The tragedy of National Action: Ben Raymond given ten-year sentence
Earlier today Ben Raymond – the co-founder of national socialist youth group National Action – was given a 10-year extended prison sentence after being found guilty of offences under the Terrorism Act.
This was the latest and most serious of a series of trials in which NA activists have been accused of a variety of offences since the group was banned under the Terrorism Act at the end of 2016.
Yet Mr Raymond’s offences seem to have had little to do with anything that a normal Briton would call ‘terrorism’. Reading the remarks of Judge Christopher Parker QC who passed sentence today at Bristol Crown Court, it seems that Mr Raymond’s main offence was producing propaganda for views that the rulers of today’s liberal, multiracial Britain find unpalatable.
In numerous articles over the past five years, H&D has explicitly criticised NA’s strategy, and no doubt when the time comes for an overall assessment of the group, when other trials presently under way have concluded, there will be further criticisms.
But any honest racial nationalist looking at today’s sentence would have to admit two things.
First, that whatever we think of Mr Raymond’s approach, to call him a terrorist deserving a 10-year prison sentence is a travesty and a gross distortion of the English language.
Second, that we older heads in the racial nationalist movement must face up to our responsibility for the political circumstances that led to NA’s creation in 2013. During the previous decade we had a golden opportunity to build a British racial nationalist challenge that was radical yet realistic and responsible. We threw that opportunity away, and we must accept our share of the blame for the tragedy of National Action.
Ian David Carser 1968-2021
To be honest not many of us were that shocked to hear at the beginning of November of the death of John Bean (the 1960s leader of the BNP mark II) who was aged 94, and whose obituary will be in the next edition of H&D (#106). However, it came as a massive shock to learn of the death of Ian Carser (aged only 53) at the very end of October.
Ian had had some health issues for a few years, but nobody really knew how bad they were. Only a few weeks before his death I had chatted on the phone with him and he bought a copy of Troy Southgate’s Arnold Leese biography – Truth Dressed As a Lie. After not being seen for a few days, a member of his Orange Lodge, contacted his father, who in turn contacted the Police. They broke into his house at the start of the month, and sadly found him dead inside. Covid may have finished him off in the end, but at the moment that remains unclear.
Ian was a long-standing supporter and subscriber of Heritage and Destiny, who I had known since 2004, when I met him for the first time in Portadown, County Armagh, over the “12th July” weekend. However, he had been active in “the movement” and the Ulster Loyalist cause, since his late teens.
He was a former part-time soldier in the Royal Irish Regiment (Home Service), formerly the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) for many years. And, so he really did put his life on the line for Queen and Country every day of the year.
Politically Ian was both an Ulster Loyalist and staunch British nationalist. He had been a member of both the NF and the BNP, and later in the Northern Ireland based Ulster Awake group.
He was a proud protestant – a Free Presbyterian – and belonged to all three of the main loyal orders: No Kilroot True Blues LOL 1544 was his Orange Lodge; Lily Among The Thorns RBP 236 was his Royal Black Preceptory; and Woodburn Browning was his Apprentice Boys of Derry (ABOD) Campsie Club. He held senior office at both private and district levels in all of the above orders and was also the treasurer of the ABOD Club of Research.
Ian travelled all over the UK on parade with the Loyal Orders, and in 2017 he went over to Germany with the Orange Order to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation (in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the castle door in Wittenberg in Germany – an act widely seen as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, which spread throughout Europe).
I attended ABOD parades with Ian in both Markethill – County Armagh – and East Belfast in the late 2000s. He always wanted to attend the ABOD parade in Southport (Lancashire) held every June, but sadly never got round to it.
However, Ian did travel over to Preston in Lancashire, on three occasions for H&D‘s annual John Tyndall Memorial Meeting, which he always enjoyed, making a weekend of it, taking in the sights of Preston afterwards! He also planned at some stage to come over to Lancashire, to watch some live English football, but again never got round to it.
Ian was a long-time supporter of Linfield Football Club (who play at Windsor Park in South Belfast) and a member of Carrick True Blues (his local Linfield Supporters Club). Known affectionately as “Stompee” Ian was a devout “Blueman” who was an ever present on the supporter’s bus for many seasons. Although a quiet, polite, and well-read (he had a library of well over 1,000 books at his house) gentleman, he was sometimes known to get a bit boisterous at the big games!
I travelled with him on the supporters’ bus from Carrick to an away game at Coleraine (in County Londonderry) back in 2007, and that was quite an experience I can tell you – even for a seasoned football fan like myself! I remember asking him if he thought the quality of Irish League football was very poor. He replied, no, but it was an acquired taste!
I also attended the Northern Ireland v Georgia game at Windsor Park, the same year, as well as a couple of Linfield home games in the early rounds of the Champions League in later years.
Apart from league games in Northern Ireland, Ian followed the Blues across Europe, including trips to Croatia, Denmark, Belarus, and various places in the in the Irish Republic for Setanta Cup games, to name but a few.
For most of his working life, Ian was a civil servant, working in the Belfast civil courts in his final few years.
He was born and bred in the Loyalist town of Carrickfergus (County Antrim), famous for The Siege of Carrickfergus Castle in August 1689 when a force of Williamite troops under Marshal Schomberg landed and laid siege to the Jacobite garrison. After a week the Jacobites surrendered, and were allowed to march out with the honours of war. William of Orange himself subsequently landed at Carrickfergus in June 1690.
Ian took me around Carrickfergus Castle on one of my many visits to the town around 2010, reminding me of another famous visitor in the summer of 1962 – George Lincoln Rockwell – who spent a day in the town, after driving up from the Irish Republic with Colin Jordan and John Tyndall, before getting the ferry over to England.
Ian was a true bachelor, his family being the Loyal Orders, and his British nationalist and Ulster Loyalist friends. He leaves behind his father Ronnie, to whom we offer our thoughts, prayers, and condolences at this difficult time.
On November 4th Ian was buried at Victoria Cemetery in Carrickfergus, with the Union Flag and his Orange Sash (complete with his “Enoch Powell Was Right” badge) on top of his coffin, which was carried by former Soldiers from the Royal Irish Regiment.
