text:
Panzer 35(t)

The Panzerkampfwagen 35(t), commonly shortened to Panzer 35(t) or abbreviated as '''Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)''', was a Czechoslovak-designed light tank used mainly by Nazi Germany during World War II. The letter (t) stood for tschechisch (German for "Czech"). In Czechoslovak service, it had the formal designation Lehký tank vzor 35 (Light Tank Model 35), but was commonly referred to as the '''LT vz. 35 or LT-35'''.

A total of 434 were built; of these, the Germans seized 244 when they occupied Bohemia-Moravia in March 1939 and the Slovaks acquired 52 when they declared independence from Czechoslovakia at the same time. Others were exported to Bulgaria and Romania. In German service, it saw combat during the early years of World War II, notably the invasion of Poland, the Battle of France and the invasion of the Soviet Union before being retired or sold off in 1942. It was used for the remainder of the war by other countries and as a training tank in Bulgaria into the 1950s.

Description
The Panzerkampfwagen 35(t) was assembled from a framework of steel "angle iron" beams to which the armour plates were riveted. A 4 mm firewall separated the engine compartment from the crew. It had several mesh-covered openings to allow access to the engine and improve ventilation by drawing air in through the commander's hatch. This had the advantage of rapidly dispersing gun combustion gases when firing, but several disadvantages. The constant draft generated by the engine greatly affected the crew during cold weather, the danger of an engine fire reaching the crew compartment was increased and the engine noise and heat increased crew fatigue.

The driver sat on the right side of the tank using a 390 × observation port protected by 50 mm of bulletproof glass and an armoured shutter 28 mm thick. To his right was a vision slit (120 ×) with a similar thickness of bulletproof glass. The Germans replaced the original three colored lights used by the Czechs to communicate with the driver with an intercom system. The radio operator sat on the left and had his own 150 × observation port with the same protection as the driver's. His radios were mounted on the left wall of the hull. The hull machine gun was between the driver and radio operator in a ball mount capable of 30° of traverse, 25° of elevation and depressing up to 10°. Most of the machine gun's barrel protruded from the mount and was protected by an armoured trough. The mount had a spotting telescope, but open sights could be used if the plug at the top of the ball mount was removed. If necessary, the driver could lock the mount into position and fire it himself using a Bowden cable. The driver's hatch was exposed to direct fire and could be damaged from the front.

The turret ring had a diameter of 1.267 m. The turret had a flat face in the center of which was mounted the 3.72 cm main gun. On the right side was another 7.92 mm machine gun in a ball mount. The commander had four episcopes in his cupola and a monocular mirror, 1.3 × 30° periscope which he could extend, once he had removed its armoured cover in his hatch, to give vision while "buttoned-up". As the sole occupant of the turret, the commander was responsible for loading, aiming and firing the main gun and the turret machine gun while simultaneously commanding the tank. The Germans added an extra crewman on the right side of the turret to load the main gun and to operate the turret machine gun. Some ammunition had to be removed to accommodate him.

The 8.62 L Škoda T-11/0 four-cylinder, water-cooled engine produced 120 hp at 1,800 rpm. Two fuel tanks were fitted, the main tank with a capacity of 124 L was on the left side of the engine and the 29 L auxiliary tank was on the other side. The engine could run on gasoline, an alcohol-gasoline mixture, and "Dynalkohol" (an alcohol-benzole mixture). It was mounted in the rear along with the six-speed transmission which drove rear-mounted drive sprockets. The suspension was derived from the Vickers 6-Ton tank; eight small pairs of road wheels on four bogies per side, each pair of bogies sprung by a single leaf spring, a front idler wheel, and four track return wheels. An unsprung road wheel was located directly underneath the idler wheel to improve obstacle crossing. The transmission, brakes and steering were mechanically assisted with compressed air, reducing driver fatigue. This last feature proved problematic in the extreme conditions of the Eastern Front.

The main armament was a Škoda 37mm ÚV vz. 34 (German designation "KwK 34(t)") gun with a pepperpot muzzle brake and a prominent armoured recoil cylinder above the barrel. Škoda called it the A3. It fired a 0.815 kg armour-piercing shell at 690 m/s. It was credited with penetrating a plate inclined at 30° from the vertical 37 mm thick at 100 m, 31 mm thick at 500 m, 26 mm thick at 1000 m, and 22 mm thick at 1500 m. Kliment and Francev quote penetration of a vertical plate 45 mm thick at 500 m. The machine gun's ball mount could be coupled to the main gun or used independently. Both weapons could elevate 25° and depress 10°. They both used 2.6× power sights with a 25° field of view. Initially the tank used Zbrojovka Brno Tk vz. 35 machine guns, but these were exchanged for ZB vz. 37s during 1938. This was adopted by the Germans as the MG 37(t).

In German use, 72 rounds of 37 mm ammunition were carried. These were stored in 6-round boxes: three on the hull side wall, eight in the turret overhang and one ready box above the gun on the turret roof. For the machine gun, 1,800 rounds of belted 7.92 mm ammunition were carried. The machine gun ammunition was in 100 round belts, stored three to a box. In Czech service, the ''LT vz. 35'' carried 78 rounds (24 AP, 54 HE) and 2,700 rounds of machine gun ammunition, the difference being removed to make room for the fourth crewmember in German service. The German command tank version (Panzerbefehlswagen 35(t)) exchanged some ammunition - exactly how much is not known - for another radio set and a gyrocompass. It could be recognized by the prominent "clothesline" radio antenna mounted on the rear deck.

Armour
The gun mantlet was 25 mm thick. The rest of the armour was as follows:

Development
The Czechoslovak Army formulated a requirement in the II-a category of light cavalry tanks by the end of 1934. Českomoravská Kolben-Daněk proposed an improved version of its P-II light tank already in service as the LT vz. 34, but Škoda offered a new design that used the pneumatic system and engine earlier proved by its unsuccessful SU or S-II light tank prototype. One prototype was ordered from each company for delivery during the summer of 1935. Both tanks had the same armament and three-man crew, but ČKD's P-II-a was much smaller at 8.5 t and had only a maximum 16 mm of armour while Škoda's S-II-a weighed 10.5 t and had 25 mm of armour. The army thought that P-II-a was at the limit of its development while the S-II-a could be improved as needed.

The first production order for 160 ''LT vz. 35''s, as the S-II-a was designated in Army service, was placed on 30 October 1935 and deliveries began in December 1936. An additional order for 35 was made on 12 May 1936 and a follow-on order placed for 103 more a month later. The total order for 298 tanks was split equally by Škoda Works and ČKD according to their cartel agreement.

Development was rushed and there were many defects in the ''LT vz. 35''s. Many tanks had to be returned to the factories to be repaired. Most of these repairs involved the electrical system, not the complicated pneumatic system.

Foreign interest
In August 1936, Romania placed an order for 126; the bulk of these were delivered from the end of 1938 by Škoda. Afghanistan ordered ten in 1940; but, these were sold instead to Bulgaria. Total production was 434, including 298 for the Czechoslovak Army, 126 for Romania (under the designation Škoda R-2) and ten for Bulgaria. The Wehrmacht used 218 vehicles captured from the Czechoslovak Army in March 1939. Britain's Alvis-Straussler negotiated for a production license from September 1938 until March 1939 when the Nazi occupation made an agreement impossible. The Soviets were also interested so Škoda shipped the S-II-a prototype and one production ''LT vz. 35'' to the proving grounds at Kubinka for evaluation. The Soviets were interested only in buying the prototype, but Škoda refused to sell unless a license was purchased as well, believing that the Soviets would simply copy the design and build it without paying any royalties.

Czechoslovak

 * S-IIa – Prototype tank built by Skoda for the Czechoslovak Army S-II light tank requirement
 * Lehký tank vzor 35 (Light Tank Model 35) – Abbreviated as LT vz.35 or LT-35, production tanks for the Czechoslovak Army

German

 * Panzerkampfwagen 35(t) – Czechoslovak Army LT vz.35 tanks inducted into the Wehrmacht after annexation.
 * Panzerbefehlswagen 35(t) (Pz.Bef.Wg.) – Command tanks with radios.
 * Artillerie Schlepper 35(t) – Artillery tractor conversions of Pz.Kpfw. 35(t), also called Mörser Zugmittel 35(t)

Romanian

 * R-2 – Designation used by Romania for LT vz. 35 tanks supplied to the Romanian Army before the Second World War.
 * R-2a – Improved R-2 with better engine, radio and improved armor. The Romanians were interested in buying it, but the Germans intervened and did not approve any exports. A proposal to up-armor the R-2 also existed later in Romania.
 * R-2c – R-2 tank with different rear for both the turret and hull. The c stands for cimentate ("cemented"), because this version used cemented armor.
 * TACAM R-2 – Tank destroyer conversions of R-2 tanks, mounting 76 mm ZiS-3 guns.

