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I was going to link to a video I watched about Virginia Hall - whose story reads like if Marvel's Peggy Carter was a real person, only the movie character was toned down for believability. However, Youtube seems to be a on a rampage of demonetizing history videos currently.
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[QUOTE=seismic-2;4569013][ATTACH=CONFIG]87105[/ATTACH]
My father, a Tech Sergeant in the US Army Air Corps, in Egypt in WWII on his way to deployment in the China-Burma-India theater, where he served for the duration of the war. Thank you, Dad... for everything.[/QUOTE]
[IMG]https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2015/245/63691289_1441342657.jpg[/IMG]
My Grandfather in Paris France after its liberation from German occupation.
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I don't have any photos of my Grandfather from his time in the Navy - he's in some large group photos but that's all I have.
He served earlier in the war in the Atlantic on an escort destroyer (that he never talked about other than to say he was there) and later in the Pacific as a firefighter on the [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Irwin"]USS Irwin[/URL], a late war Fletcher-class destroyer. Fun fact - several years after the war he worked at Bethlehem Steel - the very company that manufactured his ship.
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September 17, 1939, from Wikipedia,
"The Soviet invasion of Poland begins."
"German submarine U-29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous."
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Fascinating. Or should I say Fascistinating? This has been an interesting thread.
The Soviets invaded eastern Poland, whereas if we recall back, the Germans are already in western Poland. Poor Poland, this completely crushed their plans to defend what was left. But there was still resistance that continued even though this was an absolutely devastating time for them, effectively ending Poland as it was known at the time.
Britain and France were in a pickle, too, because they had declared war on Germany expressly because of their invasion of Poland, but chose not to do the same against the Soviets in response to that invasion. It sort of made things look like nobody really cared about Poland, beyond it being a tool to allow allied intervention to begin in earnest in places they really did care about.
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[QUOTE=Scott Taylor;4572310][B]Fascinating. Or should I say Fascistinating?[/B] This has been an interesting thread.
The Soviets invaded eastern Poland, whereas if we recall back, the Germans are already in western Poland. Poor Poland, this completely crushed their plans to defend what was left. But there was still resistance that continued even though this was an absolutely devastating time for them, effectively ending Poland as it was known at the time.
Britain and France were in a pickle, too, because they had declared war on Germany expressly because of their invasion of Poland, but chose not to do the same against the Soviets in response to that invasion. It sort of made things look like nobody really cared about Poland, beyond it being a tool to allow allied intervention to begin in earnest in places they really did care about.[/QUOTE];)
September 18, 1939, from Wikipedia,
"The Polish government of Ignacy Mościcki flees to Romania."
"The radio show Germany Calling begins transmitting Nazi propaganda."
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[QUOTE=Scott Taylor;4572310]Fascinating. Or should I say Fascistinating? This has been an interesting thread.
The Soviets invaded eastern Poland, whereas if we recall back, the Germans are already in western Poland. Poor Poland, this completely crushed their plans to defend what was left. But there was still resistance that continued even though this was an absolutely devastating time for them, effectively ending Poland as it was known at the time.
Britain and France were in a pickle, too, because they had declared war on Germany expressly because of their invasion of Poland, but chose not to do the same against the Soviets in response to that invasion. It sort of made things look like nobody really cared about Poland, beyond it being a tool to allow allied intervention to begin in earnest in places they really did care about.[/QUOTE]
There is a book Britain and Poland 1939-1943: The Betrayed Ally, it is very dry as it is a text book but if covers this subject, France was not legally obliged by any pact to attack Soviet Union or to send troops to Poland to help but with obligated to act against German aggression. It didn't want to go up against both Germany and Russia. Now England on the other had was obliged to send support and assistance , literally "at once" and to provide "all the support and assistance in its power", per the 1939 pact yet they didn't. The political thinking between them though was that German was the "main" threat to Europe and the Russia though large was not a threat to greater Europe as Russia was only after an already occupied Poland. In hindsight not declaring war on Russia help to end the war.
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[QUOTE=James T. Kirk;4573791];)
September 18, 1939, from Wikipedia,
"The Polish government of Ignacy Mościcki flees to Romania."
"[B]The radio show Germany Calling begins transmitting Nazi propaganda[/B]."[/QUOTE]
It wasn't just Nazi propaganda over the radio as that has been happening in Germany for years, this day marks the day William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) a member of the British Union of Fascists started his broadcast of Nazi propaganda in Britain. Joyce was convicted of high treason in 1945 and put to death by hanging, just so you know. And was the last person to be executed for treason in the UK. Another fact is that Joyce was born in New York USA.
