#from an area of france that's near germany?)

[starlightshadowsworld]

Random shit I've learned about the Agency (and others) from 55 minutes.

.

.

Kunikida has broken into a meteorological bureau all because the weather report was wrong.

Junichiro has been at the Agency a year longer that Atsushi has.

The warning of not angering Kenji also means don't wake him up.

Standard island- a giant floating sailing island created and run by Germany, England and France. Somehow ends up near Yokohama.

Confirmation the Agency doesn't always work for "the good guys."

After using his ability, Atsushi's 5 senses are even sharper than normal.

One of Akutugawa's monikers is "The Black Nightmare of the Port Mafia."

Atsushi commenting that Dazai only asks someone if they can do it, if he's certain they can.

Atsushi's tiger eyes can spot someone at least over 55 feet away from him.

Rashomon is capable of cutting through anything, even space itself.

HG Wells created the Shell.

A group called the Transcendants were sent into the war 14 years ago. Which included Hugo, Gothe and Shakespeare.

Ability singularity- when 2 abilities cancel each other out and create something different from either.

HG Wells can send a person's consciousness back in into the past, once. Precisely 55 minutes into the past.

Dazai can stop his heart at will.

Atsushi describes his ability as being able to negate wounds, not heal or recover.

HG Wells can also manipulate the flow of time in the area to a certain extent.

Dazai cant nullify an ability once his heart has stopped.

#bsd 55 minutes #bsd #bsd dazai #bsd kunikida #bsd atsushi #bsd wells #bungou stray dogs

[er1chartmann]

Joachim Peiper

This is Joachim Peiper timeline:

1915: He was born  on 30 January into a middle class family from the Silesian region of Germany.

1926:  Peiper followed his other brother Horst and joined the Scout movement.

1933:  He volunteered to join the Hitler Youth.

1933: Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

1933: He  enlisted in the 7th SS Reiterstandarte. 

1934:  He was promoted to SS-Mann with SS number 132,496.

1934: During the annual Nuremberg Rally, Peiper was promoted to SS-Sturmmann and later gained the attention of Heinrich Himmler.

1935:  He was sent to a camp for Hitler Youth, SA and SS members near Jüterbog, adjoining Germany's largest regular army camp and artillery school. 

1935: He was promoted to SS-Unterscharführer.

1935: He attended the newly created SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz.

1936: He completed his education at the Junkerschule.

1936:  He attended more training at the Dachau concentration camp.

1936: He took the SS Oath.

1938: He was appointed to an administrative post as an adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, under the command of Karl Wolff.

1939: The Second World War began.

1939: He was with Himmler on 20 September in Blomberg when they witnessed the execution of twenty Poles.

1939:  He worked with Himmler to develop policies and plans for controlling the Polish population.

1939: He and Himmler witnessed the gassing of a resident of a psychiatric facility in Poznan.

1940: He obtained permission to join a combat unit and became a platoon leader in the 11th Company of 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH).

1940: He  accompanied Himmler to Madrid where Himmler met with Franco.

1940: He was appointed first adjutant to Himmler.

1940: He was awarded the Iron Cross and promoted to Hauptsturmführer.

1941: He accompanied Himmler when he inspected Ravensbrück and Dachau concentration camps.

1941: Together with Karl Wolff and Fritz Bracht, he and Himmler visited Auschwitz.

1942: He  learned of the death of his brother Hans-Hasso.

1942: The LSSAH was transferred to France for rest and refit. En route to France, Peiper left his unit and met with Himmler at his headquarters on 1 June.

1943: He was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer.

1943: He was awarded the Deutsches Kreuz in Gold for his achievements.

1943: He  was awarded Germany's highest decoration, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

1943:  The LSSAH was withdrawn from the Eastern Front and transferred to the area of Cuneo in Northern Italy.

1943: On 19 September, partisans in the village of Boves captured two of Peiper's men. The two men were freed, but the Germans then set fire to the houses in the village and killed 22 men when they tried to flee. 

1943: Peiper’s unit arrived on the Eastern Front, where it took part in combat in the area of Zhytomyr.

1943:  Georg Schönberger was killed in action, and Peiper took his place as commander of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment; a position he held until the end of the war.

1943:He was awarded the Oak Leaves of the Knight's Cross.

1944: He was withdrawn from the front and left his unit. He went directly to the headquarters of Hitler, who presented him with the Oak Leaves to be added to his Knight's Cross.

1944: He was promoted to Obersturmbannführer.

1945: In January the Swords were added to his Knight's Cross.

1945: His unit took part in Operation Frühlingserwachen that failed even though Peiper’s unit recorded huge casualties due to his aggressive style of command. Peiper lost numerous old companions.

1945: The Second World War ended.

1945: Accompanied by Paul Gühl, Peiper tried to escape captivity.

1945: He was captured near Schliersee. This was less than 30 kilometres from his home. He was interned in the Dachau concentration camp.

1946: His trial took place at Dachau from 16 May to 16 July 1946 before a military tribunal of senior American officers, operating under rules established by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal.

1946: He was sentenced to death by hanging.

1948: The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

1956: He was released from prison on parole.

1957: He began work at Porsche in Stuttgart in its technical division. 

1964: Two Italians filed an accusation against him at the Central Office of the State Justice Administration for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg related to the Boves massacre.

1967: The case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

1969: He was a freelance collaborator for the magazine Auto, Motor und Sport.

1972: He moved to Traves.

1976: He was murdered

Sources:

Military Wiki: Joachim Peiper

Wikipedia: Joachim Peiper.

❗❗I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM,FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY, THIS IS AN EDUCATIONAL POST❗❗

#reichblr #ww2 germany #ww2 history #heinrich himmler #studyblr #the ss #joachim peiper #ww2

[whencyclopedia]

Dunkirk Evacuation

The Dunkirk Evacuation of 26 May to 4 June 1940, known as Operation Dynamo, was the attempt to save the British Expeditionary Force in France from total defeat by an advancing German army. Nearly 1,000 naval and civilian craft of all kinds, aided by calm weather and RAF air support, managed to evacuate around 340,000 British, French, and Allied soldiers.

The evacuation led to soured Franco-Anglo relations as the French considered Dunkirk a betrayal, but the alternative was very likely the capture of the entire British Expeditionary Force on the Continent. France surrendered shortly after Dunkirk, but the withdrawal allowed Britain and its empire to harbour its resources and fight on alone in what would become an ever-expanding theatre of war.

Germany's Blitzkrieg

At the outbreak of the Second World War when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, France was relying almost entirely on a single defensive line to protect itself against invasion. These defences were the Maginot Line, a series of mightily impressive concrete structures, bunkers, and underground tunnels which ran along France's eastern frontiers. Manned by 400,000 soldiers, the defence system was named after the French minister of war André Maginot. The French imagined a German attack was most likely to come in two places: the Metz and Lauter regions. As it turned out, Germany attacked France through the Ardennes and Sedan on the Belgian border, circumventing most of the Maginot Line and overrunning the inadequate French defences around the River Meuse, inadequate because the French had considered the terrain in this forested area unsuitable for tanks. Later in the campaign, the Maginot Line was breached near Colmar and Saabrücken.

To bolster the defences of France, Britain had sent across the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under the command of General John Vereker (better known by his later title Lord Gort, 1886-1946). Around 150,000 men, mostly infantry, had arrived in September 1939 to strengthen the Franco-Belgian border. The BEF included the British Advanced Air Striking Force of 12 RAF squadrons. The aircraft were mostly Hawker Hurricane fighters and a few light bombers, all given much to the regret of RAF commanders who would have preferred to have kept these planes for home defence. The superior Supermarine Spitfire fighters were kept safely in Britain until the very last stages of the battle in France. The BEF had no armoured divisions and so was very much a defensive force, rather than an offensive one. More infantry divisions arrived up to April 1940, so the BEF grew to almost 400,000 men, but 150,000 of these had little or no military training. As General Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976) noted, the BEF was "totally unfit to fight a first class war on the Continent" (Dear, 130). In this respect, both Britain and France were very much stuck in the defensive-thinking mode that had won them the First World War (1914-18). Their enemy was exactly the opposite and had planned meticulously for what it called Fall Gelb (Operation Yellow), the German offensive in the west.

Totally unprepared for a war of movement, the defensive-thinking French were overwhelmed in the middle weeks of May 1940 by the German Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") tactics of fast-moving tanks supported by specialist bombers and smartly followed by the infantry. German forces swept through the three neutral countries of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. The 9th Army punched through the Ardennes and raced in a giant curve through northeast France to reach the coast around Boulogne. The BEF and the northern French armies (7th and 1st) were cut off from the rest of the French forces to the south. Germany had achieved what it called the 'Sickle Slice' (Sichelschnitt). By 24 May, the French and British troops were isolated and with their backs to the English Channel, occupying territory from Dunkirk to Lille. Although there were sporadic counterpunches by the defenders, Gort had already concluded that the French army had collapsed as an operational force. Gort considered an attack on the Germans to the south, which he was ordered to make, would have achieved very little except the annihilation of his army. The BEF must be saved, and so he withdrew to the north.

Continue reading...

#History #DunkirkEvacuation #Britain #Dunkirk

[blueiskewl]

Coin reveals little-known Roman ruler

Treasure hunters have unearthed a coin bearing the head of a virtually unknown Roman ruler who briefly held power in Gaul around A.D. 270 as the empire teetered.

It is only the second coin ever found showing the head of Domitianus, who seized power — and the mint — in the breakaway Gallic Empire, which included modern England, France and parts of Germany and lasted for 15 turbulent years.

“We know next to nothing about Domitianus, except that he was ‘punished’ by the Roman Emperor Aurelian for treason,” Richard Abdy, curator of Roman coins at the British Museum, told Reuters. “But at least now we know what he looked like.”

Studied by coin experts

The first coin bearing Domitianus’ head was found in the Loire area of France in 1900, dismissed as a fake because his name was unknown and then lost from sight in a small museum in Nantes until very recently.

“It is now being studied by numismatists. When I showed our coin to the woman who has been working on it she jumped for joy because it bore out everything she had said about hers,” Abdy said, noting the French coin had been dated to A.D. 271.

The Gallic Empire was established in 260, when rule from Rome was weakening, by Postumus. He was succeeded nine years later by Marius, who held the throne for a matter of weeks before being strangled and in turn replaced by Victorinus, who ruled until 271 when he too was murdered.

Domitianus is believed to have murdered Victorinus, who had a habit of raping the wives of his subordinates, before himself being ousted by Tetricus. Tetricus ruled from 271 to 274, when he was defeated by Aurelian and the empire was restored.

Found on farmland

The British coin, which goes on show at the British Museum starting Wednesday, was found on farmland near Oxford just under a year ago as part of a hoard of 5,000 Roman coins fused together in an earthenware pot.

“It is a type of coin we know as a ‘radiant’ because there are rays radiating from his head. It is a two-denarii piece, which at that time, when they were coining money as fast as they could, would have been worth a couple of hours’ work,” Abdy said.

The base metal coin, which originally had a surface coating of silver, is now conservatively estimated to be worth a five-figure sum, Abdy said.

At the time it was minted, the once-mighty Roman Empire was undergoing a period of intense flux.

The years between 270 and 285 were marked by chaos in the empire, with more than 20 different emperors and 30 different pretenders fighting for power. Only one of these leaders died a natural death.

By Jeremy Lovell.

Original posted Feb. 24, 2004.

The Coin Hoard

Until this discovery was made some scholars doubted the historical significance of Domitianus who is named just twice in the historical sources. The Oxfordshire coin provides archaeological evidence suggesting that he successfully proclaimed himself emperor of a breakaway part of the Roman Empire during the reign of Aurelian (AD 270-5).

Richard Abdy (Curator of Roman coins at the British Museum) said that ‘during the 270s AD the fabric of the Roman Empire had become strained. Breakaway empires, like the so-called ‘Gallic Empire’ that included Britain, were established and ruled by a succession of rebel emperors. Finding a coin produced in the name of Domitianus means that he should now be recognised as one such rebel emperor.’

The failure of Roman writers to identify him as a rebel emperor even led the only other coin of Domitianus – found in France in 1900 – to be dismissed as a modern fake. The new discovery was struck from the same dies that were used to produce this earlier find and has therefore put its authenticity beyond any doubt.

