NAM.2014-08-16-1

Map, 1945 (c). From an album of 968 photographs taken by Gnr Frank Tomlinson (1916-1997), 74th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, 1944-1946. Partly disbound. Associated with World War Two, Air Operations (1939-1945), British Army of the Rhine (1945- ), D-Day,World War Two, North West Europe (1944-1945) 1944 and Operation MARKET GARDEN, World War Two, North West Europe (1944-1945) 1944. Hand-drawn map (inside the front cover of the album) of Tomlinson’s route from England to Germany. An introductory page summarises the photographs he took during his journey. The photographs on the first 20 pages of the album were taken with a camera also in the National Army Museum collection. The album begins with his departure from Tilbury - Southend on 7th June, passing under the firing of the cross-Channel guns at Dover. He reached the French coast near Port-en-Bessin, as HMS Rodney bombarded the French coast, before landing at Arromanches on 8th June 1944. He photographed churches, chateaux, British vehicles and tanks, prisoners and destroyed German tanks and aircraft as his unit passed through Normandy and northern France, covering 472 miles in 90.5 days. He then shows the regiment being welcomed into Brussels, its position by the Albert canal, scenes at “Wasserloo” (possibly Waterloo), Eindhoven, Volkel,Uden and Nijmegen and gliders being towed out in Operation MARKET GARDEN. The regiment then moved on to Antwerp and he also shows scenes of Elst, flooded by the retreating Germans. His unit then crossed at Weurt before spending 15 to 23 March 1945 on leave. His unit was then stationed at Westwoot, from which he visited Arnhem and Osterbeek, where he shows parachutes and graves from the aftermath of MARKET GARDEN. He also shows the reburial of civilians shot in reprisal for an assassination attempt on Hans Rauter of the SS on 7/8 March 1945. He was at Utrecht on VE Day and also visited Amersfoort and Amsterdam. Dissen was his unit’s first posting in Germany and whilst stationed there he visited Cassel, the Mohne dam (subject of the Dambusters raid), Cologne and the caves near Lethmathe. He also shows himself with his wife Nellie during two weeks’ leave in the UK in August 1945 and the unit’s final Christmas together at Herne later that year. He reached Dover for the last time on 18 January 1946 and one of the final photographs shows him with his eldest son sticking the photographs into the album in March 1948.

World War Two, Air Operations (1939-1945), British Army of the Rhine (1945-2008)

D-Day, 1944 (World War Two, North West Europe 1944-1945), MARKET GARDEN, Operation, 1944 World War Two, North West Europe 1944-1945)