By Peter Allen in Paris
THOUSANDS of French men and women who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War are set to be unmasked as official reports from the era are finally made public.
All of the files, which include information passed on to the Gestapo during the occupation of France between 1940 and 1944, will be published online.
Since the Liberation of Paris all the papers have been kept hidden in cardboard boxes in the basement of the Police Museum in the French capital.
A museum spokesman said: “They include notes from interrogations, as well as information passed on to the authorities willingly. All of it will now be easily available.” As well as shedding new light on the work of the Gestapo in France, the files will illuminate the role of the Brigade Speciale, which hunted down resistance fighters and other “enemies” of the Nazi regime.
More about this story in
THE LINK TO THE DAILY EXPRESS
Wednesday 30 June 2010
WWII American Civilian POWs 65th Anniversary of Liberation
Civilians imprisoned by Japan reunite to share memories
Liberated Prisoners from Bilibid
FREMONT, Calif., April 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This year marks the 65th anniversary of liberation for U.S. civilians imprisoned by Japan during WWII in the Philippines. For the national organization, Bay Area Civilian Ex-POWs (BACEPOW), the anniversary has special meaning and is being celebrated with reunions and other events, which provide a forum for survivors to tell their stories of imprisonment, survival and liberation. It's a time for continued healing and reconciliation.
Few know that 14,000 American civilians were held as prisoners by Japan during WWII, 11% of them dying or disappearing from inhumane camps. Half were in the Philippines, a US Commonwealth where large numbers of Americans lived and worked, some second and third generation families. Their lives changed forever when Japan invaded in 1941.
"Many of us were children", says Sascha Jansen, who now leads tours to the sites of the POW camps. "We didn't understand why we were imprisoned, had to live in unbearable conditions, were poorly fed, and watched as many parents and friends starved to death".
More from this story in
THE LINK TO PR NEWSWIRE
Liberated Prisoners from Bilibid
FREMONT, Calif., April 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This year marks the 65th anniversary of liberation for U.S. civilians imprisoned by Japan during WWII in the Philippines. For the national organization, Bay Area Civilian Ex-POWs (BACEPOW), the anniversary has special meaning and is being celebrated with reunions and other events, which provide a forum for survivors to tell their stories of imprisonment, survival and liberation. It's a time for continued healing and reconciliation.
Few know that 14,000 American civilians were held as prisoners by Japan during WWII, 11% of them dying or disappearing from inhumane camps. Half were in the Philippines, a US Commonwealth where large numbers of Americans lived and worked, some second and third generation families. Their lives changed forever when Japan invaded in 1941.
"Many of us were children", says Sascha Jansen, who now leads tours to the sites of the POW camps. "We didn't understand why we were imprisoned, had to live in unbearable conditions, were poorly fed, and watched as many parents and friends starved to death".
More from this story in
THE LINK TO PR NEWSWIRE
Tuesday 29 June 2010
Flight on B-17 gives appreciation of WWII heroes
By Bill Vidonic
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
It was a history lesson that David Rakestraw couldn't get from a DVD or video game.
During an hour-long flight Monday inside the B-17 bomber Liberty Belle, the 10-year-old boy from Columbus, Ohio, grasped the cold steel of a machine gun, smelled the scorched rubber as the tires squealed on the runway, and felt the wind rush past through an opening in the plane's roof.
"This is hands-on history," said Vince Rakestraw, David's father. "You really get the feel of what it must have been like to bomb Germany. It's certainly a nostalgic look back."
But it's a history lesson that comes at a steep price.
The Liberty Foundation, owner of the restored Flying Fortress, spends about $1 million a year flying the plane to nearly three dozen cities across the United States.
This weekend, the B-17 bomber will be available for flights and public ground tours at the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin. Flights cost $430 for non-members of the nonprofit Liberty Foundation.
"We fly a lot of veterans who want to touch the past one more time, and family that want to get a better understanding about what Dad and Grandpa did during the war," said foundation spokesman Scott Maher. "The airplane is hands-on history, not in the pages of a dusty book."
More about this story in the
LINK TO PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
It was a history lesson that David Rakestraw couldn't get from a DVD or video game.
During an hour-long flight Monday inside the B-17 bomber Liberty Belle, the 10-year-old boy from Columbus, Ohio, grasped the cold steel of a machine gun, smelled the scorched rubber as the tires squealed on the runway, and felt the wind rush past through an opening in the plane's roof.
"This is hands-on history," said Vince Rakestraw, David's father. "You really get the feel of what it must have been like to bomb Germany. It's certainly a nostalgic look back."
But it's a history lesson that comes at a steep price.
