Sunday - November 16, 2008

Iraqis accused of murdering British troops get thousands of pounds in legal aid .

Thought this whole thing rather Moonbat like although maybe not bizarre given today’s legal system.
Bet the Brit taxpayer really happy to fund this. yeah right. 
gotta go, running behind. Hope I can post more later.

Reinforces the thought, First we kill all the lawyers.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, and Ben Leach
Last Updated: 10:42PM GMT 15/11/2008

Two Iraqis accused of murdering British prisoners of war have been granted thousands of pounds in legal aid to fight being handed over to the Iraqi authorities to face trial.

Faisal Al-Saadoon and Khalaf Mufdhi are accused of killing Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth and Sapper Luke Allsopp in cold blood during the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003.

The British government wants to hand the two Iraqis over to the Iraqi government for trial. But their British lawyer has launched a High Court legal challenge saying such a trial would breach his clients’ human rights.

If he succeeds, the men, who are currently in British custody in Iraq, could be brought to the UK to face trial. Senior British Government officials are concerned that the two men will claim political asylum if they are tried in the UK.

The challenge, to be heard this week, has angered the dead British soldiers’ relatives and opposition politicians.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark and a former infantry commander, said: “ It seems totally wrong to me that these men are being given legal aid. Would we have given legal aid to Nazis who committed war crimes in the Second World War – of course not – this is arrant nonsense.

“What the hell is the point of fighting a war to try and establish democracy in a tyranny and then show a complete lack of trust in the new regime by failing to deliver alleged killers for trial? If these men do not stand trial in Iraq it would make a mockery of the blood spilt by British troops in fighting this war.”

The murder of SSgt Cullingworth, 36, and Spr Luke Allsopp, 24, both members of 33 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) provoked a storm of outrage in the UK, with Tony Blair claiming that the two men had been executed by the Iraqi Army.

The soldiers were travelling as part of a convoy which was ambushed by Fedayeen militiamen on the outskirts of the town of Al Zubayr in southern Iraq on March 23, 2003.

While half the convoy escaped, SSgt Cullingworth, who was married with two sons, and Spr Allsopp, were taken to a local Ba’ath party headquarters and then to an Iraqi intelligence base, where they were shot dead.

Photographs taken of the soldiers at the compound as they lay dying, surrounded by a baying mob of Iraqis, were later shown on the Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera. The soldiers’ graves were discovered a month later and their bodies were exhumed.

The judicial review of the men’s case has been launched by the firm Public Immunity Lawyers who have been funded through legal aid.

Phil Shiner, of Public Immunity Lawyers, believes that Mr Saadoon, 56, and Mr Mufdhi, 58, would not get a fair trial in Iraq and could face the death penalty if found guilty. He also believes they would be tortured and abused by other inmates.

Mr Shiner told The Sunday Telegraph that the Iraqi Higher Tribunal, where they would be tried, was a “politicised court” established by the US-led coalition to try senior members of the former Ba’athist regime, and had already ordered the execution of several regime members including Saddam Hussein.

Mr Shiner, who confirmed that the judicial review was being funded by legal aid, will claim that to try the alleged killers in Iraq would be a breach of their human rights under the Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

He said: “The IHT have a track record of sentencing people to death and we, the UK, have a policy of not handing over people to a jurisdiction if there is a risk of the death penalty being applied.”

The Sunday Telegraph understands, however, that senior officials in the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Justice have been given assurances at the “highest level” that the two accused will receive a fair trial and treatment, whatever the outcome of the case.

It is also understood that one of the families of the British dead have written to the Iraqi court and asked for clemency in the event that the former Iraqi soldiers are found guilty. 

(proves there’s ALWAYS one out there, doesn’t it?)

Margaret Cullingworth, 83, the mother of Simon Cullingworth, who lives in Ruthin, North Wales, said: “They should be tried and brought to justice in their own country. It was a horrible crime. We could have accepted it if they had been killed in battle but they were prisoners and were murdered.

“We do have confidence in the UK authorities and believe they will do the right thing. Simon’s widow has been left to bring up the children on her own and she has found it very hard – we all have.”

A spokesman for the MoD said: “The Secretary of State for Defence and the Foreign Secretary have received assurances from the Iraqi Government that Mr Al-Saadoon and Mr Mufdhi will be treated humanely when they are transferred to Iraqi custody. The assurances have been considered and found credible, and they have agreed that the two suspects can be transferred to the Iraqi authorities, provided that the UK courts finds this lawful.

http://tinyurl.com/6kpvts

   Saturday - November 15, 2008

The first colour photographs from the German front line during World War One.

A bit of interesting photographic history.

My posting will be light to non today.

There are 17 color photos at the link.

Hans Hildenbrand was one of 19 official German photographers documenting the war, but the only one to shoot in colour

Hildenbrand’s photos are mostly from Alsace and Champagne in 1915 and 1916
Picture: HANS HILDENBRAND

Here is the link to the other pictures.

   Wednesday - October 29, 2008

NEVER JUDGE A BATTLING BRIT BY THE COVER. THEY COME IN MANY FORMS, AND THEY WILL GET YA.

THIS BATTLING BRIT DIDN’T DO IT IN A SPITFIRE OR ON THE BATTLEFRONT WITH A RIFLE.
TOO OFTEN WE FORGET THAT THERE ARE MANY WAYS OF SERVING YOUR COUNTRY THAT CAN BE JUST AS LIFE THREATENING.

This woman’s life was spent doing a James Bond for real.  Can you imagine the stress?  I can’t see how there wouldn’t be. I guess she had nerves of steel.  If not that, then something else and whatever it was, she was extraordinary.

RIP and Thanks, Miss Julia Pirie.

Julia Pirie
MI5 agent who for two decades worked at the heart of the British Communist Party

Last Updated: 8:48PM GMT 28 Oct 2008

Julia Pirie, who has died aged 90, spent two decades as an MI5 agent at the heart of the Communist Party of Great Britain, most of it as personal assistant to the party’s general secretary.

A small, dumpy woman with the appearance of a confirmed and rather matronly spinster, Julia Pirie was the most unlikely of spies. But her unassuming demeanour masked a sharp intellect and the powers of observation essential for the task of a secret agent.

She was recruited to infiltrate the party at the beginning of the 1950s, at a time when many Britons still remembered the Soviet Union as a valued wartime ally and Communists retained considerable influence within the trades union movement.

Julia Pirie would pass over her regular reports and photocopied documents to her MI5 handlers during cricket matches at the Oval cricket ground, a procedure that left her with a lifelong love of the game.

