The Danger Zone (DZ)

Israel. It’s hardly ever out of the news. It’s either always doing something bad, or accused of doing something bad. Whatever is happening it’s always painted as the villain.

In 1948 the modern state of Israel was carved out of the lands that had been part of the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs, and their sympathisers (of whom there are many) today say that that wasn’t fair because the United Nations gave land to Jews who didn’t live there, taking it off the Arabs who had lived there from time immemorial. The Jews, the Arabs and their sympathisers say, had lived for well over a thousand years in other parts of the world – ever since the Romans expelled them from Israel in about 70 AD.

But in my last programme I found that the Jews were still living and thriving in their homeland, which the Romans had called Palestine to piss the Jews off, up until the time that the Arab armies of Islam, with many mercenaries who weren’t Arabs, arrived and drove out the Byzantine Empire.

So the question for me to answer in this programme is what happened to the Jews under the Arabs, or maybe more exactly the Muslims, because many of the peoples living in the Middle East, aren’t Arabs – like the Turks and the Persians for instance. But most of them are Muslims.

Tag words: Israel; Ottoman Empire; Arabs; Jews; Romans; Palestine; Byzantine Empire; Turks; Muslims; Persians; Holy Lands; Arab Conquest; people of the Book; Christians; The Bible; Old Testament; New Testament; Jesus; Lydda; Ramle; Jordan; Ascalon; Caesarea; Gaza; Jericho; Dera’a; Hebron; dhimmi; Egypt; North Africa; Turks; Negroes; Berbers; Slavs; Greeks; Dailamites; Crusaders; Jerusalem; Acre; Caesarea; Haifa; Benjamin of Tudela; Academy of Jerusalem; Saladin; Mamluks; Kurds; Jewish Academy; Jacques of Verona; Dean of Mainz Cathedral; Bernhard von Breidenbach; Selim the Grim; Aleppo; General Allenby; Middle East; Suleiman I; Spain; King Ferdinand; Queen Isabella; Sephardic Jews; Sephardic Jews; Ladino; Safed; Don Joseph Nasi; the Great Jew; Zionists; Promised Land; John of Wurzburg; Latins; Germans; Hungarians; Scots; Navarese; Bretons; English; Franks; Ruthenians; Bohemians; Palestinian ; Bulgarians; Georgians; Armenians; Syrians; Persian Nestorians; Indians; Egyptians; Copts; Maronites; Norsemen; Danes; Frisians; Tartars; Russians; Nubians; Samaritans; League of Nations; British mandate; World War I; Mohammad; Genesis 17:8; Abraham; Canaan; Frederick the Great; Adolf Hitler;

I grew up in the 1950s and the 1960s. I remember when I was high school seeing the headlines in the newspapers in 1967 as the Arab nations united to go to war against Israel without Israel having done anything to provoke it, other than to exist.

Graphics were shown, like I’m used to seeing in the military books I read all of the time. The balance of forces. The Israeli aircraft, tanks and men, compared to the massively overwhelming combined Arab forces of aircraft, tanks and men. The population of Israel in 1967 was about 2.7 million people. The population of the Arab nations was about 550 million.

My memories from the time, I was at high school, not a university student nor in the work force, was that the world held its breath for Israel. It seemed to be the Biblical David, against the Arab Goliath. I felt like everyone was rooting for Israel.

Then it happened. It was all over in a flash. Somehow, miraculously it seemed to me, and I think to the rest of the world at the time, Israel survived. It not only survived, it won a victory that was incredible.

Then, maybe its just me and my perspective at the time and over the years since and because of that great victory, the mood of much of the world started to swing against Israel. Slowly, but with increasing speed. The 2.7 million Jewish people started to become the Goliath and the 550 million Arabs started to become the bullied victims of this irresistibly powerful monster. The main voice heard today in the media and from the left wing political parties and supporters, tells us that the Jews are to be hated, or maybe it’s just the Zionists. They seem to be the bad Jews.

Well there’s one thing I hate and that is not knowing the facts and then still incredibly being stupid enough to make judgments about it. Mark Twain didn’t say it supposedly, but he easily could have, that it’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.

How can I make a judgment about Israel being bad, when I don’t know the facts. So now after doing a lot of investigation, and I think it would be helpful for you if I shared what I’ve learnt, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.

