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Wednesday 28 November 2018

The life of a soldier in World War two

The life of a soldier in World War Two

In English, I have started a new area of writing which is creative writing. For creative writing, we can choose a task out of all of these options and complete it. Once that is done we complete another task and so on. The first task I am going to do is The life of a soldier during World War Two.

It's September the 1st 1939. Germany just began their invasion of Poland and with that England declared war on them, when the orders were relayed that the troops were to prepare to move out we all were shocked. We knew it was coming but..... no one was really prepared for it. The days leading up to now had been plagued with moves from Hitler and his allies, they already took over multiple regions of land with ease. The first World War was bad enough... but now this.

Norway is gone..... Word just reached us that Hitler has entrenched his forces in Norway after the English tried to halt iron shipments to Germany. What's worse is that the country is in turmoil, it's only the start of the war and already people are worried and scared, we already lost multiple battles and even Chamberlain our former Prime Minister resigned because of the losses. It looks grim I don't know how this is going to go, I and my fellow soldiers are being prepared to move to France. No one will say it themselves but we are all scared, we know what happened in World War 1 and we don't want to share their fate.

The defences have been hit bad and we are already falling back, damn French they were in no way prepared for this. The Germans surrounded us and sent refugees and many civilians to slow us down and then they boxed us in, were boxed in with what seems no escape. The officer in charge tells us that ships are coming to rescue us, but I doubt it. It was worse than I imagined, I have already witnessed one of my friends die at the hands of Germans, I doubt I will live to see the end.

The worse has happened once again, France was not prepared at all and the Germans smashed through their country decimating what little resistance they had! I managed to escape with the aid of English ships. It was a surprise to see civilians driving them, with France down I doubt we can hold out much longer, bombing raids have already begun on the country and our defences are already falling with the Luftwaffe bombing major air and navy stations.

The bombings are getting out of hand now, children and older people in cities are being evacuated to the countryside to avoid heavy bombing, I was currently at my house in London about to be assigned to my next assignment when the bombings began, a bomb landed right outside of my house and immediately sirens began to ring, outside in the sky the airforce made their desperate last stand in London as the Luftwaffe pressed their bombing and attacks. There were mangled corpses some areas you would see a hand of a once living person... it was brutal and to this day the sights still haunt me. The city's population are being rounded up into several bomb shelters I am on my way to one of the shelters hopefully I can survive this.

This was the life of a soldier in WW2 serving under Britain during the early stages. The start of the war was filled with death and loss on their side causing many soldiers to loss their friends and familys to lose their loved ones. 

Tuesday 6 November 2018

Charles Upham the famous New Zealand soldier

The life of Charles Upham
Image result for charles upham
The Victorian cross is not normally given to soldiers, in fact, it is normally given to people like nurses. Charles Upham is an NZ soldier that was the only infantry soldier to receive the VC two times. The other 2 people that got this were both doctors. Here is the story of Charles Upham.


Early Life

Charles Hazlitt Upham was born 21st September 1908 in central Christchurch. He went to Waihi school and Christ's college for his education, later attending an agriculture college where he got a diploma in agriculture. He then began working as a sheep farmer and later on a manager. In 1938 he became engaged to Mary (Molly) Eileen McTammey.


Enlistment

In September 1939 Charles Upham enlisted into the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He signed up as a private even though he previously had 5 years of experience in the New Zealand Territorial Army as a sergeant. He was quickly promoted to Lance Corporal but declined to join the Officer Cadet Training Unit. In December he was then promoted to sergeant and went off to Egypt.


First VC

His first VC was during may 1941 after being injured in battle. His VC was rewarded for remarkable tactics and many well-fought situations. One quite a few occasions his group were under machine gun fire, however, Charles managed to take out these machine guns before they could do much harm either with grenades or a pistol. On another occasion, he had to travel through 600 yards killing two Germans just to reach a group of soldiers that were stranded. His group then had to hold down an exposed area that was constantly under fire. He sustained multiple injuries being nearly hit by a mortar shell and taking a bullet to a foot later to be removed in Egypt. After several more encounters, his exhausted troops had to go to a ravine to stop a small German party going through the ravine to a nearby HQ. He with two other Rifleman managed to get up on top of the ravine and shoot many of the German troops. During this whole time, he suffered from dysentery and could only eat very little. Thus earning him his first VC.


