WWII

[Chicat]

Today is the 70th anniversary of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima.

[Merkin]

[ghostwhitehorse]

Misspelled "Bill O'Reilly" there. . .

[azgreg]

Misspelled "Bill O'Reilly" there. . .

O'Reilly was on an adjacent island.

[scumdevils86]

Microsoft Co Founder Paul Allen finds the Musashi

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/03/intl_worl ... index.html

[Daryl Zero]

Today is the 70th anniversary of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima.

Which flag raising? The real one or the staged one?

[scumdevils86]

70th anniversary of VE day. Amazing. Not long before anyone who participated in the biggest tragedy of human civilization first hand will be gone.

[Puerco]

70th anniversary of VE day. Amazing. Not long before anyone who participated in the biggest tragedy of human civilization first hand will be gone.

Why do we consider World War 2 the world's biggest tragedy?

[scumdevils86]

60 million people dying....

[azgreg]

60 million people dying....

For wars WWII had the most casualties right? I've seen estimates ranging from 40 mil to 85 mil with a mean of about 58 mil right?

However, the Mao Zedong dynasty is reported to be responsible for over 75 mil deaths.

I could be wrong. Ask my wife, she'll tell you.

[Puerco]

Interesting question. Maybe WW2 was humanity's worst self-inflicted tragedy. But,

The 1918 flu pandemic killed about the same number of people, but a greater percentage of humanity.
The Black Death may have reduced human population by about 20%, which is massively higher than WW2.
The Plague of Justinian wiped out 50% of Europe and who knows how many more during the seventh century.

You could even argue some of the older conflicts had a greater casualty rate (as a % or the world population). WW2 is estimated to have killed about 3% of the world. The Mongol Invasion wiped out about 35 million out of a total of somewhere between 500 and 800 million on Earth. The Three Kingdoms period in China (chaos after the fall of the Han dynasty) wiped out just as many a thousand years earlier, so youd figure it may have been upwards of 10% of the world population. Granted, both of those conflicts lasted 100+ years, so it's not really apples to apples.

[Merkin]

I would also say that the Civil War and WW1 were much more brutal, being that they were using Napeolonatic tactics against modern weaponry.

Battle of the Marne: Allies 263,000 casualties, Germans 220,000.
Verdun: French 542,000 casualties, Germans 435,000.
Somme: Allies 623,906 casualties, Germans 600,000.

Russians of course in WW2 had no regard for human life on either side, and put many men into the meat grinder.

[scumdevils86]

well...maybe I should have clarified self inflicted tragedy then. everything Puerco listed is certainly worse percentage-wise for the population but wasn't really anything humans could control with existing technology.

[azgreg]

Here's a nice piece on VE day with some pretty good pics.

http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/08/victo ... ars-later/

[Merkin]

Here's a nice piece on VE day with some pretty good pics.

http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/08/victo ... ars-later/

Hot.

[Merkin]

1-Ton World War II Bomb Accidentally Uncovered in Germany, 20,000 Evacuated

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... overy.html



Some 20,000 residents in Cologne, Germany, were briefly evacuated Wednesday from a 1-kilometer radius around a 1-ton unexploded World War II-era bomb that was discovered 5 meters underground by construction workers. The bomb is thought to be of American design, the BBC reports, and it was safely defused. This is the sixth year running that an unexploded bomb has been unearthed in Germany; in 2010 and 2015, the bombs exploded and caused fatal injuries.

Cologne was the site of heavy Allied bombing during the war. Atlas Obscura points to a 1992 International Herald Tribune article noting that the city was targeted by a staggering 1,046 British bombers on a single night in 1942, in the first raid conducted by more than 1,000 bombers. In October 1944 a United States Air Force mission against Cologne involved 1,338 bombers and 811 fighters.




Speaking of Cologne, just saw this just now:

[Chicat]

71 years ago today . . . DDay.

