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Somme 1916

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Tony View Drop Down
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    Posted: June 24 2006 at 10:23pm
The Last Post will sound across the UK and on the battlefields of the Somme this week to mark the 90th anniversary of one of the bloodiest moments in British history.
Rottie (PitBulls dad.)


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cookie Monster Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 24 2006 at 10:58pm

  Battle of Somme  

 

In October, 1915 after several months of preparation in England, men of the 36th (Ulster) Division sailed across the Channel and began to disembark in France. The soldiers, drawn from all parts of the nine counties of Ulster, had previously trained at Finner Camp in Donegal, Ballykinlar in County Down, and the Clandeboye Estate near Bangor. All were volunteers with an overwhelming majority of them in their late teens and early twenties and, while many perhaps sought adventure and a chance to see some of the world beyond the confines of their own home towns and villages, they believed absolutely that their cause in going to war to free France and Belgium from German oppression and invasion was just and honourable.
During the next winter and spring they learnt their combat and trench skills in the quieter regions of the Western Front before moving, in June, 1916, to take over their allotted areas on either side of the River Ancre and west of the village of Thiepval in preparation for the forthcoming Battle of the Somme which started on 1st July, 1916. For the British, Commonwealth, and Empire soldiers the outcome on that day was little short of a massacre. The Ulster Division, which gained a few hundred yards of ground from Thiepval Wood up the hill towards the dauntingly fortified Schwaben Redoubt, suffered some five and a half thousand casualties - out of a total divisional complement of ten or eleven thousand men. (In writing of "casualties" it is a generally accepted assumption that one out of every three was killed or died of wounds later). Unable to advance or retreat, and impossible to reinforce because of unrelenting German shell, and machine-gun fire, those soldiers in the redoubt and elsewhere in no-man's-land held on until night gave them cover to slip back to the precarious safety of their own lines. The next day the division was withdrawn from the front and moved to the area around St. Omer where it regrouped, received large numbers of fresh soldiers to replace those killed or wounded, and made ready for its next engagement - the Battle of Messines.
The small town of Messines lies at the southern end of a low, rounded ridge which stretches eight kilometers northwards towards Ypres. The ridge overlooks the flat Flanders Plain and, in 1917 in the hands of the Germans, it dominated the southern sector of the Ypres Salient held by the British . Its capture was vital if the commander-in-chief's (Field Marshal Haig) strategic attack eastwards out of the Salient was to succeed.



Edited by Cookie Monster - June 24 2006 at 10:59pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 25 2006 at 4:04pm
A Terrible example of senceless life wasteage ! Some thing that should have been a lesson to all countries ! It would seem that Mankind is the slowest of all learners!


      Dave
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote shotgunminister Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 25 2006 at 10:09pm
Just remember WWI started over the assination of ONE man.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cookie Monster Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 25 2006 at 10:28pm

Originally posted by dave h dave h wrote:

A Terrible example of senceless life wasteage ! Some thing that should have been a lesson to all countries ! It would seem that Mankind is the slowest of all learners!


      Dave

Dave,
Humans are the only animals that kills for no reason.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hoadie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 25 2006 at 10:30pm
Originally posted by shotgunminister shotgunminister wrote:

Just remember WWI started over the assination of ONE man.

No it didn't. The assissination of the ArchDuke was the Last act in a long "fuse" of incidents, leading to the the final powder keg.
(Dont forget - the ruling class during that period, were all related! The royalty were fighting cousin vs cousin from they're palaces...But the butcher's apprentice from Berlin was expected to kill the butcher's apprentice from London)
The underclasses do the bleeding, the royalty gets the spoils.
Nasty business.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 25 2006 at 10:30pm
Fighting is natural, the only difference between us and animals is that we fight in large quantities.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cookie Monster Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 25 2006 at 10:37pm

Hoadie can not forget the sinking of the Lusitania by U-20?

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tony Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 26 2006 at 1:58am

Animals don't fight to kill and maim sonny ! Read you basic wildlife books and watch you local wildlife. They fight to determine the strongest, that  means the breeding line has the best chance of survival because it has the better gene pool. ( I'm not talking Levis either hoadie!!). The loser leaves the scene of conflict with his tail between his legs and little harm is done to either animal. Man is the only animal to kill for fun and devise more lethal and efficient weapons to do the job. Animals use what nature provides them with.