Ian Leins (Finds Adviser, Iron Age and Roman coins, Portable Antiquities Scheme) said ‘the portrait on the new coin very closely resembles that of the rebel emperors Victorinus and Tetricus. It is highly possible that other coins of Domitianus exist in the collections of museums and individuals but have escaped detection. It is important that people start to pay more attention to these often neglected finds and record them with their local Finds Liaison Officer.’

#Coin reveals little-known Roman ruler #coins #collectable coins #roman coins #rebel emperor #Domitianus #Gaul #Gallic Empire #Aurelian #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #roman history #roman empire #roman emperor

[trainsinanime]

The shapes of railway networks

A while ago @ariadsishereagain asked me about countries that have no railway networks, and what I think of them. That's a fascinating question that has been in my mind ever since, because the truth is you can tell a lot about a country and in particular it's history during the 19th and early 20th century by its railway network. So let's do that. And the best way to do that is by looking at the incredibly detailed open-source world railway map OpenRailwayMap, a part of the OpenStreetMap project. I really recommend it! And let's start with one of my favorite examples of how railway networks differ:

At this zoom level the site sadly only shows incomprehensible internal abbreviations rather than city names, so let me explain: What we have here are France and Germany, along with some of the UK and Italy, some of various neighbouring countries and all of Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

France and Germany are the ones that I find the most interesting, because the shapes of their networks are so different. Not only is the german one much more dense, but you can see completely different patterns.

In France, the job of railroads is to bring people to Paris (PLY, short for Paris Gare de Lyon) The lines stretch out into every part of the country, but almost all of them converge onto mainlines going into Paris. You can see some lines along the coasts and the borders, and there is a medium distances circle around Paris (passing MZ, DN, TO, short for Metz, Dijon, Tours). This whole pattern is known as the Legrande Star, after Baptiste Alexis Victor Legrande, the french government official who designed it. His goal was to provide great access to Paris, the nation's undisputed political, cultural and economical centre. A couple of decades later, Charles de Freycinet added plans to connect all departments to the railway network, but he still followed the idea that the ultimate goal of almost every rail line was Paris. And so it was, and largely remained. Even the high speed lines, in red, follow this pattern to this day.

A result is that you will have to go to Paris whether you want to or not. Lille-Strasbourg? You're going through Paris. Bordeaux-Dijon?

You're going through Paris, and get to make your own way from Gare Montparnasse to Gare de Lyon on the Metro (and it isn't even a direct metro, you have to change trains). It's a massive detour but it's not like you have a choice.

Even if there is a direct TGV or a connection outside the main stations of Paris, you're still ending up very much near Paris; the difference is just that you're not going via the city centre, but rather via Disneyland. Legrande wanted to bring people to Paris; he was less concerned about connecting other places with each other.

Now compare Germany, and you will see a network that is more dense, but most importantly, utterly chaotic. You can see hints of a France-like star around Berlin (BSPD, short for Berlin Spandau, which isn't the most important station but what can you do), but it's really only dominating its immediate surroundings, the region of Brandenburg. You can see vague hints of a similar star around Hamburg (AH; don't ask) or Munich (MH), but also a massive tangle around the Rhine-Ruhr industrial area (around KD), or around the Frankfurt am Main area (FF). Red high speed lines are essentially random. Some of them do go to Berlin, sure. But many, like the one from Cologne to Frankfurt (KD to FF) or the one from Hanover (HH) south, do not.

And that really reflects the history. Germany wasn't a unified country when railroad construction began, and even though it did unify shortly thereafter, there's no hiding that its different parts developed separately, with no central planning, ever since the middle ages. Germany doesn't have a single central city like France. Berlin is the biggest and most important city, but not by far. Hamburg has huge cultural and industrial influence, Frankfurt is the most important financial centre and airport, Munich is huge, and there are agglomerations like the Rhine-Ruhr region that used to beat all of them in terms of industry. And the rail network, with no single central focus point, reflects that.

That doesn't mean Germany doesn't have its own blind spots. Due to being split in two, the east-west links aren't great. Getting e.g. from Cologne (near KD) to Dresden (DH) is pretty painful. Ironically, Berlin is one of the places that really suffers from this. There are plenty of trains to it from Cologne but they take forever, and you can see why: A lot of the route isn't high speed, it's just more or less upgraded normal lines. If you have a single destination, then it's easy to build all the lines there. If you want high-speed connections between everything, that's more difficult. (Also, our government isn't investing anywhere near enough into the rail network, both compared internationally and on its own terms, but that's a different issue)

Other countries in Europe tend to be somewhere between the extremes. Spain is fairly centralised around Madrid.

The UK is just as focused on London as France is on Paris, but it has strong regional networks around Leeds and Sheffield, and the weirdness in Scotland (four different lines between Glasgow and Edinburgh and counting!).

Italy, especially south of the Po valley, almost looks like a ladder: Lines are either on the one side of the Apennines or the other, with a few brave ones crossing through.

This works overseas as well. Describing the continental US as "like Germany" is certainly going to raise some eyebrows, but the map doesn't lie:

It's all on a completely different scale, but it's also a federal country with no one single clear centre. Yes, New York and Los Angeles are big and important, but neither is an all-powerful centre of the nation. What's fun about the US is that it's almost gradient-like: The more west you go, the fewer the railroads get. You can also nicely see the Alleghenies by the shadow they cast: Just a few brave rail lines managed to make their way through or around. Other characteristic items are the huge tangle that is Chicago, the closest thing the US has to a railroad capital; and the many places where lines are almost duplicated (just count how many different ways you can get from Chicago to Memphis, or Chicago to Cleveland), thanks to different competing railway companies that all hated (and sometimes still hate) each other's guts.

So that's what's mostly considered the "western world" or "industrialised world". I skipped Japan, China and India because the post is going to get too long no matter what, but they're all fascinating as well.

But if we go away from there look at countries where the colonialism was less settlers and more exploit mostly from afar, we see another very odd pattern emerge, like here in sub-saharan Africa:

The selection is somewhat arbitrary because you can find the same pattern everywhere south of the Sahara, and in one case (Mauretania) even in the Sahara: A railroad that goes straight to the coast. (The isolated sections inland are due to issues with the map software, they're all connected to one of the lines to the coast)

This kind of railroad is designed to extract a country's resources, and not much else. In Mauretania (not in this picture), that's iron ore. Elsewhere it might have been other ores, precious metals, gemstones, but also very often agricultural products, spices, dyes. The railway line exists to take these things, and bring them to a port. The line is not designed to actually help the nation grow economically. Think about it: All things being equal, you're probably just as likely to want to go parallel to the coast as perpendicular to it.

Also, each of these lines were built because there's something interesting at the end of it, or at least someone suspected there might be. If you wanted to develop the area, it would make sense to trade the interesting stuff in Togo with the interesting stuff in Benin. But the railway lines are not set up for that at all. The goal is to get the interesting stuff to a ship, and occasionally soldiers to the place where the interesting stuff comes from.

These days, the area that I screenshotted here is actually massive, full of people. The city of Abidjan has more than four million inhabitants (more than Berlin), Lomé has 1.7 million, Cotonou and Porto-Novo come close to a million if taken together, and nobody's quite sure about Lagos, but it's at least 14 million, and the metropolitan region might be 24 million. This is a band of cities that researchers think might, in the next few decodes, become on par with Washington-Philadelphia-New York-Boston in the US, or the Tokyo-Osaka in Japan.

And the rail connections in this region do not reflect this at all. A high speed passenger line and/or a heavy duty freight line could allow all these places to do business with each other, allow people to move to or visit each other, and just spur a lot of economic development. But the powers that built the lines, the colonial powers, were not interested. They had their harbour, and the region behind it, and they just wanted to extract whatever was there.

To be clear, that does not mean the railroads are evil now. Selling natural resources is still better than bringing no money into the country. And there are a lot of places where railroad junctions and depots became the point where cities were founded, so in some countries these lines do end up connecting the most important cities, more or less by accident. It's just that other lines or more lines are sorely missing.

A simple example for how this could look like is provided by Australia, where the colonists were settlers and did want to develop the land economically:

You have the lines from the coast inland, and sometimes quite a lot of them. But you can also see a line along the east coast, connecting the cities, and you can see that someone said "we need to build a railroad across the entire continent. No, two actually". That is not to say that Australia does everything right with railroads, they have a lot of weirdness there. But you can see that the railroads had more jobs than to just move resources to ships.

(The big exception is the Pilbara region, in the north west, with its odd tangle of lines. Those are all just resource extraction lines, where the world's heaviest freight trains haul iron ore from various mines to various ports. The mines and ports are owned by different mining companies that don't like each other, so everybody has their own line from their own harbour to their own mine, even if a different line would have been shorter. That's why you get the tangle there.)

So, that's basically it. The railroad map of a country shows you a lot about how a country works, and more specifically how it worked during the late 19th and early 20th century, when most railroads were built. Where they lead to and where they don't reflects what planners thought of as important, and in turn, it has shaped the way these countries developed. And personally, I always find this endlessly fascinating.

#railroads #maps #i suppose you could take the 6 to bercy and walk from there but it's still not exactly convenient

[mapsontheweb]

Map of European Road Curve Chevron Signs

by u/isaacSW

Not sure if something like this has been done before but I’ve put together a map showing the colour schemes used on the chevron signs used on road curves throughout Europe (this is the sort of thing I’m talking about). I think it could be quite powerful in some areas, like the Balkans and central Europe, where they are quite common and the colours vary a lot from country to country.

This won’t be 100% accurate, and I’m sure you will be able to find counterexamples, but I have checked multiple signs in each country and it appears to be a fairly reliable clue. If you do find anything I’ve missed, let me know and I will update the map and post the link below. Here is a list of observations I’ve made while making this map, with example locations.

Notes:

The white colour is often substituted for luminous green/yellow in high altitude/latitude areas (example). Austria and Montenegro have their yellow variants shown on the map as they appear to greatly outnumber the corresponding white variants. The yellow colour on south-facing signs will often fade to near-white.

Some countries will add a luminous yellow outline to the signs rather than replacing the white (generally in high altitude/latitude areas). Some countries that do this are: Italy, Romania, Hungary, Russia, the UK, Belgium and Turkey.

Most countries will also have a long variant of the curve chevron sign (example). This should be the same colour scheme as the single-chevron signs, however it may be less obvious which is the ‘background’ and which is the ‘chevron’ colour.

Notable Countries:

Spain uses both the white-on-blue and white-on-black interchangeably. It is always the long variant (as far as I can tell), and the colour distribution does not seem to vary by geographic location. (blue example, black example)

Montenegro uses the red-on-yellow (example) and black-on-white (example) signs in roughly equal amounts (no real correlation with geography), with some lower areas near the coast using the red-on-white variant (example), however this is much less common than the red-on-yellow.

Slovenia uses mainly the black-on-white variant (example), however areas around Ljubljana and Koper (and maybe other areas) use the red-on-white variant (example).

Austria uses the red-on-yellow and white-on-red frequently in the upland areas. They are also often found with a pattern of a few reds then a yellow (example), which appears to be unique to the country. The lowland areas may also use the red-on-white variant.

The Netherlands often uses a miniature variant (example)

Russia and Ukraine use the long variant quite frequently, which also sometimes appears in the Baltics (possibly other ex-soviet regions too). The single variant also has more background colour visible compared to other countries (example). It also often has a white outline.

North Macedonia has red-on-white and black-on-white variants, though the black ones appear to be less common.

Frequency:

Countries that use a lot of roadside bollards tend to use fewer curve chevron signs.

Rare in Andorra, Finland and Denmark.

Fairly uncommon in: Baltics, Sweden, Iceland, Russia, Ukraine, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg.

Fairly common in: Norway, UK/Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, and flatter areas of the Balkans.

Very common in: the Austrian Alps, mountainous areas of the Balkans, and Turkey.

#maps #isaacSW #roadsigns #europe

[workersolidarity]

[white phosphorus being used by IDF Forces on targets in southern Lebanon]

🇮🇱🇵🇸 💥 ISRAEL SEALS OFF GAZA, DISMANTLING THE CITY BLOCK BY BLOCK 💥

American media is reporting Tuesday that Israel has completely sealed off all Gaza crossings, preventing civilians from leaving before destroying the strip block by block, village by village, checkpoint by checkpoint.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his second address to Israeli and International media since the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood began on Saturday, told the people of Gaza and the world that Palestinians must leave if they wanted to survive the coming Israeli assault.

