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Bill Stone (Royal Navy Sailor)
William Frederick Stone (23 September 1900 – 10 January 2009) was one of the last five surviving First World War veterans who served in the United Kingdom's armed forces and one of the last two surviving seamen worldwide, along with Claude Choules. They were also the last two to have also served in the Second World War, although Stone saw action only in the Second World War as he was still in training when the First World War ended. Stone was born in Ledstone, Kingsbridge, Devon and enlisted in the Royal Navy on his 18th birthday. He served on board shortly after the end of the First World War, before serving on a number of ships including . At the beginning of the Second World War Stone was serving on the minesweeper HMS ''Salamander'' before moving onto the light cruiser in 1941. After the war, he ran his own barber's shop. In his later years Stone was present at many memorial services including the 90th anniversary commemorations at the Cenotaph in London. He died on 1 ...
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Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is a coastal county with cliffs and sandy beaches. Home to the largest open space in southern England, Dartmoor (), the county is predominately rural and has a relatively low population density for an English county. The county is bordered by Somerset to the north east, Dorset to the east, and Cornwall to the west. The county is split into the non-metropolitan districts of East Devon, Mid Devon, North Devon, South Hams, Teignbridge, Torridge, West Devon, Exeter, and the unitary authority areas of Plymouth, and Torbay. Combined as a ceremonial county, Devon's area is and its population is about 1.2 million. Devon derives its name from Dumnonia (the shift from ''m'' to ''v'' is a typical Celtic consonant shift). During the Briti ...
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Barber
A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave men's and boys' hair or beards. A barber's place of work is known as a "barbershop" or a "barber's". Barbershops are also places of social interaction and public discourse. In some instances, barbershops are also public fora. They are the locations of open debates, voicing public concerns, and engaging citizens in discussions about contemporary issues. In previous times, barbers (known as barber surgeons) also performed surgery and dentistry. With the development of safety razors and the decreasing prevalence of beards in Anglophonic cultures, most barbers now specialize in cutting men's scalp hair as opposed to facial hair. Terminology In modern times, the term "barber" is used both as a professional title and to refer to hairdressers who specialize in men's hair. Historically, all hairdressers were considered barbers. In the 20th century, the profession of cosmetology branched off from ...
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Mediterranean And Middle East Theatre Of World War II
The Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre was a major theatre of operations during the Second World War. The vast size of the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre saw interconnected naval, land, and air campaigns fought for control of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe. The fighting in this theatre lasted from 10 June 1940, when Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, until 2 May 1945 when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered. However, fighting would continue in Greece – where British troops had been dispatched to aid the Greek government – during the early stages of the Greek Civil War. The British referred to this theatre as the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre (so called due to the location of the fighting and the name of Middle East Command), the Americans called it the Mediterranean Theater of War and the German informal official history of the fighting is The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North A ...
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Oxford Mail
''Oxford Mail'' is a daily tabloid newspaper in Oxford, England, owned by Newsquest. It is published six days a week. It is a sister paper to the weekly tabloid ''The Oxford Times''. History The ''Oxford Mail'' was founded in 1928 as a successor to ''Jackson's Oxford Journal''. From 1961 until 1979 its editor was Mark Barrington-Ward. At that time it was owned by the Westminster Press, and was an evening newspaper. The ''Oxford Mail'' is now published in the morning. In the second half of 2008 its circulation fell to 23,402, by 2013 it had fallen to 16,569, a year-on-year decline of 5.6% By the second half of 2014, its circulation had fallen to 12,103. In the period July to December 2015, the paper's circulation fell again, to 11,173. In January to June 2016, a further decline to 10,777 was recorded, an 8.4% fall in year-on-year. The latest published circulation was 6,015 (July - December 2021). Notable former staff * Morley Safer * Sir David Bell David Bell may refer to: ...
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Battle Of Dunkirk
The Battle of Dunkirk (french: Bataille de Dunkerque, link=no) was fought around the French port of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) during the Second World War, between the Allies and Nazi Germany. As the Allies were losing the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk was the defence and evacuation of British and other Allied forces to Britain from 26 May to 4 June 1940. After the Phoney War, the Battle of France began in earnest on 10 May 1940. To the east, the German Army Group B invaded the Netherlands and advanced westward. In response, the Supreme Allied Commander, French General Maurice Gamelin, initiated "Plan D" and British and French troops entered Belgium to engage the Germans in the Netherlands. French planning for war relied on the Maginot Line fortifications along the German–French border protecting the region of Lorraine but the line did not cover the Belgian border. German forces had already crossed most of the Netherlands before the French f ...