Others

 * T-11 – Ten Pz.Kpfw. 35(t) tanks ordered for the Afghan Army in 1940, diverted to Bulgaria. The T-11 was built to an Afghan order placed in 1940 and differed mainly in that it used an improved, longer-barreled Škoda A7 gun (as used on LT vz. 38). Ten were built, but were sold to Bulgaria and delivered in the third quarter of 1940.

Czechoslovakia
The 298 ''LT vz. 35 tanks were assigned to the armoured regiments belonging to the four Mobile (Rychlá) Divisions'' between 1936 and 1939. Each regiment was supposed to detach three-tank platoons to support the infantry divisions and border areas in times of crisis. These platoons were heavily used suppressing the protests and violence instigated by Konrad Henlein's Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei - SdP) and the Sudetendeutsche Freikorps (paramilitary groups trained in Germany by SS-instructors) between May and October 1938.

After the Munich Agreement, two tank battalions were sent to reinforce the 3rd Mobile Division in Slovakia. They were used to repel Hungarian and Polish border-crossers, sometimes up to a battalion in strength. They screened the infantry when they had to evacuate southern Slovakia after the First Vienna Award on 2 November 1938.

The S-II-a prototype and one ''LT vz. 35'' tank were returning from testing in the Soviet Union when the fighting began. They detrained in Sevljus and participated in a counterattack at Fančíkovo, but the ''LT vz. 35'' was damaged and captured by the Hungarians. The prototype was forced to retreat into Romania by 17 March, along with most of the other Czech troops in eastern Ruthenia. The Romanians returned the prototype to Škoda six months later.

Germany

In 1939, following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, 244 vehicles of the Czechoslovak Army were seized by the Germans where they were known as the L.T.M.35 until January 1940. In German service, they were used as substitutes for the Panzerkampfwagen III medium tank. They were assigned to the Panzer Battalion (Panzerabteilung) 65 (39) of the 1st Light (leichte) Division and the independent Panzer-Regiment 11 (81) where they participated in the invasion of Poland. 77 of these were lost during the campaign, mostly due to mechanical breakdowns, but only 7 of these were irreparable. From 1940 on, there had not been any spare parts available and tanks had to be completely rebuilt to remain operational.

The 1st Light Division absorbed the 11th Panzer Regiment and was redesignated as the 6th Panzer Division on 18 October 1939. It took 132 ''Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)s into the Battle of France where it was assigned to XXXXI Corps (mot.) for Panzergruppe von Kleist'''s attack through the Ardennes. 44 of these had been lost by the end of May. 35 replacements were issued on 3 June in preparation for Fall Rot, the attack on the remnants of the French Army that began the following day. A total of 62 ''Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)''s were either total write-offs or were damaged beyond the ability of the field maintenance workshops to repair during the campaign.

For the invasion of the Soviet Union, 6th Panzer Division had 160 ''Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)''s. to support 4th Panzer Group's drive on Leningrad. By 10 September 1941, the division had only 102 operational ''Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)'', despite having received two replacements from Germany. Eight tanks were repairable, but 47 were total losses. By 31 October, only 34 were operational with another 41 requiring repair. On 30 November, all ''Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)''s were reported non-operational. "The average distance driven is 12500 km for the Pz.Kpfw. 35(t). The special situation in regard to repair the Pz.Kpfw. 35(t) is well known. It is indeed deemed necessary to point out that repairs can only be accomplished by cannibalizing other Panzers because there are no longer any spare parts for the Pz.Kpfw. 35(t). This means that after retrieval of the Panzers that are scattered around the terrain, a maximum of 10 can actually be repaired out of the 41 Pz.Kpfw. 35(t) reported as needing repair. The Pz.Kpfw. 35(t) can no longer be rebuilt. All of the components are worn out. To be practical, maybe the armored hulls are still useable."

Due to the cessation of production of these tanks, and the absence of spare parts being made, it was decided that the summer campaign of 1941 was to be their last. The fighting in Russia exposed the vehicle's unsuitability for cold weather operations and general unreliability. This weakness, in addition to their thin armour and inadequate firepower, resulted in the 6th Panzer Division being reequipped with German tanks on its withdrawal from Russia in April 1942. All 26 remaining ''Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)''s still in working condition in 1942 were sold to Romania. Some vehicles had their turrets and hull machine guns removed so that the chassis could serve as a munition carrier or an artillery tractor, the Artillerie Schlepper and the Mörserzugmittel 35(t). These had a towing capacity of 12 t.

Romania

Romania ordered 126 of the tanks on 14 August 1936 as the R-2 and received the first 15, which had been diverted from the Czech order, in April–May 1937 to display in a parade. They suffered from numerous teething problems and the Romanians put a hold on production until these issues were resolved. The constantly changing Romanian demands did not help the situation, but they refused to accept any vehicles until trials were conducted in Romania. Three R-2s were shipped to Romania on 12 July 1938 for the trials, but Skoda knew which one would be chosen and prepared the vehicle well and it passed all tests. After disassembly and checks of the trial tank were completed, the Romanian commission approved the design on 23 August. In the meantime, the initial batch was returned to Skoda to be upgraded to current standards on 28 July. Shipments to Romania began on 1 September with 27 shipped before the Munich Crisis forced the Czechs to hold all remaining tanks in case they were needed. 5 finished tanks and six almost-finished tanks were appropriated and shipped to Slovakia although they were quickly returned after the Munich Agreement was signed. The last shipment departed on 22 February 1939.

The R-2s were assigned to the 1st Armoured Regiment of the 1st Armoured Division where they participated in Operation Barbarossa. The division was withdrawn from combat after the Battle of Odessa in 1941. At the start of 1942, 40 tanks were sent to Pilsen for overhaul while 50 more were repaired in Ploiești. The division returned to the front on 29 August 1942 with 109 R-2s. By the eve of the Soviet Stalingrad Counter-offensive on 19 November the division could only muster 84 serviceable R-2s with as many as 37 unserviceable tanks stationed in the rear. The division was on the outer edges of the Stalingrad Pocket, but managed to break through the western wing of the encirclement, although 77 R-2s were lost in the process. Only about a third of these were destroyed by the Soviets, the rest were either abandoned or broke down and could not be recovered. One R-2 arrived from Romania during December as a reinforcement. The 1st Armored Division was ordered home in early January 1943.

Despite the delivery of 26 ''Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)s during 1942, Romania could only muster 59 R-2/Pz.Kpfw. 35(t)''s on 1 April and 30 August 1943, but raised this to 63 by 25 March 1944. There were 44 on hand on 19 July 1944. By this time they were relegated to training duties with the 1st Training Armoured Division. A company of R-2s was sent to Transnistria with the ad-hoc Cantemir Mixed Tank Group on 24 February 1944, but it did not see combat before being withdrawn on 28 March 1944.

A company of R-2s was assigned to the Popescu Armoured Detachment after King Michael's Coup and Romanian's defection from the Axis at the end of August 1944. The Detachment was tasked with preventing the German units stationed around Ploiești from breaking out to the north and finding refuge in Hungary. They accomplished their task and the R-2s were withdrawn from combat operations until the following year. Romania had concentrated all of its remaining tanks and armoured fighting vehicles in the 2nd Armoured Regiment in early 1945 as the unofficial Soviet arms embargo began to have effect. It had five R-2s on hand in early February 1945 when it was sent to the front, but the Soviets confiscated most of them when it arrived. Both R-2s were serviceable when the regiment entered Bratislava on 4 April 1945, but these were probably destroyed when the regiment was nearly surrounded in Austria on 10 April because they are no longer listed among the regiment's vehicles afterwards.

Twenty-one tanks were rebuilt as TACAM R-2 tank destroyers with an ex-Soviet 76.2 mm gun in 1943–44.

Slovakia
The Slovak Army seized 52 ''LT vz. 35'' tanks when they declared their independence from Czechoslovakia in March 1939. They were organized into a battalion that was later incorporated into the Armoured Regiment. They received LT-35 designation in Slovak Army. Three of these tanks participated in the Slovak-Hungarian War of March 1939. One tank company participated in the invasion of Poland, but did not see any fighting. The Army upgraded the internal communications system of its tanks with German intercoms in 1941, but it is unknown if they added a fourth crewman as did the Germans. When Slovakia joined the German invasion of the Soviet Union it sent a Mobile Group that included thirty ''LT vz. 35s. The Mobile Group was reinforced and reorganized in early July 1941 as the Mobile Brigade, also known as Brigade Pilfousek'' after its commander, and it mustered only twenty-seven tanks despite seven reinforcements because breakdowns had caused ten to be evacuated back to Slovakia. This was due to a conspiracy among the Slovak tankers that the tanks would be needed to overthrow the regime at some point and could not be wasted in combat against the Soviets. This caused a high incidence of crew sabotage to which the officers and maintainers turned a blind eye, which caused the tanks to be withdrawn to Slovakia at the beginning of August 1941. On 1 January 1942, the Slovaks had 49 ''LT vz. 35'' on hand because three had been destroyed in the battle for Lipovec earlier in the summer. However, of these 49 only seven were operational as part of the conspiracy to keep the tanks in Slovakia. The ''LT vz. 35''s were relegated to the training/reserve role by 1943 when the Germans began to supply more modern tanks to Slovakia. At least eight ''LT vz. 35''s were used by the insurgents during the Slovak National Uprising in 1944.

