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I've never noticed this near to White Mill Bridge. I think it's a WW2 defence?
Near Wimborne 13.03.2016
A concrete box constructed with a rectangular hole through it so a long steel beam could be passed through to form a road barrier. Located outside of Sheerness, Kent. Part of the anti-invasion defences on the Isle of Sheppey dating from WWII. Seen in March 2022.
Long exposure of the sea defences at Happisburgh, Norfolk.
Canon 7D, EF-S 10-22, Hitech Prostop 10 IRND filter and Cokin 0.9 Soft Graduated filter. Processed in ACR/PSCC.
Kristiansand, May 14 th 2021. The fortress was built 1666-72 as part of military reinforcement of the new established city by the Danish king Christian IV who was the king of Danmark-Norway union. Now avilable for concerts and events. EV 14,3 3:10 pm light haze on a sunny day. Voigtländer brass lens with one Waterhouse stop at f/ 10,6. exposed 45 sec. Developed in Gallic Acid 0,8% for 70 min.
IDF's Mostly Female Combat Unit Attend Training Day in Azuz
Israeli Soldiers from the Karakal Batallion on the Shooting range on July 6, 2016 in Nitzana, Israel.
The first mixed-sex Karakal combat battalion was formed in 2004 and is based in the Negev desert on the border with Egypt and Jordan.
Israeli soldiers of the Golani brigade take part in an exercise near the border with Syria on May 6, 2013 at the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Syria has accused Israel of launching a series of airstrikes on targets near the Lebanon/Syria border, including an arms shipment and the Jamraya research centre, that was thought to produce chemical weapons.
Israeli Soldiers from the Caracal Battalion during their basic training – 2012
The Caracal Battalion is an infantry combat battalion of the Israel Defense Forces, composed of both male and female soldiers, of both Jewish and Arab descent.[It is named after the Caracal, a small cat whose sexes appear the same. As of 2009, approximately 70% of the battalion was female.It is part of the 512th "Sagi" Brigade of Israel's Southern territorial command.
Prior to Caracal's formation in 2000, women had been prevented from serving in direct combat positions with the IDF. The unit has since been tasked with patrolling the Israeli-Egyptian border. It took part in Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005.
The unit badge, adopted in 2009, incorporates the Sagi Brigade badge, with the addition of the Caracal cat.
New recruits in the Caracal Battalion, are issued the Israeli-made Tavor assault rifle. Battalion members partake in a four-month basic training period that includes physical training at the Givati Brigade training base.
Soldiers specialize in various weapons including machine guns, advanced weaponry, grenades, and mortars.
All female soldiers who join the battalion are required to sign up for a third year of military service, the same as their male counterparts. The men are drawn from Nahal garinim, or have volunteered.
– Cieszę się, że Polska i Nigeria aktywnie współpracują na wielu płaszczyznach, a spotkania przedstawicieli naszych państw odbywają się regularnie – powiedziała wiceszefowa polskiej dyplomacji w trakcie spotkania z przedstawicielami National Defence College z Nigerii.
Fot.: Michał Jasiulewicz/MSZ
Golani Soldiers Training
Soldiers from the Golani Brigade train in northern Israel
Photos by: Staff Sergeant Alexi Rosenfeld, IDF Spokesperson's Unit
Israeli Mostly Female Combat Unit "karakal" Perform Large Combat Exercise
Soldiers from the Karakal battalion prepare for a graduation march near the Israeli-Egyptian border on September 03, 2014 near Azoz, Israel. The mixed-sex Karakal combat battalion was formed in 2004 and is based in the Negev desert on the border with Egypt and Jordan.
(February 27, 2014 - Source: Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images Europe)
Israeli soldiers of the Golani brigade take part in an exercise near the border with Syria on May 6, 2013 at the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Syria has accused Israel of launching a series of airstrikes on targets near the Lebanon/Syria border, including an arms shipment and the Jamraya research centre, that was thought to produce chemical weapons.
Israel's Special Unit Bardalas Take Part in Training Exercise
Israeli male and female combat soldiers of the Bardales battalion take part in a training exercise July 13, 2016 in Nitzana, Israel. Bardales battalion is a new mixed-gender combat battalion that has been active since 2015.
Source: Ilia Yefimovich
Israeli Soldiers from the Caracal Battalion during their basic training – 2012
The Caracal Battalion is an infantry combat battalion of the Israel Defense Forces, composed of both male and female soldiers, of both Jewish and Arab descent.[It is named after the Caracal, a small cat whose sexes appear the same. As of 2009, approximately 70% of the battalion was female.It is part of the 512th "Sagi" Brigade of Israel's Southern territorial command.
Prior to Caracal's formation in 2000, women had been prevented from serving in direct combat positions with the IDF. The unit has since been tasked with patrolling the Israeli-Egyptian border. It took part in Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005.