The Liberty Foundation, owner of the restored Flying Fortress, spends about $1 million a year flying the plane to nearly three dozen cities across the United States.
This weekend, the B-17 bomber will be available for flights and public ground tours at the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin. Flights cost $430 for non-members of the nonprofit Liberty Foundation.
"We fly a lot of veterans who want to touch the past one more time, and family that want to get a better understanding about what Dad and Grandpa did during the war," said foundation spokesman Scott Maher. "The airplane is hands-on history, not in the pages of a dusty book."
More about this story in the
LINK TO PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday 27 June 2010
Mir fehlen die Worte
This story came out in the German newspaper “Die Zeit”.
It is about the millions of Russians POW’s from the Germans during WWII that never got any compensation.
There are about four to five thousand men still alive from 5,7 million that where made prisoners after 1941.
The Russians themselves forgot them, as they were seen as traitors. The former DDR never talked about them and even the new Germany, after deciding to compensate the slave worker’s they used during the war – a decision taken in 2000 – did not included the POW’s, although the Russians were used as slave workers also.
The story from “Die Zeit” refers about all this aspects and reports about a small club in Berlin, named “Kontakte”, that is trying to help all the forgotten persons victims from Nazism.
They are sending money to those men in Russia… It is not much but as most of them are living in very poor conditions that is one important help…
................
Verfolgt und vergessen: 5,7 Millionen sowjetische Soldaten gerieten nach 1941 in deutsche Gefangenschaft. Ein Berliner Verein hilft den letzten Überlebenden
DIE ZEIT, Christian Staas
Den gefallenen Sowjetsoldaten wurden Monumente errichtet wie hier im Berliner Tiergarten, die ehemaligen Gefangenen aber ignoriert man bis heute
Im Lager, schreibt Iwan Dmitrijewitsch Solonowitsch, »begann für mich der Schrecken des Krieges«. Im November 1940 ist er, gerade 19 Jahre alt, eingezogen worden. Wenige Wochen nach dem deutschen Überfall auf die Sowjetunion am 22. Juni 1941 entrinnt er, schwer verletzt, nur knapp dem Tod. Neun Monate später schickt man den jungen Mann erneut an die Front, auf der Krim kesseln die Deutschen seine Einheit ein. Solonowitsch wird ins Reich verschleppt, in ein Kriegsgefangenenlager in Hagen.
See more about this story in
THE LINK TO "DIE ZEIT"
It is about the millions of Russians POW’s from the Germans during WWII that never got any compensation.
There are about four to five thousand men still alive from 5,7 million that where made prisoners after 1941.
The Russians themselves forgot them, as they were seen as traitors. The former DDR never talked about them and even the new Germany, after deciding to compensate the slave worker’s they used during the war – a decision taken in 2000 – did not included the POW’s, although the Russians were used as slave workers also.
The story from “Die Zeit” refers about all this aspects and reports about a small club in Berlin, named “Kontakte”, that is trying to help all the forgotten persons victims from Nazism.
They are sending money to those men in Russia… It is not much but as most of them are living in very poor conditions that is one important help…
................
Verfolgt und vergessen: 5,7 Millionen sowjetische Soldaten gerieten nach 1941 in deutsche Gefangenschaft. Ein Berliner Verein hilft den letzten Überlebenden
DIE ZEIT, Christian Staas
Den gefallenen Sowjetsoldaten wurden Monumente errichtet wie hier im Berliner Tiergarten, die ehemaligen Gefangenen aber ignoriert man bis heute
Im Lager, schreibt Iwan Dmitrijewitsch Solonowitsch, »begann für mich der Schrecken des Krieges«. Im November 1940 ist er, gerade 19 Jahre alt, eingezogen worden. Wenige Wochen nach dem deutschen Überfall auf die Sowjetunion am 22. Juni 1941 entrinnt er, schwer verletzt, nur knapp dem Tod. Neun Monate später schickt man den jungen Mann erneut an die Front, auf der Krim kesseln die Deutschen seine Einheit ein. Solonowitsch wird ins Reich verschleppt, in ein Kriegsgefangenenlager in Hagen.
See more about this story in
THE LINK TO "DIE ZEIT"
Thursday 24 June 2010
The Curse of the Sands
This is from Al Jazeera
Filmmakers: Cristina Bocchialini and Ayman El Gazwy
In an area 100 kilometer west of Alexandria in northern Egypt lies the famous region of el-Alamein – scene of a mighty battle between the UK and its allies fighting German and Italian forces for control of North Africa in 1942.
