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In 1939 Lilly Cassirer Neubauer was desperate to escape Germany. She was a member of a prominent Jewish family of publishers and gallery owners, and as the Nazi oppression escalated, it was clear they would have to leave or die. Lilly was told there was only one way for her to obtain an exit visa. The family would have to hand over one of their most prized possessions: a Parisian street scene painted by Camille Pissarro. The work, an atmosphere depiction of a rain-soaked Paris boulevard, had hung on the walls of the family's Berlin and Munich homes since the...

A NOAA-led research mission has located and identified the final resting place of the YP-389, a U.S. Navy patrol boat sunk approximately 20 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC, by a German submarine during World War II. Six sailors died in the attack on June 19, 1942. There were 18 survivors. The wreck is located in about 300 feet of water in a region off North Carolina known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” home to U.S. and British naval vessels, merchant ships, and German U-boats sunk during the Battle of the Atlantic. NOAA and its expedition partners...

The Prime Minister has released a statement on the Second World War code-breaker, Alan Turing, recognising the "appalling" way he was treated for being gay. Alan Turing, a mathematician most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes, was convicted of 'gross indecency' in 1952 and sentenced to chemical castration. Gordon Brown's statement came in response to a petition posted on the Number 10 website which has received thousands of signatures in recent months. Read the statement 2009 has been a year of deep reflection -- a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts...

Bob Dole, a venerable 86 years old now, was back in the Washington limelight over the weekend, appearing on ABC TV to dispense counsel on a bipartisan approach to health care, popping up in newspapers explaining how to cut a deal, even suggesting Gen. David Petraeus as a presidential possibility. But his most heartfelt weekend activity took place elsewhere, out of sight of Washington politicos and devoid of any potential for gain or notoriety. It came under a brilliant Saturday-morning sun, when the former Republican presidential candidate, now a bit more frail than most Americans recall him, stepped out of...

SARASOTA - The city that guards its bayfront against ugly bridges and homeless boaters made way for a gigantic smooching sailor on Tuesday night. Related Links: Sarasota resident Jack Curran, center, salutes those who give him a round of applause at a public hearing on whether to accept his donation to keep the "Unconditional Surrender" statue. STAFF PHOTO / E. SKYLAR LITHERLAND After a spicy two-hour public hearing, commissioners voted 3-2 to accept a World War II veteran's donation of the 26-foot-tall "Unconditional Surrender" statue. Much of the controversy was over one of the strings that the donor, Sarasota resident...

Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni - 10,409 miles, 6,500 gallons, 11 days, 10 islands and nine people. Add up the numbers and it equals a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Marines here embarked on the 11-day expedition Aug. 3 to various locations across the Pacific to commemorate the Marine Corps 67th anniversary of World War II’s Guadalcanal campaign. The nine Marines were able experience to witness and experience firsthand what was left of seven historic battle sites, including Saipan, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Guam and Iwo- Jima.

It was almost the 'sorry' that Poland has waited seventy years for. But just as Vladimir Putin inched towards an apology for Russia's invasion of Poland in the wake of the Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939, he pulled back from the precipice, placing the blame for the outbreak of the Second World War squarely on Britain and France. At a ceremony marking the outbreak of the war in Gdansk, Poland today, Mr Putin downplayed Russia's responsibility, emphasising instead the Soviet Union's role in fighting the Nazis. And in an article published in Poland yesterday he argued that Britain's policy of appeasement...

Polish Army crushes Wehrmacht  at Mokra, Sep.1,1939 - 70th anniversary of WWII first battle  The Battle of Mokra took place on September 1, 1939 near the village of Mokra in Silesia, Poland. It was the first crutial battle of  World War II and one of the first Polish victories in the war.In brief: On  September 1, 1939 gen.Reinhardt's 4th Panzer Division  and German 31st Infantry Division were crushed by Poloish Volhynian Cavalry Brigade. Germans lost about 150 tanks and armored vehicles and more than 1,000 soldiers. The remnats of the 4th Panzer Division were forced to withdraw back to Germany....

On Sept. 1, 1939, 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish frontier. On Sept. 3, Britain declared war. Six years later, 50 million Christians and Jews had perished. Britain was broken and bankrupt, Germany a smoldering ruin. Europe had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to man, and civilians had suffered worse horrors than the soldiers. By May 1945, Red Army hordes occupied all the great capitals of Central Europe: Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. A hundred million Christians were under the heel of the most barbarous tyranny in history: the Bolshevik regime of the...

