Episode 3 The Quizeum

Packing a stirring array of kit

and reflecting the impact that war has had an ordinary people

over the last hundred years,

this is the Imperial War Museum, London,

and tonight, it's host to the Quizeum.

Welcome to a hall of war wonders here in Lambeth.

We're sitting in what used to be the central portion

of the Bethlehem Hospital, "Bedlam" as it was known,

before the Imperial War Museum took up residence here in 1936.

I'll be asking questions about everything in the collection here.

What it means, where it comes from, who made it and what it does,

in four rounds over the next 30 minutes. Phew.

"Bedlam", of course, has entered the language

to mean "uproar and confusion", and I don't know how much of that

we'll be seeing tonight, but that rather depends on our teams.

Let's meet them. On my right, our veteran Danish...

Oberstleutnant, Lars Tharp.

That was Danish. Was that good Danish?

-That was the wrong side of the border.

-No!

Oh, I'm sorry about that. How would it be pronounced in Danish, then?

Oberstlojtnant.

That sounds exactly what I said, wasn't it?

Well, anyway, I understand the distinction there.

His ally in the coming engagement,

modern era historian and senior lecturer

in Armed Forces and War Studies at Wolverhampton, Dr Spencer Jones,

and it sounds like he brought the heavy artillery to this battle, Lars.

Facing these two is a well-equipped platoon, though.

Familiar Quizeum attraction from the Ministry of Information

Professor Kate Williams, joined by our very special guest tonight.

She's reported from the front line across the world,

including the first Gulf War,

conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

And now, I'm sure she'll file on this epic set-to. She's Kate Adie.

Hello, Kate. Kate, tell me, do you have the souvenirs of war fronts?

-I've got some in my toe. I have shrapnel.

-Do you?

Does that mean when you go through airport security, you set things off?

No, I think the toe declared neutrality a long time ago.

So, prepare to be moved, impressed and puzzled

as we explore the museum in this, our first round.

Now, your open question is open to all

and a correct answer is worth one point

and you get first go at a slightly more complex second question,

which is worth a slightly more complex two points.

So, fingers on the buzzers, please.

This is one of the machines that won World War II,

with hundreds of them taking part in the biggest tank battle...

BUZZER

Is it the Battle of Kursk of 1943?

Spencer, it is indeed the Battle of Kursk in 1943.

So, here is your specialist question, your two-point question.

Have a look at this maquette.

All right, for two points tell me,

why has some small corner of North London

and a salad bowl proved almost as enduring as this memorial?

Well, first of all, there are no words on the back of this

but I can see there are some formative words on the front.

It says on the front,

"WIPERS. To Paul, from Peter (C Sergeant Jagger)."

Colour Sergeant. Wipers is Ypres, the Battle of Ypres.

Peter? Is that the name of the sculptor?

-It could be a Jagger memorial.

-It's not Colour Sergeant Jagger.

-It is Charles Sergeant Jagger.

-Ah!

OK, so you were right there, but that's not what I'm looking for.

-Let me read it to you again.

-OK.

There is a small corner of North London here and a salad bowl,

and they're both proving as enduring as this memorial.

Can you see the corner of North London and the salad bowl?

Oh, at the front they seems to be a pickle helm,

a German soldier's helmet, famous for its pickle. Is that...?

But not the salad. And you're in the right direction

-but that isn't the salad bowl.

-OK.

That isn't the salad bowl, so what is the salad bowl?

Is it his...?

It's his own helmet.

Yes. I've helped you a lot there, haven't I?

I don't feel I've been totally fair!

So, you have identified the salad bowl. Now what is that salad bowl?

It's the 1916 issue steel helmet to protect the head from shrapnel,

which replaced the flat caps that were issued before that.

Why did they have to have that?

Because they were taking an enormous number of head injuries

from shrapnel which would burst and rain bullets on you.

-They introduced steel helmets to protect you.

-Do you know the name of it?

-It was the Brodie helmet.

-The Brodie helmet.

Of course that's right, but you still haven't explained why it's enduring.

-Um...

-It's enduring of course because...

-We've used it ever since.

-It's used today.

..we've used it today. Well done, Kate!

I think it's fair that I now pass it over to the two Kates to work out

what is the bit of North London in this statue.

Oh, Lee-Enfield, as in Enfield, the rifle?

A Lee-Enfield rifle.

So, can you explain to me a little bit about it?

Standard issue and lasted for decades,

is the most, I think, notable thing about it.

I think that's absolutely true. There it is.

It was called a Lee-Enfield because Lee had invented the bolt

and Enfield was where it was made.

