John Eric Langdon-Davies was a British author and journalist. He was a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War and the Soviet-Finnish War. As a result of his experiences in Spain, he founded the Foster Parents' Scheme for refugee children in Spain, which is now the aid organisation Plan International.
John Langdon-Davies in 1940.
Langdon-Davies's home "The Sundial" in South Holmwood, near Dorking, was built in 1903 for Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence as a country home for the Espérance Club for working-class London girls. A sundial with the motto, "Let others tell of storms and showers, I tell of sunny morning hours", is on the south-east wall
Image: Fifth Column John Langdon Davies (low resolution)
The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from its organization.
A Finnish Maxim M/09-21 machine gun crew during the Winter War
The Soviet–Finnish Non-Aggression Pact was signed by Aarno Yrjö-Koskinen and Maxim Litvinov in Moscow 1932.
Finnish soldiers gather breakfast from a field kitchen during "additional refresher training" at the Karelian Isthmus, on 10 October 1939.
29 November 1939, foreign journalists at Mainila, where a border incident between Finland and the Soviet Union escalated into the Winter War.
