#9th Infantry Division

[carbone14]

Des soldats américains de la 9e Division d'infanterie traversent Sainte-Marie-du-Mont après avoir débarqué à Utah Beach – Bataille de Normandie – 10 juin 1944

©National Archives and Records Administration

La 9e Division d'infanterie américaine débarque à Utah Beach le 10 juin avec pour mission d’isoler le Nord-Cotentin en vue de prendre le port de Cherbourg (coupure du Cotentin), seul port en eau profonde du secteur capable de servir de base logistique pour ravitailler les troupes alliées.

[captain-price-unofficially]

M24 Chaffe and infantry of the 30th Division, 9th U.S. Army, move through Wesel forest, Germany, 26 March 1945

[amarriageoftrueminds]

If The Howlies were real...

I've been thinking about Steve's time during the war, and wondering if anyone has any headcanons about, eg. where he was stationed, how exactly the Howling Commando mission planning went, etc?

In the comics, Steve isn't assigned to the 107 but to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division (aka the ‘Big Red One’.)

They were part of D-Day landings, on Omaha Beach.

In deleted scenes / clips from the Smithsonian, it’s implied that Steve was also a part of D-Day: 

(That’s General Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander.)

(These landing craft 👆 were only used at D-Day. Although it’s possible this is propaganda footage of a rehearsal.)

If the Howlies had the same set up as the 26th, then Steve and the guys would’ve been stationed in Swanage, Dorset:

(Members of ‘A’ Company 26th Infantry Regiment US Army, billeted at Craigside in the High Street opposite Purbeck House Hotel, Swanage, around 1943 – 44.)

That’s 114 miles south west of Camp Griffiss in Bushy Park, Teddington, where General Eisenhower had his SHAEF HQ, starting from January 1944

(before that his HQ was at No.20 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, in London -- aka ‘Little America’ or ‘Eisenhower Platz’ -- a couple of miles northwest of Churchill’s War Rooms, which inspired the underground bunker HQ seen in CATFA.)

Thousands of American troops, including the 26th Infantry, started arriving in Dorset in November 1943 -- which is also when Steve arrived in England after rescuing the 107!

While in Dorset, the US troops were largely engaged in rehearsing for Operation Overlord, aka D-Day. 

One such rehearsal was the disastrous Operation Smash, on the 18th April, 1944, which was a live-ammunition practice for beach landings at Normandy. (Disastrous because six men accidentally drowned when their Valentine semi-submersible tank... sank.)

Operation Smash was staged in Studland Bay (that’s 4.5 miles north of Swanage). Present to observe were: Winston Churchill, King George VI, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, and Acting Admiral Louis Mountbatten. They did so from ‘Fort Henry,’ a 90 foot long bunker (built and named by Canadian engineers in 1943 -- so it would’ve been there by the time Steve n’ Co got there -- and it’s still there today!) overlooking the bay. 

The US troops moved on from Swanage in late April 1944, and departed England entirely (from nearby places like Weymouth, Poole Quay, Portland Harbour, etc.) on 5th June 1944. D-Day was on the 6th.

In the deleted scene from Avengers, Steve is clearly shown crossing  the Ludendorff Bridge:

...But this is impossible!

Because that bridge (at Remagen) was only captured on the 7th of March 1945:

(9th Armored Division in Remagen, Germany, recorded 9th March, 1945).

...and Steve had already crashed the Valkyrie 6 days prior!

(So unless that bridge was captured earlier, possibly because of Steve n’ Co., that footage can’t be right! 

CATFA does have a habit of putting the US Army in places they had no business being yet at that time of the war -- i.e. showing the US Army right up at the North of Italy, when in reality the Nazis still held it. 

(In fact, Mussolini’s Nazi puppet republic, the Republic of Salò, was nicknamed after a lake in Brescia... which is 200-ish miles further south than the US Army are shown in November ‘43.)

So I guess it’s possible that Steve & Co really were in Remagen, Germany, and crossing the Ludendorff Bridge before March ‘45! 

Or (perhaps more likely) we’re supposed to read is as some generic bridge in Western Europe, captured on D-Day.

.

Where exactly the Hydra factories were (and thus most Howlie missions) is not categorically stated. However, what Steve says / taking rough guesses from the map we see in Krausberg...

...it looks like the Howlies would’ve had missions in: Italy, France, (then) Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Greece. 

(The script also mentions Belgium and Russia, which are neither shown on the map nor mentioned. However, there is a shot of them creeping through snowy forests, which looks very much like the Ardennes. That might put them in Belgium as part of the Battle of the Bulge -- which in turn gives us a date that could be the ‘difficult winter’ mentioned in the Smithsonian footage.)

