Watching the start of World War II

[TommyPaine]

Source: BBC News - Europe

There are only a handful of people left who can say they saw World War II start. Few survive to tell the tale of the German cruiser, Schleswig-Holstein, unleashing a barrage of 280mm and 170mm shells at a Polish fort and shattering the dawn breaking over the Westerplatte peninsula in the free city of Danzig on 1 September 1939.

"I took the telescope and looked out at the channel, first right, then left and then at the cruiser which was moored in the bay," Ignacy Skowron remembered. "At that moment I saw a flash of red and the first shell hit the gate,"

The attack began at 0445. Simultaneously, the German Wehrmacht poured across the frontier of Poland from the west, north and south. Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. The then 24-year-old Cpl Skowron was one of just 182 Polish soldiers defending the military transit depot on the Westerplatte peninsula.

"I grabbed a machine gun," said Mr Skowron. "We got the order and we started to fight back. The cruiser then sailed into the channel and started to fire shell after shell at us. I saw huge trees being snapped in two."

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8225093.stm

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Remembrances like this are an amazing, crucial link. This man witnessed the onset of the single most important event of the 20th century, and he's lived to tell the tale--seventy years on.

[Selatius]

1. I think the greater tragedy is that the lessons are being forgotten with the dying of the survivors.

People are forgetting what fascism looks like.

[krispos42]

8. So we don't forget...

14 Points of fascism: The warning signs

1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4.) Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5.) Rampant Sexism: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6.) Controlled Mass Media: Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7.) Obsession with National Security: Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses

8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined: Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9.) Corporate Power is Protected: The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10.) Labor Power is Suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment: Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations

13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption: Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections: Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.




http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. I find oral history of these kinds of events to be utterly fascinating.

Well, fascinating and terrifying in about equal measures. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to live through that, and everything that came after.

[proteus_lives]

5. I reminds me of my mother's father telling me about hearing that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

He was living at a boarding house for male college students at the time. One them burst in and told everyone to turn on the radio. They sat most of the night listening. The next day most of the house residents went done to the recruiting station. My grandpa joined the Navy and fought in the Pacific for the whole war.

He told me about this over fifty years later but he remembered virtually every detail.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

19. You might find this book interesting then...

http://www.amazon.com/Patriots-Vietnam-War-Remembered-Sides/dp/0142004499/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251838679&sr=8-6

It's an oral history of the Vietnam war. Interviews cover people from both sides of the conflict and in many different walks of life and different positions in the various military hierarchies. I still haven't been able to finish it because it's simply too intense.

[Journeyman]

3. I'd suggest the "single most important event of the 20th century" . . .

happened a little less than 6 years later, atop a 100 foot tower in the White Sands Proving Grounds of New Mexico.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. If not for the previous event, that event might not have even happened in

the 20th century.

Of course, it could be argued that WW2 started with the re-occupation of the Rhineland, or with Italy's invasion of Etheopia, or the Japanese invasion of China, or the German involvement in the Spanish Civil War, or even the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

But by the time the Manhattan project was begun it was clear that this was a war unlike any previous - a total war. Without total war, such a weapon might not have been seriously pursued.

'The Bomb' was the result of a changed paradigm, even as it, itself, changed the paradigm of war.

[proteus_lives]

4. Fascinating.

I wonder how many people are alive who remember when Japan invaded China. (1937) Which could also be considered the start of WWII.

[TommyPaine]

9. My wife's grandmother lived in Manchuria in the 1930s

She was a Japanese citizen living in Manchuria when the Sino-Japan War (the second one, anyway) went full tilt. I believe that she and her family came back to Japan shortly after the full-scale invasion in July 1937. I actually saw my grandma-in-law in a nursing home a few months ago, but her memory is fading and I doubt she could relate much from those days. I should ask my mother-in-law what she’s heard about those experiences.

[OneBlueSky]

7. my dad fought in WWII, and I remember that he always reluctant to talk about it . . .

he was an aerial artillery observer during the Battle of the Bulge, flying over enemy territory and communicating target coordinates back to the artillery batteries . . . he was awarded the Air Medal with five oak leaf clusters for his outstaning service (each oak leaf cluster is the equivilant of receiving the same award again, so in fact his actions qualified him for it six times) . . .

but all he would tell us was that he was there, and that he flew his missions, and not much else . . . (I also recall that there was a quote in one of the books about the Battle of the Bulge in which an aerial observer commented that the Germans "looked like little ants down there," and he swore that he was the one who said it) . . . I came to believe that what he saw and experienced during the war was just too horrific to talk about, especially to his kids . . .

Dad continued in the Army and retired as a major in 1964, and passed away in 1987 at the age of 68 . . . I still miss him and my mom every day . . .

[proteus_lives]

10. Wow, my grandfather was a aerial spotter too!

He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He got a Silver Star for actions during the battle. I never got a chance to know him that well but my dad (his son) told me a lot of stories that he told him.

[aquart]

11. You can always tell the real vets. They're silent when they're sober.

But 8 beers or a bottle of Scotch and scary scary things come out.

My uncle never mentioned he'd been at Anzio until just a few years before he died.

[Wizard777]

12. A hand full? There are plenty of us left. I was 7 going on 8.

[dipsydoodle]

13. I was minus 4

:)

[Wizard777]

14. At least the count down had begun on you're launch into a universe of time and space.

So if my math is right. You came into the world with a bang. :nuke: That didn't quite do the trick. So we :nuke: and that was all she wrote. It was over.

[dipsydoodle]

15. 1943 actually

They used to put me either under the oak kitchen table or the staircase when the air raid syrens went off.

[Wizard777]

17. I'm 1931. I remember those drills. Hiding under your desk or going down to the bomb shelter.

Blackout window blinds. Those were special window shades that light kept light in. If you had those you didn't have to turn your lights out during an air raid alert. But if the civil patrol saw the tinniest beam coming through a crack or pinhole in the blind. They would knock on the door and you would have to turn your lights out.

[dipsydoodle]

18. The mid wife fell off her bike

on her way to my mother in the blackout on a foggy night - poor girl. I obviously don't rememeber the war - earliest recollections are being in Austria after the war - family was shipped out there with my father for a few years. He was Royal Engineers.

Peeps of light ! The Germans were obviously desperate to bomb Wembley Stadium so's we couldn't beat them there in the '66 World Cup. :rofl:

[Flagg]

16. That's news ?