Tuesday - March 22, 2011

newspaper here writes like the raf is flying against the luftwaffe,, and other bombasts

Ok, I agree the world would be better minus Gaddafi.
But I’m having a bit of a problem with the reportage and over hyped rah-rah school boy stuff in, of all papers, The Telegraph. I expect it of other but gosh and golly.

There’s a huge photo on the front page of the paper showing a Typhoon Eurofighter.
It’s a great photo close up as it takes to the air like a large bird of prey.  It has all sorts of stuff hanging below, rockets and fuel tanks and the latest war game toys and as it leaves the ground there’s a billowing cloud of grey black exhaust spewing out it’s backside as it flies off into the wild blue yonder to do battle with, Who?  Certainly not the Luftwaffe.

The paper informs us that:

Capable of flying at twice the speed of sound at 65,000ft, the Typhoon is designed as a specialist in mid-air “dogfights”.
Equipped with long-range and short-range missiles for use in air-to-air combat, its role will not be to bomb targets on the ground.

And the headline tells us that this “plane is used in combat for the first time.”

Mozzle Tov! So, where’s the combat?  I mean come on people. They aren’t up against anyone with any kind of air power, what planes they do have are out of date, there hasn’t been and is unlikely to be any engagement so …. why the bombast as tho the coalition of the confused, as some are calling it, act as though they are up against a first rate power?
It’s damned embarrassing.

We are further informed that the jets took off from a field in Italy. Right. Must mention this.

There’s seems to be a bit of confusion over just how the UN mission is being understood by some.  Italy threatened to close it’s airspace if the thrust is to target Gaddafi, which it doesn’t believe the mandate calls for. Then once Italian fur was smoothed and combed, two members of the Arab League which is less of a league then the word implies, were critical of the attack on Gadaffi’s compound AND, the UAE is not sending planes or war making means. Their role will be “confined to humanitarian assistance.”

Yeah, those folks are right behind us okay.

In an editorial comment the Telegraph says that RAF pilots are in “harm’s way over the skies of Libya.” Oh?  So, who’s shooting at them?  So far the only plane down we’re informed of is a US plane, and it had a mechanical malfunction we are told.
Pilots are safe, thankfully.

In another headline we are told:

Libya: Targeting Gaddafi ‘risks alienating Arab nations’
Military attacks targeting Colonel Gaddafi risk alienating Arab nations and splitting the international coalition on Libya, ministers have been warned.

TARGETING GADDAFI

A former Brit Ambassador to the United States, writing in the Daily Mail advises, “we must leave the Arabs to sort out Libya.” I’ll drink to that but doubt very much they would try.  They could. They have a larger and better trained air force. Their planes are up to date for the most part and more then a match for anything Gaddafi’s force could put in the air. The Saudis have 349 combat aircraft.

Britain could soon be dangerously exposed. We must leave the Arabs to sort out Libya
By CHRISTOPHER MEYER

Only four days into the UN coalition’s attack on Gaddafi’s murderous armed forces — and already it appears to be standing on the cusp of either success or disaster. It calls for the most rigorous clarity in defining Britain’s role and objectives.
Without this, our country will find itself dangerously exposed at a time when we simply cannot afford an open-ended military commitment. But it is not obvious that all our ministers understand this.
There are two dangers that especially affect us. The first is what is known in the trade as mission-creep — that we get sucked into doing things militarily that were not originally intended.
The second is that we find ourselves, with the French, holding the Libyan baby, while the U.S. under Obama slips into the background.
Let us be absolutely clear: the UN coalition’s operations are governed by UN Security Council Resolution 1973. This authorises a no-fly zone and ‘all necessary measures’ to protect the civilian population of Benghazi and other Libyan towns.
It does not authorise regime-change or the targeting of Gaddafi himself, as Chief of the Defence Staff Sir David Richards pointed out last night. Yet on Sunday the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, appeared to suggest that Gaddafi was a legitimate target, while yesterday the Foreign Secretary was notably woolly on the subject.
It is by and large not a good idea to get involved in other people’s civil wars,

So there’s no coming together on the issue among the folks in govt.? I think I’m asking if the left hand knows what the right is doing. You might want to read all he has to say at the link HERE

And amid all this our old and new adversary Mr. Putin says …

UN decision was like a medieval call to crusade

RUSSIAN Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said a United Nations resolution authorizing military action in Libya resembled “medieval calls for crusades” after Western forces launched a second wave of airstrikes.

