Written by simon.chapman on August 25th, 2009
In this April 5, 2009 photo, a couple walks along an armored turret at the Hackenberg fortress, in Eastern France. In the 1930s the Maginot Line was viewed as a military marvel, an impregnable network of underground fortifications stretching along France's border with Germany, from Belgium to Switzerland, designed to stop the Nazi onslaught and prevent a repeat of the bloody trench warfare of World War I. (AP Photo/Slobodan Lekic) (AP)
The fortifications of the Maginot Line stretching across the old French German border provide a wealth of opportunities to visit the many preserved and restored bunkers and fortifications. Often situated in unspoiled and breath taking county side. For any one interested in fortifications of the period they present many opportunities for visits that can take in the Maginot Line, its sister fortifications along the French Italian boarder and the German Siegfried Line.
“Unfortunately, the Maginot Line failed to prevent France’s crushing defeat in May 1940, when the invading Nazis simply bypassed it by breaking through Belgian defenses in the north and trapping the hapless French, British and Belgian armies. The Germans later turned on the line and captured it from the rear, taking more than 500,000 prisoners.”
via – Visiting the Maginot Line: Relic of World War II
Posted in Allied, France | View Comments
Tags: bunker, fortification, France, french, German, maginot line
Written by simon.chapman on August 10th, 2009
An undated reproduction of a pre 1939 post card showing the town of Malbork. Remains of over 2,100 people including women and children believed to be German civilians buried at the end of World War II, were found in Malbork. (AP Photo) (AP)
MALBORK, Poland — Germans and Poles held a ceremony on Friday 7th August 2009 to rebury remains found in a mass grave in the town of Malbrok.
“uncertainties about who the dead were and who killed them may never be resolved. All that authorities can say with some assuredness is that they were probably German civilians who died in the ferocious final months of the war,”
via Mass WWII grave brings Poles, Germans together
Posted in Germany, Poland, Soviet Union, Uncategorized | View Comments
Tags: Germany, grave, Poland
Written by simon.chapman on August 1st, 2009
With German shells screaming overhead, American infantrymen take shelter behind a tank. In the background can be seen the ruins of the town of Geich, Germany, which is still under heavy shelling.
A glimpse of US 9th Infantry Division in WWII. Photographs taken by Harold Roberts, and shown at a reunion recently show so fascinating moments from the division’s drive into Germany.
“As a combat photographer with the Army Signal Corps, Harold Roberts was an eyewitness to some of the most powerful scenes in the history of 20th century warfare. His photos capture scenes that words can’t describe, some so graphic that they can’t be published in a family newspaper.”
via Photographer’s legacy alive in WWII shots – Bangor Daily News.
Posted in Allied, USA | View Comments
Tags: German, mortar, photographs, tank, USA
Written by simon.chapman on June 8th, 2008
From Deutsche Welle website -
A state-backed German foundation set up to fund compensation payments to slave laborers under the regime of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler has no money to pay Italian soldiers forced into labor during World War II.
The “Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft” (Remembrance, Responsibility and Future) Foundation told the Sunday edition of Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper that the money remaining at the foundation’s disposal had been earmarked for other purposes.
[LINK]
Posted in Axis, Italy, Restoration | View Comments
Written by simon.chapman on May 31st, 2008
STRASBOURG, France, May 30 (Reuters) – Britain and the United States should reveal the location of chemical munitions seized from Nazi Germany at the end of World War Two and dumped in the Baltic Sea, the Council of Europe said on Friday.
The human rights watchdog said the exact location of the dumps, a military secret, should be made public to ensure that environmental risks connected with a planned underwater gas pipeline between Russia and Germany can be properly assessed.
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Posted in Allied, Hungary, USA, United Kingdom | View Comments
Written by simon.chapman on May 31st, 2008
Stan Beirnes can still clearly recall the day in August 1944 when he was exchanging fire with German soldiers near the French town of Haut Mesnil. He heard aircraft behind him and turned around in horror to see Allied planes mistakenly dropping bombs on Canadian and Polish soldiers several hundred yards away.
The pilots, believing they were bombing German soldiers, kept moving forward.
“The next planes dropped right on us. In fact, one of the bombs landed right in the middle of our air defence (dugout),” Beirnes said recently from his home in Oakville, Ont.
[LINK]
Posted in Allied, Canada, Vets | View Comments
Written by simon.chapman on May 29th, 2008
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) – U.S. naval experts expressed confidence Thursday that they could locate the wreckage of a Finnish airliner that crashed into the Baltic Sea in June 1940 just days before the Soviet Union annexed Estonia. Nine people were on board the aircraft when it disappeared, including a U.S. diplomatic courier now regarded as one of the first American casualties of World War II.
[LINK]
Posted in Estonia, Soviet Union, USA | View Comments
Tags: estonia usa soviet plane baltic navy
Written by simon.chapman on April 29th, 2008
Three women sitting in the Luxembourg Gardens. The images have been slammed as superficial. Zucca was only able to get his hands on color film because of his position at the magazine.
An exhibition of some 270 photographs showing Paris under German occupation by the Signal Magazine photographer Andre Zucca, went on show to much controversy in Paris, France. Showing life in all its normality under occupation, it provides at times a jarring counterpoint to the image of France as a nation resisting the occupiers.
“The images, taken between 1940 and 1944, show Parisians going about their daily lives, strolling down boulevards or sitting in parks. There is nothing that would indicate that at the same time thousands of Jews living in the city were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps in Eastern Europe. In fact there are only two photos that include people wearing the yellow star.”
VIA Occupied Paris Shown in Full Color
Posted in France, Germany | View Comments
Tags: France, occupation, paris, photographs, world war two
Written by simon.chapman on April 16th, 2008
From the AFP – WARSAW (AFP) — Poland was Tuesday commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, an ill-fated Jewish revolt against the occupying Nazi Germans which marked a symbolic stand against the Holocaust.
Ceremonies were to begin at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) with the lighting of candles at the site of the notorious “Umschlagplatz”, from where the Nazis sent more than 300,000 Jews by train to the Treblinka death camp, 100 kilometres (60 miles) to the northeast.
[LINK]
Wikipedia Link
Posted in Allied, Holocaust, Poland | View Comments
Tags: German, getto, Holocaust, Poland, Soviet, warsaw, wwii
Written by simon.chapman on April 9th, 2008
A piece of an American B-24 bomber that flew its last mission nearly 65 years ago has resurfaced in Hungary.One of the plane’s engines was dug out of the ground and cleaned of earth Saturday by Hungarian soldiers and members of the Hungarian Wreck Research Association, according to the Associated Press. The relic was located in Szigetszentmiklos, just south of Budapest.The bomber, also know as Liberator, was shot down by the Hungarian air defense while it bombed the Duna Airplane Factory on April 13, 1944, the Associated Press reports.
It wasn’t immediately clear what Hungarian authorities intended to do with the salvaged engine.
[LINK]
Posted in Allied, Restoration, USA | View Comments
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