Meanwhile, Israel has sealed off all border crossings out of the territory and air strikes targeted near the Gaza-Egypt border checkpoint by the IAF [Israeli Air Force] on Monday and Tuesday compelled the Egyptians to close off the last remaining crossing out of the Gaza Strip.

With Gaza's crossings shut down and all food, medicine, fuel, water and electricity totally cut off, Gazans are now completely at the mercy of Israeli Defense Forces as they dismantle Gaza city block by block, building by building, and brick by brick using an array of offensive missiles, bombs, and rockets before the media of the entire world.

Already, according to a statement on Monday from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA], more than 123'000 Gazans have been displaced by the bombing of the city and its surrounding territories and according the UN Agency for Palestine refugees [UNRWA], more than half of those displaced by the violence are sheltering in dozens of schools.

Meanwhile, Israeli Forces continue to mobilize and escalate the situation, even as many world leaders call on Israel to show restraint and engage in dialogue with Palestinian officials, instead announcing the IDF had successfully targeted Hamas' Minister of Economy Jawad Abu Shamala.

According to the Israeli media, Israeli Defense Forces have expanded their mobilization of reservists to 360'000 as of Tuesday.

But the IDF isn't only focused on Gaza. After a few lobbies of rockets and missiles back and forth on the Lebanon-Israel border, and a warning from Netanyahu for Israelis to leave Egypt, Israel is preparing for a large-scale conflict on multiple fronts with its various Arab adversaries bordering the country.

The Financial Times reported on Sunday that IDF Forces were "looking to the North" as it mobilizes its forces.

“We are also looking to the North as well with full readiness, and we are fully coordinating with [the US Central Command],” said Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari.

“[Whoever] attacks us all over the Middle East will face a decisive attack back,” he added.

Adding to the sense that the conflict may be beginning to spiral out of control, Israeli Defense Forces claimed they intercepted 4 out 14 rockets fired from the territory of Lebanon on Tuesday evening, with 10 off the landing in "open areas." Lebanese media reported only 10-12 rockets were launched from its territory by Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ].

This came just minutes after it was reported IDF Forces fired artillery at rocket-launch positions within Lebanese territory.

This all comes on the heals of a joint statement issued by the Biden Administration in conjunction with France's President Macron, Chancellor Scholz of Germany, President Meloni of Italy and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the UK reaffirming their support for Israel's apartheid government.

"We make clear that the terrorist actions of Hamas have no justification, no legitimacy, and must be universally condemned," the statement reads.

"...Our countries will support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities. We further emphasize that this is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage," the statement warns.

This didn't stop the powerful Iraqi politician Hadi Al-Amiri, who is a key figure in Iraq's coalition government, from threatening US interests in Iraq if the United States gave support to an offensive by Israeli Forces into Gaza.

"If they intervene, we would intervene…if the Americans intervened openly in this conflict...we will consider all American targets legitimate … and we will not hesitate to target it," al-Amiri said

Al-Amiri leads the Badr Organization, a Shi'ite political organization that the United States claims is close to Iran, that forms part of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces [PMF].

At least 900 Israelis have been killed in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood so far, with over 2'600 injuries according to Israeli officials.

Palestinian authorities have said some 830 Palestinians have lost their lives in the bombardment of Gaza so far, with more than 4'250 wounded.

There's no sign yet of any end to the fighting coming as Israel continues to prepare for an offensive and Hamas refuses to negotiate as long as the bombing of Gaza continues.

#source1

#source2

#source3

#source4

#source5

WorkerSolidarityNews Telegram

#palestine #palestine news #gaza #gaza news #gaza strip #free gaza #free palestine #occupation #occupied palestine #israel #israel news #world news #global news #gobal politics #international affairs #international news #international politics #geopolitics #geopolitics news #geopolitical news #world politics #socialist politics #socialist news #hamas #al aqsa flood #war #war news #politics #WorkerSolidarityNews #worker solidarity

[mariacallous]

Oleksandr Kryvtsov had enough.

The owner of an agricultural company in Hrakove, near Kharkiv, Kryvtsov found his land littered with land mines. That region of Ukraine, occupied by Russian forces for nearly eight months, had been pockmarked with explosive ordinances. The threat meant that farmers like Kryvtsov had to let their fields lay fallow. Even though Kryvstov’s fields were once part of Europe’s breadbasket, Ukraine’s mine clearance teams were overworked and under-resourced.

So Kryvtsov came up with his own solution. He jimmyrigged a plow onto an old tractor, with massive steel rollers underneath. On the side, he painted the yellow and blue Ukrainian flag. Kryvtsov connected a remote-control steering system and, from afar, he drove his Mad Max-style tractor over his fields, detonating any mines lurking under the soil.

The makeshift operation has worked well, Kryvtsov told Reuters, even clearing an anti-tank mine.

Kryvstov’s story is an example of incredible Ukrainian ingenuity—a nation of gilders, working to invent, adapt, and repurpose technology to defend themselves against a better-resourced, larger, determined enemy. But it’s also an ominous sign of just how bad the problem is.

In recent months, WIRED has investigated the technological challenges and opportunities facing Ukraine as it tries to defend itself and recapture its territory. One particular problem, unsung by the Western media but frequently cited by Ukrainian officials, are the haphazard minefields across Eastern Ukraine.

WIRED has spoken to a range of engineers, government officials, and humanitarian mine-clearance experts, and consulted Ukraine’s new mine clearance plan. It is apparent that Kyiv is prioritizing the problem, but without a significant new influx of money, personnel, and technology, the threat of these mines could hobble Ukraine’s economy, frustrate future counteroffensives, and pose a humanitarian crisis for decades to come.

A Humanitarian Crisis, an Economic Cost

Ukraine’s mine problem has been acute for a decade. The full-scale war with Russia has only made it worse. From 2014, when Russia first invaded, to the end of 2021, the United Nations says 312 Ukraines were killed by land mines. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Ukraine has recorded at least 269 civilian casualties, including 14 children. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has taken to calling Eastern Ukraine “the largest minefield in the world.”

Those casualty figures only capture the deaths on territory currently held by Ukraine. Behind the front lines, in the Russian-occupied regions of Eastern Ukraine, at least a hundred more have reportedly been killed.

“Twenty percent of the whole territory is dangerous,” Ihor Bezkaravainyi, Ukraine’s deputy minister of finance, tells WIRED. “Right now we’re talking about 150,000 square kilometers.” (The total area, including water littered with naval mines, is nearly 175,000 km².)

Bezkaravainyi is a veteran of the war in Eastern Ukraine—he lost a leg to an anti-tank mine in 2016. He’s now responsible for coordinating the mine-clearance effort behind the front lines, giving Ukrainians back their property and recovering damaged agricultural lands. It’s not an easy task.

“It looks like the zone rogue in France after World War One,” Bezkaravainyi says, referring to the areas near Germany and Belgium that remain contaminated by land mines to this day.

Conducting surveys to identify those mines will be a gargantuan challenge. Actually clearing them will be even more taxing.

Russia has deployed older anti-tank and anti-personnel mines—of the kind the world has ample experience dealing with. But it is believed that this is the first time the sophisticated PTKM-1R anti-tank mine, which detonates only when it picks up a certain seismic signature, has been used in battle. Russia has also made liberal use of the more advanced PFM-1 mine, also known as the “butterfly mine,” made mostly from plastic and liquid explosive. These mines are particularly odious because they can be scattered in huge quantities from afar or from the air, meaning that they are impossible to track. Because they are colorful and plastic, they can be mistaken by children as toys.

Beyond purpose-built mines, Russia has also littered Ukraine with unexploded munitions and “improvised explosive devices and booby traps,” according to a draft version of Kyiv’s plan to decontaminate the country, prepared late last year and provided to WIRED.

Until now, Ukraine has not had a national plan on how to deal with the mine problem—its ad hoc response has been split between the military, NGOs, a small number of private mine-clearance companies, and a small network of government mine-clearance operators.

In 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine had certified just four “mine action operators” to conduct the mine identification and clearance. Since the start of the war, that number has grown to “only 23.” That number is simply “not adequate,” the plan states.

This National Mine Action Strategy was devised to bring consistency and focus to this effort. But it warns that the scope of this problem “cannot be solved in a short-term perspective.” Kyiv hopes it can assess the entirety of its lands, to identify which areas are actually contaminated and which are safe to use, by 2029. By 2033, Ukraine aspires to have decontaminated 80 percent of its previously occupied territory. The strategy does not provide a date for when the whole country might be free of mines.

If Ukraine wants to meet these goals, it will need significantly more staff, technology, and equipment than it has now.

This will be a tough hill to climb. Humanitarian demining groups are spread thin across many global conflict zones, while commercial operators tend to be prohibitively expensive.

This is the reality that pushed Kryvtsov, the farmer, to take matters into his own hands. But Kyiv warns that these “black sappers”—unlicensed and unsanctioned mine-clearance operations—are dangerous and unreliable. Still, the government recognizes that, unless it can dramatically scale up its own operations, these freelance mine operators will become a popular choice for locals frustrated by the slow pace of progress.

Like many aspects of Ukraine’s war effort, Kyiv believes the solution is at home. The strategy calls for a substantial investment in Ukraine’s industrial capacity to produce mine-clearing equipment, research demining technology, and train demining teams. The World Bank estimated in early 2023 that the total cost of identifying and clearing these mines would be nearly $38 billion. Kyiv expects the true cost will be higher.

A Military Challenge

In the snow-covered fields near the front lines, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been deploying autonomous demining vehicles—which, although purpose-built and donated by European allies, look an awful lot like Kryvstov’s homemade version.

Since the start of the war, these military demining teams have cleared more than 280,000 mines—at a pace of more than 2,200 every week. Its work is entirely separate from the humanitarian teams run under Bezkaravainyi's department.

The military may have cleared a staggering volume, but the work is impeded by a lack of equipment. The military boasts 262 separate demining teams, but it has just six demining vehicles.

In an essay for The Economist, former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi wrote that his forces were initially relying on “technically outdated pieces of equipment” to conduct this operational mine clearance. With Western donations, “it was possible to slightly augment the capabilities of engineer units … but given the unprecedented scale of these barriers, even such capabilities are objectively lacking.”

Much of the analysis of Ukraine’s failed summer counteroffensive has focused on the offensive gear it lacks—artillery shells, fighter jets, drones, and long-range missiles. But even if it had managed to pierce the Russian front line, Ukraine faced layers of other defensive structures, including between 15 and 20 kilometers of minefields.

As Zaluzhnyi notes, Russian reconnaissance drones have kept a watchful eye on these minefields, targeting any Ukrainian teams dispatched to clear them. “In case of successful mine barriers breaching, the enemy quickly restores minefields in these areas,” he wrote.

European allies, in particular, have donated mine clearance vehicles—including retrofitted German-made Leopard 2 tanks—but they have been hard hit by Russian forces.

While clearing fields near the front lines is difficult, risky work, Russia is capable of laying these fields remotely and quickly. The ISDM Zemledeliye, a mobile mine-laying system that sits on the back of a truck, can carry 50 rockets, each filled with anti-personnel or anti-tank mines that scatter over a targeted area. The system allows the operator to lay minefields from as far as 15 kilometers away. One pro-Kremlin Russian media outlet recently remarked that the Zemledeliye, which translates to “agriculture” in Russian, “sowed” the defeat of the Ukrainian summer counteroffensive.

“The Ukrainians didn't necessarily have the equipment, the type of trained brigades, etc, to break through that defense and overcome the Russians, who were defending in a doctrinally consistent and actually quite sound way,” Karolina Hird, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War and the deputy team lead for their Russia desk, tells WIRED. “Which brings us to where we are today.”

Even if Kyiv manages to overcome all of those other problems, if it cannot figure out how to clear the Russian-laid minefields, its progress risks being squandered.

