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Q. My Grandfather/Father/Uncle* fought in
Normandy/Phillipines/Italy/Ulan Bator** with
the 542nd/51st/12th** where do I find information
about him and his unit?
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A1. WWII
Researcher's Page
A2. Use internet search engines (try using several
e.g. google,
altavista,
hotbot)
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Q. I have to do an assignment for school
by writing an essay about some aspect of WWII
- can you do it for me because I'm too lazy
to research it properly and I want to play Quake3/Sega/Playstation2*
instead?
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A. No
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Q. I have some item of WWII memorabilia
- how much is it worth?
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A. I have no idea
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Q. I need to do a project on [insert
subject here] - can you send me information
about this topic?
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A. No - Unfortunately I don't have a huge repository
of WWII information ready to send out. Most
of my information is contained in books (remember
those?), and I don't have time to transcribe
or scan the text from these books to send to
you - sorry.
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Q. Why can't I find the names Hitler, Mussolini,
Rommel, Normandy, Dresden, Pearl Harbor**
in your glossary - why aren't they there?
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A. Because they are names of people and locations
rather than WWII terminology - if I was to include
all the names of people and places involved
in WWII it would take rather a long time.
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Q. What does the D in D-Day stand
for?
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A. "Day" - (in the same way as the
H in H-Hour stands for Hour).
In military terms when an operation is planned
the days leading up to the day of execution
of a plan are labelled as, for example, D-10,
D-9, D-8, D-7 and so on, meaning "Day Minus
10, Day Minus 9" etc. right up to D-Day itself.
Similarly the days after an operation are labelled
as D+1, D+2, D+3 etc. This system is used for
two main reasons, one it helps to keep the actual
planned date of an operation secret, and secondly
that date can be changed without having to re-issue
all the associated plans. In the same way in
military planning, the hours leading up to and
following an operation are labelled, H-4, H-3,
H-2, H-1, H-Hour, H+1, H+2, and so on.
Thus the "D" in D-Day stands for
"Day" despite it looking strange, and the H
in H-Hour stands for "Hour". So you will see
that there have actualy been many D-Days in
military history - it's just because this one
was so special it has retained its label.
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Q. Did Adolf Hitler have
a nickname? |
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A. In some circles he was known as the "Teppichfresser"
or "Carpet-Chewer" because of his tendency
in later years to fly into an uncontrollable rage
and have a good bite of the nearest carpet (obviously
I doubt if they called him that to his face). |
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Q. What was the name of
Hitler's Pet Dog? |
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A. Hitler's pet German Shepherd was called "Blondie" |
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Q. When are you going to
finish the Hitler biography? |
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A. Err... you got me there - maybe by the end
of 2007 - it takes an awful long time to research
& write that type of thing y'know. |
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Q. What is your full name
and what are your credentials - I need them as
references for my assignment. |
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A. The name is Phil Stokes of Worcester, UK
- I don't have any formal qualifications in History,
it's just a hobby. |
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*delete as appropriate **or something
similar
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