1917

It is amazing the things people can survive, I have looked back over my father's families military history since they arrived in NZ and all I can say is that they are damned lucky.

Two served in WW1 at both Gallipoli and on the Western front as riflemen and neither suffered so much as a scratch although one was hospitalized with pneumonia.
Seven of them served in the 2nd Division during WW2 (6 from the beginning, my father arrived in late 1943) not one of them received a single wound.

The only recorded injury in the entire family was my father getting stabbed in the leg by an angry farmer in Austria after the war before he went to Japan.

My Granddad was wounded three times, gassed and frostbitten, he was lucky to survive.

My uncle Charlie was in North Africa with the 8th Army, he recounted that during the Battle of El Alamein mates falling beside him, a bullet hit his entrenching tool, bounced off and killed his mate beside him. He too went into Italy and finally finished in Austria, he never got a scratch throughout the war.
 
My Granddad was wounded three times, gassed and frostbitten, he was lucky to survive.

My uncle Charlie was in North Africa with the 8th Army, he recounted that during the Battle of El Alamein mates falling beside him, a bullet hit his entrenching tool, bounced off and killed his mate beside him. He too went into Italy and finally finished in Austria, he never got a scratch throughout the war.

I have often wondered how many Germans that went into Poland in 1939 came home at the end.
 
I have often wondered how many Germans that went into Poland in 1939 came home at the end.

Only a handful came home after being captured in Stalingrad as you know

Out of the nearly 91,000 German prisoners captured in Stalingrad, only about 5,000 returned. Weakened by disease, starvation and lack of medical care during the encirclement, they were sent on foot marches to prisoner camps and later to labour camps all over the Soviet Union. Some 35,000 were eventually sent on transports, of which 17,000 did not survive. Most died of wounds, disease (particularly typhus), cold, overwork, mistreatment and malnutrition. Some were kept in the city to help rebuild it.

A handful of senior officers were taken to Moscow and used for propaganda purposes, and some of them joined the National Committee for a Free Germany. Some, including Paulus, signed anti-Hitler statements that were broadcast to German troops. Paulus testified for the prosecution during the Nuremberg Trials and assured families in Germany that those soldiers taken prisoner at Stalingrad were safe.[39]:401 He remained in the Soviet Union until 1952, then moved to Dresden in East Germany, where he spent the remainder of his days defending his actions at Stalingrad and was quoted as saying that Communism was the best hope for postwar Europe. General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach offered to raise an anti-Hitler army from the Stalingrad survivors, but the Soviets did not accept. It was not until 1955 that the last of the 5,000–6,000 survivors were repatriated (to West Germany) after a plea to the Politburo by Konrad Adenauer.
 
, I know they used runners to send messages between different units or between commanders.
I missed the beginning of it where they got their instructions. They were in the trenches heading for no mans land when I came in. During an offensive that's making good progress I could see having to send messengers long distance, but the attack hadn't started yet. Was the Army really out of contact with their units? Doesn't seem reasonable.
 
I missed the beginning of it where they got their instructions. They were in the trenches heading for no mans land when I came in. During an offensive that's making good progress I could see having to send messengers long distance, but the attack hadn't started yet. Was the Army really out of contact with their units? Doesn't seem reasonable.

During 1917 military units were not issued with radio.,At the onset of World War I, radio was still in its infancy. Army equipment was primitive, had a very short range, and often negotiated atmospheric interference. ... Military radio equipment also used vacuum tubes, which were heavy and bulky.

The main means of communication was carrier pigeon, telephone and runners.
 
During 1917 military units were not issued with radio.,At the onset of World War I, radio was still in its infancy. Army equipment was primitive, had a very short range, and often negotiated atmospheric interference. ... Military radio equipment also used vacuum tubes, which were heavy and bulky.

The main means of communication was carrier pigeon, telephone and runners.
correct. But there had to have been established normal lines of communications between a General and his units prior to an attack, from HQ to each unit. Not having people who are front line troops go on marathon journeys.
 
correct. But there had to have been established normal lines of communications between a General and his units prior to an attack, from HQ to each unit. Not having people who are front line troops go on marathon journeys.

Communications were usually by telephone, telephone wires run from HQ to the various units. All I can say is, the situation may have been too fluid to run telephone wires or if they were, the wires were cut by shelling.
 
I missed the beginning of it where they got their instructions. They were in the trenches heading for no mans land when I came in. During an offensive that's making good progress I could see having to send messengers long distance, but the attack hadn't started yet. Was the Army really out of contact with their units? Doesn't seem reasonable.

