The Armistice Day Blizzard.
Two survivors recall the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940 ...
It is estimated that around 85 duck hunters died in the Armistice Day blizzard, although the exact number is unknown. The total death toll for the storm was between 159 and 210, with the hunters representing a significant portion of the victims. They were caught by the sudden storm while on the Mississippi River and its surrounding areas, and many were unable to reach safety due to the extreme cold, high winds, and rough waves.
Two survivors recall the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940 ...
It is estimated that around 85 duck hunters died in the Armistice Day blizzard, although the exact number is unknown. The total death toll for the storm was between 159 and 210, with the hunters representing a significant portion of the victims. They were caught by the sudden storm while on the Mississippi River and its surrounding areas, and many were unable to reach safety due to the extreme cold, high winds, and rough waves.
All their fighting and dying will be in vain if Britain’s population is replaced by invading immigrants who don’t value freedom or western values, and the government continues to prosecute anyone who raises a voice against it.
Of the war deaths, only 117,000 were American soldiers, which sounds like a minor contribution, but they were all concentrated in the war's final months and represented casualty rates for American units much higher than other countries' rates for comparable periods of time.
Americans delivered the decisive blow at war's end which finally broke German lines and delivered victory to the Allies.
"Victory" at least in Allied eyes but not necessarily defeat in German eyes.
Germans asked for an armistice -- they wanted to freeze the lines in place -- but the Allies delivered the 1919 Versailles Treaty which took more from Germany than Germans believed their wartime results merited.
After all, no Allied troops had crossed into German territory, so Germans wanted Pres. Wilson's promised "Peace Without Victory".
Many Allied leaders, including US Commanding General John Pershing, believed the Allies should not have accepted the 11/11/1918 Armistice, but should rather have pushed on to Berlin, to convince Germans that they had been defeated and so deserved the harsh peace terms.
Pershing & others believed that if Germany were not properly defeated in 1918, then in 20 years, Germans would rise up again for Round Two.
French Marshal Ferdinand Foch famously warned in 1919 that the Versailles Treaty was merely “an armistice for twenty years”.
Foch was wrong about 20 years.
It was actually 20 years, two months and 4 days until September 1, 1939.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
The armistice that ended World War I was signed in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne, France. The agreement was negotiated and signed by Allied and German representatives in Marshal Ferdinand Foch’s private train carriage at the Rethondes Clearing within the forest.
In 1940, the main armistice ending the war in France was also signed in Compiègne on June 22 on the same railway carriage that had also been used for the 1918 armistice. The location was deliberately chosen by Hitler to humiliate France. The Germans later destroyed the original carriage.
