#Battle Group Poland

[songs-of-the-east]

Poland's Muslim Lipka Tatars

Lipka Tatars are Poland's only remaining Indigenous Islamic group. Many of the Polish Tatars belonged to the Polish nobility historically and through out history have been one of the most loyal groups to the Polish state; also having had an influence on the general Polish culture.

Noted for their skills in archery and horse riding, they have been viewed as some of Poland's greatest warriors in the past. Their combat was essential in Poland's victory over the Ottoman Empire during the Battle of Vienna. This fact is contrary to recent western nationalist propaganda, stating that the war was a battle between Christendom and the Islamic world, rather than a war of imperialism. After the war King Jan Sobieski III granted the Lipka Tatars large pieces of land in the Podlasie region of Eastern Poland.

Their origins are in predominately male Crimean Tatars and other settlers from the Golden Horde, who relied on intermarriage with Christian women, leading to early partial assimilation and adoption of Slavic languages. However, they were able to keep their identity and parts of their culture through their ties to Islam. Regardless, over the centuries more and more Tatars were absorbed into the Polish-Lithuanian Common wealth's Catholic and Orthodox populations, with estimates in the 18th century stating that up to 25% of Muslims converted to Christianity- partially motivated by violent peasant drawback due to the privileges bestowed onto them. Eventually this absorption reached its height during the inter-war and post-World War II period of Poland, in part due to assimilative policies. These days most Lipka Tatar descedants simply identify as ethnic Poles, with many Poles not aware of their ancestry. A prominent example of this is Polish-American personality Martha Stewart who only recently discovered that she is of partial Lipka Tatar ancestry, after partaking in a television program dedicated to geneaology.

[ipso-faculty]

Is saying "intersex and/or mesosex" the same way of saying "trans and/or nonbinary"? Sorry I'm trying to (un)learn, I don't want to be seen as insensitive

No, mesosex should be thought of as a subset of intersex. I'd just say intersex. 👍️

I'm gonna give you a wall of text of context so upfront a TLDR: 😅

TLDR: positioning mesosex as in between perisex and intersex is like positioning bisexual as in between queer and not-queer. Intersex people are organizing for inclusive views of intersex and trying to create a middle ground between intersex & perisex plays into conservative efforts to divide and conquer us. 🧑‍🏫

So a big difference between being intersex and being trans/nonbinary comes from the role of medicine being far, far more powerful in its control and oppression of intersex people. In a lot of ways intersex is more like disability than like other queer identities. So much of intersex identity is gatekept by doctors. Intersex people are often told they're intersex by a doctor in a context of telling them they are disordered and broken. Fostering community amongst intersex people is hard because so many of us have been conditioned by doctors to think of themselves as rare freaks.

Right now we in the intersex community are fighting a kind of desperate battle for people to understand that it is intersex people who decide who is and isn't intersex, as opposed to it being up to doctors. And the intersex community consistently says that people with PCOS, Poland Syndrome, or even no diagnosis, who feel that their experiences line up with being intersex are intersex.

Meanwhile TERFs and other conservatives are pushing real hard to keep the definition of intersex as narrow as possible. They don't want intersex people to be common or for us to find community. They're invested in a narrative that intersex people are rare, and are disorderd men/women.

Right now, the track record of treating mesosex as not intersex has unfortunately been that it reinforces those conservative narratives. It's gotten used to imply that people with PCOS aren't really intersex, that they are mesosex instead. Same for undiagnosed intersex people. 😭

Even though this is not what I intended for the term, seeing what's happened with it in the wild it's been honestly scary and upsetting seeing this term get weaponized against an inclusive view of what intersex means. (And more experienced intersex folks raised concern about this well in advance 😨.)

Intersex being an umbrella category I think there is value in having microlabels within the umbrella category, which is why I updated my definition of mesosex rather than abandon the term altogether.

But yeah I would definitely steer far away from treating mesosex as though it's in between intersex and perisex - it's really not at all analogous to being nonbinary. I'd say a better analogy is that treating mesosex as if it is between intersex and perisex is like treating bisexual as being in between queer and non-queer.

The stakes are political inclusion and organizing - politically speaking, any effort to create a group between queer and non-queer generally serves to weaken the collective organizing of queer people. Same deal with intersex. Hope that clarifies things. 💜

[armthearmour]

Arms and Armor of the Hallstatt Celts: A (not-so) Brief Overview

The Hallstatt culture is an archaeologically-defined material culture group. The typesite for this group is in Hallstatt, Austria, where a deep salt mine which had been in use since the Neolithic served as the lifeblood of the local community. A substantial cemetery of approximately 1,300 burials near the mine has helped to clearly define artistic trends associated with this cultural group. The culture is associated with early Celtic or proto-Celtic language speaking groups, and for a long time, was thought to have been the origin of the proto-celtic language. This idea has since been debunked, as it is now known the first proto-Celtic speakers predated the Hallstatt culture.

The Hallstatt culture is divided into four phases, A-D (henceforth abbreviated as Ha. A-D). The first two of these phases are associated with the end of the bronze age in the region, the last two, with the beginning of the iron age.

Since the defining of the culture in 1846, Hallstatt influence has been found from Eastern France to Hungary, as far south as Serbia and as far North as Poland. The core Hallstatt region covers much of Austria and Southern Germany. By the Ha. C period, distinct practices had arisen in the Hallstatt sphere of influence: distinct enough for academics to split the culture into two “zones”, the East and the West.

Unfortunately, due to the antiquity of this culture and the utter lack of any written records concerning them, the archaeological record is both relatively thin, and the only source of information available for these people. As such, in constructing a timeline of Hallstatt arms and armor, there will be substantial gaps which we can only hope will be filled by future discoveries.

Armor

Three types of armor are commonly found in Hallstatt contexts: belts, cuirasses, and helmets.

That broad belts (both of leather and of bronze) are considered armor in the ancient Mediterranean is clear from references in which these items are placed in context with other armor. In the Iliad, for example, in book 7 after Ajax and Hector meet on the field of battle and fight to a stalemate, they exchange equipment. Hector “gave over his silver-studded sword, bringing with it the sheath and well-cut baldric” (l. 303-304), while Ajax reciprocated with “his war-belt bright with crimson” (l. 305). Additionally, a short list of military equipment issued by the Neo-Assyrian empire recovered in Tel Halaf lists 10 leather belts alongside bows, swords, spears, and other arms and armor.

A number of bronze and gold belt plates survive from both the Eastern and Western zones, though most of these plates date to the Ha. D period.

While the majority of these plates are decorated with embossed and incised geometric patterns, some (particularly from the Eastern zone) include scenes of warriors on foot and on horseback.

The cuirasses of the Hallstatt period exhibit an interesting progression. In their most basic form, these bronze cuirasses remain essentially the same from Ha. A-D. They are characterized by essentially simple forms: a tubular breast and backplate which terminates at the waist and includes a tall standing collar to defend the neck. The earliest examples, however, include substantial embossed decoration in much the same manner as appears on the belt plates.

Only in the late Ha. B to early Ha. C period does this decoration begin to take on a more anatomical form; a group of seven cuirasses recovered in Marmesse, France in 1974 shows this evolution nicely. These cuirasses retain the same form, though a slight taper is now evident near the waist. The circular embossing closely resembles that of the previous period, however embossed lines are now apparent, and the placement of the embossing is such as to evoke the musculature of the warrior wearing it.

The final stage of the cuirasse’s evolution arrives in Ha. D. This form is much more plain, lacking the apparent horror vacui which typified earlier iterations of this style. Instead, the anatomical element is even more pronounced: embossing emphasizes the warrior’s pectoral and abdominal muscles, and additional circular bronze plates are riveted to the upper chest to simulate nipples.

The final element of armor with substantial enough evidence in a Hallstatt context to be addressed is the helmet. Unfortunately, surviving helmets are extremely scarce, and there is no pictorial evidence to consult prior to the Ha. D period.

Four helmet types appear both archaeologically and artistically in Hallstatt contexts. We will call these the crested, the plated, the double-crested, and the Negau.

Only one artistic example of the crested helmet is to be found, and no archaeological examples. It is to be found on a grave good in the shape of a wagon adorned with many figures made ca. 600 BC and recovered in Strettweg, Austria.