“One of the big operational problems is, how do you increase by an order of magnitude the detection of mines, mapping of minefields, and the clearance of them—whilst denying the Russians visibility of them?” Mick Ryan, a 35-year veteran of the Australian Army who has traveled to Ukraine frequently during the war, tells WIRED. “And these are pretty significant problems, but they’re known problems, right?”

Ryan says there needs to be a deeper recalibration of the relationship between Ukraine and NATO. At the beginning of the war, the transfer of knowledge and expertise from NATO to Ukraine may have been largely one-directional, but today, Ukraine’s expertise in modern warfare certainly rivals many of its benefactors.

“Ukrainians and NATO, they just need to divide up the problems and solve them,” Ryan says. “I mean, this isn't inventing the nuclear bomb.”

The Technology

As the National Mine Action Strategy notes, research on mine clearance has been sorely lacking.

There has been, the strategy says, a “lack of systematic and centralized work on the introduction of innovative technologies in the field of Mine Action, in particular, unmanned aerial vehicles, the use of satellite images, artificial intelligence, data collection and analysis systems.”

It’s a frustration that Federica Mezzani knows well. Since 2019, she’s been researching how new technologies can help improve mine detection strategies—but it is a field, she says, which had been “completely forgotten.”

Despite the fact that an estimated 110 million mines are still active around the world, they are primarily distributed in poor and war-torn countries. While NGOs such as the HALO Trust have worked to steadily decontaminate those territories, the research and development has been piecemeal and slow. It simply hasn’t been a priority.

But Mezzani, along with her colleagues in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Sapienza University in Rome, set out to prove that new technology could help with this old problem. There had been some research testing how drones could be used to identify unexploded ordinances, but not much. Mezzani wanted to take it a step further, dispatching drone swarms equipped with ground-penetrating radar to methodically scan each section of the ground, the way a human team might. Algorithms could essentially automate mine detection, she believed.

In a series of small-scale experiments, Mezzani’s technique worked.

“The experimental campaign proved the effectiveness of the algorithm, which appears as a powerful tool to automatically detect buried objects with even small metal content,” reads her paper, published in Advances in Nonlinear Dynamics in 2022.

“The technology is ready,” Mezzani tells WIRED. “I think that it's been ready for many years, actually.”

When the full-scale war began, research efforts like Mezzani’s were few and far between. That meant figuring out these strategies from the ground up.

Part of the challenge is about confidence. As Bezkaravainyi explains, humanitarian mine clearance operates on a zero-tolerance policy for civilian deaths—if they mark a territory as uncontaminated, they must be absolutely sure it is entirely safe. Where possible, that also means defusing the land mines instead of exploding them and further contaminating the soil.

This process is significantly slower than how the military clears territory. Prioritizing speed, the army may blast a path through an active minefield in order to advance quickly without fully clearing it. To that end, humanitarian mine clearance operates on the Swiss cheese model: applying multiple imperfect strategies on top of each other.

Bezkaravainyi explains that their process normally involves consulting high-resolution satellite imagery of the territory and identifying land mines from the sky. From there, drones may be dispatched to confirm those locations and identify mines that may be buried or tough to spot. After that, teams are dispatched to sweep the territory.

Last fall, at an international conference on Ukraine’s demining efforts held in Zagreb, Bezkaravainyi’s department unveiled a prototype, developed by American surveillance technology giant Palantir, which used artificial intelligence to help inform how Kyiv approaches mine clearance.

This multilayered approach is increasingly necessary. Magnetometers and thermal scanners, which identify mines by identifying the metal amidst the organic material, were once the gold standard for mine identification. Some mines have electromagnetic shields, protecting them from ground-penetrating radar. The PFM-1 mine, in particular, contains very little metal, making it difficult to detect.

This problem is mostly, but not entirely, of Russia’s making. Reports suggest that Ukraine has also deployed these PFM-1 mines against Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine.

Difficult terrain, such as forests or mud, makes this work more difficult. Ukraine has difficult terrain in spades: It even has a word, bezdorizhzhya, for the mud that covers the eastern part of the country in the spring.

“If all the technologies in the world were given to Ukraine, it would not be enough,” Bezkaravainyi says.

An Opportunity

Ukraine is not merely contemplating how to buy and acquire enough technology to do this job—they are developing a plan to become a world leader on mine clearance.

That sort of focus has been sorely lacking for decades. “It’s a type of research that doesn't bring in profits,” Mezzani says. It’s a problem she crashed into during her own research project. “I wouldn't say that we have a technological issue. We have a willingness issue.”

Some 70 countries worldwide are still contaminated by land mines, according to the United Nations, and they kill or maim thousands every year. Most, however, are located in the Global South. The conflict in Ukraine may finally be the impetus to develop the technology and expertise to address that problem.

Indeed, Bezkaravainyi says his department has fielded plenty of offers from companies professing expertise in mine clearance, but many have been unreliable, haven’t delivered, or were outright scams.

If Ukraine can develop both the technology and the industry to do this work, it could provide a critical advantage in the war, boost its battered economy, and provide an enormous service to the entire world.

Brave1, a platform launched by the Ukrainian government to identify innovative projects and connect them to public and private financing, has identified mine clearance as one of its main priorities. Thus far, 30 projects—which range from autonomous land vehicles to more sophisticated detection systems—are part of the Brave1 platform.

If the Ukrainian government can spur the creation of a domestic demining industry, it will speed up its economic recovery, help war-torn countries the world over, and maybe even help win the war.

[stephensmithuk]

The Final Problem

This is the final story from Memoirs, meaning that we've completed the first "half" of the canon.

It was intended to be the final Holmes story - Arthur Conan Doyle wanting to focus on more "literary" stories.

Moriarty only appears in this story - he is indirectly involved in The Valley of Fear and is mentioned in some later stories. His impact on the Holmes world is of course much bigger.

"Reuter's" refers to the news agency of that name, which was established in 1851. It was the first news source to report the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in Europe and by this point, it was telegraphing news stories directly to London newspaper offices.

There was in fact been two further Napoleons - his son who was briefly Emperor of France until the Seventh Coalition restored the Bourbons and Napoleon III, who reigned over the Second French Empire from 1852 to 1870, when he lost the Franco-Prussian War, at which point France became a republic for good.

ACD and his wife visited Meiringen in Switzerland, where the former decided he would kill off Holmes there. A small community near the Swiss capital of Bern, it today has a museum dedicated to Holmes in the basement of the English Church, a statue of the detective and a square named after Doyle.

The "Continental express" refers to one of the many "boat trains" that operated between London and English ports; these are worthy of their own post.

Moriarty basically hires a private train for himself. You can still do this and there are various companies offering rolling stock for this in the UK, although it will cost you a bit.

If you're from Kent born east of the Medway River, you're a Man/Maid of Kent. West of that, it's a Kentish Man/Maid. The origin of that may have something to with the greater resistance put up to the Norman Conquest by the east of Kent.

Strasbourg was then in Germany following the 1871 annexation of Alsace-Lorraine after the French defeat to Prussia. It's actually Straßburg in German. As a result of this, the area has its trains run on the right, as opposed to the rest of France where they run on the left.

Consumption is another name for tuberculosis, because of the weight loss i.e. it consumes you. The BCG vaccination was not available until 1921 and Europe conducted mass vaccinations in the post-war years, with some countries still doing it; the distinctive scarring on an upper arm associated with it can be fun to spot in period pieces. Britain stopped this in 2005. I went to school before then. Yes, it hurt.

Scholars for decades have been debating whether Moriarty in fact died and some of the theories Klinger points out are just odd.

There is no contemporary evidence for people wearing black armbands, but The Strand, having lost its "killer app", shed 20,000 subscribers as a result.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #the final problem #FINA

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

Feast Days: Martinmas

Anthony Van Dyck ~ "St. Martin Dividing His Cloak" (c.1618)

Happy Martinmas!

Today marks the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, who was bishop there from 371 CE until his death in 397 CE. He is the patron saint of many things, including: against poverty, against alcoholism, the poor, cavalry, Buenos Aires, quartermasters, wool-weavers, soldiers, and tailors, as well as wine growers, makers, and sellers. Whew! He must be very busy.

Keep reading for info about his life, a snitch goose, where the word 'chapel' came from, and how to tell what the weather will be like at Christmas.

His Life

Much of what we know about Martin comes from his hagiographer, Sulpicius Severus, who includes some 'artistic license' that is common in chronicles of the time, and therefore must be taken with a grain of salt.

Martin was born anywhere from 316-336 CE in Savaria, now Szombathely, Hungary. His father was a senior officer in the Roman Army, and as such was given land in northern Italy for his retirement. At the age of 10, Martin attended a Christian church against the wishes of his parents, and became interested in Christianity. Because of his father's status as a veteran, he was required to join the cavalry at 15. Dates surrounding his military service are shaky, but Severus states that, during his time stationed in Gaul, he was riding on horseback when he encountered a poor man with threadbare clothes. Having compassion on him, Martin used his sword to cut his own woolen cloak in two and gave the other half to the man. That night, Jesus Christ appeared to him in a dream, surrounded with angels and wearing half of the cloak. After this, Martin was baptised as a Christian. Though other miracles of his are recorded, this tale is the one most associated with Martin's life. It fits in with depictions of God or his angels in disguise as a beggar, traveller, &c., and is also a narrative found in many other religions and traditions. (Biblical examples include Abraham feeding the three angels in Genesis 18).

Martin dips from the army ~ fresco by Simone Martini (c.1320s)

With his new faith now firmly a part of his life, Martin decided to leave the army. Before a battle near modern-day Worms, Germany, Martin went before Emperor Julian and refused his salary, saying, "I am the soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight." They threw him in prison for this, but due to ye olde extenuating circumstances, he was released and discharged without further incident.

Martin made his way to modern-day Tours in France and declared himself a hermit, becoming a disciple and friend of Hilary of Tours. Because Christianity was Not OK™ in the Roman Empire, he and Hilary faced a lot of discrimination, including corporal punishment and exile. After converting his mother to Christianity and having numerous adventures, like living pretty much alone on an island, he and Hilary settled down in and around Poitiers, where Martin established Ligugé Abbey. It is the oldest known monastery in Europe! Martin made it his home base while he preached throughout western Gaul.

In 371 CE, the bishop of Tours died, and Martin was considered a good candidate for a successor. However, he liked living as a hermit and monk, and they resorted to tricking him into coming to Tours and then forced him to become the bishop. Legend holds that he tried to hide in a barn, but a honking goose gave him away. Hence he is the patron saint of geese, which I think is adorable. Martin proved true to his hermit ways, living very simply in huts with his monks. He established a rudimentary parish system, through which he visited different Christian communities and established monasteries. He was very determined in his efforts to convert local Pagans, as well as protect Christian institutions from unfriendly sects in the area, and in some cases he was successful. He died in 371 CE, already a venerated man. His popularity was ensured by his adoption by various French royals and by the Third Republic as a national symbol.

Martin has been portrayed by several famous artists, including Van Dyck, Peter Bruegel the Elder, and El Greco. He is usually portrayed on horseback, dividing his cloak for the poor man, though occasionally he can be seen riding a donkey. This references another story in his life about the time where he met the Devil and outwitted him. It also connects him to the image of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem (recounted in Mark 1:1-11).

Martinmas and its Traditions

Martin lent his legacy to a host of English words and phrases, including those relating to the word 'chapel'. Temporary buildings that held the relic of his cloak (cappa in Latin) were referred to as cappella, and hence the word 'chapel' was born. A similar thing happened to the word 'chaplain', which derived from the word for the priest in charge of the cloak.

Though the Anglo-Saxon church did celebrate St. Martin to some extent, more references to Martinmas celebrations begin to crop up after Norman Conquest of 1066, when the Frenchman William the Conqueror invaded England. Supposedly, he promised to build an abbey dedicated to Martin if his invasion of England was successful. William was very likely familiar with the early Mediaeval association of the battle-hungry rulers of France with St. Martin, and was possibly responsible for his increased popularity in England.

