The Second World War.

[bowlinggreen]

Originally Posted by Rogerbh

If you complain to any of the snowflakes, be prepared to be called a racist.

I have to control myself now to not make anyone angry as they are passing laws allowing the police to take all your weapons if someone feels you might be a danger. First person has already been killed by the police over this. https://conservative-daily.com/2018/...E813muisAJgY_g Pretty much any gun owner is now at the mercy of people who have grudges against them.

That's pretty ridiculous and evil. if such an accusation is made, at least a police officer should first visit the "suspect" on another pretense, and sniff him over to see if he is acting strangely. That is only common sense. If a guy has a previous documented record of mental trouble, or is obviously acting peculiarly, then I can see doing this, but other wise, no.

And as for the people falsely dropping the dime - well, in some old civilizations they had the death penalty for those who bore false witness and caused others serious harm by doing so. Maybe we need to bring that back. Otherwise, we are on our way to a Soviet style state where anyone who dislikes you can drop a note in the police box and get you taken away.

Originally Posted by wildtig2013

It's like when Spike Lee made the ignorant statement accusing the great director Clint Eastwood of racism because there were no Blacks shown in the movie among the U.S. Marines combat units that landed on Iwo Jima in Eastwood's film Flags of our Fathers.

I also heard Spike Lee was also complaining that none of the U.S. Marines shown at the American Flag raising on Mount Suribachi were Blacks.

None of them were Blacks because there weren't any there among the ones who were present to raise the Flag.

Spike Lee can suck it. He ought to stick to making movies about the ghetto. Because that's what he knows.

None of my people that were in WW2 ever talked about having black fighting buddies. I do recall a couple of tales about blacks stealing stuff and getting in trouble over fights about card games.

They put Cuba Gooding in Pearl Harbor as the cook who shot down a Jap, based on a real incident, and they have put the black fliers in movies too, there was Hart's War and that other one I can't remember, so it's not like they are being ignored. I mean, what do they want?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

That's pretty ridiculous and evil. if such an accusation is made, at least a police officer should first visit the "suspect" on another pretense, and sniff him over to see if he is acting strangely. That is only common sense. If a guy has a previous documented record of mental trouble, or is obviously acting peculiarly, then I can see doing this, but other wise, no.

And as for the people falsely dropping the dime - well, in some old civilizations they had the death penalty for those who bore false witness and caused others serious harm by doing so. Maybe we need to bring that back. Otherwise, we are on our way to a Soviet style state where anyone who dislikes you can drop a note in the police box and get you taken away.



Spike Lee can suck it. He ought to stick to making movies about the ghetto. Because that's what he knows.

None of my people that were in WW2 ever talked about having black fighting buddies. I do recall a couple of tales about blacks stealing stuff and getting in trouble over fights about card games.

They put Cuba Gooding in Pearl Harbor as the cook who shot down a Jap, based on a real incident, and they have put the black fliers in movies too, there was Hart's War and that other one I can't remember, so it's not like they are being ignored. I mean, what do they want?

The Tuskegee Airmen.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114745/

A rather good film, actually.

The real unit of black American fighter pilots was the 332nd Fighter Group; there was also the 477th Bombardment Group which was not featured in the film.

Contrary to the legend, the 332nd Fighter Group did lose American bombers to German and Italian interceptors, but throughout the war only 25 bombers were successfully intercepted when the 332nd Fighter Group was protecting them - this compares very favourably with other USAAF Air Force fighter groups in Europe, many of which lost more than that in one mission. However, due mainly to racism in Congress, the unit was held in the United States and was only deployed late in 1943, missing the worst days of the 1943 daylight bombing campaign, the Schweinfurt raids etc.

The 332nd were assigned to the 15th US Army Air Force, based in Italy. Their first major air-to-air combat was in supporting the Anzio landings on 27-28 January 1944, and they destroyed 13 of the 32 German aircraft shot down over Anzio in those two days. They were still flying Curtiss P40 Warhawks at the time, an aeroplane which was past its best by 1944.

The career of the 332nd as long range escorts got into its stride in the spring of 1944. The 15th USAAF was well established in Italy by then and as well as supporting the Allied ground forces attacking the Gustav Line, they were starting to act as a strategic weapon, weakening Germany and her allies in the Balkans in preparation for anticipated Russian advances into this region. The method employed was strategic daylight bombing mission similar to those launched from England in 1943 - but the Americans had learned not to send B17s and B24s into defended airspace without an escort.

The 332nd Fighter Group was one of a number of groups escorting long range strikes into Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Austria. Some of their missions reached as far as Czechoslovakia and Poland and Germany itself - they were re-equipped with P-51 Mustangs by then, the ones with the red tails shown in Harts War.