And the Brodie helmet,

as you know, was still used right the way through two World Wars,

but it was called, "the salad bowl"

or the "Salatschussel" by the Germans.

They did a lot of work there with a lot of prompting

but I think you took the points there for both of those

with the Lee-Enfield and the enduring nature of the helmets.

-I'm going to give you two points on this side.

-Thank you, Griff.

Continuing our advance through this extraordinary collection,

in the basement you may bump into this.

But who was the owner of this...? BUZZER

Kate?

I think that was owned by Kaiser Wilhelm.

It was owned by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The shortened left sleeve is a clue to the owner's identity.

Kaiser Wilhelm had a withered left arm

and the coat was a gift from his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II.

Two points to the two Kates

if you can tell me why this German cross

made the British cross.

Oh, I think I might know...

This is an imitation of the German Cross, made by the British

to mock what they saw as German cowardly activities.

And you can see Scarborough here and Hartlepool.

Those are the two places that were bombed.

They were actually shelled from two German battleships.

The first one hit Hartlepool on 16 December at just after eight o'clock

and the other one was at 8.10 on Scarborough,

and there were huge numbers of casualties,

including women and children.

You're absolutely correct. You get the full two points there.

The German fleet arrived off the east Yorkshire coast

just before Christmas 1914 and fired over 1,000 shells

at Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby.

This cross memorialised these atrocities

and generated a popular frenzy for war amongst the British population.

So, you get the full two points there.

Fingers on the buzzers for your next opener.

This is a V-2 rocket. So, how did the British Government explain

the explosions when the first V-2s hit London?

BUZZER

A gas leak.

I think I can give you that, yes.

They blamed faulty gas mains for explosions going off.

Here's your specialist question, worth another two points.

How did this object affect sound levels in London?

Is this a sound ranging device?

One that's used... You would rig up the microphones

and you'd listen in on the microphones,

and you could hear artillery or incoming aircraft

from a long distance away.

But, of course, if you've got lots of background noise, you would not

be able to pick up the incoming so it reduced sound levels in London.

OK, that is not the full answer to how this object

was in fact used, so I'm going to pass it over

because Kate W, Professor Kate of the two Kates

is now going to tell us, I think, and give us another opinion.

Let's have it.

Well, I think this is a geophone that was used on the fronts,

and it was used to listen out for any kind of mining activity

that was going on, and I think the connection in London is

that lots of the trenches were given names,

like Leicester Square and Oxford Street.

All right. You've certainly got the first part of that question

but how did it affect sound levels in London, is the question.

It was a device which was used in the process...

Tell us a little bit about tunnelling, Spencer.

Well, tunnelling is as old as war itself

but in the First World War, people began

tunnelling under one another's trenches,

planting very large explosives underneath

and then detonating them at inopportune moments.

But of course, when YOU start digging a tunnel,

the enemy will dig a tunnel towards you,

so it was a very lethal war underneath the trenches.

Yes, the geophone was there in order to tell you

whether there was somebody coming towards you, underneath you or they'd stopped

and you thought there would be a sudden explosion.

We still haven't got the London connection.

That would be because you could hear

the great detonations in London from northern France.

Well done, and you get the extra point there.

You got both points there, Kates,

because it's a listening device which was used in tunnels

dug to lay explosives under enemy positions

and the biggest bang happened at the Battle of Messines in 1917.

It killed as many as 10,000 German soldiers in one blast,

and was loud enough to be clearly heard in London.

It remained the largest man-made explosion until the atomic bomb.

Absolutely terrifying.

Fingers on your nuclear buttons here for another opener.

This is the wreckage of a midget submarine,

which was used to attack the German battleship Tirpitz in World War II.

In which year did the submarine attack take place?

-BUZZER

-'43.

-'43, correct.

-Oh!

-So, you win your specialist question again.

-Ah!

Let's see how you get on this time.

What is special about this and why?

It's an aerial view of an underground headquarters.

-No, it's got bay windows, hasn't it?

-Yes.

Is it somewhere like Bletchley, do you suppose?

But the Germans never found Bletchley Park, so it wouldn't be Bletchley.

No, it won't be Bletchley cos it's got the wrong shape.

-We should be whispering all of this cos we're giving them all the information.

-We should!

-No, you don't have to whisper! We're fascinated.

-Yeah.

Your logic so far has established bay windows.

You've established that it's made of cardboard, which is quite useful

and you've established it's probably not in Germany.

Anything else I've missed? THEY LAUGH

-Well, do you want any more?

-I do.

I'm going to ask you to listen to the question one more time

-before I hand it over.

-OK.

What's special about this and why?

Ah. It's a model for training a special branch of...

your attack force.

You're sort of fishing around so much in the right area...