Slovak insurgents used LT vz. 35 tanks also in its 3 armored trains. Not only turrets, but whole tanks were used, when they placed tank on flat wagon, and then built armored walls around it. One LT vz. 35 is preserved until today, inside of original armored tank car from Armored Train Štefánik, which is displayed in the Museum of Slovak National Uprising in Banská Bystrica.

Bulgaria
Bulgaria used 26 tanks, delivered by Germany from used war reserve stock in early 1940, with the normal A-3 gun and 10 new T-11 tanks with the more powerful A-7 gun from the confiscated Afghan order were delivered between August and October 1940. They equipped the 1st and 2nd companies of the Bulgarian armored regiment in June 1941. They were supposedly relegated to training duties once the Germans began to deliver the Panzerkampfwagen IV medium tanks in 1944, but apparently remained in service into the Fifties. But Kliment and Francev claim that the T-11s participated in the fighting in Yugoslavia and ended the war south of Vienna as part of the 1st Tank Brigade.

Hungary

Hungary captured one ''LT vz. 34'' in Carpatho-Ukraine on 15 March 1939, when it conquered that country, and also a LT vz. 35 in fighting with the Czech demonstration detachment returning from Kubinka in med-March 1939. They were impressed and asked Škoda for a quote to repair them. The Hungarians did not accept the price, but Škoda fixed them for free once the Hungarians had bought a license to build the Škoda T-21 medium tank in August 1940. The tanks were returned to Hungary in March 1941 and were used for training through 1943.

title: Panzer 35(t)


text:
Vera Atkins

Vera May Atkins (15 June 1908 – 24 June 2000) was a Romanian-born British intelligence officer who worked in the France Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) from 1941 to 1945 during the Second World War.

Early life
Atkins was born Vera May Rosenberg in Galați, Kingdom of Romania, to Max Rosenberg (d. 1932), a German-Jewish father, and his British-Jewish wife, Zefra Hilda, known as Hilda (d. 1947). She had two brothers.

Atkins briefly attended the Sorbonne in Paris to study modern languages and a finishing school at Lausanne, where she indulged her passion for skiing, before training at a secretarial college in London. Atkins' father, a wealthy businessman on the Danube Delta, went bankrupt in 1932 and died a year after. Atkins remained with her mother in Romania until emigrating to Great Britain in 1937, a move made in response to the threatening political situation in mainland Europe.

During her somewhat-gilded youth in Romania, where Atkins lived on the large estate bought by her father at Crasna (now in Ukraine), Atkins enjoyed the cosmopolitan society of Bucharest where she became close to the anti-Nazi German ambassador, Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg (executed after the July 1944 plot). Later Atkins became involved with a young British pilot, Dick Ketton-Cremer, whom she had met in Egypt, and to whom she may have been briefly engaged. He was killed in action in the Battle of Crete on 23 May 1941. Atkins was never to marry, and lived in a flat with her mother while working for SOE and until 1947 when Hilda died.

While in Romania, Atkins came to know several diplomats who were members of British Intelligence, some of whom were later to support her application for British nationality, and to whom in view of her and her family's strong pro-British views, she may have provided information as a "stringer". Atkins also worked as a translator and representative for an oil company.

The surname "Atkins" was her mother's maiden name and itself an Anglicised version of the original "Etkins", which she adopted as her own. She was a cousin of Rudolf Vrba.

Atkins was recruited before the war by Canadian spymaster Sir William Stephenson of British Security Co-ordination. He sent her on fact-finding missions across Europe to supply Winston Churchill (then in the 'political wilderness') with intelligence on the rising threat of Nazi Germany.

First missions of the Second World War
The Polish Cipher Bureau broke Germany's Enigma ciphers from 1932 on, using Enigma-machine reconstructions which they also gave to their British and French allies, following a July 1939 Warsaw conference at which they gave their French and British cryptologist opposite numbers information on the Poles' decrypting techniques and the special-purpose equipment they had invented.

According to William Stevenson's The Life of Vera Atkins, the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II (Arcade Publishing, 2006), Atkins' first mission was to get Poland's cryptologists Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki, and Henryk Zygalski out of the country, and she was a member of the British military mission (MM-4), alongside Colin Gubbins, which arrived in Poland posing as civilians, by way of Greece and Romania, six days before the outbreak of the war. Atkins may have attempted to find the cryptologists and get them out of Poland, but as Rejewski describes (see "Marian Rejewski"), they were in fact evacuated to Romania by the Polish Cipher Bureau, and from Romania to France thanks to Gustave Bertrand of French intelligence; Rejewski makes no mention of ever having met or heard of Vera Atkins. In the spring of 1940, before joining SOE, Atkins travelled to the Low Countries to provide money for a bribe to an Abwehr officer, Hans Fillie, for a passport for her cousin, Fritz, to escape from Romania. Atkins was stranded in the Netherlands when the Germans invaded on 10 May 1940, and, after going into hiding, was able to return to Britain late in 1940 with the assistance of a Belgian resistance network. Atkins kept this episode secret all her life and it only came to light after her death when her biographer, Sarah Helm, tracked down some mourners at Atkins' funeral.

Atkins volunteered as an Air Raid Precautions warden in Chelsea in the period prior to working for SOE. During this time she lived at Nell Gwynn House in Sloane Avenue in Chelsea.

Special Operations Executive (SOE)
Though not a British national, in February 1941 Atkins joined the French section of the SOE as a secretary. She was soon made assistant to section head Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, and became a de facto intelligence officer. Atkins served as a civilian until August 1944, when she was commissioned a Flight Officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). In February 1944, Atkins was naturalised as a British subject. She was later appointed F Section's intelligence officer (F-Int).

Atkins' primary role at SOE was the recruitment and deployment of British agents in occupied France. She also had responsibility for the 37 women SOE agents who worked as couriers and wireless operators for the various circuits established by SOE. Atkins would take care of the "housekeeping" related to the agents, such as checking their clothing and papers to ensure they were appropriate for the mission, sending out pre-written anodyne letters at regular intervals, acting as SOE's liaison with their families, and ensuring they received their pay. Atkins would often accompany agents to the airfields from which they would depart for France and carry out final security checks before waving them off.

Atkins always attended the daily section heads meeting chaired by Buckmaster, and would often stay late into the night at the signals room to await the decoded transmissions sent by agents in the field. She would usually arrive at F Section's Baker Street office around 10.00 am. Although not popular with many of her colleagues, Atkins was trusted by Buckmaster for her integrity, exceptional memory and good organisational skills. Tall at 5 ft 9 in., she typically dressed in tailored skirt-suits. She was a lifelong smoker, preferring the "Senior Service" brand.

Controversy
Controversy has lasted in certain circles as to how and why clues that one of F section's main spy networks had been penetrated by the Germans were not picked up, and Buckmaster and Atkins failed to pull out agents at risk. Instead, they sent in several more. A radio operator for the Prosper circuit, Gilbert Norman ("Archambaud"), had sent a message omitting his true security check – a deliberate mistake. Atkins, it is alleged, was negligent in letting Buckmaster repeat his errors at the expense of agents' lives, including 27 arrested on landing whom the Germans later killed.

Sarah Helm suggests that Atkins, who still had relatives in Nazi-occupied Europe, may have been defensive about her involvement with the Abwehr in the 1940 rescue of her cousin Fritz Rosenberg, something she kept secret from SOE. Furthermore, as a Romanian who had not yet obtained British citizenship, Atkins was legally an enemy alien and highly vulnerable. Whatever the truth, Buckmaster was Atkins' superior officer, and thus ultimately responsible for running SOE's French agents, and she remained a civilian and not even a British national until February 1944. It was Buckmaster who sent a reply to the message supposedly sent by Norman telling him, and thus the actual German operator, that he had forgotten his "true" check and to remember it in the future.