In England and Scotland, and indeed through much of western Europe, Martinmas became a celebration marking the culmination of the harvest and the beginning of winter. From the late fourth century through the late Middle Ages, it also served a similar purpose to Mardi Gras/Carnivale: a period of fasting was ordained for the day after Martinmas through Christmas, so Martinmas was your last chance to stuff your face for a long time! (This period later became Advent, though with much laxer rules). As such, it was a time for feasting, celebration, bonfires, getting really drunk, and even events such as bull-running, as in Stamford, Lincolnshire. It was also a time for the end-of-harvest tasks, such as sowing winter wheat and slaughtering pigs and cattle. An old English saying goes, "His Martinmas will come, as it does to every hog", meaning, "they will get their comeuppance" or "everyone dies someday". Due to Martin's association with geese, some celebrated with a roast goose, but in Britain particularly it was also popular to eat salted pork or beef. For those not rich enough to have a goose, a duck or hen would also suffice. Other traditional fare included black pudding, haggis, and the first wine of the season.

On the business side of things, Martinmas served as a quarter day in Scotland and in parts England. A quarter day was one of four days on which major legal business was conducted. Servants and labourers would be hired or let go, rent was paid, contracts would begin or end, &c. Hiring fairs would be held for agricultural labourers seeking employment, and there would also be entertainment, food, trading, and other scenes of merriment. One of the most famous Martinmas fairs was at Nottingham in England, which lasted eight days.

Like many other English holidays, there is weather folklore associated with Martinmas. To have a warm fall and winter is to have a "St. Martin's Summer". If Martinmas proves an icy day, Christmas (or the rest of the winter) will be very warm. The rhyme puts it more pithily: "If the geese at Martin's Day stand on ice, they will walk in mud at Christmas".

If you stand at the back of the church and observe the congregation on Martinmas, those with a halo of light around their heads will not be alive by next Martinmas.

Interior of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, with a funky window!

The church of St. Martin-in-the-fields in Trafalgar Square in London is named after Martin. Many people commemorated there are associated with his anti-war sentiments -- these include Vera Brittain, a memoirist and pacifist; and Dick Sheppard, founder of the Peace Pledge Union. The church also supports houseless and vulnerably housed people.

The holiday gradually fell out of practice due to the English Reformation (when England split from the Catholic Church throughout the 1500s) and the Interregnum (Puritan republican government, 1649-1660). The observance of Armistice Day on the same day largely overshadowed the holiday in the UK, though many regions in Western Europe still take part in traditional festivities.

Martinmas is celebrated on 12 October in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

If You're Still Interested...

"The Life of St. Martin" by Sulpicius Severus himself! (pdf)

Pot Roast Martimas Beef Recipe by Chatsworth House

Sources

Historic UK

Wikipedia (Martin of Tours)

Wikipedia (St. Martin's Day)

Fisheaters.com

The Encyclopedia of Saints by Rosemary Ellen Guiley

"Medieval English "Martinmesse": The Archaeology of a Forgotten Festival" by Martin Walsh (via jstor)

#feast day series #feast day #martinmas #st martin #martin of tours #history #cultural history #english history #british history #saints day #folk history

[er1chartmann]

2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich

These are some facts and curiosities about the 2nd SS Pazer Division ''Das Reich''

It was an elite division of the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II, formed from the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) regiments.

 The division served during the invasion of France and took part in several major battles on the Eastern Front, including in the Battle of Prokhorovka against the 5th Guards Tank Army at the Battle of Kursk.

In April 1944 Das Reich established a new base near the town of Montauban in southern France. The location was chosen so that the division could respond quickly to the planned Allied invasion of France on the Atlantic coast or the Mediterranean Sea.

As a consequence of the sabotage of the rail cars, Das Reich left Montauban on 8 June with 1,400 vehicles and proceeded northward by road. Travel by road caused the steel tracks of the tanks and assault guns to wear out; vehicles broke down frequently; and fuel was in short supply.

During the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, members of the division committed crimes against the civilian population and Yugoslav prisoners of war in the Alibunar area (Vojvodina, Serbia), where approximately 200 people were killed.

The division massacred 642 French civilians in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on 10 June 1944, in the Limousin region.

Following the war, one of the regimental commanders of the division, Otto Weidinger, wrote an apologia of the division under the auspices of HIAG, the historical negationist organization and a lobby group of former Waffen-SS members.

The newspaper of the same name ''Das Reich'' was a Nazi weekly.

Sources:

Wikipedia: 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich

Military Wiki: 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich

if you don't like it go with your life

I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM, FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY, THIS IS AN EDUCATIONAL POST

#reichblr #ww2 germany #ww2 history #heinrich himmler #studyblr #the ss #das reich

[lonestarbattleship]

USS Texas (BB-35): Operation Goalpost, part of Operation Torch

"When France surrendered to Germany, in June 1940, an unoccupied area of southern France was allowed to have a collaborationist French government, in Vichy, France. The French authority in Algeria and Morocco at the time of the June surrender chose to follow the Vichy government."

A large portion of the French Navy, the Marine Nationale, and the French Army, the Armée de Terre, had been moved to the French colonies in North Africa. To neutralize the threat of these forces possibly being used against the Allies, the US and Britain sent out their militaries to capture or destroy any French assets and occupy the colonies. There were several ports invaded at the same time. Including the famous battle between the incomplete French Battleship Jean Bart and USS Massachusetts (BB-59) at Casablanca, French Morocco.

USS Texas (BB-35) was the flagship of Task Force 34.8, which consisted of USS Savannah (CL-42), USS Chenango (CVE-28), USS Dallas (DD-199), USS Roe (DD-418), and several other transport ships. Their main objective was to support the US Army 9th Infantry Division, 60th Infantry Regiment's capture of Port Lyautey, as part of Operation Goalpost.

The objectives of Operation Goalpost were:

Capture the village of Mehdia.

Capture Kashah Mahdiyya, a fortress at the mouth of the Sebou River

Secure an airfield.

The TF arrived in Port Lyautey in the early morning of November 8, and Texas quickly maneuvered into position to bombard targets. However, the US Army was running under the pre-war tactics and prioritizing the element of surprise, rather than softening up targets beforehand. This tactic was discarded shortly after. The element of surprise had already been lost since the other landings were already ongoing.

All three of her Vought OS2U Kingfishers were launched to provide spotting and support the troops. Some of Texas' AA crews fired at friendly aircraft but luckily none were hit. The officer who wrote the action report, chalked this up to nervousness.

Action reports of November 8. USS Texas was assigned to the northern most landing.

After the troops landed, the Army radioed for Texas to bombard a munitions dump near Port Lyautey. Only turrets no. 2 and 4 were needed to destroy it, firing only 59 rounds. The pilot reported about 20% landed on target. When the Kingfishers returned that evening, one of the planes capsized due to a wing float ripped off when it landed. The pilot and radio operator were rescued unarmed. The pilot reported he had taken AA fire from French forces, likely causing the accident. This plane was not recovered and was instead deliberately sunk with gun fire.

Action report of November 10.

On November 10, the Army called for fire support to disrupt enemy troop movements. Texas fired from the same two turrets as before, expending 214 rounds from 0843 to 1130, and making a road and the area impassable. The pilot reported the road was littered with wreckage and stalled vehicles. This road was later repaired after hostilities had ended.

During the fire support, one of the Kingfishers noticed a motorcycle with a sidecar leaving at a high speed. Thinking it was a high ranking official, the pilot broke away and strafed the vehicle with it's M1919 Browning machine guns. This caused it to crash in a ditch. The pilot then strafed other vehicles in the area, scattering troops.

At 1435, the Army radioed requesting aerial support as French tanks and other troops were advancing on their position. The two Kingfishers from Texas were quickly dispatched, along with aircraft from USS Savannah. One of Texas's Kingfishers was armed with a depth charge, AN-MK41, with instantaneous fuses. By the time they got there, the enemy forces were under attack by Savannah's planes and USS Dallas.

These pilots joined the affray and dropped a depth charge on a tank, making a direct hit. The pilot reported the explosion flipped two other tanks over and left a giant crater in the ground.

On November 11, the Army again called for fire support and Texas quickly made her way to the position. However, by the time she arrived, the French forces had surrendered. In the two days of battle, she fired 272 14" shells and 6 5" shells.

"When the fighting ceased, a party from TEXAS went ashore to Port Lyautey to clear the harbor of ships the French had sunk to blockade its use. Though French resistance in the area had ceased, German submarines were still active and had sunk several ships. On November 12, submarine activity was reported in the area around Texas and the escort destroyers dropped depth charges. Texas relocated to another area and encountered submarine activity again. She sailed figure eight inside a submarine screen while more depth charges were dropped. On November 15, Texas and the rest of TF 34.8 departed the area and arrived back in Norfolk on the 26th."

Note: there are no surviving photos of Texas during the battle, if there were any. In 1942, the US Navy actively discouraged sailors from taking any kind of photographs.

Photographed by Frank Scherschel of Life Magazine.

source, source

Information from BattleshipTexas.info: link

LIFE Magazine Archives: 115883846

NHHC: 19-N-33912

#USS Texas (BB-35) #USS Texas #New York Class #Battleship #Battleship Texas #Battle of Port Lyautey #dreadnought #warship #USS Texas History Series #Operation Goalpost #Operation Torch #November #1942 #World War II #World War 2 #WWII #WW2 #WWII History #History #united states navy #us navy #navy #usn #u.s. navy #my post #long post

[hottestswagking]

January 7th, 1939

 

My name is Joseph Campbell, and I’m 15 years old. I live on Pine Street in San Francisco, California. I’m writing this journal because my uncle says that we’re at the brink of war and I would like to keep notes of everything. My uncle works for the WCCA and my father is in the Navy. My older brother, David, is thinking about joining the military once he’s of age. I don’t think he should go, not with how things are sounding.

My uncle says that people are still recovering from the Great Depression since the Great War and that if Hitler isn’t bothering us, then we shouldn’t get involved. I asked him why Hitler is so angry in the first place, he says it’s because he’s a raging capitalist. Something about a Treaty of Versailles that he broke and how he has started up a military even though the treaty told him not to. 

I asked David why we couldn’t just print ourselves more money and get out of the depression, he laughed at me.

I asked my dad, and he told me that Germany did that. I asked what happened, and he said that they went into a Great Depression, too. My whole thing is why the hell would that Hitler guy try and start a war if his people don’t have money? Whatever, this whole thing is stupid. I hope David doesn’t go into the military.

 

March 2nd, 1939

 

I found out from my Uncle that Japan isn’t a part of the League of Nations anymore. They invaded China and left after the other countries told them to stop. Pretty wild if I’m being honest. This is the same league that tried signing a policy of appeasement with Hitler! How stupid, honestly. All that does is enable behavior, not stop it.

I heard that Stalin isn’t any better. He runs a totalitarian country (Russia) and made a pact with Hitler. Call it the nonaggression pact, made so they won’t attack each other.

 

September 15th, 1939

 

Hitler invaded Poland on the 1st. My dad told me that it was a poor move on their part. Hitler is going through all of Europe and attacking countries left and right. Part of that nonaggression pact was that Hitler would stay out of Poland. I don’t know what Russia is planning to do about this. I got all scared, asked my uncle what this means for us. He said that Hitler is only going after the European theater, and that we’re too strong to be attacked.

 

February 14th, 1940

 

It’s Valentine's Day. Me and Konan (my friend) don’t have girls, so we’re spending it together. I live near him, on Pine st; Konan lives in an apartment in Japan town. We got each other chocolate and a shitty, hand-made card that you would give to your parents in elementary school. The two of us were walking around on some of the rooftops in his area; Konan suggested that we get some subs to eat while we were up there. We were sitting down on a blanket and eating our subs. Konan was telling me about his mom and how she adopted a kitty named Kitty. I said that it was a stupid name, and he agreed. I asked him how school was going, he asked me about sports, and talked about everything and anything after that. I noticed that it was getting darker and suggested that we give each other our cards. Konan gave me his and I gave him mine. We already ate the chocolate. My card was decorated with blue crayon and stickers. On the inside it said: “Happy Valintins Day Josef!” There was a cool drawing of a flower. I didn’t tell Konan that he spelled Valentines wrong, or my name, for the matter. 

The sun was setting, and we decided to spend our last moments watching it. I wrapped the blanket around the both of us and huddled close to Konan, it was cold after all. The night was silent and peaceful. 

Once it was dark and the streetlights were turned on, Konan offered to walk me home. We jokingly held hands since it was still Valentine's Day and continued to do so until we were at my house.

