WW II

When Daniel and Victoria Van Beuningen first toured their future home, a quiet villa in the Polish city Wroclaw, it had been abandoned for years, its windows sealed up with bricks. But something about its overgrown garden spoke to them. They could imagine raising chickens there, planting tomatoes and cucumbers. They could make something beautiful out of it, they thought — a place where their children could run and play.

They moved in knowing very little about what happened at the villa before World War II, when Wroclaw, formerly Breslau, was still part of Germany; or what occurred there during the war, when Soviet forces held the city under a brutal siege; or even what became of the house during the war’s aftermath, when hundreds of thousands of local Germans were forcibly resettled from what was now Polish territory. All their neighbors could tell them was that the villa had once housed a Communist newspaper.

Still, the couple wanted to know more, and their inquiries eventually led to the Meinecke family in Heidelberg, Germany, elderly siblings who said they were born in the home. Over a long afternoon, they showed the couple pictures of the place from happier times before the war, but they also offered the Van Beuningens a surprising warning: The couple might find the remains of some German soldiers buried in the garden. Maybe a few, maybe more; they couldn’t be certain.

Related

The last surviving Battle of Britain pilot, John “Paddy” Hemingway, has died at the age of 105.

Mr Hemingway, who was originally from Dublin, joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a teenager before World War Two.

At 21, he was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, a three-month period when air force personnel defended the skies against a large-scale assault by the German air force, the Luftwaffe.

Satellite imagery shows the extent of the massive amount of work that has been done in the past year to restore more than 20 million square feet of runways and other World War II-era infrastructure at historic North Field on the U.S. island of Tinian in the Western Pacific. The airfield was originally established as a launchpad for B-29 bomber raids on Imperial Japan, including the ones that saw atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The facility has been refurbished to again offer a critical power projection node with its original grid-like layout presenting targeting challenges for a modern opponent, all of which could be especially valuable in a future high-end fight in the region against China.

h/t Hotair

Eighty years ago, Allied bombers destroyed huge parts of Dresden, killing thousands. Those exploiting the attacks for political ends often give casualty figures vastly higher than is historically certified. A fact check.

In the late evening of February 13, 1945, British and US bomber squadrons began devastating air raids on Dresden. By midday on February 15, large-scale fires had spread, killing thousands of people and almost completely reducing the historic city center to rubble.

After the air raids the survivors piled up the dead bodies, burning them to prevent the spread of disease. The pictures taken by photographer Walter Hahn are etched in the memories of many Germans.

How three humble privates sounded an alarm only to have it ignored by their immediate superior and America wake up in the middle of World War II.

Today Americans mark 83 years since the Empire of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor at Oahu, Hawaii. Many will quote President Franklin Roosevelt and call it “a date that will live in infamy.” Few will remember three humble privates raising an alarm or apply their lessons today.

“Why,” asked a journalist with the AP, Harold “Hal” Boyle, in 1951, “didn’t someone blow a bugle at Pearl Harbor 10 years ago and wake up America?” It turns out that someone did, but that reveille was ignored by their immediate superior, and America woke up in the middle of World War II.

The country that the boys on the beaches of Normandy fought for no longer exists.

On June 6, 1944 — 80 years ago, to the date — some 73,000 American soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy, stormed into the Nazi machine gun fire, scaled the cliffs beyond the sand, and began the long, grueling task of taking back a continent. 2,501 of them — many teenagers, some in their early 20s — would never see the other side. “We were all kids between the ages of 17 and 24,” recalled one American veteran. When their boat touched the beach, “it was like a movie…the horizon just erupted.” “I didn’t know what was happening,” said another. “I only knew I had to do what I had to do.”

Pick an allied nation and the same holds true.

Far from Normandy’s beaches, French paratroopers and resistance members fought a rear-guard action to keep the Nazis at bay. But its tragic end had made it a battle to forget.

Some 170 miles southwest of the celebrated landing beaches in Normandy, the remains of a D-Day site few visit peek out from behind trees in rural Brittany.

Overgrown with moss and ivy, the stone farm buildings were the former headquarters of the Saint-Marcel Maquis — thousands of local French resistance fighters who had gathered in response to coded Allied calls over BBC radio to prepare for an invasion. Among them were French army commandos parachuted in to block the Nazis from sending reinforcements to the beaches.

Veterans and world leaders commemorate 80th anniversary of D-Day landings

Today, on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, we reflect on the immense courage and sacrifice of those who launched a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France.

We continue to honour you all. Thank you for your service. #DDay80 pic.twitter.com/xLxmky4VKk

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) June 6, 2024

A piper honours the exact moment 80 years ago that British troops landed on the Normandy beaches for D-Day.

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🔓Become a GB News Member: https://t.co/mNsRsGC8ef pic.twitter.com/TXv8XWNl6F

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 6, 2024

From PA Cat

Eighteen Halifax heavy bombers left their base in Yorkshire about two hours after midnight, on their way to hit a German coastal gun battery in Normandy. No. 433 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, had struck targets in Nazi-occupied France before. But this time, as they reached the English Channel, they realized they were on a very different mission.

It was the 1960’s.

Dad and 4 or 5 war buddies would get together for a mighty drunk at least once a year.

I remember one summer day being jammed into the back seat of a vehicle with 4 of my siblings.

Dad was in the front seat helping his buddy Vic to drive.

Seat belts weren’t even an after thought.

It was a booze run to the local plaza and the promise of treats for us kids.

We  bounced off the curbs as we weaved our way there and back.

I recall being embarrassed about the poor driving and not at all concerned about safety.

I got a bag of chips, a 10 cent one, and I think a Pepsi.

It was the 1960’s.

Once upon a time, we weren’t wimps.

If you did this country wrong — betrayed Canada or your fellow citizens in any way — you could very well find yourself swinging at the end of a rope.

The Times had many journalists and photographers on the ground during the 1944 invasion of Normandy. They were assigned to file stories from the war zone to appease the editor but they had to abide by strict censorship rules.

The Allied Expeditionary Force employed officials known as field press censors, who reviewed journalists’ work in situ before it was transmitted back to the newsroom. After approval, journalists took their images and stories to transmission services, which were not usually located near the censors’ base.

From an airfield west of London, Richard Rohmer flew southwards out over the English Channel on the morning of June 6, 1944. Off to his left, the sun was rising over occupied France, and he was going to take pictures for Allied intelligence to guide the invasion. The joystick in his single-engine Mustang fighter plane had a button to control a camera, as well as the guns. He was flying as the second in a formation of two, but here in the cockpit, he was alone, watching a turning point in modern history and feeling confident in its outcome.