Bridge of Spies: Will the real James B. Donovan stand up?

Tom Hanks is today’s Everyman good guy movie star – an honest, trustworthy and stand-up white man just like Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck and, yes, even John Wayne. In the recent film Bridge of Spies, one of those “inspired by true events” obfuscations, Hanks plays a certain James B. Donovan. In the movie, Donovan is an insurance lawyer lured into defending Soviet spy Rudolf Abel back in the good old days of the Cold War in order to prove that this is the land of justice and due process. Bridge of Spies, directed by Steven Spielberg, appears to be headed into Oscar territory.

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This day. Remember the Rosenbergs, murdered by the US ruling circles 63 years ago

Crimes of the Cold War | DOUGAL MACDONALD

On June 19, 1953, U.S. citizens Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing Prison in New York on the false charge of conspiring to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The U.S. and Soviet Union were nominally allies against Nazi Germany at the time so the Rosenbergs were actually sentenced to death for passing secrets to a U.S. ally, which makes no sense. But the U.S. was a Soviet ally in name only. It is now well-known that the U.S. ruling circles, which had conspired with Nazi Germany during the war, had decided to openly betray the anti-fascist alliance before the war ended and to rebuild Germany as an anti-communist bulwark against the Soviet Union.

Behold Operation Bagration, D-Day of the Eastern Front

By JOHN WIGHT*

Map of Operation Bagration, showing the massive westward thrust of the Red Army.

Operation Bagration was the D-Day of the Eastern Front. In scope, size, scale and impact, it was a remarkable feat of arms unmatched in WWII.[1]

75th anniversary of D-Day: Attempts to sow divisions dishonour all those who fought together to defeat fascism

By NICK LIN

Allied casualties are helped ashore on the beaches of Normandy, France on D-Day.

June 6 marked the 75th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944, when Britain and the U.S. opened a second front against Nazi Germany with a massive amphibious assault on the beaches of Normandy in occupied France. The Soviet Union, fighting with incredible resilience and sacrifice to the east, had long-awaited this development promised by its allies. It made its own contribution to D-Day with the coordinated Operation Bagration on the eastern front.

D-Day: The road to Berlin

 

British commandos land at Gold Beach on D-Day.

By STAN WINER*

WITH THE INVASION of Normandy on D-Day on June 6, 1944 the terms of warfare in occupied France ceased to be ostensibly those of Hitler and became clearly those of the Allied Expeditionary Force. The cross-channel build-up provided it with at least twice the number of men, four times the number of tanks, and six times the number of aircraft available to the enemy.

Normandy landing and the re-writing of history

By François Lazure*

In an article published on the 70th anniversary of D-Day, military historian Benoît Lemay, of the Royal Military College of Kingston, Ontario pointed out, “There are many misconceptions about the Normandy landing. It is believed to have enabled the Allies to win the Second World War. A more nuanced view is required. In fact, in June 1944, Germany had already lost. The landing only served to accelerate the end of the war. It was the Russians on the Eastern Front who did most of the work. For propaganda reasons, during the Cold War years that followed, the West would try to minimize the Soviet effort. It would be conveyed that it was the Allies who did most of the work.”[1]

75th Anniversary of D-Day: Deepest respects to all who contributed to the defeat of the Nazis in World War II

D-Day landing in Normandy, June 6, 1944.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the World War II allied landing on the coast of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. On this anniversary, Canadians pay deepest respects to all the men and women who contributed to the defeat of the Nazis in Europe. Nearly 150,000 Allied troops landed or parachuted into the invasion area on D-Day, including 14,000 Canadians at Juno Beach. The Royal Canadian Navy contributed 110 ships and 10,000 sailors and the Royal Canadian Air Force contributed 15 fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons to the assault. Total Allied casualties that day reached more than 10,000, including 1,074 Canadians, of whom 359 were killed.