Saw a decent film recently called 'Letters from Iwo Jima' which was the battle for the island from the Japanese POV, directed by Clint Eastwood and produced by Stephen Spielberg. Tell you something for nothing those Japs were crazy. Dying for emperor and all the other bollocks... As for the Americans and Britain. WW2 bankrupt this country. The Yanks gave us supplies, but we only stopped paying for them not that long ago. Some time in the mid 1980's I think. So much for the special relationship!
Americans where involved during the actual great escape but where seperated into their own camp just before the tunnel was complete. For anyone that's interested. Obviously Hollywood got hold of an amazing story and tweeked it. Saying that, great movie.
I accept some Man U got in Bunkers but it was never a full scale occupation like the Massive suffered 2 weeks after.
I am Richard, one of the many stories that I have read, I believe that he was Spanish and as you say trusted by both sides, a remarkable guy. Of course there is the other side of the coin, the likes of Klaus Fuchs, not to mention Kim Philby and his gang keeping Moscow informed. Donald McLean was at the heart of the Manhattan project, the Atom Bomb, so Stalin knew all about that weapon before he went to Potsdam. John Cairncross worked at Bletchley Park with Turing so the Russians knew about Enigma. The whole WW2 story is, I believe, made up of a multitude of stories, good and bad.
I know they were involved in tunneling. But none took part in the escape. The trouble is as time goes by younger people take the Hollywood versions as what happened. One laughable thing in that film was McQueen didn't like the German motorcycles so insisted on riding a Triumph. It was a 1961 model as well.
I remember reading about a French politician, I think it was, who wanted American service personnel to go home, the reply, from an American military man, maybe a general, was sublime. 'Does that mean those under the ground as well?' Maybe someone knows of this encounter better than I do.
Quick update from Budapest- Highlight so far;seeing a tramp spit on a pigeon outside of the grand station. He hocked up a greeny and flagged on it’s head, he then turned and looked directly at me. I believe for some sort of approval or appreciation of a job well done. He then walked off knowing that his day wasn’t going to get any better. Scruffy ****.
We all read and watch different versions of what happened. Which version do we believe? ****ed if I know. I only know it should never have happened.
“Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!" In 1966 upon being told that President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he should ask DeGaulle about the Americans buried in France. Dean implied in his answer that that DeGaulle should not really be asked that in the meeting at which point President Johnson then told Secretary of State Dean Rusk: "Ask him about the cemeteries Dean!" That made it into a Presidential Order so he had to ask President DeGaulle. So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60,000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II. DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered.” ― Lyndon Baines Johnson I didn't know about this but found it on Google
It was actually Bud Ekins who decided to use the Triumph TR6R for the jump scene in The Great Escape, a wartime BMW being far too heavy. That stunt was actually the first time he'd ever been in a film, though he did a lot of stunt work afterwards, including the car chase in Bullitt. The bike was recently restored and was up for sale last year for £40k... please log in to view this image
I seem to remember reading about a similar incident just after the war. De Gaulle was supposed to have said to an American General that now the war was over there was no need for Americans to remain in France and they should return home immediately. The General asked if that included the ones 6 feet under the ground. De Gaulle wanted to remove all thoughts of the British, Americans and others liberating France as it didn't fit in with his the French liberated themselves nonsense. Churchill said regarding De Gaulle that everyone has a cross to bear. His was the Cross Of Lorraine.
I knew it was Edkins who did the stunt but thought McQueen wanted to use a Triumph, or rather didn't want to use the German one they had.The only reason they used stunt driver was the film studio were loathe to risk their star who enjoyed doing his own stunts.
Class. Reminds me of a bit from Camus' La Peste - the old guy who lures cats to gather below his apartment to take pleasure and precision in gozzin on the cats below. Gozzin/gossin - as in 'to spit' (translation for you posho types) - can Hull claim that word as its own?
Not denying the bravery of some, especially those too-hot-to trot types in Allo Allo, but I think the size of the French Resistance is massively overegged - only really seemed to grow from '44.
I agree, and the brave French who did fight in the resistance were helped by many Spanish Republic in exile from Franco and British SOE agents. The French Navy is confusing, one fleet scuttled itself so it didn't fall into German hands and we bombed it at Toulon? But Vichy France retained a Navy and fought in their indochina colonies against Thailand, did the Vichy French fight with or against Japan in Vietnam? French collaboration was much wider than a few French prostitutes sleeping with German soldiers?
It was a Frenchman who wrote that there were 60,000 in the Resistance and he had interviewed the 250,000 of them who were tortured by the Gestapo. There was a good documentary about life in Vichy France called Le Chagrin et La Pitie. Some harrowing stuff about what some Frenchmen did to fellow Frenchmen. They wouldn't show it in France for decades after it was made in 1969. There are excerpts on YouTube but I haven't come across the full programme which was a two parter. The French didn't like mention either of the fact the trade unions collaborated with the Nazis, on Stalin's order because they were allies in the non aggression pact, only getting involved in Resistance activity after the Nazis invaded the USSR then spending as much effort arguing with non communist members of the resistance as anything else and trying to take all the credit. Nothing was straightforward then. Taking of 'Allo, 'Allo, that was a parody of Secret Army based in Belgium which was itself based on real events and people.
And those Spanish ones, and non white troops who had fought were denied a place in the victory parades.
The thing I've found with WW2 in general, is that it literally is the war that keeps on giving - so much still unknown (through purposeful propaganda or other means/ways/methods), yet still from what we know, it contains virtually every possibility, every horror and every sacrifice known to man. I'm still in awe of it and I think it started when I was about 3 - asking my grandparents etc. On the French thing, I've mentioned this before on here, but this French series is class and it asks the awkward questions France has often avoided: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1288631/ For Spiral fans, it also has a few heads from that too.