A find from Normandy (outside the Hallstatt sphere of influence) dated ca. 1200-700 BC shows what this type of helmet may have looked like.

The plated type is nearly as obscure, represented by only a single survival and a single artwork. The helmet, recovered in Šentvid, Slovenia and dated ca. 800-450 BC, is curious for the distinct pearly texture of its surface.

A number of similar helmets appear on a situla recovered from the Certosa Necropolis in modern Bologna, Italy. This situla is dated ca. 600 BC, and bears a striking resemblance to other situlae found in Hallstatt contexts.

The most well attested form of Hallstatt helmet is the double-crested type. This type appears with the onset of Ha. D, and sees use until the end of the Hallstatt period. It is attested to by several survivals

and numerous depictions on a number of situlae

and belt plates.

This type is so-called for the twin crests that adorn the helmet’s skull; crests which, as is attested by the pictorial evidence, served as anchors to large plumes likely made from horse hair.

The final type is named for a town in Slovenia where a large cache of helmets of this type was found in 1812. The Negau type appears at the very tail end of Ha. D, and primarily in Etruscan and Italic contexts. However a number of finds (including the eponymous horde) come from regions of Hallstatt (and eventually La Téne) influence.

Weapons

The weapons which can be found in Hallstatt contexts are very much the same as those found elsewhere in Europe, consisting primarily on spears, axes, swords, and daggers. The spears and axes of the period are very similar to those found elsewhere in Europe and across the Mediterranean in the late bronze to early iron age, and as such will not be discussed further.

Indeed, even the swords of the Hallstatt bronze age (Ha. A-B) bear no significant differences from other swords found in Central and Western Europe at the time.

It is not until Ha. C, and the advent of the iron age, when two new types unique to the culture emerge. Though similar, these sword types, called Gündlingen

and Mindelheim, are distinguished by a number of factors.

First and foremost is size, with Mindelheim swords averaging around 85 cm or 33.5 in in length, while the Gündlingen type only averages 70-75 cm (27.5-29.5 in). Another striking feature of the Mindelheim type which is almost non-existent on Gündlingen swords is a pair of deep grooves on either side of the blade. Additionally, Gündlingen swords are only ever found in bronze, while Mindelheim can be found in either bronze or iron. Gündlingen swords seem to have been tremendously greater in popularity, with only 27 examples of the Mindelheim type being known to over 240 of the Gündlingen. There is also a geographical element: the majority of Mindelheim swords have been found in the east from Austria to Germany, Poland, and as far north as Sweden. Gündlingen swords, by contrast, have mostly been found in the west, as far as Britain and Ireland. Neither type, however, can be found in the core Hallstatt Regions after the advent of Ha. D, when daggers become the primary funerary good of the elite.

Daggers, of course, were not unknown in Hallstatt regions prior to 620 BC. A number of survivals from Ha. A-B attest to the fact that single-edged daggers were popular.

With the advent of the iron age and the rise in popularity of the peculiar Hallstatt sword types, daggers become more rare, until once again they spring back to the fore in Ha. D. At this time, a particular dagger type is almost ubiquitous. This dagger has long, straight quillons mirrored by a tubular pommel. The grip is thin, and the blade is broad and double-edged. This same basic form is present, both plain and with various embellishments, until the end of the Hallstatt period.

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Rabbi Herschel Schacter 

Rabbi Herschel Schacter was a young U.S. Army chaplain who helped traumatized Holocaust survivors rebuild their lives, and later became an influential leader in the Orthodox movement and a strong advocate for Soviet Jewry.

Herschel Schacter was born in Brooklyn in 1917, the son of immigrants from Poland and the youngest of ten siblings. His family was religious, and he was educated at the finest yeshivas before obtaining smicha (rabbinic ordination) in 1941. Rabbi Schacter served as a pulpit rabbi for a year before enlisting in the Army after Pearl Harbor. After attending Army Chaplain school at Harvard, he was sent to Europe with the VIII Corps and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Rabbi Schacter was one of the liberators of the Buchenwald concentration camp. He stayed in Germany for two and a half months after the war, tending to the broken spirits of survivors, most of whom had lost their entire families. Many were the only survivor from their entire town; everyone they ever knew had been murdered. A famous photograph shows him leading Shavuot services at Buchenwald (above). This photo occupies an entire wall at Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem.

What Rabbi Schacter saw at Buchenwald was hell on earth. The inmates who were still alive – barely -were emaciated, lying on filthy planks and covered in lice, hollow-eyed ghosts blinking in the sunlight and without the energy to even lift their heads. The stench of rotting flesh and feces was overwhelming. 

Rabbi Schacter noticed Yisrael Meir Lau, 7 years old, hiding behind a pile of corpses. Known as Lulek, the child had lost most of his family and had been on his own since age 5. Rabbi Schacter cared for the boy and helped him immigrate to Israel, where he would one day become Chief Rabbi.

Rabbi Schacter’s son Jacob, a prominent Orthodox rabbi and professor at Yeshiva University, wrote in a piece for Tablet Magazine, “My father spent the rest of his life describing what he saw in Buchenwald and what he did during his 10 weeks there. His work focused on a number of different areas: he tended to the psychological needs of survivors; he worked hard to reunite families; he founded a kibbutz outside Weimar for young survivors preparing to make aliyah [move to Israel]; and he organized a transport of children to Switzerland.”

Another story that illustrates Rabbi Schacter’s massive impact concerns Yoav Kimmelman, a 16 year old from a Hasidic home who lost every single member of his large extended family, around 60 people. The Holocaust destroyed Yoav’s faith and identity as a Jew. According to Rabbi Jacob Schacter, Yoav was “done with God, done with Jewish life, done with Jewish destiny, done with the Jewish people.” Rabbi Herschel Schacter reached out – literally – and singlehandedly brought Yoav back to Jewish life. It happened when Rabbi Schacter was taking 200 child survivors to Switzerland. He wanted young Yoav to go with him, but the boy had no interest in being around fellow Jews and he refused to go. Rabbi Schacter asked him to come to the train station to say goodbye and while there, the rabbi reached down and physically dragged Yoav onto the train. The teen was angry and sullen, but the rabbi convinced him to join a minyan and read Torah in the DP camp. Long story short, Yoav Kimmelman remained religious and at his death, he left 80 descendants, all of them Torah Jews. “That’s all because my father had the guts to pull him onto that train when it left the station,” said Rabbi Jacob Schacter.

Rabbi Herschel Schacter became a prominent leader of Orthodox Judaism in America, helping to rebuild from the ashes and grow the movement. He was elected president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations in 1968. Dr. Rafael Medoff, in his book “The Rabbi of Buchenwald,” wrote: “He was the first Orthodox rabbi to reach that level of leadership. Until then others saw Orthodox leaders as fit to be heads of Orthodox groups, but not larger ones. Rabbi Schacter broke that mold. He was sufficiently savvy and sophisticated to represent the entire [Jewish] community, not just the Orthodox minority.”

At the very beginning of the movement to free Soviet Jewry, in 1956, Rabbi Schacter was part of the first rabbinical delegation to visit the USSR since 1917. He then went to Hungary to help Jewish refugees flee during the Hungarian revolution. 

Rabbi Schacter served as a pulpit rabbi in the Bronx for more than 60 years and was known as a brilliant and inspiring orator, beloved by his congregation. He passed away in 2013 at age 95 and was survived by his beloved wife Pnina, two children, four grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Pnina Schacter died in 2018.

For healing the broken spirits of Holocaust survivors and helping them rebuild their lives, and for his devotion to the Jewish people and his decades of leadership, we honor Rabbi Herschel Schacter as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[itstheheebiejeebies]

A really great article about what the crew of the Just-a-Snappin' went through on the Bremen raid on October 8, 1943.

Transcript below Read More

Article found through this page on the 100th Bomb Group site

Article named: Uncommon valor

Subheading: Everett Blakely personified grace under pressure

By Dan Krieger Telegram-Tribune

Photos of the Just-a-Snappin' crashed into a tree, and one of Blakely smiling in uniform. The latter with the message "Everett 'Gopher' Blakely, right, lost his plne, 'Just-a-Snappin.' but saved his crew when he crash landed the B-17 bomber.

