Ghosts of War
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Dangerous crossing: Soldiers race up Avenue de Paris in Cherbourg in 1944, speeding past the rubble and over modern-day road markings
Fear and fighting: The original image from 1944, before it was laid over a photo taken from the exact same spot today
Startling contrast: Dutch historian Jo Teeuwisse finds pictures from archives and then researches their background, before taking a picture in the same place now and elegantly interweaving them
DERELICTION OF DUTIES by
American Leaders and the
Sacrifice of Bataan
The greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. --JFK, June 11, 1962
APRIL, 1942. ROOSEVELT SAID HELP WOULD BE ON THE WAY FOR BATAAN, BUT HE WAS LYING. HE CLAIMED THAT HE COULD NOT GET HELP THROUGH TO THE PHILLIPINES, HOWEVER IN APRIL OF '42 WE HAD THE BATTLESHIPS NEW MEXICO, MISSISSIPPI, IDAHO, COLORADO, MARYLAND AND PENNSYLVANIA IN SERVICE. THE BRAND NEW BATTLESHIP WASHINGTON WAS IN SERVICE ESCORTING SUPPLIES TO MURMANSK. WE COULD SUPPLY THE RUSSIANS BUT NOT OUR OWN TROOPS. THE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS LEXINGTON, SARATOGA, YORKTOWN, ENTERPRISE, HORNET WERE ALL AVAILABLE. THE WASP WAS BUSY ESCORTING SUPPLIES TO MALTA, ONCE AGAIN AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR OWN TROOPS! WHY DID ROOSEVELT DECIDE TO LET THOSE BRAVE SOLDIERS DIE WHILE HE HAD THE FORCE AVAILABLE TO HELP??? The flawed Europe First policy resulted in the death of American soldiers. These ships and troops should have first been allocated to protect American lives. To use our newest battleship to help Uncle Joe instead of making a task force to help Americans is criminal. People like to think Roosevelt had no choice but he did and he made a flawed political choice rather than a good moral choice. We could have taken the battle to the Japanese early on but the Pacific was always given a low priority in comparison with Europe. Since I don't recall Germany bombing us at Pearl Harbor the Europe first choice seems an odd idea that cost many Americans their lives.  |     |
| I'm still wondering if anyone can tell me what threat Germany was to the U.S. in 1941-42? Why "Europe First"??? Could it have been to help out Stalins regime at the expense of American lives? I just don't see the need for Europe first being in the U.S. strategic intrest at that time. I'd be happy if someone could explain to me how it was strategically better FOR THE USA to be involved in a European war when we were first attacked in the Pacific. Churchill came away from the Atlantic Conference on August 14, 1941, observing the "astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for war." Before we entered the war, FDR sent a delegation to the Vatican to get the Pope to endorse Godless communism - he refused. With lend-lease, a.k.a. Lenin-lease, before Pearl Harbor FDR pressed his aides to allocate and speed shipments to the Soviet Union in the strongest possible way. FDR exerted frenetic personal devotion to the cause of lend-lease to the communists, distinctly favoring Russia over Britain (and US) and if you read page 549 volume 3 of The Secret Diaries of Harold Ickes, Ickes makes it clear that in a choice between England and Russia FDR would have abandoned England: "if the (public) attitude had been one of angry suspicion or even resentment, we would have been confronted with the alternative of abandoning Great Britian or accepting communism..." On August 1, 1941 FDR said about planes for Russia, "we must get 'em, even if it necessary to take from our own troops." Ickes said "we ought to come pretty close to stripping ourselves in view of Russian aid." The US sent 150 P-40's (the newest) when we were woefully short. In 1944 Churchill publicly complained about Britain being treated worse than the Soviet Union (in 1943 we sent 5,000 planes to Russia; overall we sent 20,000 planes and 400,000 trucks - twice as many as they had had before the war, 9 million pairs of boots, complete factories as part of $11 billion in aid that was never expected to be paid back). FDR's oil embargo of Japan forcing them South to take oil-rich Dutch Indonesia, is incomprehensible unless you realize FDR did it to relieve Japanese military threats to the Soviet Union. |
A big coastal gun is fired from fortified American positions on Corregidor Island, at the entrance to Manila Bay on the Philippines, on May 6, 1942. (AP Photo) # 
For the American people, the fall of the Philippines in 1942 evoked neither the shock of Pearl Harbor nor the defiance born of the Alamo's fight to the last man. Bataan and Corregidor, while not forgotten, were overtaken by the swift currents of other World War II battles, as Americans found new losses to lament and growing victories to celebrate. Survivors of the Philippine campaign quietly languished in squalid prisoner of war camps or, in the case of the few who avoided capture, struck at the Japanese in unpublicized guerrilla raids.
Many of these soldiers felt betrayed by both their government and commander. Their grievance went beyond President Roosevelt's order to General MacArthur to depart the Philippines in March 1942. It was rooted in widely disseminated promises Douglas MacArthur made to his soldiers beginning in the first weeks of the war. In message after message, the charismatic commander bolstered the hopes of his Filipino-American force by conjuring images of a vast armada steaming to relieve the besieged archipelago. Without
revealing details, MacArthur told his warriors: "Help is on the way from the United States. Thousands of troops and hundreds of planes are being dispatched. The exact time of arrival in unknown as they will have to fight their way through." I Buoyed by this hope, the half-starved soldiers fought gallantly and continually frustrated the timetable established by the Japanese army.
Japanese forces use flame-throwers while attacking a fortified emplacement on Corregidor Island, in the Philippines in May of 1942. (NARA)
However, the hopes of these brave Americans and Filipinos were misplaced. Even
before his harrowing escape from the Philippines, General MacArthur knew
that relief of the Philippines was all but impossible. Yet, the myth of a large
force bringing desperately needed reinforcements and supplies was perpetuated. As the Bataan perimeter shrank, soldiers kept straining to hear or see the planes and ships promised by their commander. Almost three years would pass before the promise was fulfilled.
Although-the-soldiers stranded in th Philippines cursed-Mac-Arthur for deceiving them, it is clear that the Philippine commander was initially the
victim of lies from his superiors in Washington. The venerable Secretary of
War Henry Stimson, revered Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, and the Commander-in-Chief Franklin Roosevelt are sullied by half-truths and false
denials they conveyed to their field commander in the Pacific. Apologists for these World War II heroes argue that false promises made during those dark days of early 1942 were justified. In their view, official words of hope were essential to foster a fighting spirit, not only among the starving and outnumbered soldiers scattered among the Philippine Islands, but on the American home front as well.
There is no denying that assurances of relief raised more of the beleaguered Philippine garrison. But actions taken by American leaders to create false hope were wrong on two counts. First, the decision not to level with the troops proved, in hindsight, to be a prudential error. The practical outcome of the Philippine campaign might have been favorably altered had local commanders been given a truthful assessment of the relief situation. Second and more important, the lies by Roosevelt, Stimson, Marshall, and MacArthur were unethical. Their infidelity was an unconscionable breach of faith that only deepened the final disillusionment of gallant fighters essentially abandoned by the United States.'
Formulation of a Lie
From the disastrous beginning of the Philippine campaign on 8
December 1941, key leaders sensed the hopelessness of the situation. On that day, Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War and former governor general of the Philippine Islands (1928-1929), noted in his diary: "While MacArthur seems to be putting up a strong defense, he is losing planes very fast and, with the sea cut off by the loss of the Pacific 1 fleet, we should be unable to reinforce
him probably in time to save the islands. However, we have started everything going that we could. ,,'
Stimson's thoughts, recorded on the second day of America's entry into World War II, captured the attitude that would prevail in official Washington from the start of the war until the archipelago fell almost five months later. No one believed relief of the Philippines was possible but most felt there was a moral obligation to try. There were some, however, who felt attempts to relieve MacArthur
were not only futile, but a waste of limited resources. This was certainly the Navy's view. Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander of the United States
Asiatic Fleet, told General MacArthur that resupply of the Philippines was impossible because of the Japanese blockade and lack of sufficient Allied naval forces. The Joint Board in Washington concurred with Hart and ordered the cancellation of a convoy destined for MacArthur's United States Forces Far East (USAFFE).'
Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall felt, as Stimson, that despite limited resources, the men and women fighting in the Philippines could not be abandoned without some effort being undertaken to relieve them. Marshall appealed directly to President Franklin Roosevelt for support. The Commander-in-Chief responded by overruling the Joint Board's decision that would have stopped the relief convoy. Roosevelt also told Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal that the President was "bound to help the Philippines, and the Navy had to do its share in the relief effort.'" Two weeks later in a cheerful New Year's message, President Roosevelt exuded optimism regarding relief of the besieged garrison that many in the islands interpreted as a promise of immediate aid. General Marshall also sought to reassure MacArthur, sending the USAFFE commander encouraging cables detailing weapons and equipment waiting on docks or already en route to the Islands. However, on 3 January 1942, Marshall's War Plans Division issued a frank and pessimistic assessment of the relief situation. The staff officer who developed the report was
Brigadier General Dwight D. Eisenhower, an old Philippine hand who knew MacArthur and the archipelago's defense plan. Eisenhower told the chief of staff that "it will be a long time before major reinforcements can go to the
Philippines, longer than the garrison can hold out." He concluded that a realistic attempt to relieve the Philippine defenders would require so vast a force that it was "entirely unjustifiable" in light of the priority given to the
European Theater.
Billows of smoke from burning buildings pour over the wall which encloses Manila's Intramuros district, sometime in 1942. (AP Photo) #
American soldiers line up as they surrender their arms to the Japanese at the naval base of Mariveles on Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines in April of 1942. (AP Photo) #
Japanese soldiers stand guard over American war prisoners just before the start of the "Bataan Death March" in 1942. This photograph was stolen from the Japanese during Japan's three-year occupation. (AP Photo/U.S. Marine Corps) #
American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese are shown at the start of the Death March after the surrender of Bataan on April 9, 1942, near Mariveles in the Philippines. Starting from Mariveles on April 10, some 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war were force-marched to Camp O'Donnell, a new prison camp 65 miles away. The prisoners, weakened after a three-month siege, were harassed by Japanese troops for days as they marched, the slow or sick killed with bayonets or swords. (AP Photo)
In his diary, Secretary Stimson noted receipt of the "very gloomy study" from the War Plans Division. In Stimson's words, the report encouraged the senior leadership to recognize that "it would be impossible for us to relieve MacArthur and we might as well make up our minds about it." However, either Stimson couldn't make up his mind or he was unwilling to confront MacArthur and others with the growing evidence that supported Eisenhower's conclusion. The Secretary went on to write, "It is a bad kind of paper to be lying around the War Department at this time. Everybody knows the chances are against our getting relief to him [MacArthur] but there is no use in saying so before hand'" (emphasis added). Reflecting Stimson's attitude, Marshall apparently never shared Eisenhower's report with MacArthur nor made its contents public. D. Clayton
James, the respected biographer of Douglas MacArthur, likened Roosevelt's
and Marshall's hopeful words to the false encouragement given by some physicians to dying patients. The President's and Chief of Staff's intent, as
surmised by James, was to brace the Philippine defenders to fight longer than they might have if they were told the truth. According to James, promises
made by Roosevelt and Marshall deceived MacArthur and were "an insult to the garrison's bravery and determination. General MacArthur may have initially been duped into believing the
cheery news from his superiors. But it seems highly unlikely that the savvy MacArthur could have long been deluded as the weeks dragged on and convoys destined for the Philippines were diverted to Australia or Hawaii. Historian Louis Morton, whose book The Fall of the Philippines is recognized as the definitive
work on the topic, notes that USAFFE headquarters was indeed aware that the promised help was unlikely to reach Philippine shores in time. Those who knew the full story told no one. When one American colonel asked a friend on the
USAFFE staff when relief might arrive, the staff officer's eyes "went pokerblank and his teeth bit his lips into a grim thin line." The troops were encouraged to assume help was weeks, perhaps only days away.
MacArthur hammered General Marshall with repeated early messages insisting that the blockade could be broken and demanding that the Navy increase its efforts. Marshall, however, acknowledged on 17 January. 1942 that the only reason the Navy should continue to challenge the Japanese blockade was for "the moral effect occasional small shipments might have on the beleaguered forces."lf MacArthur eventually saw the grim reality of no meaningful relief coming from the United States. By February, his cables to Washington began to raise issues concerning the fate of Philippine President Quezon once the Islands were lost to the Japanese. However, General MacArthur did nothing to alter the original picture he painted for his troops. Thousands of malnourished soldiers, riddled with intestinal disease, clung to the belief that if they could hold out for a short time, they would be saved. There is no evidence that MacArthur and General Jonathan Wainwright had a frank discussion of the relief situation as the latter took charge of the Filipino-American force. The change of command was a hurried affair,
