World War Two
Published 12 Jun 2021It’s a week of starts and stops. The Battle of Sevastopol kicks into high gear, and the Battle of Gazala enters its third phase. And what is going on in the Pacific just one week after Midway?
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June 13, 2021
Sevastopol Must Fall! – WW2 – 146 – June 13, 1942
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Wartime Changes: The Bren MkI Modified and Bren MkII
Forgotten Weapons
Published 3 Mar 2021http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
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The British lost some 90% of their stock of Bren light machine guns in the disastrous Dunkirk evacuation, and in the following months rushed to rearm. Part of this program was a two-tiered simplification of the Bren design. First was a MkI Modified Bren (which was not marked any differently than the original MkI), and this was followed by a MkII design. These patterns simplified many of the machining operation required to produce the Bren, significantly reducing the number of required machining operations. The most visually distinctive elements of the MkII pattern were the omission of the stainless steel flash hider assembly and the replacement of the original dial rear sight with a simple ladder sight. In addition, changes were made to the buttstock, buttplate, receiver profile, gas block, and bipod. Both Enfield and Inglis would produce the simpler MkII Brens by the middle of the war. Despite the many changes made, the core operating components (bolt, bolt carrier, etc) were left unchanged, so they could still interchange between all patterns of the gun in service.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
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June 12, 2021
Normandy – 1944 | Movietone Moment | 11 June 2021
British Movietone
Published 11 Jun 2021On this day in 1944, five days after the D-Day landing, the allied forces converged in Normandy. Here is a British Movietone report covering the event.
More and more reinforcements and supplies arrive in Normandy each day. In the skies Allied air power continues to bomb and strafe the enemy. Captured German film shows Rommel and von Rundstedt visiting the vast concrete fortifications on the coast which were thought to be impassable. Mr Churchill arrived onboard HMS Kelvin and was greeted by General Montgomery as he came ashore.
Cut story – Dusk or dawn shot of destroyer with sun rising or sinking in background. Sunrise with armada in fore. Yanks board LCIs. Shots of LCTs. Beached equipment unloaded. GV of activity on beach. British troops of LTC. CU Tedder on bridge of ship. GS of Ramsay & Vian. Tedder, Ramsay & Vian walk along raft into camera. Elevated shot of activity on beach, very good. Troops build airstrip, bulldozers etc. at work. Plane takes off. Camera gun – shooting up trains, transport, & other targets, several large explosions. British pass through street, Frenchmen look on. AFU – British soldiers at look-out with field glasses. Troops (Canadian or British) run through fields & wooded country. Troops through street, French clap. Army transport passes through street, directed by soldier. Yanks march through streets. POW along roads, & over beach, wade out to LCT, one attempts to pull up sock while walking. Captured German reel GS of Rommel & Rundstedt. CU Rommel. SCU of coastal guns, & various shots of fortifications, pillboxes etc. Rommel & Rundstedt walk round inspecting same, look at double barrel coastal gun. SCU of barrel of guns, & various shots of Atlantic Wall (AFU British troops knock part of “Wall” down which they have captured). Eisenhower, Marshall & Arnold on bridge of ship. GV of destroyer Kelvin at sea – very good. CU Churchill in Trinity House uniform, wearing glasses. Churchill assists Brooke with “Mae West” life jackets. Both seated on deck Kelvin at sea. CU Churchill. Kelvin passes Nelson, Ramillies & other warships also large part of armada. Churchill transfers … ships, sailors cheer as he leaves. CU Churchill. CU Smuts both very good. Churchill, Smuts & Brooke in “Duck” [DUKW]. Churchill leans over side talks to Montgomery, Churchill alights from “Duck”. Shakes hands with Monty. The above four in group on beach, walk through crowds of soldiers. AFU – Monty stands on raised platform addresses troops (silent) Monty & Churchill through crowds. Churchill with Monty & climbs into Jeep. SEE STORY NUMBER 44914/2 & 44914/3 FOR CUTS
AP Has HD copy – HD ProRes 422 4:3 – 24fpsDisclaimer: British Movietone is an historical collection. Any views and expressions within either the video or metadata of the collection are reproduced for historical accuracy and do not represent the opinions or editorial policies of the Associated Press.
You can license this footage for commercial use through AP Archive – the story number bm44914
#Normandy #WWII #DDay
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Sail to Steam to Iron – Half a Century of Change
Drachinifel
Published 19 Dec 2018Today we look at the development of warships from 1815 to 1860.
Want to support the channel? – https://www.patreon.com/Drachinifel
Want to talk about ships? https://discord.gg/TYu88mt
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June 10, 2021
QotD: “Defending” democracy using totalitarian methods
One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that “bourgeois liberty” is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who “objectively” endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. This argument was used, for instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were guilty of all the things they were accused of: but by holding heretical opinions they “objectively” harmed the régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to massacre them but to discredit them by false accusations. The same argument was used to justify the quite conscious lying that went on in the leftwing press about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was released in 1943.
