WORLD OF ALL

Soldiers from the 1st Czechoslovak Corps before going on a combat mission in the area of the Zhizdra River, Russia, September 1944. Most of the soldiers sport smocks consisting variants of the famous Russian “amoeba” camouflage pattern, which was introduced into service during the Second World War.  A couple also seem to be wearing an early take on the “ghillie” suit as well, with dark green smocks adorned with tassels of “scrim.”  Note the lack of equipment these soldiers are carrying, they have removed any items that would make any sort of noise or reflect the sun’s light during the missions across enemy lines.  They only carry with them the essentials, a weapon (in this case the PPSH-41) and a belt with ammo. As the war on the Eastern Front progressed and the frontline moved westwards, the Red Army could no longer rely on Partisan and OSBOM NKVD units for reconnaissance and intel.  Thus from about 1943 onwards, every Soviet infantry regiment was fitted with a squa...

"During the first months of the campaign, Israel’s army employed over 25,000 tons of explosives (equivalent to two nuclear bombs)57 on innumerable buildings, many of which were identified as targets by Artificial Intelligence. 58 Israel used unguided munitions (“dumb bombs”) and 2000-pound “bunker buster” bombs on densely populated areas and “safezones”.  In the initial weeks, Israeli forces killed around 250 people daily, including 100 children, in attacks obliterating entire neighbourhoods and essential infrastructure.bs”) and 2000-pound “bunker buster” bombs on densely populated areas and “safezones”.  children, in attacks obliterating entire neighbourhoods and essential infrastructure.6 Thousands were killed by bombing, sniper fire or in summary executions; thousands more were killed while fleeing via routes and in areas declared “safe” by Israel.  The victims included 125 journalists and 340 doctors, nurses and other health workers (four percent of Gaza’s healthcare ...

The photograph below of the 1945 Shavuot prayer service in the liberated Buchenwald camp hangs in Yad Vashem’s Holocaust History Museum.  Leading the service is Rabbi Herschel Schacter, a Jewish chaplain who was among the American liberators of Buchenwald. Upon arriving at Buchenwald, the young Rabbi realized these prisoners were frightened of his uniform, which for them had been a symbol of oppression, he shouted out to them in Yiddish: “Yidden, ihr zeit frei–Jews, you are free!” Outside the barracks, Rabbi Schacter was appalled by the horrific sights he encountered. His shock and dismay grew as he discovered piles of corpses awaiting cremation, and the deplorable state of physical and mental health among the surviving prisoners. It was there that he encountered an 8-year-old survivor, ‘Lulek’ Lau, who warily watched the Rabbi from behind the tangled bodies of the dead. Rabbi Schacter picked up the little boy in his arms, and asked him how old he was. “I’m certainly older than you...

Canadian pilots from the 1st Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force (No.1 Squadron RCAF) sprint to their Hawker Hurricane fighters after enemy air contacts are picked up and the order to “scramble” is given. September-December, 1940. 2021 marks 81 years since the Battle of Britain began and was fought by the pilots of the RAF over a 3 month period versus the Luftwaffe for the control of the skies over Britain.  The Luftwaffe needed to establish air superiority over what is now the United Kingdom in order to ensure the success over Operation Sealion, their planned invasion of the island.  The RAF, already battered from their brief yet grueling days over France, barely held on against a seemingly endless onslaught of German bombers and fighters. Men from all nations, Polish, Czech, Canadian, and even Americans volunteered to man the machines that would take this threat head-on.  Some flew up to 7 sorties a day, catching up on what little sleep they had in between sorties ...