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Scuttling Of The German Fleet In Scapa Flow
Shortly after the end of the First World War, the German Kaiserliche Marine was scuttled by its sailors while held off the harbor of the British Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The High Seas Fleet was interned there under the terms of the Armistice while negotiations took place over the fate of the ships. Fearing that either the UK would seize the ships unilaterally or the German government at the time might reject the Treaty of Versailles and resume the war effort (in which case the ships could be used against Germany), Admiral Ludwig von Reuter decided to scuttle the fleet. The scuttling was carried out on 21 June 1919. Intervening British guard ships were able to beach some of the ships, but 52 of the 74 interned vessels sank. Many of the wrecks were salvaged over the next two decades and were towed away for scrapping. Those that remain are popular diving sites. The ships are a source of low-background steel. Background The signing o ...
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Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009 Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay and Hoy. Its sheltered waters have played an important role in travel, trade and conflict throughout the centuries. Vikings anchored their longships in Scapa Flow more than a thousand years ago. It was the United Kingdom's chief naval base during the First and Second World Wars, but the facility was closed in 1956. Scapa Flow has a shallow sandy bottom not deeper than and most of it is about deep; it is one of the great natural harbours and anchorages of the world, with sufficient space to hold a number of navies. The harbour has an area of and contains just under 1 billion cubic metres of water. Since the scuttling of the German fleet after World War I, its wrecks and their marine habitats form an internationally acclaimed diving lo ...
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Battlecruiser
The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attributes. Battlecruisers typically had thinner armour (to a varying degree) and a somewhat lighter main gun battery than contemporary battleships, installed on a longer hull with much higher engine power in order to attain greater speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The goal of the design was to outrun any ship with similar armament, and chase down any ship with lesser armament; they were intended to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire while avoiding combat with the more powerful but slower battleships. However, as more and more battlecruisers were ...
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Armistice Day
Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark Armistice of 11 November 1918, the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and German Empire, Germany at Compiègne, French Third Republic, France, at 5:45 am for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918. But, according to Thomas R. Gowenlock, an intelligence officer with the U.S. First Division, shelling from both sides continued for the rest of the day, ending only at nightfall. The armistice initially expired after a period of 36 days and had to be extended several times. A formal peace agreement was reached only when the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following year. The date is a national holiday in Public holidays in France, France, and was declared a national holid ...
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Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth's early history extends to the Bronze Age when a first settlement emerged at Mount Batten. This settlement continued as a trading post for the Roman Empire, until it was surpassed by the more prosperous village of Sutton founded in the ninth century, now called Plymouth. In 1588, an English fleet based in Plymouth intercepted and defeated the Spanish Armada. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers departed Plymouth for the New World and established Plymouth Colony, the second English settlement in what is now the United States of America. During the English Civil War, the town was held by the Roundhead, Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, Plymouth grew as a commercial shipping port, handling ...
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Stoker (occupation)
A fireman, stoker or watertender is a person whose occupation it is to tend the fire for the running of a boiler, heating a building, or powering a steam engine. Much of the job is hard physical labor, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the boiler's firebox. On steam locomotives the title ''fireman'' is usually used, while on steamships and stationary steam engines, such as those driving saw mills, the title is usually ''stoker'' (although the British Merchant Navy did use ''fireman''). The German word ''Heizer'' is equivalent and in Dutch the word ''stoker'' is mostly used too. The United States Navy referred to them as ''watertenders''. Nautical Royal Navy The Royal Navy used the rank structure ordinary stoker, stoker, leading stoker, stoker petty officer and chief stoker. The non-substantive (trade) badge for stokers was a ship's propeller. Stoker remains the colloquial term used to refer to a marine engineering rating, despite the decommissioning of the la ...
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The National Archives (United Kingdom)
, type = Non-ministerial department , seal = , nativename = , logo = Logo_of_The_National_Archives_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg , logo_width = 150px , logo_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , dissolved = , superseding = , jurisdiction = England and Wales, HM Government , headquarters = Kew, Richmond, Greater London TW9 4DU , region_code = GB , coordinates = , employees = 679 , budget = £43.9 million (2009–2010) , minister1_name = Michelle Donelan , minister1_pfo = Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport , minister2_name = TBC , minister2_pfo = Parliamentary Under Secretary of State , chief1_name = Jeff James , chief1_position = Chief Executive and Keeper of the Public Records , chief2_name = , chief2_position = , chief3_name = , chief3_position = , chief4_name = , chief4_position = , chief5_name = , chief5_position = , agency_type = , chief6_name = , chief6_position = , chief7_name = , chief7_position = ...
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