It is today 75 years since Hitler’s Germany capitulated and WWII was officially over in Europe.
Here in Norway a lot of arrangements was planned to mark this day, although a lot of Norway was free already 07. May. (Large parts of Northern Norway had been liberated by Soviet troops in late 1944)
COVID-19 lockdown, which is still in force in Norway, made for a reduced celebration, but streamed speeches and gun salute was still arranged.
Let us hope that the lessons learnt from that time is still remembered and the ugly ideas of the Nazies will NEVER gain ground again ANYWHERE!!!
My father in law helped set up communications in England prior to the invasion. Retired from AT&T after a very long career. Came back from the war on the ship “Augustas Adolphus”.
And it wasn’t until October 24, 1951 that the state of war we declared on Germany on December 11, 1941 was lifted. So many folks think things went right back to normal when the bullets stopped flying.
I remember well that we had to bring ration card to buy most things well into the 1950’s in Norway. (Still have some old Ration Cards somewhere) For X-mas each family could buy 2 oranges per child. Otherwise no excotic fruit was available.
An older cousin of mine went on a fishing trip to Greenland in the early 1950’s and brought back a few tins of canned pineapples. Had never tasted anything like that before. I eat so much I got sick. Have never liked canned pineapples ever since. (Fresh yes)
My father-in-law (b. 1913 - going to sea 1928) was torpedoed in the Pacific 1942 but managed to get back to Europe, where he was put on a ship going to Murmansk. He managed to get inside to Sweden and worked on ships carrying iron ore to Germany and coal back to Sweden, where he saw Hamburg going up in flames 1943. He had luck all the time and had seen most ports in the world.
True - also technically the Korean War is ongoing and the Vietnam war never ended because it never started. It was a “police action” or similar, some BS work-around to avoid Congress having to have an opinion about something.
You wouldn’t convince my Pop of that regarding Korean war. He was a seabee and ran the boats to evacuate refugees, and he was saddened by their treatment. Your lunch with him would not be fun. That both Koreas are at odds, is no surprise.
For those interested in WW2 there is a historian called Mark Felton who does short but interesting videos about it on his channel ‘Mark Felton Productions’. He covers other wars but it’s mostly about WW2.
The video below is quite interesting, it’s about how the Germans planned to attack New York with V-1 missiles.
He has another channel with slightly longer war stories called ‘War Stories with Mark Felton’, here is another maritime themed one about the Laconia incident, when the Americans committed a war crime in WW2.
There was a lesser known second attack on Pearl Harbour several months after the famous first one. It’s probably not widely known about because there were no American casualties,
Many years ago, I sailed with a Norwegian captain that had immigrated to the US. I recall a story he told me about the first time he had beef. He said he was about 8 years old, and told is mother, “This is great, what kind of fish is it?”
Some may consider it off topic but I do not care as this date must be remembered until hell frezes over especially when US Embassy in Warsaw seems too busy with LGBTQ++++ promotion and gender issues.
On the 7th of December 1941 the whole WORLD FROZE upon hearing the : TORA TORA TORA
Soon afterwards the great Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had spoken one of his greatest prophesies:
I FEAR ALL WE HAVE DONE IS TO AWAKEN A SLEEPING GIANT AND FILL HIM WITH A TERRIBLE RESOLVE
But before A -bomb treatment , they received the adequate measure of maritime revenge as revenge is the privilege of Gods and those who dare defy them .