On 1 October 1943, F-Section received a message from "Jacques", an agent in Berne, passing on information from "Sonja" that "Madeleine" and two others had had "a serious accident and were in hospital" – code for captured by the German authorities. "Jacques" was an SOE radio operator, Jacques Weil of the Juggler circuit, who had escaped to Switzerland, "Sonja" was his fiancée, Sonia Olschanezky, who was still operating in Paris, and "Madeleine" was Noor Inayat Khan, a wireless operator of the Cinema circuit. This accurate information was not acted upon by Buckmaster, probably because "Sonja" was a locally recruited agent unknown to him, and F-Section continued to regard "Madeleine's" messages as genuine for several months after Noor's arrest. There is no evidence that Atkins was aware of this message, and as she was later to misidentify Sonia as Noor because she was unaware the former was an SOE operative, the responsibility for ignoring Sonia's communication and continuing to send agents to the blown Prosper circuit and sub-circuits in Paris, and so to their capture and often death, must lie with Buckmaster and not Atkins, as with the case of "Archambaud" above.

It was not until after the end of the war that Atkins learnt of the almost total success the Germans had had by 1943 in destroying SOE networks in the Low Countries by playing the Englandspiel ("England game"), by which radio operators were captured and forced to give up their codes and "bluffs", so that German intelligence (Abwehr in the Netherlands; Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in France) officers could impersonate the agents and play them back against HQ in London. For some reason, Buckmaster and Atkins were not informed of the total collapse of the circuits in the Netherlands (N Section) and Belgium (T Section) due to the capture and control of wireless operators by the Abwehr.

This may have been a result of inter-departmental or service rivalry, or just bureaucratic incompetence, but the failure of their superiors to tell F Section officially of these other SOE disasters (although rumours about N and T Sections circulated at Baker Street) may have led Buckmaster and Atkins to be overconfident in the security of their networks and too ready to ignore signals evidence that questioned their trust in the identity of the wireless operator.

Notice should also be taken of the well-organised and skillful counter-espionage work of the SD at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris under Hans Josef Kieffer, who built up a deep understanding of how F Section operated in both London and France.

It has been suggested that Atkins' diligence in tracing agents still missing at the end of the war was motivated by a sense of guilt at having sent many to deaths that could have been avoided. It is also possible that she felt it her duty to find out what had happened to the men and women, each known personally to her, who had died serving SOE F Section in the most dangerous of circumstances.

In the end, what caused the complete collapse of the Prosper circuit of Francis Suttill and its extensive network of sub-circuits, were not errors in London, but the actions of Henri Déricourt ("Gilbert"), F Section's air-landing officer in France, who was at the heart of its operations, and who was literally giving SOE's secrets to the SD in Paris. What is not completely clear is whether Déricourt was, as is most likely, simply a traitor, or, as he was to claim, was working for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) (unknown to SOE) as part of a complex deception plan in the run-up to D-Day. However, it is beyond doubt that Déricourt was at least a double agent, and that he provided, first his friend, Karl Boemelburg, head of the SD in France, and then Kieffer, with large amounts of written evidence and intelligence about F Section's operations and operatives, which ultimately led to the capture, torture and execution of scores of British agents.

The conclusions of M.R.D. Foot in his official history of F Section are that the errors made by Atkins, Buckmaster and other London officers were the products of the "fog of war", that there were no conspiracies behind these failings, and that few individuals were culpable. Sara Helm's conclusions are that the errors were due to "terrible incompetence and tragic mistakes".

Atkins never admitted to making mistakes, and went to considerable lengths to hide her errors, as in her original identification of Noor Inayat Khan, rather than (the then unknown to Atkins) Sonia Olschanezky, as the fourth woman executed at Natzweiler-Struthof on 6 July 1944. Indeed, Atkins never informed Sonia's family that Sonia had died at Natzweiler, although she did later protest against the decision of the organising committee of the SOE memorial in Valençay not to include Sonia's name because she was a local agent and not one sent from England.

Search for F Section's missing agents
After the liberation of France and the allied victory in Europe, Atkins went to both France, and later, for just four days, Germany, where she was determined to uncover the fates of the fifty-one still unaccounted for F Section agents, of the 118 who had disappeared in enemy territory (117 of whom she was to confirm had died in German captivity). Originally she received little support and some opposition in Whitehall, but as the horrors of Nazi atrocities were revealed, and the popular demand for war crimes trials grew, it was decided to give official support for Atkins' quest to find out what had happened to the British agents and to bring those who had perpetrated crimes against them to justice.

At the end of 1945 SOE was wound up, but in January 1946 Atkins, now funded on the establishment of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), arrived in Germany as a newly promoted Squadron Officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force to begin her search for the missing agents, including 14 women. Atkins was attached to the war crimes unit of the Judge Advocate-General's department of the British Army HQ at Bad Oeynhausen, which was under the command of Group Captain Tony Somerhaugh.

Until her return to Britain in October 1946, Atkins searched for the missing SOE agents and other intelligence service personnel who had gone missing behind enemy lines, carried out interrogations of Nazi war crimes suspects, including Rudolf Höss, ex-commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and testified as a prosecution witness in subsequent trials. In November 1946, Atkins' commission was extended so that she could return to Germany to assist the prosecution in the Ravensbrück trial which lasted into January 1947. She used this opportunity to complete her search for Noor Inayat Khan, who she now knew had not died at Natzweiler-Struthof, as she had originally concluded in April 1946, but at Dachau.

As well as tracing 117 of the 118 missing F Section agents, Atkins established the circumstances of the deaths of all 14 of the women, twelve of whom had perished in concentration camps: Andrée Borrel, Vera Leigh, Sonia Olschanezky (whom Atkins did not identify until 1947, but knew as the fourth woman to be killed) and Diana Rowden executed at Natzweiler-Struthof by lethal injection on 6 July 1944; Yolande Beekman, Madeleine Damerment, Noor Inayat Khan and Eliane Plewman executed at Dachau on 13 September 1944; Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe and Violette Szabo executed by shooting at Ravensbrück on 5 February 1945, and Cecily Lefort executed in the gas chamber at the Uckermark Youth Camp adjacent to Ravensbrück sometime in February 1945. Yvonne Rudellat died of typhus on 23 or 24 April 1945, eight or nine days after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, and Muriel Byck had died of meningitis in hospital in Romorantin, France, on 25 May 1944. Atkins had also persuaded the War Office that the twelve women, technically regarded as civilians, who had been executed, were not treated as having died in prison, as had been originally intended, but were recorded as killed in action.

Atkins' efforts in looking for her missing "girls" meant not only did each now have a place of death, but by detailing their bravery before and after capture, she also helped to ensure that each (except Sonia Olschanezky, unknown to Atkins until 1947) received official recognition by the British Government, including the award of a posthumous George Cross to both Violette Szabo in 1946 and, especially due to Atkins's efforts, Noor Inayat Khan in 1949. (Odette Sansom, who survived Ravensbrück, also received the GC in 1946.) However, when Atkins did confirm that Sonia Olschanezky had died at Natzweiler-Struthof, she failed to pass the information to Sonia's family.

After the Second World War
Atkins was demobilised in 1947, and although nominated for an MBE, was not awarded a decoration in the postwar honours lists.

Atkins went to work for UNESCO's Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges, as office manager from 1948, and director from 1952. She took early retirement in 1961, and retired to Winchelsea in East Sussex.

In 1950, Atkins was an advisor on the film Odette, about Odette Sansom (by the then wife of Peter Churchill), and in 1958 on the film of Carve Her Name With Pride, based upon the biography of the same name of Violette Szabo by R. J. Minney. She also assisted Jean Overton Fuller on her 1952 life of Noor Inayat Khan, Madelaine, but their friendship cooled after the author revealed the success of the German Funkspiel against F Section in her 1954 book, The Starr Affair, and Overton Fuller later came to believe that Atkins had been a Soviet agent.

Atkins was also suspected by some former SOE officials of working for the Germans, but Sarah Helm dismisses these claims of her being a Soviet or Nazi spy and suggests that Atkins' less straightforward behaviour and secrecy can be explained by her determination not to reveal her 1940 mission to the continent. Her position as a woman, a Jew and a non-British national in SOE would also explain Atkins' defensiveness during and after the war. Nevertheless, especially given her pre-war contacts and activities, her position does not rule out the possibility either.

Atkins persuaded M.R.D. Foot, SOE's official historian, not to reveal her Romanian origins in his history. She remained to her death a strong defender of F Section's wartime record, and ensured that each of the 12 women who had died in the three Nazi concentration camps of Natzweiler-Struthof, Dachau and Ravensbrück are commemorated by memorial plaques close to where they were killed. Atkins also supported the memorial at Valençay in the Loire Valley, unveiled in 1991, which is dedicated to the agents of SOE in France killed in the line of duty.

In 1996, Atkins wrote to The Daily Telegraph to defend the decision to send Noor Inayat Khan to France, writing of Noor's initial success in evading capture, her two escape attempts, and her detention in Pforzheim prison manacled in chains as a dangerous prisoner: "This is the record of Noor Inayat Khan and her answer to those who doubted her."