PUTIN

Posted by peiper     on 03/22/2011 at 02:15 PM   
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   Monday - March 21, 2011

let them fight it out and then make friends with the winners

There have been editorials and cartoons showing Obama as indecisive and unsure. Dragging his heels before being led by the hand, by Cameron (PM,UK) into action in Libya.
However, someone wrote that Obama was right not to jump in immediately. Whatever the final truth of it, the fact is that now we will surely have to target Gaddifi personally. In fact, a leading Brit has already said so. The truth actually is ….
this whole exercise wasn’t so much to defend the so called civilians (although that was a consideration) but a move to finally rid us of Gaddifi and his regime.

By the way BMEWS readers. Please take a look at a good map of the region. Tunisia and Libya both on our doorstep here, in a manner of speaking. Neither France or Italy want the refugees already appearing before this past weekend. And the Brits sure don’t want em even if France and the UK are somewhat responsible for making them.

I’m sure that for awhile the tribe (and Libya is a country of those) that comes out on top (which are the folks now called ‘rebels’) will love us for awhile. But you know, not all romances last forever and as the song says ….

THERE’S NOTHIN’ COLD AS ASHES, AFTER THE FIRE IS GONE.
(Hoyt Axton and Tracy Nelson)

Sarkozy and Cameron try to lead Obama

Why can’t we just let the Libyans fight it out (...and then make friends with the winners)

By, Peter Hitchens

Politics seems to have become a sort of mental illness. We have no bloody business in Libya, and no idea what we hope to achieve there.
We are daily told that we have no money to spare. We have just scrapped a large part of our Navy.
Our Army is stuck in an Afghan war whose point nobody can explain. And now we have set out on a course that could drag us into a long, gory brawl in North Africa.

And yet, when the Prime Minister announces this folly he is praised. Why? Partly it is because we all watch too much TV. Its reports simplify, then exaggerate.
Reporters, much like politicians, like to feel they are helping to make history, and get excited by subjects they knew nothing about until last Wednesday.

Before we know where we are, we are taking sides in quarrels we don’t understand. Who are the Libyan rebels? What do they want? Why do we love them so?
The only sensible policy in Libya is to wait and see who wins, and then make friends with them. If you think this heartless, you are of course right. Foreign policy is heartless. Nice countries end up being conquered or going bankrupt. But it may be no more heartless than our kindly interference.

I pray that this episode ends quickly and cleanly. Perhaps it will. But we cannot know.
What if our humanitarian bombs and missiles accidentally kill women and children (which is almost certain)? What if air attacks and distant shelling fail to stop Gaddafi’s forces? Will we then send in troops? Who knows? I don’t. The Prime Minister doesn’t.

Some of the longest wars in history started with small-scale intervention, for a purpose that looked good and achievable, and ended up ruining millions of lives. The Soviet takeover of Afghanistan in 1979 ended with countless innocents driven into refugee camps, and the collapse of the Soviet state itself. It also left Afghanistan as a worse snake pit than before.

Why are we suddenly so worried about Muammar Gaddafi?
It’s fashionable just now to get very hoity-toity about him. But until recently many of the war enthusiasts were rather keen on him, for supposedly heeding the fate of Saddam and changing his behaviour. Liberal idealists might also consider that Gaddafi is one of the heroes of their hero Nelson Mandela (there is film on YouTube of a touching embrace between these two).

There’s no principle at stake here, or we would be bombing Bahrain too, and demanding the withdrawal of the Saudi troops who arrived there in such sinister fashion last Monday. But Bahrain’s the base of the U.S. 5th Fleet, so we won’t be doing that. And as I’ve said here before, this supposed objection to rulers killing their own people is not consistent. Sometimes – as in China, Bahrain and Syria – we’re happy to let them do it.

So why are we rattling the drums of war and fuelling up for a fight in a place where our national interests would be best served by staying out?
If the Arab League members want to intervene, they’ve got plenty of weapons not currently being used to attack Israel. I can only conclude that our Government is historically ignorant, politically dim, immune to good advice and swollen with personal vanity.

PETER HITCHENS

Posted by peiper     on 03/21/2011 at 07:05 AM   
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   Sunday - March 13, 2011

BATTLING BRIT TAKES OUT TWO WITH ONE STONE AND THEY AIN’T PRETTY BIRDS.

First of all Kudos to Drew for what I think was a terrific movie review and analysis on same and current conditioning. Would that fall under social engineering?

Happened to spot this early today and thought good news is a good way to start a Sunday morning and post. Hope you agree.
In fact, I think I’ll stick this one on top for a few hours today, cos everything else I came across while honestly NOT looking for them, I found a few items in our paper that as usual had me hopping mad.  What else is new?

Just this story.  Bravo Brits!

