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So, tomorrow I'm teaching Airforce cadets English on the outskirts of Viterbo (Lazio) and meanwhile 37,000 people have to evacuate their homes in the city ​​​​​​be cause they have discovered an unexploded WW2 bomb that was dropped by an English plane... mention it/don't mention it during the lesson?? :p

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Tell them it was the Americans

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That happens in Terni quite often. I thought you were back in rainy Blighty now?

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Tell them this is what happens when you collaborate with the Germans or that GPS and Sat Nav systems are a lot better now :rofl: You might not have a choice as some bright cadet might ask Why did the Brits bomb Italy? Do you claim ignorance or tell them the truth and emphasize at least we missed the pizza shop whereas the Germans got proficient at bombing our chip shops.

But in all seriousness you can't joke about things like that these days so best say nowt and see what transpires tomorrow.

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Our Mayor said on Liberation day that back in 1944 he would have been fighting with the Axis.

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They only identified the bomb manufacturer.

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Yes I think that all that was said above is fair enough.

Someone else that I was talking to pointed out that the bomb hasn't actually been disarmed yet...so I now realise that I really, really shouldn't joke about it (hopefully nobody reading my OP will take my flippancy seriously).

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​​​​Not quite... some of Italy has rubbed off on me I think and I may be being a bit furbo ...but I couldn't possibly confirm or deny this ;-)

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Id mention it - tell them that its what the British have given to Italy. Italy on the other hand has given Britain gelato. Discuss.

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Have fun teaching English to the cadets! I guess you'll be able to decide whether to mention it or not once you've met the group.

I remember one of my former colleagues from Oz complaining about the history section of the Italian Air Force website. That was 4 years ago and I don't know if they have updated it since then, but those Italians seemed to hold distorted views about what actually happened in the 1940s. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the cadets still have troubles facing their past.

Let's not forget the Italians started out in the opposite camp in both world wars. We managed to get them to switch sides in 1915 by signing the Treaty of London. We gave them a good bash in 1944 with our own sacrifices. Britain and Commonwealth came together in the darkest hour. That said, Italy is now our friend and ally.

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Hmmm ..
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On the one hand WW2 is a bit like ancient history to me personally (given that even my grandfather was too young to serve in the forces) and I am sure it must be the same (or even more so) for the cadets. We might as well discuss Rome's invasion of Great Britain.

But on the other hand the way in which the history is told is important in the makeup of the modern identity of both countries. After all "Blitz Spirit" is also a foundation myth. And a dangerous one sometimes. But yes, the relationship between modern Italy and it's past is interesting and often a bit contradictory. And that also has it's dangers.
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I'd actually love to be teaching all this, but I think that I'd better stick to the grammar of Present Simple vs Present Continuous for today :cool:

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If you visit Kesselring's bunker at Monte Soratte (Sant Oreste) you can see some of the directions are still written in German. It brings it home that WW2 wasn't so long ago.

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My experience of working with European military officers (including Italians) is that they are not phased by such things - and most of them see humour in the situation.

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It's easy to teach English in totalitarian countries.

You teach the military officers the imperative. All they do is give orders.

You teach the police officers the interrogative. All they do is ask questions when they interrogate innocent people.

You teach the citizens the affirmative. All they do is say 'yes' when being interrogated or tortured.

You teach the politicians the negative. All they do is deny any wrongdoings.

Oh and don't forget to teach everybody a two-word slogan!

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Well that's true. I was exaggerating a bit and maybe didn't make my point clearly. I'll try again.

I don't believe my personal view comes from an absence of knowledge about WW2. In fact I probably know more than the average person (having studied and taught the subject), but I reject the notion of any personal connection to it.

I hear other British people talk about WW2 as if they have a close personal connection. Is that justified?

​​​​​​My opinion as follows:

Category 1- fair enough if you fought in/lived through WW2 (you'd probably be over 100 years old now, but okay it's possible).
Category 2- And okay it's fair enough if your mother/father/ older sibling etc fought in/lived through WW2 (but obviously less justified than category 1)
Category 3 - Also fair enough if your grandfather etc told you about WW2 (but again less than category 1 and 2)
Category 4 - getting quite tenuous if you have no family connection (or other direct connection) to anyone in the above categories. This category includes me
Category 5. - the many millions of British people alive today that are second (or subsequent) generation immigrant

I often hear people saying terms like "Our brave boys" , and then when you ask them it turns out they are either in category 4 or don't appreciate that they're rather thoughtlessly including all the category 4 and 5 people in their use of "we/us". And that can be a bit dangerous. It's funny because for the Boomers it was unfashionable to talk about WW2 in the 70s and 80s, but now it seems to be difficult for us to move forward. And also, sadly, the same people who keep talking about the war often don't seem to know much about it

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And let's remember that unexploded ordnance is being found regularly in continental Europe!

