needed to weld together jihadi fighters drawn from across the globe, integrating terror tactics like suicide bombings with military operations.

Self-appointed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the formation of an Islamic Caliphate in June 2014

 

While attending the Iraqi army’s artillery school nearly 20 years ago, Ali Omran remembers one major well. An Islamic hard-liner, he once chided Omran for wearing an Iraqi flag pin into the bathroom because it included the words ‘God is great.’

‘It is forbidden by religion to bring the name of the Almighty into a defiled place like this,’ Omran recalled being told by Maj. Taha Taher al-Ani.

Omran didn’t see al-Ani again until years later, in 2003. The Americans had invaded Iraq and were storming toward Baghdad. Saddam Hussein’s fall was imminent.

At a sprawling military base north of the capital, al-Ani was directing the loading of weapons, ammunition and ordnance into trucks to spirit away. He took those weapons with him when he joined Tawhid wa’l-Jihad, a forerunner of al-Qaida’s branch in Iraq.

Now al-Ani is a commander in the Islamic State group, said Omran, who rose to become a major general in the Iraqi army and now commands its 5th Division fighting IS.

He kept track of his former comrade through Iraq’s tribal networks and intelligence gathered by the government’s main counter terrorism service, of which he is a member.

Surrounding al-Baghdadi, ex-Baathists continue to drive forward the group’s military strategy in Iraq and Syria

One of the most prominent former Iraqi Army generals within ISIS was Abu Muslim al-Turkmani (left) who led the terrorists’ operations in Iraq until he was killed in an American airstrike last November. Abu Ayman al-Iraqi (right), a former colonel in Iraqi Air Force intelligence now plays a leading role in ISIS’ military council

Tyrant: Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein built his regime and cult of personality through his use of fear

Deadly: Foreign fighters have flocked from around the world, attracted by the brutal group’s propaganda

They have been put in charge of intelligence-gathering, spying on the Iraqi forces as well as maintaining and upgrading weapons and trying to develop a chemical weapons program.

Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer who has served in Iraq, said Saddam-era military and intelligence officers were a ‘necessary ingredient’ in the Islamic State group’s stunning battlefield successes last year, accounting for its transformation from a ‘terrorist organization to a proto-state.’

‘Their military successes last year were not terrorist, they were military successes,’ said Skinner, now director of special projects for The Soufan Group, a private strategic intelligence services firm.

The group’s second-in-command, al-Baghdadi’s deputy, is a former Saddam-era army major, Saud Mohsen Hassan, known by the pseudonyms Abu Mutazz and Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, according to the intelligence chief.

Hassan also goes by Fadel al-Hayali, a fake name he used before the fall of Saddam, the intelligence chief, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

• 

Targeted: Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi (left) – who had been the head of Baghdadi’s four man military council – was killed by a coalition warplane last year. Another militant reportedly killed in an airstrike was Abu Hajar Al-Sufi (right) who had been one of Baghdadi’s most trusted advisers on the Shura Council

 

US soldiers and Iraqi civilians pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein at the start of the 2003 Iraq War

ISIS’s strength of ideology in vowing to maintain an Islamic state governed by Shari’ah law, has attracted considerable support from Islamists

During the 2000s, Hassan was imprisoned in the notorious U.S.-run Bucca prison camp, the main detention center for members of the Sunni insurgency, where al-Baghdadi also was held.

The prison was a significant incubator for the Islamic State group, bringing militants like al-Baghdadi into contact with former Saddam officers, including members of special forces, the elite Republican Guard and the paramilitary force called Fedayeen.

In Bucca’s Ward 6, al-Baghdadi gave sermons and Hassan emerged as an effective organizer, leading strikes by the prisoners to gain concessions from their American jailers, the intelligence chief said.

Former Bucca prisoners are now throughout the IS leadership. Among them is Abu Alaa al-Afari, a veteran Iraqi militant who was once with al-Qaida and now serves as the head of IS’s ‘Beit al-Mal,’ or treasury, according to a chart of what is believed to be the group’s hierarchy provided to the AP by the intelligence chief.

Al-Baghdadi has drawn these trusted comrades even closer after he was wounded in an airstrike earlier this year, the intelligence chief said.

He has appointed a number of them to the group’s Military Council, believed to have seven to nine members – at least four of whom are former Saddam officers. He brought other former Bucca inmates into his inner circle and personal security.

Saddam-era veterans also serve as ‘governors’ for seven of the 12 ‘provinces’ set up by the Islamic State group in the territory it holds in Iraq, the intelligence chief said.

Iraqi officials acknowledge that identifying IS leadership is an uncertain task. Besides al-Baghdadi himself, the group almost never makes public even the pseudonyms of those in its hierarchy.

When leaders are killed, it’s often not known who takes their place – and several have been reported killed multiple times, only to turn up alive. Figures are believed to take on new pseudonyms, leaving it unclear if a new one has emerged or not.

 

Brutal: ISIS continue to carry out horrific public executions and floggings in Syria and Iraq

Gunned down: Iraqi army recruits were executed in the Speicher massacre last summer

 

No mercy: The militants have targeted religious minorities, particularly the Yazidis and rebellious tribes

‘IS’s military performance has far exceeded what we expected. The running of battles by the veterans of the Saddam military came as a shock,’ a brigadier general in military intelligence told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

‘Security-wise, we are often left unable to know who replaces who in the leadership. We are unable to infiltrate the group. It is terrifying.’

Estimates of the number of Saddam-era veterans in IS ranks vary from 100 to 160 in mostly mid- and senior-level positions, according to the officials.

Typically, they hail from Sunni-dominated areas, with intelligence officers mostly from western Anbar province, the majority of army officers from the northern city of Mosul and members of security services exclusively from Saddam’s clan around his hometown of Tikrit, said Big. Gen. Abdul-Wahhab al-Saadi, a veteran of battles against IS north and west of Baghdad.

For example, a former brigadier general from Saddam-era special forces, Assem Mohammed Nasser, also known as Nagahy Barakat, led a bold assault in 2014 on Haditha in Anbar province, killing around 25 policemen and briefly taking over the local government building.

Many of the Saddam-era officers have close tribal links to or are the sons of tribal leaders in their regions, giving IS a vital support network as well as helping recruitment.

These tribal ties are thought to account, at least in part, for the stunning meltdown of Iraqi security forces when IS captured the Anbar capital of Ramadi in May.

Several of the officers interviewed by the AP said they believe IS commanders persuaded fellow tribesmen in the security forces to abandon their positions without a fight.

Skinner, the former CIA officer, noted the sophistication of the Saddam-era intelligence officers he met in Iraq and the intelligence capabilities of IS in Ramadi, Mosul and in the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria.

‘They do classic intelligence infiltration. They have stay-behind cells, they actually literally have sleeper cells,’ Skinner said.

• 

The process of giving former Iraqi commanders senior roles was started by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s predecessor Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (left) who was a former Iraqi Army officer nother former member of Saddam Hussein’s army turned ISIS commander, Abu Musa al-Alwani (right), has also been killed

Militant Islamist fighters wave flags as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria’s northern Raqqa province in 2014

Bleek future: With their black flags and military gear, the new ISIS recruits graduate in Deir ezzor

‘And they do classic assassinations, which depends on intelligence,’ he said, citing a wave of assassinations in 2013 that targeted Iraqi police, army, hostile tribal leaders and members of a government-backed Sunni militia known as Sahwa.

In the run-up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Saddam publicly invited foreign mujahedeen to come to Iraq to resist the invaders.

Thousands came and Iraqi officials showed them off to the media as they were trained by Iraqi instructors. Many stayed, eventually joining the insurgency against American troops and their Iraqi allies.

After the collapse of the Saddam regime, hundreds of Iraqi army officers, infuriated by the U.S. decision to disband the Iraqi army, found their calling in the Sunni insurgency. In its early stages, many insurgent groups were relatively secular.

But Islamic militants grew in prominence, particularly with the creation and increasing strength of al-Qaida in Iraq. Some Sunnis were radicalized by bitterness against the Shiite majority, which rose to power after Saddam’s fall and which the Sunnis accuse of discriminating against them.

Al-Qaida in Iraq was initially led by a Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and had a strong foreign presence in its leadership. But after al-Zarqawi’s death in a 2006 U.S. airstrike, his Iraqi successor, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, began to bring in more Iraqis, particularly former Saddam officers. That process was accelerated when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took over after his predecessor was killed in a 2010 airstrike.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s first two deputies, who each played a major role in setting up what would become its sweep over Syria and Iraq, were both Saddam-era officers, according to those interviewed by the AP.

They were Sameer al-Khalifawy, an air force colonel killed in fighting in Syria in 2014, and Abdullah el-Bilawy, a former intelligence officer who was killed in Mosul by the Iraqi military in May 2014, a month before the city fell to the Islamic State group. He was replaced by the current deputy, Hassan.

