What makes a Hero?

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

This perhaps?

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/army-obituaries/5048954/Captain-Charles-Upham-VC-and-Bar.html

 

(My apologies for Mr Upham's comments about Germans...but it's a good read anyhow)

Edited May 13, 2011 by UK_Widowmaker

[Dej 17]

That would do it for me, WM. Unfortunately the H-word has been overtraded... we need to find a new one for blokes like Upham.

[Slartibartfast 153]

That would do it for me, WM. Unfortunately the H-word has been overtraded... we need to find a new one for blokes like Upham.

What needs to be done is to take back Hero for people like this not to find a new one, the new upstart so-calleds should find a new word for themselves as they all seem useless to me at doing anything heroic like this... they would all runaway wanting their mothers or whatever... okay rant over...

 

This man is a true Hero...

[Olham 164]

Cripes, what this guy all got done is leaving me speechless.

I don't blame him for his words about Germans - he just met that sort, I guess.

A man who fought in one of the world wars, lost many comrades and even friends.

It's hard to keep your mind free from hate, I think.

Arthur Gould Lee did, but then he wasn't in the mud and the trenches.

[+Gepard 11,296]

For me the real heros were not the man who fight. It were the women which built up the ruins into towns and grew up their children while the men were in war or POW.

[Javito1986 14]

Cripes, what this guy all got done is leaving me speechless.

I don't blame him for his words about Germans - he just met that sort, I guess.

A man who fought in one of the world wars, lost many comrades and even friends.

It's hard to keep your mind free from hate, I think.

Arthur Gould Lee did, but then he wasn't in the mud and the trenches.

 

 

 

Even J.R.R. Tolkien, that profound admirer of Germanic myth and culture, began to reject it all during and after the Somme. It's not just hard, it's virtually impossible to appreciate the culture of people who bomb you, shoot at you, wound you, and kill all your friends. The Germans on the other end of the field weren't fond of the Tommies either I imagine. At least J.R.R. regained his composure and clarity of mind while he was recovering in the hospital, it's a part of the healing process I suspect.

 

 

"At one point the vehicle became bogged down in the sand, so Upham coolly ordered some nearby Italian soldiers to push it free. Though they were somewhat surprised to be given an order by one of the enemy, Upham's expression left them in no doubt that he should be obeyed."

 

 

I love things like this. They're just so crazy they could only be true. Reminds me of Band of Brothers when Spears ran through the German lines and back to link up with their sister company.

Edited May 13, 2011 by Javito1986

[Shiloh 12]

If that guy is not a hero then nobody is. I have met many WWII vets in my life as I always sought them out if not only to shake their hand, but to speak of their experiences if they felt up to it. Though they were usually good men, they often couldn't get themselves to speak in favorable terms of the men they fought against. It takes a really unique person to forgive a common enemy who may have killed many of your friends, and was constantly trying to kill you.

 

A relative on my wife's side fought in the Pacific against the Japanese and he turns 86 this year. He is an amazing man and I have the utmost respect for his morals and values that were gained from his life experiences. He is the most fair, understanding man and really understands human nature, yet he has a general dislike for his former foe. I never question that he is a good man as I can never put myself in his shoes and understand how he feels and I'm quite sure he saw things that would make any man change his views permanently.

[Olham 164]

Javito, I bet, war must feel as mad as "Catch 22" for most fighting soldiers after a certain time. War IS crazy.

[Slartibartfast 153]

Javito, I bet, war must feel as mad as "Catch 22" for most fighting soldiers after a certain time. War IS crazy.

No Herr Olham... War is Hell.

[ndicki 22]

Yes, a hero in the truest sense of the word.

 

I don't see why anybody should feel embarrassed about his opinion of the Germans. It seems reasonably accurate to me.

[Flyby PC 23]

I always find a citation for a VC to be compelling, and to get one twice is incredible. I know Crete was fierce and desperate, with the allied troops so agonisingly close to overcoming the German invasion by paratroops. - And these were the real deal German Paratroops when they were truly elite and fresh, not thinned out with lesser replacements as they were later in the war. Indeed, it was the allied soldiers on Crete who did much of the 'thinning'.

