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More from Brian_Sutton
For this 70's aniversary of D-DAY I am reposting one of my father's photos (so no rules broken). My father was one of the tens of thousands of men that made up the initial invasion force. It was about five days before the LST carrying his unit was able to unload them on the beach. Even then the beach head was only about ten miles deep.
It would be many weeks later (and a very strange run in with a Tiger tank) before the scene shown here. This is gun section one of the 460th Automatic Weapons Battalion just outside of Paris. The gun is a 40mm Bofors, some of my dad's crew and some French children.
It would be many weeks later (and a very strange run in with a Tiger tank) before the scene shown here. This is gun section one of the 460th Automatic Weapons Battalion just outside of Paris. The gun is a 40mm Bofors, some of my dad's crew and some French children.
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Looking at the photo I'm reminded of a documentary I saw recently.
It was about old soldiers, jet-pilots of the USAAF, talking about when they flew their first jetengine aircraft in combat.
And one of them "Oh ,that was in early 1944".
And the others "Bah, we didn't have any jet fighters in combat at the time, stop kidding us!"
And then he went and brought a pack of photos : He had been one of the youngest, , seen as "expendable" , factory pilots for the Me262.
He was German by birth.
I am happy for everyone who survived the world wars.
However, obviously, on both sides.
On the other hand as I am German, it means that I can't be proud for the overall actions of my faction.
Not even for most of the smaller details.
I have to seek some pride in such details like that a lot of the technology that was developed "by my party" is still in use today and helped to make the world as we know it today - which is, so I do hope, a better world than back then.
It was about old soldiers, jet-pilots of the USAAF, talking about when they flew their first jetengine aircraft in combat.
And one of them "Oh ,that was in early 1944".
And the others "Bah, we didn't have any jet fighters in combat at the time, stop kidding us!"
And then he went and brought a pack of photos : He had been one of the youngest, , seen as "expendable" , factory pilots for the Me262.
He was German by birth.
I am happy for everyone who survived the world wars.
However, obviously, on both sides.
On the other hand as I am German, it means that I can't be proud for the overall actions of my faction.
Not even for most of the smaller details.
I have to seek some pride in such details like that a lot of the technology that was developed "by my party" is still in use today and helped to make the world as we know it today - which is, so I do hope, a better world than back then.
From what I've seen it has hit the point in time when most of these men (and women) now just think of themselves as brothers in arms, people that survived a terrifying moment in history. I've met a mistael pilot and one of my friend's mother was a blitzen machen. I probably spelled both those wrong. Maybe you can't be 'proud' but you should learn as much as you can, these folk are in their 80's and 90's now.
Both my fathers and mothers families came via the "Frische Haff", having missed the "Gustloff" by a day or two.
My father became a soldier in the German Bundeswehr. His reasoning was very straightforward:
"If it's not those that do it out of the feel of responsibility,
you'll end up with those people doing it because it's 'cool!'.
Those (and those doing it out of boredom), are exactly those types of people,
which you never want to have in those positons."
####
For those others who might be curious what Brian referred to:
Mistel = Guided Bomb system; Manually piloted fighter ( FW190 or TA152 or ME109 ) bolted to a heavy, self-powered flying bomb made from a heavy fighter or light bomber airframe. The Fighter detaching as late as possible from it to get away after having set it onto course to its target.
Blitz Mädchen = female military messenger courier as well as military assistance; loaders and ammunition-bearers for 88mm Flak emplacements, target directors, radar assistants.
My father became a soldier in the German Bundeswehr. His reasoning was very straightforward:
"If it's not those that do it out of the feel of responsibility,
you'll end up with those people doing it because it's 'cool!'.
Those (and those doing it out of boredom), are exactly those types of people,
which you never want to have in those positons."
####
For those others who might be curious what Brian referred to:
Mistel = Guided Bomb system; Manually piloted fighter ( FW190 or TA152 or ME109 ) bolted to a heavy, self-powered flying bomb made from a heavy fighter or light bomber airframe. The Fighter detaching as late as possible from it to get away after having set it onto course to its target.
Blitz Mädchen = female military messenger courier as well as military assistance; loaders and ammunition-bearers for 88mm Flak emplacements, target directors, radar assistants.
Frische Haff: A Bay along what is nowadays the polish / russian baltic coast:
http://www.heiligenbeil-ostpreussen.....ndkreis_1_.gif
https://maps.google.de/?ll=54.543393,20.170898&spn=3.104028,8.453979&t=m&z=8
In the end-phase of WW2 german civilians and military personnel tried to flee from the approaching red army.
Note: Rather obvious why: The military knew what it had done in Russia, and the civilians had been told over and over that the red army were barbarians.
Whilst not being the Salvation Army, the red army didn't behave worse than the german army in Russia, rather better, but that was a moot point at the moment back then.
In any case, wounded military personnel was being evacuated with the cruise vessel Gustloff ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff ), and the ship took on as many civilians as it could. It was more or less the last ship out. The remaining military and civilians faced the fact that the way over land via the south was already cut off by the red army, so a whole treck of people , entire towns, moved out over the frozen sea to reach the other side of the bay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisches_Haff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacua.....f_East_Prussia
I would feel anger over this, if it hadn't been Germany starting the war and doing similar things without remorse or regret.
Accordingly I can only choose to accept it as a "thing that happens in war", and / or judge every faction that engages in similar activities - which is what I most often do, as these activities always mean harm and death and terror to those who were not involved, not responsible for what happened.
Which, and I beg pardon here from all sides, is the reason why I have a long list of nations, Germany included and accompanied by Russia, Israel, Denmark, USA, England, India, Pakistan, Iran, Japan, China, North Korea and many, many more who's head-figures of the times back then and of today I would like to nail to a desk and have a little talk about their longterm goals for their nations, and the goals humanity needs to make it to the future.
http://www.heiligenbeil-ostpreussen.....ndkreis_1_.gif
https://maps.google.de/?ll=54.543393,20.170898&spn=3.104028,8.453979&t=m&z=8
In the end-phase of WW2 german civilians and military personnel tried to flee from the approaching red army.
Note: Rather obvious why: The military knew what it had done in Russia, and the civilians had been told over and over that the red army were barbarians.
Whilst not being the Salvation Army, the red army didn't behave worse than the german army in Russia, rather better, but that was a moot point at the moment back then.
In any case, wounded military personnel was being evacuated with the cruise vessel Gustloff ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff ), and the ship took on as many civilians as it could. It was more or less the last ship out. The remaining military and civilians faced the fact that the way over land via the south was already cut off by the red army, so a whole treck of people , entire towns, moved out over the frozen sea to reach the other side of the bay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisches_Haff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacua.....f_East_Prussia
I would feel anger over this, if it hadn't been Germany starting the war and doing similar things without remorse or regret.
Accordingly I can only choose to accept it as a "thing that happens in war", and / or judge every faction that engages in similar activities - which is what I most often do, as these activities always mean harm and death and terror to those who were not involved, not responsible for what happened.
Which, and I beg pardon here from all sides, is the reason why I have a long list of nations, Germany included and accompanied by Russia, Israel, Denmark, USA, England, India, Pakistan, Iran, Japan, China, North Korea and many, many more who's head-figures of the times back then and of today I would like to nail to a desk and have a little talk about their longterm goals for their nations, and the goals humanity needs to make it to the future.
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