As well as being a longstanding subscriber/support of H&D, Ian was a good friend and comrade, and I will miss him deeply.
Audaces Fortuna Juvat
“For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s”. Romans 14.8
Mark Cotterill, Preston, Lancashire
A century of sacrifice and betrayal
This year marks the centenary of the Royal British Legion’s poppy appeal, and most H&D readers will once again have bought a poppy to remember the tragic sacrifice of so many lives in the wars and terrorist conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Yet this year we have more reason than ever to remember betrayal as well as sacrifice, and the less than noble role sometimes played by the British Legion itself.
On 18th October 80-year-old Dennis Hutchings – already terminally ill – died in Belfast after contracting Covid-19. He was buried last week in Plymouth.
Pallbearers from the Life Guards – Mr Hutchings’ former regiment – were allowed by the Ministry of Defence to take part in his funeral, but his last years were marked by relentless efforts to prosecute him for doing his duty.
Despite his illness, Mr Hutchings boldly stood up to defend not only his own record, but those of countless comrades whose sacrifice is now traduced for today’s political convenience.
Just like the victims of the Birmingham pub bombings – whose families have yet to obtain justice even though the British government knows full well who perpetrated the crime – those who like Dennis Hutchings fought the scourge of terrorism as far back as fifty years ago, are considered disposable by our lords and masters.
This is nothing new: long before the renewal of the IRA’s terrorist campaign in the late 1960s, another ruthless band of killers brought a campaign of death and destruction to Britain’s streets, and it soon proved politically convenient to forget their crimes. These were the Zionist Jewish terrorists of the Stern Gang, Irgun and Haganah. One Stern Gang terrorist who planted a bomb in Central London has continued to escape prosecution for more than seventy years! Robert Misrahi bombed a servicemen’s club just off Trafalgar Square, then escaped to France where he became an eminent academic and still lives in Paris aged 95, untroubled by any request for his extradition.
No such luck for Dennis Hutchings or the many other British servicemen now facing prosecution – not for carrying out terrorist crimes, but for fighting the terrorists!
Tony Martin – himself an ex-serviceman and now chairman of the National Front – will lead the NF’s traditional Remembrance Day march to the Cenotaph today: a tradition that was begun by the NF’s founding chairman, A.K. Chesterton, who won the Military Cross on the Western Front in 1918.
H&D readers will pay their respects at memorials around the UK. But without illusions.
It has become a cliché to write that British soldiers in the First World War were “lions led by donkeys”. Sadly it was much worse than that. They were (and remain to this day) lions led by traitors.
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Rudyard Kipling, Recessional, 1897
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen, 1914
9-11 – H&D’s Editor Remembers the Day – Twenty Years On
Today – 11th September 2021 – marks the twentieth anniversary of the famous 9/11 attacks, which saw nineteen Islamic terrorists from the al-Qaeda group take over and then control four planes over the US airspace and turn them into deadly weapons against their number one enemy the USA.
That Tuesday morning, I woke up as usual around 7.30am, and after the standard cup of tea (yes, I still drank tea in the morning – rather than coffee – even after six years of Americanization!) I kissed my (then) girlfriend Jackie goodbye and started to make my way into down-town Washington DC where I worked.
As I did almost every morning, I caught the bus – at around 8am – from outside my apartment block in Falls Church, which took me to the Rosslyn Metro Station, in NW Arlington – which is the last stop in Virginia – and transferred onto the Metro train (their version of our Tube train) which took me into DC.
I got off as normal – at around 8.45am – at the McPherson Square Metro Station – a couple of blocks from where I worked on 13th Street NW, (which was about six blocks from the White House) and made my way to one of the many restaurants in the area, where I bought breakfast! Yes, sadly in that respect I had got Americanized into buying breakfast out, rather than making it at home myself – or even getting Jackie to make breakfast (some hope there!).
I bought my standard DC breakfast, a large coffee (as their tea was awful), and a sun-dried tomato bagel, with a tasty egg, bacon, and cheese filling (yes, I know!) and made my way to work on 13th Street, which was around two or three blocks away.
I worked as an office assistant to Dr. Roger Pearson, one of the greatest modern writers on race, eugenic science, anthropology, and Indo-European studies, who had both his home and office on 13th Street, NW. The office from where he ran three publications, Mankind Quarterly (MQ), The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies (JSPS) and his pride and joy, The Journal of Indo-European Studies (JSPS), as well as publishing dozens of books and monographs every year.
I got into the office on time, which was a couple of minutes before 9am and started to drink my coffee (I would do the typically American thing of eating my bagel while walking to work!). Up until then – as they say – it was just a normal day at the office!
Dr. Pearson was already in his office (which was the room next door to mine) hard at work. He normally got there before me around 8.45am most mornings. However, he did not have very far to travel – as he lived in an apartment (flat) just above the office, on the 4th or 5th floor (I think). We said our usual pleasantries, and I then got on with going through the mail from the previous day (I did not normally work on a Monday) and from the weekend.
Looking back on it, around the time I was getting my breakfast, around 8.46am, New York was turning into a scene of devastation after the first of the two planes smashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. And around the time I was sitting down at my desk and starting to open the mail, around 9.03am the second plane was smashing into the South Tower.
Both 110 story towers collapsed within an hour and forty-two minutes, leading to the collapse of the other World Trade Center structures including 7 World Trade Center, and significantly damaging all the surrounding buildings.
Of course, Dr. Pearson and I, were oblivious to all this, as we did not have a radio or TV on in either office, and it was just before the days of smart phones.
The first we knew that something was wrong, was when Dr. Pearson’s wife Marion rang him from their upstairs flat, where I guess she was watching the events unfold on TV. He told me what she had told him, but to be honest it did not really sink in there and then what was going on. So, we just carried on working as normal.
I guess five minutes later, just before 9.20am we got another phone call which I answered this time. It was BNP leader Nick Griffin! He told us basically what Mrs. Pearson had just told us, that two hijacked planes had crashed into the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center, but then added that two more planes were now on their way to DC to blow up the White House and Capital Buildings, and that we needed to get out quickly!
