Subject: WWII-L Digest - 17 Jan 1994 to 18 Jan 1994

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 00:00:25 -0500

There are 23 messages totalling 696 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. The Passing of Historical Personalities (was Charging Windmills)
  2. Waffen SS (6)
  3. Japanese soldiers in Indo-China after WWII
  4. GERMAN VETS
  5. USAAF 18 JAN 44
  6. SS, Waffen SS & Wehrmacht (3)
  7. Waffen-SS (2)
  8. re : Waffen SS
  9. CODE BREAKING (2)
 10. MEDIA/WEAP:  U-1105, the Rubber U-Boat (2)
 11. Brandenburg unit(s)
 12. military ranks
 13. U-Boats

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 17 Jan 1994 23:20:52 CST
From:    Steve Alvin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: The Passing of Historical Personalities (was Charging Windmills)

At the risk of deviating a bit from WWII, I have found an effective
piece of video to show my college freshman the impact of WWI on
Europe.  Of course I talk about the death and destruction of the
war and they are assigned to read All's Quiet.  But I also show
part of the first few minutes of the movie Chariots of Fire.
If you remember there is the scene at the railroad station at
Cambridge with all the decorated disabled vets hoping for a hand-
out by carrying the bags of the passengers.  At one point, as the
Cambridge students are strutting along, one vet turns to another
and says (paraphrase) "For this we went to war."  Later, at the
welcoming dinner, while the headmaster talks about
the duty of the incoming class to Cambridge, King, and country,
the camera pulls back and shows plaques on the wall that list
graduates that died in British serivce.  From 1910 or so the
list is short.  Then from 1914-1918 the list just gets longer
and longer.  The scene is more powerful than my description and
it always works well in class.  (I would like to show the
entire movie if I had the time!)

--
Steve Alvin
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 17:15:43 +1000
From:    John Foster <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Waffen SS

Gudmundur
         The main cause of alarm in the army retreating from the east and the
reason for the staunch resistance to keep the Russian army back from the REICH
was not because they feared the Russians as such but they feared what the
Russians would do to them and then the German people in the way of reprisals.
I think that speaks for itself.Enough said about who started what and the
losing side ie Germany never had anywhere near the war dead in either civilians
or army as the Russians even fighting on several fronts.
         As to your question what do I call the 50,000 dead in Hamburg
personally speaking I call it a war crime and the rules laid down at Nuremburg
back me up.
                                                          Regards
                                                           John

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 01:41:54 -0500
From:    Akira Takiguchi <[email-masked]>
Subject: Japanese soldiers in Indo-China after WWII

Lakeville Senior High <[email-masked]> wrote:
>It seems to me that I read that the French also re-armed Japanese PW's to
>protect French outposts in Indo-China.

     Since I have no books about this topic I can't verify the fact, but
from what I found in a newspaper database:

     After WWII a lot of (one source says over 2000) Japanese soldiers
entered Vietminh.  By 1956 most of the survivors returned Japan (6 of
whom were awarded by Vietnamese government in 1987).
     One of the few soldiers who remained in Vietnam, Mr Matsushima
hopes to return Japan now (1991).
                             (summary from: Asahi Shimbun July 18, 1991)
--
      Akira Takiguchi  VP, ATSON, Inc.  (a subsidiary of the Asahi Shimbun)
             CANAL TOWER  9-3 Nihonbashi-Koamicho Chuo-ku Tokyo 103  Japan
   +81 3 3666 2881(voice) 2882(fax)  EMAIL TO <[email-masked]>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 07:10:08 GMT-6
From:    Terry Moore <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: GERMAN VETS

John,

I will repost my response to your interesting query. Sorry about the
trouble getting it to you.

Terry

Terry Moore, Professor of German and French, Amarillo College
P.O. Box 447, Amarillo, Texas 79178, voice 806-371-5077
fax 806-371-5370

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 07:33:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: USAAF 18 JAN 44

COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
TUESDAY, 18 JANUARY 1944
FTP SITES
  1. ftp.rutgers.edu in directory pub/wwii/usaf
  2. byrd.mu.wvnet.edu (129.71.32.152) in pub/history/military/airforce/
     wwii_chronology