‘It’s clear that some of these (Saddam-era officers) must have been inside the core of the jihadist movement in the Sunni triangle from the beginning,’ said Michael W.S. Ryan, a former senior executive at the State Department and Pentagon, referring to the Sunni-dominated area that was the most hostile to American forces in Iraq.

‘Their knowledge is now in the DNA of ISIS,’ he said, using an alternate acronym for the extremist group.

‘This melding of the Iraqi experience and what we might call the Afghan Arab experience became the unique ISIS brand,’ said Ryan, now a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.

‘That brand ultimately became more successful in Iraq than al-Qaida in Iraq … and, at least for now, stronger in Syria than al-Qaida.’

IN MEMORY OF ……FALKLANDS WAR PARACHUTE REGIMENT HERO…… LIEUTENANT COLONEL HERBERT JONES VC . OBE. ( simply known as H Jones) killed in action on 28 May 1982 during the Battle of Goose Green .

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Jones, VC, OBE (14 May 1940 – 28 May 1982), known as H. Jones, was a British army officer and posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross. He was awarded the VC after being killed in action during the Battle of Goose Green for his actions as commanding officer of 2 Battalion, Parachute Regiment during the Falklands War.

ABOVE AND BELOW  : COMMEMORATIVE BRONZE FIGURINE DEPICTING  COLONEL H JONES , 2 PARA  ON DISPLAY IN AND AMONGST THE UK SPECIAL FORCES EXHIBITION AREA  AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL

On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a remote UK colony in the South Atlantic. The move led to a brief, but bitter war.

Argentina’s military junta hoped to restore its support at a time of economic crisis, by reclaiming sovereignty of the islands. It said it had inherited them from Spain in the 1800s and they were close to South America.

The UK, which had ruled the islands for 150 years, quickly chose to fight. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said the 1,800 Falklanders were “of British tradition and stock”. A task force was sent to reclaim the islands, 8,000 miles away.

In the fighting that followed, 655 Argentine and 255 British servicemen lost their lives, as did three Falkland Islanders.

 

 

medals awarded to H Jones posthumously .

Rare bronze statue on plinth ( 18 inch tall ) of Colonel H Jones , now on display at Littledean Jail .

Plaque on side of Rare bronze statue on plinth ( 18 inch tall ) of Colonel H Jones , now on display at Littledean Jail .

Rare bronze statue on plinth ( 18 inch tall ) of Colonel H Jones , now on display at Littledean Jail .

Colonel H Jones memorial situated oa the Falkland Islands

Colonel H Jones memorial plaque

Colonel H Jones gravestone

Memorial , listing some of those soldiers who were killed in action during the 1982 Falklands War

Was Colonel ‘H’ a mad fool?

Last updated at 00:39 12 May 2007

Much has been written about the hero’s death that won Colonel ‘H’ Jones a Falklands VC.

Here, for the first time, is the brutally honest and vivid account of one of the Paras who fought with him.

It raises some deeply unsettling questions

My breath sounded like a storm in my ears. Surely they could hear it? They were only a dozen metres away – no distance at all.

You know you’re really scared when you think your own breathing is going to betray you.

Sliding my weapon into the crook of my arms, I inched forward on my elbows, pushing slowly, very slowly, with my feet.

The slightest sound could lead to catastrophe for our patrol. Every movement I made was carefully measured and weighed.

I was soaked to the skin, and my knees and thighs were bruised by the rocky ground I’d crawled over.

My hands were numb with cold, and the muscles on my neck and shoulders were clenched like a vice. But I had to concentrate.

There was an Argy trench directly in front of me. No enemy visible. One heavy machine gun in place. Couldn’t miss that. I was staring straight down its barrel.

Another trench 20 yards to the left. Two enemy talking – and pink toilet paper everywhere.

The dirty devils had not dug latrines, they’d just walked out of their trenches and fouled the ground in front of their own positions.

This was encouraging. It told us they’d been worn down by the wind and weather and couldn’t be bothered to dig pits in the freezing cold.

If they were similarly sloppy about sentry duty, that was good news for our lads.

Surprisingly, no one seemed to be manning the gun pointing straight up my nose. What was going on in that trench? Better take a closer look.

As I inched forward, I could hear the Argies still chatting away in a low murmur. What were they talking about? Girlfriends? Mothers? The price of penguin meat?

All that mattered was that there was no edge of alarm in their voices; no hint they’d heard anything. I didn’t need Spanish to know they hadn’t rumbled us.

One more push and I was nearly close enough to touch the ice-cold barrel of that machine-gun.

Cloaked by the mist, I lifted myself onto one knee, rifle at the ready, and peered down into the gloom of the trench.

There they were. Three of them. Sleeping like babes, tucked up nicely in their sleeping bags, counting Falklands sheep in their sleep.

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I could have killed all three before they could say their Hail Marys. This was a unit that was exhausted and couldn’t give a damn. More good news for our lads.

It was time to pull back. But as I crawled away in reverse, slowly and deliberately, I had a hunch that we hadn’t discovered all the Argy positions and decided we should look further over to the east.

There was no way that we’d let our mates run into a lead storm that they hadn’t been warned about.

They were depending on us to recce these outlying positions before we launched our attack on Goose Green.

As we began eyeballing the ground we hadn’t covered, we were ready for anything. Or so we thought.

It was Pete Myers, the youngest member of our patrol, who spotted them first, swirling around like spirits in the mist.

“What’s that over there?” he growled.

“Get down,” I ordered. We hit the ground and tried to make out what the hell we were looking at.

One thing was for sure, they weren’t spirits. These things were neighing and whinnying.

“They’re f****** wild horses,” said Steve Jones, our Welsh lead scout. At that moment, they came thundering straight for us. It was scary as hell.

“F*** it. Let’s drop the b*******,” I spat.

“No, don’t!” said Jonesy. “Just lie still and flat! They’ll run over you! Horses hate stepping on living things!”

What did he know that I didn’t? Had he been a hussar before he joined the Paras? I didn’t think so.

There was no time to argue. The herd was upon us. I looked up at them for a moment before pressing my nose to the ground and squeezing my eyes shut.

Heads and manes tossing, they charged over us, pounding the ground in every direction, filling our senses.

I opened one eye and looked up as a mustang leapt over me. I could see the blur of its legs for a split second before one of its hooves slapped into the peat inches from my head.

Then gun shots! One, two, three! The Argies must have stampeded the horses to flush us out and pinpoint our position.

We were done for – laid out in the middle of nowhere with only horse-dung to hide behind.

As the horses vanished into the darkness, I snatched up my rifle and took aim. But it was OK. The shooting had stopped.

The Argies had only been firing to scare the horses off, turning them away from their trenches.

A few relieved shouts and nervous laughter from the enemy. The sight of wild animals coming out of the dark had rattled them, too.

“Everyone all right?” A quick head check confirmed that no one had been hoof-minced.

“How did you know they wouldn’t stamp the f*** out of us?” I asked Steve. “Some ancient bit of Welsh folklore?”

“Nah,” he answered, “Grand National. You know when those jockeys come off at Beechers Brook?

“They just roll into a ball and stay still as f***, then the horses do anything they can not to put a hoof on ’em.”

“Really?” I said. “Interesting.” My heart was pounding, I’d just produced enough adrenaline to fuel a rocket, and my second in command was telling me the reason we’d lived through it was the Grand National.

Still, the Argies didn’t suspect it was us who had spooked the horses or they would have mown the grass with machine guns. God, they were sloppy.

Careless soldiering costs lives, I reflected as we made our way back to base.

Those poor devils were going to discover the truth of that within the next three hours when our lads got stuck into them. The trouble was, so would we.

FLASHBACK. December 1981. Kenya. An hour after dawn.

As I gazed out over the African plain stretching far away into the heat haze, I blinked the salty sweat out of my eyes and tried to concentrate on the view through the sight of my rifle as I searched for the enemy.

Movement was not an option. One absent-minded swat at the cluster of flies drinking on my sweat and the game was up.

We’d laid three long snakes of green parachute cord across the bush and they slithered invisibly through the landscape.

Suddenly one came to life with a rapid tattoo of tugs – a signal from one of the other lads that the enemy was advancing into our trap.

We watched them every step of the way. They were inching forward, knowing we were out there. And every second took them deeper into our ambush.

It was only an exercise. The yellow blank-firing attachments on the muzzles of our rifles showed that. The enemy were just other lads from 2 Para.

But the stakes were high. To the victor went the spoils and that meant the right to taunt the losers over free beer for weeks to come. A prize not to be scoffed at.

Then I spotted him, moving up through the scrub to the foot of the ridge we were lying on, right up with the enemy’s lead section.

It was our boss, 2 Para’s commanding officer, Colonel Herbert ‘H’ Jones.

What the hell was H doing there? He should have been back with his tactical headquarters unit conducting operations, not up with the front platoons.

Mark Sleap saw him too. Sleapy by name but not sleepy by nature, Mark was sharp as a tack and one of our top guys. As H handed out instructions to his men, Sleapy opened up.