Pull quote in the article: 'For 3,000 feet Captain Blakely and Major Kidd fought to get that plane under control. It was only because of the superior construction of our bomber... plus the combination of two skilled pilots, that we ever even recovered from that dive. -Lt. Harry Crosby

Main article: Lt. Harry Crosby wrote to his wife, "Jean there are just two reasons why I am here today. One of them is because of Blake's superb piloting and the other is because of the skill of our gunners."

We often think of heroes as flamboyant people. More often than not, real heroes are quiet people who are doing what they believe is required of them.

Today Everett Blakely, a pilot trained in Santa Maria, says that he was "just doing what had to be done" in the war against Hitler. He was a quiet hero.

Allan G. Hancock College in Santa Maria has a long and colorful history. Long before it became a community college, the campus was known as the Hancock College of Aeronautics.

It was a private school, named after its energetic, versatile and creative founder and benefactor, Capt. Allan Hancock.

Well prior to American entry into the Second World War, Captain Hancock offered his school to the United States Army Air Corps as a flight instruction school. Between May 1939 and V-J Day, some 8,500 pilots and 1,500 aircraft mechanics were trained at Hancock College.

The commercial warehouse district just west of today's Hancock College campus includes the one-time hangers for the flight instruction aircraft. The Stearman PT-13 biplanes are gone, but the College of Aeronautics administration buildings still survive on campus.

Everett "Gopher" Blakely came to Santa Maria just out of the University of Washington at Seattle. He was convinced that America was going to get involved in the European war.

The Blitzkrieg over Poland in 1939, over Belgium and France in 1940, and the Battle of Britain had convinced Blakely that this was going to be a war where air power was essential. The United States was going to need pilots. "Gopher" Blakely had discovered his mission.

Blakely soon started flying the essentially First World War era Stearmans over the tranquil valleys of the Central Coast. He and his buddies from rainy Puget Sound loved the warm sunny climate. They thought Santa Maria was a friendly town and enjoyed a precious few weekend hours socializing at the Santa Maria Inn.

Within months, Blakely and his friends were on the damp fen lands of Norfolkshire in England's East Anglia. They had graduated from the tiny Stearmans to the "Queen of the Bombers," the four-engine, hundred-foot-winged Boeing B-17 "Flying Fortress."

On July 4, 1943, the first American pilots participated with Britain's Royal Air Force in bombing raids over Germany. But as late as January 1943, Winston Churchill, en route to meet with President Roosevelt at Casablanca, wrote a secret memo to his Secretary of State for Air.

In that memo, Churchill complained that "the Americans have not yet succeeded in dropping a single bomb on Germany." What Churchill meant was that no American bombers were able to penetrate German anti-aircraft fire a sufficient distance. This was because the Americans were trained for daylight missions only. The British had bomber Berlin early in the war by flying mainly night missions,

Churchill wanted the Americans to start flying night missions also. But Gen. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold was convinced that it would take too long to retrain air crews for night flying. That loss of time would allow the Germans to rebuild their military strength.

At Casablanca, the Americans won Churchill over to a doctrine of round-the-clock bombing which would "give Hitler no rest." The Americans would send increasingly larger waves of B-17s by day. The RAF would continue doing what it did best through nighttime assaults.

The decision at Casablanca was costly in terms of the lives of American aircrews. Daytime raids were decidedly more risky. Few of us realize that the losses to the Eight Air Force alone approach American losses in the Vietnam War.

Capt. "Gopher" Blakely became the pilot of "Just-a-Snappin," a B-17 in the 100th Bomb Group flying out of Thorpe Abbots in Norfolkshire. Blakelly and his crew were piloting their B-17s over the upper reaches of the Danube in the famous raids on Schweinfurt and Rogensburg.

On Oct. 8, 1943, the 10th Bomb Group participated in a raid on the shipbuilding and industrial center of Bremen and the nearby U-Boat building yards and pens at Vegesack.

Both of "Just-a-Snappin's" right wing engines were shot out in a running battle with German fighters over the Zuider Zee. Five of the crew were injured - Waist Giner Sgt. Lester Saunders fatally.

Lt. Harry Crosby, "Just-a-Snappin's" navigator, filed an astonishing report on the B-17's struggle to return to England:

"For 3,000 feet Captain Blakely and Major Kidd fought to get that plane under control. It was only because of the superior construction of our bomber, and its perfect maintenance, plus the combination of two skilled pilots, that we even recovered from that dive.

"If I were an expert on stress and strain analysis, or a mechanic, or even a pilot, I would dwell at length on the manner in which the plane was restored to normal flying attitude. As it is, the procedure defies my description. But I am certain it was a very great accomplishment."

Everett Blakely's description recalls, "You can lose altitude awfully fast when one engine goes sour and your controls are chewed to ribbons. We dropped for 3,000 feet before Major Kidd and I could regain control... Most of the crew were not strapped to their seats were thrown to the floor, shaken severely - but at last the ground was once more back where it ought to be, instead of standing up on one ear. Once more we were in level flight and, at least temporarily, safe."

Crosby's report states that:

"At 10,000 feet we were able to look out the windows (and) were temporarily assured to not that the ground was now in the right place. A hurried consultation was held over inter-phone to determine a plan for fighting our way back to England.

"The following facts had to be considered: We had lost all communication back of the top turret, so it was impossible to determine the extent of injury and damage. Our control wires were fraying as far back as the top turret operator could see. At least two of the crew had reported being hit immediately after we left the target.

"One engine was in such bad condition that bits and finally all of the cowling were blasted off. We were losing altitude so rapidly probably because of the condition of the elevator that any but the shortest way back was beyond contemplation. So we headed across the face of Germany for home."

Later, Harry Crosby wrote of Blakely and his co-pilot:

"The normal reaction on the part of our pilots should have been to think of their own personal safety, or in cases of extreme nobility of character perhaps they would have been thinking about the other members of the crew. But they did not, even in this crisis, forget for one minute they were the leaders of a great formation. Their first thought was of the crews behind them. In unison, as we fell into our dive, the words came over the interphone to our tail gunner, 'Signal the deputy leader to take over.'

"I can't help but to think as they fought for their lives they might have been excused for being too busy to think of their command, but such was not the case.

"By this signaling, the remainder of the formation was notified immediately that we had been hit and were aborting. This act would have prevented any planes being pulled even a few feet out of position into danger from the enemy aircraft buzzing about."

Despite the loss of the airplane's compass, Blakely and his amazing navigator, Lt. Harry Crosby, made it to landfall. They crash-landed at Ludham, Norfolk. The completely unmaneuverable aircraft, without any brakes, skidded into an ancient British oak tree.

Blakely remembers: "The tree crashed between Np. 2 engine and the pilot's compartment. That was lucky because another three inches to the right and it would have crushed the pilot and co-pilot. We had slowed to maybe 50 mph by then..."

Blakely's co-pilot for that mission, Major John B. Kidd, recalled that "someone counted over 800 separate holes in that aircraft."

"Just-a-Snappin" would never fly again.

The Bremen mission was typical of dozens of missions which penetrated deeper and deeper into German territory. Even before the Bremen raid, Blakely and his crew were piloting their B-17's over teh upper reaches of the Danube in the famous raids on Schweinfurt and Regensburg.

Today, Blakely is retired and lives with his wife, Marge, in San Luis Obispo. They are the parents of Supervisor David Blakely, who speaks with great pride of his father's contribution to the fight against Hitler.

-three stars end the article and separate a note about the author

Dan Krieger is a Cal Poly history professor and member of the County Historical Society.

-Along the bottom of the page the article is attributed to the San Luis Obispo (Calif.) Telegram-Tribune in the Saturday, February 16, 1991 edition on page 23.

[on-partiality]

December 19th, 1777, the day George Washington marched his troops into Valley Forge!

Hello everyone! Today's the day George Washington and his army moved to the Valley Forge Encampment for the winter (except today may not be the day because while most sources claim it was the 19th a select few say it was the 18th also I live in the Southern Hemisphere and I'm not entirely sure what day it is for you North-folk). Also sorry for any bad quality, I'm writing this at 1:12 AM on a Wednesday and I have not slept since Sunday.