11 JUNE 1999 – KOSOVO DEFENSE CAMPAIGN BEGINS After an extended NATO air campaign that began 24 March 1999, a NATO-led international peacekeeping force called the Kosovo Force (KFOR) deployed to the Serbian autonomous region of Kosovo on 11 June 1999 to maintain the tenuous peace between warring ethnic factions in the region. The roots of the conflict between Kosovan Serbs and Kosovan Albanians are centuries-old but came to a boiling point in the aftermath of Yugoslavia’s dissolution in the early 1990’s and the ensuing genocidal conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia. In 1998 Kosovo, home an ethnic Albanian majority and a sizable ethnic Serbian minority, became the site of a civil war between Albanian separatists and the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević, who had grown infamous for his perpetration of crimes against humanity in Bosnia. By March 1999, efforts to arbitrate the conflict and end the cycles of ethnic cleansing had failed, and NATO began a bombing campaign targeted against t...

A limited-number of prints are available autographed by two heroes from the legendary 8th Air Force: Fred Wiese, a 35 mission veteran and pilot of the B-17 "The Little One" a Mischler, a 25 mission veteran and gunner on the B-17 "Pride of the Yanks."  With two editions already sold out, get yours today before they are gone forever at ValorStudios.com, link in bio! "Black Thursday" by Gareth Hector October 14, 1943: Deep into Germany and with their fighter escort gone, the bomber boys of the 8th Air Force are in the fight of their lives. More than three hundred “unrelenting” Luftwaffe fighters are trying to make them do the unthinkable: to turn back.  The ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt lay ahead, it’s a crucial target, and that leaves the 8th with one option: to fight their way through the maelstrom.  Jousts ensue at 23,000 feet as JG 3 ace Alfred Surau attacks in his Bf-109G. Sixty bombers will fall, including this B-17, “Wabbit-Twacks III,” of the ...

Soviet sniper and a Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Zaytsev (left), Stalingrad, 1942.  Between 10 November 1942 and 17 December 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, he killed 225 soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht and other Axis armies, including 11 enemy snipers. Zaytsev became one of the iconic figures of the Battle of Stalingrad but also the Soviet War effort itself after his feats on the Volga and beyond.  1942 as an incredibly difficult year for the Red Army, who was still leering from its staggering losses during the German invasion in 1941.  That spring, the Germans had resumed their offensives across the Eastern Front and seemed poised to repeat their successes in 1941. However, the Red Army of 1942 was different than the army that faced the Wehrmacht in 1941.  It had the benefit of experience, which it lacked the previous June, it had a seemingly endless supply of man and machine, and it’s new fighters were filled with a zeal and devotion to right the ...

A nervous American GI moves out of a tree line with his comrades following behind somewhere in the Hürtgen Forest, December, 1944. Photo shot by WW2 veteran and renowned photographer  At 4:00 AM on December the 16th, 1944, German artillery and aircraft began a mass bombardment of American lines - primarily in the area of the Ardennes.  The Ardennes was considered a quiet front by the US Army, a place where battered divisions - primarily chewed up and spat out from the Hürtgen Forest - could rest and recuperate with little chance of a major engagement. One of these such divisions was the 30th, the heroes of Mortain. They had breached the Siegfried Line north of Aachen at a hefty price and were subsequently moved to the Ardennes.  The supply situation in the ETO was still poor despite the opening of Antwerp and the clearing of the Schledt. Much of the Army did not have the proper winter equipment or ammunition to wage an effective defense against massed units of German armo...

Soviet aircraft engineers dismantle the MG.17 machine guns from the nose of a German Bf-109 fighter somewhere in the area of Stalingrad, shortly after Operation Uranus - November, 1942.  This is possibly a 109 from Kalach or Karpovka airfields which were crucial German fighter and attack airdromes during the Stalingrad campaign before they were overrun by Russian forces in November. . On November 19th, 1942, the Soviet Southwestern Front launched “Operation Uranus”, the encirclement of the embattled German 6th Army at Stalingrad.  Much of the Soviet attack focused on the positions of the Third Romanian Army to the north and west of Stalingrad.  The Romanians had been expecting an attack for quite some time and called for close air support. None could be provided, a thick fog had grounded the majority of German and Romanian squadrons that crucial day and would continue to do so for the next week or so.  The Soviets managed to launch several attack sorties that day, ar...

