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Gavin 🚜
@GavinBullick
I’m skiing, flying or walking the dog. Views my own. Likes etc not endorsements. Partial to Cherry Bakewells.
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Joined November 2017
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After the other invasion anniversary, one that actually happened tbf, I saw this on the Brilliant Maps FB page asking how people thought it would go if there were not atomic bombs, and it reminded me of some work I did on the Commonwealth role in this operation. It should be noted the Commonwealth Corps were a follow up and are not included in the map.
Obviously this is a massive counterfactual but I think there is a chance it could have gone quite badly for the Commonwealth Corps - none of the three divisions earmarked, British, Australian, or Canadian, had faced the Japanese, and most of the troops would have been green. Allied training was excellent, but the lack of experience in leadership against the Japanese and in general amongst the troops when invading the home islands of an country whose government would likely fight fanatically for every inch with its entire population has disaster written all over it. Although one of three commanders in the running was the excellent David ‘Punch’ Cowan after his leadership of 17 Indian Division, and particularly Meiktila. In research for Thunder Run I even found Slim’s appraisal of him, completed in the field in April 1945 during the race to Rangoon, recommending him for corps command, leading to his being considered for the Commonwealth Corp command.
MacArthur also did not want the Commonwealth Corps involved at all, but compromised due to the casualty projections. They were also to undergo training in the USA and have US vehicles, uniforms and weapons basically so they could be plugged into the American Pacific logistical system (and maybe so the footage would always look like Americans did everything…).
Last point - the Indian Army was not involved initially partly as MacArthur didn’t want them, but they were also being prepared for invasion of Malaya - although they were intended to come to the Japanese home Islands at some point in late 1946 or early 1947. #other #dday
I met brilliant firefighters in Hampshire recently who reported similar concerns to me.
The politicisation of our public services must stop.
@francessmith You’ve really got to hope this isn’t true because it’s really grim if it is. It strikes me that and respect for opposing views is not shared equally across the political spectrum. Brexit was an example but will pale compared to what will happen if Reform win a majority at a GE.
@DrChrisParry I wonder how many leaders have left, been sidelined or even pushed out because they could see the folly of all this & where it would lead. We have a lost generation across our institutions & have rewarded those willing to conform, removing opposition, with attendant consequences.
The essence of free speech is that it cuts both ways. If you believe that we have the right to say anything we like, up to the point of libel, harassment or criminal incitement, then you should apply that principle consistently.
If it you thought it absurd to arrest Graham Linehan for his joke about punching trans people in the balls, you should also oppose arresting members of the rap group Kneecap for saying that the only good Tory is a dead Tory.
If you were shocked by the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly for making incendiary remarks about immigrants, you should extend the same logic to the Bob Vylan singer chanting “Death, death to the IDF!”
The President of the Oxford Union, Arwa Elrayess, has come under fire both for inviting Tommy Robinson and for private comments in which she seems to praise Hamas. If even members of the Union no longer understand that free expression covers opinions we loathe, then we have truly lost the concept.
Sky's @TrevorPTweets, a former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, says he feel "rage" because the Henry Nowak case is one of many examples of "misjudgements about people based on their race leading to a young life being cut short."
He shares three other examples ⬇️
It’s institutional and not limited to the police. A reset across the board is urgently required.
This is a shocker. Iceland founder Sir Malcolm Walker tells how a senior Asian employee at his store in Enfield was handcuffed and dragged to a police car after a black customer rang 999 and alleged racism after being caught tampering with milk bottles.
The point Sir Malcolm makes in the Mail
On Sunday is that the cops turned up just 3 minutes after the false claim and yet they often didn’t attend even when staff had been seriously hurt or threatened with violence.
Incredibly, the member of staff was taken away for more than two hours before the matter was dropped.
The Met said a man in his 20s was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence.
Senior figures at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, under the command of Andy Burnham, have cautioned firefighters who support Reform UK over their political views.
In a further chilling assault on free speech, staff have also effectively been urged in an email to report colleagues who support Reform.
Fire brigade bosses have also said they are seeking legal advice on what to do about firefighters who decide to stand as Reform UK candidates. This is despite the fact that, unlike police officers, there is no legal bar preventing firefighters from participating in national or local politics.