 

April 7th, 1940

 

I heard that Hitler is planning to attack France. My dad and David think that he’s too stupid to do that. Every single place over there is guarded with French soldiers. I think it’s scary still. Hitler has those U-boat things, ships that go underwater. How is France supposed to fight against that? David told me to shut up when I expressed this concern to him. 

Later that day, I went over to Konan’s house. He was listening to the radio, nothing interesting was on there, though. I told him about France and Germany and the U-boats. He told me that it’s very scary indeed, and that David just doesn’t want to think about Hitler having an advantage. I was glad that he agreed with me.

 

May 25th, 1940

 

Konan and I were laying in my bed when David ran into my room. He looked scared. He kept saying my name but nothing else. Konan got up and managed to calm him down enough to say actual words. 

Hitler’s attack against France was successful. 

I didn’t know what to say at first. The room was filled with tension and fear. I looked at my older brother, nervous and unsteady, and felt a hand on my shoulder. Konan squeezed it, a silent reassurance. I finally got words to form and asked David how they did it. Was it the U-boats?

David said it was something called Blitzkrieg. A use of warfare that administers swift, focused blows at the enemy.

David said that the one unguarded part of France was the Ardennes Forest, so thick and heavy that none of them thought the Germans could get through.“They used tanks”, David said, and went through the Forest easily. I asked why he was so scared. He said that if they can get through France, they can probably stand a chance against Britain. “That could me war for us, right?” Konan asked. David went quiet again. War is exactly what he’s so scared of. David left after that. Konan and I just sat on my bed for a while before turning on his radio that he brought over.  I don’t want war.

 

April 3rd, 1940

David’s joining the Navy. Dad’s all proud of him for it, saying that the Navy has been a tradition for the men in our family. David was bragging about how he was going to beat Hitler’s ass if we ever go to war. My uncle told him that it was a noble choice, given how bad things are looking for our allied countries right now. “All for our country, you know?” David told him, and they all laughed and called him brave. I tried my best to laugh along, but I was worried. I don’t want David out in the sea, he can’t even swim. In fact, he’s terrified of the pcean. I know that David is going to call me stupid for it. I think he’s stupid for this.

 

July 16th, 1940

 

Britain was attacked by Hitler. Another Blitzkrieg, Konan says. They used airstrikes and was bombing the whole place. They won, of course, but all of their weapons and money and food are running low. My uncle is saying that the US has created something now called the Land-Lease, which allows us to lend or lease weapons and such to other countries. Although the US is supposed to be neutral on the war, it would be beneficiary to help out Britain and any other country against Hitler.

 

August 12th, 1940

 

Konan tells me that he wants to take me somewhere, a lake that he knows of. It was hot, so I followed him without any questions. The lake wasn’t much. It was medium-sized and had a bit of trash in it. 

“Is this the lake?”

“Sure is.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Do you not like it? Were you expecting a pristine lake of the Bahamas?”

“No, no, not at all. It’s just not as big.”

“If it was big, then it wouldn’t be just us.”

“That’s true, I suppose.”

And so I stripped my clothes and got into the lake. Konan is a competitive swimmer. He has a lean body with some nice muscle. He always won the “hold your breath underwater” competitions that other kids would challenge him to. He immediately began splashing around the lake. I tried catching up to him at first, but he was too fast. I decided that I was going to do tricks and stuff in the water. I attempted some flips and a handstand, which was unsuccessful. I was so focused on my tricks that I didn’t notice the violent splashing approaching me. I felt fingers poking into both of my sides, which made me inhale some water out of surprise. I stuck my head out of the water and began to cough up the water. Konan held me in place since we were in the middle of the lake and I couldn’t touch the bottom without my nose hitting the surface of the water. He laughed and told me he was sorry while patting my back. Once I was done dying, I went to the grass and basked in the sun. I watched Konan swimming around. He went from playful, to graceful, and then to aggressive depending on what he was doing in there. I was content with this, just Konan and me outside where no one else is around. I closed my eyes and took a nap, blissfully unaware of Konan getting out of the lake and laying beside me.

 

August 23rd, 1940

 

My uncle told me that the entire pacific theater might have to go into total war if Hitler keeps going at his rate. Winston Churchill, prime minister of Britain, had accepted the Land-Lease with the US. All sorts of weapons were being sent to the UK. I asked what this has to do with us, David answered instead.

“So you know how Dad’s in the Navy, right?”

“You are too.”

“Not yet, Next year I will. I’ll be 18 by then.”

“Okay, Well, what about him being in the Navy?”

“Dad told me that Hitler’s U-boats are attacking our cargo and supplies ships! Sending holes through them and such. That means that Germany is coming for the US now, too.”

My uncle nodded. He was all solemn. He said that things are getting fiery with Japan as well. They seem to have formed an alliance with Germany and Italy. So, between Japan and their advances across the world, and Germany’s advances against us, total war seems likely. 

Then, he left and said he had work to do, leaving David and I together. I think he could sense that I was scared. 

“Once I join the Navy, I’m going to make sure that nothing happens over here, okay? So is dad and Uncle Roger.”

I could only nod and felt David ruffle my hair. That was the night the nightmares began.

 

March 2nd, 1941

 

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY! I’m officially 17 years old. David woke me up with a pillow to my face. He tackled me to the floor, and we wrestled until I surrendered. He said happy birthday and told me that we’re going out to breakfast. Dad isn’t here, he’s off somewhere in the south. Our aunt comes and checks in on us periodically. 

Dad had given me a letter with money inside, a good $20 bill. I was also given a stack of comics from him. David took me to a diner that I’ve never been to before. I got myself pancakes and eggs. David said I could, even though it was a bit pricey. After breakfast, we went and got me a new baseball cap, and David a pack of ciggs. 

It was around 1:35 pm by the time we go home, doing some little errands on the way. In my room was Konan with his bag on my floor and a book in his hands. I slowly crept up to him, praying that my footsteps didn’t give anything away. When I was close to enough, I grabbed onto his shoulders and yelled into his ear. He screamed, his book leaving his hands. 

“You’re an asshole!”

“Yes, and you’re an intruder.”

I smiled at him. He gave me a hug and wished me a happy birthday. Konan apologized to me about not having a present, but it was fine. We looked through the comics that my dad gave me and took turns reading the dialogue out loud. 

The park nearby was closed due to construction or something, so we decided to stay inside. It had started raining 15 minutes after the decision was made.

Konan and I went to the dining room where David was, reading newspapers and such. 

“Anything new?”

“Yeah, the Japanese.”

I looked at Konan, and he looked at me. He smiled before speaking. 

“What did I do to you, huh?”

David looked up to see my friend who, might I add, is very Japanese. David smiled back and laughed.

“Not you. I mean the government. They’re island hopping.”

“What’s island hopping?”

“Avoiding bigger countries and taking over smaller, more defenseless ones. The US has been trying to tell them to stop for quite some time now, but they won’t listen.”

“Have we tried threatening them?”

“Yeah, me and Joseph’s dad says that we might withhold oil from them. I don’t know if we’ll actually do it.”

“You should.”

“Jeez, kid. Those are your people,”

“Not my country, though. I’m an American first.”

“Hell yeah, nice to hear it.”

And so that was the conversation between Konan and David. To be honest, I never really thought of Japan being Konan’s country. I mean, he’s Japanese, sure, but he’s been in America this whole time. He seems to agree.

 

Later that night, Konan and I were chilling in my bed again. We listened to some music as we each did our own thing. Konan was sitting up and reading his book, and I was laying on him, focusing on the record that was playing. With the beat of the music and the sound of Konan’s breathing, I was lulled to sleep faster than I expected.

 

July 1st, 1941

 

My dad had been discharged from the Navy due to a pretty gnarly cut on his leg. He has a limp that the doctors say will be permanent. By the time he got out, David had been accepted in and is now gone. He’s in Pearl Harbor for now, all the way in Hawaii. Just before he left the two of us got into a big fight, I’ll apologize when he comes home.

Dad said that things keep getting worse. Hitler had attacked the USSR on June 22nd, so not too long ago. Hitler failed, dad told me. And now Russia is our ally.

“They’ve been on Hitler’s side this whole time, why would we accept them as our ally?”

“They were neutral with Hitler. Italy is the one that’s been on Germany’s side. Russia was attacked, and they’re joining the war officially. This helps us.”

“Why does it help?”

“Because we now have one more country fighting with us, in a sense.”

It’s been stressful on my uncle, I heard, because of the threat of going to war with both Germany and Japan. He and his coworkers don’t know what to do. I worry about David the most. He’s all the way in Hawaii and dealing with the water. Ships are constantly being attacked by the Nazis. It’s very possible that Germany will move on to the Navy base.

 

September 14th, 1941

 

Konan is currently very pissed. 

I was walking with him in the park by the school when a group of guys were throwing paper and food at him. The boys were around our age, but I didn’t recognize them. They were calling him names like “Dirty Jap” and making their eyes take the shape of thin slits, meant to mock Konan’s own eyes. It looked like they were going to come closer to us, so I grabbed Konan and dragged him away. He kept yelling back at the boys, calling them degenerates that aspire to disappoint their own mothers.

By the time we got away to a safe enough distance, Konan was so red that I thought he had popped multiple blood vessels. I tried my best to calm him down at first, but I realized that I should just let him blow off some steam. 

Apparently, this is a very common occurrence as of late. Not just those boys, but the overall harassment of his people. Japan town has become dangerous to roam at night, certain neighborhoods in general just too dangerous to show up in even during the day. Posters depicting Japanese people as cartoon villains and exaggerated caricatures all around California. I hadn’t even noticed it.

 “I hate them all. My people didn’t do jack shit and here we are, being treated like the villains!” 

Konan was kicking the rocks in his way with such force that they were just as deadly as a bullet.

 “I mean, what good does it do the government to make fun of us? You saw how those boys were back there, right, Joseph?”

 “Yeah, I saw them.”

 “And you agree, that this whole thing is stupid?”

 “Kinda.”

Looking back, I heavily regret my word choice. I wish I never said that at all. I wish that I could’ve just agreed. I knew that saying “kinda” was a mistake as soon as Konan stopped walking. He just stared at me, a silent anger that only my mother could pull off.

 “What do you mean by that?”

 “Well, like,”

I gulped, unsure if I should continue

 “Like what, Joseph? Tell me.”

 “Well, the Japanese are threatening to go to war with us. It’s just like Hitler and the Germans, and Stalin and the Soviets before joining. You’re making it sound like propaganda.”

 “Because it is Joseph!”

 “No, it’s not, your people are threatening war with our people.”

 “My people are just as American as you!”

 “No, you’re Japanese.”

 “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

I could hear the strain in his voice, which caused me to look at him. He had tears in his eyes, and no longer looked angry. Instead, he had a face of hurt. At that moment, I felt ashamed. Shame for even considering him the same as the Japanese that were fighting against America. Just him asking that question had given me a moment of clarity. Konan is Japanese American, and that is all the difference.

 “I’m sorry… I don’t know what I mean by that, either.”

 Konan began to walk the other way, back to where those boys were. He said nothing.

 “Please, Konan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what I’m talking about, I know I don't know, Konan please.”

I caught his shoulder, but he just shrugged me off of him. I continued to follow him, done with my pleading apologies. He knew that I was following him. At first, I thought that he didn’t mind until we got halfway past our usual path.

 “You should go home, Joseph.”

 “Are you mad at me?”

 “I’ll talk to you later.”

I felt a great sense of defeat. We have not spoken since. The only part of that conversation that I’m clinging onto is the fact that, at some point in time, Konan will talk to me again.

 

September 24th, 1941

 

Konan and I are talking again. 

During school, Leon and his friends were whispering about something. They kept looking at me and then back at some poster that the school had hanging up. The poster area was all about the war that is happening, so naturally I assumed that Leon was talking about my family. I went up to the line of posters. All of them were talking about the Nazis and Hitler, except for two. One was an older poster about the USSR, and the other was about the Japanese. I felt sick. Suddenly I remembered the argument that Konan and I had last Sunday. After the sickness came anger. What could those guys possibly be talking about? It took everything in me not to tear the poster down. If I did, I would never hear the end of it from my family.

