Some time ago, I made a couple of illustrations for 'Deployment' by Muddied Waters Games, a ttRPG set during WW2. I usually do more fantasy stuff, so it was an excellent opportunity to paint something different. I was asked for something rough that looked like a real soldier's journal from the period.
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https://journa.host/@videnskabdk/114307694933739184
I dag er det 9. april. Bedre kendt som besættelsesdagen. For 85 år siden blev vi angrebet af Nazisterne.
Min farmor tilgav dem aldrig. Ej heller det tyske folk, som helhed.
Her 85 år senere er vi desværre endnu engang under angreb. Ikke direkte militært, men via en #hybridkrig og via daglige trusler fra det #fascistiske #usa, som har startet en #handelskrig mod os og stort set resten af verden. Hvem skulle ha troet det? Og har menneskeheden intet lært af alle de lidelser?
Journa.hostVidenskab.dk (@videnskabdk@journa.host)Danskerne vendte det tyske sprog ryggen efter 2. Verdenskrig https://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/danskerne-vendte-det-tyske-sprog-ryggen-efter-2-verdenskrig/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dlvr.it #fraarkivet #dkvid #dkforsk
April 9, 1914: On this date, Serbian-American George Musulin was born in New York City. He served in the Office of Strategic Services in WW2 & successfully led the evacuation of some 447 US airmen from Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia as part of Operation HALYARD.
Unexpectedly found that they've uncovered an old tunnel entrance in the side of a hill I often cycle past. Closed up with concrete and rebar. I'm guessing that this might be the lower entrance of a #WW2 air defence position.
April 8, 1921: On this date Phyllis “Pippa” Latour was born in Durban South Africa. She joined the WAAF to be an airframe mechanic, but was recruited to the Special Operations Executive because she was fluent in French. She parachuted into Orne, Normandy on May 1, 1944 to join the SCIENTIST circuit as a wireless operator. Her codename was Genevieve. She was the last surviving female SOE agent. She died Oct 7, 2023.
The lesser-known story of Audrey Hepburn: An adolescence marked by war, terror and broken dreams.
Hepburn’s childhood was marked by her parents’ separation. Born in Brussels in 1929, she soon entered a boarding school in the UK while living with her father.
After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, her mother decided she should move with her to the Netherlands, where they believed they would be safe from the conflict...
El País · The lesser-known story of Audrey Hepburn: An adolescence marked by war, terror and broken dreams.
This is history that has not been told:
As a trained wildland firefighter who knew the history of smokejumpers, I have NEVER heard that the first American smokejumpers were the African American troops of the all-black 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion (the Triple Nickles) who, in Operation Firefly, fought the fires caused by Japanese balloon bombs.
#WW2 #WildlandFirefighting #BlackHistory #Smokejumpers
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/05/us/joe-harris-triple-nickle-black-paratroopers/index.html
CNN · How Black paratroopers saved the US from Japan’s WWII firebombs
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Virginia Hall subsequently joined the OSS, returned to France, and helped train three battalions of resistance forces to wage guerrilla warfare behind German lines. She survived the war and continued to work in intelligence in the post war period. In 1957 she married a fellow OSS operative, Paul Goillot. She died at the age of 76 on July 8, 1982. Much, much more could be said of her career. (2/2)
#WW2 #SOE #OSS #FSection #France
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/wanted-the-limping-lady-146541513/
Smithsonian Magazine · WANTED: The Limping Lady
April 6, 1906: Virginia Hall was born on this date. Hall was considered the most dangerous of all Allied spies by the Gestapo. She worked for both the British Special Operations Executive & later with the American Office of Strategic Services. She had only one foot & used a prosthesis, giving her a limp, leading to her nickname as "the Limping Lady." Despite this, she organized the French Underground in occupied France. (1/2)
en.wikipedia.orgVirginia Hall - Wikipedia
What's happening here? My city is getting ready to defuse four suspected 2nd world war bombs. 8000 people had to leave the area, currently officials are roaming the streets checking if everyone has left.
When they dig up a bomb, the have to defuse or - if that's not possible - detonate it right after because it could blow up by itself once moved. That's why all people have to leave a 500m radius before they start digging.
Episode 76 recounts the night Japanese Midget Subs came right into Sydney Harbour!
https://www.australianhistoriespodcast.com.au/76-japanese-subs-in-sydney-harbour/
April 5, 1944: On this date, Special Operations Executive agent Lilian Rolfe dropped near the city of Orléans in occupied France, where she was deployed to work with the HISTORIAN circuit run by George Wilkinson.
en.wikipedia.orgLilian Rolfe - Wikipedia
April 5, 1944: On this date, Special Operations Executive agents Violette Szabo (courier) & Philippe Liewer (organizer) of the SALESMAN circuit were flown by Westland Lysander into German-occupied France in the Loire Valley.
en.wikipedia.orgViolette Szabo - Wikipedia
"Dagboek van een Arts: Oost-Pruisen 1945-1947" by Hans Graf von Lehndorff, translated from German into Dutch by Rieke den Hertog-van 't Spijker
Available in English as "East Prussian Diary".
I give up. I've been beat. I read so many texts from 1914-1950: memoirs about war, camps, prisons, loss. They have all changed me in their own way. They're all valuable. I feel strongly about never forgetting human atrocities, being vigilant about never supporting war or genocide. Bear witness, record, resist. Keep resisting.
