The Nation Newspaper

Tag: World War II

  • German authorities defuse World War II era bomb in Berlin

    German authorities defuse World War II era bomb in Berlin

    Some 10,000 people were returning to their homes on Tuesday after they were evacuated so that a 250-kilogramme aerial bomb dating back to World War II could be defused and removed from a construction site in West Berlin.

    The bomb was discovered near south-west Berlin’s Innsbruecker Platz square on Monday, prompting authorities to cordon off the area within a 500-metre radius and evacuate people in the surrounding residential buildings and patients in a home for the elderly.

    The fire brigade and the police said in separate statements overnight to Tuesday that the bomb had been successfully defused and that 450 people were involved in the effort, which took several hours.

    Underground and suburban rail traffic was disrupted, and officers went house to house to ensure that the area was cleared before disposal experts moved in.

    More than 70 years after the end of the war, unexploded ordnance is regularly found buried in Germany, a legacy of the intense bombing campaigns by Allied forces against Nazi Germany.

    At least 60,000 people were evacuated in central Frankfurt in September, the biggest operation of its kind in post-war Germany, after a 1.8-tonne British bomb nicknamed “Wohnblockknacker,” or blockbuster, was discovered.

    In May, 50,000 residents were ordered out of their homes in the northern city of Hanover over several WWII-era bombs.

    And on Christmas Day 2016, the discovery of an unexploded 1.8-tonne British bomb prompted the evacuation of 54,000 people in the southern city of Augsburg.

  • Wreckage of U.S. WWII warship found after 72yrs

    Wreckage of U.S. WWII warship found after 72yrs

    Civilian researchers led by entrepreneur and philanthropist Paul Allen have announced they have found the wreck of the U.S. World War II warship, cruiser USS Indianapolis, which was lost on July 30, 1945.

    The U.S. Department of Defence in a statement on Sunday, described the discovery as “significant”.

    “This is a significant discovery considering the depth of the water in the area in which the ship was lost: more than 18,000 feet.

    “About 800 of the ship’s 1,196 sailors and Marines survived the sinking, but after four to five days in the water – suffering exposure, dehydration, drowning and shark attacks – only 316 survived,” the department said.

    The wreck was located by the expedition crew of Research Vessel Petrel, which is owned by Allen, 2,000 feet below the surface, resting on the floor of the North Pacific Ocean, it said.

    Allen was quoted as saying: “To be able to honor the brave men of the USS Indianapolis and their families through the discovery of a ship that played such a significant role in ending World War II is truly humbling.

    “As Americans, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the crew for their courage, persistence and sacrifice in the face of horrendous circumstances.

    “While our search for the rest of the wreckage will continue, I hope everyone connected to this historic ship will feel some measure of closure at this discovery so long in coming.”

    According to the department, the ship was lost in the final days of World War II when it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the early morning hours of July 30, 1945.

    It explained that the war ship sank in 12 minutes, making it impossible to send a distress signal or deploy much of its life-saving equipment.

    Prior to the attack, the Indianapolis had just completed a secret mission delivering components of the atomic bomb used in Hiroshima that ultimately would help to end the war in the Pacific, it said.

    The department quoted Sam Cox, Director of the Naval History and Heritage Command as saying: “Even in the worst defeats and disasters, there is valor and sacrifice that deserves to never be forgotten,”

    “They can serve as inspiration to current and future sailors enduring situations of mortal peril.

    “There are also lessons learned – and in the case of the Indianapolis, lessons re-learned – that need to be preserved and passed on, so the same mistakes can be prevented and lives saved.”

    According to the department, other researchers have searched for Indianapolis in the past.

    “Among the elements that made this effort different was Allen’s recent acquisition and retrofit of the 250-foot R/V Petrel with state-of-the-art subsea equipment capable of diving 3 and a half miles,” it said.

  • Thousands evacuated as German city disposes of World war II bomb

    Thousands evacuated as German city disposes of World war II bomb

    People living within 250 metres of a World War II bomb discovered during construction work in the German city of Dusseldorf are being evacuated while it is being disposed off.

    A police spokesman said officers were checking houses within the exclusion zone on Tuesday to make sure no residents were still at home before work proceeds to dispose off the bomb discovered the day before.

    Police were stationed to watch over the site during the night.

    According to the city council, some 2,300 people were affected, while a spokesman said on Tuesday that a further 4,400 were ordered to stay at home and not go outdoors until the all-clear signal was given.

    Some 80 residents of a care home had to be brought to other facilities as part of the evacuation.

    The WWII aerial bomb was due to be defused at 11 a.m. (0900 GMT).

    Streets were to be cordoned off around the site and public transport restricted during the operation.

  • Hitler’s painting features in Italian art exhibition

    Hitler’s painting features in Italian art exhibition

    An exhibition about art and madness in northern Italy will feature a painting by Adolf Hitler, despite the late German dictator’s work being far from a masterpiece, organisers said on Friday.

    “In art history there have been many artists whose minds were racked by torment.

    They expressed themselves in a visionary and hallucinated language,’’ said notoriously foul-mouthed art critic and TV personality Vittorio Sgarbi, who curated the exhibition titled “Museum of Madness.’’

    Sgarbi told Italian news agency, ANSA, that Hitler’s small oil painting, which is on loan by a private German collector and has never been exhibited before, “is a piece of shit artistically speaking’’ but that it “says a lot about his psyche: There is no grandeur here, only misery.’’

    The painting by Hitler, who turned to politics after being rejected by a fine arts academy in Vienna, will appear next to artworks by the likes of 18th-century Spanish master Francisco Goyaby, U.S. graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and British painter Francis Bacon, as well as several Italian artists.

    The show opens on Saturday and runs through November 19 at the Museo di Salo (MUSA).

    MUSA is located in the Lombardy town of Salo, where Italian dictator Benito Mussolini set up a Nazi-backed puppet state for two years during World War II.

     

  • James Bond film director, Guy Hamiltion, dies at 93

    James Bond film director, Guy Hamiltion, dies at 93

    British film director Guy Hamilton, who worked on four James Bond movies, has died at the age of 93 in Majorca.

    Hamilton directed Sean Connery in “Goldfinger” and “Diamonds are Forever” and Roger Moore in “Live and Let Die” and “The Man with the Golden Gun”.

    He also worked with Michael Caine in the Harry Palmer spy thriller “Funeral in Berlin”.

    He directed two Agatha Christie adaptations: “The Mirror Crack’d” with Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple and “Evil Under the Sun” with Peter Ustinov as Poirot.

    He was British Director Carol Reed’s assistant for five years, but moved to become a director after World War II.

    Hamilton went to school in England but his family lived in France and he started his career in French cinema in the 1930s.