Of course, even if we wanted to get out – which we didn’t – where were we meant to get out to? However, Nick meant well, and I appreciate him warning us anyway, even though there was nothing we could do about it. I thanked him and told him we would not be moving from the building at this time, but if he could ring back with any updates, that would be very useful.
I talked over the situation with Dr. Pearson, and he said he did not think the planes would even reach DC, and even if they did, their targets were so far away from us that we would “probably be ok”! So, we sat back down at our desks and carried on working.
However, we had only been back at our desks for a couple of minutes, when we heard a hell of a commotion going on outside our building. At 9:37am, the third of the hijacked planes crashed into the west side of the Pentagon (the headquarters of the American military, as well as a large underground shopping mall), which was just over the Potomac river in NW Arlington, Virginia, causing a partial collapse of the building’s west side.
To give you an idea of distance, the Pentagon is about three miles south east of our office, maybe a ten-minute drive away. It’s just south of Arlington National Cemetery, and just north of Alexandria.
I can remember hearing an explosion, and then the noise of hundreds of other office workers, and locals outside our office on the streets. I said to Dr. Pearson that I was going outside to see what the heck was happening, because we had no windows in the office so I could not peer out. Once outside I could see all the smoke in the distance, and word got round that the Pentagon had been hit.
I can’t remember there being a panic, but a lot of my fellow DC workers were very concerned as word had got around that the fourth plane was on its way to DC!
However, the fourth plane – United 93 – never reached DC. And US authorities even to this day, don’t know for sure if the target was to have been the White House or the Capitol.
The story put about by President Bush’s spin-doctors, that the passengers aboard United 93 decided to act once they realized all was lost – i.e., storm the flight deck, attack the terrorists and bring the plane down before it reached Washington DC – sadly did not happen. But why would it have done: it never happened on the other three hijacked flights, and they had many more passengers.
What did surely happen, was that Bush ordered United 93 to be shot down before it got anywhere near DC. This flight was the only plane not to hit its intended target, instead after being shot down it crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 170 miles from DC at 10:03 am.
Once the news spread around DC that plane number 4 had crashed and that there were probably no more hijacked planes up in the skies, most of the workers either returned to their offices – as I did – or they left and started to make their way back home.
I asked Dr. Pearson what we should do, and he said, “just carry on working Mark”! Which is what I did until around noon when I went for an early lunch. All public transport in DC was in the process of being stopped, but most of the bars and restaurants seemed to be open, with customers glued to the TVs. I found a Subway close by and got a meal and a soda (pop to you Brits!) and tried to check my cell phone, only to find it not working. The internet had also gone down, but landlines were still working.
I made my way back to the office, where Dr. Pearson was still working. He informed me he was then going up upstairs to his flat for his lunch. So, I just went back to work. Strange when you look back on it.
My girlfriend Jackie was calling the office, every half an hour or so asking when I was going to get out of DC and come home. I told her the same thing each time: as soon as I can.
Dr. Pearson came back down to the office around 2pm I guess, and told me to pack up for the day, as it would take me ages to get home as there was no public transport. Even most of the taxi drivers had gone home by then. So, I called Jackie back from the office landline and said I was going to start to make my way back to Falls Church, but be prepared for a long wait as it may take a while!
I walked across the city towards Georgetown, which took me just over an hour. I knew at the far end of Georgetown was the Francis Scott Key bridge where I could walk across into Virginia. However, it was a sweltering hot day and I needed a beer or two, so I stopped off at a bar not far from the bridge. It was busy, but not chock-a-block, with everybody watching the news channels on the big TV screens. It was there for the first time, sitting in that Georgetown pub with a cold pint of Sam Adams lager that I saw the footage of the first two planes fly into and then strangely disappear into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Images that will never be forgotten.
There had been mixed reports on the news channels, some saying it was at first believed that a small private plane had hit the tower by accident but less than 20 minutes later, it was obvious that a terrorist attack had taken place. Everyone in the pub was coming up with their own ideas as to who had done it and why, I just listened and drank my beer.
Somebody in the pub mentioned that the buses in Virginia were running again, but the Metro trains were still closed. So, I drank up and made my way across the Francis Scott Key bridge out of DC and back into Virginia – Rosslyn to be precise. Another five minutes and I was at the bus terminal, and the guy in the pub was right – the buses were running again! Thank the gods, that’s saved me another five mile walk home!
I remember our local left-wing newspaper The Washington Post, had been busy and got out a special afternoon edition, covering the attacks. I bought a copy to read on my bus journey back to Falls Church. As I was boarding the bus my cell phone started ringing – more good news the phones were working again – it was Jackie, frantically asking where I was. Thankfully this time I could tell her not that far away and that I would be home soon.
I guess I got back to my flat on South Manchester Street, which for those of you who know the area is just off Route 50 (aka Arlington Blvd) very close to the famous “Seven Corners” side of Falls Church, around 6pm. To say Jackie was pleased to see me was an understatement!
She and Justin (our lodger) a taxi driver who in his younger days was in the French Foreign Legion, were watching the TV News when I walked in. Justin who was very politically clued up and like me slightly to the right of George Bush, claimed he knew straight away “that it was the Muslims” who had done it. He was just not sure (then) which of the many types of Muslim it was! But to those like Justin they were all the same to him!
After freshening up (as Americans do after work!) I grabbed a beer and settled down to watch the non-stop TV News coverage along with Jackie and Justin. We were told that our bold leader George W Bush, who had been down on Florida’s west coast at a (mainly) African-American Elementary School in Sarasota (which is just south of Tampa), when the attacks happened, would be on the TV at 8pm (Eastern Time – which would have been 1am in the UK) to address the nation, from the Oval Office in the White House.
I asked Jackie to go and get ready as we were going out to eat and we would watch the Bush speech on TV in one of the local restaurants or bars. However, that was not to be the case as we later found out that 99% of them had shut as a mark of respect!
Justin being a taxi driver, thought he knew of a couple of places that would buck the trend and stay open, but when we got there no such luck all closed. But as we turned around to head back home disappointed, Jackie said why not try “Little Salvador” – which was a 99% Hispanic area just off Route 7 – ? “She’s right” Justin said, “if anywhere will be open it will be in there”. And she was, we found an El Salvadoran restaurant open within a minute of entering the ghetto!
