Feb 3, 2012
British golf course temporarily changes the rules during Nazi air raids of 1940
London’s Richmond Golf Club had already been around for nearly 50 years when the Germans started bombing the area in 1940. Instead of canceling play or closing temporarily, they simply adopted some additional rules in order to accommodate the air raid.
It seems almost too carefree to respond this way, but sometimes nonchalance can be its own form of heroism. In fact, the Richmond Golf Club’s reaction to the German attacks was brave and rebellious enough that Hitler’s propagandists felt that it needed to be mocked in a radio report…
By means of these ridiculous reforms the English snobs try to impress the people with a kind of pretended heroism. They can do so without danger, because, as everyone knows, the German Air Force devotes itself only to the destruction of military targets and objectives of importance to the war effort.
This was nonsense, of course, unless, as club historian Tom Brennand observes, “the Club’s laundry outbuilding was a military target.”
(via The Richmond Golf Club, HyperVocal)
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War is Hell.
Penalty one stroke if your ball is affected by the simultaneous explosion of a bomb? Hang the collaborators!
““the Club’s laundry outbuilding was a military target.” Toxic dirty laundry is potentially useful as chemical warfare. Ask any housewife.
Lol. That’s awesome! I wonder how many men were left in England to play golf though :P
really sad… but kinda cool too, you know? that they can still go on playing games throughout a bombing.
lol about the club’s so-called ‘military target’