Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Korea, maybe?
Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
- Start date
Looks like a typical position in Korea. During the last 2 yrs of the war the fighting was largely from static positions similar to the trenches of WW1. Note the debris around this fellow-empty ration cans, bit of clothing and eqpt, etc. Some of the old sweats described their positions as literal sh*tpits with no attempt made to dispose of accumulated trash or use established latrines. This meant that you could both see and smell the positions from a distance. One bonus about the empty ration cans was that they could be strung on the barbed wire with pebbles inside as a form of alarm against enemy movements/attacks at night.
- Location
- Ottawa origanally Muskoka
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the guy who built a railroad with 8-foot gauge and curves planned for 100 mph speeds.... in the 1860s.
The guy who nearly drilled a trans-Atlantic tunnel a century before the Chunnel.
VERY interesting guy.
HE probably could have made something like this WORK!
Check him out. Serious.
The guy who nearly drilled a trans-Atlantic tunnel a century before the Chunnel.
VERY interesting guy.
HE probably could have made something like this WORK!
Check him out. Serious.
The guy in the middle is wondering, "What the **** is so funny?" Those look like rubber shoes. My Mom's brother, John, fought in both WWII and Korea. He said the Canadian boys were having a go with the Opposition along a river bank in Korea one dark night. The (I can't say it here, not PC) ****s had rubber shoes and could sneak along the rocks without detection. Our boys had big boots with steel cleats that made a racket, drawing fire. I remember him telling my Dad.
NavyShooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- XMU Local .303
Bren....lots of early Tommy-guns with vertical fore-grips....commando of some sort?
NS
NS
My father was an avid photographer. His papers include lots of pictures of him and family, starting when he was about age 2. he joined the RCAF in 1939 and continued to take and file lots of pictures.
Here are two of my favourites taken on the east coast:
The Hudson bomber had several cameras on board. One shot a sequence out of the bomb bay when bombs were dropped. This is from that sequence (the last picture). The first pictures were of empty ocean. I estimate altitude to be about 500 feet. The 5x5 contact print has remarkable detail. The wooden decking is clear and if you can lip-read German, the conning tower crew are looking up and saying "Oh ****!". My father's notes indicates he had a K2 yellow filter on the camera to enhance contrast. Note that the attack angle gives best chance of a perfect straddle.
The margin notes indicate the attack was 9 Sept '42 midway between Anticosti Island and PEI.
This particular crew got three subs in about one week. Two attacks were from an excellent skill set (this picture was from an attack started with a radar search), and one (the next picture) was blind luck.
This was the attack my father mentioned most often. they were returning home from a patrol, cruising above a low cloud deck and decided it was best to drop down while still over the water. They dropped below the clouds and saw the coastline and a German sub in the process of surfacing. They just had time to make a tight 180 turn, open the bomb bay doors and attack with depth charges and cannon. Dad took this picture with a handheld camera from the cockpit. He must have been busy!
He was later commended for the pictures because they were important for moral. The RCAF released the complete series of the attack to the newspapers. They showed the bombing, strafing, sinking and sailors in the water.
Here are two of my favourites taken on the east coast:
The Hudson bomber had several cameras on board. One shot a sequence out of the bomb bay when bombs were dropped. This is from that sequence (the last picture). The first pictures were of empty ocean. I estimate altitude to be about 500 feet. The 5x5 contact print has remarkable detail. The wooden decking is clear and if you can lip-read German, the conning tower crew are looking up and saying "Oh ****!". My father's notes indicates he had a K2 yellow filter on the camera to enhance contrast. Note that the attack angle gives best chance of a perfect straddle.
The margin notes indicate the attack was 9 Sept '42 midway between Anticosti Island and PEI.
This particular crew got three subs in about one week. Two attacks were from an excellent skill set (this picture was from an attack started with a radar search), and one (the next picture) was blind luck.
