HISTORY IN IMAGES: Pictures Of War, History , WW2: July 2008

AMAZING! SECOND WORLD WAR! Battle of Britain: Hitler eyes Britain

AMAZING....

Winston Churchill: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

BACKGROUND

The Battle of Britain took place between August and September 1940. After the success of Blitzkrieg, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the surrender of France, Britain was by herself. The Battle of Britain remains one of the most famous battles of World War Two.

The Germans needed to control the English Channel to launch her invasion of Britain (which the Germans code-named Operation Sealion). To control the Channel the Germans needed control of the air. The main fighter planes of the RAF were the Spitfire and the Hurricane. The Germans relied primarily on their Messcherschmitt fighters and their Junkers dive bombers - the famed Stukas.

At the start of the war, Germany had 4,000 aircraft compared to Britain's front-line strength of 1,660. By the time of the fall of France, the Luftwaffe (the German air force) had 3,000 planes based in north-west Europe alone including 1,400 bombers, 300 dive bombers, 800 single engine fighter planes and 240 twin engine fighter bombers. At the start of the battle, the Luftwaffe had 2,500 planes that were serviceable and in any normal day, the Luftwaffe could put up over 1,600 planes. The RAF had 1,200 planes on the eve of the battle which included 800 Spitfires and Hurricanes - but only 660 of these were serviceable. The rate of British plane production was good - the only weakness of the RAF was the fact that they lacked sufficient trained and experienced pilots. Trained pilots had been killed in the war in France and they had not been replaced.

Britain had a number of advantages over the Luftwaffe. Britain had RADAR which gave us early warning of the approach of the German planes. By the Spring of 1940, fifty-one radar bases had been built around the coast of southern Britain.

British fighter planes could spend more time in the air over Kent and Sussex as we could easily land for fuel whereas the German fighters could not. German bombers could fly for longer distances than their fighter planes could cover and therefore, the bombers could not always count on fighter cover for protection. The German fighters were also limited in that they could not reload their guns if they ran out of ammunition while over Kent etc. British fighters could. Without sufficient fighter cover, the German bombers were very open to attack from British fighter planes.

One event did greatly aid the British. The head of the Luftwaffe - Herman Goering - ordered an end to the raids on radar bases as he believed that they were too unimportant to matter.

The change to bombing the cities also gave Fighter Command time to recover from its losses and for pilots to recover from the many hours a day they operated which took many to the brink of exhaustion.

On September 15th came the last major engagement of the battle. On that day, the Luftwaffe lost 60 planes while the RAF lost 28. On September 17th, Hitler postponed indefinitely the invasion of Britain though the night time raids - the Blitz - continued. London, Plymouth and Coventry were all badly hit by these raids.

Recent research indicates that Hitler’s heart was not in an attack on Britain but that he wanted to concentrate his country’s strength on an attack on communist Russia. However, no-one in Britain in the autumn of 1940 would have known about this and all indications from April 1940 onwards, were that Hitler did intend to invade Britain, especially after his boast to the German people - "he's coming, he's coming!"

In a continuation of the propaganda war, the British government claimed that the RAF had shot down 2,698 German planes. The actual figure was 1,100. The RAF lost 650 planes - not the 3,058 planes that the Luftwaffe claimed to have shot down - more than the entire RAF!

AMAZING! VIETNAM WAR: Tet Offensive

AMAZING....

THE CLASSIC IMAGE THAT IS SYNONYMOUS WITH THE VIETNAM WAR AND EPITOMISES WHAT WENT WRONG
On February 1, 1968--during the Tet Offensive--General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, director of South Vietnam's national police force, executed a Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon.

The Tet Offensive saw the North Vietnamese change their tactics in their war against the SVA and America. The Tet Offensive witnessed a huge conventional attack by the North. Every year on the last day of January, the Vietnamese pay tribute to their ancestors. The Tet New Year is a very important day for the Vietnamese and nearly all-normal day-to-day activities stop to allow those who can the opportunity to celebrate the lives of their ancestors.

In January 1968, the NLF had brought forward Tet by two days. On January 31st 70,000 NLF soldiers attacked over 100 targets, including the capital in the South, Saigon.

The Americans had been fighting classic guerrilla tactics since 1965. Though the US had faced a number of conventional attacks in late 1967, most US military thinking was still oriented around the concept of guerrilla warfare. Therefore the Tet Offensive took them by surprise, especially the sheer scale of it.

