Picture of the day

International Volunteers at the Casa de Campo on the western outskirts of Madrid (1936)

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War doesn't look all that glorious, does it?

I just finished listening to the book Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell's account of his experience fighting in the Spanish Civil War. I borrowed the audio book from the library. The fellow who narrated the book did an excellent job of transmitting Orwell's writing style and his apparent feelings about the affair.
 
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AP said:
if you are unfamiliar with "mines" then you may not know that Canada was pretty good at it. Here's an oldie but goldie that some folks may not be aware of (was a TOP 10 non nuclear blast)-- just one video of Ripple Rock ... but well worth looking at other material and film from the time:
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The day that Ripple Rock was blown up the glass face of our kitchen wall clock cracked. We lived in Vancouver.
 
AP said:
Here's a very interesting gentleman

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with a fascinating connection to these gentlemen - at least I have always thought so!

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who in turn had an association with this "chap"

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Apologize but I wanted to resurrect this post because I am pretty sure that nobody got all the - admittedly obscure - connections - the middle picture was of two members of the KAR - Kings African Rifles but a WWll photo.

The photo of the jaunty chap at the top is of Roald Dahl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl) who also served in the KAR at the beginning of the war and managed (with the help of stalwart chaps like the two in the middle photo - actually Askari's) to capture some Jerries in Dar-es-Salaam.

For those who enjoy trivia .. Roald was the English raised son of a Norwegian who, while living in Wales as a child, was a co-conspirator in "the great mouse plot of 1924" (placing a dead mouse in a jar of "gobstoppers" at a local confectioners!) Roald was less well known for a somewhat obscure and irrelevant story called "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and numerous others like it (he also wrote some real lurid "man stuff!").

After serving in KAR - Roald moving to flying Gloucester Gladiators and was sent up to Mersa Matruh to engage Italian (and I suppose German) fighters .. for which the Gladiator was well equipped - it was a biplane! Moving to Hurricanes after a couple dozen hours and less than a fortnight later Roald - all alone - jumped 6 Ju88's and wacked one. He did the same again soon after and on 20th April 1941 he participated in the "Battle of Athens" along with 11 other Hurricanes: 5 Hurricanes destroyed - 4 Brits dead and 22 enemy planes shot down!

If you want to read about a man who defined the term "lived large" , knew "Intrepid" (visited Canada, married Gary Coopers girlfriend, worked with Ian Fleming etc etc) have a read of his wiki page because he deserves it. . even after his death he is still raising money for numerous charities including children of course, and the RAF.

He was buried with his snooker cues, some very good burgundy, chocolates, HB pencils and a power saw!!!


The guy on the bottom was some syphilitic axxhxle called Idi Amin -- who also served in the KAR - achieved Sr NCO status - as a cook it is believed - but a good example how a man can leverage a military career - for good .. or bad!
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762shooter said:
The day that Ripple Rock was blown up the glass face of our kitchen wall clock cracked. We lived in Vancouver.
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to me Ripple Rock represents a defining difference between the psychology of a man and a women. Read on:


Between November 1955 and April 1958, a three-shift operation involving an average of 75 men worked to build 500 feet (150 m) of vertical shaft from Maud Island, 2,370 feet (720 m) of horizontal shaft to the base of Ripple Rock, and two main vertical shafts up into the twin peaks, from which "coyote" shafts were drilled for the explosives. The contract was awarded to two firms for $2,639,000. At the time of the contract it was estimated the tunnels and shafts would not be completed until either 1957 or 1958. 1,270 metric tons of Nitramex 2H explosive was placed in these shafts, estimated at ten times the amount needed for a similar explosion above water. (yah sure - cause it was under water like eh!)


(The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had cleared the area of within 3 miles of the explosion, and the engineers and TV crew that witnessed the explosion were housed in a bunker).



So basically these guys worked around the clock in horrendous conditions for almost 3 years in HARD ROCK in order to put 10 times the explosives in what I am sure was an unspoken "MANLY MAN" conspiracy to see just how big an "F'ing" bang they could make!! These were guys with a purpose!!

If the gals were doing it - it would be 1 shift x 25 women - 10 years and 10 tons of explosives! Because more is just so "noisy" eh!
 
ipscgraz said:
Of course, after Ripple Rock was destroyed by the above-mentioned explosion, we realized that it could have been used as a stanchion for a bridge to Vancouver Island from the mainland. Instead we still have BC ferries.
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What??? and miss the chance to set off 1,270 metric tons of Nitramex 2H!!! In the immortal words of John Candy: "it blowed up real good" :)
 
Real nasty, 250 pound bombs rigged as daisy cutters, they explode above ground , hence the extended rod for ground contact ignition of explosive charge, kind of tough on enemy soldiers!
 
bush1 said:
Years ago I worked with a Brit and I knew that he was captured by the Japanese in China and spent time as a POW. He wouldn't talk about it except to say that the demons have to be kept sealed in the bottle. I understand that the treatment by the Japanese was horrendous.
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kjohn said:
^^ The understatement of the century. There are so many things we aren't educated about in our past. This will undoubtedly bring on the "but what about the war crimes that the Allies committed" crowd.
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Not from me!
 
Read "Unbroken" or see the movie to get an idea of the treatment allied POW's got from the Japanese.

They passed an order to execute all POW's as the war was winding down, but the order was only obeyed in a few instances. In the movie, the POW's were herded into a dry dock area with guards on either side armed with rifles and automatic weapons. Before the order could be given to fire, a low flying B-29 flew over waggling his wings, indicating that they had recognized POW's.

That saved them.
 
^^^That was a good movie and inspirational story too about what the main character did after the war.

For years the Japanese (unlike the Germans) didn't acknowledge their war crimes. I tried my best to avoid their products during this time.
 
purple said:
A-1 Skyraider. It and the F4U Corsair were the soldier's best friends for close air support in Korea. The A-1 also did yeoman service in Vietnam and was still the best thing going to get down in the weeds until the A-10 Warthog came along.
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I wonder sometimes if a prop jobby like a Skyraider would still be best? Linger time etc? I have a vision of a turbine looking thing like a Typhoon every time I see the engines on the commuter prop planes with the big intake.
 
billybob said:
Real nasty, 250 pound bombs rigged as daisy cutters, they explode above ground , hence the extended rod for ground contact ignition of explosive charge, kind of tough on enemy soldiers!
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This is a German idea-is't it?I have seen number of pictures of Ju-87 and FW190 loaded with bombs with long spikes fitted on.Some of them were made with concrete/scrap metal mix casings ( I don't know if that's true).
 
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