Picture of the Day

[THeTA0123]

Indeed! Rear turret 13mm and rear pointed 20mm of Ju 188 

[Born2Kill 007]

The damaged tanker OHIO, supported by Royal Navy destroyers HMS PENN (left) and HMS LEDBURY (right), approaches Malta after an epic voyage across the Mediterranean as part of convoy WS21S (Operation Pedestal) to deliver fuel and other vital supplies to the besieged island. OHIO’s back was broken and her engines failed during earlier German and Italian attacks. Because of the vital importance of her cargo (10,000 tons of fuel which would enable the aircraft and submarines based at Malta to return to the offensive), she could not be abandoned. In a highly unusual manoeuvre, the two destroyers supported her to provide buoyancy and power for the remainder of the voyage.




Aerial reconnaissance photograph of the Rocket Research Establishment at Peenemunde, Usedom Island, Germany, taken by a De Havilland Mosquito PR Mark IX of No. 540 Squadron RAF, using a Type F.52 (36″) vertical camera. This view shows the concentration of bomb craters on the airfield and damage to technical buildings of the Luftwaffe Test Facility, Peenemunde West, after the raid by Bomber Command on 17/18 August 1943.



Firefighters wash blood from the asphalt on the Nevsky Prospekt in Leningrad, after people were killed as a result of German shelling.
More at: http://ww2today.com

[THeTA0123]

Something is special about this spitfire. Who can tell me?

[Redbadd]

His initials are on it.

[THeTA0123]

Yep and the spitfire in itself is also special. It is the "top ranking" in something

[Oberst]

Obviously it is Johnie Johnson spitfire. As his initial are painted on the plane, this photo was taken during its time as wing commander of a Canadian Air Force fighter wing (Johnson was a RAF pilot). This plane is said to be the most succesfull Spitfire in WW2.

[THeTA0123]

Correct. Under Johnnie Johnson, EN398 destroyed 12 confirmed kills,5 shared kills, 5 damaged and 1 shared damaged.



Spitfire MK XIV of the belgian 350 Squadron in Kent. 350 was the first foreign squadron to recieve this type, shortly followed by the Polish.
The aircraft above, RM693 later brought down 2 V1's.

[siben]

Thanks for waiting guys, lets eat now.

[Born2Kill 007]

Meanwhile for obtaining the funds for bankets:

(hackenholt, the gasoperator)

"Your other and far more important task is the changeover of our gas chambers which actually work with diesel exhaust fumes into a better and quicker system. I think especially of prussic acid. The day before yesterday the Führer and Himmler were here. On their order I have to personally take you there, I am not to issue written certificates and admittance cards to anybody

Then Pfannenstiel asked: "What did the Führer say?" Glob.: "Quicker, carry out the whole action quicker." Pfannenstiel's attendant, Ministerialrat Dr. Herbert Lindner, then asked: "Mr. Globocnik, do you think it is good and proper to bury all the corpses instead of cremating them? A generation could come after us which doesn't understand all this.

Then Globocnik said: "Gentlemen, if ever a generation will come after us which is so weak and soft-hearted that it doesn't understand our task, then indeed the whole of National Socialism has been in vain. To the contrary, in my opinion one should bury bronze plates on which it is recorded that we have had the courage to carry out this great and so necessary work."

The Führer: "Good, Globocnik, this is indeed also my opinion."

Later the alternative option was accepted. Then the corpses were cremated on large roasts, improvised from rails, with the aid of petrol and diesel oil.

The next day we drove to Belzec. A small special station had been created for this purpose at a hill, hard north of the road Lublin-Lemberg, in the left angle of the demarcation line. South of the road some houses with the inscription "Sonderkommando Belzec der Waffen-SS". Because the actual chief of the whole killing facilities, Polizeihauptmann Wirth, was not yet there, Globocnik introduced me to SS-Hauptsturmführer Obermeyer (from Pirmasens). That afternoon he let me see only that which he simply had to show me. That day I didn't see any corpses, just the smell of the whole region was stinking to high heaven in a hot August, and millions of flies were everywhere.
Near to the small double-track station was a large barrack, the so-called 'cloakroom', with a large counter for valuables. Then followed the barber's room with approximately 100 chairs, the barber room. Then an alley in the open air, below birches, fenced in to the right and left by double barbed wire with inscriptions: 'To the inhalation- and bath rooms.'. In front of us a sort of bath house with geraniums, then a small staircase, and then to the right and left 3 rooms each, 5 x 5 metres, 1.90 metres high, with wooden doors like garages. At the back wall, not quite visible in the dark, larger wooden ramp doors. On the roof as a "clever, little joke" the Star of David. In front of the building an inscription: Hackenholt-Foundation. More I couldn't see that afternoon.

