iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 16/09/2026

I confess I'm not a huge Pressure fan. Admittedly it's my area of expertise so anything not right will stand out more, but Pressure goes beyond condensing history into a film – instead it's complete fiction that damages real history. Here's my review.

seaspitfires.com

Pressure: A very fictional retelling of a crucial D-Day decision

In 2000, an unusual motion was passed in the House of Commons. It noted the inaccuracies in the new Hollywood movie U-571, recognised the true history of the capture of an Enigma machine by HMS Bul…

11408

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 28/08/2026

WAR BORES! Want to watch the new Pressure film the traditional way? By boring your date with extra detail & muttering when it gets stuff wrong? Then watch @thehistoryguy.bsky.social & I discuss the actual events in this new History Hit episode & go to the cinema prepared! youtu.be/2tZUtNJBuZ0?...

youtu.be

D-Day: The Final 72 Hours | As It Happened

YouTube video by History Hit

0344

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 15/08/2026

It’s a combination of sources you seek @dreadships.bsky.social. Green lists, fleet orders and task force reports. Depending on the nature of the ships’s role you’ll find a lot of material in different docs. If you PM me the ship I can be more specific.

021

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 30/07/2026

It will have been a local body formed from interested parties - councils, heritage bodies etc…

010

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/07/2026

It’s the lack of recognition. WHS are effectively all about promoting tourism. Omaha is getting wide scale recognition of its primary sites. It will get all new interpretation and branding. Sword will get very little. Omaha’s story will be promoted well above Sword’s to new audiences.

130

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/07/2026

Which all kinda makes this application smell a little…

050

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/07/2026

WHS status didn’t affect my dad building an extension on our family home, nor did it prevent Larkhill barracks being significantly extended along the boundary. WHS gives status and an attempt to protect a landscape, but not wholesale prevention of developments.

140

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/07/2026

It was stripped. That’s because they were planning things that would destroy the historic character. Stonehenge is at risk of being stripped if an unappropriate tunnel is dug. But these are major developments, not extensions or new apartment buildings as you might find in Ouistreham.

120

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/07/2026

From the Executive Summary. Basically all the components they wanted to include are on Omaha, with Mulberry also on Gold. Juno and Sword have nothing. Utah deliberately includes the museum.

130

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/07/2026

Very odd. But there’s a noticeable skew between the US and UK beaches. A WHS doesn’t actually infer that much planning protection anyway. There’s an army barracks in Stonehenge WHS… These beach boundaries suggest a bias in the application.

350

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/07/2026

@johnbc74.bsky.social’s analysis is correct. All the maps so far available from the application and listing show the Sword section of the WHS stops at the back of the beach’s. It’s possible that 2 memorials on the beach road might just fall into the boundary, but even the Millin statue isn’t.

140

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 28/07/2026

Respective historical sites and memorials inscribed as parts of the new Normandy Beaches World Heritage Site at Omaha and Sword beaches.

A plethora of heritage sites at Omaha Beach, including memorials, bunkers, the US cemetery and Pointe du Hoc.

The heritage sites at Sword Beach. Sand. Just sand.

2202

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 10/07/2026

It was precisely the mortar’s short range that made it entirely ineffective in the role, as it couldn’t engage enemy AT guns and was handicapped by the infantry’s speed. Of course this wasn’t its intended role, but a valuable lesson nonetheless.

020

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 10/07/2026

There are a few good books on the subject. They Led the Way by Jack Williams is very useful although a little hard to get hold of now. @nickhewitt4.bsky.social’s book on the navy at D-Day is very informative. A personal favourite is A Passage to Sword Beach by Maher, an officer on an ML sweeper.

000

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 10/07/2026

The first port of call is always the service record, which needs to be applied for. With ships the size of minesweepers it should tell you the exact vessels he served on and when. Once you have that you can start studying those ships to learn more.

110

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 10/07/2026

Massively. On D-Day it immediately showed its ineffectiveness as an infantry support tank when pressed into that role, and the big spigot mortar was a liability with two tanks knocked out when the mortar round itself was hit and blew up.

140

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 01/07/2026

Thanks Arthur. Regrettably I don't seem to have received anything though...

020

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 30/06/2026

Something I can easily relate to as I'm sure many of my followers are aware. The subject matter and people involved may be different, the situation is not.

050

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 30/06/2026

My researcher is hard at work today.

