Picture of the day

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Mike Webb said:
My uncle served in Northern Europe in '44 and '45 he told me once that the "medal" thing was a crock in some cases. He claimed that some of the bravest individuals he had ever seen received no bravery decorations while commisioned officers seemed to have them pinned on with regularity with no special performance. Perhaps he had an enlisted man's bias.
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Ditto. I interviewed a Canadian combat engineer who landed on Juno ahead of the assault waves. He said he saw many good deeds, but unless it was observed by an officer, the soldier might as well have stayed in their holes because they never get an award.
 
Made a run to the big box store for some crap and did a quick run through at the thrift store near home, snapped a couple pics from a book titled "Australians at war". Lots of Lee Enfield eye candy, I love the Aussie LE's as I inherited a Lithgow LE from dad. Anyway, here's some neat pics.









Interesting to see the Captured VC sks
 
He is havink some good ideas. However, he iss leaving buttons exshposed, und zey vill catch und shnag everysing in der panzer. Better he should try zis:

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Der Panzertunik is a grossegut piez of kit, ja?
 
Butcherbill said:
Made a run to the big box store for some crap and did a quick run through at the thrift store near home, snapped a couple pics from a book titled "Australians at war". Lots of Lee Enfield eye candy, I love the Aussie LE's as I inherited a Lithgow LE from dad. Anyway, here's some neat pics.









Interesting to see the Captured VC sks
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Snow in Syria? Whoda' thunk? Maybe they won't have such a hard time adapting to the Canadian winters.
Our winter so far has been quite mild and very little snow.
 
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kawicrash said:
Snow in Syria? Whoda' thunk? Maybe they won't have such a hard time adapting to the Caadian winters.
Our winter so far has been quite mild and very little snow.
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Snow in Syria can be a problem. You can see quite an accumulation in the mountain passes between Syria and Lebanon. Most winters you would get reports of people being stuck in the snow and freezing to death because of inadequate clothing and lack of snow removal equipment.

We kept a couple of UN positions up on the top of Mt Hermon, at the junction of Israel, Syria and Lebanon and needed to pre-stock them with fuel to keep the generators going over winter. They were cut off from wheeled vehicle access for about 3-4 months so they has to use Kassebohrer tracked vehicles, as are used on ski slopes, to keep them accessible. The positions were manned by Austrian mountain troops. There was always a big rescue act every spring to open the roads up with bulldozers to keep the positions resupplied.

I was once snowed in while visiting the ancient Nabbatean city of Petra in Jordan (location for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) in January. The highway ran over higher ground and was blocked by snow. There was no option except to wait for a front end loader to unblock the road.

The Israelis even maintain a ski hill/resort on their slice of Mt Hermon.
 
Mike Webb said:
My uncle served in Northern Europe in '44 and '45 he told me once that the "medal" thing was a crock in some cases. He claimed that some of the bravest individuals he had ever seen received no bravery decorations while commisioned officers seemed to have them pinned on with regularity with no special performance. Perhaps he had an enlisted man's bias.
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he was absolutely right!! But I think it may have been a little unfair to malign ALL Officers (to be sure - General Officers received an inordinate number of gongs!!) but read this about the Awards granted to the Dieppe participants: (here's the Link PDF ... and recommended reading.. scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=cmh )

an excerpt:
"The most remarkable views were those of Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas E. Catto (The Royal Regiment of Canada) who suggested in a letter
dated June 30th, 1943, that recommending awards for specific individuals would result either in an inordinate number of recommendations
being made or unfair discrimination as between those finally honoured and those not decorated. Having canvassed his fellow POW officers, Catto
recommended that all surviving members of the regiment be entitled to wear a special badge or patch denoting their presence on the raid. Catto
repeated this suggestion even more forcefully after being liberated."