The group was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for its excellent defence of a 660 bomber mission attacking the Daimler Benz factory in Berlin - this was the mission on which the bomber crews explicitly requested that the black group should be the ones defending them on the last and most dangerous leg in and the first and most dangerous leg out. Some fighter groups had a bad habit of running after defending fighters and scoring kills instead of staying with the bombers - the 332nd never did that and by March 1945 their professional attitude was known to the bomber crews and highly regarded. On the day, the mission was attacked by ME 262 jet fighters and the 332nd Fighter Group shot down three ME 262 interceptors, losing three P-51s during the combat. They also destroyed a number of BF109s and FW190s which intercepted the raid - but the main point was that hardly any of the bombers were lost to fighters, though some were shot down by ground fire.

There were some other black US combat formations which distinguished themselves in WW2. For example:

• The 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, which fought an important rearguard action on the first day of the Battle of the Bulge and later participated in the Siege of Bastogne, lending fire support to the 101st Airbourne Division.
• The 761st Tank Battalion, which participated in the Battle of the Bulge and which met the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army in Austria during the last days of the war, having been continuously in action for 183 days. Their combat honours include a unit citation and a medal of honour (posthumous), plus 300 purple hearts.

[LiamA]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

That's pretty ridiculous and evil. if such an accusation is made, at least a police officer should first visit the "suspect" on another pretense, and sniff him over to see if he is acting strangely. That is only common sense. If a guy has a previous documented record of mental trouble, or is obviously acting peculiarly, then I can see doing this, but other wise, no.

And as for the people falsely dropping the dime - well, in some old civilizations they had the death penalty for those who bore false witness and caused others serious harm by doing so. Maybe we need to bring that back. Otherwise, we are on our way to a Soviet style state where anyone who dislikes you can drop a note in the police box and get you taken away.



Spike Lee can suck it. He ought to stick to making movies about the ghetto. Because that's what he knows.

None of my people that were in WW2 ever talked about having black fighting buddies. I do recall a couple of tales about blacks stealing stuff and getting in trouble over fights about card games.

They put Cuba Gooding in Pearl Harbor as the cook who shot down a Jap, based on a real incident, and they have put the black fliers in movies too, there was Hart's War and that other one I can't remember, so it's not like they are being ignored. I mean, what do they want?

To blackface Patton.

[tsunamiSD]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I sometimes wonder whether General Yamashita should have been acquitted. The Alexandra Hosital massacre in Singapore was against his orders and he executed some of the men who did it. However he was convicted and executed for being in command when various very bad things were done, and the doctrine of command responsibility is sometimes called the Yamashita Standard. Some aspects of his trial have a bad smell; for example some of the worst atrocities committed by Japanese forces during the Philippines fighting of 1944-5 were perpetrated by Japanese naval units who did not even come under General Yamashita's authority, and he was not allowed to introduce evidence to show this. Yet the prosecutors were allowed to present hearsay evidence and the objections of Yamashita's defence were overruled. It was blatantly not a fair trial; but for all that, Yamashita might well still have been convicted in a fair trial, and who can now say?

I strongly suspect that Yamashita's biggest offence was how comprehensively he defeated British Commonwealth forces in Malaya, with an army barely a third their size. This was almost certainly the most humiliating and disgraceful performance the British Army has ever been guilty of in the field of battle. General Percival should have been hanged, let alone General Yamashita; Percival's only saving grace for me is that he stood by his men when they had to go into captivity and did not selfishly escape, unlike the Australian General Bennett, whom I consider to be a deserter. Percival was a weak and timid man, with no leadership qualities, not at all suitable to be an officer, let alone a general; but he was no coward and he sacrificed himself, remaining with his men, in order to get the best deal he could for them. It is only for this reason that I would have let him off the hook. Yamashita on the other hand was a very competent general and he ran rings around Percival. The defeat at Singapore, the abject manner of it, was a shattering blow to Britain's prestige and I think it marks the moment when the end of the British Empire became inevitable. I have no doubt whatsoever that the British army and government really really really had it in for General Yamashita, even though it was the Americans under MacArthur who tried and executed the man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6BJJe9JV_A

In today's newspaper there was an article taken from the LA Times that was a review of a book called Rampage by James R. Scott. In part it echoes some of what you said about Yamashita, mentioning Rear Admiral Iwabuchi and his Imperial Marines as the real villains in the deaths of so many civilians just before and during 'the battle for Manila.' As far as many of the deaths that weren't from torture and executions - a large number of those can be laid at the feet of the US Army for their use of artillery on the city.

