THE BITTER BAYONET OF COLONEL BIDDLE

 Cold Steel!

Sixteen inches of steel at the end of a rifle can be a lease on life when
“Assault Fire" comes and men tight hand-to-hand, no holds barred.
The bayonet is the last souvenir of days when men slugged it out
with sword and battle-axe. Artillery and automatic weapons kill at
a distance. chemicals sometimes inflict casualties days after first released.

There is nothing delicate or deceiving about a bayonet. Grooved
for blood letting and cast for bitter service, it is a fearful weapon in the
hands of a trained fighter. It is the weapon of the individual
soldier. It is vicious. And it is still important in warfare of tanks and
mechanized equipment. Today we fight not in masses but in combat
teams in which every man is a unit within himself.

The supposedly-expert Jap felt American steel burn on Bataan.
Those same Japs have been accused by Chiang Kai-Shek's guerillas of
refusing the challenge of man-to-man fight. But if the Jap‘s courage
to face steel is questioned, his training in the weapon is not. He is
drilled incessantly in its use. British Commandos have developed the
bayonet and a dozen variations of it. Their use of steel is as
great as the German's aversion to it.
The long, thin blade of the Russian soldier has helped withstand
Hitler on the Eastern Front.

The bayonet cannot and does not pretend to be more effective than
fire power. But as long as there are armies there will be bayonets, be-
cause where there are armies men will come together in personal combat.

In that kind of fight steel wins. From time immemorial, it has
been the same. Caesar had his battle pikes, and what were they but
bayonets when you come to think of it. In the Middle Ages, they had
their swords, and swords slash like bayonets.

You know the part the bayonet played in the World War_ The part
it played in China.

A pot-bellied fellow with eagles on his shoulders and store teeth
upstairs pointed his bayoneted Springfield Id toward a hard boiled
infantry regiment at Ft. Bragg.
“All right, now," he shouted,
"kill me."
Nobody moved.
The chicken-claws pointed to the ranks.
“You, come and get me.“ But the kid he singled out was scared.
“Dammit, I want you to cut my throat.“
The Private made a half hearted bayonet thrust. .

Don't Be Yellow “You're yellow," the Colonel
yelled, prancing up and down in his black sneakers. “I want a man
who's not afraid to kill. Step out, you there," he commanded a tough-
looking 30-year-old sergeant. The buck stepped from the ranks.

“Now come running at me with your bayonet," he ordered, "and go
for my throat."
The sergeant wet his lips. He clenched his gun and lunged full
speed at the Colonel's neck. Col. Anthony J. Drexel Biddle,
who knows more about bayonets, knives and ju jitsu than any other
man, partied the thrust with his own bayonet. Before the sergeant
could mumble, “Holy smoke," Biddle had his own bayonet alongside
the sergeant’s throat, and the big buck was sweating.
“That‘s how it‘s done," the Colonel said. “Now let’s all try it."

A leatherneck

Ever since World War I in which he saw actual service on a half
dozen fronts, Marine Corps Colonel Biddle, now 67, has been risking
his Adam's Apple on behalf of recruit training. Loaned to the Army
by the Marines, the former world's amateur heavyweight boxing
champion has taught the fundamentals of in-fighting to para-
chutists at Lakehurst, raider battalions at Quantico, and thousands
of camp trainees along the Eastern seaboard.

Of the scores of ambitious recruits who've tried to beat the old boy,
either in jiujitsu, wrestling, boxing, or bayoneting, only one succeeded.
A marine at Quantico supposedly got him in the groin with a knife.
Thus far no one has been able to locate a witness to the event or find
out the |narine's name. Marine Headquarters says, “So far as we
can determine, it never happened."

Biddle ls McCoy

The present crop of Army men he's trained swear by the Colonel.
“Biddle is the real McCoy,“ they say. “In one hour this old guy
teaches us more about bayonets and self-defense than we've learned
in a whole year. He really knows how to kill. Some of us who've been
in the artillery shooting shells five miles away never realized that
death could be dished out to us six inches away."

Private Joe Hill of Ft. Bragg, N. C., said: “I tried to get him my-
self today. You know what the old geezer did? He knocked the damn
gun outa my hand. I think this Biddle is nuts.
““Nuts?” another yardbird asked.
"Yeah," Hill answered. “Look at him. He's a Philadelphia Biddle.
He's got more money than you could shake a stick at. He's old
enough to be our grandfather. And still he wantsa risk his neck. I tell
you he's nuts. Only trouble with Army is that we ain't got more
nuts just like him.“

A Sentimental Cuss

At the other end of the pole, Biddle, despite his outward leatherneck
hard-heartedness, is sentimental about his charges. “All the
men in this new Army," he says, “are a great bunch of fellows, fine
boys to teach."

