Picture of the day

fat tony said:
The White War

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...ern-Italy-reveal-corpses-of-WW1-soldiers.html
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There is a very good book about this chapter called
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919

Good reading for anybody with an interest in both military history and mountaineering.
As a youth I have been all over these battle fields both in the Italian Alps and in what is now Slovenia near Kobarid (once called Caporetto) and Bovec.

Another must read for anybody interested in mountaineering and military history is "into the Silence".
 
One of the men mentioned in Mowats Book was Keith Close. He was killed in battle later and buried in Italy. He was from my home town of Morse,Sask. A neighbour of his told me he was a little guy always looking for a scrap;guess he found one. He is remembered on his brothers headstone in our cemetary. Keith Close Killed in Italy A large lake in N. Sask is named after him. Lest We Forget
 
I read Mowat's Itlay book this past summer. Hell of a good read. The man had his faults, but he really could write.

Field maintenance, Italy.

m4a4_25.JPG


Guess it beat trying to winkle in past a million little obstructions.
 
grelmar said:
The myth of "The Noble Savage" is just that - a myth.

People are people. Nothing more. Nothing less. The fundamentals that drive humanity and human interaction simply do not change. Anyone who believes otherwise is willfully ignorant of history.
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Indeed, the fundamentals are universal. Whether other qualities are is a matter for some debate, at least among people who prefer to see things as they are, rather than as they wish they were. We're being carefully trained not notice those inconvenient truths though, so that in the future we can all enjoy the soil & greens together in one big happy family.

We can blame Rousseau and his "enlightenment" friends for most of the Noble Savage baloney: humanism is predicated on the myth that humans are inherently good and our faults are only the result of our "civilization".

How they squared this with the evident ignorance, superstition, brutality, filth, incest and general degradation of a primitive, subsistence lifestyle is one of those wonderful cases of religious mania masquerading as philosophy or worse, as physical reality, which continue to plague us to this day. Human-caused "global warming" for example.

http://theconversation.com/explainer-the-myth-of-the-noble-savage-55316

....The modern myth of the noble savage is most commonly attributed to the 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. He believed the original “man” was free from sin, appetite or the concept of right and wrong, and that those deemed “savages” were not brutal but noble.

His noble savage, considered in Emile, ou de l'Education (1762), Reveries of a Solitary Walker (1782) and Confessions (1768), was a shining beacon to 18th-century Europe.

The idea can be found also in theology as an explanation for the degeneration of 18th-century society. The founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley, claimed that,

in the beginning man was made right with regular, pure affections.

But “he” became diseased and degenerated, obsessed with the things of the world.

James Cook brought Enlightenment ideas and sciences to the South Seas in his journeys around the Pacific, and was perhaps expressing Rousseau-style sentiments when he described Australian Aborigines in noble savage tones:

They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition: The Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life, they covet not Magnificent Houses, Household-stuff, they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholesome Air, so that they have very little need of Clothing …

They were, Cook famously declared in his Endeavour journals, “far more happier than we Europeans”.

Through the 19th century, as empires swallowed Indigenous lands, the idea of the noble savage receded and the reverse negative stereotype of the dangerous, brutal savage prevailed.
The European reaction to the death of James Cook revealed the conflicting stereotype of the ‘brutal savage’. Johanne Zoffany, The Death of Captain James Cook, 1779

Both typecasts relied on the idea that the Indigenous peoples of the world were in an original state, “primitive”, “backward”, the ancient ancestor to “modern man”, the infants of humanity. Metaphors of time forged the social relationships of colonialism.

The noble savage re-emerged with Karl Marx’s critique of empire in the mid to late 19th century. It was expressed most powerfully by his partner, Friedrich Engels, who tied his revolutionary hunger for freedom from Victorian restrictions to the belief that human societies were originally led by women, and were characterised by the absence of jealousy and a state of almost free love.

