The Savagery of WAR

Discussion in 'Veteran Accounts' started by sapper, Dec 9, 2011.

  1. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Nothing hasty about my reply unless you was refering to your own?

    I did say possible war crime as Brian said he never knew if he was killed or not.

    That said there are plenty of Allied War Crime investigations about the mistreatment of Allied PoW's at Kew where the PoW isn't killed but roughed up for want of a better description. Surely a case of whats good for the Goose is good for the Gander ;)

    Whatever!
     
  2. spider

    spider Very Senior Member

    [​IMG]

    And Brians "recollections" get more vivid.
     
    Jonathan Ball and Heimbrent like this.
  3. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    And Brians "recollections" get more vivid.

    This forum would be a much lesser place without Brian's "recollections", your words, not mine.

    You tell'em Brian and keep taking the tablets !

    Ron
     
  4. La-de-da-Gunner Graham

    La-de-da-Gunner Graham Senior Member

    You tell'em Brian and keep taking the tablets !



    Too right. I'd like to say I can only imagine the horrors that the veterans like Brian and Ron saw and lived through but in truth I can't. Only those who went through it can do that. Like the veteran who told me of how he had to bayonet an enemy soldier. Listening to him talk it was like it was still happening to him. He could still describe the revulsion he felt, the fear, the look on the soldier's face, the sounds and the smells. It was hard enough for me to hear and I could never imagine what it was like for him and I'm glad I couldn't. I'm just grateful that Sapper, Ron and their comrades were there to do it for me.

    Keep em coming!

    Keith
     
  5. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Whatever!

    Charming :lol:
     
  6. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Let me say this to my fellow posters on this site. I am very fortunate in being gifted with a clear and fine long term memory. A memory that enables me to recall with "clarity" the actual events that took place. That is qualified by my tussle with the grim reaper some years ago. At that time I lost some of it..Sadly!

    Now let me also be very clear; if anyone finds my telling of the events in action objectionable? then by all means... I will not contribute further. Rest assured that every posting is what actually happened, I do not delve into anything but bare facts.

    But if there are those interested? Fine. For when we go, we take it all with us.
    Further: let me put one thing straight. Previously I wrote about the German in the green scarf. The Infantry man that attacked him was completely off his rocker. Shell shock does send some men insane. It is the worst wound that any one could suffer....
    IT is entirely up ti you if I continue or not.

    PS I have some Flanders Poppy seeds anyone want some?
     
  7. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Further: let me put one thing straight. Previously I wrote about the German in the green scarf. The Infantry man that attacked him was completely off his rocker. Shell shock does send some men insane. It is the worst wound that any one could suffer....
    IT is entirely up ti you if I continue or not.



    Hi Brian,

    It doesn't make it right though does it Brian? I can think of some bigger hitters from WW2 that were obviously insane but they would have still had their necks stretched if they lived long enough to go to trial.

    All I'm doing is putting the shoe on the other foot. If the soldier with the green scarf was an Allied soldier I suspect opinions would be different like they appear to be in some of the following threads I would refer members to that I started about the following: Canadian Gunner murdered in Italy, Wormhout Massacre, Paradis Massacre, Tulle Massacre, Oradour Massacre, Various RAF Crews murdered and beaten in Germany and then there's the Para's executed just after Normandy that I contributed too and the other 2 or 3 cases I have copied and not posted on here. So you can see I do have a fair idea of the crimes committed by the Axis in WW2. The Wormhout massacre thread alone took me over 4 years to research and about 5 seperate visits to the area to get all of those pictures.

    At the end of day the chap with the green scarf was still someones son, father, husband....
     
  8. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

  9. La-de-da-Gunner Graham

    La-de-da-Gunner Graham Senior Member

    "is entirely up ti you if I continue or not."

    I for one want to hear it, Brian, warts and all. Let's not forget that war is a shitty business at best with compassion and rational thinking also often among its casualities.

    Keith
     
  10. Blutto

    Blutto Banned

    Let me say this to my fellow posters on this site. I am very fortunate in being gifted with a clear and fine long term memory. A memory that enables me to recall with "clarity" the actual events that took place. That is qualified by my tussle with the grim reaper some years ago. At that time I lost some of it..Sadly!

    Now let me also be very clear; if anyone finds my telling of the events in action objectionable? then by all means... I will not contribute further. Rest assured that every posting is what actually happened, I do not delve into anything but bare facts.

    But if there are those interested? Fine. For when we go, we take it all with us.
    Further: let me put one thing straight. Previously I wrote about the German in the green scarf. The Infantry man that attacked him was completely off his rocker. Shell shock does send some men insane. It is the worst wound that any one could suffer....
    IT is entirely up ti you if I continue or not.

    PS I have some Flanders Poppy seeds anyone want some?

    It would be an exaggeration to say that I have read all your posts, but I certainly have read very many. Keep them coming, as I'm sure that those in the real world appreciate them, warts 'n all.
     
  11. 17thDYRCH

    17thDYRCH Senior Member

    Sapper,
    Veteran's accounts are a valuable part of this forum.
    Your contributions are invaluable. Keep them coming.

    Randy
     
  12. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

    Sapper,
    Veteran's accounts are a valuable part of this forum.
    Your contributions are invaluable. Keep them coming.

    Randy

    Too right they are. Keep posting Brian

    Lesley
     
  13. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Hi Brian,

    It doesn't make it right though does it Brian? I can think of some bigger hitters from WW2 that were obviously insane but they would have still had their necks stretched if they lived long enough to go to trial.