“Do you find many of them gun-shy," we asked, “or reluctant to use
a bayonet?"

Biddle reflected for a moment, closing his right eye. “Not many of
them. They're not like Mussolini's soldiers. When I come across a man
 who looks as if he might hesitate to use the knife on the enemy, I tell
him, ‘Son, when you meet a Jap in battle, say to him real fast, “How is
your dear old mother?" Then cut his throat.‘ "
“Does that help any?“
“Don't know exactly," replied the Colonel. “But it's good for their
conscience. . .special1y on Mother‘s Day."

 

The Evil Dr Josef Megele

The name Dr. Josef Mengele stands
out among the dark stories of the men and women who
perpetrated the Holocaust. The Nazi doctor is most
commonly known as the architect of cruel and
unnecessary medical experiments, which he performed
on concentration camp inmates including twin children.

Eighty-one years ago this month, Mengele was
transferred to Auschwitz, where he would earn the
nickname the "Angel of Death." Like all SS doctors there,
Mengele worked shifts on the arrival ramps, where he
would choose those newly arrived prisoners who would
be gassed immediately and those who would be given a
job and be temporarily allowed to live. Even when he
was not working on selection duty, Mengele could be
spotted at the ramp, searching for twins.

Interested in the age-old question of nature versus
nurture, he had performed legitimate research on twins
prior to World War ll. But at Auschwitz, the bounds of
ethics were broken and there were no repercussions
when he maimed or killed a subject of his experiments,
including young Jewish or Roma twins.

Mengele believed Nazi racial theory. Many of his
experiments aimed to illustrate the lack of immune
resistance of subjects considered racially inferior, such
as Jewish prisoners.

Among Menge|e’s research subjects were twins René
and Renate Guttmann from Prague. Renate was
experimented on and René was kept as a control.
Renate was measured and X-rayed. She received
injections and was cut. Once, after she got sick from an
experiment, she was supposed to be killed, but a nurse
hid her and she was spared.

Mengele also selected seven-year-old Hungarian Jewish
twins Lea and Yehudit Csengeri for medical
experimentation upon their arrival in Auschwitz in 1944.
Nazi physicians took the girls’ blood, measured their
bodies, and injected them with different pathogens. Both
survived the Holocaust.

Actor Dick Van Dyke

 


Veteran and Actor Dick Van Dyke!
Richard Wayne Van Dyke was born on 13th December,
1925, in West Plains, Missouri and grew up in Danville,
Illinois.
Van Dyke left high school during his senior year to join
the United States Army Air Forces for pilot training
during World War ll. He was denied enlistment multiple
times for being underweight. Eventually he was
accepted for service as a radio announcer before
transferring to the Special Services and entertaining
troops in the continental United States. He was
discharged in 1946. Van Dyke received his high school
diploma in 2004.

Van Dyke rose to fame as a performer on radio and live
theater, earning a Tony Award in 1961 for best actor in a
musical for the role of Albert Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie
on Broadway. He became best known for starring in the
television sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to
1966. During the series he also established a career
acting in films and starred in the musicals Bye Bye
Birdie (1963), Mary Poppins (1964) and Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang (1968). Van Dyke also starred in the
television series The New Dick Van Dyke Show
(1971-1974), The Van Dyke Show (1988), Diagnosis:
Murder (1993-2001) and Murder 101 (2006-2008). His
other films include Divorce American Style (1967), The
Comic (1969), Dick Tracy (1990) and Night at the
Museum (2006). Van Dyke's other awards include a
Grammy Award and five Emmy Awards. He was named
a Disney Legend in 1998 and received the Kennedy
Center Honors in 2020.

Recently, Van Dyke starred in Coldplay's music video for
the band’s latest single, "All My Love," which sees the
98-year-old Hollywood legend dancing barefoot and
duetting with frontman Chris Martin.

Actor Jimmy Stewart USAAF

 

 

 

Colonel James Maitland Stewart - 8th USAAF
Jimmy Stewart, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars,
served with distinction as a bomber pilot in the U.S.
Army Air Forces during World War ll. Enlisting in 1941
Stewart was initially assigned to stateside training
roles but pushed for combat duty. He eventually
joined the 8th Air Force in England, commanding a
squadron of B-24 Liberators within the 445th Bomb
Group.

