If your country (regardless of side) fought in World War II, please -- take a moment and think of all who died in our last global war.



"You are about to embark upon the great crusade which we've striven for these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you."

My great grandfather flight in the battle of the bulge, he was enlisted in the US 99th infantry division.
He wasn't one to cry, but if you asked him about WWII, tears so easily came to his eyes, he passed away back in 2004, in the presence of his family.

This is the true description of war, as shaped by the sayings of many, myself included

War is hell, a tragedy that will befall mankind as long as there are those willing to wage it.
It robs families of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, and children.
Those who start wars or provoke them simply do not think of the innocent lives that will be destroyed
or scarred forever.

Man is said to be the smartest of species, but how can that be if mankind is so eager to eradicate itself.

isaactheman wrote: My great grandfather flight in the battle of the bulge, he was enlisted in the US 99th infantry division.
He wasn't one to cry, but if you asked him about WWII, tears so easily came to his eyes, he passed away back in 2004, in the presence of his family.

This is the true description of war, as shaped by the sayings of many, myself included

War is hell, a tragedy that will befall mankind as long as there are those willing to wage it.
It robs families of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, and children.
Those who start wars or provoke them simply do not think of the innocent lives that will be destroyed
or scarred forever.

Man is said to be the smartest of species, but how can that be if mankind is so eager to eradicate itself.

Nicely put its like out of a movie and my friends uncle was a island hopper.

Well, while I'm thinkin' bout it, my friend's great great grandfather(?) Fought at Normandy(?),
he was German and took a bullet to the shoulder, and died of infection. I don't know much except
that the injury was a shoulder bullet wound and he died of infection and he served in the German army.

As "We Who Are Alive And Remain, Untold Stories From The Band Of Brothers" puts it "A bad day for a lot of young men" - Dewitt 'owrey.

I asked.my friends uncle what happened and stuff like that, he never answer he just said it was worat than hell itself. So I dont know any stories.

Good points and stories everyone.

I myself have family who served on both European and Pacific fronts.

I believe that both sides (either it being Axis or Allies) fought and served their country. That's all the German people wanted and showed great pride in their Fatherland.

The only "enemy" of any war is that side of which who lost. Think about it.

And in my personal opinion, I believe it to be the Russians who were the true enemy of WWII despite being on par with the Allieds. They only joined forces with the Allies after Hitler ordered an attack on the Russians mid-winter.

Stalin was a tyrant -- more so than Hitler. He literally had more of his own people killed than Nazi Germany did. And the thing is -- they were of his own Soviet Union. If a passing battalion needed supplies -- they'd simply kill an entire Russian village, pillage it, take what they needed and burnt it to the ground.

After WWII, General Patton (in the days before his death) expressed a great need to go to war with Russian immediately while their country was still recovering from war. He practically saw the Cold War and feared the worst for the world as a whole. however he was quickly dismissed and soon was killed.

Now here comes something interesting. If you look into the way he died -- it looks like an assassination attempt. You can read about that here:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/north...claims-new-book.html

Not on D-Day, but my father received the Bronze Star and various other medals during the island hopping time in the Pacific. On Bougainville, he climbed the trees to act as reconn and arty spotter. Imagine being up a tree with the enemy shooting at you and not being able to fire back. Under intense fire he maintained his position and helped to take the island. He continued to perform this task as the war went on. The only thing he ever said about it was that it was his job to help his fellow warriors survive.

I forget if this is something I read here or somewhere else, but do you know that more people died in a PRACTICE RUN for D-Day than in the actual thing?

Well, that would make sense seeing as the troops weren't prepared for having to carry heavy equipment through sometimes
Chest deep water, and if they fell, they had a hard time trying to, or simply just couldn't get back up and drowned

At the actual thing they knew to be ready for the challenge of getting to shore, which, according to many sources claimed more lives than enemy fire

CalvinIsAwesome wrote: I forget if this is something I read here or somewhere else, but do you know that more people died in a PRACTICE RUN for D-Day than in the actual thing?

Are you sure about that? I mean...didn't the Allied loses add up to about 230K?

I have a hard time believing they'd carry on the Operation if that many people died -- without bullets and artillery pounding their position.



I think it's crazy that out of the 210K German troops who went "missing", 70% of them were captured. Whoa.

Go read for yourself:

doinghistoryproject.tripod.com/id28.html

Well, much of the whole Allied Victory plan depended on establishing this foothold and too much funds had been poured into the whole deal that to have scrapped the operation would have been a MAJOR waste.

Well I think what calvin was thinking about was that duuring one practice run a ship was torpedoes by a uboat with a huge loss of life.

What read was that there were 9 german U-Boats patrolling around the Brittish beach (maybe it was French) that they were going to practice storming, and the Nazis attacked them, and sense they werent prepared, they got slaughtered.