She was told to resign from her party post in the 1970s, by which time, she said, the Communist Party had become a rather pathetic and increasingly irrelevant organisation. She went on to collect intelligence on the Provisional IRA during several missions in Europe.

Effortlessly adopting the cover of a harmless, elderly English spinster intent on sightseeing, Julia Pirie once travelled to Barcelona, renting a flat immediately below one occupied by IRA officials. The flat, rented by members of the Catalan terrorist group Terra Lliure, was being used by the IRA as a safe house and a temporary store for shipments of gold bullion supplied by the Libyan President Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Julia Pirie’s inability to control the reverberation and echo coming from her own equipment led to some precarious and alarming moments. At one point her apartment was raided by the Barcelona police, putting the entire operation at risk. Julia Pirie was aware from monitoring their communications that the IRA terrorists were nervous of discovery, and the arrival of a number of armed police officers was unlikely to reassure them.

But she managed to persuade the police that she was simply an innocent English spinster, and calmly continued her monitoring operation until her MI5 handlers, alarmed at the latest turn of events, pulled her out for her own safety.

Elizabeth Mary Julia Pirie (known to her family as Elizabeth, but, later, as Julia to her colleagues in MI5) was born at Harbury, Warwickshire, on July 8 1918, the only daughter of Allen Grant Pirie and Elizabeth Mary Pirie. Her father, an advocate from Aberdeen, died in 1923 as a result of wounds received in France while serving in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Soon afterwards Elizabeth’s mother decided to return to Calcutta, where she had been born and brought up, taking her daughter with her.

Elizabeth was educated at the Loreto convent at Shillong, in a rural area of Assam, where she recalled tigers roaming around the school. On the outbreak of war in 1939 she returned to Britain, determined to join the war effort. She joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s section of the British Army, and saw service as a driver of staff cars and ambulances in Shrewsbury before volunteering after D-Day for work in France and Germany.

She was among the first Allied soldiers to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and would later speak movingly about the effect this experience had on her.

After serving with the British Army on the Rhine, she left the Army and went to work as secretary and personal assistant to Kitty, Duchess of Atholl, who, as chairman of the British League for European Freedom, was an ardent campaigner against Soviet control of eastern Europe. It was during this time that Elizabeth Pirie joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, which had provided female agents for the Special Operations Executive working with the French Resistance.

She then worked for the International Maritime Organisation before being approached by MI5, possibly as a result of her links with FANY, and asked to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain working as a typist. She worked for F4, the section within MI5 which monitored the Communist Party’s activities and its links with the trades union movement.

Given her position as personal assistant to the general secretary, John Gollan, it seems highly likely that one of Julia Pirie’s earliest coups was to provide information that allowed MI5 to obtain the entire secret membership of the party. Selected members of the party were told to keep their membership secret so that they could be used by the KGB or Soviet military intelligence (the GRU) in operations in Britain.

Peter Wright, a former senior MI5 officer, revealed in his book Spycatcher that in the late 1950s one of the F4 agent handlers obtained details of the location of the secret membership files from an agent inside the party. The files were stored in the Mayfair flat of a wealthy party member, and the property was put under blanket surveillance. When the owner’s wife rang him to say that she was going out for an hour, but would leave the key under the doormat, an MI5 officer swiftly went round to take an impression.

Armed with the key, MI5 simply waited until the occupants went away to the Lake District for the weekend, then let themselves in and copied the secret files, rendering the potential Soviet agents useless. This was Operation Party Piece, one of a number of operations against the Communist Party that led Wright to claim: “For five years we bugged and burgled our way across London at the state’s behest while pompous bowler-hatted civil servants pretended to look the other way.”

Wright also described how bugging the party’s King Street headquarters was made more difficult by the way in which the leadership constantly changed the location of key meetings, eventually moving them to a windowless basement room.

An agent inside the building tipped off F4 to the location of the room and said that an old coal chute led down to it from the pavement. The response was another MI5 coup, known as Operation Tie Pin. This took place on a Saturday night when no one was likely to be in the party headquarters. The entire staff of MI5’s “A” branch surveillance team, known as “the Watchers”, was carefully choreographed to play the part of drunken revellers walking past the building in different directions, disguising the noise as an MI5 technician surreptitiously placed a false door containing a bugging device over the chute to allow continued monitoring of the meetings.

As personal assistant to the general secretary, Julia Pirie would certainly have been aware of the change of location for the secret meetings and remains the most likely source of the MI5 tip-off.

But within the Communist Party she was completely trusted, accompanying the general secretary to regular meetings and conferences behind the Iron Curtain. The fact that she usually attempted to avoid these “dreary” visits to the Eastern Bloc only reinforced her cover.

Despite the “threat within” that the party was believed to be, Julia Pirie revealed to her handlers that Gollan had very little power and was entirely beholden to Moscow and the Communists within the trades unions.

The Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956 was the catalyst for a loss of party members that was to increase with the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968. Gollan responded to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia by saying: “We completely understand the concern of the Soviet Union about the security of the socialist campe_SLps we speak as true friends of the Soviet Union.” With membership plummeting, from 56,000 during the Second World War to 20,000 by 1978, Julia Pirie was pulled out.

After retiring from active operations in the 1990s, she lectured to groups of MI5 trainees and the police before indulging her love of travel, visiting Russia, Europe, Africa, Australia, the Caribbean and the United States.

She remained extremely generous with her time and her commitment to those she regarded as her close family, regularly keeping in touch with relatives of all ages.

Despite the intense pressure of working under cover for much of her life, she always retained her quiet sense of humour and warm laugh. She never lost her keen interest in sport, particularly cricket, and was an avid and skilled bridge player.

Until her death on September 2 Julia Pirie continued to receive her pension from the Communist Party, paid monthly into her account from a bank in Italy. She was unmarried.

http://tinyurl.com/5rje8k

   Saturday - October 25, 2008

French accuse English of war crimes and exaggeration over Agincourt, (593 years ago. ahhhhhh)

OKAY ... BACK TO SCHOOL TO LEARN THE FRENCH VERSION .... ANY BRITS LURKING OUT THERE?  NAUGHTY BRITS. NAUGHTY. SAY SORRY TO THE FRENCH IMMEDIATELY. LOL BRITS STILL GET UP FRENCH NOSE AFTER ALL THIS TIME.  THEY’LL NEVER FORGIVE YA WATERLOO EITHER.