It says Book Review at the LINK HERE but it reads more like an article based on reporting.

Dead Men Risen: The snipers’ story

By Tony Harnden

Operating from a remote patrol base in Helmand, two British snipers were responsible for killing 75 Taliban fighters in just 40 days. In one remarkable feat of marksmanship, two insurgents were dispatched with single bullet.

The arrival at the newly-established Patrol Base Shamal Storrai (Pashto for “North Star”) in late August 2009 of Serjeant (CORR) Tom Potter and Rifleman Mark Osmond marked the start of an astonishing episode in the history of British Army sniping.

Within 40 days, the two marksmen from 4 Rifles, part of the Welsh Guards Battle group, had achieved 75 confirmed kills with 31 attributed to Potter and 44 to Osmond. Each kill was chalked up as a little stick man on the beam above the firing position in their camouflaged sangar beside the base gate – a stick man with no head denoting a target eliminated with a shot to the skull.

Osmond, 25, was an engaging, fast-talking enthusiast, eager to display his encyclopedic knowledge of every specification and capability of his equipment. He had stubbornly remained a rifleman because he feared that being promoted might lead to his being taken away from sniping, a job he loved and lived for. Potter, 30, was more laid back, projecting a calm professionalism and quiet confidence in the value of what he did.

Potter had notched up seven confirmed kills in Bara in 2007 and 2008 while Osmond’s total was 23. Both were members of the Green Jackets team that won the 2006 British Army Sniper Championships.

On one occasion they killed eight Taliban in two hours, ‘I wasn’t comfortable with it at first,’ said Osborn, ‘you start wondering is it really necessary?’ But the reaction of the locals soon persuaded him. ‘We had people coming up to us afterwards, not scared to talk to us. They felt they were being protected’.

Most of the kills were at a range of 1,200 metres using the 7.62 mm L96 sniper rifle.

The snipers used suppressors, reducing the sound of the muzzle blast. Although a ballistic crack could be heard, it was almost impossible to work out where the shot was coming from. With the bullet travelling at three times the speed of sound, a victim was unlikely to hear anything before he died. Walkie-talkie messages revealed that the

Taliban thought they were being hit from helicopters. The longest-range shot taken was when Potter killed an insurgent at 1,430 metres away. But the most celebrated shot of their tour was by Osmond at a range of just 196 metres.

On September 12th, a known Taliban commander appeared on the back of a motorcycle with a passenger riding pillion. There was a British patrol in the village of Gorup-e Shesh Kalay and under the rules of engagement, the walkie-talkie the Taliban pair were carrying was designated a hostile act. As they drove off, Osmond fired warning shots with his pistol and then picked up his L96, the same weapon – serial number 0166 – he had used in Iraq and on the butt of which he had written, ‘I love u 0166’.

Taking deliberate aim, he fired a single shot. The bike tumbled and both men fell onto the road and lay there motionless. When the British patrol returned, they checked the men and confirmed they were both dead, with large holes through their heads.

The 7.62 mm bullet Osmond had fired had passed through the heads of both men. He had achieved the rare feat of ‘one shot, two kills’ known in the sniping business as ‘a Quigley’. The term comes from the 1990 film Quigley Down Under in which the hero, played by Tom Selleck, uses an old Sharps rifle to devastating effect.

Potter and Osmond’s working day would begin around 7 am and end a dozen or so hours later at last light. Up to about 900 metres, they would aim at an insurgent’s head, beyond that at the chest.

Often, Potter would take one side of a compound and Osmond the other. Any insurgent moving from one side to the other was liable to be shot by the second sniper if the first had not already got him. Each used the scopes on the rifles to spot for the other man, identifying targets with nicknames to do with their appearance.

A fighter wearing light blue was dubbed ‘the Virgin Mary’ and one clad in what looked like sackcloth was referred to as ‘Hesco man’, after the colour of the base’s Hesco barriers. Both the Virgin Mary and Hesco man were killed.

Others were given a nickname because of their activities, like Hashish man, a Taliban who doubled up as a drug dealer. Occasionally, insurgents got posthumous monikers. If one target presented himself, both snipers aimed at him simultaneously in a coordinated shoot.

“Everybody you hit they drop in a different way,’ says Potter. ‘We did a co-ord shoot on to the one bloke and he just looked like he just fell through a trap door. So we called him Trapdoor Man.”

Major Mark Gidlow-Jackson, their company commander, describes Potter and Osmond as the “epitome of the thinking riflemen” that his regiment sought to produce. “They know the consequences of what they’re doing and they are very measured men. They are both highly dedicated to the art of sniping. They’re both quiet, softly spoken, utterly charming, two of the nicest men in the company, if the most dangerous.”

