Helping Enemy

cool addition, it's the first one I see this picture.

 

Hi sturmkreuz, I told I'd find more, it took me a while, but it's worth it and I got two! I hope you"ll like them and that you don't already have these in your collection.



Fraternising with a Russian farmer.



this one could not be propaganda and seems sincere.

 

Here a canadian medic helping a german in Trun (Falaise gap), august 1944.

 

I like this thread. For the photo's and also for the thought behind it.

I found another photo: German and polish medics work together at Mont Ormel in the corridor off dead in the Falaise gap. August 1944.
The polish medic is wounded himself!

 

A superbly original thread. None of us ought to be surprised by these scenes and stories though. Remember always that it is the "leaders" who take us the ordinary citizens into war. I was touched by an incredible story of understanding for an "enemy" only last weekend. I was Duxford enjoying the wonderful annual "flying legends" show. Standing close by to me were a group of young men who were very enthusiastic and evidently German ( ok, could have been Swiss, Austrian,Alsace or Northern Italians....but they weren't) Every time an allied warbird flew along the flight line these guys were in raptures, whooping hollering and applauding. A fellow asked them why? He translated for the rest of us what one of them had said and his colleagues agreed.
"It is simple. The Allies liberated our country from Hitler too".
That gives me huge hope and not a little humility for the future
Spitbloke over and out

 

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a76/Bleak_December07/Salute.jpg

This is just a painting by the renowned artist James H. Kitchens, but the situation he depicts is real:

On June 26, 1943, P-47C Thunderbolts from the 56th Fighter Group's 61st, 62nd, and 63rd Fighter Squadrons were launched from AAF Station Boxted to escort an Eighth AF operation against Villacoublay, France. The mission was going smoothly - until the American formation was bounced by Fw 190s from JG 2 and JG 26, which proceeded to shoot down five Thunderbolts and damage seven others, two beyond repair.
One of the damaged P-47s, ("Half Pint") was piloted by Lt. Robert S. Johnson. A Fw 190 caught him in his sights and riddled his airplane with machine gun bullets and 20mm cannon shells. One 20mm round exploded in the cockpit, another passed through the rear part of the sliding hood, jamming it closed. Wounded and half-blind, Johnson could not bail out and had to limp home to survive. Things looked hopeful until another Fw 190 latched onto the crippled American's tail. The German mercilessly hammered the helpless Thunderbolt, exhausting his machine gun ammunition without result. The astonished and no-doubt bewildered German pilot eased alongside, studied his would-be victim, saluted, and turned away, leaving the shaken American to nurse his flying sieve back to Boxted.

 

This may not be strictly on-topic, but I believe it is true to the spirit of this thread....

At the battle of Fredricksburg in the American Civil War, the Union Army of the Potomac sent brigade after brigade against Robert E. Lee's Confederates. Lee, who was entrenched behind a stone wall on a hill called Marye's Heights slaughtered the Yankees wholesale. The carnage was horrible, and was the most lopsided victory/loss of the ACW. At the end of the day, there were thousands of wounded Union soldiers in no-mans land crying out for help.

A young South Carolinian named Richard Kirkland was moved by the misery in front of him, and decided to act. Risking Union fire, the Confederate grabbed all the canteens that he could get, and went over the wall. For over an hour he tried to comfort the Union soldiers under fire, giving them water, warm clothing, and perhaps just a kind word or two. For his actions, he became known as the angel of Marye's Heights. Kirkland was subsequently killed at Chickamauga later in the war.

This photo is of the memorial to him at Fredricksburg NMP.

 

It does match the spirit, so yes this addition is welcome in my opinion.

 

If I'm not mistaken, there was an episode of DOGFIGHTS on the History Channel recently here in the US that told this story or one very much like it. You should check that out if you haven't already.

But you're right, great story indeed...

 

A US soldier gives water to a wounded Japanese soldier on Kwajalein, Marshall Islands

After kicking away a grenade a US marine give a wounded Japanese soldier a cigerette. The soldier later gave information on the defenses on Mt. Suribachi​

​

 

This is an excellent topic. I haven't got any pics, but I have read about Kurt Knispel (also the highest-scoring tanker in the German military, and I think overall as well). On the Eastern front, Knispel, I think then an Obergefreiter but maybe an Unteroffizier, was traveling to the front lines when he saw a soldier from another outfit beating a Russian prisoner. Knispel became infuriated, went over, and stopped the beating, then took the prisoner away. Shortly thereafter, an effort was made to arrest Knispel for this; Knispel's CO refused to let the MPs onto the troop train to look for their suspect, and the matter was dropped.
Even on the Russian front, where there was so much hatred and atrocity, there were occasional beams of humanity.

 

+1...!!

 

I am back. Thanks for the photos, I'll see if I can add more.

 

Ha, ha I figured this would be the first section you would check again , I will be waiting for your new pictures, I have one or two as well

 

I love these photos.... I'll hunt some down as well.

 

Is it just me or is this topic simply loaded with propaganda pics? Especially the "SS helping Soviet wounded or civilians" pics show us nothing of the way they dealt with these people the moment the camera turned away.

 

i dont think so. its not a SS man its a "WaffenSS" soldier and thats not the same. it also cant be propaganda because the nazi-regime didnt want that the soldiers fraternize with the russians

 

B-29 Superfortress Then and Now. . .

No pics, but on this page there is a brief description of a sign of chivalry by a Japanese pilot towards a parachuting American air navigator who he could have easily killed.

"64 years ago on January 27, 1945, V Square 27, the " Rover Boy's Express" was shot down over Tokyo. Among the crew was Navigator, Hap Halloran, the navigator. All of the eleven man crew were supposed to parachute out but only seven did at an estimated 16,000 feet above Tokyo. Hap pulled his rip cord at about 4,000 feet, losing his right flying boot in the process.

The JAAF Mansyu Ki-79 fighter planes were circling the dangling navigator, Ever the optimist, Hap waved to them. Corporal Hideichi Kaiho of the 39th flying unit, acknowledged Hap's wave while two of the Japanese fighter's comrades flew off.. After their departure Corporal Kaiho circled again, gave another salute to Hap and he, too, flew off"


I know this isn't really to the point of the thread but with the vast majority of stories about the Japanese treatment of Americans being negative to say the least, I thought that this was rare enough that some might like to know about it.

 

Such nonsense. Get your facts straight: (Allgemeine) SS and Waffen-SS were exactly the same organisation (same background, same leaders, same ideology, large scale exchange of personel between both branches) and such photographs have nothing to do with fraternization but everything with showing the world (the home front to begin with) a positive image of human soldiers helping their wounded enemies. That's propaganda. Plain and simple.

 

There is also much propaganda from the allied side...
Because they weren't as kind to the Germans you might think they were.