with MacArthur promising Wainwright to "come back as soon as I can with as much as I can." Wainwright's reply, which he came to regret, was, "I'll be here on Bataan ifI'm alive,',Impact on the Soldiers
As word of Douglas MacArthur's escape to Australia spread among American and Filipino troops, morale plummeted. For some, it was a sign that they had been abandoned to face death or capture by the brutal Japanese.
While many experienced this disillusionment, others believed the charismatic MacArthur would return from Australia posthaste leading the relief force.
Indeed, once in Australia, MacArthur's first message was again one of hope. This time he said that the relief of the Philippines was his primary mission. In a pledge that was continuously broadcast and printed on everything from
letterheads to chewing gum wrappers, the general simply stated, "I made it through and I shall return. There is ample evidence that soldiers placed great stock in MacArthur's renewed pledge from Australia. When "Skinny" Wainwright made the fateful decision to surrender the entire Philippine command in May 1942,
There is ample evidence that soldiers placed great stock in MacArthur's renewed pledge from Australia. When "Skinny" Wainwright made the fateful decision to surrender the entire Philippine command in May 1942, hundreds of Americans refused to obey the order. One often-cited reason for this disobedience was the belief that General MacArthur would be back to disregarded surrender orders and took their chances in the jungles, waiting for MacArthur's supposed imminent return." Even Major General William F. Sharp, who refused to surrender his Visayan-Mindanao Force for a number of days after Wainwright's capitulation, appeared to believe MacArthur might return at any time. Sharp's staff chaplain wrote after the war that the general cabled MacArthur for guidance
regarding Wainwright's order to surrender. MacArthur's reply appears to have been a surprise to Sharp, as revealed in this published account:
"We sent out your message [to General MacArthur], Sir, and we have just decoded a message from down south [Australia]."
All eyes were on General Sharp as he read the message. There was no expression on his face. "Gentlemen, this is MacArthur's final message: 'Expect no immediate aid! ... This was a hard blow, as rumors flew thick and fast that our fleet was on its way to save the Philippines. None of us had doubted this and we had expected to hear soon the skies thunderous with many planes."
Not surprisingly, disillusioned soldiers directed their resentment and animus toward MacArthur. The depth of this enmity was apparent in Brigadier General William Brougher's after-action report written in a Japanese POW
camp. Brougher, a division commander on Bataan, concluded his report in
extraordinarily condemnatory language: Who took responsibility for saying that some other possibility [relief of the Philippines] was in prospect? And who ever did, was he [MacArthur] not an
arch-deceiver, traitor, and criminal rather than a great soldier? ... A foul trick of deception has been played on a large group of Americans by a Commanderin-Chief and small staff who are now eating steak and eggs in Australia. God damn them!
Although 47 years have passed since the faU of the Philippines, some survivors of that ordeal express undiminished bitterness at being deceived by the promise of imminent relief from the United States. One veteran recently wrote, We all knew when General MacArthur ... was ordered by President Roosevelt to desert us, he left General Skinny Wainwright holding the bag. We knew we
would be killed or captured. As a kid in school, we were taught the captain was the last man to leave the ship. He said, "I shall return." Three years later, by the time he returned, two thousand of his men ... had died.
As one former soldier wrote, "After fighting in the jungle for five months without any support whatsoever except lip service from our US government, I felt our government had deserted me.""
Regardless of how the blame is spread for this prevarication, the fact is that Roosevelt, Stimson, Marshall, and MacArthur all refused to level with the troops. Failing to inform the soldiers that substantial relief of the Philippines was several months or even years away may be described as an exaggeration or half-truth rather than a lie. Whatever label given to this false promise, it was a breech of ethical standards. Soldiers in the Philippines fought gallantly and held out longer than expected, but at the cost of distrust, bitterness, and resentment toward their leaders and government. Professional Ethics, Military Necessity, and Exceptions to the Rule. The implicit question posed by this episode-when is lying to the troops justified?-is likely to elicit an immediate and resounding "Never!"
from most military officers. As retired Major General Clay Buckingham wrote in an essay on ethics, the oath of a professional officer should be "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.,,20 Half-truths or deceptions do not fall within the military's concept of honor and integrity. Not surprisingly, a plethora of books and articles on military ethics echo this view, using vignettes or case studies to illustrate the critical nature of honesty in the military.
While the US Army has never published a formal code of ethics, Field Manual 1 00-1, The Army, does devote a Chapter to the professional Army ethic and individual values. Among the key values listed is candor, described as "honesty and fidelity to the truth .... Soldiers must at all times demand honesty and candor from themselves and from their fellow soldiers.""
The values espoused in FM 100-1 are a distillation of ethical standards and moral beliefs that have been operative in the US Army from its conception. Lying and deception as devices to motivate soldiers to accomplish the mission were ethically wrong in 1942 just as they are today. True, anyone
can concoct a hypothetical situation where a lie or half-truth may be used to save an innocent life. But a moral dilemma that offers lying as the only means to preserve life is extremely rare. Building morale on a deception or motivatiing soldiers with a lie remains unethical. Did our towering leaders of World War II-Roosevelt, Stimson, Marshall, MacArthur-set a course knowing their acts were unethical or, as more likely, did they hold to some other ethical precept they felt to be more compelling than honesty and candor? In questions of morality and ethics, even the most sacred values are challenged when they collide with other bedrock principles. The promise of help to the Philippines is a case in point. America's
war planners in Washington and MacArthur in the Pacific may have viewed their deception to the troops as a "military necessity." Simply put, military necessity is action that is necessary in the attainment of the just and moral end for which war is fought. Even military necessity, however, does not excuse all steps taken in the name of a "just war." There must be some sense of proportion. Philosopher Michael Walzer of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies points out that we must weigh the damage or injury done to individuals and mankind against the contribution a particular action makes to the end of victory."
To appreciate this argument it is important to recall the military and political situation in the Philippines. In the first months of America's entry
into World War II, victory over Japan was far from certain. For Marshall and Stimson, and particularly for the nation's political leader, Franklin Roosevelt, the battle for the Philippines was a symbol of America's resolve to stay in the
fight despite repeated setbacks in the Pacific. It was feared that early capitulation or mass desertions in the Philippines would have great moral and political significance for the nation. This can be inferred from the revealing and startling passage Secretary Stimson wrote in his diary on the eve of Bataan's surrender:
[It has been suggested] that we should not order a fight to the bitter end [in the Philippines] because that would mean the Japanese would massacre everyone there. McCloy, Eisenhower, and I in thinking it over agreed that ... even if such
a bitter end had to be, it would be probably better for the cause of the country in the end than would surrender. Obviously, the War Department was willing to go to great lengths to keep Wainwright and his troops in the fight. There was apparently the presumption that final victory over Japan would be hastened and morale at home bolstered by frustrating the enemy's timetable in the Philippines. However, the United States lacked sufficient war materiel to ship to the islands and had no means to pierce the blockade. Roosevelt, Stimson, and Marshall therefore chose to send the brave defenders words of hope regarding relief efforts in order to encourage them to hold on as long as possible.
One can speculate endlessly on what might have happened had the soldiers been told from the outset that they would have to fight without expectation of relief. Perhaps little would have changed. Even before America
was catapulted into the war by the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese army had an established record of atrocities and disregard for human life. This was verified in the first weeks of the Philippine campaign when soldiers found
evidence of prisoners being tortured and executed by their Japanese captors. In short, Americans and Filipinos had little incentive to surrender. With departure of the bulk of the US Asiatic Fleet in December 1941, there was no
means of mass evacuation or escape from the various islands. The soldiers had every reason to fight on toward an uncertain end. However, had the truth been served, the combined American-Filipino force might have succeeded in frustrating Japanese plans to a far greater
degree. MacArthur and Wainwright could have done more to plan for and establish a guerrilla organization if they had realized earlier in the campaign that adequate resupply and assistance would not be forthcoming. Final conquest of the archipelago might have been delayed by several more months by abandoning the stubborn defense of Bataan and infiltrating guerrilla teams
north into the Luzon hills. One Japanese general noted that "a well-planned guerrilla defense should have prolonged the warfare after the conquest [of the Philippines] and should have made [MacArthur's] comeback much easier.""
Perhaps this was more than could have been expected from the malnourished soldiers who were virtually all ravaged by disease. But by hanging onto the false hope of relief convoys steaming to the rescue, there
was no thought given to abandoning the Bataan Peninsula with its key city of
Manila and deep harbor at Subic Bay. Only a handful of soldiers ever made it to northern Luzon, where cool mountain hideaways offered an excellent base from which to launch guerrilla operations and a reprieve from Bataan's
malaria-ridden jungles.
On a more basic level was the effect MacArthur's promises had on individual soldiers. Had the troops on Bataan been told the truth and dealt with in a forthright manner, they might have been better prepared psychologically for the fate that surely awaited them. Perhaps some who perished during brutal Japanese captivity would have survived. We will never know, but the possibility alone makes this a point worthy of consideration by today's leaders.
Conclusion: A Lost Opportunity
and An Inexcusable Breach of Integrity Exactly how much each of the key players knew about the Philippine relief effort as the first weeks and months of the war unfolded is unclear. However, there is no doubt that early in the war, Roosevelt, Stimson, and Marshall were not candid with MacArthur about the impossibility of supplying adequate relief for the Philippines. MacArthur's promise of massive convoys steaming toward the Philippines may have initially been a reflection of his faith in Washington to deliver on promises of immediate aid. However, at some point, MacArthur clearly came to know his repeated pledge of relief was years away from fulfillment. Despite this knowledge, he continued to talk
of massive relief and did nothing to quash the rampant rumors of resupply and support which he had fostered.
One can hypothesize about how pure the motives were for each actor. Few question that those in Washington felt hopeless and distressed at being unable to give the Philippines the assistance that was so desperately needed. MacArthur's cables to Washington made clear his own frustration at being denied priority over war plans for Europe when his men were fighting for their very lives. However, in the trenches of Bataan and the bunkers on Corregidor, the result was the same. Soldiers built their hopes on a phantom army that failed to materialize before the Japanese overwhelmed them.
Ethically, the claim of military necessity is a transparent attempt to justify unfaithfulness to the basic moral obligation of honesty and candor. One must sadly conclude that four distinguished figures of World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General George Marshall, and General Douglas MacArthur, stained their honor by perpetuating a lie. It should come as no surprise that the military's civilian masters in Washington
were willing to expend soldiers' lives without concern for the truth. Throughout our country's brief history, politicians have shown a limited regard for candor and honesty in both peace and war. But it is hoped that the commander in the field will always be truthful. His honor as a soldier must be absolute. Taking the high road and being honest with the troops would probably not have changed the final outcome in the Philippines. The success of the Japanese invasion was inevitable. Honesty and candor might have made a difference after the fall of the Philippines as soldiers stole away into the jungle or marched toward wretched prisoner of war camps. Had these soldiers not
been deceived, they would have at least been sustained by faith in their leaders, trust in their country, and belief in the military ethic. As it was, these
moral anchors were undermined when it became clear that the promises their leaders made regarding relief of the Philippines were lies. Perhaps this loss of the moral underpinning of an army was as regrettable as the military loss of the Philippine Islands themselves.
American prisoners of war carry their wounded and sick during the Bataan Death March in April of 1942. This photo was taken from the Japanese during their three year occupation of the Philippines. (AP Photo/U.S. Army)
