100 years since the USA entered World War I

[Boonie Stomper]

Thursday of this week will mark 100 years since the USA became directly involved in WW I.   6 April 1917 is the date the US officially declared war on the Central Powers.  Britain & France had already been involved for 2 years & 8 months.

The statistics differ, but about 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians were killed.  Many more were wounded, many for the rest of their lives.  Very tragic.

About 8 million horses were also killed in action.  Also very tragic.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Boonie Stomper

[Desert Rat]

Superb Images and a Sombre Reminder To Us All Today......of the amount of young "Boys" from the USA (British and its Commonwealth and Allied forces from around the World)....Who Sacrificed their Lives against the Tyranny of the Germans and it's allied forces during the horrific, destructive World War 1..."The Great War"..of 1914 - 1918. We Remember as we do in the UK and other countries on the 11/ 11/ 11th November...Every Year.....Remembrance Day...For All who Lost Their Lives From 1914 Down to Our Present Day...!

Up until that date of 1914, it has been calculated that more people were killed during WW1, than in ALL the wars combined Worldwide in the last 2, 000 years of Human history, mankind has never suffered such horrendous losses as in WW1...!!!

Not only this, as on the Date of December 7th 1941..the USA again entered the Second World War...Supporting it's Allies Worldwide..That war alone it is estimated cost the lives of well over 90, 000,000 ( estimated today as over 120, 000, 000) 

WW1....and....WW2...and the wars continuing down to today our day, presents all of us with the challenges that Mankind has to confront and face...what are our hopes for the Future....???

(Images below  - USA....WW1 American Cemetery/ WW2 Omaha Cemetery/ WW2 Memorial at Omaha Cemetery...All Images Sole Copyright of Ian R. Bridle..www.edenbridgetown.com)

[Boonie Stomper]

Thank you "Desert Rat".  Very well spoken.  I feel a deep sadness when I see these photos & read the statistics.  Someone smarter than I must have figured out the average number of people who are touched & affected by each death, whether in war or peacetime.  Whatever that number is, that is a lot of people!  And yet wars continue.

[Afrikakorpsrat64]

My great Uncle Mathew was killed at Flanders. Thanks for posting.

[Desert Rat]

Hello Afrika,

I am going to France in June and will visit the battlefields as I have done every year since 1986. Do you have any information where you Great Uncle is buried...Then I can try and find his Memorial/ Grave and send you the images...and just say a small prayer for him!

As I do when I visit every cemetery and Concentration Camp, as In Struthof - Natzweiler - the only Death/ Work camp built by the SS in France, and visited by Himmler during it's construction. I enclose some images of my visit there 4 times in the last 15 years. One night, 150 Jewish girls and women were batch by batch herded into the gas chamber (which only measures about - 4mts x 3mts) a peep hole in the metal door to see when they had al l been gassed, fed by a diesel engine situated at the rear of the chamber....so no one could see it. They were all killed then sent to Strasbourg University under a Doctor of the SS..to perform medical experiments on the cadavers....They (excuse me saying this ) at least were dead....Tens of thousands never had the chance to die...but were experimented on while alive!!!

ALL IMAGES SOLE COPYRIGHT OF IAN R. BRIDLE   www.edenbridgetown.com NOT TO BE COPIED OR USED WITHOUT MY SOLE PERMISSION!

[Desert Rat]

Sorry, Just to mention most of the metal gas pipes from the diesel engine at the rear of this building have been removed...but you can see the hole in the floor, where all the faeces, sick, blood, urine was washed away ....ready for the next victims for the SS to murder....Very Sad to Stand there and I cant even imagine what they all went through...It was every time too emotional for me to visit this horrific place, as well as see the crematorium, the dissecting tiled table, the 1.5 mte wide x 2mts long the cell where the prisoners were beaten, starved, then eventually waited to be killed and burnt ....as every time I came out of this horrific place and into the blue sky and summer breeze, birds singing....I cried my eyes out...!!!

Edited April 9, 2017 by Desert Rat

[Bil4338]

These images truly convey the real horror of these desperate times.thanks for reminding us DR.

[Desert Rat]

Hello Bil,

 

Yes they certainly do!....None of us can in all reality realize the horror they all went  through. Just to mention that from their arrival at the station at Rothau, after many enduring days in cattle wagons with no food or water from Concentration Camps in Germany and many from the Drancy Camp near Paris.....the tens of thousands of French, Russian, Polish etc and other prisoners were marched from the station under the extreme brutality of the SS guards and their alsatian dogs,,,forced to march to the to the camp some 10kms away and uphill all the way, beaten if they slowed down, bitten by the dogs trained to bite the testicles of the prisoners and inflict excruiating pain on any who faltered, and those who fell down completely exhausted on the way, were shot in the head  or beaten to death then thrown into the side of the road and rolled downhill through the forest hundreds of feet below!. Later these thousands were marched back down this road, and forced to build a new road...all the way from the station to the camp, digging through rocks, moving them by hand and barrows and re-laying the new surface....so that the Germans/ SS/ could convey many more tens of thousands of more to arrive prisoners from the station to the Death camp...!!! 

This camp is also guilty of the murdering of four SOE agents...all were injected with a disinfectant and died soon afterwards...but one (unknown) was alive when Peter Straub shoved her in the oven screaming, before she was burnt to death (as all the witnesses testify to after the war had finished in a War Crimes Tribunal) and Vera Atkins (SOE) went to find the killers of these four agents - Vera Leigh/ Andree Borrell/ Diana Rowden /Sonia Olschanezky.....They died and were murdered for what they believed in...FREEDOM...!!!

ALL IMAGES SOLE COPYRIGHT OF IAN ROBERTSON BRIDLE....www.edenbridgetown.com NOT TO BE COPIED OR PUBLISHED WITHOUT PERMISSION..!!!