I looked across the hallway and spotted Konan and some of his friends from his neighborhood. The area got quiet. All the white kids stared at the small group, a clear tension between White America vs Japanese America. Someone from behind me cut the silence in half with some name-calling and a well calculated throw of a pencil. At first there were snickers, then some whispering, and eventually more school supplies being thrown at the group. The main perpetrator was that idiot behind me. I turned around and made eye contact with him. I said no words aloud, but I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was gonna kick his ass.

I was given detention for a week straight. I thought that I was going to be in more trouble than I actually was, fortunately. Dad was angry that I caused a scene and beat the kid up, but he understood that I was standing up for a friend. I didn’t tell him that Konan and I weren’t talking at the moment, and I’m glad. I went to the dining room in order to get to the stairs, only to see Konan sitting down at the table, doing his homework. He didn’t notice me at first. I slowly walked over to him, pulling out a chair and sitting down. He sat down his pencil and turned to face me. We stared each other in the eyes, not speaking a single word. There he was, studying my face and me studying his. It was one of those moments that you try to savor, but can never remember once it’s done.

“You don’t have to fight for me.”

Was the first thing Konan said. I was taken aback.

“What?”

“I said you don’t have to fight for me. I don’t want to be honored or defended with violence. It’ll only make things worse.”

“Oh.”

I played with Konan’s hand, moving his fingers around and tracing the lines of his palms.

“I’m sorry.”

“I am too.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything.”

“You got yourself hurt. You wouldn’t have done that if I tried to resolve that argument we had. I know you.”

“That’s still not your fault. Just because I’m still upset doesn’t mean that you have to apologize.”

“I know. How’s your head? There’s a pretty ugly knot rising on it, and I saw how that guy slammed you into the door handle.”

“It’s fine. Just a little sore.”

“Do you need some ice?”

“Not right now. I want to know how you’ve been.”

Konan smiled. He took his hand back and put away his homework. As he was doing so, Konan began to ramble about the stuff he’s been up to. A new book that he just finished, a math test that he aced, his dog Theo learning how to shake hands, a date with a girl, learning how to fix a car engine with his dad, his mom making him his favorite dish. There was only one part that I focused on, the rest was a blur.

“You were on a date? With who?”

Konan’s smile faded, and instead he became a little embarrassed.

“Just some girl. Donna something. My mom set us up.”

“But did you actually enjoy it?”

Konan gave me a quizzical look, and realized right then and there just how jealous I sounded. To be honest, my voice didn’t even give away a fraction of how jealous I really was. I don’t why, but the thought of Konan with someone doesn’t sit right with me. Same as when other people play with his hair, or sleep over at his house (even though only I’m allowed to sleep with him in bed), or have private outings with him just hanging out. I’m not gay for him or anything, but I’d rather keep more intimate stuff between us.

“Well, no, she was too much. Donna just talked and talked and talked about anything. It was like a collection of small talk being thrown at you all in one go.”

We laughed at that and I immediately felt much better. I told him about what I’ve been up to and how I was so tired and just wanted to get in my bed. He offered to stay the night at the mention of that. So, Konan and I ate dinner with my dad before hurrying off to go to sleep. Things were officially back to normal when he and I were a tangle of limbs in my bed, differences now past us.

 

December 10th, 1941

 

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Sunday. 

Their method was air strike. The Japanese had bombed our ships and land, no one was prepared. America had withdrawn oil resources from them due to them being a part of the axis (along with Germany and Italy) and island hopping all around. There seems to be a huge amount of deaths that the attack caused. We are trying our best to get ahold of David. I hope he can tell us what happened and where he was when it happened. Our uncle wants to get as many first hand accounts as possible.

 

Konan and I were at his house for dinner since my dad and uncle were trying to find out where David was. Konan said that his cousins had left Pearl Harbor just an hour before the attack and how the military is suspicious of them. His oldest cousin, Masaru, was pulled into questioning that night and the others have been in and out of their homes. His mom was making food when she overheard us talking about Konan’s cousins. She asked us if we knew any information on what they’ll be doing with them. I told her that my uncle is in the WCCA and that it’s not exactly something that they’re focused on, just questions about those guys since they were Japanese and fled the scene just in time. This made her feel at ease, to know that other Japanese people weren’t being targeted. I’ll ask David about that too when he comes home

 

December 13th, 1941

 

David is Dead. He was on a boat that got hit directly. His body was found in the water. Nothing about him was injured. He drowned. Some say that the waves were too powerful, others say that he was in shock, but I know one thing for certain. Even if that boat was just sinking, David would’ve died. My brother can’t swim, he was always too scared of the sea. I don’t know why he would join the Navy. Tradition, maybe. All that matters is that my brother is dead and is never coming back. I’m sorry David. I’m so, so sorry. I wanted to apologize when you came home. I love you, and you were the best brother that I could ever have. 

 

December 27th, 1941

 

Christmas wasn’t the same for anyone in the US. The attack on Pearl Harbor turned the holiday into a day of grief. Mom died around Christmastime as well. My uncle is working, he barely had time to stop by. It was just dad and I. He had lost now both a wife and son, while I had lost a mom and brother. I don’t think we ever left each other's sides.

 

January 23rd, 1942

 

It’s the new year. My dad woke me up today with the news that the US is now officially allies with other countries like France, Britain, and more. This means for certain that we’re going to war. I remember my uncle saying something about protecting American citizens and how we can’t just supply and observe anymore. I can’t blame him after what had just happened. 

Konan came over today. He shook hands with my dad and asked how he’s been. Normally, my uncle would’ve been thrilled to see him. Today, he didn’t even look at him. Konan seemed unfazed. My uncle said that he would like to have a word with my father and for us to run off somewhere inside since it was snowing out.

Konan and I went to my room. We haven’t seen each other since David’s funeral. He told me that he was worried about something and that he’d tell me the next time he’s come over.

            “So, what was it that you have been so worried about?”

            “Hitler is getting rid of all the Jews.”

I blinked. Then blinked again.

            “I’m sorry what?”

            “Just 3 days ago. He and other Nazi and government officials all banded together. Called it the Wannsee conference. The came up with a final solution to kill off all the Jewish people.”

“What’s the solution? Do you know?”

“They’re going to send them all away to camps where they’ll be killed.”

“You’re lying.”

“I wouldn’t lie about something like this.”

“It’s just…why? What the hell would he need to do that for?”

“They’re all sick in the head, the Germans.”                        

The two of us talked some more about the Wannsee conference until my dad called down for Konan. I was told to stay up in my room. I wonder what they were talking about.

 

February 19th, 1942

 

I hate my uncle. I hate the WCCA. I hate the government. And I’m scared. It’s just been announced that all Japanese citizens that reside along the west coast will be moved to internment camps due to the distrust that the bombing of Pearl Harbor has caused. These camps will be put in the middle of nowhere and letters and gifts will not be allowed between the camps and the outside world. It’s not fair. They didn’t do anything. They’re all Americans, aren’t they? They pledge to the flag and enlist in the military, just like most. It’s cruel.

 

March 31st, 1942

 

I turned 18 this month, but that hardly matters. It’s Konan’s last day in San Francisco before his family will have to leave at 10pm. Due to his cousins being prime suspects, his family will be one of the first to be moved into the internment camps. I had been helping them pack their things, much against my uncle’s wishes, and took Kitty into my home. Konan's parents said that we should run off somewhere one last time, but to avoid the public. We went back to the lake.

 

The lake was too cold to swim in, and the ground was icy and hard. We didn’t mind. It was silent between us, just our bodies up against each other for warmth. It wasn’t until I heard a choking sound come from Konan that I realized he was crying. I put my arm around him and held him close. He just cried and cried, at some point he let out a what sounded like the guttural scream of a wounded animal. I tried my best to comfort him, but we both knew that there was a vast uncertainty that neither one of us could smooth over nor distract the other from. We sat like that until my fingers stung from the cold and my cheeks lost all feeling. We had went back to his house hand in hand.

 

Night came. I went along with my friend’s family to say goodbye. His mother hugged me tight and kissed me on the cheek, his dad gave me a firm shoulder squeeze and a hand shake, and Konan pulled me aside with just seconds to spare.

            “Dude what are you doing? You need to leave.”

            “I need to tell you something.”

            “What is it?”

           “Remember this Joseph, please.”

 

“I love you”

 

And with those words he left to get on the train with his family, and I was left with a million thoughts and then some.

 

February 7th, 1943

 

Konan is still in those internment camps, David is still dead, and the war is getting worse. 

There are some good things though.

The Stalingrad ended recently. What happened was that Hitler decided that he wanted to try and take over Russia. Stupid move in my opinion. This war started last year in August and has finally ceased with Soviet success. Due to Hitler turning on Russia, the country has decided to join the allies, which is amazing for us. One more country fighting on our side.

My dad has been getting better with walking, he’s able to hobble around without his cane.

Kitty has learned how to so a half-assed backflip for treats, which is cute.

I’m going to enlist in the air force at some point, I believe. I feel as if it’s safer. The water could drown me, and the majority of the enemy is on the ground anyway. 

 

March 14th, 1944

 

I’m old enough to join the air force, and so for my birthday that’s what I did. It’s a dangerous thing, I know, but I want change. I want to fight for this country like David had wanted to. I know that he dreamed of being some big time hero. I’m not going to end up dead like he is, I know I won’t. 

There’s also some cool new computer that was invented. It’s called the colossus. It’s super cool, man. I don’t think I could ever buy it, it’s only for professional use. Politics and war for now.

 

May 6th, 1944

 

I’ve been thinking about Konan a lot, lately. I miss him. I wonder how those camps are treating the guy. I hope he’s still alive. My dad says that once the war’s over, the Japanese should be released from the camps and allowed to go back home. Even more inspiration to join the air force.

I still think about what he said to me last. That he loved me. Maybe it was the heat of the moment, or maybe he actually felt that way. Maybe he just meant it in a purely friendly way. I don’t know which I would’ve preferred. I know my dad would never let me see him again if I told him what he had said. When he comes back I’ll have to ask for clarity, but even still, I’m not very sure how I would’ve taken it if he actually means it.

 

June 15th, 1944

 

The US has gone into full on war now. I’ve finally flown a plane. It was terrifying.

I was dodging Hitler’s planes and making sure that I shoot them down without going down myself. I always thought that it would be as simple as pushing a button and watching as an enemy plane explodes, but no. It’s much worse. We’re currently hiding out in some base, hopefully it’s hidden enough. Although, I do hear bombs that are awfully close.

 

May 8th, 1944

 

We did it. Germany surrendered once again. America is safe. My family is safe. Konan is safe. Kitty is safe. I thought I would feel more victorious, more animated. I don’t even know what it is that I’m feeling. Although, I still have one more job to do. We aren’t finished with Japan. We will make sure that they never forget which country’s in charge. Scientists like Oppenheimer have been working on the world's first nuclear bomb. We call it the Manhattan Project. Our plan is to use it against Japan, they’ll never be able to top this.

 

Aug 6th, 1944

 

The bombing was a success. Little Boy, the bomb, was dropped on Hiroshima, a major city in Japan. The damage was horrendous. One of the largest deaths in that country, most likely. I was a part of the crew that flew in and did our duties.

The people treated me like a hero, someone who could do no wrong. They were incorrect. I can still feel the blood on my hands of all the lives I took across seas. I can hear the screams of German soldiers, both in pain and watching their fellow soldiers get killed and mutilated.  I can only imagine the devastation that Little Boy caused. I’m a sinful man that deserves no praise.

 

December 17th, 1944

 

Maybe it’s cruel that this will be done near Christmas. I think of it as tradition. Mom passes away from cancer, David dies from an attack, and I die by my own hands.

But really, I’m sorry. I’m sorry dad, for leaving you by yourself, but I just can’t live with this guilt. You were amazing to us, even though you lost two of the people that you loved most.

I’m sorry David. I know you wouldn’t want me to end things this way, but I can’t keep going. I fulfilled your dream of becoming an American hero, but it wasn’t worth it. I will not be joining you and mama, I will be with the Devil himself.

I’m sorry mama. You always told me that I was strong-willed and spirited. You gave me more chances than I ever deserved. You told me on your deathbed that you know that I’ll do something great one day. Is this really that great, mama?

