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Old 28-12-11, 23:26
Lang Lang is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Brisbane Australia
Posts: 1,675
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Clive,

I think you do a good job in your historical research but while documents and regulations may be the basis for this, actual events are more likely to follow their own course than conform to the official line (even unit histories written after the fact). Historians have always had difficulty with grasping the atmosphere, relationships - both personal and in the chain of command, lack of adherance to the official line which varies according to the soldier's national traits and the soldier's reactions to the widespread leadership and management incompetance to be found in all armies.

I come from an aviation background and am aquainted with many prominent aviation historians who know more about design, performance, serial numbers of aeroplanes, squadron numbers etc than I will ever know. Unfortunately very few of them know anything about flying!

My point is, with any recounting of history the untidy, unpredictable, non-conforming and vast range of abilities found in the human side is hugely discounted in an attempt to gather "facts". As anyone who has ever had an article printed about them in the paper knows, the facts are often totally correct but the story is completely wrong.

Keep up the good work Clive as we still need the facts to use as a basis of study.
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