Militaria expert Adrian Stevenson said: 'The ingenuity of the British can't be faulted when it comes to thwarting the enemy' pictured. He added: 'Compasses were essential tools to direct agents parachuted into enemy territory during conflict. Escape compasses could become part of a serviceman's uniform. The gadgets were built by real-life Q characters in the top secret MI9 department of the war office between and They were then given to Special Operations Executive SOE agents to carry out espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance missions in Nazi-occupied countries.
Items for sale include this razor blade knife pictured. The gadgets were built by real-life Q characters in the top secret MI9 department of the war office. Collar studs where compasses were concealed pictured. Many spy gadgets were based on the ideas of Christopher Hutton, a Birmingham-born soldier, airman, journalist and inventor.
Many escape or spy gadgets were based on the ideas of Christopher Hutton, a Birmingham-born soldier, airman, journalist and inventor. Hutton, who died in , proved so popular he built himself a secret underground bunker in the middle of a field so he could work in peace. He printed maps on silk, so they would not rustle, and disguised them as handkerchiefs, hiding them inside canned goods. For aircrew he even designed special boots with detachable leggings that could quickly be converted to look like civilian shoes, and hollow heels that contained packets of dried food.
Most of the sneaky espionage tactics used to outwit Brtiain's opponents were devised by a division known as the Special Operations Executive SOE and their mission was sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines.. SOE agents came from all walks and included a former chef, an electrician, several journalists and the daughter of a Brixton motor-car dealer. Their training included being taught how to kill with their bare hands, how to derail a train and how to get out of a pair of handcuffs with a piece of thin wire and a dairy pencil.
The precision blast crippled work at a vital U-boat base in Bordeaux, and brought the all-electric railways in this region to an abrupt halt.
As well as the quirky inventions it came up with, the unit was also responsible for other key, more conventional items that were commonly used in the war. One of these was a time pencil, which was a timer that allowed troops to detonate a bomb with a controlled delay to allow them to clear the area - timings typically ranged from 10 minutes to 24 hours. The SOE commissioned several types of silent pistol, such as the Welrod, which were key for agents trying to keep a low profile.
They also produced two submarines, the Welman and Sleeping Beauty, to place charges on U-boats, but neither were successful. After the war, the organisation was officially dissolved on 15 January To help Allied troops who had been captured, the secret organisation was set up, dedicated to working with Allied prisoners of war POWs.
RAF fighter and bomber personnel, who for a long time were the most likely to be captured, were trained and equipped in advance for escapes. During the Second World War they would infiltrate agents, usually by parachute, into occupied Europe.
They were tasked with supporting available European Resistance networks which they would use to assist Allied airmen return to Britain if they were shot down over Europe. Agents would link up with a Resistance cell and organise escape efforts bringing false papers, money and maps to assist the downed airmen. The group also facilitated the escapes of British prisoners of war both out of the prison camp and out of occupied Europe.
The possibility of escape gave prisoners hope and by gathering the intelligence they had it gave them a way to contribute to the war. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
Argos AO. Privacy Policy Feedback. These evolve into axe-adzes, with a vertical and horizontal blade on each side. There are also other variants in different places, with a hammer on one end, a vertical edge on the other, or double bladed axes mostly in Greece.
All of these also exist in stone, sometimes even copying the casting seem from the separation of the mould halves. And eventually you get shaft axes that look quite a lot like modern steel axes next to the flat axes which remain in use as main axes. Early copper spears were basically a long stick, with a short point at the end, and slight thicker part where the part inserted into the haft ends remind a bit of an angon or pilum. The earliest sword-like weapons are from Turkey, and date to around BC.
These seem to appear out of nowhere, as everywhere else up to that time there were still only relatively small, simple daggers. These already contain arsenic.