Also just read a profile of Mad Jack Churchill who apparently went into battle with a claymore sword, a longbow, and bagpipes and managed to not only survive the war but two concentration camps as well. Crazy bastard...

[UAtrue]

I'm tooling around England right now and will be in Normandy 6/11 through 6/14 before swinging down the coast. Anyone with some good suggestions to see some WW II sights? Figure we'll see the American cemetery and a beach or two.

[ASUHATER!]

Ste mere eglise on the cotentin peninsula. Pegasus bridge

[azcat49]

Very envious. I would love to stand on Omaha and get the feel of what it must havebeen like getting off those first boats. Certain death, yet they went anyway.

Point Du Hoc would be neat to see. Take pics and post them True

[scumdevils86]

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-ar ... mandy.html

[the real dill]

https://vimeo.com/128373915

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/128373915?badge=0" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/128373915">The Fallen of World War II</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user22627560">Neil Halloran</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

[azcat49]

96 year old code talker died. Flags at half staff on the rez today

[threenumberones]

I'm tooling around England right now and will be in Normandy 6/11 through 6/14 before swinging down the coast. Anyone with some good suggestions to see some WW II sights? Figure we'll see the American cemetery and a beach or two.

Oh man it has been over10yrs for me now. Just rent a car and start driving from place to place - that was my favorite part. Soaking up what the area looked like when it was the front. The cemetery is amazing. Spent about 5hrs there reading headstones and the murals. There was a museum that was good as well, I'll try and dig up the name. Mont St Michel isn't far and worth the trip. Stay the night there if you can. I'll also try and figure out which beach was my favorite, it's not obvious when you are there - or wasn't back then when none of us had smartphones etc.

[UAtrue]

I'm tooling around England right now and will be in Normandy 6/11 through 6/14 before swinging down the coast. Anyone with some good suggestions to see some WW II sights? Figure we'll see the American cemetery and a beach or two.

Oh man it has been over10yrs for me now. Just rent a car and start driving from place to place - that was my favorite part. Soaking up what the area looked like when it was the front. The cemetery is amazing. Spent about 5hrs there reading headstones and the murals. There was a museum that was good as well, I'll try and dig up the name. Mont St Michel isn't far and worth the trip. Stay the night there if you can. I'll also try and figure out which beach was my favorite, it's not obvious when you are there - or wasn't back then when none of us had smartphones etc.

Thx.

First went to Arromanches to see where "Port Winston" was constructed. Located a bit east of of the cemetery it's where the Allies built a harbor almost overnight. Within days we had on shore 54000 vehicles, 326,000 troops, and 110,000 tons of goods (I read this in a guide book)

Then to the cemetery followed by a picnic on Omaha Beach. Checked out some Germany bunkers west of the beach and ended the day in nearby Bayeux. Next day saw Mont St. Michel; that was pretty awesome.

Anyone going to see the cemetery and landings; give yourself at least a full day. I didn't budget enough time. Wasn't able to spend any time in the museums Scum, but appreciate the link. We did spend some time in the American Cemetery museum before walking around the entire cemetary. My daughter just finished the WW II segment in her sophomore history class so she really enjoyed this part of our trip. Interesting that she told me that in class they watched the landing segment of Saving Private Ryan - because although I've watched numerous documentaries, read numerous books, and watched many WW II movies in my lifetime, it wasn't until that scene that I finally got a feel for the hell it must have been. Made me wish that portion of the movie was longer in duration.

Stuck in the hotel tonight (raining)in a beautiful town (St. Gilles Croix de Vie) down the coast from Brittany. That explains why I have time to be on this board.

[scumdevils86]

just awful...

http://www.npr.org/2015/06/23/416408655 ... ustard-gas

[ghostwhitehorse]

[UAtrue]

just awful...

http://www.npr.org/2015/06/23/416408655 ... ustard-gas

Surprised? How 'bout all the Nazi's, many of whom were involved with the "final solution" we let into the country to work and eventually retire?


