Free Republic

DIEPPE, France - Dieppe has long been a word that has made Canadian war veterans swell with pride and wince with sorrow. Ron Beal didn't like the sound of the word when he first heard it spelled out 70 years ago as his regiment's top secret military target. The first three letters, he points out, spell DIE — "and when we got there, that's exactly what we did." Beals, a member of the Royal Regiment of Canada, is one of a handful of surviving war veterans who share first-person insights in the illuminating new documentary "Dieppe Uncovered." The 90-minute film...

TOKYO — Japan marked the 67th anniversary of its World War II surrender with a somber ceremony in the capital Wednesday, while renewed tension over territorial disputes and animosity over its wartime actions heated up across the region. Renewing Japan’s pledge to maintain its war-renouncing policy, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda mourned for the war dead and apologized to victims of Japanese wartime atrocities. “We have caused tremendous damage and pain to many countries, particularly the Asian people, during the war. We deeply regret that and sincerely mourn for those who were sacrificed and their relatives,” Noda said. “We will not...

The premiere of a film to honor World War II veterans broke the Guinness World Record on Saturday for the largest attendance at a film screening. The previous world record of 27,022 attendees was set in 2010 in Brazil. According to the producers of the film “Honor Flight,” the premiere of their documentary — highlighting stories from the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight program, which flies World War II veterans to see the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. — beat the record with a crowd of 28,442.

Jimmy Stewart is perhaps the best known of the celebrities who served, partially because he chose to serve while already a successful movie star. However, having come from a military family (both of his grandfathers had fought in the Civil War, and his father served in both the Spanish-American War and World War I), he saw it as his duty and was more than happy to serve. Stewart already held his private pilots’ license when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1940, but was rejected for being below the required weight of 148 pounds. Rather than going back...

We now mark the 67th anniversary of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II. The generations which developed the information and made the decisions for World War II, including dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, have passed away. The generation which faced the tragic violence required for carrying out those decisions is rapidly leaving us. As this personal knowledge becomes ever rarer, we must listen increasingly to revisionist contra-factual analyses as they expound on what a needless, tragic and profoundly immoral decision the United States had made. In support of dropping the atomic bombs historians often...

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the first offensive land operation taken by the United States in World War II. On August 7, 1942, the U.S. Marines landed at Guadalcanal. The general outlines of that battle which lasted which lasted 6 months until February 9, 1943 are known by many but here are 19 things about Guadalcanal that you might not know. This is the first of my regular "20 Things You Don't Know" posts that I hope will encourage the History Channel to bring back that series. You can read my full mission statement about this in my...

Today is the 67th anniversary of the US's bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. As with each anniversary, many Japanese hold a ceremony designed to promote peace and prevent the use of nuclear weapons. It is hard to judge these people, as the bombing is of course regrettable, but like the Austrians and Italians, these people have a convenient lapse in memory regarding their culpability in WWII. Most regrettable, however is the attendance of Pres. Truman's grandson at the event. While Clifton Daniel stopped short of decrying his grandfather's leadership in the decision to end the war, his presence was a blithe...

This is a telephone conversation transcript between Colonel Seaman of the Manhattan Project and General Hull of Marshall's staff that took place on 13 August 1945. The subject is atomic bomb deployment and production timeline.

Dropping Atomic Bombs on Japan Unavoidable We now mark the 67th anniversary of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II. Once again we must listen to the contra-factual analysis of revisionists as they expound on what a needless, tragic and profoundly immoral decision the United States had made. In support of dropping the atomic bombs historians often cite the inevitability of horrifying casualties, if troops had landed on the home islands. They extrapolate from 48,000 American and 230,000 Japanese losses on Okinawa to estimates of 500,000 American and millions of Japanese casualties for mainland invasions. However,...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) — Nuclear operations were temporarily halted Wednesday at a Tennessee complex that stores and processes uranium after three protesters, including a nun, were able to intrude into a high-security area over the weekend. The Y-12 National Security Complex said all nuclear material is safe. The temporary stand-down was expected to end by next week. Special nuclear material will be moved to vaults on site, and contractor security personnel will undergo training and refresher instruction. The protesters were found hanging banners in the dark and singing on Saturday and offering to break bread with the security guards...

