WW II Historical Thread, Discussion, Pics, Videos

Miragedriver

Brigadier
Graf Spee del 30 of June, 1934
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Graf Spee operational
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The Graf Spee in Montevideo.
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The remains of Capitan Langsdorff being removed from the Naval Academy in Buenos Aires
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Miragedriver

Brigadier
Terrible images of the slaughter of Kondomari, Greece. Following the discovery of the bodies by Cretcian soldiers. Generaloberst Kurt Student, commander of the occupation troops in Crete, ordered a strong message to be sent to the people of Kondomari in retaliation for partisan activity.

On June 2, 1941, four packed in truck of the 3rd Battalion Luftlande-Sturm-Regiment 1 under the command of Oberleutnant Horst Trebes surrounded the village. They assembled all the people, men, women and children in the main square, then separated the men and they chose thirty people at random.

The prisoners were taken at gunpoint to the olive groves outside the village where they proceeded gun them down The exact number of victims is unclear. According to German records, a total of 23 men were put to death, but Greek sources put the figure at around 60.

The images were taken by the German war correspondent Franz-Peter Weixler ...

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Subsequent images of the executions were not included for common decency and respect for the dead.



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Miragedriver

Brigadier
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Muslim troops of the 13th Div. Of Handschar Waffen SS Mountain praying. This division acted in a counterinsurgency campaign against the forces of the Yugoslav communist resistance in the self-proclaimed Independent State of Croatia, a fascist puppet state of Germany, organized on Yugoslav territory. This nation encompassed almost all of today's Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and parts of Serbia. The Handschar, was the first non-German division of the Waffen-SS, and training marked the expansion of the same in a multi-ethnic military force. It composed primarily of Bosnian Muslims with some Catholic Croat soldiers, Germans and Yugoslavs of German blood. They took an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler and the Croatian fascist leader Ante Pavelic. Neuhammer, Province of Silesia, Germany, 1943 ...


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ABC78

Junior Member
Exactly, Germany and Japan only wanted America to back away. They could never hope to win a war on American mainland - for they don't even have enough boats to transport enough troops there! America also had numerical advantage - Germany had a population of around 70 million in 1940, while Japan had a poulation of around 73 million in 1940. America on the other hand has a population of 132 million back in 1940. It would take both Japan and Germany to attack American mainland simultaneously to even have a sliver of chance to win, and that's with them both not engaged and bog down in any other theater of war (eg. Britain, Europe, Russia, China).

The axis forces was simply too spread out, there was no chance for them to mount any meaningful attack on America unless they completely abandon all their operations in other areas and concentrate their forces on America.

A fact both Germany and japan knew. They both were trying to raise armies of collaborators with varying success.

Germany and their non German volunteers units mainly waffen-ss. H#77 Germany hoped that their sympathizers in th US could turn America into an ally but Pearl Harbor happened.(A fools errand to turn the US)

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Japan supported almost a quarter of a million puppet troops in China. The US for a time feared if japan was able to knock out China or arrange a truce that 20 ija divisions could be freed up to fight the US.
 

Miragedriver

Brigadier
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Anzio Beach Head Hospital, WWII.
This hospital tent was hit by mortar shrapnel killing five men inside.


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Miragedriver

Brigadier
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RAF Hawker Typhoon (Tiffy) firing it's RP-3 rockets.

On 10 July at Mortain, Normandy, flying in support of the US 30th Infantry Division against a German counter-attack, Typhoons flew 294 sorties in the afternoon of that day, firing 2,088 rockets and dropping 80 short tons (73 t) of bombs. They engaged the German formations while the US 9th Air Force prevented German fighters from intervening.

"The chief credit in smashing the enemy's spearhead, however, must go to the rocket-firing Typhoon aircraft of the Second Tactical Air Force... The result of the strafing was that the enemy attack was effectively brought to a halt, and a threat was turned into a great victory." Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander


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Miragedriver

Brigadier
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B-25 aircraft of 345th Bombardment Group, US 500th Bombardment Squadron attacking Japanese Sub Chaser CH-39 off Three Island Harbour, New Hanover, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, 16th Feb 1944.

In the background is a sinking supply ship that the sub-chaser was escorting, it was in the act of re-supplying a Japanese sub when the B-25's attacked, the sub managed to dive and escape.

That sub-chaser badly damaged, eventually grounded on a reef and was sunk by the US Navy the next day.


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