French accuse English of war crimes and exaggeration over Agincourt
The French are using the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt to accuse England’s men of acting like ‘war criminals’.

By Peter Allen and Nabila Ramdani in Agincourt
Last Updated: 6:19PM BST 24 Oct 2008

Exactly 593 years after King Henry V’s legendary victory, a revisionist conference will be held at the scene of the triumph.

Academics will suggest that the extent of the feat of arms was massively exaggerated, with claims that the English were hugely outnumbered a lie.

More controversially still, they will say that the foreign invaders used numerous underhand tactics against an honourable enemy.

These included burning prisoners to death and setting 40 bloodthirsty royal bodyguards on to a single Gallic nobleman who had surrendered.

‘There’s been a distortion of the facts and this conference will attempt to set the record straight,’ said Christophe Gilliot, a distinguished French historian who is director of the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt, where the conference will take place.

‘We have historians arriving from all over France, and all will produce hard facts concerning the battle, rather than rumours and speculation.

‘At the very least the English forces acted dishonourably. The middle ages were a very violent time, of course, but some might accuse the English of acting like what might now be called war criminals.’

It was on Friday October 25 1415 - St Crispin’s Day - that a force led by Henry V engaged the French at Agincourt, a small village not far from Calais in northern France.

The English army, made up mainly of archers using longbows, massacred a vast force of noblemen in the most famous battle of the Hundred Years’ War.

Immortalised by William Shakespeare in his play Henry V, Agincourt has since become a byword for English heroism in the face of apparently insurmountable odds.

In fact, detailed bureaucratic records of French king Charles VI’s army reveal that they were made up of 9000 travelling soldiers, perhaps with another 3000 locals from the Picardy region where the battle took place.

This compares to the total force of 12000 who travelled to France with Henry, although some 3000 were lost during the preceding siege of Harfleur, and through dysentery.

English chroniclers writing in the years following the battle have wrongly claimed that there were as many as 150,000 French, compared to 6000 odd English.

Mr Gilliot said notably horrific acts perpetuated by the English included placing prisoners in a barn and setting in on fire, with the permission of Henry V.

When the Duke of Alençon, who commanded the second division of the French army, had failed to put an axe through Henry, he tried to surrender but was killed by the King’s 40-strong bodyguard.

Mr Gilliot said: ‘There were numerous heroic acts by the French on the field of battle, but they were met with barbarism by the English.’ While, significantly, no English academics have been invited to today’s conference in France, the revisionist theories have found support on the other side of the Channel.

Professor Anne Curry, a military historian from Southampton University, admitted that many accounts of the battle have been exaggerated to give the impression of “plucky little England” against the evil French.’

Professor Curry, author of ‘Agincourt: A New History’, added: ‘For the French, Agincourt was such a disaster that someone had to be blamed. For the English, it afforded an opportunity to eulogise Henry and his army.’

http://tinyurl.com/5m3ffh

   Monday - October 13, 2008

New Yon

New Dispatch up from Michael Yon, from Afghanistan. Go. Read. Savor. Learn. Donate.

The Road To Hell finds Michael going off without his watchers, out to the Line and beyond, for his latest report. The photos alone are stunning - Afghanistan is such a dump it makes Palestine look good. But, as always, it’s the story that you want to read.

   Saturday - September 27, 2008

Fighter pilot who proved one of the finest American combat leaders of the Second World War .

Recently I am aware we’ve been criticized for so much foreign posting on what is after all, an American blog site.

I might have more to say on the subject later but here is a Brit obit in a major paper on an American pilot of WW2.  I was never aware of this fellow. Were any of you?  Did any major American paper give this guy this sort of coverage?  We just don’t tend to do it this way back home. And that’s a shame really because there have been many people, ordinary folks, who once had lives and achieved things of note and then got on with living and raising families and never talking about the past.  Then after they’re gone we learn about them and they turn out to be quite fascinating.  But they were never famous in their own time and did not seek fame.

I post a lot of things here that are to do with things Brit or European. (I never thought of Brits as European. Never will and wife’d divorce me if I did)
I had hoped that seeing what’s happening here might wake up ppl at home.  Not that anyone here is asleep.  But I did think folks might be interested in how we’re covered in the press here, as well as the totally screwed up and stupid PC culture that prevails.  And when it comes to PC stupid, the left here takes first prize. So far anyway.  My next post of nanny statery will be beyond belief.

OK so here .... The obit for an American fighter ace.  One of his pilots described Blakeslee as “George S Patton Jr in a P-51 Mustang”.

And damn it ... wouldn’t it have been something to be able to have known this guy and listened to his war stories. If he’d have talked about them.

Colonel Don Blakeslee
Fighter pilot who proved one of the finest American combat leaders of the Second World War .

Last Updated: 10:27PM BST 26 Sep 2008

Colonel Don Blakeslee in his RAF Spitfire: he later flew Mustangs from Debden, Essex, as commander of the 4th Fighter Group

Colonel Don Blakeslee , who has died aged 89, served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and the RAF before transferring to the USAAF, where he was considered one of the finest combat fighter leaders of the Second World War.

On January 1 1944 Blakeslee was appointed to command the 4th Fighter Group based at Debden, Essex. The role of the Group was to escort the Eighth Air Force’s long-range bomber force deep into enemy territory. A forceful, no-nonsense man, Blakeslee left his pilots in no doubt of what he expected of them when he addressed them for the first time: “We are here to fight,” he began. “To those who don’t believe me, I would suggest transferring to another Group. I’m going to fly the arse off each one of you. Those who keep up with me, good; those who don’t, I don’t want them.”

His Group was equipped with the P-47 Thunderbolt, a fighter he had little time for. He worked hard to be re-equipped with the P-51 Mustang, and when this was approved he was told that his pilots had to be operational within 24 hours of receiving them. He agreed, instructing his pilots to “learn how to fly them on the way to the target”.

In March 1944 Blakeslee led the first Mustangs over Berlin, escorting a daylight-bombing raid. In just four months his aggressive leadership led to the Group’s achieving its 500th “kill”. On June 21 he led his fighters (known to the bomber crews they escorted as their “little friends”) on the first “shuttle” bombing mission to Russia by Eighth Air Force Flying Fortresses, a flight of 1,470 miles. Blakeslee and his pilots landed in Ukraine after seven hours in their single-engine fighters.

By his own admission Blakeslee was not a very good shot, and he flew very close to his adversary before opening fire. He was credited with 15 and a half victories, but when there was a multiple claim he always allowed junior pilots the credit. Many believe that he destroyed at least 30 enemy aircraft.