Anyway about Valley Forge:

George Washington and his soldiers moved into the Valley Forge encampment on the 19th of December, 1777. George Washington chose to stay at the Valley Forge for multiple reasons, number 1 being that it wasn't too far from the capital of Philadelphia, which at the time was being occupied by the British, and the Continentals had to make sure that they kept an eye on the redcoats because if they didn't then the redcoats could attack American citizens or take over random people's houses, something that they did rather frequently (think the Quartering Act), and the army wouldn't be there to fight back or wouldn't know that they were occupying a certain house. Also, they needed to know where the redcoats were in case they moved, because if they moved, they might be going off to battle and trying to do a surprise attack on the Continentals. Knowing where the British were made it so that surprise attacks couldn't be used against the Americans. + Valley Forge wasn't too close to the Philadelphia countryside, so the Army wouldn't bother the local farmers with the noise of thousands of soldiers training every day. And the Valley Forge was on high ground and surrounded by hills, so it'd be hard for the British to get to them.

About 11,000 soldiers and a few hundred of their wives, children, and friends made it to the Valley Forge, and if you're particularly observant, you may have noticed that in the image above, the soldiers aren't wearing any one uniform. This is because the Continental Army at this time was comprised of mainly little militia groups with their own distinct uniforms. Anyway, Valley Forge wasn't unenjoyable because of bad weather, but rather bad weather combined with a severe lack of supplies like shoes, shirts (really any clothing item), and food and drink. Washington estimated that nearly a third of his men didn't have shoes during the journey to Valley Forge, and quite a few of them didn't have a frock coat to protect them from the winter wind and rain. When they arrived at the camp, Washington gave orders to all of his men to build their own wooden huts and find some straw to use as bedding, as they didn't have enough blankets for everyone. Then Washington was informed by another senior officer that they had 25 barrels of flour and a little salt pork, and they were meant to somehow use that to feed the whole army. Washington wrote to Henry Laurens, the president of Congress at the time, about this issue. Washington and his aides-de-camp stayed in a two-story house made of stone, and Washington spent much of his time writing to Congress, asking for more supplies and defending himself against Congress' claims that he wasn't a good military leader and that he wanted total power, and he complained about the Conway Cabal (a group of three men who Congress decided to give as much power as the Commander-in-Chief). But outside of Washington's personal struggles, the Valley Forge encampment was all about training. When the Continentals were there, they trained for battle constantly and learned how to use bayonets properly, fight in a disciplined way, march in a near perfect straight line and execute commands quickly on the battle field.

Many generals helped George Washington during his struggle, both to show his competence and with his men. Lafayette got officers from Europe (mainly France and Poland) to help with the war; Henry Knox helped build defensive walls on the Valley Forge's hills to help the Continentals protect themselves against the British; Nathanael Greene and Anthony Wayne searched for farm animals from the country side; and probably most famously, Baron Frederich von Steuben taught the Americans all about fighting and took care of all of the training in fact he added some of his lessons into the Army's blue book and it was the official US military training manual for decades. Even Martha Washington helped by managing Washington's household, helping him with his letters to Congress, and bringing some cheer to the camp by entertaining the guests. By the spring of 1777, life at Valley Forge wasn't half bad. Washington figured out a way he could get enough supplies into camp, and everyone happily celebrated when they heard that France was officially their ally in the war. In June 1778 the Continentals happily marched out of the Valley Forge with heaps of new knowledge that they'd use to help them on the battlefield and eventually beat the British with.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Trump’s anti-Ukraine view dates to the 1930s. America rejected it then. Will we now?

(Illustration: Brian Stauffer for The Washington Post)

This opinion column by Robert Kagan reminds us that history appears to be repeating itself. Trump's America First movement is an echo of the 1930s/1940s isolationist, neo-fascist America First movement that tried to keep the U.S. out of WWII. This is a gift🎁link, so you can read the entire article, even if you don't subscribe to The Washington Post. Below are some excerpts:

Many Americans seem shocked that Republicans would oppose helping Ukraine at this critical juncture in history....Clearly, people have not been taking Donald Trump’s resurrection of America First seriously. It’s time they did. The original America First Committee was founded in September 1940. Consider the global circumstances at the time. Two years earlier, Hitler had annexed Austria and invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. One year earlier, he had invaded and conquered Poland. In the first months of 1940, he invaded and occupied Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. In early June 1940, British troops evacuated from Dunkirk, and France was overrun by the Nazi blitzkrieg. In September, the very month of the committee’s formation, German troops were in Paris and Edward R. Murrow was reporting from London under bombardment by the Luftwaffe. That was the moment the America First movement launched itself into the battle to block aid to Britain. [...] This “realism” meshed well with anti-interventionism. Americans had to respect “the right of an able and virile nation [i.e. Nazi Germany] to expand,” aviator Charles Lindbergh argued. [...] Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has called for the immediate reduction of U.S. force levels in Europe and the abrogation of America’s common-defense Article 5 commitments. He wants the United States to declare publicly that in the event of a “direct conflict” between Russia and a NATO ally, America will “withhold forces.” The Europeans need to know they can no longer “count on us like they used to.”  [...] Can Republicans really be returning to a 1930s worldview in our 21st-century world? The answer is yes. Trump’s Republican Party wants to take the United States back to the triad of interwar conservatism: high tariffs, anti-immigrant xenophobia, isolationism. According to Russ Vought, who is often touted as Trump’s likely chief of staff in a second term, it is precisely this “older definition of conservatism,” the conservatism of the interwar years, that they hope to impose on the nation when Trump regains power. [...] Like those of their 1930s forbears, today’s Republicans’ views of foreign policy are heavily shaped by what they consider the more important domestic battle against liberalism. Foreign policy issues are primarily weapons to be wielded against domestic enemies. [...] The GOP devotion to America First is merely the flip side of Trump’s “poison the blood” campaign. It is about the ascendancy of White Christian America and the various un-American ethnic and racial groups allegedly conspiring against it. [emphasis added]  

Use the gift link above to read the entire article. It is worth reading.

____________ Illustration: The above illustration by Brian Stauffer originally drew me to this article. It does a great job of succinctly illustrating the Trump GOP's rightward march towards isolationism (and Putin-style dictatorship). [edited]

[mariacallous]

Reflecting the instincts of a cold war veteran, Joe Biden’s strategy was familiar: contain the conflict. When the US president spoke in Warsaw in March 2022, a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he drew a red line at Vladimir Putin’s toes. “Don’t even think about moving on one single inch of Nato territory,” he warned.

The western allies would provide weapons and aid to Kyiv, impose sweeping economic and financial sanctions on Moscow and reduce the rouble to “rubble”, Biden vowed. Though not a Nato member, the US would help Ukraine win this symbolic battle for freedom and democracy. But it would not directly confront Russia unless Russia first attacked Nato.

Thirty months on, Biden’s containment strategy is failing miserably. Like an untreated cancer, Ukraine’s crisis metastasises uncontrollably. Far from being confined to the mud and ice of the Donbas, the war’s spreading, toxic fallout grows more globally destructive by the day. It contaminates and blights everything it touches. True, a “hot” war between Russia and Nato has been avoided so far. Yet Polish and Romanian territory has been affected by stray missiles and maritime attacks. The entire Black Sea region is embroiled, as is Belarus. Putin claims that the west is already waging war on Russia and threatens it with nuclear weapons. Propagandists vow to vaporise Poland.

The crisis has triggered US-Europe splits in Nato and within the EU. Rows flare over sending troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine, inviting Kyiv to join the alliance, and forging a separate European “defence identity”. France’s newly hawkish stance is cancelled out by German caution.

Neutral Sweden and Finland were panicked into joining Nato. The Baltic republics fear renewed Russian aggression. Hungary and Serbia appease the Kremlin. Italy wavers. No one feels safe.

The war is fuelling right-left political extremism as support surges for Putin’s paid-for populist apologists. In Moldova, last weekend’s EU membership referendum was grossly distorted by what its president, Maia Sandu, called a huge bribery operation by “criminal groups working together with foreign forces” – namely, Kremlin stooges.

Now Moscow is eyeing this weekend’s elections in Georgia where it covertly conspires to ensure pro-western parties lose. Such hybrid warfare – subversion, disinformation, influence operations, cyber-attacks, scams, online trolling – has mushroomed worldwide since 2022, as authoritarian regimes follow Russia’s lead.

