You're not the first person I've heard that from, Gadge, but I don't recall what my other source was.
Myths of World War Two
After the war appeared a pletora of testimonies of allied prisioners being mistreated, tortured and abused by female SS officers. There were books, films, comics, centered in the figure of black dressed dominatrix bearing whips.
Some of them were simply bdsm porn, but some people wrote their testimonies and give names, descriptions, where and when they were abused...
But no SS women served as an officer, never.
Yeah thats a total myth, you're right.
Yep there were Helfferrin (helpers, i cant remember the exact german) and blitzmadel (typist/signals girls) in most SS units high up the chain.
There were also late war female flak crews (the UK had had female flak crews for years by this point)
But the whole 'ilsa of the SS' generation of exploitation movies are actually based on a real person who was a female warder/warden/guard/commandant (i forget which) at somewhere like Ravensbruch.
I collect *really* bad film so have an ilsa movie or two.... bloody awful movies.
I remember reading one book called 'house of dolls' i think which is what a lot of 'ilsa' is loosely based upon.
I think at the time that was sold as 'true experiences' but later found to be 'dubious' and written for shock/arousal.
here we go, house of dolls: (dont bother reading it, i did it was badly written and if true horrifc, if lies horrifc for shadier reasons!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Dolls
Ilsa of the famouls 'video nasty' was based on these two women:
Irma Ida Ilse Grese (7 October 1923 – 13 December 1945) was a female SS guard at the Nazi concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and served as warden of the women's section of Bergen-Belsen.[1]
Grese was convicted for crimes against humanity committed at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and sentenced to death at the Belsen Trial. Executed at 21–22 years of age, Grese was the youngest woman to die judicially under British law in the 20th century. She was nicknamed by the camps' inmates "the Hyena of Auschwitz" (German: die Hyäne von Auschwitz)
and
Ilse Koch (German: [kɔχ]; née Margarete Ilse Köhler; 22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was the wife of Karl-Otto Koch, commandant of the Nazi concentration camps Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943). She was one of the first prominent Nazis to be tried by the U.S. military.
After the trial received worldwide media attention, survivor accounts of her actions resulted in other authors describing her abuse of prisoners as sadistic, and the image of her as "the concentration camp murderess" was current in post-war German society.[1] She was accused of taking souvenirs from the skin of murdered inmates with distinctive tattoos. She was known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" (Die Hexe von Buchenwald) by the inmates because of her alleged cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners. She is also called in English "The Beast of Buchenwald",[2] "Queen of Buchenwald",[3][4] "Red Witch of Buchenwald",[5][6] "Butcher Widow"[7] and, more commonly, "The ***** of Buchenwald".[8]
Good Job. Excelent, indeed
Another World War Two Myth
'the nazis invented the concentration camp'
This isnt true.
Some enlightened people will tell you that the 'British actually did in the Boer War'
Thats not true either (the were called the 'concentration camps') but the honour of inventing sadistic POW camps with a policy of starvation, neglect, cruelty and actively trying to kill the imates goes to......
AMERICA
Hard to stomach but the camps in the American Civil War like Andersonville were truly terrible and purposely built in a way that the owners tried to make life as unpleasant as possible.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v02/v02p137_Weber.html
If its any concillation it was an American officer of German lineage who came up with the idea...
The British in the Boer War were terrible, they caused thedeaths of hundreds of women and children in concentration camps but it was through stupidity , poor planning and inadequate resource allocation. It was because they didnt realise how long they would need to keep so many people confined and couldnt feed and provide sanitation because they hadnt prepared properly. The vast majoirty of deaths in those camps were through gross misconduct and criminal neglect rather than actively trying to kill off the Boer families.
doesnt make it ok i know but you can sort of understand being the commandant of a camp where people are dropping like flies because you simply dont have the resources to keep them alive but i cant imagine being at either Andersonville in the ACW or Belsen in WWII and deliberately trying to kill those i was 'holding'.
Unpleasant stuff i know guys and im not being 'anti american'. Im just saying its a dark patch in history.
And before the Nazis, uncle Joe Stalin worked hard to "enhance" the idea.
Oh yeah, i mean i'm a soviet cold war re-enactor but im not aware of the oddity that occurs when i do military history displays as part of a group paid to be there to interact with the crowd.
If im with an SS group then everyone is a littlle bit horrified and ask you how you can wear a swastika on your clothes etc (you then have to explain that even the most liberal german legally had at least two on his uniform at any time - belt buckle and chest or arm eagle) but you can go as 1980s soviet airborne with hammer and sickle badges everywhere and no one bats and eyelid depite the gulag system probably working as many people to death and social control being as high as it was in nazi germany.
The germans just killed a lot quicker. They took four years to do what would take Stalin 14 or more.
