 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Feedback: email me at poubelle4yermel@hotmail.com(remove that) Happy New Year! January 20, we will still be in deep poop but the media will make you feel good about i! Lol Read my opinions and make your own! :-) White book on French Defense and Homeland Security: Livre Blanc de la Defense 2008 Read a summary in Opinions! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See my Fiat 500 May 18 SCCA Autocross @ Mather Police Training Facility in Sacramento, CA. Below: 32 postcards of the A7V! Check the recently acquired postcard of Elfreide, a transport version of the A7V .German Whippet tanks and Hagen, stuck in a hole? Also a great card of a couple of weird Fiat tanks in action. NEW: Check my present and past American cars! New wooden Dummy tanks (British, French, German), 27 different A7V POSTCARDS, new opinions...WEIRD armored machines on the home page, a German wooden made British tank, , a couple of Wooden A7V and FT17on the front / New opinion pieces / Many New cards / My future new Cars Also, Alpine 500 Vintage car Rally Order your sticker:
New: Luigi of the Pixar/Disney movie CARS is the real offspring of my BadBoy, DNA proofs onlie! New Home: A postcard has been identified . The FBI created by a Corsican. French airforce heroes , USS Corsica, The German A7V Sturmpanzer: identified on original postcards (Elfreide, Lotti, Schnuck, Nixe2) - Renault FT17 in Afghanistan Opinions: Welcome to 2008 World, Federal & Califohnyan politics, Afghanistan, Iraq, terrorism, Katrina, flood and a lot of misc Kalifuhnia news Tanks: new cards! My cars: My new old ride: a 4cv, a 1974 Porsche 914 /4 ! A trip to Monterey with "Bad Boy" and a new 1988 Renault Medallion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1987, the tank museum of Saumur, France, won his fight against the US to recover the WW1 war loan Schneider and St Chamond that were sitting outside at the Aberdeen proving ground. The dull grey tanks were shipped and addresses were spray painted in black on the side of the hull. They can now be seen in the museum, in their camouflaged coat of paint. Nota: the hundreds of tanks of the museum actually run and once a year, during the "Carrousel" performed by the cadets of the French Armor and Cavalry school nearby, tanks from all wars are dyhnamically displayed with soldiers in uniforms of the time. The St Chamond and the Schneider are not running yet, but at the Carrousel, one can see every year the only running Tiger tank driving by along with Panthers and other German armored vehicles.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New interesting French blog: www.livresdeguerre.net. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weird armored machines: a japanese wheels and tracks combo, a human tank....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alpine 500 Vintage car Rally - 2007 - Last edition (?)
Below links to pictures of the 2007 edition of this wonderful North Californian Rallye! Thank you Norm!
I took my Renault instead, and with my two navigators, totalling 19 years old together, we went on a Fiat support rampage.
Even the poor 850 Abarth TC had some issues....electrical, oil , or SPEED! :-)
The souped up Fiat 500 did pretty good at a steady 55 / 60 mph but eventually blew a differential 30 miles from Tahoe, at the end of Day 1.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8099847@N03/ http://picasaweb.google.com/cacciar/2007Alpine500 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -Vous, Français, vous vous battez pour de l'argent. Et nous, Anglais, nous nous battons pour l'honneur. (You, French, only fight for money! We, the Brits, always fight for honor! One always fights for what he lacks.... Surcouf) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- St Wendel, Saarland, Germany, home of the 1ier Regiment de Cuirassiers where I commanded my Tank Company. This card is dated 1956 and the second building from the left was my company!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nice piece, isn't it? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Italian, WW1... what else???? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This looks like the drivetrain and chassis of the WW1 French tank St Chamond being tested by the French military!