Serjeant Potter and Rifleman Osmond are identified by pseudonyms for security reasons.

Posted by peiper     on 03/13/2011 at 05:43 AM   
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   Friday - December 31, 2010

‘Rosie the Riveter’ war recruitment poster girl dies at 86 …

‘Rosie the Riveter’ war recruitment poster girl dies

Geraldine Doyle, who was the inspiration for a popular US Second World War recruitment poster featuring the slogan “We Can Do it!” has died at the age of 86.

By Nick Allen, Los Angeles

Mrs Doyle was a 17-year-old working in a metal factory in Ann Arbor, Michigan when she featured on the “Rosie the Riveter” poster wearing a red and white polka dot bandana and flexing her bicep.

The image became a visual representation of the millions of women who worked in factories in the US during the war effort and was later adopted by the feminist movement.

Mrs Doyle’s photograph was taken by chance by a United Press International photographer and it then became the basis for the poster which was produced in 1942 by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation to raise the morale of workers.

The public soon began associating the poster with a hit song called “Rosie the Riveter” and the name stuck.

In reality, Mrs Doyle only worked at the factory for two weeks before moving to a job in a book shop and pursuing her passion for playing the cello.

SOURCE

Does anyone else wonder how it was possible for her to not know until 1984?  Just seems odd.
She wasn’t employed as a riveter for long. Bet these ladies were. Newsweek 1943

Posted by peiper     on 12/31/2010 at 05:50 AM   
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   Saturday - December 25, 2010

stunning images show US troops repelling a Taliban attack on a combat post, DEC. 25, 2010

Just came across my puter ...

We can be proud.  I’d love to see or hear what some of these grunts would say to the jerks who’ve made anti American comments following this article.

See more full screen HERE

Pfc. Kyle Garcia from Ridgefield, Wash., from left, Spc. Steven Galvin from Holstein, Iowa, Staff Sgt. Michael Bruzeis from Secaucus, N.J., Cpl. Brandon Sutton from Robards, Ky., Pfc. Nikolai Starr from San Antonio, Texas, and PV2 Thomas Alexander from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., of the 2nd Platoon Bravo Company 2-327 Infantry pose with a Christmas message at Combat Out Post Badel

Posted by peiper     on 12/25/2010 at 10:56 AM   
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   Tuesday - December 07, 2010

DECEMBER 7, 1941, because we need to remember

There are 110 photos in this collection. Many you may have seen, but there might be some you haven’t. The photos are really HUGE at the link.

Here are just a few, and they’ve been reduced for space. 

This picture, taken by a Japanese photographer, shows how American ships are clustered together before the surprise Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941. Minutes later the full impact of the assault was felt and Pearl Harbor became a flaming target. (AP Photo)

THE OTHER 106 PHOTOS ARE HERE

Posted by peiper     on 12/07/2010 at 06:21 AM   
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   Saturday - August 21, 2010

ADD or PC?

Ex-fighter pilots and relatives of war heroes joined commemorations as Sir Winston Churchill’s stirring ‘’so much owed by so many to so few’’ speech was read out, prompting tears in the crowd.

The actor Robert Hardy began reading out the speech at 3.52pm, exactly 70 years after the wartime prime minister delivered it in Parliament.
...
Speaking afterwards, Dame Vera, the singer of We’ll Meet Again, said: ‘’It brought it all back.

‘’So much was owed to so few - and it is wonderful that some of those brave men are here.’’

Lady Soames, 88, said: ‘’It is very moving because 70 years ago I was in the House of Commons to hear my father deliver the speech.

‘’For me it has particular meaning but I find it wonderful that I look around this crowd and for all of us somehow the speech rang a bell.’’

The crowds waving Union flags cheered as the world’s oldest Spitfire and a Hurricane fighter emerged over the trees to fly low over London’s Government buildings.

For veterans it brought back ‘’vivid’’ memories of the Battle of Britain, which began on July 10 1940 and ended on October 31 that year.

More than 2,900 British, Commonwealth and Allied aircrew took part and successfully fought off the Luftwaffe.

The triumph helped wreck Hitler’s plans to invade Britain and lay the foundations for Allied victory five years later.

It was celebrated in Churchill’s speech of August 20 1940, when he told MPs: ‘’Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’’

Phil Reed, director of Churchill War Rooms, said: ‘’In this speech Churchill epitomised his ability to capture in the most stirring way the spirit of a nation fighting for its existence, as Britain stood firm against the Nazi war machine.