In this programme I’m going to begin at what seems to me to be the best starting point. Before the Zionists came on the scene, and the modern state of Israel was created, possibly stealing the land from the unwilling Palestinian population who we are told had lived there from time immemorial. We’re told that after the diaspora, the word used for what is said to have happened after the Romans crushed the Jewish rebellion in about 70AD and destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the Jews across the Middle East and Europe, the Jews were left living anywhere and everywhere, just not in Israel.

So in this programme I’m going to begin at what seems to be the beginning, what were things like before there was the modern state of Israel. Was Israel/Palestine freed from Jews by the Romans? The German word for this was judenrein – meaning free from Jews, that was Hitler’s goal for Europe.

Tag words: Israel; Biblical David; Arab Goliath; Six Day War; Mark Twain; Zionists; diaspora; judenrein; Adolf Hitler; General Allenby; Balfour Declaration; Ottoman Empire; Turkey; Middle East; West Bank; the Gaza Strip; British Mandate; Iraq; Syria; Lebanon; Jordan; League of Nations; Transjordan; Abdullah; Jewish People’s Council; Tel Aviv Museum; Rothschild Boulevarde; Egypt; Palestinians; Jews; Abraham; Abram; Sarai; Sarah; Herman Melville; Moby Dick; Ishmael; Nebuchadnezzar; Lamentations; Cyrus the Great; Nehemiah; King Atarxerxes; King Solomon; Alexander the Great; Antiochus IV Epiphanes; Maccabean Revolt; Pompey; Coliseum; Holy Lands; Bar Kochba; Promised Land; Palestina; Caracalla; Byzantine empire; Constantinople;

In this Danger Zone programme I’m going to talk about a cavalryman who was shot down – what was he doing? Riding a flying horse? Two planes that shot each other down. About what happened when those crews who shot each other down met on the ground after they’d each crashed? Did they become good friends and laugh about it? Or did the ones that had the guns kill the ones that didn’t have any? Why did they steal a car? It’s a pretty interesting programme. So don’t flip channels.

Tag words: He-111 bomber; Leutnant Horst Schopis; AdolfHitler; General von Falkenhorst; Feldwebel Karl-Heinz Strunk; Unteroffizier Josef Auchtor; Hans Hauck; Blackburn Skua; Captain Richard Thomas Partridge; Royal Marines; Lt Robert Bostock; Royal Navy; HMS Hermes; HMS Ark Royal; Fleet Air Arm; Gotli; Bergen; Trondheim; Lake Heilstugu; Lake Breidal; Spitifres; King George VI; Stryn; Sevald Grotli; Ålesund; Blenheim fighters; Robert Bostock; Klas Gjolmesli; Norwegian Aviation Museum; Bodø; Yeovilton Museum; Into the White; Rupert Grint; Ron Weasley; Harry Potter;

You’ve probably heard of the Darwin Awards – a made up thing with stories about people who meet their deaths through their own unbelievable stupidity – Darwin – survival of the fittest etc. Well this Danger Zone programme is about the opposite. People, who in spite of everything, should have died – but didn’t. I tried to see if there was a name for the opposite of the Darwin Awards but there isn’t.

Tag words: Darwin Awards; Elvas Jenkins; Methodist church; Christian Endeavour group; Jeanie Reid; Methodist minister; 2nd Field Company Australian Engineers (Sappers); The Bible; New Testament; Psalms; Western Front; Pozières; Airman Nicholas Alkemade; Royal Air Force; Lancaster Bomber; Gestapo; Luftwaffe; Tsutomu Yamaguchi; Usain Bolt; Mitsubishi; Hiroshima; B-29 bomber; Nagasaki; DNA; Chernobyl;

Have you ever been conned? I remember someone told me that they’d never met a conman they didn’t like. If you have been you probably felt all sorts of regrets that you should have seen it coming. That you shouldn’t have been so stupid. But you know something, it meant that you were a normal human being. In September and October 1938 the Prime Minister of England was conned when he met Adolf Hitler and gave him a large part of Czechoslovakia. Boy did that cause the world some trouble but you have to understand why it is that we trust people that we shouldn’t and trusting someone says that you are a good person even if your judgment is off – and in this Danger Zone I’ll explain why as we look at what happened to Mr Chamberlain, I’ll look at Bernie Madoff (one of the greatest conmen of all time – and one of the nicest guys you could ever want to meet) and finally Mr Markopolos – the man that caught Bernie Madoff and a man you would probably never want to be in the shoes of.

