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Show INVASION IS OLD TALE TO BRITONS t ! LONDON. Adolf Hitler's invasion .plans are an old story to British historians who list the anticipated Nazi attempt as No. 55 in a long list of attacks on the coast line of the British isles. The Daily Mail 32 years ago pub-' pub-' lished "an invasion map of England," Eng-land," revealing that through the centuries the United Kingdom had been invaded 54 times twice even by John Paul Jones during the Revolutionary Rev-olutionary war period when he was attacking English shipping. Few of the attackers have been able to make their invasions more than mere stabs. But historians admit ad-mit that invasion No. 55, if it materializes, ma-terializes, is going to be the most difficult of the lot. German soldiers landed 2,000 strong back in 1486 but they were just part of a parade of Normans, Danes, Dutch, French, Italians and Spanish. In the words of the Daily Mail historian: "Few who came to strafe remained to slay." Two Attacks by Jones. John Paul Jones successfully attacked at-tacked the English port of Whitehaven White-haven in 1778, landing sailors to scuttle dock ships and burn part of the quay. Jones also attacked Leith, Scotland. One of the strangest stories involved in-volved the German troops when a 10-year-old boy, son of an Oxford tradesman, led them and an Irish force in a landing at Fourdray on the coast of Lancashire. He was Lambert Simnel, a puppet pretender pretend-er set up by the Yorkist Kildare to overthrow the Lancastrian Henry VII. Henry himself had won the throne by invasion with the aid of 3,000 Frenchmen. It was the first and only time German soldiers had landed in ; England. They were defeated at the village of East Stoke, Nottingham- shire, and their general, Marten Schwarz, was killed. Henry gave ' the would-be King Lambert a job as a turnspit in his kitchen. In 1667, the streets of London echoed ech-oed to the roar of guns from the 1 Dutch fleet which sailed up the ; Thames, burned Chattham dockyard and captured one of England's finest men-o'-war. But that was the thirty-second thirty-second invasion attempt. William of Orange Next. Twenty-one years later, William of Orange led the only successful large-scale invasion. He sailed into Torbay with 600 transport boats and 50 men-o'-war and entered England with 13,000 men. Historians describe this as more of a response to an invitation than an invasion. There was no battle. During Shakespeare's day there also was much talk of invasion when Philip of Spain cast ambitious eyes toward the powerful islands north of him. He formed a twelfth century cen-tury Axis with Italy and chose the southwest coast of Ireland as the point of attack. Four times in 1579, 1580 and twice in 1601 the Spaniards Span-iards came but never conquered. Napoleon had similar dreams and staged blitzkriegs on a more formidable for-midable scale. His theory was that the best way of invading England was through Ireland or southwest Wales. But these attempts were historic failures. The last time an enemy force suc-j ceeded in making a landing on the soil of England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales was in 1798, but many con-ouerors con-ouerors still think about it. |