The battle marked a turning point in the war: Montgomery's Desert Rats and his allies broke through German lines, pushing Rommel's forces back to Tunisia, taking control of the Suez canal, and gaining access to the Middle Eastern oil fields.
With no natural barriers in the desert, Rommel ordered half a million mines to be laid around the coastal town, while the British reportedly put down even more.
Santo Pelliccia, an Italian WWII veteran says:"There was an engineers battalion under Major Dominioni. They knew where the mines were, and they came with us on patrol to cross the frontline. We walked in single file and stepped slowly, checking the ground. We had to identify the mines, especially the anti-personnel ones. If you step on an anti-tank mine nothing will happen, but not the other kind."
Gino Sermidi, another Italian veteran remembers: "I was on patrol with two men. We used a compass to avoid the enemy mines. Every now and then in the night we would occasionally hear a landmine explode and someone scream. On the way back to our camp, we used the same method to avoid the mines."
Abd el-Fattah lost his leg because a mine exploded while he was playing football
More than 65 years after the battle, the area remains riddled with debris from the hostilities – including an estimated 17 million landmines.
The area is home to Bedouin nomads and many local villagers and farmers – along with their children – are hurt and sometimes killed when they come across the bombs, tank shells and landmines abandoned in the shifting dunes. (...)
More about this story
LINK TO AL'JAZEERA
Wednesday 23 June 2010
WWII nurse in iconic Times Square kissing photo dies
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-06-23 11:02
LOS ANGELES - A nurse famously photographed being kissed by an American sailor in New York's Times Square in 1945 to celebrate the end of World War Two has died at the age of 91, her family said on Tuesday
A combined photo shows Alfred Eisenstaedt's 1945 "Life" Magazine photograph (left and right) of a sailor stamping a passionate kiss on a nurse named Edith Shain and she tries to imitate the photo's embrace with Nick Mayo, foreground left, a member of the cast of the musical South Pacific as they pose with other South Pacific cast members at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York, Sunday Nov. 9, 2000. [Agencies]
The V-J Day picture of the white-clad Edith Shain by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured an epic moment in US history and became an iconic image marking the end of the war after being published in Life magazine.
The identity of the nurse in the photograph was not known until the late 1970s when Shain wrote to the photographer saying that she was the woman in the picture taken on Aug. 14 at a time when she had been working at Doctor's Hospital in New York City.
The identity of the sailor remains disputed and unresolved.
From then on the photograph also made its mark on Shain's life as the fame she garnered led to invites to war related events such a wreath layings, parades and other memorial events.
See more about this story:
LINK TO "CHINA DAILY"
Updated: 2010-06-23 11:02
LOS ANGELES - A nurse famously photographed being kissed by an American sailor in New York's Times Square in 1945 to celebrate the end of World War Two has died at the age of 91, her family said on Tuesday
A combined photo shows Alfred Eisenstaedt's 1945 "Life" Magazine photograph (left and right) of a sailor stamping a passionate kiss on a nurse named Edith Shain and she tries to imitate the photo's embrace with Nick Mayo, foreground left, a member of the cast of the musical South Pacific as they pose with other South Pacific cast members at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York, Sunday Nov. 9, 2000. [Agencies]
The V-J Day picture of the white-clad Edith Shain by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured an epic moment in US history and became an iconic image marking the end of the war after being published in Life magazine.
The identity of the nurse in the photograph was not known until the late 1970s when Shain wrote to the photographer saying that she was the woman in the picture taken on Aug. 14 at a time when she had been working at Doctor's Hospital in New York City.
The identity of the sailor remains disputed and unresolved.
From then on the photograph also made its mark on Shain's life as the fame she garnered led to invites to war related events such a wreath layings, parades and other memorial events.
See more about this story:
LINK TO "CHINA DAILY"
Tuesday 22 June 2010
Remains of WWII aircrew lost in Burma to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery
By Edward Colimore
Inquirer Staff Writer
(Published in South Jersey News, 21-06-2010)
Gini Doolittle never knew her cousin, but her family talked so often of his mysterious disappearance that she felt a close bond.
Lt. Joseph Auld was their "lost hero," she said, a pilot who "flew the hump" over the Himalayas during World War II until he and his aircraft disappeared in 1944.
Doolittle spent hours paging through an album of photos showing Auld and her father, Charles Wilderman, a technical sergeant and radio operator who flew similar missions from India to Burma and China.
Later, Doolittle, a professor at Rowan University, came to know Auld better through a diary he left behind.
She never expected his remains to be recovered, much less that he and others in his crew would be celebrated at Arlington National Cemetery 66 years after their deaths.