 

And Konan. Oh, I am so, so sorry Konan. I can’t go on without you. I fear that you will never get out of those camps. I fear that you might also be dead. You were my best friend, and I wish you the best if you ever do make it back to California. And I’ve decided that after all these years I have loved you. I love you, I love you, I love you. And if you are to make it back home, I leave you my journals. This one especially.

Goodbye.

 

-Joseph

Hello, Konan here. I’ve decided to finish this journal since Joseph could not. I never expected to hear the news of his death, and looking at the date of his last entry, I wish he could’ve waited one more day. Just the day afterward, December 18th, I was released from my internment camps. His father had hugged me at the funeral and couldn’t let go. It was a closed casket, and you really don’t want to know why.

But, nonetheless, I will finish the story of the war,

 

So, after the bombing of Japan, the war was officially over. Many Asian and European countries lye in ruins due to how costly and violent this war had become. Japan alone couldn’t even produce enough good for its own people. 

The thing is, the allies had found it very difficult to continue with peace. Currently, we are in somewhat of a war with the USSR due to tension and different goals. I was thinking about joining the military like Masaru, but I’ve decided against it. And that’s the story of World War 2

P.S

I miss you, Joseph. I’ll miss you and love you forever. You will never leave my mind until the day that I die, and then we can be sinners together.

#ww2 #ww2 history

[blueiskewl]

Mysterious 12-Sided Roman Object Found in Belgium  

A fragment of a mysterious artifact known as a Roman dodecahedron has been found in Belgium.

A metal detectorist in Belgium has unearthed a fragment of a mysterious bronze artifact known as a Roman dodecahedron that is thought to be more than 1,600 years old.

More than a hundred of the puzzling objects — hollow, 12-sided geometric shells of cast metal about the size of baseballs, with large holes in each face and studs at each corner — have been discovered in Northern Europe over the past 200 years. But no one knows why or how they were used.

"There have been several hypotheses for it — some kind of a calendar, an instrument for land measurement, a scepter, etcetera — but none of them is satisfying," Guido Creemers (opens in new tab), a curator at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, Belgium, told Live Science in an email. "We rather think it has something to do with non-official activities like sorcery, fortune-telling and so on."

Creemers and his colleagues at the Gallo-Roman Museum were given the fragment by its finder and identified it in December. It consists of only one corner of the object with a single corner stud, but it is unmistakably part of a dodecahedron that originally measured just over 2 inches (5 centimeters) across.

Metal detectorist and amateur archaeologist Patrick Schuermans had found the fragment months earlier in a plowed field near the small town of Kortessem, in Belgium's northern Flanders region.

Creemers said the Gallo-Roman Museum already displays a complete ancient bronze dodecahedron found in 1939 just outside Tongeren's Roman city walls, and the new fragment will go on display next to it in February.

Mysterious dodecahedrons

The first Roman dodecahedron to be discovered in modern times was found in England in the 18th century, and roughly 120 have been found since then in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

It's not possible to date the metal itself, but some dodecahedrons were found buried in layers of earth that date them to between the first and fifth centuries A.D.

The mystery doesn't end there; archaeologists cannot explain the geometric artifact's function, and no written record of the dodecahedrons has ever been found.

It's possible they were used in secret for magical purposes, such as divination (telling the future), which was popular in Roman times but forbidden under Christianity, the religion of the later Roman Empire, Creemers said. "These activities were not allowed, and punishments were severe," he explained. "That is possibly why we do not find any written sources."

Several explanations for the mysterious artifacts have been suggested over the years. Initially, they were described as "mace heads" and were thought to be part of a weapon. Other ideas are that they were tools for determining the right time to plant grain (opens in new tab); that they were dice, or other objects for playing a game; and that they were instruments for measuring distance (opens in new tab), possibly for finding the right range for Roman artillery, such as ballistas.

A recent suggestion is that dodecahedrons were knitting patterns for Roman gloves.

But most archaeologists think the objects were probably used in magical rituals. The dodecahedrons have no markings indicating how they were used, as might be expected for measuring instruments, and they all have different weights and sizes, ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 inches (4 to 11 centimeters) across.

Roman dodecahedrons are also found only in the Roman Empire's northwestern areas, and many were unearthed at burial sites. These clues suggest that the cult or magical practice of using them was restricted to the "Gallo-Roman" regions — the parts of the later Roman Empire influenced by Gauls or Celts, according to Tibor Grüll (opens in new tab), a historian at the University of Pécs in Hungary who has reviewed the academic literature (opens in new tab) about dodecahedrons.

Ancient puzzle

Creemers said the dodecahedron fragment found near Kortessem could shed more light on these mysterious metal objects. Many other Roman dodecahedrons were first recognized for what they were in private or museum collections, so their archaeological context is unknown, he said.

But the location of the Kortessem fragment is well documented, he said; and subsequent archaeological investigations have revealed mural fragments at the site, indicating that it may have been a Roman villa.

A translated statement by the Flanders Heritage Agency (opens in new tab) said the fractured surfaces of the fragment indicate that the dodecahedron had been deliberately broken, possibly during a final ritual.

The location will now be monitored for further finds.

"Thanks to the correct working method of the metal detectorist, archaeologists know for the first time the exact location of a Roman dodecahedron in Flanders," the statement said. "That opens the door for further research."

By Tom Metcalfe.

#Mysterious 12-Sided Roman Object Found in Belgium #archeology #archeolgst #metal detector #metal detecting finds #roman dodecahedron #ancient artifacts #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #roman history #roman empire

[resolviendolaincognita]

The whimsical soul of ships

According to the folklore of the sailors of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, on long voyages they always had company on their ships. It was an invisible crewman who made himself subtly or outrageously noticeable: the ship's spirit.

The ship's spirit was a type of elf that the Norwegians call nisse, the Swedes tomte and the Finns tomtenisse or tontu, i.e., it belongs to the same type of beings as Santa's helpers. In Germany, the equivalent of these beings was the kobold; in Brittany, France, it is a lutin or luiton; in the Netherlands, it was a kabouter(man), while in Great Britain it was a puck, pixie or brownie. On the whole, they are mischievous little domestic or nature creatures that help those who favor them and harm those who do not. However, as these creatures are best known when on a ship is by their German name, klabautermann ("Striker"). In Denmark, it may appear assimilated with skibsnisse, while in the Frisian Islands, Schleswig-Holstein and Pomerania it may appear assimilated with puck.

The klabautermann was a ship-dwelling goblin. As a goblin, he was a small, pipe-wielding being who acted according to the respect he received. If he was well cared for, the voyages prospered and the ship was protected. Because of this, he can appear as a carpenter who fixes at night everything that breaks during the day, which is why he is also called klütermann. Conversely, if he was abandoned, the ship would meet its end. When he was heard restlessly running about the shrouds, making noises in the rigging and in the hold, it was the signal for the crew to leave the ship immediately. His mood also manifested itself in less extreme situations. He was believed to maintain order and discipline on the ship by shouting orders, especially among the young and unruly crewmen. To sailors, he could be both a help and a hindrance, hitting them on the head, humiliating them, taunting them or punishing wrongdoers. In fact, the name klabautermann was derived from the commotion he caused.

Besides looking like a carpenter or smoking a pipe, he wore yellow breeches, horseman's boots, a red or gray jacket and a cap like that of the American pilgrims, also reminiscent of the top hat of the leprechaun. He had a large red head and green teeth and used to sit under the halter. The horseman's boots, with which he used to appear in calm seas, could be related to horse latitudes near the equator, at 30° north latitude and 38° south latitude. It seems that these received their name because, in this area of high pressure, travel was slower, having to ration water and slaughter the horses that consumed more.

Now, how was the klabautermann born? Well, according to the beliefs, the soul of a ship was the same that was in the wood of the trees. The trees could have obtained the soul of a human being or possessed the soul of another being. This is possibly related to the Vårdträd or Tuntre, sacred trees planted on special occasions that represented ancestors and nature spirits.

Although it is a connection without unanimous support, it is related to Seals of Sinope, to whom traditionally sailors served a portion of each meal. This was bought by a traveler, whose money remained in the hands of the captain to be distributed among the poor upon arrival at port.

#folklore #klabautermann #ships #sea #hidden people #mythical creatures #world mythology #spirits

[nordleuchten]

Hello! Do you by any chance know where Lafayette and his family lived after they were released from Olmütz, and waiting to go back to France?

Dear @mxtallmadge,

yes, I do know by chance where the La Fayette’s stayed in exile before returning to France. Thank you for the question, this is actually one of my favourite episodes in La Fayette’s life.

They first went to a place called Gut Wittmoldt (the family often used slightly different spellings) that was located on the banks of the Plöner See. Madame de Tessé, Adrienne’s aunt, had rented the property and several emigrees lived there or in the surround area. La Fayette’s daughter Virginie wrote in her book:

At last on the 10th of October 1797 we arrived at Witmold a property Mme de Tessé had bought in a peninsula on lake Ploën. (…) At Witmold, my mother recovered her strength, and found repose of body and mind. My father found his friends. He was fond of Mme de Tessé, and had with her on every point complete community of opinions. His political life had met with her constant approbation, and you may fancy what charm five years of silence at Olmütz added to Mme de Tessé’s lively, animated and piquante conversation.

Mme de Lasteyrie, Life of Madame de Lafayette, L. Techener, London, 1872, pp. 372-373.

For the winter months of 1797/98, La Fayette rented Gut Lehmkuhlen, close by Wittmold. There were several reasons for the move. The family wanted to have a place of their own – and not everybody was as much in perfect agreement with La Fayette’s political opinions and actions as Madame de Tessé was. Virginie wrote:

Mme de Maisonneuve came to see her brother and joined us at Lhemkulen, a large castle in Holstein, near Witmold, which my father had hired for the winter. Shortly afterwards my brother arrived from Mount Vernon. Under General Washington’s paternal care he had become a man. My mother was happy and so were her children.

Mme de Lasteyrie, Life of Madame de Lafayette, L. Techener, London, 1872, p. 374.

After the winter months, the family moved back to Wittmoldt. It was then and there that Anastasie married. After the wedding, the family moved to Vianen, near Utrecht. Again turning to Virginie:

After a short stay there [Paris], and a visit to Mme de Chavaniac in Auvergne, we all met again in the following year 1799 at Vianen, near Utrecht. My father had come there from Holstein, with George. Exiles can fix themselves nowhere. Their only thought is to abandon their momentary home, their only wish to depart.

Mme de Lasteyrie, Life of Madame de Lafayette, L. Techener, London, 1872, p. 377.

Adrienne and Virginie had been in Paris and in the Auvergne, while La Fayette, Georges and Anastasie, now pregnant, had moved directly to Vianen. Adrienne and Virginie followed them there.

Gut Wittmoldt and Gut Lehmkuhlen were in a region that was then known as Danish Holstein. The region was very interesting from a cultural and social aspect, and it became the refuge for many French exiles. The region is today part of Northern Germany.

Vianen is a city in the Netherlands. By the time of the La Fayette’s settlement there, it belonged to the Batavian Republic.

I have made a detailed post about the La Fayette’s home in Vianen here.

I have no specific posts about either Wittmoldt or Lehmkuhlen – what is slightly ironic because I am very often in that area and have visited Wittmoldt especially quite often, but I never took any pictures.

Lehmkuhlen has, rather recently, been turned into a biogas plant but the gardens of the former estate have been preserved.

Wittmoldt is still owned by the same family and on their website they even advertise with the fact that La Fayette and his family stayed on their property. Today, the estate hosts many cultural events like concerts, workshops and art and craft markets. They also offer Equine-assisted therapy. Furthermore, Gut Wittmoldt can be rented for weddings or the like (the chapel where Anastasie married is no longer standing). Several of the buildings on the property have also been turned into guesthouses for tourists. Most modern buildings in Wittmoldt are from the 1860’s but there is at least the old bakehouse from the early 1790’s that La Fayette would have known and that also had been turned into a guesthouse.

I hope the information was helpful. I have a la fayette in exile-tag, that might interest you as well. I hope you have/had a lovely day!

#ask me anything #mxtallmadge #la fayette in exile #marquis de lafayette #la fayette #french history #american history #french revolution #history #1797 #1798 #wittmoldt #lehmkuhlen #anastasie de la fayette #virginie de la fayette #georges de la fayette #adrienne de la fayette #adrienne de noailles #vianen