The ambush erupted as rifles and machine guns raked the enemy. It was fast, brutal and effective. The colonel was dead. Direct hit.

He wasn’t happy. No one likes to be killed and H humped and grumped about it. “It wouldn’t have happened,” he told Mark later.

“We’d have got you lot with our artillery when we softened up your area before moving in.”

“Maybe, sir,” said Sleapy diplomatically. “But I did get you, sir.”

It was a prophetic moment, a glimpse into a future some six months ahead. Next time, though, 2 Para wouldn’t be sweltering in Kenya; we’d be freezing our backsides off in the Falklands.

ONCE again, H would be leading from the front, where he shouldn’t be, but this time it wouldn’t be an exercise. It would be live rounds and H really would be dead.

The posthumous Victoria Cross he earned at Goose Green is probably the most controversial VC of all time.

The accounts of the events surrounding his death have mostly been written by former officers and military historians.

They’re fine as far as they go, but they can’t tell it like a front-line para – or Toms as we call ourselves – and they haven’t told the whole story. But I can. I was there.

The first thing to say is that H was a cracking bloke, the best boss I ever had in the army.

He was what we called a “crap-hat” – a soldier from a non-Para regiment, and thus a stranger to the coveted red beret – but he made an immediate impact the moment he joined us.

The hard-core Toms loved the way he called battalion meetings in the drill hall and then announced:

“Right, now that you’re all here we’re going on a ten-mile run.”

All the fat HQ wallahs, drivers and officers, who normally skived off battalion runs, were trapped and H ran the life out of them.

Like any good commander, H wanted action and if there was any glory about, he wanted it for his men and not the “Booties”, the Royal Marines who led the task force sent to the Falklands after the Argentinian invasion in April 1982.

H’s distrust of the “Booties” was apparent from the moment we tried to come ashore on the night of May 21, scrambling off the converted car ferry which had brought us south and cramming into landing craft driven by the marines.

As the boats swayed and dipped in the swell, sea-sickness was only part of the problem. There was something else in the air.

Raw fear. Any minute now a fusillade from the shore might cut us into pieces.

We thought we would head straight for the beach but, instead, we went round and round in endless circles like day-trippers on a municipal boating lake.

Just in case the enemy might have any problem spotting us, the whole performance took place in the light of a near-full moon.

Boat engines throbbed, chains rattled and clanked, and friendly Booties flashed lights and called out to one another across the water.

I was not impressed – and neither was H. We heard him bellowing as he verbally castrated a few gobby marines.

When we finally got ashore, we holed up for two days on the freezing slopes of Sussex Mountain before London gave us the go-ahead for a raid on the airfield at Goose Green to the south.

H was on top form. He had plans to formulate and there isn’t an officer on the planet that doesn’t love planning.

Critics now say his plan was too complex, with lots of overlapping waves of attack. It certainly started to come unstuck pretty quickly.

On the night of May 23, we pressed through dense mist and rain towards Camilla Creek House -a sheep farm which was our initial base for the attack.

But after seven stumbling, mind-numbing, muscle-tearing miles in full kit, we were almost there when we were told to turn back.

Bad weather had grounded the Sea King helicopters that were supposed to be moving our artillery forward and Brigadier Julian Thompson, the Bootie in charge of the task force, had called the mission off.

H kicked off like a firecracker. “I’ve waited 20 years for this,” he snarled. “Now some f****** marine’s cancelled it.”

There was nothing for it but to slog back to Sussex Mountain. With the gallows humour typical of the paras, me and the lads from the Patrols Platoon started belting out a song: John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance.

Suddenly a head popped out of the command HQ tent flap. It was H. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at us with an expression that said:

“Oh, it’s those f****** nutters from Patrols.”

H loved the Patrols Platoon – fit, aggressive soldiers whose speciality was getting up close to the enemy, acting as the eyes and ears of the regiment.

He just looked at us like a patient father with some naughty kids and never said a word.

Four days later, the battle was on for real -but there was more grief for H. On the morning of May 27, we were awaiting orders at Camilla Creek House when suddenly a melee of officers and sergeants appeared among the men. They were in a right flap.

“Move out! Move out! Away from these buildings on the double!” one of them yelled. “Grab your kit and f****** get out of here!”

It turned out the BBC had announced that we were about to attack Goose Green and, according to some of the men, had even revealed our position at Camilla Creek House.

Ironically, it turned out later that the Argy high command thought the bulletins were a double bluff, designed to wrong-foot them.

But the BBC announcement was a real jolt for H and left him wondering how much the enemy knew about his intentions.

It wasn’t his day. The chaos caused by the BBC meant that several officers failed to make a vital briefing meeting.

On top of that, the Special Forces recces that he’d been relying on to assess the readiness of the enemy were turning out to be a fairytale, while a Harrier jet had just been lost in a raid that left the enemy unscathed and on full alert.

All of which was enough to put any colonel into a spin on the eve of a battle.

Nothing travels faster in a battalion than news of the boss’s mood and the word was out. H was not a happy man.

CLICK, click. Click, click, click. It sounded like sinister insects calling out to each other in the darkness and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

For this wasn’t insects. It was our lads fixing their bayonets and preparing to advance down the narrow isthmus of land leading to Goose Green.

I was thrilled and I’m not ashamed to say it. I was a soldier and the thought of the fight to come gave me a warrior’s rush.

One or two hands reached out and briefly clasped mine as they slipped by me into the darkness. Somewhere in the gloom a young para puked up with the tension.

He got that off his chest and went on to fight like a demon.

Things kicked off around 3am when one of the lads from B Company spotted a silhouette in the middle of a field. “It must be a scarecrow,” whispered a young officer.

A scarecrow? He was on the Falklands, the place was crawling with Argies and he thought he was seeing a scarecrow.

“Hands up!” shouted one of the lads. With that, the scarecrow came to life. “Por favor?” he said and reached under his poncho for his weapon.

Two rifles and two machine guns opened up on him without a moment’s hesitation. Bullets tore through him and tracer rounds ignited his clothing, lighting him up like a Halloween pumpkin.

Soon B Company had taken out nearly 20 Argy trenches, tearing through them with machine-guns, grenades and bayonets.

It was a good start to their advance but elsewhere H’s plans were evaporating as fast as a bottle of port in the officers’ mess.

We were supposed to be receiving support from HMS Arrow, softening up the enemy positions with bombardments of huge shells at the rate of 30 a minute. This would have shortened the engagement by hours.

In the event, Arrow had fired just one shell before her gun jammed. Meanwhile, the Harrier jets we had been promised were fog-bound on their carriers.

 

DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK THE EVIL HORRORS AND ATROCITIES OF THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS AND BEYOND. IT’S ALL HERE & SO MUCH MORE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK. ” LEST WE FORGET “

Here below is a very brief look and insight into our Nazi Holocaust Years Exhibition here at The Crime Through Time  Collection , Littledean Jail, UK

Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of Adolf Hitler here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , UK .

ABOVE : Original handwritten, inscribed and signed Adolf Hitler photo dated 9 November 1943 here on display at the Jail .

HERE IS A PICTURE OF SOME OF THE EMPTY  ZYKLON B CANISTERS USED AT VARIOUS NAZI DEATH CAMP GAS CHAMBERS , AS CAN BE SEEN HERE ON DISPLAY . ( LEST WE FORGET )

POLITE WARNING …  THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL (WHERE UPON THIS EXHIBITION IS HOUSED )  IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE EASILY OFFENDED , DISTURBED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE

Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail ,UK.

THE CONTENT HERE ON DISPLAY BOTH ONLINE AND WITHIN THE JAIL IS IN THE MAIN HARD HITTING , GRAPHIC, EXPLICIT , IN YOUR FACE , TONGUE IN CHEEK , CONTROVERSIAL AND TO MANY … VERY DISTURBING .

WITH THIS IN MIND AND FOR YOUR BENEFIT AND COMFORT … PLEASE DO TAKE A LOOK AT SOME OF OUR FACEBOOK POSTS , READ OUR TOURISM LEAFLETS AND DO TAKE NOTICE OF ALL OUR WARNING SIGNAGE PRIOR TO ENTERING THE JAIL .

 

Above : Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at Littledean Jail, of the sadistic Irma Grese …. deemed to be “The Angel of Death ” , who was subsequently arrested and later hanged by British Hangman Albert Pierrepoint

Irma Ida Ilse Grese (7 October 1923 – 13 December 1945) was a female SS guard at the Nazi concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and served as warden of the women’s section of Bergen-Belsen.

Grese was convicted for crimes against humanity committed at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and sentenced to death at the Belsen trial. Executed at 22 years of age, Grese was the youngest woman to die judicially under British law in the 20th century. She was nicknamed by the camps’ inmates “the Hyena of Auschwitz Above : Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman  on display here at Littledean Jail,  of the sadistic Irma Grese ….

Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was the Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dubbed The Beast of Belsen by camp inmates, he was a notorious German Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He was detained by the British army after the Second World War, convicted of war crimes and hanged on the gallows in Hamelin prison by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint.

Above : Original oil painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman of Josef Kramer , The Beast of Belsen , on display here at Littledean Jail,

Below: Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman  on display here at Littledean Jail,  of the evil and sadistic Josef Kramer …. better known as “The Beast of Belsen “

Used original Zyklon B 100gram sized canisters from one of the first Nazi gas chambers situated at Grafeneck Euthanasia Center, housed in Grafeneck Castle, Germany . It had officially opened in January 1940 and was closed on the orders of Nazi warlord Himmler in December 1940 . This facility was mainly used to exterminate mentally Handicapped and retarded victims as part of the Nazi euthanasia program. These canisters are exceptionally rare find from what was one of the earliest gas chambers and crematorium facilities . There is evidence that exists to the effect that a minimum 10, 654 were gassed there, though inevitably many more victims were murdered there before its closure . these canisters are now on public display at the Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail

Here is some more interactive, historical and hopefully educational background footage and insight into the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust years. The photo gallery below the first video also provides a brief pictorial glimpse into our own disturbing Nazi Holocaust exhibition here at the jail .

We also feature a great many interactive pieces in relation to UK World War 2 Special Forces, including the SOE (Special Operations Executive) and the SAS (Special Air Service) …. whom were both actively involved in a great many operations against the Nazi’s during this period .

Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail , UK

BELOW IS A BRIEF PICTORIAL GLIMPSE INTO SOME OF THE EXHIBIT ITEMS HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAILS  NAZI HOLOCAUST EXHIBITION .

 

Srbosjek (literally “Serb cutter” in Croatian and Serbian, often referred to as “cutthroat”) is the colloquial serbo-Croatian term for a type of knife used for killing …

Witness drawing of the sboskek wrist knife used to quickly dispatch prisoners at Jasenovac

Srbosjek (literally “Serb cutter” in Croatian and Serbian, often referred to as “cutthroat”) is the colloquial serbo-Croatian term for a type of knife used for killing …

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. “Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.

During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived “racial inferiority”: Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals.

WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST?

In 1933, the Jewish population of Europestood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and theircollaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included some 200,000 Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, the Germans and their collaborators persecuted and murdered millions of other people. Between two and three million Soviet prisoners of warwere murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment. The Germans targeted the non-Jewish Polish intelligentsia for killing, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet civilians for forced labor in Germany or in occupiedPoland, where these individuals worked and often died under deplorable conditions. From the earliest years of the Nazi regime, German authorities persecuted homosexuals and others whose behavior did not match prescribed social norms. German police officials targeted thousands of political opponents (including Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists) and religious dissidents (such as Jehovah’s Witnesses). Many of these individuals died as a result of incarceration and maltreatment.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE “FINAL SOLUTION” 

In the early years of the Nazi regime, the National Socialist government established concentration camps to detain real and imagined political and ideological opponents. Increasingly in the years before the outbreak of war, SS and police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma, and other victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps. To concentrate and monitor the Jewish population as well as to facilitate later deportation of the Jews, the Germans and their collaborators created ghettos, transit camps, and forced-labor camps for Jews during the war years. The German authorities also established numerous forced-labor camps, both in the so-called Greater German Reich and in German-occupied territory, for non-Jews whose labor the Germans sought to exploit.

Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941,Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) and, later, militarized battalions of Order Police officials, moved behind German lines to carry out mass-murder operations against Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist Party officials. German SS and police units, supported by units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, murdered more than a million Jewish men, women, and children, and hundreds of thousands of others. Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis allies to ghettos and to killing centers, often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities.

THE END OF THE HOLOCAUST

In the final months of the war, SS guards moved camp inmates by train or on forced marches, often called “death marches,” in an attempt to prevent the Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Germany, they began to encounter andliberate concentration camp prisoners, as well as prisoners en route by forced march from one camp to another. The marches continued until May 7, 1945, the day the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. For the western Allies, World War II officially ended in Europe on the next day, May 8 (V-E Day), while Soviet forces announced their “Victory Day” on May 9, 1945.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, many of the survivors found shelter in displaced persons (DP) camps administered by the Allied powers. Between 1948 and 1951, almost 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel, including 136,000 Jewish displaced persons from Europe. Other Jewish DPs emigrated to the United States and other nations. The last DP camp closed in 1957. The crimes committed during the Holocaust devastated most European Jewish communities and eliminated hundreds of Jewish communities in occupied eastern Europe entirely

A BRIEF HISTORICAL GLIMPSE INTO SOME OF THE VARIOUS ORIGINAL AND RARE WW2 SAS OFFICERS PEAK CAPS, BERETS, COMMEMORATIVE AND OTHER SAS MEMORABILIA ITEMS HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK .

FOR THE FIRST TIME ON PUBLIC DISPLAY …EXCEPTIONALLY RARE AND ORIGINAL WW2 SAS OFFICERS PEAK CAP , WW2 SAS OFF-WHITE BERET AND  OTHERS HERE IN AND AMONGST NOW THE UK’S LARGEST PRIVATELY OWNED SAS COLLECTIONS ON PUBLIC DISPLAY .

Above : Here is an original oil painting of one of the SAS founders David Stirling aka ” The Phantom Major”, by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman, here on display at Littledean Jail

ABOVE; AN ORIGINAL AND VERY RARE WW2 SAS OFFICERS PEAK CAP

Here is an original oil painting of one of the SAS founders Paddy Mayne aka “Mad Jack ” by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman, here on display at Littledean Jail

ORIGINAL RARE SAS PEAK CAP AS WORN AT THE SAS HEADQUARTERS IN HEREFORD .   (NOT THE BEST PICTURES AS VERY DIFFICULT TO PHOTOGRAPH  TO SHOW THE ACTUAL COLOURS )

 

INSIDE OF THE ABOVE PICTURED ORIGINAL RARE SAS PEAK CAP AS WORN AT THE SAS HEADQUARTERS IN HEREFORD .  

IF IN THE LOCALITY OF THE FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE  AND HAVE AN INTEREST IN THE SAS AND UK SPECIAL FORCES …. DO PAY A VISIT

BELOW IS A BRIEF PICTORIAL INSIGHT INTO SOME OF THE  VARIOUS LIMITED EDITION COMMEMORATIVE SAS PLATES AND OTHER MEMORABILIA ITEMS HERE ON DISPLAY

Above and Below : Original Heckler and Koch MP5 A3 submachine gun of the type that was used during Operation Nimrod – Iranian Embassy Siege, London 1980

BELOW: ORIGINAL SAS POSTER HAND SIGNED BY VARIOUS MEMBERS OF OPERATION NIMROD- IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE 1980, HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

BELOW IS A UNIQUE COLLAGE DEPICTING MEMBERS OF THE HEROIC SAS ,WHO FOUGHT IN THE EPIC SECRET WAR  CODENAMED ” SAS OPERATION STORM ” AT THE BATTLE MIRBAT, OMAN , 19 JULY 1972 . THIS COLLAGE  ALSO INCLUDES  WING COMMANDER BILL STOKER , STRIKE MASTER PILOT , LEAD JET, SECOND SORTIE, WHO WAS A KEY FIGURE IN HELPING WIN THE BATTLE .

BELOW : Original one of only two privately commissioned  oil paintings by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman  of Talaiasi Labalaba PWC, BEM, MID , one of the heroic SAS troopers who fought in Operation Storm during The Battle of Mirbat , Oman and was sadly killed in action.

This painting is here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, whilst the other is in the possession of Sekonaia Takavesi PWC, DCM.

Below: An enlarged original photograph showing  some of the surrounding landscape   where the Battle of Mirbat took place. This photo was apparently taken during the 1980’s

BELOW : Original one of only two privately commissioned  oil paintings by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman  of Sekonaia Takavesi – PWC,DCM. one of the heroic SAS troopers who fought in Operation Storm during The Battle of Mirbat , Oman.

This painting is here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, whilst the other is in the possession of Sekonaia Takavesi .

BELOW : Original one of only two privately commissioned oil paintings by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of Pete “Snapper” Winner , one of the heroic SAS troopers who fought in Operation Storm during The Battle of Mirbat , Oman.

This painting is here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, whilst the other is in the possession of Pete Winner  .

Above  : Original  privately commissioned  oil painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman  of Captain Mike Kealy, who was the Commanding Officer  who fought in Operation Storm during The Battle of Mirbat , Oman.

This painting is here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection,

Above  : Original  privately commissioned  oil painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman  of  Corporal Bob Bennett ,  who was 2nd in command during Operation Storm, The Battle of Mirbat , Oman.

This painting is here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection

Above  : Original  privately commissioned  oil painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman  of SAS Medic Tommy Tobin, DCM,  who fought in Operation Storm during The Battle of Mirbat , Oman.

Having sustained serious injuries during the battle, he later died as a result of them .

