Sebastian P. Breit's Blog, page 15

Smert Shpionam

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Until now, no work in the English language has ever come close to giving us a detailed study of Stalin's diabolical counterintelligence organization. SMERSH was Stalin's wartime terror apparatus; a collection of torturers and killers unleashed in 1943 to cut a bloody swath across Eastern Europe. SMERSH's mission was to "filter" the Red Army for spies and, as a result, was responsible for the arrest, torture, and execution of many thousands of innocent servicemen and citizens of countries occupied by the Red Army.



Dr. Vadim J. Birstein, a Russian historian, human rights activist, and molecular geneticist now living in the United States, gives us a comprehensive look at this ruthless death machine in his new book SMERSH. The book gleans much from recently declassified documents from the Russian archives uncovered for the first time, shining a much needed harsh light into the murky dealings of the Stalinist police state. Though SMERSH was part of the government, it was not under the military's control. In fact it was instead an independent secret organization whose director, Viktor Abakumov, reported daily to Stalin himself.



continue at The Huffington Post.

1940 Katyn massacre – the Soviet's 'big mistake'

from Polskie Radio.



New evidence has surfaced in Russia about the WWII Katyn Crime, revealing that Soviet authorities circulated information internally about the 1940 massacre of Poles in 1953. The materials are noteworthy, as Moscow only officially acknowledged guilt for the massacre of 22,000 Polish officers in 1990.

The mainly reserve officers were executed by the Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) during the Katyn Crime. The shootings took place at several locations across the Soviet Union. After invading the Soviet Union in 1941, the Germans discovered over 4000 bodies in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. The Russians claimed that the Nazis had carried out the crimes.

The new evidence concerns the 1953 trial of former Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs and Chief of the Secret Police, Lavrentiy Beria, who was put on trial shortly after Stalin's death the same year. Previously unpublished documents relating to the case have emerged in a book by historian Oleg Mozochin titled The Political Bureau and the Trial of Beria.

continue here.

War has a female face

The people over at English Russia have a series of WW2 photos showing women serving in the Red Army. Check them out (and no, they're not hot)!

Red Tails Update

Hey guys, I'll do a review of Red Tails asap, but it may take a while. Official US release date is January 20 in the USA, but since I'm located in Germany I won't be able to make that. Worse even, IMDB has no international release dates available as of yet.

Tuskegee Airman from South Portland talks truth vs. fiction ahead of 'Red Tails' release

Jim Sheppard of the 332nd, the "Tuskegee Airmen"
first posted at The Forecaster.



The Tuskegee Airmen get together in a different city every year. The World War II veterans, who were the first black pilots in the U.S. military, meet to catch up with each other and swap stories.



But a few years ago, in Philadelphia, they weren't alone.



They were joined by filmmaker George Lucas, who wanted to make a movie about the aviators. He had come to get their blessing, to ask them what they'd like to see in a film about their exploits in Europe.



"We told them to knock out all the crap," said Jim Sheppard, 87, a Tuskegee Airman who is originally from Harlem and has lived in South Portland for more than 30 years. "We were good enough on our own. We don't need people boosting us."



Sheppard will learn if his advice was heeded when "Red Tails" hits theaters Jan. 20. The movie stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and is named for the red tails painted on the P-51 Mustangs flown by the airmen, who trained at a base in Tuskegee, Ala.



Sheppard was an aviation mechanic for the Army Air Corps' 332nd Fighter Group, as the airmen were then known. At that time, top military officials didn't believe black pilots could be trusted in war.



The unit was seen as an experiment, but its pilots' track record as successful bomber escorts made them some of the very best airmen by the end of the war. Its success was integral to breaking down racial barriers in the military.



"We had to be better than everyone else because the eyes of the War Department were on us," Sheppard said in an interview at his Sandy Hill Road home.



It was at the War Department that the Tuskegee Airmen had the greatest immediate impact. In 1948, President Harry Truman ended military segregation, a testament to the success of the 332nd.