AIRCRAFT MENTIONED IN THIS REPORT:
  A-20, Douglas Havoc
  A-24, Douglas Dauntless
  A-36, North American Apache
  B-17, Boeing Flying Fortress
  B-24, Consolidated Liberator
  B-25, North American Mitchell
  B-26, Martin Marauder
  P-38, Lockheed Lightning
  P-40, Curtiss
  P-47, Republic Thunderbolt
  P-51, North American Mustang

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA (CBI) THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  BURMA-INDIA (Tenth Air Force): In Burma, 12 P-38's hit the airfield and
satellite field at Meiktila; 18 B-24's and 9 B-25's bomb the encampment area
at Kyaukchaw; 17 A-36's and P-51's hit troops, dumps, and workshops at
Sawnghka; 11 P-40's attack troops and stores at Shaduzup; 3 transport
aircraft are lost to Japanese fighters during a supply dropping mission SE
of Sumprabum.

  CHINA (Fourteenth Air Force): In French Indochina, 2 B-25's bomb the
railroad yard and wharf at Campha Port and oil storage facilities at Mon Cay.

MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (MTO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Fifteenth Air Force): B-17's attack marshalling
yards, a bridge and an airfield in the Florence, Italy area; P-38's and
P-47's provide close escort.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force): In Italy, B-26's hit the harbor,
tin mills, steel works, power house, and blast furnaces at Piombino, and bomb
the Montalto di Castro railroad and bridge; B-25's hit the town and railway
viaduct at Terni, and A-20's blast gun positions in the Minturno area; P-40's
hit trains, wharves and vessels in the Ploca and Metkovic, Yugoslavia areas;
A-36's and P-40's pound troops, trucks, and gun positions in the Minturno
area and near Pontecorvo and Atina, hit a gasoline dump at Pignataro
Interamna, a warehouse at Fontana Liri, a factory at Ceprano, the rail and
road junction at Avezzano, and railway at Santa Marinella.
  Transfers in Italy: 81st and 434th Bombardment Squadrons (Medium), 12th
Bombardment Group (Medium), from Foggia to Gaudo Airfield with B-25's; 307th
Fighter Squadron, 31st Fighter Group, from Pomigliano to Castel Volturno with
P-51's; 344th, 345th and 415th Bombardment Squadrons (Heavy), 98th
Bombardment Group (Heavy), from Manduria to Lecce with B-24's.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA, Seventh Air Force): In the Marshall Islands, 12
B-25's from Abemama Island, Gilbert Islands, attack barracks area, runway and
gun position on the N part of Mille Atoll; 25 A-24's and 8 P-40's from Makin
Island, Gilbert Islands pound the oil storage area on the S side of Jabor
Island in Jaluit Atoll; the P-40's also strafe a radio station in the target
area.

SOUTH PACIFIC AREA (SOPAC, Thirteenth Air Force): On New Britain Island, 34
B-25's supported by 70+ fighters, pound Tobera; and single B-24's on armed
reconnaissance bomb the Maliai, Vunakanau, and Lakunai areas.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, Fifth Air Force): In New Guinea, the Hansa Bay
area is bombed by 40 B-24's. 70+ B-25's pound the Madang and Bogadjim areas
and positions around Shaggy Ridge; 55 P-38's and P-40's engage a like number
of Japanese fighters over Wewak, losing 3 P-38's and claiming 12 shot down.
Other B-24's bomb Laha, Celebes Islands.
  HQ 345th Bombardment Group transfers from Port Moresby to Dobodura, New
Guinea.

SOURCES:
AIR FORCE COMBAT UNITS OF WORLD WAR II, Office of Air Force History,
  Headquarters USAF, 1961, ISBN 0-912799-02-1
COMBAT SQUADRONS OF THE AIR FORCE, WORLD WAR II, Office of Air Force
  History, Headquarters USAF 1982
THE ARMY AIR FORCES IN WORLD WAR II: COMBAT CHRONOLOGY, 1941-1945 by the
  Office of Air Force History, Headquarters USAF, 1973
THE MIGHTY EIGHTH WAR DIARY by Roger A. Freeman, ISBN 1-85409-071-2

Jack McKillop
USAF (Airways and Air Communications Service)
1955-59

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Jack McKillop              |  Those who have long enjoyed such |
|  Bellcore                   |  privileges as we enjoy forget in |
|  Piscataway, NJ USA         |  time that men have died to win   |
|  [email-masked]  |  them.                     FDR    |
-------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 08:59:24 EST
From:    Richard Kaplan <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS, Waffen SS & Wehrmacht

Quick question for my own edification. Did Wehrmacht troops take the same oath
of allegiance to the Fuhrer (as an individual, and as the state) as the SS
inductees (volunteers) did?  Would this also hold true for the non-German SS
troops?