What is the good will of a loyal allied country worth to the Obama administration? We are talking about a European nation that has stood by the United States in solidarity as few have since Sept. 11, 2001 -- one with 2,000 troops in Afghanistan and a possible willingness to step up to commit more troops at a time when others want to pull out. The answer, very unfortunately, seems to be that relations with trusted allies are taken for granted in Washington these days. On diplomacy with Europe, the Obama administration has a terrible tin ear. Nowhere was this...

Charles R. Bond Jr., a retired Air Force major general and one of the last surviving Flying Tigers, died Aug. 18 of dementia at Presbyterian Village North, an assisted living community in Dallas. He was 94. In September 1941, he left the Army Air Forces to volunteer for service in China as part of a secret program, the American Volunteer Group, nicknamed the Flying Tigers, under Gen. Claire Chenault. Made up of about 400 pilots and ground personnel and based in Burma, the Flying Tigers protected military supply routes between China and Burma and helped to get supplies to Chinese...

(Note: The following article about Inglourious Basterds contains spoilers. Significant spoilers. Giving-away-the-ending spoilers. If you intend to watch the film but haven't done it yet, see it before reading further. The article will still be here when you're finished.) With Inglourious Basterds, his genre-scrambling film about vengeful Jews killing Nazis, writer-director Quentin Tarantino has had his strongest opening weekend ever, finishing first at the box office and taking in about $37.6 million. His movie deserves to do well next weekend, too: It is witty and suspenseful, smart and entertaining. It is also controversial, which ought to boost its receipts even...

MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia rejects all attempts to hold it responsible for the tragedies of World War II, the head of a presidential commission said on Friday. In mid-May, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the establishment of a special commission to counter attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russia's interests. The commission is comprised of 28 officials from the presidential administration, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the State Duma, the Public Chamber, the state archives and science agencies, as well as the foreign, regional development, justice, and culture ministries. Presidential...

In his McKinney living room, Paul Yeager received today a medal he earned more than six decades ago in the skies over the western Pacific. Yeager, who flew 50 fighter missions in New Guinea in 1943, received the Distinguished Flying Cross, which is awarded to those who show heroism or great achievement while flying.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Mongolian host on Wednesday honoured veterans on the 70th anniversary of a key pre-World War II battle in which Soviet and Mongolian forces defeated Japan. Medvedev and Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj laid wreaths at a monument in Ulan Bator honouring Georgy Zhukov, who led the combined forces into a tank battle against the Japanese near the Khalkhyn Gol river in 1939. "This is truly our common victory," Medvedev said, praising the "spirit of trust and the spirit of support" binding the two nations. "The Soviet and Mongolian soldiers fought for the right cause." The...

When Winston Churchill learned in the spring of 1945 that the Americans were going to halt their advance on Berlin from the west and leave Hitler's capital to the mercies of the Red Army of the Soviet Union, he was furious. The United States government had made an absolute commitment not to let post-war Europe separate out into distinct areas of political influence. But now this was precisely what was being allowed to happen. Russian behaviour was worsening by the day as Stalin's all-conquering men rolled up the countries in the east and made them satellites of Moscow, in defiance...

Plaque in Pranjani dedicated to the Halyard Mission on September 12, 2004. The plaque next to it reflects the same inscription in the Serbian language. Photo courtesy of OSS Halyard Mission radioman Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian Serb soldiers in front of the Halyard Mission monument first dedicated in September of 2004,in Pranjani, Serbia August 15, 2009. Photo courtesy of Lt. Col. John Cappello Ohio National Guard troops that are in Serbia doing work on schools in South Serbia. They are working with Serb soldiers, some of which are also in the photo. The older folks are those who participated in assisting...

View of the fighter plane’s cockpit with human remains still resting inside. A group of divers, who found a downed WWII British fighter plane within relative shallow waters off the North African coast, can now confirm the existence of human remains inside the cockpit of the Curtis P40. The group are still seeking to discuss the find with the British Government and Ministry of Defence with the intention of arranging the recovery of the plane from the sea and the repatriation of the remains of the pilot who was presumably shot down during a mission. At a difficult time for...

Seventy years ago Sunday, the Soviet Union signed a pact with Nazi Germany that gave dictator Josef Stalin a free hand to take over part of Poland and the Baltic states on the eve of World War II. Most of the world now condemns the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but Russia has mounted a new defense of the 1939 treaty as it seeks to restore some of its now-lost sphere of influence. "This is all being rehabilitated because this is now a very lively issue for Russia," said military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer. "This is not about history at all." (snip) The Soviet...