But despite his pride in the accomplishments of the airmen, Sheppard was worried urban legends that developed around his flight group would infiltrate Lucas' movie.



In the 1950s, writers and filmmakers began detailing the exploits of the heroic black pilots in Europe. In trying to tell a good story – and in trying to convince a racially divided America to accept black men as war heroes – they resorted to exaggeration, Sheppard said.



"'The Tuskegee Airmen never lost a bomber,'" he said they wrote. Or top military brass purposefully put black pilots on the front lines to protect white aviators. Sheppard said neither of those things were true.



The story that bothered Sheppard the most, though, was the one that black pilots had to make do with hand-me-down planes.



Sheppard beams when he talks about the planes he worked on in the military. He loved them, and was always impressed by the aircraft his unit had, from the P-40 Warhawks they trained in to the P-51 Mustangs they eventually used overseas.



But Sheppard and his comrades almost ended up never leaving the states. The Pentagon was hesitant to send the black pilots to Europe, and the Tuskegee Airmen were stalled repeatedly before being sent overseas, he said. During that time, the pilots and mechanics kept training.



"Every time they stalled us, we got sharper and sharper," he said. "These guys ate, slept and breathed airplanes. ... That's why we got so good."



When the order came to ship out, Sheppard said he and the crew were excited – not because they were hawkish, but because they wanted to prove themselves.



"No one wants to go to war," he said. "But we wanted to fly, like everyone else."



Sheppard shipped off in early 1944. His squadron moved through Sicily and Italy as far north as Rome, where pilots escorted bombers to Berlin. Sheppard was made crew chief, in charge of the airworthiness of two P-51 Mustangs.



The 332nd shipped back to the U.S. in October 1945. Sheppard was a staff sergeant.



Since then, the story of the Tuskegee Airmen has been told and retold in documentaries, dramas, books and radio specials. Sheppard said he's not surprised the story persists.



"We may draw more attention because we were the first all-black unit," he said. "But war stories always play well in Hollywood. ... I think it's mostly because it's a war story."



He said he hopes the movie won't take too many liberties with his story. He didn't see the need for a romantic subplot, or overwrought moments of racial tension on the ground. That's not how it was, he said.



Even the name, "Red Tails," amuses Sheppard.



The airmen have come to be associated with the brightly colored tails of their airplanes, but the origin is mundane: a commander somewhere said he wanted each group to be color-coded so he knew who he was looking at.



Though there isn't much drama in that story, Sheppard said he's still happy the 332nd got red, and not yellow, or some striped pattern.



"I remember seeing the order for 'glossy, red enamel,'" he said. "I think we got the best color. I love the way that red looked against the metallic."

Legendary WWII Soviet spy dies at 87

The "Big 3" at Tehran.
from AFP.



One of the legendary Soviet agents of World War II, who infiltrated a British spy school and protected the "Big Three" in the Tehran conference, died aged 87, Russia's intelligence service said Wednesday.



Gevork Vartanyan, working under the codename Amir, in 1942 managed to attend an entire British training course for Russian-speaking spies in Tehran whom London then wanted to send all over the Soviet Union.



According to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) - the successor to the Soviet KGB - his work helped expose the British network which existed despite London's wartime alliance with Moscow.



But Vartanyan's greatest exploit was his role in ensuring security at the 1943 conference in Tehran between the Allied "Big Three" of Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin, British prime minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President F.D. Roosevelt that started to draw up the map of postwar Europe.



Vartanyan - aged just 19 at the time - led a group of young Soviet agents who exposed in its early stages a Nazi plot codenamed "Operation Long Jump" to assassinate the three Allied leaders at the conference.

Operation Long Jump

The plot was approved by Adolf Hitler and headed by Ernst Kaltenbrunner. German intelligence had learned of the time and place of the conference in mid-October 1943, after breaking a US Navy code. Otto Skorzeny was chosen by Kaltenbrunner to head the mission. Also involved was German agent Elyesa Bazna (better known under the codename "Cicero"), who transmitted key data from Ankara, Turkey concerning the conference.