Flynn, a Shetland sheepdog, reclines gracefully on a cushion while reviewing a number of publications (in various languages) on the subject of the Battle of Walcheren.

3200

Reposted by Stephen Fisher

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Every academic who writes in short snatches of time, in cafes, on trains, and at the breakfast table, imagines that every other academic retreats every evening to an elegant desk in a book-lined study and spends hours deep in concentration filling page after page with original scholarly reflection.

2441267

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 25/06/2026

Oh Christ, I remember this now...

010

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 25/06/2026

I've not heard of that, but already I'm worried.

110

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 25/06/2026

Regular viewers will be pleased to know I'm still ranting at duff history...

A screenshot of a Facebook post. It says that:
"The fighting on D-Day was so intense that up to 4% of the sand on Normandy beaches is now made up of shrapnel, broken down into sand-sized pieces over the decades."

My Farcebook post about the previous post. It says (abbreviated):
This troublesome example comes from an oft-repeated but rarely analysed 2011 paper, which documents the analysis of a tiny sample of sand collected from next to the Omaha beach memorial (presumably the Signal Monument) in 1988. It was found to contain 78% detrital quartz, 9% feldspar, 4% limestone clast and modern bioclast, 3% heavy minerals, and 2% chert, other rock fragments and beads of metal and glass. There was also 4% 'shrapnel'. The paper does not explain how this identification of microscopic metal grains was made, but the number of potential sources of metal traces on the beach is huge. Pre or post-war beach infrastructure will have corroded over time and left depositions all along the beaches of Normandy. Pollution and waste is another source. Given the sample was taken from next to a memorial (itself made of stone but with significant metal foundations all around it) this or other post-war memorials must also be considered. Of course it is also possibly the remains of wartime features – but the remains of German beach defences, Mulberry Harbour, shipwrecks or American vehicles is certainly more likely than ordnance.
Apparently a sample taken at Utah (exactly where isn't stated) yielded no shrapnel, and the paper puts this down to Utah being much less contested. Unsurprisingly no samples were taken from the British beaches. This is such a flawed sampling process it isn't even worthy of discussion, and it's noticeable in the paper that the history of Omaha wasn't seriously assessed to contextualise the metal traces. The narrative is 'Omaha was hell – this metal sample must be the result'.
So on the basis of questionable paper, a 4% sample of microscopic metal remains on Omaha Beach connects itself to D-Day, becomes part of the legend and evidence for its (exaggerated) ferocity, and is parroted all over social media as '4% of Omaha beach is shrapnel'.

2347

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 24/06/2026

Rommel in Westkapelle on 4 January 1944. The mill behind him is the dijkmill or Prins Hendrik mill, a landmark that sat on top of the dyke overlooking Westkapelle. After the dyke was bombed by the British on 3 Oct, it looked very different to the commandos when they landed on 1 Nov.

A group of German officers inspecting German anti-landing obstacles. Behind them is a tall windmill on top of a dyke

Commandos disembark from a landing craft. In the background the dyke has been breached by bombing and the windmill lies in a pile of rubble on the shore.

1171

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 24/06/2026

That’s very kind of you to say so, thank you. As a guide, given all the background reading you’ve done, you can skip chapter 2! It’s necessarily a little dry as it lays out the background.

010

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 21/06/2026

I was lucky this one was being sold very cheap. Left in a shed for 20 years, the seller presumed it needed lots of work, but I could see in the photos it was actually in pretty good nick. A good service and new inner tubes (unnecessarily it seems) and it’s in perfect running order.

010

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 18/06/2026

An interesting day today. I was flattered to be invited to the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre at Lympstone Devon, to talk about the successes and lessons we can learn from Sword Beach. There are a lot! And I’m very jealous of their library!!

A statue of two WW2 era Royal Marines commandos outside the Royal Marine Commando Training Centre Learning Centre and Library.

0311

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 01/06/2026

I need to talk to the guide who told us that Belfast was meant to fire the opening shots of D-Day though…

000

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 01/06/2026

Then and now in the Churchill War Rooms with @natgeotraveluk.bsky.social expeditions, where we get to go behind the glass and into the rooms that have been left largely untouched since 1945.

The map room in the Cabinet War Rooms during the war. A black and white photo of military men sat at a busy desk.

A colour photo of the same desk, taken by me, just now. The officers have been replaced by pretty dam good mannequins

1190

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 31/05/2026

Carry bag on its way. Electric? Eugh.