If the Howlies were an active team from say 14th November 1943 -- 1st March 1945 (when Steve went down in the Valkyrie) 

That’s 473 days / or 1 year, 3 months, 15 days / or 15 months, 15 days.

If they had 9 missions total during that time...

6 Hydra factories around Europe

+ 1 winter mission to save over a 1000 men (as mentioned in Smithsonian; could be Battle of the Bulge? 🤔)

+ 1 D-Day mission (possibly including amphibious landings &/or bridge captures)

+ 1 Zola-capture mission, probably somewhere in the Alps. 

+ 1 Valkyrie mission makes 10.

...That would give them 52.5 days (less than two months) to both plan, travel in and out, and execute each mission. That seems like a pretty tight turnaround, especially if each factory was different enough to warrant a new/fresh plan. 

(One difficulty never mentioned because their raids are relegated to a montage: the fact that Hydra factories appear to be staffed by slave labour. Means the Howlies can’t just bust in guns blazing! Or, at least, I don’t think Steve would stand for it. They’d have to free the workers first, and hopefully they’d be workers both physically capable and willing to join in the fight.)

In the film, they are never shown being back in the UK between these missions,  right up until the last Valkyrie mission in 1945, and dialogue seems to suggest there hasn’t been any personal contact between them and the HQ staff in between. (It does seem a bit nuts to be shipping them out and back every time, rather than just keeping them on the continent. Also nuts to be planning their most important Valkyrie mission only the day before. But anyway...) 

In order to take part in D-Day, they had to have been back to England at least once, to receive those highly classified orders and to rehearse (can’t be discussing details of D-Day over radio!) 

Also, they couldn’t have been allowed to go haring off attacking Hydra bases any old where, because it might have been inconvenient for D-Day (ie. if the Nazis increased defenses in certain places just because Captain America had been sighted there recently.)

TPTB could have used the Howlies as a diversion, sending them on dummy missions designed to make the Nazis think D-Day is going to happen somewhere else. I think Greece and Italy would be a great way to convince the Nazis that an invasion will be coming from the south, not the north! They could even have used doubles of the Howlies to throw the Nazis off the scent, as part of the Ghost Army (they did this IRL with Bernard Montgomery!) 

Maybe the SSR would be advised to keep the Howlies’ real missions as far away from Normandy as possible, earlier on, and then the reverse right before D-Day? (ie. damage Hydra’s factories that are nearest to Normandy, close to D-Day, so that they can’t supply weapons and don’t have enough time to rebuild).

Other possibilities: 

If they were not stationed in the UK between missions, and weren’t with the US Army of occupation (because it hadn’t invaded that part yet) Steve & Co. might have been living undercover in Nazi-occupied territory in the run up to missions against local Hydra bases (in, eg. France and Poland. Chance for Frenchy to get his Maquis on!) Very dangerous, very nerve-wracking, very Inglourious Basterds of them. Also potentially very dangerous for the locals, too, since there would surely be reprisals against them after any successful anti-Hydra attack. 

IRL There was a concentration camp called Terezin in Czechoslovakia, near-ish where that one Hydra base is shown. (It’s the one that the Nazis famously filmed a propaganda movie in, after cleaning it up and deporting a bunch of people to Auschwitz to seemingly reduce overcrowded living conditions, to fool the visiting Red Cross.) So Steve and the Howlies might have gone off-mission to go and liberate that; could be that was a source of slave labour for the nearby Hydra factory. (From a character POV, Terezin was known for having a big artistic culture among the inmates, and surely Steve would feel empathy for those used in propaganda, having been made to do that himself.)

Logically speaking, I would’ve expected that last Hydra base to be in Holland or Denmark -- not Greece -- to complete the ring of bases formed around Germany. 🤔 Maybe even more likely to be Denmark, since the Tesseract (which kicked off the whole Hydra supremacy thing) was discovered in Tønsberg, SE Norway.

[whencyclopedia]

Dunkirk Evacuation

The Dunkirk Evacuation of 26 May to 4 June 1940, known as Operation Dynamo, was the attempt to save the British Expeditionary Force in France from total defeat by an advancing German army. Nearly 1,000 naval and civilian craft of all kinds, aided by calm weather and RAF air support, managed to evacuate around 340,000 British, French, and Allied soldiers.

