11th of november

[ReservoirFrog]

"with your grandfather being a pilot and getting shot over France, you mention it was by small arms fire ...... musta been some shot mate.
I just got this vision of some German aiming his Luger at a Wellington bomber and hitting the jackpot."

Small arms is generally thought of as anything under a calibre of 20mm, which leaves plenty of weapons that could have dropped an aircraft of that day, even of today come to that. .50cal is only 12.7mm and that will severly ruin your day.
Plus machine guns are never sited alone so a veritable wall of lead is certainly conceivable for even a light machine gun section defending against a strafing fighter.

OMG I am a sad b*st*rd!
Cheers RF

 

[Robbo]

Small arms is generally thought of as anything under a calibre of 20mm, which leaves plenty of weapons that could have dropped an aircraft of that day, even of today come to that. .50cal is only 12.7mm and that will severly ruin your day.
Plus machine guns are never sited alone so a veritable wall of lead is certainly conceivable for even a light machine gun section defending against a strafing fighter.

Many thanks RF, once again my wartime ignorance is laid bare, I just immediately assumed small arms meant handguns ....D'oh !

 

[House]

House, I read your post with great interest but it did provoke a question in my old befuddled mind and I hope you won't mind me asking......with your grandfather being a pilot and getting shot over France, you mention it was by small arms fire ...... musta been some shot mate.
I just got this vision of some German aiming his Luger at a Wellington bomber and hitting the jackpot.

Hey Robbo!! I said he was a pilot and a hero, I never said he was a good pilot!!!!!

He was probably too busy trying to unwrap a mint imperial, he was obsessed by them!!!

Edit to add- Thanks Buddha he was a true gentleman, married to my nan for 53 years!!!! he had a hilarious sense of humour. Really great guy.

 

[ReservoirFrog]

Many thanks RF, once again my wartime ignorance is laid bare, I just immediately assumed small arms meant handguns ....D'oh !

Ah, but I'll bet you can watch a war film without everyone in the room wanting to kill you because you can't help but give a running commentary....

 

[Lucky]

Some of them may well have been brave but I'm afraid the cause they were fighting, completely and utterly negates any room for allowing pride to creep into their mentality or how we should regard them.
As soon as you start accommodating people just because they were 'brave' undermines any integrity when people condemn the Nazi movement and what they set out to do.

Hi Pete, I'm afraid i was suffering a little bit with what i call "Cooks Syndrome", when i know what i mean and feel in my head yet my lack of attention in my english classes has deprived me of the correct words to explain what i mean.
I am not at all suggesting that there should be any sympathy for the Nazi cause and there actions and yes the whole of Germany was guilty on mass. My use of the term "brave" is where i fall down in this discussion but i cannot find a better terminology?
Everyone that attended that gig way back then had a certain courage/honour/disposition/resilience/whatever? Which ever team they were playing for these men of battle a certain something?

Don't be confused Lucky, it's quite simple mate, we shouldn't ignore their recollections but you aligned that need for historical reference with an associated need for respect.
We cannot allow ourselves to start degrading the horror we should all feel for what the Nazis did and more importantly tried to do.
It's the thin end of a wedge when you begin 'accommodating' .

Again my words, did not get across correctly what i was trying to imply and still won't. But I do feel there should be a certain level of "respect" (replace with correct word)for these soldiers, but that must not be confused with "accomodating" or "sympathy".
No matter which side you were on, to go and do what they did, just defies belief to me, so if you cannot "respect" a soldier for that what can you do?
You state that we cannot allow ourselves to start degrading the horror, but that is exactly what we are doing by not teaching our children of this atrocity, and hopefully if we do teach them then they will learn by our mistakes and never start another war again. Mike's efforts to archive the recollections of these soldiers, takes on two points. 1: He gets the recollections of their actions back then, and 2: he gets their views on the matter now? So surely this archiving/education must be a good thing?

You are not seriously equating the Nazi policy of Jewish annihilation with modern history's filtering of the Nazi's actions are you?
If so, then it's a completely inappropriate parallel ... insultingly so.