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The allied powers after World War I, in the Treaty of Versailles, created the new states of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary. Those states were carved out of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire. You'd think, since it was their idea, those allies would have a responsibiility to protect their newly created nations. It was the fact that these states and their borders were so new that left them vulnerable.
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September 19, 1939, from Wikipedia,
"The Battle of Kępa Oksywska concludes, with Polish losses reaching roughly 14% of all the forces engaged."
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[QUOTE=The Whovian;4552709]This is so sad. It really ticks me off when adults use children to further their ignorance and hatred.[/QUOTE]
There's definitely a responsibility to be had towards those that are taught to hate on those such as Jews (whether it be on the accusation of the Jews crucifying Jesus, conspirators, or are at war with the Aryan race for world domination, etc.) and act out on maliciousness, but there's also a responsibility to be had towards those that teach them bad things in the first place.
Actually, I had recently learned about Hans Massaquoi, a black person born in Germany in 1926 that was bullied as a child and wanted to prove to his bullies that he was very much German, despite his skin color, and asked to have a swastika patch stitched onto his sweater when he was seven years old. Keep in mind this is in the midst of a time when schoolchildren were taught that Hitler was a hero that saved the nation from poverty and that Germany was the greatest country in the world, obviously having not been told that the Nazis, other fascists, and other degenerates were slaughtering innocent people.
Indeed, perhaps it can't be summed up any better than by calling it brainwashing. I've also seen people cite anti-racist (I think I recall others saying pro-murder) programs like Watchmen and say that that the white racists need to be killed to death like we're still in World War II, but I don't think that should be done with little kids in 2019 who are brainwashed with rhetoric akin to the Hitler Youth. If anything, I think examples like Superman motivating that kid to reconsider his racist actions and acknowledge how wrong he was in Superman Smashes the Klan should be considered more. I just really don't think every problem needs to be solved with killing like how I've seen some people say.
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[QUOTE=Jim Kelly;4573947]The allied powers after World War I, in the Treaty of Versailles, created the new states of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary. Those states were carved out of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire. You'd think, since it was their idea, those allies would have a responsibiility to protect their newly created nations. It was the fact that these states and their borders were so new that left them vulnerable.[/QUOTE]
Other treaties carved up the Middle East and Africa, much of which follow straight lines on a map rather than any natural borders, and which split up some ethnic groups while combining others who hated each other into a single new territory. The world is still paying for the so called peace of the Great War. Even Ferdinand Focht called the treaty a mere twenty year armistice.
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The Battle of the Heligoland Bight was fought 80 years ago today.
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[QUOTE=The Whovian;4545183]I still find it incomprehensible that someone like Hitler was allowed to rise to power and how most Germans stood by him even when they knew what was going on. And saying "It was my job", doesn't make it right. They knew what was happening was wrong, and did nothing about it.
BTW, I love your avatar Electricmastro. :)[/QUOTE]
I don't think that's easy to answer.
My grandfather fought for Hitler, he was one of the later drafted soldiers because he wasn't healthy. He hated him all his life and spoke openly about it, what was a Hughe risk and everyone of his family was frightened when he opened his mouth about Hitler.
Nothing ever happened, but his neighbor got pulled away. He replied German soldier that greeted with Heil Hitler: He cannot heal us anyway (Der kann uns eh nicht heilen) (Heil means Heal in German). His neighbor never came back.
So, when my grandfather would have refused to fight, he would have been killed, so he went with his two brothers. He got to russia where they took him hostage, but he survived. His brothers not. He died a broken man later. I read in his journal, it was a lose lose situation. Fight for someone you hate and hope to survive (and your family) or die at the spot.
What would you do?
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One of my first jobs after high school was working at a rehab centre, in the kitchen, and serving food to the rehab clients. My supervisor was a blue-eyed blonde woman with a German accent; she told stories of her experience as a little girl in Nazi German, where they were taken out of school to go throw bricks at Jewish homes. Her husband worked in housekeeping at the rehab centre and he was Polish. When Poland was invaded, he was forced into the Nazi army, where he was in the tank corps. He said that, when they made the Nazi salute, the joke they made to each other was "How high is the ****?" this high.
My parents' generation were all involved in the war effort for Canada. My Uncle Jim was in the tank corps on the Canadian side. And he lost most of his stomach to a bleeding ulcer that the army doctors cut out. He was always very thin, as I knew him, and plagued with problems all his life--with a serious smoking habit and nearly deaf in his last years, before cancer took him.