The US Embassy in Saigon was attacked and a few members of the NLF got into the embassy compound. Five US Marines were killed but the attack was repulsed. The NLF also captured the main radio station in Saigon, which acted as a major shock to US morale. Though the station was only occupied for a few hours, it showed to the US military that they were not just dealing with a ramshackle army of amateurs.

However, in military terms, the US could claim victory in the Tet Offensive. The North Vietnamese could not afford major losses in terms of manpower. During the Tet Offensive the NLF lost 37,000 soldiers while the US lost 2,500 men. Yet the Tet Offensive was a major blow to US military pride. In late 1967 the US had been told by General Westmoreland that the NLF had taken such heavy losses in open combat that they would be incapable of maintaining any military momentum in 1968. Yet during the Tet Offensive the NLF had entered the US Embassy and occupied the main radio station for three hours before being repulsed.

The impact of the Tet Offensive is difficult to gauge. The NLF and the government in North Vietnam would have played heavily on their successes in Saigon – the very heart of US influence. Yet their losses would have had a major impact of their ability to fight. The impact of the Tet Offensive on America was stark. President Johnson was told by his advisors that the war could not be won and he was advised to negotiate a withdrawal from the region. In late 1968, Johnson announced to the US people that he intended to seek a negotiated peace settlement in Vietnam.

AMAZING! VIETNAM WAR IN BRIEF

American agression! Tan Dinh Island, Mekong Delta, Vietnam, 1965 (Image by Huynh Thanh My)

The war that was fought in South Vietnam was unlike any other experienced by American forces up to that time. Whereas the Korean War had been to all intents a conventional war on the ground, the war in South Vietnam became a “war with no front” where guerrilla fighters could not be distinguished from the local populace who might, in fact, have been guerrilla fighters. The US found itself at war with an enemy that could disappear within minutes of an attack, one that might appear at any moment on a patrol or not at all. All this was very debilitating for any US soldier out on patrol and was used to explain why massacres of innocents did take place such as the one at My Lai in 1968.

(Image: Terry Fincher) American soldiers in Vietnam. 1968

The NLF had learnt its tactics from the Chinese Communists who had perfected the art of guerrilla warfare against both the forces of Chiag Kai-shek and during World War Two against the Japanese. Mao Zedong had specifically explained to his followers that there was a two-fold approach to guerrilla warfare – fighting the enemy and befriending the local population to get their acceptance and support. There can be little doubt that the North Vietnamese succeeded in the latter as President Kennedy acknowledged in the early days of the Vietnam War that large areas of South Vietnam were sympathetic to the NLF and that guerrillas in the South were willing to fight with the NLF to defeat the Americans.

The South became a classic fighting ground for guerrilla warfare. The jungles or the river deltas such as the Mekong gave the guerrillas fighting for the North huge advantages over the Americans. US patrols were under constant psychological pressure that each step might be the last for a young US soldier. Known patrol routes were ridden with booby traps such as the infamous ‘Bouncing Betty’ or the punji traps that were found by the thousand on routes used by the US military. Known patrol routes could be booby trapped with the aforementioned punji traps or trip wires attached to a grenade or mined etc. Whatever was used, it had a debilitating impact on many US soldiers. What could not be known was if a patrol route was, in fact, booby-trapped. Many were not – but American patrols were not to know this. Guerrilla warfare was such that the unknown was often more difficult to handle than the known.

The VC and NLF also had the major added advantage of knowing the lay of their land. This meant that they had the knowledge to build, for example, 250 kilometres of tunnels in the South safe in the knowledge that some might be found but the majority would be functional to the detriment of the US.

Image

Initially the American strategy to countering the NLF and VC was to build a system of heavily fortified supply bases from which patrols could operate. These patrols were frequently sent out near to the Ho Chi Minh Trail to disrupt movement along it. Khe Sanh was one such base. Heavily protected around the perimeter and capable of being supplied by air, it acted as a base for patrols near to the 17th Parallel. These large bases also acted as supply bases for smaller strongholds located away from the likes of Khe Sanh. However, these bases had one major disadvantage – they were static and open to attack. At Khe Sanh, for example, the North Vietnamese were quite capable of getting to the outer perimeters of the base seemingly at will.