Failure to contain the war is encouraging seismic geopolitical shifts, most notably the China-Russia “no-limits” partnership. China’s president, Xi Jinping, gets cheap oil; ostracised Putin gets sanctions-busting dual-use tech plus diplomatic backing. But it’s so much more than that. At last week’s Brics summit – hosted by Putin – Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa were joined by Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and, alarmingly, Nato member Turkey (among many others). Putin envisages a global anti-western alliance, Xi a post-American, China-led 21st-century new world order.

These are no idle dreams. For many second-tier countries, the west’s condemnation of Russian aggression in Ukraine and its refusal to condemn, and active facilitation of, Israeli aggression in Palestine represents an intolerable double standard. Some are switching sides.

What better illustrates the unbounded nature of this inexorably expanding conflict than the startling news that North Korea, in a breath-taking counterpoint to US and UK military intervention in the Korean war nearly 75 years ago, is deploying troops to the Ukraine theatre?

And how appalling that Donald Trump can cynically use Ukraine’s “forever war” to persuade US voters that Democrats like Kamala Harris cannot control a chaotic world, Nato is a con-trick run by freeloading Europeans and the UN is useless.

The war diverts attention from other grave conflicts, from Sudan to Myanmar. Attacks on Kyiv’s grain exports have caused food shortages and price spikes hurting poorer countries. It disrupts cooperative action on climate; indeed, it has greatly increased greenhouse gas emissions While Putin, indicted for war crimes, goes unpunished, respect for international law and the UN charter plummets. Impunity flourishes.

The war’s enormous economic costs are escalating. The World Bank estimates that the first two years caused $152bn (£117bn) of direct damage in Ukraine. The UN predicts $486bn is needed for recovery and reconstruction. Each day, the totals rise. Meanwhile, Russia constructs shadowy international networks – an officially approved black market – to circumvent sanctions and undermine dollar hegemony.

The cost in lives is heartbreaking. Conservative UN estimates suggest that about 10,000 civilians have been killed and twice that number injured. More than 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers may have died. Russian military casualties are an estimated 115,000 killed and 500,000 wounded. The cost to Russian society of intensifying authoritarianism, corruption and suppression of dissent and free media is immeasurable.

Ukraine has not lost the war, which is a remarkable feat in itself. But it is not winning, either. Western support is weakening, despite the rhetoric; Russian forces advance. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan” has few takers. Winter is coming.

How much of this could have been prevented? Some developments, such as the China-Russia axis and rising rightwing populism, were happening anyway. The war simply accelerated them. But a lot of the wider damage was avoidable, wholly or in part.

In Warsaw, Biden was candid, almost boastful: back in January 2022, US intelligence knew that the invasion was imminent. He said he had repeatedly warned Putin it would be a big mistake. Yet, given his passionate belief that Ukraine’s fight for democracy and freedom has vital universal significance, surely what Biden should have done is told Russia’s dictator bluntly: “Forget it. Don’t invade. Or else you will find yourself fighting a better-armed, more powerful Nato.”

It’s called deterrence. It’s what Nato is for. Containment was never enough. Putin might still not have listened. But coward that he is, he probably would have – and saved everyone a world of pain.

[scotianostra]

James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose was born on October 25th 1612.

I'm lying, Graham's birth date is unknown, it is thought he was born in mid to late October, but a couple of sources give this date, he was educated in Glasgow when he was about 12 before before attending the University of St Andrews at 15.

Initially James Graham took up arms against his King and signed the National Covenant in protest of the introduction of the new prayer book which was seen as a vehicle for introducing Anglicanism to Scotland.

Montrose's loyalties began to waver when he suspected that Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, wanted not just to defend the Kirk, but overthrow the authority of Charles Stuart. Although a sincere Calvinist, Montrose was unable to countenance disloyalty, and he broke with the Covenanters in 1641. In 1642 Graham raised a Royalist army in Scotland to regain the country for Charles and pin down Covenanter troops in their home country.

If you follow my posts you will have read about his exploits on the battlefield in 1644/45, victories at Tippermuir, Aberdeen, (Justice Mills), Inverlochy, Auldearn, Alford and Kilsyth. Of course it wasn't all victories, the slaughter at Philiphaugh in September 1645 he spent the next year on the run employing guerrilla warfare.tactics without making any gains, King Charles , now a prisoner of Cromwell's army, order Graham to lay down his arms. During his years in charge of Charles I army in Scotland not once did Montrose retaliate against his Covenant prisoners, but he was a wanted man and fled to the continent spending three years travelling through Germany, Poland and Scandinavia trying to gain allies and troops to take up arms once more.

After the execution of Charles I in January 1649 he was given the nominal role of Lieutenant of Scotland by Charles II who himself was still in exile

In March 1650 Graham returned to Scotland to avenge his King's death, landing in Orkney and meeting with some German and Danish mercenaries that he had sent beforehand, he was joined by George Hay, 3rd Earl of Kinnoull. Crossing to the mainland, he tried in vain to raise the clans, and on 27 April was surprised and routed at the Battle of Carbisdale by Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll and a grouping of radical Covenanters, known as the Kirk Party. Graham escaped the battlefield and asked for refuge at Ardvreck Castle, Neil MacLeod, laird of Assynt is thought to have been an ally and served with the Royalist army during the previous campaign, he however was not present when they called ,his wife, Christian Monro, daughter of Monro of Lemlair who had fought on the opposite side at Carbisdale. Montrose was confined in the vaulted cellars of the castle.

Montrose was taken to Edinburgh and led through the streets in a cart driven by the hangman. Already under sentence of death for his campaign of 1644-5, Montrose was hanged at the Mercat Cross on 21 May 1650, protesting to the last that he was a true Covenanter as well as a loyal subject.

Montrose's head was fixed on a spike at the Tolbooth in Edinburgh, his legs and arms were fixed to the gates of Stirling, Glasgow, Perth and Aberdeen. His dismembered body was buried in Edinburgh, but Lady Jean Napier had it secretly disinterred. The heart was removed, embalmed, placed in a casket, and sent to Montrose's exiled son as a symbol of loyalty and martyrdom. After the Restoration, Montrose's embalmed heart and bones were buried at the High Kirk of St Giles in Edinburgh in an elaborate ceremony with fourteen noblemen bearing the coffin.

Probably the best place to read a bit more about James Graham is the website here that bares his name https://www.firstmarquisofmontrosesociety.co.uk/

[walkingthroughthisworld]

Capt. Scott Peterson, a tank commander assigned to 1st Battalion, 9th Calvary Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, currently serving with NATO enhanced forward presence Battle Group Poland, supporting the 4th Infantry Division in Europe, ready's his M1A2 Abrams Tank before participating in the Polish Armed Forces Day parade in Warsaw, Poland, Aug. 15, 2023. Service members from across NATO and their respective combat vehicles participated in the event, also known as the Feast of the Polish Armed Forces, to honor active service members, veterans, and fallen Soldiers. (US Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class David Chapman)

(via 209A0748 | Capt. Scott Peterson, a tank commander assigned t… | Flickr)

[stillunusual]

Happy birthday Jan Sawicki (born on 21st June 1925, died on 8th March 1945)…. Janusz Bohdan Sawicki was my maternal grandmother's cousin. Up until 2014, all I knew about him was what appeared on an old photograph I found among my grandmother's belongings after she died.

The photo was taken in Warsaw's Northern Cemetery and shows a small commemorative plaque which states that:

he was a Polish resistance fighter (code name "Zabawa")

he was awarded the Cross of Valour (Krzyż Walecznych)

he was previously a cadet in Cadet Corps No 1 (named after Marshal Józef Piłsudski) in Lwów

he fought in the Warsaw Uprising as a member of AK platoon I/1147 (also known as the "Rygiel" platoon, after the code name of the platoon's commander, Kazimierz Ludwik Pogorzelski)

he was born in Hrubieszów (a small town in south-eastern Poland) on 21st June 1925

he died in the camp hospital of Stalag XI-A in Germany on 8th March 1945

I had no idea what Sawicki looked like until the summer of 2014 when I visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum, and while looking at a series of posters on display in the museum's Freedom Park, I realised that one of them was a picture of him.

