Free Republic

From Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, Russian schoolchildren are preparing for the most important holiday of the year: Victory Day. Commemorated with a grand military parade on Moscow’s Red Square every May 9, the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany has long been used by authorities to rally support for the state. And it starts in school. In September 2016, three history textbooks were sanctioned by the Ministry of Education, all of which gloss over Stalin’s crimes and his initial alliance with Nazi Germany. “My main issue with the textbooks is that they do not reveal the whole truth,” says historian and...

68 soldiers of the 1st Army Officer School will represent the Vietnam People's Army in the parade marking the 80th anniversary of Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War, taking place on Red Square in Moscow, Russia on May 9. The 80-member delegation from the 1st Army Officer School is scheduled to leave for Russia on April 23. The parade group includes 73 soldiers, including 68 official members and 5 reserve members, along with leaders in charge, training instructors, doctors, interpreters and security guards. The soldiers participating in the parade are aged 19-30 and 1.8 m or taller. These are...

Operation Detachment, the U.S. Marines’ invasion of Iwo Jima, is launched. Iwo Jima was a barren Pacific island guarded by Japanese artillery, but to American military minds, it was prime real estate on which to build airfields to launch bombing raids against Japan, only 660 miles away. The Americans began applying pressure to the Japanese defense of the island in June 1944, when B-24 and B-25 bombers raided the island for 74 days. It was the longest pre-invasion bombardment of the war, necessary because of the extent to which the Japanese—21,000 strong—fortified the island, above and below ground, including a...

On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, reducing the “Florence of the Elbe” to rubble and flames, and killing roughly 25,000 people. Among the conclusions reached at the February 1945 Yalta Conference of the Allied powers was the resolution that the Allies would engage in concerted strategic bombing raids against German cities known for war-production and manufacturing, in an effort to bring the Nazi war machine to a crashing halt. The tragic irony of the raid on Dresden, a medieval city renowned for its rich artistic and...

Was Tokyo Rose a charming radio host or a vicious propagandist who committed treason from the DJ booth? Historians still haven’t settled the matter. She was convicted in 1949 but received an official pardon on this day, Jan. 19, in 1977, when the case for treason appeared less clear-cut than it had in the bitter years after World War II. Iva Toguri d’Aquino was born in the U.S. to Japanese parents and, by all early accounts, she grew up as a devoted patriot. She earned a degree in zoology from UCLA in 1940 and had begun doing graduate work there...

Limiting sugar intake from conception through early childhood was linked to lower risks of type 2 diabetes and hypertension, a new study found.Low sugar intake in the womb and during early childhood can protect against diabetes and hypertension later in life, according to a new study. Analysing data from the UK Biobank, researchers from Canada's McGill University and the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Southern California (USC) in the US examined the influence of sugar rationing during and after World War II by comparing health data of individuals born before and afterwards. “Studying the long-term effects...

Bernard Stein never talked about his combat experiences in Southeast Asia during World War II, but he’d brought the flag home as a war trophy after fighting with the U.S. Army’s 38th Infantry Division in the Philippines, said Scott Stein.

On the occasion of his 100th birthday, United States Marine Corps and World War 2 veteran Carl Dekle reflected on his long life and the blessings he’s enjoyed in an interview with Tampa’s Fox 13. The Silver Star recipient recalled the Battle of Guadalcanal and his gratitude that the Lord brought him home and says that he would do it again if he had to — and if he were the right age. In full uniform for the interview, Dekle said: “Most important thing in my life was serving my country. I don’t think I could take away from that…It...

WWII Veteran Breaks Down In Tears Over Destruction Of America As Wokeness Kills Military Recruitment.

Sworn to secrecy by the Japanese Imperial Army, Hideo Shimizu carried the horrors he saw at the notorious Unit 731 facility with him for more than 70 years. The 93-year-old was just 14 when he was drafted as a cadet to the city of Harbin, in what was then Japanese-occupied Manchuria, during World WaR 2. There, he was groomed to take part in some of history's worst atrocities - human experiments carried out on prisoners of war including pregnant women and small children. More than 3,000 people - mostly Chinese civilians, but also Russian, British and American POWs - were...

Greeks fought on the side of the Allies on D-Day, June 6, 1944, which was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. Eddie Lambros was one of the 155 Greek soldiers who landed on Normandy Beach the day World War II took a turn. It was a day which would eventually lead to the end of European Nazi occupation. Greeks D-Day Eddie Lambros (circled). The photograph was published in the New York Times. The photograph of the Greek-American...