Tag words: Adolf Hitler; Führer; Neville Chamberlain; Czechoslovakia; Harry Markopolos; Bernie Madoff; Woodrow Wilson; Nazi Party; Greater German Reich; Sudeten Germans; Berchtesgaden; Lord Halifax; Herman Göring; Joseph Goebbels; William Lyon McKenzie King; Gertrude Stein; George Bernard Shaw; Malcolm Gladwell; Talking to Strangers; yurodivy; holy fool; Hans Christian Andersen; The Emperor’s New Clothes; Michael Ocrant; Securities Exchange Commission;

Yesterday, upon the stair,I met a man who wasn't thereHe wasn't there again todayI wish, I wish he'd go away...

That poem was inspired by the real story of a haunting by a ghost supposedly seen on the stairs of a house in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.

In 1899 American poet, Hughes Mearns wrote that poem, the words I just read to you. It ended up in a song and then a play. In the 1930’s it was given a make-over and became a popular song. It’s appropriate for this programme because I’m going to tell you about a man who wasn’t there, and he made a huge contribution to the victory over Hitler. Unusually this hero was dead before he did what he did. But he wasn’t a ghost, he was a cadaver.

Tag words: Hughes Mearns; Adolf Hitler; cadaver; Captain (Acting Major) William Martin; Royal Marines; Ian Fleming; James Bond; 007; World War II; Rear Admiral John Godfrey; Royal Naval Intelligence Division; Trout Memo; A Suggestion (not a very nice one); corpse; Winston Churchill; Operation Mincemeat; Operation Barclay; John Glyndwyr; Michael Glydwyr; John Melville; HMS Dasher; Lieutenant Commander Mark Hill; rat poison; DNA; Charles Chalmondeley; Ewen Montagu; MI5; Jean Leslie; Ronnie Reed; Lloyd’s Bank; “Jock” Horsfall; Aston Martins; HMS Seraph; Huelva; Lieutenant Commander (future Admiral) Jewell; Psalm 39; Mae West life jacket; Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Nye; General Sir Harold Alexander; Adolf Clauss; German spy; General Franco; Nazis; Karl-Erich Kühlenthal; Abwehr; Operation Husky; CIGS; Chief of the Imperial General Staff; Operation Brimstone; Bletchley Park; Führer; The Man Who Never Was; starring Clifton Webb; Gloria Graham; Stephen Boyd; Operation Mincemeat; Colin Firth; Matthew McFadyen; Kelly Macdonald;

In the Pub with No Beer Slim says:

Oh it’s a lonesome away from your kindred and all

By the campfire at night we’ll hear the wild dingoes call

But there’s-a nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear

Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.

This programme is going to cover some amazing, and some of the world’s greatest characters of legend. Including Helen of Troy, the Trojan Horse. Then the story becomes much more mundane – but only for a while – until Adolf Hitler marches into Poland and World War II begins. Then the Japanese attack Pearl Harbour – bringing America into the war. Fighting the Battle of Atlantic against the Nazi U-Boat menace. Finally the story takes on a surreal atmosphere. It becomes the story of a man, any man, in a part of the world, at a time in history, when he could stand on one spot and turn through 360o and not see a beer anywhere for thousands and thousands of miles. This Danger Zone programme’s all about – one of the greatest untold stories of World War II. Well for some people it definitely is. For others, not so much.

Have you ever been to hell? Would you go there deliberately? Well some brave, or perhaps stupid, might be a better description, Greek heroes did.

One who did was Theseus, helping his friend Pirithous. Both young men, after accomplishing their many amazing feats, decided they should take new wives for themselves. They decided they would help each other in finding their wives. They didn’t choose a partner who was going to be easy to get. Some nice girl next door who you could just marry and settle down with. No they couldn’t possibly have found more difficult partners. Heroes didn’t woe the women they desired, they took them. Theseus chose the beautiful wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. A young girl known by the name of Helen. That is a massive whole story in itself. So we’ll leave the dramas of the Trojan Wars for another time.

Pirithous, the other hero, decided that the girl that he wanted to take to wife was the legendary beauty Persephone. Menelaus may have been a fearsome warrior and the king of Sparta a nation of the fiercest warriors, but Persephone’s husband was something else. I’m sure you know his name, even if you don’t know anything else about mythology. His name was Hades – the king of the underground. Hell. Get the picture!

To get to hell you had to travel to a place on the southern tip of the Peloponnesian Peninsula known then as Tainaron. Today it’s better known as Cape Matapan. From 27 to 29 March, 1941, the Royal Navy fought a vital battle off the coast of Cape Matapan against the Italian Navy. Prince Philip too, like Theseus and Pirithous crossed into the gates of hell.

