This is an interesting item from the Stalin-era. It is a lithograph from an original pencil drawing by a Russian soldier who witnessed this event. I showed it to my good buddy Max, who reminded me that not all Russian soldiers were peasants...they were also artists, poets, and intellectuals, just like our own "Citizen Soldiers."
Hello everyone, I picked this little item up at a yard sale yesterday. The owner was a lady who said it belonged to her EX-husband who was about 60 years of age. She believed it to be Army, but didn't know for sure.
It was in a box full of junk, I looked for the eating utensils, but didn't find them. It has a very frayed tag that says "Camp Kit USA" and little pockets inside.
Received this from a friend. Thought it would be a very nice thing to do. So please fly your flag on 9-11. I know we will!
THE PROGRAM IS THIS:
On Monday, September 11th, 2006, an American flag should be displayed outside every home, apartment, office, and store in the United States.
Every individual should make it their duty to display an American flag on this fifth anniversary of our country's worst tragedy. We do this in honor of those who lost their lives on 9/11, their families, friends and loved ones who continue to endure the pain, and those who today are fighting at home and abroad to preserve our cherished freedoms.
In the days, weeks and months following 9/11, our country was bathed in American flags as citizens mourned the incredible losses and stood shoulder-to-shoulder against terrorism. Sadly, those flags have all but disappeared. Our patriotism pulled us through some tough times and it shouldn't take another attack to galvanize us in solidarity. Our American flag is the fabric of our country and together we can prevail over terrorism of all kinds.
Fly an American flag of any size on 9/11. Honestly, Americans should fly the flag year-round, but if you don't, then at least make it a priority on this day.
Thank you for your participation. God Bless You and God Bless America.
comments: I am trying to find information on my Dad's engineering unit. It was #1377, which is displayed on a pennet in a group picture. Please tell me how to become a member of your site so I can ask some questions. Thank you,
Louise Hamilton
I wrote to her and informed her while I could not any information on the Net, I did find a reference to the 1377th. It would appear that this unit was the 1377th Engineer Petroleum Distribution Company. I have scanned three pages from my War Against Germany book. The info can be viewed in a PDF file.
I also sent her all the suggestions that I normally give everyone performing research on their loved ones' unit.
The world in August 1939 was a world that held its breath. Fighting had ended in Spain, and the war in China had stagnated. But few people believed war would be avoided.
What was not certain was where and when. Adolf Hitler enjoyed tremendous popularity at home, and pro-Nazi factions were active in the United States, France, and Great Britain. His recent occupation of Czechoslovakia had raised alarms in capitals across Europe, even though many people ignorant of the violence and terror of the German political machine still looked to Hitler as a role model for their own governments.
Then the unthinkable happened. Joaquim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Foreign Minister, went to Moscow the last week of August to secure a Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Stalin, perhaps trying to buy time with Hitler himself, ordered his Foreign Minister, Molotov, to sign on August 21, 1939. When this agreement was announced to the world, it left out some key terms: the dismemberment of Poland.
Anyone reading Mein Kampf could see what Hitler thought of Poland. A former province of Czarist Russia, Poland had been guaranteed access to the sea — the “Free Corridor†of Danzig — by the League of Nations. This agreement separated Prussia for Greater Germany by cutting a path through to the seaport of Danzig. This angered Hitler and many Germans, who saw the land as the birthright of Germans everywhere.
Moreover, Poland was not an Aryan land. Poles were untermensch, “inferior people,†only good as slaves or corpses. After the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, Hitler ordered his general staff to draw up plans for the invasion of Poland. The Germans would invade from the West, the Soviets from the Eat, and divide the country along previously agreed upon lines.
The SS took twelve prisoners out of Buchenwald and forced them to take poison, shot them after they had put on Polish uniforms. An SS Officer yelled in Polish into a radio that they had come to invade Germany, and then the SS fled.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler told the Nazi Reichstag that Poland had tried to invade Germany, and the Wehrmacht was returning fire since 5:45 AM. Actually, in a carefully planned and highly mobile attack codenamed Fall Weiss (Case White) planned by Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch, German land, sea, and air forces were moving rapidly into Poland.
Poland’s army in 1939 was totally unprepared for the new warfare it found itself in. Poland, like many armies, had large cavalry forces. What modern aircraft the Polish Air Force had were caught on the ground.
DD