MacArthur also comes in for a large share of blame for various strategic and tactical blunders. As Scoundrel mentioned in early posts, 'Mac' never deserved the MoH, and was the cause of needless casualties among soldiers, sailors, and civilians. Definitely deserving of a place in top 5 worst.
Book Review
While doing some checking on line, I also came across this peace that really blames the Americans for a lot of deaths because of their tactics:
The Americans destroyed Manila in 1945

[Rogerbh]

Regarding why English 303 ammunition was in bandoliers, I noticed this article on English style web gear from WW2. https://www.canadiansoldiers.com/equ...937pattern.htm
I had seen a lot of pictures of English soldiers with Lee Enfields using this "basic pouch" - a rather tall pouch - apparently designed for Bren gun magazines. I was thinking that they stuffed them with stripper clips of 303 ammo - which would be noisy. According to this article, they stuffed them with bandoliers of 303. Makes more sense, less noise, pull out the bandolier and wear it when the shooting is over.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by Rogerbh

Regarding why English 303 ammunition was in bandoliers, I noticed this article on English style web gear from WW2. https://www.canadiansoldiers.com/equ...937pattern.htm
I had seen a lot of pictures of English soldiers with Lee Enfields using this "basic pouch" - a rather tall pouch - apparently designed for Bren gun magazines. I was thinking that they stuffed them with stripper clips of 303 ammo - which would be noisy. According to this article, they stuffed them with bandoliers of 303. Makes more sense, less noise, pull out the bandolier and wear it when the shooting is over.

The bandoliers I mentioned in earlier posts contained loose rounds, not stripper clips. I'm open to correction on this next point-but I don't think British and Commonwealth forces ever used stripper clips....in the sense of the type used with the US Garand... [I should qualify this statement by saying the NZ at least did use stripper clips in the form used by the Hotchkiss LMG-and these remained in service well after the end of WW1-right up till the late 30s-my own father trained on them both at high school cadet level and later as a Territorial in the Waikato Mounted Rifles. IIRC the weapon was used by mounted units rather than infantry]

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/phot...ht-machine-gun

Added in edit; having checked back-certainly Rogerbh shows clips of .303-and mentions Pakistani origin-it is not clear to me whether the usage was more widespread in the Commonwealth-I do know that the Indian army (as it would have been in WW2) up until independence in 48-did have equipment and weaponry not used by the rest of the Commonwealth-such as the Vickers-Berthier machine gun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers%E2%80%93Berthier

It is possible that the clips were in use locally but not further afield-and India certainly had several sizeable arsenals for production. This is one area where my WW2 knowledge is scanty....

[haroldeye]

I used clips to load SLR and LMG mags in the mid 70's. Each clip held 5rds, 3down and 2up and there was a device that you put over the top of the mag to take the clips. We also used 7.62 bolt action snipers rifles and you could refill a mag by opening the bolt fitting the clip and pushing down.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by haroldeye

I used clips to load SLR and LMG mags in the mid 70's. Each clip held 5rds, 3down and 2up and there was a device that you put over the top of the mag to take the clips. We also used 7.62 bolt action snipers rifles and you could refill a mag by opening the bolt fitting the clip and pushing down.

That of course would have been with 7.62mm Nato ammunition-what about the .303 era?-we used those same weapons here in NZ-SLR, LMG, and sniper (Parker Hale .308 in my early career)-but never with clips or any assisted loading device. My unit of course being heavily equipped with Browning 30 and 50s had manual linker/delinker tools-but nothing more-and when we late became recce and had lots more L7 7.62 GPMGs-likewise-but on exercise it was always a problem getting link for the blank 7.62 as for reasons best known to itself the system could not supply belted 7.62 blank....only loose boxes of 1000 rounds-and we used to have to cannabilise old link anywhere we could find it..in one memorable major exercise having to sneak in one night (we were the enemy!) and dig it up from where the CVRT(s) had had a live firing shoot a few days earlier...

...it was a consistent complaint from the unit up to Bde HQ and higher over several years-and no one could come up with a satisfactory explanation as to why this was....I personally think it was just the ammo people being bloody minded arseholes about it....eventually we partially solved the problem by fitting expended case catchers to the pintle mounts of the GPMGs.....which at least caught most of it.....and created useful mind numbing work for defaulters and young officers who had fallen foul of the OC (me!) 'sorting out fired cases from link'.....

[Rogerbh]

You didn't have something like this to load your L1A1/SLR magazines?

https://www.buymilsurp.com/magazine-...le-p-3261.html
https://hatchfive.wordpress.com/2018...-speed-loader/

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by Rogerbh

You didn't have something like this to load your L1A1/SLR magazines?

https://www.buymilsurp.com/magazine-...le-p-3261.html
https://hatchfive.wordpress.com/2018...-speed-loader/

Nope-definitely not.