US troops at Red Square celebrations

THIS is critically important. This represents the first time that Russia has shown any official interest in burying the hatchet.

Funny thing: I was born right near the end (October, '44) and I am now officially an Old Fart. even have my CPP card to tell me what my name is when I forget it.

But STILL there is no Peace Treaty with Germany.

Capitulation, yes. Peace Treaty, no.

Maybe we can ALL start to bury the hatchet. A good place to start might be Hollywood.
 
I find it very interesting that while watching the parade, the english speaking, russian commentator mentioned that during WW2, many of the russian uniforms were made in the US as well. I already know that the US, among others, shipped over 15 million pairs military of boots to Russia during WW2.
 
snowhunter said:
I find it very interesting that while watching the parade, the english speaking, russian commentator mentioned that during WW2, many of the russian uniforms were made in the US as well. I already know that the US, among others, shipped over 15 million pairs military of boots to Russia during WW2.
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and buttons, cap badges, diesel engines, D series Caterpillers, airplanes, tanks, ships, submarines, anything you can possibly think of was supplied to Russia during and after WWII.

Search: Murmansk Convoy route or the "Murmansk Run"...
 
Stalin singled out the Studebaker truck as the best truck in the world.

Incidentally, they also got one (1) Dunhill pipe, two complete steel mills, several carloads of extremely valuable antique furniture, and half a pound of pure Thorium at a time when the entire world supply was a single pound. Seems Uncle Joe had spies everywhere.

My Dad sent them several hundred Bell P-39 Airacobras, rebuilt to zero hours at Aircraft Repair in Edmonchuk. He was an Air Force sergeant and he was Chief Inspector (Avionics) at the plant, also the Manager (Armed Forces; it was a civilian plant).... but he wasn't allowed an extra gasoline ration to get to work. He bought a wrecked '29 Harley 30.50 flathead single, rebuilt it and went to work on that: no streetcars on 88th Street, then or now.
NOW they are starting to remember, after denying it for many, many years. They did a good job, but they could not have done it without the humungous amount of help they got.
 
smellie said:
Stalin singled out the Studebaker truck as the best truck in the world.

Incidentally, they also got one (1) Dunhill pipe, two complete steel mills, several carloads of extremely valuable antique furniture, and half a pound of pure Thorium at a time when the entire world supply was a single pound. Seems Uncle Joe had spies everywhere.

My Dad sent them several hundred Bell P-39 Airacobras, rebuilt to zero hours at Aircraft Repair in Edmonchuk. He was an Air Force sergeant and he was Chief Inspector (Avionics) at the plant, also the Manager (Armed Forces; it was a civilian plant).... but he wasn't allowed an extra gasoline ration to get to work. He bought a wrecked '29 Harley 30.50 flathead single, rebuilt it and went to work on that: no streetcars on 88th Street, then or now.
NOW they are starting to remember, after denying it for many, many years. They did a good job, but they could not have done it without the humungous amount of help they got.
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What is a Dunhill pipe?
 
A Dunhill pipe is a gentleman's device for the combustion of tobacco. The very best are made by Alfred Dunhill & Co. in London. Some of the wood they have in their basement has been aging almost 200 years since it was cut. North African Briar is generally favoured for 'better grade' pipes because as 'everybody knows', the slower the tree grows, the closer-grained and better the wood will be.

Their trademark is a single, tiny ivory dot on the stem of the pipe, just to the rear of the bowl.

Uncle Joe Stalin may have put on airs as the man who never carried money and who owned nothing..... but he had expensive tastes in pipes.

BTW, when he went to his uncle's (King Edward VII's) funeral, Kaiser Wilhelm II paid a short visit to the Dunhill premises. While there, he spent 10,000 pounds Sterling on pipes, cigars and hand-rolled cigarettes. Willy's brand was Monte Cristos, a Dunhill specialty. At that time, you could buy an ounce of gold for 5 pounds.
 
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On the hind sight, it looks to me that Uncle Sam wanted to defeat the germans, and Uncle Stalin, who was between a rock and a hard place, was more than willing to do that job at any cost, but had lost most of his military industrial complex to the advancing germans, and Uncle Sam stepping in with the "Arsenal of Freedom", and saved the day for Uncle Stalin.

For each truck, ship, airplane, machine gun, can of food etc etc sent to Russia under "Lend lease" agreement with Uncle Stalin, saved canadian, american, british and french soldiers lives, and shorten WW2 considerably ?

Do we owe part of our victory over the German, to the 27 million Russians who was killed in action, while fighting the germans, part in with military equipment supplied by the west ?

Would Germany have won WW2, if we had not supplied and replaced Russia's military industrial complex losses to the advancing germans ?

