Capitaine Vengeur

Terrible news. He was a hero of the modern times, and probably one of the very few names of historical people any kid under 8 on Earth could know...

And... This is Athens !!!

I've been waiting this Beast for long, keep up the good work. I wonder what the FM will feel like compared to the Dauntless...

I remember an outstanding movie about the rise of Gengis Khan, Mongol (nominated for Best foreign language film, Oscars 2008), where the casting was indiscriminately made of Chineses, Mongolians, Siberians, Center Asians (Kazakhs, Kirghizes...), but also Koreans and Japaneses. The main character even happened to be a Japanese.

About the air battle, that day saw the first operational use and first kill for the Mustang (or A-36 Apache at that time), and also the first kills for American ace 'Don' Gentile (within an RAF 'Eagle' squadron). A heavy strike on Abbeville Airfield was also the second operation over Europe for the American B-17. The RAF lost 3 squadron leaders reported missing: A. Berry, DFC (3 Sqn); G.C. Hyde (41 Sqn); and Emile Fayolle, DFC (Free French, 174 Sqn). All of them rest in the Anglo-Canadian Cemetary at Dieppe. It was close that a fourth (acting) squadron leader was lost: yet, 'Johnnie' Johnson escaped by few death from a crack FW-190 pilot, and survived to become the RAF second-highest scoring pilot of WW2. Among the Germans, Ofw Josef Wurmheller (I./JG2) was clearly the highest-scoring pilot of the battle with 7 claims. His Gruppenkommandeur Erich Leie was badly wounded that day. Here's a picture of the ceremony yesterday, attended by David Johnston, Governor General of Canada...

His reasons concern nobody else than himself, relatives and close friends. But it's a sad loss for the others too...

Dieppe Raid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Operation Jubilee was flawed even before it began, but was still carried on, for the pain and glory of Canada. At least, the Allies understood that day that they couldn' invade Northern Europe without bringing their own ports with them. The reconstructed Canadian 2nd Division could see action anew in Normandy two years later. The day was also a bitter failure for the largely outnumbering RAF. From Normandy, tribute to Canada !

"Gott, it seems zat vee hafe just entered ze 'Bolshevik Paradize'! Brrr..." or: "Verdammt, whoefer kan klimb zat deserves ze Iron Kross!! More skaring zan Mamayev Kurgan!!"

"Zoldirs, remembehr ze Gherman dizipleen: ze looterz veel be sent to ze Front of Russia, ze raperz veel be sent to the back of Adelheid!" or: "Ach, verflucht! Ze Gestapo spy guyz beekome less and less diskreet in zeir disguize!"

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"

Hollywood has tradition of giving the bad role to the most commercially unsignificant nations having contentious issues with America at that moment, even if it can seem completely ridiculous when watched again one decade later. Remember that in the original Red Dawn (1984), some of the invaders were Nicaraguans! Damn, can you repeat it now without dying out of laughing!? Nicaraguans!!!! I am quite surprised that we don't find in this new 2012 version a new evil coalition of enemies of God, Freedom and the Holy Dollar, gathering ugly Venezuelan die-hard collectivists alongside the usual terrifying Cuban bogey.

When you have reached the Third Millenium and a supposed superior level of consciousness (connection to the planet, all of that...); when it still takes to rulers of a traumatized and weakened superpower just to brandish a test tube full of flour, and a handful of half-truths and full lies supported by flawed proofs, to have the large majority of their educated population support, with polls as evidence, a faraway trap war in a nowhere land (which by sheer coincidence is but a giant oil well); when you think that 22 centuries before, it took Cato just to brandish a bunch of grapes to get the same result and erase Carthago... Enough said... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "World War One: one civilian killed to one hundred soldiers. World War Two: one civilian killed to one soldier. Vietnam War: ten civilians killed to one soldier. Now, you know what to do to survive the next war: Enlist!!" (Pierre Desproges)

I wonder if his classmates talk about him like Marine rookies: "Damn, I f*****g hate this bawling son of a bitch! Oh, er, 'morning Mrs Puller... I wasn't talking especially about you..."

Seeing the explosion of the M.I.6 HQ, and then the line of coffins covered with Union Jacks, I just thought: "Oh no... Damn no... Will they call for Johnny English again...? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

“War is but a dangerous disease to an infantile mankind painfully searching for its way. Torture, this dialogue into horror, is but the awful other side of the fraternal communication. It degrades the one who inflicts it even more than the one who suffers it. To give in to violence and torture is, through incapacity to believe in Man, to give up building a more human world." The author of these words is not an Hindu guru or a dreamer poet. General Jacques Pâris de Bollardière, Compagnon de la Libération, DSO and bar, had been once a commando senior officer, a fine tactician in insurrectional and counter-insurrectional warfare, a true war hero, and one of the most decorated French soldiers ever. Yet he never gave up his chivalric and Christian deep principles. After having seen torture inflicted to men under his command in France, and by men under his command in Algeria, he became an active and emblematic apostle of nonviolence. “I think with infinite respect about those among my brothers, either Arab or French, who died like the Christ, at the hands of their fellow men, flogged, tortured, disfigured by the scorn of men.”