Catto was in the POW camp when he received correspondence from Canadian Army and was asked to provide his recommendations for awards for bravery after the raid...when the Army wouldnt go along with Catto's very strong recommendation that there must be an award for EVERYONE who landed based on his observation of the bravery of all Canadian troops .. Catto refused the DSO they wanted to give him!!

It is also very NOTEWORTHY that the only two awards given posthumously for operations were the Victoria Cross (VC) and the Mention in Dispatches (MiD) - at Dieppe the VC was only "available" if you were KIA (and specifically restricted in number regardless of the bravery involved!)... next time you see a posthumous MiD ...READ the citation VERY carefully ... you may well be reading about a guy that should have got a VC -- but got the "consolation" prize. The MiD is a simple Oak Leaf


(there is the incident of a Sergeant with The Royal Regiment of Canada at Dieppe who observed one of the landing craft trying to get off the beach with wounded men but was under heavy MG fire from an emplacement - the Sgt. gathered up as many hand grenades as he could and walked out onto the beach and - in open view - he threw them at the emplacement to suppress the fire in order to permit the LCI to push off... he was successful for a while until he was eventually killed by MG fire from a supporting German emplacement further down the beach. AFAIK - he received no gallantry award! .. I think these were the acts that motivated Catto's behaviour)
 
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AP said:
he was absolutely right!! But I think it may have been a little unfair to malign ALL Officers (to be sure - General Officers received an inordinate number of gongs!!) but read this about the Awards granted to the Dieppe participants: (here's the Link PDF ... and recommended reading.. scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=cmh )

an excerpt:
"The most remarkable views were those of Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas E. Catto (The Royal Regiment of Canada) who suggested in a letter
dated June 30th, 1943, that recommending awards for specific individuals would result either in an inordinate number of recommendations
being made or unfair discrimination as between those finally honoured and those not decorated. Having canvassed his fellow POW officers, Catto
recommended that all surviving members of the regiment be entitled to wear a special badge or patch denoting their presence on the raid. Catto
repeated this suggestion even more forcefully after being liberated."

Catto was in the POW camp when he received correspondence from Canadian Army and was asked to provide his recommendations for awards for bravery after the raid...when the Army wouldnt go along with Catto's very strong recommendation that there must be an award for EVERYONE who landed based on his observation of the bravery of all Canadian troops .. Catto refused the DSO they wanted to give him!!

It is also very NOTEWORTHY that the only two awards given posthumously for operations were the Victoria Cross (VC) and the Mention in Dispatches (MiD) - at Dieppe the VC was only "available" if you were KIA (and specifically restricted in number regardless of the bravery involved!)... next time you see a posthumous MiD ...READ the citation VERY carefully ... you may well be reading about a guy that should have got a VC -- but got the "consolation" prize. The MiD is a simple Oak Leaf


(there is the incident of a Sergeant with The Royal Regiment of Canada at Dieppe who observed one of the landing craft trying to get off the beach with wounded men but was under heavy MG fire from an emplacement - the Sgt. gathered up as many hand grenades as he could and walked out onto the beach and - in open view - he threw them at the emplacement to suppress the fire in order to permit the LCI to push off... he was successful for a while until he was eventually killed by MG fire from a supporting German emplacement further down the beach. AFAIK - he received no gallantry award! .. I think these were the acts that motivated Catto's behaviour)
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You may want to do a little fact checking regarding VCs awarded for the Dieppe action. Padre Foote and LCol Merrit both received the VC and both where very much alive, albeit POWs after the fact.
 
XRCD011 said:
You may want to do a little fact checking regarding VCs awarded for the Dieppe action. Padre Foote and LCol Merrit both received the VC and both where very much alive, albeit POWs after the fact.
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you are quite correct of course! Both extraordinary men!! BUT read the article I linked to ... they thought that Merrit was dead when the VC was originally proposed... and Foote was very contentious because, although a Padre, he was 'apparently' very much engaged in the hostilities with a "weapon" ... and it wasnt until numerous returning soldiers made the case for his valour that they reluctantly considered and approved it.
 
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