If fighting is natural how come Dave and I don't want to see any more of it? We both had a belly full hunting the most dangerous animal alive! MAN!!!!

Rottie (PitBulls dad.)


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cookie Monster Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 26 2006 at 5:31am
Originally posted by Tony Tony wrote:

Animals don't fight to kill and maim sonny ! Read you basic wildlife books and watch you local wildlife. They fight to determine the strongest, that  means the breeding line has the best chance of survival because it has the better gene pool. ( I'm not talking Levis either hoadie!!). The loser leaves the scene of conflict with his tail between his legs and little harm is done to either animal. Man is the only animal to kill for fun and devise more lethal and efficient weapons to do the job. Animals use what nature provides them with.

If fighting is natural how come Dave and I don't want to see any more of it? We both had a belly full hunting the most dangerous animal alive! MAN!!!!

Tony,
Agreed 100% I gave up a promotion from Major to LT Col to give it up. Tony question have you ever heard of a serial killing animal other then man? One last qusetion? How was my History of The Battle of Somme??

 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote White Rhino Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 26 2006 at 8:22am
 very well put Tony; ya hit dead bulls eye on that one!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tony Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 26 2006 at 9:37am
Nope mate never heard of an animal being a serial killer. They kill to eat. Yeah your history is pretty good. Interstingly enough my lad went on one of the school trips round the WW1 cemetaries. He found 3 of my relatives names on one roll of honour. My grandad came back injured in the only 1 of the 4 to survive.  
Rottie (PitBulls dad.)


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hoadie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 26 2006 at 10:15am
My great grandfather was denied entry to the Army in WWI.(They didn't want "indians") He tried 3 or 4 X.
He used to get letters from his friends that did get in. After Vimy Ridge - the letters stopped. Not one of his mates came back from Vimy.
He always told me,"maybe racism isn't such a bad thing, after all.Cause if they had of taken me, I wouldn't be here now, & neither would you."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote White Rhino Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 26 2006 at 11:05am
I'm kinda lucky guys my Dad made it back physically, but the deamons(as he called them) were dug in deep,when he drank the rage came out, so my mom said. thats if you can believe her. I've got to the point that i don't, but i do believe my Older brother. His form(My Dad) of punishment after 13 was a fist insted of a belt.                        
  My father was a Marine, he Island hoped from one conflict to another, till
they got to Japan for the Occupation. The kills that he made, I will never know of but a few.That i will never talk about, as i promised. for the privaliege to hear the horror... wich was not a privaliege in retrospect.
but as he  said," there are a lot of fatherless children because of him".
I have never seen the carnage that my father has but the little that i have has given me plenty of respect  for the Man that Fatherd Me. there is history hear that im not going into for personal reasons. but has to do in part with perhaps half the decision to join the army instead of the Marines. My father turned out to be a good man,and it doesnt matter if it comes from me. i just wish i had the time to spend with him before he past away.
I'm thankfull he got to see his grandchildren; just wish my boy could of got a chance to go hunting with his grandad, or probably i wish i could. 
what ever im saying or feeling right now, just remember do what you can and visit
your parents or friends or who ever means something to you, the hell with what
ever you think is more important. take the time, visit them and enjoy the time left. 
The "White Rhino"
It will disapear believe me It will
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote shotgunminister Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 26 2006 at 12:32pm

War is a funny thing.  Those who come back on the bus are just as damaged as those who come back in a box. I must conlude that the human cost of war is such that war is not to be taken lightly.  Every soldier is a casaulty of war.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 26 2006 at 4:28pm
Originally posted by Dunno Dunno wrote:

Fighting is natural, the only difference between us and animals is that we fight in large quantities.


   MATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There ain't nothing natural about fighting ! esp when it's just to a please some Money hungry Bastard's whims ! That's what any conflict boils down to ! Conflict makes money !!!!! It's the poor bastard who only wants to get the job done & go home that suffers !  Everybody thinks their fighting the good fight & at the end of the day  The people who supply everything needed to keep a conflict going sit down & count their profits ! Total  waste of time & bloody effort


     Dave
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