Second VC

On the 26th of September 1945, Charles Upham was awarded his second VC. During a mission which resulted in the battle of El Ruweisat Ridge Upham was wounded twice but kept on fighting. The first injury was from enemy bullet spray and the second was from when he destroyed a truck of Germans with a couple of hand grenades. At the beginning of the battle, Charles troops served as a reserve and at one point lost communication with the front lines. He was given orders by a higher up to send an officer to get information on what happened. However, instead, he went up into enemy lines to retrieve the information. He had to dodge several command posts and manage to return with the information successfully. On dawn the next day his group of troops were ordered to advance forward and nearly reached the objective with ease when massive amounts of German troops began to shoot at them. With some good strategy, Charles managed to take out the Germans with lower casualties than what could have happened and captured the objective. He himself destroyed a German tank and several other vehicles and troops with grenades even with his elbow broken and being shot in the ankle. Exhausted from pain and blood loss he was moved to a hospital and when he was bandaged he insisted to leave immediately to join back in. He was later attacked and captured.


POW

Upham was first transported to an Italian hospital where his arm was recommended to be amputated. However, Upham had seen several of his fellow troops die painfully because of this process and refused. He later had his wound dressed by another POW that was a doctor and remained in hospital. He attempted several escapes that all failed and caused him to be labelled as dangerous by the Germans. One of his escape attempts was in a truck containing multiple POW's, he jumped out of the truck and managed to get 370M before being recaptured. Later on when in a prison camp he tried to climb over the barbed fence but got tangled at the top, once he came untied he fell down and a German soldier managed to run up to him and tried to get him to stand up and come back with a gun pointed at his head. He however just smocked in front of the guard as if nothing was happening. At this point, he was considered highly dangerous, he was separated from all POW's and was guarded at all times with a machine gun turret in place near his jail. He once again attempted escape and got decently far, after this he was moved to Colditz prison camp. On the way to there through a train, he managed to escape into a field but however was captured again. He then once at the prison camp didn't attempt to break out as the war was ending. When rescued he tried to join in on the fight but was sent back home instead.


After War

After returning to New Zealand he was given $10,000 by the community but instead of taking it he gave it to Lincon university. For 20 years he lived as a farmer until poor health forced him into Christchurch city where on 22nd November 1994 he died.

Friday 2 November 2018

Dragon heart themes

Dragon Heart Themes
For my next Dragon heart task, I had to look into 3 of the Dragon heart themes and find some quotes that relate to them and explain what the theme is about.

The first theme I am covering is Rediscovering one's faith. These lines of dialogue show this theme greatly as Bowen rediscovers his faith in the old ways and begins to believe in them once again. This scene greatly shows this theme of the movie and even develops the main character massively. It also plays into the second theme of rediscovering one's honour. Of course, there are other lines that represent this them but I believe this is one of the best.
King Arthur: A knight is sworn to valour.
Bowen: A knight is sworn to valour.
King Arthur: His heart knows only virtue.
Bowen: His heart knows only virtue.
King Arthur: His blade defends the helpless.
Bowen: His blade defends the helpless.
King Arthur: His might upholds the weak.
Bowen: His might upholds the weak.
King Arthur: His word speaks only truth.
Bowen: His word speaks only truth.
King Arthur: His wrath undoes the wicked.
Bowen: His wrath undoes the wicked!

The second theme is about honour and courage, a major theme present throughout the movie shown by almost all of the main characters. Relating to the last quote shows the restoring of someone's honour. Bowen has gone from being a ragtag dragon slayer fuelled with misjudged vengeance to a once again honourable knight of the old ways. However, for the courage part of this theme, this quote from Bowen when trying to kill Draco shows that even though he is fueled with rage but is still showing courage with confronting a Dragon. Here is the quote, Bowen: I will not stop until I've rid the world of every last one of you.