This was the attack my father mentioned most often. they were returning home from a patrol, cruising above a low cloud deck and decided it was best to drop down while still over the water. They dropped below the clouds and saw the coastline and a German sub in the process of surfacing. They just had time to make a tight 180 turn, open the bomb bay doors and attack with depth charges and cannon. Dad took this picture with a handheld camera from the cockpit. He must have been busy!
He was later commended for the pictures because they were important for moral. The RCAF released the complete series of the attack to the newspapers. They showed the bombing, strafing, sinking and sailors in the water.
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Good day GunnutzNew day new picture !!
Cheers
Joe
Early photo of Commandos. Might be as late as Dieppe.
Notice that they are wearing no badges or markings.
Yes, they look tough. They don't look like thugs though. There's the difference.
Tough as NAILS, although you would never know it if you met one in civilian life for real.
I have known two-and-a-half of them, the half being a fellow I worked with at the Vancouver Museum, former Curator Jack Carsley. He got sick of Coast Watch and was able to talk to The Right People, made a few cross-Channel raids with these characters. He said it was dangerous as hell, but a lot of fun if you made it home alive.
I really think that was an understatement. Me? I would have been scared spitless!
Another was the commander of our local Cadet Corps, Dunc Elliot, who was my Dad's best friend for many years. Dunc's initials were DCM and I think the DCM was about the only medal he DIDN'T have. On Remembrance Day, Dunc and old Jan Pic, who was with the Polish Army paratroopers in 1938, made enough noise for a pawnshop, just walking, from ALL those medals. I don't think we will see another display like that in our time, outside of a museum. Dunc was a very interesting person, half Scot and half Cree although he didn't look it; his mother had been a Medicine Woman and Dunc knew a lot of natural cures for things, including a salve which regenerates flesh and muscle and nerves, leaving no scars, no matter how horrid the injury. Dunc ran an outfit that operated alongside Lovat's boys and had 47 snipers under his command. I saw the rifle he used, which he had borrowed from the Army at the conclusion of nastiness. It was a Winchester Model 70 in .270 calibre; he said that his outfit was allowed to use them, despite there being no proper ammunition for them. "It didn't matter, anyway," he told me, "Jerry didn't take snipers prisoner." The flat-shooting .270 round enabled the men to work 100 yards farther out than with the .303. Evidently, there were a couple of dozen of these in use; I am trying to track down the purchase.
The third one I met was a completely-upbeat fellow named Eddie Steiman. Eddie was raised in Winnipeg, where he went to school with Emmanuel "Mannie" Silverman. They both joined up as soon as the War started, feeling that any Jew should be interested in defeating Hitler. Mannie Silverman was discovered to be a watchmaker by trade (his family has one of the finest jewellery shops in the province) and so was handed over to the RCAF. During the war, he was Head of the Instrument Section at Number 2 Bombing and Gunnery School in Dafoe, Sask., where my Dad (who had suffered a similar fate, once it was discovered that he also had watchmaker training) worked under his direction. At Dafoe there was a whole fleet of aircraft of different types to keep in the air and half of he Instrument department was Jewish. Dad came out of that with his own Russian-Jewish name and understanding a fair bit of Yiddish. At Dafoe, you couldn't just pick up an instrument and FIX the thing; it had to be SOLD to you first. "If you're going to have a war," Dad said, "you might as well have one working with people you LIKE."
But that didn't help Eddie Steiman, who figured that a war should also be FUN. Eddie was dumped in the Infantry at first. THEN came a call for volunteers for "special combat duties" and Eddie signed up and found himself in an outfit like in the photo above. "That was fun," he told me, "but I wanted something more." Later, a call came for "single men only, with photographic experience" and Eddie plumped for that one, too. He was and enthusiastic amateur photographer and expert with many kinds of equipment already, so he was transferred to the Air Force, where he found himself hanging onto and operating a Sackman K-18 modified mapping camera which took rollfilm nearly a foot wide, taking pictures of the previous night's bomb damage in Germany through the Perspex nose of a low-level Lancaster at full throttle! "THAT was enough fun," he said. He also carried one of his own cameras on these missions, a 1938 Graflex 4x5 which he let me have for a price which was stiff enough that he knew that it would be looked after. (He was actually looking for a "home" for it, being that he was 84 at the time.) It has vibration damage to the leather case from rattling around in the Lanc. I think of Eddie..... and all the others..... every time I use it.
