Any military history buffs here?

Post Reply New Topic

Father served in the big one. WWII I still have his photo albums. How he survived and managed to take so many Pics, I don't know. (Some are of French Women, OOOh La La ! !)

I have some family history with the Australian armed forces.

Grandfather - WW II (army)
Uncle - Vietnam (navy)

Two related by marriage:

Grandfather's stepfather - WW I (army)
Stepbrother - East Timor (army)

My Granddad (Father's father) - Storesman for British Army, originally was training as navigator for a Lancaster Bomber crew, until it was discovered he had a congenital hearing defect.

My Poppa (Mother's father) - a cook in the ANZACs during the Italian and North African campaigns, including Cassino.

My uncle has been with the Canadian armed Forces since he was old enough to join.

My grandfather on my Mother's side joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers during World War 2 and was sent to Hong Kong. He was a POW there for 3 years.

ive never been very fond of "what-if" concepts.

but i am very interested in military history, so far, my knowledge is fragmented, but im filling out the holes.

i dunno so much about the american civil war, got enough wars in europe to cover first of all, before i can move on to either asia, africa or the americas

i especially like modern wars, both the big ones, and the more obscure ones, like the chaco war, or the very recent and short lasting declaration of war between chad and sudan

i THINK that was the only declaration of war in a long time, possibly since ww2

You really should read up on the American 'Civil War.' It's fascinating, in a brutal sort of way. In a way it's similar to WWI where the technology out paced tactics. The troops attacked the enemy lines in withering fire time after time. Unbelievable casualties.

These are interesting family histories.

My grandfather was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed.
Fortunately, he was not in the line of fire. He was a communications guy, and was up on Diamond Head laying telephone wire around the time of the attack.
I still have some of his medals, photos and other memoribilia.

Personally, I love history of all sorts. The geography of military campaigns always fascinated me, too... The extent of the Roman Empire, or the course of Napoleon's retreat from Russia. Great stuff.

Take a look at this:
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

Fascinating ! ! Do share a bit, scan some of the photos so we can see them ! !

yeah, thats one of the few things i knew about the american civil war, lots of "human wave" tactics, against stationary gatlings, and cannons, and whatnot.
ill get to the american civil war eventually, i still have a lot to work myself through tho. im still busy learning through the wars that "affect" me more, being norwegian, theres the occupation of norway, ww2 in general, also, i got family in peru, so ive read up on south american wars, such as the chaco war, the three alliances war, and the peruvian chilean war of the pacific.
not to mention the very recent peruvian ecuadorian wars.
but im getting there!

Norwegian ! ! I had no idea. I know the Danes resisted the Nazis unsucessfully, the Swedes opposed them them through the power of their Air Force, but Norway, I'm not clear on their part in WWII.

you should re-read, the swedes were neutral, and in fact allowed german troops to use their swift and effective railway, to kill more norwegians in the north. they also supplied germany w iron.
NO bad blood between those two, untill germany was losing. only THEN did sweden "close its borders" to germany.
otherwise, swedish volunteers, like ever other country, fought in their vecinities, mostly finland, but also in norway.

finland had it really bad, attacked twice by USSR and once by germany. finns are badass.
the death toll after the famous "winter war" is: finland - 15 000, ussr - 200 000. incredible. ruskis had to pull out, w only minor annexations of mostly overgrown wilderness.

denmark was conquered in ONE NIGHT.

norway took more, in fact 3 months untill the military surrendered, if im not wrong, its the longest lasting german invasion in ww2, not counting ussr.
i always love that, our king, at the time, was a dane, who took on an old norwegian name, Haakon, and took on - as best he could - the norwegian language instead of the similar danish one.
where the danish authorities urged the people not to resist, out of fears of more destruction, the norwegian king, in excile in britain, urged norwegians to resist by whatever means they could

denmark being more built-up and urban, saw more city-resistance, while norwegians scattered into the mountains following the army capitulation, and sniped germans on skis

My Great Grandfather was in the Russian Army, I can't remember what war he fought in before WW2 but he was an Artillery Officer. At the beginning of WW2 his unit had good, modern artillery but the Soviet Government decided to replace it with cheaper, WW1 artillery so when they were trying to hit the Germans the shells were falling short. They had this Political Commisar, he was yelling at them, telling them they were saboteurs and that he was going to denounce them and they'd go to the Gulag. They shot their Commisar. Not long after that they were in a battle, my Great Grandfather was badly wounded. Due to Soviet regulations he was left for dead, the Germans then picked him up and treated him in their field hospital. Eventually he joined General Vlasovs group who all defected to Germany because the Soviets were worse than the NAZIs. I still find it so hard to comprehend how the Allies could have sided with a monster like Stalin, they would actually send Russian refugees back to Russia but they took everyone else in. Any Russian refugees who were returned to the Soviet Union were either killed as traitors or sent to the Gulag as traitors, either one meant death. The Allies stood up and helped the French when the Germans invaded but when the Polish, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians etc... were invaded by someone even worse they stood back and watched those people burn and die.

The Allies might as well have shot all those people themselves. Anyway, my Great Grandfather burned all his Russian documents and used contacts he had to get Polish documents and now my family lives in Australia.

As Alsatian my grandfather had to go at German army during WWII (like his father during WWI). That was in 1944, he was only 17 and after the end of war he had to do is military in French army (as parachutist). Never could learn what my other grandfather had to do but it was certainly nearly the same (maybe he was just a little younger and did not have to go).

Now the Communist Party is the least popular party in Russia. They will never win an election. They never have, they took Russia by force. I have not met a single Russian who likes Communism, and I myself hate Communism with a passion.

I just got through reading a marvelous book regarding the siege of Stalingrad, and it documents everything you're saying. There were Russians who defected to the Nazis, when they could without being shot by their own troops. And yes, every one of them that was sent back to Russia was executed as a traitor. Amazing that your Great Grandfather survived. In the book it 's noted that the German field hospitals were filthy, but not as bad as the Russians.

Do put up some pics ! !!