His greatest asset was his outstanding ability as a leader in the air. One eminent aviation historian wrote: “He was everywhere in the battle, twisting and climbing, bellowing and blaspheming, warning and exhorting. His ability to keep things taped in a fight with 50 planes flying at 400mph was a source of wonder.” One of his pilots described Blakeslee as “George S Patton Jr in a P-51 Mustang”.

Blakeslee forged the 4th Fighter Group into one of the most formidable and successful USAAF fighter combat units — many claim it was the best. By the end of the war it had become the top-scoring American fighter Group. Having flown more than 400 operational sorties since transferring to the USAAF, he was finally grounded in September 1944.

Donald James Mathew Blakeslee was born on September 11 1917 at Fairport Harbour, Ohio. As a boy he watched the Cleveland National Air Races and became fascinated by flying. In 1939 he and a friend bought a light aircraft, but when his friend crashed it Don left Ohio, in October 1940, to join the RCAF.

After completing his training he arrived in England in May 1941, joining No 401 (RCAF) Squadron, flying Spitfires from Biggin Hill. Engaged on sweeps over northern France throughout 1941, he was credited with destroying a Messerschmitt Bf 109 and damaging others. He also destroyed two aircraft on the ground during strafing attacks.

He later transferred to No 133, one of the three American-manned “Eagle” squadrons of the RAF, and during the Dieppe operation in August 1942 he shot down a Dornier bomber, probably destroyed a Focke Wulf 190, and damaged two others. He was awarded a DFC after completing 120 operations.

In September the Eagle squadrons were transferred with their Spitfires to the USAAF’s 4th Fighter Group, and Blakeslee took command of the 335th Squadron. The unit was soon re-equipped with the P-47, and in April 1943 he achieved the aircraft’s first success when he shot down a FW 190, followed shortly afterwards by a second. In May he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and became the Group’s executive officer, continuing to fly in combat. As one of the most experienced American fighter pilots in Europe, he was asked to lead the recently arrived 354th Fighter Group on its initial operations. This was the first unit to be equipped with the P-51 Mustang, and he was able to claim another victory on the type. His experience with the 354th convinced him that the Mustang was superior to his own unit’s P-47s. A few weeks later he was promoted to colonel to command the 4th Fighter Group.

After he was grounded, Blakeslee returned to the United States to command an airfield in Florida. He remained in the USAAF and commanded a fighter wing. His later assignments included two tours in Germany and one in Korea, at HQ Tactical Air Command.

He saw service in Vietnam and retired from the Air Force in 1972 , when he went to live in Florida.

Blakeslee was one of America’s most decorated pilots: he was twice awarded America’s Distinguished Service Cross, as well as a Silver Star and numerous other medals.

Most fighter pilots enjoyed playing the role, sporting artwork on the noses of their aircraft as well as the tally of their scores. But for all his aggression and flamboyance in the air, this was not Blakeslee’s style. His aircraft bore no artwork and no “victory” crosses beneath the cockpit.

In later years, many aviation artists chose to paint a particular ace’s finest moment, usually an event relating to one of their air combats. The only painting Blakeslee ever officially approved was one that shows him standing in front of his Mustang pointing to his watch as he stands alongside a Russian officer. It depicts his arrival in Ukraine after his unique flight in June 1944 when he led the 4th Fighter Group across Germany and Eastern Europe using only a map on his knee and a watch.

He was greatly admired in the American fighter pilot community, which recognised him as one of the two outstanding pilots in the European theatre, the other being Colonel “Hub” Zemke.

In retirement Blakeslee was a private man who shunned publicity; but in July 2001 he agreed to visit Duxford with three other American “aces” for the Flying Legends Show.

Don Blakeslee died on September 3. He married his wife, Lee, on his return to the United States in 1944. She predeceased him, and he is survived by their daughter.

http://tinyurl.com/4ansdr

   Wednesday - September 24, 2008

A harrowing account of her time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. (one hell of a brave woman. RIP)

Heck of an item to start the morning blog with but this is a must. I booted without even checking emails first, which I normally do.

No Brit I bet outside this woman’s family and perhaps friends, knew her story.  She wasn’t the only very brave lady to face this ordeal to be sure.

But this happens to be her story, and I want to share it with all of you.  I’ll be quite honest about it.  I can’t say with absolute certainly and no doubts whatever, that I’d have had what it took to survive the same ordeal.  Who can predict until faced with it?
Don’t forget as well, this was a generation of women who could take for granted that no matter what, men would do all they could to protect them. And even at worst, women and especially nurses wouldn’t be slaughtered like cattle by soldiers.  Rape was always a possibility of course. But these women must surely have been brought up short and taken much by surprise at the mindless cruelty of the Japanese soldier against unarmed women who were never even combatants.  For example ....

In her book “Sisters in Arms, Brit nurses tell their story” by Nicola Tyrer, she recounts an episode where a group of British nurses were captured after wading ashore when their ship was sunk.  The Japs then forced the women back into the water, whereupon they opened fire on them killing almost all.  When the Japs left, a few survivors made in back to shore and one of them had a bullet go clean through her. She somehow survived the war and also was able to hide her injury from another Japanese patrol who later captured the few nurses who survived the original shooting.

So then .... Mrs. Phyllis Thom ... age 100 ....  A testament to bravery .... RIP .... From a most respectful Yank.

Phyllis Thom
Nurse who produced a harrowing account of her time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp after the fall of Singapore.

Last Updated: 2:06AM BST 24 Sep 2008

Phyllis Thom: in the camp, kept her spirits up by singing hymns

Phyllis Thom, who died on September 6 aged 100, was a nursing sister caught up in the Japanese invasion of Malaya in December 1941; the diary she kept of her three-and-a-half year internment, now in the Imperial War Museum, is all the more harrowing because of its abbreviated nature.

At the beginning of December 1941, Phyllis Briggs, as she then was, was one of four nursing sisters at the General Hospital in Alor Star, North Malaya. On December 8 her life of parties, dances and boat trips was rudely shattered by the arrival of Japanese bombers, followed soon after by troops crossing the Malayan border.

All the European women were evacuated, except for the hospital staff, who remained another four days to discharge the patients. On December 12, the nursing sisters were given the password “Curtain fallen” and joined the convoy south, travelling along roads jammed with refugees and dotted with burnt-out cars and rickshaws.

In January, Phyllis Briggs was evacuated to Singapore and assigned to a maternity hospital now used for air raid victims.The sight of a Chinese woman with half her face blown away and maggots crawling out of what was left of her nose was one she never forgot.