I'm certainly not proud of some of the things we've done regarding WWII

[ASUHATER!]

Still better than the Nazis or Japanese. Which was all you could hope for in the real world.

[Merkin]

Very true, the US acted about the best you could hope for, even on an individual level. There was a reason why the Germans wanted to surrender to the Americans and not the Russians. Even civilians were glad when the Americans took over their cities since the Americans didn't have blanket permission to rape the women.

No one is pleased about the US carpet bombing of Dresden and other civilian targets, but once you run out of military targets, and the enemy won't surrender, what do you do? Firebombing of Tokyo was actually worse casualty wise than the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Dudes, you lost, just give up.

[Chicat]

'Accountant of Auschwitz' trial: Oskar Gröning admits guilt
Former SS guard at Nazi death camp also tells court in Germany that he has no right to ask for forgiveness

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/j ... mits-guilt

Wednesday 1 July 2015 10.02 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 1 July 2015 10.36 EDT

The former SS guard Oskar Gröning, who is accused of complicity in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews, has admitted guilt for his role in the Nazi killing machinery but said he had no right to ask for forgiveness.

Gröning, 94, told a court: “I’ve consciously not asked for forgiveness for my guilt. Regarding the scale of what took place in Auschwitz and the crimes committed elsewhere, as far as I’m concerned I’m not entitled to such a request. I can only ask the Lord God for forgiveness.”

Gröning – called the Accountant of Auschwitz because he was tasked with sorting through Jews’ possessions and collecting and counting the money found in suitcases and clothing – also revealed for the first time the profound emotional impact the testimonies of Auschwitz survivors and their relatives had made on him.

“The events of Auschwitz, the mass murders, were known to me. But many of the details that have been told here were not known to me,” he told the court in Lüneburg, northern Germany, through his lawyer.

“What happened in Auschwitz has been brought before my eyes once again. The suffering of the deportees in the trains, the selection process and the subsequent extermination of the majority of the people has been brought home to me again in the clearest possible way … as well as the terrible living conditions of those who were not murdered immediately.”

His declaration gave the court its first insight into Gröning’s emotional state since the trial began in April. Gröning said it was “with regret and humility that I stand before the victims”. But he repeated his earlier claims that he had only served on a selection ramp a handful of times – the rest of the time he had been in an office counting prisoners’ money – that he had tried to get transferred to the front several times and that he had never killed anyone.

“In 1943 … my fiancee and I wanted to get married,” he said. “We also planned to have children, but it seemed to me incompatible to plan a family and to continue working in Auschwitz, so I reminded my superiors of my wish to transfer.” He told the court he believed his application was never processed.

Gröning’s 15-minute declaration was followed by the powerful testimony of Irene Fogel Weiss, an 84-year-old retired teacher from Fairfax, Virginia, who described in detail how her family was torn apart on arrival at Auschwitz in May 1944 during the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews. Weiss lost both her parents, four siblings and 13 cousins at Auschwitz.

Looking directly at Gröning, who was seated just 20ft from her, she said: “He has said that he does not consider himself a perpetrator but merely a small cog in the machine. But if he were sitting here today wearing his SS uniform, I would tremble, and all the horror that I experienced as a 13-year-old would return to me.

“To that 13-year-old, any person who wore that uniform in that place represented terror and the depths to which humanity can sink, regardless of what function they performed. And today, at the age of 84, I still feel the same way.”

Gröning looked on passively, occasionally gazing at the ceiling and sipping from a bottle of water as she spoke.

Weiss described in detail her family’s deportation from their home in Hungary to Auschwitz, recalling how the mayor, police chief and her headteacher knocked on the door of the family house one morning in April 1944 to escort the family to a makeshift ghetto in an abandoned brick factory. “They demanded our valuables, and my father gave them some money and jewellery,” she told the court. “We left our house, my father closed the gate behind us so our dog wouldn’t follow.”