Stewart flew 20 combat missions over occupied
Europe, including dangerous bombing raids over key

targets such as Berlin and other industrial facilities in
Germany. Known for his leadership and humility, he
earned several commendations, including the
Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with
oak leaf clusters. He later served as the chief of staff
for the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing.

Marienberg 1941

 Photo caption: "Sgt. [William] Loveland
operates a flame thrower as Sgt. [Ashley] Petit stands
by to assist him - near Aachen, Germany." This photo
was staged and likely taken in early November to show
the use of flamethrowers earlier in the Siegfried Line
campaign

An excerpt from the text of an actual employment of a
flamethrower by B Co.,117th Infantry. "The flamethrower
was carried by Private Andrew Chuckalovchak and
operated by Private Henry E. Hansen.

Hansen tested the flamethrower before he moved out,
and then advanced to the south side of the pillbox.
Hugging the wall, he worked around to the west side.
‘Two squirts did the trick there,‘ stated Hansen.

He then went to the north side and gave that embrasure
two additional squirts. Both Hansen and Chuckalovchak
decided it would be expedient to return at this point, but
Hansen, after he had reached the south side of the
pillbox, decided to take a quick look at the rear (east)
side again. One German seemed to be lying in wait there
for him, with raised pistol. Hansen was in position to
burn the German from the rear. One squirt caused the
enemy to whirl and one more full in the face caused him
to pitch forward into the open door of the pillbox."

Photo and text from "History of the 117th Infantry
1944-1945," published 1946, Army & Navy Publishing
Company

Pre Second World War Hitler in uniform circ 1919 1920

 

                                                        (Lance Corporal) Adolf Hitler 

During the First World War, Adolf Hitler served in France
and Belgium in the 1st Company, Bavarian Reserve
Infantry Regiment 16, he had previously been denied by
the Austrian Army. He was an infantryman in the 1st
Company during the First Battle of Ypres in October
1914 which was his first battle. The 16th Bavarian
Reserve Regiment had entered the battle with 3,600 men
but at its end mustered only 611 men, a casualty rate of
roughly 89%. By December 1914, Hitler’s own company
of 250 was reduced to just 42 able body men. After the
battle, Hitler was promoted from Schutze (private) to
Gefreiter (lance corporal). He was assigned to be a
regimental message-runner.

The Regiment fought in many battles, including the First
Battle of Ypres (1914), the Battle of the Somme (1916),
the Battle of Arras (1917), and the Battle of
Passchendaele (1917) to name a few.
Hitler was twice decorated for bravery. He received the
Iron Cross Second Class in 1914 and the Iron Cross
First Class in 1918, a medal which was rarely given to a
lance corporal. Hitler’s First Class Iron Cross was
ironically recommended by Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, a
Jewish adjutant in the his Regiment. Lieutenant

Peter Butterworth English Actor

 
Eighty years on, Peter Butterworth's recently discovered
German prison identity card is going on display as
part of an exhibition telling the story of his life as a
prisoner of war.

Butterworth served in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm
during the war but was shot down in 1940, spending
the rest of it as a prisoner of war.

A cache of prisoner of war documents recently
released from a German archive is now going on
display at the National Archives in London, which
adds new detail to the gradually unfolding story.

The documents arrived from Germany and have been
catalogued by a team of volunteers.
For his son Tyler Butterworth, it has been a revelation
"They keep declassifying things and more seems to
bubble up. It's remarkable."
However, in Stalag Luft 3, he was an officer and code
writer in MI9, the military intelligence agency
responsible for organising escapes from prison
camps. It was a mystery to even his own son until
long after his death in 1979.

He did suffer from what we now call post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD). He never said this to my
sister and I, but my mother (the impressionist Janet
Brown) told me about things that happened,
especially right at the start of their marriage, after the
war, where he'd suddenly leap out of bed at night and
throw himself on the floor and start hiding. She had
to barricade the bedroom door because the staircase
was outside."

Butterworth helped hide the soil from the tunnels in
the camp theatre. Inmates would be encouraged to
smoke pipes near where the soil was stored to mask
the smell.

In the Wooden Horse escape, in which a tunnel was
dug underneath a vaulting horse, he was one of the
organising committee. When the story was adapted
in 1950 for the big screen, he auditioned for a role but
was turned down for not looking sufficiently like a
pnsoner

Alongside him in Stalag Luft 3 was another prisoner,
Talbot Rothwell, who would go on to write many of
the best Carry On films. He and Rothwell convinced
the camp commandant to allow them to build a
theatre, with the sounds from the performances
helping drown out the noise of digging the tunnels.

