Capitaine Vengeur

If becoming true, would you really take such a possible slaughter in the same phlegmatic way the Brits did during the Blitz? - I'm afraid we'll be delayed, old chap. Another plane's blown up. - Oh dear, it's becoming fairly nerve-racking, in the long run. Let's have a cup of tea. ---------------------- Not to turn political, but it seems that more than 10,000 Americans a year are actually killed by terrorists. They are also called gangstas wiz gunz, scum with guns, and more generally guns owners (violent/ psychotic/ paranoiac/ drunk/ careless/ untrained, and/or simply dumb gun owners).

It was worth it !

"At war, victory goes to the general who makes the less mistakes." (Napoleon). The overconfident Japanese Navy just accumulated too many deadly mistakes, which counterbalanced some American heavy ones.

A fine idea and advert of the nicest taste, sure. Now, we can consider that some Muslim snipers with sanitary gloves will use such bullets against Israeli soldiers, and claim they have turned an American bad joke against America's allies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Those Quranic argumentations remind me of a TV film about the Algerian War. A puny gang of starving Mujahideens launches a stealthy razzia at night on a French store, grabbing what they can in the dark. The following morning, they realize that all they have got are bottles of wine, canned pork, and sausages they mistook for cucumbers! Then, starving more than ever, they have an argument about Quranic prohibitions: - It is said that only if you have nothing else and are on the edge of dying from thirst or starvation, you can drink alcohol or eat pork for your life. - Yes, but then, you must have sixty days of fast and penance. - True. But if you are on Jihad, it's one day only. - Oh, fine. So, come on!

Hat off !

May 27, 1941, saw the tragic conclusion of several days of a legendary gripping stalking. The immobilized battleship KMS Bismarck, pride of Nazi Germany, had to face alone a large part of the Royal Navy, including heavy modern battleships like HMS Rodney and King George V. She finally sank after hours of a terrible, merciless pounding, losing 1995 of her 2200 officers and seamen. After submarine explorations, the ship is now considered to have been scuttled during this hopeless battle. The Royal Navy needed a complete revenge after the loss of HMS Hood (with all hands but 3), three days before, and obtained it that day. It was also a refreshing breath for Britain during a time of bad news, for on the same May 27, the decision was taken to evacuate Crete (the third evacuation in one year after France and Greece).

This reminds me of at least two other stories of false claims during WW2. The first one was an arranged fraud that took place during the war over North Africa, between aces of the German JG 27 willing to boost their scores. Four notable aces flying together claimed to have downed between them ten Brits over the desert; but reports from German infantrymen on the gound proved that they had actually emptied their magazines into the dunes! As all of them were aces of note with otherwise unquestionable scores, the CO chose to avoid any hierarchical consequences, and the following career of these pilots seems to have remained honorable. The second story took place in the Regiment Normandie-Niemen, the French unit fighting alongside the Soviets. A young pilot flying alone claimed to have downed two German planes before being shot down, but Soviet infantrymen on the ground reported to have seen him jump in an empty sky, without any other planes flying or falling. A Soviet pilot would have been shot dead after a swift trial, but the Soviet General in charge chose to let the French CO decide, and he decided to let another chance to the young pilot. The moral ending was that the pilot finally scored ten actual, confirmed kills before being killed in the last days of the last campaign, with a cleared honor.

Now I can get prouder about my dangling stuff !

Those times were definetely not the proudest era for Europe. Looking in another direction with hands in our pockets while knowing people were slaughtered next door... "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last." (Winston Churchill)

About the difference you could hear in a camping between a verbose: "Excuse me, neighbour, could you please turn down your radio, just a little, my wife couldn't sleep, she's got a terrible headache; the weather here doesn't suit her, too hot, she misses so much the banks of Thames and our healthy English fog; and the food the natives have here, oh Christ..." and a terse: "Die Radio ausmachen! Sofort!"

There was a similar problem with Alan Jerrard's VC. He was awarded the Cross for an outstanding feat over Italy, 1918, i.e. for sacrifying himself to let his wingmen escape facing an outnumbering force, and destroying three planes in the process before being forced down and captured. Actually, only one Austrian plane was forced down and a second pilot injuried. Jerrard himself, after his release, only claimed one shot up. But the three kills remained to his credits, and the Cross as well with its exagerated citation. At least in Jerrard's case, the Cross could have been deserved for his spirit of self-sacrifice, staying behind to cover his wingmen, with actual witnesses here.

I once read the same with Israelis and Egyptians in the Sinai dunes, and thought it was an Israeli joke...

The common gradation of colors for threat and fear is: red (prints) --> white (masks) --> yellow (faces) --> brown (pants) ...