Ah, I wasn't aware that the Nazis attacked the Practice run, thank you for teaching me something new about WWII.

I can't remember a few of the details, but one battle ended in an unofficial truce, some Allied troops were trapped under rubble
And their allies immediately went to the rescue, ignoring the german machine gun nests only 75 yards away, soon, germans began helping the rescue effort, and Nazi and Allied troops alike were sharing cigarettes and alcohol.

Such moments in war restore my hope for mankind's future.

Slenderman wrote: Good points and stories everyone.

I myself have family who served on both European and Pacific fronts.

I believe that both sides (either it being Axis or Allies) fought and served their country. That's all the German people wanted and showed great pride in their Fatherland.

The only "enemy" of any war is that side of which who lost. Think about it.

And in my personal opinion, I believe it to be the Russians who were the true enemy of WWII despite being on par with the Allieds. They only joined forces with the Allies after Hitler ordered an attack on the Russians mid-winter.

Stalin was a tyrant -- more so than Hitler. He literally had more of his own people killed than Nazi Germany did. And the thing is -- they were of his own Soviet Union. If a passing battalion needed supplies -- they'd simply kill an entire Russian village, pillage it, take what they needed and burnt it to the ground.

After WWII, General Patton (in the days before his death) expressed a great need to go to war with Russian immediately while their country was still recovering from war. He practically saw the Cold War and feared the worst for the world as a whole. however he was quickly dismissed and soon was killed.

Now here comes something interesting. If you look into the way he died -- it looks like an assassination attempt. You can read about that here:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/north...claims-new-book.html

Here's something to chew on, members of Stalin's party were so scared of him, that when he did a speech, a bell had to be rung to tell them to stop clapping because noone wanted to be the first to stop clapping for fear of punishment.

During Christmas and Christmas Eve one year, the fighting ceased, the bodies from no-man's land were cleared, and the Nazis and Allies played a huge game of soccer, no guns, no killing, nothing. Learned that during a Church service.

Lololololol

CalvinIsAwesome wrote: During Christmas and Christmas Eve one year, the fighting ceased, the bodies from no-man's land were cleared, and the Nazis and Allies played a huge game of soccer, no guns, no killing, nothing. Learned that during a Church service.

Ummmmmm calvin that was ww1. The first christmas in ww1.

A lot of good things happened between the Afrika Corps and British Tank divisions during WWII during the fight for Northern Africa. I'm sure many of you have read this, but for those who haven't -- often times after a long day of battling, both Allied and Germans would lay down arms to go and tend to wounded -- often times helping each other carry wounded to each other's bases.

Both sides realized that neither wanted to fight or kill or war with each other. But they were in their country's military and they had to follow orders. But they knew this didn't mean that they had to act as savages.

True gentlemen of a cruel conflict.

Hamers wrote:

CalvinIsAwesome wrote: During Christmas and Christmas Eve one year, the fighting ceased, the bodies from no-man's land were cleared, and the Nazis and Allies played a huge game of soccer, no guns, no killing, nothing. Learned that during a Church service.

Ummmmmm calvin that was ww1. The first christmas in ww1.

Ohhhhhhh....... Well, change that to the Axis and the Allies.

Interesting fun facts: Rommel:
Rommel confided In a friend that the concentration camps didn't sit right with him.
Also, he decided that if peace talks with the Americans and British couldn't be done to unite against Russia, he would support the well known operation Valkyrie: the plot to kill Hitler.
He was offered, by Hitler, to lead a parade, but since he didn't like the waffen S.S., which was at the front, he refused to lead the parade until they left the parade area.
(After saying goodbye to his wife and son and informing them of his plan) Rommel committed suicide in the back of a limo taking him to court (since he was suspected of treason, a result of him, and the rest of the supporters of operation valkyrie openly talking about their support of it) for a trial he would surely loose to be hung with piano wire,he had two options: commit suicide and die a hero, or be convicted of treason and die a traitor.

Google the book "War Magician". It's the story of how a magician helped defeat Rommel in Egypt. He made the entire city of Alexandria, Egypt disappear. As well as the vital Suez Canal. A great and true story.

Here is something cool, google the greensboro four.
You'll love these four people, I won't tell you anything so it'll be a surprise

Durring ww1 fearing bombing of paris the allies built a whole fake paris. Compleate with buildings. And the alexandrea in ww2 was just lights. During ww2 rommel and other offecers tried to get allies to help kill hitler but allies didn't trust. If eisenhower had accepted then the allies could have walked ashore at normandy and shook hands with rommel.


Get the book mysteries of ww2. It has lost of stories from predictions to uncanny riddles to funny stories.

Just posted some pics above that you might like to see.