Could the west have defeated the germans, without the help and the enormous sacrifice of Russia ?

Have in mind that the germans, in 1945 were on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, as well as had an advanced rocket technology delivery systems in place, which was stopped by advancing Russian military.
 
snowhunter said:
On the hind sight, it looks to me that Uncle Sam wanted to defeat the germans, and Uncle Stalin, who was between a rock and a hard place, was more than willing to do that job at any cost, but had lost most of his military industrial complex to the advancing germans, and Uncle Sam stepping in with the "Arsenal of Freedom", and saved the day for Uncle Stalin.

For each truck, ship, airplane, machine gun, can of food etc etc sent to Russia under "Lend lease" agreement with Uncle Stalin, saved canadian, american, british and french soldiers lives, and shorten WW2 considerably ?

Do we owe part of our victory over the German, to the 27 million Russians who was killed in action, while fighting the germans, part in with military equipment supplied by the west ?

Would Germany have won WW2, if we had not supplied and replaced Russia's military industrial complex losses to the advancing germans ?

Could the west have defeated the germans, without the help and the enormous sacrifice of Russia ?

Have in mind that the germans, in 1945 were on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, as well as had an advanced rocket technology delivery systems in place, which was stopped by advancing Russian military.
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Nope, they were not even close. Look at the huge effort the americians put into building the necessary plants. The germans had nothing like that and only had theoretical ideas with nothing to procede with. They did not even have a working pile.
 
smellie said:
A Dunhill pipe is a gentleman's device for the combustion of tobacco. The very best are made by Alfred Dunhill & Co. in London. Some of the wood they have in their basement has been aging almost 200 years since it was cut. North African Briar is generally favoured for 'better grade' pipes because as 'everybody knows', the slower the tree grows, the closer-grained and better the wood will be.

Their trademark is a single, tiny ivory dot on the stem of the pipe, just to the rear of the bowl.

Uncle Joe Stalin may have put on airs as the man who never carried money and who owned nothing..... but he had expensive tastes in pipes.

BTW, when he went to his uncle's (King Edward VII's) funeral, Kaiser Wilhelm II paid a short visit to the Dunhill premises. While there, he spent 10,000 pounds Sterling on pipes, cigars and hand-rolled cigarettes. Willy's brand was Monte Cristos, a Dunhill specialty. At that time, you could buy an ounce of gold for 5 pounds.
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Ok - that was my first guess but I thought maybe it was some sort of term for some industrial equipment :)

I have a dunhill wallet - was a gift.
 
For a really thorough appreciation of the German efforts to build the Bomb, see a recent book called HEISENBERG'S WAR.

Once all the Jewish physicists had been forced out of their teaching jobs and left for Britain and the New World, Werner Heisenberg (he of the 'uncertainty principle') was the only really TOP-grade nuclear man left in Germany. He spent much of the Nazi period trying to interest the authorities in a nuclear power plant, but always insisted that it would take many, many years to build a bomb, although it was 'theoretically possible'. Himmler didn't think a long wait was practical or in line with the Fuhrer's plans for a fast reconstruction of Europe, so no real attempt to construct an atomic bomb was made.

The day the Yanks dumped the Big Firecracker on Hiroshima, Heisenberg was in a detention centre, along with a bunch of other top German physicists. Once he heard over the news the approximate yield of the bomb and the quantity of fissile material used, he gave a lecture after supper, telling everyone present almost precisely how the bomb was constructed, fused, tamped et cetera. The man was NOT stupid.

He knew exactly how to build one; he just wouldn't let the Nazis have one.

Really interesting book.

Stalin, of course, got all his information from spies, NONE of which were hanged as they deserved. The world then spent the next 40 years living in a 'balance of terror' situation while certifiably-psychopathic "World Leaders" rattled sabres at each other.

What a way to run a world!
 
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It's hard to imagine that during WW2, 19000 russians died every day...

Oncle Stalin has to carry a lot of the blame, since his purges of his military leadership, just before WW2, left it weak and thus invited the pregnant german military minds to believe that they could win a war against Russia ?

Uncle Sam, wanting to be a mayor world player, appears back then, wanting to fight the Germans, to the last Russian ?

Politics always makes strange bed fellows.

The nuclear weapons of WW2 Germany also appears to be a historical "grey area" ?
 
It is a good thing to see... yet I feel it is really a forced-hand move. The world is gearing up again for something big, who knows what will happen. It is good though, that people are seeing the past, and recognising it.
 
The Russians mobilized 37 million soldiers, double the numbers of all the German soldiers in WW2.

9 million Russian soldiers died in actions while fighting the Germans, along with 18 million Russian civilians.

May they all rest in peace.
 
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