The defense of the Philippines cannot be understood in terms of conventional military strategy. In those terms it was one incomprehensible blunder after another, done with due deliberation and afterward profusely rewarded. Just as Clauswitz said war is politics by other means, the sacrifice of the Philippines can only be understood in the larger political context. Analysis of local decisions by MacArthur, miss the point that FDR was actually calling the shots. His motivations, not MacArthur's are at issue. The sacrifice of the 31,095 Americans and 80 thousand Filipino troops with 26 thousand refugees on Bataan is a separate issue from the sacrifice of the Army Air Corps at Clark and Iba.
Solemnly promising the nation his utmost effort to keep the country neutral, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is shown as he addressed the nation by radio from the White House in Washington, Sept. 3, 1939. In the years leading up to the war, the U.S. Congress passed several Neutrality Acts, pledging to stay (officially) out of the conflict. (AP Photo)
The bombers were sacrificed, not only to facilitate the loss of the Philippines, but more immediately to sucker Hitler into declaring war on the United States and events in the Philippines are analogous to Pearl Harbor which happened the same day. However, Hitler did declare war on December 11th and therefore obviously the sacrifice of Bataan proper springs from other motives. To understand Roosevelt's strategy we have to ask a very basic question:Cui bono? "Who benefits?" Who benefited from Japan's temporary ascendancy and the war dragging on? It was obvious that when the Japanese Empire collapsed that there would be a power vacuum in Asia. The ultimate question of the Pacific War was who would fill that vacuum. Who would take China? Roosevelt wanted Russia to fill the vacuum (cf. his actions at Yalta and How the Far East Was Lost, Dr. Anthony Kubek, 1963) and therefore had to prolong the war so the Soviet Union could pick up the pieces. Because the Soviet Union had its hands full fighting Germany and could not dominate Asia until the war in Europe was under control, delay in the defeat of Japan was necessary. Bataan was a pawn in a larger game. The Battling Bastards of Bataan never understood enough to ask the critical question - "who was their real enemy?" It was Franklin Roosevelt.
The orders to fight on all beaches and not supply Bataan were nothing less than the deliberate sacrifice of 31,095 Americans.
These prisoners were photographed along the Bataan Death March in April of 1942. They have their hands tied behind their backs. The estimates of the number of deaths that occurred along the march vary quite a bit, but some 5,000 to 10,000 Filipino and 600 to 650 American prisoners of war died before they could reach Camp O'Donnell. Thousands more would die in poor conditions at the camp in the following weeks. (NARA)
Vivid reality: The past and the present collide as touches of colour appear on this emotive shot on rue Armand Levéel in the French city of Cherbourg
She researched the background to each of the most interesting finds and created a beautiful series of pictures by super-imposing the old pictures on top of new ones.
Now she has rediscovered photographs of soldiers at war in France and across Europe and put together further sets of evocative and emotional designs.
Miss Teeuwisse believes that making war scenes familiar by linking them to somewhere we recognise heightens their impact.
'I knew what happened there, but knowing the exact spot of some detail will etch it into your visual memory,' she said.
From dark times to blue skies: German prisoners of war are marched through the north-western French city by American soldiers
Marching on: Allied soldiers are seen on the move past shops from then and now in these fascinating pictures of France from the Left Behind series
Changing environment: German soldiers surrendering beside the modern terraced houses of the Rue des Fossés Plissons in Domfront, Orne
Honouring the dead: Village behind the front lines in Normandy celebrate Bastille Day for the first time in over four years at a memorial that still stands today. Her work goes much further than the visual, too. The website of her organisation, Historical Consultancy, reads: 'For years we have been researching daily life before and during the Second World war, not just gathering information but also interviewing eye witnesses and recreating certain aspects of history to gain a unique insight into that era.'
The organisation works with authors, film and TV companies, museums, schools, documentary makers, designers, theatre productions and many more.
It has helped individuals trying to find out more about their family history, carrying out close research into any events from between 1900 and 1950.
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An interesting story about a man who is convinced he is the reincarnation of a British soldier who fought and died in Arnhem in World War Two.
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Moving moment: Servicemen rest beside signs pointing the way to a hospital and a church, with more old-fashioned script just visible behind
Echoes of history: The tarmacked road of Saint Marcouf, Manche, was once piled high with debris
Dramatic past: Men in uniform file out of La Madeleine à Sainte Marie du Mont, in Manche, close to the beaches of Normandy where the D-Day invasion took place
Horrific sight: A dead German soldier lies sprawled in the street with smooth patches showing through where the area has been restored today
Miss Teeuwisse says she began the project as a research tool, but now continues it mostly because of her 'passion for history and fascination with the subject.'
A selection of her photos created across Europe, from Rotterdam to Utrecht to Sicily are available to view on herFlickr site and on Facebook.
The emotional photos juxtapose wartorn paths piled high with rubble with newly painted signposts and tarmacked roads.
Pretty houses and fashionable shops have been built where the dead once lay and German soldiers clashed with Allied troops.
In these poignant shots, however, we have a tiny window into that world.
Historical colour: A sign reading Todt Organisation - a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany - is pictured over a pretty orange and pink house
New world: An American flag speaks of Allied progress in this engrossing image from the streets of France
American troops march through the streets of a British port town on their way to the docks where they will be loaded into landing craft for the D-Day assault in June of 1944. (U.S. Army) #
U.S. Rangers on a troop ship in an English port waiting for the signal to sail to the coast of Normandy. Clockwise, starting from far left, is First Sergeant Sandy Martin, who was killed during the landing, Technician Fifth Grade Joseph Markovich, Corporal John Loshiavo, and at bottom, Private First Class Frank E. Lockwood. (U.S. Army)
Ghost of the Dambusters dog: Picture 'shows long-dead Labrador' at memorial to WWII heroes
He was the loyal companion of the Dambusters hero whose extraordinary bravery enthralled the nation.
Now ghost hunters believe the spectre of the Dambusters' canine mascot is still faithfully guarding his master's old quarters.
They are convinced that the wraiths of both Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his chocolate–coloured Labrador haunt the remote airfield from which the audacious raid was launched.
Ghost of a chance? This apparition of a Labrador which appears between the two banks of choristers is one of the photos said to show the Dambusters' mascot
Investigators decided to step in after a mysterious photograph emerged of what looks like Gibson's long-dead dog sitting at his master's memorial.
The picture, taken in the 1980s, shows a Labrador among a school group at a memorial to the Dambusters, close to where Gibson's dog was buried.
The photographer is said to have claimed the dog appeared from nowhere just as the photo was being taken, refusing to be shooed away.
As soon as the photo was taken, the dog disappeared, never to be seen again.
After staking out the base at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, now the home of the Red Arrows, ghost hunters are convinced it is haunted by a ghostly Labrador.
The lead investigator, Paul Drake, said: There is definitely paranormal activity there.
Devoted: Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, (right), with his Labrador and fellow officers
'One of our investigators felt a cold spot and when we measured it, it was eighteen inches, which is about the height of a dog.
'The curator of the museum has told us that he has felt for years that he has had a presence following him and he definitely feels that it is that of a dog.'
One investigator who stayed overnight at the base last month even claimed she heard a dog growling when she entered Gibson's former office.
'I definitely heard the growl of a dog', said Michelle Clements, 45. 'Three of us heard it and we all agreed it was a dog.
'It was a really low growl. It wasn't a happy yap at all. It sounded sounded like he was warning us to stay away.'
Remember them: Historians are sceptical about the possibility of a ghost dog but are happy for anything to keep alive the memory of the Dambusters' work in their Lancaster bombers
After scouring the base with infra-red lights, proximity sensors and video cameras, the team say they picked up activity which suggests the pilot was trying to speak to them.
'I do believe we spoke with Guy Gibson,' Miss Clements, a school dinner lady from Leicester, said.
'We asked him if he was with his girlfriend Margaret and he said yes.
'We also played some old music from the 40s and there was a response to that as well.'
Gibson's Labrador, Nigger, was the mascot for the squadron that launched an audacious night-time raid on three heavily defended dams deep in Germany's industrial heartland using bouncing bombs.
Their success was immortalised in the classic 1954 film The Dambusters, its thrilling theme tune and gung-ho script evoking the best of British derring-do.
Celebrated feats: Actor Richard Todd as Wing Commander Guy Gibson with the dog who played Nigger in the 1955 film The Dam Busters
The Labrador's name was used as a code word whenever one of Germany's Ruhr Dams was breached during the mission.
Tragically, he had been run over and killed outside the base just hours before the raid and, fearing it was a bad omen, heartbroken Gibson ordered the death to be kept secret and the dog to be buried quickly outside his office next to the squadron hangar.
Gibson himself returned from the mission and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery, but was later killed in 1944, when his Mosquito crashed in Holland during a raid.
The story of the Dambusters is now set to be retold in a new film by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson – although the dog is to be renamed Digger as the original name is now recognised as an offensive term.
Jim Shortland, a historian who specialises in the Dambusters, said he was sceptical about the paranormal but welcomed the investigation.
'What they expect to find I don't know,' he said.
'But I think anything that helps to keep the memory alive of the things those lads did in the Second World War is a good thing.'
Built during the Jaz Era, I felt it appropriate that a "Big Band" sound be added to this page as it is reminscence of the time and the many who had sailed aboard the Queen Mary during it's use as both a troop ship during WWII and luxury passenger cruise ship prior to and after the wartime period.
The photograph above was taken sometime during the Second World War when the Queen Mary, AKA "The Gray Ghost" was being used as a troop ship. The ship was dubbed it's nickname due to having been repainted battleship gray and could easily hide from enemy vessels, blending into the horizon. The Queen Mary is now berthed permanently in the harbor at Long Beach, California having been converted into a hotel. However, the ship has not lost the charm of the 1930's when it was used as a luxury liner.
This ship has a history of being extremely haunted and paranormal tours for the public are conducted daily and on weekends. On a recent visit to the ship the photograph below was taken below decks, approximately 10-15 feet below the water line and near the ships bow section where, during WWII, on October 2, 1942 the Queen Mary collided with it's escort ship, the British Light Cruiser Curacoa, cutting it in half and damaging a section of the Queen Mary's bow, allowing the sea to rush in resulting in the sudden death of over 300 men within minutes and many of the bodies were found in this bow section due to the suction created by the sea water rushing in
They are the Navy ships that heroically fought in World War Two, now slowly rotting in a San Francisco bay. And as they are being towed, one by one, for scrapping, in just a few years they will all be gone. A group of illegal squatters gained unprecedented access to the vessels by rowing at night for two years past security and climbing onto the ships, sleeping secretly on board for days at a time. And as these stunning images show, their efforts were certainly worth it. Decaying: One of the ships, which served the U.S. in four wars - World War Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and Desert Storm  Mould: Many of the rooms inside the ships, which were once glorious but have been left to rot for years, had sadly decayed and rotted . The ships, which served the U.S. in four wars - World War Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and Desert Storm - are now stationed in Suisun Bay, 30 miles north east of San Francisco. The mothballed ships, which once numbered close to 400, have been out of action for a decade. 15 of the ships have already been scrapped and the whole fleet is expected to have disappeared by 2017. The squatting photographers, led by Scott Haefner, gained access to the ships over a two year period. They took months to prepare their voyages - analysing tidal patterns and security rotas - but despite many close calls managed to spend many days at a time on board.'As news began to mount that the ships would finally be towed out for scrapping, we knew we had to act fast if we wanted to explore and document them,' Haefner said. Crumbling: Another of the abandoned rooms suffering from neglect  The power that once was: Guns on the deck of the USS Iowa  Going: The fleet is set to have been completely scrapped by 2017 'We had fantasised for years about getting aboard and had to overcome numerous obstacles just to get to the ships. To get across the channel, we acquired a small, inflatable raft that was just big enough for the three of us and our gear, along with a small motor powered by a car battery.' The raft often had holes in and on one occasion they frantically had to keep pumping up the boat while still on water. 'On subsequent trips, we spent the entire weekend aboard the ships, each time on a different row. Because they are tethered closely together in rows, we had many ships to explore—enough to keep us occupied for a week or more if the excursions were not so draining and we did not have jobs pulling us back,' Haefner said.  Spectacular: All the engineering work will be gone in a few years  Night: The crew slept aboard for days after sneaking on to the ships  Fused: Wiring on the ships is completely worn after a decade of inactivity  Insight: The images show nautical equipment which will have been used by troops in battles across more than half of the last century  Squatters: The snappers would search out cleaner rooms to sleep in 'One of the first orders of business each trip was finding a place to sleep. The ships are often stinky from mould, mildew and decay, so a room with windows that opened was preferable. 'We typically slept in the captain’s room where we found comfy couches, convertible beds, lots of space, and plenty of light during the daytime. 'We slept during the day after shooting and exploring all night. Around noon, we would wake up and eat and explore the bowels of the ships. 'We had to be careful moving around on the decks during the day, but because the ships are so tall, it was still fairly low-key—at least during our initial trips. 'On later trips, we ran into crews working on the ships, even on weekends, due to increased clean up efforts. Luckily we always saw or heard them before they saw us!'  Access: They spent two years on the project and planned it for months  Sunset: The ships are now deserted after decades spent fighting wars. |
