WW2 Anniversary, Andre Ouelette's Expense Accounts, Morgantaler's 'Honourary' Degree

Interesting bits and pieces about the end of WW11

The returning Algerian veterans, who had fought for France, began demonstrating for independence. The riots led to a hundred Europeans being killed. On May 8, 1945, the French retaliated with air and ground attacks that massacred between 18,000 and 20,000 Algerians. Ironically their massacre began on VE Day.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian troops taken as prisoners by the Nazis, were handed over to the occupying Russian army by the Allies. Some were shot outright and the rest were sent to Siberian concentration camps. Earlier, when Stalin was told by the underground that his son had surrendered and was being kept in Dachau, he said, "I have no son." On hearing his father's retort, the son committed suicide.

Even after it was announced that Hitler was dead, Canadian troops had to keep on fighting the Nazis in Holland. This series of battles created two of the most astonishing tales of Canadian valour. While the word "hero" has been terribly debased, it isn't when talking about these two soldiers. One was an English-Canadian named Aubrey Cosens of the Queens Own Rifles. He single-handledly stormed a German fortress in Mooshof, Holland. Before he was killed by a sniper's bullet, he killed or captured dozens of German soldiers. For this gallant action he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross--the military's highest honour.

Of equal merit were the magnificent exploits of Leo Major, a French-Canadian. Leo lost an eye during the Normany invasion, but refused to be evacuated back to England. In the Battle of the Scheldt, he captured 93 Germans, but he refused on principle to accept the decoration offered. Montgomery, the British Field-Marshal, was going to personally present it to him. However, Major thought Montgomery was militarily incompetent, so refused it. Incredible as that sounds, his story does not end there. With a friend, Willy Arsenault, he scouted out the German positions in the town of Zwolle. When Arsenault was cut down by machine gun fire, an infuriated Major rushed the gunners, killing two and putting to flight the rest. When he reached Zwolle, he attacked German patrols and ran through the street tossing grenades into empty buildings to give the impression of a large attack. When he stumbled into the SS headquarters by mistake, he killed four of them, while the rest ran away. By four in the morning, Mr. Major realized the Germans had fled the town. He had liberated it. This time he did accept The Distinguished Conduct medal--second only to the Victoria Cross in merit, and one of only three awarded to British Commonwealth troops during the entire war. He went on to collect a second DCM, when he led his company in capturing an enemy hill in Korea. Quite a guy! A true hero.

The orgy of rape, looting and general violence that the Russians indulged in during their occupation of East Germany is well documented. Stalin considered it all to be fair recompense for the suffering of the Russian people at the hands of the Nazis. However there were comedic episodes also. This story was related to me by my good friend, Joszi, who was living in Budapest when the Russians "liberated" Hungary. His family was forced to billet Russian soldiers in their house. One day, Joszi heard the rat-a-tat of a machine gun upstairs. He discovered a Russian who had been washing his wooden false teeth in the toilet (he had never seen one before, so thought it was a wash basin). Unfortunately, the soldier had hit the flush button and his precious teeth went down. In his fury he blasted the toilet to pieces with his gun. The soldier claimed that a demon had snatched his teeth, so he killed it. Joszi everafter referred to these soldiers as "far beyond the mountains of civilization".

General De Gaulle, the commander of the Free French, was allowed to enter the freed city of Paris as a liberator; even though he had done practically nothing to win France's freedom. In fact, he was universally cursed by the real heroes of the resistence for allowing their comrades to be slaughtered in the south-eastern mountain region. De Gaulle had promised them an airlift of ammunition and food if they held down a German force. He reneged and the defenders were wiped out. De Gaulle falls into that category that saw every French whore who infected a German and every shopkeeper who cheated them as resistance fighters.

As often as I criticize the Arabs for mindlessly firing their guns in the air, it must be noted that the same thing happened in Okinawa on VJ Day. The Americans fired endless rounds into the air, which caused over 200 American casualties--and who knows how many Japanese ones.

© Bud Talkinghorn




Andre Ouelette's expense receipts are in the snail mail

Speaking of news that CBC doesn't warrant as important, there has not been a single penny of Andre Ouelette's $2 million expense claim accounted for. Canada Post's demand for receipts from its ex-chairman has gone nowhere. Just another item that Paul Martin hasn't gotten to the bottom of yet. By the way, Ouelette's predecessor claimed only around $15,000 in expenses, but than he wasn't Chretien's best boy.

© Bud Talkinghorn




"When Canadians want the whole story, they turn to CBC"

This claim that precedes every CBC half-hourly news update is patently false. You get the news that CBC wants you to hear and it is, indeed, heavily filtered. Not only does the CBC not give you news that might offend the sensibilities of its rather rarified audience, it creates news that fits its leftist agenda. Every day, in every way, it spins its leftish viewpoint. A classic example was seen a few days ago, when reporting President Bush's trip to Belarus. The second sentence that popped out of the anchor's mouth was, "Well, not everybody in the country was cheering his visit." To substantiate this sound bite was a camera shot of about 20 demonstrators waving a banner that called Bush a warmonger. To zero in on such a ragtag group and present them as a credible representation of Belarusian opposition is laughable. But CBC is so anti-American that a single protestor would have sufficed. I sincerely hope, should the Conservatives prevail, that they will weed out this hopelessly biased staff and make Mother Corp's news one that all Canadians can respect.

© Bud Talkinghorn




Granting Dr. Morgantaler an honoury degree

I can't imagine what the University of Western Ontario was thinking when they came up with this idea. Here is a man who escaped death in a Nazi concentration camp, then set up clinics to abort unwanted children. Does he not make the connection between how the Nazis had no compunction about gassing millions of Jews because they too were undesirable and what he is doing with undesirable foetuses? I realize that a certain segment of the university's profs and students would consider abortion a "progressive" social step; however there would be an equal number who consider it plain murder.

© Bud Talkinghorn

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