sniff6 Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 I found these Photo's interesting ,So thought i'd share them..NJoy http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/pages/ww2/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neversaydie Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Some incredible photos there Sniff, of historical importance Dunno about enjoy though I'm one of (probably) the first generation of men in this country that has never been called upon in war. When I first stated work, the factories and workshops were full of men who served in WW2. Whenever I asked any of them what it was like, their eyes would well up, they'd stay silent for a few seconds, then quietely walk away. We cannot imagine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator DirtyDT Posted September 10, 2012 Moderator Share Posted September 10, 2012 I do have an interest in war. Some photos I took a couple of years back: Utah beach American cemetery British cemetery Sainte-Mère-Église Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Cynic Posted September 10, 2012 Moderator Share Posted September 10, 2012 Some incredible photos there Sniff, of historical importance Dunno about enjoy though I'm one of (probably) the first generation of men in this country that has never been called upon in war. When I first stated work, the factories and workshops were full of men who served in WW2. Whenever I asked any of them what it was like, their eyes would well up, they'd stay silent for a few seconds, then quietely walk away. We cannot imagine. I know exactly what you mean. Im younger but the only thing my grandfather would say on the war unless very very drunk was. "I lost very good friends in very nasty ways." That from someone who joined in 40 and came home in 47. Respect to tgem all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator drewpy Posted September 10, 2012 Moderator Share Posted September 10, 2012 my Grandad who I never knew (Victor Philips) http://www.aircrewremembrancesociety.com/raf1944/4/kenchrobert.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackhat250 Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 I have watched every program , 1st & 2nd WW, i would like to visit normandy , and Verdun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noise Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Fantastic photo's, i did enjoy looking at them and reading about them but not in the morbid grotesque way. Its horrific seeing what happened back then and as we all say we will never know what it was like. I have been to Passchendaele and Ypres with the Army and was privileged to do a memorial parade at the Men-in gate which all of it become a massive eye opener. I would still like to go to the Landing sites of France etc and in a weird sort of way id like to go to Auschwitz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ttaskmaster Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Everyone has seen the nasty side of D-Day thanks to Saving Private Ryan (SPR). What they didn't show was 'behind the scenes'. Here's the typical GI's D-Day: 0200 - Get up. Chances are you've been awake all night anyway. You've probably been in a bunk or hammock 3-high in a metal room below deck with a couple hundred other hot, sweaty, farty young men, all of whom are nervous as hell and talking all night about the invasion and smoking cigarettes. 0300 - By now you'll have had a quick breakfast of bacon, eggs and such. Time to get your kit ready and begin loading. 0600 - You're fully kitted up and in the boats. You wear cotton undergarments, wool shirt, poplin cotton jacket, wool trousers and soft leather boots (no toecap). Over this you have HBT (herringbone twill) overalls or a 2-piece. HBT is a close-weave cotton/denim affair to protect your woolen uniform. It is not at all breathable anyway, so you're sweating before you've fastened it up. Additionally, the HBTs have been coated with anti-gas treatment, making them as rigid as cardboard. Over the top of this, you also typically wear: Helmet, rifle belt, canteen, fully loaded haversack, 2 bandoliers of ammo, GP bag, several grenades, a couple pounds of TNT, a couple belts of machine-gun ammo, gas mask bag, mortar rounds and perhaps even an ammo crate. The boat is rocking on a turbulent sea. It's overcast and raining slightly, so you're soaked from that and the sea spilling over into the boat. You've been packed in together and standing (not sitting) for at least 3 hours and EVERYONE has thrown up at some point, usually over each other. It stinks, you're seasick and the sickness pills they gave you just make you sleepy. Your wool clothing has doubled in weight and everything is cramping up, from your joints to your stomach. 0630 - You're in the first wave. You're going in and boats all around are hitting beach obstacles with mines attached to them. You're covered in blood and spray from your mates in the other boat, often dry-vomiting in response. When yoru boat hits the sandbar and the door of your boat finally drops, you see before you a good 2-300 yards of empty beach. You hop out into waist-deep water and wade ahead toward the silence... Should be easy, right? Nope. Ze Chermanz have every inch of that beach pre-sighted and they're just waiting until the second wave is starting in. Meanwhile, you're going as fast as you can... but your sprint is slowed to a slow walk at best. You probably fall a few times and jar your skeleton at the impact. Just as you're about 150 yards away, your world is shattered by mines, mortars, artillery, machine guns and rifles. The rest... well, if you've seen SPR, you've seen a mere glimpse at what it was like. Over the weekend my Living History unit did a small set-piece where we were the target of incoming mortar fire. You always see explosions banging all around people in movies, but no-one ever cowers in absolute terror unless the script calls for a 'coward' character. The reality is just the opposite. Every veteran I've ever spoken to or read the words of has described incoming artillery as, at the least, the single most terrifying thing in existence. There are fuller explanations in Taught To Kill and Roll Me Over, but words really fail to capture the full experience. We were also right next to a Sherman returning fire, and yet although it was only pyrotechnic effects, for those short few moments every word of every veteran was suddenly made very real and I understood with a clarity you simply cannot imagine. Our experience was only a simulated 12 round salvo. Many of these guys had to put up with this stuff for hours on end, sometimes all-nighters and on a daily basis. At a previous event, a kid had said to me that it would have been so cool to go through war and do all this stuff. He insisted I was wrong, that he would not have been scared and he'd have been wicked. Oddly enough, that was exactly the type of soldier they mostly sent into the beaches, for that exact reason. They didn't know what was coming. At the time, I eventually told him to fuck off. I now wish I'd packed him in my haversack and pulled the little twat out just before the set-piece started. He'd have understood then! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sniff6 Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 My first posting in the Army was to Bergen Hohne (Belsen) very weird Going to where the camp was ,A couple of miles up the road.Theres not a lot to see really just mounds with Toten 500 or 1000 written on them.But someone said no birds will fly over the site and to be fair we did not see any???? Quite a moving experience . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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