Justin was not going to stay himself, as he used to get up at the crack of dawn to start driving his taxi around 6am, but he dropped us off at the restaurant’s front door, saying “now you two are going be alright in there aren’t you!”. “Yes, I’m sure we will mate” I replied. Jackie was a bit nervous, but I told her it would be fine and don’t worry. I said something like “they’re all God’s children like us; we will be fine”!
And we were fine. The manager was very pleased to see us (and my money!), as we were the only Gringos in there that evening. The locals who did not speak much English were fine and kept themselves to themselves, but the manager and the waiter could not do enough for us (obviously hoping for a good tip at the end of the evening – which they got).
From what I can recall, the “local” food (which was very much like Mexican) and beer was very good. We had just been served our main course when Bush came on TV to deliver the most important speech of his career to the nation – and the world. However, probably very wisely his advisers told him to keep it short and sweet, and it lasted less than four and a half minutes.
“Good evening. – Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes or in their offices: secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers, moms and dads, friends, and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge — huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong.
“A great people have been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining. Today, our nation saw evil — the very worst of human nature — and we responded with the best of America. With the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.
“Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government’s emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it’s prepared. Our emergency teams are working in New York City and Washington D.C. to help with local rescue efforts. Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured, and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks. The functions of our government continue without interruption. Federal agencies in Washington which had to be evacuated today are reopening for essential personnel tonight and will be open for business tomorrow. Our financial institutions remain strong, and the American economy will be open for business as well.
“The search is underway for those who were behind these evil acts. I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
“I appreciate so very much the members of Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks. And on behalf of the American people, I thank the many world leaders who have called to offer their condolences and assistance. America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world, and we stand together to win the war against terrorism.
“Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a Power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23:
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.
“This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. –
“Thank you. Good night. And God bless America.”
From what I recall we watched Bush via an El Salvadoran TV channel, in English, but with Spanish sub-titles. The locals were quiet and reserved with no cheering at the end, but I’m sure there was in those few “White American” bars that were open, almost everybody was pro-Bush – for a few week’s anyway.
Following the attacks, Bush’s approval rating soared to 90%. A week or so later on September 20th, 2001, he gave the second most important speech of his career, when he addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress regarding the events of September 11th and the subsequent nine days of rescue and recovery efforts and described his intended response to the attacks. To be honest I can’t recall where I watched that one. New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani’s highly visible role directly after the attacks also won him high praise in both New York and nationally.
After a few more beers, I paid the manager (including a good tip!). He called us a local taxi and we were back home in less than five minutes.
With everything that had gone on that day Jackie had almost forgotten that September 12th was her big day – in court that is! She had been arrested and charged the month before with drink-driving, and was due to appear at Court House, in Arlington (next to the famous Summer’s Pub where I spent many a happy hour watching English and Scottish football) at 9am. Oh dear, but what can you do. We got an early night, which meant bed before midnight for us, as it would be an early start in the following morning.
It was strange, worrying about this court case with all that was going on in the country, and it must have been even worse for Jackie as she could be looking at up to a year inside, as it was her second offence. We just made the best of it and prepared for the worst. We got up early and took the bus from outside the apartment direct to Court House not really knowing what to expect.
However, what greeted us as we approached the entrance to Court House even shocked me. There were dozens – maybe even a hundred National Guard (the Yanks equivalent of the TA), regular army, State Tropers and normal plod all milling around, trying to look mean and nasty.
I was a bit worried approaching them, but I had to! I explained to a State Trooper that we were here for Jackie’s court case and had been told to report at 9am. But before I could even show him the paperwork, he shouted that the Court buildings were now closed for the foreseeable future, due to yesterday’s attacks, and that Jackie would be getting a letter in due course telling her of her new date with the beak! He ended by saying “Now go away”!
So, with no court appearance for Jackie that morning, what was plan B? We decided to go to my second home – Summer’s Pub – which was only around the corner – and get some breakfast. The Manger was a great guy called Joe from Armenia. He welcomed us in and asked why we were in there so early? “There’s no soccer on until lunchtime Mark”. I explained the court situation, and also that Jackie really needed a drink (I may have needed one too, I forget!). Joe said, “you know I can’t serve alcohol in the main restaurant area – and the back bar where we watch the soccer (sorry football!) does not open until 11am.” I looked at my watch at it was only 9.30am.
“Look Joe” I said, “can you do me really big favour and let us go in the back bar and just have a quick beer and maybe a large Scotch for Jackie”? While he was deciding what to do, I handed him an “Andrew Jackson” (a $20 note) and said, “and this is for your trouble Joe”. Strangely he decided it was OK and we could use the bar for a drink!
As it happens, I had been in the same situation with Joe about year before. It was nine something in morning and I was in Summer’s Pub for breakfast before a big AF-BNP (American Friends of the BNP) meeting which was going to be held in a restaurant directly opposite called The Little Café that afternoon. I was with two other Brits, both called Richard. One was ex-Pat from Arizona, who had flown up from Phoenix for the meeting, and the other was one of our guest speakers Richard Barnbrook, who had flown over with his wife from London. Richard Barnbrook would later become leader of the BNP group on Barking and Dagenham Council, and also the BNP’s only ever representative to the Greater London Assembly.
What I did not know was Richard Barnbrook was also an alcoholic, and after picking at his “full-American” for ten minutes, said “Mark, what I really, really need is a proper drink”! So, as with Jackie a year later, I had to bribe Joe with an “Andrew Jackson”, to let future Councillor Barnbrook sit in the bar on his own with a pint of Sam Adams and a double Brady (with not much coke in it!).
Such was life as Chairman of The American Friends of the BNP!
Anyway, back to September 12th, 2001. After I finished my breakfast, and Jackie had knocked back another couple of large Scotch’s, I called Dr. Pearson and explained the situation, that the Court House had been closed and what looked like martial law been imposed on the streets of Arlington.
He suggested that I come into work (I had booked the day off to be with Jackie in her hour of need), as there was no point in wasting a day now the court case had been cancelled. He was right as we had a stack of back orders to get through that week and a new issue of JIES to mail out.