And here is the answer:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lieutenant de Vaisseau L'Herminier was a Navy man, a man born for the sea, for the ocean. His career in the French navy took him "Entre ciel et mer" ("between sky and sea" actual title of his biography!), from the 340mm turrets of heavy post WW1 armored cruisers, to Naval infantry in Shanghai protecting French nationals in a civil war torn China. He was also trained as a Torpedo and Electrical specialist, developed air to sea torpedo delivery, and trained Navy pilots. Eventually he escaped from Toulon with the submarine Casabianca when the Germans invaded the French "free zone" and ended up in North Africa running missions for the French Commandos and the American OSS. The Casabianca, under his command, took a critical part in the Liberation of the island of Corsica, smuggling weapons and agents at night during repeated high-risk missions. L'Herminier needed surgery. His legs were failing him due to blood circulation problems but he only went to seek the crucial medical care once Corsica had been free and his mission was over. Unfortunately, it was too late and he lost both legs to amputation. Between life and death for months, he was finally found stable enough for the Americans to fly him to the new US Naval hospital of Philadelphia where he was eventually fit with revolutionary prosthesis. There, he was treated as a hero and in 1946, he was awarded the American Legion of Merit by General "Wild Bill Donovan" head of the OSS soon to become the architect of the CIA.
L'Herminier was not even Corsican and he risked his life - and sacrificed both legs - for the island he loved.
You don't need to be Corsican to fight for it! You don't need to be Corsican to love Corsica! You don't need to blow bombs to protect it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Did you know? Douglas Fairbanks Jr. served in the US Navy in Corsica during the Second World War. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Never fight fair! Navy SEAL’s stories of combat and adventure” Orr Kelly 1995 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the West caost of the "Cap" , not far from Canari. The "Marine de Giotani" (port of Giotani) is seen on the bottom right. The airplanes are bound to Italy or Germany.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Did you know? The FBI was created in 1908 by a Corsican, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, grand son of Jerome Bonaparte, one of Napoleon I 's brothers.Born in 1851, in Baltimore, Charles graduated from Harvard university and taught law before becoming a lawyer. He joined the Indian affairs commission thereafter, before becoming Secretary of the Navy for T Roosevelt in 1905. In 1906 he was nominated Attorney general, a position he held until 1908. During his tenure, he created the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He died in 1921. When asked by the president to make sure that the candidates would be sharp shooters, he jokingly offered to gather all the candidates in the same room with guns and orders to try to kill each other. As per that plan, only the survivors would make the file and ranks of the new agency. (FBI.COM History of the FBI)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perfect stories for air force buffs: WW1: First Lieutenant Anselme Marchal had special skills...he pioneered the psy-op from the air, getting his kicks flying low over German trenches and dropping thousands of leaflets...that was WW1 and, again (sorry ), we are talking about a Frenchie. WW2, the Germans are rushing in France. At that time France had 3 long range airplane prototypes designed for cross Atlantic trips. One was painted black and from the western shores of France, was daily flown all the way North around England and South behind German lines to observe and report battle field Intel before returning. One day, before Paris fell, that airplane was fitted with a single 30 cal "Camembert fed" MG on its side door and loaded with 100s of incendiary bomblets. It flew all the way North. The Captain opened his enveloppe: objective Berlin. REf: Le Jules Verne, avion corsaire by Henri Yonnet, edition France Empire,
http://www.blinkynet.net/spag/verne.html Cocorico! (that is how roosters speak in French - common French expression of pride or victory - The rooster is one of the French symbol, the only bird that keeps singing when knee deep in poop! :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another wooden tank made by the Germans in WW1 for instruction purpose. Caption says: "Mouzon (Ardennes) after the war, a tank that was used for the training of the cadets of the Artillery Academy installed in the old nunery des Capucins by the Geramns"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dummy FT17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESSAY: the only German tank fielded during WW1: the mighty A7V !
Weapons: 1 5,7 gun - 6 Maxim machine guns Crew: 18 (Driver, commander, mechanic, signaler, 12 machine gunners [6 gunners, 6 loaders], 2 cannon gunners [gunner and loader]) Length: 24ft.1in. (7.34m)* Width: 10ft.05in. (3.07m)* Height: 10ft.10in. (3.3m)* Weight: 30 to 33 tons* Power To Weight Ratio: 6.8hp/ton Speed: 6mph (9kph) Tankage: 500 liters Range: 20-50 miles Trench: 7ft. (2.3m) Ground Clearance: 15.75in. (40cm, sometimes as low as 20cm) * These statistics can vary ( though not by much ) due to the variations in production of the A7V source: http://members.aol.com/sturmpnzr/wwone.html Three versions of the A7V base are know: Transport, Trench digger and Anti Aicraft gun platform.