Merge: Red Army storms Reichstag, Berlin, in 1945, as tourists queue to enter the historic building
Contrast: 1940 snap of Hitler in Paris is merged with a shot of exact location more than 70 years on
Defence: Soviet soldiers digging-in at Mozhaisk during the Battle of Moscow in 1941
In one snap Russian troops appear to be storming into the Reichstag in Berlin while on the steps, modern day tourists queue to visit the home of German politics.
Juxtaposed: Soldiers marching in 1941 down a street in Leningrad - now St Petersburg in 2011
War and peace: The Palace Embankment in Leningrad was a scene of destruction in 1941 - but 71 years later, it glistens in sunshine as one of St Petersburg's most picturesque riverside settings
Generations: Tourists flock to the Reichstag in Berlin, where Russia's Marshal Zhukov stood in 1945
Echoes of history: St Petersburg's modern day residents follow in the footsteps of youngsters during the German's ruthless siege of Leningrad in 1941, which lasted 872 days
Phoenix from the flames: The Church of the Big Palace in Peterhof, Ste Petersburg, has returned to its former splender following its 1943 destruction
Destruction: 21st Century youngster stares at the destroyed Dubovy Fountain, Peterhof, in 1943
Conflict: A trolley bus during the 1941 Battle for Moscow against a 21st Century backdrop
Ruin: These buildings, above and below, in Leningrad have been rebuilt since their 1942 destruction
Enlarge  Up and down rural England, many villages are shadows of their former selves as local amenities like post offices and pubs struggle to survive. It has a 700-year-old church, a pub and a schoolroom. There is even a form of social housing.  Eerie: Headstones can be seen in the graveyard of the 700-year-old St Giles Church in the empty village of Imber, on Salisbury Plain  Desolate: The bizarre looking houses which soldiers use to train in are seen in the village, which was evacuated in 1943  Empty: A man cycles past houses, now used for military training, in Imber. There is just one problem with Imber - nobody is allowed to live in it. The village is located on Salisbury Plain and is owned by the Ministry of Defence (MOD). It was evacuated in December 1943 by the military for training U.S. soldiers preparing for the D-Day invasion. Villagers were told at the time they would be allowed to return within six months. However, despite public appeals their hopes were never realised and to this day it remains completely empty.  Like a war zone: Wrecked tanks are seen close to the road that leads to Imber  Unwelcoming: Barbed wire fencing surrounds St Giles Church. Despite villagers being told they could return six months after their evacuation, their hopes were never realised  Ruins: Old abandoned houses, now used for military training, are dotted throughout the village, which is opened up to visitors by the military every year. It is now in the middle of a high explosive 'impact area' in the Salisbury Plain military training zone. However, the MOD grants limited public access to the village every year, which includes several days over the Christmas period. This allowed the 10th New Year's Eve peace vigil to be held inside the 700-year-old St Giles church in the village on Saturday. The village also has a manor house called Imber Court as well as a farmhouse, a farm and cottages.  Interest: A rare visitor to Imber takes a picture of an old abandoned house in the village, which also has a pub and a schoolroom  Historic: Old graffiti is seen on the walls of St Giles Church  Visitors: People stop to take pictures of tanks left beside the road in Imber  Time to remember: Imber volunteer archivist James Kirkwood lights a candle ahead of the 10th New Year's Eve peace vigil which was held inside the 700-year-old St Giles Church  Memorial: A woman looks at the names of the village's fallen soldiers from the First World War There is also four council house style blocks which were built in 1938. In 1943, there was also a Baptist Chapel which was demolished in the late 1970s. The government began buying land on Salisbury Plain in the late 19th Century to use it for maneuvers. But in the 1920s farms around Imber began to be purchased as well as the village's land. By the time of the Second World War, the government owned almost all of the land in and around the village. On November 1, 1943, the people of the village were called to a meeting in the schoolroom and given just 47 days' notice to leave their homes. Despite some villagers being upset at having to leave, many showed no resistance, seeing it as their duty to contribute to the war effort. Following the war, the village was still used for training soldiers - especially those who were serving in Northern Ireland. In the 1970s a number of distinctive-looking houses were built to aid the training. |
On the eve of the anniversary of D-Day, one of our finest historians reveals the almost unimaginable horror Allied soldiers faced as they fought to free France from the grip of Hitler's most bloodthirsty and fanatical storm troopers
With biting irony, Soviet propagandists claimed in 1944 that the British and Americans in Normandy were facing only the dregs of the Wehrmacht. 'We know where young and strong Germans are now,' wrote Ilya Ehrenburg in Pravda. 'We have accommodated them in the earth, in sand, in clay.'
But to claim that western Allies were fighting only second-rate troops was simply not true. By late June, the British Second Army was up against the largest concentration of SS panzer divisions assembled since their violent offensive against the Red Army in the Kursksalient in Russiathe previous summer. Contrary to received opinion, the fighting in Normandy was even bloodier than on the eastern front.
At the beginning of June 1944, the war was reaching a climax. German troops had been brutalised by the savagery of the ongoing fighting in Russia, where the Red Army was secretly preparing its vast encirclement of the Germans' Army Group Centre.
Some of the Waffen-SS divisions facing the Allies in Normandywere the most fanatical and disciplined of all; soldiers indoctrinated by Hitler's propaganda and bent on revenge for the 'terror bombing' of German cities.
The Allies, meanwhile, had launched the greatest amphibious operation in history, with more than 5,000 ships. And although planning for the cross-Channel phase of Operation Overlord was meticulous, perhaps inevitably the next stage was not so clearly thought through.
Reluctant to accept heavy casualties after so many years of fighting, and almost unchallenged in the skies, the Allies decided to bomb towns and villages in Normandyat key road junctions to block the streets with rubble and hinder German divisions arriving to counter-attack their beach-heads. The Norman capital of Caen, just ten miles inland, was included on the list.
The relentless bombing of Caen over two days was a tragic blunder. It made a nonsense of General Montgomery's plan to take Caen within the first 24 hours of the campaign - turning it into rubble meant it was far harder for the Allies to penetrate the town and provided ideal terrain for its
defenders.
In addition, there were hardly any German troops left in the town, since they had all moved north towards their positions closer to the beaches. Instead, the civilians in the town suffered more than 2,000 casualties. In fact, on D-Day, as many French civilians died as Allied soldiers.
This is why I said in a magazine interview this week that the bombing of Caenwas 'close to a war crime'. I was no doubt overstating the case in the heat of the moment, but it is hardly a new controversy.
The playwright William Douglas-Home, the brother of the future Prime Minister, was cashiered from the Army and served a year's hard labour for his protest over the bombing soon afterwards.
Whatever the case, the terrible fate of Caenwas just one part of a campaign of untold brutality in Normandy in which the Allies encountered the worst fighting of what was already a long war - and responded to the savagery of German combat with equal ferocity.
In the early hours of June 6, two divisions of American paratroopers
Snubbing Britian: France's President Nicolas Sarkozy with his wife Carla Bruni
dropped into battle in Normandyfired up to kill 'Krauts'. Some had bought commando knives in London, and several had equipped themselves with cut-throat razors.
They had been instructed how to kill a man silently by slicing through the jugular and the voice box. Before departure, they had all received pep talks from their commanders.
'There was a great feeling in the air; the excitement of battle,' noted one paratrooper. After a short speech to arouse their martial ardour, their regimental commander swiftly bent down, pulled a large commando knife from his boot and waved it above his head. 'Before I see the dawn of another day,' he yelled, 'I want to stick this knife into the heart of the meanest, dirtiest, filthiest Nazi in all of Europe.' A baying cheer went up as his men brandished their knives in response.
The drop in the early hours of June 6 was chaotic. Those paratroopers whose chutes caught in trees presented easy targets. A number were shot as they struggled. Atrocity stories spread among the survivors, with claims that German soldiers had bayoneted them from below or even turned flame-throwers on them.
With revenge on their minds and nerves still taut after the jump, the American paratroopers-blood was up. A trooper in the 82nd remembered his instructions only too clearly: 'Take no prisoners because they will slow you down.'
Stories about German soldiers mutilating paratroopers inflamed the Americans still further. A soldier in the 101st recounted how after they had come across two dead paratroopers 'with their privates cut off and stuck into their mouths', the captain with
them gave the order: 'Don't you guys dare take any prisoners! Shoot the bastards!'
In a number of cases, the paratroopers shot prisoners captured by others. A Jewish sergeant and a corporal hauled a captured German officer and noncombatant from a farmyard. Those present heard a burst of automatic fire, and when the sergeant returned 'nobody said a thing'.
Some men appear to have enjoyed the killing. A paratrooper recalled having come across a member of his company the following morning who appeared to be wearing red gloves instead of the standard issue yellow ones.
Bravery: Commandos advance inland to gain first village in Normandy, France on D-Day
In fact, they were the yellow ones - just soaked in blood. 'I asked him where he got the red gloves from, and he reached down in his jump pants and pulled out a whole string of ears. He had been earhunting all night and had them all sewn on an old boot lace.'
There were cases of brutal looting. The commander of the 101st Airborne's MP platoon came across the body of a German officer and saw that somebody had cut off his finger to take the wedding ring. A sergeant in the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment was horrified when he found that members of his platoon had killed some Germans and then used their bodies for bayonet practice.
On occasions, however, the killing of prisoners was prevented. A handful of paratroopers from the 101st, including a lieutenant and a chaplain, were standing in a farmyard talking to the French inhabitants. They were astonished when around a dozen troopers from the 82nd arrived at the double, herding a group of very young German orderlies.
They ordered them to lie down. The terrified boys pleaded for their lives. The sergeant, who intended to shoot them all, claimed that some of the troopers' buddies caught by their parachutes in trees had been turned into 'Roman candles' by a German soldier with a flame-thrower.
He pulled the bolt back on his Thompson sub-machine gun. In desperation, the boys grabbed the legs of the lieutenant and the chaplain as they and the French family shouted at the sergeant not to shoot them. Finally, the sergeant was persuaded. The boys were locked in the farm's cellar.
But the sergeant was not put off his mission of vengeance. 'Let's go and find some Krauts to kill!' he yelled to his men and they left again at the double. The members of the 101st were shaken by what they had witnessed. 'These people had gone ape,' one of them remarked later.
The hatred was equally intense 50 miles to the east, where paratroopers of the British 6th Airborne Division suffered from a drop every bit as chaotic as the American one. In one battalion alone, 192 men were never found. They had dropped into the flooded marshes round the River Dives and been sucked into the mud.
And a German senior NCO in the 711th Infanterie-Division executed eight captured British paratroopers on the spot, probably in obedience of Hitler's notorious 'Kommandobefehl' order which demanded the immediate shooting of all special forces.
Although the Allied invasion troops on June 6 managed to secure their beachheads, neither General Eisenhower nor Montgomery-had foreseen that the battle ahead would be far deadlier.
The Americans in the west had to fight across marshland and the small fields and tall, dense hedgerows of Normandy. The British and Canadians around Caen, on the other hand, had to cross huge, rolling wheatfields, while the Germans turned solid stone farmhouses and hamlets into formidable defensive positions.
United: American and allied troops wade through the water onto a beach in southern France during the D-Day landings