This is part of the problem I have with these movies, they rely heavily on a lot of coincidences to form the plot.

The chances of an attack going ahead without any direct line of communication with it's HQ I find hard to swallow, as far as I can tell it wasn't uncommon for staff officers to position themselves close to the front in order to speed up communications.
 
Hey Jo Jo Rabbit can claim to be "Inspired by true events", WW2 happened and Hitler was real.

Having watched that trailer I expect I have seen as much of the movie as I am ever going to see, it looks like another overly embellished pile of crap.

I bet the movie will depict the capture of an Enigma machine and code books. I will probably see it when it comes out. Btw, have any of you seen the latest movie about Midway? I have seen parts of it on YouTube when the dive bombers dive to attack the Jap carriers.
 
I bet the movie will depict the capture of an Enigma machine and code books. I will probably see it when it comes out. Btw, have any of you seen the latest movie about Midway? I have seen parts of it on YouTube when the dive bombers dive to attack the Jap carriers.
Saw Midway. Not bad. Covers Pearl Harbor, The Marshalls Raid, Doolittle Raid, and Midway. Unusuall to cover that much. Surprised that they got the insignia on the Navy planes wrong considering how much looked good,
 
I bet the movie will depict the capture of an Enigma machine and code books. I will probably see it when it comes out. Btw, have any of you seen the latest movie about Midway? I have seen parts of it on YouTube when the dive bombers dive to attack the Jap carriers.


I kind of lost interest when his "radar" screen showed masses of U-Boats after they sent him an ominous message.
If nothing else surely U-Boat crews deserve some level of respect as a professional fighting force and not a role in a movie as a dime store horror character.
 
Bingo on that!

I found a quote about runners during WW1.

As Sgt. Alexander McClintock, an American who served with Canadian forces in France, said in a 1918 newspaper account, “It is the rule to dispatch two or three or three runners by different routes, so that one at least will be certain to arrive.”

Which indicates that attempts to communicate between HQs and front lines would have had multiple streams of traffic from pigeons, telephone, dogs and runners going both ways.

The other thing to remember is that the event this was based on wasn't a large withdrawal, it was an organized withdrawal to preprepared positions in a small area of the front, it was no more than 15 miles at it's deepest and the allies knew about it as they had watched the construction of the new line via aircraft so the chances of losing contact with a large force of troops in that small an area are slim at best.
 
I found a quote about runners during WW1.



Which indicates that attempts to communicate between HQs and front lines would have had multiple streams of traffic from pigeons, telephone, dogs and runners going both ways.

.
And they would be Signal Corps., not line infantry that were apparently 12-18 hours by foot away.
 
As a matter of interest, the first ever message sent by carrier pigeon during WW1 was ""I'm fed up carrying this bloody pigeon all over France.""

:D
 
I'm waiting on the new Dambusters Movie, but apparently there's quite a bit of controversy regarding the name of Gibsons dog. Some one (I believe Stephen Fry) suggested that the dog be called Nigs which is absolute bullsh!te as its not historically correct. History is history, I don't think they should even try to change it.

When the original film was shown in my sons school a few years ago, the teacher stopped the movie and told the class that the name of the dog is not racist, it was a word used what was part and parcel of the day. I can remember as a boy there was a paint and a suit colour using that name.

I don't know how many on here has heard of the Wombles of Wimbledon (its a kids show regarding creatures that live underground and are coloured yellow), some lefty tree hugger has called the show racist. What the hell is wrong with these people FFS.
 
I'm waiting on the new Dambusters Movie, but apparently there's quite a bit of controversy regarding the name of Gibsons dog. Some one (I believe Stephen Fry) suggested that the dog be called Nigs which is absolute bullsh!te as its not historically correct. History is history, I don't think they should even try to change it.

When the original film was shown in my sons school a few years ago, the teacher stopped the movie and told the class that the name of the dog is not racist, it was a word used what was part and parcel of the day. I can remember as a boy there was a paint and a suit colour using that name.

I don't know how many on here has heard of the Wombles of Wimbledon (its a kids show regarding creatures that live underground and are coloured yellow), some lefty tree hugger has called the show racist. What the hell is wrong with these people FFS.
Political Correctness. In Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn there's a black guy called ****** Jim in the original writings, now he's Big Jim. Where he's fictional I don't see a problem with the change. On the other hand for decades "Chink" Gordon has been changed to "Chinese" and he was never called Chinese, he's a historical person and it shouldn't have been changed.
 
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