So, after the customary farewells to Joe, I flagged a taxi down on North Courthouse Road for Jackie and sent her back home to Falls Church. I walked the short distance to Court House Metro Station and caught the train into DC. What struck me straight away was how empty the train was. OK it was not rush hour, when I usually travelled, but there was hardly anybody on it.
On reaching DC I got out as usual at McPherson Square Metro Station, and took the escalator up to the front entrance, which again is what I normally do. However, what greeted me outside was very far from normal, but then again it was not your typical DC day!
As I stepped out onto “I” Street to walk the couple of blocks to the office, I was greeted by the sight of open top tanks cruising down the street, it was like a scene from North Korea, China, or the former USSR, except the soldiers in those tanks were all black. There were also regular army and National Guard (mainly black) soldiers on both sides of the road, sort of jogging, to keep up with the tanks. It was an unreal sight.
After watching these saviours of the Free World jog up and down “I” Street, for a minute, I pulled myself back together and made my way to Dr. Pearson’s office. It was good to get back to work and away from all the insanity outside.
At first the US mainstream media were claiming that over 10,000 had died in the attacks. And yes, the 9/11 attacks still remain the deadliest terrorist attack in modern history, although after more than a year the death total had come down to 2,977, plus of course the 19 Islamic hijackers, making a grand total of 2,996.
The overwhelming majority of deaths occurred in New York City, with 2,606 people killed either inside the World Trade Center or on the ground below. This included around a dozen Sinn Fein/IRA supporters who were working in the offices of the American Friends of Sinn Fein, which was based in the South Tower, of the World Trade Center. Oh dear, what a shame.
At the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, 125 people were killed, including a good friend of my ex-wife Jenny. Four days later on Saturday 15th September, I drove over to Pentagon with AF-BNP member Tom Avis, who had come over from Ohio for the weekend, to have a look at the site. We had to stand around 100 yards away, as it was completely fenced off as you can imagine. Salvage crews were still clearing up there, but you could clearly see parts of the plane that had broken off when American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon’s west side.
Sadly, all 39 civilians on board United Airlines 93 were killed when it was shot down and crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, not far from the border with Maryland. Rumours in the bars and restaurants close to the White House have it that Bush was very reluctant to order it shot down, that is why it got so close to Maryland, before being taken out.
Over 90 countries lost citizens in all the attacks, including 67 from the UK (the largest group being from Northern Ireland, working at the American Friends of Sinn Fein office). The UK had the most non-US deaths in the 9/11 attacks.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the World Trade Center site became known as Ground Zero, which stretched over an area of 14.6 acres. I visited it with my buddy Jim from American Renaissance two and a half months later (when we were in nearby Connecticut for Thanksgiving and took a half day trip to NYC to look at it) and I can recall the horrid smell from the fire damage and the soot everywhere. It was an incredible sight.
The Twin Towers, which I visited three times during my stay Stateside, were the most recognizable building of the Manhattan skyline, dwarfing even the famous Empire State Building, which I also climbed to the top of three or four times. Of course, the outline radically changed after the buildings fell, and the Empire State Building became the tallest building in the city again – well for a few years anyway, until the One World Trade Center was finished in 2014.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of debris had to be cleared following the attacks, while it took years to identify victims from body parts discovered at the site.
Plans to rebuild the World Trade Center were put in place soon after 9/11 and twenty years later several new structures have been put in place – the most visible being One World Trade Center, a 1,776 feet (541 meters) skyscraper that is the tallest building in the USA.
As I’m still banned from the USA, I’ve yet to see the setting sun reflect off the windows of One World Trade Center in New York City, build to replace the original buildings, but I’m told it is an incredible sight to see.
And what of those who are accused of planning the 9/11 attacks you may well ask? While Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – a 57-year-old Pakistani Islamist militant held by the US at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba under terrorism-related charges – is regarded as the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, it was al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden (aka OBL) who is most widely identified with the plot – according to the CIA anyway.
After becoming president in 1992, we are told Bill Clinton made capturing Bin Laden a priority for the US following a series of attacks on US citizens at home and abroad, during the 1990s. Well we know how that ended!
However, it was 9/11 that ramped up the search to find OBL and a $25m reward was offered for information that would lead to his capture or killing or both I guess.
OBL became a sort of folk hero for young Pakistanis in northern England after 9/11. Many wore plastic masks with his face on and carried his image on their smart phones!
His whereabouts were a subject of much confusion, with reports of him hiding out in mountains in caves (and watching videos!) in Afghanistan proving not to be fruitful, while it was also claimed he was attempting to avoid capture in neighbouring Pakistan.
For years the searches turned up nothing but US intelligence agencies claimed they finally tracked him down to a secure compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.
The compound was raided by US SEAL Team Six on 2nd May 2011, and the CIA claim Bin Laden was in there with one of his wives and some of his children. The CIA claim the Seals shot and killed OBL (although this has never been proved). This was nearly ten years after the 9/11 attacks took place.
After the raid, reports from Reuters stated that US forces had taken bin Laden’s body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. However, as there was no imam on board the USS Carl Vinson, where the burial was said to have taken place, this is very unlikely.
There have been numerous claims of OBL been spotted in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Oman, and even south-east China. However, rumours that he was spotted in the Glodwick area of Oldham recently proved unfounded!
Sadly, there are many on “our side”, who still claim the 9/11 attacks were not the work of OBL and the al-Qaeda organization, or any similar Islamic group. They claim that the Muslims were too stupid to have carried out such a well-planned attack, and it must have been the work of the CIA, FBI, and or Mossad, and organized and carried out by (yes, you’ve guessed it) the Jews!
Some of these are well meaning nationalists, others are just cranks, nuts and loons. Whoever they are they just don’t understand or maybe want to understand that the nineteen non-White men who allegedly pulled off the deadliest terrorist attack the modern world has ever seen, were serious, patient and very well organized. They had the discipline to keep their mouths shut for months, so as not to leak any information about what they were planning to the CIA/FBI etc.