On June 7, the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Ulster Rifles made a brave charge across open cornfields towards the village of Cambes. They fought their way in, but a newly arrived detachment of the 12th SS Hitler Jugend Panzer Division forced them to retreat.
The Ulster Rifles had to leave their wounded from D Company in a ditch outside the village. They were certain that the young fanatics from the Hitler Jugend shot them all as they lay there.
On their right, the Canadians soon became involved in a bitter cycle of revenge with the 12th SS. The fighting was pitiless. Accusations of war crimes were made by both sides. The Germans claimed that the British started it, and that they had shot prisoners in retaliation.
But the Hitler Jugend argument sounds unconvincing, especially when a total of 187 Canadian soldiers are said to have been executed during the first days of the invasion, almost all by members of the 12th SS. And their first killings had taken place on June 7.
A Frenchwoman from Caen, who had walked to the town of Authieto see if an old aunt was all right, discovered 'about 30 Canadian soldiers massacred and mutilated by the Germans'.
The Royal Winnipeg Rifles later found that the SS had shot 18 of their men, who had been taken prisoner and interrogated at their command post in the Abbaye d'Ardenne, an ancient church surrounded by medieval buildings. One of them, Major Hodge, had apparently been decapitated.
Again, this was the work of the Hitler Jugend which was probably the most indoctrinated of all Waffen-SS divisions.
Many of its key commanders came from the 1st SS Panzer-Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. They had been formed in the Rassenkrieg, or 'race war' of the eastern front. Kurt Meyer, the divisonal commander, had shot 50 Jews near Modlin in Poland in 1939.
Later, during the invasion of the Soviet Union, he ordered a village near Kharkovto be burned to the ground. All its inhabitants were murdered. Nazi propaganda and the eastern front had brutalised them, and they saw the war in the west as no different.
Killing Allied prisoners was seen as their revenge for the horror being inflicted by Bomber Command on German cities. SS discipline was pitiless. According to a F¸hrer decree, SS soldiers could be accused of high treason if taken prisoner by the enemy unwounded.
They had been forcefully reminded of this just before the invasion, so it was hardly surprising that the British and Canadians captured so few SS alive.
But perhaps the most horrific story of SS fanaticism came from a soldier from Alsace who was drafted into the 1st SS Panzer-Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.
A fellow Alsatian in his company, who had also been forcibly recruited, could not face the fighting any more and tried to escape in a column of French refugees. He was spotted by members of their regiment and brought back. Their company commander then ordered his men to beat him to death.
With every bone in his body broken, the corpse was thrown into a shell-hole. The captain declared that this was an example of 'Kameradenerziehung', an 'education in comradeship'.
But it was not just the brute fanaticism of the Germans that the Allies had to contend with. Fighting in the claustrophobic confines of hedgerows and small fields of the Normandy< cite>bocage < /cite>prompted American commanders to compare it to jungle warfare.
The Germans described it as a 'schmutziger Buschkrieg' - a 'dirty bush war', but the great advantage lay with them, the defenders.
The fear aroused by fighting in the <cite>bocage< /cite>produced a level of hatred that had never existed before the invasion. 'The only good Jerry soldiers are the dead ones,' a soldier in the 1st Infantry Division wrote home in a 'Dear Folks' letter to his family in Minnesota.
'I've never really hated anything quite as much. And it's not because of some blustery speech of a brass-hat. I guess I'm probably a little off my nut - but who isn't? Probably that's the best way to be.'
Combatants were shown no mercy. Snipers on both sides were almost always shot on capture. American soldiers were advised to lie still if wounded by a sniper. He would not waste another round on a corpse, but would certainly fire again if they tried to crawl away.
Shoreward: WWIILanding ship tanks steaming ahead are silhouetted beneath the long muzzle of a gun
German snipers climbed trees and tied themselves to the trunk so that if hit they would not fall out. Another favourite hiding place in more open country was in a hayrick.
That practice, however, was soon dropped when both American and British soldiers learned to fire tracer bullets to set the rick aflame, then gun down the hidden rifleman as he tried to escape.
Both the British on the Caen front and the Americans found that the Germans were brilliant at camouflage and concealment. They dug themselves in like 'moles in the ground', with overhead cover against artillery treebursts and tunnels under the hedgerows.
A small opening onto the field from their hideout provided the ideal aperture from which to scythe down an advancing American platoon with the rapid fire of an MG 42 machinegun.
Fighting against the Red Army had taught German veterans of the eastern front almost every
trick imaginable. If there were shell-holes on the approach to one of their positions, they would place anti-personnel mines at the bottom. An attacker's instinct would be to throw himself into it to take cover when under machine-gun or mortar fire.
If the Germans abandoned a position, they not only prepared booby-traps in their dugouts, they would leave behind a box of grenades in which several had been tampered with to reduce the time delay to zero.
They were also expert at concealing an S-Mine known to the Americans as a 'Bouncing Betty' in ditches. It was also called the 'castrator' mine, because it sprang up when released to explode shrapnel at crotch height.
Another German trick when the Americans launched a night attack was for one machine gun to fire high with tracers over their attackers' heads. This encouraged them to remain upright, while the other machine-gunners fired low with conventional bullets.
Both American and British tank crews had many dangers to fear. The 88mm anti-aircraft gun used against tanks was terrifyingly accurate, even from over a mile away. And in the close country of the bocage, German tank-hunting groups with the shoulderlaunched Panzerfaust armourpenetrating missile would hide and wait for several tanks to pass, then fire at them from behind at their vulnerable rear.
But however great the fear of being trapped in a burning tank, it was the infantry that suffered the greatest casualties.
Only 14 per cent of U.S.servicemen sent abroad during World War II were infantrymen, yet in Normandy the infantry suffered 85 per cent of the casualties. No fewer than 30,000 American soldiers suffered from the psychological breakdown of 'combat fatigue'.
British soldiers also suffered from acute stress. The advanced
dressing station of the 210th Field Ambulance had to deal with 'a group of terrified, disorientated lads - battle shocked, jittering and yelling in a corner', a doctor wrote in his diary.
'Several SS wounded came in - a tough and dirty bunch - some had been snipers up trees for days. One young Nazi had a broken jaw and was near death, but before he fainted he rolled his head over and murmured "Heil Hitler!".'
Both British and American psychiatrists after the war concluded that the much lower rate of combat fatigue among German prisoners could only be explained by the militaristic nature of Nazi society which had prepared them better.
Honour: Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in Bayeux Cemetary during the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Northern France
The greatest heroes of the Normandy battlefield were the unarmed medics, whom snipers often shot at despite their Red Cross armbands.
One wrote of the 'light of hope' in the eyes of wounded men when he appeared. It was easy to spot those about to die with 'the greygreen colour of death appearing beneath their eyes and fingernails. These we would only comfort. Those making the most noise were the lightest hit, and we would get them to bandage themselves'.
He concentrated on those in shock or with severe wounds and heavy bleeding. He hardly ever had to use tourniquets, 'since most wounds were puncture wounds and bled very little or were amputations or hits caused by hot and high velocity shell or
mortar fragments which seared the wound shut'.
Newly arrived recruits were usually the first to die. Otherwise large men, however strong, were the most likely to be killed. 'The combat men who really lasted,' the American medic noted, 'were usually thin, smaller of stature and very quick in their movements.'
Real hatred of the enemy came to soldiers, he noticed, when a buddy was killed. 'And this was often a total hatred; any German they encountered after that would be killed.'
Work parties took the bodies back to Graves Registration services, which buried them. They were usually stiff and swollen, and sometimes infected with maggots. A limb might come off when they were lifted. The stench was unbearable, especially at the collection point.
'Here the smell was even worse, but most of the men working there were apparently so completely under the influence of alcohol that they no longer appeared to care.'
The Battle for Normandy was horribly savage. Despite the assumptions of many historians, the German losses per division engaged there were twice as high as the overall average on the eastern front. And the 225,000 Allied casualties were almost as high as the German total of 240,000.
In addition, the Wehrmacht also lost 200,000 men taken prisoner. French civilians, too, suffered terrible losses. Some 15,000 were killed in the preparatory bombing for the invasion and another 20,000 died in the battle for Normandy.
The Soviet sceptics who dismissed the German Army in the Normandy campaign as the dregs of the Wehrmacht could not have been more wrong. The divisions facing the Allied onslaught were driven by a fanaticism and bitter hatred that led to the most brutal fighting of the war.
The RAF bombing raids in Normandy following the D-Day invasion were 'close to a war crime', a leading British historian has claimed.Antony Beevor has singled out Bomber Command's massive raids on the key city of Caen for particular criticism, describing the terrible suffering of French civilians trapped in the city as it was virtually destroyed. But veterans and other historians attacked his comments - made ahead of next week's 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.  Beevor was accused of trying to generate publicity for his latest book, which covers the Normandy campaign. Caen became a crucible of ferocious fighting during the campaign due to its vital strategic position controlling key roads and bridges at the eastern flank of the invasion beaches. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery hoped his troops would capture Caen on D-Day, June 6, 1944, but desperate German defenders repelled repeated attacks. It was almost two months before the city was safely in Allied hands by which time they had lost some 50,000 troops in the assault. The RAF carried out two major bombing raids on Caen, once on D-Day and again a month later on July 7 - to open the way for a major assault. But a huge formation of British Lancaster and Halifax bombers missed virtually all the German positions on the edge of the city and instead reduced the centre to rubble, killing large numbers of French residents. The number of deaths from both raids is disputed, but may have totalled as many as 5,000.  Shell: The RAF bombed Caen twice, once on D-Day and again a month later on July 7 - to open the way for a major assault the next day  Missed target: A huge formation of 467 British Lancaster and Halifax (pictured) bombers missed virtually all the German positions on the edge of the city and instead reduced the centre Of Caen to rubble In his book, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, Beevor argues that the bombing was a military blunder, as Caen's rubble-strewn ruins blocked the advance of Allied tanks and were relatively easy for the Germans to defend. Asked in an interview with BBC History magazine whether the Allies could have reduced civilian deaths, Beevor said: 'Yes, I'm afraid they could. 'The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime. 'There was an assumption, I think, that Caen must have been evacuated beforehand. That was wishful thinking on the part of the British.' Peter Hodge, secretary of the Normandy Veterans' Association, said: 'It serves no purpose to make these accusations now and I for one take exception to it. I think it will cause sadness among veterans.' Gary Weight, who runs a travel company specialising in battlefield tours of Normandy, said: 'What more is there to say about D-Day? The only way you can see him selling this book is by coming up with controversial claims. I'm a little bit saddened by it.' Last night, Beevor, a former Army officer whose books on the battles of Stalingrad and Berlin won widespread acclaim, defended his comments and said accusations that he was merely seeking publicity were 'grotesque'. 'The bombing of Caen has been controversial for years,' he said. 'Many soldiers at the time were deeply shocked when they entered the city. 'The whole thing is a grey area, and I don't say it was definitely a war crime.' Ghosts aboard decommissioned U.S. Navy ship
Paranormal investigators say they have proof that a U.S Navy aircraft carrier is haunted.
The Californian ghostbusters, who call themselves the 'Chill Seekers', recorded a 12-minute video of their investigation last month aboard the USS Hornet, birthed in Alameda, California.
The video appears to show spirit voices communicating with them and at one point telling them 'We are under attack' and to 'Get off the ship'.
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 Hair designer Ashley, the Chill Seeker's researcher and investigator, introduces the 12-minute clip from outside the USS Hornet in Alameda. The clip goes on to offer 'proof' of the group's paranormal findings
The ship's decks are explored by flashlight as the group retells ghost stories and puts questions to the spirits who are said to reside aboard the vessel on which 300 people died over the years
 The group spends a large portion of the film sat in the ship's briefing room where they announce to any listening spirits: 'We are not here to disrespect anyone or anything on this ship'THE LEGACY OF HORNET CV-12
USS HORNET (CV-12) The eighth ship to bear the name
CV-12 Combat Score (War in the Pacific)
In one scene they say that an audible tapping sound is Morse Code, translated to read 'Hi, I.T', which they suggest is a message from the I.T technicians who used to work aboard the ship on which more than 300 people died.
The group from Modesto visited the ship last month on its 70th anniversary last month and toured it in darkness, with the aid of torches.