These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a workingmen’s college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals — the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this. In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whether or not he had committed any technical crime. We were fighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quisling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in 1943 was an outrage. The general failure to see this was a bad symptom, though it is true that the agitation against Mosley’s release was partly factitious and partly a rationalisation of other discontents. But how much of the present slide towards Fascist ways of thought is traceable to the “anti-Fascism” of the past ten years and the unscrupulousness it has entailed?
George Orwell, Unpublished Preface to Animal Farm, 1945.
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June 9, 2021
Very Rare and Mostly Pointless: the Bren Fixed Line Sight
Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Feb 2021http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The very early production MkI Bren light machine guns were made with two dovetail brackets on the left side of the receiver. The rear one was for the standard rear sight, and the front one was to accommodate two types of optical sights. A mounting for the No.32 telescopic sight (the same one used on the No4(T) sniper rifle) was planned, but never produced. What was made in small numbers by the Plessey company was a “fixed line sight”. This was really more like a surveyor’s tool than a traditional sight, and it used the same optical element as the Vickers dial sight that was introduced alongside it in 1939. The purpose was to allow a tripod-mounted Bren to be set up with specific limits to its field of fire, and then for the gun to be removed, used on the bipod elsewhere, and returned to the tripod and confirm the field of fire, especially in the dark. This is a somewhat technically complex task, but not one that was actually needed very much for the Bren. As a result, production and use of the fixed line sights was very limited, and the sights are extremely rare today. The mounting bracket on the Bren receiver was rather quickly dropped from production as an unnecessary waste of machining time.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
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June 8, 2021
QotD: Magna Carta
- That no one was to be put to death, save for some reason (except the Common People).
- That everyone should be free (except the Common People).
- That everything should be of the same weight and measure throughout the Realm (except the Common People).
- That the Courts should be stationary, instead of following a very tiresome medieval official known as the King’s Person all over the country.
- That “no person should be fined to his utter ruin” (except the King’s Person).
- That the Barons should not be tried except by a special jury of other Barons who would understand.
Magna Charter was therefore the chief cause of Democracy in England, and thus a Good Thing for everyone (except the Common People).
After this King John hadn’t a leg to stand on and was therefore known as `John Lackshanks’.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
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June 7, 2021
The History of the Scottish Flag
History With Hilbert
Published 4 May 2018One of the most prominent parts of the Union Flag is the Scottish Flag or Saltire, which is a bonny flag in its own right as well. In this video, as part 2 of my series on the Union Flag and the flags that make it up, I’m going to look at why this flag became the Scottish flag, what’s the symbolism behind it and which ones came before it. Lots of vexiology, historiography and etymology to come, strap in because this, is History with Hilbert!
Music Used:
“Sneaky Snitch” – Kevin MacLeod
“Up and Away” – Holfix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YmM_…
“Heroes – CO.AG”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9yVZ…
“Eastern Thought” – Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 LicenseAll images are from the Public Domain of Wikimedia Commons and Pixabay.
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June 6, 2021
Turning Point of History: D-Day Juno Beach
ch1201
Published 8 Nov 2014Examines Canada’s role on June 6th, 1944 and the advance through Normandy, France.
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June 5, 2021
Bren MkI: The Best Light Machine Gun of World War Two
Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Feb 2021http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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In the years after World War One, the British military wanted a new machine gun, and they wanted it to replace both the Lewis and the Vickers. Through the 1920s the British would tinker with most of the light machine guns that became available, but it was not until the early 1930s that a serious formal trial was conducted. The initial trials found three particularly encouraging guns; the ZB-26, Madsen, and Vickers-Berthier. Over a series of followup testing, the Madsen and Vickers-Berthier were both eliminated, leaving the Czechoslovakian ZB as the final choice.
The British were extremely enthusiastic about the qualities of the ZB, and it is understandable why. The final .303 British version, the Bren, is widely regarded as the best magazine-fed light machine gun ever made. In its final preproduction trial, one of the prototype guns endured a 150,000-round trial without any real problems.
The design was licensed for British production as well as in the Dominions, and would be put into production at both Enfield in England and the John Inglis company in Canada. About 30,000 were produced before the Dunkirk disaster, which would lead to simplification of the design. But those changes are a subject for another video later…
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
From the comments:
Jeffrey Holdeman
5 hours ago
Ian- “this video is getting a little long already”Everyone else- “so what!”
Notable Discomfort
2 hours ago
Ian: “This video is a little long already.”
Everyone: “Baby doll, you take all the time you need, I’m in love with every second you take. Every minute you take to explain this rifle is a minute I get to spend with you and your comforting voice. Don’t never apologize. There’s nothing to be sorry about.FLIBFLAGGAFLUP
2 hours ago
The sheer amount of Victoria Cross citations that start with “he picked up a Bren gun” is stupendous, like a WW2 cheat code.
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QotD: British wartime censorship
At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. And this nation-wide conspiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough, against a background of genuine intellectual tolerance. For though you are not allowed to criticise the Soviet government, at least you are reasonably free to criticise our own. Hardly anyone will print an attack on Stalin, but it is quite safe to attack Churchill, at any rate in books and periodicals. And throughout five years of war, during two or three of which we were fighting for national survival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advocating a compromise peace have been published without interference. More, they have been published without exciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of the USSR is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld. There are other forbidden topics, and I shall mention some of them presently, but the prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group.