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Several decades ago I lived in Torino, one Easter my parents came to stay for a week and, when I introduced them to my landlord (who was of a similar age as my parents), my landlord asked my Dad if he had been to Italy before. My Dad replied that although he had never actually set foot in Italy he had been close. My landlord asked "how close"? My Dad replied "about 22,000 feet!"

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Nice one!

-----

Re C.2s I'm in category 3 (or maybe 2) on your scale of entitlement. My late grannies met each other when they were in a bomb shelter - they got married after the war. They would tell me plenty of wartime stories, which I enjoyed listening to.

But I certainly see where you're coming from - it must sound really odd when people start owning WW2 as though they had lived through those turbulent times. That said, I feel immensely grateful to the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for our peace. 'Lest we forget' doesn't and shouldn't ring hollow.

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Well yes, but not only continental Europe. There was a similar situation a of months ago in Plymouth.

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Well it does a bit when you realise that the person who coined this phrase was a colonialist, jingoist, racist, anti-Semite, misogynist, right-wing imperialist warmonger who was complicit in encouraging millions to their rather futile deaths in WW1. But to be fair to him these were basically the mainstream political views at the time (though he was quite prominent in promulgating these beliefs). And I guess that without him we'd never have been told to look for the bare necessities and forget about our worries and strife, so overall it could be argued that his contribution to the world sort of evened out. It's just that those views aren't really mainstream anymore.

I'm not suggesting we forget.

It's reasonable that the vast majority of people only 'know' a simplified narrative of WW2. Even amongst historians there are only a few who might be able to claim to have a really profound knowledge of all aspects, given that it's such a broad subject. But that means that the 'story' that people know is inherently selected 'highlights', and then the question is who selected what to remember and what to forget?

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Indeed - but I think attitudes are a little different on the continent.

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Interesting...in what way?

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in my experience (see above) the British tend to get more exercised about this sort of thing. Take your OP and the thread title - I saw both and thought, well, not a deal at all but maybe at most an opportunity for a passing comment or even a bit of humour - certainly nothing to feel awkward about.

NB: Experiences may differ!

NBB: Maybe your thread title was a bit tongue in cheek, don't know!

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Without Russian and US intervention we might have been under German colonial rule for 80years.

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It was.

And I agree with you about people in the military probably enjoying that I was being a bit goliardico (using banter). Is it different in the UK? Maybe publicly...I have some experience of working with people in various Public Services (military/nursing/police etc) in the UK and think that the black comedy/dark comedy/ gallows humour etc is quite common almost as a way of dealing with the situations they encounter that's quite difficult, and I shudder to think what the general public would make of some of it.

So, yes I did intend humour. Hence my use of my strange smiley face after my OP. And then I thought "Hang on, I'm commenting on a public forum and perhaps not everyone will get my sense of humour, and this won't look good if the bomb explodes!" ... thankfully for everyone it didn't.

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You quoted what I wrote...so is this a reply to what I wrote or just a general point? I don't understand it if it's meant as a reply

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I was just saying that victory in Europe wasn't entirely down to our brave British boys.I think we are still stuck in the days of Empire.

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Fair enough!

I do think the British have a different take on the war, not entirely surprising given the history, and the geography. Some of the posts above reflect that, I think.

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Oh I see. Absolutely agree. And not only Russians. and Americans. Contributions from Commonwealth countries, occupied countries,etc. such as Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain.

​​​​​"Air Chief Marshal Dowding... would later write:
‘Had it not been for the magnificent material contributed by the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of the battle would have been the same.'"
(From www.rafmuseum.org.uk)

Of course I'd say this should be taught in UK schools... but I would have to acknowledge that I am motivated to tell a certain version of history that fits with my modem political views :-)
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Re your last para - interesting, please tell us more!

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Some years ago I learned about this book and ordered three copies of it because the Timothy Kenneally mentioned in it (a dedicated chapter) was my Grandad's brother.
My dad is called Timothy, known to everyone as just Tim except to my aunt who always calls him Timmy and my cousins who call him Uncle Timmy.
I wrote to the author of the book and got a very nice email in reply in which he told me that he visited the Kanchanaburi War Cemetary in Thailand as part of his reasearch and he sent me some very nice photos. He also told me that his chapter on the escaped and subsequently captured men was quite graphic and that I might like to warn my aunt before she read it.

