Tag: Singapore

Japan’s lost monuments

jwh197527 Comments

When I began wwiiafterwwii in 2015 this was one of the first things I wished to write on, simply because it interested me. After some thought I decided that it strayed too far from the concept of WWII weapons still in use after 1945.

During 2021 I again wanted to do something on this topic. At that time, there was debate here in the United States as to Civil War monuments. I didn’t wish to see the things conflated so I abandoned it again.

Now in 2023 the topic still interests me. For readers who prefer technical military information, I will return to that focus going forward, this is just a one-off. For other readers, perhaps it will be of value.

This is certainly not every monument Japan built before September 1945, just a representative ten.

1945HMSSwiftsure

(Left: The Japanese monument in Hong Kong lies beyond HMS Swiftsure at the end of WWII. Right: The demolished monument’s stone retaining walls underneath modern housing in Hong Kong.)

1945PtArthur

(Soviet sailors show the colors in Port Arthur after WWII. The Ryojun Loyalty Tower in the background is the only Japanese monument described below still standing in 2023.)

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Cleaning up after WWII

jwh197548 Comments

Since starting wwiiafterwwii, I receive from time to time suggestions for topics. These are wide-ranging but two in particular seem very popular: WWII weapons in the Vietnam War, which has been touched on several times; and a general question of how the world “cleaned up” WWII battlefields after the war. For the latter, I was surprised at how very little is written about it so perhaps this will be of interest.

One of the reasons WWII battlefields did not remain littered with vehicles for long was that, with the lone exception of the USA, all of the major warring powers made some official level of combat usage of captured enemy arms during WWII. The most formal was Germany’s Beutewaffe (literally, ‘booty’ or ‘loot’ weapon) effort, which encompassed everything from handguns to fighter aircraft with an official code in the Waffenamt system; for example FK-288(r) (the Soviet ZiS-3 anti-tank gun), SIGew-251(a) (the American M1 Garand rifle), and Sd.Kfz 735(i) (the Italian Fiat M13/40 tank). Captured gear was assembled at points called Sammelstelle and then shipped back from the front lines for disposition.

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No.5 Mk.I Jungle Carbine: post-WWII use

jwh197532 Comments

Of the whole Lee-Enfield family, the No.5 Mk.I is probably the most obscure variant to enter production, and was certainly the least successful. Only seeing action in the final part of WWII, it went on to have a fairly long postwar career around the world.

cover

kenya2008

(A No.5 Mk.I Jungle Carbine as used by British troops during WWII in 1945, and carried by a Kenyan game warden in 2008 showing the distinctive buttpad.)

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