Honours and decorations
Atkins was appointed CBE in the 1997 Birthday Honours. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1948 and made a Knight of the Legion of Honour by the French government in 1987.

In 2022, a historical plaque was placed at Nell Gwynn House, near Sloane Square, London, where Vera lived during WW2, by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, U.K. Branch and the (British) Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, Stamford Hill Branch.

Death
Atkins died at a hospital in Hastings on 24 June 2000, aged 92. She had been in a nursing home recovering from a skin complaint when she fell and broke a hip. Atkins was admitted to the hospital where she contracted MRSA.

Her memorial plaque, which is shared with her brother Guy, is in the northern wall at St Senara's churchyard in Zennor, Cornwall where her ashes were scattered. The inscription reads "Vera May Atkins, CBE Légion d'honneur Croix de guerre". An attempt by AJEX Archivist (Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women of the UK) and author, Martin Sugarman, who interviewed Vera in Winchelsea for his chapters on Jews in SOE in his book 'Fighting Back', on 24 April 1998, to have a Star of David metal peg placed at her memorial at Zennor on a visit in 2012, was refused by the family via the vicar of the church when Sugarman visited the church and plaque. Vera also refused to allow Sugarman to tape her interview at the time and even though she understood fully why he was interviewing her as having known all the agents, and the two – Bloch and Byck, he was specifically writing about, she never revealed she was Jewish and he did not discover this till her obituary was published two years later. Leo Marks, the Jewish Chief of Codes at SOE, who Sugarman also interviewed the same year, 1998, also never let on that Vera was Jewish.

In popular culture

 * Recorded radio interviews with Atkins, in which she relates her experiences regarding the agents she sent into France, are used in Into the Dark, a short film directed by Genevieve Simms. This award-winning 16-minute documentary has been uploaded by the director to Vimeo.
 * Atkins is the subject of the "Fatal Femmes" episode of the Secret War documentary series, aired in the United States on the Military Channel.
 * She was played by Avice Landone in the 1958 film Carve Her Name with Pride, on which she acted as an advisor.
 * The Faith Ashley character in the 1980s ITV television series Wish Me Luck is loosely based on Atkins, though there are few similarities between them beyond her role in the organisation she works for.
 * Atkins was played by Stephanie Cole in the BBC Radio 4 drama "A Cold Supper Behind Harrods" by David Morley.
 * She is the basis for the character of Hilda Pierce in Foyle's War.
 * The 2012 play The Secret Reunion by Adrian Davis is about five SOE women holding a London reunion in 1975: Atkins, Nancy Wake, Odette Sansom Hallowes, Virginia Hall and Eileen Nearne.
 * Atkins is the basis for Diana Lynd in Susan Elia MacNeal's novel The Paris Spy (2017) and for Eleanor Trigg in Pam Jenoff's novel The Lost Girls of Paris (2019).
 * Atkins is the basis for Evelyn Ash in the musical The Invisible: Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare scripted by Jonathan Christenson.
 * Atkins is portrayed by Stana Katic in the 2020 movie, A Call to Spy.
 * Atkins' search for the truth about Noor Inayat Khan is the subject of the 2022 play S.O.E. by Deborah Clair.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Vera Atkins


text:
Horace Donisthorpe

Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe (17 March 1870 – 22 April 1951) was an eccentric British myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his enthusiastic championing of the renaming of the genus Lasius after him as Donisthorpea, and for his many claims of discovering new species of beetles and ants.

Biography
Educated at Mill Hill House, Leicester, and Oakham School, Donisthorpe went to Heidelberg University to read medicine. However, his "too sensitive nature" forced him to give up this career. Being possessed of a private income, from about 1890 he devoted his life to the study of beetles and ants, publishing more than three hundred papers on ants alone. Derek Wragge Morley says in his obituary of Donisthorpe in Nature, that he related a story of how, when a young man, he had swum across the Rhine at Heidelberg, "a feat which, so it was said, no one had achieved before".

Probably the best known of his collecting grounds were the ancient forests of Windsor Great Park in Berkshire where he had permission to collect extensively and where so many of his important discoveries were made.

During his career he associated with many other prominent British entomologists, including Canon Fowler, with whom he co-authored the last volume of 'Coleoptera of the British Islands, and A. A. Allen.

Donisthorpe was controversial in part because he was often considered overeager in his attempts to describe new species of ants and beetles. For example, he named 24 new species of beetle from Britain (17 named after his colleagues), but 22 have since been deemed to be insufficiently distinct to be considered separate species and have been made synonyms of earlier species. The only two British beetle species that he described which remain valid are the rove beetles:
 * Leptacinus intermedius,
 * Ilyobates bennetti.

Species which Donisthorpe described anew that turned out to have been previously classified include (from New Species of Ants (Hym., Formicidae) from the Gold Coast, Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea and New Hebrides):
 * Aenictus bidentatus,
 * Rhytidoponera gagates,
 * Diacamma rugosum,
 * Leptogenys walkeri (Donisthorpe noted: "I have much pleasure in naming this ant in honour of my dear friend the late Commander J. J. Walker, RN"),
 * Leptogenys violacea,
 * Polyrhachis bryanti,
 * and Polyrhachis hosei.

Polyrhachis hosei provides an interesting demonstration of Donisthorpe's zeal for new species coming into conflict with existing ones. His description starts: "The general description of P.(M.) byyani would do equally well for this species ..." and then goes on to describe a small number of very minor differences: "a larger and more robust insect", "pronotal spines longer", "the scale has a somewhat wider arch", and so on.

Donisthorpe was a fellow of the Zoological Society of London and a fellow and vice-chairman of the Royal Entomological Society. He resided at 58, Kensington Mansions, and was known for his lavish parties, which led to the dissipation of much of his family fortune. He was an associate of Auguste-Henri Forel, with whom he stayed in Switzerland in 1914.

Donisthorpe's extensive and beautifully curated collection of British beetles is housed at the Department of Entomology at the Natural History Museum.

Books

 * The Coleoptera of the Isle of Wight. Published in 1906 by the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society. The supplementary sixth volume was compiled with W. W. Fowler to the latter's Coleoptera of the British Isles in 1913;
 * British Ants: their life histories and classification. First published in 1915, this book was reviewed and republished in 1927, and was the first major book ever written on British ants. Although the first edition contained all the species known at the time (and one, Leptothorax corticalis which was later found to be erroneous), the second edition contained the addition of Lasius brunneus, a small, arboreal ants of the Lasius mixtus group found principally in orchards in the home counties. The 1927 edition was, however, too early for any mention of Strongylognathus testaceus, which Donisthorpe discovered (and described as a new species, S. diveri) in the New Forest several years later.

 * The Guests of British Ants. Published in 1927, the same year as the revision of British Ants: their life histories and classification took place. This book deals with myrmecophiles of British ants, some of them ants themselves (e.g. Formicoxenus and Anergates). It also mentions and debunks theories regarding the effect that the presence of a species of beetle (of the genus Atemeles) has on the number of pseudogynes in colonies of the larger formica (ant) species.
 * An Annotated List of the Additions to the British Coleopterous Fauna. Published in 1931, the title serves to be self-explanatory.
 * A Preliminary List of the Coleoptera of Windsor Forest. Published in 1939, Donisthorpe dedicated the book to the memory of Florence Jane Kirk, his constant companion on collecting trips. In it he writes: "In memory of Jane Kirk, whose patience, skill, and unfailing energy were of invaluable help in attaining the results set forth in these pages." The book consists of a preamble detailing the various features of Windsor Great Park and its ancient forests, and a list of the many hundreds of Coleoptera Donisthorpe collected there, with brief habitat details for each species.

Other writings
Donisthorpe, as chair of the Zoological Society of London and in his work at the Natural History Museum, London, often wrote of and described new species and species' habits from all around the world in various entomological journals, such as Annals and Magazine of Natural History.

Donisthorpe also wrote two chapters of Wild Life the World Over: Comprising Twenty-Seven Chapters Written by Nine Distinguished World-Traveled Specialists, which was published in 1953, two years after his death.

