The Second World War.

[Dr Pepper]

To you UK members (and any visitors who might be interested)-there is a Lysander in the Shuttleworth Collection at Old warden in Bedfordshire-I saw it on one of my UK visits. One of the things that will surprise you-especially those more familiar with WW2 single engine fighter aircraft-is how LARGE an aircraft it is for a single engine airframe-quite an eye opener!
I don't know whether is is still in flying condition-it probably is-as most of the Shuttleworth Collection are still airworthy-[its one of their selling points!]-but it would be interesting to see it perform and get a feel for its STOL abilities.

I've seen the beasts below in action at first hand several times-and they are extraordinarily impressive with their low speed capabilities....if the Lysander was anything close, it would have been eyeopening....

http://nzcivair.********.co.nz/2016/...zealand-5.html

http://nzcivair.********.co.nz/2015/...aland-and.html

[scoundrel]

The Blackburn Aircraft Company, when you consider it, were pretty much a non-stop disappointment until they finally created a decent aeroplane just before their unlamented disappearance by merger with Hawker Siddeley Aviation in 1963. Just before that happened, the Blackburn Buccaneer ground attack aircraft came into production and proved to be very good; it was still doing a job dropping smart bombs over 25 years later during Gulf War One. But prior to that, Blackburn received huge amounts of UK taxpayers money in order to design and manufacture a conveyor belt of aeronautical turds.

• The Blackburn Botha - worthless. One test pilot commented: "Access to this aeroplane is extremely difficult. It should be made impossible."
• The Blackburn Skua - an early and failed attempt at a multi-role combat aircraft. It was too slow to be a fighter: German BF109s ate it for breakfast. It was too underpowered to carry useful bombloads when trying to be a divebomber. When it was replaced by the very inadequate Fairey Fulmar, most RN pilots were pleased: that really is damning.
• The Blackburn Roc - unbelievably bad. It was part of the sad story of the pre-war British fixation with the "turret fighter". It could achieve 223mph maximum and this was in the late 1930s, when German bombers were getting close to 300mph. 136 units were built, an infuriating waste of resources when Britain was trying to re-arm.
• The Blackburn Firebrand F - a pure fighter originally ordered in 1939, Blackburn never succeeded in making it until after WW2 was over. This was an extremely fortunate thing for the Fleet Air Arm. It was way slow by 1945 standards (342mph), had terrible cockpit visibility, and had vicious handling characteristics, so much so that the RN formed two squadrons staffed almost exclusively by advanced training instructors to operate it. The restricted forward view over the nose was especially serious in a machine intended for carrier landings. Test pilot Eric Brown scathingly commented that the Firebrand was "a disaster as a deck landing aircraft".

Truthfully, Britain could have improved her war production by putting Blackburn Aircraft Limited into compulsory liquidation.

[henryf]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

To you UK members (and any visitors who might be interested)-there is a Lysander in the Shuttleworth Collection at Old warden in Bedfordshire-I saw it on one of my UK visits. One of the things that will surprise you-especially those more familiar with WW2 single engine fighter aircraft-is how LARGE an aircraft it is for a single engine airframe-quite an eye opener!
I don't know whether is is still in flying condition-it probably is-as most of the Shuttleworth Collection are still airworthy-[its one of their selling points!]-but it would be interesting to see it perform and get a feel for its STOL abilities.

Yes it is still flying. I saw it earlier this year. And you are right, it is surprisingly large.

[Historian]

Originally Posted by henryf

Yes it is still flying. I saw it earlier this year. And you are right, it is surprisingly large.

There's also one flying, and IIRC a second under restoration to flying condition in Canada- There was a TV documentary about the restoration and return to flight of one of the Canadian Lysanders

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by henryf

Yes it is still flying. I saw it earlier this year. And you are right, it is surprisingly large.

Another surprisingly large single engined aircraft is the Ju87 Stuka. several decades ago, the Alpine Fighter collection based at Wanaka

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Ze...ter_Collection

-where they hold the biennial Warbirds over Wanaka International airshow:

http://www.warbirdsoverwanaka.com/2018-airshow/tickets/

acquired a damaged Stuka through Sir Tim Wallis' Russian business contacts. It was displayed in the museum-with the parts laid out in the correct location. I saw it not long after it had been put on display and it made you realise-just as with the Lysander-what a large aircraft it was-it dwarfed a Fletcher turboprop top dresser-and the latter is quite a large craft by single engine standards.