US troops were expected to patrol in towns, villages, delta regions, paddy fields that were found throughout the South and in jungles and the bush. The climate alone could be a major drain on a soldier’s physical capabilities let alone the fact that he was searching for an enemy.

“It is a terrible country for fighting. The jungle trees and vines that cover the sharp ridges and deep valleys in the mountains make military movement difficult.”

“The heat and rain and insects were almost worse than the enemy. Drenched in sweat, the men waded through flooded paddies and plantations, stopping from time to time to pick leeches out of their boots.” (S. Karnow)

The US used armoured personnel carriers where they could but this was not always easy in South Vietnam. The M1 13 could travel in water as well as on land and it gave good protection to those it carried – but ultimately it could not be used everywhere in South Vietnam.

The majority of US troop movement in South Vietnam was via helicopter. Helicopters allowed for the swift and accurate deployment of troops to where they were required. Helicopters were also used to remove the wounded from a battle zone. The very geography of South Vietnam made troop movement difficult at best and the easiest way to overcome this was to use helicopters. By the time American pulled out of South Vietnam, they had lost over 2,200 helicopters in battle.

Countless Vietnam War Veterans have recalled the sheer hostility of the environment they were required to fight in. This was combined with the knowledge that they were fighting what was effectively an unseen enemy.

“Without uniform, it is difficult to tell a Vietcong fighter from a loyal South Vietnamese (especially when the ‘loyal’ Vietnamese is a VC sympathiser).”

“You kill because that little SOB is doing his best to kill you and you desperately want to live, to go home, to get drunk or walk down the street on a date again.”

AMAZING! HITLER'S SECRET WEAPONS - V3

One of the projects of "Weapons of retribution (Vergeltungswaffen) V3 - cannon codenamed "High-pressure pump." It was very unusual in its operating principle cannon - shell released in the gun barrel, as it moved into the trunk it was accelerated by a series of explosions in the side chambers. The total length of the trunk was 140 meters, the side chambers were a few dozen meters. Due to its appearance it was nicknamed "Centipede."

Prototype testing of V3 with a gun caliber of 20 mm, held in May 1943, was successful. Then Hitler, eager to bomb London, ordered the construction of a battery of five "centipedes" caliber 150 mm on the French coast of the English Channel, to fire on London which was it was only 165 km away.

The construction was hindered by constant British air raids. The test units of the "Centipede" periodically exploded, as it was not possible to achieve the desired muzzle velocity (1500 m / s) and the shell could not go beyond 90 miles.

By the summer of 1944, the Nazis almost managed to complete the construction of a single super-gun, the other sites were completely destroyed aircraft. However, on July 6, the V3 project ended when a dashing British pilot was able to throw the bomb directly into the main tank. The bomb exploded inside the hopper, the entire staff was lost. Restoring the cannon complex was impossible.

The V3 was the natural development from the V1 and V2 weapons that had terrorised London in 1944 - a weapon for revenge ('Vergeltungswaffen'). The V3 was never fired at London though it was used in a very minor way in the Battle of the Bulge.

The V3 was not a rocket like to V2 nor a pilot-less plane like the V1. It was a dart-shaped shell nine feet long and the 416 feet gun barrels targeted by the Lancasters were, on paper, capable of firing 600 of these shells every hour.

The idea of a weapon that could destroy London was sold to Hitler by the firm Roechling - a leading German armaments and steel firm. Because it had the backing of Hitler, great sums of money and manpower was thrown into the project.

Speer's plan was to build 50 of these huge guns set in giant underground emplacements near the hamlet of Mimoyecques in the Pays de Calais. The guns were designed to fire one round from each barrel every five minutes which, Speer hoped, would produce a "saturation coverage" of London with a maximum of 600 shells hitting London every hour.

The initial tests on the shells showed that when they were fired they had a tendency to flip over in flight as they lack stability. In January 1944, the guns that were to be used on the V3 project were fired for the first time in Germany at a test range. The velocity of firing was only 1000 metres a second - 50% too weak for a shell to hit London from Mimoyecques. As important, the shells that were fired were well below the size expected for an all-out attack on London:

One barrel was used with just 44 rounds in the Battle of the Bulge. The very last V3 shells fell on Luxemburg. After this, the barrel was destroyed. The final order to end the V3 project came in February 1945.

