Capitaine Vengeur

Well, by the way, a French town of Condom actually exists (no etymological link known with the rubber thing). Will her citizens be prohibited to say where they live by this system banning any sex-related word?

Fine. Can you still declare you are living in ill-named places like Dyke Avenue, Fartburg, Gee Spot ou Wino Valley (possibly misspelt) without being banned from the Net? (in addition of bearing coarse laughs from immature people!)

Don't put sharks into your soup... But don't swim into their soup either !

British composure and Russian fatalism have dug the grave for Hitler's frenzy. I remember this tale of an English (Londoner?) shopkeeper who placed this sign on his store during the Blitz: "Open as usual". When a bomb finally blasted his shop, the sign became: "More open than usual". The Londoners were lucky to have a deep Underground network, alas that wasn't the case for all other attacked cities in Britain. In 1944, the Blitz got its second wind with Hitler's Vergeltungswaffen. I'd like to pay tribute to a compatriot from my city of Le Havre, Jean Maridor, a Free French pilot (Sqn 91) who shot down 11 V-1s. On August 3, 1944, he was killed in this 11th attack, disintegrated while firing at the flying bomb at point blank, just before it could crash on Benenden School (Kent).

Finding a fit name will be hard, considering the long-term contentious issues between both navies. Usual names like Hogue, Abukir, Trafalgar, (Mers-el-Kébir? never used), Nelson, Hood, Collingwood... will be prohibited to the Brits; usual names like Bévéziers, (Chesapeake? never used), Primauguet, Tourville, De Grasse, Suffren, Surcouf... will be banned for the French. I would see Entente as a fit name. The same word in both languages, remembering a mutually profitable collaboration at the beginning of the previous century. "You French fight for money, while we British fight for honour." "Sir, a man fights for what he lacks the more." (Robert Surcouf discussing with a British officer)

I hope that the authorities will at least send them down some first-class Pisco for the celebration.

He was the highest-scoring of the French aces still alive. 16 out of his 23 kills are actually shared ones, counted as full kills to each of the involved pilots in the Soviet claiming system. This doesn't remove anything to him as a great pilot, a true Free French, and a firm supporter to the Soviet struggle during the Patriotic War. It just proves that he played it in a very collective way, trademark of the best squadrons. Most probaby the sole Hero of the Soviet Union living in Texas, for the last 60 years !!!!

Useful data and paint schemes for a future campaign displaying a potential regional conflict (the Mexican Republic of Kyrgyzstan is nearby).

I can't see the need for UAVs in a country where hundreds of madrasah chicks are supposed to be happy with the idea of earning martyrdom by flying sacrified planes over Satan's Flak. Or is that just propaganda?

Bravo Uniform Rrrrrrrrromeo Papahhhhhhh... Sorry, just have had lunch...

Why not after all ? Obelix has the typical shape of any McDonald's addict !

Another old addict of our Normandy beaches in June is gone. They will be fewer and fewer, and they will be badly missed during ceremonies becoming tasteless without them. I remember this sequence in The Longest Day, when the brave piper on Sword Beach is only interrupted by surprise, seeing a weird individual approaching on bicycle, the mayor of Colleville, where Lovat's battalion had landed. His music is also criticized by two Irish soldiers (including young Sean Connery, criticizing Jocks!) Scotland for ever !

