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The pilot who survived a Russian gulag and trekked 830 miles to India to fly Spitfires for the RAF
Daily Mail ^ | 2nd February 2013 | Leon Watson

Posted on 02/02/2013 4:54:36 PM PST by the scotsman

'A Polish war hero with an incredible story of survival during World War Two has died aged 91.

Flight Lieutenant Czeslaw 'Tony' Rogers braved a 830-mile trek on foot across the Soviet Union's frozen wastes to India after being freed from a prison camp before eventually making it to Britain.

He then became a decorated Spitfire and Lancaster bomber pilot who flew daring RAF missions against targets in Germany.'

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; United Kingdom
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To: ConradofMontferrat

There is plenty of information on the Internet about this myth, or as someone pointed out lie. It was debunked a long long time ago. With your high degrees, you can find it yourself, I’m sure. There is simply no historical evidence that such cavalry charges occurred, only propagandistic reports of the Germans from September 1939. No photographs, no witnesses. And, after WWII, the Soviet puppets in Poland produced at least one dramatic film showing such charges, shots from which ought to be somewhere on the Internet, and which you can use as “proof”.

I’m surprised there are still people who believe war propaganda from 70 years ago.


21 posted on 02/02/2013 6:23:22 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Fiji Hill

I read the book years ago when it was still believed by some, and long before the recent claims by another fellow, supported by his own manuscript from which Rawicz ripped off the story, and like you, I didn’t quite believe it.

But as you can see, there are emotional attachments to lies about history, especially lies that one believed for a long time.


22 posted on 02/02/2013 6:26:56 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Revolting cat!

“I’m surprised there are still people who believe war propaganda from 70 years ago.”

You haven’t be reading the U.S. Civil War threads, evidently!


23 posted on 02/02/2013 6:29:22 PM PST by headsonpikes (Mass murder and cannibalism are the twin sacraments of socialism - "Who-whom?"-Lenin)
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To: headsonpikes

No, I haven’t. But Civil War really is history, while the bolshevik propaganda continues to affect attitudes, votes and policies. Well OK, I’ve just painted myself into a corner.


24 posted on 02/02/2013 6:34:46 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Chickensoup

An excellent read! I first read it as a teen in Madison, WI in the early 60s, and then just recently via Kindle.


25 posted on 02/02/2013 6:36:53 PM PST by Redleg Duke ("Madison, Wisconsin is 30 square miles surrounded by reality.", L. S. Dryfus)
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To: the scotsman
There's a great movie availabe called The Way Back. It's the story of three guys who escape from the Gulag and walk to India. Fascinating story.
26 posted on 02/02/2013 6:40:51 PM PST by rabidralph (http://www.cafepress.com/westernwis)
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To: the scotsman

Hand Salute.......................two


27 posted on 02/02/2013 6:42:59 PM PST by bmwcyle (People who do not study history are destine to believe really ignorant statements.)
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To: ConradofMontferrat; Revolting cat!
A couple of recent books on the Polish campaign at the start of WWII and might answer some of the questions raised in this thread:
28 posted on 02/02/2013 6:59:00 PM PST by Fiji Hill (Io Triumphe!)
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To: the scotsman

What an amazing life. Wow! RIP, sir. Thank you for your bravery, honor, and sacrifice.


29 posted on 02/02/2013 7:25:58 PM PST by Bigg Red (Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved! -Ps80)
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To: rabidralph

There’s another Gulag escape movie that was made by a polish film company that I’ve yet to be able to locate a copy.

It’s called The Impossible Escape, fiction, about a group of escapees who escape from Siberia to Alaska over the pack ice.

There’s a trailer made, but I’m suspicious the film was never finished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWEmIVAozlY


30 posted on 02/02/2013 8:05:56 PM PST by Rebelbase ( .223, .224, whatever it takes....)
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To: Rebelbase
There's no mention of such a film on the Internet Movie Database. I hope it gets completed and released.
31 posted on 02/02/2013 8:36:33 PM PST by Fiji Hill (Io Triumphe!)
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To: Revolting cat!

Yes this is all MYTH.

Oh, and there is also a MYTH that 6 million Jews were killed.

Oh Jeez, its only a MYTH. So says the Iranians.

The Holocaust?

Why hell, that was DEBUNKED years ago, just ask the president of Iran. Why, there is simply NO historical evidence that the gas chambers existed!

They were just “shower rooms.”

Ask ANYBODY!

I’m surprised that Holocaust deniers like you still parade around in public.