Of course, I’m in no way suggesting that we copy them (even if we could), what I am saying is that their utter dedication to their beliefs enabled them to successfully carry out their mission, a mission few – if any – thought could ever be accomplished. Those nineteen men willingly gave their lives for their religion and what they believed in. Hundreds of years earlier many White Christians did the same. They too were not afraid to die for what they believed in.
We – in our little nationalist movement – on the other hand, are not looking for any of our activists to die in suicide missions, or even just die for the nationalist cause. We are simply looking for White men and women to dedicate their lives to the nationalist cause, so that our White race doesn’t die out by the end of this century. But sadly, we can’t find many White people to even put out a few leaflets at election time, let alone stand as a nationalist candidate!
Let’s be honest here. What happened to the World Trade Center in New York City and at the Pentagon, in Arlington twenty years ago today, is a direct consequence of (most of) the American people permitting ZOG to control their government and use America’s military and financial strength to advance ZOG’s interests at the expense of everyone else’s interests.
When some people are driven into a corner – as many people in the Middle East have been – sometimes they will fight back. ZOG will then scream for the blood of their enemies, and their lackeys in NYC and DC will strike at ZOG’s enemies for them, just as the Bushes, Clinton and Obama have done in the past – and probably Biden will in the future. And the consequence will be that the number of ZOG’s enemies will grow without limit, and not just in the Middle East (as Islamic State proved for a few years).
The Islamic terrorists who flew those planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, did it because THEY had been pushed into the corner by ZOG. Plenty of ‘our’ people now understand that twenty years on. They know that those attacks were just the beginning of what is in store for America (and the UK).
They know that the CIA/FBI and MI5/MI6 have been very lucky so far, in that they have stopped every MAJOR Islamic attack since 9/11 (although a number of smaller attacks did succeed). But the Islamic terrorists know that they only have to be lucky ONCE, whereas the CIA/FBI and MI5/MI6 have to be lucky EVERY single time!
WAHHABIST KNIFE ATTACK IN AUCKLAND –LIBERAL CANT UNABATED
Kerry Bolton reports from New Zealand
The Auckland mall knife attack at Countdown, New Lynn, on 3 September that felled seven people, three in a critical condition, has been undertaken by a Muslim from Sri Lanka. He is said to have been a known supporter of ISIS, which adheres to Wahhabism.
The jihadists are a minority within Sunni Islam– Wahhabists backed by the USA’s Saudi and Emirate allies. Shi’a and certain Sunni Imam and scholars are friends and allies of the Right (see: Arash Najaf-Zadeh, The European New Right – A Shi’a Response, London, 2019) and some seminal Rightist thinkers, such as Claudio Mutti, are Muslim converts. Iran is the citadel of Shi’a, yet the primary target for elimination by the USA.
Islamophobia is instigated by influential and wealthy pro-Israeli neocons; they fund those such as Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson who oppose Islam because it is in conflict with Western Enlightenment Liberalism. But is the defence of the latter the Right’s cause? Hardly. Traditional Islam and the Dissident-Right are in accord on that.
But the Right serves as a red-herring. You will not get Patrick Gower or Paul Spoonley exposing the actual promoters of Islamophobia. (See: Kerry Bolton, ‘Islamophobia: Trojan Horse Amidst the Right’, Arktos Journal; and Kerry Bolton, Zionism, Islam & the West, London, 2018 – reviewed in H&D Issue 92).
What we have is the utter cant and hypocrisy that have been the instant response from Prime Minister Ardern. She states with emphasis that this individual (‘S’) is not representative of a faith or an ethnic community, and that ‘nobody supports his ideas’.
Ardern cries of Islam in regard to the attack: ‘it is not them; it is not them’. Imams will follow: ‘it is not us’.
Nonetheless, what has been the ongoing response of Ardern, the Left, media, Gower, Spoonley, police, SIS, ‘experts’, the Islamic Federation, and politicians in the aftermath of Tarrant? – To vilify the entirety of the so-called ‘far right’; to describe the Right per se as intrinsically ‘white supremacist’ and violent. To seek to criminalise and demonise the ‘Right’.
Yet the fact remains that despite extensive searching by Gower, Spoonley, SIS, police, and antifa groups, the only terrorist training network ever found in New Zealand has been that of the psycho-left ‘peace activists’ practising throwing Molotov cocktails with Maori in the Ureweras.
It is not widely realised that just a year prior to the Tarrant lunacy, a terrorist action was narrowly averted – a Muslim youth had planned to take a car and randomly drive into infidels in Christchurch, then proceed with a knifing spree. He was given a jolly good wrist-slapping and put into the care of the Linwood Mosque. A media report stated at the time:
“A Kiwi teenager radicalised online planned to ram a car into a group of people in Christchurch and then stab them
“The teenager wrote a goodbye note to his mother, then started a violent incident, but has since told a psychologist when it began he ‘decided not to hurt anybody because he did not have the means to kill enough people’, Crown prosecutor Chris Lange told the Christchurch District Court at sentencing on Thursday.
“‘The reason no-one was hurt was that he did not have access to knives,’ Lange said. But there was significant premeditation and hostility towards non-Muslims.
“After his arrest, the youth told police he was angry and had ‘done it for Allah’. He had left school at age 15, become socially isolated, and converted to Islam.
“The court has adopted a rehabilitative approach to the teen’s sentencing, with Judge Stephen O’Driscoll releasing him on intensive supervision with a list of conditions and a warning that if he breaches the conditions or reoffends, he will likely be sent to prison.
“Among the conditions – which will apply for two years while the judge monitors his progress – is counselling by a member of the local Muslim community.” (see ‘Kiwi teenager radicalised online planned mass killing in Christchurch “for Allah’”‘, Stuff, 16 February 2018).
Hazim Arafeh, president of the Islamic Federation, said at the time: ‘It’s easier to recruit people who are misinformed about Islam. If people wanted to know about the real Islam they could approach anyone at mosques around the country’ (Ibid.). To which it could have been said if given the opportunity somewhere amidst the cynically manipulated hysteria in the aftermath of Tarrant: ‘It’s easier to recruit people who are misinformed about the Right…’ I could go as far as to suggest that had Tarrant read my book Zionism, Islam and the West, published the year previously, and translated into Arabic, with an introduction by a Muslim scholar, he might not have proceeded to act on the Islamophobic bilge that originates from pro-Zionist neocons.