I have a friend from Holland (Netherlands).. he showed me (never seen before) pictures of his grandfather (that was an SS), BUT he is really reluctant to show them because he doesn't want a bad image on his family (name)..

It's a story worthy of a Hollywood adaptation. A cuddly bear cub, orphaned in the mountains of northern Iran, grows up to become a soldier in the Polish army and helps fight the Nazis during World War II. "Wojtek" the bear, Polish for "The Smiling Warrior" or "He Who Enjoys War," continues to be honored today, German news magazine Der Spiegel reports. According to legend, the bear was rescued by a young boy in the mountains of northern Iran after hunters had shot the cub's mother, and was later sold to the Polish army. The soldiers were part of the...

Flight Officer Ron Buck kept back his own pictures from the trip that was later described as the 'Most Daring Flight of the Whole War.' Churchill had crossed the Atlantic by ship in order to lobby President Roosevelt, but rashly decided to fly home from Bermuda. With some of his most senior colleagues, the Prime Minister embarked on what was to become a perilous 18 hours flight.

Pope Pius XII. Jerusalem, Israel, Jul 5, 2012 / 03:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial has made changes to a controversial exhibit on Pope Pius XII, presenting a more balanced view of his actions toward the Nazis and their Jewish victims. Pave the Way Foundation President Gary Krupp, a prominent Jewish defender of Pope Pius XII, said his inter-religious group was “very pleased� with Yad Vashem's change of position, which “should show the world that it is truly an institution based on facts and truth.� “The black legend against Pope Pius XII is being bleached white...

Count Robert de La Rochefoucauld, who has died aged 88, escaped from Occupied France to join the Special Operations Executive (SOE); parachuted back on sabotage missions, he twice faced execution, only to escape on both occasions, once dressed as a Nazi guard.

A slightly used low milage vehicle with all the parts waiting for the fixer-upper. It has been recently sand blasted and is ready for paint...

They have waited almost 70 years but thousands of war veterans and their relatives finally watched today as the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh unveiled a lasting legacy to the sacrifice made by tens of thousands of airmen who died in the Second World War. More than 5,000 veterans and veterans' family members from all over the world travelled to the capital for the poignant ceremony to mark the opening of the Bomber Command Memorial, with Air Commodore Malcolm White, chairman of Bomber Command Association vowing: 'We will remember them'. Situated in the heart of London, a stone's throw...

RAF Bomber Command Memorial: After 67 years, the sacrifice of 55,000 airmen is honoured They had waited 67 years for this moment to arrive, and when it finally came, none tried to mask their emotions.

The planned unveiling in London of a memorial to the 55,573 Royal Air Force Bomber Command airmen killed in World War II has sparked muted criticism in Germany, where many regard the Allied air raids that destroyed entire cities and killed over 500,000 civilians as unjustified and criminal. Helma Orosz, the mayor of Dresden, which was devastated in an Allied attack in February 1945, criticized the plans for the monument when they first became public in 2010, and spoke to London Mayor Boris Johnson about it. "The planned memorial triggered astonishment in Dresden and was judged critically by us in...

It turns out that someone at the State Department knew all along that Croatia never answered for its Nazi past and shouldn’t just sail into the EU un-scrutinized and unreformed. Unfortunately, it’s a bit late. This former Under Secretary of State, Stuart Eizenstat, could have spoken up when Croatia was put on the fast-track in the mid-2000s, or even as late as last year, when the final stage of accession began; Croatia will be an EU member by mid next year. Still, one is grateful for the following item from Thursday’s Haaretz (and please don’t be fooled by the paper’s...

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...