‘’Now part of the general folklore of the battle, the speech is today considered a defining moment of the conflict and one of Churchill’s most emotive and stirring pronouncements.’’

The Spitfire, a Mark IIa, flew in the Battle of Britain, and crashed in October 1940 in a dogfight. It was repaired and saw service throughout the war but still carries the marks of bullet holes in the left wing.

The Hurricane was the last to enter service with the RAF – ­joining the fray on New Year’s Day 1944. It was flown by Polish pilots and even went on to have a career in the cinema, appearing in the films Reach For The Sky and ­Battle Of Britain.

The conflict became a turning point in the war, because the RAF prevented Hermann Goering’s Luftwaffe winning the air superiority Adolf Hitler needed for an invasion.

And Churchill’s speech summed up the mood of a nation that was standing alone against Hitler and facing the threat of becoming the next victims of the Nazis’ terrifying Blitzkrieg.

Video of the speech can be found in the Times here, and another video of the fly over can be found here.  An even more heavily edited video can be watched here in the Express.

From what I can gather, the 5 planes in the flyover included only one original Spitfire and only one original Hurricane. Two other modern built replica Spitfires took part, along with some sort of thoroughly modern propeller driven airplane. I can accept that; there are just about none of these old warbirds left. And the very very few that there are, the ones that can reliably fly, tend to charge very much for their presence.

Nor was this a national ceremony. This was a commemoration at the Churchill War Rooms, a museum. Limited funds and all that. But why such a severe chop job on the great man’s words? The original speech, given old Winnie’s flair for the dramatic, probably took nearly half an hour to deliver. Hardy’s rendition took less than 6 and a half minutes. Because he only recited a quarter of the speech at most. Go figure.

This speech and that battle are the pivotal moment in modern British history. True grit, hope, defiance and courage at their very darkest hour. How would you feel if you went to a special anniversary gathering to hear Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and it was cut down to just “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth a government that shall not perish from the earth.”? You’d be rightly miffed, that’s for sure. Now consider how you would feel if nobody in the press bothered to point this out.

The original text of Churchill’s speech are here and here, among others.  You can try to read along while you listen to Hardy make his rendition at the first link above, but he leaves so much out that it’s difficult to follow. So I copied the speech on the overleaf, with Hardy’s meager words highlighted. I don’t get it. Does all of Britain suffer from ADD these days? Has the speech been trimmed for non-violence, political correctness, anti-Americanism, and pro-EU-ism? Could be. Your guess is as good as mine, and welcome in the comments.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/21/2010 at 11:59 AM   
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   Monday - August 16, 2010

Young women at the front …. Battling Brits

I hope she’ll be okay .... I wish her well and all those young people in harms way. 

There are some videos here of other young women in uniform and serving “Over There.”

MORE VIDEOS HERE AT THE SOURCE, TELEGRAPH

Lance Corporal Ashton Mulligan, who joined up at 16, explains why she now has ambivalent feelings towards ‘home’.

Posted by peiper     on 08/16/2010 at 09:53 AM   
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   Sunday - March 21, 2010

ENCIRCLED BATTLING BRITS FIGHT OFF SUICIDAL TALIBAN ATTACKS

A good read and I’ve nothing to add. Story speaks well for itself.

I’ve edited quite a bit due to the length. See the link for all of it.

‘It was like Zulu’

How British troops in Afghanistan fought to the point of exhaustion against the Taliban.

By Sean Rayment

It became known as “the battle of Crossing Point One”. In a series of suicidal attacks late last year, hard-core Taliban fighters tried to over-run an isolated British base on the northern tip of Nad e’Ali. Had the insurgents succeeded, the victory would have been a propaganda coup par excellence, and the British mission in central Helmand could have been seriously jeopardised.

For two gruelling weeks in the area of Luy Mandah, 30 soldiers fought a 360-degree battle with the Taliban in the most arduous conditions. The combat was often at close quarters where bayonets were fixed and hand grenades became the weapons of choice for the beleaguered British troops. By the battle’s end, every man in the platoon was credited with at least one Taliban kill.

The troops from 5 Platoon No 2 Company 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, commanded by Lieutenant Craig Shephard, 24, and Sergeant Dean Bailey, 36, decided to exploit the Taliban’s fondness for attacking wounded soldiers by constructing an ambush based on a fake IED strike. After the explosives were detonated, the Taliban – as expected – quickly appeared with a two-man Pakistani sniper team leading the way. As the British troops pulled back to the base, the Pakistanis were shot dead by hidden British snipers – both dispatched with head shots from 400 metres. When the Taliban pushed forward towards the base, they were cut down by raking machine-gun fire and Javelin missiles. After two hours of fighting, 10 Taliban lay dead.

