Bombing Raids

Here is a website about German bombing raids on Britain:
http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/blitz.htm

Hitler dispatched many bombers to invade Britain, trying to force British to surrender. The Luftwaffe revised their targets from industrial to civilian and the bombing time from day time to night time. Hitler anticipated that the British would be more terrified of the German armies because they wouldn't have enough sleep, and Britain would surrender very soon. On the other hand, Britain also had some ways to defend and revolt against German invasion. The British civilians hid in shelters when they heard the siren before the raids. The "blakout" is really a good way to make the bombers' targeting mission more difficult. Anyhow, Britain still recieved great damage. About 60,000 British died and 2,000,000 homes destroyed! German bombed Britain less and took less attention to Britain because he considered Russia as a more signifcant enimy.








These are people sleeping on London Underground during German's Blitzkrieg.

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This is a special website I found about someone's memory of WWII:http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/weekly/aa051001c.htm

He experienced the terror of the bombing raids in Germany in WWII. He slept in shelters, enduring the thunderous sound of blasts. Then he hoped that he could see his home survive from the bombing. He saw his neighbors' house burnt and understood the shock and the grief of losing their home. In any case, the writer of this article coped with all the difficulties and went past the hard time. He also wrote a book about his experience of the two World Wars, "Laughter Wasn't Rationed". It contains much of his civilian life in Germany. During the horrible period of time, the civilians told jokes to encourage each other. Their difficult lives are so dreadful that I can't even imagine.

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Here's a video about a bombing raid on Germany in 1943:http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/autos_and_vehicles/watch/v6971121WQWzb89s#

The bombers B-17 took off from England and flew above Germany. The bombers flew through the mess of blasts of anti-aircrafts and threw tons and tons of bombs on the territory of Germany. The pilots could barely see the factories and houses they were targeting. However, they could not see that there were civilians' home burnt and destroyed beneath them and the people hiding underground in shelters were trembling in fear. Nevertheless, the motive of their actions was protecting their own home, though they were very sure that they would definitely not come back home again. The war was very brutal and harsh, but not the soldiers themselves as well.

Iroquois Nation

Here is a website I found about the Iroquois Nation:http://www.carnegiemnh.org/exhibits/north-south-east-west/iroquois/index.html

This website tells about the nation of the Iroquois. They were originally living in the southern part of Canada and a part of New York today at the end of 17th century, which had clear four seasons, a plenty of rainfall, fertile lands and everything they needed. The Iroquois lived there very well. All their lives were relied on the great nature environment. They hunted, caught animals, picked fruit, and farmed crops. Everything they did was in harmony with Nature.

To the Iroquois, corn beans and squash are the three sisters. They are the sustainer of not only their phisical, but also spiritual lives. The Iroquois people are very smart. They utlize the different features of corn, beans and squash to make the most yield.

In the society of the Iroquois, women are the managers of farming. Furthermore, women possess the political power. Clan Mother is the leader of the clan, who has the right of choosing the meber of the council members and chiefs.

The Three Sisters

Gregg M. Thomas (1952- ), Nedrow, New York, Wolf clan, Onondaga, 1996

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Here's a website I found about the Mohawk Tribe:http://www.indians.org/articles/the-mohawk-tribe.html

The Mohawk Tribe lived around the Great Lakes and some parts in North America, which are Canada and the state of New York right now. They were just like the protectors of Iroquois from the invasions form the east. They became the allies of Britain later and fought against the United States in the Revolutionary War. A long time later, some the Mohawk have blended into Canadian and American, but there are still many living in the reservations. The hair style of shaved sides and left a stripe of hair in the middle is characteristic of the Mohawk people.

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Here is a website about Joseph Brant, one of the past leaders of the Mohawk Tribe:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Brant

Joseph Brant was the most famous North American Indian at the end of 17th to 18th century when he was alive. He was a Mohawk of the Wolf Clan. He could speak at least three languages, or even all of the six nations' languages. Therefore, he was a translator between the Indians and Britain. He helped his tribe get back many lands from the Americans. That was his most well-known deeds.

