August 6 1945

65 years ago on August 6 1945 the B29 US bomber "Enola Gay" piloted and commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets drops the Atomic Bomb, know as "Little Boy" on Hiroshima. 70,000–80,000 people of the population of Hiroshima were killed immediately, and another 70,000 were injured.
When the Japanese goverment still didn't want to surrender unconditionally 3 days later the B29 US bomber "Bockscar" flown by commander Major Charles W. Sweeney dropped a 2nd Atomic Bomb named "Fat Man". This time on the city of Nagasaki. Their primary target was Kokura but because of bad weather conditions they took off and flew to their second target, Nagasaki.
Casualty estimates for immediate deaths 40,000 to 75,000. Another estimated 25,000 people were injured.

Estimates of total deaths by both bombs at the end of 1945 from burns, radiation and related disease range from 90,000 to 166,000. By 1950 the estimated total of deaths is 200,000 because of cancer and other long-term effects.

The Atomic Bomb - News Footage from 1945

The world changed for good.

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Updated Excel file Parachute Rifle Company North Africa (book 2)

A new updated Excel file for the Parachute Rifle Company North Africa (book 2). I found a few little mistakes in the old one.
-The title-header on the Parachute Rifle Company sheet should have been unlocked.
-If you selected a Rifle platoon without the Bazooka option it didn't count in cell D7 of the Parachute Rifle Company sheet as being selected. It didn't cause any problems on the OoB sheet.

New file can be found here:
- Army Excel Files
or here
- Flames of War Army Excel files

PS. I no longer post direct links to the files and i no longer will update the old direct links in the older blog posts with new links.
I think that when people will follow one of the above links they can find the files on their own. ;)

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Today in Dutch WWII History : Concentration-Camps 2

  

Durchgangslager Westerbork

Near the village of Westerbork, in the province of Drente, the Dutch Government owned a tract of heath and marsh land surrounded by dense woods. This isolated piece of real estate appeared to be the ideal place to build a camp for German Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi persecution. It was far enough placed from the village proper of Westerbork that refugees would not interfere with the daily business concerns of the villagers provided supervision was in place.
The first refugees that arrived at camp Westerbork was in 1939. During the German invasion on 10 May 1940 the camp contained 50 barracks, 1150 legal and 650 illegal refugees.
When the endlösing of the Netherlands started the existing camp near Westerbork was the ideal place for this. And early 1942, 24 large barracks capable of housing 300 people each, were added for this purpose.
On 1 July 1942 Refugee camp Westerbork officially became Durchgangslager Westerbork and stayed this until the liberation of the camp on the 12 April 1945.

Aerial picture of Durchgangslager Westerbork 1944

Between July 1942 and September 1944 more than 104,000 Dutch and German Jews and 250 Dutch Sinti and Roma were deported by train from Westerbork to the extermination camps. Between them were 22,025 childeren and young adults with an age below 21.
On 13 September 1944 the last train left from Durchgangslager Westerbork. Destionation: Bergen Belsen.

65 train-transports with 60,330 victims were sent directly to Auschwitz II Birkenau. Only 854 people who were deported from Westerbork survived. On 3 September 1944 the last train to Auschwitz II Birkenau left Westerbork. On this train was the Frank familly.

19 train-transports with a total of 34,313 Jews were deported from Westerbork to Sobibor. Only 18 Dutch jews returned.

9 train-transports with 4,894 Jews left Westerbork for Theresienstadt. Just as Westerbork this was a internent and transit camp. 2,000 deported survived.

A total of 3750 victims were transported to Bergen-Belsen. An other notorius concentration camp. But also know as the camp where Anne Frank, who was transported from  Auschwitz II Birkenau to Bergen Belsen, was murdered.
From the 3750 people deported to this place 1700 died.

After the last deportation on 13 September 1944 876 Jews and non Jewish people remained in Westerbork. On 12 April 1945 they were liberated by Canadian troops.