Sunday, August 23, marks the 70th anniversary of the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - the non-aggression treaty signed in 1939 by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The pact included a secret protocol dividing Eastern and Central Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. Days after it was signed, first German and then Soviet forces invaded Poland. The anniversary's approach has sparked a debate in Europe. Western governments condemn Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin as two equally murderous variants of totalitarianism. The Russian government calls that comparison a "distortion" of history. On August 17,...

I wish my brave, tough Holocaust survivor grandfather, Isaac, was alive to see “Inglourious Basterds.” He would love it even more than I did. So would my dad. And they would be cheering and laughing along with me. Because the movie debuts at Midnight screenings tonight, I am posting this review early, and you’ll note that I was entirely wrong in my expectations for this movie when I first wrote about it, back in February. The movie is riveting. It’s fun and serious at the same time. It’s not usual that I praise a Quentin Tarantino film or a flick...

French anti-war campaigners have desecrated a statue of Winston Churchill in central Paris on the anniversary of the city's liberation from Nazi rule. The night time attack saw the bronze hands of the £250,000 statue daubed in red paint. The initials RH were also daubed on the statue, perhaps a reference to Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, who flew to Britain at the height of the Second World War to allegedly try and make peace. Instead, Churchill had him thrown in prison in 1941, and the war continued for a further four years. After the war, Hess was tried at...

TOKYO — Japan's prime minister expressed deep regret over the suffering his country inflicted on Asian countries during World War II in a solemn ceremony Saturday that marked the 64th anniversary of Tokyo's surrender. Prime Minister Taro Aso joined some 4,800 families to pay respect to millions of Japan's war dead at the Nihon Budokan hall in Tokyo. Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko also attended the ceremony, leading a one-minute silence at noon. "Our country inflicted tremendous damage and suffering on many countries, particularly people in Asia. As a representative of the Japanese people, I humbly express my remorse for...

On Sunday, September 3, 1939 - 70 years ago next month - Britain declared war on Germany in fulfilment of its pledge to aid Poland, invaded by the Nazis. 'I know now that it will come to me to deal with Mr Hitler,' Winston Churchill told a cousin a few days earlier. He perceived his own hour of destiny at hand. That same afternoon, he was summoned to Downing Street by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. For most of the decade Churchill had been a scourge of the Tory government. From 'the wilderness' of the Commons back benches, he denounced the...

The FReeper Canteen Presents….. ~ National Navajo Code Talkers Day! ~ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Peter Pace (left), US Marine Corps, talks with Navajo Code Talkers after they presented him with a Navajo blanket in the Pentagon on Aug 10, 2007. Code Talkers were Native American Marines who served in World War II and developed a communications code based on their native language. DoD photo by Staff Sgt D Myles Cullen, US Air Force. (Released) Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies’ militaryand family members of the above.Honoring...

The Australian cruiser met the disguised German vessel in the waters off western Australia two years after the two became enemies in World War II. The Australian ship approached, trying to determine whether the vessel was friendly. It wasn't. What resulted was Australia's worst naval disaster: the sinking of the Australian ship and the loss of its entire crew of 645. The wreckage wasn't found until last year, leading to decades of conspiracy theories about what actually happened. On Wednesday a long-awaited report on the sinking of the Sydney II ended the mystery that began when it met its fate,...

On this day 64 years ago, an American B-29 named the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. We know that as many as 80,000 Japanese died instantly. We know the city was pulverized, and we know that an estimated 100,000 additional people died later from radiation poisoning. We also are aware that the Hiroshima bomb, and the Nagasaki bomb dropped three days later, ushered in the atomic era. At the time of the event, 85% of the American public favored dropping the atomic bombs, according to a Gallup poll (10% disapproved). Over the years, that...

Anti-nuclear campaigners have marked the 64th anniversary of the world's first atomic attack with a plea for Australia to reconsider its uranium exports. A single nuclear bomb dropped by the Americans on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killed some 140,000 people. They died instantly or in the days and weeks that followed as radiation and horrific burns took their toll. Three days later, the US dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, which killed another 70,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II. American scientist Steve Starr and the Sydney-based People for Nuclear...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. | A majority of Americans surveyed think dropping atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was the right thing to do, but support was weaker among Democrats, women, younger voters and minority voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. The poll, released Tuesday, found 61 percent of more than 2,400 American voters questioned think the U.S. did the right thing; 22 percent called it wrong, 16 percent were undecided. The first bomb was dropped Aug. 6, 1945, on Hiroshima. An estimated 140,000 people were killed instantly or died within a few months. Tens of thousands more...

