----- Original Message -----
From: "Henry & Kate Cubillan" <cubillan@earthlink.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 6:42 PM
Subject: [MV] Hindsight (now: Egyptian G503)
> Yes, but hindsight is 20/20, and these things need to be taken into
> context. An entire generation of French and British men had been cut to
> pieces in the battlefields of Europe, and at the time, Germany was
> perceived as the sole culprit. Some voices (most notably Woodrow Wilson)
> tried to tone down the wording of the Treaty, to no avail.
>
Quite true, both England and the US tried to moderate the French demands of
repatriations, but were not very persistent and really caved in. Armed
"overseers" in German factories insisting on almost forced labour wasn't too
well received, objecting workers were summarily executed on one occasion,
perhaps the spark that lit WWII.
>In reality,
> the time between the Armistice and the invasion of Poland wasn't really
> one of peace, it was a time-out between two wars.
>
Surprisingly the US entered WWI on its own and never formally allied with
the British and French forces. The US has also never "ended" WWI, there is
no actual armistice document only an official "cease fire".
> That said, there are STILL a lot of unresolved issues regarding World
> War II. It irks me that Japan has NEVER acknowledged the atrocities
> committed by its armed forces during the war.
>
The Emperor's visit here a little while back did cause some understandable
complaint from the few vets still alive, understandably. The other slightly
irksome issue concerns the exploits of substantial British forces fighting
in the far east, even at the time it was generally called "The Forgotten
War", and perhaps mention of TF 57, also as a forgotten contributor.
We are fortunate in that occasionally we get the sight at a show of a
running, restored and genuine WWI horseless cart, a flat bed truck on solid
tyres with a flat twin engine, regrettably I cannot recall the make but
someone will hopefully.
>I was forcibly removed
> from a lecture in college for interrupting a woman who was going on and
> on about the horrors of the bombing of Hiroshima ands Nagasaki. I
> pointed out the Rape of Nanking and the Death March of Bataan, the
> horrors experienced by Allied POW's in southeast Asia and the forced
> prostitution of Korean women. She had no answer, of course.
>
Of course.
It would seem these people make a sub-conscious and fallacious attachment of
what was logical then under the prevailing conditions with the current
thinking of international relationships and propriety.
In fact historians here point out that possibly two big bangs didn't stop it
alone, but together with the situation in Manchuria with the Russians it
made any further efforts obviously hopeless. . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Back to MV's, a friend who lives in Egypt just sent me pictures of a
> pretty tired, partially stripped G503 that appears to have most of the
> grille slats removed. Is there any way of determining whether this was a
> period modification, or whether it was done afterwards? The faint
> markings appear to be Egyptian Army, and the camo scheme is definitely
> not WWII-era....
>
Missing slats on desert jeeps has come up before and as best as I can
determine it is actually to aid cooling, just how much is possibly
debateable as it would appear that quite free flow would be achieved as it
is, however, hot the N.African desert definitely is and perhaps when the
conditions are right on the limit that little extra is just enough,
certainly there are no obstacles to put the rad itself at any serious risk.
Richard
Southampton - England
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