Sadly someone got a bit precious about a bomber 'contaminating' the Alpine FIGHTER collection-and having obtained it with the express intent of restoring it to flying condition-which would have made it absolutely unique-there are no flying Ju 87 examples left-and a huge drawcard for the museum-it was sold off to purchase another fighter or two...

Now imagine being at an airshow and having a Stuka do a real divebombing display-Jericho Trombone and all.....

[scoundrel]

Chiune Sugihara is the only citizen of Japan ever to have a tree at Yad Vashem; to be recognised as "righteous among the nations".

He was appointed as a vice consul at the Japanese embassy in Kaunas in Lithuania in 1939. Many Jews fled western Poland after the German occupation and went to Lithuania, and there was already a large Jewish community living in Lithuania. Then, on 15 June 1940, the USSR rendered "mutual assistance" and invaded Lithuania, which fell without a shot being fired.

Immediately, hundreds of Polish and Lithuanian Jews queued outside the various foreign embassies. They needed exit visas in order to be allowed by the new Russian authorities to leave the country; and they correctly guessed that there would be a future war between Germany and Russia and that in this event the Germans would come to Lithuania and things would go badly with any Jews they found. Most embassies turned these people away on the orders of their own governments, who refused to accept Jewish refugees.

One of the two exceptions was the Dutch embassy. Holland was already under German occupation but the diplomatic interests of the Dutch government in exile were represented by Jan Zwartendijk, the manager of a Philips factory in Kaunas and an honorary consul in his spare time. The Dutch island of Curacao did not require an entrance visa, but did require the Governor's written permission to reside. Jan Zwartendijk made use of the lack of an entrance visa requirement to authenticate 2,200 exit visas for Jewish families and forgot to mention the bit about the Governors written permission. His visas had to be handwritten so as well as the 2,200 he wrote he also encouraged his Jewish "clients" to forge others, provided they were done well. When Lithuania was annexed on 3 August 1940, all the embassies were closed, the Philips factory was seized by the new Communist regime and Jan Zwartendijk immediately left Lithuania and returned to the Philips headquarters in Eindhoven, living under German occupation for the rest of the war. He never spoke of his brief interlude as a Scarlet Pimpernel and it was twenty years after his death that anyone even in his own family knew what he had done, and only then because the Israeli government honoured him at Yad Vashem.

But as well as an exit visa and a destination (courtesy of Jan Zwartendijk) which made the exit visa possible, the potential Jewish escapee needed a transit visa. It so happened that Jan Zwartendijk had met a Japanese chap at diplomatic parties and was able to look him up. This fellow was a multi-lingual and highly educated career diplomat called Chiune Sugihara. In order to leave Lithuania, the Jewish refugees would need to transit the Trans-Siberian railway and then go to Japan to pass onwards via the Panama Canal to Curacao or more likely Dutch Guyana, now called Surinam. To be allowed to buy a ticket (the Russians charged five times the official price) they had to be able to produce a transit visa from the government of Japan. This was where Chiune Sugihara was needed.

The Imperial Japanese government would only grant transit visas to people who had funds and could afford the journey. Most of the applicants were not in funds, so Chiune Sugihara was not able to obtain permission to issue the visa. He did it anyway. He knew he would be fired for this and he had worked and studied all his life to get this job; after the war he never again rose above menial work such as selling door to door. But he had no regrets. A year before he died, documentary makers found him living in total obscurity and he gave his only interview on the matter.

You want to know about my motivation, don't you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent.

People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people's lives.

Some things matter more than yourself as an individual. Chiune Sugihara gives us all an example to aspire to, not of greatness in career achievement, but of a humble life lived well and with great honour and integrity. May the good earth lie softly on his grave.