A majority of Americans surveyed believe dropping atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was the right thing to do, but support was weaker among Democrats, women, younger voters and minority voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. The poll, released Tuesday, found 61 percent of the more than 2,400 American voters questioned believe the U.S. did the right thing. Twenty-two percent called it wrong and 16 percent were undecided.

Iwo Jima vet's son takes photos to family in Japan The two wallet-size photos sat in a box in Fiorenzo Lopardo's bedroom dresser, reminders of a promise not yet kept. Decade after decade he held on to them, through law school, through raising a family, through 16 years as a Superior Court judge in Vista. Lopardo got the photos at a moment of high anxiety – literally in the heat of battle. That's what made them precious. On March 19, 1945, he was a Marine commander on Iwo Jima, an island in the Pacific that was the site of one...

ATHENS — A first-person account of World War II bombing runs by a now-deceased McDowell County soldier resurfaced recently at his home in Athens. Harry Elmer Gates of War was 21 when he flew on at least 21 wartime missions from England to targets in Germany, Holland and France in 1944 as a technical sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps, the forerunner to the U.S. Air Force.

On Friday, Fox News host Sean Hannity presented a brief report about Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s plans to criminalize historical “revisionism.” Specifically, Medvedev wants to make “questioning the Soviet victory in World War II” a criminal offense; he also appointed a commission to work towards “counteracting attempts to falsify history that are to the detriment of the interests of Russia.” In the Newsweek piece cited by Hannity, Stalin’s Children author Owen Matthews explains: Russia’s schoolchildren are being indoctrinated with the greatness of Stalin and stories of how the Red Army was welcomed as liberators by the peoples of Eastern Europe....

Saturday, June 6th, marks the 65th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Allied troops departed England on planes and ships, made the trip across the English Channel and attacked the beaches of Normandy in an attempt to break through Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall” and break his grip on Europe. Some 215,000 Allied soldiers, and roughly as many Germans, were killed or wounded during D-Day and the ensuing nearly three months it took to secure the Allied capture of Normandy. Commemoration events, from re-enactments to school concerts, were being held in seaside towns and along the five...

OSHKOSH, Wis. -- Art Jibilian hoped his presence here at the largest private air show in the world would, in a small way, help right a terrible wrong that had been done so long ago. Mr. Jibilian, of Fremont Ohio, and surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen, the pioneering squadron of black fighter pilots, were honored here yesterday at AirVenture 2009 for their roles in Operation Halyard, the greatest rescue of downed American airmen in World War II.

This is what appears to anger today's Russian historical establishment: accounts of Red Army crimes on the march to Berlin; assertions by the Baltic countries and others in Eastern Europe that Soviet forces came as occupiers as much as liberators; any suggestion that Stalin's Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were anything but complete opposites and bitter enemies.

Receiving an E Award from the U.S. Military for excellence in the production of the M-4 bayonet.

British historian Andrew Roberts has claimed in a new book -- The Storm of War -- that wrong clothing and not ghastly wintry conditions led to Germany's defeat in Russia in 1941. In an extract from his new book, Roberts claims that Hitler's troops were fatally ill equipped for the 1941 invasion of Russia. He also blames dictator Adolf Hitler for that defeat, saying the Nazi leader failed to take care of his troops' needs and was more proud of his hardiness in the cold, boasting how "having to change into long trousers was always a misery to me." Prior...

Not a good week for President Obama. He's created the whole police "acted stupidly" fiasco. Now he has made another historical gaffe, this time by saying Japanese Emperor Hirohito signed the surrender of Japan to Gen Douglas MacArthur in 1945. Problem is: Hirohito didn't sign the surrender! On September 2, 1945, General Yoshijiro Umezu and Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu represented Japan in signing the Instrument of Surrender aboard the Battleship Missouri. Here's video of the surrender . . . . . Obama used the incorrect historical reference to support his statement that "victory" is not necessarily our goal in Afghanistan:...