Search Amazon.com for NAZI SECRET WEAPONS

More on Nazi weapons

--------------------------------------

SOME BOOKS ON 'NAZI SECRET WEAPONS'

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY)

Review

“If you’ve been following Farrell’s stunning series on Nazi secret research or are interested in the Philadelphia Experiment, you won’t want to miss, and won’t believe, this one! Secrets of the Unified Field draws the reader into an incredible vortex of suppressed technologies and forgotten science!"

Product Description

Farrell maintains that careful considerations of Einstein’s celebrated and now discarded Unified Field Theory, and the breathtaking conclusions of wartime American and German scientists and engineers that, while an incomplete theory, it nevertheless was engineerable.

-----------------------------------------

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

A fascinating expose proving that Nazi Germany won the race for the atom bomb in late 1944. Were the Nazis secretly researching the occult, alternative physics and new energy sources’ This scientific-historical journey tracks down the proof and answers these fascinating questions: * What were the Nazis developing in Czechoslovakia’ * Why did the US Army test the atom bomb on Hiroshima’ * Why did the Luftwaffe fly a non-stop round-trip mission within twenty miles of New York City in 1944’

------------------------------------

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

In 1945, a mysterious Nazi secret weapons project code-named The Bell left its underground bunker in lower Silesia, with its project documentation, and the 4-star SS general Hans Kammler. Taken aboard a massive six engine Junkers 390 ultra-long range aircraft, The Bell, Kammler, and all project records disappeared completely, along with the gigantic Junkers 390 carrying them. It has been speculated that it flew to Argentina. As a prelude to this disappearing act, the SS murdered most of the scientists and technicians involved with the project, a secret weapon that, according to one German Nobel prize-winning physicist, was given a classification of decisive for the war -- the highest security classification. Offered here is a range of exotic technologies the Nazis researched, and challenges to the conventional views of the end of World War Two, the Roswell incident, and the beginning of MAJIC-12, the government’s alleged secret team of UFO investigators.

------------------------------------

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

Now we know what spooked the Allies in the closing months of the war and why they were in such a panic to win quickly. The Allies assembled intelligence reports of supermetals, electric guns, and ray weapons able to stop the engines of Allied aircraft in addition to their worst fears of x-ray and laser weaponry.

Then there were the bombs. Contained in this book are reports of structured bombs of nipolit, N-stoff bombs, cold bombs, oxygen bombs which destroyed all life, atomic bombs and rumors of the mysterious molecular bomb. The true history of the fuel-air bomb is revealed by our own military. There is even a probability that the SS black alchemists of the 3rd Reich were experimenting with red mercury bomb technology.

This book documents very large mystery rockets under development in Germany, far beyond the V-2. Technological history is also examined. Guess who invented the computer, magnetic tape and computer programs? How about refining crude oil using sound waves or producing gasoline for 11 cents per gallon or the synthetic penicillin substitute, "3065"?
Very exotic technologies are also discussed including German experiments in time, sustained fusion reactions, zero point energy and travel in deep space.

Chapters include: The Kammler Group; German Flying Disc Update (Witness to a German Flying Disc); The Electromagnetic Vampire; Liquid Air; Synthetic Blood; German Free Energy Research; German Atomic Tests; "Project Hexenkessel" The Fuel-Air Bomb; Supermetals; Red Mercury; Means To Stop Engines; Magnetic Wave-Motorstoppmittel; "Death Rays"; Distillation of Crude Oil Using Sound Waves; What is Happening in Antarctica?; Large German Mystery Rockets; Experiments in Time; tons more.

----------------------------------

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

Throw out everything you think you know about history. Close the approved textbooks, turn off the corporate mass media, and whatever you do, don't believe anything you hear from the government. The Rise of the Fourth Reich reveals the truth about American power.

In this explosive expose, the legendary Jim Marrs explores the frighteningly real possibility that today, in the United States, an insidious ideology thought to have been vanquished more than a half century ago is actually flourishing. At the end of World War II, ranking Nazis, along with their young and fanatical protÉgÉs, used the loot of Europe to create corporate front companies in many countries, worming their way into corporate America. They brought with them miraculous weapons technology that helped win the space race. But they also brought their Nazi philosophy based on the authoritarian premise that the end justifies the means—including unprovoked wars of aggression and curtailment of individual liberties—which has since gained an iron hold in the "land of the free."

Jim Marrs has gathered compelling evidence of the effort that has been under way for the past sixty years to bring a form of National Socialism to modern America, creating in essence a new empire-or "Fourth Reich"!

