Eyewitness Report: The Battle of Cable Street

My friend and frequent correspondent, Michael Sherbourne of London, sent the below in response to a note that he participated in “The Battle of Cable Street.” Michael sends fascinating stories of his youth in London, when most things came into the city by horse-drawn conveyance, and his dad built the first wireless radio in their neighborhood. He is 93, a WWII Royal Navy veteran, and still in Freedom’s Fight! Another Marine sent him the below article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cable_Street

"The Battle of Cable Street took place on Sunday 4 October 1936 in Cable Sreet in the East End of London. It was a clash between the Metropolitan Police, overseeing a march by the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, and anti-fascists, including local Jewish, socialist, anarchist, Irish and communist groups. The majority of both marchers and counter-protesters travelled into the area for this purpose. Mosley planned to send thousands of marchers dressed in uniforms styled on those of Blackshirts through the East End of London, which had a large Jewish population."

Michael writes:

It's fairly accurate. They were not "dressed as" Blackshirted Fascists. They WERE the Fascists in their Black Shirts, styled on Hitler's Brown Shirts!

Moseley did not "agree" to abandon the march. He was told quite bluntly by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police himself, that it would be quite impossible for his Blackshirted Uniformed Fascists to get through. They were stopped at Aldgate Pump and were confronted by a massive crowd, and the Police Chief told Moseley that if he tried to get through he and his men would literally be slaughtered. My three brothers and I were all there, at different points. I was at the Aldgate end of Mansell Street, faced by dozens of Mounted Police who were protecting the Fascists. We, many thousands of us, were all given bags of children's marbles, and as the horsemen moved towards us, preparing to gallop, we scattered the marbles along the ground, which for the horses, was worse than an ice rink. Every horse, without exception, every one went down as soon as its hoofs touched the marbles, and of course took its rider with him.

We had dockers, mostly Irishmen, came from London Docks, miners who came from Wales and the North of England, hundreds came from Scotland, and we estimated that there were far more than the official newspaper account of 300,000 people there ready to stop the Fascists. Their official title was "The British Union of Fascists" (BUF) and the only sound that could be heard was the many thousands of people chanting "THEY SHALL NOT PASS" and they did not pass!

This was the spirit that Winston Churchill was able to muster only 4 years later in 1940 against Hitler and his bomber aircraft, who thought that they could conquer Britain.

It is the spirit that is so much needed today, but seems to be hidden away, in order to stop the onward march of Jihad Islamism.

--Michael