This is a parinting of Joseph Brant. I'm not sure if he has Mohawk or not because his feather hat covers his hair.

The Battle of Britain

Here is a website about the battle of Britain:

http://www.raf.mod.uk/Bob1940/background.html

It tells about the background of the battle of Britain. Germany invaded Poland by using tanks, troops, and aircrafts at the same time, which was called Blitzkrieg. Then he attacked France by the same way and won again. At that time, both British and German aircrafts suffered heavy casualties. Fortunately, a bult of British reinforcement in France came back to Britain. Britain trained as many pilots as possible. In July 1940, Brtish air forces, RAF, grew into 600 fighters, but the Luftwaffe had 2600 bombers and fighters. It must be very hard for Britain to fight against Germany.

This is a brief picture of how the Sector Control Rooms of RAF control the fighters, anti-aircraft guns and balloon barrage. They sent the information of the incoming raids to the fighters and bombers and dispatched anti-aircraft guns and balloon barrage to protect the aircrafts.

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Here is another website I found about the battle of Britain:

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/wwiiblitz_2.htm

The Luftwaffe invaded Britain more and more inland. Germany wanted to bomb the cities which many civilians lived inside. Nonetheless, Germany was too urgent to destroy Britain, The interval between the fighters came escoting the bombers was too long. The bombers became fragile targets, and many of them were destroyed by that way. Finally, Germany decided to attack the Soviet Union rather than Britain. The RAF successfully protected Britain.

German Military Uniforms

Here's a website I found about the uniforms of German soldiers and officers:
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-uniforms/german-ww2.htm

It talks about the uniforms of different levels and kinds of German soldiers. There's a variety of uniforms that German soldiers wore. I like the cap of German Luftwaffe (Pic 1) best. It looks very cool! Imagine that I am the pilot of a fighter plane in WWII. I turned left and right in the sky and shot all the enemies off. Bang!

I also like the pattern of a belt buckle of German soldiers in WWI (Pic 2). There is even a swastika, the symbol of the Nazi Party under the bird.





This is the cap that German Luftwaffe in WWII. Isn't it very cool?






The Army's WW1 "God is with us" belt buckle made a
return with a swastika added.



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Here's another website I found about German army uniform:
http://www.grantsmilitaria.com/militariaphotos/militaria_images.asp?key=06

This is a fake WWII German D.A.K. Soldier. It is in the standard tropical uniform of German soldiers of Motor Reconnaissance Unit. The helmet was repainted later.

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Here is a website about German military uniforms:
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-uniforms/germany.htm

It has a really detailed and clear illustration about different uniforms of different departments, levels and weathers of German armies.

This Waffen-SS uniform is in the "mouse gray" or "mouse brown" color. There are many badges on his uniform. In the left of his chest, ther is a Close Combat clasp (Pic 5) , which is made of gold. There is also a Tank Destroyer badge (Pic 6) on the upper of his right arm. It means that the soldier who earned it destroyed at least one enemy tank.


Pic5



Pic6






This is the uniform of Waffen-SS, in winter camouflage. It can be reversed into snow-white color.

German Occupation

Here's a website I found about German occupation of France in World War II:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/German_occupation_of_France_in_World_War_II
It tells about the resistence of French under German's occupation. German extracted a lot of money from French by the armistice with French signed in June 1940. The power of French was weak. Even though there weren't a lot of French resisted actively, but many of them supported the members of resistence secretly. They also listened to the banned BBC, and even helped lost Americans escape and British airmen go back to British. French organized armed groups underground in late 1942 and 1943. They got aids of weapons from parachute drops and solo landings at night by RAF, too. There were also directions from British radio. After the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the French armed resistance groups destroyed railway lines, and bridges systematically. They also communicate the intelligence from British.