On Friday February 13 1942, as the Japanese bombardment intensified, she boarded the Mata Hari, a cargo ship with accommodation for nine passengers which sailed out of Singapore harbour with 320 aboard. There followed a hair-raising voyage, during which the ship had to dodge attacks by Japanese bombers. Two vessels that had been in Singapore harbour at the same time, the Kuala and the Vyner Brooke, were sunk. But as dawn broke on the third day, the Mata Hari was spotted by a Japanese destroyer and there was no option but to surrender.

Put ashore on the island of Banka and separated from their menfolk, the women and children were detained overnight on a jetty without food or water, huddling together to keep warm. As Japanese soldiers wrenched off rings, watches and other valuables, Phyllis Briggs knotted the jewellery she had into a head scarf and tied it under her hair for safety. It was to prove invaluable later as a means of bartering for food and medicines.

The following day they were transferred to a makeshift camp at Muntok, originally built for coolies in the tin mines, comprising a number of windowless stone buildings with sleeping accommodation consisting of raised concrete platforms, and rudimentary sanitation.

There they were joined by the survivors of other captures and sinkings, including Vivian Bullwinkel, the only survivor of a group of 22 Australian nurses who had waded ashore to the island after the sinking of the Vyner Brooke, and were massacred by Japanese soldiers.

Over the next three and a half years Phyllis Briggs was moved from camp to camp, enduring hunger, illness, the loss of friends, and arbitrary cruelties meted out by Japanese guards. At Palembang, Sumatra, she became seriously ill, passing blood, and nearly died.

Yet twice a day she had to line up for a roll call, a ritual known as “Tengko” (the answer required from prisoners): “We had to bow to the guards as they came by. If we did not bow low enough we would get a face slap”. Ration lorries came up the hill every day and the food, often rotten and full of weevils, was thrown on the road. “The best rations came on the Emperor of Japan’s birthday: four prawns each, one banana and a piece of pineapple!”

Phyllis Briggs did what she could to help the sick and dying. To keep her spirits up she joined a choir and sang hymns, a favourite being The Captive’s Hymn, written by her fellow internee, Margaret Dryburgh: “Father in captivity/ We would lift our prayer to Thee./Keep us ever in Thy love/ Grant that daily we may prove/ Those that place their trust in Thee,/ More than conquerors may be.”

Margaret Dryburgh died on April 21 1945 aged 54. The story of the choir inspired the film Paradise Road (1997), with Pauline Collins as Margaret Dryburgh.

By 1944 death had become an everyday occurrence, and entries from Phyllis Briggs’s diaries of the time convey the mixture of tragedy and black comedy that were characteristic of camp life.

“May 3 1944: Mrs Colley ill. Mrs MacLelland died. May 11: Mrs Curran Sharp died. I ate chopped banana skins for the first time, which helped to fill a corner. Every day fresh orders from the Japs about gardening and grass cutting. July 4: Felt ill and fainted again. The Japs complain that the children pull faces and laugh at them. More threats to cut rations. Mackenzie ill with dysentery. July 19: Still no rain – water ration reduced. Baby Darling died very suddenly. July 27: Grace Guer died. She had only been ill four days – a great shock to us all. She was young and pretty and had kept fairly fit. A high official visited the camp so we had to do up the dormitories and sweep the road. July 31: Capt Siki made a speech – the black market must stop – we continue to work hard and we must obey all orders.”

At one stage there were so many dying that the grave diggers could not keep up: “In the end the children were the strongest and it was they who did the digging.”

Phyllis Briggs was perhaps most affected by the death of her friend Mary Jenkin, whose husband Charlie had died in a men’s camp, but who was determined to keep going for the sake of her son in England.

On August 16 1945, a day after Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allies, Mary Jenkin succumbed: “At about 7pm the last thing she said was “I can’t do any more – I’m going to join Charlie,” Phyllis Briggs recalled. “I spoke to her and said I would see Robert, her son, when I got home to give him her love and to say how brave she had been – she gave a little smile – then soon after became unconscious and died within an hour.”

It was not until August 24 that the Japanese camp commander told the survivors that their captivity was over. But Phyllis Briggs’s ordeal was not. Evacuated to hospital in Singapore, weighing six stone, she shared the task of telling husbands from PoW camps looking for their wives that they had died. Later she discovered that Tony Cochrane, a young sailor to whom she had become engaged in 1941, was missing, presumed dead.

Phyllis Mary Erskin Briggs was born in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, on June 14 1908 and spent her childhood in Paris, where her father was chaplain of Christ Church in Neuilly-sur-Seine and of the British hospital in Paris. Both her parents died while she was still in her teens and she was brought up by an aunt and uncle in northern England. She trained as a nurse in Manchester and at King’s College London.

After the war she returned to nursing in Malaya in June 1946 and in 1947 was married to Robbie Thom, who became head of the Malayan Police Special Branch and a security officer in British Guyana before independence. After his death in 1967, she settled in Bournemouth, where she worked as a volunteer for Barnardo’s.

She is survived by two daughters.

http://tinyurl.com/3rga3e

In honor of this woman and ALL her sisters, trained to bring comfort and healing where they could, and who faced instead of appreciation, the mindless unreasoning brutality and violence of their captors during WWII.

So many if not all of them are gone by now.  Women armed only with some medical training and their faith, against armed killers.  This would have been true of the many nurses of other nations as well.  But the situation faced by the women in this theater of war was particularly bad, as we know today.  Although stories were leaking out by 1944-45 if not before.

My uncle was a navigator on a Liberator bomber during WW2.  His plane’s name was FLAK ALLEY.  The plane was badly shot up on a raid over the
Polesti oil fields and crash landed in an English farm field.  He was badly injured and wounded by flak.

I remember how happy our family was, especially my grandmother, as his crew (and others) had already been issued gear in preparation for transfer to the Japanese theater.  Nobody wanted to face the Japs and be captured by them and I guess the civilians already had heard the stories.

So this is a tiny place out of the whole world where I’d like those wonderful and brave women to be remembered. And their stories told and retold.
The holocaust isn’t the only outrage that needs remembering.

   Tuesday - September 16, 2008

Reports of shooting between Pakistan and US denied.

Hard to really know what’s going on over there.  The first reports that came in said Pakistani troops did in fact fire on our guys, their military further stated they would not tolerate American troops crossing the border. 