The fighting lasted for most of the day. By sunset, the British troops estimated they had killed another 30 Taliban – bringing the number of enemy dead to 40 in less than 24 hours.

Back in enemy territory, a force of around 100 to 150 Taliban fighters – including Chechens, Arabs and English-speaking Islamists from south Asia – was preparing more attacks.

The battle continued for days with such regularity that the soldiers knew that it would begin in the morning after breakfast, followed by a lull at midday, and would then continue until sunset. “It was like Zulu,” said Sgt Bailey. “The Taliban just kept coming and coming. It was suicidal. The more they sent, the more we killed.”

“I started to rotate the guys after a week. They were shattered. But it was everything you wanted from leadership. The guys were tested to the limit – no one let me down.”

Lt Shephard, who joined the Army in 2007, said: “Every platoon commander wants to come to Afghanistan and have ‘their fight’. But you have to be careful what you wish for. We were lucky. We got away without any serious casualties.”

MORE OF THE STORY HERE

Posted by peiper     on 03/21/2010 at 12:31 PM   
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   Friday - March 19, 2010

One hell of brave Battling Brit, kept on defying Taliban death traps

One hell of a brave soldier!  Just another fine example of Brit training and bravery in the field.  There’s so many articles about the useless scum in the streets that sometimes we lose site of guys like this cos they do not alway get the spotlight.  (gee, I hope he likes poetry cos according to one would be expert, those who don’t are lesser beings. )

George Cross heroes: The bomb experts who kept on defying Taliban death traps

By Ian Drury and Fay Schlesinger
Last updated at 4:30 PM on 19th March 2010

After booby-trap bombs killed two of his comrades and left four maimed and stranded in the middle of a minefield, Staff Sergeant Kim Hughes knew he had no time to consider his own safety.

The bomb disposal expert had to clear a path across the dusty open ground so the wounded could be evacuated and the dead men retrieved - and he had to do it fast.

Shunning protective clothing to save time, the 30-year-old picked his way across the field dotted with more of the booby-trap bombs.

And all the time he knew the field was being watched by the Taliban fanatics who had planted the bombs. Indeed, even as he inched nearer the injured men, bullets were flying overhead as other soldiers tried to keep the gunmen at bay.

But, keeping his cool beneath the Afghan sun, he managed to dismantle seven of the improvised explosive devices - three by simply using his hands. There was no time to place charges and retreat to a safe distance.

His actions were described as ‘extraordinary’ by senior Army officers and yesterday Staff Sgt Hughes was awarded the George Cross for carrying out ‘the single most outstanding act’ of bomb disposal in Afghanistan.

It was one of two GCs - the UK’s highest accolade for gallantry not in the face of the enemy - to be conferred. The other was awarded posthumously to his friend and fellow bomb disposal expert Staff Sgt Olaf Schmid, 30

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 03/19/2010 at 01:45 PM   
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   Monday - March 15, 2010

BATTLING BRITS IN AFGHANISTAN ….

Nothing for me to add here except to say these fellows are damn good and uphold a long and proud military tradition. They are better and braver then many who are representing them. 

Inside Afghanistan: the sniper’s tale

Heathcliff O’Malley (camera) and David Ferrarotto
Published: 12:30PM GMT 15 Mar 2010

As part of The Telegraph’s series of videos looking at life for the British Army in Afghanistan, we hear from a sniper whose daily challenge is to kill before he is killed.

Telegraph photojournalist Heathcliff O’Malley spent two weeks embedded with British troops in Helmand, Afghanistan.

In this exclusive series, he shows what life is really like on the ground for the 10,000 soldiers serving in the country.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 03/15/2010 at 01:22 PM   
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   Sunday - March 07, 2010

RAF helicoptor pilot shot between the eyes by Taliban flies 20 to safety … England expects ….

I am buried today in work and frustration caused by AT&T.  Must change over all addresses and make copies of stuff and, yadda,yadda.

It almost seems as though the kids at ATT don’t seem to be aware that there are folks overseas who have (and pay) for their services. With 50 minute wait times and two weeks already spent trying and failing to get anywhere, I guess I’m about to close my ATT account after 10 years.  Hate to do that coz generally their tech support for some things can not be faulted.  But I guess all good things must come to an end. My worry now is that they’ll continue to charge us and it’ll be just as tough getting through again. You can’t believe the nightmare.  For example, their email tells us we had till the end of march.  But someone on the phone said oh no.  March 8 is the deadline but someone else said .. NO. March 15 is the deadline.  Bah. Grumble.  I give up! It just isn’t worth it trying to get anywhere with them anymore.  And oh yeah, to make thing worse yet, they have incorrect instructions on their migration site that they aren’t even aware of. And no way to inform them.  Tried it. And forget emails. What a bad joke that is.  I’ve tried writing every place I could find an email for and have received not one reply in two weeks of trying.