But the odd thing about all these men was that getting anything out of them regarding the War was like pulling teeth. The only way I knew there was something special about Eddie Steiman was that I knew the Pattern 37 web gear fairly well, and what was in the photo on his den wall was NOT standard-issue for Infantry. Only way you would know there was something unusual about Dunc (if you didn't know him) was by that incredible display of medals, one day a year. All three were quiet, modest and highly intelligent. They were as far from "thugs" as anyone possibly could imagine.
Add a healthy dose of pure GUTS to that, and you have the makings of a Commando.
I have known two-and-a-half of them, the half being a fellow I worked with at the Vancouver Museum, former Curator Jack Carsley. He got sick of Coast Watch and was able to talk to The Right People, made a few cross-Channel raids with these characters. He said it was dangerous as hell, but a lot of fun if you made it home alive.
I really think that was an understatement. Me? I would have been scared spitless!
Another was the commander of our local Cadet Corps, Dunc Elliot, who was my Dad's best friend for many years. Dunc's initials were DCM and I think the DCM was about the only medal he DIDN'T have. On Remembrance Day, Dunc and old Jan Pic, who was with the Polish Army paratroopers in 1938, made enough noise for a pawnshop, just walking, from ALL those medals. I don't think we will see another display like that in our time, outside of a museum. Dunc was a very interesting person, half Scot and half Cree although he didn't look it; his mother had been a Medicine Woman and Dunc knew a lot of natural cures for things, including a salve which regenerates flesh and muscle and nerves, leaving no scars, no matter how horrid the injury. Dunc ran an outfit that operated alongside Lovat's boys and had 47 snipers under his command. I saw the rifle he used, which he had borrowed from the Army at the conclusion of nastiness. It was a Winchester Model 70 in .270 calibre; he said that his outfit was allowed to use them, despite there being no proper ammunition for them. "It didn't matter, anyway," he told me, "Jerry didn't take snipers prisoner." The flat-shooting .270 round enabled the men to work 100 yards farther out than with the .303. Evidently, there were a couple of dozen of these in use; I am trying to track down the purchase.
The third one I met was a completely-upbeat fellow named Eddie Steiman. Eddie was raised in Winnipeg, where he went to school with Emmanuel "Mannie" Silverman. They both joined up as soon as the War started, feeling that any Jew should be interested in defeating Hitler. Mannie Silverman was discovered to be a watchmaker by trade (his family has one of the finest jewellery shops in the province) and so was handed over to the RCAF. During the war, he was Head of the Instrument Section at Number 2 Bombing and Gunnery School in Dafoe, Sask., where my Dad (who had suffered a similar fate, once it was discovered that he also had watchmaker training) worked under his direction. At Dafoe there was a whole fleet of aircraft of different types to keep in the air and half of he Instrument department was Jewish. Dad came out of that with his own Russian-Jewish name and understanding a fair bit of Yiddish. At Dafoe, you couldn't just pick up an instrument and FIX the thing; it had to be SOLD to you first. "If you're going to have a war," Dad said, "you might as well have one working with people you LIKE."