Locations in Britain visited by Horace Donisthorpe
Donisthorpe visited many locations in the British Isles in which he collected and recorded unusual species of British ants and beetles:

 * Aviemore, Morayshire
 * Chobham Common, near Chobham, Surrey
 * Box Hill, Surrey
 * Nethy Bridge, Morayshire
 * Parkhurst Forest, Isle of Wight
 * Rannoch, Perthshire
 * The New Forest, including Matley Bog, Hampshire
 * Sandown, Isle of Wight
 * Weybridge, principally Weybridge Heath, Surrey

title: Horace Donisthorpe


text:
Talk:Dictionary of National Biography/Archive 1

Copyright
Well, probably no one will see this, but does anyone know if the older parts of the Dictionary of National Biography are under copyright? It would be a useful source for articles, if not. john 00:42, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Alas, the new on-line edition is only fully compatible with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and with Netscape browsers. Opera returns error messages about non-standard Java, and though I can read and search for articles I cannot print them directly and the help button does not function. I assume the same problem will apply to other browsers like Mozilla and Firefox. I have taken it up with the OUP and they say that are looking into it. Apwoolrich 07:18, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * According to the OUP its possibly something to do with a conflict caused by a firewall, or the anti-banner setting of Opera. I have changed my Opera setting, and allow banners and whilst I can now access the help menu, the printer is not activated. I have tried it on Mozilla, and it works fine Apwoolrich 13:14, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There's a (rather dreadful) article in the Guardian today about the ODNB, talking about how various scholars have pointed to errors. The article is rather absurd, suggesting that these errors not only damn the whole ODNB project, but perhaps damn all of Oxford University press, if not threatening the reputation of the university as a whole. Should we have any of this, or what? john k 22:25, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * As a contributor to the ODNB, I feel these criticisms are not justified. Some of the pieces I wrote were done in 1994, and the machinery for making instant updates for new knowledge did not exist then. Without looking up my records I am not sure about dates, but the deadline for completing the texts was a year or two before the actual publication date, so anything new published after then will not be included in the printed version, though can be updated now in the electronic one. Also, every article was written to a predetermined length to a fixed fee, so writers were not encouraged to stray outside of these boundaries. In my own field of engineering history and biography there are several articles which might have been better,including some by me, and a handful where I have spotted minor errors of spelling and dates. We could only do our best. It is perhaps significant that some of the criticisms come from people who took no part in the project. I am modifying the text on the main page to say that there has been 'some' criticism. This seems to be in literary periodicals, I am not aware of any complaint from other areas of the humanities, science and technology. Apwoolrich 08:52, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fortunately, the old DNB is still available on the http://www.ancestry.com databases, but you'll either have to subscribe or use your local library. They use the 1921 edition where you can READILY see the differences and redactions. --WB2 01:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

In the on-line edition of the ODNB, the differences between the old and new can readily be compared, since both the DNB and the ODNB are available. And it is the entire DNB not just the pre-copyrighted volumes. Apwoolrich 17:32, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

In addition, in each new release of the online edition it will be possible to compare the text of articles to which changes have been made for that release, with the text as it appeared in previous online releases. Matthew Kilburn

 * Apparently, Matthew Kilburn is NPOV (No Person of Value), as you yourself appear to me Mr Apwoolrich

The ODNB welcomes constructive criticism, and as a member of staff I'd like to know exactly which corrections WB2 would like to propose. I'd appreciate it if he wrote to me at the dictionary rather than make changes to the Wikipedia article. --Matthew Kilburn 09:14, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Any form of consensus about the copyright status of the DNB? I am using chunks of pre-1900 stuff fairly liberally as a start-point for articles which I intend to come back to later and improve, but if this is a no-no, then I'll take them down... Hackloon 02:34, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

 * In the US (and last I heard, Wikipedia operates on US law), you can use the "pre-1900 stuff" if you have a book that's copyrighted pre-1923. If your book says something like "Copyright 1885, ..., 2003" then you shouldn't use it. Why? Because this indicates that there have been edits made to the book since the original publication, and those edits are still in copyright. Since in most cases you'll never be able to tell what those edits are, it's not safe to copy from that particular edition. If you have an electronic version, it's certainly got a recent copyright date, so you're probably out of luck. YMM, of course, V.
 * All is not lost if you want to write those articles anyway, however. Use the DNB as a guide for the information you're looking for from other sources, instead of just copying from it verbatim. Your article on Christopher Bainbridge, for example, is full of information that could be expanded into a really stellar article. Ken 03:06, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Guess I'll just have to get on and edit them into decent articles then... Thanks for that, Hackloon 03:18, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Hackloon went on to post at least one article (since deleted) with material straight out of the new ODNB/Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Unless the ODNB uses old DNB text--which I don't believe it does and which might then be under a new copyright--there may be some confusion over the difference between the DNB and ODNB, although it is hard to see how anyone in contact with either the print or electronic versions would fail to notice the difference. Dan Knauss 15:15, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

On the accuracy issue, the ODNB is incomparably better than the DNB. I haven't seen anything terribly objectionable or wrong on major entries except perhaps arguably significant omitted material. On some minor entries where I happen to have a lot of obscure knowledge, I did find a number of significant errors which were duly reported and dealt with--kind of like a slow wikipedia process. I have noticed only one moderately significant entry that is written in an overly interpretative fashion, like some in the old DNB, where the author is clearly trying to push a moral evaluation of the subject-figure (e.g., he was a 'good' man). This is warranted in cases where there is significant historical opinion about a person, which ought to be mentioned and then compared with the facts as best as they can be determined. It would be interesting to know how the ODNB tried to address such POV issues.

The citations and bibliographic information in the ODNB entries are great, and the attention to financial information and family relations is a wonderful research asset. The only real structural fault (which will probably be remedied in the future) is a failure to insert all appropriate cross-links within the online ODNB and to go further with links to online sources, such as the PRO. Links leading only to the National Archives page might tip off amateurs and dinosaur scholars to the wealth of documentary information that is becoming available online for free or for small fees, but direct links to, for instance, PRO database entries, would be great. Imagine what might be possible by association with WorldCat, Google print and Amazon. Most of all I wish the ODNB would develop a search program to visually constellate all or selected ODNB entries based on their relationship as indicated by crosslinks. Dan Knauss 16:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Disk set
I have the thing on a CD set if anyone needs access Brookie:the wind in the grass 09:04, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

 * So do I, but any text on it published post 1934 is covered by copyright. It can be argued that anything taken from this disk is also copyright as it is a nrw publiction published very recently, but what the acutual legal position is under European law is, I do not know. Many of biographies from DNB were taken as the basis for biographies in EB 11, and are generally reliable, if you need a download text to base a new work on Apwoolrich 09:37, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Dictionary of National Biography -- scope
I'm a bit surprised to see your comments about the ODNB being 'short' on sportspeople, and am not certain whether this can be considered an objective statement in the context of the article. However, it's probably right to say that ODNB never sought to include every member of parliament; holding elective (or other) office alone has never been sufficient grounds for selection in the dictionary. --Matthew Kilburn 21:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks for your comments -- I moved discussion here from User_talk:Mervyn. It was a first stab at trying to explain to the general reader why certain people aren't in ... Some of the reasons I see (apart from normal editorial process) are, A. continued unconscious bias, such as towards the "great and good" or churchmen over eg sport (example of omission: Wolf Barnato, 3 times winer of Le Mans) and B. deliberate choice not to be comprehensive, even in areas where comprehensiveness might be feasible, as in all MPs (a good example of a prominent MP omitted is James A. de Rothschild). We could fairly add that there has been a strong attempt to correct much bias in the new edition, esp bias towards men!. .   Hope you think we can build a decent paragraph from this.
 * --mervyn 14:38, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I wouldn't dispute that there is an unconscious bias, but at the same time there is a danger of exaggerating it. I expect that there are as many people who think the present dictionary includes too many sportsmen. I've added a few more sentences attempting to outline the selection procedure in a little more detail - including the idea that the nineteenth century is collaborating with th late twentieth, a definite pointer towards the character of the dictionary - and also quoting Colin Matthew's considered belief that a definitive selection couldn't be achieved. I've also added a link to the introduction to the dictionary, which is freely available online, and explains how the dictionary was written in more detail than we can achieve here. I don't claim it's perfect!Matthew Kilburn 23:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Regarding MPs, it's not at all surprising they're not trying to cover all MPs - this is adequately done by the History of Parliament, which is aiming to get them all, right back to the fourteenth century. No point duplicating effort...
 * It may also be worth mentioning in passing that the DNB includes at least a dozen fictional people - from explicitly created figures like Britannia and outright fictions like Lear to legends with dubious historicity like Arthur. (My personal favourite is their entry on Piltdown Man). There's also some very quirkily-selected inclusions - Lindow Man, a figure for whom we have no "biography" in the strict sense, or Thomas Atkins, a name that far outlived its original bearer. Shimgray | talk | 00:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

More than "all MPs," there's a number of groups which might be expected to be comprehensively included, but which are not, such as all Privy Councillors, all Knights of the Garter, all peers (or, at least, all members of the highest three levels of the peerage). For that matter, they don't even include all modern cabinet ministers. john k (talk) 00:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Westward Ho!
The 1921 (?) edition of the DNB cites this historical romance as a source of fact for several articles on the lives of Elizabethan figures. The author, Charles Kingsley, was an arch bigot. It's worth a comment, but I don't have the edition to hand.--Shtove 00:12, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