This book has become too much for me. I've been reading it for almost half a year now. I have about a 100 more pages to go in this 375 page diary and I can't do it, at least not now. But because this is such an important work, I can't bear putting it on the dnf list instead of giving it more time and attention here.
This is the diary from a German doctor. He is a devout Christian and anti-nazi. He has recorded his time in East Prussia during the last few months of WW2 and in the following Soviet occupation. He's trying hard to keep anyone (mostly civilians) alive, not succeeding much due to a lack of supplies and tragic circumstances. People are dying from bombings, gun shots, hunger, thirst, diseases, repeated rapes, cold, violent thefts and murder. Suicides become common. The ground gets too full of bodies even for mass graves.
Von Lehndorff is not a sensationalist writer at all. He records as if it's his duty, but he leaves out many gruesome details. There is just something about seeing him so full of horror and emotion in the early pages, but becoming more and more of an empty shell as time goes on. Seeing him go from thanking God for every bit of luck, to him starting to think that all that he sees is the true nature of humans, and a working society with laws and limitations as just a cute cover-up in periods of peace. I think he only remained alive because he kept seeing suicide as a sin. Although later on, when his extremely religious co-workers and friends start dying of suicide, he is full of understanding and passes them no judgement. He tries to give them somewhat of a decent grave, although it's barely possible.
Von Lehndorff was a kind person who somehow kept his will to survive, his need to help others and the majority of his sanity. Because of it he had to see so many horrors -horrors that even a reader like me, far removed in time, can't bear to stomach just hearing about.
I think a lot about this book and others like it. I've read many articles with evidence that in times of despair and need, people come together and help each other. Mostly this evidence comes from small communities, or from areas where natural disasters happened. But books like these also show, especially in times of need due to human violence, that only a minority keeps being good. Many people rape, plunder, snitch -they commit any terror to survive. Most just give up after the initial panic, waiting to be ordered around or to die. It stresses me out. Being a human is terrifying. Other humans are terrifying.
There are many things that make this book extra hard right now. The EU starting 'rearm Europe' and every news outlet screaming about upcoming war sure doesn't help. Being instructed by the government to stock iodine pills and prepare survival kits isn't very calming. Seeing governments here inviting kids on their 18th birthday to join the army, yikes. Watching multiple wars and genocides abroad play out in real-time...
Due to a bad injury last year, I've been in physical therapy for months now, relearning to sit, stand, walk, so I feel extremely vulnerable physically. Reading how every woman who was sick, disabled, wounded or elderly got robbed, abused and sexually assaulted at every opportunity, by both foes and allies, felt horrible and very threatening. I'd really like me some legs that can run and fight right about now, even just for a fake sense of security.
Anyway, it's amazing that this text has been recorded, and even more amazing that it has survived. It's not well-known at all, and there aren't many printed or available. If you can handle reading it, it's probably worth it. You really should not be allowed to cheer for any war before having read a diary like this one. And if you can still somehow cheer on any war at all after having read it, go volunteer to join yourself or shut the fuck up, thanks. :)
As an #Australian and understanding the effect the #eu had on our trade after #ww2 which forced us to find new trading partners all I can say is: Karma is a bitch.
We diversify, we don’t import or export much with the #USA and since they tried to destroy our trade relations with #china I am happy to see them burn and the defence grifters with them.
Decorated WW2 code breaker Betty Webb has died at the age of 101. She spent her youth working at Bletchley Park deciphering Axis messages.
BBC NewsBletchley Park code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101 Betty Webb MBE worked at Bletchley Park during World War Two intercepting enemy messages.
Brief primer on the Special Operations Branches and Detachments of the Office of Strategic Services:
arsof-history.orgThe Office of Strategic Services (OSS)A Primer on the Special Operations Branches and Detachments of the Office of Strategic Services
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“QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE … provides insight into what it takes an individual to survive, both (with luck) physically and, more importantly, ethically”
– retired Australian Army officer Jason Thomas on George MacDonald Fraser’s memoir of the WW2 Burma campaign
https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/special-series/dusty-shelves/quartered-safe/
#Scottish #literature #history #memoir #war #WW2 #Burma
2/5
War Room - U.S. Army War College · ON GOOD PENMANSHIP: QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE (DUSTY SHELVES)It's been a while but the DUSTY SHELVES series is back with a new look at an older book. WAR ROOM welcomes Jason Thomas as he reviews Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser. An intriguing look at the oft forgotten China Burma India Theater of World War II, MacDonald Fraser is a skilled author that relays the experiences of the men of The Border Regiment through his personal history as an infantryman in the Burma Campaign. Jason pulls out the book's lessons of unit cohesion, integrity, ethics and resilience that are timeless and useful to any military leader and deems Quartered Safe Out Here worthy of a dust off.
Paris, Paris, Paris - Josephine Baker, American-born French dancer, singer, actress, member of the French Resistance, & civil rights activist. She was awarded the Resistance Medal, the Croix de Guerre, & was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
Mar 31, 1918: On this date, Pierrette Vincelot was born. She was a member of the French Resistance. Following the German occupation of France, the demarcation line was approximately 15 km from her home. Her involvement with the Resistance began initially as a messenger. She subsequently created counterfeit documents for the Resistance and helped children escape the Nazi occupied zone.
fr.wikipedia.orgPierrette Vincelot — Wikipédia