The court was shown a coloured photograph discovered in the early 1970s, showing a mass of prisoners gathered at the selection ramp, Weiss clearly visible in her winter coat and headscarf in the bottom left hand corner, “standing there looking in the direction where my little sister went … I did not move, trying desperately to see if she had caught up with my mother,” she said.

“This is the picture that was burnt into my mind for the last 70 years,” she said, pointing at the image which was beamed up on a large screen in the courtroom.

Her father and 16-year-old brother had been sent to dispose of dead bodies. She later discovered, in a note passed to her by another prisoner, that her father had been shot shortly after his arrival. She never discovered her brother’s fate.

Weiss and her sister, Serena, were sent to work near crematorium No 4 at a storage and processing area known to the prisoners as “Kanada”, to sort through the belongings of those who had entered the camp.

“There we sorted through mountains of clothing, shoes, bedding, eyeglasses, toothbrushes, baby carriages, suitcases, books, pots and pans, and every other household item,” she said. “While at work one day I found my mother’s white dress and beige shawl.”

She said the task was overwhelming as trainloads of prisoners continued to arrive around the clock. “The piles never became smaller. The piles reached as high as the roof of the barracks,” she said.

The trial is tentatively expected to conclude later this month.

[Chicat]

And at the total other end of the spectrum...

Kindertransport Organizer Nicholas Winton Dies at 106

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/07 ... .html?_r=0

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JULY 1, 2015, 11:10 A.M. E.D.T.

LONDON — Nicholas Winton, a humanitarian who almost single-handedly saved more than 650 Jewish children from the Holocaust, earning himself the label "Britain's Schindler," has died. He was 106.

Son-in-law Stephen Watson said Winton died on Wednesday. The Rotary Club of Maidenhead, of which Winton was a former president, said his daughter Barbara and two grandchildren were at his side.

Winton arranged trains to carry children from Nazi-occupied Prague to Britain, battling bureaucracy at both ends and saving them from almost certain death — and then kept quiet about his exploits for a half-century.

Born in London in 1909 to parents of German Jewish descent, Winton himself was raised as a Christian. He was a 29-year-old clerk at the London Stock Exchange when a friend contacted him and told him to cancel the skiing holiday they had planned in late 1938 and travel instead to Czechoslovakia.

Alarmed by the influx of refugees from the Sudetenland region recently annexed by Germany, Winton and his friend feared — correctly — that Czechoslovakia soon would be invaded by the Nazis and Jewish residents from there would be sent to concentration camps.

While supporters in Britain were working to get Jewish intellectuals and communists out of Czechoslovakia, no one was trying to save the children, so Winton took the task upon himself.

Returning to Britain, Winton persuaded British officials to accept children, as long as foster homes were found and a 50-pound guarantee was paid for each one to ensure they had enough money to return home later. Their stays were only expected to be temporary.

Setting himself up as the one-man children's section of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, Winton set about finding homes and guarantors, drawing up lists of about 6,000 children, publishing pictures to encourage British families to agree to take them.

The first 20 children arrived by plane, but once the German army reached Prague in March 1939, they could only be brought out by train.

In the months before the outbreak of World War II, eight trains carried children through Germany to Britain. In all, Winton got 669 children out. The largest evacuation was scheduled for Sept. 3, 1939, the day that Britain declared war on Germany. That train never left, and almost none of the 250 children trying to flee on it survived the war.

The children from Prague were among some 10,000 mostly Jewish children who made it to Britain on what were known as the Kindertransports (children's transports). Few of them would see their parents again.

Although many more children were saved from Berlin and Vienna, those operations were better organized and better financed. Winton's operation was unique because he worked almost alone.

"Maybe a lot more could have been done. But much more time would have been needed, much more help would have been needed from other countries, much more money would have been needed, much more organization," Winton later said.

He also acknowledged that not all the children who made it to Britain were well-treated in their foster homes. Some British foster parents used the children as cheap domestic servants.