The evacuation led to soured Franco-Anglo relations as the French considered Dunkirk a betrayal, but the alternative was very likely the capture of the entire British Expeditionary Force on the Continent. France surrendered shortly after Dunkirk, but the withdrawal allowed Britain and its empire to harbour its resources and fight on alone in what would become an ever-expanding theatre of war.

Germany's Blitzkrieg

At the outbreak of the Second World War when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, France was relying almost entirely on a single defensive line to protect itself against invasion. These defences were the Maginot Line, a series of mightily impressive concrete structures, bunkers, and underground tunnels which ran along France's eastern frontiers. Manned by 400,000 soldiers, the defence system was named after the French minister of war André Maginot. The French imagined a German attack was most likely to come in two places: the Metz and Lauter regions. As it turned out, Germany attacked France through the Ardennes and Sedan on the Belgian border, circumventing most of the Maginot Line and overrunning the inadequate French defences around the River Meuse, inadequate because the French had considered the terrain in this forested area unsuitable for tanks. Later in the campaign, the Maginot Line was breached near Colmar and Saarbrücken.

To bolster the defences of France, Britain had sent across the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under the command of General John Vereker (better known by his later title Lord Gort, 1886-1946). Around 150,000 men, mostly infantry, had arrived in September 1939 to strengthen the Franco-Belgian border. The BEF included the British Advanced Air Striking Force of 12 RAF squadrons. The aircraft were mostly Hawker Hurricane fighters and a few light bombers, all given much to the regret of RAF commanders who would have preferred to have kept these planes for home defence. The superior Supermarine Spitfire fighters were kept safely in Britain until the very last stages of the battle in France. The BEF had no armoured divisions and so was very much a defensive force, rather than an offensive one. More infantry divisions arrived up to April 1940, so the BEF grew to almost 400,000 men, but 150,000 of these had little or no military training. As General Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976) noted, the BEF was "totally unfit to fight a first class war on the Continent" (Dear, 130). In this respect, both Britain and France were very much stuck in the defensive-thinking mode that had won them the First World War (1914-18). Their enemy was exactly the opposite and had planned meticulously for what it called Fall Gelb (Operation Yellow), the German offensive in the west.

Totally unprepared for a war of movement, the defensive-thinking French were overwhelmed in the middle weeks of May 1940 by the German Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") tactics of fast-moving tanks supported by specialist bombers and smartly followed by the infantry. German forces swept through the three neutral countries of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. The 9th Army punched through the Ardennes and raced in a giant curve through northeast France to reach the coast around Boulogne. The BEF and the northern French armies (7th and 1st) were cut off from the rest of the French forces to the south. Germany had achieved what it called the 'Sickle Slice' (Sichelschnitt). By 24 May, the French and British troops were isolated and with their backs to the English Channel, occupying territory from Dunkirk to Lille. Although there were sporadic counterpunches by the defenders, Gort had already concluded that the French army had collapsed as an operational force. Gort considered an attack on the Germans to the south, which he was ordered to make, would have achieved very little except the annihilation of his army. The BEF must be saved, and so he withdrew to the north.

Continue reading...

[er1chartmann]

Adolf Hitler's time-line

This is Adolf Hitler, The Fuhrer, timeline:

1889: He was born in Vienna.

1892: the family moved to Passau, Germany, where the future dictator acquired his Low-Bavarian accent that would accompany him in the orations of his future political life.

1894: the family returned to Austria, moving to Leonding

1895: His father moved to Hafeld, near Lambach, where he was active in beekeeping. The move to Hafeld coincided with the beginning of intense father-son conflicts

1896 ( i don't know the exact year, sorry): Once he reached school age, Hitler instead began to attend the Volksschule, in nearby Fischlham

1897: the family moved to Lambach

1898: the family returned permanently to Leonding

1900: his younger brother Edmund died of measles

1900: ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, Alois forced Hitler to enroll at the Realschule in Linz

1903: Alois died of a pulmonary hemorrhage.

1908: His mother, Klara, dies.

1908: Hitler left his home for Vienna, where he had vague hopes of becoming an artist

1910: He lost his orphan's pension.

1912: he moved to Liverpool, where his half-brother Alois had in the meantime achieved a considerable fortune thanks to the opening of two restaurants in the English city

 1913: He returned to Vienna. It was in Vienna that Hitler began to approach anti-Semitism.

1913: Hitler moved to Munich to avoid military service in the Austro-Hungarian army.

1914: Hitler enlisted as a volunteer at the age of 25 in Kaiser Wilhelm II's Bavarian army, being assigned to the 1st Company of the 16th "List" Infantry Regiment, belonging to the 6th Reserve Division. His future Reichsleiter Rudolf Hess also served in that same regiment

1916:  He was wounded in the left thigh by a grenade splinter during the Battle of the Somme and was hospitalized for two months in the military hospital in Beelitz, 50 kilometers south of Berlin.

