Posted on 09/19/2020 8:21:21 AM PDT by artichokegrower
2nd on Brave. I’ve been using it for a couple years now as my primary browser.
When historical events are portrayed on screen with an eye toward detail and input from people who actually participated... they are often ridiculed by people who have no clue what-so-ever. This film was ridiculed largely by people who have an idealized and unrealistic view of our WWII soldiers and had their tender sensibilities tweaked.
But donating films with violent content to a senior center was a bad idea. And I tell you this from vast experience volunteering at senior centers and multi-level care facilities. I can guarantee that they never showed it.
Thanks
I had a part time, adjunct, history professor in college whose regular job was an insurance salesman. Nice enough guy, but low-key, and if not actively boring, was certainly no better than mildly interesting. I do not recall ever speculating about what he did during the Vietnam War, but if I had I would have thought he had a deferment, or perhaps served in the Coast Guard -- I mean that as an observation, not a criticism. The draft, and the war, ended years before I turned 18.
A few years ago I happened to see a copy my college town's local newspaper, which had story about the professor's son, who was serving in Afghanistan. It also had a photo of my professor, as a young officer, standing in a stream in Vietnam, M-16 on his hip, cigarette dangling from his lips, wearing the not formally authorized Tiger Stripe camouflage that elite units were allowed to wear.
The senior center is open to all adults; they can pick whatever DVD they want to watch. We don’t have a local library but a library bus that visits a couple times a week. They, the seniors, are not forced to checkout/watch films they don’t want to watch.
Agree - they rolled over to Hitler and Commons fought Churchill every step of the way before Germany started bombing them.
My dad is long gone now, died in 1997. One thing I found that gave me some insight was a book giving a detailed account of the battle for Okinawa. He said that the fight for the ridges and hills at the end was exactly as he remembered it.
His battalion was engaged in building an airfield nearby, close enough that they had to duck an occasional sniper and mortar attack.
When the war ended, they were still there. The battalion had been supplied with all new construction machinery and a totally new, unused machine shop. When they went home, everything was abandoned, just left in place.
And that German soldier who missed with the anti-tank rocket? The German Tiger tank shoots the last tank in the column when he should have taken out the first one then the last one (all according to the guys watching it with me) trapping the tanks in the middle and picked off one at a time - and since Fury should have been the one taken out first it would have been end of film and roll credits thus saving a bunch of money and wasted time.
True. The basic Sherman model was no match for a Tiger. In a group four or five or more Sherman’s could out flank a Tiger and score disabling shots to the sides and rear but at least two of the Shermans would have been picked off.
Shermans armed with the 76 mm would have been the first tank any German tank crew would have dealt with first.
The one deciding factor in almost any duel between a Tiger tank or a Panther Mk 5 and a Sherman would have been range.
The Tiger had it and the Sherman didn’t. The Tiger could have picked all of those tanks off from a mile out. The Sherman would have had to get within 700 yards with it’s low velocity 75mm in order to score a disabling hit.
Are you just rude and unpleasant by nature, or only when cloaked in internet anonymity?
Thank you so much for the link to the book.
It was a moving story of the ugliness of combat along with the humor that only can be understood by the soldiers.
Yes, but the Tiger did have a reputation and a lot of German equipment was misidentified as Tigers at first contact, particularly if it was first seen by a green private fresh from the states.
There was an old rule for the “Command Decision” miniatures rules published in the “Command Post” to simulate this.
The German Player commanding a unit with Stg III, PzKfw IV, Jagdpathers etc. Would be given two sets of miniatures, one set of the correct vehicles, and one set of Tigers, When the American player would first spot the German unit, the German player would put out the Tigers to represent the first reports from inexperienced troops.
Only when the US troops got closer and engaged the enemy would the German player swap the miniatures for the real vehicles. The German players treated their units like what they really were, because they knew they weren’t Tigers. American players tended react with “WTH! Tigers!” Until they saw they were blowing up easier than a Tiger normally would...
I am hardly anonymous here, I have been posting for 16 years... more people probably know me here than in real life. A good percentage know exactly who I am, where I live, and where I work. I think that you are a little oversensitive. You were responding to a post where I used the exact same label... can I help it if you stepped right in the firing line and gave me a perfect example of what I was talking about? LOL, but sorry that I offended you. I am sure that we have much in common and I appreciate your knowledge of WWII tanks.
My wife’s sister was born long after the war, on March 30th the day that General Rose was killed. Every year her dad would say on her sister’s birthday at the breakfast table, “This was the day that General Rose was killed. He was the finest soldier who ever walked. I will never forget it.” Then he would say, “Oh, yes and it’s your birthday isn’t it?” And that was the extent of her birthday wishes. Her sister is still sensitive about it.
There was a detailed account of General Rose's death released in 2003 in the book “Major General Maurice Rose - World War II’s Greatest Forgotten Commander,” co-authored by Steven L. Ossad and Don R. Marsh.
“Their research for the book had uncovered the startling fact that the bullets that struck Rose's helmet did NOT cause his death. Ossad and Marsh had located Army documents that had literally been unseen and ignored in a file cabinet in Washington, DC, for over fifty years. Those documents included an Inspector General’s investigation of Rose's death, as well as the autopsy report (with body diagram) and memo's from the Army War Crimes Branch. Conclusions drawn from those documents are described in great detail in the biography and include the following concerning the shooting:
Gen. Rose was struck by a total of 14 bullets at numerous points over his body from four separate bursts from a 9mm Schmeisser automatic “machine pistol,” which had a 32-round clip.