On this point i appologies whole heartedly and humbly. I was making a joke on the point of erasing all trace of their recollections from our social history and parrelling it to the erasing of the jews from world history.
It was wrong, not funny and i am a bad man....Sorry

 

[Lucky]

You mean the Sdkfz foundation... (I know of them by the way)

Genuine Dyslexic Typo, Z & S looks the same to me

Sdkfz is German abbreviation of Sonderkraftfahrzeug, which sort of translates into vehicle with special means of propulsion (like tracks). Every German military vehicle had an Sdkfz or Kfz (which were normal wheeled vehicles) designation, like the Americans used M to designate all military vehicles.
For example, what is commonly known as the Tiger tank, is in fact the Sdkfz 181, Panzerkampfwagen VI, ausführung E "Tiger".

I knew that but not in so much detail Mike's pride of place is his SdKfz 173 aka Jagdpanther 46 tonnes in all it's restored glory

I should read less books...

You put me to shame with your knowledge, i am just a mere simpleton, but as 1 book takes me about 3 months, i have an excuse

Oh, and the punching should obviously have been taken with a pinch of salt.

i did i was being rhetorical?......dictionary failure?

As far as interviewing the SS and the Wehrmacht veterans is concerned, I feel it is important. Both sides of the story should be known and I frequent some places that have both the oral and written histories of veterans of both sides stored.
If anything, being able to have access to both sides means that you will have a greater understanding of the past, the present and the future

I believe it is a good thing as Mike is connecting the vehicles he restores to the people that drove them etc, he even flew Rommels driver over to authenticate the restored staff car and he signed the dash to prove it, and another veteran taught him how to drive a half track, and explained how all the bullet holes were obtained and which of his crew died in the hurricanes attack.......it makes war that little bit more real, rather than looking at a lump of painted scrap in a museum.

 

[Buddha 3]

Ah, the Jadgpanther, truly a beast of a machine... Is his a runner? I have one sitting at home, but it doesn't weigh 46 tonnes. It is after all a 1/35th scale replica.

3 months to read a book? That's a long time...
My personal library on modern history is more than 350 books alone.

 

[Cook$]

My personal library on modern history is more than 350 books alone.

That is the best chat-up line I have ever heard....

 

[Kitch]

This is the most interested I've been in a thread for ages, thanks Buddha & Pete very thought provoking debate.

On a side note, a majority of my family have been in the armed forces, but it seems to have all finished with the current generation with my cousin being the last serving member of my family. I wonder if this indicitive of the last conflicts we have been involved in?

On a story note, my grandfather never really said much about his service, he was in North Africa roaming around the desert in a Rolls Royce armoured car, judging by his BEM and a chest full of medals it was probably a bit more than just roaming around the desert.

His friend who I grew up over the road from Frank was a para and had an endless supply of stories (usually backed up with a piece of memorabilia), he had never been on a plane that he didn't have to jump out of, was at Arnhem, some really crazy stories. Unfortunatley developed alzheimers and chocked on his own false teeth, it would be funny if it wasn't so sad. I watched a documentary about the 101st Airbourne with veterans talking about their own experiences, where one chap was talking about 2 British para's brewing up in the middle of the street during some particulary heavy shelling in the town they were in, they took a direct hit, but to this Americans disbelief a few minutes later there were some more Para's there brewing up in the same spot. If in doubt brew kit out

 

[Paintball_Mad]

If you think this is bad a couple of years ago a test was done and only 1 in 5 kids between 11-15 years old (I think don't hold me to that) could find the UK on the map of the world or it may have been there county I can't remeber 100% but it is something shocking along those lines!!!

whats taught in schools these days?

nothing much, compulsary history all we did was the titanic and Guy Fawks. GCSE history was america 1918-1980 and Germany 1911-45 which was really very interesting but all focused on women and the life at home nothing to do with war. We didn't once mentioned any significant battle in the second or first world war until a piece of coursework which was on the Somme. So nothing relating to how the country was formed was brought up. On the other hand I did enjoy learning about, with all the putsch, black rights, new deal, wall street crash and what not. But I would much prefer to learn about war time battles. History isn't dates and battles, it's women at home washing up (may sound bad and sexist but that is what Hitler wanted until mid WW2 when he was forced for them to work in factories).

I may extend what I'm saying, but I going for food... 'the important stuff'

Cheers
Tim