I always liked the German photo (it was their equivalent of a who we are, and
why we fight series) showing a young Wehrmacht trooper with the "Gott Mitt Uns"
belt buckle.  What was interesting about him, is that he wasn't a specimen of
the perfect Aryan.  I'll try and come up with the series name tomorrow.

                                Richard Kaplan
                                Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 07:24:12 EST
From:    Lowe Barrett MAJ <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Waffen-SS

Chris and listmembers:

There has been a lot of good info passed on the Waffen SS, but one
thing I'd like to make clear ref this message:  Guy Sajer was NOT
in the Waffen SS.  Sajer served in the Grossdeutschland Panzer-grenadier
Division.  This unit was an elite Wehrmacht (regular Army) unit and had
NO affiliation with the Waffen SS.  The book, "The Forgotten Soldier", is
an excellent book, no doubt about that.  Let's not get confused by lumping
the named (i.e. elite) Army units with the Waffen SS.

Some other named Army divisions:  the Panzer Lehr Division, the Brandenburgers,
44th Hoch und Deutschmeister Infanterie Division, the Feldherrnhalle
units (initially recruited from former SA members), the Fuhrer-Begleit
Brigade (Fuhrer Escort Brigade), the Fuhrer-Grenadier Brigade.

Bear

>Thanks to Mr. Kieran for his informed posting on the Waffen-SS.  By way
>of another reference, I can recommend the book by Guy Sajer, a
>francophone member of the Waffen-SS, "The Forgotten Soldier"--one of the
>few memoirs of the second world war that grinds no axes.
>
>Christopher R. Jackson, UC Davis
>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 09:06:08 EST
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: re : Waffen SS

>Right after the end of WW2 in Europe, the French began actively
>recruiting Waffen SS PWs for service in Indo-China. There was a
>direct offer that even the most culpable of SS would be quietly
>whisked away in return for them "volunteering" for service in
>what became a very nasty little war betwen the French and the
>Viet Mihn.
>A very large contingent of ex-SS subsequently fought in Foreign
>Legion units there.

Too much can be made of this.  I find Fall's analysis of the makeup of the
French forces in Indo-china convincing, and do not think that a high
percentage of forces there were even German, much less SS.

ken koester
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 10:12:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: CODE BREAKING

Tonight, the PBS station in New York City (WNET, Channel 13), presents
a NOVA show entitled CODEBREAKERS.  According to the review in the New
York Times, the show starts in 1914 and discusses the Oxbridgers in London
who broke the German Navy Code, decrypted the famous Zimmerman telegram which
helped nudge the US into World War I.

Most of the show relates to World War II including discusssions of William
Friedman who broke the Japanese Purple Code, the breaking of the code
providing information about Midway, the British-American team that broke
the German code allowing the Allies to beat the U-boats, etc.

For those of you in the New York metro area, the show is on Channel 13 between
8 and 9 PM.  The show is also on WEDW, Channel 49 (wherever that may be)
at the same time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Jack McKillop              |  Those who have long enjoyed such |
|  Bellcore                   |  privileges as we enjoy forget in |
|  Piscataway, NJ USA         |  time that men have died to win   |
|  [email-masked]  |  them.                     FDR    |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
 &a76c23Y~.
.

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 10:43:37 EST
From:    Charles Reace <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Waffen SS

> German forces marched to the East to destroy and to kill.As simple as that and
> > that this clearly was a war crime by all involved.
> >      Comments please ladies and gentlemen,boys and girls!
>
>
> This is wrong, One cannot say that ALL (or even most) of German
> soldiers that started Barbarossa went in to kill and Destroy! If so then

Regardless of the relative morality of the common soldiers, the real problem
IMHO is that *many* men of low morals rose to positions of power in both
Germany and the USSR at this time.  If they had not condoned or at least
willingly looked the other way, many fewer attrocities would have occurred.
When soldiers are killing and trying to avoid being killed, they *will*
become bloodthirsty.  And there are always evil people throughout this
world.  But if they know certain actions are forbidden and subject to
serious punishment, they're much less likely to happen.  So, I would spend
less time looking at the common soldiers and more at the political and
military leadership (so to speak) that allowed these horrors to happen.