Yet this same Islamic Federation (founded by anti-Communist Albanian refugees, but now jumping aboard the same bandwagon with Communists) prattles in its submissions to parliament that the Right is synonymous with ‘terrorism’; that it is ‘white supremacist’. It even cites Zionist sources such as the Anti-Defamation League.
What irony that this attack comes just after another of Patrick Gower’s inane attempts (‘On Hate’) to show the existence of what really does not exist – a ‘white supremacist terrorist threat’. Will Gower present an ‘On Hate’ TV special in regard to Wahhabism in New Zealand? Will Spoonley warn of a lurking threat? Rather, what we will hear is nothing other than apologia that ‘this is not Islam’. Indeed it is not, but the stench of hypocrisy will rise like excreted putrescence from Ardern and the rest, lest the multiculturalism become suspect.
We are assured by Ardern that ‘S’ was a ‘lone wolf’; hence there is no further danger to the public. Yet Tarrant was a ‘lone wolf’, but two years later and the Establishment is still trying to keep the public in a state of paranoid tension in regard to mythic ‘white supremacist terror cells’.
Let the Right maintain its composure and discipline, and leave it to the Left, politicians, journalists, academics, and whatever political faction it is that seems to have taken over the Islamic Federation in recent years, to peddle their cant… This is Wahhabism; not Islam per se, any more than Tarrant was ‘the Right’. But now that ‘the shoe is on the other foot’ we will see the double-standards come quick and fast.
Police fine relatives of IRA pub bombing victims
Julie Hambleton (and five other relatives) whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was murdered by the IRA in the 1974 Birmingham Pub Bombings, has been given a £200 fine by West Midlands Police, for allegedly breaking the Government’s Covid lock-down laws, by attending a memorial to the 21 killed in the IRA attacks. Julie (and the others) have refused to pay the fines and will have their day in court.
The memorial was attended by hundreds of “Justice for the 21” supporters last November in Birmingham. After a cavalcade through England’s second city, Julie said she asked her supporters to disperse and go home.
However, West Midlands Police – the very same Police Force that bent over backwards to help the Communist Black Lives Matter protesters last year, pathetically “bending the knee” to a career criminal and abuser of women (George Floyd) – issued her and the other five with fixed penalty notices, saying that they were “proportionate and necessary”!
Their lawyers had asked for the fines to be annulled given the ‘sensitivities’ and the fact that they were attending a ‘carefully planned’ event, but West Midland Police force has refused, meaning the six will now end up in court.
Twenty-one mainly young people from Birmingham, having a night out in the city centre, were killed by the IRA and another 220 injured when devices exploded within minutes of each other in two city centre pubs (The Tavern In the Town and the Mulberry Bush) on November 21, 1974.
West Midlands Police, wasted millions of taxpayers’ money, by arresting the so called “Birmingham Six” – members of the IRA’s Birmingham Brigade, who were later found guilty of the 21 murders in 1975.
However, their convictions were eventually overturned after one of Britain’s worst miscarriages of justice. One of H&D‘s Patrons, the late Jock Spooner – who was working in Birmingham that evening (driving his taxi) – many years later told us that it was common knowledge in the city, amongst the Irish community, that the “Birmingham Six” did not carry out the bombing, as for one thing the IRA’s “Birmingham Brigade” was pretty useless, and spent most of their time “talking big and drinking in Digbeth rather than fighting the British”.
And it was in fact the IRA’s much better organised “Coventry Brigade”, that carried out the bombings.
In November last year, families and campaigners organised an event to mark the 46th anniversary of the bombings and to highlight the Justice for the 21 campaign. England was in the second national lockdown at the time.
Beforehand, Julie, who has led the families’ long fight for justice, worked with a team from West Midlands Police to ensure traffic disruption was at a minimum and that the event complied with Covid regulations. Which by all accounts it did. On the day, hundreds of supporters in cars and vans and on motorbikes took part in a cavalcade which threaded its way through Birmingham, ending up outside the West Midlands Police HQ at Lloyd House.
There, several people from the convoy started to gather. Julie said she went over to the group – who were all wearing face masks – to thank them for their support and ask them to disperse. Subsequently, West Midlands Police issued six penalty notices, of £200 each.
Julie said: ‘My summons talks about “without having a reasonable excuse”, implying I have done something wrong by remembering my sister who was blown up in the biggest unsolved mass murder in criminal history.’
In a letter confirming the intended prosecution, temporary assistant chief constable Chris Todd – an active “anti-racist” and a big supporter of Black Lives Matter – said he was satisfied the action was ‘proportionate and necessary in these circumstances’. He went on: “The matter would be pursued through ‘standard criminal justice proceedings’.”
When Julie and other five relatives eventually appear in court, we expect a massive turnout of support, not just from Brummies but from from Patriots and Loyalists nationwide. We must show West Midlands Police, that they can’t and won’t get away with this persecution of relatives’ families.
It’s more than 46 years now since the IRA blew up the two Birmingham pubs and murdered 21 of our people, yet West Midlands Police are still no closer to arresting, yet alone convicting anyone for the atrocity. The West Midlands Police should hang their heads in shame.
Abu Dhabi Sheikh buys 50% of “racist” Israeli football club
A member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, has bought 50% of the Israeli club Beitar Jerusalem, pledging an investment of more than 300 million shekels (£68 million) over the next decade.
The Abu Dhabi royals already own Manchester City of course, as well as the likes of New York City FC, Melbourne City, and Mumbai City.
And their Israeli move is consistent with the decision earlier this year by the United Arab Emirates (which includes Abu Dhabi) to develop diplomatic and economic ties with Israel.
What will surprise a few people is that it should be Beitar of all clubs. Not only does it have a “racist” (i.e. anti-Arab) reputation, but even the club’s name is a clue as to its political roots.
Betar was the Zionist youth movement founded by Zeev Jabotinsky in the 1920s and it went on to be closely aligned with the Jabotinsky wing of Zionism and associated terrorist groups such as the Irgun. During the mid-1940s MI5 had an informant inside Betar monitoring the group’s terrorist links, and Betar organised terrorist training camps in New York’s Catskill mountains.