I hate and love Saving Private Ryan. I love the movie, it’s one of the greatest movies ever created. I rewatch it often. It’s the closest depiction of combat ever created and hopefully, the closest most of those of us who watch the movie will ever have to come.  It inspired a generation of historians to pursue the Second World War, created the inspiration for dozens of my favorite video games and movies, and brought the ugly truths of war into the homes of thousands. But as much I as love Saving Private Ryan, I hate it.  It shaped how millions saw the war and focused their attention on just D-Day and the associated units. Other divisions, those who were not present on Omaha beach that day, were left in the lurch.  Any history enthusiast could tell you the ins and outs of the D-Day Invasion, but what about Mortain, Montelimar, Colmar, or any other such battles not to mention entirely different theaters of war such as the Eastern Front or Burma.  We must not overlook t...

Pictured above is the skull and helmet of a German soldier who was killed on the Eastern Front, sometime between 1941 and 1945. I like to post this image annually so I can remind you, (the followers), a little more on the cost of war and the fact that bodies are still being found todsy on the Eastern Front.  Statistics indicate that 4/5 German soldiers on the Eastern Front were killed, and the Soviet number is not much better (infact worse.)  Entire Russian villages lost all of their young men, in fact I believe there is another statistic where 80% or so of all Russian males that were 20 in 1941 were killed. As many of you may know, the Eastern Front was one the most vast and attritional fronts of the war.  It was home to some of History's most famous abd bloody battles like Kursk, Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, Narva, Rzhev, Berlin, etc. So it is no surpise that hundreds and thousands of relics from the war and being dug up every year.  Many times, the remains of a ...

Russell J. York receives the Silver Star medal. Russell J. York (August 5, 1921 – July 22, 2006) was a native of Waterville, Maine who served between 1942-1945 as a combat medic assigned to the 4th Engineer Battalion of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. He landed at Utah Beachon D-Day under the command of Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. and with the U.S. 22nd Infantry Regiment served in the campaigns in Northern France, Rhineland, Battle of the Bulge and Central Europe. For gallantry in action in Germany, November 20, 1944 he earned the Silver Star medal. The 4th Infantry Division saw some of the most heavy and ferocious fighting of the war, particularly in Normandy and the Hürtgen Forest.  The 4th Infantry Division was tasked with linking up with airborne forces through the flooded fields of Normandy on June 6th, 1944, and then cutting off and clearing the Cherbourg Peninsula.  The fighting within the Cherbourg Peninsula was particularly bloody, entire regiments were chewed up and...

At this very moment 78 years ago, paratroopers from the British 6th Airborne Division and American 101st/82nd Airborne Divisions crossed over the Contentin Peninsula and jumped in the darkness - punctuated by flak and tracer fire.  Their descent from the heavens marked the beginning of Operation Overlord, the western Allied invasion of occupied Europe and the beginning of the end for the Axis.  The paratroopers faced monumental challenges from the outset - most had been separated from their respective units, landing in area often miles from their intended drop zones. battling the unforgiving Norman terrain (much of which had been flooded, drowning the heavily gear laden paratroopers in sometimes just 3 feet of water), and completely surrounded by the enemy.  By 7am, almost all of their objectives would be secured as the Allied landing forces began their assaults and began to push inland. More to follow tomorrow.

June 1944 D-Day American soldiers pause cautiously in the shadow of a building, searching for German snipers in the post D-Day allied advance in Normandy, France. Although 75% of American casualties in Normandy were as a result of mortar and artillery fire - snipers were a threat that drove perhaps more fear into the hearts of soldiers fighting in Normandy - both Commonwealth and American. Normandy, particularly the American sector, was an area dominated by the hedgerow.  These hedgerows; thick, impassable, and often ancient walls of brush, trees, branches, etc provided perfect cover and concealment for the defending Germans.  “Each one of them was a wall of fire” a soldier in the 30th Infantry Division wrote, “and the open fields between were plains of fire.” Snipers made use of this terrain to great effect.  Ernie Pyle, the renowned and beloved American war correspondent, reported that “There were snipers everywhere, in the trees, in buildings, in piles of wreckage, in ...