This painting is here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection,

Above  : Original  privately commissioned  oil painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman  of Lance Corporal Roger Cole who fought in Operation Storm during The Battle of Mirbat , Oman.

This painting is here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection

DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE ….SAS “WHO DARES WINS” OPERATION NIMROD, IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE & OPERATION STORM, BATTLE OF MIRBAT EXHIBITIONS … HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL. FEATURING AMONGST OTHERS,RUSTY FIRMIN, BOB CURRY , PETE “SNAPPER ” WINNER, a.k.a SOLDIER “I” , SEKONAIA TAKAVESI AND IAN “CHALKY” WHITE . TAKAVESI & WINNER ALSO BOTH ACTIVELY FOUGHT IN THE SECRET 1972 SAS BATTLE OF MIRBAT,OMAN.

WWW.SOLDIERISAS.COM

ABOVE: ORIGINAL CLASSIC HECKLER & KOCH MP5 A3 SUBMACHINE GUN AS WAS USED DURING OPERATION NIMROD .

Above and Below : Pete “Snapper”  Winner  aka Soldier I , during a private visit to The Crime Through Time Collection at Littledean Jail, dressed in his SAS Black-kit.

Also pictured here below with Andy Jones of The Crime Through Time Collection standing alongside one of our  SAS Operation Nimrod exhibition pieces here on display .

 

 

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FROM LEFT : PETE “SNAPPER” WINNER AND ANDY McNAB PICTURED TOGETHER AT AN EVENING WITH ANDY McNAB EVENT AT THE CHEPSTOW DRILL HALL. 

BELOW: OPERATION NIMROD BLUE TEAM SAS TROOPER “BOB CURRY” WITH  ANDY JONES DURING A PRIVATE VISIT TO LITTLEDEAN JAIL TO VIEW THE SAS OPERATION NIMROD EXHIBITION. 

BOB CURRY WAS FIRST MAN INSIDE THE REAR OF THE EMBASSY AND PART OF RUSTY FIRMIN’S BLUE TEAM, ALONG WITH PETE “SNAPPER” WINNER , THE MINK AND OTHERS. 

 

BELOW : BOB CURRY PICTURED DURING HIS TIME IN THE SAS. UNDOUBTEDLY A BEAST OF A MAN IN HIS DAY .

BELOW: ORIGINAL SAS POSTER HAND SIGNED BY VARIOUS MEMBERS OF OPERATION NIMROD- IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE 1980, HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

ABOVE & BELOW: ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS DEPICTING JOHN McALEESE M.M BLUE TEAM MEMBER INVOLVED IN THE FRONT BALCONY TELEVISED STORMING OF THE EMBASSY. HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL

 

 

BELOW: ANDY JONES WITH A FEW OF THE CHAPS FROM SAS OPERATION NIMROD TO INCLUDE … THE MINK, TAK AND BLUE TEAM LEADER RUSTY FIRMIN.

BELOW:ANDY JONES WITH FORMER SAS CHAPS , TAK AND RHETT BUTLER

ABOVE AND BELOW : ANDY JONES OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION WITH SEKONAIA TAKAVESI  PICTURED HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL  DURING A PRIVATE VISIT TO VIEW THE ” SAS WHO DARES WINS AND UK SPECIAL FORCES EXHIBITION ” HERE ON DISPLAY .

BELOW  : A COUPLE OF IMAGES OF FORMER SAS TROOPER THE MINK WITH ANDY JONES

BELOW: PETE WINNER TALKS ABOUT THE “BATTLE OF MIRBAT “

WWW.SOLDIERISAS.COM

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PLEASE DON’T FORGET OUR OWN EVER GROWING …

SAS “WHO DARES WINS” AND UK SPECIAL FORCES EXHIBITION HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , UK

ABOVE IS A TRIBUTE  COLLAGE POSTER RELATING TO THE STORMING OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY ON THE 5 MAY 1980 SIGNED BY PETE WINNER,  NOW AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE BOTH AT PETE WINNER EVENTS AND ALSO AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

ABOVE AND BELOW :  ORIGINAL CLASSIC HECKLER  & KOCH MP5 A3 SUBMACHINE GUN AS WAS USED IN THE 1980 IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE , LONDON , UK .

NOW HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION SAS “WHO DARES WINS” EXHIBITION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

WINNER EVENTS AND ALSO AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

ABOVE IS A GREAT OPERATION NIMROD TRIBUTE VIDEO

BELOW IS A GALLERY OF IMAGES FROM A RECENT MEDIA LAUNCH AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL   … SAS WHO DARES WINS AND UK SPECIAL FORCES EXHIBITION …..

 

BELOW IS A UNIQUE COLLAGE DEPICTING MEMBERS OF THE HEROIC SAS ,WHO FOUGHT IN THE EPIC SECRET WAR  CODENAMED ” SAS OPERATION STORM ” AT THE BATTLE MIRBAT, OMAN , 19 JULY 1972 . THIS COLLAGE  ALSO INCLUDES  WING COMMANDER BILL STOKER , STRIKE MASTER PILOT , LEAD JET, SECOND SORTIE, WHO WAS A KEY FIGURE IN HELPING WIN THE BATTLE .

BELOW : Original one of only two privately commissioned  oil paintings by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman  of Talaiasi Labalaba PWC, BEM,MID one of the heroic SAS troopers who fought in Operation Storm during The Battle of Mirbat , Oman and was sadly killed in action.

This painting is here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, whilst the other is in the possession of Sekonaia Takavesi PWC, DCM.

 

Below: An enlarged original photograph showing  some of the surrounding landscape   where the Battle of Mirbat took place. This photo was apparently taken during the 1980’s

BELOW : Various original  privately commissioned  oil paintings by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman here on display  of the heroic SAS  who fought in Operation Storm during The Battle of Mirbat , Oman.

BELOW IS A VIDEO INTRODUCTION INTO SOME OF THE HEROIC ANTICS OF SAS TROOPER… PETE WINNER  TAKEN FROM HIS WEBSITE , DO VISIT IT DIRECTLY FOR MORE INFORMATION (LINK HERE … http://www.soldierisas.com/ )

ABOVE IS A TRIBUTE  COLLAGE POSTER RELATING TO PETE WINNER IN HIS SAS BLACK KIT,  SIGNED BY HIMSELF  AND NOW AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE BOTH AT PETE WINNER EVENTS AND ALSO AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

BELOW IS AN EXTRACT TAKEN FROM PETE WINNER SOLDIER “I” WEBSITE  ( http://www.soldierisas.com/ ) I first became aware of the Special Air Service Regiment when I was a young sapper serving with 10 Airfield Construction Squadron Royal Engineers during the emergency in Aden in 1967 – my first operational tour of duty. The SAS, in 1967, was a secret organization and there were all sorts of rumours flying around about what “The Regiment” was up to. I was intrigued. It seemed far more exciting than repairing bulldozers, getting covered in oil and grease all day long. Little did I know that in less than five years I would be part of this elite unit and facing hundreds of Communist shock troops at the Battle of Mirbat. I withdrew from Aden in November 1967 on one of the last flights out before the Communist regime took over. Tactical withdrawal they called it. To me it was abject surrender. I also felt I could no longer continue in the Royal Engineers, my enthusiasm for this kind of soldiering had gone. I made my mind up there and then that when I got back to the UK I would find out more about the SAS and how I could join. Back in the UK the regimental chief clerk of 10 Field Sqn. explained to me the procedure for applying for SAS Selection. I immediately lodged my application and within a few months found myself on the Brecon Beacons taking part in a series of gruelling Bergen (backpack) marches over very rough terrain. Mentally and physically I was well prepared because there was no way I was going back to the bullshit and drill that was the Royal Engineers and after three weeks of exhaustive tests I cracked the greatest physical challenge of my life – the Endurance March – forty-six miles across the Brecons with a fifty-five pound Bergen in twenty hours. To pass this final march guaranteed you a place on Continuation Training. This training included weapons and explosives, first aid, resistance to interrogation training and one month in the Far East on jungle training. All with the pressure of knowing that one mistake and you could still end up back in the Engineers.
SUCCESS! The prize was mine. After six months of intense training I became the proud owner of the famous badge and SAS wings. Out of the original 135 runners who had put themselves forward for Selection only 17 made it to the Colonel’s office for the presentation of the beret and wings. I was now badged and posted to 8 Troop, Land Rover Troop, “B” Squadron. I was pitched straight into squadron life and briefed on an operation that was going to take place in a few months; to retake Dhofar – a province in southern Oman – from Communist insurgents. My first SAS operation and I was going to get a crack at the regime that humiliated the British Army back in 1967! At the time I was not to know that in less than two years it would all end up with me fighting in the last conclusive battle against Communism that would help to bring down the Berlin Wall seventeen years later. The Battle of Mirbat, 19th July 1972, was a well planned, determined attack by hundreds of Communist shock troops against nine SAS soldiers – a modern day Rorke’s Drift that became famous in military circles but because it was part of a secret war it was a relatively unknown event in the eyes of the public. Eight years later I was involved in another spectacular “B” Squadron result when we achieved what many considered the impossible – the rescue of the hostages at the Iranian Embassy Siege in May 1980. For my part, I felt immense personal satisfaction and pride at being involved in two of the greatest SAS Operations of modern times. Both Operations would live forever in Regimental history. Both victories had been gained through faultless teamwork, immense physical courage and flexibility in the face of overwhelming odds. Pete Winner, August 2010   HERE BELOW ARE A FEW IMAGES OF SOME OF THE PERSONALLY CONTRIBUTED EXHIBIT PIECES  THAT SPECIFICALLY RELATE TO SAS TROOPER PETE WINNER AKA “SOLDIER “I” … THESE BEING ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL IN AMONGST OUR EVER EXPANDING SAS WHO DARES WINS & UK SPECIAL FORCES ” EXHIBITION .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PETE WINNER SIGNED POSTER