1916: He was decorated with the Iron Cross second class

1917: Five months later, he returned to the battlefield and fought all the bloodiest battles on the Flanders front, including the Battle of Arras and the Battle of Passchendaele.

1917: He was wounded by shrapnel in a trench in the village of Marcoing during the Battle of Cambrai-San Quentin in France

1918: He was later temporarily poisoned by a mustard gas attack, which left him blind for three days. He was immediately admitted to Pasewalk Military Hospital where, according to some sources, he learned the news of the German defeat on November 9th.

1919: He returned to Munich

1919: Fascinated by his speech, Anton Drexler, the founder and secretary of the party, enrolled him, without even consulting him, in the party as member number 555.

1919: He met Dietrich Eckart for the first time

1919: Hitler's first known anti-Semitic work, known as the Gemlich letter, was written.

1920: He was discharged from the army

1921: He was sentenced to three months in prison (of which only one was served) for having personally led an SA attack on a rally, which culminated in the attack of the speaker, a Bavarian federalist named Ballerstedt.

1923: Hitler and other extremists attempted the failed Munich Putsch.

1924: He was sentenced to five years in prison in Landsberg am Lech prison and here he wrote Mein Kampt (my battle)

1924: He was released after just nine months in prison.

1925: The first part of Mein Kampf was published

1925: Hitler established the SS

1928: The Nazi Party failed miserably in the 1928 elections

1930: Hitler assumed the position of Oberste SA (supreme leader), entrusting the position of military commander (Stabschef) of the SA to Ernst Röhm

1930: the Nazi Party suddenly rose from obscurity and gained over 18% of the vote and 107 seats in the Reichstag, making it the second largest political force in Germany

1931: His niece Geli (they were supposedly having an affair) commits suicide.

1932: the Nazis achieved their best result, winning 230 seats and becoming the party with a relative majority; Thanks to this victory, Hitler also managed to finally obtain German citizenship.

1933: He was appointed Chancellor of Germany

1933: Using the pretext of the Reichstag fire, Hitler issued the "Reichstag fire decree" on 28 February 1933, less than a month after taking office. The decree suppressed most of the civil rights guaranteed by the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic in the name of national security.

1933: Dachau concentration camp opens its doors

1934: After Hindernburg's death, Hitler, who was the Chancellor, could not also become President of the Reich (head of State), created a new position for himself, that of Führer, which in practice allowed him to combine the two roles. He was Führer und Reichskanzler (Reich leader and chancellor). From 1934 until his death there was no Reich President in Germany.

1935: The Nuremberg Laws were proclaimed

1935: he had to have a polyp removed from his throat, which led to relapses later

1935: Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, reintroducing conscription in Germany.

1936: Hitler violated the treaty of Versailles again by occupying the Rhineland demilitarized zone.

1936: when the Spanish civil war broke out, Hitler sent troops to help Francisco Franco's rebels

1936: On Goebbels' idea, Hitler hosted the 11th Olympiad in Berlin

1936: There was the signing of a friendship treaty between the Kingdom of Italy and Germany in Berlin

1937: Hitler held a secret meeting in the Reich Chancellery, in which he declared his plans for the acquisition of "living space" for the German people.

1938: With a plebiscite Austria joined Germany (the so-called Anschluss) and Hitler, who thus laid the foundations of Greater Germany, made a triumphal entry into Vienna

1938: This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938 in which the United Kingdom and France, with the mediation of Mussolini, weakly gave in to his demands to avoid war, thus "sacrificing" Czechoslovakia, which was occupied.

1939: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is signed.

1939: The Germans enter Prague, occupying Czechoslovakia.

1939: The military alliance with Fascist Italy known as the Pact of Steel takes shape.

1939: The Second World War begins with the Invasion of Poland

1940: Germany invaded Denmark and Norway

1940: The Battle of Britain, the only Nazi failure of that period, ends.

1940: In May, a flash offensive began that quickly swept through the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.

1940: The Auschwitz concentration camp opens its doors.

1941: Yugoslavia and Greece are invaded.

1941: Martin Bormann gives him Blondi.

1941: Operation Barbarossa began.

1941: The Nazi state declares war on the USA

1942: The Wannsee Conference was held by Reinhard Heydrich.

1943: The Battle of Stalingrad, considered by many historians as a turning point in ww2, ends.