Edited April 10, 2017 by Desert Rat
correction to text

[Desert Rat]

 

Flames in the field While searching for a book by George Millar "Road to Resistance" in my local library, I came across a book by Rita Kramer called "Flames in the Field" Having read this with great interest and great sadness, I was drawn to the heroic bravery of the four women who so young left the safety of their families, their homes, and their country, to courageously face the might of an evil enemy, not knowing when or if they would ever return……I was so moved by the story I decided to visit the only extermination camp in France, and to leave my own tribute to those four very brave S.O.E. agents and those loyal members of the Resistance that were murdered there. The four women agents after spending many months on active duty in enemy occupied France fighting and evading the Germans, were all eventually captured by the Gestapo and taken to the dreaded Avenue Foch (Gestapo HQ) in Paris for interrogation. There they waited, feeling a certain dread as to what fate lay before them. Later they were transfered to the notorious Fresnes prison and discovered that four other female agents had also been imprisoned there. Vera Leigh (Simone) - Andree Borrel (Denise) - Sonia Olschanezky (Suzanne) - Diana Rowden (Paulette) While there the women managed to communicate with each other although this was almost impossible as they were all being held in solitary confinement. The instructions came direct from Berlin that four of the agents from Fresnes, were to be delivered to Struthof for "special treatment" via the prison at Karlsruhe. On the 6th July 1944 four of the women were awakened and ordered to get ready for transportation. With very few possessions they boarded a truck and were driven sixty miles through Strasbourg to Struthof, they arrived at about three in the afternoon, and were immediately marched between SS guards down the steps in the middle of the camp to a block of cells next to the crematorium, and locked up separately. The four other S.O.E. agents who had been with Andree, Sonia, Diana and Vera in Karlsruhe prison had also been transferred, one was sent to Ravensbruck the other three to Dachau, where they were to meet another S.O.E. agent who was imprisoned there. These four were soon to become victims of the Nazi regime, early one morning in September 1944 they were taken to an execution spot in the Dachau camp and ordered to kneel down in pairs, and holding hands an SS guard came forward and callously shot them all in the back of the head, with great courage and dignity they all died "heroines". The fate of the women prisoners that were brought to Struthof-Natzweiler, was soon to become evident, and on that most terrifying night of July 6th 1944 they were to face the wrath of the S.S camp doctor who finally subjected them to a most horrendous, brutal death, with a deadly injection of a caustic disinfectant. Then, three of the bodies were burnt in the oven, and the fourth girl partly regained consciousness, and was pushed into the oven alive, and horrifically burnt to death. These eight most brave S.O.E.agents, had given the supreme sacrifice..........Their own lives!!!   YOU ARE HERE > COMMUNITY > IN THE PAST > S.O.E. STORY > D-DAY George Millar > D-Day Imminent > Heroes of France > Oradour-sur-Glane > The Massacre > Forced Labour > In Constant Danger > Waiting for the BBC > The fight goes on > Flames in the Field > Heroines > Struthof-Natzweiler > On Arrival > Roll Call > Cruelty & Starvation > Suffering > The Memorial       Heroines of the S.O.E. Andree Borrel (Denise)   One of the first woman S.O.E. agents to be dropped into enemy occupied France, parachuted from a Whitley bomber on the night of September 24/25 1942 near the village of Boisrenard, near Chambourd, France. Andree and three other members of the Prosper Network were captured on the night of the 23rd June 1943 in Paris. Andree was taken to Gestapo Headquarters at Avenue Foch in Paris and after interrogation sent to the notorious Fresnes Prison. Born in France on the 18th November 1919 Killed on 6th July 1944. Aged 25 Vera Leigh (Simone)   Landed by Lysander of 161 Squadron on the night of 13/14 May 1943, near Tours, France. Vera joined the Inventor Network and worked as a courier in and around Paris, but while meeting another agent in a café, Chez Mas in the Place des Ternes, she was arrested by the Gestapo on the 30th October 1943 and also taken to Fresnes prison. Born in England on the 17th March 1903 Killed on 6th July 1944. Aged 41 Diana Rowden (Paulette)   Landed by Lysander on the night of 16/17 June 1943, in a moonlit meadow near Angers, France. She was working for the Acrobat Network in the South East of Dijon near the Swiss border, when she was arrested on the 18th November 1943 with two members of the French Resistance at Lons-le-Saunier. She was taken to Gestapo Headquarters at the Avenue Foch where she spent two weeks under interrogation before being transferred to Fresnes prison. Born in England on the 31st January 1915 Killed on 6th July 1944. Aged 29 Sonia Olschanezky (Suzanne) Sonia was only eighteen when she was awaiting deportation at Drancy internment camp near Paris in June 1942, with 2000 other Jewish people collected from all over France to be transported to one of the many death camps in the East. Her mother persuaded a German official with a large sum of money to produce a certificate attesting that Sonia was valuable to the German economy in the Fur industry. Her freedom gained, she joined the Prosper Network in 1943 only to be betrayed along with many other agents on the 21st January 1944, Sonia was arrested in the Café Soleil d'or in Paris and taken to Gestapo Headquarters at Avenue Foch in Paris and after interrogation sent to the notorious Fresnes Prison. Born in Chemnitz on the 25th December 1923 Killed on 6th July 1944. Aged 21

Edited April 9, 2017 by Desert Rat

[Desert Rat]

http://www.edenbridgetown.com/in_the_past/soe_story/index.shtml

 

[Desert Rat]

This is the oven where the four SOE agents were burnt to ashes.....as I repeat...one was still alive and was forced into the oven by Peter Straub...on strict orders from the camp SS Doctor...."To Remember... Them We Will"...!!!!

Edited April 9, 2017 by Desert Rat