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Post by Nictoshek on Sept 8, 2014 18:09:21 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Sept 9, 2014 6:04:06 GMT -7
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Post by Nictoshek on Sept 9, 2014 6:17:23 GMT -7
You have to wonder just how many ME 262s they could have built instead....which might have made a big difference.
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Post by pieter on Sept 9, 2014 6:17:35 GMT -7
The launch site of the first German V2 rocket on London on 8th September 1944. The crossroads is located in Wassenaar, close to the Hague, the Netherlands. It is the junction of three roads: Lijsterlaan, Koekoekslaan and Konijnenlaan.
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Post by pieter on Sept 9, 2014 6:29:22 GMT -7
 The V1, flying bomb.My father told me that the V1 rockets (the predecessort) of the V2) made a strage noise in the air when they flew over. Rrr...rrrr....rrr. That's why they called it the Maikäfer ( maybug). They caused quite a lot of damage in the Netherlands too. Often they came down to early, before reaching London, falling down in the Netherlands and Belgium. I believe they deliberately targeted Antwerp, because that was an important allied transport hub for the Western front ( the North of the Netherlands and Germany) Later the more advanced V2 rocket made caused much damage too.  V-2 rocket victim in Antwerp, Belgium, November 27, 1944 The aftermath of V-2 strike at Battersea, London (27 January 1945)V-2 rocket launching sites were set up by the Germans around The Hague in the Netherlands on 6 September 1944. The first was launched from here against London on 8 September 1944 and took an estimated 5 minutes to fly the 200 miles from the Hague to London where it struck at 6.43pm on 8 September on Chiswick causing thirteen casualties. As the V2 explosions came without warning, the government initially attempted to conceal their cause by blaming them on defective gas mains. However, the public was not fooled and soon began sardonically referring to the V-2's as " Flying gas pipes". |
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Post by Nictoshek on Sept 9, 2014 9:41:50 GMT -7
In Chicago once, when a street gas main ruptured...an entire neighborhood block blew up. Everything was burned and flattened and no homes left. Happens all the time.
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Post by karl on Sept 9, 2014 10:39:06 GMT -7
You have to wonder just how many ME 262s they could have built instead....which might have made a big difference. Nictoe How right you are, for Mr. Hitler was not so smart with strategic weapon manufacture and deployment. I think perhaps he {Hitler} was stuck in the technology of the first war. There has been 5 ME-262 replicates built privately in Everette Washington USA. They are exact in the airframe build, but with modern electronics and gas turbine engines. These were built at a location near the Boeing Aircraft plant. Karl |
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Post by pieter on Sept 10, 2014 1:34:53 GMT -7
Antwerp in 1944During World War II, the Flemish (Belgian) city Antwerp was an important strategic target because of its port. It was occupied by Germany in May 1940 and liberated by the British 11th Armoured Division on 4 September 1944. After this, the Germans attempted to destroy the Port of Antwerp, which was used by the Allies to bring new material ashore. Thousands of Rheinbote, V-1 and V-2 missiles battered the city. The city was hit by more V-2s than all other targets during the entire war combined, but the attack did not succeed in destroying the port since many of the missiles fell upon other parts of the city. As a result, the city itself was severely damaged and rebuilt after the war in a modern style. Unfortunately the language is spoken is Flemish Dutch. But the images speak for themselves. The Belgian (Flemish) press is not allowed to write freely about the bombings of the V1 and V2 rockets due to allied military censorship. One Flemish socialist journalist who reported about the bombings of the German rockets couldn't publish his reports and shortly after his reporting he was killed by a V1 rocket attack himself. Lode Zielens Ludovicus Carolus Zielens ( 13 June 1901– 28 November 1944) was a Belgian novelist and journalist. He has written many novels, his novel ' Moeder, waarom leven wij?' ( Mother, why do we live?) ( being the most well known. He also received several awards in recognition for his work. BiographyEarly life and worksHe was born in Antwerp to a poor family, Lode Zielens worked in the docks. His first work, Schoolkolonie ( School colony), was published in Elsevier’s Monthly Magazine. This brought him into contact with literary circles, including writers Herman Robbers and Frans Verschoren. Verschoren found Zielens an office job, but this was not to his liking. Schoolkolonie received a number of awards, and this led to Zielens joining the Socialist newspaper Volksgazet (now absorbed by De Morgen) as an editor. Het duistere bloed ( The obscure blood) of 1931 was a further success. His 1934 novel " Moeder, waarom leven wij?" ( Mother, why do we live?) is considered his finest work and was filmed in 1993.  Zielens was killed in a V-2 rocket attack at the end of World War II. He is buried at the Schoonselhof cemetery in Antwerp. (Comment Pieter: To my surprise -due to the language struggle between the Dutch speaking Flemish and French speaking Wallons in Belgium- the largest text and attention Lode Zielens get's in the French part of Wikipedia. The French text contains more quintessence, historical, social and journalistic/political information than the somewhat general and superficial Dutch/Flemish text in WIkipedia. The French/Wallon interest in a Flemish author surprises me, because the Flemish and Wallon communities in Belgium are segregated by language, culture and politics. They have different media and press, different political parties, different literatures and poetry, different education systems, and thus different lives, due to their different languages and cultures. A possible explenation is the fact that he was a Flemish socialist author and journalist, and he wrote about the poverty, and the struggle of life within poor workers families. This possibly has to do with the universal and human nature of his work and the fact that he was not a Flemish nationalist, but someone with a poor working class background of Antwerp, an dockworker.) This is the French wikipedia page on Lode Zielens: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lode_ZielensAnd this is the Dutch/Flemish one: nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lode_ZielensP.S.- I love Antwerp, I love Flanders, I am fond of Flemish people (People who speak the same language with a different accent, a Southern tone, and with -whether they like it or not- some French elements -accents- in their Dutch. I am fond of the other Flemish cities and towns too. And also like the French speaking part of Belgium, Wallonia, Brussels, and the Ardennes mountain region. I have spend many holidays, weekends and days in Belgium during my life. And every time it was wonderful and a nice time. Belgians know how to live, how to eat and drink, how to enjoy life. They were hit hard by both the First and Second World war. People often forget the Belgian suffering. During World War 1, we -the Netherlands- received one million Belgian refugees, who escaped the horrors of the Flemish slaughter fields. Belgium was greatly damaged by these wars. But thank god some old towns and cities remained or were restored. Antwerp is a vibrant international harbor city, a city of trade, transport, culture, art, fashion, shopping, tourism, horeca (haute cuisine), diamonds, jewelry, design, architecture, Flemish identity, exchange, education, press/media, cinema and politics.If you have the chance to visit Belgium, please do. It has a wonderful combination of heritage (history) and the present. It has mountains, forests, a nice coast with wonderful beaches, good beers and fine restaurants, excellent hotels, and wonderful cities, towns, villages and hamlets. It is a romantic and idyllic place to be. Very different from the Netherlands and even Luxemburg, which are so close by!
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