Here Are The European Countries That Have Invaded Poland Throughout Its History

European Countries That Have Invaded Poland https://t.co/bJLyOKzudI

— Brilliant Maps (@BrilliantMaps) July 12, 2018

WNU Editor: What was Prussia is now a part of Poland .... so they gave as good as they got. But it is true that since the First World War Poland has suffered a lot,

The Stuff That Soldiers Had To Carry To Battle From 1066 To 2014 (Photo Gallery)

1066 – Huscarl, Battle of Hastings

Vintage: Soldiers' Inventories: Incredible Images Showcase All the Stuff Soldiers Have Carried in Battle, From 1066 to 2014

Thom Atkinson, a U.K. photographer, spent nine months working on an incredibly detailed and interesting project, titled Soldiers’ Inventories. It consists of 13 photographs, each depicting the weapons, clothing, armor, and personal items that British soldiers have worn in battle over the course of 1,000 years.

The series starts with the Battle of Hastings, which took place in 1066, and ends in 2014, with the gear of the Royal Engineers, based in the Helmand Providence. Shields, chainmail, yo-yos, checkers, gas masks, guns and more make an appearance over the incredibly thorough collection of battle gear used over the course of the past millennium.

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WNU Editor: A few changes over the centuries.

Hat tip Good Shit.

10 Worst Military Decisions In History -

Top 10 Worst Military Decisions In History -- List Verse

The effective prosecution of any war requires a load of decisions at all junctures. Many times, commanders will blunder through misinformation, faulty intelligence, or a misreading of the tactical or strategic situation. We, safely ensconced here in the future can play Monday morning quarterback with the decision of the past often without acknowledging the fact that the commanders in question lack our brilliant hindsight; however, some decisions are simple unconscionable. One has to think that someone, somewhere had to look at this choice and say “God, this is stupid!” This list represents, in chronological order, ten of what I consider to be the dumbest decisions anyone ever made. Each of these decisions either resulted in tremendously unnecessary loss of men and materiel or it resulted in the ultimate loss or needless prolonging of the war in which it took place.

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My Comment: Offhand I can think of a least 50 worst military decision in history .... but these 10 are good ones. The above video lists a few others.

64 Years Ago The Battle Of The Bulge Started

WNU Editor: Jules Crittenden has an excellent post with fantastic pictures on this battle that occurred 64 years ago. Hat Tip to Gateway Pundit.

Goering, Hitler and Guderian survey plans for Wacht Am Rhein, a.k.a. The Battle of the Bulge, October 1944.

It began at dawn on Dec. 16, 1944, 64 years ago today, with rapid assaults through the Ardennes forest, as the Germans blitzed one last time, hoping to split the Allied armies and take Antwerp. As Guderian reportedly liked to say, “Man schlägt jemanden mit der Faust und nicht mit gespreizten Fingern.” You punch with the fist and not with the fingers spread.

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John Ripley, Vietnam War hero, Dies At Age 69

From AP:

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Retired Marine Col. John Ripley, who was credited with stopping a column of North Vietnamese tanks by blowing up a pair of bridges during the 1972 Easter Offensive of the Vietnam War, died at home at age 69, friends and relatives said Sunday.

Ripley's son, Stephen Ripley, said his father was found at his Annapolis home Saturday after missing a speaking engagement on Friday. The son said the cause of death had not been determined but it appeared his father died in his sleep.

In a videotaped interview with the U.S. Naval Institute for its Americans at War program, Ripley said he and about 600 South Vietnamese were ordered to "hold and die" against 20,000 North Vietnamese soldiers with about 200 tanks.

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One Of the Last Survivors

Henry Allingham is the last survivor of the RAF from the Great War, and is seen here speaking to Flt Lt Anthony 'Parky' Parkinson of 29 Squadron Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY

Survivors' Tales Of The Great War, 90 Years On
-- The Telegraph

Next month marks the 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War, a conflict which consumed the lives of more than 20 million soldiers and civilians. Today just a handful of men who served and fought in the war survive. Sean Rayment profiles the last two British men who fought in the conflict.

Henry Allingham was desperate to do his bit when the call went up for volunteers at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.

But his desperately-ill mother begged him to stay at home and tend to her. Had she not, Mr Allingham, like so many of his generation, may well have perished on the battlefields of northern France.

But after her death the young man, from Clapham, south London, enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) as an engineer in 1915, and went onto serve in the some of the most bloody battles of the entire conflict.

Despite the odds, Mr Allingham survived and today, at 112, he is Britain's oldest living man and a living link to one of the greatest human catastrophes of the modern age.

Mr Allingham was born in 1896 when Queen Victoria was still on the throne and powered flight was still more than six years away.

His hearing or eyesight might not be what it was, but according to those who care for him at the blind ex-serviceman's charity, St Dunstan's, he still enjoys a joke and his mind is as sharp as ever.

Astonishingly, Mr Allingham can still recall seeing WG Grace playing cricket in 1903. He also remembers the frightening sight of shells ricocheting across the sea during the Battle of Jutland, which was fought off the coast of Denmark in the North Sea in June 1916.

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Why Casualties From Some Wars Occur Decades After The War Ended

The Curse Of Okinawa -- Strategy Page

October 25, 2008: Yet another unexploded World War II warhead was recently found inside the U.S. Kadena air base on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Bomb disposal experts removed the five inch (127mm) aircraft rocket to where it could be destroyed. Okinawa was the scene of a major battle during World War II, where millions of shells, rockets and bombs were used as invading Americans fought Japanese defenders. Most of the of the buildings on the island were destroyed by these explosive devices. But many of those explosives did not go off, and were buried in the rubble and earth. Since then, every few years, more are uncovered. The recent find was near one of the base entry gates, a hundred meters from a residential neighborhood. Everything in the area was shut down for half a day, as bomb disposal teams came in to disarm the weapon and haul it away.

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My Comment: When I visited/lived in China in 1988, I visited a quarry that was used in the manufacturing of tombstones. When there, I learned how the quarry was shut down a few months ago when a cache of Japanese munitions from the 1930s was found. It was only through luck that this cache had not exploded. If it had, it would have killed scores of workers.

It appears that for munitions to be deactivated, we are talking about a century or two for corrosion and decomposition to occur. This tells me that even though the Iraq war is winding down, casualties from unexploded ordinances will still occur well into the 22nd century.

US: Pentagon Rejects Claims Of 1991 Nuclear Explosion In Iraq

Iraq War -- Highway Of Death (1991)

From AKI-Adnkronos:

Washington, 10 Oct. (AKI) - The US Department of Defense has rejected controversial claims that the American military dropped a five-kilotonne nuclear bomb in southern Iraq during the first Gulf War in 1991.

Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a media spokesman for the department, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the US used "only conventional weapons" during the Gulf War.

Ryder was responding to claims made by a US veteran, and aired on Italian television, that a small five-kilotonne nuclear bomb was dropped in a deserted area outside the southern city of Basra, on the border of Iran.

"The US maintains a number of munitions that have an explosive capability of 5000 pounds (2300 kilogrammes) and larger," Ryder told AKI in a written statement.

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