i finally arranged all my mgs1 pixels into a sticker sheet for redbubble! :D if you buy them on rb, they’re all spaced out on a transparent bg so that you can stick them wherever you want! <3
here’s the link to the sticker sheet, and another link to other mgs designs i have!
[ ko-fi / hope you have a lovely day! ]
The Soviet D-Day — Operation Bagration,
Everyone remembers June 6th, 1944 when Allied forces crossed the English Channel and invaded France, an event forever known as D-Day. Yet while D-Day is known by many in the West, like most other Soviet operations during the war the Soviet equivalent called “Operation Bagration” is lesser known and recognized. Operation Bagration was the Soviet grand offensive to destroy the Wehrmacht and bring the Third Reich too its knees, but it was much more than that. If D-Day could be likened to a stiff right hook that dazed the German military, Operation Bagration was more like being struck in the face with a sledgehammer, then further pummeled while on the ground, then gruesomely dispatched with an “American History X” style curbstomp with the Battle of Berlin.
Operation Bagaration was intended to roughly coincide with D-Day in western Europe, but due to the logistics of organizing such a massive offensive, it was delayed until June 22nd. Named after a Russian general during the Napoleonic Wars, it was a truly massive offensive of gargantuan scale. Spread out among three major fronts were 2.5 million Soviet troops, as well was as roughly 2,700 tanks, 5,300 aircraft, and 25,000 artillery pieces. By contrast, the Normandy invasion involved less than half the men. After suffering terrible losses a Stalingrad and Kursk, the Germans could only muster a comparatively weak force of 800,000 men (half of which were non-combat or support personnel), as well as 800 tanks, 500 assault guns, 1,000 - 1,300 aircraft, and 10,000 artillery.
The main goal of the operation was to capture Minsk, the capital of Belorussia, and thus the onus of the offensive was against German Army Group Center, which was the largest and most important part of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. The offensive began on the early morning of June 22nd with a massive artillery bombardment lasting 2 hours. According to surviving German soldiers, it was the largest and most terrifying barrage of the entire war up to that point. The Soviets used a tactic called the creeping barrage, in which artillery fire would fire upon a target, then progressively creep forward to catch exposed troops that retreated to the rear while preventing reinforcements from moving forward . After the barrage the Red Army attacked, using a tactic called “Deep Battle” where forces would exploit various weaknesses in the enemy line, eventually penetrating it, encircling enemy forces, and then driving deep into enemy territory.
The height of Operation Bagration occurred in early July when the Soviets crushed Army Group Center and took Minsk. In a situation reminiscent of Stalingrad, 100,000 German troops of the 4th Army were surrounded in Minsk. Unable to break out, they were utterly obliterated, with 40,000 being killed and the rest being captured. While Minsk was the main goal of the offensive, Bagration continued well into July and August. By the time the operation concluded in late August, Soviet troops had driven halfway through Poland, halting at the Vistula River practically within shouting distance of Warsaw.
On other fronts, Soviet forces had driven into the Baltics, lifting the Siege of Leningrad and cutting off 200,000 German troops in Courland Pocket. In the south, Soviet forces were invading the Balkans and preparing to storm Romania, the primary source of oil for Germany.
The worst blow to Germany was not in terms of territory or resources, but men. Around 300,000 - 350,000 German soldiers were killed or missing. 200,000 troops were cut off in the Baltics and could only be supplied by sea. Another 150,000 - 200,000 were captured and taken prisoner, 50,000 of which would be forced to march through Moscow in a grand parade.
Army Group Center was thoroughly gutted, and would only be able to present a shadow of itself for the rest of the war. The loss of so many men devastated the Wehrmacht, which was unable to replace its losses. This was further exacerbated by terrible defeats in France at the hands of the Americans and Commonwealth forces. From thence on the German Army would suffer severe manpower shortages, often replacing their ranks with barely trained soldiers who were either too young or too old for military service. The Battle of Bulge was the Wehrmacht’s last small hurrah, shortly afterward the German military would crumble into dust.
The Soviets too suffered heavy losses, around 180,000 killed or missing and 500,000 wounded. However, Operation Bagration was a stunning success, which irreparably shattered the back of the Third Reich.
The Normandy Landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front.
The amphibious landings were preceded by extensive aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight. Allied infantry and armoured divisions began landing on the coast of France at 06:30.
When the seaborne units began to land about 06:30 on June 6, the British and Canadians on Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches overcame light opposition. So did the Americans at Utah. The U.S. 1st Division at Omaha Beach, however, confronted the best of the German coast divisions, the 352nd, and was roughly handled by machine gunners as the troops waded ashore. During the morning, the landing at Omaha threatened to fail. Only dedicated local leadership eventually got the troops inland—though at a cost of more than 2,000 casualties.
Russian Air Force, Sukhoi Su-34 in the Southern Urals on March 21, 2019.