The airmen will be remembered July 15 in funeral services at the Old Post Chapel, just outside the cemetery gate. A caisson will then take their remains to a grave site where they will honored in patriotic ceremonies and by a fighter-jet flyover.
"I opened a package at my house in September, and inside was a spiral-bound report that said [the Army had] identified him," said Doolittle, 64, of Sicklerville. "I was speechless."
Doolittle was likewise stunned to meet a brother of one of the six others on Auld's C-47. She and Robert Frantz of Lindenwold met at a survivors meeting held by the Defense Department.
"Imagine my surprise to be seated with a relative of another crew member," she said. "He lived just a few miles away."
Frantz, 72, last saw his big brother, Tech. Sgt. Clarence E. Frantz, just before the latter was deployed in 1942, and he has treasured his memories and photos.
To find his plane "means a lot to me," Frantz said. "It's still emotional."
See More about this story in:
LINK TO SOUTH JERSEY NEWS (more pictures inside)
Inquirer Staff Writer
(Published in South Jersey News, 21-06-2010)
Gini Doolittle never knew her cousin, but her family talked so often of his mysterious disappearance that she felt a close bond.
Lt. Joseph Auld was their "lost hero," she said, a pilot who "flew the hump" over the Himalayas during World War II until he and his aircraft disappeared in 1944.
Doolittle spent hours paging through an album of photos showing Auld and her father, Charles Wilderman, a technical sergeant and radio operator who flew similar missions from India to Burma and China.
Later, Doolittle, a professor at Rowan University, came to know Auld better through a diary he left behind.
She never expected his remains to be recovered, much less that he and others in his crew would be celebrated at Arlington National Cemetery 66 years after their deaths.
The airmen will be remembered July 15 in funeral services at the Old Post Chapel, just outside the cemetery gate. A caisson will then take their remains to a grave site where they will honored in patriotic ceremonies and by a fighter-jet flyover.
"I opened a package at my house in September, and inside was a spiral-bound report that said [the Army had] identified him," said Doolittle, 64, of Sicklerville. "I was speechless."
Doolittle was likewise stunned to meet a brother of one of the six others on Auld's C-47. She and Robert Frantz of Lindenwold met at a survivors meeting held by the Defense Department.
"Imagine my surprise to be seated with a relative of another crew member," she said. "He lived just a few miles away."
Frantz, 72, last saw his big brother, Tech. Sgt. Clarence E. Frantz, just before the latter was deployed in 1942, and he has treasured his memories and photos.
To find his plane "means a lot to me," Frantz said. "It's still emotional."
See More about this story in:
LINK TO SOUTH JERSEY NEWS (more pictures inside)
Monday 21 June 2010
Hills reveal WWII secret
Arunachal teacher braves fear to find plane remains
ATONU CHOUDHURRI
(From "The Telegraph", Calcutta - India)
The metal plate from the aircraft. (Telegraph pictures)
Itanagar, June 20: A village schoolteacher’s personal challenge to his clan’s fear of the unknown has led him to the wreckage of a World War II aircraft on a perilous wooded hill in Arunachal Pradesh.
Tani Bagang, 28, had heard legendary tales of how sightings of arre — “mystery object” in the Nyishi language — on the hill would scare off his ancestors. Ten days ago, he decided to see it for himself.
Braving snakes and poor weather, he trekked alone for seven days, losing his way once in the remote hill forests, before stumbling on mangled pieces of metal. A little further down, where the hill sloped towards a gorge, he lifted a veil of foliage to find a metal plate. A skeleton and four-inch bullets lay nearby.
The inscription on the plate said: ST 95T6 BLACK HAWK 7.26.1943SPMCO. The schoolteacher realised he may have discovered the wreckage of a WWII aircraft that probably crash-landed at the spot.
See more about this story in:
THE TELEGRAPH LINK
ATONU CHOUDHURRI
(From "The Telegraph", Calcutta - India)
The metal plate from the aircraft. (Telegraph pictures)
Itanagar, June 20: A village schoolteacher’s personal challenge to his clan’s fear of the unknown has led him to the wreckage of a World War II aircraft on a perilous wooded hill in Arunachal Pradesh.
Tani Bagang, 28, had heard legendary tales of how sightings of arre — “mystery object” in the Nyishi language — on the hill would scare off his ancestors. Ten days ago, he decided to see it for himself.
Braving snakes and poor weather, he trekked alone for seven days, losing his way once in the remote hill forests, before stumbling on mangled pieces of metal. A little further down, where the hill sloped towards a gorge, he lifted a veil of foliage to find a metal plate. A skeleton and four-inch bullets lay nearby.
