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“I got up and made for the airfield. About twenty yards away was a burning tank. Some of the enemy dead were inside. The snipers hung in their nets like dolls stuffed in a Christmas stocking. 

I turned to go, and as I did, nearly stepped on someone’s hand. “Excuse me,” I began to say, but then I saw that it was an unattached hand, or rather a detached one. It lay there alone—open, palm upwards, clean, capable, solitary. I could not tear my eyes from it. The hand is the artisan of the soul. It is the second member of the human trinity of head and hand and heart. A man has no faculty more human than his hand, none more beautiful nor expressive nor productive. To see this hand lying alone, as though contemptuously cast aside, no longer a part of a man, no longer his help, was to see war in all its wantonness; it was to see the especially brutal savagery of our own technique of rending, and it was to see men at their eternal worst, turning upon one another, tearing one another, clawing at their own innards with the maniacal fury of the pride-possessed. The hand saddened me and I offered it a respectful inclination of the head while recovering my balance and making a careful circle around it.” 

- Helmet For My Pillow, p. 286, by Robert Leckie

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one of the most fascinating youtube subcultures imo is the MRE taste testing community…like those folks who get their hands on military ready to eat meals and do unboxings and taste tests of them? because usually theyre perfectly normal and just interested in testing what militaries around the world eat right now. but some of these folks go the extra mile. they go so hard they threaten to destroy themselves with their own hubris. some of these people are flying towards the sun at alarming rates and are going to not only melt their wings but also their 100 year old preserved foods, causing them to plummet to their deaths, their corpses reduced to stewing in the seawater mixed with the remains of the WWII soviet pea soup they brought with them. im watching a dude eat meat from a 1902 british military ration right now. my dude is deadass out here calmly trying to become the last casualty of the fucking second boer war. as an archivist and general antiques lover ive put my hands on some horrifyingly old and dirty things but the idea of ingesting legitimate american civil war hardtack makes me want to get my stomach surgically removed and i am just so FASCINATED by these people who see these military antiques and think “nice, there’s lunch right there”

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y’know…. conversations about world war ii would be a lot more bearable and constructive if white men found that period rightly horrific rather than pornographic 

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“Attack on all fronts” Canada, 1943

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Christmas on the Winter Line, Italy, 1943, seventy-five years ago today.

“At Christmas Day services near the front, in Italy, Lt. Col. William E. King, of Kansas City, Mo., Chaplain of the 45th Division, speaks to men assembled near their Bivouac Area.

Notice the Young dog by the Altar.” 25 December 1943. Venafro Area, Italy.

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y’know…. conversations about world war ii would be a lot more bearable and constructive if white men found that period rightly horrific rather than pornographic 

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y’know…. conversations about world war ii would be a lot more bearable and constructive if white men found that period rightly horrific rather than pornographic 

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I am Spartacus!

On December 19th, 1944 Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds was captured by German forces during the Battle of the Bulge, the last major Axis offensive of the war. Edmond was sent to Stalag IX-A, a prisoner of war camp housing 1,275 American servicemen. As the highest ranking non-commissioned officer in the camp, Edmonds was responsible for these men. On January 27th, 1945 the camp commandant ordered Edmonds to have all the camps Jewish soldiers present themselves separate from the rest of the men. At the time the average grunt only had a vague idea of the Holocaust. There were rumors, stories, and some official reports, but few common soldiers really had any idea as to the extent of the Nazi’s persecution of Jews. However, Edmonds understood enough to know that the commandant’s order would only lead to bad things for the 200 American Jews who occupied the camp.

Edmonds ordered all 1,275 POWs to assemble in the main courtyard. Quite dismayed the commandant demanded all Jews to step forward. All 1,275 men stepped forward. In anger, the commandant pulled a pistol on Edmonds and demanded he call out all of the Jewish soldiers present. Edmonds responded, “We are all Jews here, if you have to shoot Jews, you will have to shoot us all.” Edmonds then reminded the commandant that as POWs they were protected under the Geneva Convention, and all they had to give him was their name, rank, and serial number. Any abuses to his men would be considered war crimes, and he would likely be wanted as a war criminal when the war is over. The commandant begrudgingly backed down.

After the war Edmonds continued his career in the US Army, serving in Korea as well. He rarely ever spoke about his experiences during the war, and they only came to light after his death in 1985 when his family found his war time diary. He was awarded the title “Righteous Among Nations” by Yad Vashem in 2015 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2017.

Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds

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Wow, you pornbots must be really into WW2

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Y’know what I fuckin love?

WASPs and WACs during WWII. Women deserve so much more credit and responsibility.

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“He can just barely growl. Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis.“ – David Lynch, The Angriest Dog in the World | 5/31

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1942- U.S. Marines pose beside a captured safe which they converted into a stove on Guadalcanal

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Elizabeth Choy (1910-2006) is considered a war heroine in Singapore. During World War II, she supplied medicine and messages to POWs interned in Changi Prison during the Japanese occupation of the island.

She was born in present-day Malaysia and went to study in Singapore, after which she pursued a career in education. During the war she served as a volunteer nurse with the Medical Auxiliary Service, as well as a second lieutenant in the women’s auxiliary arm of the Singapore Volunteer Corps. She delivered packages to the prisoners even at great risk to herself, and received numerous honours for her humanitarian work, including being made a member of the Order of the British Empire.

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Please reblog this even if you don’t care

They’re trying to erase the existence of the rape victims of Japanese soldiers in World War II because they think the reminder of their crimes might make Japan a little bit cross

Duterte, the absolute coward, is more worried about women criticizing him than actually honoring the women this country needs to remember

Please don’t let these women be silenced.

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American nurses landing in Normandy, 1944

via reddit