When Alex was studying WWII in scuola media he mentioned that his Grandad's Uncle had been captured and killed by the Japanese. His snotty teacher told him to leave the classroom and take his fantastic lies elsewhere so I sent him back to school for the next history lesson armed with the book, a copy of a letter from the War Office to Mrs Kenneally saying her son was dead and a letter of condolences from King George. That soon shut her up the nasty cow.

https://www.amazon.it/Emperors-Irish.../dp/1845887271

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https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...f7dd3049b0.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...7c013f1f60.jpg

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It's not complicated. The story of a Britain that 'stood alone' during the Battle of Britain was used by Brexiteers to argue that the UK could again stand alone without the EU. And continues to be used by the political right. Being leftist and pro-EU, I am someone who is quite happy with the idea of 'free movement of people' and the mass legal immigration into the UK from the EU (and people like me out of the UK into the EU!). And therefore I would happily use the evidence of Polish airmen in the RAF during the Battle of Britain to counter the myth that Britain 'stood alone'. I would do this from what I believe to be good motives, but nonetheless I would still be indoctrinating students in my beliefs.

'Blitz Spirit' and 'being all in it together' during WW2 are also myths. These myths were recently invoked during the Covid pandemic, and we saw the reality of that. It wasn't much different during WW2. It always a bit more complicated than the simple story suggests.

So, getting back to Italy, the relationship with WW2 is quite tricky. And helpful to understand modern Italy. A good introduction to the subject if one has never read anything about this before is this article https://theconversation.com/forgotte...ry-books-34891

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Lorna, C.2s - Thank you both.

C.2s - with you on this.

And Hungary's relationship is also a bit tricky!

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Why was the teacher denying what happened in Thailand in 1945?
Was it normal to get a letter from the King? Some of my uncles were killed in WW1 and I never saw any letters from Buckingham Palace.

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Who knows what was in the teacher's head? Maybe she only wanted Italian stories. She was an old witch who just presumed Alex was making things up though she had no reason to doubt him. The Geography teacher ended up being much more interested than the History teacher ever was.
I don't know if a letter from the King was normal. I just know that my Granny gave me some things for safe keeping years and years ago because I'm the eldest and because my cousins don't have much sentimentality for old things. I also have Uncle Timmy's war medals although they were never worn by him. My aunt found out that that she could send off to get them from somwhere and they were sent to her in nice cases with a sticker on the back of them where the name of the medal is printed and Fus. T. Kenneally 4271150. My aunt gave those to me

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Here's an extract from the book, Timothy's index card which the author found during his research.
It was a bit chiling to see in writing the cold words "disposed of".
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...9eee6a4f56.jpg

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Shocking.

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Lorna - I wish I'd been there to see that Italian teacher's reaction when she was shown those historical documents. What an uneducated person she was!

C.2s - in terms of trade and economy, we're definitely better off staying in the European single market. I think it's generally beneficial to have freedom of movement, but I wonder why our previous governments didn't extend this right to those from other English-speaking countries. I found it a bit odd that non-English-speaking, non-Commonwealth populations in Europe were granted this privilege while the Australians or Canadians were discriminated against because of their nationality. I know this argument has been used by some Brexiteers to further their cause, but they seemed to have a point there.

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Well I think that you're asking the wrong person to explain this...er .. interpretation of history. You should ask a Brexiteer to explain it.

Basically I think it's not true, but as Lorna's story shows it's risk to say something is not true. I once had a student who interrupted A level History lessons often with odd questions. I didn't mind as a teacher. Better to have some interaction than none at all. But one day we were looking at the wars in Korea and Vietnam and he said "Stalin wanted to attack Scandinavia with giant crabs from Siberia."... now as you can imagine the rest of the class fell about laughing and in my head I was thinking"WTF!" ... but thankfully I managed to say"Er... did he? What makes you say that? Tell you what we'll talk about it next lesson." Having googled it (as all teachers do)it turns out that during Stalin's time a species of giant crab was taken from the area around Vladivostok to the Baltic and as it was an invasive species it did damage the fishing in Sweden and Finland. There's an argument (or a conspiracy theory) that it was a deliberate attack on those countries economies, but it's probably more likely that Russian people just liked the taste of giant crab and didn't consider the impact on the environment.

SO the point is that all good lies have a grain of truth to them.

As I understand it the EU never dictated immigration policy in it's member states. Each member state made (and continues to make) it's own decisions. If you consider for a moment that immigration into the UK from other Commonwealth countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and India AND from countries that are not EU nor Commonwealth such as Brazil or China continued throughout the period of the UK being part of the EU then I believe that the 'story' of discrimination towards Australians or Canadians on the basis of their nationality is a lie... but maybe there's a grain of truth to it? As I said it's not up to me to justify someone else's claims