Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#21
Brian, the vast majority of people dont know the names of most of the major battles fought in WW2.
Many battles were fought in cities, and yet these cities had to move on and be repaired.
Military graveyards and monuments and epitaths to fallen warriors are generally maintained, as you rightly pointed out, sp I don't see a problem with windmills 10 miles away from Utah beach, or even a few miles away, for that matter.
Guest 656- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,262
#22
Diana, post 19, very well said, I totally agree
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#23
alex,battle of the bulge,arrdenes forrest,not a town.a bridge to far arnem just outside of town.and not forgetting the beaches in normandy hardly paris city center are they.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#24
Add to that Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, Koenigsberg, Kiew, Charcov, Moscow, Stalingrad and several others and e few more, Brian, and the list will still be far from complete.
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
#25
If the veterans are concerned about the wind turbines, they could always bring back a Lanc to sort the problem out........
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/06/wheels-groan-on-my-wagon.htmlGuest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#26
Ed, per chance, would you like to see open-cast coal mines in Kent? If the renewable energy plans do not go ahead, then the first place to become an open-air coal mine would be Kent!
And yes, it would probably mean blowing up (or down) a stretch of the White Cliffs of Dover, albeit St. Margerets, in order to get to the coal, as it lies just on the coast.
Would you send in Lancasters to do this???
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
#27
Alex, it is the D-Day veterans who are concerned about the installation of wind turbines a long way out to sea off the invasion beaches, not me. I am quite happy for them to install as many as they like.
They will be feeding whatever highly expensive and inconsequential output they manage to produce into the French electricity system, not ours, so they will have no relevance to our own program for installation of renewable energy resources.
As the French own so much of our own electricity supply system, it is up to them when they feel the time is right to bomb St.Margaret's to establish an open cast coal mine. I just hope they give us plenty of warning. I think we only have one flying Lancaster we can lend them so thousand bomber raids are out of the question, the same plane will just have to come back a thousand times. Should be able to base it at Manston so it is only a short hop but I shall leave it to you to work out the details.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#28
i think the french should ask the residents of st margaret's whether they mind being bombed before they take any action.
just a question of good manners really.
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
#29
The dastardly French will have their way, Howard. Yesterday I personally witnessed them slaughter one of our drummer boys without mercy. Watch out, St.Margarets, that's all I can say.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#30
lost for words now ed we were told that the common market thingy would stop such nonsense.
the camera does not lie though.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
#31
#32
Brian battle of the bulge,arrdenes Forrest,not a town, sorry mate bastogne the 101 fought all over that town not just in the Forrest the bridge to far is arnem the beaches in Normandy Bayer and arromnanhes -les-basins and the town of Bayeux
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#33
It wasn't known to me that prisoners were finished off.
I thought the British and French were two respectable armies.
When the French regiments crossed the field at Bligny, in the late afternoon, their brass shone under the sun and reflected the light, it was an amzing sight.
The Prussians, under General Bluecher, surrendered in mass, the rest retreated. It was two days before the Battle of Waterloo.
Napoleon had sent one third of his army after the retreating Prussians, and these French soldiers were not present at Waterloo, where-as the remaining Prussians arrived in the late afternoon to reinforce the British.
Meanwhile, as Napoleon had fallen ill during the battle owing to an illness and was absent for a while, one of his generals rode off with the cavalry - 5,000 horse - against the British foot regiments and lost almost every man.
On waking up, Napoleon, without any cavalry left, and after the Prussians had arrived, decided to send the infantry forward, and that was his downfall.
Had he waited an hour, night would have come, and the two armies would have left the field. He'd have had the chance to regroup with the 30,000 French soldiers who had been tracking the Prussians.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
#34
I'm no historian but I think you'll find it was Ligny as the battle of Bligny was during the First World War.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#35
alan,i know it was the forrest area and not bastone evan though the town got caught up in it.i was referring that not all ww2 battles where not fought in or around towns in ww2.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#36
Brian, some cities got raised to the ground in WW2.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#37
alex,not as bad as the first world war.
Guest 641- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,335
#38
Alex, it was common practise in the heat of battle for the napoleonic and penninsular french armies to finish off their enemies wounded or otherwise. At La Haye Sante on the Waterloo battlefield French soldiers killed the KGL wounded, Nassau Brigade Landwehr prisoners had their throats slit at either Hougoumont or Papellotte when the French Cuirassiers position was threatened.
I'm sure that it happened on the British side as well, it happened in Spain and Portugal where Wellington ordered British soldiers to be shot if they continued in that vein.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#39
Brian, in the First World War, not one city was destroyed.
In the Second, however, planes bombed cities, and some were practically bombed to ruins.
The Soviet forces lost between 100,000 and 300,000 men in the fight for Berlin, and that was without use of aircraft. The losses were so tremendous, that the Kremlin probably didn't release the latter figure figure until much later.
As one can imagine, there was plenty of house to house combat.
However, the air raids on Berlin by the Western allies had already largely destroyed the city. Dresden is one other example, but there are many, many more, Brian!
Coventry also got badly bombed during the Battle of Britain, although it was a one-off occasion. The German cities got bombed time and again.
Dresden was destroyed three times over in one night, not long before the end of the war in 1945. It had no military significance and was full of refugees from Prussia, which has already been conquered by the Red Army.
The Russians did not bombard cities, it was the Westerrn air-forces that did.
Warsaw was also badly damaged, by German army activity against the Jews in 1943 and the Polish Home Army in 1944.
Dover was badly damaged. In fact Dover is a veteran town of aerial and artillery shell bombardments.
One day last year, my sister invited me out to look for the houses of various great grandparents of ours in Dover. To her dismay, we discovered that many didn't exist.
One young Scotsman said to us, seeing my sister looking for one particular house: "it got destroyed in the war".
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#40
London also got badly hit, mainly by V1 and V2 rockets.
I think it was an American named Von Braun or something like that who had built those rockets.