On that Day of Fire, August 6, 1945, the city of Hiroshima was erased from Earth by the most terrifying amount of destructing power ever gathered by Man to that day. The American people was glad to feel that this terrible war was now close to her end, as the first part of 1945 had been very expensive in lives lost, and as this war was expected to become more terrible during the final phases of the invasion of Japan. But many people also felt that this World as they had known it had changed once and for all, and that nothing would ever be the same as before for the Human Kind. Much have been said about the Bomb, pro and contra. IMHO, besides the lives of many GIs, it has probably saved countless Japanese civilian lives, as in that Summer 1945, the Japanese Islands had crossed for long the edge of starvation. If the War had continued, and it would have continued, the human toll of the Winter 1945-46 could have been horrific. The Bomb gave to the Japanese Govt the pretext he had searched for long to end that hopeless war without abdicating honor. On the other hand, the Bomb dropped on Nagasaki only 3 days later, without time enough for negotiations, can hardly be justified, safe for the fact that since August 8, the Soviets had begun to rush on Manchuria, and a quick end to the War was now necessary to the West. Alas, it wasn't quick enough, and here are for instance the germs of the Korean War (indeed, it was a really imortant week for the History of the World). It is sad also to think that a pearl like Kyoto had been placed on the first list of potential targets. Erasing her, and the Yanks would have been seen once and for all as barbarians beyond any redemption by the Japanese people. The same day, the accidental death of Richard Bong, top-scoring American ace ever, went totally unseen when he crashed flying a P-80.

Very nice pics !

General Curtis LeMay, gravedigger of Tokyo and many other Japanese cities, once admitted that had the USA lost the War, he would have been tried as a war criminal. RAF Air Marshall Harris or Lt-Col Tibbets never took responsibility for being such. About The Bomb regarding other war crimes in WW2, it must be said that in 1945, dozens of millions of Koreans, Taiwanese, Manchus, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Malays, Burmese... would have been happy to see the Japanese Islands and all of their population disappear once and for all underwater, had the Americans developed a weapon able to achieve such a result. Germany's repentance has made this country reputable again for its neighbours; it's still not the case for Japan.

Mmmm... The Dark Lady suit would be perfect to add spice to a hot evening. "May I visit the Dark Side tonight, Milady ?"

500 years of evolving technology is quite a long travel...

I plan a trip to Vietnam (Hanoi to HCM City) within the next 3 years. I will see once there how rampant Capitalist this country has become.

Of course, the Japs would have certainly used any available nuke warhead, probably against the US Fleet as no other interesting objective was within range (safe for bringing a warhead by suicide oceanic submarine to the American/ Australian coasts). But at that time, the Japs had the enemy at their gates and the Hell in the heart of their cities; they certainly would have had some reasons to use such weapons, in order of military reaction or political retaliation. Also keep in mind that the Empire of Rising Sun and the Allies hadn't the same long-term goals of war. The Japaneses wanted to develop an extensive, fortified, self-sufficient Empire with a deep maritime glacis. What the White Empires would have resented them for didn't bother them very much. On the other hand, The Allied goal of war was to establish a stable constitutional democracy and resume commercial relations (with a weakened Japan, at best). Conducting the war in an especially unhuman way, before giving lessons of humanity, would have been a way of seriously rotting these future relations. The way William T. Sherman and his foragers conducted the war in Georgia (short-term efficiency againsy long-term resentment) is just an excellent example of how rotting for long the future reviving relations between victor and vanquished...

The Chineses would be fools if wanting to take by arms what they can dominate through trade and debt. The old tired nations of Europe, Russia and America are no match for them on that matter. Their only worthy opponent would be their emerging giant neighbour of India. Let's keep a close eye on both of them for the following decade.

I would have expected that no tree, scrub or bush could be found within 200 or 300 yards around such an important strategic base, to enforce a careful watch. A legacy of the old Soviet paranoia that would have been welcome in that case. I hope that all of those hot ashes were insured at the Mafia...

While browsing in the field of US medals for my mods, I have learnt about the story of Admiral J.M. Boorda, USN CNO promoted from the enlisted ranks, who committed suicide in 1996 after a media investigation about 2 possibly usurpated Valor devices on 2 of his numerous and honestly awarded decorations. He wasn't even summoned by any Court. That's what I call a sense of spotless honor. Worth meditating.

"... and what military medicine is to medicine" is sometimes is sometimes added.

During WW1, airmen had no parachutes. A German ace whose name I've forgotten took it with humor: "A fall from 1000m lasts for 40 seconds, which leaves sufficient time to sing "Heil Dir im Siegerkranz" [Prussian anthem], and to yell three Hooray! for the Kaiser!"