Let’s try a thought experiment. When I say “victory,” what do you think of? Do you think of winning the World Series? Do you picture that famous photo of the U.S. Sailor kissing the pretty girl in Time Square as WWII ended? Do you just imagine “winning” at whatever contest is at hand? It is likely that even if you don’t picture a particular thing, at the very least your initial emotional response is a warm feeling of worthy accomplishment and an assumption of gaining the accolades that accompanies victory. It is less likely that upon hearing or seeing the...

For a few years now I have been writing, under the title "Cloud of Witnesses," brief reminiscences of dead people I knew when they were alive. I stopped at 50, and in the very short time it took to assemble them for a book, there were another five to be added to the list. The fact that there are more dead people now than there used to be is irrefutable, even to the narcissist, but some of the living people I know act as though this were not a fact but a curious factoid -- rather like the seven-year-old...

Detractors called it "Indian gibberish." But not for long. During World War II, more than 400 Navajos serving with the U.S. Marine Corps transmitted vital communications throughout the Pacific theater, using a code known only to them. Developed by the Navajos themselves, the code completely stymied the Japanese and was never broken. After the battle for Iwo Jima, Maj. Howard Connor, a signal officer from the 5th Marine Division, was widely quoted as saying: "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." "They were used at every level, from reconnaissance to the battlefield, to...

Race! Race! Race! As the kids say, “Gag me with Race!” I just read my Republican Senator Mel Martinez's statement on why he is voting to confirm Sonia Sotomayor: “Judge Sotomayor's rise to the Supreme Court is testimony to the fact that the American dream continues to be attainable. Given her qualifications and testimony this week, I intend to vote in favor of her confirmation.” Excuse me Mel, but the woman is a leftist who will make decisions based on her “feelings” rather than the law. So as a supposed republican, why the heck would you vote for her? Is...

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. That's what Winston Churchill said of those whose bravery saved the free world while he served as the British prime minister during World War II. On Saturday, some of those few were remembered at a "Royal Air Force Day" ceremony at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and Planetarium, 3624 N. 74th E. Ave. During World War II — and even for several months before the United States entered the conflict — thousands of young British men streamed into Oklahoma to receive the...

FORT HUACHUCA — For years, Building 66050 has been vacant. It is deteriorating, but members of the Southwest Association of Buffalo Soldiers are determined to save the structure, which during World War II housed the Colored Officers Club. The building, its paint now peeling, windows broken and interior unsafe, is where black entertainers such as Lena Horne would come to the post to perform for black soldiers when the Army was segregated. The fort is where two black divisions, the 92nd and 93rd, trained before heading off to combat in World War II. One division went to Italy and the...

Today, Friday July 17, 2009, marks 63 years since the life of General Draza Mihailovich was taken.To date, there is still no gravesite.*****The Hero Whom You Gave to History Has Not His Like in Our Time“Twenty years after the death of Draza Mihailovich he is undimmed in his glory as a defender of liberty against the Fascist terror, who defended it also against the Communist terror. He had no moment of weakness, nor of bitterness. I know no instance where he reproached those who were guilty of his betrayal. Twenty years ago I knew he was innocent of all charges...

As Ed "Too Tall" Freeman lay ill in a Boise hospital over the past few weeks, many came to pay their respects to the 80-year-old national war hero and former helicopter pilot. One unexpected visitor offered a very personal thank you to Freeman, a veteran of three wars and recipient of the highest military award -- the Congressional Medal of Honor -- for his actions on Nov. 14, 1965, at Landing Zone X-Ray, Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam.

From Commander Fitzpatrick's site... "Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506Th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them. I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the...

WAR veteran Ted Kenna made an outstanding contribution to the nation and will be remembered for his courage, Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said. Mr Kenna, Australia's last surviving Victoria Cross winner from World War II, died yesterday, aged 90. His death was a sad day for the nation, Ms Gillard said in a joint statement with Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin. "Ted Kenna was a great Australian," they said, adding his story of bravery in New Guinea in 1945 was "extraordinary". "Private Kenna made an outstanding contribution to the nation and he will be remembered for his courage."...

So many technologies of Code Encrption were used and could have been used in WW2 by both sides. David Kahn in his book THE CODEBREAKERS stated why did not the Germans, some of whom relaized that their Enigma Code Machine was far from infallible, did not adopt new dissimilar machines. Well his(Kahn's) answer was:"they did they not have another machine" That is far from true. The above are alternatives to Enigma: The Hitler-Muhle(Mill). Mill is German slang for 'typewriter'.