I feel pretty stupid complaining about that considering what this awesome RAF pilot has done.  OK he didn’t have many choices it’s true but hey. These guys are to be admired and honored.  What they are going through is NO WALK IN THE PARK!

I hadn’t intended to post today due to all the above mentioned stuff, but ran across this. This is my only post for today.

An RAF helicopter pilot who was shot between the eyes by a Taliban bullet still managed to fly all 20 passengers to safety.

The Chinook flown by Flight Lieutenant Ian Fortune, 28, was brought in to pick up casualties during a firefight between American and Afghanistan forces and heavily armed rebels near Garmsir in Helmand Province, said a report in The Sun.

The pilot was told it was too dangerous to land and circled the landing area. The Chinook came under fire after eventually landing - which continued as casualties were loaded on board - and Flt Lt Fortune was hit by a Taliban bullet as he took off.

The shot hit the rail on the front of his helmet which is normally used to attach night vision goggles.
It penetrated his helmet hitting him between the eyes and causing severe bleeding.

Further bullets hit the helicopter’s’s controls damaging the stabilisation system.  Despite this Flt Lt Fortune was able to fly for eight minutes before landing at Camp Bastion.

This was the first time a pilot has been shot while in the air during the Afghanistan war.
Mike Brewer, a television presenter who was on board filming a documentary at the time, said: “The courage and heroism of the pilot was beyond belief.”

RAF TO THE RESCUE

Posted by peiper     on 03/07/2010 at 08:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Battling Brits • Heroes • UK • War On Terror • War-Stories •  
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   Monday - November 23, 2009

Amazing aerial images taken by daring Allied pilots on secret missions during WW 2

These are only two of MANY aerial photos and text available HERE

See that link for some truly amazing photos.

Some interesting things to post and will, but no energy for a lot again today.  Bah. Cold rebound, feel better but just washed out.
Got a call from someone with an accent you could cut with a knife, call center in Scotland, confirming that someone will call and an ins. adjuster will call to let us know when they can visit our house re. the still leaky roof but they don’t know when that call will be. Today? Tomoro? Wed? In my lifetime?
Meanwhile, hard driving rain yesterday, last night, and again today.

From Colditz to D-Day:

Amazing aerial images taken by daring Allied pilots on secret missions during World War II

By David Wilkes
Last updated at 9:53 AM on 23rd November 2009

The detail is astonishing. At first it looks like just another castle surrounded by tiny houses and neat fields. But zooming in on the courtyard one can see figures milling around.

They are in fact Allied officers being held in the notorious German PoW camp of Colditz and the photograph is one from an archive of aerial photographs taken by airmen - sometimes flying as low as 50ft - during secret reconnaissance missions in World War II.
Until now the pictures have been kept behind closed doors. But they are revealed to the public for the first time today via the internet amid a painstaking cataloguing process.

In another image, precise as a hole punch through a sheet of paper, craters surround a Nazi doodlebug factory in an extraordinary photograph showing the devastation wreaked by an Allied bombing raid.

The date is September 2, 1944 and the place Peenemunde, a village on the Baltic, where the terrifying weapons Adolf Hitler hoped would win the war for Germany were designed and tested.
Others in the collection convey the human suffering experienced amid the fighting, including rare shots of a Nazi slave labour camp and of the landings on D-Day.

Alan Williams, manager of the National Collection of Aerial Photography which houses the photos, said: ‘The archive literally shows the world at war.’
Long before the days of Google Earth, the highly skilled airmen who took them flew alone, by day and night, in unarmed Spitfires relying on their wits as they risked their lives to capture the images on their plane-mounted cameras

Sometimes their planes were painted pink, as the unusual colour proved very good at hiding the aircraft against a background of low cloud. For high altitude missions, the planes were painted a dark shade of blue.

But often they still found themselves targeted by anti-aircraft missiles. Hundreds of them never returned home.
Those that did brought with them photos vital to the war effort.

Expert photographic interpreters studied the pictures using optical instruments such as stereoscopes to view them in 3D to build up detailed information for intelligence reports and models used in military planning for operations such as the D-Day landings.