Well, in that case, it's over to them.

..but I'm dying to hear whether this side recognises what it is.

-Um...

-Um...

So, what's special about this?

OK, I'm going to open it up again to whoever can come in first

-because this is so interesting.

-OK.

The special in this is the Special Air Service.

-BUZZER

-The Iranian Embassy.

-The Iranian Embassy.

-Oh!

I've only got one point to give you

-but this is the model that was used!

-Oh, well done, Spencer.

-It didn't look like that from the outside.

-Oh, I see.

That's exactly what it is.

It looks so peculiar looked at from this angle

but the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy at 7:23 on 5 May 1980.

The BBC's duty reporter that night

was of course Kate Adie.

The BBC had to leave coverage of the World Snooker Final

to go to a live broadcast of the 17-minute-long raid,

what they called at the time, "A change to the advertised programme."

So, Kate, you've never seen that model before?

No, I haven't. I've seen videos,

which were taken inside and I've talked to people about the plans.

-I've never seen that. Didn't connect it at all.

-And you were outside?

Yes, I know, but it was the six days of the siege

and it was finally broken on the bank holiday Monday, in the evening,

and then suddenly these black-clad figures with a huge explosion

came down the front of the building

and it went live on television with no script.

That brings us to the end of this round,

and I see that Lars and Spencer,

very good buzzing there, got four points.

-But the two Kates are ahead with seven.

-Ah.

So, on we go,

because our next round is called The Question of Attribution,

and as usual, each team is given an obscure object from the collection.

Both members will offer their explanation of what it is

but only one is telling the truth.

Which is that? It's an exercise in counterintelligence.

Three points to be gained here.

So, two Kates, your object is coming

and let's have it put in front of Lars and Spencer.

Right. Now, two Kates, who wants to start?

-You start.

-Well, it was a very well-known phrase in World War II

that "loose lips sink ships," but there were other regulations

brought in as well, particularly for the sailors.

Commanding officers were told by the Royal Navy

that there was a limit to what sailors could bring aboard.

There were extraordinary boxes also sent out to show people

and remind them exactly what might not be carried on board a ship.

It might be something dangerous or useful to the enemy

so here was this box full of stuff

because war was a dangerous business

and unwanted cargo couldn't be carried

because you wanted your ship packed with food and ammunition only.

So, Kate, Professor Kate, what is your theory of what this is?

It is an Admiralty object.

It is tied to the contraband items,

but this is actually something that was kept at ports,

where you could check ships for what they had

and what they were looking for particularly is contraband items

like chemicals, phosphate, things that you could make bombs out of.

So, this is to check in World War II what ships have got on them.

One was to prevent sailors bringing contraband aboard,

and the other was to stop enemy ships

taking contraband through the blockade.

What do you think, Spencer?

Well, my inclination from what I know of soldiers,

and indeed sailors, is that there are far worse things they can bring

-into barracks, or indeed aboard ships, than beeswax or cotton.

-Yeah.

I particularly noticed that tobacco is here

and attempting to prevent armed services personnel having tobacco

in the Second World War would be a deeply losing battle, I think.

I don't really go for the first one.

-I think the prof has got it right.

-I think so too.

So, Kate W, are you telling the truth?

I am telling the truth.

This is used at ports to check what the ships have got on them,

to check the neutral ships are carrying with them.

They are indeed samples of consumables and British

from World War II.

They were used to identify contraband on neutral ships

during the Royal Navy's blockade of Germany,

and included beeswax and dried intestines.

I don't know how much of a threat

the exploding beeswax intestine bomb was.

You've got three points there for correctly identifying that,

but let's go over to the other side, and the other object,

and see how we get on.

Here, then. So, who's going to start?

-Shall I?

-Why not, Lars? Be my guest.

You've heard of Doctor Who's sonic screwdriver.

Well, this is a time pencil.

One of the plans of the Americans was to drop a whole bunch

of bats into Japan with incendiary devices strapped to their backs,

but they would need a delaying item, a fuse.

The time pencil goes, off their little package of napalm explodes.

It's a bat bomb?

It's not a bat bomb but it could have been used

because, in fact, they never actually used the bat bomb,

but it WAS on the plans and they would have had to have used

one of these time pencils.

Let me just get this correct.

It's the device that could have been used,

had a bat bomb been a feasible idea.

OK, Spencer, I'm going over to you for your suggestion.

Well, continuing the aviary theme from bat bombs,

you'll have heard of canaries in cages in mines

to give an indication the oxygen levels were falling,

and give a chance for the miners to escape.

In the Second World War, the British developed a much more portable gas detecting device.