In their email, fire brigade bosses Mr Petch and Ms Ahmed said: ’We are aware that some staff members have chosen to represent Reform UK in their local areas. We know this may cause concern within our network and wider.
’The individuals involved have been spoken to, to make it clear that as members of GMFRS (Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service) our core values and professional behaviours must be displayed at all times.
’The service is currently seeking formal legal guidance… to ensure we are protected from all perspectives and that our inclusive culture remains safe.
‘Our priority is and always will be ensuring that every member of this network feels supported, respected and safe at work.’
They also confirmed that they would be consulting the Fire Brigades Union on the matter.
In his role as Mayor of Greater Manchester, @AndyBurnhamGM — who is also tipped by some to be a future Prime Minister if he wins the Makerfield by-election — is also Greater Manchester’s Fire Commissioner, responsible for overseeing the service.
General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young of Acton, has now written to Mr Burnham to raise concerns about the chilling effect this has on free speech.
Lord Young said that the ‘clear implication’ of the email from the fire brigade bosses was that ‘representing Reform UK constitutes an inherent threat to the institution’s culture and values and is to be treated as morally suspect’. He also highlighted that no action appears to have been taken against firefighters who support other political parties.
The letter also states: ‘Staff are further invited to report colleagues who support any groups that go against the service’s values, which effectively amounts to an instruction to inform on colleagues for their political beliefs.
’The email will create a chilling effect on the free speech of GMFRS employees who support Reform.
’The practical effect is that a public fire and rescue service governed by you is treating the lawful political activity of your electoral opponents as a reputational risk to their employer.
‘Regardless of whether this reflects your instruction, it reflects your governance; and a public office-holder who permits his institution to demonise or chill the speech and political activity of those who support his principal electoral rival cannot claim to be discharging that office with the impartiality it demands.’
Read more below 👇
@renabaddie_ 116, 96, 95.
Staff Sergeant Walter Ehlers landed in the first wave at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.
Around him, the slaughter was immediate. Nearly half of the first wave was killed or wounded within minutes. Officers were down. Men were frozen in place, unable to move, waiting to die.
Ehlers got all 12 men in his squad through alive.
Every single one.
He didn't survive on luck. He moved, made decisions, found routes, kept his squad functioning as a unit when everything around them was disintegrating. All 12 made it off the beach.
Three days later, eight miles inland, it got worse.
His platoon walked into a carefully laid ambush. Fire from multiple directions simultaneously. Men going down fast.
Ehlers charged the German patrol. By himself. He killed four soldiers before the enemy could react, disrupting the entire ambush.
Then he led a bayonet charge, personally, against two machine gun nests and a mortar position, and destroyed all three.
Every man in his platoon survived.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Then the news reached him that the chaos of battle had been keeping from him: his brother, Roland Ehlers, had been killed at Omaha Beach. The same beach Walter had just led his squad through. The same morning.
"I still can't talk about him without bringing tears to my eyes," Walter said in an interview sixty years later. "He was my hero until the day he died."
Two brothers landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944.
One saved twelve lives. One gave his own.
Both were heroes.
You really, really have to hope this turns out not to be true.
Er … Firefighters in Manchester who support Reform UK have been cautioned over their views by bosses.
And staff are being urged to snitch on colleagues who express support for Reform.
so when Starmer said “Free speech is one of the founding values of the United Kingdom, and we protect it jealously and fiercely and always will.” … that was just disinformation 🤡
Private Carlton Barrett was possibly the smallest man in his regiment.
5 feet 4 inches tall. 125 pounds.
On the morning of June 6, 1944, he landed at Omaha Beach in neck-deep water, machine gun fire cutting the surface all around him. He made it to shore.
Then he turned around and went back in.
A soldier was drowning. Barrett pulled him out. Then another. Then another. For hours, under constant fire, this 125-pound man waded back into the surf again and again, pulling drowning men to safety and physically carrying the wounded to evacuation boats offshore.
But he didn't stop there.
He ran dispatches the full length of the fire-swept beach. He found soldiers paralyzed by shock and calmed them back into action. He appeared wherever the crisis was worst, doing whatever needed doing, treating rank and personal safety as irrelevant details.
He did this for hours without stopping.
His Medal of Honor citation says his courage had "an inestimable effect on his comrades." That is military understatement for: this small, anonymous man held that section of beach together through sheer force of will.
He survived the war.