PETE WINNER SIGNED POSTER

IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE FINAL ASSAULT SIGNED ILLUSTRATION

REAR OF IRANIAN EMBASSY AT TIME OF THE FINAL ASSAULT , SIGNED BY PETE WINNER

PETE WINNER SIGNED POSTER

COPY OF ORIGINAL HAND DRAWING RELATING TO SIEGE BY PETE WINNER ALSO SIGNED BY HIM

PETE WINNER SIGNED COLLAGE

S6 GAS RESPIRATOR AND HOLDALL SIGNED BY PETE WINNER

S6 GAS RESPIRATOR SIGNED BY PETE WINNER

PETE WINNER SIGNED POSTER

SAS SIGNED BY VARIOUS TROOPERS, POSTER

FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

REAR AND INTERNAL SIDE VIEW OF IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE FINAL ASSAULT

REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER FEATURING THE FINAL ASSAULT ON THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE

COMMEMORATIVE SAS OPERATION NIMROD PLATE AND MUG

COMMEMORATIVE SAS OPERATION NIMROD PLATE AND MUG

Personally signed (and original) signatures on this 9×6 print which depicts the SAS soldier known as Soldier 1 who survived ther Battle of Mirbat , was an Iranian Embassy Siege Assulter and parachuted into the seas off the Falklands during that Conflict with the Argentinians, assulting the Embassy from the back plus also signed by Pete Scholey (author of the Joker and SAS Heroes) who was with the Advance Party and helped install surveillance equipment

BATTLE OF MIRBAT 1972

The Battle of Mirbat took place on 19 July 1972 during the Dhofar Rebellion in Oman, which was supported by Communist guerrillas from South Yemen. Britain assisted the Omani government by sending elements of its Special Air Service both to train soldiers and compete against the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG) guerrillas for the “hearts and minds” of the Omani people

At 6 am on 19 July 1972 the PFLOAG attacked the British Army Training Team (BATT) house, which housed the nine SAS soldiers, based just outside the Port of Mirbat. The PFLOAG (locally known as the Adoo) attacked the SAS BATT house knowing that to be able to reach the Port of Mirbat they would first have to defeat the SAS guarding the approach to the town in Jebel Ali, a series of small desert slopes leading to the Port.

The Officer in Command, Captain Mike Kealy observed the waves advancing on the fort, but did not order his men to open fire because he thought it was the “Night Picket” coming back from night shift, which were a loyal group of the Omani Armypositioned on the slopes to warn the BATT house of Adoo troop movements. Realising that the Night Picket must have been killed, due to them not warning the SAS of the assault Mike Kealy ordered his men to open fire. Mike Kealy along with other members of the team took up positions behind the sand-bag parapet on the roof of the BATT house, firing at the Adoo withL1A1 SLR battle rifles, with one man firing the Browning M2HB heavy machine gun, with a further two men on ground level operating and firing an infantry mortar surrounded by sand-bags. The Adoo were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, and were mortar bombing the area around the BATT house. Kealy ordered the signaller to establish communications with SAS Headquarters at Um al Quarif, to request reinforcements.

There were also a small number of Omani Intelligence Service personnel in the BATT House, a small contingent of Pakistani soldiers and a member of British Military Intelligence seconded to the OIS who joined the team on the roof and fired on the Adoo with SLRs and other small arms.  Initially some of the Pakistani soldiers were reluctant to join the defence of the fort because their roles with the BATT were largely administrative, but they obeyed orders from Mike Kealy and the British Military Intelligence Corporal

Overflying the BATT House, Mirbat.

Knowing that the SLRs would not be of full use until the Adoo were closer than the weapon’s range of 800 metres, and lacking more heavy firepower, Sergeant Talaiasi Labalaba made a run for the 25 Pounder Artillery Piece which was positioned next to a smaller fort which stationed nine Omani Army Special Forces soldiers, who had not played a part in the battle. The Omani policeman who was guarding the weapon had been seriously wounded. Talaiasi Labalaba managed to operate the weapon, which is a six-man job, himself and fire a round a minute at the approaching Adoo, directing their attention away from the BATT house. Kealy received a radio message from Talaiasi reporting that a bullet had skimmed his face, and was badly injured, and was struggling to operate the gun by himself. At the BATT house Kealy asked for a volunteer to run to Talaiasi’s aid. Trooper Sekonaia Takavesi volunteered to go.

Sekonaia Takavesi ran from the BATT house, with the remaining men providing covering fire, in an attempt to distract the Adoo. Sekonaia ran the 800 metres through heavy gunfire, and reached the gun emplacement. Sekonaia tried to give aid to his injured friend, while firing at the approaching Adoo with his personal weapon. Realising that they needed help, Sekonaia tried to raise the small number of Omani soldiers inside the smaller fort, and Walid Khamis emerged. The only Omani Gendarmerie Officer in the Mirbat Fort was Lieutenant Hassan Bin Ehsan Bin Naseeb. The remaining Omani soldiers in the fort engaged the enemy with small arms fire from firing positions on the roof and through the windows of the fort As the two men made it back to the emplacement, the Omani soldier fell wounded after being shot in the stomach with a 7.62 mm bullet. Adoo continued to advance upon the BATT house, and artillery emplacement. At one point, the Adoo were so close Sekonaia and Talaiasi fired the weapon at point blank range, aiming down the barrel. Talaiasi crawled across a small space to reach a 60 mm Infantry Mortar, but fell dead after being shot in the neck. Sekonaia, also shot through the shoulder and grazed by a bullet to the back of his head continued to fire at the approaching Adoo with his personal weapon. The squad signaller sent messages through to the main Forward Operating Base, to request air support and medical evacuation for the men in the gun emplacement.

Inside the BATT House at Mirbat

Captain Kealy and Trooper Tobin made a run to the artillery piece. Upon reaching it, they dived in to avoid increasingly intense gunfire from the Adoo. Sekonaia continued to fire on the attackers, propped up against sand bags after being shot through the stomach (the bullet narrowly missing his spine). The Adoo threw several hand grenades, but only one detonated, exploding behind the emplacement with no one injured. During the battle, Trooper Tobin attempted to reach over the body of Talaiasi. In so doing, Tobin was mortally wounded when a bullet struck his face. By this time, BAC Strikemaster light-attack jets of the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force had arrived, and began strafing the Adoo in the Jebel Ali. With a low cloud base making for low altitude attack runs, only machine-guns and light rockets were used. Reinforcements arrived from G Squadron and, defeated, the PFLOAG withdrew at about 12:30. All wounded SAS soldiers were evacuated, and given medical treatment, Trooper Tobin eventually died in hospital not due to the multiple gunshot wounds but to an infection in his lung caused by his splintered tooth which he had aspirated when his bottom jaw was blown off by an AK-47 round.

BELOW IS A TRIBUTE VIDEO PERFORMED BY SWEDISH HEAVY METAL BAND – SABATON  FEATURING AN INSIGHT INTO THE BATTLE OF MIRBAT . 

USED WITH KIND PERMISSION FROM SABATON 

NOTORIOUS AMERICAN KILLER CLOWN AND RAPIST JOHN WAYNE GACY. ALSO KNOWN AS POGO THE CLOWN. HE MURDERED AT LEAST 33 TEENAGE BOYS AND YOUNG MEN AND WAS EXECUTED BY LETHAL INJECTION IN 1994 .

DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK – WHERE GOOD AND EVIL COLLIDE & WHERE FANTASY MEETS REALITY .

TRUE CRIME , MURDERABILIA, WITCHCRAFT, SATANISM AND THE OCCULT …. IT’S ALL HERE AND MUCH MORE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE , UK .

John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994), also known as the Killer Clown, was an American serial killer and rapist. He sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978 in Cook County, Illinois.

ABOVE: Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of John Wayne Gacy on display at Littledean Jail .

All of Gacy’s known murders were committed inside his Norwood Park, Illinois home. His victims would typically be lured to this address by force or deception, and all but one victim were murdered by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a tourniquet (his first victim was stabbed to death). Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home. Three further victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River.

Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death for 12 of these killings on March 13, 1980. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994.

Above: Police mugshots of John Wayne Gacy .

Gacy became known as the “Killer Clown” due to his charitable services at fundraising events, parades, and children’s parties where he would dress as “Pogo the Clown”, a character he devised himself.

BELOW : Various exhibit items to include one of Gacy’s “Pogo The Clown ” suits , handwritten and signed correspondence , a hand painting and various other memorabilia, all of which is on display here at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean , Gloucestershire, UK .

ABOVE AND BELOW : One of  John Wayne Gacy’s  original worn clown suits. There are two other known Gacy clown suits on display  at The National Museum of Crime , Washington DC , USA .

BELOW: picture of 2 other Gacy clown suits, on display at The National Museum of Crime, Washington DC ….. Previously owned ( not sure if he still owns them )  by Jonathan Davis, lead singer of American Heavy Metal Band “Korn .”

ABOVE: John Wayne Gacy pictured in jail, so say,  shortly before his execution by lethal injection

 

 

SAS OPERATION NIMROD MEMORABILIA, ALONG WITH A FULL SCALE REPLICA MODEL OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE BUILDING AS USED BY “B” SQUADRON 22 SAS REGIMENT FOR THE PREPARATION FOR THE SUCCESSFUL FINAL ASSAULT ON 5 MAY 1980, WHICH RESULTED IN 19 HOSTAGES BEING RESCUED AND 5 OF THE 6 TERRORISTS BEING KILLED (THE 6th BEING CAPTURED )

ORIGINAL 4 FT X 3 FT CANVAS  OIL PAINTING INTERPRETATION OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE SAS FINAL ASSAULT ON MAY 5, 1980 ….PRIVATELY COMMISIONED BY THE CRIME THROUGH TIME MUSEUM FOR PERMANENT DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL . PAINTED BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN .

ABOVE AND BELOW : PLEASE KINDLY NOTE BOTH THESE ORIGINAL PAINTINGS WERE COMMISSIONED BY AND REMAIN COPYRIGHT OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL . THESE IMAGES CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT FROM ANDY JONES , CURATOR OF THE MUSEUM .

COMING SOON …. OFFICIAL RELEAE DATE 4 AUGUST 2017
A must see SAS film due to be launched worldwide on 4 August 2017..If in the area of Gloucestershire do pop by to The Forest of Dean and visit The UK’s only comprehensive SAS who dares wins private exhibition open to the public here at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail. Includes a unique and hopefully educational feature This historic moment on the SAS Operation Nimrod – Iranian Embassy Siege 30 April – 5 May 1980 ..with personal contributions and original sas memorabilia from some of those involved in the siege.

Picture By: Jules Annan Picture Shows:COMMEMARATIVE PLATE AND TANKARD FOR THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF OPERATION NIMROD (THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE 1980) NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL’S …”WHO DARES WINS ” – SAS COUNTER TERRORISM EXHIBITION … Date 12th November 2012 Ref: *World Rights Only* *Unbylined uses will incur an additional discretionary fee!*

IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE FINAL ASSAULT SIGNED ILLUSTRATION

REAR OF IRANIAN EMBASSY AT TIME OF THE FINAL ASSAULT , SIGNED BY PETE WINNER

ABOVE AND BELOW : PETE “SNAPPER” WINNER AKA SOLDIER I, BLUE TEAM , SAS OPERATION NIMROD, IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE . PICTURED  HERE  ON A  RECENT PRIVATE VISIT TO LITTLEDEAN JAIL TO HAVE A LOOK AT THE ORIGINAL PAINTINGS OF THE FINAL ASSAULT  AND SAS HOSTAGE RESCUE….. NOW HERE ON DISPLAY.

ABOVE & BELOW : 22 SAS “B” SQUADRON VETERAN … BOB CURRY PICTURES HERE DURING A VISIT TO LITTLEDEAN JAIL . BOB CURRY WAS THE FIRST MAN IN TO THE REAR OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE BUILDING AS PART OF THE BLUE TEAM FINAL ASSAULT SAS TROOPERS.

BELOW: ORIGINAL  HAND SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF SAS TROOPERS BOB CURRY ( FIRSF MAN INTO THE REAR OF THE EMBASSY BUILDING FOLLOWED BEHIND BY BLUE TEAM LEADER RUSTY FIMIN

Picture By:Jules Annan Picture Shows:Various original 1983 hand painted Airfix 1:32 scale SAS Black kit clad troopers here on display at the SAS Who Dares Wins ” CRW ” ( “Counter Revolutionary Warfare ” ) Exhibition at LittleDean Jail Date 13/04/2013 Ref: *World Rights Only* *Unbylined uses will incur an additional discretionary fee!*

Picture By:Jules Annan Picture Shows:Authentic hand signed S6 NBC protective gas mask, respirator and holdall as of the type used during the Iranian Embassy Siege on 5 May 1980 by former SAS trooper … Pete Winner, AKA Soldier “I”, now on display to the public here at the Crime Through Time Collection at Littledean jail, Gloucestershire Date ;10/06/2014

Picture By:Jules Annan Picture Shows:Original Operation Nimrod Pye Pocketfone 70 microphone sets used by the SAS during the1980 Iranian Embassy Seige storming and now here on display at the SAS Who Dares Wins ” CRW ” ( “Counter Revolutionary Warfare ” ) Exhibition at LittleDean Jail Date 13/04/2013 Ref: *World Rights Only* *Unbylined uses will incur an additional discretionary fee!*

 

HERE IS A  UNIQUE REPLICA  SCALE MODEL OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY AS WAS CONSTRUCTED AND  USED  BY “B” SQUADRON 22 SAS REGIMENT IN THE RUN-UP TO THE FINAL ASSAULT ON 5 MAY 1980 …. RESULTING IN THE  KILLING OF 5 OF THE 6 TERRORISTS AND THE RELEASE OF THE REMAINING 19 HOSTAGES .

THIS BEING KINDLY HAND BUILT BY FORMER “A” SQUADRON FREEFALL TROOPER …BOB PODESTA  FOR DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL’S… “SAS WHO DARES WINS EXHIBITION ” . THE MODEL HAS BEEN FURTHER CUSTOMISED WITH THE HELP OF PAUL BRIDGMAN WITH THE INCLUSION OF THE VARIOUS FIGURES DEPICTING HOSTAGES, TERRORISTS (ALL IN GREEN JACKETS AND BLACK CLOTHING ), THE SAS TROOPERS AND RESERVES STORMING THE EMBASSY BUILDING AND VARIOUS OTHER SCENES RELATING TO THE EVENT .

 

BOB PODESTA SAS “A” SQUADRON

FRONT ELEVATION OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

NEWSPAPER COVERAGE AT TIME OF FINAL ASSAULT AND SIGNAGE FOR MODEL

REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

ROOF ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY

REPLICA OF ONE OF THE RUSSIAN HAND GRENADES CARRIED BY THE TERRORISTS DURING THE SIEGE .

REPLICA OF ONE OF THE RUSSIAN HAND GRENADES CARRIED BY THE TERRORISTS DURING THE SIEGE , PERSONALLY SIGNED UP FOR DISPLAY BY SAS TROOPER … PETE WINNER WHO WAS ONE OF THE SAS INVOLVED IN THE STORMING OF THE BUILDING .

AN ILLUSTRATIVE PICTURE OF THE STAIRWELL SCENE AT THE END OF THE SIEGE,, PERSONALLY SIGNED UP FOR DISPLAY BY SAS TROOPER … PETE WINNER WHO WAS ONE OF THE SAS INVOLVED IN THE STORMING OF THE BUILDING .

AN ILLUSTRATIVE PICTURE OF THE STAIRWELL SCENE AT THE END OF THE SIEGE,, PERSONALLY SIGNED UP FOR DISPLAY BY SAS TROOPER … PETE WINNER WHO WAS ONE OF THE SAS INVOLVED IN THE STORMING OF THE BUILDING .

LIMITED EDITION OPERATION NIMROD COMMEMORATIVE COIN

LIMITED EDITION OPERATION NIMROD COMMEMORATIVE COIN

LIMITED EDITION SAS COMMEMORATIVE COIN

IN MEMORY OF JOHN McALEESE (25 April 1949 – 26 August 2011). LEGENDARY SAS BLUE TEAM TROOPER WHO TOOK PART IN “OPERATION NIMROD” – THE FINAL ASSAULT & HOSTAGE RESCUE, ENDING THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE, LONDON, 5 MAY 1980 … “LEST WE FORGET”

COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE (CRW) , TERRORISM AND COUNTER TERRORISM WITH THE UK’S SPECIAL FORCES HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL

ABOVE IS A RARE  JOHN McALEESE ( SIGNED AS JOHN MAC)  LIMITED EDITION HECKLER AND KOCH POSTER. THIS TO COMMEMORATE THE SUCCESSFUL SAS OPERATION NIMROD, STORMING OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY TO END THE  SIEGE ON MAY 5, 1980 .THIS BEING ON DISPLAY HERE IN AND AMONGST OUR SAS WHO DARES WINS EXHIBITION AT THE JAIL .