The thing is though that both fascism and communism end up killing lots of people and hurting million more
the difference...
the difference is that lots of people die when communism isnt done properly, in reality we've not seen true communism, we've seen a veiled dictatorship, oligarkys and fascism with a red banner.
Fascism kills millions when its *working*, communism kills millions when it *fails*
Don't forget the HMS Jersey, infamous prison hulk of the American War of Independence. Funny story, she was originally converted to a hospital ship, before use as a prison hulk...
Another World War Two Myth
'the nazis invented the concentration camp'
This isnt true.
Some enlightened people will tell you that the 'British actually did in the Boer War'
Thats not true either (the were called the 'concentration camps') but the honour of inventing sadistic POW camps with a policy of starvation, neglect, cruelty and actively trying to kill the imates goes to......
AMERICA
Hard to stomach but the camps in the American Civil War like Andersonville were truly terrible and purposely built in a way that the owners tried to make life as unpleasant as possible.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v02/v02p137_Weber.html
If its any concillation it was an American officer of German lineage who came up with the idea...
The British in the Boer War were terrible, they caused thedeaths of hundreds of women and children in concentration camps but it was through stupidity , poor planning and inadequate resource allocation. It was because they didnt realise how long they would need to keep so many people confined and couldnt feed and provide sanitation because they hadnt prepared properly. The vast majoirty of deaths in those camps were through gross misconduct and criminal neglect rather than actively trying to kill off the Boer families.
doesnt make it ok i know but you can sort of understand being the commandant of a camp where people are dropping like flies because you simply dont have the resources to keep them alive but i cant imagine being at either Andersonville in the ACW or Belsen in WWII and deliberately trying to kill those i was 'holding'.
Unpleasant stuff i know guys and im not being 'anti american'. Im just saying its a dark patch in history.
Not entirely true. Andersonville (which I've been to several times I might add) was designed to hold a 10k prisoner count. It consistently through the ACW held 30k prisoners. It also didn't help that the Union decided to cut off Confederate supply lines meaning even less food going to the soldiers.
The camp wasn't designed to starve soldiers out, it just happened that way due to a combination of factors. They never had enough food to go around, and when the Union started raiding supply lines, the food went to the civilians and garrison first. I can't remember if it got to the point where they started starving Yankees out, but I do remember my respect of the Union dropping another notch because of the fact they killed their own men off by taking out the supply routes to Andersonville.
Yeah, Andersonville and other prisons had such terrible quality of life not out of a malicious plan, but rather because they weren't supposed to keep prisoners indefinitely. For a while there was a parole system going on, such that they exchanged prisoners with the promise that they wouldn't take up arms again in the fight. Well, the Union realized this wasn't to their advantage because they could afford to have men sit out where the South, with its lower population, could not. So, they ended the parole system, and the result was an incredible backlog of prisoners crowding into prisons which were designed to function during the parole system's tenure. They couldn't cope with being forced to retain the prisoners on an indefinite basis.
Not 100% WW2 but closely related.
It is a well known fact that Great Britain's economy was slow to recover after the end of the war. Time ago I read that the sale of meat to common people was restricted even in 1952. I have done little readings about the post war living conditions, so perhaps somebody could tell me about this subject.
Back to nuclear bombs.
I have no idea how true this is but was told by a usual 'trusted' source in these matters.
Post WWII the US and UK had soured a little and the US was refusing to share its nuclear weapons research (mainly ICBM delivery with the UK). The uk had built a scale model of peenemunde down in the south to rehouse as many german V2 experts as we'd managed to grab in the great post war piracy of late 45.
we were still struggling to find a way to make the bombs we had (and we had some good ones) able to get to their target.
The US were not helping until we told them our soution
We had a *massive* merchant naval fleet. At any one time over a hundred British ships could be in any world harbour.
We'd decided to put a bomb on a random ship and have it docked their. Obviously ships would rotate so as not to be suspicious but at any one time every major port would have a UK ship with a huge bomb moored off the coast.
(like static nuclear capable subs almost)
The US found out about this and then decided to share rocketry technology and pretty much the entire nuclear strategy as the 'current' UK one was totally uncontrollable and very worrying to certain people in power
That could all by a myth but the fact i've never heard it before (and its my job to know about military history, in particular the cold war period) and the fact it came from a reliable source and more importantly its *odd* enough and *british* enough makes me think its probably true.
From a purely military standpoint that wouldn't be a smart thing to do. Shipping is still a risky business and a mishap or storm would see a nuke lost off the coast of a foreign nation. If word of this program got out, British trade would totally collapse because nobody would let a British transport within eyesight of their coast if there was a chance it was carrying a nuke. If a ship was boarded and a bomb was found, that would be a declaration of war right there. And finally, if the ship were to be hijacked, you'd have an atomic bomb in the hands of terrorists.