I also found his name on the museum's Wall of Remembrance.

I then discovered that he appears in a film called "Powstanie Warszawskie", which had recently been released, and was based on restored and colourised film footage taken by Armia Krajowa filmographers during the uprising.

I went to see the film at Warsaw's historic Kino Femina not long before it closed down, and recognised him based on his picture on the poster.

I was finally able to identify him definitively in a book called "Rozpoznani" which includes photos and biographies of some of the resistance fighters who appear in the film, and I've found some other photos of him since then in various books about the uprising.

Jan Sawicki had already participated in many military actions against the German occupiers of Poland prior to the Warsaw Uprising. He is known to have taken part in the assassination of Wilhelm Leitgeber and Rudolf Peschel, two non-commissioned officers of the Sicherheitspolizei in Warsaw on 13th June 1944.

During the uprising, he was one of three former cadets from Cadet Corps No 1 in Lwów who fought in the "Rygiel" platoon, which was based in the northern city centre.

Sawicki distinguished himself by his bravery in one of the most significant battles of the uprising - the capture of Warsaw's Central Telephone Exchange building on 20th August 1944. He also took part in the successful attack on the German Police Headquarters on 23rd August 1944 (the above photo was taken after the building had been captured by the Armia Krajowa).

He almost lost his life on 6th September 1944, when the building in which he was sheltering was bombed by the Luftwaffe and he was trapped under the rubble for several hours.

After the uprising the Germans transported him to Stalag XI-B Fallingbostel, from which he was later transferred to Stalag XI-A Altengrabow.

He died in the camp hospital just weeks before the camp was liberated by the Western allies. The official cause of death was "tuberculous meningitis", but according to an account by one of his fellow POWs, it is probable that he was killed by the hospital staff after being declared mentally ill.

He was buried in the camp cemetery, in grave number 352.

He was 19 years old….

Shortly after the camp's liberation, it was handed over to the Red Army, and after the war the area was taken over by the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG). The Soviets destroyed the camp cemetery, but there is still a memorial at the site of the former camp which commemorates the victims.

[doinggreat]

poll format will be just like the tournament’s. 2 teams will come out from every poll and will battle on ⚔️

[usafphantom2]

U.S. Army Officer Confirms Russian A-50 Radar Jet Was Shot Down With Patriot Missile

The U.S. Army colonel described how Ukrainian Patriot operators staged a “SAMbush” to bring down the A-50 in January of this year.

Thomas NewdickPUBLISHED Jun 10, 2024 6:55 PM EDT

The Beriev A-50U ‘Mainstay’ airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft based on the Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft belonging to Russian Air Force in the air. ‘U’ designation stands for extended range and advanced digital radio systems. This aircraft was named after Sergey Atayants – Beriev’s chief designer. (Photo by: aviation-images.com/Universal Images Group via Getty Images).

A U.S.-made Patriot air defense system was responsible for shooting down a Russian A-50 Mainstay airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft over the Sea of Azov on January 14, according to a U.S. Army officer. The high-value aircraft, one of only a handful immediately available to Russia, was the first of two brought down in the space of five weeks. Previously, a Ukrainian official confirmed to TWZ that the second A-50 was brought down by a Soviet-era S-200 (SA-5 Gammon) long-range surface-to-air missile.

Speaking on a panel at the United States Field Artillery Association’s Fires Symposium 2024 last week, Col. Rosanna Clemente, Assistant Chief of Staff at the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, confirmed that the first A-50 fell to a German-provided Patriot system, in what she described as a “SAMbush,” or surface-to-air missile ambush.

“They have probably about a battalion of Patriots operating in Ukraine right now,” Col. Clemente explained. “Some of it’s being used to protect static sites and critical national infrastructure. Others are being moved around and doing some really, really historic things that I’ve haven’t seen in 22 years of being an air defender, and one of them is a SAMbush … they’re doing that with extremely mobile Patriot systems that were donated by the Germans, because the systems are all mounted on the trucks. So they’re moving around and they’re using these types of systems, bringing them close to the plot … and stretching the very, very edges of the kinematic capabilities of that system to engage the first A-50 C2 [command and control] system back in January.”

Fifteen crew members were reportedly killed aboard the A-50.

Col. Clemente also provided some other interesting details of how the Ukrainians worked up their capabilities with these particular systems, which included a period of validation training involving the U.S. Army in Poland in April 2023.

Elements of a German Patriot air defense system stand on a snow-covered field in Miaczyn, southeastern Poland, in April 2023. Photo by Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images

According to Col. Clemente, the German soldiers tasked with training the Ukrainians on the mobile Patriot systems woke up the Ukrainian battery in the middle of the night, marched them to a location where they fought a simulated air battle, and then made them march again. “I was like, ‘Huh, wonder why they did that?’ And it was a month later, they conducted some of their first ambushes where they’re shooting down Russian Su-27s along the Russian border.”

As we reported at the time, the use of Patriot to engage the radar plane over the Sea of Azov seemed likely, especially as it followed the pattern of an anti-access counter-air campaign that Ukraine was already waging against Russian military aircraft using the same air defense system.

Accordingly, in May 2023, Ukraine began pushing forward Patriot batteries to reach deep into Russian-controlled airspace. Most dramatically, a string of Russian aircraft was downed over Russian territory that borders northeastern Ukraine. Among them may have been the Su-27s (or perhaps another Flanker-variant aircraft) that Col. Clemente mentioned.

A screen capture from a Ukrainian Air Force video shows images of three Russian helicopters and two Russian fighters painted on the side of a Patriot air defense system. The three helicopter and two jet images bear the date May 13, 2023. Defense Industry of Ukraine

While the use of German-supplied weapons within Russian territory previously led to friction between Berlin and Kyiv, German officials more recently approved the use of Patriot to target aircraft in Russian airspace.

In December 2023, similar tactics were used against tactical jets flying over the northwestern Black Sea.

These kinds of highly mobile operations were then further proven with the destruction of the first A-50, on the night of January 14.

A Russian Il-22M radio-relay aircraft was also apparently engaged by Ukrainian air defenses the same night, confirmed by photo evidence of the aircraft after it had made it back to a Russian air base. It’s not clear whether the Patriot system was also responsible for inflicting damage on this aircraft, but it’s certainly a probable explanation.

A photo of the Il-22M which purportedly made an emergency landing in Anapa, in the Krasnodar region of western Russia. via X

Both incidents appear to have taken place in the western part of the Azov Sea and, as we discussed at the time, the distances involved suggested that, if Patriot was used, it was likely at the very limits of its engagement envelope.

Based on Col. Clemente’s account, it seems likely that the Patriot system in question was not only being pushed to the limits of its capabilities but was likely being deployed very far forward in an especially bold tactical move.

As we wrote at the time: “Considering risking a Patriot system or even a remote launcher right at the front is unlikely, and these airborne assets were likely orbiting at least some ways out over the water, this shot was more likely to have been around 100 miles, give or take a couple dozen miles.”

Of course, all this also depends on exactly where the targeted aircraft were at the time of the engagement.

A map showing the Sea of Azov as well as Robotyne, which is really the closest Ukraine regularly operates to that body of water, a distance of roughly 55 miles. Google Earth

Once again, the A-50 shootdown may be the most important single victory achieved so far by Ukrainian-operated Patriot systems, but it was part of a highly targeted campaign waged against the Russian Aerospace Forces which has seemingly included multiple long-range downings of tactical aircraft.

The Ukrainian tactics first found success in pushing back Russian airpower and degrading its ability to launch direct attacks and even those using standoff glide bombs, which have wreaked havoc on Ukrainian towns.

The same anti-access tactics extended to Russia’s small yet vital AEW&C fleet have arguably had an even greater effect. After all, these aircraft offer a unique look-down air picture that extends deep into Ukrainian-controlled territory. As well as spotting incoming cruise missile and drone attacks, and low-flying fighter sorties, they provide command and control and situational awareness for Russian fighters and air defense batteries. According to Ukrainian officials, the radar planes are also used to direct Russian cruise missile and drone strikes.

Dmitry Terekhov/Wikimedia Commons

The importance of these force-multipliers has seen earlier efforts to disable them, with A-50s in Belarus having been targeted by forces allied with Ukraine.