The next morning, shortly before 7 a.m. someone announced to me: "In ten minutes the first transport will come." In fact the first train arrived after some minutes, from the direction of Lemberg. 45 wagons with 6,700 people of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival. Behind the barred hatches children as well as men and women looked out, terribly pale and nervous, their eyes full of the fear of death. The train comes in: 200 Ukrainians fling open the doors and whip the people out of the wagons with their leather whips. A large loudspeaker gives the further orders: 'Undress completely, also remove artificial limbs, spectacles etc. Handing over valuables at the counter, without receiving a voucher or a receipt. The shoes carefully bound together (because of the Spinnstoffsammlung), because on the almost 25 metre high heap nobody would have been able to find the matching shoes again. Then the women and girls to the barber who, with two, three scissor strokes is cutting off all hair and collecting it in potato sacks. "That is for special purposes in the submarines, for seals or the like." the SS-Unterscharführer who is on duty there says to me.

Then the procession starts moving. In front a very lovely young girl; so all of them go along the alley, all naked, men, women, children, without artificial limbs. I myself stand together with Hauptmann Wirth on top of the ramp between the gas chambers. Mothers with babies at their breast, they come onward, hesitate, enter the death chambers. At the corner a strong SS man stands who, with a voice like a pastor, says to the poor people: "There is not the least chance that something will happen to you. You must only take a deep breath in the chamber, that widens the lungs; this inhalation is necessary because of the illnesses and epidemics." On the question of what would happen to them he answered: "Yes, of course, the men have to work, building houses and roads but the women don't need to work. Only if they wish they can help in housekeeping or in the kitchen."
For some of these poor people this gave a little glimmer of hope, enough to go the few steps to the chambers without resistance. The majority are aware, the smell tells them of their fate. So they climb the small staircase, and then they see everything. Mothers with little children at the breast, little naked children, adults, men, women, all naked - they hesitate but they enter the death chambers, pushed forward by those behind them or driven by the leather whips of the SS. The majority without saying a word. A Jewess of about 40 years of age, with flaming eyes, calls down vengeance on the head of the murderers for the blood which is shed here. She gets 5 or 6 slashes with the riding crop into her face from Hauptmann Wirth personally, then she also disappears into the chamber. Many people pray. I pray with them, I press myself in a corner and shout loudly to my and their God. How gladly I would have entered the chamber together with them, how gladly I would have died the same death as them. Then they would have found a uniformed SS man in their chambers - the case would have been understood and treated as an accident, one man quietly missing. Still I am not allowed to do this. First I must tell what I am experiencing here.
The chambers fill. "Pack well." - Hauptmann Wirth has ordered. The people stand on each other's feet. 700 - 800 on 25 square metres, in 45 cubic metres. The SS physically squeezes them together, as far as is possible.
The doors close. At the same time the others are waiting outside in the open air, naked. Someone tells me: "The same in winter." "Yes, but they could catch their death of cold," I say. "Yes, exactly what they are here for." says an SS man to me in his Low German. Now I finally understand why the whole installation is called the Hackenholt-Foundation. Hackenholt is the driver of the diesel engine, a little technician, also the builder of the facility. The people are brought to death with the diesel exhaust fumes. But the diesel doesn't work. Hauptmann Wirth comes. One can see that he feels embarrassed that that happens just today, when I am here. That's right, I see everything. And I wait. My stop watch has honestly registered everything. 50 minutes, 70 minutes [?] - the diesel doesn't start. The people are waiting in their gas chambers. In vain. One can hear them crying, sobbing... Hauptmann Wirth hits the Ukrainian who is helping Unterscharführer Hackenholt 12, 13 times in the face. After two hours and 49 minutes - the stop watch has registered everything well - the diesel starts. Until this moment the people live in these 4 chambers, four times 750 people in 4 times 45 cubic metres. Again 25 minutes pass. Right, many are dead now. One can see that through the small window in which the electric light illuminates the chambers for a moment. After 28 minutes only a few are still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, everyone is dead.

