A very long shot - No1MkIII S#16229

[Edward Horton]

Ed there are rules just no one obeys them.

In war there are no rules that govern people fighting for their own beliefs and their very existence.

The very first battle engagement by the Russians and Germans for the battle of Berlin took place between captured Germans soldiers fighting for the Russians who engaged Frenchmen defending Berlin in the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French division) The French Charlemagne SS were the last defenders of Hitler's Führerbunker, and these Frenchmen joined the German SS to fight the spread Communism.

Over 70,000 French civilians were killed by Allied bombardments during World War II.

[Peter Laidler]

Talking of finding things abandoned during the war, there was a TV documentary in the UK a couple of years ago where a TV producer son took his father back to Italy where he was involved in the ebb and fro of the battles there and he was eventually captured, escaped, ran into partisans etc etc. At one part they returned to a barn where he'd been holed up and it was pretty much the same as he'd left it. Lo and behold, where they had to dump some kit in order to travel light (and as a place to return to if things got tough....) they stashed some of their kit under some sacks, in a gap in a wall. It was still there, including a telescope that looked like a Scout Reg Telescope when they went back to reccy his wartime route 50 years later!

Of what Ed says, I know an old warime bomber pilot (I'm sure I have mentioned this before........) who has absolutely no respect for anything he formerly regarded as an enemy. When an old warime bomb blew up on a building site recently and killed 5, his comment was, well, unrepeatable but I didn't detect any remorse, sympathy, regret...............

[Edward Horton]

I have no wish to hijack this posting but I want to be very clear to everyone.

The Waffen SS were elite German troops and they fought out of patriotism and love of country, just as the elite troops of the Allies did. All sides in war are involved in atrocities and the difference is the winner gets to rewrite history.

In the fire bombing of the German city of Dresden it is estimated that the "Allies" killed over 250,000 German civilians in four days of bombing.

"It sickens me when people call the SS "elite troops"..."

The British and American Airmen who flew the bombers over Dresden were elite troops, the "real" difference in the word "elite" was we won the war and the Germans didn't.

In the war I served in we killed over 1 million South Vietnamese civilians defending them against "Communist aggression" and 60,000 Americans lost their lives in a war we lost....................

We also rewrote history and banned the import of Australian designed A1A Enfield Rifles because they "may" have been made in Viet Nam by "capitalist" trying to make money.

Also the "elite" American Air Force C-141 aircraft I worked on could carry 176 coffins at one time stacked 4 across and 4 high on 11 cargo pallets.

In war there are no real winners................and you use a fire hose to clean up the blood on the aircraft floor.

[Thunderbox]

Keeping the thread off-topic slightly, older/more distinguished UK forumers may remember the BBC regional news programme Nationwide. On one of the major Arnhem anniversaries - probably the 40th in 1984 - they had filmed a piece at Arnhem with one of the veterans. The bulk of the piece was involved in retracing his route as he escaped from one of the encircled positions on the original DZs west of Oosterbeeke. Basically, when the order was given for each man to attempt to break out, he'd made his way down to the riverbank and swum the Rhine to the far side. Before the TV team traced his route, he explained how he'd had to wait before exiting the river on the south bank, as a German sniper had been picking off those exhausted men trying to crawl out of the water. This veteran said he'd shucked off his equipment and weapons whilst still in the reeds at the edge of the water, waited for the sniper to shoot someone else, and then sprinted out of the water and away across the fields before the sniper could get him.

The TV team then retraced his route. When they got to the riverbank, the old gent stated that he "thought that the German sniper must have been here somewhere". A metal detectorist with the team immediately found a pile of 7.92mm cases at the foot of the tree they were next to. Quite spooky, but of course it might not have been from the same incident. The team then went to the spot on the south bank where he "thought this must be the place I came out of the water". For those who have been there recently, this was in one of the featureless cow fields between Driel and where the modern A50 motorway bridge crosses the river. The riverbank has no distinguishing landmarks for about two miles, and it seemed inconceivable that the same patch of reeds could be unchanged after 40 years, or that the old boy could ID a spot that he'd passed through in the middle of a firefight all those years ago. They waded in. The first thing they found was a complete set of rotting P38 webbing in the muck of the reedbed. The second thing they found was a loaded and cocked MkIII Sten. "Thats my gun", said the old boy, "I remember its number xxxxx". He was right, and I seem to recall they found some of his personal items in the webbing. Quite astonishing to see this stuff found "live" on TV....