The ship, no longer in service, saw action in World war Two and the Apollo 11 manned space mission. Introducing the investigation, researcher Ashley said the USS Hornet 'is responsible for destroying 1,400 enemy planes, sinking one million tonnes of enemy ships and more suicides onboard than any other ship in the Navy.' Equipped with digital recording equipment, static cameras and their 'spirit box,' which scans through radio frequencies, the group of four 20-somethings patrol the ship's decks in darkness, relaying ghost stories and stopping to ask questions to 'the spirits'.
Carissa, the lead investigator can be heard asking the question: 'Are you happy to see women aboard? 'To which comes the faint reply picked up on the camera's microphone: 'It's good.'
VIDEO: Watch Chillseekers ghosts aboard the USS Hornet 
The ship's museum looks decidedly spooky in the video clip
A tapping sound that can be heard in the film is said by the group to be attempts by spirit Morse Code workers who used to work onboard, to make contact. The tapping sound is translated and said to read: 'Hi I.T
Keith, the group's audio/visual specialist and keen Hip Hop musician seen here with his voice recorder, asks the spirits: Who am I? A voice can be heard responding: 'You are Keith'. Just as well someone is on the ball!
Andrew, a chef by trade, works as the group's technician, and can be seen here listening and looking out for paranormal activity onboard the ship
A static camera is placed on the steps seen here. The group is convinced that the camera's microphone picks up the sound of movement, despite nothing appearing to pass up or down
The same voice can be heard saying the words: 'U.S. Navy', in response to Carissa asking what the name of the ship is, before appearing to say the words 'comfortable' and 'Gordon.'
Later she can be seen sitting down, convinced she has been touched by a spirit. She says she feels 'cold and tingly' and asks: 'Are you touching me right now'.
Although physical contact is not confirmed, the camera's microphone appears to pick up the response: 'Get out.'
Keith looks surprised when he hears his name in response to his question: Who am I? It's a pity the ChillSeekers are not as hot on English as they are on the heels of ghosts. 'Your' should read 'You're'
Carissa was convinced she'd been touched by a spirit in the film. She said she felt 'tingly and cold'
As well as being 'touched', she also appears to be given her marching orders as a voice can be heard saying 'Get Out' despite her invitation to the spirits to come out and tell them their stories
 Friend or foe: A British soldier gives a wounded German a light in 1918. As the centenary of the Great War approaches, so does a tide of yet more books about it — it must be the most written-about war in history. Richard van Emden is a World War I specialist who has found a niche, little explored, charting the personal contacts between Britons and Germans and their feelings about each other as the war progressed. It began on both sides in a blaze of patriotic bluster. Crowds poured into Berlin’s main thoroughfare, Unter den Linden, as they did in London’s Piccadilly and Pall Mall. In Berlin they bellowed, ‘Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles’; in London, ‘Rule Britannia!’ The phrases of the hour in Britain were: ‘We must stand by France’ (German troops were already in Belgium) and ‘It will be over in three months’. Why three months, nobody precisely knew. There were many more German immigrants in Britain than Britons in Germany. They faced internment, with dire consequences for their families, who were eventually supported by meagre grants from their government. There was fury in Germany at Britain’s declaration of war, along with widespread feelings of betrayal. Only the previous year, George V visited his cousin the Kaiser, and was pictured wearing a ‘pickelhaube’ — a spiked, plumed German helmet matching the German leader’s. Now King George was pictured on a postcard as ‘der Judas von England’. The Kaiser was honorary colonel of a regiment of British dragoons and an Admiral of the Fleet to boot. His British orders and decorations were packed in brown paper and delivered to the British Embassy with a message that he had no further use for them. Nevertheless, he ordered that the English Church in Berlin, built as a present to his English mother, was to be kept open, and its pastor, the Rev Henry Williams, left at liberty for the duration. The Rev Williams’s diaries are much quoted here, describing how life in Germany deteriorated when the Allied blockade began to bite.  Catalyst: The sinking of the Lusitania caused a rise in anti-German sentiment Anti-German feelings ran high in Britain at the war’s opening and flared again with the sinking of the Lusitania off Southern Ireland in 1915, drowning more people than the Titanic had. There were riots in the Lusitania’s home port of Liverpool, with the shops of German immigrants being looted and burnt. This rancour was markedly absent from the front line in Flanders, where the famous Christmas truce took place in 1914. Everyone knows that it started with men in both trenches singing Christmas carols and shouting ‘Merry Christmas’ to each other, then climbing out of their trenches to exchange gifts and friendly talk in no man’s land. In some places, the truce lasted into January, until orders came from above that war must be resumed. Officers on both sides synchronised their watches, agreeing to start again in an hour, saluted each other and went back to their respective trenches. British Army high-ups were furious at the spontaneous fraternising — pictures of which appeared in the newspapers. When Christmas approached in 1915, they threatened dire punishment if it should happen again.  Call to arms: Men answering Lord Kitchener's call leave Temple Gardens in 1914 But it did — at least in the Scots’ Guards section of the front. Their company commander, Sir Iain Colquhoun, agreed to a German suggestion of a truce to bury the dead lying in no man’s land. This developed into full-scale fraternising. The Germans danced to a mouth organ. Captain Colquhoun was court-martialled and reprimanded. All leave was cancelled for six months as punishment. Some other friendly contacts were surprising. When the British took over part of the French sector in 1915, they were met with a message left on the barbed wire, fixing a rendezvous for the exchange of newspapers. One British officer was told that German officers had been in the habit of crossing over in the evenings for a game of bridge with their French opponents. That stopped when they found the British waiting for them. Many deserters crossed the line at night to surrender and escape further fighting. A Sergeant Dawson, bogged down in the mud of no man’s land, could only wait to be captured. When he surrendered to the five Germans who pulled him out, they assured him: ‘No, we are your prisoners. Take us to your headquarters.’ He was helplessly lost but they knew the way. Prisoners were remarkably well-treated. Captain Wilfred Birt, who died in Cologne hospital after a stoic struggle with painful wounds, was given a slap-up military funeral in the cathedral by Germans. Serving British officers were invited to attend, and were allowed free passage back to their side afterwards. Another imprisoned British captain was allowed three weeks’ leave to go home to see his dying mother. He gave his promise to return, kept his word . . . then set about trying to escape as usual. The highest display of mutual esteem occurred between the fighter pilots who were in combat above the lines. They carried no parachutes, as they were too bulky for narrow cockpits. So when a machine caught fire, the pilot was faced with the choice of burning or jumping. 'Prisoners were remarkably well-treated. Captain Wilfred Birt, who died in Cologne hospital after a stoic struggle with painful wounds, was given a slap-up military funeral in the cathedral by Germans' German pilots made a habit of finding their victims, alive or dead. If dead, they dropped details of their names and burial sites over the British lines. If alive, they would invite them to a slap-up meal in their mess. Both sides were ruthless to each other in the air but observed the rules of chivalry on the ground. When the German ace Max Immelmann was killed, a British pilot dropped a wreath and message of condolence on his airfield. When fellow ace Werner Voss was shot down doing battle against seven opponents at once, the victorious pilot said: ‘If only I could have brought him down alive.’ This illustrated the difference between personal combat and the industrialised warfare of machine guns and artillery barrages on the ground. When it was possible to know your enemy individually, hatred was seldom shown.  Truce: A German soldier approaches the British lines on Christmas Eve 1914 A brigadier, Hubert Rees, who was captured during the Germans’ last offensive in March 1918, was ordered to a car that took him to the top of a plateau. Here he was ushered forward to meet the Kaiser, who questioned him then said: ‘Your country and mine ought not to be fighting each other. We should be fighting together. I had no idea that you would fight me.’ He asked: ‘Does England wish for peace?’ Rees told him: ‘Everyone wishes for peace.’ After the Kaiser had gone into exile and Rees had been released from captivity and was wandering about Berlin, he witnessed the return of the Prussian Guards to the city, often described as a ‘triumph’. Rees had a different word for it — pathetic. ‘Companies of boys and over-age men. Officers without swords. Rusty weapons, broken-down horses drawing limbers. As a military spectacle it was lamentable.’ As British troops occupied the Rhineland, a British guardsman wrote: ‘The people welcomed us as rescuers from anarchy.’ Also from starvation. Their British ‘guests’ were a vital source of food from the Army’s well-stocked canteens. The ban on fraternisation had to be lifted. ‘Our fellows would open their tunics to show their scars. The German boys would do the same,’ wrote a private soldier. Only weeks after they had been doing their best to kill each other, they behaved like comrades in arms. This unusual piece of research makes you think rather differently about the so-called ‘Great War For Civilisation’. Friendship between two downed RAF airmen forged in WW2 POW camp lasts 70 years after they were re-united during chance meeting at work
 Still together: Artists Johnny Johnson, left, and Eddie Scott-Jones, right, were reunited by chance in Liverpool  Veteran: Eddie Scott-Jones looking through the window of the Halifax Bomber he parachuted out of. Years later, the startled pair were reunited in the comfortable confines of the office café at Pagan Smith advertisers in Liverpool - a step up from their usual backdrop. 'I was working at Pagan Smith advertisers in Liverpool,' Mr Jones, now 91, explained. 'Someone pointed at my tie pin and said "there's someone else with one of those that works here".' Curious to meet another parachuter, he followed his colleague along - only to find his friend and fellow inmate proudly wearing his own medal. The caterpillar was given to anyone who had been forced to parachute from their aircraft.
 Bleak: The sight of German guards in the harsh Lithuanian climate outside Stalag Luft VI POW prison camp  Past: Mr Jones sketched out his memory of soaring over enemy lines, picking targets and places to land. Mr Johnson, a tail gunner who flew with 102 Squadron, bailed out of his Halifax aircraft twice - his second landing him clean into Nazi handcuffs. Despite being dubbed ‘golden balls’ by colleagues for always escaping in the nick of time, his luck ran out on December 3, 1942 when his plane was shot down from 15,000ft. It was the bravery of its young pilot, who died in the crash, that led to his survival.  Tough: The prisoners of war were forced to plough through the snow beneath gun-manned towers  Light-hearted: Prisoners made light of their horrific situation. Mr Jones's captions make fun of crash landings  Standards: The soldiers were expected to maintain decorum and style throughout the terrifying war. 'I remember going up to the front and he turned round to me and said "get out - and that’s an order. Go!",' explains Johnny, who escaped the doomed plane only to parachute directly into the square of a German barracks. Meanwhile Liverpool-born Mr Jones, who flew with the Canadian 428 Squadron, was on his penultimate sortie before being eligible for six months’ leave when he was taken prisoner. 'We’d been bending some railway lines at Lens in northern France,' he explains of the events of April 20 1944. 'We succeeded in blowing up an ammunition train and then set course for home when were pounced on by a JU88, and it started a fire in the fuselage.' Both men eventually ended up in Stalag Luft VI in what is now Lithuania - the German’s northern-most POW camp, where they lived in adjoining huts. Desperate to protect their highest ranking hostages, the Nazis allowed the pair to take it easy. 'As aircrew we weren’t allowed to work, we were too valuable,' Mr Johnson explained. 'That’s how I met Eddie, we used to draw.  The camp: A compound surrounded by barbed wire at Stalag Luft VI in what is now defined as Lithuania.
 Marching: The prisoners of war were worked hard as they wondered whether they would make it out alive. 'The Red Cross issued us with a big diary, and so we used to go round to each other, I’d go to Eddie and he’d put something in it, and I’d put something in his.' The two professional artists still reminisce about their time in captivity - documented by a series of sketches Eddie hid from their German guards. 'Ver did you get this bread?', reads the caption on one picture of a Nazi confronting a squaddie. Another shows an airman 'watching the Third Reich' from his plane, while others shows a camp commandant wielding a pistol or marching towards the camp gates. The pair laugh as Mr Jones explains another popular pass-time: winding up their camp guards whenever possible.  'Ver did you get dis bread?': Mr Jones mocks the portly Nazi guard confronting an innocent squaddie He said: 'We made a great effort for them not to see us depressed. We were always laughing about something or another. 'As a term of punishment - someone had done something, tried to escape or something like that - they’d say "we’ll close the theatre for a week". 'And instead of everyone groaning, there was a big cheer and clapping. "We’ll close it for two weeks". And there was more clapping and laughing. 'In the end they couldn’t beat us.' When the camp was finally liberated, both Mr Johnson and Mr Jones returned to Britain, ending up in the same city and the same company, raising families and becoming professional artists. Still working together, their drawings have been exhibited across Merseyside and beyond. | 
A section of the Armada of Allied landing craft with their protective barrage balloons head toward the French coast, in June of 1944. (AP Photo) #
 