Now we’re told, Never Mind. Didn’t happen.  Except some are saying yes it did and other saying yeah but not that way. ?
Bizarre.

Pakistan and America have denied claims by Pakistani officials near the Afghan border that shots were exchanged between the two.

Last Updated: 8:40AM BST 16 Sep 2008

Firing by Pakistani troops forced US helicopters to turn back to Afghanistan after they crossed into Pakistani territory early on Monday, Pakistani security officials said.

Pakistan’s military spokesman, Major Murad Khan, confirmed that there had been shooting but said the American helicopters had not crossed into Pakistani airspace and that Pakistani troops were not responsible for the firing.

“The US choppers were there at the border, but they did not violate our airspace,” he said.

“We confirm that there was a firing incident at the time when the helicopters were there, but our forces were not involved.”

A spokesman for the U.S. military at Bagram Airbase, north of Kabul, said its forces had not reported any such incident.

But the official denials were contradicted by Pakistani civilian officials and villagers in Angor Adda.

One official said that “the troops stationed at BP-27 post fired at the choppers and they turned away”.

A resident described the tension in the village through the night. “We saw helicopters flying all over the area. We stayed awake the whole night after the incident,” he said.

The alleged incident took place near Angor Adda, a village in the tribal region of South Waziristan where U.S. commandos in helicopters raided a suspected al Qaeda and Taliban camp earlier this month.

“The US choppers came into Pakistan by just 100 to 150 metres at Angor Adda. Even then our troops did not spare them, opened fire on them and they turned away,” said one security official.

The US and Pakistani military both denied that account, but Angor Adda villagers and officials supported it.

Pakistan is a crucial US ally in its war on terrorism, and its support is key to the success of Western forces trying to stabilise Afghanistan. But Washington has become impatient over Islamabad’s response to the threat from al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s tribal regions on the border.

At least 20 people, including women and children, were killed in the South Waziristan raid earlier this month, sparking outrage in Pakistan and prompting a diplomatic protest.

Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani said in a strongly worded statement last week that Pakistan would not allow foreign troops onto its soil and Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be defended at all costs.

Another security official said on Monday that US armoured vehicles were also seen moving on the Afghan side of the border, while US warplanes were seen overhead.

He said Pakistani soldiers sounded a bugle call and fired in the air, forcing the helicopters to return to Afghan territory.

http://tinyurl.com/5mrvws

   Wednesday - September 10, 2008

Interesting Historical Bit

A guest post by Rancino. I helped a little. I tell ya, I’m gonna hafta hire that boy one of these days!



UPDATE: Reader Tony has actually seen one of these things and sent me a pic. OUTSTANDING !!! Click the thumbnail for a much bigger picture. Tony, you are awesome!!

During World War II, Japan had a secret weapon designed to spark a massive forest fire in the United States. Thanksfully, the device - which was partly made by Japanese schoolgirls - was a dud. Here’s the bizarre story of the Fugo killer balloons:

On May 5, 1945, Reverend Archie Mitchell, his wife Elsie, and five children from his Sunday school drove from the tiny southern Oregon town of Bly for a picnic on Gearhart Mountain. While Reverend Mitchell parked the car, his wife and the children explore. They came upon a device the U.S. government knew about but had kept secret. When one of them touched the device, it exploded: Mrs. Mitchell and the five children were killed. The six Oregonians became the only known fatalities on the U.S. mainland from enemy attack during all of World War II.



MADE IN JAPAN

The exploding contraption was a Japanese Fugo balloon bomb, the brainchild of Major General Sueyoshi Kusaba of the Japanese Ninth Army Technical Research Laboratory. The balloons measured 33 feet across and 70 feet long from top to bomb. They were constructed (by Japanese schoolgirls) from bits of a tough paper called washi, made from mulberry trees, and glued together with potato paste. The bomb parts were made in a factory - not by schoolgirls.

Filled with hydrogen gas, the payload consisted of 36 sandbags for ballast, four incendiary bombs, and one 33-pound antipersonnel bomb. Launched to rise 35,000 feet, the balloons were designed to use the prevailing Pacific eastward winds to reach the west coast of North America. As the balloons leaked gas and lost altitude, barometric pressure switches caused the sandbags to drop off and the balloons to rise back to the jetstream. The trip took three to five days. By the time they reached the United States, the baloons, now out of sandbags, were supposed to drop the bombs and then self-destruct. The Japanese hoped the bomb would cause forest fires and panic the American public.



FUGO, FUGO, FUGO!

Between October 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched 9,300 of these balloons. Estimates are that fewer than 500 balloons reached the United States or Canada; the rest fell into the Pacific Ocean.

In November 1944, one balloon was discovered in the ocean off San Pedro, California. In January 1945, a balloon bomb landed in Medford, Oregon, without exploding. At some point, a rancher in Nevada discovered a balloon and used it as a tarp to cover his hay; police later discovered that two bombs were still attached to it.



WHAT BALLOONS?

Most of the balloons either exploded harmlessly or failed to detonate on impact. Approximately 90 of them were recovered in the United States as far east as Michigan. Strict censorship kept their existence out of the newspapers, and those who knew of their presence were sworn to secrecy. It was feared that news of the balloons arrival would encourage the launching of more balloons. They weren’t seen as much of a danger, but the hush-hush handling of the situation worked: the Japanese abandoned the project because they didn’t hear of any success.

But after the Mitchell family tragedy in Oregon, the public was warned. The last balloon bomb was found in Alaska in 1955; its bombs were still capable of exploding. Ironically, on March 10, 1945, one of the last paper balloons descended near Hanford, Washington. The balloon landed on electrical power lines, shutting off the Hanford nuclear reactor for three days. The Hanford reactor, part of the top-secret Manhattan project, was producing plutonium for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, five months later.

The Fugo balloon bombs are considered a failure as weapons system. There were no proven bomb-caused forest fires, and they caused little other damage. Elsie Mitchell and the five children were the tragic exceptions.

more newspaper clippings here

Many of the balloons had been made by patriotic Japanese school children as a part of the war effort. In 1987, several tried to atone. They folded 1,000 paper cranes, a Japanese symbol of healing and peace, and sent them to the families of the Oregon picnickers. Here is an excerpt from one of the accompanying letters:

“We participated in the building of weapons used to kill people without understanding much beyond the knowledge that America was our adversary in a war. To think that the weapons we made took your lives as you were out on a picnic! We were overwhelmed with deep sorrow.”

   Wednesday - September 03, 2008

WHOO-HOO!  GIVEM HELL!  MORE BATTLING BRITS AS 200 TALIBAN PAY PRICE FOR BEING EARTH’S SCUM.

