All What's You Should Know

Love for a child's protection will prevail, 1944 Meet Karl-Heinz Rosch, a German machine gunner during WW2. Despite a troubled upbringing, Karl showed courage and compassion. Drafted into the Wehrmacht Armed Forces after graduation, fate had other plans for him. In October 1944, amidst Allied artillery fire on a farm, Karl noticed two children playing in the yard, seemingly unaware of the danger. Without hesitation, he rushed to their aid, leaving his rifle behind, and safely carried the children to the basement. However, tragedy struck when he returned for his weapon, as he was hit by a grenade, resulting in a devastating and gruesome end. Surprisingly, for 60 years, Karl's selfless act remained hidden, concealed by his status as an enemy soldier. Not even his family knew the details of his sacrifice. It was only when the rescued children came forward with their testimonies that the public learned about the young German soldier's bravery. Due to his allegiance to the e...

On This Day - June 15, 1944, following a massive bombardment in which more than 165,000 shells were fired, American troops began landing on the Japanese held island of Saipan. Saipan was a part of the strategically located Marianas Island chain. The United States’ seizure of it would sever Japanese communications with many of their other island bases farther in the Pacific, as well as provide a base for B-29 bombers heading for the Japanese mainland. Beginning at 7:00 am on June 15, more than 8,000 Marines landed on the western coast of the island, running into carefully prepared Japanese defenses laden with barb wire, artillery, and machine gun emplacements. All were placed to inflict maximum American casualties. At the end of the day the Americans had established a beach head and were able to hold off a large counterattack, inflicting horrendous casualties on the Japanese. The next day, June 16, soldiers from the Army’s 27th Infantry Division began landing on the other side of Sa...

75 years ago on the morning of June 5, 1944, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe gave the go-ahead for Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious military operation in history. On his orders, 6,000 landing craft, ships and other vessels carrying 176,000 troops began to leave England for the trip to France. That night, 822 aircraft filled with parachutists headed for drop zones in Normandy. An additional 13,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion. Dodging mines and wooden stakes just under the water surface, a US Coast Guard LCVP ferries troops to Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. An integral part of Operation Neptune, the Coast Guard landed troops, rescued survivors of sunken craft, and ferried the wounded back to ships through rough, unsheltered waters, strong currents and withering enemy fire. I will be covering a lot of posts dealing with the 75th anniversary of D-Day, so please all stay tuned! #DDay #O...

Prisoner’s Hand Marks, 1944 This photograph was taken after the German occupation of France during WWII. It depicts the wall of a torture chamber on the Boulevard Victor in Paris. The desperate hands of prisoners have inflicted themselves into the asbestos as the effects of electrical current became more than they could bear. Such happenings may be forgiven but can’t be forgotten, not with this document. The Parsian Roger Schall had been allowed by the Nazis to photograph life there during the war, but with the liberation, he took very different kinds of pictures-like this one-and his work was used in postwar prosecutions. Schall’s brother published a book of such pictures at war’s end, and it became a mandatory buy in Paris. Incoming prisoners were assigned a camp serial number which was sewn to their prison uniforms. Only those prisoners selected for work were issued serial numbers; those prisoners sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered and received no tattoos. Initial...