by nowonmai » Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:31 pm
It would be better if there were some 88mm re-enactors with live ammunition. My old neighbour (who became a sort of surrogate grandfather - mine having been killed by fucking kraut bastards) rode to war on a Sherman as a private soldier in Guards Armoured, the infantry used to sit on the outside until encountering effective fire (which meant at least one of them getting shot off) and then they would reluctantly get off and walk it in to the enemy position. No wonder the krauts held them up on the single road to Nijmegen.They weren't called tommy cookers for nothing either. I've probably said this before but he learned to drive under fire, his words "had to pull a dead yank out of the seat and get it out of the road". That's pretty much the sum total he ever said about the war. He ended up liberating Belsen, never got anything other than an expression on his face about that. What I loved most is that he had an artillery luger which he had traded for some british kit with an American (some things never change) but sadly handed it in to the filth after one of their many scare tactic messages. It is is probably in some retired copper's attic now.
Anyway, good old Charlie (railway signalman by trade and ace allotment operator) popped his clogs 15 years ago now; given the state of the nation since then I'm glad he went before he saw the fruit of his efforts get pissed down the drain by the thieving pygmies who run politics in the "modern" era.