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Here is a website I found about Hungary under German occupation:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005458

In Hungary in World War Two, the Jews were deeply harmed by Germans. They were centralized in certain cities, and they were forced to live outdoor with inadequate food and water. Furthermore, German soldiers tortured them very often. Without a week, these cities were eliminated. About 63,000 Jews died in the the German occupation in March 1944. A terrifying amount of people died just in a occupation. Moreover, they weren't soldiers, they were merely innocent citizens, including women and children. We can see how a cruel thing German did.












This is a deserted street in the area of the Sighet Marmatiei ghetto after the deportation of the ghetto population.
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And here's a map of Hungary under the occupation.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_nm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005458&MediaId=346

German occupied most of the near countries, and Hungary was one of them. Some of the countries on the map are neutral: Spain, Switz, Ireland and Sweden.

Blitzkrieg

Here is a website I found about Junkers Ju 87 Stuka: http://science.howstuffworks.com/junkers-ju-87-stuka.htm

Ju 87 Stuka was an important bomber of Germany in WWI and II. It caused a great damage to Poland in 1939, the beginning of WWII, with its horrible noise and terrifying accuracy. Nonetheless, the situation of the war had turned against it when fighting Soviet Union in the East.

There is also a cool video about JU-88A-4 in this website. It was the most important bomber of Germans in WWII. It talks about its advantage and disadvantage, too. Its maximum speed is 295 mph. It doesn't have enough payload and defense armament. When the pilot changed to use the machine guns, the stuka was shot by its enimies. It says that this stuka wasn't good at fighting the east part of Soviet Union, because of the terrain of mountains brought it inferiority. Therefore, it can only be rated as the 8th dive-bombers.











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Here's a website I found about the blitzkrieg:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/blitzkrieg.htm

After Hitler defeated Poland in 1939 and Norway in April 1940, France thought that they were safe behind Maginot Line. It was able to defend another world war. In May 1940, Germany began the blitzkrieg against the Netherlands and Belgium. Their defending troops kept retreating and retreating, and lots of civilians fled from the front of the attack in haste. The bombers of German were filled in the sky, striking the retreating troops and escaping civilians with machine gun and bomb. Thousands and thousands of people died then. Then, the German invaded France and reached the English Channel. Nonetheless, German stopped there and went to north to secure the coastal ports and destroy the trapped armies. During the two days, British prepared and was ready to defend the German's attack, though Britain was the rest of its allies.

We can see how bold Hiter was that he dared to resist the military doctrine. Germany even planed to cut the resource of iron ore of Sweden, we can see how far Hiter looked forward. Hitler attacked Poland, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium and France, and he even planned to invade Sweden and British later. We can see how huge the ambition Hitler possessed. He did a lot of amazing things.

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Pic 1 The first Junkers Ju 87 Stukas flew in 1935.

Pic 2 German panzer troops reachthe French coast, June 10, 1940

Bomb Shelters and Air Raid of WWII

Here's a website I found about bomb shelters in WWII:

http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconpressac.html

Poison gas was used a lot in WWI, thus people were very afraid of it and tried to prevent it after WWI. German bomb shelters were made to secure from both bombs and poison gas. Nonetheless, poison gas wasn't used much in World War II.

For a better quality:

http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcturen.html

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Here's a website I found about the remaining bomb shelter of WWII in Naples:

http://www.larryray.com/images/index_files/air%20raid.htm

The shelters were mostly improvised at that time. They are approximately 200 feet deep underground. Now the shelters are still there and even opened to visit.

This is the shelter in Naples in World War Two.

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Here's a youtube video about WWII Air Raid Siren in the US I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7QD-GCae94&feature=related

For no reason, I found myself hate the the sound of the air raid siren instinctively while I was listening to it. The siren gave me an agonizing feeling. My head ached, and I felt very dizzy and wanted to vomit. I can hardly type what I learned from this video. I feel really miserable now.