Feldgrau.net

I feel that the term, elite, is often severely misused. For an organisation to be labelled 'elite', its record and performance should really be compared with some established norms. For example, some time ago, a news reporter described 'Elite Haitian paratroops...' -well, Haitian paratroops may well...

It's a final-pattern SS eagle, worn on the front crown of a peaked cap.

I'll try and dig up the dates when the second-pattern death's head and cap eagle were introduced, which should give you a means of roughly dating photographs. Other methods include changes to the style of the collar and collerpatch cord, and the uniform style.

The peak-caps' death's head badge, worn by the SS, evolved from a forward-facing skull without a discernable lower jaw, to a semi-profile (ie: partly facing to its right) with a lower jaw. The SS also had two different types of cap eagle, starting with a small wingspan, 'political', eagle, which evo...

The British Armed Forces always allocate operational code names completely randomly, so that the nature of the operation cannot be deduced from the code name. Hence, the British code name for the operation to liberate Kuwait was 'Operation Granby', which contrasts markedly from the US code name, 'Op...

In 'Pearl Harbour', the hero serves with the RAF in the Battle of Britain. No USAAF officers served in the Battle of Britain; the Americans were all volunteers.

The problem is that the Spitfire (together, perhaps, with the Lancaster) has become something of a legend in Britain and, to some extent, rightly so. Individuals who don't know one aeroplane from another are almost guaranteed to have heard of, even if they cannot recognise, a Spitfire. Further, beca...

German paratroops were part of the Luftwaffe, and used that organisation's rank structure. As flying troops, their waffenfarbe (branch-of-service colour) -worn on their collar tabs and as piping to shoulder straps- was yellow.

In 'The Winds of War', the American hero sits on an open-topped double-decker bus, in London, and passes the Canadian High Commission which is sporting the modern Canadian flag....

The 'piping' on the collar is flat woven metallic tape, and was worn by all NCOs in the army, air force, and Waffen-SS. It was not unique to the LAH. However, many uniform books state that this tape was only worn on the Waffen-SS's black panzer uniforms by NCOs in the LAH.

Or, better still, "You're" quite right, of course!

Your quite right, of course...

England didn't win the Battle of Britain. Britain did.

I strikes me as incredibly naive to think that the Waffen-SS was controlled by '...people with the interests of Western Europeans at heart'! I doubt that the populations of occupied western Europe considered that their interests were being 'guarded' by the Nazi leadership. The 'young volunteers', to...

A chevron was also worn on the lower right sleeve of SS-VT and SS-TV NCOs who were appointed 'Der Speiss'.