British soldiers kill 200 Taliban in Afghan dam operation

A major secret British operation to boost the economy in Afghanistan’s Helmand province has been completed after a force of 5,000 troops fought for a week to drive a huge dam turbine through Taliban lines.
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 7:11AM BST 03 Sep 2008

Escorted by attack helicopters, armoured vehicles and men of the Parachute Regiment, the trucks trundled into Kajaki Photo: PA / REUTERS

British commanders estimate that more than 200 Taliban were killed as they tried to prevent the convoy of 100 vehicles from getting the machinery to Kajaki hydroelectric dam where it will provide a significant increase in energy for up to two million Afghans.

The operation has been described as the biggest of its kind since the Second World War.

For the last five days the force has fought through the heart of Taliban territory to push through the 220 tonne turbine and other equipment that included a 90 tonne crane to lift it into place.

With a third turbine fixed at Kajaki it will mean that the extra electricity could double the irrigation output allowing farmers to plant two crops of wheat a year. With a dramatic rise in world wheat prices this could crucially mean that it becomes more profitable than producing opium which would deprive the Taliban of a major source of revenue.

Escorted by attack helicopters, armoured vehicles and men of the Parachute Regiment, the trucks trundled into Kajaki.

For the first 50 miles of its journey from the southern city of Kandahar the convoy was protected by American and Canadian troops. But for the second 50 mile leg through Taliban strongholds more than 3,000 British troops were needed to fight off the insurgents.

Lt Col Dave Wilson, of 23 Engineer Regiment, said the operation was the most significant “route clearance” operation since the Second World War with the sappers freeing the route of mines and improvised bombs.

“It was a huge achievement,” said Lt Col Wilson. “It was carried out through some of the most heavily mined areas of Afghanistan.”

While medics had prepared for casualties, commanders said there was only one wounded among the British, American, Canadian and Australian troops who took part in the operation - a British soldier was crushed when a trailer collapsed on him.

“As a template for the rest of this country, it’s shown that when we want to, at a time and a place of our choosing, we can overmatch the Taliban, no question,” said Lt Col James Learmont of 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery.

In order to win over villagers in some areas, British forces held meetings with locals to negotiate the convoy’s passage, and paid $25,000 in compensation to one community for disruption.

The Taliban had agreed to maintain a ceasefire in some areas but violated the deal, British commanders said.

The Chinese-made turbine will be installed as part of a project funded by the American development agency USAID to increase the output of the Kajaki power plant.

Chinese engineers already on the ground will install the equipment, which will boost the capacity of the plant, built in 1975, to three turbines with an output of 51 MegaWatts. Around 1.8 million Afghans are expected to benefit from the project.

“The opposition said it would never happen but it did,” said Lt Col Rufus MacNeil. “If you want a mark in the sand for Afghan reconstruction, then this is it.”

The scale and complexity of the operation has given those serving under the 75,000-strong, NATO-led force in Afghanistan an opportunity to boast about cooperation at a time when critics say the coalition lacks strength and coherence.

The turbine, split into seven sections each weighing between 22 and 30 tonnes, was flown on Russian transport aircraft into Kandahar, once a Taliban stronghold in the south and now the headquarters for Canadian operations.

It was then put on giant trucks and began its voyage last Wednesday, travelling at barely 3 km an hour.

http://tinyurl.com/5wwaql

   Monday - September 01, 2008

Dutch withdraw spy from Iran because of ‘impending US attack’ .  Say What?  USA is gonna do what?

uh huh. Right. America is gonna bomb Iran. Sure we are.  I wish we would and leave nothin alive.  But we know that won’t happen so what the heck are the Dutch talking about?
These are the same folks that gave the world PC so I tend not to pay much attention to them. 

Dutch withdraw spy from Iran because of ‘impending US attack’ . 

Dutch withdraw spy from Iran because of ‘impending US attack’
The Dutch intelligence service has pulled an agent out of an “ultra-secret operation” spying on Iran’s military industry because spymasters in Netherlands believe a United States air attack was imminent.
By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Last Updated: 9:24AM BST 01 Sep 2008

According to reports in the newspaper De Telegraaf, the country’s intelligence service, the AIVD, has stopped an espionage operation aimed at infiltration and sabotage of the weapons industry in Iran.

“The operation, described as extremely successful, was halted recently in connection with plans for an impending US air attack on Iran,” said the report.

“Targets would also be bombed which were connected with the Dutch espionage action.”

“Well placed” sources told the paper that a top agent had been recalled recently “because the US was thought to be making a decision within weeks to attack Iran with unmanned aircraft”.

“Information from the AIVD operation has in recent years been shared with the American CIA secret service.”

Brig Gen Seyyed Massoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of the Iranian armed forces, warned at the weekend that military attacks against Iran would trigger a Third World War.

“The exorbitant demands of the US leaders and the global Zionism which have created the current situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Caucasus are gradually directing the world to the edge of the cliff,” he said.

The US has refused to rule out a military attack against Iran if its government continues to enrich uranium as part of its civilian nuclear programme, which the West suspects has the clandestine objective of developing atomic weapons.

Iran has warned it would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf and a major oil shipping route, if it is attacked.

On Friday, the Israel newspaper Ma’ariv reported that Israel has stepped up preparations for a contingency plan to attack Iran, should diplomatic efforts, via the United Nations, fail to derail Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme.

http://tinyurl.com/63h6eg

   Sunday - August 31, 2008

Hundreds of terrorists have been killed by the SAS waging a “secret war”

I don’t know about you folks but .... I’m not certain the paper should have published this story.  But once it’s out and picked up by others as it will be, I guess there isn’t anything wrong about my posting it here.  Thing I do not understand is why the Brit military allowed it and since they did , who am I to question them?  I have to believe they know what they’re doing.  I hope they do.  Anyway, these guys are no pussy cats and it is heartening to read that there exists a camaraderie between our Delta Force and the SAS.  So much so that the SAS raised $20,000 for American widows and orphans.  I hadn’t read about that anywhere in the past.

I have to say however, I hate the very idea that things have come down, as they have, to the need for lawyers that need consulting before ops.
Hey ... have military lawyers ever been fragged?  Just askin is all.

