Ther most decorated woman in WW2

BritinBritain

Per Ardua Ad Astra
Nancy Wake, a New Zealander became the most decorated woman in WW2

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juVSj6qhOJ0"]Tribute to Nancy Wake - YouTube[/ame]
 
While I would like to think she was a Kiwi, I suspect the Aussies would be right in claiming her as theirs in this case.
:)

When I look at these stories and recall that generation from my youth and the things they achieved I really wonder how we ended up with the saggy crotch losers of the current generation, I wonder how they would perform under the same conditions.

She was an amazing person.
 
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Thank you for this Brit!
WOW!
What a woman!

Dadsgirl

Many years ago in my local pub I met a Dutch Resistance fighter, he noticed my regimental badge on my sweat shirt so we began chatting.

No boasting of daring do, but exactly how it was, the fear of being caught, the fear of losing his family and friends. He stated he wasn't of dying, he was terrified of a long lingering death at the hands of the Gestapo. When he went to visit the bathroom I turned to his wife and told her, "He's a brave man."

I wonder how many people today would take part in a Resistance Campaign?
 
Many years ago in my local pub I met a Dutch Resistance fighter, he noticed my regimental badge on my sweat shirt so we began chatting.

No boasting of daring do, but exactly how it was, the fear of being caught, the fear of losing his family and friends. He stated he wasn't of dying, he was terrified of a long lingering death at the hands of the Gestapo. When he went to visit the bathroom I turned to his wife and told her, "He's a brave man."

I wonder how many people today would take part in a Resistance Campaign?
As long as the occupying forces left the "reality" TV shows on air I doubt anyone would lift a finger.
 
Many years ago in my local pub I met a Dutch Resistance fighter, he noticed my regimental badge on my sweat shirt so we began chatting.

No boasting of daring do, but exactly how it was, the fear of being caught, the fear of losing his family and friends. He stated he wasn't of dying, he was terrified of a long lingering death at the hands of the Gestapo. When he went to visit the bathroom I turned to his wife and told her, "He's a brave man."

I wonder how many people today would take part in a Resistance Campaign?

With proper training Brit, I would.
 
Sadly not many SOE/OSS/Resistance operatives survived, all too many were captured and tortured dying horrendous deaths.

I'm not sure I could.

Hi Brit,
Yes, unfortunately I'm well aware of what the outcome could be.
I still would shake on it.
It's extremely necessary.

Dadsgirl
 
I am not certain, but I think the Germans punished families to captured resistance people too. Using terror to scare people from working with the resistance.

There were many different kinds of people involved in the resistance, some gathered information about the location of German facilities and other valuable info about the Germans to London. While other similar groups were fighting in a more direct fashion against the Germans, the Eastern Europe had a more military styled opposition, but we call them Partisans. They were active in Southern Europe too. (I include the Balkans in the Southern Europe)
 
One of the most astonishing resistance member was a blind chap who was allowed to take walks along a beach, with him was a small boy who would describe everything and its location, AAA sites, Big guns etc. The blind chap would keep it all to memory then transmit the information to London.
 
One of the most astonishing resistance member was a blind chap who was allowed to take walks along a beach, with him was a small boy who would describe everything and its location, AAA sites, Big guns etc. The blind chap would keep it all to memory then transmit the information to London.

I have always found stories of concentration camp workers doing all they could to slow up war production and sabotage equipment knowing that being caught was a guaranteed death sentence rather amazing, The threat of death, would have been reason enough to do a job especially since you were just a small wheel in a large machine, after all making a few MP-40s wasn't going to change the outcome, yet they still put their lives on the line to try.

I recall reading about the construction of the Atlantic wall where construction crews would use just a little too much sand to weaken the concrete or at times they would use beach sand as the salt content would attack the reinforcing steel and weaken the wall all under the noses of German engineers.
 
Another astonishing story of resistance was by Sergeant Major Charles Coward while a POW.

AN EDMONTON soldier nicknamed the Count of Auschwitz for rescuing 400 Jews from a Nazi concentration camp is likely to have his memory honoured for the first time in the UK.

Charles Coward, a sergeant major in the British army, used his position as a Red Cross liaison officer in charge of escorting Jews to the gas chambers, to bribe guards with food and smuggle healthy prisoners out.

He also sent coded messages back to the British authorities detailing the numbers of Jews arriving at the camps and the moves of the German military, and was a prosecution witness at the Nuremburg Trials.

His life has been immortalised in a Sixties film The Password is Courage starring Dirk Bogarde, while he was one of only 13 UK citizens to be awarded the status of Righteous Among the Nations by Israel, and a ward at North Middlesex hospital is named after him.

But this is the first time his life-saving efforts will be recognised by the British Government.

The move is seen as a reaction to comments made by Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, who commended Mr Coward’s actions in the House of Commons in November.

His own father, Yitzak Persky, was also a prisoner of war who saved Jews from the gas chambers, and met Mr Coward, reportedly describing him as a “most impressive character”.

Mr Coward’s daughter Linda Clarke, who lives in Enfield Town, met with Communities Minister Shahid Malik and representatives from the Holocaust Educational Trust last Tuesday to tell them about her father and discuss the new award, which has not yet been officially named.

Mr Coward’s son-in-law Barry Clarke said: “This award has been a long time coming.

“He was a very private man and seemed like a gentleman, he didn’t seem that type of person. I think it was really other people who were pushing for recognition.”

Mr Coward was a sergeant major in army when he was captured near Calais in 1940 aged 35 and in 1943 was sent to the prisoner of war camp at Monowitz (known as Auschwitz III).

On one occasion he swapped clothes with a prisoner and spent the night in a camp in an attempt to rescue a British doctor. He smuggled food into the camp and even explosives on one occasion to a resistance movement, which led to part of it being blown up.

An English Heritage blue plaque marks his former home at 133 Chichester Avenue, where he lived from 1945 until his death in 1976 of cancer, aged 71.

The sad part is, he lived not far from me where I lived in London, I never got to meet the man.
 
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Chichester Avenue, where he lived from 1945 until his death in 1976 of cancer, aged 71.

The sad part is, he lived not far from me where I lived in London, I never got to meet the man.

Indeed but a lot of these people lived very "quiet" lives after the war and rarely spoke about their actions.

I had a father and 3 uncles who served throughout WW2 and they never spoke of their experiences until they got together.
 
Indeed but a lot of these people lived very "quiet" lives after the war and rarely spoke about their actions.

I had a father and 3 uncles who served throughout WW2 and they never spoke of their experiences until they got together.

My Granddad who fought on the Somme during WW1, and my uncle Charlie who served with the LRDG and then up into Italy, neither of them spoke of the horrors of total war. My uncle Charlie only spoke of the amusing incidents, and once where he captured a MG nest. Brave people, each and every one of them.
 
If I allow myself to speculate about why they don't talk so much about the war and many veterans from more recent wars do the same are; they don't think outsiders will never understand the war. The unpleasant memories are maybe too strong for them to even talk about them.

If war veterans speak about the war, regardless which war. They seem to prefer to write about it than speaking verbally about it.

I quite recently read a diary by a German soldier who fought on the Eastern Front, his grandkids found it and published it. The German soldier was a feldwebel in an anti-tank unit and probably he died during the Operation Bagration when his division was wiped out around Vitebsk.
 
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