This Man Is Your Friend

[bongaroo]

The Chinese were not communist in WWII.

Well, not all of them. 

[Baggy]

The Tommy is carrying a Boys antitank rifle.

My father-in-law was a signaller in the Territorials in 1939 attached to a battalion of 25lbers and went to France with the BEF. They were based near Lille. When the Germans invaded France and the lowlands they were moved up near Brussels. In the ensuing retreat him and his mate were ordered to 'get in this slit trench and cover this field, there might be German tanks coming through any moment!' Armed with one Lee Enfield and a Boys. Ray had only fired about five rounds of ammunition during his training, his mate had more experience so he had the Boys which apparently had a massive kick on it. Luckily they didn't see the tanks!

He was fortunate at Dunkirk as it was peeing with rain when they got there near the end of the evacuation - they got straight on a ship and had no interference from the Luftwaffe. He kept his mates spirits up by reading the obituaries from the papers 

He later served in Basra.


Ray died peacefully in his sleep last October, I miss hearing his stories.

[Marauding Conan]

And if you had a choice, would you rather live in 1920s China or 1950s China?  It's not even close.  In fact, the comparison is laughable.

Difficult one, both periods were difficult for average chinese... I couldn't really answer that  question.

[straffo]

And if you had a choice, would you rather live in 1920s China or 1950s China?  It's not even close.  In fact, the comparison is laughable.

This is not a choice ... eeekkk who really want to live in China ?

[Angus]

The Chinese?

[straffo]

The Chinese?

I mean people having the choice

[Anaxogoras]

Actually, a significant number of Russians were very happy to arrive in pre-ww2 Shanghai instead of remaining in their own home country.

[Motherland]

The Tommy is carrying a Boys antitank rifle.

My father-in-law was a signaller in the Territorials in 1939 attached to a battalion of 25lbers and went to France with the BEF. They were based near Lille. When the Germans invaded France and the lowlands they were moved up near Brussels. In the ensuing retreat him and his mate were ordered to 'get in this slit trench and cover this field, there might be German tanks coming through any moment!' Armed with one Lee Enfield and a Boys. Ray had only fired about five rounds of ammunition during his training, his mate had more experience so he had the Boys which apparently had a massive kick on it. Luckily they didn't see the tanks!

He was fortunate at Dunkirk as it was peeing with rain when they got there near the end of the evacuation - they got straight on a ship and had no interference from the Luftwaffe. He kept his mates spirits up by reading the obituaries from the papers 

He later served in Basra.


Ray died peacefully in his sleep last October, I miss hearing his stories.

Great story- sorry for your loss.

The anti-tank rifle caught my eye as well, because the instructional video produced by Disney was priceless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rODm7HF5lFU

[GFShill]

(Image removed from quote.)

Now that is classic.

Kinda looks like Tony Soprano, but with a moustache.

[GFShill]

I passed the link to the video, the "This Man Is Your Friend" series, and the story about using the Boys, on to my WW2 reenactment group for their enjoyment.  A little cross-pollination!

[bongaroo]

The fight between the Communists and the Nationalists was going before Japan invaded.  They actually had to call a cease-fire/truce to turn and face the Japanese or else face both being eliminated.

The history of the Republic of China (traditional Chinese: 中華民國; simplified Chinese: 中华民国; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó) begins after the Qing Dynasty in 1912, when the formation of the Republic of China ended over two thousand years of Imperial rule. The Qing Dynasty, also known as the Manchu Dynasty, ruled from 1644 to 1912. Since the republic's founding, it has experienced many tribulations as it was dominated by numerous warlords and fragmented by foreign powers. In 1928, the republic was nominally unified under the Kuomintang (KMT), and was in the early stages of industrialization and modernization when it was caught in the conflicts between the Kuomintang government, the Communist Party of China, remnant warlords, and Japan. Most nation-building efforts were stopped during the full-scale War of Resistance against Japan from 1937 to 1945, and later the widening gap between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party made a coalition government impossible, causing the resumption of the Chinese Civil War.

Modern Asian History was perhaps my favorite college course to date.