In any case, before the advent of the ICBM, one of the early platforms to carry an atomic warhead was via torpedo. A sub could get within range of a harbor, let the weapon loose, then creep away while the warhead churned towards its target and exploded. That covers every aspect of what that British plan would accomplish, without all the headaches of using civilian trade ships.
I personally like the myth of the Philidelphia Experiment. It makes for great reading; a ship mysteriously vanishing, crew phased halfway through bulkheads, science gone topsy turvy. Too bad it was just a hoax.
I personally like the myth of the Philidelphia Experiment. It makes for great reading; a ship mysteriously vanishing, crew phased halfway through bulkheads, science gone topsy turvy. Too bad it was just a hoax.
Maybe...
Rationing was still in place well into the 50s
My dad was born in 1949, i've still got his old ration card.
edit: July 1954
We didnt stop conscription until 1960 though as my uncle was conscripted to fight the maumau in Kenya but ended up being an armoured car commander in Germany!
As for the ships/bombs thing... they didnt exactly advertise the fact. It was used to strongarm the US at the time into sharing nuclear policy. So the idea that no one would let a british ship ddock doesnt hold water (no pun intended). first of all no one outside of the US and Uk secret services knew about it. Secondly most countries would have been stuffed without British merchant shipping.
Sending a nuclear bomb by sea is not dangerous at all.
If you want to know what *is* dangerous read 'nuclear dawn', its a book on the discovery and use of the atom bomb.
early bombs like 'little boy' were ridiculously dangerous. Runways had to be modified to have 'pits' in them to compensate for the bomb area being too big on the underside and i think the hiroshima bomb had to be dismanted and rewired in flihgt.
Its about six years since i read that book but its pretty interesting
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuclear-Dawn-Manhattan-Project-Military/dp/1846033969
Remember that the British Empire was far from 'dismantled' by the 50s, we still had a lot of sway and British sea power and shipping still pretty much supplied about a third of the world.
Edited by GadgeI'm just saying that the fallout (no pun intended) made such a measure more risky than the deterance was worth. There hasn't been a successful widespread clandestine operation on this planet since D-Day, and even then the Nazis knew that it was coming just not when and where. With the number of spies and turncoats on both sides, how long would it take for a crewmember, a politician, or a technician to spill the beans in bed with a spy or for the right amount of money or even due to being enamored by communism.
The US couldn't keep Russia from harnessing the nuclear genie, didn't notice the Walker spy ring for 17 years, and figured that the U2 was far above any Soviet retribution. A project with that many moving pieces couldn't have stayed secret forever. Considering that the British likely weren't going to keep a nuclear warhead off the coast of Madagascar, it stands that the targets of this effort were probably nuclear powers unto themselves and had the military assets to lock down a harbor and try to catch the British red handed in their efforts.
What would be the consequences of that? It would make Gary Powers look like a footnote in the propoganda war. Imagine the US trying to make the case for denying the Soviets the ability to construct silos in Cuba when our closest ally was putting nukes into Russian harbors? What would have happened to NATO if such a thing was found out? What of the unalligned nations when they started to wonder if the West had a warhead off their populated coasts as well. Russia would have had the political cover to demand that Britain be politically and economically isolated. And how would communist parties that had large membership in countries like France make use of such a thing? While I doubt there would be a Soviet ally across the British channel, De Gaul probably would have never locked arms with Eisenhower during the 1960 detente.
This program, far from being an armtwisting measure to force technology from the US, would have instead played right into US fears that independant nuclear forces were more of a risk to US security than a boon. I think that the UK would have rapidly found itself friendless in the matter with a very angry superpower wanting to respond to the threat. England flaunted the prospect of total independence at the United States to gain access to the Polaris yes; but it's one thing to threaten to part ways on policy and quite another to hold a pistol up to your own head and threaten to shoot the hostage.
We'll have to agree to disagree here.
I'm quite sure it happened. Obviously there is no official record but I do a lot of reading about the Cold War and it seems really plausible to me.
Think about it, you've been pushed out of the 'deal' by your allies. You're a nuclear capable power without a delivery system. Having any one of million or so merchant ships possibly carrying a bomb is entirely feasable.
I just read through the entire UK nuclear weapons wiki page, and it seems that the US was not forthcoming with nuclear weapons in general, but that later they became more cooperative with thermonuclear weapons, eventually sharing designs, and that from the beginning, they were willing to sell missile systems to the British, beginning with Skybolt and continuing through Polaris when Skybolt was canceled. So, I am thinking this is a myth that makes a nice pub story.