There's not much in terms of swords after that up to about BC, when you get basically stretched tanged copper daggers up to sword lengths Caucasus. There's one huge copper sword from around that time in the British Museum, which is around cm in length that's competing with the very longest bronze swords! The nice thing about copper is that it workhardens a lot and can be shaped a lot cold without cracking. You can basically hammer a mm thick piece of copper to an edge cold, after which it has hardened to almost as hard as a decent bronze after workhardening.
Casting it is difficult though. It's very gloopy when molten, so it doesn't cast into thin openings. And it takes up oxygen, which it releases to form porosity when it solidifies. It's quite surprizing too that they managed to cast big copper axes at the very start of the copper age.
The higher melting point makes it harder to melt with charcoal, and anything above 1kg does take quite a different approach, as a lot of things don't work at that scale. And you also have to take into account that this was all done without bellows, using mouth blown furnaces.
At least, evidence seems to indicate that bellows came into use at the end of the copper age or early bronze age. A lot of copper tools were used, mostly copper flat axes very much like those in copper age Europe and the rest of the world, but thousands of years later.
Almost no single edge knives were used that I'm aware of, at least not as we know them. As far as I know, the theory is that none of the copper was cast, only hammered to shape from native copper nuggets. Southern America was in the bronze age. Here casting was definately done a lot, and there were a lot of differnt styles of axes and other tools. Though most were flat axes too, in a variety of shapes some identical to ancient Egyptian battle axes.
Knives were centergripped knives tumi , like leather knives which they often probably were. I've never seen an "end-gripped" metal knives from Southern America, but I've seen a few copper ones from Northern America simple tanged single edged ones.
Thank you for the very informative post. I love this place on the internet. Ah, this confirms a few ideas on how the copper daggers were made. Thats quite a lesson! I love going back to near the beginning of where our craft started. But then i found this one, sumerian.
This is an interesting bit, this spearhead seems to not have a fully closed socket, my thoughts are one of two. It broke off, or it was lashed on maybe with a bit of bone or another piece of copper through the shaft of wood?
This is a native american design. Its sumerian in origin, and is a ceremonial design, not quite meant for fighting, but something for processions, etc. Noteworthy to mention is that the rest of Europe remained in the stone age up until around BC, with practically no copper up to then. The near east followed pretty quickly after Serbia. There are some older copper artifacts from the near east. It predates melting and casting:. One of the richest guys in the copper age, from Varna BC , with earliest style shafthole axes, spear, flat axes more near his leggs, not shown here etc.
I've actually got good information on the hilts on tanged daggers from the Beaker Period if you're interested. Difficulty with tanged daggers is that there are infinite possibilies for the hilts, so while the blades may be very similar through Europe and the near east, the hilts most probably weren't. The flanges were most likely beaten around the wooden haft, thus clamping around the wood. Alternatively, it was glued over the wood.
Both are common methods of attaching spears, axes in prehistoric times. When archeologists use ceremonial or status symbol to describe an artifact, take it with a large spoon of salt. That usually means they don't understand artifacts. For a long time, all copper and bronze swords were labeled ceremonial or status symbols, not functional as bronze was clearly far to soft. Of course there were plenty of ceremonial examples of weapons, but it's not easy to conclude when something was only for show.
Over this time numerous changes and improvements were made to the musket. Its barrel length ranged from 46 inches on the initial design to 26 inches on the cavalry carbine variant. The smoothbore, muzzle-loading flintlock was easy to produce and was critical in many British victories.
The Revolutionary War, the War of , and the Napoleonic Wars are just a few of the conflicts it was used in. The British adjusted their tactics to compensate for this, using rows of hundreds of men firing the Brown Bess to guarantee hits. Designed by R. Mitchell, this beautiful fighter aircraft first flew in and entered service in Paired with the gorgeous sounding V12 Merlin engine the Spitfire was a war-winning aircraft.
Fast, maneuverable, and reliable, this dependable plane became a household name after its participation in the Battle of Britain. Although the Spitfire was used in a huge variety of roles, its arch-nemesis was the German Bf