Smoke streams from a U.S. coast guard landing craft approaching the French Coast on June 6, 1944 after German machine gun fire caused an explosion by setting off an American soldier's hand grenade. (AP Photo) #
 
Canadian soldiers land on Courseulles Beach in Normandy, on June 6, 1944 as Allied forces storm the Normandy beaches on D-Day, June 6, 1944. (STF/AFP/Getty Images) #
 
Some of the first assault troops to hit the beachhead in Normandy, France take cover behind enemy obstacles to fire on German forces as others follow the first tanks plunging through the water towards the German-held shore on June 6, 1944. (AP Photo) #
 
U.S. reinforcements wade through the surf as they land at Normandy in the days following the Allies' June 1944 D-Day invasion of France. (AP Photo/Peter Carroll) #
 
Members of an American landing party help others whose landing craft was sunk by enemy action of the coast of France. These survivors reached Omaha Beach by using a life raft on June 6, 1944. (U.S. Army) #
 
Canadian soldiers from 9th Brigade land with their bicycles at Juno Beach in Bernieres-sur-Mer during D-Day, while Allied forces were storming the Normandy beaches. (STF/AFP/Getty Images) #
 
American soldiers on Omaha Beach recover the dead after the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of France. (Walter Rosenblum/LOC) #
 
Thirteen liberty ships, deliberately scuttled to form a breakwater for invasion vessels landing on the Normandy beachhead lie in line off the beach, shielding the ships in shore. The artificial harbor installation was prefabricated and towed across the Channel in 1944. (AP Photo) #
 
Allied troops unload equipment and supplies on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, in early June of 1944. (U.S. Army) #
 
Tow planes and gliders above the French countryside during the Normandy invasion in June of 1944, at an objective of the U.S. Army Ninth Air Force. Gliders and two planes are circling and many gliders have landed in fields below. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force) #
 
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An American soldier, who died in combat during the Allied invasion, lies on the beach of the Normandy coast, in the early days of June 1944. Two crossed rifles in the sand next to his body are a comrade's last reverence. The wooden structure on the right, normally veiled by high tide water, was an obstruction erected by the Germans to prevent seaborne landings. (AP Photo) #
 
Reinforcements for initial allied invaders of France, long lines of troops and supply trucks begin their march on June 18, 1944, in Normandy. (AP Photo) #
 
American dead lie in a French field, a short distance from the allied beachhead in France on June 20, 1944. (AP Photo/U.S. Signal Corps) #
 
American soldiers race across a dirt road, which is under enemy fire, near St. Lo, in Normandy, France, on July 25, 1944. Others crouch in the ditch before making the crossing. (AP Photo) #
 
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An American soldier lies dead beside water pump, killed by a German booby trap set in the pump in a French village on the Cherbourg Peninsula, on June 18, 1944. (AP Photo/Peter Carroll) #
 
These five Germans were wounded and left without food or water for three days, hiding in a Normandy farmhouse waiting for a chance to surrender. Acting on information received from a French couple, U.S. soldiers went to the barn only to be attacked by snipers who seemed determined upon preventing their comrades from falling into Allied hands. After a skirmish, the snipers were dealt with and the wounded Germans taken captive, in France on June 14, 1944. (AP Photo) #
 
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The dead German soldier in this June 1944 photo was one of the "last stand" defenders of German-held Cherbourg. Captain Earl Topley, right, who led one of the first American units into the city on June 27, said the German had killed three of his men. (AP Photo)
Helmets discarded by German prisoners, who were taken to a prison camp, in a field in Normandy, France in 1944. (NARA) #
 
In the sky above the Netherlands, American tow planes with gliders strung out behind them fly high over windmill in Valkenswaard, near Eindhoven, on their way to support airborne army in Holland, on September 25, 1944. (AP Photo) #
 
Parachutes open as waves of paratroops land in Holland during operations by the 1st Allied Airborne Army in September of 1944. Operation Market Garden was the largest airborne operation in history, with some 15,000 troops were landing by glider and another 20,000 by parachute. (Army) #
 
The haystack at right would have softened the landing for this paratrooper who took a tumble during operations in Holland by the 1st Allied Airborne Army on September 24, 1944. (U.S. Army) #
 
In France, an American officer and a French Resistance fighter are seen engaged in a street battle with German occupation forces during the days of liberation, August 1944, in an unknown city. (AP Photo) #
 
People try to cross a damaged bridge in Cherbourg, France on July 27, 1944. (AP Photo) #
 
An American version of a sidewalk cafe, in fallen La Haye du Puits, France on July 15, 1944, as Robert McCurty, left, from Newark, New Jersey, Sgt. Harold Smith, of Brush Creek, Tennessee, and Sgt. Richard Bennett, from Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, raise their glasses in a toast. (AP Photo) #
 
A view from a hilltop overlooking the road leading into St. Lo in July of 1944. Two French children in the foreground watch convoys and trucks of equipment go through their almost completely destroyed city en route to the front. (AP Photo) #
 
Crowds of Parisians celebrating the entry of Allied troops into Paris scatter for cover as a sniper fires from a building on the place De La Concorde. Although the Germans surrendered the city, small bands of snipers still remained. August 26, 1944. (U.S. Army) #
 
