Free Republic

Over the past year, a very close friend of mine has been the production supervisor for an absolutely beautiful film that is about to be released about the struggle of the the mentally disabled during Hitler's reign. The trailer has now been released and hopefully will be picked up by Sundance and others. I would say 'enjoy', but instead, because it is FReepers, think and discuss. Link here. http://vimeo.com/44407508

John S. Zale, a decorated Army veteran, former prisoner of war and retired carpenter, died unexpectedly Sunday in his North Tonawanda home. He was 90. Born John Zubrzycki in Lackawanna and raised there, Mr. Zale went to Lackawanna schools until the eighth grade, when he took a job with a painter so his family had one less mouth to feed at home. At 18, he enlisted in the Army and was stationed with the 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines, where he was severely wounded during the early stages of World War II. Following surgery at a field aid station,...

BERLIN (AP) — German military divers are working to hoist the wreck of a Stuka dive bomber from the floor of the Baltic Sea, a rare example of the plane that once wreaked havoc over Europe as part of the Nazis' war machine. The single-engine monoplane carried sirens that produced a distinctive and terrifying screaming sound as it dove vertically to release its bombs or strafe targets with its machine guns. There are only two complete Stukas still around. The Stuka wreck, first discovered in the 1990s when a fisherman's nets snagged on it, lies about 10 kilometers (6 miles)...

Graves of British soldiers of the Royal Horse Artillery at the Commonwealth Benghazi War Cemetery Commonwealth War Cemetery in Benghazi targeted again Headstone damaged, markers removed Digger graves among 198 damaged in February THERE has been another war graves attack at a cemetery in Libya which contains the remains of Australian soldiers. Authorities say a headstone has been damaged and temporary markers removed from some graves at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Benghazi. "The nationality of the individual buried beneath the headstone that was damaged is not yet known,'' the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) said today. The Commonwealth War...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Sixty-eight years ago this week, my father, Ralph “Pat” Malone, bored with being confined to barracks with the rest of the 401st bomb group, sneaked off his base at Deenthorpe, England, and rode a bicycle into the nearby village to a pub to meet a local girl he was sweet on. Hours later, as he rode back, he noticed that all of the lights on the base were on and, hidden behind a rise in the landscape, the 36 B-17s were already revving up.

Video of Jake McNiece, WWII Vet and whose exploits the movie "The Dirty Dozen" was based up

Who Dares Attack My Chesterton? OpinionJune 4th, 2012 Zac Alstin The late Christopher Hitchens  It is a cliché of pop psychology that we are least able to tolerate people who remind us of our own selves. There’s only room for one Life Of The Party and we feel a twinge of antagonism toward anyone whose excellence threatens to outshine our own. I was reminded of this when I read Christopher Hitchens’ posthumously published review of a biography of the great British journalist G.K. Chesterton. It certainly was a curious valediction. As an obituary for Hitchens described: “Consider the mix. Constant pain, weak as...

General Dwight Eisenhower arrived in London to head Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) during the last five months of planning for D-Day. He achieved much more than the popular portrayal of managing a political/military alliance. Though he never led troops in combat, his leadership sustained many unprecedented initiatives for the successful Normandy landings. The air assault examples the frightful uncertainties plaguing critical hazards run on this “Day of Days”. The night before D-Day, 20,400 American and British paratroopers dropped behind the Normandy beaches from 1,250 C-47 aircraft plus gliders. This massive assault was attempted just 17 years after Charles...

In late December 1941, Navy Secretary Frank Knox and FDR met and selected Chester Nimitz to command the Pacific Fleet now mostly at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt said, “Tell Nimitz to get the hell out to Pearl and stay there until the war is won”. Knox informed Nimitz by saying, “You’re going to take command of the Pacific Fleet, and I think you will be gone a long time”. On Christmas Day 1941 Admiral Chester Nimitz arrived by Catalina flying boat to take command. When the door opened he was assailed by a poisonous atmosphere from black oil,...