The ‘detective’ teams, who were headquartered in a stately home in Buckinghamshire at RAF Medmenham - MI4’s Allied Central Interpretation Unit - included Oxbridge academics, geographers and archaeologists.

Posted by peiper     on 11/23/2009 at 06:34 AM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • Battling Brits • OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT • Science-Technology • UK • War-Stories •  
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   Sunday - November 22, 2009

THE LUCKIEST SOLDIER ALIVE ….. MUST READ AND SEE …

Boy, do I feel like a wuss complaining about my insignificant little nothing cold .....

The Lt. mistakingly says Nov. 26 in the video.  But the actual date is Oct. 26.

British Army officer, Lieutenant Paddy Rice, has been described as “the luckiest soldier in Afghanistan” after surviving being shot by a Taliban sniper.


By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, Nad e’Ali, Afghanistan
Published: 6:30AM GMT 22 Nov 2009

Lieutenant Paddy Rice of the 1st battalion Grenadier Guards was wounded in the back and neck while on duty in central Helmand.

The bullet struck the officer just beneath his left shoulder blade, then travelled inside his back and up to his neck, where it left his body, passed his right ear before blasting a hole through his helmet.

After being injured, Lt Rice, who was serving with the battalion’s Inkerman Company, was flown by a Medical Emergency Response Team Chinook helicopter from his base to Camp Bastion, where his wounds were cleaned and left open for three days before being stitched under general anaesthetic.

The 25-year-old Guard’s Officer was offered the chance of recuperating from his wound in the UK but refused and is now back serving with his platoon on the front line in the Nad e’Ali area of central Helmand.

The drama unfolded on the afternoon of October 26th, while Lt Rice was on the roof of British base known as Compound 23 in the Chah-e’Anjir area of central Helmand.

The soldier was dressed in his body armour and helmet and was in a kneeling position when he was spotted by a Taliban fighter who opened fire through a “murder hole” – in a mud wall.

He said: “I climbed on to the roof of the Compound 23, where my soldiers and I were based, and was trying to move a radio into a sangar (defensive bunker). It was an exposed position so I was wearing my body armour and helmet. I then felt a thump in the back of my back, as though I had been kicked, and I knew immediately I had been shot.”

The bullet passed through his body, slicing open Lt Rice’s back and leaving an eight inch long gash running diagonally from his shoulder blade to an area just beneath his skull.

He continued: “I put my hand up to the back of my head and I could see blood and I think I said something to my platoon sergeant, Gert Botha, such as “I’ve been shot”.

“I was helped down from the roof and I radioed company headquarters, gave contact report (a message informing others that there has been an enemy attack), and said “there is one casualty and it’s me – I’ve been shot”. I wasn’t panicking I had considered how I might react if I was shot or injured but because everything seemed to be functioning normally I think I realised I would be OK.

“I know that I was very lucky to escape with what is actually a flesh wound, albeit a nasty one. If I had been looking up the bullet would have hit the back of my head and that would have been a different story.”

Compound 23 is one of several locations which surround Patrol Base Shahzad, the main British base in Chah-e’Anjir. The base and the satellite locations provide a security bubble around the district centre, which allows Afghans to trade in the bazaar and children to go to school without fear of intimidation by the Taliban.

But while the Afghans can carry on with their lives without interference, the British compounds are being attacked virtually every day by insurgents.

On arriving at the base where Lt Rice had been shot, medics were surprised at the calmness shown by the officer, who was sitting down smoking a cigarette when they arrived at his base.

An hour after being shot, Lt Rice was able to contact his father and give him the news. He continued: “It was quite a surreal telephone call. But it was far better that I told him that I had been shot in the neck and was OK rather than someone else.”

Lt Rice was flown back to Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand, where he was given further medical treatment and three days after being injured, he received 29 stitches.

The officer also called his girlfriend in Clapham, south west London, who was shopping in a supermarket when he broke the news.

Lt Rice added: “She was a bit upset and startled to hear me saying that I had been shot while she was buying her supper but after I reassured her that I was fine she relaxed a bit. She knows that this is the job I want to do, she has known that since we met – she is very understanding.”

Captain James Swanston, the second-in-command of Inkerman Company, Grenadier Guards, who was in charge of the operations room at the time of the attack said that if the bullet had been a millimetre either side of where it struck Lt Rice would have either been killed or seriously injured.

He said: “When you hear that someone has been shot you expect the worst. But when the medics arrived, Paddy was sitting down smoking a cigarette. He showed great calmness.”

IN HIS OWN WORDS

Posted by peiper     on 11/22/2009 at 04:45 AM   
Filed Under: • Battling Brits • Military • UK • War-Stories •  
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