About each time I drive back to my parents, from Normandy to Ardennes, I make a short pause by this discreet nomument, once disuded for a long while, lost in the middle of the plains of Champagne. Here are displayed the names of all of the men who died in the French Tank Corps, classified by sections. The monument has been built near Berry-au-Bac, on the furthest point reached by the French tanks (Schneider and St-Chamond models) on 16 April 1917, day 1 of the bloody 2nd Battle of the Aisne, and day 1 for the French tanks - with some local successes, but many breakdowns and heavy losses. Interesting point: the monument is surrounded by two steles with quotes that epitomize the history of tank during WW1. The first one, stated by Colonel Estienne (father of the French tanks), summarizes as soon as August 1914 what the future weapon would be: "Gentlemen, the victory in this war will belong to which of the two belligerents which will be the first to place a gun of 75 [mm] on a vehicle able to be driven on all terrain." The second one is the statement of General Ludendorff before the Reichstag, in August 1918, declaring that the war couldn't be won anymore, and that the first reason above all was the tank, which had been wrongly underestimated in Germany.

I remember you enjoy Arte Channel: they once diffused several times an excellent documentary about this battle at Teutoburger Wald. If you have interest in what is related to Arminius and this battle, we have at the moment in France a fine comics series underway by Enrico Marini about Arminius (the blonde boy, here named Ermanamer), and his youth when grown up as a Roman and trained as a soldier. Fine work.

First, I would come back on my own teens and take advantage of the time paradox to teach to the f.....g moron I was then what not to tell and how not to behave with the girls. Some slaps would help. More seriously, would probably come back to the Pax Romana era (Italy, ca. 100 a.c.), and spend days in the Circus Maximus. I'm always amazed that so many people would like to watch an ancient battle. I imagine that nobody can say what vomiting really means before having seen, heard and smelt a large battlefield after action.

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.

Hot temperatures on the first five days of the week. Then an ice-cold wave on Saturday and Sunday.

Moreover, a fair number of British aces were observers on fighter two-seaters (Brisfits mostly), sharing all of the crew's victories with the pilot, and could rise to high scores when flying with crack pilots (see Keith Park's, for example). The largest part probably really contributed to the crew's successes, but some may have never hit a barn gate and still become aces, it was the vicious part of the system. And one single Brisfit down could mean two aces out. An interrogation I have, Dej. I can see no American bubble for Sept. 1918, but I can remember it was a bleeding month for the Yanks with at least three aces down for a total of 40 kills (Puttnam, Wehner and Luke, for the ones that come to my mind). ---------------------------------------- My definition of a "seen out of control" kill: - Hello, Lieutenant Prune. Some kills today? - You bet, Sir. A nice big red Fokker. Or pink, perhaps... I'll put red in the report, it will sound more a manly kill. - Did you put him aflame? Did you see him crash? - Well, not actually. I swooped down upon him, fired a burst at him, and then saw him dive. - Dive? - Yes, dive through the clouds. Damn, a fine burst. I'm almost sure one or two of my bullets had hit him. Yes, almost. - But you didn't see him anymore thereafter, on the ground or in the air? - No, I was too busy making my victorious barrel roll. But what? At the moment, the Hun must be stone dead, and frying in Hell with Lucifer! - Or stone drunk, and frying sausages with his Fraulein... Congratulation, you champion!

Memphis Belle and Tora Tora Tora. And Michael Bay's Pearl Harbour, of course. No, just joking.

It must be remembered that the criteria for qualifying as a confirmed ace largely differed depending on the nation. When browsing the scores of minor British/ Commonwealth aces (5 kills) on The Aerodrome, you find numbers of them (armfuls actually) whose all 5 kills were planes "seen out of control" without confirmed crash, or downed over places far away behind the front line (with aerial eyewitnesses only, when witnesses) - i.e. in circumstances where not a single one would have been confirmed in the French air force. The Germans rarely had this problem, as due to their defensive stance for most of the war, most of their Allied victims crashed on German-controlled territory.

Fine and very interesting work, Dej. Sad for the distortion, but with some known points of reference, it's still highly readable. Thank you for posting.

It took centuries to make the Chinese pyrotechnic powder a deadly weapon. It was just a matter of months to make the first large-scale controlled nuclear fission a doomsday weapon. The flying machine as a strategic weapon within 8 years lies just in the interval. For the best and the worst, Man is just no common animal.

The famous "squadron of Spifires" requested by Adolf Galland?

So many differences that you couldn't believe there is any sort of kinship between both nations!!! Add replacing peanut butter with orange marmalade and tabasco sauce with pickles, and you'll soon have a Second War of Independence (well, a third one, after Dixie's failed attempt). And "Tea Party" will mean at last again something else than a laughable pool of... ... Mmm, well, I won't turn political... And please, don't look again at us French, you Yanks: this time, you have a navy strong enough by large to deal with the British Navy all by yourselves! Hah!