(I had the honour to jump into Arnhem on the 50th. A veteran from my Regiment who was on his first and last return visit latched on to us and described what he could remember of the last days in the Oosterbeeke perimeter. He was a bit confused by the layout of the modern village, but I believe he ended up as part of the mixed force on "Glider Pilot street". He told us that when the evacuation was ordered, his group buried a cache of equipment - possibly including radios and artillery dial sights - in a slit trench that had been dug along the line of one of the cottage garden paths. They'd then replaced the paving slabs, in the hope that the Germans wouldn't detect the kit amongst all the other more obvious holes and caches. Since most of the houses are still there unchanged, I wonder if the kit is still lurking under someone's patio....)

[bouletbill]

I don't think many consider the waffen ss to have been elite "combat" troops . They were indoctrinated to do what the regular army would not do . They were trained to break the rules of war . However , there were no rules about aerial bombing (hadn't been invented) so all sides could bomb away and raze cities without restriction .
I remember not that long ago seeing rusted rifles dug up from WWI battlefield sites being sold at militaria fairs in the UK ... and I could see the rusted magazines were still full of live .303 , probably one up the spout as well ! Those were the good old days ..... uhm ! 'bout ten years ago .

[Claven2]

I hope he got away from those bastards. Around 460 villages were completely destroyed and approximately 60,000 men, women and children were massacred during the occupation of Greece. It sickens me when people call the SS "elite troops"...

Well, I understand your angst, but there is a difference between honourable, proper, civil, and elite. Elite in the fighting sense simply means unparallelled in trianing and tactics at the given point in time that the force is called elite. Since at that time the SS was virtually unstoppable, they were elite in the dictionary sense, though also rather evil.

[Claven2]

In war there are no rules that govern people fighting for their own beliefs and their very existence.

The very first battle engagement by the Russians and Germans for the battle of Berlin took place between captured Germans soldiers fighting for the Russians who engaged Frenchmen defending Berlin in the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French division) The French Charlemagne SS were the last defenders of Hitler's Führerbunker, and these Frenchmen joined the German SS to fight the spread Communism.

Over 70,000 French civilians were killed by Allied bombardments during World War II.

If you are interested in the the SS Charlemagne division and its unceremonious end, take a read through Anthony Beevor's "Fall of Berlin". The gist of it is that by April 1945, the French in the SS were not so much fighting for ideals as they were because their choices were to surrender to the allies and be shot as traitors or surrender to the Russian and be shot for being SS. Not much of a choice.

These Frenchmen had the one of the highest casualty rates and lowest surrender rates of the war. In Berlin, they literally did fight to the last man with no option other than to try and win in vain. It's kind of a sad story. Even more interesting, for nearly 2 weeks these men held up the russian advance allowing countless German Heer troops and civilian women to escape to the western axis of advance where they surrendered to a much more forgiving enemy. When the Red Army took Berlin, few SS men were left un-shot and few women of any age were left un-raped.

To this day, Berliners refer to the Soviet war memorial in Berlin as the "tomb of the unknown rapist".

[Edward Horton]

I knew this posting was going to degenerate into this............................

Manchester United was an "elite" team until it started loosing.
And don't get me started about British soccer-football fans and the atrocities they have committed.

[bouletbill]

Rugby is a thugs game played by gentlemen , football is a gentlemans game played by thugs (so I was told when I was young). A lot of that pent up energy and aggression of peacetime soccer hooligans , when tamed and trained , can make heroes in time of war .

Dresden has been in the news again because "they" don't like us having a memorial for our bomber crews . To my mind , it's none of their business . However, I do think it's 65years too late and just stirs up old bitterness . But to keep on quoting the old propaganda figures of 250,000 dead is just plain mischief . Dresden city officials estimated up to 25,000 and dear old Gobbels just added on an extra "0". Mud sticks .

Who benefits from war ? Governments , industry , .......... milsurp collectors ???

[enfield303t]

Was at the Commie War Memorial in Berlin and now I understand even more why we were virtually alone.