"I wouldn't claim that it was 100 percent successful. But I would claim that everybody who came over was alive at the end of the war," he was quoted as saying in the book "Into the Arms of Strangers."

Winton served in the Royal Air Force during the war and continued to support refugee organizations. After the war, he became involved in numerous other charitable organizations, especially in his home town of Maidenhead, west of London.

He was president of the Maidenhead branch of the learning disability charity Mencap for more than 40 years, and also worked with the Abbeyfields organization to set up homes for the elderly in the town. Two of those homes are named for him: Nicholas House and Winton House.

A keen fencer who lost his chance to compete at the Olympics because of the outbreak of war, Winton worked with his younger brother Bobby to found the Winton Cup, still a major team fencing competition in Britain.

But for almost 50 years, Winton said nothing about what he had done before the war. It only emerged in 1988 when his wife Grete found documents in the attic of their home.

"There are all kinds of things you don't talk about, even with your family," Winton said in 1999. "Everything that happened before the war actually didn't feel important in the light of the war itself."

Winton's wife persuaded him to have his story documented, and it became better-known after the BBC tracked down dozens of "Nicky's Children" and arranged an emotional reunion on prime-time television.

A film about his heroism, "Nicholas Winton — The Power of Good," won an International Emmy Award in 2002. Then-Prime Minister Tony Blair praised him as "Britain's Schindler," after the German businessman Oskar Schindler, who also saved Jewish lives during the war.

Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 and also honored in the Czech Republic. A statue of Winton stands at Prague's central station, while a statue commemorating the children of the Kindertransport is a popular sight at London's Liverpool Street Station. He continued to attend Kindertransport events in Britain and the Czech Republic well beyond his 100th birthday.

Winton rejected the description of himself as a hero, insisting that unlike Schindler, his life had never been in danger. He was always modest about his achievements, and his reasons for acting.

"At the time, everybody said, 'Isn't it wonderful what you've done for the Jews? You saved all these Jewish people,'" Winton said. "When it was first said to me, it came almost as a revelation because I didn't do it particularly for that reason. I was there to save children."

Winton's wife Grete died in 1999. He is survived by his daughter Barbara.

[scumdevils86]

powerful stuff

[Merkin]

Getting tougher to prosecute the old nazis.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -evil.html

Number one on it, the Nazi Gerhard Sommer, allegedly slaughtered 560 civilians, including 100 children, in the Italian village of Sant’ Anna de Stazzema in August 1944. But last week the Germans announced they would halt Sommer’s prosecution because of his dementia.

Number two on the list, Vladimir Katriuk from Belarus, has been living in Canada. He was charged just this month with organizing “The Slaughter of Chatyn,” a massacre in which 149 Belarusian villagers were herded into a barn and burned alive. But Katriuk died on Friday.

Number three, Alfred Stark, was convicted in absentia by an Italian court and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Italian prisoners of war in Kefalonia, Greece. But even if he were to be extradited from Germany, he would not have to serve jail time because of his age.

Number four, Johan Robert Riss, was found guilty by an Italian court, in absentia, for the murder of civilians near the village of Padule de Fucecchio, but continues to live freely in Germany.

The fifth, sixth and seventh “most-wanted” murderers are unnamed. And then, at number eight on the list, is Oskar Gröning, accused as an “accessory to murder of Hungarian Jews.”

All kinds of interesting and horrible tidbits in the article.

Gröning soon learned to spot who had money and who did not. “With the travelling Poles there was nothing to be found,” he recalled, “but the Hungarian, we knew, had big bacon.”

When asked by the judge at the trial if he didn’t wonder to whom this money belonged, Gröning responded by the book—the Nazi book: “It belonged to the State, the Jews had to hand it in.”

“Were there any grounds for that?” the judge asked.

“They didn’t need it anymore,” Gröning said matter-of-factly.


Just makes me sick.