The unit badge, adopted in 2009, incorporates the Sagi Brigade badge, with the addition of the Caracal cat.
New recruits in the Caracal Battalion, are issued the Israeli-made Tavor assault rifle. Battalion members partake in a four-month basic training period that includes physical training at the Givati Brigade training base.
Soldiers specialize in various weapons including machine guns, advanced weaponry, grenades, and mortars.
All female soldiers who join the battalion are required to sign up for a third year of military service, the same as their male counterparts. The men are drawn from Nahal garinim, or have volunteered.
Students on the Standard NCO Course on exercise in Fort Davis County Cork
Students from the 3rd All Arms Standard NCO course conducting a FIBUA (Fighting in Built up Areas) exercise in Fort Davis, April 2013. During the exercise the students were tested using an Engineer Assault Bridge to gain entry and a Artillery 105mm Gun to break strong points. There are thirty nine students on the course representing the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Engineer, Ordnance, CIS and Air Corp.
General Sir Peter Wall KCB CBE ADC Gen is pictured during a visit to troops in Afghanistan.
General Wall assumed the role of Chief of the General Staff (CGS) on 15 September 2010.
He said: "I am delighted to be taking over from General Sir David Richards as Chief of the General Staff today. Our Army is rightly focused on delivering success on operations at home and abroad. It is well-manned, well trained and as operationally hardened as it has been at any time during my service".
"We are working extremely hard to deliver security in Afghanistan, alongside our Afghan and international partners. Real progress is being made thanks to the extraordinary commitment and courage of our soldiers, airmen and sailors".
"In parallel, the Army is actively engaged in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review. This provides an essential opportunity to align capabilities and resources in meeting the Nation's long term security needs. We live in an uncertain world in which the Army will continue to have a vital role to play".
"It is a great privilege to be the head of the Army at such a critical time and I much look forward to the challenge".
Photographer: Army/UK MoD
Image 45154063.jpg from www.defenceimages.mod.uk
For latest news visit: www.mod.uk
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Israeli Soldiers from the Caracal Battalion - Every week, every day, around the clock, our troops are on alert: secure the border, improve readiness, patrol and protect the citizens of Israel. A Special glimpse of the ongoing security operations by the Caracal Battalion on the southern border
Photo: Israel Defence Force
Estonian Defence Force Soldiers live-fire training while serving in Mali with BKN-10 as part of the French led Operation Barkhane.
Photos: n-ltn Liis Vaksmann
Israeli soldiers of the Golani brigade take part in an exercise near the border with Syria on May 6, 2013 at the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Syria has accused Israel of launching a series of airstrikes on targets near the Lebanon/Syria border, including an arms shipment and the Jamraya research centre, that was thought to produce chemical weapons.
An Australian Special Operations Task Group soldier observing the valley during the Shah Wali Kot Offensive.
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) partnered with Australian Special Forces from the Special Operations Task Group conducted a deliberate operation to clear a Taliban insurgent stronghold in the Shah Wali Kot region of northern Kandahar province.
The Shah Wali Kot Offensive comprised synchronised and deliberate clearance operations involving Australian Commandos combined with a number of surgical helicopter-born assaults from Special Air Service (SAS) troops on key targets.
Removing Taliban insurgents from Afghan communities allows the Government of Afghanistan to establish a presence and gain the trust of the community to provide them with necessary infrastructure and security that was not provided by the insurgents.
The Shah Wali Kot Offensive was part of Australia’s contribution to Operation Hamkari, the Coalition operation to extend the Government of Afghanistan’s influence into Kandahar City.
30 June 2011: Defence Counsel Mr. Sa Sovan consults his client Khieu Samphan during the last day of the initial hearing.
Estonian Defence Force Soldiers from the Scoutspataljon during a Vehicle and foot patrol in Gao, Mali.
Photos: maat Maria Tõkke
Estonian Defence Force Soldiers from the Scoutspataljon during a Vehicle and foot patrol in Gao, Mali.
Photos: maat Maria Tõkke
Students on the Standard NCO Course on exercise in Fort Davis County Cork
Students from the 3rd All Arms Standard NCO course conducting a FIBUA (Fighting in Built up Areas) exercise in Fort Davis, April 2013. During the exercise the students were tested using an Engineer Assault Bridge to gain entry and a Artillery 105mm Gun to break strong points. There are thirty nine students on the course representing the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Engineer, Ordnance, CIS and Air Corp.
Students on the Standard NCO Course on exercise in Fort Davis County Cork
Students from the 3rd All Arms Standard NCO course conducting a FIBUA (Fighting in Built up Areas) exercise in Fort Davis, April 2013. During the exercise the students were tested using an Engineer Assault Bridge to gain entry and a Artillery 105mm Gun to break strong points. There are thirty nine students on the course representing the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Engineer, Ordnance, CIS and Air Corp.