Who Was Violette Szabo?

 

During the Second World War, Szabo was recruited by
the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to work as an
agent in German-occupied Europe. She spoke fluent
French and was sent to France in 1944, having been
recruited as an agent in 1942.


Szabo joined the SOE’s ‘F’ Section after the death of
her husband Etienne, who had been fighting as part
of the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. On her
first mission to France in April 1944, she acted as
courier to Philippe Liewer, whose resistance network
in the Rouen area of France had been uncovered by
the Gestapo. Violette’s job was to try to and
re-establish contact with members of the network
and gather vital intelligence.

Her second mission began on 07th June 1944, the day
after D-Day. She, Liewer and another agent
parachuted into south-west France, near Limoges, to
set up a new network with local resistance groups.

Three days later Szabo was on a courier trip with a
resistance leader known as ‘Anastasie’ when they
encountered German forces. Their car was stopped
at a road block and a gun battle took place. \/iolette
was captured but helped ensure that Anastasie was
able to escape. After capture, Szabo was brutally
interrogated in Fresnes prison in Paris before being
deported by train to Germany. During the journey the
train was attacked by British aircraft, and Violette and
another female prisoner took the opportunity - at
great personal risk - to take water to the male
prisoners.

Szabo was executed at Ravensbruck concentration
camp in early 1945.

Szabo’s story and those of other SOE agents feature
in our exhibition ‘Spies, Lies and Deception’, currently
on at IWM London. See the link in our bio for more.

The first photo shows Szabo and the second shows
her daughter, Tania, receiving her mother's
posthumous George Cross, 28th January 1947.

Battlefront Finland Shelling of Mainila, Causus Belli of the Winter War.

 



NOTE OF M. MOLOTOV, COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
HANDED ON 26thNOVEMBER, 1939, TO M.YRJO-KOSKINEN,
FINNISH MINISTER AT MOSCOW.
Monsieur le Ministre,
According to information received from the
headquarters of the Red Army, our troops posted on
the Carelian Isthmus, in the vicinity of the village of
Mainila, were the obiect today, 26th November, at
3.45 p.m., of unexpected artillery fire from Finnish
territory. In all, seven cannon-shots were fired, killing
three privates and one non-commissioned officer and
wounding seven privates and two men belonging to
the military command. The Soviet troops, who had
strict orders not to allow themselves to be provoked,
did not retaliate.

In bringing the foregoing to your knowledge, the
Soviet Government consider it desirable to stress the
fact that, during the recent negotiations with M.
Tanner and M. Paasikivi, they had directed their
attention to the danoer resultino from the
concentration of large regular forces in the
immediate proximity of the frontier near Leningrad. In
consequence of the provocative firing on Soviet
troops from Finnish territory, the Soviet Government
are obliged to declare now that the concentration of
Finnish troops in the vicinity of Leningrad, not only
constitutes a menace to Leningrad, but is, in fact, an
act hostile to the U.S.S.R. which has already resulted
in aggression against the Soviet troops and caused
casualties.

The Government of the U.S.S.R. have no intention of
exaggerating the importance of this revolting act
committed by troops belonging to the Finnish Army -
owing perhaps to a lack of proper guidance on the
part of their superiors - but they desire that revolting
acts of this nature shall not be committed in future.

In consequence, the Government of the U.S.S.R.,
while protesting energetically against what has
happened, propose that the Finnish Government
should, without delay, withdraw their troops on the
Carelian Isthmus from the frontier to a distance of
20-25 kilometres, and thus preclude all possibility of a
repetition of provocative acts.
Accept, M. le Ministre, the assurance of my high
consideration.

The Man who defied the Third Reich

 Sindelar: The man who defied the
Third Reich Adolf Hitler's Third Reich just invaded and
annexed Austria. To rally the Austrian people to his
cause, the Nazi regime decides to organize a friendly
match between the German and Austrian teams: it's the
Anschlussspiel. Players are told not to score, 0-0 is the
ideal result. On 03rd April  1938, in Vienna, under the eyes of
the highest Nazi dignitaries, Germany faces the newly
annexed Austria. The sports imbalance is clear, the
Austrians are forced not to force their talent. There's a
quarter hour left as Sindelar grabs the ball and opens
the score. He is celebrating in front of the Nazi tribune.