Ever pragmatic and practical, Gröning complained to his superiors and asked to be transferred to another department after witnessing one particular act of violence on the Auschwitz train platform. It involved a young baby, left by its mother on the ramp. It was lying there dressed in rags and it was crying, Gröning told Thorsten Fuchs of the Hannoversche Allgemeinen Zeitung about six months ago (PDF). He said an SS man, or “comrade,” as he called him in court, “picked up the child by its feet and slammed it into the iron strut of a truck until it was dead.” Gröning said the image still haunts him at night.

[Merkin]

[Merkin]

Remains of 36 Marines, including Medal of Honor recipient, killed 70 years ago in WWII battle recovered on remote Pacific island

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2286447


Bonnyman was a true hero. Due to his age and industry he didn't even have to join, but enlisted as a private in Phoenix:

http://www.mclknox.org/html/lt_bonnyman.html

[scumdevils86]

thanks for posting that I hadn't heard an update on the story. good to know those men are coming home. the Battle of Betio Island was one hell of a fight. One that we weren't expecting.

[Chicat]

'Accountant of Auschwitz' trial: Oskar Gröning admits guilt
Former SS guard at Nazi death camp also tells court in Germany that he has no right to ask for forgiveness

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/j ... mits-guilt

He was convicted of murdering 300,000 people and got . . . . . 4 years in prison.

[Merkin]

April 1945. German soldiers, mostly teens, on the Oder front, 60 Km from Berlin, moments before the attack of the Red Army. Not even the young cameraman, Gerarth Garms, survived…

[azgreg]

World War II-era tank confiscated from elderly German man’s basement

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... -german-m/

Most people have dusty exercise equipment in their basement. A 78-year-old man in northern Germany had a World War II Panther tank.

At least 20 soldiers with modern tanks spent nine hours working to remove the vehicle from a home in Heikendorf, BBC reported July 3.

Local authorities were told about the tank after colleagues from Berlin investigated the home for stolen Nazi art, BBC reported.

The town’s mayor said that local residents recalled stories of the man driving it through town over 30 years ago. Its weapons systems have been disabled.

“He was chugging around in it during the snow catastrophe in 1978. I took this to be the eccentricity of an old man, but it looks like there’s more to it than that,” said Mayor Alexander Orth, BBC reported.

The website Der Tagesspiegel reported that a torpedo and an old anti-aircraft gun were also confiscated by authorities.

[Puerco]

BEst tank of the war, right there. Cool to see one.

[Merkin]

[azcat49]

How did he get that tank down into his basement?

[Puerco]

It has road wheels installed, so I wonder if was actually mobile.

[PieceOfMeat]

photos like the one on the left are often slow-burners for me.

At first glance, it doesn't strike me as a horrific image, it's just a bunch of circular links inside a box, but then I read a caption or whatever and it mentions it's a soldier sifting through gold rings, not rings as in the rings used to make a chain, the rings someone wears, then I mentally estimate just how many rings are in that picture, and my mind says no, no, no, that's a fuckload of wedding rings right there, don't estimate how many thousands of people were murdered so that box could be filled with their rings, my word that picture is silently horrible. I think I remember seeing a barrel full of rings like that in a picture before...a freaking barrel.

I honestly can't believe there are people today who are stupid enough to try to deny it ever happened, when there are photographs featuring the wedding rings taken off of thousands upon thousands of murdered people.

[ghostwhitehorse]

75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain: http://io9.com/why-the-nazis-believed-t ... 1733805795

[azgreg]

[scumdevils86]

damn. we're going to be seeing those types of stories a lot more in the next few years.

[Merkin]

I think we already have. War ended 70 years ago if my math is correct and I don't know of any vets left.

[scumdevils86]

I still see some through my work from time to time. Most major events and battles have a decent amount of veterans left but the vast majority are in no shape to be writing books or making tv appearances or interviews etc. We're getting to the point now where we will start seeing the last survivor of the Bataan Death March, the last vet of Iwo Jim, the last vet of D-Day etc... I will personally have a very sad day when the last WW2 veteran is gone.