In his famous fourth edition of Origins (1894), Engels claimed that the most perfect example of this society could be found among Australian Aborigines. Friedrich Engels popularised the notion of the ‘noble savage’ for a new century.

Engels berated those who argued for the brutal savage, for those “philistines in their brothel-tainted imagination” who viewed Aboriginal ###ual relations with abhorrence.

Many historians and anthropologists have questioned his reading of the Australian texts, in particular Fison and Howitt’s landmark study of Aboriginal and Pacific Island societies, Kamilaroi and Kurnai (1880), that formed the basis of his analysis.

Engels’ noble savage proved particularly tenacious through the 20th century and became a kind of pagan foundation for the Soviet State, an argument against both Christianity and the West.

Free love was held to be the gift of the revolution, an attempt to recreate the perceived ###ual freedom of Indigenous peoples. [Marx & Engels openly declared their war on the nuclear family: the socialist state cannot tolerate education that is not in their hands, or loyalties stronger than to the state, or to be more precise the dictators of the proletariat.]

The idea of the noble savage became a romantic foil to the alienation and inequities of capitalism and was restated by the neo-Marxists of the 1970s.

Yet another version of the noble savage can be found in New Age romanticism. Indigenous peoples are credited with special powers, such as healing or enhanced spirituality. New Age practitioners might seek to recreate or dance through Indigenous ceremonies, often with little idea of their original meanings.

Dream catchers and unattributed dot paintings on bags produced in China prove that there is money to be made from this model of the myth.

Scholars have long recognised that both the noble and the brutal savage are fantasies of the European mind that kept Indigenous peoples in a suspended state of either elevated purity or perpetual evil.

The noble savage binds Indigenous peoples to an impossible standard. The brutal savage, by contrast, becomes the pre-emptive argument for Indigenous failings.

The ideal of the noble savage has led to considerable derision. James Cook’s most famous biographer, J.C. Beaglehole, dismissed Cook’s passage on Aborigines as,

preposterous sublimity, this nonsense on stilts.
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So there's poor old Capt. Cook telling himself that a bunch of aborigines wandering around in the sun daubing themselves with wood ash and eating grubs from rotten logs were living an ideal life!

Just as today, we look around at all the problems we face and then look for something or someone to blame: but please, not ourselves! No, it must the "social constructs" or the "economic system", or "religion" or "ideology"...it couldn't be the simple choices we make hundreds of times every day!

When humans worship themselves, they need to give the idol a little polishing.

Pogo trumps Rousseau "We have seen the enemy and they is us"

What we can do about that is not something we're allowed to discuss here in case we get too close to the truth or hurt each other's feelings.
 
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Dark Alley Dan said:
I read Mowat's Itlay book this past summer. Hell of a good read. The man had his faults, but he really could write.

Field maintenance, Italy.

m4a4_25.JPG


Guess it beat trying to winkle in past a million little obstructions.
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A-57 Multibank engine, good lord, they look like something a German would invent.

M4A4-labeled-image-front.png


engines.jpg
 
RRCo. said:
Indeed, the fundamentals are universal. Whether other qualities are is a matter for some debate, at least among people who prefer to see things as they are, rather than as they wish they were. We're being carefully trained not notice those inconvenient truths though, so that in the future we can all enjoy the soil & greens together in one big happy family.

We can blame Rousseau and his "enlightenment" friends for most of the Noble Savage baloney: humanism is predicated on the myth that humans are inherently good and our faults are only the result of our "civilization".

How they squared this with the evident ignorance, superstition, brutality, filth, incest and general degradation of a primitive, subsistence lifestyle is one of those wonderful cases of religious mania masquerading as philosophy or worse, as physical reality, which continue to plague us to this day. Human-caused "global warming" for example.

http://theconversation.com/explainer-the-myth-of-the-noble-savage-55316



So there's poor old Capt. Cook telling himself that a bunch of aborigines wandering around in the sun daubing themselves with wood ash and eating grubs from rotten logs were living an ideal life!

