Milsurp picture of the day

[Ballsofice]

Seeing as we all can now upload photos directly to the forum(Many thanks JWire and the technical boffins!!) what better way than to post photos of old military things. So for starters, some photos from grandpa ballsofice...

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[Rory McCanuck]

That first pic of utterly dejected, defeated soldiers, caught with Grampa Ballsofice's camera, instead of one of the official photographers, just seems more...poignant.

That last pic, Uncle Hank was a dispatch rider on an Indian during the war.
Sadly, I only heard tales of what he could do with a motorcycle

[Ballsofice]

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This photo from gramp's was the one of the few times I heard him speak about the war... the vehicle commander was a young Lt. promoted from the ranks, a good leader, recently married to a gal in Canada before the unit went across the pond in 42. And never got to met his child, the wife herself was at the train station with her child waiting to hear any news on her husband. Gramp's found out at reunion of the unit sometime in the 1980s that the officer commanding the squadron ended up being the one to inform the young wife of her husband's death.

As he told me "it wasn't my place to say anything to her after being away for five years the last thing I wanted to talk about was the troops we lost, that life was best left behind and I carried on with life as best I could."

The other more comedic and typical of the family was during Christmas of 1944 and he was out and about on a dike patrolling the area when a aircraft decided to make itself known by swooping in and waggling its wings at him... only on hearing the aircraft gramps dove and ended up in as he said swimming in shit. Literally being a cow pasture needless to say his pride and uniform were in dire need of a cleaning!

That last pic, Uncle Hank was a dispatch rider on an Indian during the war.
Sadly, I only heard tales of what he could do with a motorcycle

Indeed it is all to frequent that only the tales are left, I have to applaud the groups that go around and interview veterans for future generations.

[Ballsofice]

Very quick story behind these images, a fellow was selling a bunch of knickknacks at the local gun show and burrowing into the knickknacks were a group of postcards... so here's the start of them....
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[Ballsofice]

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[kennymo]

The utter devastation of that war always amazes me. My great grandfather wrote in one of his letters 'Throwing a trainload of Krupp steel at a man and calling it war' (or something very similar, I should dig it up again)

[Ballsofice]

The utter devastation of that war always amazes me. My great grandfather wrote in one of his letters 'Throwing a trainload of Krupp steel at a man and calling it war' (or something very similar, I should dig it up again)

That would be a fascinating read, there is a website dedicated to letters written by Canadian troops... http://www.canadianletters.ca
it's worth a look for anyone that is interested.

And continuing the postcard photos...

585 postcard.jpg

[Ballsofice]

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[Ballsofice]

Neat photo from Library and Archives Canada (PA-177091 if anyone wants to go looking for it) with the caption of "Gunners Elgin Buckland and F.J. Campbell of the 5th Medium Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery (R.C.A.), cleaning the barrels of their Lee-Enfield rifles, England, 17 July 1943."

[Ballsofice]

Library and Archives Canada photo again (PA-004916) caption states "a machine-gun section in training, armed with a Colt-Browning M1895 machine gun and Ross service rifles."