7 June 1944 U.S. paratroopers (front row) of 'Easy Company' 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division with soldiers from the Army’s 4th Infantry Division that came from Utah Beach, France, Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.  A couple of days ago, I received the gut wrenching news that Brad Freeman, the last living member of Easy Company (“Band of Brothers”) had passed away.  These past couple of weeks have been especially devastating for the WW2 community - having lost the last MOH recipient (post coming on Woody Williams as well) and also the last member of E Company.  I was taken aback when I heard the news and instantly reflected on how the story of Easy Company and their men had altered the course of my life forever. When I was still in middle school, I watched “Band of Brothers” on Amazon Prime - having begged my father to allow my to do so for years.  Having always been interested in the Second World War, the series captured me in...

EASY COMPANY OFFICER 1st Lieutenant Lynn “Buck” Compton, Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division  Yesterday I received a wonderful gift from @adammakos and @valorstudiosinc and just had to make a post about it. I received a copy of Buck Compton’s memoir “Call of Duty: My Life Before, During, and After ‘Band of Brothers’” signed by the author himself.  What an incredible piece of history, handled by a famed member and officer of Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division who just recently lost their last member from WWII - making it all the more poignant. Can’t thank them enough. Compton helped lead Easy Company from D-Day through the Battle of the Bulge before being sent behind the lines for “combat fatigue” after watching two of his best friends get blown apart during an artillery bombardment outside of Foy in early January, 1945. He was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry during the fight for Brecourt Manor and her guns in June, 1944.  After the war, 'B...

HERO OF THE 3RD ARMORED DIVISION PASSES ON Recently, the WW2 Community and humanity as a whole lost one of its greatest. He was a gentle giant, an unassuming man who found himself caught in one of the most horrific wars in human history.  Despite the brutality of this war, Clarence Smoyer did not lose his humanity or compassion. He was a gunner in the famed 3rd Armored Division ‘Spearhead’ and had fought with them from mid-1944 all the way to the wars end.  He was the greatest gunner in the whole division; as such in early 1945 Smoyer was selected to be a gunner on the brand new T26E3 tanks being rushed to the front in anticipation of the Allied push into Germany.  This job was by no means an easy assignment. Clarence now found himself at the spearhead of the “Spearhead” division - the first to come under fire.  Smoyer was made famous and ascended to legendary status among tankers for his role in the famous Köln tank duel which took place just a few hundred feet from...

30 July 1943 This famous photograph by war correspondent Gordon Short captures Australian Leslie ‘Bull’ Allen rescuing a wounded American soldier on Mount Tambu, New Guinea.   During an American assault against the Japanese on Mount Tambu, more than 50 US soldiers were injured.  Two medics were killed trying to retrieve them. The Australians were not supposed to be involved in the fighting, but having witnessed so many casualties, Allen, a stretcher-bearer, was determined to do what he could. - The summer of 1943 saw several offensives on the eastern coast of New Guinea, near and around the Huon Gulf, headed by both Australian and American forces.  They were fighting to wrestle control of key airfields and ports from Japanese hands as American forces were landing on nearby New Britain.  The eastern-most battles of this particular phase of the New Guinea campaign occured north of Wau. Mount Tambu oversaw this eastern theater and as such was of strategic importanc...

