As the #AmericaFirst movement of #WWII once again rears its head and gears up for the next elections, it is much better prepared than in 2016 and the #Midterms of 2022.
A racist utterance of a #US military 🪖 leader made me remember a thread I had published on the Birdsite in Sept. 2022.
It focused on the strategic use of #veterans by the #MAGA movement.
As it will happen again, I am republishing...
Today is the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing at #Normandy, #France, where ~160k #Allied troops pulled off the largest invasion by sea in history. From that point on #America was in charge of #AlliedForces & it was the beginning of the end of #WWII
I wonder, as a matter of communication strategy, why this is hasn't been used more frequently as a widespread description for the criminal acts of the #IDF and #Israeli citizens participating in the blockade of #Gaza. Is it simply because it is not as well known (and so has less emotional resonance) as genocide?
Under international law, there is also the crime of #starvation, which is distinct as well, which has its own standards.
Though it wasn't until the 1970s that starvation was accepted by the US and its western allies as a crime against humanity. Even after the horrors of #WWII (including especially the Siege of #Leningrad, the most destructive and fatal siege in human history), the US and its allies still wanted to maintain the right to use starvation as a weapon of war.
So it seems that the same events and actions could potentially be prosecuted under murder, extermination, starvation or genocide, with each crime requiring somewhat different levels and types of evidence to prove.
Time bombs are ticking on the world’s sea beds. During World War II, 6,300 vessels were sent to the bottom. For years, they have been rusting beneath the waves and leaking toxic oil into the oceans. The biggest oil spill in history is imminent.
Experts estimate that the wrecks could hold up to 15 million tons of fuel, posing a threat to both holidaymakers and wildlife.
Any #Histodons or #GLAM folks know of a fairly comprehensive list of digitally accessible #WWII#OralHistory projects? Particularly interested in soldiers oral histories, but not exclusively.
I was contacted by Amy Munneke
Producer - Special Report w/ Bret Baier
Fox News Channel – DC Bureau
They asked to use photos from my WWII Engineer Gallery for their newscast, Tues, June 4, 2024.
"We are airing a package tomorrow that profiles three men who died on D-Day. One of those men is Julius Wolfe who I know have some photos of in your collection. I’m wondering if we could get permission to use those with courtesy?"
Commemorating D-Day on 79th anniversary of deadly WWII invasion
I had great-uncles, now gone, that were part of the invasion. They would share stories.
I think it is why I get so angry at the commercialization and joviality of Memorial Day weekend. It's more about the first summer party and discount sales now than remembrance. It was commercialized in the late 70's and 80's but nothing like it is now. It was more reverent then, at least here.
Ein FLAK-Bunker aus dem Zweiten #Weltkrieg, denke ich, unterhalb der #Weidelsburg Anfang Februar. Alice war nicht da, aber der Boden war noch gefroren.
"Whenever one of the graduates, Jane Monroe – a #mathematician who worked in #cryptanalysis in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park, deciphering the coded messages sent on German Enigma machines around the clock – was asked what she did during the war, she would always say: “Oh, I made the tea.”"
That moment when you're complaining to a family member about a relative's super toxic behavior and they proceed to unpack 80 years of family #trauma beginning with the aftermath of #WWII and onward...
The world is shocked—but would be much more shocked had it known what the secret protocol contained and what it would mean for #Poland and the #Baltic states
The first 30 prisoners arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp on 20th May 1940 from the Sachsenhausen camp. By the time the camp was liberated in January 1945 of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million were murdered. The number of victims includes 960,000 Jews, 74,000 non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Romani, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 15,000 others. 1/2
I nominate #TomHanks for POTUS based on his performance in the Apple/Sony movie -- "Greyhound" (2024) -- that I just watched in which he plays the commander of a destroyer group tasked to protect a convey of supply ships across the Atlantic from a Nazi U2 submarine "wolfpack" during #WWII.
The screenplay was written (at least in part) by Tom Hanks himself.
It is a very taut & exciting film. Unfortunately, because it is an Apply production, it will probably never be released on DVD (it took me 3 years to find a DVD copy of "Coda" (2021), another Apple production which won the #Oscar for Best Film that year, and the only way to view it is if you have an Apple account or are willing to use "alternative streaming sites" as I did, but, if you have means/will/opportunity, I highly recommend that you watch this film.
How effective do you think #InternationalLaw would have been at preventing civilian deaths during #WWI or #WWII?
And then ask yourself why did you answer the way you did? Is it because international law depends on a majority of countries to enforce it? And once it is established that the majority of countries do not care to follow it themselves, only the defeated enemy will be prosecuted in the end?
Why do you think that, only 80 years later, 21st century humans and nations are any different?
So as you may have noticed, I'm a sucker for a good retro cutaway diagram. This is one of my favourites, by British "Cutaway King" G. H. Davis.
It triggers my home nesting instinct, but it was probably pretty terrible to be on board one, what with the swell in the Channel (and the whole "crashing in an airplane" thing).
Walking through Eastwood New Cemetery on the southside of Glasgow recently, I was struck by the presence of a series of gravestones marking the last resting places of around twenty five unidentified people killed in the Clydebank Blitz in March 1941.
Here’s a bit of painful truth. Seems obvious.
The myth of American Exceptionalism came about while the rest of the world was recovering from WWII.
It’s easy to be exceptional when you’re the only one with un-bombed industrial and agricultural capacity.
Once the rest of the world recovered, the need to compete was ignored by the US, buoyed by the false idea of being exceptional. #americanexceptionalism#empire#wwii#americandream#politics
A model of the SS Athena in Glasgow's Riverside Museum. The Athena was built in the city in 1923 as a trans-Atlantic liner for the Anchor-Donaldson Line. In September 1939, while entering the Western Approaches (the area of the Atlantic to the west of the UK and Ireland) she was torpedoed by U-30, a German submarine, making her the first British ship to be sunk by Germany in World War Two.