Estonian Defence Force Soldiers from the Scoutspataljon during a Vehicle and foot patrol in Gao, Mali.
Photos: maat Maria Tõkke
17/09/2020. Thretford, United Kingdom. Home Secretary and The Defence Secretary visit Wretham Camp. Wretham Camp. Home Secretary Priti Patel and the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace visit Eastmere Village a British Army training Village on Wretham Camp in Thetford, where the British Army train Afghan interpreters. Afghan interpreters who supported British Armed Forces on the frontline in Helmand Province will be able to move to the UK as part of an expanded relocation scheme announced by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
Botswana Defence Force Millitary Hardware on Parade at the 50th Independence Celebration.
All Images courtesy of Botswana Aviation Art
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of May, 2016. 14 months previously we'd watched low-level maintenance work on the opposite banks, and (I) predicted that destabilised sections might be a problem. To address the serious problem of surface runoff/seepage destabilising the bank structure, they excavate and lay out a drainage pipe system, to better channel the water and slow down the erosion of the banks. The section of this bank, directly opposite the apartment complex, was critically exposed after the winter rains. The roots of many trees were exposed, with the bank itself starting to rapidly erode. Specific work involved the removal of soil, back-filling with large boulders, integrated drainage system, and finally re-facing with new soil.One has to wonder at some of the wasted effort - remember the 'carpet strips' painstakingly installed through 'soil stitching' process in Sept 2012. The evidence is there in my previous picture galleries.
Estonian Defence Force Soldiers from the Scoutspataljon during a Vehicle and foot patrol in Gao, Mali.
Photos: maat Maria Tõkke
St Mary, Flowton, Suffolk
A visit in February 2019. Two years previously, I had written: Listen: the winter is cold and dark, but the days are lengthening. On a Sunday in early February which promised gloom, but burst instead into a bright unforecast winter sunlight, I headed back to Flowton. All the way, the fields were dead, the crows in possession. Riding the hills from Nettlestead, I freewheeled down into Somersham and up the other side of the valley. Now the clouds began to gather again, but I was not downhearted, for snowdrops in the hedgerows signalled the yearly cycle beginning again, Spring not unheralded. The world will come back to life, and all too soon it will be May, Mary's month; the hedgerows will be full of birdsong, as the endless cycle of life renews itself. Chaffinches will spiral and fluster in their ritual of courting and nesting; below them, a pair of warblers will twist in a perilous skein over the road surface. A pair of jays will hammer the sky beyond.
This is spring as it has always been, adapting itself minutely from year to year as Suffolk around it changes. A hundred years ago, these lanes were full of people, for in those days the villagers were enslaved to the land. But a farm that might support fifty workers then needs barely two now, and the countryside has emptied, villages reduced to a third of their size. To be a farmworker these days is a solitary calling, and I felt at one with them as I raced over the gentle rises on my bike. In all this journey from Claydon, and apart from a brief frenzy of activity at Somersham, I had seen only one other person, and she was three miles ago. Suffolk is quieter now than at any time since before the Saxons arrived, and nature is returning to it.
In the early spring of 1644, a solemn procession came this way. The body of Captain William Boggas was brought back from the Midlands, where he had been killed in some skirmish or other, possibly in connection with the seige of Newark. The cart stumbled over the ruts and mud hollows, and it is easy to imagine the watching farmworkers pausing in a solemn gesture, standing upright for a brief moment, perhaps removing a hat, as it passed them by.
But no sign of the cross, for this was Puritan Suffolk. Even the Church of England had been suppressed, and the local Priest replaced by a Minister chosen by, and possibly from within, the congregation.
William Boggas was laid to rest in the nave of the church, beside the body of his infant daughter who had died a year earlier. His heavily pregnant widow would have stood by on the cold brick floor, and the little church would have been full, for he was a landowner, and a Captain too.
And the story doesn't end there. So, I cast my mind back to a glorious May day in 2007, with the heat of summer already more than a promise, I arrived again in Flowton. Here, the trees in the hedgerows gathered, and the early leaves sent shadows dappling across the road beneath my wheels. The antiquarian David Davy came this way in a bad mood in 1829, with his friend John Darby on their way to record the memorials and inscriptions of the church: ...we ascended a rather steep hill, on which we travelled thro' very indifferent roads to Flowton; here the kind of country I had anticipated for the whole of the present day's excursion was completely realised. A more flat, wet, unpleasant soil and country I have not often passed over, & we found some difficulty in getting along with safety & comfort.