  __|  __|  __|  |  Charles Reace <[email-masked]>
_|   _|   _|     |
 |       | |     |  Computer Sciences Corp., Integrated Systems Div.
 ___|____/ ___|  |  304 W. Rte. 38, Moorestown, NJ 08057

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 11:09:48 EST
From:    Charles Reace <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Waffen-SS

> Some other named Army divisions: . . .

And don't forget my favorite, the Herman Goering Falschirmpanzer Division
(parachute armor division -- I just love the image this evokes  B^)

  __|  __|  __|  |  Charles Reace <[email-masked]>
_|   _|   _|     |
 |       | |     |  Computer Sciences Corp., Integrated Systems Div.
 ___|____/ ___|  |  304 W. Rte. 38, Moorestown, NJ 08057

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 11:01:08 EST
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Waffen SS

On Tue, 18 Jan 1994 10:43:37 EST Charles Reace said:
>Regardless of the relative morality of the common soldiers, the real problem
>IMHO is that *many* men of low morals rose to positions of power in both
>Germany and the USSR at this time.  If they had not condoned or at least
>willingly looked the other way, many fewer attrocities would have occurred.

Possibly.  However, I think something that Keegan describes in =The Face of
Battle= is at work here:  the "slippage" of standards that occurs when fighting
someone not "of" one's "group".  Keegan describes this when he analyzes the
*kinds* of specific encounters that occurred at Agincourt, Waterloo, and
the Somme, pointing out that, say infantry/cavalry encounters seemed to
encourage brutal behaviour in a way that infantry/infantry or cavalry/cavalry
encounters did not.  But he also goes on to make the same point in his
summation afterward:  that encounters between groups that consider themselves
"separate" also engender much savagery.  I'm much afraid that the average
German probably didn't think the average Russian as being quite as human as
himself, at least subconsciously. . . and vice versa.  (By contrast, Americans,
British, Germans all tended to relate to each other as European or Western
in a broad sense.  Keegan points out, if memory serves, that the war in the
Pacific was quite savage for much the same reason; my own sense of wartime
propaganda--admittedly unscientifically sampled (-: --is that it dehumanized
the Japanese as a people more than it did the Germans.  God only knows what
the Japanese thought of occidentals--the Bataan death march is suggestive:
how dare these "warriors" inconvenience us by surrendering instead of fighting
to the death?  They must be sub-human; away with the lot of them! or similar
sentiments.)

ken koester
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 10:59:20 -0500
From:    James E Irwin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Waffen SS

In reply to the mail from <[email-masked]>...
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>Date:         Tue, 18 Jan 1994 03:30:39 GMT
>Reply-To: World War II Discussion List <[email-masked]>
>Sender: World War II Discussion List <[email-masked]>
>From: Gudmundur Helgason <[email-masked]>
>Subject:      Re: Waffen SS
>X-To:         [email-masked]
>To: Multiple recipients of list WWII-L <[email-masked]>
>In-Reply-To:  <[email-masked]>; from "John Foster" at Jan
>              18, 94 2:05 pm
>
>>     Much Deleted
>>
>This is wrong, One cannot say that ALL (or even most) of German
>soldiers that started Barbarossa went in to kill and Destroy! If so then
>the numbers of killed on the Eastern Front would be multiple to what we
>know them to be.  The vast majority of the Heer and the Waffen SS units
>at least tried to "behave" themselves. The Russians  "outclassed" the German
>armed forced in raw brutality (for instance the commisars who executed
>captured Germans and the numbers who were sent to Siberia to die). I
>have yet to see any data that says that the Germans started those
>tortures that were all over the Eastern Front and all that I have seen
>points towards the Russians. The Russians really hated the Germans as a race.
>Also, what do you call the Hamburg raids then (over 50.000 dead)?
>
>Gudmundur Helgason
><[email-masked]>
>
 Gudmundur,

For the first two years after the Russian army went on the
offensive, it was fighting to liberated its own homeland.  What
some of these soldiers discovered when they liberated their home
towns was beyond description!!!!!  Read Craig's "Enemy at the
Gates" for some idea.  It was not only the Einsatzgruppen,
either!!

As for hating a race, how do you account for the description of
all Slavs as Untermenschen.  The Germans planned on using
western Russia as Lebensraum, what do you think they planned on
doing with the inhabitants?