010

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 30/05/2026

In my defence I bought this on a whim so I can attend a social occasion next week, and it was a bargain being sold as spares/repair (but being an ex mechanic who sold these 25 years ago it took me less than 2 hours to make like new). But let’s face it, my journey into middle age is complete.

A Brompton bicycle, the world’s only decent folding bicycle, seen here unfolded and in bike mode

And seen here in folded mode. It packs small enough that it is legally classed as luggage in the UK and cannot be refused on trains, and even counts as hand luggage with some airlines.

5453

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/05/2026

The Town Hall of Breville in Normandy are reporting that the 51st Highland Division memorial on Breville Ridge has been stolen. 📷 Mairie de Bréville-les-Monts

The plinth of the memorial. The statue is gone.

42110

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/05/2026

The bombing mission to breach the dyke at Westkapelle in the Netherlands on 3 October 1944 was huge. Nearly 250 bombers dropped a combined weight of more than 1,200 of bombs on the dyke, breaching it in just two hours.

An arial view of the dyke at Westkapelle. It has been breached causing widespread flooding of the land behind it.

A table of bombing missions to attack the dyke. In total 250 bombers from 23 squadrons attacxked.

092

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/05/2026

Yeah, but it didn't always work. With group landings it could be quite an impediment, and a surprising number of landing craft reported their anchor chain being shot away on D-Day.

010

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/05/2026

Using 'active air cushioned motion damping' (think of it as a modern-era hovercraft), the vessel claims speeds of 67 knots (😬) and can lift itself when pulling off the beach to avoid the usual problem of getting stuck fast. One to watch. www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2...

navalnews.com

ESNA Unveils Surface Effect Ship Technology for UK-Norwegian Joint Commando Craft Program - Naval News

On May 25, 2026, ESNA unveiled Surface Effect Ship (SES) Technology for the UK-Norwegian Joint Commando Craft (JCC) Program.

040

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/05/2026

What's the best way to make a fairly mundane video interesting? Royalty free rock music! An interesting demo of a potential future landing craft. It deals with a problem most people don't consider - getting the landing craft off the beach after the troops have disembarked. youtu.be/GRztGkPz-PU?...

youtu.be

SES landing craft demonstration, with Sea Puffin 1

YouTube video by ESNA

351

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 29/05/2026

With D-Day set, a meeting at Southwick at 10am #OTD turned to that most British thing: weather. It was agreed that from D-3 (2 June) weather updates would be given to senior commanders' meetings twice daily. As senior meterologist, these updates would be given by Group Captain (sort of) James Stagg.

083

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 28/05/2026

Sort of about now on this day in 1944, Admiral Ramsey set the schedule for the Normandy landings. D-Day would be 5 June with a basic H-Hour at 0645 and specific H-Hours for each beach as attached. With a formalised date the schedule of embarkation was now set to begin on 31 May.

H-Hour timings for D-Day as follows:
Sword and Gold: 0645
Juno West: 0655
Juno East: 0705
Omaha: 0610
Utah: 0600

0153

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 27/05/2026

Omaha Beach was "one of the most heavily defended beaches of the Second World War." Not exactly a new claim I guess, but I guess I should be glad the American who claimed it used the British English version of the name of the war. But oh lord it sooo boring to keep hearing this drivel.

4160

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 24/05/2026

Zeilmarkt street in Vlissingen (Flushing) in November 1944 and now. A Buffalo LVT (8.5 ft high) gives a sense of the scale of the anti tank wall built to cut off the eastern end of the city. On the right is the Arsenaal Theatre. 📷 ZeeuwsArchief 7413 & Google Maps

A WW2 era amphibious vehicle is parked on a street in front of a tall concrete wall. A group of civilian spectators is gathered nearby. Behind the wall are traditional Dutch townhouses.

The modern view of the previous photo. The amphibious vehicle has gone, as has the concrete wall. Most of the background houses are the same, but two have been replaced with less attractive modern buildings.

0210

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 22/05/2026

I think these are good bees, but not when Flynn wants to try and catch them in his mouth!

120

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 22/05/2026

I get to be creative in my captions

010

Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com · 21/05/2026

Literal admission of wanting "to get rid of it" too. I took my dead husband's boxes of unsorted stamps to the Post Office and inexplicably they didn't want them...

0111