Looking deeper, I think this story is probably rooted somewhere in the Skybolt Crisis, but I can't find any reference to the proposed British solution. This sums up the crisis nicely: http://www.nhdasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Skybolt-Crisis-2011-Debate-Diplomacy.pdf
Well my source had a family with a lineage of Royal and Merchant Navy members and like me writes about military history so he's not usually one for propagating myths.
Like i say unless someone can completely debunk it I think it sounds incredibly feasable given the frankly crazy exploits of the British Secret Services in the cold war era. I dont want an argument about it though so equally i dont really care if no one believes it. The fact i'd never heard it before and one person on this forum totally unconnected to me *had* makes me feel its less likely to be an 'urban myth' and by their nature 'urban myths' are widely known annecdotes with no true source. an urban myth known by say four people isnt that successful 
My father was fairly senior in the civil service and while completely unconnected to the miliatry some of the civilian shenangans he told me they got up to amazed me. He probably shouldnt have told me a lot of things he did given the official secrets act (which odlly we'd both signed for different careers.
One thing i rememeber him telling me was that his own boss had previously been in the SAS (British special forces) and fought in Malaya and Bornero in counter insurgency warfare. He was 'transferred' to the Australian SAS so he could go to vietnam to teach the US special forces how to do jungle warfare properly as he'd won two jungle wars with the SAS (well not single handed obviously) but they were (and probably still are) the leader in jungle warfare.
Lastly to connect thread elements. I've been to the Bluestreak testing and development grounds. They are fascinating as they were built to be an exact replica in layout to the Peenemunde V2 testing area so that the 'captured' german scientists wokring for us would feel more at home. Its scaled down by about a quarter (as in the buildings are closer togheter - not tha the doors are a foot shorter). Wierd place to have a skirmish on (we used it for a cold war battle re-enactment).
Scuse typos im on a hideous amount of oxycontn for my spinal injury at the mo so its rreally hard to focus.
I don't know if these have been touched upon, but....
That the T-34 tank was a great tank. It was an OK tank. It had a lot going for it. But a three man crew (with the commander doubling as loader) and no radio... doesn't work very well. The later T-34/85 tank was better, but at the cost of a much larger turret.
That the Soviets could have defeated the Germans single-handedly. The simple fact is that the Germans were building tanks faster than the Soviets could destroy them (with the Western allies strategic bombing campaign hampering German war-time production) and the Germans were destroying Soviet tanks faster than the Soviets could build them. What saved the Soviet's bacon was that they were getting tanks from their Western allies - and their Western allies were also destroying German tanks at a net loss for the Germans.
Oh, and the best kill ratio for any fighter of the war was the piddly Brewster Buffalo, at 26:1. And you can (largely) thank the Finnish Air Force for that. (Next best was the F6F Hellcat - which including shooting-fish-in-a-barrel battles against the Japanese - came out with 19:1.)
I don't know if these have been touched upon, but....
That the T-34 tank was a great tank. It was an OK tank. It had a lot going for it. But a three man crew (with the commander doubling as loader) and no radio... doesn't work very well. The later T-34/85 tank was better, but at the cost of a much larger turret.
That the Soviets could have defeated the Germans single-handedly. The simple fact is that the Germans were building tanks faster than the Soviets could destroy them (with the Western allies strategic bombing campaign hampering German war-time production) and the Germans were destroying Soviet tanks faster than the Soviets could build them. What saved the Soviet's bacon was that they were getting tanks from their Western allies - and their Western allies were also destroying German tanks at a net loss for the Germans.
Oh, and the best kill ratio for any fighter of the war was the piddly Brewster Buffalo, at 26:1. And you can (largely) thank the Finnish Air Force for that. (Next best was the F6F Hellcat - which including shooting-fish-in-a-barrel battles against the Japanese - came out with 19:1.)
Nah the Dauntless had the best kill ratio 
:D
Nah the Dauntless had the best kill ratio
Funny thing: the TBD Devastator outperformed the Dauntless at Coral Sea. The SBDs took heavy losses, which led Admiral Fletcher to order Yorktown's fighters to stick with the Dauntlesses during Midway (not that it worked out that way...).
Funny thing: the TBD Devastator outperformed the Dauntless at Coral Sea. The SBDs took heavy losses, which led Admiral Fletcher to order Yorktown's fighters to stick with the Dauntlesses during Midway (not that it worked out that way...).Nah the Dauntless had the best kill ratio
As I recall, the only 2 things of major importance Dauntless' did was Midway, and the one pilot who went head to head against 3 zeroes and won.
See also: Santa Cruz (26 October, 1942) and the Eastern Solomons (24-25 August, 1942). The SBD was an excellent aircraft, and certainly better than the early SB2C Helldivers that replaced it (teething problems, much, Curtiss?").