The recent appearance of a photo showing a Ukrainian S-300PS (SA-10 Grumble) air defense system marked with an A-50 symbol also indicates that previous attempts were made to bring these aircraft down using this Soviet-era surface-to-air missile, too.

With all this in mind, it’s not surprising that Ukraine’s highly valued, long-reaching Patriot air defense system was tasked against the A-50.

In demonstrating the vulnerability of Russian aircraft patrolling over the Sea of Azov, the January 15 shootdown might have been expected to push these assets back. That may have happened, but another example was then shot down at an even greater distance from the front line, on February 23. The fact that the second A-50 came down over the Krasnodar region fueled speculation that it may have been a ‘friendly fire’ incident.

However, Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), subsequently confirmed to TWZ that the second A-50 — as well as a Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber, in a separate incident — were brought down by the Soviet-era S-200 long-range surface-to-air missile system.

Undoubtedly, there are more details still to emerge about the shootdowns of the two A-50s, not to mention other engagements that the Ukrainian Patriot has been involved in.

However, Col. Rosanna Clemente’s comments confirm that the Ukrainian Air Force is using these critical systems in a sometimes-daring manner, using limited numbers of assets not only to protect key static infrastructure but also to maraud closer to the front lines and bring down high-profile Russian aerial targets. Not only does this force Russia to adapt its airpower tactics for its own survival, reducing its effectiveness, but it also provides another means for Ukraine to fight back against numerical odds that are stacked against it.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

[girlactionfigure]

Unlikely Savior: Jozef Marchwinski

Trained Jews To Fight.

A hero’s tale: In the summer of 1942, Germans murdered the last Jews living in the towns of Nieswiez and Mir, Poland. A handful escaped with nothing but the shirts on their back, but with Germans controlling the area, and their homes quickly occupied by their Jew-hating neighbors, the displaced Jews had nowhere to go. Homeless and friendless, they roamed the fields and forests outside of town, equally afraid of Germans, local police and the anti-Semitic partisans active in the area. Many Poles who resisted the Germans ironically shared their opponents’ hatred for Jews, and they banned Polish Jews from their resistance movement.

Finally the desperate Jews found an unlikely savior. Jozef Marchwinski was a partisan company commander who invited the Jews – urged them – to join his group. Many of the partisans in Jozef’s company fiercely opposed including Polish Jews but he ignored their protests and started training the Jews for battle. When the Jews were bullied, Jozef stopped the abuse quickly. He was accused of being a “Jew-lover” but he ignored the threats and insults, and kept the Jews now under his command safe, even while resisting the Germans.

Rumors began to swirl that Jozef himself was secretly Jewish. He wasn’t, but his wife may have been (the evidence is unclear.) At any rate he was dismissed from the partisan group he’d commanded and joined a group of Jewish resistance fighters led by Tuvya Bielski (played by Daniel Craig in the movie Defiance.)  He was such an effective leader and fighter that he left Bielski’s group to join a larger company of Jewish partisans where he was promoted to the rank of deputy brigade commander. Jozef spent the rest of the war hiding in the forest with the Jewish partisans, emerging to wage guerrilla warfare on the German occupiers.

After the war, shockingly, Polish authorities continued to persecute the few Jews who remained in Poland. In 1946, Polish police and militia members started a pogrom against the Jews of Kielce. Just as the Germans did, they rounded up the Jews and encouraged townspeople to brutally attack them. Forty-two Jews were killed, including a newborn baby and a pregnant woman. Forty more were injured. Jozef spoke out against the violence and started to become a leader of a postwar human rights movement to protect the Jews of Poland. However Polish authorities hounded and persecuted him for his activism, and finally he was forced to leave Poland and move to Denmark, where he spent the rest of his life.

In 1968, Jozef Marchwinski was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem. The Jewish fighters under his command invited him to Israel, and he visited in 1970, receiving a hero’s welcome.

For fighting Germans alongside his Jewish countrymen, we honor Jozef Marchwinski as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[thelostgirl21]

You know, it occured to me that I should really let people fight their own battles.

So I've sent this messages (under the cut) here.

If it bothers his publishers, or Mr. Sapkowski himself in any way, given that the Witcher wikipedia apparently gave Netflix their own page when they came asking politely, I'm sure they won't mind doing the same for Mr. Sapkowski.

And if Mr. Sadkowski's people don't see any issue in having a single page blending books canon and games canon in the intro, and/or believe the way that the references are indicated are more than enough to ensure that the people looking at the wiki can quickly and clearly make the difference between what's part of the books and what's part of the games, I'll just have to let it go!

That being said, kudos to that "Wiki Specialist / Bureaucrat" for their patience and kindness in that conversation (and very lenghty answers... I've never had a moderator on any wikipedia devote so much time to answering me. I'm very impressed, actually.)

The fact remains that those decisions don't rely on a single person, and they pretty much have to convince the vast majority of the people working on the wiki that something is problematic and that those changes are indeed needed. So, it's not like they could have just gone "Of course! Just let me go and fix this right away!" whether they agreed with me, or not.

Some of the arguments they gave me might not even have been their own (when you're part of the group, you represent the group).

So yeah, I think that's probably the most productive / potentially effective approach, if I'm remotely hoping to actually fix anything.

And if it doesn't work, well, at least I'll know I've tried...

Hi,

I would like to bring your attention to a particular situation with the way that the current Witcher's wikipedia is run, that I believe is currently contributing to the misrepresentation of the content of Mr. Sapkowski's books in the media.

Essentially, instead of having chosen to adopt the model most often used by fandom wikipedias, where the source material has its own page, and each franchise/adaptation of that source material also have their own pages, the people in charge of the general Witcher's wikipedia have chosen a different approach, quote: "the idea when we started overhauling bios for characters was to make them read like an actual bio. Thus, we refrain from referencing the books, games, shows, and other adaptations within them as the focus is to summarize the character/their importance to the overall lore (the witcher lore is more than just the canon books). The only exceptions are items or crucial gameplay features where bios aren't as important as just providing quick game info for those needing game assistance.

[…] If there's anything to take away from this, you have to remember this wiki is about the witcher, not just the canon books, but the entire witcher lore and universe. We are not purist: that means all the adaptations, both canon and non-canon, are allowed here. Everyone appreciates the rich and in-depth Witcher series by Sapkowski. We also respect his thoughts that none of the other adaptations are canon to those novels and try to re-affirm that whenever it gets brought up. However, the witcher lore has been greatly expanded on by others with his approval/licensing and has also helped not only bring to life the witcher but also greatly expanded the witcher universe. To deny all the work by others (and let's face, many cite the CDPR games as the reason his books even soared in popularity outside Poland) would be a disservice to those who helped bring it to life and those looking for a complete picture of the entire lore (regardless which adaptation it came from)."

This was in response to me pointing out to them that the way their wikipedia has been designed (here is how it looked before I started trying to edit it: https://imgur.com/a/old-version-yZN6sd4 ), with the "game canon warning" placed where it was at some point in the biography, suggested that everything that had appeared before it (including the introduction paragraph that mixed both books lore, and videogames lore) were ALL part of Sapkowski's books, when that is not the case (here is a compilation of every reference that I was able to find about Radovid in the books, for your convenience: https://imgur.com/a/AbGA9eL ).

And that this confusion - regarding what is part of the books and what was written for the videogames by CD Projekt Red on the main Wikipedia page - has lead to at least 7 articles like this one pictured here ( https://imgur.com/a/CmOP41q , source: https://screenrant.com/the-witcher-king-radovid-future-books-games-comparison/ ), where game content has been erronously attributed directly to Andrzej Sapkowski.

All 7 articles can be found here: https://collider.com/the-witcher-season-3-jaskier-radovid-romance/ https://www.looper.com/1364442/why-the-witcher-season-breakup-radovid-and-jaskier-romance/ https://screenrant.com/the-witcher-season-3-prince-radovid-books-games-changes/ https://screenrant.com/the-witcher-king-radovid-future-books-games-comparison/ https://screenrant.com/the-witcher-season-3-king-radovid-age-story-different/ https://www.dualshockers.com/the-witcher-season-3-prince-radovid/ https://www.dualshockers.com/the-witcher-season-3-jaskier-radovid-relationship/

Though there may be more (Let's say I didn't do much digging to find them).