 

Now I could be wrong here, but if I remember right, it was the Kiwis on the hill overlooking the airstrip at Maleme who stopped the Germans using it for days as I remember -(note- I remember as in I remember reading about it - I certainly wasn't there), to the point it became critical to the Germans. They were genuinely staring at defeat. It was only once the allied troops were (possibly wrongly) considered as 'spent' by higher command and had been 'strategically' ordered to withdraw inland to form a shorter front for the allies to defend that Maleme fell out of artillery range (ground and air) and Ju52's were finally able to begin landing the reinforcements which proved so decisive to the battle. If they hadn't gained the use of the airstrip when they did, the Germans would have lost the battle for Crete. As it is, casualties were so huge that such mass parachute drops were never again tried by the Germans, - and this was very good news for Malta which was next in line and desperately vulnerable to paratroops. Malta was much more important strategically that Crete, as the Germans in North Africa found out to their cost. Equally damaging to the Nazis, was the large number of Ju-52 transports lost in Crete (some 150 Ju-52 destroyed with as many again damaged, often beyond repair) which could not be replaced quickly, and which weren't available to support Barbarossa. Think of all that fuel, food and ammunition going to the Eastern Front by truck instead of aircraft. In particular, fewer were available to fly in supplies to Stalingrad via Goering's forlorn 'air bridge'. Would those numbers of extra transport aircraft have told? Who knows, ... but 150 - 300 aircraft? - it is a maybe. It just goes to show how far the actions of a few brave men can reach. All of that chain of events started with men like Charles Upham VC having the backbone to stand their ground and fight. Their actions can change everything. I reckon that's what makes a hero, and its why we have them. We need those men who hold on when all is lost, because from time to time they prove that all is not lost.

 

 

It is a good read, but I have to say, (and I don't mean it to sound like a competition), but my very favourite VC remains Major Robert Henry Cain at Arnhem. It's not just the spin Jeremy Clarkson put on it on TV, (his wifes father), but the nature of what he did, what he did it with, and for his own daughter only finding out about it after he died in 197?. F___g Airborne!!!

Edited May 14, 2011 by Flyby PC

[Burning Beard 14]

The unit I was in had a Colonel that was like that guy. I can't at the moment give you the actual facts on his Silver Star other than he was awarded it when a Sergeant in North Africa under extreme conditions. However he received the Medal of Honor as a junior officer in Korea for leading the last bayonet charge the US Army attempted, and yes it was successful. He was by all reports truly a gentleman and had the respect of all that knew and served in his command.

 

Beard

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Cripes, what this guy all got done is leaving me speechless.

I don't blame him for his words about Germans - he just met that sort, I guess.

A man who fought in one of the world wars, lost many comrades and even friends.

It's hard to keep your mind free from hate, I think.

Arthur Gould Lee did, but then he wasn't in the mud and the trenches.

I like the way reconciliation was easier between the gentlemen of the air. René Fonck and Ernst Udet, highest-scoring living aces of their own sides, had met several times since the late 20s, and seem to have really enjoyed each other's company. They were often portrayed together in air magazines as symbols of hope and reconciliation. Yet, with all of his unconfirmed kills, Fonck had probably killed much more than 150 German airmen, some of them Udet could have known. Udet had also a fair amount of French planes down (though some possibly flown by Americans in 1918), and Fonck came from a place threatened by a possible German advance or bombing for all of the war. All that have never poisoned their meetings.

[Olham 164]

Those wars were not based on most peoples' personal hatred. There were, of course, animosities between French

and German people for the more recent wars between them, but these, I am convinced, would not have led to any

further wars, if the politicians wouldn't have started them.

 

Still reading "No Parachute!" by Arthur Gould Lee, I came across a passage yesterday, which fits very well here.

In a dogfight, he got driven off and chased by two German pilots flying Albatros fighters (Lee flew a Sopwith Pup).

Lee tried all his evasive tricks, but couldn't seem to shake them off. With one guy at his six, firing, he now did a

half roll - the introduction to a "Split Ass" - only to find the other, the blue Albatros directly underneath his own,

going the same course.

[From his letter to his wife of September 22nd, 1917:]

"I was upside down and could see directly into his cockpit.For one petrifying second I thought the two machines

would close into each other. The pilot was looking up - he wasn't wearing goggles. He had a small moustache,

like me. In fact, I might have been looking at myself! We were so close I could almost have reached down and

shaken hands. Fatuous thing to flash into one's mind in a fight, but it did, and the mind works fast.

Then he'd push his nose down violently, and vanished. I'm sure he had as big a shock as me!"

 

[From his diary the same day:]

"It was an odd feeling today to look at that D-III pilot from my upside-down position and see practically my double.

Later on, I thought about it. It made me realise that the Hun pilots and observers are just the same types as we

are in the R.F.C., all young, keen on flying, volunteers for the job. We'd probably get along together like a house

on fire, yet all we're here for is to slay each other. It's daft when you think of it. And for who's benefit, when we're

all done in, and the War's over?"

 

Epilogue: The blue Albatros - the pilot he had looked at from such close distance - fell in the same fight.

Edited May 16, 2011 by Olham