About the Author

Award-winning journalist Jim Marrs is the New York Times bestselling author of The Rise of the Fourth Reich, Rule by Secrecy, Alien Agenda, and Crossfire—which served as a basis of the Oliver Stone film JFK. He lives in Texas.

-----------------------------------

NOTABLE HISTORY DVD DOCU.

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY DVD)

One of the most daring resistance operations of World War II was the 1944 sinking of the Norwegian ferry Hydro, with its cargo of "heavy water" destined for the Nazi’s secret atomic bomb project. If the Germans had obtained a large supply, it could have helped their physicists develop nuclear weapons that would have made the Third Reich invincible. Fear of that outcome sparked the Allies to undertake the Manhattan Project, which ultimately produced the first atomic bomb.

But was the blowing up of the Hydro a crucial defeat for Hitler’s nuclear ambitions? An exclusive NOVA salvage expedition sets out to explore the bottom of a Norwegian lake with a remotely operated vehicle--its goal is to discover the sunken ferry and haul up one of the barrels believed to contain heavy water. Testing the barrel’s contents will provide a crucial clue to resolving the riddles surrounding Nazi Germany’s push to build the bomb.

Hitler's Sunken Secret features gripping first-person interviews with the sole living Norwegian saboteur and survivors who were on board the Hydro when it blew up. Among the NOVA team’s startling new discoveries is evidence that a second secret consignment of barrels eluded the saboteurs and made it all the way to Germany, but arrived too late to make a Nazi bomb feasible.

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY DVD)

Run Time: 1352 minutes

During the chaos and destruction of WWII, ordinary men and women from all walks of life were thrown into fearsome, real-life situations worthy of any Hollywood movie -- the only difference is that this series every story is true. Ordinary GIs and US Air Force and Navy personnel suddenly found themselves flying against the Japanese in China, jungle fighting in Burma and being dropped by submarine on enemy coasts at midnight. Each fifty-two minute story gives the viewer a clear view of the historical context, the strategic objective, and the tactical effort made by flyers, sailors and foot-soldiers - often in the most oppressive and life threatening situations - to win victory from the enemy.

----------------------------------------

AMAZING ! HITLER'S SECRET WEAPONS - V2

BACKGROUND
The V2 was to bring terror to London towards the end of World War Two. The V2 was the first of the true rockets - part of Hitler's revenge (Vergeltungswaffen) weapons - the secret weapons he had promised his generals would win the war. Whereas the V1 could be seen and attacked, the V2 was effectively invisible after it had been fired. The first Londoners knew about a V2, was when it exploded.

The V2 was 46 feet in length and fully loaded with fuel and warhead, weighed 13 tons. From launch to the speed of sound took only 30 seconds. Its maximum trajectory height was between 50 to 60 miles for long range targets. Its warhead weighed one ton and could do devastating damage.

The inability of senior Nazi figures to fully comprehend rocket technology, led to a delay in overcoming initial problems with the V2. Speer, the nazi armaments minister, believed that the V2 would have been operational a lot sooner had the project received more backing from those who did not understand modern technology.

If this is true, then what Eisenhower wrote after the war becomes more meaningful. Eisenhower claimed in "Crusade in Europe" that if the Nazis had got the V-weapons programme working just six months earlier in January 1944, then D-Day would have been made a lot more difficult, even impossible.

Search Amazon.com for NAZI SECRET WEAPON
--

SOME BOOKS ON 'NAZI SECRET WEAPONS'

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY)

Review

Product Description

-----------------------------------------

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

------------------------------------

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

------------------------------------

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

----------------------------------

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

-----------------------------------

NOTABLE HISTORY DVD DOCU.

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY DVD)

Run Time: 1352 minutes

----------------------------------------

Points To Ponder

WHY WAS THE FIGHTING ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT SO FIERCE DURING WW2?

It is difficult to distinguish between the quality of both the German and Russian soldiers. Both were motivated by their love for their motherland. But there were others factors that drove the two sides to such desperate fighting.

One, both sides knew that this was a no-holds bar war. Not fighting was thus not an option.

Second, both Hitler and Stalin had squads that killed any deserter. Turning away from fighting was just not possible.

Thus was seen some of the most bitter, brutal and desperate fighting on the WW2 eastern (Russian) Front.

Quotes....

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
--Hermann Goering