But that didn't help Eddie Steiman, who figured that a war should also be FUN. Eddie was dumped in the Infantry at first. THEN came a call for volunteers for "special combat duties" and Eddie signed up and found himself in an outfit like in the photo above. "That was fun," he told me, "but I wanted something more." Later, a call came for "single men only, with photographic experience" and Eddie plumped for that one, too. He was and enthusiastic amateur photographer and expert with many kinds of equipment already, so he was transferred to the Air Force, where he found himself hanging onto and operating a Sackman K-18 modified mapping camera which took rollfilm nearly a foot wide, taking pictures of the previous night's bomb damage in Germany through the Perspex nose of a low-level Lancaster at full throttle! "THAT was enough fun," he said. He also carried one of his own cameras on these missions, a 1938 Graflex 4x5 which he let me have for a price which was stiff enough that he knew that it would be looked after. (He was actually looking for a "home" for it, being that he was 84 at the time.) It has vibration damage to the leather case from rattling around in the Lanc. I think of Eddie..... and all the others..... every time I use it.
But the odd thing about all these men was that getting anything out of them regarding the War was like pulling teeth. The only way I knew there was something special about Eddie Steiman was that I knew the Pattern 37 web gear fairly well, and what was in the photo on his den wall was NOT standard-issue for Infantry. Only way you would know there was something unusual about Dunc (if you didn't know him) was by that incredible display of medals, one day a year. All three were quiet, modest and highly intelligent. They were as far from "thugs" as anyone possibly could imagine.
Add a healthy dose of pure GUTS to that, and you have the makings of a Commando.
Good day Gunnutz New day new picture
Cheers
Joe
Early Russian training pic that was posed for the cameraman. Looks like a T32 with the new Christy suspension.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
'Sergei, you hear something?"
"Da, Ivan. I think comrades of 1st Tank Army are nearby..."
Russians w/friendly tank outbound. No job for tall guys.
Smellie, your knowledge and experience are invaluable. That generation were really amazing. Low level, full-bore Lanc rides over highly-agitated, well-defended targets would have taken a set of testicles few men possess. What an astonishingly brave man.
Of course, it was too much for some. Dad was a psych nurse for years in the late '50's, early '60's. One of the guys on the ward was ex-1st SSF. He'd taken to killing people, got good at it, and saw no real reason to quit after the war. There was a problem between him and another fellow, things went badly, and a court found him not guilty of murder, but too damn crazy to be out in public. Dad said he had no more compunction about killing people than you or I might about swatting flies or shooting gophers.
Aside from that, a nice fellow. Taught dad Bridge.
"Da, Ivan. I think comrades of 1st Tank Army are nearby..."
Russians w/friendly tank outbound. No job for tall guys.
Smellie, your knowledge and experience are invaluable. That generation were really amazing. Low level, full-bore Lanc rides over highly-agitated, well-defended targets would have taken a set of testicles few men possess. What an astonishingly brave man.
Of course, it was too much for some. Dad was a psych nurse for years in the late '50's, early '60's. One of the guys on the ward was ex-1st SSF. He'd taken to killing people, got good at it, and saw no real reason to quit after the war. There was a problem between him and another fellow, things went badly, and a court found him not guilty of murder, but too damn crazy to be out in public. Dad said he had no more compunction about killing people than you or I might about swatting flies or shooting gophers.
Aside from that, a nice fellow. Taught dad Bridge.
This is always a caution as a tank is nearly blind in the dark. Today's night vision kit would be a help, but it's still a risk. You can hear them all around you, but can't locate them to get out of the way, except when they are right on top of you. I remember being caught on my feet in the middle of a tank squadron at night, big howling Rolls- Royce Meteor engines in the old Centurions all around, lots of dust to boot, and lighting a book of matches one by one hoping that a driver would see me.
I had a friend run over and killed by an M113. Sadly he unrolled his sleeping bag after arriving in a harbour area in the bush at night and wasn't aware that he was only about 15 feet behind the vehicle. The APC started up to move before first light, the driver wasn't aware of anything behind him and the track reversed right over my friend.
I had a friend run over and killed by an M113. Sadly he unrolled his sleeping bag after arriving in a harbour area in the bush at night and wasn't aware that he was only about 15 feet behind the vehicle. The APC started up to move before first light, the driver wasn't aware of anything behind him and the track reversed right over my friend.