The roads have changed here since Darby and Davy came, but the church hasn't much. The Victorians were kind to Flowton; perhaps, because the Puritans had been. It has a delicious atmosphere, that of an archetypal English country church. The narrow green sleeve of the graveyard enfolds it, rather formal to the north, but wildly overgrown on the south side. The tower is one of those curious affairs where the upper storeys have been taken down at some time, presumably because they were unsafe. The capped base looks rugged and primitive; one might think it early, even Norman. In fact, this pretty little church is almost all of a 14th century piece, in the Decorated style.
The west face of the tower still has its niches, which once contained the images of Saints who watched over the travellers passing by. Another thing curious about the tower is that it has no west door. Instead, the door is into the south side of the tower. There must be a reason for this, for it exists nowhere else in Suffolk. Perhaps there was another building to the west of the tower. However, there are several churches in this area with towers to the south of their naves, and the entrance through a south door into the porch beneath the tower. Perhaps that was originally the intention here.
The notice in the lychgate says Welcome to Flowton Church.Now, this is easily done, but how rare it is! Does it mean anything? Yes, it does, for this church is always open. I stepped into a sweetly ancient space, a slight damp in the air from the winter now gone.
The brick floors are uneven; I stepped inside carefully. Brick floors are lovely though, and once all churches must have had them. The bricks lend an organic quality to the font, which seems to grow out of them, and they spread up beyond the chancel arch into the chancel itself. Glazed Minton tiles have their place; fortunately, that place is not here. On the south side of the sanctuary there is a great rarity. The piscina that formerly served the altar here still retains its original wooden credence shelf. On the opposite wall is a fine corbel of a madly grinning devil.
I wandered back down into the nave, to the ledger stone of Captain William Boggas. It reads Here lyes waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ the body of William Boggas gent, deere to his Countrey, by whoes free choyce he was called to be Captayne of their vountaries raysed for their defence: pious towards God, meeke & juste towards men & being about 40 yeeres of age departed this life March 18: 1643.
To the north of it lie two more ledgers, the easterly one to his young daughter, which in chilling legalese records the date of her birth and her death in the next ensuing month. To the west of that is one to William, his son, who was born on April 11th 1644.
Now hang on, you may be thinking. How could his son have been born in April 1644 if William senior had died in March 1643?
Simply, in those days the New Year was counted not from January 1st, but from March 25th; this is a quarter day usually referred to as Lady Day, in an echoing memory of the pre-Reformation Feast of the Annunciation. So William Boggas died one month before his son was born, not thirteen. It would be good to tell you that William Junior led a similarly exciting and possibly even longer life than his father. But this was not to be, for he died at the age of just two years old in 1645. As he was given his father's name, we may assume that he was his father's first and only son.
A further point of interest is that both Williams' stones have space ready for further names. But there are none. There would be no more children; how could there be? But William's wife is not buried or even remembered here. Did she move away? Did she marry again, and does she lie in some other similarly remote English graveyard? Actually, it is possible that she doesn't. Since I first wrote this account in 2007, I've come across considerable evidence to show that Boggas's wife was Flowton girl Mary Branston, and she had been married before, to Robert Woodward of Dedham, Essex. Between the time of William Boggas's death in 1644 and the 1647 accounting of the Colony, Mary's daughter and nephews by her first marriage had been transported to the Virginia Colony in the modern United States. Is it possible that Mary went to join them?
And finally, one last visitor. Four months after the birth of the younger William, when the cement on his father's ledger stone was barely dry, the Puritan iconoclast William Dowsing visited this remote place. It was 22 August 1644. The day had been a busy one for Dowsing; Flowton was one of seven churches he visited that day. Like me, he came here after Nettlestead and Somersham. Like me, he noticed the piscina in the sanctuary. Unlike me, he ordered its destruction. This obviously didn't happen; perhaps it was filled in instead.
Dowsing had arrived here in the late afternoon on what was probably a fine summer's day, since the travelling was so easy. I imagined the graveyard that day, full of dense greenery. He came on horseback, and he was not alone.With him came, as an assistant, a man called Jacob Caley.
Caley, a Portman of Ipswich, was well-known to the people of Flowton. He was the government's official collector of taxes for this part of Suffolk. One thinks he must not have been a popular man. What the villagers couldn't know, of course, was that Caley was actually hiding away a goodly proportion of the money he collected.
In 1662, two years after the Commonwealth ended, he was found guilty of the theft of £3000, about a million pounds in today's money. He had collected £118 of this from Flowton alone, and John Blatchly, in Trevor Cooper's new edition of the Dowsing Journals, thinks the amount he was found guilty of stealing is probably understated.
On that May day in 2007 I stepped out into the calm of the graveyard, through clusters of yellow cowslips that were scattered here and there across the tussocky ground. In this place of the dead, I breathed deeply the smell of new life. A cluster of sparrows suddenly erupted from the undergrowth, boiling high above me in busy chatter, and on this bright day I thought this as lovely a place as any I have ever been in Suffolk.