Free Republic

Long after the dust from the last battle has settled, the dead have been laid to rest and the confetti from the victory parade has been swept into the gutter, the nature continues to bear the scars of human conflicts. A remarkable series of photos taken in a Russian forest have been making the rounds on social media sites, showing what happens over time to instruments of carnage discarded in the woods.

Republicans, I come in peace.Until very recently, Rand Paul’s project of insinuating himself comfortably within the Republican Party, and positioning himself as a plausible presidential nominee, had gone along with remarkable ease. Yes, the author of his campaign book turned out to be an unreconstructed neo-Confederate. That was a speed bump. (Who among us has not entrusted the explication of his worldview to a man who has cheered on the assassination of President Lincoln?) Paul had staged a masterful piece of political theater with his marathon Senate speech denouncing the Obama administration’s drone policy. He has assembled a top-tier campaign...

Tonight on Turner Classic Movies a film named as one of the "100 Greatest War Films" in Britain, "Went the Day Well"--This film has consistent suspense, worthy of Alfred Hitchcock ! It was released in 1943, when the war with Germany was raging. If you're fond of older British movies you'll recognize some fine actors: Leslie Banks, David Farrar, Thora Hird, Basil Sydney, Mervyn Johns. The film is a well-constructed piece of stirring, patriotic wartime propaganda. ....Midnight EDT. .....;

Hair samples said to have come from a hairbrush used by Hitler’s long-term lover, Eva Braun, were tested by a BBC’s documentary and discovered to share qualities with the Eastern European Jewish genome. […] The scientists were surprised to discover a specific genome sequence—haplogroup N1b1—within the small group of maternal DNA which is associated with Ashkenazi Jews. …

KRASNOYARSK, April 3 (RIA Novosti) Andrei Marmyshev - Fragments of a US bomber that crashed near the Russian city Krasnoyarsk in southern Siberia during World War II have been delivered to San Francisco, where they will form part of a memorial commemorating pilots who lost their lives in the war, a historian in Krasnoyarsk told RIA Novosti. "San Francisco is planning to set up a memorial to pilots who died during the Second World War. The fragments of the Boston bomber will also be used," said Lt. Col. Vyacheslav Filippov, an aviation officer and historian. "For example, they are going...

Pope John XXIII is pictured in this undated photo. (CNS photo) The press called him a caretaker pope. Elected on October 28, 1958, at the age of 77, he was expected to warm the Chair of Peter for a few years without making any great waves. They could hardly have been more wrong. The people called him Good Pope John because of his genial nature, and few popes have been more loved. His successor, Paul VI, hailed him as “an incomparable pope.” But the Jews had a special relationship with John XXIII, and it is their love for him...

A suspected World War Two bomb has exploded in a Bangkok scrap yard, killing at least seven people and injuring 19. Workers were using a blow-torch to take the bomb apart and detonated it in the process, officials say.

London just witnessed the release of a newly restored version of Rome, Open City (Roma città aperta).Roberto Rossellini’s Italian Neo-Realist classic emerged from the smashed debris of what was left of the Eternal City as the German armies retreated and the Allies slowly crept towards it.Watching the movie today it lacks none of its emotional punch, not least because of the almost documentary feel of what is being viewed. The pacing and use of hand-held cameras, to say nothing of the city itself as character, all make for something that in many ways hardly seems dated. That said, filmed at...

At the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin this weekend highlighted a video of Rand Paul speaking in 2012 about sanctions on Iran. In it, Paul disparages the notion of use of force, and for some reason claims the United States was partly to blame for World War II! “There are times when sanctions have made it worse. I mean, there are times .. leading up to World War II we cut off trade with Japan. That probably caused Japan to react angrily. We also had a blockade on Germany after World War I, which may have encouraged them … some of...

Opening in the autumn of 1939 just as the Battle of the Atlantic begins, Lieutenant-Commander George Ericson, a British Merchant Navy and Royal Naval Reserve officer, is recalled to the Royal Navy and given command of HMS Compass Rose, a newly built Flower class corvette intended for convoy escort duties. His sub-lieutenants, Lockhart and Ferraby, are both newly commissioned and without experience at sea. The new first lieutenant, James Bennett (Stanley Baker), is an abusive martinet. Despite these initial disadvantages, the ship's company gains hard experience and becomes an effective fighting unit. At first their worst enemy is the weather...

John E. Love, a Bataan Death March survivor who led a campaign to change the caption on a historic march photo from The Associated Press, has died. He was 91. Love died Monday after a long battle with cancer, said Gerry Lightwine, pastor at La Vida Llena, an Albuquerque retirement home where Love lived. As a 19-year-old member of the New Mexico Guard, Love was one of 75,000 Filipino and American soldiers who were taken captive by the Japanese in World War II when the U.S. forces surrendered in the province of Bataan and Corregidor Island in April 1942. In...

Seventy-six years ago, the “Sudetenland crisis” was the headline in the world’s newspapers. This revolved around the right of ethnic Germans living in what was then called Czechoslovakia, whom it was claimed were living under an oppressive Czech government who banned their language, traditions and free speech. Konrad Henlein, the leader of the Czech NSDAP (Nazi party), led the effort for Sudeten independence, with ever-increasing demands on the Czech government. In reality, Henlein was working under strict orders from Berlin, and when the Czech government capitulated to every demand to avoid a German invasion, the demands turned into manufactured and...

William "Wild Bill" Guarnere, one of the World War II veterans whose exploits were dramatized in the TV miniseries "Band of Brothers," has died. He was 90.

"Roads to Moscow" World War II history in the song Song on You Tube: Roads to Moscow by Al Stewart Lyric: They crossed over the border, the hour before dawn Moving in lines through the day Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay Waiting for orders we held in the wood Word from the front never came By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and on our knees...

3 March 1945 - Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, Japan Three Marines and Two FMF Corpsmen earn the Medal of Honor.

<p>NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — The Naval War College is set to publish a trove of World War II information as it releases online the war diary kept daily by Adm. Chester W. Nimitz and his staff as the Navy battled Japan.</p>

The Command Summary of FADM Nimitz was compiled by the War Plans Section of the Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii during World War II. It contains daily estimates of the situation, command decisions, and running summaries of communications from December 7, 1941 to August 31, 1945. Naval War College Historian Douglas Smith avers that it is "the most authoritative source on the Pacific War available anywhere".

Today's TopClip features a remarkable tribute for a legendary man. Radio legend Mark Levin remembered the life and heroism of Walter Ehlers, the last living Medal of Honor recipient from D-Day in WWII, who died late last week at the age of 92. Rest in peace, Staff Sergeant Ehlers. - TRNWATCH/LISTEN:

Wednesday marked the 69th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima – one of the worst battles of World War II. Across the nation many remembered this day from 69 years ago. In Newington, Connecticut, a memorial was recently built and is the only flag raising memorial built by survivors of the Battle of Iwo Jima. The flag flown at the memorial is historically correct with 48 stars. There is also sand from Iwo Jima beaches in the concrete base. The memorial also includes inscriptions of the names of 100 men from Connecticut who died during the battle. The 69th...

Museum of Tolerance buys British Nobel Prize-winning philosopher's letter in which he said the British should invite Adolf Hitler to dinner rather than fight.The Los-Angeles-based Museum of Tolerance has acquired a 1937 letter written by Bertrand Russell in which the Nobel Prize-winning philosopher says if the Nazi army invades his native England the British should invite Adolf Hitler to dinner rather than fight. The museum, part of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, announced Wednesday that it paid $4,000 for the letter at a London auction last month. "If the Germans succeed in sending an invading army to England we should do...