This is a carefully cataloged list of the international treaties that the Soviet Union signed and agreed to abide by during the course of their first forty years (1920 – 1960). Printed next to these agreements are listed the dates the Soviets chose to violate the treaties and the direct results that ensued.
Promises are like pie crust, made to be broken. – V.I. Lenin
Click here to read about the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact.
The misery that lingered over the W.W. II German home front is well documented and many of the issues concerning melancholy, hunger and thirst can be read in the attached assortment of letters that were pulled from the bloodied uniforms of the thousands of dead Nazi soldiers that surrounded the city of Stalingrad in 1943. These personal correspondences by German parents, wives and sweethearts present a thorough look at the dreariness that lingered over the German home front.
Sitting before a senate committee convened in order to understand what went wrong in Korea, Lieutenant General Edward M. Almond (1892 – 1979), U.S. Army, was not shy to point out that it was the the back-seat drivers in Washington who interfered in their ability to fight the war.
Senator Welker: Could we have won the war in 1951…?
General Almond: I think so.
General Matthew Ridgway experienced the same frustration – click here to read about it.
The Savoia Marchetti SM 82 Canguru was a triple engine transport aircraft that was also put to use as a bomber. Produced by the Italians, it was additionally used by their German allies and was capable of seating 40 fully-equipped soldiers comfortably or 51 fully-equipped soldiers uncomfortably. At the time this article appeared, this long-range transport was being used to shuffle German and Italian soldiers to the collapsing fronts in North Africa.
Attached is a Click Magazine photo essay of one of the seldom remembered heroes of W.W. II: John C. Garand – the gunsmith who tripled the firepower of the American foot soldier.
In 1939, a German spy almost succeeded in delivering the blueprints of the Garand rifle into the blood-soaked hands of his Nazi overlords: read about it here.
Click here to read about the Japanese Zero.
A photograph, profile and statistical information concerning the Vultee Vengeance A-31 – which was a W.W. II American dive bomber, built by Vultee Aircraft Corporation. The Vengeance was not used in combat by any US units, however it was deployed by the British and Commonwealth Air Forces in Southeast Asia as well as the Southwestern Pacific Theaters.
When, on December 7, 1941, the bombers and fighter aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy came roaring out of the Hawaiian blue to reign death and destruction on Pearl Harbor, the Aichi-99 was among those present. The attached article from 1942 will tell you all that the American military knew about it at the time.
Read about another plane that was at Pearl Harbor that morning…
Soon after Pearl Harbor Americans began hearing about a Japanese warplane called called the Zero. It had an unusual name, it was virtually unknown, even to aircraft experts, and almost immediately it began to take on an air of sinister mystery. Information now available shows there is no good reason for the mystery, although the plane has been a big factor in the Jap drive… The Zero has no secret weapons or engineering developments. It is simply a pretty good pursuit or fighter.
From the pages of a 1943 issue of America’s Alertman was this page that presented some information about the German JU 88 twin engine bomber, which was the primary offensive aircraft in the Luftwaffe’s arsenal during the Second World War. It was the successor to the Ju-87 and saw service as a night fighter and torpedo bomber in addition to serving as reconnaissance aircraft. The earliest prototype first flew in December of 1936 with a civilian registration of D-AQEN; it managed a top speed of 360 mph. Throughout the course of the war there were 15,000 JU 88’s constructed.
The attached article from 1943 goes into greater detail and can easily be printed.
This article page from a 1943 YANK MAGAZINE concerns the American A-36 fighter-bomber of World War II. The article is accompanied by photographs and testimonial accounts as to how well the fighter aircraft performed in combat over North Africa and Sicily.
Built by North American Aviation, this ship is a dive-bomber version of that company’s P-51 Mustang fighter. The A-36 can climb at the rate of nearly half a mile a minute, with a ceiling of 30,000 feet. Powered by a 12-cylinder Allison engine, it has a flying speed in excess of 400 miles an hour…