From the other side men from the work command open the wooden doors. They have been promised - even Jews - freedom, and some one-thousandth of all valuables found, for their terrible service. Like basalt pillars the dead stand inside, pressed together in the chambers. In any event there was no space to fall down or even bend forward. Even in death one can still tell the families. They still hold hands, tensed in death, so that one can barely tear them apart in order to empty the chamber for the next batch. The corpses are thrown out, wet from sweat and urine, soiled by excrement, menstrual blood on their legs. Children's' corpses fly through the air. There is no time. The riding crops of the Ukrainians lash down on the work commands. Two dozen dentists open mouths with hooks and look for gold. Gold to the left, without gold to the right. Other dentists break gold teeth and crowns out of jaws with pliers and hammers. .

Among all this Hauptmann Wirth is running around. He is in his element. Some workers search the genitals and anus of the corpses for gold, diamonds, and valuables. Wirth calls me to him: "Lift this can full of gold teeth, that is only from yesterday and the day before yesterday." In an incredibly vulgar and incorrect diction he said to me: "You won't believe what we find in gold and diamonds every day" - he pronounced it (in German Brillanten) with two L - "and in dollars. But see for yourself." And now he led me to a jeweller who managed all these treasures, and let me see all this. Then someone showed me a former head of the Kaufhaus des Westens in Berlin, and a violinist: "That was a Hauptmann of the Austrian Army, knight of the Iron Cross 1st class who is now camp elder of the Jewish work command."
The naked corpses were carried on wooden stretchers to pits only a few metres away, measuring 100 x 20 x 12 metres. After a few days the corpses welled up and a short time later they collapsed, so that one could throw a new layer of bodies upon them. Then ten centimetres of sand were spread over the pit, so that a few heads and arms still rose from it here and there. At such a place I saw Jews climbing over the corpses and working. One told me that by mistake those who arrived dead had not been stripped. Of course this has to be done later because of the Spinnstoffsammlung and valuables which otherwise they would take with them into the grave.
Neither in Belzec nor in Treblinka was any trouble taken over registering or counting the dead. The numbers were only estimates of a wagon's content... Hauptmann Wirth asked me not to propose changes in Berlin re his facilities, and to let it remain as it is, being well established and well-tried. I supervised the burial of the prussic acid because it allegedly had decomposed.

http://www.deathcamps.org/belzec/gerstein.html

PS: i kno the exclamation marks fuck the atmosphere up prety badly, but didn't feel like changing it all
PS2: fixed

[|7th|Nighthawk]

Thanks for sharing. I was not really expecting such a story shortly after waking up.

I had the same thought with those exclamation marks all the time, I've got to admit. I actually had to smile when I read your PS

[SirGutz]

[Korsakov829]

Here's a favorite of mine by Yevgeny Khaldei. He took some great shots (the famous red flag over Reichstag for example) and if I might say so, he was a master at photo manipulation. Three different photos combined, in 1941 no less. You've got the background (sky, hill, explosion), then the planes and then the reindeer.

[Born2Kill 007]

Shot on the Latrine, Belzec, probably 1940

In May, I think it was 16 May 1940, they came for us and brought us to the Fruchtschuppen (warehouse for fruits) in the harbour (Hamburg).
My memory is not that good anymore. I only know that a lot of people were in the warehouse. It was like being in an ant-hill, so many people were running around. We were registered and those above the age of fourteen received a number on the arm. This was not tattooed, as was later the case in Auschwitz, but stamped in ink. This number faded after a few days. I cannot remember how many days we were in the warehouse. Not many, perhaps three days. Quite nearby, only some steps away, we were ordered to enter goods wagons (at the Hannoverscher Station).
There was an awful confusion, there being hundreds of people. We were told that we were being transported to Poland, where we would receive a nice little house. And they told me that my father was already there. But we were deceived. When we arrived at our destination SS surrounded the train. They were there at our arrival and drove us out of the wagons.
Policemen had accompanied us, two to a wagon (probably within the breakers' cabin at the rear of some wagons). We naturally did not travel without a guard. They knew we would have otherwise simply left the train and escaped. We would have done this had we had the chance. The policemen, who had escorted us, appeared thoroughly sheepish when they saw the SS and heard the SS commandant, a small man, standing there with a whip in his hand, immediately shouting: "If you don't obey the orders!" Oh dear, and the rest he said. He called us dogs and we were treated as such. That was so awful. The policemen from Hamburg stood there speechless. I presume they hadn't known what we were to experience in Belzec. Then we had to walk to a large barn, that was more a very large shed. There was only old straw on the floor. We all had to enter this shed. SS guards were posted outside.