1944: The allies land in Normandy

1944: Claus Von Stauffenberg planted a bomb with the intent to kill Hitler in Operation Valkyrie. The operation failed.

1945: He married Eva Braun.

1945: He killed himself.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Adolf Hitler

Military Wiki: Adolf Hitler

Hitler and his loyalists by Paul Roland

I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM,FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY, THIS IS JUST AN EDUCATIONAL POST

[deutschland-im-krieg]

Heer (German Army) soldiers from the 9th company under the command of Leutnant Klaus Vogt of the 578th Infantry Regiment of the 305th Infantry Division near the ruins of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, 15.10.1942

[komododad1]

Infantrymen from the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (Light), disembark from their Cadillac Gage M946 Light Armored Squad Carrier (LASC) during a field exercise at Fort Ord, California, sometime in 1989. The concept of a "light" division in the U.S. Army went through a number of different iterations throughout the late 70s and early 80s, nearly being killed in the crib by inter-branch politics. Eventually, it took the shape of a light-mechanized unit with air-mobile capabilities.

[ironborealis]

Head canon: Alastor is old enough that he likely was drafted into World War I, and probably early on (1917) given the known biases of the all-white draft boards. His time in the military is where he falls in love with Radio.

Some history and more thoughts beneath the cut...

First, the history:

Due to Racism there were only a few regiments that Alastor would have been allowed to serve in, if he could or chose not pass as white during WW1: the 24th or 25th Infantry Regiment (stationed in Texas/New Mexico or Hawai'i), the 9th or 10th Calvary Regiment (stationed in Arizona or the Philippines)

World War I is also when the US Military, partially at the pressure of African Americans, started experimenting with larger all-black Divisions (that would include black commanding officers), resulting in the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, both of whom served in France.

These regiments and divisions were poorly treated, poorly outfitted (Civil War uniforms allegedly handed out), inadequately trained, and the 92nd especially endured a nasty PR campaign from white superior officers to make them look incompetent and cowardly.

The 92nd Division, however, had it's own field signal battalions who were responsible for setting up communication between the front lines and command headquarters, with a whole company dedicated to establishing radio communications.

Back to head canon:

Alastor returns home from a war so gruesome it was supposed to end all wars, where he did the honorable thing and served his country, only to be treated to the same old racist bullshit with a heaping side of pointless bloodshed. He's witnessed the abuse of his fellow soldiers by white command staff who frequently throw them into situations they're not equipped or trained for (and then blame them for the inevitable failure).

The only good thing to come out the entire shit show of the last 2 years is that he's met the love of his life: Radio. He knows how to build and troubleshoot radio equipment, valuable skills in the current boom in civilian radio stations. He's learned how to drop his accent so he can be better understood over the air, and is working on that fancy transatlantic accent everyone is going nuts for.

He also knows how to kill someone for a "righteous" cause.

He can't wait to put all his new skills to work

[rockyp77mk3]

Soldiers of King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB), 9th Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, firing a captured French Hotchkiss Mle 1914 machine gun during street fighting in Caen - July 10, 1944

[walkingthroughthisworld]

Capt. Scott Peterson, a tank commander assigned to 1st Battalion, 9th Calvary Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, currently serving with NATO enhanced forward presence Battle Group Poland, supporting the 4th Infantry Division in Europe, ready's his M1A2 Abrams Tank before participating in the Polish Armed Forces Day parade in Warsaw, Poland, Aug. 15, 2023. Service members from across NATO and their respective combat vehicles participated in the event, also known as the Feast of the Polish Armed Forces, to honor active service members, veterans, and fallen Soldiers. (US Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class David Chapman)

(via 209A0748 | Capt. Scott Peterson, a tank commander assigned t… | Flickr)

[jxstadaydreamer]

welcome home, sergeant

Pairing: Park Chanyeol x F.Reader Genre: fluff, suggestive Word count: 988

Summary: You welcome Chanyeol home from his military service with a game.

Warnings: mentions of shooting and bullets (NERF guns and foam bullets!), strip tease

Author's Note: This is SO late but life got busy around the time Chanyeol was discharged and then I fell into a not so good headspace that I am still crawling my way out of. I am still slowly, but surely, working on something for his birthday too so hopefully that one will come out in time! Please enjoy this belated piece. Are we all excited for PCY1!? I firmly believe that will cure everything 😂

548 days. 548 days he had been gone. 548 days had finally passed and today is the day he is finally coming home.

