• Under the previous management there was a subscription option to remove ads. If you would like to use this option the subscription will be the same as previously, £12 for the year. I've set up a PayPal account solely for these payments bentleyspay@gmail.com Use the friends and family option and include your user name If you don't do PayPal, there is a bank transfer option. Send me a message for the account details. Again, I have opened a bank account solely for this. Thanks Andy (sgt_wilko)

England v Croatia or Bridge at Remagen….

I’ve visited Remagen and been in the twin tower structure on the left bank of the Rhine that now houses a peace museum. It is all that’s left of the Bridge structure which collapsed in March 1945. The heights of Erpal still tower over the river on the opposite side. I had the best steak I have ever tasted in a riverfront restaurant in the town.
The film was made in 1968 in Czechoslovakia at a similar looking bridge. When the film was two thirds complete the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia with the cast and crew and some Czech people having to hastily flee across the border with Austria with Russian troops closing in. Some things never change do they! The film was completed in West Germany and released in 1969.
 
I have never watched a better film that conveys the horror and consequences of warfare than Elem Klimov`s 1985 masterpiece "Come And See".
It includes an epic performance by Aleksey Kravchenko as Flyora. A Belarussian boy who joins the local partisan group in the forests and begins a journey through hell on Earth.
A quite stunning film portraying the struggle behind the front lines on the Eastern front.
 
FirenzeFox said:
I have never watched a better film that conveys the horror and consequences of warfare than Elem Klimov`s 1985 masterpiece "Come And See".
It includes an epic performance by Aleksey Kravchenko as Flyora. A Belarussian boy who joins the local partisan group in the forests and begins a journey through hell on Earth.
A quite stunning film portraying the struggle behind the front lines on the Eastern front.
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I've never seen this, I'll search for it.

Band of Brothers was a great TV series.
 
borebage53 said:
I’ve visited Remagen and been in the twin tower structure on the left bank of the Rhine that now houses a peace museum. It is all that’s left of the Bridge structure which collapsed in March 1945. The heights of Erpal still tower over the river on the opposite side. I had the best steak I have ever tasted in a riverfront restaurant in the town.
The film was made in 1968 in Czechoslovakia at a similar looking bridge. When the film was two thirds complete the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia with the cast and crew and some Czech people having to hastily flee across the border with Austria with Russian troops closing in. Some things never change do they! The film was completed in West Germany and released in 1969.
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Borebage, I am in awe of your WW2 knowledge. I remember you posting a few months ago about Oradour-sur-Glane, something I knew nothing about. I have since researched this & saw some TV programmes about it. Absolutely horrendous, it's unimaginable hoe people could be so cruel
 
borebage53 said:
Just started reading Burma:The Forgotten War. A complete history of the Fourteenth Army’s War,1941-45.
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I bet Orde Wingate’ll feature heavily in that. He’s a hell of an interesting character. Up there with Lawrence of Arabia and David Stirling as a maverick officer. His pre WW2 career is particularly interesting too.
 
Fourteenth Army ,under Wavell and followed by “Bill” Slim,was the most diverse and multi faith,cultural force ever assembled in any theatre of war before or since. Even amongst the participating Indian and Asian countries the scope of the different castes or creeds within them was staggering in their entirety. Just one part of Burma at that time had 129 different languages and dialects.
Largely officered by the British Army who essentially and in reality were the minority!
 
…..the most poignant lines of rememberance that we hold still to this day originate from the Kohima memorial,
“When You Go Home,
Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Your Tomorrow,
We Gave Our Today”
 
The 1944 Battle of Kohima was fought with intense hand to hand combat over the British Deputy Commisioners bungalow tennis court and halted the Japanese advance into India.
The Kohima War Grave contains 1,420 Commonwealth burials from World War II. At the highest point of the cemetery stands a memorial commemorating an additional 917 Hindu and Sikh soldiers of the Indian Army who were cremated according to their faith.
White concrete lines permanently mark the historic tennis court location alongside the Cross of Sacrifice.
 