However, Soviet intelligence quickly uncovered the plot. The first tipoff came from Soviet agent Nikolai Kuznetsov. Posing as Wehrmacht Oberleutnant Paul Siebert from Nazi-occupied Ukraine, he got SS Sturmbannführer Hans Ulrich von Ortel - who was described as "talkative" and "a drinker" - to tell him about the operation while drunk.



Nineteen-year-old Soviet spy Gevork Vartanian had recruited a small number of agents in Iran, where his father, also a spy, was posing as a wealthy merchant. It was Vartanian's group which located an advance party of six German radio operators who had dropped by parachute near Qum, 60 km (37 mi) from Tehran, and followed them to Tehran, where the German spy network provided a villa for them. They established that the Germans were in contact with Berlin via radio and recorded their communications; when decoded, these revealed that they planned to drop a second group of operatives led by Skorzeny for the actual assassination attempt. Skorzeny had already visited Tehran to reconnoiter and had been followed by Vartanian's group.



Following that, all German transmissions were intercepted by Soviet and British intelligence. However, one of the Germans radioed a message with a secret code indicating that they were under surveillance and the operation was called off. Skorzeny himself considered the intelligence coming from Tehran to be inadequate and did not believe the complex scheme could have worked. (Wikipedia)

"Everyone in foreign intelligence will remember Gevork Andreyevich for his overwhelming love for the motherland and his fidelity to his duty," the spokesman of the SVR, Sergei Ivanov, said in a statement.



Russian President Dmitry Medvedev described Vartanyan as a "legendary spy, a true patriot of his country and an extraordinary personality."



"He participated in stunning special operations which have gone down in the history of our foreign intelligence," he said in a letter of condolence to Vartanyan's family.



The SVR said in a statement on its website that Vartanyan died on Tuesday. A source in the service told the state RIA Novosti news agency that he died at a Moscow hospital Tuesday afternoon.



During a life remarkable even by the standards of a spy and parts of which are still shrouded in secrecy, Vartanyan worked in tandem with his wife Goar, who was also an agent.



According to the SVR, they worked undercover together for 30 years in different foreign countries as "illegals" after World War II.



The SVR still gives no specifics about this work, saying only that it was in "extreme conditions" and in "complicated circumstances."



They only returned to the Soviet Union in 1986 with Gevork Vartanyan continuing to work in the service until 1992.



"Everything we did was important for the motherland. But the most important things cannot be discussed at the moment," he said before his death in comments broadcast by Channel One television.



He was born in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the son of an Iranian factory owner of Armenian origin, and received top honours from the Soviet Union as well as Russia and Armenia for his work.



His father had also carried out espionage work for the Soviet Union and it was for this that he took the family back to Iran in the 1930s. By the age of 16 the young Gevork was already working to expose "Fascist spies" in Iran.

Popular World War II lectures returning to D-Day Memorial

The National D-Day Memorial in Bedford will feature a series of lectures this month on medicine and WWII. Bringing back two of its more popular lectures, the Memorial will present "Women on the War Front: The Rochambelles" at noon on Jan. 18 and "The Medicine of War: Combat Medics and WWII" at noon on Jan. 25. [image error] "Women on the War Front" spotlights the only women's group assigned to a combat unit on the European front during WWII. The Rochambelles served under the French General Leclerc's famed Second Armored Division. In July 1944, they crossed the English Channel to Normandy and worked tirelessly to save soldiers' lives by providing an ambulance service that lasted until the end of the war. They were among the first to enter Paris in August 1944 during the liberation.



From November to February 1945, the Rochambelles assisted soldiers at the front line at Strasbourg, Erstein, Lorraine, the Colmar Pocket, and Grussenhein.



