Fold3: The St Nazaire Raid

[bru888]

Before launching on my second career as a genealogist (or so it seems now — I honestly thought it would be only a fortnight), I considered a subscription to Ancestry.com. (Hint, after more than two months of using it: If you are serious about your genealogy, spend the money).

One of the things that initially put me off about it was that Newspapers.com and Fold3.com, an online database with military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents, were not included in the basic subscription; i.e., they cost extra. "Oh well," I ended up saying, "in for a penny, in for a pound."

Now I am glad that I did. Newspapers.com knocks my socks off with what I can find on there and Fold3 is impressing me with its potential for providing not just genealogical data but as inspiration for my work here. I am thinking of continuing my subscriptions to those services when I let Ancestry.com lapse.

For example, Fold3 sent an e-mail message with a link to their blog article on the St Nazaire Raid of 28 March 1942. First of all, I had never heard of this incident. True WWII enthusiasts will sneer at my ignorance, but this really is the first I have heard of it.

Secondly, I initially said, "Gee, I wish Order of Battle had the capability of reproducing this dramatic raid. Too bad." Then I said, "Wait a minute, maybe . . ."

Below is the HMS Campbeltown being converted to resemble a German torpedo boat. Workers also added armor plating, guns, and time-delayed explosives in anticipation of ramming her into the docks of St Nazaire. The accompanying commando raids flopped, but she did her job famously.

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So while I have been using Fold3 to search for the military records of my ancestors (with varying results; sometimes a gold mine, sometimes a ghost town), I am coming to the realization that it is also a good source of materials on wartime events:

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[bru888]

One thing I must think about is whether the materials on Fold3.com are considered to be in the public domain. For if they are proprietary, then I may run afoul of copyright law by including them in custom campaigns and scenarios that I design. It is a subscription service, after all.

This could be so even though I make no money in doing what I do; reproducing such materials so that they are available to less scrupulous individuals may constitute a breach of law. So, what I may do is to use my Fold3 subscription for inspiration on what to look for and, if it find it elsewhere on the internet, then I can consider it free, clear, and usable.

I would tend to think that their service, the way they make their money, is in the collection of these materials and making them accessible by search. I doubt if they actually own, say, diagrams and photos of the dry docks at St Nazaire in 1942 after 80 years have passed but it pays to be prudent.

Be that as it may, I doubt if they would mind if I used such diagrams and photos of the dry docks of St Nazaire as a template for the map of a "Raid on St Nazaire" scenario . . .

[terminator]

Never played Medal of Honor European Assault ?

Medal of Honor European Assault - Area 1 St Nazaire Mission 1 Operation Chariot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtNCMafCYVA

[bru888]

Heh. Much as I like OOB and games about war similar to it, I dislike first person shooter games about war.

Odd, isn't it? Could it be the detachment, the distance from the nitty gritty action in OOB? Talk to me about how cerebral OOB is.

Anyway, I scanned through that video (the answer is no, I never played that game) and found zero resources. I was hoping for a map overview.

[terminator]

Anyway, I scanned through that video (the answer is no, I never played that game) and found zero resources. I was hoping for a map overview.

Map (I had to shrink it):

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[terminator]

Vassal Module

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[bru888]

Nice! I mean, St Nazaire!