Tag words: Prince Philip; Duke of Edinburgh; Royal Consort; Princess Elizabeth; Queen Elizabeth II; Queen of England; Theseus; Pirithous; King Menelaus of Sparta; Helen of Troy; Trojan Wars; Persephone; Hades; Hell; Peloponnesian Peninsula; Tainaron; Cape Matapan; Royal Navy; Admiral Cunningham; HMS Valiant; HMS Barham; HMS Warspite; Greek War Cross of Valour; VJ Day; VP Day; victory over Japan in the Pacific; Victory in the Pacific; American Civil War; William Tecumseh Sherman; HMS Wallace; Harry Hargreaves; HMSWhelp; Japanese Navy; Battle of Leyte Gulf; kamikaze; Tokyo Bay; Margaret Thatcher; The Jam; Just Who is the Five O’Clock Hero; Aircraft Research Association;

During a visit to Cape Canaveral, to inspect the Space Shuttle, Prince Philip was introduced to a young thirteen year old boy, Andrew Adams. Andrew told Prince Philip that it was his ambition to be an astronaut. Prince Philip looked him up and down and said to him: 

“Well, you’ll never fly in it; you’re too fat to be an astronaut … You could do with losing a bit of weight.”

Just the sort of remark that got a lot of people, who couldn’t laugh, upset.

But you know, you really do just have to laugh at some of the outrageous things that Philip said.

Prince Philip started carrying out engagements as the Royal Consort, after Her Majesty, Elizabeth, became the Queen. That was back on 2 March 1948 when he was 37 years old. He performed his last solo engagement on 2nd August 2017 – 69 years later. Over those years Prince Philip carried out 22,219 solo engagements. I don’t know how many he carried out with Queen Elizabeth or other royals, but the number would have to be staggering. Even in his retirement year, when he was 96 years old, he was still one of the most active members of the royal family rendering public service.

So, in my book, Prince Philip can say anything he damn well likes, and unless you’ve given as much service to the public as he has, I don’t care what you think about him.

In this programme I’m going to explore more of the fascinating life of Prince Philip.

Tag words: Prince Philip; Duke of Edinburgh; Royal Consort; Princess Elizabeth; Queen Elizabeth II; Queen of England; Cape Canaveral; Space Shuttle; Andrew Adams; King Edward VIII; Wallis Simpson; Duke and Duchess of York; King George VI; Lilibet; Winston Churchill; Clementine; Prince David; King George V; Stanley Baldwin; Fat Scottish cook; Joachim von Ribbentrop; Nazi; Royal Air Force; Dickie Mountbatten; Lady Edwina Ashley; Princess Margaret; Adolf Hitler; Reich Chancellor; World War II; Communist Russia; Communist China; HMS Ramillies; Vice-Admiral Harold Tom Baillie-Grohman; Thomson M1928 submachine gun; Tommy Gun; Luftwaffe; the Blitz; Buckingham Palace; Hatfield Campus; University of Hertfordshire; Joseph Goebbels; Soviet Union; Helmut Kohl;

On 9 April 2021, Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest serving royal consort in British history, passed away at the age of 99. He was born on 10 June 1921 – so he very nearly reached the age of 100, which he had said he would rather not.

He had undertaken his last official engagement on Tuesday 2 August 2017. For a man who had longed to pursue a military career this last ceremony was at a parade of the Royal Marines celebrating the men who had undertaken the Global Challenge Trek of 2,678 kilometres to raise money and awareness about the Royal Marines Challenge.

Tag words: Prince Philip; Duke of Edinburgh; Princess Elizabeth; Queen Elizabeth II; Queen of England; Royal Marines; Global Challenge Trek; Royal Marines Challenge; World War II; Royal Navy; HMS Calypso; Joe Kerr; Gill Hicks; Greek Orthodox; Princess Victoria; Professor Wilmanns; Bellevue Sanitorium; George Mountbatten; Donald MacJanner; Adolf Hitler; Nazi; Mussolini; Book of Ecclesiastes; Ecclesiastes 1:9; So there’s nothing new under the sun; Dr Kurt Hahn; Salem school; Royal Variety Show; Tom Jones; You Can Leave Your Hat On; Night of the Long Knives; Ernst Rohm; Gordonstoun; Marchioness of Milford Haven; Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark; Prince George; Duke of Kent; Great Depression; Great War; Ernest Simpson; Wallis Simpson; Cecilie; Junkers 52; Princess Johanna;