World War II Database

ww2dbaseAlan Chanter was born in London in 1947. Enlisting in the British Army in 1967, Alan saw service in Germany and Northern Ireland and visited Berlin and Cyprus. Rising to the rank of Staff Sergeant, he was twice introduced to members of the Royal Family and awarded both the General Service Medal with clasp for Northern Ireland and the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. Retiring from the Army in 1989, Alan took employment in a factory manufacturing components for machine tools until his job became redundant in 2002.

ww2dbaseAlways interested in History (particularly that relating to the Military), in 2001 Alan began writing short items for a number of History-based Internet Newsgroups. Whilst unemployed this developed into some rather lengthier essays.

ww2dbaseA retired widower with three adult children, Alan's interests now include studying the equipment, weapons, aircraft etc. from the Second World war and compiling articles for this website.

Photographs/Maps Contributions

See all 17 photographs of Alan Chanter

Timeline Contributions

Alan Chanter has also contributed 3,231 entries in the WW2 Timeline. A small sample of his timeline contributions is shown below.

» 3 Apr 1945: The US coastal minesweeper YMS-71 struck a mine and sunk off Sanga Sanga, Borneo.

» 5 Nov 1939: A plot to arrest or even kill Adolf Hitler, hatched by of his most senior military staff, collapsed. Led by General Franz Halder, the architect of the invasion of Poland, many Generals were appalled by Hitler's plans to continue the conflict by invading Belgium and the Netherlands and feared that the adventure would founder in another Great War quagmire. Walther von Brauchitsch, who met with Hitler and was supposed to be the one to issue the order for his arrest, got cold feet and lost the opportunity to prevent Hitler from plunging Europe into another World War. However one of the conspirators, Colonel Hans Oster of German Military Intelligence, tipped off the Dutch and Belgians about Hitler's invasion intentions.

» 23 Sep 1944: After a six-day siege, Canadian troops forced the German troops at Boulogne, Pas-de-Calais, France to surrender. The Canadians suffered 634 casualties and captured 9,500 prisoners (many driven from their bunkers by driving flame down the ventilation shafts).

» 19 Dec 1941: HMS Neptune, dead in the water from having struck three mines on the previous day, drifted into a fourth mine in the Mediterranean Sea and capsized, killing 737. 30 survived the sinking, but all but 1, Norman Walton, would die before being rescued. 150 of those lost were New Zealand sailors.

» 4 Aug 1944: The USAAF launched two "babies" against V-1 sites. Both missions ended in failure. One went out off control and into a spin; the crew baled out but the pilot was killed. The second made it across the English Channel, but was lost during the descent and crashed some distance short of the target.

» 8 Oct 1942: A Nazi radio announcement stated that from mid-day (German time) officers and men captured at Dieppe, France had been manacled as a retaliation for the alleged tying of prisoners during a small-scale raid on Sark on 3 October 1942. The British War Office replied that German prisoners brought back from Dieppe had not had their hands tied and had been treaty humanely. It was further threatened that unless the Germans immediately unshackle their captives, then German prisoners of war in Canada would be put into chains from noon 10 October 1942.

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