He was hundreds of miles from civilisation, lost in the burning heat of the desert. Second World War Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping took what little he could from the RAF Kittyhawk he had just crash-landed, then wandered into the emptiness. From that day in June 1942 the mystery of what happened to the dentist’s son from Southend was lost, in every sense, in the sands of time.

MRS MINIVER : Moving drama about middle class English family learning to cope with war. Winner of six Academy Awards--for Garson, Wright, director Wyler, and Best Picture, among others--this film did much to rally American support for our British allies during WW2, though its depiction of English life

The roar of the propellers cutting the air is what sparks memories for WWII veteran Howard Mann. "The sound is the same," he said. "The sound brings it all back." Mann, 92, was a passenger in the B-24 Liberator "Witchcraft" that took flight from Long Beach to John Wayne Airport on Friday as part of the Wings of Freedom exhibition at the Lyon Air Museum... The last time Mann was in a B-24 was Jan. 3, 1945, flying over the Pacific...

It’s not quite the same as the opening sequence to “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” but it’s awfully close. The Daily Mail reports that a Polish oil company worker, Jakub Perka, has discovered an “almost perfectly preserved” Kittyhawk P-40 that crash-landed in the Sahara Desert in 1942. “Despite the crash impact, most of the aircraft’s cockpit instruments are intact,” according to the report.

WWII fighter plane hailed the 'aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb' found preserved in the Sahara The Kittyhawk P-40 has remained unseen and untouched since it came down on the sand in June 1942 and has been hailed the "aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb". It is thought the pilot survived the crash and initially used his parachute for shelter before making a desperate and futile attempt to reach civilisation by walking out of the desert. The RAF airman, believed to have been Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping, 24, was never seen again. The single-seater fighter plane was discovered by chance by Polish...

Son of Austrian Chancellor shares fascinating perspective of events in When Hitler Took Austria SAN FRANCISCO, April 12, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- In March 1938, Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg found himself under house arrest by invading German troops who stormed the country as part of the Nazi takeover of Europe. Chancellor von Schuschnigg spent time in Gestapo prisons from May 1938 to December 1941, when his wife Vera and daughter Sissi joined him in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Ignatius Press has published the gripping true story of von Schuschnigg as told by his son, who came of age during these...

George Vujnovich, an American intelligence agent who led the largest air rescue of Americans behind enemy lines during World War II, died last week at the age of 96, according to media reports. In 1944, the Serbian-American officer in the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency) organized successful efforts to insert a team into what was then Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia and rescue more than 500 pilots and airmen who had been downed trying to cross the territory to bomb Hitler’s oil fields in Romania, according to an obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The airmen had been hidden...

Sixty-eight years ago today, the Allies launched a massive dress rehearsal for the invasion of Normandy — the famous D-Day landings that would happen five weeks later. But that rehearsal turned into one of the war's biggest fiascos. It took place on Slapton Sands, a beach in southwestern England. British historian Giles Milton wrote about the rehearsal on his blog last week. "The beaches there are long and they're wide, so it gave the soldiers plenty of opportunity to really experience what it was going to be like," Milton tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz. "The beaches...

A ceremony was held in Krakow, Poland April 18, 2012 on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day honoring members of the Allied Forces who liberated the concentration camps during WWII. Along with Holocaust survivors and thousands of students, American veterans in their late 80s and early 90s traveled to Poland to participate in the ceremony along with one Canadian who took part in the campaign in Western Europe. They also participated in the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau. The annual March of the Living program brings thousands of young people from around the world each year on...

Seventy years ago this week sixteen Army Air Force B-25 Mitchells took off from the heaving deck of the Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Hornet. This was the first time in the Second World War that America took the fight to the enemy. The raiders who were led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, struck Japan in a demonstration ofAmerica’s determination to take the fight to Japan’s home soil. This raid was a morale booster for a nation that was still recovering from the attack onPearl Harbor. The concept of launching medium bombers from a carrier was conceived by Navy Captain Francis...