Welcome to the official site of the National D-Day Memorial. Located in Bedford, Virginia— the town suffering the highest per capita D-Day losses in the nation. The National D-Day Memorial honors the Allied forces that participated in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 during World War II. With its stylized English Garden, haunting invasion tableau, and striking Victory Plaza, the Memorial stands as a powerful permanent tribute to the valor, fidelity, and sacrifice of D-Day participants. Surrounded by the beautiful majestic Blue Ridge mountains, this makes for a solemn and respectful tribute for our fallen heroes. D_Day_memorial_imageVisitors can...

A statue in the likeness of a Pennsylvania native whose quiet leadership was chronicled in the World War II book and television miniseries "Band of Brothers" is being unveiled near the beaches where the D-Day invasion of France began in 1944. The 12-foot (3.6-meter) tall bronze statue in the Normandy village of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont shows Maj. Dick Winters with his weapon at the ready, evoking the massive Allied operation that paved the way for the end of the war.

'Honor is a hard term to describe. It doesn’t have a color or weight or shape. If someone were to ask me what honor looked like, I’d probably struggle with what to say. But something happened on May 23, 2012 at 9:31 a.m. at Gate 38 of Reagan National Airport that might change that. A flash mob of sorts broke out. But not like you’ve seen on YouTube with highly choreographed dance numbers or people singing a song in unison. In fact, virtually all of the participants of this “flash mob” didn’t know they would be participating until moments before...

Spanning hundreds of leagues and four days, June 4-7, 1942, the Battle of Midway pitted an overmatched American fleet against a Japanese armada in a desperate struggle for command of the Pacific. What unfolded more than 1,000 miles northwest of Hawaii was, British historian John Keegan maintains, “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.” Saturday in San Diego, the U.S. Navy celebrated this triumph’s 70th anniversary. Aboard the retired aircraft carrier named for the battle, 1,000 guests were to hear videotaped comments from a handful of survivors. They included aviators, Marines and one plucky steward....

The president referred to “Polish death camps” while awarding a posthumous Medal of Freedom to Polish professor Jan Karski, a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance. Poles believe they're blamed unfairly for the Nazi Holocaust, and the Foreign Minister led the outrage in a late night tweet. The remark, which barely drew notice in America, is all over the Polish news today. On the country's largest television station:

Memorial Day is an occasion to remember the men and women who went off to war and never returned. But it is also fitting on this day to recall the soldiers, sailors and Marines who served in World War II and came back. Those men and women and their families set off a huge postwar boom that completely changed the Bay Area - and produced the region that today's residents have inherited. World War II had a huge impact on the Bay Area. It resulted in major changes in the area's racial makeup, its economy, even its physical appearance. The...

It was July 31, 1944, and Army Air Corps pilot Lt. Henry Supchak was flying his 33rd bombing mission over Munich, Germany, when his B-17 bomber, nicknamed “Priority Gal,” was riddled by anti-aircraft fire. Sputtering and billowing black smoke, Supchak knew the aircraft would never make it back to base in Bassingbourn, England, 650 miles away. With two dead engines, the aircraft was plummeting fast — over Nazi-occupied Austria. “I said, ‘Fellas get your chutes on!’ ” and ordered them to jump. Alone now, with a two-inch piece of shrapnel dug into his right leg, Supchak desperately needed to get...

Please watch and share this highly inspirational video and the amazing birth of a much-needed charity to our beloved WWII veterans. The goal is to have 50,000 views by the end of the day (at 28,000 time of this posting).

How it was 1945, on VJ Day. Kodachrome 16mm film. Honolulu.

BELGRADE -- The proceedings for rehabilitation of WWII General Dragoljub Mihailović resumed on Friday [May 11, 2012] before the Higher Court in Belgrade. Mihailović was a commander of the Chetnik movement during World War II who was sentenced to death in 1946. The court listened to audio recordings from the trial against Mihailović, provided by historian Slobodan Marković, specifically one part of his closing argument given on July 10, 1946. “By comparing stenographer's notes and transcripts of the audio recording, it is evident the former were cut short by 27 percent and the meaning of sentences was often changed,” Marković...