Thanks, Harold,

for starting a new interesting post on history on this particularly day.

1st of September 1939, one of the biggest as....le of all times, a.h. said: "Seit 5:45 wird jetzt zurückgeschossen!"

No war, anymore, anywhere, please!

And no, Harold, i don't mean this offensive, as you should know

This date in 1945, the war was over but there were many battles ahead. When would we be real civilians again? What part would we play in making the world fit for "heroes" to live in, and how soon? How long would rationing continue? Would we have buses, trams and cars on the roads? Would the street lamps be lit up again? Would the patched-up houses be made whole again? There were schools and universities to show us the way forward but how would they be staffed? There were many questions but few answers.

Why, indeed - as Big Brother said, "War is peace," the old pleasure and pain theory. He who knows nothing of war will not be grateful for peace. Going back one year more:

Sunday, 3rd September 1944
We did not notice Armentieres because we had not passed it. It is on the Belgian border, west of the Menin Gate. In much of the Pas de Calais, French is a second language to Flemish – which makes sense of the words “Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez vous?” Now we were at a standstill, consolidating the gains of the last six days’ mad dash (the “Great Swan”) from Normandy, with small detachments swanning around by day to pick up P.O.W.s, liberated political prisoners and the occasional casualty or perhaps the occasional traitor. Simple collaborators we could leave to the civil authorities. Some of them had been collaborating in order to gain information for passing on to Colonel Buckmaster of SOE.

Thirty years before, our fathers and uncles were stuck in this area, suffering four years of shot and shell with no prospect of advancing and no end in sight, only to achieve a phony peace, which, according to A. H. (which initials can be interpreted either of the two ways suggested by Tommunich) caused the next war

I suspect this is an anonymous quotation and is not completely out of place, but what events of this date have made this impression on your thoughts?

Exactly what happened!

This thread is either like your diary or quote of the day!

You say "Thought for the Day" and talk "On this Day"
Which? and what is new?