Some other Israeli football clubs have names linked to the rival, more ‘moderate’ wing of Zionism led by Jabotinsky’s enemy David Ben Gurion and rooted in the labour movement – e.g. Hapoel Tel Aviv and several other clubs with Hapoel (i.e. ‘Worker’) in their names.
But then I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. These Arab sheikhs are interested only in power and money. Whereas the Labour/Hapoel types used to be the Israeli mainstream, and the ‘right-wing’ used to be marginalised – it’s now the ‘right-wing’ under Netanyahu and his Betar/Beitar allies who have the power.
Trouble is, that might not carry on for much longer, especially now that Netanyahu’s pal Trump is out of power. The Israelis might ditch Netanyahu and go back to some form of liberal/leftist government in the Ben Gurion tradition – in which case it would be Hapoel Tel Aviv, or perhaps Maccabi Tel Aviv or Maccabi Haifa, who would be the diplomatically correct team for kosher Arab royalty to link with!
IRA supporter becomes Baroness
It’s not often that H&D readers would be likely to agree with the Labour Party leadership, but many will fully support the latest advert from Sir Keir Starmer’s HQ.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has awarded a peerage to Claire Fox, elected last year as an MEP for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, but better known as a notorious IRA supporter during her years of activism for the Revolutionary Communist Party.
H&D documented Ms Fox’s terrorist sympathies in an online article on May 1st 2019. The following day a Brexit Party candidate resigned because she felt unable to remain on the same slate as Ms Fox.
Oldham-born Munira Mirza, daughter of a Pakistani immigrants, was also a Revolutionary Communist Party activist, and is now head of the Downing Street policy unit. However Ms Mirza was too young to have been in the RCP at the time of its support for the IRA.
Ms Fox on the other hand was one of the leading RCP officials throughout the period when it was defending some of the most brutal terrorist acts ever committed in the British Isles, including the murder of 3-year-old Johnathan Ball and 12-year-old Tim Parry in the IRA bombing of Warrington.
Her ennoblement proves that the Conservative Party has abandoned any pretence of traditional principles and his become little more than a Brexit cult. It remains to be seen whether these antics will cost the Tories votes in the so-called ‘red wall’ areas of northern England – constituencies which they won from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in last year’s general election, in part because of Corbyn’s own record as an IRA apologist.
(A BBC investigation for which H&D provided some background research suggested that the Warrington bombing was probably carried out by far left IRA sympathisers based in England – not Claire Fox’s RCP but their rivals in Red Action, a group that split off from an opposing SWP faction.)
Jack Simmonds – survivor of King David Hotel terrorist bombing – dies aged 99
Squadron Leader Jack Simmonds piloted a Whitley bomber for a few weeks during the spring of 1941 before he was shot down over Holland, spending the next four years as a prisoner-of-war.
Held at first in a Bavarian castle, Simmonds was transferred to several other PoW camps ending up at Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Silesia (now part of Poland). Here he was involved in the successful escape of three fellow prisoners in October 1943 using a ‘wooden horse’, later dramatised as the 1950 film The Wooden Horse (available on BBC Iplayer for the next eight days).
In late January 1945 Simmonds and other prisoners were evacuated from Sagan and began a long march westward with their German guards in bitter weather, ahead of the advancing Soviet Red Army.
Simmonds and his fellow PoWs eventually arrived in Luckenwalde, south of Berlin, which was captured by the Soviets at the end of April 1945, and on the arrival of US forces soon afterwards he was repatriated to the UK, where he was quickly back with the RAF.
In November 1945 he was sent to Cairo, then to the RAF Station at Lydda Palestine, where he became camp adjutant. By 1946 he was adjutant of No. 651 Squadron, which then flew Auster reconnaissance planes and played an important role in ‘Operation Agatha’, a major round-up of terrorists at the end of June 1946.
On Monday 22nd July 1946 Simmonds was off-duty in the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, which then housed administrative headquarters for the British Mandate authorities. Future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the hotel to be bombed, with minimal advance warning, so as to ensure destruction of a large cache of intelligence files related to the British anti-terrorist campaign.
The mission was handled by another future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, whose Irgun was at times a rival to Ben-Gurion’s Haganah but during this period was secretly allied to it. Future writers often found it convenient to blame Begin and the Irgun for this bombing while exonerating the supposedly more ‘moderate’ Haganah, but the true story of the terror campaign was explored by H&D assistant editor Peter Rushton and by Lady Michèle Renouf in the above videos.
The King David bombing caused 91 deaths (including 28 Britons) and many horrific injuries, but Jack Simmonds survived the terrorist attack unscathed and remained with the RAF until retirement in 1968, latterly at Lindholme in South Yorkshire. To commemorate Battle of Britain week in 1951, he landed his Sunderland flying boat on the Thames near Greenwich then taxied to Tower Bridge which was opened for him, remaining moored near the bridge for six days.
His wife Mary, herself a WAAF veteran, died in 2012: they are survived by three sons.
Squadron Leader Jack Simmonds, born 8th December 1920, died 2nd April 2020, RIP.
Gangster president declares war on Iran
Gangster president Donald Trump has this morning effectively declared war on Iran by ordering the murder of Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the most significant state-sponsored assassination since Czech SOE agents killed Reinhard Heydrich in 1942 – and the most significant such assassination ever to take place outside wartime.
It is immaterial whether Trump’s action was dictated by his slavish devotion to the State of Israel, or was partly inspired by the need to distract attention from his own impeachment for criminal misdeeds.
During his election campaign four years ago, Trump gave American voters the impression that he would end the era of US entanglement in foreign conflicts. Instead he has today embroiled the US in what will be a far more serious conflict than the Iraq and Afghan wars combined.
The US now stands alone, without its NATO allies, as even the British Foreign Office rushes to distance itself from the White House Godfather. The only cheers have come from Trump’s fellow crook Benjamin Netanyahu and the neocon cabal whose influence Trump once promised to end, but who now enjoy more control over US foreign policy than under Reagan, Clinton, or Bush.