Just as today, we look around at all the problems we face and then look for something or someone to blame: but please, not ourselves! No, it must the "social constructs" or the "economic system", or "religion" or "ideology"...it couldn't be the simple choices we make hundreds of times every day!

When humans worship themselves, they need to give the idol a little polishing.

Pogo trumps Rousseau "We have seen the enemy and they is us"

What we can do about that is not something we're allowed to discuss here in case we get to close to the truth or hurt each other's feelings.
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The "noble savages" of Hawaii killed Captain Cook & it is believed that they also ate him. :(
 
AP said:
A very good read including Assoro ... (use 'search google' to find it - I cant make a link) I knew at least one of those mentioned who later went up Assoro with the RCR
http://DEFEATS CRACK NAZI UNITS OPENS WAYTO INTERIOR -
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Here's an item somewhat related to the Canadian assault on Assoro. It's a painting made by a Corporal Macaulay of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. He was the signaler attached to the Hastings & Prince Edward Regiment who carried the wireless set up the cliff to establish communications with the artillery and is mentioned in Mowat's book. I received this and his battlesdress jacket from his widow many years ago. I donated the jacket to the Signals Museum in Kingston but kept this memento for myself.

 
purple said:
The M4A4 Sherman hull had to be elongated to fit the Chrysler multi bank engine. A lot of them were reworked as Sherman Fireflies with the 17pdr gun, the best Tiger killer the allies fielded.
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You see a Chrysler multibank...I see a 30 cylinder tune-up...
 
Jesus. Getting five seperate engines to play well together must have been fun. Seperate carbs or a common intake setup? I note each bank had its own distributor. How'd they sort out timing?

Whoever engineered that drank heavily.
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
Jesus. Getting five seperate engines to play well together must have been fun. Seperate carbs or a common intake setup? I note each bank had its own distributor. How'd they sort out timing?

Whoever engineered that drank heavily.
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The Shermans were powered by 4 types of powerplants. The M4 and M4A1 used the Continental radial engine, the M4A2 a twin GM diesel engine, the M4A3 a Ford V8 and the M4A4 the Chrysler multibank. Production numbers mattered so it was a question of making best use of what was on hand. The multibank M4A4 was the first one to stop production in 1943, a victim of rationalization to eliminate the most complex engine when sufficient others were available.

The US kept most of the M4, M4A1, and M4A3 models for themselves with the M4A2 and M4A4 being provided to allies on lend lease. There was some theoretical advantage to the M4A2 diesel as diesel is less volatile than gas in a fire. 50 yrs ago I learned to drive a M4A2 diesel and it was quite an experience. When I was in Argentina a couple of yrs ago I was surprised to see an M4A4 preserved as a monument outside the military HQ in Buenos Aires.
 
purple said:
The Shermans were powered by 4 types of powerplants. The M4 and M4A1 used the Continental radial engine, the M4A2 a twin GM diesel engine, the M4A3 a Ford V8 and the M4A4 the Chrysler multibank. Production numbers mattered so it was a question of making best use of what was on hand. The multibank M4A4 was the first one to stop production in 1943, a victim of rationalization to eliminate the most complex engine when sufficient others were available.

The US kept most of the M4, M4A1, and M4A3 models for themselves with the M4A2 and M4A4 being provided to allies on lend lease. There was some theoretical advantage to the M4A2 diesel as diesel is less volatile than gas in a fire. 50 yrs ago I learned to drive a M4A2 diesel and it was quite an experience. When I was in Argentina a couple of yrs ago I was surprised to see an M4A4 preserved as a monument outside the military HQ in Buenos Aires.
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ht tp://www.allpar.com/history/military/

excellent site that talks about mopar military contributions, chrysler produced 96% of all 45 acp ammo during the war, more than 3 billion rounds, along with helping build the A-bomb and producing 7 of the 8 engines that carried them to the target
 
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