The Rochambelles faced constant danger. Driving ambulances at night without proper directions or the use of headlights, in territory that constantly shifted hands, proved treacherous throughout their time in Europe. Mortars, shrapnel, and machine gun fire were everyday occurrences - not to mention the other horrors of war. At the end of the Alsatian campaign, one of the Rochambelles' remaining ambulances had thirty-nine shrapnel holes. Miraculously, only one Rochambelle was killed during the war; however one went missing and was never found and six were wounded.



By the end of the war in Europe, the Rochambelles were held in high esteem by their comrades and considered invaluable to the division even though they initially faced resistance.The National D-Day Memorial encourages guests to hear more about these extraordinary women, how the Rochambelles came to be, and how they earned the respect of their comrades. The program includes a lecture, slide presentation, and discussion led by April Cheek-Messier, Vice President for Operations and Education at the National D-Day Memorial Foundation.



"The Medicine of War: Combat Medics in WWII will show that the importance of medics in WWII cannot be overstated. Soldiers during the war had an 85% chance of survival if they were treated by a medic within the first hour of their injury.



first seen here.

Allied Victory in World War II Documentary: D-Day to VE Day (WW2 Film 1945)

Since I seem involuntarily to lean towards a more Axis-oriented content I thought it'd be nice for a change to provide you guys with something centered on the war efforts of the Allies. It's a 90 minutes 1945 documentary about the Allied war effort. Enjoy!

WWII Memories: Local men recount experiences during WWII's Battle of the Bulge

For a change, today's entry into the series is not from the New Bern Sun Journal, but the BLAIRSVILLE DISPATCH. Thank you for reporting it, and thank you to the veterans who recounted their tour of duty.



* * *



Tony Vigliotti of Burrell Township is 90 now and his memory is failing him, yet he continues to be haunted by nightmares of his long season of combat in World War II. "I was a good Catholic," he said recently at his home. "I was very devout. I had thought about becoming a priest. During the war, I prayed night and day to the Blessed Mary; wherever I was, in a fox hole, it didn't matter, I prayed"

"I don't know how I made it," he continued. "God was with me, I guess. I never knew whether I was coming back (home) or not. That's the thing about war. You never know.

"For years I had dreams about the war. I still do, but not as often."



Vigliotti has been married to his wife, Josephine, for 54 years. She recalled nights earlier in their marriage when her husband would spring from bed. She was afraid, sometimes, that he would hurl himself out a window. "It was like someone was after him," she said. "I guess it was about the war."

For all of that, Vigliotti said he was a superb machine gunner. Attached to the 818th Engineer Aviation Battalion, an airfield construction outfit, Vigliotti laid claim to downing two German airplanes.



During the opening salvos of the Battle of the Bulge, as the enemy continued to rumble menacingly toward Marche, Belgium, the 818th's staging area, the unit was placed on full alert.

The guard was doubled and motorized patrols sallied forth to scout the German advance, according to a monthly unit history written in early January 1945 and available online.



In conjunction with First Army Engineers, the unit prepared to blow up a bridge over the Ourthe River, southwest of Malmedy, Belgium, where German troops slaughtered dozens of American POWs on Dec. 17 and left them lying on the frozen earth.



On the day after Christmas in 1944, parts of the 818th were dispersed to Herderen, Belgium, and Nothberg, Germany, close to where an Allied airfield was to be constructed in Luchem, Germany, northeast of Malmedy.

Owing to the possibility of German parachutists descending on the area, the order was rescinded while a handful of men stayed behind to complete whatever preliminary work they could.

About all of this Vigliotti is silent. A former railroader, he clenches and unclenches his gnarled hands as he talks and tries to remember those days so long ago.




Last ditch effort

The Battle of the Bulge was a last throw of the dice by Germany's World War II dictator, Adolf Hitler. Aiming to sweep Americans and British troops from his front porch and drive them back toward Paris and Antwerp, Hitler hoped to so demoralize the Allies that they would sue for peace, leaving him to confront the Soviet Union's Red Army on its march to Berlin, the German capital.

