I would have thought this thread would have been totally irrelevant to anything and probably more a thread for the Lounge, but reading along saw that you were talking about the different Generations take on history, very interesting. A history professor once told me that people's memory of history barely goes back more than a decade or two....scary when you think how removed most of us from the horrors of the Second World War. Scarier still, how removed we are from the memory of the circumstances both political and economical that culminated into the start of that war, many of those same things are beginning to emerge once again.
Economic Turbulence Poverty Class Struggle Racial/Minority Intolerance
Yes its all going on right now, the stage is set, I'm glad my Grandfather is no longer alive to see it all starting to happen again...
Dan
I saw that in the 60's and 70's. Btw, one of my daughters was born in '73.
My father In-law was born in Le Havre: during the war he was brought to Blechhammer Poland; when liberated he walked across Europe to get back to France Unbelievable story, [Good instincts he didn't trust the Russians] My Uncle died at ST LO and my dad fought with the 87 infantry; although as you i didn't get to relive though gaming their experiences i think it would have been consensual fun.
I was born in Le Havre too
He's 94; believe he still has 2 sisters living in Le Havre; Last name is Follain
I would have thought this thread would have been totally irrelevant to anything and probably more a thread for the Lounge, but reading along saw that you were talking about the different Generations take on history, very interesting. A history professor once told me that people's memory of history barely goes back more than a decade or two....scary when you think how removed most of us from the horrors of the Second World War. Scarier still, how removed we are from the memory of the circumstances both political and economical that culminated into the start of that war, many of those same things are beginning to emerge once again.
Economic Turbulence Poverty Class Struggle Racial/Minority Intolerance
Yes its all going on right now, the stage is set, I'm glad my Grandfather is no longer alive to see it all starting to happen again...
Dan
When in history has this not been the general situation?
IMO human history is a continous thread of war broken up by brief interludes to recover and rearm.
I was thinking about the difference in time between the last war and birth of my sons in the early 90s compared to my birth in the mid 50s. I was born exactly 10 years after the first atom bomb test in New Mexico, and about a year or so after the Korean War. By the time I took US history in 8th Grade (1968) WWII and the Korean War were already ancient history. The Vietnam War and the Cold War were in full swing. The Gulf Wars are "current events" to me.
My sons were born at the time of the first Gulf War. By the time they took US history in high school that war (and Kosovo) was history and the Iraq war was in full swing.
It never ends. At least to this time in human history.
Last Edit: Jun 23, 2017 17:49:12 GMT by weedsrock2
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More on topic, I just finished reading a new book The Naval War in the Baltic 1939-1945 by Poul Grooss. The author is a retired Danish naval officer and expert on the history of the "Eastern Front" and Baltic region during WWII. It is a good book about a theatre that is not covered much. It is not quite as detailed as I was expecting, but it does give the "big picture" very well with enough supporting detail to keep it interesting.
However, what fascinates me about the book the most is that it contains numerous "side-bars" that explain the specific technologies of the day so modern readers can understand the state of weapon capability at the time. The side bars are not super-detailed, but they are well illustrated and clearly written so the modern reader can know what radar was at the time, how surface gunnery ballistics worked and expectations for percentage of actual hits, that submarines were really just "submersible surface ships", the state of sonar and hydrophones, etc. The author gives tours of the war on Eastern Front as a side activity. It is very interesting to me that he realized modern readers need to be "educated and calibrated" on the capabilities and tactics of the time. It is actually very good.
He doesn't have many kind words for Sweden's behavior during the war. Although he doesn't condemn them either. This is the first I have read any significant discussion of what happened to Sweden during the war. Being trapped between Hitler and Stalin was obviously not a good situation for any of the Baltic nations.
Last Edit: Jun 23, 2017 17:50:33 GMT by weedsrock2
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Born in 1977 in Berlin i had the "luck" to Talk to my grandparents about The war. One of them was a cook on The Prinz Eugen The other one was behind The lines on The russian front leading an officers Casino. I remember they were both very reluctant to talk about The things they experienced, but here s a few things i recall... The Cook was on two ships that got sunk before he was transferred to The Prinz Eugen, he survived both Time s but Many of his friends did not, sadly i can not recall the names of The ships...he told me that he would always trade potatoes for shoes when they were in Port to bring back to his wife, she than tradet them Off for various things she needet since supplies were scarce where she lived... sad thing with him was that after his stroke his story s became wierd... he started As a Cook and than went up the ranks one year he was an Officer next year a Captain in the end before his death he was something like a Vice Admiral... his wife when pregnant with my dad stepped into a soldiers Corpse in The Forest years after The war Nearly loosing The Baby from The Shock... she was hiding some soldiers from the russians at The end of The war in her house and got raped By russian soldiers once, so her Story always were horrifiing... the story of my other grandfather on the russian front were even worse, although he never actually fought he went all the way to Stalingrad, there an high ranking officer took pitty on him (he was in his very young twenty s) when everything was already lost and send him back to Berlin on a motorcycle with some useless maps... I could write alot about his story s but maybe that s not the right format... Before I was born my father resettled to Berlin, he did this because nobody in this city had to join the army back than it was mandatory if you lived in Germany, thankfully these times are over... History is still very much alive for me for three reasons, first off I live in house wich my parents bought from a Jewish woman, she and her family were deported from here as late as 1944 and only she survived both her children and her husband died in the concentration camps. Although she never reentered the house far off relatives from the states visited us from time to time. After the war the english city commander used to live here for a brief time since one of the city airports is very close and the English army used to be stationed a few hundred meters away ... I still have his golf clubs ;-) Second off, my family has it s own war memorial with over 20 names on it from people that died in World War One, I have to drive by that from time to time and it s always very strange if you think how big my family could be without the wars... Third thing is, since I own a construction company we find remains of the war all the time, only last year I had to call the police because we found a working anti tank shell that was hidden under some gravel under a rooftop... Overall I want to say i always feel a bit guilty that i like to collect these war at sea mini s... i aware that war is a terrible thing and a lot of people died on these very ships that i m playing with now so it always feels strange having one of these in my hands... I hope nobody died of boredom reading this...