What you're looking at is a British gas pencil,

or indeed a pair of British gas pencils.

The end will be removed,

a strip would be exposed which would then,

when it was in contact with the gas or the poison,

change colour to indicate the type that was being deployed.

OK, there we are.

One is a time exploding pencil and the other is a detecting pencil.

Which of these two accounts do you feel is the right one?

I don't buy the bat stuff.

I think it's delightful, the thought of a quietly roosting

little bat with no idea.

I rather prefer the gas idea but it...

I'm going to have to hurry you, I'm afraid.

I'm going to go with Kate's instinct cos I always mess up this round.

We suspect it is a gas detector of sorts.

OK. Spencer, were you telling the truth there?

I'm afraid I was telling absolute lies.

-It is not a gas pencil.

-It's not a gas pencil.

-Oh, those poor bats.

-It's a bat bomb.

Yes, they are actually straightforward delay fuses

used to detonate explosives.

They're called time pencils and the scores now stand like this...

Kate and Kate, you remain at seven points

but Lars and Spencer managed to pick up six points on that game.

They've rushed into the lead with ten.

But we still have to go through two more rounds,

and we reach the moment where I'm taking the teams on a guided tour.

The two Kates, these are your marching orders.

'I've got four questions for you, which are going to take us

'to a connection between two objects.'

Now, here is one of your objects.

Have a good look at it

because there are clues to the first question in it.

I've got four questions which are attempting to establish

a connection with this object here.

So, why is this machine called Mother?

It sounds as if it's the first...

A habit developed quite often in the Army for a piece of equipment,

if it came first, you gave it a name.

In tanks later it was Little Willie who then was followed by Mother.

I wonder if it was the first and possibly one of the larger pieces

that came onto the actual battlefield.

Yes, I think this is a howitzer gun,

which was introduced in 1914 to the Western Front,

and the idea is that you bomb the trenches from here,

-so a huge piece of equipment.

-Indeed. This was a prototype

in 1914, so you get your point there.

Why did this gun here

have 450 children by the end of the war?

Is it because there were 450 guns very like it by the end of the war?

Yes, but why?

Because they were a necessity

because of the kind of war being fought,

a static war, where nobody had assumed that everything would be

so lodged in these terrible networks of trenches

and you needed something to go beyond them,

over into the trenches of the enemy.

And what was the big achievement of the howitzer then?

What's very significant is you can see it comes down and up,

so if you're sending the shell,

it goes up into the sky, all the way over,

and then into the trench,

so it basically lands into the trench on to the enemy

-and that's why it has a devastating effect.

-Absolutely.

You get one point there. So, let's look at the object here.

Why do you suppose 20,000 of these needed to be issued to French troops

in 1915, Kate A?

Is it a bayonet?

No, it doesn't fit on the top.

I think these were possibly hand-to-hand combat knives

because I know there was a great need for them

because in the end, when you had bombed a trench,

you also needed to go in and kill any soldiers

who were still there and with that, you use a knife like this.

OK, good. You get your point because, in fact,

these are simple butcher's knives

and the French Army didn't have enough of them,

so they actually got cutlers out of the front line to go back

to their workshops to make more knives,

and that was because this was suddenly a war

of hand-to-hand fighting.

So, finally, what do these two weapons share?

What connects them?

This is trench warfare.

This is a war fought with no moving cavalry and great advances.

They're stuck in the mud.

So these are what they needed for trench warfare.

You needed big guns like this.

You needed hand-to-hand combat like this.

This is the new, brutal way of trench warfare.

Indeed. Well done. Four points complete there.

Let's see how the others get on.

'And the challenge is the same for Lars and Spencer.

'Four questions to make a connection worth one point each.'

OK, so here are your two objects.

Four questions to connect them.

So, your first question...

How did this come to be painted and by whom?

I think this is, surprisingly, by John Singer Sargent,

the great socialite painter,

and here he is out in the field of battle doing something

that you really wouldn't expect to come from him.

What's the name of the picture, then?

Oh.

-Gassed, I think.

-Is it Gassed or is it...? It's not The Road To...?

No, you're completely right. It's Gassed.

So you get one point for that.

And your second question...

How effective was mustard gas as a weapon on the Western Front?

Well, gas as a whole was not that effective

by the time mustard gas was introduced,

but what mustard gas did that was different to earlier gases,

was it would burn your exposed skin,

so it was a new horror, in that sense.

Right, I'll certainly give you a point for that

because, in fact, mustard gas, after all our horror about it,

it didn't kill as effectively as howitzers or shrapnel.

It was a thing which disabled more than it killed.

What was the impact politically of the message contained

in this picture?