If you are speaking of the fire bombing of Hamburg, it was the
British and the Americans who bombed Hamburg, not the Russians.
I call it an atrocity, as I have stated here before.

Jim

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 James E. Irwin (Jim)                  Internet address:
 Defense Personnel Support Center        [email-masked]
 2800 S. 20th Street                   215-737-8760
 Philadelphia PA  19101-8419           Autovon 444-8760

                     "Never in the field of human conflict
                     was so much owed by so many to so few."
                               Winston S. Churchill
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 11:03:02 PST
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS, Waffen SS & Wehrmacht

Yes, all officers and men of the Wehrmacht pledged personal
allegiance to Adi Adolph Hitler. The practice began as early
as 1935. Neat trick by AH, as previously all soldiers had
pledged alleigiance to their country, only.
In the event of request for supporting docs., there is graphic
evidence shown on s camera of this mass army oath to AH shown
in the first segment of the BBC/Thames TV documentary series,
THE WORLD AT WAR, which by coincidence I saw again just yeasterday
on TV Knowledge Network.
  ###

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 11:07:04 PST
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS, Waffen SS & Wehrmacht

To best of my recollection, The GOTT MIT UNS belt buckly buckle was
worn by German soldiers as early as thre 1914-1918 war. Hitler
allowed its retention, by his new army, as just another useful
ploy.

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 14:38:00 -0500
From:    David Rising <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Waffen SS

John,
Your note on the SS and all German troops who fought in the East was
interesting, but I think wrong in many respects.  First of all, it
implies that everyone who was in the Wermacht and in the SS who fought in
the East did so with the sole intention of committing atrocities.  This
is simply not true.  Many, if not most of the soldiers who fought on the
eastern front were conscripts- If you took a poll of the soldiers @ the
time, I bet you'd find most did not want to be there.  This also says
nothing about the Penal Regiments who were there as punishment for their
own special crimes.
 Secondly, you seem to be equating "going to war" or "fighting in a war"
with being responsible for war crimes.  While some may differ, the common
opinion is that if you are a soldier and you kill one/some of the enemy
in battle, you are neither a murderer nor responsible for war crimes.
Furthermore, not to make excuses for atrocities but, in war time, they do
happen.  The Wehrmacht committd atrocities.  So did the SS.  So did the
British Ex. Force, so did the American armies, so did the Russians.
Atrocities have been committed in every war in the 20th century by all
kinds of different armies.  I doubt, howvever, if many people joined
their respective armed services for this purpose.  I guess the point is
that the SS were bad, but so were the NKVD and many others. By this I
don't mean to excuse, simply to put things in perspective.
David Rising ([email-masked])

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 14:11:53 EST
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: MEDIA/WEAP:  U-1105, the Rubber U-Boat

Excerpts from today's (Tuesday's) =Washington Post=:

"For 36 years, the furtive U-boat nicknamed the Black Panther languished on the
Potomac River bottom. . . . Then, in 1985, a recreational diver researching
declassified U.S. Navy documents rediscovered the sunken German U-1105, a
World War II prize sheathed in rubber to evade detection by Allied sonar.

"The 220-foot U-boat was one of no more than 10 German submarines outfitted
with a four-millimeter thick rubber covering to avoid sonar detection.  It
is the only one left to have used this early form of stealth technology,
state officials and U-boat historians say.

"The U-boat was launched in April 1944.  Under Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim
Schwarz, the submarine embarked in April 1945 for its only war patrol,
along the Allied convoy route off the coast of Ireland.  After it was sighted,
it descended 570 feet to the ocean bottom and, despite 299 depth charges
lobbed at it from above, emerged unscathed, according to naval historians.

"'It was a very good boat, it was a very good tactic, and I had a very good
crew,' said Schwarz, now 75 and living in Hamburg.

"When he learned that the war was over, Schwarz said, 'We were told to
bring the boat to a <Scottish> port, and the crew walked off and was captured
by the British, and some of us spent three years after the war in England' as
detainees.

"While the captain was being held in Britain, his U-boat became one of a
dozen turned over to the United States.

"Under the war prize agreement between the Allies, the subs could be studied
for American defense purposes but then had to be destroyed.  The Black
Panther was sunk twice, first by flooding it in the Chesapeake Bay off Point
No Point in fall 1946.