Okay, maybe you’re being a little dramatic. You were lucky times had changed and enlisted soldiers could now access to their phones while serving, off duty of course. Not to mention the multiple vacation times he had earned where he could come home for a couple days here and there. But now, the difference is that he won’t have to leave again. Now he will be home for good, no more teary goodbyes and promises of “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

You had planned with his family, his parents and grandparents would go to to pick him up from the discharge site and then they would meet his sister and her husband for a nice lunch. He was a little upset upon hearing that you wouldn’t be joining them but you made some suggestions about your inability to keep your hands off him while he’s in uniform and, well, he couldn’t complain about that. He’s well aware of how handsome and manly he looks in his full uniform - the camo print suit, the special warrior and sergeant rank badges, the beret, the black lace up boots - and the effect it had on you.

-

Stepping through the threshold of the apartment, he is completely expecting you to greet him on the spot but is instead met with complete stillness and silence, not even the pitter patter or yippity yap of the dogs speedily rounding the corner.

Taking off his boots and dropping his bag, he makes his way further into the living space where he finds an unusual sight, an array of NERF guns with a handwritten note above them.

Welcome home, Special Warrior SERGEANT Park Chanyeol of the 9th Infantry Division, White Horse Unit!

A smug smile spreads across his features reading the way you address him.

You may have proven your skills on the field but I have yet to witness them with my own eyes. Show me you’re worthy of the title you have been given and the praise you have received. Your success will be rewarded accordingly.

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON

If there was anything Chanyeol loved, it was a challenge. And with the added promise of a reward? From you? His competitive, passionate fire is set ablaze.

Picking up his gun of choice and checking it’s loaded, he straps on a belt with extra ammunition before scoping the room and figuring out where you could be hiding. He dives dramatically and tumbles across the space, appearing directly in front of your hiding spot behind the sofa. Exactly like you had anticipated, allowing you to shower him in foam bullets before making your speedy getaway. You hear his throaty chuckle as you quickly run down the hallway to your next planned location. Because of course you had to have a game plan when going up against Chanyeol. The man might come off as a playful, goofy giant but when it comes to winning, he puts his big brain energy to good use. But you know him well enough to be able to predict his movements, maybe just as much as he knows yours which makes this an interesting battle indeed.

The next half hour or so is filled with giggles, crashes into the wall and furniture, loud footsteps running and multitudes of flying bullets coating the floorspace of the apartment. ‘Til eventually, a strong arm rounds your waist and pulls you in as you sneakily try to pass the doorway of your bedroom, having lost track of where he had gone.

You’re thrown onto the bed and quickly pinned down by him straddling your hips and holding your wrists above your head, staring down at you with hungry eyes.

“Enough with the games, baby. Where’s my reward?”

“Right here, Sergeant.” you say sweetly, puckering your lips.

Chanyeol own lips quirk up in a smirk, lowering himself to you for a kiss.

But before he knows it, the moment he loosens his hold on your wrist you lock your hands around his own and roll him over so you’re now looking down at him triumphantly, sitting on top of his hips. Chanyeol is looking up at you with wide eyes, blinking like a fool trying to process what the hell had just happened.

“Hm,” you tap a finger on your lips questioningly, “maybe you’re not so worthy of your title after all.”

“Hey! That’s not fair! I was caught off guard! You were already just about to give me my reward! I want my re-”

He stops mid-protest when he sees you peeling off your t-shirt to reveal a lacy black bra. Jaw dropping, eyes mesmerised and tracing over the sight of your skin being exposed to him. His hands move with a mind of their own, reaching up to touch you but you quickly slap them away.

You slowly stand up to your full height above him, turning around and looking back at him over your shoulder as you tuck your thumbs inside the waistband of your shorts and slide them down your legs, making sure that you bend over at the waist to give him a full view of his reward.

When you decide you’ve given him enough time to appreciate your assets, you turn back around and assume your previous position. Although now, there was a growing bulge beneath you, a clear answer to your next question.

“Is this reward to your liking, Sergeant Park Chanyeol?” You speak his name breathily, emphasising each word.

He nods rapidly, before reclaiming his cool, growling and grabbing at you. Chanyeol flips you back over so you’re beneath him and brings his face close to yours, enough that you can feel the heat of his breath but not enough for your lips to touch.

“But I like this better.”

His position is top after all.

