Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts

Saturday, September 12, 2026

WWII Vet Sings 'God Bless America' at Brewers Game

Monday, September 7, 2026

German 'Far Right' Party Wins Election

Friday, August 14, 2026

Jeanine Pirro - Felony Charges Against Melissa L. Farris

Good.

Crazed "Hate America" thugs should not be allowed to desecrate our monuments with impunity.

Sunday, August 9, 2026

Nagasaki: 81 Years Later

Akiko Seitelbach was 22 years old, and working at Mitsubishi Electrical as a volunteer, when the atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, 81 years ago today.


Her story:

On 9 August 1945, I was working in the supply office. I was a little tired, so I got up to stretch my legs and walked over to the end of the office where there was a big window looking over Nagasaki harbour.

The scenery was beautiful, the sun was shining brightly and I was looking across the bay.

Then suddenly I saw this flash of light, above the railway station, and my boss yelled at me: 'Get away from the window!'

So I turned and tried to walk back to my desk. Then suddenly the building was hit with such force it was like a small boat in a storm - it shook.

And I threw myself face down on the floor to cover my head with my hands, something we were trained to do.

A shockwave came and the air was filled with acrid dust. The building kept shaking, and things were falling on my body and head. My mother had died the year before and I prayed to her.

Then after a while it stopped, so I got up and looked around. The air was still filled with yellow dust and I ran downstairs towards the air raid shelter.

I ran through the factory. I felt something was very wrong - it was so bright. When I got to the shelter it was dark, as the electricity had gone, but I could feel people moving around.

My boss came and found me and said: 'Oh you are safe.' He said: 'They are calling for you - you volunteered to do first aid.'


So I said, 'Oh heavens I did!' I got up and went to the other end of the air raid shelter. There was a doctor, and although he was wounded, he was also trying to help other people.

People were sort of dazed, their clothes torn to shreds, their bodies burned and just standing there silently.

The doctor pointed out one man. All his clothes were torn and his body was covered in burns. He was shivering and said: 'I'm cold, I'm cold'. So I put some ointment on him, but I thought: 'This isn't going to help.'

Then the doctor said: 'Go and stay with that young boy on the makeshift bed.'

They used high school kids as volunteers in the factories. He must have been about 15. He had a big gash on his neck. He opened his eyes and said: 'You know I'm going to die.'

I said: 'Your mother's coming, you're not going to die.' He said: 'Can't you hear my blood dripping? I know I'm going to die.' Then he was gone.

Later on, at about 5pm, my boss suggested we try to get home. I didn't know it had been an atomic explosion.

We walked out of the shelter, passed the destruction and onto the road in front of our building. I knew something was very wrong, something terrible had happened.

I looked out across the bay, and Nagasaki was a big bonfire, just burning, and then I thought about Hiroshima.

I thought: 'Maybe it's one of the new bombs.' But I didn't have any feelings about that. When you're shocked you don't feel anything. I wasn't even scared.

We couldn't get our bearings because all the familiar landmarks had disappeared. And when we ran through the roads between houses still burning on both sides, the scorching heat nearly overwhelmed us.

I didn't see any living creatures or green plants. We ran and ran through these empty spaces.

Then suddenly I stopped.

Something was coming toward me. It was a man but he didn't look like a man. He had no hair, his face was swollen to about twice the normal size, and loose skin hung down from his arms and legs like seaweed.

He was walking towards me and I was so scared I tried to avoid him.

I heard him saying 'Water, water' as he passed me. So I turned around to go to him but he had collapsed, dead.

The next day we tried to catch a train north, but train after train was filled with burns victims and wounded.

And they told us about their experiences - the blast and the incinerating heat, and the black rain that fell from the sky. It was weird and sort of supernatural.

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Hiroshima: 81 Years Later

Eighty-one years ago, on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It was the beginning of the end of World War II.

It was a pivotal event. Truly, the world changed in an instant.

Several years ago, Warren Kozak, writing in The Wall Street Journal, provided some history and some perspective.

On this day 64 years ago, an American B-29 named the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. We know that as many as 80,000 Japanese died instantly. We know the city was pulverized, and we know that an estimated 100,000 additional people died later from radiation poisoning. We also are aware that the Hiroshima bomb, and the Nagasaki bomb dropped three days later, ushered in the atomic era.

At the time of the event, 85% of the American public favored dropping the atomic bombs, according to a Gallup poll (10% disapproved). Over the years, that attitude has changed. By 2005, Gallup found only 57% of Americans thought the bomb was necessary, while 38% disapproved. Most of those polled were born after the event.

In August 1945, much of the world was exhausted after six long years of total war and tens of millions of deaths. Most people that summer didn’t quite understand the implications of Hiroshima. All they knew was that the atomic bomb was some sort of new, extremely powerful device that was the result of a top-secret project. It was a demonstration of the amazing technical superiority of the United States—not unlike the moon landing 24 years later.

But even before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, doubts about its use surfaced within the group of physicists who created it. Albert Einstein, who first brought the atomic bomb to FDR’s attention, along with Leo Szilard, who was instrumental in building it, were both opposed to using it against Japanese civilians.