The simultaneous Battles of Imphal and Kohima were fought March-July 1944.
The Siege of Imphal. Surrounded Alllied forces held their ground using an extensive aerial “sky bridge” supply network maintained by the RAF.
At Kohima allied defenders fought a brutal 13 day siege on Garrison Hill,famously coming to hand to hand combat on the tennis court,before relief forces arrived on 18th April.
British and Indian divisions linked up on June 22nd ending the siege at Imphal and forcing a shattered Japanese retreat. Allied forces sustained 16,500 casualties while the Japanese suffered roughly 53000 to 60000 casualties from an original number of 85000,many from starvation,disease and exhaustion during the retreat.
 
The earlier British retreat from Burma in 1942 was a grueling 950 miles fighting withdrawal, costing 10,000 military casualties,following the initial overwhelming Japanese invasion. The longest British Army retreat in history.
 
Sammy George said:
Borebage, I am in awe of your WW2 knowledge. I remember you posting a few months ago about Oradour-sur-Glane, something I knew nothing about. I have since researched this & saw some TV programmes about it. Absolutely horrendous, it's unimaginable hoe people could be so cruel
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One of THE greatest programmes ever IMO about WW2 was World at War a tv series in the 70’s. I remember it being on at 1.00pm on a Sunday before Star Soccer. It was narrated by good old Larry Olivier. The series was about 24x1hr programmes and the first one started with the massacre at Orasour-sur-Glane. It’s all on you tube. Here’s that first programme.

 
World At War just been recently repeated in its entirety on Yesterday channel. While watching the series I’ve sponsored a Snow Leopard, 3 donkey sanctuaries, have a choice of dodgy cheap funeral plans lined up if needed, have aided a clean water well in darkest Africa and cured a child with a hair lip in Uganda!
 
I’m sure there’s a Nigerian prince somewhere that could do with a bit of financial assistance for which you will receive countless riches in the future.
 
It's on again tonight, BBC4 at 8pm. Followed by another brilliant film, The Wicker Man starring Edward Woodward.
That's tonight's viewing sorted.
 
Sammy George said:
It's on again tonight, BBC4 at 8pm. Followed by another brilliant film, The Wicker Man starring Edward Woodward.
That's tonight's viewing sorted.
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We were on a Leger Battlefield Tour with my eldest son a number of years ago. It traced “Market Garden” from XXX Corps start at the Leopold Canal and up through Eindhoven,the areas where US 101st Airborne were landed. On to Nijmegen where the US Paratrooper infantry crossed the River Waal under fire in the flimsy canvas boats (see A Bridge Too Far) to take the far end of the Bridge there so that British Guards Armoured could cross. Groesbeek where US 82nd Airborne were fighting after their landings. Towards Arnhem to see the landing zones for the British Paratroopers and Gliders. Oosterbeek where heavy fighting took place and on into Arnhem itself to the John Frost Bridge as it is now named.
On into Germany through Goch and to cross the Rhine between Rees and Wesel where Montgomery’s “Operation Plunder” crossing took place. Hamminkeln where all the “Operation Varsity” Airborne assaults were successful.
Further down then to get to Remagen tracing the route through Mechenheim that the leading units of the Americans dashed hell bent to reach the Rhine and the Bridge at Remagen.
We also did another later Tour,based at Liege, that took us through all the Ardennes sites of the fighting of the “Battle of the Bulge” including at Bastogne.
 
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What fantastic trips Borebage. I've looked at those Leger trips & often thought about doing them but never got round to it. If I'm going to do them I've got to get a crack on as I'm now 75 & definitely not the man I was. Do you recommend them I'd be going solo is that an issue?
 
Sammy George said:
What fantastic trips Borebage. I've looked at those Leger trips & often thought about doing them but never got round to it. If I'm going to do them I've got to get a crack on as I'm now 75 & definitely not the man I was. Do you recommend them I'd be going solo is that an issue?
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It was a quite few years ago now and my late wife paid for both the trips as she wanted my then eldest lad to get the benefit while he was still young. They have brochures with all the available tours that you can go on. You can go on their website and order a free brochure of all their wide choice of current Battlefield tours. The tour guides are all usually ex military men and very knowledgeable. Plenty of solo travelers on the tours we went on as I recall.
They also do more General holidays and river cruises too. They can pick you up locally (Hinckley bus station for us) then transfer you on to join the main tour coach. Ours then started from Coventry. Passport checks were usually arranged by customs officers coming onto the coach to do it but I don’t know if that procedure might have changed nowadays with all the current biometrics stuff.
 
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