His comrades later said his life darkened after he came home. He lived quietly and died in 1986 in California, largely unknown outside of military history circles.
5 feet 4 inches. 125 pounds. He went back in.
Remember him.
Ray Lambert had already been shot twice and blown up once before he ever set foot on Omaha Beach.
He had survived the invasion of North Africa in 1943. Then Sicily. Each time he had been wounded. Each time he had gone back. By June 6th, 1944, the 23-year-old Staff Sergeant and head medic of the 16th Infantry Regiment's 2nd Battalion was on his third invasion in two years. He had already won a Silver Star for running through German lines in North Africa to drag wounded men out.
He was not supposed to survive a third one.
Lambert landed in the first wave at Omaha Beach. Of the 31 men in his landing craft, only 7 survived the day. The other 24 were killed before they even reached the sand.
He started working immediately.
The first bullet hit his right arm and shattered the bone. He kept going. A second round tore through his right elbow as he was pulling a wounded soldier through the surf. He kept going. Something hit his leg and opened it down to the bone. He put a tourniquet on himself, injected himself with morphine from his own kit, and kept going.
He found a slab of concrete on the beach that offered a few inches of cover. He set up a treatment zone behind it, dragging men out of the water and working on them one by one under constant fire. That piece of concrete is still there today. People who visit Omaha Beach call it Ray's Rock.
Then a loose landing craft ramp swung loose in the surf and slammed into him. It broke his back.
He kept going.
Lambert lost count of how many men he treated. The official record credits him with saving at least 15 lives that morning. Other accounts say closer to two dozen. He worked until his body physically stopped, collapsing unconscious at the edge of the surf, bleeding from multiple wounds, his back broken, still in the water.
A doctor spotted him. A landing craft pulled him out.
Here is the part that does not feel real.
Lambert's brother, Euel, had also been wounded at Normandy that day. The two brothers were loaded onto the same evacuation landing craft. They were placed in the same wheeled ambulance. They were taken to the same tent hospital in England. They were brought into the same operating room at the same time.
Lambert spent almost a full year recovering before he could walk properly again.
He went home. He lived quietly for decades, rarely talking about what happened. In 2019, at the age of 98, he went back to Normandy and stood on the beach again. He published a memoir called Every Man a Hero. It became a New York Times bestseller.
In 2021, Ray Lambert died peacefully at home. He was 100 years old.
He had three invasions, four serious wounds, a broken back, a Silver Star, multiple Bronze Stars, multiple Purple Hearts, and two dozen men who came home because he refused to stop moving on the worst morning in American military history.
Today is June 6th.
Remember him.
100%, it also matters for safety and standards.
For the leftie idiots commenting …In 2025, more than 40,000 doctors applied for 12,833 specialty training posts.
Of those applicants, 15,723 were UK trained doctors and 25,257 were overseas trained doctors competing for the same places.
The GMC says 138,405 doctors who qualified abroad were licensed to practise in the UK, representing 42% of all licensed doctors.
It is a waste of our talent and our money to give visas to foreign doctors when we have thousands here unable to find places.
Very sad. There are many causes - such as high energy prices and Labour’s tax on jobs but there is something even bigger. In Tesco you can buy Chinese made plates which look unnerving like Denby - knock-offs effectively - at a fraction of the price.
We continue to delude ourselves that ‘free trade’ is fair trade. It isn’t and the long-term costs to our society of this wanton de-industrialisation is devastating.
South Wales Police are enforcing their own Islamic blasphemy law, 18 years after Parliament voted to abolish such laws.
The Free Speech Union has long warned that the Government’s official definition of Islamophobia — repackaged as “anti-Muslim hatred” — would silence legitimate criticism of Islam and encourage public bodies to go further.
South Wales Police have now instructed officers to record comments they deem to go beyond “legitimate” discussion of Islam. These will be logged as anti-social behaviour incidents and could be disclosed on an enhanced DBS check, potentially preventing people from getting a job.
The Free Speech Union has written to South Wales Police demanding that this guidance be withdrawn. If they fail to do so, we have warned that we will seek a judicial review.
As Shadow Equalities Minister @ClaireCoutinho wrote to the Chief Constable: “At a time of widespread concern about two-tier policing, your force is creating a separate and more restrictive category of speech that applies only in the context of one religion. This is not equal treatment under the law.”
Read Claire’s letter below 👇
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