[ARC5] Disposition of surplus aircraft, Europe WWII

Wed Sep 20 17:21:15 EDT 2023

Siegfried Knappe's memoir "Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949"  contains a large section covering his experiences as a long-held POW in the USSR.   He was a relatively important officer at the end of the war and was probably better-treated than non-officers (in hopes of getting a "conversion" or inside information on the situation in Berlin at the end) - but his experience was still awful.  If I recall correctly, he mentions seeing Japanese prisoners in an adjacent, much more primitive, camp.

Hue, I suspect the letters from these POWs would cover only mundane and non-controversial topics.  This book and others made it clear that if a prisoner wrote about anything those in power did not like, not only did the letter not get sent on to their friends or family, but in fact they lost the privilege of future communications and were in some cases seriously punished.  That would have a very chilling effect on the contents of the letters home.  

http://www.wd8das.net/Soldat_dedication.png

Steve WD8DAS   

sbjohnston at aol.com   
http://www.wd8das.net/   http://af4k-crystals.com/   
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    On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 03:47:15 PM CDT, <arc5-request at mailman.qth.net> wrote:  

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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: Disposition of surplus aircraft, Europe WWII (Hubert Miller)

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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2023 20:46:36 +0000
From: Hubert Miller <Kargo_cult at msn.com>
To: "arc5 at mailman.qth.net" <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>,
    "milsurplus at mailman.qth.net" <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Disposition of surplus aircraft, Europe WWII
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    <CO6PR19MB54348F3FDE08639DE2DC33D4E4F9A at CO6PR19MB5434.namprd19.prod.outlook.com>

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Steve, and anyone else interested: those are very interesting subjects, and i have not really seen one solid source of info.
I recall the 'Banzai' newsletter had a brief article, or mention maybe, of Japanese on both sides in postwar Indochina; 
both maintaining order ( "order" ? ) until the French reinvested; and both supplying weapons and some volunteers 
that joined the Viet Minh. That was news to me. There are some memoirs or comments by Japanese who were kept in 
the USSR until about the same time as the last Germans were released, 1955. With similar death rates, i understand;
which you would expect. 

Digression: i recall maybe 15 years ago, someone was selling a Japanese army type 94-3A field transmitter - receiver. 
At the time, i balked at paying the $1500, which i was crazy for declining, and it went to Japan. The particularly 
intriguing thing was the seller identified the radio as being built in occupied China. Which seems unlikely as hell now
but that's what he said, and i assume he had the markings translated. Now we shall never know for sure, or right now
i'm thinking i need to ask someone in Japan. 

I had a 1948 "World Radio TV Handbook" which i sold for $1000 about a decade ago. This was a softcover book with
broadcast listings; the early editions seem to be pretty rare, but 1970s on editions are all over the place. I actually regret
selling it now; i mean, it didn't take up much space and i could always have sold it later down the line. Mistake. But one 
interesting thing was the listings for Asia of special broadcasts for former Japanese military. I gather the process of 
bringing them all home was still going on.

Somewhat off topic; i bought a few years back a packet of letters taken from German POWs in Russia. I thought they
would be real interesting to read. Except, they are written in Sutterlin, a cursive German script which is difficult to 
decipher, plus then you have the individual variances in skill and neatness and so on. I could barely make out a word 
or two. Learning Sutterlin is somewhere on the to-do list but for now, on the back burner. I made out a couple sentences
from some letters that i thought were intriguing. One blamed a specific group for the continuing war, a crazy hallucinatory
notion when a Reich goal was exterminating that people. Another letter in mid 1944 raved about how interesting the
German move "Immensee" was. I would have thought mid-1944 there were much more pressing concerns in Germany
than a big hit at the movie theater. Maybe i expected revelations and insights that i should not have expected.

Maybe if anyone is interested in subjects like 'repatriation' we could keep each others' address and pass on references
as we came across them.
-Hue Miller 

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