I can understand your feelings, UK. I myself was quite surprised when I learnt the place of a relatively famous wartime crash. Since a child, I have been fascinated about several feats that happened during the air battle over France, May-June 1940. One of them that especially impressed me was the story of the 3-men crew of a Potez 63-11 observation crate, shot down and killed by 7 attacking BF-109, but not before having expended all of their ammo and shot down 3 of their aggressors! It is said that the 3 wreckages were found close to each other in the Potez' path, but I could never find out the Germans' unit, and don't know if they were posthumous overclaims. Anyway, the story is sometimes mentioned to specify that the Potez scouts were not always sacrificed clay pigeons. I knew the crew's names, the date, but not where they fell. It's only when I browsed the net a couple of years ago that I discovered it was a place I knew very well. The stone below stands in a clearing in the woods overlooking the village of Moussy (Marne). It happens that one decade and half ago, I often wandered in these woods for they were next to my then girlfriend's place! Yet, we had never drifted to that clearing... So surprising life can be... On the stone one can read: "François Berveiller, Captain pilot - Fernand Gonzalez, Lieutenant observer - Louis Delorme, Lance Corporal gunner - G.A.O. 543 - Fell gloriously aboard their Potez 63.11 70 meters behind this stone, on 9 June 1940, returning from a mission above the Aisne, after having shot down 3 of their opponents."

It took to Man a few millenia to progress from the silex-spearhead javelin to the portable crossbow; less than one millenium more to progress to the bolt-action rifle; and less than one century more to 'progress' to the inter-continental nuclear missiles and possibility to obliterate any life on Earth. Evolution has been imperfect and uneven to us. While our intelligence is objectively awesome, and our skills to improve objects and organizations really admirable, our natural tribal instincts didn't progress the same and have remained simply... appaling. They have but slightly or not evolved since our hairy anthropoid ancestors irrationally fearing or envying their neighbours at the next cave or valley. "They are monsters, they eat their own children.", "We are superior, our way of life is the best.", "We deserve this land, the God(s) [whatever the name] gave it to us.". And so disgustingly on... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "War is the continuation of politics by other means." (Von Clausewitz) "Politics is the continuation of war by other means." (Kremlin's wisdom) "Sports is the continuation of war by other means." (Rocky IV) "Daddy is the continuation of Jesus by other bretzels." (George W. Bush) "F**k, war, f**k politics, f**k means!!" (anarchist wisdom)

The word is 'vasistas', actually. I had never paid attention about the similarity, but it sounds logical. Anyway, the best German export to France from the War of 1870 was probably the Christmas Tree. Another more widely known word coming from another foreign occupation is 'bistro', similar to the Russian word for 'quickly'. During the Allied occupation of Northern France after the fall of Napoleon, the Russian soldiers were not allowed to spend time in French taverns. So in fear of being caught, they insistently asked to be served quickly. The word has remained, and even through this etymology is not fully admitted, I find it amusing enough...

Admit that the USA would have been quite upset, to say the least, if in place of the Old Glory, the Southern flag had been run up there too. You know, the one with a blue Cross of St-Andrew and a number of stars matching the average IQ of a segregationist...

It reminds me of an old sketch when a character talks about Helmut kohl: "Yes, you know him: the big fatty who speaks like the bad guys in the war movies..." The Abrahams/ Zucker movie Top Secret! emphasized much about the "bad German guy" accent, but it also had an ingenious idea about the Swedish accent: it sounds so mush as if the text was rewinded, that as the Swede is speaking, the action in the movie looks like it was rewinded too!

Notice that this dreadful news happens almost exactly one year after the terrorist attacks around Oslo, 22 July 2011. In both cases, we have a cold-blooded murderer who seems to be an intelligent man, smart, vicious, able to handle explosives in order to fix and disorganize the intervention teams following a careful planning, very organized in his ultimate goal to make as many victims as possible, and who, contrary to the disorganized aggressors at Columbine for example, has planned and managed to survive to his bloody rampage. In both cases, this intelligent man, so efficient in acting in and on the true world, is actually completely disconnected from it, only living through his own schemes, plots, and imaginary conspiracies. A locked and loaded crusader unleashed against a peaceful world. Compared to the armed morons of Columbine, this new style of mass murderers I find really, really scaring...

I think of some other unpleasant French words inspired from the German... La schlague (from the German schlagen = to strike) is the name for the stick used to beat subordinates or pupils, or for the punishment itself. Typical Prussian discipline... Le reître (from the German Ritter = rider) refers to a rude, arrogant, violent military; it dates back to the Wars of Religion (16th Century), when the soldiers criss-crossing France, scourge to the unfortunate peasant and his daughters, were often German mercenary horsemen hired by either side. To the same era of wandering bands dates back le chenapan (= rogue), coming from the German Schnapphahn (= grab the cock). Fisematanten also reminds me of an amusing English etymology. In rural Western France, women have worn for centuries a hairdress called quichenotte, covering their cheeks. It could have come from "Kiss me not!", when this hairdress was useful to preserve their virtue from promiscuity with the King of England's boorish soldiers, present for long in this area during the Middle Ages.

I wonder when was the last pilot before to die flying a Dreidecker? RIP to the man...

A once occupied country like mine has mostly retained words like "Verboten" or "Ausweis"... A country of musicians, philosophers, scientists and car builders could have let a better legacy abroad...

KGB vs teddy bears, it reminds me of an old joke... The Moscow Police has found the body of an unknown murdered woman, and the only clue on the crime scene was a teddy bear. The experts of scientific police do their best, but just can't find any lead. As a last resort, the teddy bear is entrusted to a veteran KGB officer. After only one hour, the KGB man comes back and states: "The teddy berr belonnged to the woman's daughterr. Herr name is Katia, she is 2. The Murrdrerr is the husband. They live at 741, Komsomolski Prrospekt... After a mute open-mouthed moment, the police officers dare to ask: "Incredible! Comrade officer, how could you find all of this out?" And the KGB man replies with a cruel grin: "The teddy berr... sponntanioussly komfessed..."