George Orwell, Unpublished Preface to Animal Farm, 1945.
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June 4, 2021
“I’m talking about the Pride flag. That omnipresent rainbow eyesore. A virtue-signal made cloth.”
Brendan O’Neill seems to have had it up to here with the rainbow flag being used everywhere at all times, the unbearable annoyingness of Pride:
“Pride Flags, Commercial Street, Provincetown, Credit: Tim Grafft/MOTT” by Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
I see the flag-shaggers are out in force. No, not working-class people who hang the Union flag from their living-room window as an expression of pride in their nation. I’m talking about the Pride flag. That omnipresent rainbow eyesore. A virtue-signal made cloth. The flag no one can escape. Yep, it’s Pride Month, which means that everywhere you go for the next four weeks – the bank, the supermarket, Maccy D’s – you’ll have this flag waved in your face to remind you not to be such a horrible, homophobic piece of shit. Happy Pride Month!
God, Pride has become annoying. It’s so gratingly ubiquitous. I haven’t seen this much smug flag-waving since 100,000 Guardian readers wrapped in the EU colours, tears streaking their blue-painted faces, descended on Whitehall to demand the cancellation of stupid northern people’s votes. And yet the people who cry “flag-shagger!” every time Keir Starmer stands stiffly next to the Union flag, or when Robert Jenrick goes on TV with a backdrop of showy British memorabilia, are curiously silent about the adorning of every building in the land with the bloody Pride flag.
You can’t move for rainbows right now. The Pride flag will flutter from town halls across the country. Some schools in Scotland will fly the flag for the whole month. I can’t be the only person who found the photo of school pupils wearing Pride face masks beneath a vast Pride flag somewhat chilling. It’s borderline cultish. Go to a cashpoint machine and you’ll be told about Pride. Coutts Bank on The Strand in London once painted its entire facade in the Pride colours. That was a very expensive way of saying: “We’re nice, I swear.”
Cops will wear Pride-coloured badges. They’ll do dad-dancing at Pride marches and everyone will go wild for it (except the Daily Mail probably). The army is getting in on the act. It is using Pride Month to showcase its British Army LGBT+ Network. If this doesn’t become a meme featuring someone in the Middle East saying “They say the next bombs will be dropped by people who believe in gay rights! Don’t you love progress!”, I will lose all faith in the internet. Even the Beano is flag-shagging. It posted a comic strip featuring Dennis the Menace in a Pride-coloured jumper. I preferred him when he was bullying Walter the Softy.
Snacks are propaganda now, too. Who can forget M&S’s Pride sandwich, which was basically a club sandwich with added guacamole (“Gays like guacamole, right?”). McDonald’s has created Rainbow-coloured boxes for its French fries, which was definitely one of the key demands of the radicals who took part in the Stonewall riot of 1969 that Pride is meant to commemorate. Skittles surely caused even Pride aficionados’ eyes to roll when they released limited-edition white versions of their sweets, because “we are giving up our rainbow to show support for the LGBTQ+ community”. (It is testament to the insanity of intersectionalism that the only complaint about this conceited act of corporate virtue-signalling was that the sweets were white.)
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Tank Chats #109 | Scorpion & TV15000 | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 30 Oct 2020Join The Tank Museum’s Historian David Fletcher as he discusses the TV15000, the unique prototype of the FV101 Scorpion armoured reconnaissance vehicle. David examines its development and how it came to be the production Scorpion we know today.
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June 3, 2021
The Supernatural Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle | B2W:ZEITGEIST! I E.19 Spring – 1923
TimeGhost History
Published 2 Jun 2021Being the creator of the legendary Sherlock Holmes has made Arthur Conan Doyle famous for his scientific rationality. But Doyle also has a deeply held belief in the existence of the spirit universe. In a world still reeling from the shock of the Great War, he is not alone.
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QotD: Simon de Montfort
Simon de Montfort’s Good Idea
Simon de Montfort’s Idea was to make the Parliament more Representative by inviting one or two vergers, or vergesses, to come from every parish, thus causing the only Good Parliament in History. Simon de Montfort, though only a Frenchman, was thus a Good Thing, and is very notable as being the only good Baron in history. The other Barons were, of course, all wicked Barons. They had, however, many important duties under the Banorial system. These were:
- To be armed to the teeth.
- To extract from the Villein(*) Saccage and Soccage, tollage and tallage, pillage and ullage, and, in extreme cases, all other banorial amenities such as umbrage and porrage. (These may be collectively defined as the banorial rites of carnage and wreckage).
- To hasten the King’s death, deposition, insanity, etc., and make quite sure that there were always at least three false claimants to the throne.
- To resent the Attitude of the Church. (The Barons were secretly jealous of the Church, which they accused of encroaching on their rites — see p. 30, Age of Piety.)
- To keep up the Middle Ages.
(*) Villein: medieval term for agricultural labourer, usually suffering from scurvy, Black Death, etc.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
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