Just for the record, not all the recipients of the visas got away: some stayed until it was too late and the opportunity to flee was gone. Most of those who did get away never made it to Curacao or Dutch Guyana, though a few did. Most of the refugees ended up trapped by the outbreak of war in the Far East and unable to leave Japan and went to Kobe, Japan, where there was a Jewish community already there. Quite a few of the newcomers were deported to Shanghai later, where the Japanese could feed them more easily. But though interned, they were not treated at all badly compared with many others and they survived the war. Chiune Sugihara and Jan Zwartendijk had between them saved at least six thousand lives. The descendants of the saved people number about forty thousand now.

[scoundrel]

The evening before this photo was taken, at about 6.30pm, Hitler had sat in a railway carraige on a seat once used by Marshal Foch and briefly confronted General Charles Huntziger. Huntziger co-signed various anti-Jewish laws afterwards and doesn't deserve any sympathy; Charles de Gaulle would very likely have had Huntziger executed had an air crash in 1941 not saved everyone the bother. However, I note that the valiant Marshal Petain did not have the fortitude to face this moment personally, "among soldiers". Why in the hell wasn't that bastard guillotined? I would have had him crushed him to death if I had been in a position to decide his punishment.



The image was taken shortly after dawn on 23 June 1940. Hitler spent several hours sight seeing in Paris, the only time he was ever there, but he didn't choose to associate with too many Frenchmen, hence the early hour.

The one second from right on the front rank we can all recognise. In the middle; our old friend Albert Speer; just looking at this photo makes me wish he had been hanged and died slowly of asphyxiation. But I didn't recognise the others so I did a little digging. On Hitler's left, a man called Arno Brecker, an architect and sculptor who received numerous commissions and patronage from Hitler and Speer; not very admirable but a very small figure who didn't actually kill anyone.

Not like Paul Giesler, the man on Speer's right hand, who was pretty loathsome. This fellow was, among other duties, the Gauleiter of Upper Bavaria, based in Munich, and his crimes included rounding up Sophie Scholl and her companions. Worse than that, he ordered that all the inmates of Dachau be exterminated to prevent them being freed by the American Army in April 1945, but was thwarted when the commandant ran away instead of obeying the order, and the SS warrant officer left in charge chose to disobey and surrendered the camp instead. Trapped at Berchtesgaden on 8th May 1945 with the capitulation due at 11pm and the US 101st Airbourne Infantry Division shortly due to arrive, Giesler and his wife took the easy way out and killed themselves. They were buried in the local Church graveyard but the Americans found out and dug Giesler up again to dispose of him as clinical waste. No consecrated ground should knowingly be misused to give an honourable burial to someone like this.

Hitler never went up the Eiffel Tower. From June 22 1940 until after the Liberation, the life was out of action due to a defective part which had been sent to America to be repaired and would not come back as long as America and Nazi Germany did not enjoy normal relations. At least that was what the staff told the Germans. I saw a rather droll interview of a very old chap who was on the Eiffel staff and who had removed and concealed the part, so that people such as Fat Goering would need to climb the stairs. He recommissioned the lift when he thought the last German was gone, only to find that the German officer in charge of the Eiffel Tower had not yet departed. Luckily, all this man did was to watch the lift go up, then laugh and shake the Frenchman's hand before making good his escape. Good luck to him, whoever he was; he could take a joke.

[Ennath]

There has been discussion before on this thread about the sad state of history education in the schools, but I found this one shocking (and disturbing).
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/holocau...y-millennials/

[rupertramjet]

Originally Posted by Ennath

There has been discussion before on this thread about the sad state of history education in the schools, but I found this one shocking (and disturbing).
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/holocau...y-millennials/

sadly it does not surprise me, I will say that this side of the pond, I think results would be substantially different, towards the end of my career in uniform, I met a lot of young people, who were aware of the sacrifices in both wars, the evil of the Nazi regime, and much more.

When I did the fiftieth anniversary drop over Arnhem, ther veteran I tandemed in, was spoilt rotten by Dutch folk od all ages, and at the Remembrance service, the children were aware of all the details of the soldier whose grave they were placing flowers on.

America is far away, and the World Wars are not as real to them as us, they are aware, but they do not live it in the way we do.

[huggybear]

I think the fifth head from left belongs to Guderian.