Stalinists like you really need to have your heads examined.


32 posted on 02/02/2013 8:37:55 PM PST by ConradofMontferrat (According to mudslimz, my handle is a HATE CRIME. And I HOPE they don't like it.)
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To: ConradofMontferrat

On September 1, 1939, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Germany and the Soviet Union were allies at the beginning of the war.


33 posted on 02/02/2013 8:41:38 PM PST by Fred Hayek (The Democratic Party is the operational wing of CPUSA.)
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To: ConradofMontferrat

Everyone who disagrees with your mythical version of history is a “Stalinist”. Irony can be ironic sometimes, especially when you defend a long debunked lie propagated by your hero Stalin, whom you mention over and over again with such tenderness. Some historian. And yes, bring up Holocaust and the Eyeranians as winning arguments, that always works so well for you Communists. Still, you haven’t provided historical sources for the lies about the stupid Polacks charging tanks on horses. Your family was there? On the horses, or in the tanks, and later at the towers of Auschwitz and other “Polish death camps” as your hero in the White House put it?


34 posted on 02/02/2013 8:47:52 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Fred Hayek
Apart from countless battles and skirmishes in which the Polish cavalry units fought dismounted, there were 16 confirmed[4] cavalry charges during the 1939 war. Contrary to common belief, most of them were successful. The first and perhaps best known happened on September 1, 1939, during the Battle of Krojanty. During this action, elements of the Polish 18th Uhlan Regiment met a large group of German infantry resting in the woods near the village of Krojanty. Colonel Mastalerz decided to take the enemy by surprise and immediately ordered a cavalry charge, a tactic the Polish cavalry rarely used as their main weapon. The charge was successful and the German infantry unit was dispersed.

The same day, German war correspondents were brought to the battlefield together with two journalists from Italy. They were shown the battlefield, the corpses of Polish cavalrymen and their horses, alongside German tanks that had arrived at the field of battle only after the engagement. One of the Italian correspondents sent home an article,[5] in which he described the bravery and heroism of Polish soldiers, who charged German tanks with their sabres and lances. Other possible source of the myth is a quote from Heinz Guderian's memoirs, in which he asserted that the Pomeranian Brigade had charged on German tanks with swords and lances.[6] Although such a charge did not happen and there were no tanks used during the combat, the myth was disseminated by German propaganda during the war with a staged Polish cavalry charge shown in their 1941 reel called "Geschwader Lützow".[1] After the end of World War II the same fraud was again being disseminated by Soviet propaganda as an example of the stupidity of Polish commanders and authorities, who allegedly did not prepare their country for war and instead wasted the blood of their soldiers


35 posted on 02/02/2013 8:54:09 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: ConradofMontferrat; Revolting cat!
I’m surprised that Holocaust deniers like you still parade around in public.

What evidence do you have that Revolting cat! is a Holocaust denier?

36 posted on 02/02/2013 9:22:49 PM PST by Fiji Hill (Io Triumphe!)
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To: Fiji Hill

“Holocaust denier” is the silver bullet to kill an Internet poster with whom you strongly disagree when he says that sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Save it for future use!


37 posted on 02/02/2013 9:36:53 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Chickensoup

Here is a long and fascinating discussion about Rawicz who wrote the book (actually, he had a ghostwriter named Ronald Downing), and a fellow named Witold Glinski, who in 2009 claimed that Rawicz, whose real name was Roscislaw Rusiecki, as I learned elsewhere just now, had stolen his, Glinski’s story. It turns out (as far as we can tell, and a number of historians including Ann Applebaum, who specializes in the history of Gulag, have studied these claims) that both of these gentlemen made up their stories without actually living them, although there have been successful escapes from the Gulag, and at one point 3 or 4 escapees managed to reach Calcutta. For example, there was never a camp #303, as Rawicz claims.

http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2011/01/01/gliniecki-%E2%80%9Ci-have-solid-evidence-glinski-didn%E2%80%99t-do-the-long-walk%E2%80%9D/


38 posted on 02/02/2013 9:49:50 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Revolting cat!

“Still, you haven’t provided historical sources for the lies about the stupid Polacks”

You’re not only revolting, you sound like an obama supporter who has all the answers.


39 posted on 02/02/2013 10:21:35 PM PST by topspinr
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To: the scotsman

I am once again made proud of my ancestry. I am equally relieved that all four of my grandparents emigrated here from Poland.


40 posted on 02/02/2013 10:43:30 PM PST by Focault's Pendulum (I live in NJ....I want a bailout!!!)
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