[freetheshit-outofyou]

Medal of Honor

AWARDED FOR ACTIONS DURING Korean War

Service: Army

Division: 2d Infantry Division

GENERAL ORDERS:

Department of the Army, General Orders No. 70 (August 2, 1951)

CITATION:

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pride in presenting the Medal of Honor (Posthumously) to Private First Class Luther H. Story (ASN: 14285693), United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while serving with Company A, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry Division, in action against enemy aggressor forces at Agok, Korea, on 1 September 1950. A savage daylight attack by elements of three enemy divisions penetrated the thinly held lines of the 9th Infantry. Company A beat off several banzai attacks but was bypassed and in danger of being cut off and surrounded. Private First Class Story, a weapons squad leader, was heavily engaged in stopping the early attacks and had just moved his squad to a position overlooking the Naktong River when he observed a large group of the enemy crossing the river to attack Company A. Seizing a machinegun from his wounded gunner he placed deadly fire on the hostile column killing or wounding an estimated 100 enemy soldiers. Facing certain encirclement the company commander ordered a withdrawal. During the move Private First Class Story noticed the approach of an enemy truck loaded with troops and towing an ammunition trailer. Alerting his comrades to take cover he fearlessly stood in the middle of the road, throwing grenades into the truck. Out of grenades he crawled to his squad, gathered up additional grenades and again attacked the vehicle. During the withdrawal the company was attacked by such superior numbers that it was forced to deploy in a rice field. Private First Class Story was wounded in this action, but, disregarding his wounds, rallied the men about him and repelled the attack. Realizing that his wounds would hamper his comrades he refused to retire to the next position but remained to cover the company's withdrawal. When last seen he was firing every weapon available and fighting off another hostile assault. Private Story's extraordinary heroism, aggressive leadership, and supreme devotion to duty reflect the highest credit upon himself and were in keeping with the esteemed traditions of the military service.

Welcome home.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Men of 2nd Platoon, D Company, 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, firing a M1917 into the town of Schlich, Germany, December 10, 1944.

[look-sharp-notes]

Tankers from the 9th Company of the Second Panzer Division of the French Army took part in the liberation of Paris. They fought in the battles on the Moselle and, supported by American infantry, were the first to enter Strasbourg.

The oldest tankman was Jean Alexis Moncorger, who fought in North Africa and later took part in the Normandy operation. For his heroism he was awarded the Médaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre.

The name of Jean Alexis Moncorger is practically unknown. The whole world knows him by his stage name - the great French actor Jean Gabin. Gaben did not want to film in occupied Paris. He went to the USA, acted, met Marlene Dietrich... In her memoirs, she writes: “Once he and Gabin heard on the radio how de Gaulle called on the French to resist.” And she accompanied Gaben to the war.

Jean Gabin returned to Paris as a liberator. They say that Marlene Dietrich was in the crowd of welcoming Parisians and, seeing Gabin driving into Paris on a tank, rushed to him. Whether this is true or not, God knows. But already in old age, the great actress wrote in her diary: “My love for him has remained forever.”

[whencyclopedia]

Dunkirk Evacuation

The Dunkirk Evacuation of 26 May to 4 June 1940, known as Operation Dynamo, was the attempt to save the British Expeditionary Force in France from total defeat by an advancing German army. Nearly 1,000 naval and civilian craft of all kinds, aided by calm weather and RAF air support, managed to evacuate around 340,000 British, French, and Allied soldiers.

The evacuation led to soured Franco-Anglo relations as the French considered Dunkirk a betrayal, but the alternative was very likely the capture of the entire British Expeditionary Force on the Continent. France surrendered shortly after Dunkirk, but the withdrawal allowed Britain and its empire to harbour its resources and fight on alone in what would become an ever-expanding theatre of war.

Germany's Blitzkrieg

At the outbreak of the Second World War when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, France was relying almost entirely on a single defensive line to protect itself against invasion. These defences were the Maginot Line, a series of mightily impressive concrete structures, bunkers, and underground tunnels which ran along France's eastern frontiers. Manned by 400,000 soldiers, the defence system was named after the French minister of war André Maginot. The French imagined a German attack was most likely to come in two places: the Metz and Lauter regions. As it turned out, Germany attacked France through the Ardennes and Sedan on the Belgian border, circumventing most of the Maginot Line and overrunning the inadequate French defences around the River Meuse, inadequate because the French had considered the terrain in this forested area unsuitable for tanks. Later in the campaign, the Maginot Line was breached near Colmar and Saabrücken.