 * It might be worth a comment here, but not in the article. The original DNB contributors would have only cited Westward Ho! on the understanding that their readers would have known it was a work of fiction. There are several viewpoints in the original DNB (the '1921 edition' is an uncorrected reprint of the 1908-9 lightly revised edition) that may seem dated or offensive to some modern readers. The ODNB article on Kingsley provides some of the intellectual background to his anti-Catholic position, a stance explicable to many in British literary, intellectual and political life in the mid-nineteenth century, however misguided it may seem to us. --Matthew Kilburn 09:52, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * But why cite a work of fiction? Maybe a comment in the article could point up the criteria used by the early editors. Kingsley is still with us - he's just relocated across the Atlantic and changed his name to Dan Brown.--Shtove 10:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Why cite a work of fiction? All sorts of reasons. The fiction might be based on serious historical research, or might have contributed to the shaping of a popular interpretation of events, to name two. Readers of the dictionary were always expected to come to it with their critical faculties active. Kingsley's purpose as a writer was far more intellectual than Brown's, however comparable the consequences may appear! --Matthew Kilburn 10:36, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * They wouldn't get away with it on WP. Look out! There's an albino monk behind you...Shtove 10:59, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

OUP picture
Nice idea, Mervyn, but I think it's not quite right to have a picture of OUP's Walton Street offices. For a start, the editorial office of the dictionary has never been there, so it isn't the home of the project. Additionally, the dictionary pre-dates OUP's involvement with it and it's a bit odd to have the picture juxtaposed with text which largely deals with the dictionary's origins at Smith, Elder. I won't delete it straight away, but will see what else I can come up with. --Matthew Kilburn 22:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
 * perhaps a scan of the first edition title page - should be a wikipedia standard for all book articles. --mervyn 12:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Or a photograph of several different editions of the printed dictionary on the shelf together? --Matthew Kilburn 15:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Maybe a pic like that at Pauly-Wissowa ? Anyone handy with a digital camera? --mervyn 10:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Online Access to ODNB for UK Public Library members
U.K. Wikipedians may like to know (if they don’t already)

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council of the U.K. has a Digital Initiatives programme called “Reference Online: subscription-based electronic services for English public libraries”

http://www.mla.gov.uk/

Which includes a deal on online access to ODNB.

This means that a lot of libraries are making ODNB available free to their members.

There is a list of U.K. Public Libraries at

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac940/weblibs.html

Which includes links to their online catalogues.

They may, however, have information about access to online electronic sources on a different page.

Vernon White 09:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * A list of libraries with access to the ODNB is on the ODNB website at http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/freeodnb/libraries, in many cases with a link to the relevant online resources page.--Matthew Kilburn 11:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyone interested in scanning it?
Hi,

My library lets patrons check out the old 22-volume DNB and a search reveals that many other libraries do, as well. I'm going to check out the set, and I would be more than willing to scan a volume from my home if anyone else would be willing to jump in. I think that using OCR would probably doom the project, though. So we could follow Tim Starling's lead on Wikisource and just feature pics of the pages. Any thoughts?

Best Username Ever 09:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

 * If the old version is out of copyright then Wikisource would be an appropriate repository. -Will Beback · † · 20:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think some parts of the old version would still be in copyright, but others are PD. john k 21:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * This is because there were repeated updates over the years as more people died. I'd think that the bios for anyone who died before 1900 or so should be PD, though. john k 21:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The 22-volume edition at my library was published in 1917, so all of the entries in it are in the public domain. There also is a 1901-1911 and a 1911-1920 supplement which should both be ok, although scanning any supplements could wait until after the main set.--Best Username Ever 22:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * OK. I've got them now. It's ok if no one wants to scan them, because they're still useful. Plus, my library lets me renew books indefinitely. Heh heh heh heh.--Best Username Ever 00:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Matching people in the ODNB with Wikipedia
Although the online ODNB is subscription-only, the index is freely available online as the Oxford Biographical Index (OBI). Of the over 50,000 individuals in the index, I've automatically matched over 10,000 with wikipedia using their name and birth/death dates. Because of name variants, uncertainties about dating etc., I've supplemented this automatic matching by manual checking to find several thousand additional entries. Since OBI entries record the number of words written about each individual in the ODNB, individuals can be ranked in approximate order of their prominence. So I've found that, of the top 1000 people in the ODNB, only 5 do not seem to have their own page in wikipedia: However, 64 of the next 1000 seem to be without their own wikipedia page. I've posted 198 absent links, corresponding to the top 3,000 most prominent individuals in the ODNB, at my user page; if anyone has ideas about where most usefully to post the links I've matched, or is interested in matching ODNB entries with wikipedia pages, then please let me know here or at my talk page. Dsp13 23:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC) and Dsp13 01:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Knollys, Sir Francis (1511/12–1596), politician
 * Horne, Robert (1513x15–1579), bishop of Winchester
 * Dering, Sir Edward, first baronet (1598–1644), antiquary and religious controversialist
 * Randolph, Thomas (1525/6–1590), diplomat
 * Closterman, John (1660–1711), history and portrait painter

Script for links required
I am currently using ODNB cites like this:

 * Blake, R. (2004) "Lindemann, Frederick Alexander, Viscount Cherwell (1886–1957)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, online edn, May 2006, accessed 18 Aug 2007 (subscription required)

This problem is that the "subscription required" may put some people off but pretty well everyone in UK has on-line access through their local library. What we really need is a template/ script so that when you hit the link, it takes you to a page that explains how to get access. Also it would be good to have an option that you could subsequently set the link via your passwork straight into ODNB, whether UK local library/ academic institution or whatever.

That made sense to me. Hope is does to someone who has the wherewithall to set up this sort of thing.Cutler 21:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Is the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography a valid reference on Wikipedia?
Is the inclusion of references from the subscription Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) permissible on Wikipedia? I've attempted to use this valuable and recent (2004) source to an article I've created, but two editors have frustrated my attempts. The ODNB is used to reference 385 articles on Wikipedia at present, so this is an issue that needs to be resolved. I've issued an RfC at Talk:J. F. X. O'Brien.--Damac (talk) 22:04, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


text:
Call of Duty (video game)

Call of Duty is a 2003 first-person shooter game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It is the first installment in the Call of Duty franchise, released on October 29, 2003, for Microsoft Windows. The game simulates infantry and combined arms warfare of World War II using a modified version of the id Tech 3 engine. Much of its theme and gameplay is similar to the Medal of Honor series; however, Call of Duty showcases multiple viewpoints staged in the American, British, and Soviet campaigns of World War II in Europe.

The game introduced a new take on AI-controlled allies who support the player during missions and react to situational changes during gameplay. This led to a greater emphasis on squad-based play as opposed to the "lone wolf" approach often portrayed in earlier first-person shooter games. Much of Infinity Ward's development team consisted of members who helped develop Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. The game received critical acclaim and won several Game of the Year awards from reviewers.

In September 2004, an expansion pack called Call of Duty: United Offensive, which was produced by Activision and developed by Gray Matter Studios and Pi Studios, was released. At the same time the N-Gage Version got an Arena Pack with 3 new Levels. An enhanced port of Call of Duty for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, titled Call of Duty: Classic, developed by Aspyr, was released worldwide in November 2009 with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, being available via redemption codes included with the "Hardened" and "Prestige" editions of the game.

Gameplay
As a first-person shooter, Call of Duty places the player in control of an infantry soldier who makes use of various authentic World War II firearms in combat. Each mission features a series of objectives that are marked on the heads-up display's compass; the player must complete all objectives to advance to the next mission. The player can save and load at any time, rather than the checkpoint system utilized in later Call of Duty games.

The player has two primary weapon slots, a handgun slot, and can carry up to ten grenades. Weapons may be exchanged with those found on the battlefield dropped by dead soldiers. Unlike later Call of Duty games, the first allows the player to toggle between different firing modes (single shot or automatic fire). Call of Duty was one of the early first-person shooters to feature iron sights in game play; by pressing the corresponding key the player aims down the gun's actual sights for increased accuracy. In addition to weapons carried by the player, mounted machine guns and other fixed weapon emplacements are controllable by the player.

The game uses a standard health points system, with a limited amount of health reflected by a health bar. Medkits scattered throughout the levels or dropped by some foes are used to restore health when the player is injured.

Call of Duty also featured "shellshock" (not to be confused with the psychological condition of the same name): when there is an explosion near the player, he momentarily experiences simulated tinnitus, appropriate sound "muffling" effects, blurred vision, and also results in the player slowing down, unable to sprint.