ABOVE: A COUPLE OF PICS OF JOHN McALEESE

DO COME VISIT AND SEE OUR EVER EXPANDING  AND HISTORICALLY  INTRIGUING PRIVATELY OWNED COLLECTION OF SAS MEMORABILIA AND PARAPHERNALIA.

HOPEFULLY THIS  PROVIDES YOU AS VISITORS WITH A  FASCINATING INSIGHT INTO THE HEROIC SAS AND INDEED OTHER SPECIAL FORCES THAT WE FEATURE HERE ON DISPLAY .

ABOVE AND BELOW: JOHN McALEESE’S TREASURED DAUGHTER HAYLEY PICTURED WITH SOME OF THE EXCLUSIVE SAS MERCHANDISE  … FEATURING JOHN MAC, WHICH HAS KINDLY BEEN PERSONALLY SANCTIONED AND APPROVED BY HAYLEY.

ALSO HAYLEY PICTURED (WITH BLONDE HAIR)  ,WITH HER FATHER.

ABOVE AND BELOW : COPIES OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTINGS BY PAUL BRIDGMAN ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL.

HERE BELOW IS AN ORIGINAL ORDER OF SERVICE OF THE SAS FUNERAL FOR  JOHN McALEESE ALONG WITH SOME INFORMATIVE BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND INTERACTIVE VIDEO FOOTAGE .

 

RIP JOHN McALEESE (25 April 1949 – 26 August 2011)

BELOW IS AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE  JOHN McALEESE HAND SIGNED ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH (SIGNED AS JOHN MAC ) . ALSO SIGNED BY PETE WINNER (AS SOLDIER I ) … AND PETE SCHOLEY . THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS THE THEN PRIME MINISTER – MARGARET THATCHER WITH  THREE UN-NAMED MEMBERS OF THE SAS  OUTSIDE THE SAS “KILLING HOUSE” IN 1980 SHORTLY AFTER THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE,  NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL AS PART OF THE “SAS -WHO DARES WINS” EXHIBITION

BELOW IS THE ORIGINAL METROPOLITAN POLICE FORENSIC EXHIBIT IDENTIFICATION TAG (FORM 420) THAT WAS ATTACHED TO THE WEAPON FIRED BY SAS TROOPER- JOHN McALEESE DURING THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE  ON THE 5TH MAY 1980. PERSONALLY SIGNED BY BOTH HIM AND THE INVESTIGATING OFFICERS WHO WERE HANDED ALL THE USED WEAPONS AFTER THE SUCCESSFUL OPERATION . NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL AS PART OF THE “SAS -WHO DARES WINS” EXHIBITION

FREEDOM Honour for SAS HERO

SAS hero John McAleese, who was involved in the dramatic raid that ended the 1980 siege on the Iranian Embassy in London, has died, the Foreign Office confirmed.

Published on Thursday 1 September 2011 14:23

an UNSUNG hero is finally to be honoured by his home town. John McAleese, the SAS legend from Laurieston who led the dramatic raid on the Iranian embassy in London more than 30 years ago, died in Greece last Friday. Now there are moves to posthumously award him the Freedom of Falkirk, an honour most recently given to servicemen and women from the Second World War. However, the priority for his grief-stricken family is to bring the former soldier’s body home to allow the funeral to take place. Last night (Wednesday), his twin brother Billy (62) said: “We don’t know when we’ll get him back. Apparently it costs £20,000 and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

He added that he was still struggling to come to terms with the loss of his twin, who was born 20 minutes after him. Billy said: “My son got a text message from John’s daughter Hayley and told me. I still can’t believe it.” The pair were brought up, along with older sister Eleanor, in the family home in Livingston Drive by parents Bill and Grace. They went to Laurieston Primary then Graeme High School. John had a variety of jobs as a teenager, including at Grangemouth Docks and the British Aluminium. A former Army cadet, he joined the Royal Engineers in 1970, serving around the world for over 23 years. He spent 17 years with 22 SAS and was often seconded to protection duty, guarding prime ministers and royalty. But it was his major role in rescuing 19 hostages in 1980 that put him in the spotlight. Days earlier, six armed men had taken the hostages and demanded the release of political prisoners. The world watched as the events unfolded in dramatic TV coverage. Then a Lance Corporal, John was in full view on the balcony, laying the explosive charge and leaping back as the blast blew in the windows. Billy said: “I saw it on TV and, although they were masked, I knew it was him. I phoned his wife to ask where he was and she said he was on holiday in London but I knew that wasn’t true. “He didn’t talk a lot about what he did, he couldn’t. John got the Military Medal while in Northern Ireland but I never heard why.” After leaving the Army, John worked as a security consultant and in 2003 co-presented a BBC TV programme ‘The SAS: Are You Tough Enough?’ However, two years ago he was back in the spotlight but in tragic circumstances. His son Paul, a sergeant in the 2nd Battalion the Rifles, was killed in Afghanistan. Announcing her father’s death, daughter Hayley (28) said she believed that he had died of a broken heart on the eve of the anniversary of Paul being killed. Married twice, John is also survived by son Kieran and step-daughter Jessica. Announcing plans for the Falkirk honour, Provost Pat Reid said: “He was very much an unsung hero and it would be appropriate for us to confer this honour, the highest the district can give, to mark his courage.

DARK TOURISM UK … THE MUCH LOVED, ADORED & BEAUTIFUL LADY DIANA … THE SEEMINGLY TRAGIC LIFE AND UNTIMELY DEATH OF THE PRINCESS OF WALES……. FEATURED HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

Above & Below: Diana , Princess of Wales with her husband Prince Charles pictured here with the SAS Blue Team in 1983 at the SAS Killing House, Hereford . Clearly seen here wearing  personalised SAS black jumpsuits.

Below: Explosive revelations claiming  conspiracy theories that the SAS, MI5, MI6, CIA were involved in the untimely death of both Lady Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed .

Undoubtedly  there will always be an endless array of conspiracy theories ???

 

On display here we have a number of personal handwritten and signed letters from Lady Diana along with handwritten and signed Christmas Card. Also a wonderful signed photograph of Diana with her 2 children Prince William and Prince Harry set in her royal crested frame (see below)

As we all know much controversy, sleaze, scandal and tabloid sensationalism has and will always continue to surround the British Royal Family . Here at the jail we provide  an insight into some of the scandals and Royal traitors from behind closed doors .

On a personal level I believe that the British monarchy is important to our country and in particular wish Prince William and his beautiful wife Kate lots of happiness in the future

BELOW ARE IMAGES OF VARIOUS SIGNED PHOTOGRAPHS , CHRISTMAS CARD AND HANDWRITTEN LETTERS FROM LADY DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES

THE SEEMINGLY ALWAYS OUTSPOKEN AND CONTROVERSIAL AL FAYED , FATHER OF DODI FAYED (FROWNED UPON FORMER LOVER OF LADY DIANA WHO ALSO DIED IN THE CAR  CRASH )

SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF ALLEGED ROYAL TRAITOR FROM WITHIN LADY DIANA’S ROYAL HOUSEHOLD (DIANA’S BUTLER) ….. WHOM HIMSELF WAS  BELIEVED TO HAVE SUBSTANTIALLY PROFITED FROM HER DEATH

SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF ALLEGED ROYAL TRAITOR FROM WITHIN LADY DIANA’S ROYAL HOUSEHOLD (DIANA’S BUTLER) ….. WHOM HIMSELF WAS  BELIEVED TO HAVE SUBSTANTIALLY PROFITED FROM HER DEATH

SIGNED PHOTO AND MONTAGE DISPLAY OF THE PERSISTANTLY ALLEGED FORMER LOVER OF LADY DIANA (AND ALLEGED FATHER OF PRINCE HARRY) .

A MAN AGAIN WHO HAS ALLEGEDLY SUBSTANTIALLY PROFITED FROM HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH LADY DIANA

SIGNED PHOTO AND MONTAGE DISPLAY OF THE PERSISTANTLY ALLEGED FORMER LOVER OF LADY DIANA (AND ALLEGED FATHER OF PRINCE HARRY) .

A MAN AGAIN WHO HAS ALLEGEDLY SUBSTANTIALLY PROFITED FROM HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH LADY DIANA

NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY !!! LADY DIANA -PRINCESS OF WALES RIDICULED BY THE SUNDAY SPORT ON AUGUST 16TH 1989 ……PICTURED  HERE WITH HER HEAD SUPERIMPOSED ON A TOPLESS GLAMOUR MODEL’S BODY

UNFORTUNATELY I WAS BUSY AND COULDN’T MAKE IT !!!

BELOW :  Undoubtedly Lady Diana’ death conspiracy theories will continue for many years to come …..