Blaine Howell @beware04 - Tumblr Blog

peashooter85

US soldiers learn wrestling, with possible setup for an armbar? World War I.

from the photo archives of Forrest J Mitchell Jr., grandfather of the author of the blog linked below.

https://remitchelljr.com/2014/03/09/wwi-combatives-and-wrestling-starring-my-grandpa/

peashooter85

Hunting sword of Karl Reimann, Mayor of Dorfmark, Germany, dated 1931.

from Sofe Design Auctions

peashooter85

Battle of the Dreadnoughts — A Star Wars short film

by Eckhart’s Ladder

demons

History books sometime call it The Longest Day, while some simply refer to it by a general operation term ’D-Day’ but Operation Overlord was the turning of the tide for the European war in the West.

Overlord might be the greatest battle, with all things considered, in the history of the modern world. Everyone knew it was coming. According to a joke of the time, the sheer concrete evidence of the impending invasion weighed so heavily on the British Isles that it should have sunk into the sea, if only they had not been held up by masses of barrage balloons.

In hundreds of hedge-bordered English fields, by late spring, were parks of camouflaged tanks, trucks, bulldozers, ducks, jeeps and self-propelled guns. Dozens of airfields were jammed to the fences with planes lined up beside the runways–more than 10,000 aircraft in all. Dozens of ports large and small were jammed with shipping–well over 5000 ships and landing crafts, including six battleships, twenty-two cruisers, and hundreds of destroyers, gunboats, corvettes and other fire-support crafts of what would become known as the Matchbox Fleet. More than 1 million troops especially trained for Overlord, half of them American and a half a mix of British or Canadian, organized in thirty-seven divisions for the amphibious assault.

It was an unprecedented concentration of power, and those who witnessed it happening believed it to be a manifestation of what would be by far the most complicated plan ever made for a single operation of war. And it was.

The invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944 proved to be a complete tactical surprise. Rommel, the Allies soon learned after gaining control of the beaches, had not even been in France during the beginning of the twenty-four hours he had said would be decisive for the war. On the assumption that the predicted weather would make a cross-Channel operation impossible, he had returned to Germany on 4 June for his wife’s birthday and to confer with Hitler. He did not arrive back to his HQ until six o'clock that evening of D-Day.

Some 156,000 Allied troops had established themselves on nearly eighty square miles of Normandy soil at a casualty cost of around 11,000; and Allies dominance (or rather, supremacy) of the skies, immediate shipping capacity, and prepared build up made it unlikely that the Germans could push back the Overlord forces.

The feel of the war had changed. It was the Allies who were continually making gains, in both Europe and the Pacific, and the Axis who were suffering catastrophic losses.

british-eevee

British Fighters Used At D-Day

Hawker Tempest V

The Hawker Tempest V was a very capable fighter for both intercepting enemy planes as well as performing ground strikes on enemy positions. On D-Day the Tempest performed well in both roles taking out enemy fighters such as the FW-190.

Spitfire Mk IX

The Spitfire took part in the D-Day invasion for fighter interception and cover of invasion fleet. The Spitfire was also capable of holding small bomb loads which it would drop on enemy positions.

Hawker Hurricane IIC

Armed with 4x 20mm cannons the Hurricane IIC was armed and ready aid in covering and intercepting any fighters that may engage the invasion fleet

beautifulwarbirds

tryingtobealwaystrying-deactiva

What breaks my heart the most is knowing that when the real Valery Legasov died, this was reality for him:

No one will ever know the truth about Chernobyl.

The safety changes he was pushing for, which would have made the remaining RBMK reactors safer, will never happen.

More Chernobyls will happen in the future.

His name had already been partially erased and was on its way to being completely erased from accounts of the Chernobyl disaster.

He made no difference. Everything he had tried to contribute was useless in the end. (Actual quote the day before he committed suicide: “My uselessness has come to an end.”)

He died thinking nothing he had done mattered. He never would have believed anyone would ever know the true story. He died thinking he was and always would be someone, whose name would eventually be forgotten, who accomplished nothing.

Vichnaya Pamyat. Eternal memory. Rest in peace.

joe-casanova

An animate gif illustration assignment for advanced digital. we has to base it off of a hero or villian. I chose the Tankman from Tiananmen square incident.

nogodsnokingsnomasters

Taxation is theft

worldwar-two

The grief at the Normandy American Cemetery feels world-historical.

The first thing you notice, at the end of the narrow roads that lead to this precipice, is how peaceful this place is. The cliffs are thick with rough green vegetation and drop down—sharply, then more gradually—to a Prussian-blue sea and a windswept beach. Omaha Beach.

I had been told nothing quite prepares you for this place, and it was true.

June 6 is the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Ceremonies are held every five years, and this will likely be the last time D-Day veterans will attend. It’s hard not to see this year’s ceremony as the end of a cycle of history—one that began with the Allies, led by the United States, turning the course of war here in Normandy and ended with the president of “America First,” who has made questioning the transatlantic alliance a pillar of his presidency.