Dutch Camp Commanders:
mr. D.A. Syswarda Camp's inception - 16 July 1940
Captain in the Reserves Jacques Schol 16 July 1940 - Early January 1943

German Commanders:
SS-Sturmbannführer dr. Erich Deppner 1 July 1942 - 1 September 1942
SS-Sturmbannführer Josef Hugo Dischner 1 September 1942 - 12 October 1942
SS-Obersturmführer Albert Konrad Gemmeker 12 October 1942 - 12 April 1945

Note: both Dutch camp commanders had nothing to do with the death transports. Not even Schol who served under 2 German camp commanders. SS-Obersturmführer Albert Konrad Gemmeker even quickly saw to it that Schol was discharged in January 1943. Not wanting to have any witnesses to the Nazi Endlösing plan.

Other important positions (these people were Jews):
Kurt Schlesinger, the Oberdienstleiter 
Arthur Pisk :Head of the Ordnungsdienst
Dr. Fritz Spanier - Chief Medical Officer


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Photo: The Holocaust - Lest We Forget

New pictures of my painted 101st Airborne Division

Looking at the bad pictures i posted on this blog of my Airborne Division i decided to take new photos of all the platoons i have. But the first thing i did was to paint some more details on the older platoons. Also i have redone all the bases. Because of the extensive use the flock started to come of from the bases.
The D-1 and HH stand for the handbooks i can use the platoons for. D-1 is D minus 1 and HH is Hell's Highway. I left out Mid War.

You can also view them as a slideshow here:
Gallery: US 101st Airborne Division

HQ (D-1 and HH)


Click on the Read More link to see more

Today in Dutch WWII History: Concentration-Camps 1

  

Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch

Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch (Concentration-camp ’s-Hertogenbosch) was the only SS concentration camp in the Netherlands (The more known camp at Westerbork, was a transit camp for Jews.) and was located at the town called Vught. Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch was the same organized as the SS camps in Nazi Germany. But the prisoners are treated less rigid than in the other camps. This way the Nazis wanted to prevent that the Dutch population started to protest against the treatment.
The choice of the location for the camp was well thought out. Vught was surrounded by railways and roads and nearby is ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Here a lot of the German authorities headquarters were located. In 1942 they started the building of the camp. The layout of the camp is over 1 kilometer long and 400 meters wide. Wrapped around the camp is a big moat digged by the camp prisoners. On all sides of the camp is a high barbed wire fence.
At every 100 meters there is a watchtower, with guards, searchlights and Machine-guns. The guards on the towers were almost all Dutch, who had chosen to side with the Germans.

Aerial view of the camp with right of the middle the "Fusilladeplaats".

Between January 1943 and September 1944 more than 31,000 men, women and children were encased in the camp. Among them more than 12,000 Jews who were from Vught  transported to Westerbork. Also in this camp were about 19,000 political prisoners, resistance fighters, drifters, Sinti and Roma, Jehovah's, gays, black marketers and criminals. Women were imprisoned in a special women's camp. At least 750 people died in the camp from disease and abuse or being shot outside the camp at the so called “fusilladeplaats”. At the approaching of the Allied army’s the Nazi’s started at the beginning of September 1944 with the evacuation of the camp. The prisoners were put on trains and transported to camps in Germany. On October 26, 1944, the empty camp is liberated.

The first commander was the 39 year old Karl Chmielewski. In the first months the camp was badly organized. The prisoners receive little food, the sick are not treated well and the drinking water is bad. Many people die in the time that Chmielewski was the Commander. In October 1943 he was sacked because he had stolen on a large scale in the camp. In 1961 he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the concentration camps.

The second commander was the 40 year old Adam Grünewald. He introduced strict rules. He gave the order in January 1944 to put a large group of female prisoners into one cell. A horrible decision, which comes to be known as the “Bunker Drama”. He was brought to face the SS court and was sent to the Russian front as a soldier. He was killed in 1945.

The last commander of the Camp, was the 50-year-old Hans Hüttig. He fought as a soldier in the First World War and he became a member of the Nazi party before 1933. The SS leaders were very pleased with him. Under his leadership in July / September 1944 a certain number of 329 men are shot by the firing squad.

After the war the camp fulfilled many purposes. One of them was to imprison those Dutch people who had chosen to side with the Germans during the war.
Now a days most of the camp is a museum and a memorial center.

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Photo: Nederland in de Tweede Wereldoorlog