They also argued that "there are more than just Netflix and CDPR game adaptations and not all of them are confirmed canon to each other. For example, there's Polish comics that are also not canon, there is the original Hexer show and movie that the author has distanced himself from (but was created so the info still gets added here), the pen-and-paper games, and even non-canon and non-witcher books Sapkowski has written but still touched on topics within his witcher universe. In short it wouldn't be a simple "just 3 tabs" because the way you're wanting to split all info out, it'd be at least: canon books, CDPR games/Dark Horse comics/Gwent, Polish comics, non-canon books, Netflix's show, Hexer show/movie, pen-and-paper games, etc.. In short, this would be very impractical and create a lot of nearly empty pages (there are times where the books themselves only mentioned a sentence or two of something that got greatly expanded on in other adaptations). The main reason Netflix is its own tab is because that was requested by Netflix and it made more sense as the show progressed as they altered a lot of information to the point they were completely new bios (as opposed to just adding details in where gaps were to fit their narrative, like with CDPR's adaptation)."

So, here was my last answer to them:

Except the books are the source material, they are not adaptations of Mr Sapkowski's work!

In the examples you've given me:

The books and the added material Sapkowski wrote (like the details about legacies) are all part of the same lore / universe.

The videogames / gwent, etc. are all part of CDPR's own lore / universe.

"The Witcher", "Blood Origins", "Nightmare of the Wolf" are all part of Netflix's own lore / universe.

And then, you have "other adaptations", that are part of their own smaller universes, that could either have their own pages, or share one bigger page with a different section for each.

If you want to organize it into tabs, you would have:

Tab 1: The original franchise (with its own world / lore).

Tab 2: The videogame adaptation franchise (with its own world / lore).

Tab 3: The Netflix TV show franchise (with it's own world / lore).

Tab 4: The "standalones".

This is how most fandom Wikipedias are built, actually.

They are usually divided by franchises and recognize that each of them are their own distinct entities.

Not by mixing all together a bunch of different franchises that are not owned by the same people, and are not telling the same stories!

And Mr Sapkowski having sold the rights to videogame writers to create their own franchise from his own work, by borrowing any element from his books that they want, does not give CDPR the right to claim that their videogames are part of the same lore / world / franchise as Sapkowski's books (despite a lot of elements having been integrally borrowed from the books)!

Far from it!

And this shouldn't give the right to fans to blend his characters with the videogame characters, either, by using excuses such as "the videogame writers didn't diverge from what Sapkowski wrote to create their own character, therefore it's okay for us to absorb the book character into the videogame's, and treat that character as a single entity in the Wikipedia, rather than two completely different characters existing each in their two separate worlds".

And/or "since the page on the book section of the wiki would be just a small paragraph, it's better to make the CDPR character absorb them and treat what Sapkowski wrote as a simple template for the videogame character, rather than a full fledged book character, belonging to its own independent world/franchise!"

In the case of Radovid, for example, in the physical appearance section, it states he is bald.

Not:

Book: N/A

Games: Bald.

They aren't the same characters and they do not share the same continuity / world / lore / franchise, and yet, it has been decided that, because the videogame filled in blanks that Sapkowski never filled, he's officially bald!

We are treating the books and the videogames as a single franchise / entity where, if nothing was specified by Sapkowski about a specific aspect of the character, then who he is and what he looks like can be determined by CDPR.

And Sapkowski has never authorized the fans of his books to treat his work as belonging to the same franchise as the videogames, and in filling in any blanks that he didn't fill himself with someone else's work.

You can do it in your own fanfiction and headcanons because those aren't meant to accurately report or describe someone else's work, and they are personal to each fan.

But Wikipedia pages aren't supposed to be fanfiction.

Right now, regardless of all those added references, that's what Radovid's main page looks like: fans taking a character from an independent book franchise (the original material, no less) and using material from one of its adaptations (the CDPR one) to fill in the blanks and create their own mixed together version of the character!

Sapkowski is not David Gaider, that wrote stories and characters directly for "Dragon Age", and then published novels (prequels, sequels, etc.) that all exist as part of the same franchise.

In that situation, it makes perfect sense to put all the information gathered across books and games together as a single "Dragon Age" Wikipedia page for a character.

They share the same lore/world/franchise.

But here, we have three big franchises (Sapkowski's books a.k.a. the original, the CDPR games, and the Netflix TV show), that all belong to different people.

Even I only personally learnt that Mr. Sapkowski was not a "Polish David Gaider" thanks to the show, because until then, I thought that he was something like "The Witcher's lead videogame writer" that had written novels about it!

A lot of game fans are still under that impression and, the way "The Witcher" 's Wikipedia is built, treating everything as a single franchise all sharing the same lore on its page (if that's what you're saying), is extremely confusing for fans because they start thinking that the books and the games are all part of one single big franchise all sharing the same lore, that "Netflix has the chosen to disrespect"!

Netflix asking for their own page sadly only reinforced that belief.

But, at the same time, they are not part of the same franchises, so what were they supposed to do?

I don't remember having ever come across a Wikipedia that had appropriated the source material (the books) to give it to another franchise/universe (the games) in such a way as it is done here, to attempt to integrate game content into Sapkowski's universe.

Usually, on a fandom wiki dealing with more than a single version of a world/franchise based on a series of novels, you will have a specific section for the novels (source material), a section for the TV show and any graphic novels or novels written specifically for the world of the show (the adaptation), a section for the movie (another adaptation), etc.

For example, see "Jace Herondale" here ( https://shadowhunters.fandom.com/wiki/Jace_Herondale )? Under his info box you have:

Jace of Thule ( https://shadowhunters.fandom.com/wiki/Janus )

TV Jace ( https://shadowhunterstv.fandom.com/wiki/Jace_Herondale )

Film Jace ( https://shadowhunters.fandom.com/wiki/Film:Jace_Wayland )

This is usually how it is done when you want to respect and honor the integrity of the source material, and ensure it doesn't accidentally get erased / confused / absorbed into other people's work (or other people's work don't end up being added to it when the author has explicitly said they want to avoid it happening), and even avoid potential legal troubles (should the owner of the original material realize that their own original work is being absorbed into other people's work).

Because authors tolerate fandom activity as long as it benefits them and does not threaten the integrity of their work.

If characters from the books had their own pages, things like these articles I showed you would be a lot less likely to happen.

Because a quick search in "The Witcher" wikipedia would have brought these authors right to the "Books Radovid" 's page, and the way he's portrayed in the books would have been clearly written there.

I genuinely do not understand why "The Witcher" fans apparently care so little about preserving the integrity of the author's work in the fandom and in the media, that they think giving Andrzej Sapkowski's franchise (characters, lore…) its own standalone page for his characters, locations, etc. would be the same as giving "Gwent" its own page!"

Gwent belongs to CDPR!

"The Lady of the Lake" doesn't belong to CDPR! It belongs to Andrzej Sapkowski.

Do you see the difference, and how that argument fails to stand?

The books, as the source material, are more than deserving of their own Wikipedia pages.

If Sapkowski's books do not deserve their own pages on "The Witcher" wiki, free of additions taken from other people's adaptations (that the author keeps insisting are not part of the stories he wishes to tell), who does?"

And the answer I got was:

"I do really appreciate your thoughts on this, however as noted previously, we've already discussed this topic several times at length among admins and moderators over the years, and each time the majority have agreed it's best to keep the information as it is currently set/on one cohesive page with markers and refs. If anything changes in the future, we’ll be sure to revisit this topic and make any necessary adjustments as needed. For now though, most people reviewing the wiki (i.e., not those using bots to auto summarize) can easily distinguish between the canon books and other adaptations, and many in the community already know Sapkowski's stance so any newcomers to the lore generally are quick to learn this themselves. I thank you for your understanding!"

(Here is the link to the entire conversation: https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Message_Wall:Mechemik?threadId=4400000000000064664 )

From this conversation, we already know that when Netflix came knocking at their door, requesting that they be granted their own page on the Wikipedia, they complied.

So I figured, instead of continuing to argue with them, I would bring this issue directly to you.

That way, you'll be free to evaluate the situation, and decide if any action seems necessary.

Thank you, and wishing you to have a wonderful day!