To bolster the defences of France, Britain had sent across the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under the command of General John Vereker (better known by his later title Lord Gort, 1886-1946). Around 150,000 men, mostly infantry, had arrived in September 1939 to strengthen the Franco-Belgian border. The BEF included the British Advanced Air Striking Force of 12 RAF squadrons. The aircraft were mostly Hawker Hurricane fighters and a few light bombers, all given much to the regret of RAF commanders who would have preferred to have kept these planes for home defence. The superior Supermarine Spitfire fighters were kept safely in Britain until the very last stages of the battle in France. The BEF had no armoured divisions and so was very much a defensive force, rather than an offensive one. More infantry divisions arrived up to April 1940, so the BEF grew to almost 400,000 men, but 150,000 of these had little or no military training. As General Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976) noted, the BEF was "totally unfit to fight a first class war on the Continent" (Dear, 130). In this respect, both Britain and France were very much stuck in the defensive-thinking mode that had won them the First World War (1914-18). Their enemy was exactly the opposite and had planned meticulously for what it called Fall Gelb (Operation Yellow), the German offensive in the west.

Totally unprepared for a war of movement, the defensive-thinking French were overwhelmed in the middle weeks of May 1940 by the German Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") tactics of fast-moving tanks supported by specialist bombers and smartly followed by the infantry. German forces swept through the three neutral countries of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. The 9th Army punched through the Ardennes and raced in a giant curve through northeast France to reach the coast around Boulogne. The BEF and the northern French armies (7th and 1st) were cut off from the rest of the French forces to the south. Germany had achieved what it called the 'Sickle Slice' (Sichelschnitt). By 24 May, the French and British troops were isolated and with their backs to the English Channel, occupying territory from Dunkirk to Lille. Although there were sporadic counterpunches by the defenders, Gort had already concluded that the French army had collapsed as an operational force. Gort considered an attack on the Germans to the south, which he was ordered to make, would have achieved very little except the annihilation of his army. The BEF must be saved, and so he withdrew to the north.

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[er1chartmann]

Adolf Hitler

These are some facts and curiosities about Adolf Hitler:

He was born Braunau am Inn on 20 April 1889

On 16 August 1914, when the German Empire had already entered the First World War, Hitler enlisted as a volunteer at the age of 25 in the Bavarian army of Kaiser Wilhelm II, being assigned to the 1st Company of the 16th "List" Infantry Regiment, belonging to the 6th Reserve Division.

On 15 October 1918 he was subsequently temporarily poisoned by a mustard gas attack, which left him blind for three days. He was immediately admitted to Pasewalk Military Hospital where, according to some sources, he learned the news of the German defeat on November 9th.

While still in the army he was tasked with spying, on behalf of the army and the police, on the meetings of a small nationalist party, the German Workers' Party (DAP). During the session held by the political group at the Sterneckerbräu, a beer hall in center of the city, that same evening, Hitler had a violent argument with another customer.

Fascinated by his speech, Anton Drexler, the founder and secretary of the party, signed him up, without even consulting him

Hitler was not discharged from the army until 1920, after which he began to take part full-time in party activities.

He soon became its leader and changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

A key element of Hitler's appeal to the German people was his constant appeal to national pride, wounded by defeat in war and humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, imposed on the German Empire by the victorious states.

Hitler's success was based on conquering the middle class, hit hard by the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment brought about by the Depression. Peasants and war veterans made up other groups that supported the Nazis.

On January 30, 1933, Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor in the Reichstag chamber, under the gaze and applause of thousands of Nazi supporters.

Using the pretext of the Reichstag fire, Hitler issued the "Reichstag fire decree" on 28 February 1933, less than a month after taking office. The decree suppressed most of the civil rights guaranteed by the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic in the name of national security

It is rumored that he had an incestuous relationship with his niece, Geli Raubal.

His photo was put in the Times.

When Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, Hitler (who as already head of government, Reich Chancellor) could not also become Reich President (head of State), created a new position for himself, that of Führer which allowed him to combine the two tasks.

To demonstrate German power to the world, Hitler (on Goebbels' idea) hosted the 11th Olympiad in Berlin, with a triumphal opening ceremony. On 25 October of the same year, a treaty of friendship between the Kingdom of Italy and Germany was signed in Berlin.

Hitler personally directed the war operations, exercising a decisive influence in strategic choices and operational management.

Responsible for the death of millions of people, Hitler was the proponent of a nationalist and racist ideology, as well as a policy of discrimination and extermination that affected various ethnic, political and social groups: Slavic populations, Romani ethnic groups, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, opponents politicians, prisoners of war, the physically and mentally disabled and, especially, the Jews.

Having remained stranded with the troops loyal to him in a Berlin now surrounded by the Red Army, he committed suicide in his bunker on 30 April 1945 together with his partner Eva Braun, whom he had married the day before.

He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Adolf Hitler

Military Wiki: Adolf Hitler

I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM,FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY, THIS IS JUST AN EDUCATIONAL POST