Four rounds from the third burst, which struck him on the left side of the head (with no helmet on), were the fatal wounds. He would have died instantly.
The force of an impact on his right cheek from the first burst had knocked the general’s helmet back off his head and into the air.
And, to quote from the biography, “Two more rounds from the first burst struck the airborne helmet, passing through the rear, and exiting the front of the helmet near the two general’s stars ...” [A ragged split on the helmet's front rim remains unexplained, but was possibly caused by a third errant round.]
The helmet was later found in a ditch about ten feet from Rose's body.
The bullet holes in the helmet clearly did not occur while the helmet was on his head.”
To this day even the Wikipedia entry repeats the fairy tale that he was shot once in the head by a jumpy German soldier. This was told to the troops at the time about General Rose's death to keep people like my father-in-law from going bat shit crazy on the local German population and German prisoners. But it is too bad that the truth was not revealed in a more timely manner.
Ironically, The Patton Museum is the permanent custodian of General Rose's helmet. I say this because my wife and I are often confronted by people who constantly give credit to Patton and the 3rd Army for General Rose's and the 3rd Armored Division's accomplishments. This was already taking place even while Patton was still alive and the good General did little to correct those who were mistaken. While my father-in law was still alive this rankled him to no end.
We even had one of Patten's descendants at our home viewing my wife's collection and our airplane years ago and even he could not keep it straight. He didn't seem to even know that there was a 3rd Armored Division... or he was just being cagey.
http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/feature.pages/rose.helmet.1.htm
If you got as many pop-ups as you claim, you were using a horrifyingly inferior browser, or it is set up...
POORLY.
IE sux. Opera is OK. Chrome needs some tweaks. Edge is WORSE than IE. Brave works well right out of the box.
YMMV, JMHO.
Other people often have different opinions. As a conservative on a conservative site, I thought most of the folks here recognized that fact. Sorry to have disturbed your bubble.
Sheesh!
I have always been aware of 3rd Armored Division, which was still active when I was in. Guys from my ROTC unit and AOB course were assigned there.
BTW, Patton's spearhead wasn't 2nd or 3rd Armored, it was Fourth Armored Division. And Fourth Armored's spearhead was a man even Patton acknowledged as his equal, one Creighton Abrams.
I have read all the replies and appreciate them, and the extra insights borne therein. God has blessed me with the deep friendship and acceptance as a brother-in-arms of many true warriors, though my own history of my six years as a National Guardsman is very humble.
Relative to the topic here, I worked in the late 1950s at a bread distribution terminal as an extra man filling in for or assisting for several bread van drivers, each of whom was a WWII and/or Korean War combat veteran. Of them, one had served in Patton's 3rd Army as a tanker for three years, up to and through the end of the war. On our months of driving together, he shared many of the experiences he had, but in summary, at the war's end, at 21 years old he was a hardened, very experienced tank commander, tougher even than the one portrayed by Brad Pitt in "Fury."
It was from him that I first learned of Patton's nickname--"Ol' Blood and Guts"--and what that meant, pejoratively.
He often mentioned the fellow who to him was far away the most important one to him and everyone else in the crew: the tank gunner, a Kentuckian hill farm boy, who hated his tanker boots and when possible often shucked them and went barefoot, and not a natty uniform wearer when in the field, either.
Not using the tank's sights, he aimed the gun by eye with inborn "Kentucky windage." His practical gunnery was so deadly accurate and swift that the whole crew saw him as the only way that they would survive the battles they were going through. They protected him so carefully that they always stood between him and anyone that might harm him, even surrounding while he was sleeping, making sure that he was healthy, and getting enough food when there was little to spare.
I was told that one time a strange officer passing by took in hand to stop and discipline this gunner for his slovenly appearance; but before he finished his tirade, he found himself facing the muzzles of several sidearms. Apparently this officer found it wise to shut up, walk away without further comment, and was never again seen by the crew nor heard from.
This fellow van driver gave me a lot of practical advice for my role as an infantryman, which helped me to earn respect from my companions and officers in the Guard, and to gain advancement when time in grade had passed. Eddie helped me on my way, so that by the time my Honorable Discharge came, I had been an E-5 for a couple of years, and a machine squad leader at the time of separation.
Because of the congenial relationships found with several real combat men, through life a great comfort has come through being accepted by many veterans who would not otherwise have been approachable, such that they would share their experiences, and I could learn more from them.
Thank you all for your comments here, that have enriched me once again, as an octagenarian, still appreciating, still learning what little I can about war and about the peace that follows.
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One other thought:
Please think of all the clients in the VA Community Living Centers (weasel words for the onsite long-term nursing homes, now that calling them such is verboten) who in this COVID epidemic have of necessity even less attention from casual visitors or volunteers veterans organization groups than before. It surely is a hard time for them, who have served, and for their regular attendants as well (I'm speaking as a former VAVMS participant and DAV Auxiliary member.)
Ping to Post #59
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