"Three years later the boat was brought to the surface and towed into the
Potomac River.  There, on Sept. 19, 1949, in a Navy test of a new 250 pound
depth charge, the sub was sunk again, this time in 85 feet of water off
Piney Point, Maryland.  In describing the submerged sub's location, however,
a Navy report transposed two digits, incorrectly placing it off the Virginia
coast in the Atlantic."

Etc.  Maryland wants to make a sort of underwater park of the wreck in
conjunction with an existing on-shore museum.  They also want to prevent
souvenir hunters from hacking it to pieces, but the discoverer has already
sent Schwarz a couple of pieces of rubber & a switch from the conning tower;
the latter was ecstatic & shows the pieces at reunions with the surviving
crew (-:

Pretty nifty little tidbit.  Anyone know how well the coating worked?
(Not very, I would hazard, but anything is possible)  Also--570 feet?
I've seen too many war movies; I expect the hull to split like a melon
at anything under 300 (-:

ken koester
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 20:55:50 GMT
From:    Gudmundur Helgason <[email-masked]>
Subject: Brandenburg unit(s)

        Hi, all

        I have always been very interested in "special" troops in any
army and one of the most interesting has to be the Brandenburg unit. I
have almost never seen anything about this unit like: It's size, origin,
weapons, primary front (Eastern Front I think) and just about any detail
that exists on them. Weren't they treated as spies by the Russians and
shot uppon capture?

Regards, Keep this list as alive as it is now :)

Gudmundur Helgason
<[email-masked]>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 15:18:43 -0600
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: Re: MEDIA/WEAP:  U-1105, the Rubber U-Boat

Ken,

     My understanding is that U-Booten could survive dives of 1000',
usually -- :-).

     At great depths, the rubber might be highly effective in
absorbing asdic pings.

Lou Coatney, WIU

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 17:09:21 EST
From:    Charles Reace <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: CODE BREAKING

I believe it's also on Channel 12 in the Philadelphia area tonight.

  __|  __|  __|  |  Charles Reace <[email-masked]>
_|   _|   _|     |
 |       | |     |  Computer Sciences Corp., Integrated Systems Div.
 ___|____/ ___|  |  304 W. Rte. 38, Moorestown, NJ 08057

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 17:07:22 -0600
From:    WILLIAM HUBER - SCDR <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: military ranks

In Johannes' message of 17 Jan 1994 at 0555 CST, he writes:

>         Is it true that field marshals and five-star generals are only created
>         during war and not in peacetime?

Its true in the US military.

>         Is there a case for creating special ranks for women members of the
>         forces? Or special names for their ranks? Of course, these names
>         should not be derivatives of the male equivalent but "stand on their
>         own feet" as it were.

The Germans had a differentiation in ranks in organizations that
utilized large numbers of women like the DRK (Deutsches Rotes Kreuz).
In the 1940 Dienstaltersliste they are listed as DRK Oberfuhrer and
then DRK Oberfuhrerin.  The rank was the same but the men were listed
in every case before the women of the same rank thus giving them a
lower number in the Dienstalter.

The US military did no such differentiation that I am aware of.  A
major was a major - parts is parts...... :-)

Cheers, Bill Huber / [email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Wed, 19 Jan 1994 00:20:35 +0100
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Waffen SS

On Tue, 18 Jan 1994, John Foster wrote:

> I think that speaks for itself.Enough said about who started what and the
> losing side ie Germany never had anywhere near the war dead in either
> civilians
> or army as the Russians even fighting on several fronts.

No doubt that some Germans commited war crimes on the eastern front.  But
is it correct to held the Germans totally responsible for all Russians
killed? The government of Stalin had a tendency to be very wasteful with
human lifes, and it deliberately sacrificed large numbers of soldiers that
were sent in without adequate training or equipment to halt the German
advance. It probably also didn't care much about the civilian victims of
'scorched earth' tactics and the like.

Emmanuel Gustin

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 18 Jan 1994 22:45:11 -0600
From:    Jon Stevens <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: U-Boats

Gudmundur,

I am not sure if someone has already mentioned it but have you heard of the
organization, Sharkhunters?  It is an organization devoted to the history
of the U-Boat and also has a monthly magazine.

Sharkhunters
P.O. Box 1539
Hernando, FL 34442
USA
Ph (904) 637-2917

Jon Stevens

Right now it is about -16 degrees farenheit in Chicago.  Is is any colder
in Iceland?

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End of WWII-L Digest - 17 Jan 1994 to 18 Jan 1994
*************************************************