Böcker av Bernard O'Connor

Harold James Andrews, known as Mike, was born in 1897. Fascinated by planes, he joined the Royal Naval Air Force during the First World War and later the Royal Flying Corps flying bombers. After working as a test pilot, in the early 1920s he moved to Barcelona to train the Spanish Air Force in anti-submarine warfare. Returning to Britain in 1930 he was Blackburn's foreign representative, and t e photographs he took of airports and airfields across Europe were passed to the Secret Intelligence Service. He designed and later managed Liverpool airport and designed Kallang in Singapore. During the Second World War he was posted to Lisbon as Air Attaché but this was just a cover. His mission was to help a secret organisation operating in France, Spain and Portugal to get escaped prisoners-of-war, downed pilots, aircrew and other evaders back to Britain. Based on his grandson Simon's stories, autobiographies of other intelligence officers, contemporary documents, this book tells his story.

Following the German occupation of Holland, the Special Operations Executive parachuted in over fifty secret agents. Most were captured and executed. Eleven of the RAF planes that brought them were shot down. Using recently released documents from the National Archives, this book tells the story of three remarkable women, Antonia Hamilton, Trix Terwindt and Jos Gemmeke who, despite these setbacks, volunteered to be flown out of RAF Tempsford, 'Churchill's Most Secret Airfield', and parachuted back to play vital roles on top secret missions prior to liberation.

In 1843, an Oxford University professor reported to British academics and agriculturalists on a deposit of phosphorite he had visited in Logrosan, Extremadura, Spain. A mineral much in demand by manure manufacturers, once crushed, it was dissolved in sulphuric acid to produce superphosphate, the world's first artifical chemical manure. Once the railway between Madrid and Lisbon was constructed in the 1860s, the industry took off. Although competition from cheaper overseas phosphates caused many of the phosphate companies to go out of business in the 1890s, demand from Spanish superphosphate manufacturers ensured the industry's survival until the mid-1900s. Today, with the assistance of EU funding, a number of these mines have been developed as tourist attractions as part of Spain's geo-mining heritage. Bernard O'Connor and Leyre Solano's book investigates the origins, development and eventual decline of the Spanish phosphate industry.

Six 'Old Bedfordians', ex-Bedford School pupils, served their country in ingenious, brave and daring ways during the Second World War. They were involved with the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a TOP SECRET organisation that helped the resistance movements in occupied Europe. Read the stories of Frank Nelson, the first head of SOE;David Makgill Crighton, sent to Yugoslavia as an aide to King Zog; Frederic Peters, the Commandant of a secret school to train secret agents; John Clarke and his father 'Nobby' who developed limpet bombs and other explosive devices; Mike Andrews who worked in Portugal, Spain and France, helping to return escaped prisoners and other evaders to Britain and Charles Bovill, who developed sophistated wireless communications for RAF planes going on clandestine missions into Europe.

Following a cliff collapse in Felixstowe in 1842 that revealed of fossils deposit which Charles Darwin's Cambridge tutor thought resembled prehistoric droppings, a new industry developed to exploit them. Rev. John Henslow thought they were coprolites, fossilised dinosaur dung, similar to those discovered at Lyme Regis. As animal and human droppings were being used as a manure on the fields, chemical analysis of the Felixstowe fossils showed them to be rich in phosphate, a mineral essential for plant growth, Suffolk manure manufacturers bought these fossils, ground them to a powder and dissolved them in sulphuric acid to make superphosphate, the world's first artificial chemical manure. It was a lucrative business and demand for the Suffolk fossils increased.When a similar bed was found in Burwell was tested and found to have a higher phosphate content, the industry spread to Cambridgeshire, expanded into Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Manure manufacturers across the country wanted coprolites.Open cast mining in pits down to 60 feet in places led to tens of thousands of acres being dug. During these operations, the 'coprolite' diggers uncovered numerous articles of archaeological interest, mostly grave sites but also hidden hoards. Some diggers 'pocketed' the finds and sold them on the market as there was a huge interest amongst Victorian archaeologists and antiquarians. Sometimes the landowner claimed the finds and kept them in their drawing room cabinet. Professors and students of archaeology were interested in the finds and published academic papers in their journals. Whilst some finds were donated to the country's new University museums, others were purchased by their curators. One digger made enough from selling his 'finds' to buy himself a pub.Bernard O'Connor, who has researched the geological, historical, economic and social impact of the fossil diggings, has compiled accounts of the archaeological discoveries across Southern England, illustrating them with images from contemporary journals.

Shortly after the start of the Second World War, the British Admiralty compulsorily purchased land near Ditton Priors, Shropshire, to store armaments. Using the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway, thousands of tons of shells and high explosives were brought by train to be assembled and stored in specially-built magazines protected by 'batter mounds'. Every weekday, up to thirty buses brought in several hundred men and women from surrounding villages and towns and took them back after work. They all signed the Official Secrets Act. To avoid fires, no smoking and no newspapers were allowed on site, Eating sweets was forbidden as the acetic acid was said to be corrosive. There were no electric lights or heating in the magazines and laboratories. Trolleys laden with ammunition were hauled by small tractors from a railway siding. Trucks carried crates of assembled armaments to naval docks around Britain until, twenty years after the end of the war, the Depot became surplus to the Navy's requirement. Employees were transferred to other depots or accepted redundancy. Arrangements to sell the land back to the original owners were cancelled when the British government allowed the American Army to store 22,000 tons of their armaments. Legal disputes followed. Questions were raised in parliament. When the Americans moved out in 1967, most of the land was sold to its original owners. In the 1980s there was a scare when it was claimed that the Russians had allocated two nuclear weapons to target Ditton Priors. Today, part of the Depot has become an industrial estate. The rest is hidden by trees and gradually becoming overgrown by vegetation.Bernard O'Connor's documentary history of the Royal Naval Armament Depot in Ditton Priors uses accounts and illustrations found in local history books, newspapers, government and the construction company's correspondence, websites and interviews with local people who remembered working there.