------------------ I spent some time trying to identify them on the original postcards I own... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recent acquisition Transport version. of the A7V...latest acquisition from Europe:
Can you identify this one? poubelle4yermel@hotmail.com(remove before emailing) --------------------
# 529, "Nixe 2" had a Rochling hull (1 plate per side, opposed to the 5 plated sides made by Krupp). Sources reported it lost at Reims May 31, 1918. It was eventually recovered by American forces and shipped to the Aberdeen Proving ground Tank Museum, where, for some reason, it was scrapped in 1942! Interesting enough, the postcard says that the "Nixe 2" was captured on the road of Neufchatel, next to Reims, by French soldiers from the 100th Infantry during the May 29th allied offensive.
This is my latest acquisition (Jan 05), a card of Nixe2. Look at the front right missing track skirt and the burn patterns around the rear side German cross plus other paint blemishes. -------------------- # 542 "Elfriede" was a 5 plated Krupp armored A7V. It was lost at Villers Bretonneux April 24, 1918 when it tipped over. "Mephisto", # 506, was also hit that day and the withrawing Germans send sappers to destroy "Elfriede". Unfortunately for the Germans, the sappers finished off "Mephisto" and left "Elfriede" in allied hand and running condition. The British and French forces tested it for a while and # 542 ended up in Paris for the victory display in 1918. It was scrapped in 1919. "Mephisto" was recovered by the Aussies and shipped in Australia where it remains the only original A7V in the world (Queensland Museum)..
Reverse of above card....
------------------ "Mephisto" is the only surviving one at the Queensland Museum in Australia....
...and the German Panzer Museum of Munster buildt its own replica...no #, no name...
-------------------- This one is....obvious! This is # 543 "Hagen", "Konig Wilhelm","Adalbert", for some sources, or "Bulle" (April 1918) renamed "Adalbert" in May 18, for other sources; # 543 was a 5 lateral panel Krupp design scraped by the Allies in 1919.
------------------- # 504, "Schnuck" is a only 5 plated Krupp armored A7V built with jagged mud flaps.It was actually the deffective body of # 544 put together with a chassis as the # 504. It was lost at Fremicourt in 1918, captured by New Zealanders and taken to London by British soldiers, and scrapped in 1919. Ifound a picture of "Schnuck" and it looks like it did not have a turret, like the one on the postcard. Does the postcard show #504?
------------------- This is "LOTTI", or # 527, that ended up stranded Sept 22, 1918 in front of the "Fort de la Pompelle", near Reims. The crew abandoned it just before the French Artillery scored a direct hit to its turret. "Lotti" is the only one destroyed that way according to my research and that postcard was handwritten with the information: char boche pres de Reims, that is to say Kraut (German) tank near Reims. La Pompelle was a major French fort holding one of the access to Reims and the Germans not only lost "Lotti" there, but also a couple of captured British tanks. La Pompelle never fell and is now a museum worth a visit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Renault FT17 in Afghanistan...2004! A junkyard around Kabul shows 2 Ft17 Renault (in bad shape....). The US has taken one (or the two) to the ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND museum. 2 more FT17 have also been found by my source and are in a far better shape, bringing the total to 4. It is argued that these tanks are Fiat 3000, FT17 build by Italy after WW1. The road wheel assembly on the Fiat looks different when compared to the 4 tanks displayed below, Compare the shapes of the sprocket and lower road wheel assembly beam. This is a Fiat 3000 B...compare the road wheel assembly with a FT17!
The FT17 in Afghanistan.... 2 in one junkyard...
and another FT17 in good shape at the entrance of some barracks in Afghanistan...
and the last one....
|
Just pardon my French and go for the ride
Seal Two was not really good at conducting “good ship attacks” and during a 1981 Flintock exercise, with German and Dutch “kampf swimmers”, they really embarrassed themselves and were unable to complete any of their combat swimmer operations. Luckily, for the first time in a decade, Seal Two had an exchange with their French counterpart and sent some of its Seals to the “commando hiver” course in Toulon, a major port and Navy base in the Mediterranean Sea, between Nice and Marseille.
USS CORSICA 
Formation over the "Cap Corse" 
NEW: two wooden mockups of the A7V! Were they made to confuse allied forces or were they extra wooden "prototypes" showing the actual size of the beast. This is an actual photo postcard! 
--
The postcard....I need some help for that one!!!
The picture...5 plates too...the front left of the tank shows 2 similar marks above the mud flap.
