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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Best of Polish Trains was "Śmiały" it was one of the new armor trains in europe in 1939.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

A couple more

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There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says "Yes", you know he's a crook. Groucho Marx

and a couple more


If you watch "Kelly's Heroes" you can see a tatra or two when Oddball & company shoot up that train station.

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There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says "Yes", you know he's a crook. Groucho Marx

is a bit ‘off topic" as per Trains in WW2, and I know it, but kind of heartwarming to read and understand the commitment and sacrifice these ladies made to the war effort. In the first days of WW2, Christmas Day of 1941, the people of North Platte Nebraska heard that a Union Pacific troop train would be coming through their town and stopping for water. It was supposed to be carrying the Nebraska National Guard section in which their sons, boy friends, husbands, and brothers were on. It was incorrect info., it was carrying the Kansas National Guard boys, but when the train stopped they simply greeted the boys as if they were their own, and gave them the homemade stuff they had produced for their own town’s boys. And the North Platte Canteen was born.

The North Platte Canteen was simply a stop along the Union Pacific Railroad. Troop Trains during WWII would spend 10 minutes during their east west voyage to get water and coal for the steam engines. While the trains refueled, soldiers were allowed to exit the trains & visit the Canteen. The Canteen was a completely spontanious volunteer organization. Community members from North Platte & neighboring towns would staff and stock the canteen with homemade food, music, and company for the soldiers. During the fifty month plus era of the Canteen, every single train was met, day or night, serving hundreds of thousands of members regardless of race or gender of the American Armed forces; including the Army, National Guard, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard from December 25, 1941 to April 1, 1946.

Here is a link which covers most of the story of this non-government supported, simply volunteer effort of the people of Nebraska and surrounding states, they got into a sort of competition to see which small town could donate and deliver the most "goodies" to the effort. There was only one donation from a prominent American, FDR sent them a five dollar bill from his own wallet!

To raise money for the Canteen, North Platte citizens held scrap drives, collecting and selling metal, paper and rubber. They held benefit dances and pie socials. Businesses donated appliances to help store food, and the Union Pacific donated their old closed cafe section to the cause. There was one young man went to the weekly stockyard auctions and auctioned off the shirt off his back, then got it back and auctioned it off the next week. No government money was used, and no federal agency organized the volunteers.

North Platte Canteen | American Homefront in World War II Summary

While this site lists "only" 600,000, other sites seem to have 6 million as the number, and even the average number of service personnel stated on that site is far over 600,000 when you figure the place operated for about 50 months, non-stop! I think someone mis-placed a zero or something!

"…Volunteers from North Platte and 125 farming communities from around Nebraska came to the canteen. They took turns preparing meals for the GIs. The locals would stay up all night cooking chicken and "in an assembly line they would make hundreds or thousands of sandwiches in a day," Greene says.

There was even time for a bit of socializing. "There was a piano in the corner of the canteen and they would play the piano and the men would dance with these girls for 10 minutes," Greene says.

The men received popcorn balls with little slips of paper tucked inside with the addresses of local high school girls or young women for the soldiers to write to. In researching his book, Greene says he even found two women who ended up marrying men who found their names in the popcorn balls."

From:

NPR : North Platte's War Effort

Bob Greene wrote a fabulous book called Once Upon A Town about this remarkable place. It was so remarkable, in fact, that many a World War II soldier would talk about the Canteen to other soldiers and more often than not would get an enthusiastic, "I've been there! It was wonderful" Years later, when Greene found these veterans and interviewed them about the Canteen, they choked up, tears coming to their eyes, as they recalled the overwhelming kindness shown to them by those small-town Nebraskans.

I have to admit, that after the first time I watched the PBS special on the Canteen, I saw when it was coming on again and just put it on VHS tape for myself. I just saw it again on PBS, and even though I have it on tape, I watched again!

If anyone wishes to get a copy on DVD simply goto this site offered by PBS and get it sent to yourself! You will NOT be disappointed:

Shop PBS - Shop by Topic: History: United States: The Canteen Spirit DVD

Hope you find it as "touching and selfless" as I did. Mayhaps we Americans today would do well to remember that time, rather than the "me first" time of these.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

Thanks for the nice addition Clint. Always good to see the human side of things when it comes to the war.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

"We're going to Poland to get rid of Jews" (or something like that?)

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

It is hard to make out that final word, it looks kind of like; "versohlen", but that cannot be right. The rest of it, even to my rusty German appears to say "We drive into Poland to (versohlen) the Jews." It is the final word which would tell what they were going to do to the Jewish Citizens of Poland, and that word seems obscured/blurred.

So while what the painted on the train car shows they had some intent as per the Juden, what happened historically makes that word a "negative" no matter what it is.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

I think that where I found this they may have mentioned that the word translated to the Term "Spanked".

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

That makes a kind of left-handed sense. Resole a shoe? put a new shine on a bottom? Perhaps a local "slang"?

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Opppss I meant "spank" not "spanked".

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

There we go: "spank". So the logo seems to read ""We drive into Poland to spank the Jews."

Thanks for that, even though my German language education is many decades old, and school taught, the action seemed to be almost "benificial" on first reading, as in resole shoes or something.

If some native German speaker would come on the thread and correct it, that would be cool too.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

No Prob there my friend. It does make more sense LOL. We may have to wait for a "native German" speaker though.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.