On May 19, 1944, two and a half weeks before the 'Operation Overlord' landings took place, Princess Elizabeth spent the day with her parents inspecting airborne troops in the North of England. The presence of the Heiress Presumptive with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth guaranteed blanket media coverage. The event included one of the biggest glider landings ever made in Britain. By the time the display had finished the aerodrome was crowded with hundreds of the small aircraft. Earlier in the day, the royal party watched as several hundred parachutists dropped from the sky in formation. What readers did...

80 Years Ago Today June 4, 1944: The U.S. Fifth Army Liberated Rome. Two days later,June 6, 1944: The Normandy D-Day invasion by the Allies begins, including the United State. One week later,June 13, 1944: The "Pacific D-Day", Battle of Saipan, begins. This is the naval bombardment, followed by invasion on June 15, involving 535 ships with 127,000 troops. All 3 were major military engagements in which the U.S. was a major participant in (especially the Battle of Saipan). All were going on at practically the same time, and different parts of the world. All three were victories.

Two mass shootings of U.S. World War II infantrymen in Belgium marked this date in 1944. It was the second day of the Battle of the Bulge, Nazi Germany’s surprise last offensive in the Ardennes. Hitler, in an inspired albeit ultimately unsuccessful gambit, intended here to burst through the thin-spread Allied line under cover of air power-negating foul weather, and still his western front enemies in time to fortify his east before the Red Army could destroy the Reich. Needing to inflict a demoralizing lightning defeat, Hitler authorized rougher treatment of POWs than was usual on the western front, resulting...

89 Tom Fordy Mon, June 19, 2023 at 8:02 AM CDT Steve McQueen in The Great Escape Steve McQueen in The Great Escape - Alamy In the opening minutes of The Great Escape, “the Kommandant” (Hannes Messemer) of the Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp warns Captain Ramsey (James Donald) against trying to escape. Ramsey’s rabble of captured Allied airmen are prolific, well-known escapers – but the Kommandant wants a quiet life. Ramsey, however, is having none of it. As the senior British POW, he tells the Kommandant straight: “It is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape.”...

Poland lodged claim for $1.3 trillion in compensation, while Greece seeks over $300B for damages during warSenior Polish officials Tuesday said they plan to expand a campaign to seek massive World War II reparations from Germany, turning to Greece and other European countries as potential allies. Poland last year formally demanded compensation of $1.3 trillion — an amount close to the size of its annual gross domestic product — while Greece is seeking more than $300 billion for damage incurred by occupying Nazi Germans during World War II. Germany says damage claims were settled in the aftermath of the war,...

A batch of Nazi war criminals highlighted by four condemned at the Einsatzgruppen trial hanged at Germany’s Landsberg Prison on this date in 1951. Formed initially to decapitate Polish intelligentsia when Germany invaded that country in 1939, these notorious paramilitaries were deployed by Reinhard Heydrich behind the advancing German line of battle to pacify occupied territory. “Pacify” in the event meant slaying Communists, partisans, and of course, the Reich’s innumerable racial inferiors. Einsatzgruppen authored many mass executions like the massacre of Jews at Babi Yar outside Kiev, each local atrocity a self-conscious contribution to the wholesale genocide. All told these...

Archaeologists have discovered an underground bunker in northeast China where Japanese scientists performed horrific biological experiments on human subjects during World War II, including subjecting their victims to dehydration, frostbite, and anthrax bombs. The New York Post reported on Thursday that the derelict bunker was unearthed near the city of Anda in Heilongjiang province. Although the facility had been known about for nearly eight decades, its existence and precise location wasn't confirmed until a week ago, according to the South China Morning Post. A partially U-shaped structure that measures roughly 108 feet long by 67 feet wide, the covert "horror...

A Chinese salvage ship has been caught looting British World War II shipwrecks near the Malaysian coast. The vessel, a dredger named Chuan Hong 68, was seen lurking near the shipwrecks of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and cruiser HMS Repulse, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail. Imperial Japanese forces destroyed both ships in December 1941, resulting in the loss of 842 British sailors — a significant setback for the Royal Navy in the Far East. The sites of the shipwrecks are officially designated war graves, according to a statement from the Royal Navy National Museum. Chuan...

By November 1944, almost in a cruel and desperate afterthought to what seemed a lost cause, balloons launched from Japan and carrying explosive and incendiary bombs drifted east on the jet stream to the United States. Once again, the goal was to start forest fires and wreak devastation. On December 6 after a "mysterious explosion" in Wyoming, officials found balloon parts and bomb casing fragments from what had been a 33 pound high explosive bomb. During the next several months, Japan launched over 9,000 balloon bombs resulting in over 342 incidents registered throughout western United States and Canada. Oregon alone...