An Austrian defender will double down on a lob. Game
over 2-0. Nazi Germany is being publicly humiliated.
Sindelar's popularity seems to deter any violent
repression. The Nazi regime turns events to their
advantage by using Sindelar's figure as the Austrian
acceptance of invaders. The act of dividing. Political
contest or denial of sports masquerade? The Austrian
memory erects Sindelar as a national symbol of
resistance, especially since he subsequently refuses to
put on the Third Reich jersey. He was found dead in
I939, suffocated in carbon monoxide in his apartment.
The circumstances are turbulent and no one knows if
the Nazis made Sindelar pay for his goal. Picture: Three
players from Austria including Sindelar on the right
FIFA.

Shifty Powers 101st US Airborne

 Band of Brother 101st Airborne 506

Born: 13th March  1923, Clinchco, Virginia, United States...
Died:  17th June 2009, Wellmont Bristol Regional
Medical Center
Place of burial: Temple Hill Memorial Park,
Castlewood, Virginia, United States

Award: Bronze Star Medal
Powers was born in Clinohoo, Virginia. His father was
an excellent rifle and pistol shot, and taught him how
to shoot when he was young. Shifty spent a great
deal of time in the outdoors, hunting game. He got to
the point where he could throw a coin in the air and
hit it with a rifle. Many of the skills he obtained helped
him as a soldier.

Powers graduated from high school and took
a machinist course in a vocational school in Norfolk
There he befriended Robert 'Popeye' Wynn, and the
two went to work in the shipyards in Portsmouth,

Virginia after finishing the course. When they found
out that they were about to be frozen to the jobs,

clarification needed] they went to sign up for the
Army. Powers enlisted on 14th August 1942,
at Richmond, Virginia.

Powers‘ nickname "Shifty" originated from his
basketball days and his ability to be 'shifty' on his
feet.
Staff Sergeant Darrell Cecil "Shifty" Powers (13th March
1923 — 17th June 2009) was a non-commissioned
officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th
Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101 st Airborne
Division during World War ll. Powers was portrayed in
the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers by Peter
Young blood Hills.

Powers followed Easy Company to station
in Aldbourne, England. He was shocked to see that
the residents there were prepared to defend
themselves against the Germans with only garden
implements. He thought it would have been a
massacre if the Germans had indeed invaded
Aldbourne.

Powers jumped into Normandy on D-Day. Missing
his drop zone, he joined two others from the
company and the three linked up with Easy Company
several days later to fight in Carentan. Powers
participated in the Allied military operation Operation
Market Garden in the Netherlands.
Powers also fought in the Battle of the
Bulge in Belgium. On 29th December 1944, when Easy
Company was staying in the woods, Powers noticed
a tree that was not there just the day before and
reported it to First Sergeant Carwood

Joachim Peiper

 

Mugshot of Obersturmbannfurher
Joachim Peiper from the Malmedy Massacre trial,
where he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced
to death, 1946. Peiper's sentence was commuted to
35 years in 1954, and he was released on parole at
the end of December 1956, after serving 11 and a
half years. He was killed at his home in Traves,
France, in 1976.

SS-Kampfgruppe Peiper was a heavily armored task
force of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte.
Named after its commander, Joachim Peiper, it was
charged with spearheading the 6th Panzer Army on
the northern sector during the Battle of the Bulge.

Kampfgruppe Peiper committed a series of war
crimes and atrocities against American prisoners of
war and Belgian civilians during the Battle of the
Bulge, including the infamous Malmedy Massacre.

On 17th December 1944, about 120 American troops
from the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion
were surprised by the advancing Peiper's units at the
Baugnez crossroads near Malmedy in Belgium. Along
with other American prisoners of war captured earlier
they were led into a meadow, lined up and
machine-gunned.

A few managed to escape to a café at the
crossroads. The SS soldiers set fire to the building
and shot all who tried to escape the flames. 84
American POWs were massacred, and their bodies
were left in the snow. The atrocities of Peiper's men
conflnued.

In Honsfeld, they forced the Americans to fuel their
vehicles and then shot them down in cold blood.
POWs and civilians were murdered in Bullingen,
Ligneuville, Stavelot, Cheneux, La Gleize and Wereth
At least 373 American POWs and 111 Belgian
civilians were killed by Kampfgruppe Peiper.

News of the Malmedy and other massacres spread
quickly throughout American ranks, causing great
anger and desire to retaliate. It only stiffened their
resistance, as troops became determined to hold the
lines against the German advance until
reinforcements could arrive, in particular the 101st
Airborne Division's defense of Bastogne.

Regarding Peiper's death, he was
recognized by former French Resistance fighters
nearly 30 years after WW2. Peiper died on
Bastille Day, 1976, after his home was attacked
and set on fire.