Learn Something... World War II

I love the internet. I've told you a view times already that I am prone to spending time (too much time) wandering the unmarked roadways of the internet. (Some people might say the whole hyperlink thing makes the roadways very clearly marked however I think of that more as orienteering flags in a forest.) However when I do this I try to find at least one thing that leaves me feeling like I've achieved something or learned something.

Today I found a cool... what I personally call... 'informercial' website. Perhaps not a strictly correct term - there are many other 'look at the my cool list of cool gadget websites that are perhaps more appropriately called informercial websites. However for my purposes an 'informercial' website is some collection of facts (whether hard hitting or completely fluffy) which are assembled into an informative, interactive single page website. These websites fascinate me for many reasons, I wish I could graphic art the way the people who do these do.


Anyway. The one I found today nobody could deny as being pretty hard hitting. It decides to do the multimedia run-down of WWII, rememberthewar.com. Across 30 slides (this one is very much a slide show) the mad, bad and awful is shown in photos, statistics, videos and radio recordings. It is essentially about continuing the awareness of what happened in the war. I've personally seen/heard bits of it before at uni classes and at the Churchill War Rooms in London (if you should be so lucky its definitely worth a look) however it was still a nice overview.

Before some war enthusiasts get all hot and bothered I am not going to call it anything like the be all and end all. However if you want a nice, light-weight (as in not reading - there is nothing light-weight about the actual information of the second world war) reminder that WWII was a real event. (If you are a holocaust conspiracy theorist, two things: a) please comment below I'm interested to talk to somebody that really thinks that way and b) go visit a holocaust museum - preferably ALL the holocaust museums - and learn some real facts.)

So what are the big things I take away from spending an hour refreshing some WWII information in my mind? Operation Pied Piper always fascinates me (its only a picture in the slides) - where they evacuate the children from London - perhaps because it was always one of the earliest war facts I learned - after all most kids read Narnia long before war history is a big priority in their lives. Its one of those things where you really have to stop and think - things had become so bad that this was the best solution.

And. The war pictures themselves. When I think war I'm trained from the Australian perspective and I don't know if you realise this but we live in a very unpopulated part of the world. If you look at many of the places Australian's serve we've been doing time in deserts and jungles since before deserts and jungles were cool. War today is very isolated - if there are civilian causalities they are small. WWII trashed cities. I mean we probably still trash cities today but I'm talking ran the city over with tanks and tore down the buildings on main street.

I shall try to share the cool things I come across like this more often. Though if you've found my blog you've likely already found this through StumbleUpon or your chosen procrastination search tool yourself.