Born in 1977 in Berlin i had the "luck" to Talk to my grandparents about The war. One of them was a cook on The Prinz Eugen The other one was behind The lines on The russian front leading an officers Casino. I remember they were both very reluctant to talk about The things they experienced, but here s a few things i recall... The Cook was on two ships that got sunk before he was transferred to The Prinz Eugen, he survived both Time s but Many of his friends did not, sadly i can not recall the names of The ships...he told me that he would always trade potatoes for shoes when they were in Port to bring back to his wife, she than tradet them Off for various things she needet since supplies were scarce where she lived... sad thing with him was that after his stroke his story s became wierd... he started As a Cook and than went up the ranks one year he was an Officer next year a Captain in the end before his death he was something like a Vice Admiral... his wife when pregnant with my dad stepped into a soldiers Corpse in The Forest years after The war Nearly loosing The Baby from The Shock... she was hiding some soldiers from the russians at The end of The war in her house and got raped By russian soldiers once, so her Story always were horrifiing... the story of my other grandfather on the russian front were even worse, although he never actually fought he went all the way to Stalingrad, there an high ranking officer took pitty on him (he was in his very young twenty s) when everything was already lost and send him back to Berlin on a motorcycle with some useless maps... I could write alot about his story s but maybe that s not the right format... Before I was born my father resettled to Berlin, he did this because nobody in this city had to join the army back than it was mandatory if you lived in Germany, thankfully these times are over... History is still very much alive for me for three reasons, first off I live in house wich my parents bought from a Jewish woman, she and her family were deported from here as late as 1944 and only she survived both her children and her husband died in the concentration camps. Although she never reentered the house far off relatives from the states visited us from time to time. After the war the english city commander used to live here for a brief time since one of the city airports is very close and the English army used to be stationed a few hundred meters away ... I still have his golf clubs ;-) Second off, my family has it s own war memorial with over 20 names on it from people that died in World War One, I have to drive by that from time to time and it s always very strange if you think how big my family could be without the wars... Third thing is, since I own a construction company we find remains of the war all the time, only last year I had to call the police because we found a working anti tank shell that was hidden under some gravel under a rooftop... Overall I want to say i always feel a bit guilty that i like to collect these war at sea mini s... i aware that war is a terrible thing and a lot of people died on these very ships that i m playing with now so it always feels strange having one of these in my hands... I hope nobody died of boredom reading this...
I absolutely did not. This is exactly the type of historic reading I like most. The personal connections. Particularly from the other side.
The city I live in has a very large German population and heritage. There is a grave yard, here, where all the German PoWs who were imprisoned and died in Canada from both wars are buried. If anyone wants photos, I'll go take some to share
To you from failing hands we throw the torch be yours to hold it high. -In Flanders Fields. John McCrea
prinzeugen , Your stories of your family history and the war are priceless. I think it is personal experiences of war like you have recounted that have the most impact on reminding and reducing knee-jerk reactions to go to war. And they are equally valid and powerful from whatever "side" of a war they come from. In fact, I would argue experiences from the "losing" side that are often not as well documented or remembered have the greatest impact. I hope you can pass them along to following generations.
As for playing this game and collecting little plastic WWII ships and aircraft, I have frequently asked myself why they hold such a fascination for me. My dad was career Navy and I grew up a "navy brat" as they say here in the US of military dependents. I visited him on his ships from before I can remember until his last tour of sea duty in the late 60s when I was a teen. I had plastic ship models in every nook and cranny of my bedroom. (Aircraft and cars too, but ships were my "specialty." I never have taken an interest in armor though.) So there is obviously an element of family pride involved for me. So I grew up around a lot of this stuff since many of the ships and installations I lived in or around were of WWII vintage. I have a picture of a Fletcher class destroyer I drew in color when I was in 2nd grade that my mom saved. I didn't know it was a "Fletcher class" at the time. It was just the ship my dad had been on, and I saw a lot of them docked at the base. I do remember doodling that picture many, many times throughout elementary school when I was bored. (Second grade for me was Newport, Rhode Island in 62/63, and I remember watching my dad's destroyer pull away from the pier on his way to the Cuban Missle blockade. He told me much later they were told it was more likely their families on the base would be killed in a nuclear attack than they were likely to be killed on their destroyer out in the Atlantic. My dad was XO of the ship.)
War is terrible. But the fascination for the technology and history of war is hard to escape. Competition through athletics, gaming, business and governance and/or war seem to be built into us. Better to keep it in the athletics, commerce and gaming arenas. So game on!
Post by Awesome_Pirate_Ninja_Master on Jul 6, 2017 3:34:03 GMT
1975 locks me up in Gen X.
I've always been interested in history and the sea (my favourite movie growing up was the Final Countdown), but my interest in naval history really began when I went aboard the Tripoli in '89 during her visit to Vancouver harbour, then the Missouri in 1991 when I was 16. I was fascinated by the ships, the life, everything. I consumed all the media I could get my hands on with regards to naval vessels and Naval culture (admittedly mostly popular culture - I was 14).
At 22 I became a civilian merchant sailor and was at sea for 8 years, I suppose that's such a part of my identity that I was immediately drawn to War at Sea when Ticat introduced me to it...