Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
- Start date
angrysoldier
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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- under your bed
Outside the box, or behind the eightball?
there is one of these in the war museum in ottawa.
One of the pulse-jet engines was sent by submarine to Japan.
It was copied, used for development of the Oka-18 suicide bomb.
When there was no more market for suicide bombs, two of the engineers from the project started up on their own, using a heap of that smuggled German technology.
They started the Miranda Camera Company and its subsidiary, Soligor Optical. Miranda stopped production in the late 1970s/early '80s, but Soligor is still making top-grade lenses today.
I have 4 or 5 Miranda cameras here, still use them. Also have the 1938 Praktica 35mm SLR from which the shutter mech was copied.
It was copied, used for development of the Oka-18 suicide bomb.
When there was no more market for suicide bombs, two of the engineers from the project started up on their own, using a heap of that smuggled German technology.
They started the Miranda Camera Company and its subsidiary, Soligor Optical. Miranda stopped production in the late 1970s/early '80s, but Soligor is still making top-grade lenses today.
I have 4 or 5 Miranda cameras here, still use them. Also have the 1938 Praktica 35mm SLR from which the shutter mech was copied.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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- Darkest Edmonton
British kit, Russian rifles. That IS a stumper! Long journeys...
Some sort of post-war expeditionary force?
Some sort of post-war expeditionary force?
Anders Army? Polish troops formed to fight alongside the Red Army after the Germans invaded Russia. There was friction with the Soviet high command (not too surprising as a lot of the Polish officers had been released from soviet gulags to join the force), so the entire group marched from the USSR to the Middle East and put themselves under British command. They then ceased to be the Polish Armed Forces of the East and became the Polish Armed Forces in the West, aka Polish II Corps.
British kit and Russian weapons - I would guess these photos would be from Palestine? I expect by the time they fought at Monte Cassino during the Italian campaign in 1943-44, they would have been re-equipped with Brens, Stens and Lee Enfields.
Bingo screwtape... you've won the virtual kewpie doll. Anders' Army http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders'_Army
This drawing piqued my curiosity, I had always wondered if the artist made a mistake with the armament drawn or what? But a fortuitous post on another forum lead me to the 1946 book In Their Country's Service- Women Soldiers of the Polish 2nd Corps http://www.scribd.com/doc/78110902/In-Their-Country-s-Service-Women-Soldiers-of-the-Polish-2nd-Corps containing photos of Poles armed with SVT-40s and Mosin Nagants.
Map of gulags in the Soviet Union where Polish soldiers of Anders' Army were interned and their journey to Iran and eventual reformation as the Polish 2nd Corps in Palestine.
General Anders in the center left. Note Soviet officer center right - NKVD commissar?
Polish Soldiers in review at Yangi Yul, Uzbekistan SSR 1942.
Many Polish soldiers were in ill health after being starved and worked to death in the Gulags.There are Polish cemeteries along their journey to freedom in Siberia, Uzbekistan and Iran:
Burial somewhere in the Soviet Union
War Memorial to Polish soldiers in Uzbekistan
Polish Cemetery in Tehran
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What manner of craziness is this pile of arms?...it literally looks like a "pile"! Backward Reds.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Guernsey or Jersey?
Fantasy of Flight in Florida is a fabulous aircraft museum. Many of the planes are in flying shape.
I was in a B17 and saw this waist gun. It has a camera on it. No idea why. I meant to ask, but forgot.
Many of the bomber 50's had muzzle devices. For flash reduction, I assume. Or to keep muzzle blast of the plane's skin?
I was in a B17 and saw this waist gun. It has a camera on it. No idea why. I meant to ask, but forgot.
Many of the bomber 50's had muzzle devices. For flash reduction, I assume. Or to keep muzzle blast of the plane's skin?
Looks like a reflector gunsight. Hard to shoot accurately with just pistol grips; some kind of air, spring or hydraulic damping to smooth out the movement of the gun might have been useful. Had to fast too of course and hard to keep air or hydraulics working well at those temps.
The Poles were arguably the most mis-used and abused population in WW2. The Germans and the Russians conspired to seize and partition their country and then both had their way with them, including the large Jewish segment of the Polish population. The Russians were equally diabolic in perpetrating the slaughter of a host of Polish officers, who would have been among the leaders of a free Poland, in the Katyn Forest. The fact that Polish troops fought with the western allies was supressed in communist Poland post WW2. In 1988 I went on leave from UN duties in Syria and spent some time touring the battlefields of Normandy. I took pictures of the Polish memorial in Normandy where troops of the Polish Armoured Div fighting under Cdn command played a key role in closing the Falaise pocket. I later showed these photos, including some of the memorial plaque written in Polish, to my Polish officers who had absolutely no knowledge of this. Their belief was that the Poles had only fought with the Russians on the eastern front. The Poles fighting in both Italy and NW Europe had virtually no reinforcements/replacements as they were cut off from their homeland. This resulted in them combing out allied POW camps to locate Poles who had been impressed to fight under the Germans.
Besides the better known exploits of the Poles contribution to the Battle of Britain as well as Bomber Command, Polish soldiers also fought against the invading Germans in France 1940, as part of the 10e Brigade Blindée Polonaise http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/polis...1947/polish-soldiers-in-france-1940-a-207870/ as well as in other formations. A Polish destroyer was part of the task force trailing the battleship Bismarck and in memory serves me correct, launched torpedoes against it announcing that it was a "Polish warship" before having to break off action due to battle damage. The Polish Navy fought in the Battle of Atlantic escorting convoys as well as in the Mediterranean Sea. http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/polis...hodzie-1939-1947/polish-navy-in-exile-174944/ Poles fought alongside the British and the French in the Battle of Norway and with the allies in North Africa and Italy. There was also the Cichociemni (Polish SOE) http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/polis...odzie-1939-1947/cichociemni-polish-soe-12905/ that was parachuting into Germany and occupied Poland throughout WW2.
Plus there was the Armia Krajowa fighting the Germans (and later the Soviet occupiers) within Poland. Their allegiance was to the Polish Exile government in London.
If you read the Historical Eye article on the Polish 2nd Corps at the Battle of Monte Cassino http://www.historicaleye.com/montecass.html the Poles lost 72 officers and 788 other ranks killed and 204 officers and 2,618 other ranks wounded. With further losses, it was suggested that the Polish 2nd Corps be removed from the line but Anders wanted to go forward, correctly believing that losses would only be made up from Polish P.O.W.s, Polish forced labourers that escaped from Germany and Austria, and impressed Poles in the Wehrmacht and other German forces.
There was also Polish Army recruitment in Canada and the United States (especially before the U.S.A. entered the war) from the emigre communities in both countries. A Polish training facility was set up in Ontario during the early years of WW2. http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/polis...igre-recruitment-in-canada-during-ww2-145509/
With respect to Purple's mentioning the Battle of Falaise, the Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) have allied themselves with 10th Armour Cavalry Brigade of the Republic of Poland, the successor to the prewar 10. Brygada Kawalerii of the Wojsko Polskie - which was the aforementioned 10e Brigade Blindée Polonaise. It became the 10th Polish Dragoons of the 1st Polish Armoured Division that fought alongside the Canadians as part of the II Canadian Corps. http://www.strathconas.ca/uploads/file/strathconian08web1.pdf
For anyone interested there is a large, active, dedicated forum to both prewar and WW2 Polish military at War Relics.
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