As the focus of the game is on simulation of the actual battlefield, the gameplay differed from many single-player shooters of the time. The player moves in conjunction with allied soldiers rather than alone; allied soldiers will assist the player in defeating enemy soldiers and advancing; however, the player is given charge of completing certain objectives. The game places heavy emphasis on usage of cover, suppressive fire, and grenades. AI-controlled soldiers will take cover behind walls, barricades, and other obstacles when available.

American campaign
The American campaign begins in August 1942 with Private Martin, a newly enlisted member of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, completing basic training at Camp Toccoa. In June 1944, Martin establishes a landing zone for soldiers participating in Operation Overlord. The paratroopers are scattered, leaving Martin in a mixed unit formed from various companies led by his CO Cpt. Foley, who seize a nearby town from Germans. Martin and his unit are sent to force the remaining Germans from Sainte-Mère-Église and disable several Flankpanzer IVs as D-Day begins. Martin's unit destroys German artillery positions attacking the landing force at Utah Beach. Afterwards, Martin learns that his unit has been assigned to participate in an attack on a Bavarian manor in August 1944 to rescue two British officers, Captain Price and Major Ingram. He learns from Price that Ingram had already been moved to a more secure POW camp for interrogation; Martin and Price infiltrate the camp and rescue Ingram. The last mission happens during the battle of the Bulge where Martin and his company take out panzers defending a captured bunker.

British campaign
The British campaign starts with Sergeant Jack Evans and a unit from 2nd Ox and Bucks of the 6th Airborne Division taking part in Operation Tonga. The unit is dropped in Horsa gliders near Pegasus Bridge, Bénouville. Led by Captain Price, Evans and his troops clear the bridge of German soldiers. The unit holds out against an attempt by a German battalion to retake the bridge with the help of the 7th Parachute Battalion.

By September, Evans has been transferred to the SAS. He takes part in a mission to sabotage the Eder Dam, restored after being destroyed by the No. 617 Squadron RAF during Operation Chastise, destroying the Flakvierling anti-aircraft guns protecting it. Following extraction, Evans helps to cut off pursuing German troops. Reaching a German airport to escape, Evans uses an anti-air gun to cover Price and Waters from German Stuka dive-bombers as they procure and flee in a Fw.200. Evans and Price then pose as German naval officers and sailors to infiltrate the battleship Tirpitz, disable its defenses, and steals information for the RAF to attack the ship. Price sacrifices himself to buy time for Evans, who escapes with Waters by boat. Later, Evans, Waters and their squad arrive near Burgsteinfurt, Germany, to assist the impending Allied assault on the city. Discovering plans to launch V-2 rockets at the Allied forces, the unit destroys them before joining the rest of the army.

Soviet campaign
The Soviet campaign begins during the Battle of Stalingrad in September 1942. Corporal Alexei Ivanovich Voronin and his fellow recruits are sent across the Volga River, many of whom are killed when the Luftwaffe launch an attack. Once across, they call in an artillery strike that forces the Germans back. At Red Square with Soviet officers killing soldiers who retreat, Voronin kills several German officer and soldiers, disrupting the German offense long enough for Soviet artillery to destroy their tanks. Voronin links up with surviving allies in a train station and guides them to Major Zubov of the 13th Guards Rifle Division; Voronin is promoted to Junior Sergeant. In November, Voronin rendezvous with a unit led by Sergeant Pavlov, tasked with retaking an apartment building in German hands. The unit assaults and clears the building, and defends it from a German counterattack.

In January 1945, Voronin, now a full Sergeant, serves with the 150th Rifle Division of the 3rd Shock Army. The unit secures a makeshift German tank repair facility in Warsaw during the Vistula–Oder Offensive, and regroup with the 4th Guards Tank Army. Due to shortages in experienced soldiers, Voronin commands a T-34-85 tank for the 2nd Guards Tank Army, and helps the Soviets capture a town near the Oder River. In April, Sergeant Voronin is returned to his old unit, the 150th Rifle Division. He and a small group of soldiers storm the Reichstag building and raise the Victory Banner atop the roof, ending the European war.

Development

Call of Duty was developed by Infinity Ward, a new studio formed in 2002 originally consisting of 21 employees, many of whom were project lead developers of the successful Medal of Honor: Allied Assault released the same year. Led by Chief Creative Officer Vince Zampella, development began in April 2002, and the team grew to 27 members by May 2003. At its beginning, the project was nicknamed "Medal of Honor Killer". Using an enhanced version of the id Tech 3 game engine developed for Quake III Arena and an in-house skeletal animation system called "Ares", Infinity Ward set out to develop a new World War II-era video game that, unlike many of its predecessors, placed more emphasis on squad-based play with intelligent assistance from teammates during large-scale battles. The team also extensively researched weapons, artillery, and vehicles from World War II to enhance the authenticity of animation and sounds used throughout the game. The game's budget was $4.5 million.

Another area the development team focused on was their artificial intelligence (AI) pathfinding component dubbed "Conduit". The ability to suppress the enemy with cover fire and clear obstacles, such as fences and windows, was tightly integrated into the squad-based aspect of the single-player campaigns. The AI in the game was designed to flank the opponent, bank grenades, and move from one cover point to another. Lead animation director Michael Boon explained that actions which would have normally been scripted in past games were moved to a dynamic AI environment, in order to help create a different experience each time levels are replayed. While the campaigns were the primary focus, development of the multiplayer modes were tailored to please modders. Zied Rieke, a lead designer, clarified that gameplay and modes were written in script making it "extremely easy for players to make their own modifications to Call of Duty multiplayer".

Critical reception
Call of Duty received "critical acclaim", according to review aggregator Metacritic. It won several "Game of the Year" awards for 2003 from several reviewers.

During the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards), Call of Duty was honored "Game of the Year" of 2003 by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences; it also won awards for "Computer Game of the Year" and "Computer First-Person Action Game of the Year", along with nominations for "Outstanding Innovation in Computer Gaming", "Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition", and "Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design".

GameSpot named it the best computer game of October 2003.

Computer Games Magazine named Call of Duty the sixth-best computer game of 2003, and the editors wrote, "This game ups the ante in the WWII shooter arena, and makes everything that has come before it seem as outdated as France's army." The editors of Computer Gaming World presented Call of Duty with their 2003 "Shooter of the Year" award. They remarked, "Call of Duty won this category without a shot fired—there simply was no debate." It was also nominated for "Best Game" at the 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards. While it did not receive that award, it did win Infinity Ward the "Rookie Studio of the Year". Chuck Russom was also presented with the "Excellence in Audio" award for his work on the game.

IGN rated the game 9.3/10, with reviewer Dan Adams saying "You have to love a game that glues you to your seat and keeps you interested... A thrilling piece of software that action fans should grab a hold of and love fiercely." His only negative critique was on the short length of the game, which many reviewers pointed out.

The N-Gage version got "mixed or average reviews" on the site Metacritic.

Sales
The NPD Group named Call of Duty the eighth-best-selling computer game of 2003. It maintained this position on NPD's computer game sales rankings for the following year. In the United States alone, Call of Duty sold 790,000 copies and earned $29.6 million (~$ in ) by August 2006. At the time, this led Edge to declare it the country's 13th-best-selling computer game released since January 2000.

In the United Kingdom, Call of Duty sold 95,000 copies by the end of 2003, which made it 88th-biggest seller across all platforms that year. Discussing this performance, Kristan Reed of GamesIndustry.biz wrote that "Activision will be pleased that it managed to interrupt the Sims party" with the game's release. Call of Duty ultimately received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom.

Call of Duty ultimately sold 4.5 million copies worldwide by 2013.

Franchise
Call of Duty spawned numerous spin-offs and sequels, as part of the Call of Duty series. Its expansion pack - Call of Duty: United Offensive was developed by Gray Matter Studios and released September 14, 2004. Call of Duty 2 was also developed by Infinity Ward and was released in October 2005. Some Call of Duty spinoffs were developed for consoles, such as Call of Duty: Finest Hour by Spark Unlimited and Call of Duty 2: Big Red One by Gray Matter Studios (merged into Treyarch). The franchise eventually had over fifteen more sequels and spin offs.

Ports
Call of Duty Classic is a downloadable version of Call of Duty for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, featuring HD resolutions. Tokens to download the game ahead of its release were sold along with special "Hardened" and "Prestige" editions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and the game was publicly released on December 2, 2009.

IGN rated this version 7.5, citing it as not well adapted to the consoles, as well as criticizing the multiplayer for only supporting up to eight players.

Music
The music for the game was created by Michael Giacchino and was originally released in 2003 as the Call Of Duty Official Soundtrack Sampler CD, part of the game's pre-order from EB Games in Europe. The music was later released in the United States in 2005 as part of the Deluxe Edition, which included Call of Duty: United Offensive. An additional composition, "Age Of War" by Justin Skomarovsky, was commissioned for the intro cinematic leading into the "Call Of Duty" main title.

title: Call of Duty (video game)