Avre Friday Briefing #55
Batch No. 3
U.S. Navy Shawl Collar Denim Shirt
We closed pre-orders for Batch No. 3 this week. If you missed the window, you can still place an order — it'll just be fulfilled in the next run. Drop us a line at hello@avreind.com if you have any questions.
Vat 01 Design Part 3: The Seal
Part #3 of our Vat 01 Whisky design breakdown and this week it's the seal. It's an easy detail to miss, but as with every part of the packaging for this release, there's a lot of thought gone in to it. If you look closely, you'll see that printed on the label is the Royal Marines Commando dagger, and the date and geographic coordinates of the St Nazaire raid.
The dagger is the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife — adopted by British Commandos in 1941 and worn ever since as the emblem of elite amphibious forces. The men who raided St Nazaire on the 28th March 1942 carried it into the dock installations, through the lock gates under overwhelming enemy fire. Its presence on the bottle marks what kind of operation this was, and what was asked of the men who carried it out.
On this day - Operation Tungsten
3rd April 1944
A British aerial reconnaissance photograph of Tirpitz moored at Kaafjord. The artificial smoke generators on the shores of the fjord have not yet obscured her.
Forty-two Fleet Air Arm Barracuda torpedo-bombers, launched from HMS Victorious and HMS Furious, hit the Tirpitz 14 times in a daring raid on Alten Fjord, Norway. The attack — codenamed Operation Tungsten — came as the battleship was preparing to put to sea for exercises, catching her crew largely at action stations but without her full defensive smoke screen in place. The Barracudas had a narrow window of opportunity. Fourteen hits in a single strike was a remarkable result, killing over 100 of her crew and putting her out of action for months.
The Tirpitz never fired her main guns at an Allied ship in anger. But her existence alone tied up enormous British naval resources for years. Operations to neutralise her — Tungsten among them — represent some of the most determined and hazardous missions the Fleet Air Arm flew during the war.
From WW2 HQ — The Truth About The Battle of the Bulge
The latest Walking the Ground episode covers the Poteau Crossroads — one of the more overlooked engagements of the Battle of the Bulge. In December 1944, Kampfgruppe Hansen overran the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, an all-Black American unit, before defeating Task Force Maze. Two American units. Two German victories. And Goebbels' propaganda machine made the most of both, cutting footage to give the German public the impression the Wehrmacht was still winning a war they were months from losing catastrophically.
James and Al walk the crossroads, then head to the pub to break down what actually happened — and why none of it was ever going to change the outcome.