Mobile Suit Gundam Wing 1995
All-weather air superiority super maneuverable fighter prototype, nicknamed “Terminator”, project cancelled after the sole aircraft, a modified Su-27M, crashed due to structural failure three years into the program.
The lessons learned from this aircraft, however, helped shape the new generation of Su-30 and 35 fighter jets of the Sukhoi design bureau, specially the 3D vectoring engines and digital fly-by-wire systems.
He’s engraved in stone in the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC – back in a small alcove where very few people have seen it. For the WWII generation, this will bring back memories. For younger folks, it’s a bit of trivia that is an intrinsic part of American history and legend.
Anyone born between 1913 to about 1950, is very familiar with Kilroy. No one knew why he was so well known….but everybody seemed to get into it. It was the fad of its time!
At the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC
So who was Kilroy?
In 1946 the American Transit Association, through its radio program, “Speak to America,” sponsored a nationwide contest to find the real Kilroy….now a larger-than-life legend of just-ended World War II….offering a prize of a real trolley car to the person who could prove himself to be the genuine article.
Almost 40 men stepped forward to make that claim, but only James Kilroy from Halifax, Massachusetts, had credible and verifiable evidence of his identity.
“Kilroy” was a 46-year old shipyard worker during World War II (1941-1945) who worked as a quality assurance checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts (a major shipbuilder for the United States Navy for a century until the 1980s).
His job was to go around and check on the number of rivets completed. (Rivets held ships together before the advent of modern welding techniques.) Riveters were on piece work wages….so they got paid by the rivet. He would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in semi-waxed lumber chalk (similar to crayon), so the rivets wouldn’t be counted more than once.
A warship hull with rivets
When Kilroy went off duty, the riveters would surreptitiously erase the mark. Later, an off-shift inspector would come through and count the rivets a second time, resulting in double pay for the riveters!
One day Kilroy’s boss called him into his office. The foreman was upset about unusually high wages being “earned” by riveters, and asked him to investigate. It was then he realized what had been going on.
The tight spaces he had to crawl in to check the rivets didn’t lend themselves to lugging around a paint can and brush, so Kilroy decided to stick with the waxy chalk. He continued to put his check mark on each job he inspected, but added ”KILROY WAS HERE!“ in king-sized letters next to the check….and eventually added the sketch of the guy with the long nose peering over the fence….and that became part of the Kilroy message.
Kilroy’s original shipyard inspection “trademark” during World War II
Once he did that, the riveters stopped trying to wipe away his marks.
Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint. With World War II on in full swing, however, ships were leaving the Quincy Yard so fast that there wasn’t time to paint them. As a result, Kilroy’s inspection “trademark” was seen by thousands of servicemen who boarded the troopships the yard produced.
His message apparently rang a bell with the servicemen, because they picked it up and spread it all over the European and the Pacific war zones.
Before war’s end, “Kilroy” had been here, there, and everywhere on the long hauls to Berlin and Tokyo.
To the troops outbound in those ships, however, he was a complete mystery; all they knew for sure was that someone named Kilroy had “been there first.” As a joke, U.S. servicemen began placing the graffiti wherever they landed, claiming it was already there when they arrived.
As the World War II wore on, the legend grew. Underwater demolition teams routinely sneaked ashore on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific to map the terrain for coming invasions by U.S. troops (and thus, presumably, were the first GI’s there). On one occasion, however, they reported seeing enemy troops painting over the Kilroy logo!
Kilroy became the U.S. super-GI who had always “already been” wherever GIs went. It became a challenge to place the logo in the most unlikely places imaginable. (It is said to now be atop Mt. Everest, the Statue of Liberty, the underside of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and even scrawled in the dust on the moon by the American astronauts who walked there between 1969 and 1972.
In 1945, as World War II was ending, an outhouse was built for the exclusive use of Allied leaders Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill at the Potsdam Conference. It’s first occupant was Stalin, who emerged and asked his aide (in Russian), “Who is Kilroy?”
To help prove his authenticity in 1946, James Kilroy brought along officials from the shipyard and some of the riveters. He won the trolley car….which he attached to the Kilroy home and used to provide living quarters for six of the family’s nine children….thereby solving what had become an acute housing crisis for the Kilroys.
The new addition to the Kilroy family home.
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And the tradition continues into the 21st century…
In 2011 outside the now-late-Osama Bin Laden’s hideaway house in Abbottabad, Pakistan….after the al-Qaida-terrorist was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs.
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A personal note….
My Dad’s trademark signature on cards, letters and notes to my sisters and I for the first 50 or so years of our lives (until we lost him to cancer) was to add the image of “Kilroy” at the end. We kids never ceased to get a thrill out of this….even as we evolved into adulthood.
To this day, the “Kilroy” image brings back a vivid image of my awesome Dad into my head….and my heart!
Dad: this one’s for you!
T-72B tanks in Chechnya. 1999.
Abba Kovner
legendary jewish guerrilla in the Ghetto of Vilnius, poet, writer, Haganah-Fighter and founder of NAKAM
