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 16 photographs of Alan Chanter

Timeline Contributions

Alan Chanter has also contributed 3,235 entries in the WW2 Timeline. A small sample of his timeline contributions is shown below.

» 5 May 1948: VF-17 became the first US Navy squadron to be qualified to fly jets from an aircraft carrier. Three days of operations aboard the USS Saipan saw the squadron's pilots checked out on a minimum of eight take-offs and landings each.

» 15 Sep 1944: The US Marines invaded Peleliu in the Palau islands believing that the island was only lightly defended. In fact, there were some 12,000 Japanese concealed on the island waiting to reveal their hand. In a week the Marines would suffer terrible casualties. The 1st Marines ended up at half their combat strength and, in the 5th and 7th Marines more than four out of every ten men sent ashore were either killed or wounded. For the record Peleliu measured just six miles long and two miles wide and was of questionable strategic value.

» 18 Jul 1945: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada had a miraculous escape when the Bedford Naval magazine blew up. Thousands were evacuated as explosions rocked the town for 24 hours, but battling firemen managed to prevent the flames from reaching the main magazine. Fortunately there were only fifteen casualties of which only one proved fatal.

» 13 Aug 1945: The secessionist self-proclaimed nation of Mongolia declared war on Japan.

» 7 Feb 1940: At a conference presided over by Hermann Göring the German General Staff recommended that no research or development should be pursued unless it promised military results within four months.

» 14 Jul 1948: US General John Joseph Pershing died at the age of 88, honoured by most of the European nations as well as his own. His body rests at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, United States.

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