Tuesday 11 December 2012

Second World War- Real shortstory


Norway lost around 11 000 people during the second WW which is about 0.32 percent of the population, and mostly of the people who died, died on merchant marines. Britain lost about 450,900 people totally during the second WW, where the largest amount of people died in the Military. The United Stated lost around 418.500 people, mostly in the military, which is approximately 0.32 percent of the population. So Norway and The United States both lost 0.32 percent of their population, but there are a lot more people in the United States which means that a lot more people died in the United States than in Norway. We can see that Britain lost most people, and that a huge amount died in the military, so then I would think that without Britain´s help, Norway would perhaps have lost a much larger amount of people in the war. Britain lost a lot of people by fighting and helping other countries, so they sacrificed a lot to help for example Norway. The United States also lost a great amount of people in the Second WW.

Still writing in the theme of the second WW, we have read a real story told from a person who had participated in second WW on the British side, and who had been in Norway during the war. The story I read was about a man who joined The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) which is the volunteer reserve force of the Royal Navy (RN) in the United Kingdom, when he was twenty years old, and then served in His Majesty's Ship when the war started. The story was a bit hard to understand with some difficult descriptions, but it seems like the British man in the start of the war was going to escort several groups of ships to Bergen (since Norway was neutral), and then to Britain. This was his first visit in Norway. Then he tells that at the outbreak of the invasion of Norway by Germany in 1940 he and some others from His Majesty´s Ship was ordered to Norway as anti-aircraft cover for relieving British land forces for the capture of Narvik. Then it´s hard to understand exactly what they did, but it seems like they started transporting several groups of ships from Tromsø to Harstad. He then tells that he was member of a gun-crew on a boat, and that there was a bomb exploding really close to the ship, so him and some others was hit by shrapnel. 
He was hit in his around his hip, and was transported to a hospital in Harstad. In the rest of the story he tells about all the hospitals he was transferred to, but in the end that he remembers the all the things on the first hospital in Harstad.
I thought this story was interesting because it´s a real story, but some of the things in the text was hard to understand sometimes, but I think I managed to understand the most important things!
The story was very well written, but for me it was hard to understand sometimes because of all the things they had special names for in the war. I have learned about second WW in school of course, but I think some of the names and words get a bit to advance for me. Also I didn´t quite understand whether the man got bad injured or just slightly injured. But the text was very interesting from what I understood!

Here is a link to the story:

In the end I thought I would tell something about the tour I went on with the White Buses in 10th grade! On the trip we went to a couple concentration- camps such as Auschwitz and Ravensbruck. It was very interesting to see and hear about all the happenings, and how they lived in the camps, at the same time as it was horrible. They lived under extremely bad conditions, and I can´t imagine how the winters must have been from the prisoners there without almost any clothes when we were freezing in the fall when we had a lot more clothes than them! For each place we visited we had a guide who told us about the horrible stories and for each place we went we had a sort of ceremony where someone sang and then laid a bouquet of flowers on a memory spot.  The trip was interesting, and we visited a lot of places, but it´s been a while since I went there so it is hard to write more detailed descriptions. But I would recommend a trip like that to get more understanding for what happened during the Second World War. 

4 comments:

  1. Hi Katinka, My name is Dominick Smith and I attend Beaver Country Day School in Massachusetts, USA. I read the story that you posted on your blog and I found it very interesting. It was incredible to hear about all of the near-death experiences that the British Soldier had. After reading about everything that the soldier went through to recover from his injury to his hip, I feel very lucky to be healthy and to have access to good healthcare; the soldier was in various hospitals for more that two years to recover from his injuries! I also thought that it was very interesting to learn about the very specific events of the war that the soldier remembered. As we both live in nations that are very safe today, learning about the terrifying ordeals faced by the soldier is quite valuable. I think that the part of the story that I found most shocking is that the soldiers' mother would rather that he be dead than to never walk again; maybe it was just a very different time or culture, but I would never expect a mother to wish death upon her own child.

    Despite the fact that my father is from England, I have only been to Europe three or four times, and during those trips I never went to any WWII museums or historical sites. After reading about your experience at the various concentration camps, I am compelled to travel to Europe at some point in my life to tour the concentration camps and other historical sites.
    Dom

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    1. Thank you for commenting on my blog post! I am glad you found it interesting, and yes, I was also shocked that the soldier´s mother would rather that he be dead than to never walk again!

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  2. Nice post Katinka. I agree the story seems very interesting. I think Dominick's comment is interesting too. Comparing how lucky we are to live in both Norway and the Usa today. Let's hope Dominick gets to visit some of these camps as well!

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  3. Hi again Katinka,
    below is a link to my class blog, where I recently posted a comment regarding Japanese Internment in the United States. Please read my post (it is split into two separate posts because it didn't fit into one), and feel free to read any others and post a comment or two.
    Thanks,
    Dom
    http://brownww2literature.blogspot.com/2013/01/safety-first-really.html?showComment=1358189379965

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