As time has passed, the army of doubters has grown. These critics argue that Japan was all but defeated by August 1945 and the bombs were unnecessary. The incendiary bombing campaign had already destroyed most of Japan’s cities, they say, and the mining of the inland waterway brought its war production down to practically nothing. Its citizens were undernourished and there was practically no fuel or any other raw material left in the country. Japan, according to this school of thought, was a spent nation just waiting for the best possible deal from the Allies. Much of this is true.

On the other side, those who believe the bombing was necessary point out that unlike Nazi Germany, which collapsed during its final days, the Japanese fought more ferociously as the Americans drew closer to the mainland. Almost all were willing to die for their emperor, having demonstrated this in each island invasion leading up to what would have been the largest amphibious landing of all time.

...The debate over the bomb reached a crescendo 14 years ago when the Smithsonian Institution produced a retrospective that veteran groups objected to because they believed it focused too much on the victims and not on the reasons for the bomb’s use. The exhibit was ultimately cancelled. Then, this past spring, comedian Jon Stewart touched off his own firestorm when he labeled President Harry Truman a “war criminal” for ordering the bombs to be dropped. Mr. Stewart later apologized.

The fact that the quick end to the war allowed the U.S. to avoid a land invasion of the Japanese mainland, thus saving many more lives, is quickly tossed aside by some critics. They say there is no basis for the estimates of large numbers of casualties. But then there is the appalling number of Asians who were dying at the hands of the Japanese. Upwards of a quarter-of-a-million were dying each month. The fact that this orgy of death—17 million died in all—came to an abrupt halt when the Imperial Army was finally forced to go home is rarely mentioned.

Perhaps the simplest and most compelling argument for the bombs is the main reason President Truman decided to drop them in the first place: He hoped it would rattle Japan enough to force it to surrender. That is exactly what happened.

Today, Hiroshima has become a Rorschach test for Americans. We see the same pictures and we hear the same facts. But based on how we view our country, our government, and the world, we interpret these facts in very different ways.

Monday, August 3, 2026

Locked and Loaded

Saturday, June 6, 2026

Pete Hegseth - Normandy

D-Day - 82 Years Ago



Do we really understand what these men died for?

Do our actions today display an acknowledgement of their ultimate sacrifice?

Do we honor their memory by upholding and cherishing our freedom, with profound gratitude?


It's been 82 years since the D-Day invasion.

On its 40th anniversary, President Ronald Reagan eloquently praised the forces of freedom that stormed the beaches of France on June 6, 1944.

At Pointe de Hoc, Normandy, June 6, 1984, President Reagan delivered an address that is as poignant and as relevant today as it was 42 years ago.

We should never take for granted the extraordinary sacrifice that was made by those extraordinary young men.

Thousands of men took their last breaths on the beaches, so that millions and millions would be free when they took their first.

Their legacy is freedom.

It's appropriate to pause today, in prayer and gratitude, to remember them.


Ronald Reagan: Remarks on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor."

I think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry, I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots' Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet," and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: "Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do." Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we're with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.


___________________

When President Reagan delivered this address, 42 years ago today, Americans still valued their freedom. I think they understood its price, recognizing that thousands made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve it.

As the years have passed, and the World War II generation has passed away, so many Americans are clueless about the cost of their freedom.

It wasn't that long ago that the overwhelming majority of Americans rejected socialism. Today, so many people seem more interested in getting a free ride than being free.

Victimhood and intolerance are embraced, while liberty and duty and honor are considered antiquated concepts.

As we stand up to the forces attempting to destroy our hard-won freedom and our very way of life, we should remember all who died on D-Day.



Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for.

--President Ronald Wilson Reagan, June 6, 1984

Monday, May 25, 2026

Memorial Day, Omaha Beach

Monday, April 27, 2026

Ilhan Omar: 'World War Eleven'

Wow. Truly unbelievable.

Saturday, April 11, 2026

Friday, April 10, 2026

101-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Blesses Brian Mast

Thursday, March 19, 2026

Trump and Sanae Takaichi

Sanae Takaichi doesn't look upset at all. She looks thrilled to be with President Trump.

Trump and Japanese PM and Pearl Harbor

It's no surprise that President Trump has been troubled by the lack of support from our allies including Japan.

Also, is he supposed to pretend Pearl Harbor didn't happen?

Monday, March 9, 2026

Tucker Carlson and Unconditional Surrender

What?

Tucker Carlson claims, "Unconditional surrender" means foreign troops get to rape your wife and daughter if they want, and everyone knows that."

Did the U.S. demand Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II because "everyone knew" that would mean the rape of Japanese women and girls?

This is extremely offensive for Carlson to suggest.

Friday, February 27, 2026

Matthew Tkachuk and 101-Year-Old WWII Vet Jim Selino

Patriots.

Monday, February 23, 2026

Iwo Jima - 81 Years Ago

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Liberation of Auschwitz - 81 Years Ago

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Monday, January 26, 2026

U.S. Holocaust Museum Calls Out Walz for Exploiting Anne Frank

Anne Frank committed no crime. She was a victim, singled out for her faith. Tim Walz and like-minded Democrats should be ashamed for comparing the Holocaust with the deportation of illegal alien criminals.