From my point of view, I would expect

that when this came back to England, people would go,

"Oh, dear. Is that what it's really like?"

because this is not, in my view, a heroic picture.

It's a tragic picture.

And what about the world in general? How did that react politically?

Well, they were horrified by the use of poison gas in general

and mustard gas in particular.

It seemed to be a new industrialised form of murder.

There was something uniquely horrible about it.

So, what was the result?

The result was, in 1925, mustard gas and other forms of chemicals,

which had already been banned by the Hague Conventions,

were outlawed completely by the Geneva Conventions.

OK, well done. You get a point there,

but how does the story therefore that we see in the picture

relate to these boots here?

Well, these boots look to me like a pair of trench waders,

and I wonder if the connection is that mustard gas

would sink into water and into the soil

and so you would need to wear these to protect your feet

from the lingering corrosive effects of mustard gas.

That sounds like a good connection to me.

OK, that's your answer.

I'm afraid you're completely wrong there.

In fact, these date from the 1990s

and they were discovered during the first Iraq War.

So, it's likely that they were used by Iraqi troops

during the Iranian-Iraq conflict, in which Saddam Hussein

did employ mustard gas against his enemies.

So, I'm going to give you three points for that.

OK, I think that's fair enough.

We'd better get back to the desk now and see how these scores add up.

OK, well, at the end of...

Well, I have to say, that was a really interesting walkabout

because you scored three points, rather winningly, over Gassed,

but Kate and Kate scored four points

when they were confronted with a howitzer.

So, we now have totals of...

Lars and Spencer are there with 13.

The two Kates are coming up wildly behind with 11,

and it's all still to play for,

so fingers on the buzzers for our final quickfire round,

if we can call it that here.

First correct answer gets a point.

Have a look at this picture of the Kaiser.

What is the scrap of paper referred to in...?

BUZZER

This is the 1839 treaty to protect Belgian neutrality.

And why is it a scrap of paper?

That's what it was dismissed as by the Germans when they invaded Belgium.

Right. I'll give you that point. Here's a camera made to record what potential event?

BUZZER

-A nuclear bomb.

-A bomb.

A nuclear attack on Britain. Correct.

This is a picture by Ethel Gabain,

but what are these women from Islington doing?

-BUZZER

-Are they railway-ing?

-No.

-Sorry!

-I'll have to pass it to the other side.

We think they're Land Army girls making sandbags.

They're not Land Army girls. They're wearing Islington Council uniform

-but they are filling sandbags.

-Oh, I'm sorry.

This British dress was designed using which principle?

-BUZZER Kate?

-This is standard dress.

Not standard.

-There's another word for it.

-Rational dress!

Not rational dress. I'm going to have to ask you to hand it over

-to the other side.

-Utility.

Utility. I'm afraid the other side get it.

What was this used for? BUZZER

This is a diving bell to repair...

-No.

-It is a bomb shelter.

-It's a bomb shelter.

-The whole family can get in.

-It's a warden's shelter.

OK, this picture shows a desolate landscape

produced by the fighting in...? BUZZER

You were first, Lars.

-This is Nash.

-Which Nash?

Paul Nash.

OK, you get it. Who wore this headdress?

-BUZZER

-Lawrence of Arabia.

-Not Lawrence of Arabia.

-No!

-Omar Sharif.

Not Omar Sharif, no.

In fact, it's a member of the Long Range Desert Group in World War II.

THEY LAUGH

Why did this boat never see water? BUZZER

It's for going across ice, not water.

Indeed, it's a snow boat and it was used by the Nazis

on the Eastern Front.

This engine powered Hurricanes, Spitfires, Lancasters during World War II. What was it called?

-BUZZER

-Merlin Rolls-Royce.

It's called a Merlin.

This was used for target practice in World War II Britain. What is it?

BUZZER Kate?

A Nazi mouse.

-Not a Nazi mouse.

-A squander bug.

-A squander bug!

-Wow!

-Well done, Kate.

-Very good.

ALL-CLEAR SIREN BLARES

Well, that's it, I'm afraid. That's it.

The sound of the all clear means it's time for our teams

to cease hostilities. So, who is going to emerge victorious

as the buzzers fall silent after a very close contest?

And I can tell you that Kate and Kate

did masterfully well with 14 points,

but you were pipped at the last minute, as it were,

by Lars and Spencer, who got 19 points,

so many congratulations.

A 21-gun salute for them.

21 days spud-bashing for our losers.

We must leave the Imperial War Museum now.

In 1940, after Dunkirk, the country was so short of weapons

that 18 of the museum's artillery pieces

were brushed down and put back to work,

and now we must do the same with our contestants.

THEY LAUGH Goodnight.