The Battle of Graveney Marsh

Yesterday (the day it was too hot to post almost anything except a weather report) was the 70th anniversary of the last battle fought on mainland British soil. Nope, not Culloden in 1745.

It was Graveney Marsh in 1940.

Billeted at a pub on the Kent coast, they [D Company, the first battalion London Irish Rifles] had been ordered to capture any German aircrew shot down in the countryside. But the men of the 1st Battalion London Irish Rifles were to carve themselves a little-known place in military history: they fought the last ever battle to take place on the British mainland.

During the Battle of Britain, they had trooped out to pick up the crew of a crashed German bomber only to find the airmen waiting with machine guns. After a short battle the Germans surrendered – and their captors then took them for a pint at their local pub.

The extraordinary skirmish, which took place on September 27, 1940, has been nicknamed the Battle of Graveney Marsh.

Read the rest here.