Today I no longer remember how long we were in that Belzec camp. It was summer when we arrived. I think we were there for some weeks. It was awful there. One could not wash oneself; there were no toilets. We were all crammed together. We were immediately set to work in a work column. We had to dig tank ditches. There were many Jews in Belzec too. They were housed in the same shed as us and also worked in the column. They usually only remained for some weeks, then were transported from Belzec to somewhere else.
The food was awful. A Roma was detailed to cook for us all. The SS shot crows and ravens and simply threw them into the large pot. The man didn't want to cook the birds without first plucking the feathers. They beat him so badly that the blood ran out the bottom of his trousers.
One day those of us with children had to line up because the children were to receive something special to eat. I had two children. My daughter was two and my son one year old. Each was given a bowl containing milk with bread crumbled into it. Or so it appeared. This was especially for the children. Well, one child after the other died over the following days. There was such a lamenting, lamenting and crying. Shortly after having eaten the children were unable to breathe anymore, they asphyxiated. My little boy died first. Someone woke me in the morning. I was woken because the child had kicked and the person wanted to cover him again. So I awoke and went to pick him up. He was already quite stiff. I was devastated with grief and didn't know what to do. My cousin, the sister of Mrs. B., lifted him and a big clot of pus came out of his throat. All the children experienced this. My two year old daughter died in the same way the next day. They had been poisoned.

One day we had to enter cattle wagons again, in Belzec. There was just a bare floor. There were no windows only air slits high up. There were no toilet facilities. We all had to enter that train, not knowing what to expect. Nobody told us anything. We were taken to Krychow. We travelled through the night in this cattle wagon. When we arrived at the station, horse-drawn vehicles awaited us that took us to the camp. It was a former Polish prison, far away from the station. We were guarded by men wearing a black uniform. They were Volksdeutsche (people of German origin, living outside of Germany). These Volksdeutsche and SS were everywhere.

Immediately after arriving we had to prepare our accommodation. In addition, a kitchen was to be built. We had to carry large stones for its construction. We carried these stones on a board placed on the shoulder. Only the women did this work.
The men had other work. The stones were terribly heavy. Later on we had to work in the moor. We stood with our legs in the morass. The mud contained vegetation that cut the legs. My legs are scared for life as a result of this. The entire length of my legs are today covered in bright spots because the morass was practically waist high. My legs became completely septic. We had to dig out the mud for the construction of tank ditches. Having never done such work before, I did not know how to handle the shovel. Although my legs were ulcerated, I had to return to work again and again. Then my legs became inflamed. My mother acquired a cushion cover from somewhere, I don't know from where; anyway she tore it into strips and bandaged my legs.
My brother had to work there too. I don't know the circumstances but they shot him. We found out from someone in the camp that my father had died in Dachau in 1941. He was initially taken to Sachsenhausen and from there to Mauthausen. There he had to work in the quarry. My father was already 58 years old. That was killing work. From Mauthausen he was taken to Dachau. I don't know exactly how he died there. In the camp we met someone the same age as my mother. He told us that my father had been imprisoned in a kind of bunker. He was not given anything to eat or drink because they wanted to find out how long a human being could remain alive without sustenance. He told us that my father was no longer recognizable. He was emaciated and shrivelled. Then he died.
The Story of Martha W.
from: http://www.deathcamps.org/belzec/romamarthaw.html

[THeTA0123]

Pilot Officer H. A. Picard of No. 350 (Belgian) Squadron, on the wing of his Spitfire at Kenley, July 1942.
He finished the war with 10 kills.

[Ts4EVER]

Confusing picture of the 53d (Welsh) Division:



That guy has an M1A1 Carbine.