Picture of the day

I was surprised to read that the Hurricane was a known "flamer" when the fuel tank ahead of the cockpit was hit.

If the canopy was closed, opening it to bail out caused the flames to draft into the cockpit making it all but impossible to impossible to escape without being badly burned.

That's not much better than the "flamers' of WWI aircraft whose pilots chose to jump to their deaths rather than burn.
 
Nice horses.I've never seen rifle bandoliers hanged on hose neck like that.Those must hurt when in gallop.

Portugal is one of few places in Europe where cavalry makes a lot of sense.Very hilly terrain,lots of rocky back roads,borders are pretty much nothing but mountains.

I think border patrols of all southern countries in EU still use horses to some degree for exactly those reasons.
 
diopter said:
Yes Madsen.

Not your average horses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitano

Check out the pictures.
https://web.ipmsusa3.org/content/portuguese-dragoons-1966-1974-return-horseback#
Especially the ones training horses to jump off a cliff and moving among helicopters spinning rotors
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Many of the insurgents in Angola were terrified of the horses and their riders. The South Africans and Rhodesians also used horses with satisfying results.

There's a very real fear that goes into the heart of a person unfortunate enough to be to close to shoot a galloping horse bearing down on them. The horses were invaluable in the bush.

Check out Gray's Raiders
 
ipscgraz said:
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An exhausted Rommel in a photo thought to have been taken near El Alamein, possibly end of June/early July 1942. The now Generalfeldmarschall was at the gates of Egypt, but like him, his forces were also hanging by a thread. Egypt was, and would remain beyond his grasp. Despite the best efforts of his devoted orderly, Günther, during the North African campaign Rommel often showed a complete disregard for his own health, repeatedly driving himself into a state of near exhaustion. Due to a poor diet, he suffered from several ailments, especially of persistent stomach problems due to the long periods he went without food or drink, and naturally, due to stress. According to Günther, Rommel would leave for an entire day in the desert with just a sandwich or a can of sardines and a piece of bread. He wouldn’t drink much either, taking with him only a small canteen filled with cold tea with lemon, a canteen which was often almost full by day’s end. At dinner he would often eat the same as his soldiers did. The Afrika Korps diet was generally poor. Deemed too heavy for the desert and lacking fruits and vegetables, it was responsible for a large number of cases of jaundice among the troops. For comparison, Rommel 2 years before in France:


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My grandfather told me some great stories of his experience as a 13 year old Jewish boy in Tunis, Tunisia during WW2. He remembered the 6 month Nazi occupation vividly and had seen Rommel parade through Tunis when they first "captured" the city. Funny thing is he said the German regulars were relatively friendly, he made friends with an 18 year old soldier and brought him home several times to give him fresh fruits like mangos and clementines as the German rations were quite harsh during that campaign. Of course my great-grandmothers face was white a sheet when her teenage boy would bring home a uniformed German soldier lol!

Not long after the Afrika Korps showed up the SS followed suit and to say the least were not as friendly as the regulars to the Jewish population. They made the population wear the star of David arm band and forced the men into slave labor building defenses. My grandfather said they only came once to grab his father, apparently his mother answered the door hysterically saying that her husband had left her for another woman and that she would kill him if she ever saw him again, all while he was hiding under a bunk. The SS left confused and never came back.

That's just one of the many interesting stories my grandfather told me as a 13 year old, unfortunately he suffered a stroke when I was 14 and never regained his speech until he passed. I wish I could have asked so many more questions as an adult!
 
fat tony said:
SS Paul Hamilton

SS_Paul_Hamilton.jpg
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On her fifth voyage the SS Paul Hamilton left Hampton Roads, Virginia on 2 April 1944 as part of convoy UGS 38, carrying supplies and the ground personnel of the 485th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces to Italy. On the evening of 20 April it was attacked 30 miles (48 km) off the coast of Cape Bengut near Algiers in the Mediterranean Sea by 23 German Ju 88 bombers of III./Kampfgeschwader 26, I. and III./Kampfgeschwader 77. One aerial torpedo struck the Paul Hamilton and detonated the cargo of high explosives and bombs, and the ship and crew disappeared within 30 seconds. The crew and passengers, who included 154 officers and men of the 831st Bombardment Squadron and 317 officers and men of the 32nd Photo Reconnaissance Squadron, were all lost. Of the 580 men aboard only one body was recovered.
 
Engine size was a large reason why those plane were so small.Triplane had 130Hp rotary spinning its prop,I have the same 130Hp in my not-so-racy Accent.

Sad looking Triplane in Monino museum.To me far more interesting is ANT-2 to the left of it.First all metal plane made by Tupolev based on Junkers method of construction.

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Weird looking?Yes,but in those days great many monoplanes looked a lot like that.This one had 100Hp Bristol Lucifer 3 cylinder engine.
 
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