The inscription on the plate said: ST 95T6 BLACK HAWK 7.26.1943SPMCO. The schoolteacher realised he may have discovered the wreckage of a WWII aircraft that probably crash-landed at the spot.
See more about this story in:
THE TELEGRAPH LINK
Mass. researcher says he has ID'd 7 MIAs from WWII
By DAVID DISHNEAU
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
SUITLAND, Md. (AP) -- A private researcher who has labored for years to identify the remains of U.S. service members declared missing in action during World War II says he has matched seven MIAs with the remains of unknowns and he expects to match as many as 19 more within a week.
In this photo taken Tuesday, June 8, 2010, Ted Darcy, of Fall River, Mass., is surrounded by documents on his research into the identity of soldiers missing in action from WWII, while at the National Records Center in Suitland, Md. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Ted Darcy's list of five Marines and two sailors missing since the 1944 Battle of Saipan may not sound long. But his announcement Tuesday - the 66th anniversary of the battle's opening day - was remarkable, considering the military's average of confirming 72 such matches annually from all U.S. wars.
Darcy, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant from Fall River, Mass., has helped bring home three WWII MIAs since 1991 from burial sites in the Philippines, Hawaii and Newport, R.I. Now he is accelerating his work using computerized databases filled with information he painstakingly entered from two sets of government documents: those containing physical descriptions of MIAs and those containing autopsies of slain service members buried as unknowns.
He hands over his findings to the military, which then tries to verify his work.
It sounds simple, but the identifications are the fruit of 20 years' labor by Darcy, who says he's determined to bring home thousands of missing WWII fighters.
"If I can bring home 4,500 American MIAs, I'll be a happy camper," he said in a recent interview at the Washington National Records Center, a federal repository in Suitland, just east of the nation's capital.
Soft-spoken, with a thatch of curly, salt-and-pepper hair, Darcy, 59, runs a business, WFI Research Group, that digs up details of decades-old battles for other WWII researchers at $50 an hour. But he doesn't charge MIAs' families to find their loved ones, usually buried anonymously in distant cemeteries under white marble crosses inscribed, "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God."
The Associated Press isn't naming those identified by Darcy unless they have been officially confirmed.
There are nearly 88,000 American MIAs, including 78,000 from WWII, according to the Pentagon's Defense Prisoner of War-Missing Personnel Office. Darcy says he has located the remains of nearly 9,000 unidentified WWII fighters, and he hopes to put names to at least half of them.
See the rest of the story in:
AP NEWS LINK
---
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
SUITLAND, Md. (AP) -- A private researcher who has labored for years to identify the remains of U.S. service members declared missing in action during World War II says he has matched seven MIAs with the remains of unknowns and he expects to match as many as 19 more within a week.
In this photo taken Tuesday, June 8, 2010, Ted Darcy, of Fall River, Mass., is surrounded by documents on his research into the identity of soldiers missing in action from WWII, while at the National Records Center in Suitland, Md. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Ted Darcy's list of five Marines and two sailors missing since the 1944 Battle of Saipan may not sound long. But his announcement Tuesday - the 66th anniversary of the battle's opening day - was remarkable, considering the military's average of confirming 72 such matches annually from all U.S. wars.
Darcy, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant from Fall River, Mass., has helped bring home three WWII MIAs since 1991 from burial sites in the Philippines, Hawaii and Newport, R.I. Now he is accelerating his work using computerized databases filled with information he painstakingly entered from two sets of government documents: those containing physical descriptions of MIAs and those containing autopsies of slain service members buried as unknowns.
He hands over his findings to the military, which then tries to verify his work.
It sounds simple, but the identifications are the fruit of 20 years' labor by Darcy, who says he's determined to bring home thousands of missing WWII fighters.
"If I can bring home 4,500 American MIAs, I'll be a happy camper," he said in a recent interview at the Washington National Records Center, a federal repository in Suitland, just east of the nation's capital.
Soft-spoken, with a thatch of curly, salt-and-pepper hair, Darcy, 59, runs a business, WFI Research Group, that digs up details of decades-old battles for other WWII researchers at $50 an hour. But he doesn't charge MIAs' families to find their loved ones, usually buried anonymously in distant cemeteries under white marble crosses inscribed, "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God."
The Associated Press isn't naming those identified by Darcy unless they have been officially confirmed.
There are nearly 88,000 American MIAs, including 78,000 from WWII, according to the Pentagon's Defense Prisoner of War-Missing Personnel Office. Darcy says he has located the remains of nearly 9,000 unidentified WWII fighters, and he hopes to put names to at least half of them.
See the rest of the story in:
AP NEWS LINK
---
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