The gamble failed. Exhausted, the German army backtracked on itself and the Allies were once again on the move by February 1945. The war ended in May with a full German surrender.



Also in the fray

During those weeks when the war in Europe hung in the balance, Albert Cresson of Derry was serving with the 315th Field Artillery Battalion, helping to lob shells at German troop and equipment concentrations. Cresson fought World War II with a slide rule.

In charge of determining detonation levels for his battalion's 12-gun battery of 155 mm howitzers, Cresson says mildly that he remained out of harm's way as the fighting chewed up thousands of weary infantrymen.

"We tried to stay about as safe as we could," he said. "We stayed behind the lines but near the front."

Cresson helped to deliver death and destruction on a long-range scale. The 155 mm cannon was about as lethal a weapon as the United States possessed, with the ability to hurtle shells dozens of miles across the battlefield, obliterating both men and machines.



On Dec. 19 1944, the 315th moved by convoy from Bining, France to Godbrange, Luxembourg, a small village in the countryside northeast of that country's capital.

Cresson said he noticed no letup in the battle's intensity during the time his headquarters company was settled in at Godbrange. Day after day, the cannonading continued, he said.



The Cresson family of Derry Borough sent five sons into military service in World War II. Albert Cresson, now 91, was a draftee, joining the Army in October 1942.

Cresson returned to civilian life in December 1945. He says it was a mistake. He says he should have stayed in the service. Life after the Army was not easy. He married and had a son. First his wife left him, he said, and then his son. He has not seen nor heard from his son for "many, many years" now.

"I raised him until he was 15," Cresson recalled.



After falling ill in recent years, Cresson said he is now recovered and feeling "great." He belongs to a veterans group in Armbrust that among other things arranges for its members to drop by personal care homes to spent time with invalid veterans.

"I'm proud of my service in World War II," Cresson said.



Wounded, but walking

Another proud veteran is John Pollock of Brenizer. Wounded in Nancy, France, by a German shell that claimed the life of the soldier walking next to him, Pollock was on a three-day pass in Paris when the Germans began their winter offensive.

"When I got back to my outfit, they were loading up the trucks," Pollock, 91, said. "Someone had gotten my stuff on board. I went off wearing my dress clothes."

"Not committed" to battle in the December-January time period, Pollock saw the worst of war on the drive into Germany in the late winter and spring of 1945.



Tasked with transporting shells and other ammunition to the front lines with his infantry unit, Pollock spoke of a particular bloody episode that took place in front of Germany's World War I defensive perimeter, the Siegfried Line. The fighting took a heavy toll in American dead, and Pollock recalled being ordered to strip ammunition and weapons from the bodies of stiffened GIs, lest they fall into enemy hands.



Along the way he glimpsed two wounded Germans. One was a mere boy, he said. Both were pleading for help. When Pollock came back around a second time the two Germans were dead.

Struck in the right elbow by shrapnel in Nancy, Pollock said he refused evacuation. There was not much bleeding, he said. Besides, he had seen wounded men taken from the scene of battle and knew from experience they were never the same once they returned.

"I felt before being drafted that if I got into an infantry outfit, I would not be coming back," said Pollock. "I guess I was wrong."



Preserved for posterity

Tony Vigliotti of Burrell Township and John Pollock of Brenizer are among more than 90 local veterans whose contributions to the nation's defense in various combat eras are recounted in the recently published "Veterans of Blairsville and Their Stories, Volume 1."

Sprengpanzer (Demolition Tank) Goliath

Sprengpanzer Goliath was a German unmmaned small armored vehicle used for demolition, mine clearing or antitank purposes. It could carry between 60 to 80 kilos of high explosive and was radio guided up to 3km. It was powered by an electric (sd.kfz 302) or petrol (sd.kfz 303) engine. Entered in service in 1942 around the Russian fortress of Sebastopol.



first seen on Military.com.