    All I'm doing is putting the shoe on the other foot. If the soldier with the green scarf was an Allied soldier I suspect opinions would be different like they appear to be in some of the following threads I would refer members to that I started about the following: Canadian Gunner murdered in Italy, Wormhout Massacre, Paradis Massacre, Tulle Massacre, Oradour Massacre, Various RAF Crews murdered and beaten in Germany and then there's the Para's executed just after Normandy that I contributed too and the other 2 or 3 cases I have copied and not posted on here. So you can see I do have a fair idea of the crimes committed by the Axis in WW2. The Wormhout massacre thread alone took me over 4 years to research and about 5 seperate visits to the area to get all of those pictures.

    At the end of day the chap with the green scarf was still someones son, father, husband....
    Well said that man.
     
  14. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Using a case where a man made insane with Battle Exhaustion, can hardly be described as an example of British Army Brutality. All that pales into insignificance, when compared with what you yourself researched on the enemy side.

    Let me tell you this, and then ask for your reaction to it... During the horrific night assault crossing of the Escaut Canal The enemy captured one of our Sappers. That man had a letter from his wife; saying how she hoped that they would soon beat the evil Germans and come home. His captors read the letter and treated him badly... But we captured that Sapper back and his captors as well, and as the company order commented.... "Upon whom the tables were satisfactorily turned" read of that what you like...
     
  15. sebfrench76

    sebfrench76 Senior Member

    Dear Sapper,with just a sentence,you gave me the clue,the explanation why i'm always fighting with the third reich enthusiats,here in France.They say to me"all the soldiers did the same,Brits,Germans,US,all fighters were the same".Now i'll tell them:

    "In fact we never wanted to kill or fight anyone. All we young men wanted was what all young men want .......a life!"
     
  16. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Let me give you more ammo Seb.
    After driving out the Enemy from the villages of Normandy, The enemy would often drag out the contents of the little houses into the street, including the furniture. Often a terrible sacking of the homes. After we captured the village we got the blame for what happened. Where in fact we never did any more damage than we could help in action. These were our allies for heavens sake.....

    And *I can also say. Had we nicked private house items ?The army would come down on us like a ton of bricks. Each place we captured was handed back immediately to the local people. We kept control of nothing that was not essential at the time . Then we moved on and control reverted to the local population.

    Where there instances of wrong doing? Bloody sure there was, but they were in the minority. Anyone that knows anything about the army "Glasshouse" would be only too aware of what could happen to them... Only mad men contemplate serving in the Glasshouse.....
     
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  17. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Dear Sapper,with just a sentence,you gave me the clue,the explanation why i'm always fighting with the third reich enthusiats,here in France.They say to me"all the soldiers did the same,Brits,Germans,US,all fighters were the same".Now i'll tell them:

    "In fact we never wanted to kill or fight anyone. All we young men wanted was what all young men want .......a life!"


    Just ask those idiots to provide you with a single photograph of a Brit or a Yank shooting a civilian of any nationality during WWII.

    Dave
     
  18. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    ...The army would come down on us like a ton of bricks...
    Bingo!
     
  19. BarrowBridge Smiler

    BarrowBridge Smiler Junior Member

    [​IMG]

    And Brians "recollections" get more vivid.


    Seconded, although for obvious reasons I feel that most folk on here prefer to avoid commenting on them.
     
  20. Heimbrent

    Heimbrent Well-Known Member

    Brian, that's an interesting post you made, thank you for sharing your recollections!

    The thread has somewhat gone off the rail, and in order to keep it from getting closed because of the pointless bickering I'd like to try and clean it up. Hopefully without making too much of an arrogant impression.
    I think three very different aspects are mixed into one, causing a lot of confusion and heat.

    1. Whoever (openly) belittles German crimes or denies the criminal nature of the NS regime or its warfare gets banned on here. I dare say I know Andy (Drew) well enough to claim he suggested nothing of the like.
    Frankly, discussing crimes against German soldiers does not mean that one claims the Allies to be the baddies and the Germans the goodies.
    So, discussing German victims really should not provoke the constant reminder of how bad the Nazis were. That's a fact, and one which is quite unquestioningly accepted among those discussing here (including me).

    2. It is very obvious that German crimes do not get the same attention, reaction and credibility here as do Allied crimes. That's to do with historical background (see above), individual background of most members here (English speaking) and focus of the forum (UK & Commonwealth).
    But from the scientific - and historic - point there is no justification for a different judgement of the same sort of event; in this case the mistreatment or killing of a prisoner. There is no legitimacy, or none that I as historian can perceive, to dismiss the abuse of a German as an understandable excuse for whatever psychologial problems and at the same time condemn the very same crime against an English soldier as a murder in cold blood worthy of condemnation.
    One can argue for both explanations but then one should really produce the same argument for both cases, not just one.

    What Andy is trying to get at - and with good reason - is that crimes against Germans should be discussed with the same seriousness and sincerity most other subjects on here get. Historiography doesn't advance one iota if its result must always be that all the Germans ever did in WW2 was evil and that allied soldier were saints. There's no point bringing up the Holocaust, mass murder of Soviet prisoners and civilians and other Nazi crimes when the discussion is about crimes against the Germans, be it soldiers or civilians. They deserve to be researched - demonising research on it only keeps trustworthy and reliable historians from touching these subjects and leaving them to the shady fellows.

    3. Veteran's memories surely are welcome (I for one appreciate them) - I don't think we need to argue about that and I don't think it should be relevant to this thread.
     
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