Vivian Bullwinkel was the sole survivor of a horrific World War II massacre, in which 21 of her fellow Australian army nurses were forced into the ocean and machine-gunned by Japanese troops on Indonesia's Bangka Island.  Now, "history detective" Lynette Silver has added another terrible piece to the puzzle of that February 1942 slaughter: The nurses, including Bullwinkel, were raped before they were killed.  Silver says there's a reason why this fact never came to light, other than unconfirmed whispers of it: She contends Bullwinkel had been told by the Aussie government to never speak of these war crimes. "She was ordered when she was still in the army not to include these details in her depositions to the Tokyo war crimes tribunal," Silver notes.

Have you heard about the Koriukivka massacre before? This is one of the most painful I have ever seen. Koriukivka massacre is the mass murder of 6,700 residents of the village of Koriukivka (now a town in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine), carried out on March 1-2, 1943 by units of the Hungarian military gendarmerie during the Second World War. The scale of the tragedy is exceptional among the population centers of Ukraine, the USSR and Europe. In terms of the number of victims,Koriukivka murders are almost 45 times higher than Belarusian Khatyn, 41 times higher than Czech Lidice, and 12 times higher than French Oradur. The mass killing of civilians was a punitive operation by Hungarian units in response to the actions of Soviet partisans led by the NKVD officer of the USSR Oleksiy Fedorov.  The fact that the partisan group of O. Fedorov's troops outnumbered the punishers by the number of soldiers by almost 10 times, which adds to the tragedy of this event, but the partisans did not...

Pvt. Francisco de Paula of the 1st ED. Brazilian artillery  in the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (Portuguese: Força Expedicionária Brasileira, or FEB), prepares to load a 105 mm M2A1 howitzer, placing a shell into the breech of his gun with the inscription “A cobra está fumando" ("The snake is smoking") during the Italian Campaign.  The soldiers of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force called themselves Cobras Fumantes (literally, Smoking Snakes) and wore a divisional shoulder patch that showed a snake smoking a pipe.  Near Massarosa, Tuscany, Italy. 29th September 1944. . One of my favorite musical genres is Bossa Nova, which derives from Brazilian samba, and as such I figured I would cover the lesser known but important group of Brazilians who fought in the Second World War with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB).  Brazil had assisted the Entente in the First World War and when she was called upon for a second time during the Second, she answered. Brazil provided ...

Kris Kristofferson - I May Smoke Too Much ----- Kris Kristofferson, a man of many talents – singer, songwriter, actor, Rhodes Scholar – has always had a knack for capturing the raw, unvarnished truth in his music. "I May Smoke Too Much," a deep cut from his 1974 album Spooky Lady's Sideshow, is a perfect example of this. The song isn't a celebration of vices, nor is it a cautionary tale. It's a snapshot of a man taking stock of his life, acknowledging his flaws with a wry smile and a shrug. Kristofferson's weathered voice, accompanied by a simple acoustic guitar, paints a picture of a world-weary traveler who's seen his share of dusty roads and smoky bars. The lyrics are filled with self-deprecating humor and a touch of defiance. "I may smoke too much, drink too much, it's a low-down light ain't gonna pass me by," he sings. It's not a boast, but a statement of acceptance. He knows his habits aren't healthy, but they're part of...

Two NCOs (looks to be a Feldwebel on the left and perhaps a Stabsfeldwebel on the right) from the 24. Panzer Division, signal troops to advance.  Taken near the Stalingrad southern railway station, September 24th, 1942. . The 24th Panzer Division was one of the spearheading units of the southern push into Stalingrad in August/September 1942. They faced the Soviet 62nd Army who despite being inadequately supplied (lacking in artillery and armor), put up a stout defense.  The 24th Panzer Division had been so depleted by this time (having fought through the chaos of Voronezh to Stalingrad’s southern limits), that it could often only field around 3 dozens tanks. Its commander was seriously wounded and his replacement killed.  To add to the chaos, by mid-September the division was the only armored unit pushing through Stalingrad’s suburbs as the 14th Panzer Division was diverted south to attack the Soviet 64th Army’s bridgehead over the Volga. By the time this photograph was t...