Picture of the day

[smellie]

Datable kit includes the soft cap '43, helmets '42, late Kar 98k, StG-44.

Note the heavy clothing; it's Winter.

Likely Winter of 1944/45. These guys are old beyond their years, they have been fighting for 5 years already, they are cold, they are tired beyond description and they haven't been eating very well. "In the Spring of 1945, the German Army was STARVING!": told to me personally by an International Red Cross camp inspector.

It was a grim bloody war, very nearly became the self-destruction of an entire civilisation.

We do not DARE forget because we CAN'T do it again!
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[Dark Alley Dan]

Every time I'm outside when it's cold - minus 20C or so - and I fancy myself uncomfortable, I think back on Gus Sajer's book and get some perspective.

- It's not -40C.
- It hasn't been this cold for 120 consecutive days.
- I slept warm and dry last night, not cold in a trench.
- I don't have lice.
- My clothes are very adequate for conditions.
- I could make a fire without attracting arty.
- I ate a hell of a lot more than 200 calories today.
- There isn't a Russian out there about 120 yards to the east in his own trench, just as dirty, lousy, ill-fed and miserable as me, who wants to kill me more than he wants his next breath.

...and on and on and on.

Were I a survivor of the Eastern Front, I'd be very inclined to find every SOB responsible for sending me there and do unspeakable things to them for hours on end. What an absolutely awful place to be, and what a terrible job to do there.

 

[kjohn]

The poor guy in the front is ready to fall over. By 1944, some of those troops had been pretty much through the grinder several times. When I think of all the fine young men on all sides that lost their lives, I am saddened. Although I was born 2 years after WW2, I was raised with it still very much on people’s minds. I also watched the aftermath wreak havoc with the vets and their families.
It is difficult to get my little mind wrapped around what people did to each other during WW2.

 

[scott585]

i wish we could know what is on their minds, they could very well be hard core nazis fighting for those ideals or they could be farm kids with little more than the thought of home on their minds, maybe this is just another job for them, maybe they went on to join the FFL because fighting is all they knew how to do anymore, maybe they miss someone as someone surely missed them.

i read an account of some british freemasons finding the body of a german tanker with a masonic ring (masons were among those sent to the concentration camps) in north africa and performing a masonic funeral for him. i wonder if those blokes found a similar humanity in the war

 

[kjohn]

An old WW2 vet told me that he and his buddy went to sleep in a haystack one night. They were dog tired and when they woke up, there were three German soldiers standing there, rifles in hand. They put up their hands, thinking they were toast. The Germans put down their rifles, "Nein! Nein!" (sp?) and put up their hands. Old Jimmy said that the poor buggers were dirty, skinny, and desperate for something to eat. Jimmy said that one broke down and cried.

 

[smellie]

"Hard core Nazis"??????

Guys who look like those ones don't have time or attention or the energy to be bothered goose-stepping, sieg-heiling or singing a rousing chorus of the "Horst Wessel Lied" or "Wenn Wir Fahren Gegen Engeland" or even "Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles". Their minds are on LIVING for the next few hours so that they MIGHT have a chance at a decent meal.

If you had known some of them and talked with them, you would know that Nationalsozializmus went out the window when the Stalin-Orgels started to scream. Once that happened, it was SURVIVAL. Remember, ninety percent of the Germans taken POW at Stalingrad did not get home. Ever.

The only people who might be called "hard-core Nazis" after a good dose of that would be the ones who never went anywhere near the Front.
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[Recce21]

I pray that those lads survived and went on to live peaceful lives.

 

[jwhc]

I pray that those lads survived and went on to live peaceful lives.

I couldn't agree more

Cheers
Joe

 

[jwhc]

Good day Gunnutz New day new picture

Cheers
Joe

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Makes standing on the bus all the way to work look pretty inconsequential, huh?

 

[fugawi]

Makes standing on the bus all the way to work look pretty inconsequential, huh?

that was good!

 

[jwhc]

Good day fellow Nutz New day new picture

Cheers
Joe

 

[Desert_Fox]

That Waffle SS dude is getting ready to Werf some Flammen!

 

[purple]

Not an enviable job as the "flamers" often became the "flamees" when their tanks were hit.

 

[smellie]

Nobody wanted to be cooked alive.

Flamethrower showed up, EVERYTHING aimed at it.

It was just about a suicide job every time you turned the thing on.

Ave, Caesar! Nos morituri te salutamus!
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Previous pic: catching a lift on a PzKrfw IV or StuGesch IV: 8 bogies, 4 return rollers. Does that guy on the right have a Kar-43?
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Be kind to a Pussycat; Lady Bast will smile upon you.

Winter is coming to Manitoba; support Global Warming!.

 

[bearhunter]

Nobody wanted to be cooked alive.

Flamethrower showed up, EVERYTHING aimed at it.

It was just about a suicide job every time you turned the thing on.

Ave, Caesar! Nos morituri te salutamus!
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Previous pic: catching a lift on a PzKrfw IV or StuGesch IV: 8 bogies, 4 return rollers. Does that guy on the right have a Kar-43?
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Be kind to a Pussycat; Lady Bast will smile upon you.

Winter is coming to Manitoba; support Global Warming!.

Heaven help you if you were unlucky enough to be captured with one of those even close by.

I heard that turnabout was considered fair play by both sides.

 

[Talquin]

Heaven help you if you were unlucky enough to be captured with one of those even close by.

I heard that turnabout was considered fair play by both sides.

Would be like the guy in the machine gun nests just giving up and raising their hands... didn't happen.

 

[Cdn303]

^^ Not on the Russian front. But there is all kinds of accounts of MG gunners giving up to Canadians when there were no NCO's of officers around.

As for the flamethrower toting squarehead; the other trouble with the backpack flamethrower is that they only carry about 15secs of fuel. What you need is a 'Wasp' or a 'Crocodile'.

 

[kjohn]

Good day fellow Nutz New day new picture

Cheers
Joe

"Let me see.... I think this wire goes here. No! Or does it?"

 

[smellie]

Not too many wires. The things ran on air and fuel, ignition was by a blank cartridge firing into the stream.

Ours were ignited by twisting the nozzle barrel; it had several flints in it, like a big cigarette lighter. Makes sense; they were built by Ronson.

You could take out a Tank with a flamethrower,,,, if you were very lucky. Hose him down with fuel until he buttons up, then give him a squirt of flame before he gets his gun around to zap YOU. Stuff will drip down inside. Tank cooks, then goes "BOOM!", then burns for 2 more days. Ugly.
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