SAS kills hundreds of terrorists in ‘secret war’ against al-Qaeda in IraqHundreds of terrorists have been killed by the SAS waging a “secret war” against al-Qaeda in Iraq,
The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 3:50PM BST 31 Aug 2008

The SAS had played a key part in defeating a network of car bombers in Baghdad that had brought devastation to the capital Photo: AFP/GETTY More than 3,500 insurgents have been “taken off the streets of Baghdad” by the elite British force in a series of audacious “Black Ops” over the past two years.

It is understood that while the majority of the terrorists were captured, several hundred, who were mainly members of the organisation known as “al-Qa’eda in Iraq” have been killed by the SAS.

The SAS is part of a highly secretive unit called “Task Force Black” which also includes Delta Force, the US equivalent of the SAS.

The prime targets have been those intent on joining the wave of suicide car bombers that claimed around 3,000 lives a month in Baghdad at the height of the terrorist campaign in 2006.

Using intelligence gleaned from spies and informers, Task Force Black has nearly broken the back of the terrorist network and reduced bombings in Baghdad from about 150 a month to just two.

But the success of the covert mission came at a price – six members of the SAS were killed and more than 30 were injured. Delta Force has suffered in the region of 20 per cent casualties.

A senior British officer told The Sunday Telegraph: “We took over 3,500 terrorists off the streets of Baghdad in around 18 months.
“You could say it was a very successful period. But the butcher’s bill was high. The attrition rate is equivalent to that experienced by the SAS during the Malayan insurgency 50 years ago.

“The relationship between the SAS and Delta Force is very close,” he added. “If anything, the attrition rate in Delta Force is higher.

Two years ago the SAS made a donation to Delta Force’s ‘widows and orphans’ fund of £10,000.”

Senior sources denied that the SAS was taking part in “extra-judicial killings” and added that any incident which appeared to be in breach of the British Army’s rules of engagement would be investigated internally by the unit and by the Royal Military Police if any wrongdoing was suspected.

The source said: “There is no shoot-to-kill policy in Iraq,

(I strongly hope he’s lying!!)

but there are only a few ways of stopping a suicide bomber. A British lawyer is present during the planning stages of every operation and our troops operate under British rules, not American rules.”

The SAS began to concentrate almost exclusively on reducing the car bomb threat in Iraq at the same time that the US military launched its so-called “surge”, which saw an additional 30,000 American troops move into the most dangerous areas of Baghdad, in early 2007.

Gen David Petraeus, the head of the US forces in Iraq, who is due to leave his post shortly, has praised the courage of the SAS.

He said: “They have helped immensely in Baghdad … they have done a phenomenal job.”

In one incident, SAS troops rented a pink pick-up truck, removed their body armour to blend in with locals, and drove through the traffic to catch a key target.

“It was brilliant, actually,” Gen Petraeus said. “They have exceptional initiative, exceptional skill, exceptional courage and, I think, exceptional savvy. I can’t say enough about how impressive they are in thinking on their feet.”

http://tinyurl.com/6x52uj

   Thursday - August 28, 2008

Seuspected remains of a Second World War airman have been found dangling from a tree in the jungle

Body of WWII airman found dangling from a tree
The suspected remains of a Second World War airman have been found dangling from a tree in the dense jungles of Papua New Guinea.

By Nick Squires
Last Updated: 5:43PM BST 28 Aug 2008
The remarkable discovery, which has yet to be confirmed by military authorities, was made by astonished trekkers walking the Kokoda Trail, a tortuous mountain path which witnessed intense fighting between Japanese and Australian forces in 1942.

The skeleton of what is thought to be a World War II pilot hangs in the jungle canopy along the Kokoda Track

“I couldn’t make it out at first. It wasn’t until the wind blew that you could really see (that) it is in a harness. There are goggles and it appears to be caught up in cables, so presumably it is an airman,” said trekking guide David Collins.

The moss-covered remains, barely visible in the dense jungle foliage, were initially spotted by an Australian police officer who was on a trek led by Mr Collins.

He was using a telephoto lens to photograph exotic plants in the tree tops when he saw a jumble of cords and bits of parachute harness surrounded by creepers and palm leaves.

“We had a few police officers on the 19-man trek. One was taking photos with a large lens of the trees and flowers,” said Mr Collins, a firefighter who works part-time as a trekking guide for Melbourne-based adventure company No Roads Expeditions. “He then discovered what looks like the remains of a body.” Photographs taken by the trekking party show a dark object hanging about 45ft above the ground.

The trekkers marked the tree from which the object dangled so that it can be easily found again.

If confirmed as a human body it is likely to be the remains of an Australian, American or Japanese airman, left undisturbed in the forest for more than 60 years.

Papua New Guinea witnessed intense air and land battles during the Second World War as the Allies finally halted Japan’s southwards advance and began a massive counter-attack across the South Pacific.

The Australian military is preparing to send representatives to Papua New Guinea to investigate the highly unusual discovery and US and Japanese authorities are checking their records of missing airmen.

A spokesman for the Australian Defence Force said the location of the find, about half-way along the 60 mile-long Kokoda Track, is close to a flight path regularly used by Allied aircraft and that several aircraft went missing in the region.

The track crosses the precipitous Owen Stanley Range of mountains, which forms the spine of Papua New Guinea.

In 1942 poorly trained Australian militia troops were deployed to halt 6,000 advancing Japanese soldiers who intended to take the strategic town and colonial capital of Port Moresby, regarded as a springboard for the invasion of Australia.

Months of fighting along the treacherous jungle trail were marked by hand-to-hand combat, night time ambushes, illness and even cannibalism, as starving Japanese soldiers ate the flesh of dead Australians.

In what has been described by one historian as “a knife fight out of the Stone Age”, the Australian “diggers” eventually repelled the Japanese and drove them out of New Guinea.

The track has become popular with Australian hikers, trekking firms and even corporate incentive groups.
http://tinyurl.com/5ukpyt

   Wednesday - August 27, 2008

Michael J. Totten Reports: Russia started it

“Saakashvili is accused of starting this war on the 7th,” he said.

“Right,” I said. “But that sounds like complete bs to me if what you say is true.”

Thomas Goltz nodded.

Another great job of reporting by Michael J. Totten: The Georgian conflict has been going on since 1991, with tens of thousands of casualties. This latest round was completely started by the Russians, days before the “official” war began, and everything you have heard on the TV news has been almost total bullshit. It’s a long read, but well worth it: GO HERE AND SEE FOR YOURSELF.

A most apt comment there:

Yeah, no shit.

H/T to the Rott.

Slightly off topic but still relevant: Cossacks! Links lead to other links which lead to other links, etc. Some lead back to another Totten article here on Tbilisi.

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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