After the French Resistance staged an uprising on August 19, American and Free French troops made a peaceful entrance on August 25, 1944. Here, four days later, soldiers of Pennsylvania's Twenty-eighth Infantry Division march along the Champs-Elysees, with the Arc de Triomphe in the background. (AP Photo/Peter J. Carroll)
The photographer at Auschwitz: Man forced to take chilling images of inmates and their Nazi guards was haunted until his death at 94
These chilling images of a young Jewish girl at Auschwitz are among thousands that have haunted a Nazi photographer all his life. Wilhelm Brasse was forced to take photographs of frightened children and victims of gruesome medical experiments moments from their death at the extermination camp where some 1.5million people, mostly Jewish died in the Holocaust.Mr Brasse, who died this week aged 94, has had relive those horrors from inside Auschwitz but is considered a hero after he risked his life to preserve the harrowing photographs, which later helped convict the very Nazi monsters who commissioned the photographs.
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She has such natural beauty, she could pass for a movie star. She smiles, her demeanour relaxed. In normal times, this young woman would surely have enjoyed a bright and happy future, perhaps with a husband, children, grandchildren. But soon after this photograph was taken, she would face almost certain death. The haunting image is one of a series depicting Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland before they were rounded up to be sent to the gas chambers.
Despite the awfulness of her predicament, this Jewish woman manages to smile brightly for the camera as she poses for Jaeger
An elderly man with a yellow Star of David fixed to his chest, speaks with German officers as he and other Jews are rounded up in Kutno, German-occupied Poland in 1939
Innocent victims: These young Jewish girls couldn't possibly have imagined the horrors that lay ahead as they pose outside their tent in another haunting photograph taken by the ardent Nazi Hugo Jaeger
The clue is the curled-up piece of yellow cloth the unknown woman wears on her lapel – a makeshift Star of David.
All around her, and in other photos taken in the ghetto into which the Nazis corralled their prisoners, every man, woman and child was forced to wear one.
In peacetime, the six-pointed star was a proud symbol of Judaism. In the Holocaust which Hitler was about to unleash – here in the devastated town of Kutno – it would become their death-star.
The remarkable colour images were taken by the Führer’s personal photographer, a loyal follower given unprecedented access to the Third Reich’s elite. Hugo Jaeger was allowed to travel with Hitler to record his appearances at rallies, intimate parties and in private moments. More usually he dedicated himself to lionising his leader and what the Nazis regarded as their most triumphant moments.
Here, it appears, he seems simply to have been fascinated by faces from a different faith in a country under siege. He is said not to have shared Hitler’s unqualified hatred of Jews. Hence, whether he intended it or not, Jaeger’s camera captured an atmosphere rarely seen before horror and carnage overtook it.
Ghetto boys: In their tattered rags the two boys smile for the camera, but the man in the centre, most probably their father, has a look of distrust etched across his face
While most Jaeger's photographs focus on the glory and triumphalism of the Reich, here he has chosen instead to capture the misery of the conquered people instead
With their clean clothes and hair neatly coiffured, these three young women do not, at first glance, appear anything like Jaeger's other subjects. But look closer and you find a star of David on the coat of the girl on the left. After so many years, it is impossible to know for certain why so many people in the photographs are smiling. None appears to have been forced to pose, none seems to display any fear. The trilby-hatted man in the coat with a fur collar, for example, seems quite comfortable in the company of German officers. Children in the squalor of a tented village appear unperturbed by the photographer. Yet Kutno, 75 miles west of Warsaw, had been bombarded and turned into a ghetto soon after Hitler’s invasion in September 1939. Its sugar factory would be surrounded by barbed wire and used to imprison 8,000 Jews, crammed into appalling conditions. Some would die of infection or starvation. Others would not live through the bitter cold of the winter. The ghetto existed until 1942, when most of its surviving inhabitants were sent to death camps.
An elderly Jewish woman bends over her stove while a man, his Star of David badge clearly visible, watches over her in the Kutno Ghetto
Makeshift dwelling: Jewish inhabitants of the Kutno Ghetto stand near a car which has been converted into a makeshift house in early 1940
A young woman clutches a jug as she escorts an elderly Jewish man through the Kutno Ghetto in early 1940. It is highly unlikely any of the people in these images survived. Incredibly, the photographs did. The Kutno ghetto was ‘liquidated’ as part of the Final Solution in the spring of 1942. In 1945, as the Allies advanced into Germany, Jaeger knew he would be arrested and tried as a war criminal if he was caught with so many intimate photos of the defeated Führer. So after secreting them, initially in a leather suitcase, he buried them in airtight glass jars outside Munich, returning from time to time to check they were safe.Two decades after the war ended, he sold them to Life magazine. Now the pictures have gone online at Life.com. Despite attempts to identify some of the subjects, no record was ever found of the smiling young woman. Historians said it would be astonishing if she had survived. At least the camera immortalised her.
The photos have been released to mark the official establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto in October 1940 and the entire set are on display at Life.com here.
Daily life: An aerial view of the Kutno Ghetto which was set up on the grounds of a sugar factory
A Jewish woman uses a washing board to clean clothes in the Kutno
Fate: In 1942, as part of Hitler's 'final solution' the Nazis began Operation Reinhardt, the plan to eliminate all of Poland's Jews. In the spring of 1942 the Kutno Ghetto itself was 'liquidated'
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The ghosts of Hitler's European fortress: decaying WWII bunkers in Holland, France and Belgium
These Second World War bunkers, part of the Wehrmacht's Atlantic Wall fortifications, crouch on the landscape as echoes of the biggest conflict in history. Left is a Type 583a / M 178 Fire Control Post at Heerenduin, Ijmuiden, the Netherlands. Right top is a Type L483 transmitter bunker in Spaarndam, Netherlands. And right bottom is an R636 Fire Control Post at Zuydcoote, near Dunkirk, France.
The Type 583a / M 178 Fire Control Post at Heerenduin, Ijmuiden, Netherlands: Photographer Jonathan Andrew scoured the Netherlands, France, Belgium and even Scotland to take these eerie images
Type 669 Heenschemolen Bunker, Heensche Molen, Netherlands: The photographer said he started his collection over bunker photos because he 'found the geometry and shape of the structures fascinating'
The Type 703 Emminkhuizen, south of Renswoude, Netherlands: Most of the structures photographed in the set are part of the Atlantic Wall fortifications, but this is part of the De Westwall, aka the Siegfried Line, which sat between Germany and France
The R636 Fire Control Post, Zuydcoote, near Dunkirk, France: The Atlantic Wall fortifications were built in anticipation of an Allied invasion. Mr Andrew says it 'is as if they were still on guard but nobody had told them the war is over'
The SK Observation Tower, Fliegerhorst, Hemiksem, Belgium: This lookout post formed part of a decoy airfield, intended to draw away Allied attacks. It was not a success, the Allies did bomb it - but with wooden bombs...
The Type L483 transmitter bunker, Spaarndam, Netherlands: Graffiti artists have given this inland fortification, just east of Haarlem, a second, less destructive chance at life as a canvas for their typographical artworks.
Vital defences: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel inspects the Atlantic Wall fortifications in France in March 1944, three months before the D-Day landings that spelled the beginning of the end of the Nazi empire in Europe
THE 'WALL' THAT ROMMEL KNEW WAS THE KEY TO HALTING ALLIES
Built by thousands of forced labourers, the Atlantic Wall fortifications stretch from the Spanish border to the northernmost tip of Norway.Begun in 1942, following the devastating raid by British commandos which destroyed the dry dock at St Nazaire, they were strengthened in 1944 on the orders of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who believed Germany could not resist an invasion of Europe were it not stopped at the beach. He ordered strings of concrete pillboxes built along the coast, as well as the planting of anti-tank obstacles and millions of mines, in the hope his forces could destroy an Allied invasion force before it could gain a toe-hold. The defences were never completed and, as history shows, they were insufficient to hold back British and U.S. troops as they flooded into Europe on D-Day. However, in subsequent years, their existence was used to answer Soviet charges that Western leaders had delayed the opening of a second front in Europe. Most of the structures photographed for Mr Andrew's set are part of the Atlantic Wall fortifications, put up by the Nazis between 1942 and 1945 in anticipation of an Allied invasion of the continent from Britain. The first were chosen simply because the Netherlands-based photographer had noticed them while driving between assignments, and been taken by their surreal, decaying aesthetic. But subsequently he began to hunt down more and more unusual bunkers dotted around the coast and countryside of north-west Europe. He researched online, used Google maps and scoured history books in the search for more of these ghosts of Europe's brutal wartime history. 'Obviously a lot of them are the same, so I avoid repeating myself,' Mr Andrew said. 'I choose them by design, concentrating on those which are unusual.' He added: 'It's almost absurd that these things are still there.'The shape of them is purely functional, it's just this weird shape and if you didn't know anything about it you would think "what's this?"' Mr Andrew uses a special technique to photograph his bunkers that gives them their eerie glow, making them seem almost like the apparitions of fallen soldiers. He explained that each photograph is taking just on the cusp of night-time, in a 15-minute time window just as the last light of the day fades. Each is the product of a long, 10-minute exposure, with Mr Andrew walking around the structures with a strobe flash to shine light on them from every angle. He must dress all in black, with his face covered by a black balaclava, as he carries out the lengthy process to ensure that he does not appear in the final image. 'The technique I use when I photograph the bunkers means that I have a 10 to 15 minute window of opportunity to photograph them,' he said. He explained that he must capture them in perfect light conditions just as day turns to night. 'I walk around the structures with a strobe and flash them,' he added. 'They are very long exposures of about 10 minutes each.'
D-Day landings: A U.S. Coast Guard landing barge, tightly packed with helmeted soldiers, approaches the shore at Normandy, France, during initial Allied landing operations, on June 6, 1944
The first wave: American soldiers swarm from their landing craft towards the beaches of Normandy, where they faced fierce resistance from Wehrmacht soldiers holed up in the bunkers lining the shore
Only the brave: After landing at the shore at Normandy, these British troops wait for the signal to move forward into the French countryside
Mr Andrew says his favourite image is the anti-submarine defences at Cramond Island, near Edinburgh, one of the few in his set to show British fortifications.
'I think that these structures almost look like the Easter Island statues,' he said. 'There's something very strange about them. The pattern they make coming out of the water I find very haunting and I didn't expect there would be any bunker kind of stuff in Edinburgh.'
Another curious bunker photographed by Mr Andrew is the observation tower for a dummy airfield in Fliegerhorst, Belgium.
Alexandre Moretus, current owner of the land in which the bunker sits, told him: 'Did you know this observation tower was a part of a decoy (fake) airfield intended to distract allied air attacks.
'This was not a success in this case... The allied bombed it but... with wooden bombs.'
The Military Casemate Type 623, West of Koudekerke, Netherlands: the Atlantic Wall was begun in 1942, following the devastating raid by British commandos which destroyed the dry dock at St Nazaire, and strengthened in 1944
Type V143 Mammut Radar Antenne, Waringzelle, Nord Pas de Calais: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ordered the second phase of building because he believed Germany could not resist an invasion of Europe were it not stopped at the beach
The Dragon Teeth, Riegelstellung Dune, BPT: Used to slow down tanks and mechanised infantry, landmines were often placed between the teeth
The Cramond Island submarine defence boom, near Edinburgh, Scotland,
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