The third and final theme is good vs evil. A pretty simple theme that is shown more by tone and scenery than words itself in the film. However, the theme is definitely shown with the mocking Einon gives Bowen in their first fight. It is obvious that one side is evil and the other is good. In this quote good vs evil is shown by how mocking of Bowen Eionon is. It shows how much he has supposedly changed from when Bowen taught him and because of this you see the good vs evil theme in action through this dialogue.
King Einon: [laughing] Well, well, well. It can't be. But it is! My old mentor. Still giving carving lessons?
Bowen: Get off your horse and I'll give you one.
King Einon: Time's not been kind to you, Bowen. You should never have broke with me.
Bowen: It was *you* who broke with me.
King Einon: And yet you return to me with this girl I lost.
Bowen: [Bowen looks at Kara. Kara shakes her head and raises her dagger] I think she wants to stay lost.
King Einon: Not her decision, I'm afraid!
[Brok starts to dismount, but Einon raises a hand to stop him, then dismounts himself and draws his sword]
King Einon: I'm ready for my lesson now, knight.

Script writing

Script Writing
For drama, we are starting a new thing called choice board. It is much like our new passion project thing except it is for Drama only. We get to choose a task related to Drama that we would want to do.
We can choose one of these and complete the first stage of it earning us an achieved for this or we can keep going on trying to reach a merit and then the highest mark, excellence. We can choose multiple things to do for example someone could choose script writing, finish it and then go and do Script review. As the title says the first thing I will do is script writing. Scriptwriting if you didn't know contains dialogue the actors use in a movie/play as well as sometimes containing information on the scenes and what the behind the scenes crew are supposed to do. For script writing the first thing I will do is research on the subject I choose which I would have to do for all of these. After that, I then have to work on constructing my own type of script and story for a play.

Dragon Heart 4 main characters resume

Dragon Heart Character Resume
Characters are a vital part of a film, it makes the film work or it makes the film bad story wise. You need engaging characters to have a good story. For my next Dragon heart task, I had to create a resume like thing for 4 different characters.


Bowen

Interesting facts


  • Used to train Einon before becoming his enemy
  • Believes in the old knight's code but never knows how to bring it back
  • Is consumed by revenge at one point and forgets about his ways.
  • He becomes king after Einons death
  • Much of his past beyond this is unknown.

Challenges he faced


  • The betrayal of Einon
  • Struggling with the thoughts of returning to the old ways and how he could accomplish that
How he reacted to these problems

  • These two main problems he faced intertwined with each other. To cope with the betrayal of Einon he first hunted down dragons believing they caused it until he met Draco and after a while of fighting and mistrust, befriended him. With Draco, he returned to the old ways and once defeating Einon sought to return the kingdom to the old ways.
Words that best describe him

  • Brave
  • Loyal
  • Honorable
  • Conflicted


Eionon

Interesting facts


  • Was trained by Bowen before turning evil
  • Never believed in the old ways
  • Was always as corrupt as his father
  • He raised taxes extremely high and pillaged farms that didn't pay up
  • Always felt hatred for Bowen
  • Never knew he was immortal

Challenges he faced


  • Rebuilding a crumbling kingdom
  • Crushing rebellions
  • Fighting Bowen

How he reacted to these problems

  • For the first two, he would of most likely brung his soldier to take out rising up peasants and crush them before they became a threat. He would then once asserting dominance over them take lots of their money with high taxes allowing him to keep a professionally trained army but making the peasants resort to trading goods.
  • Once he discovered Bowen once again he moved to counter him quickly. After the first fight hen ever underestimated him until when he found out he was immortal.
Words that best describe him

  • Cocky
  • Arrogant
  • Smart
  • Manipulative
  • Greedy


Brother Gilbert

Interesting facts


  • Looked up to Bowen after meeting him
  • Was a natural at using a bow
  • Never fought before

Challenges he faced


  • Preparing for the battle with EInon
  • Becoming friends with Bowen

How he reacted to these problems

  • For preparing for war with Eionon he practiced day and night hooning his archery skills and doing whatever he can to prepare himself
  • For becoming friends with EIonon he just followed him around and was lucky to see him again.
Words that best describe him

  • Spiritual
  • Annoying
  • Comic relief
  • Gifted

Draco

Interesting facts


  • Was scared of death
  • Never knew how to bring down Einon
  • Never knew he would have to die for Einon to die
  • Strongly believes in the old ways

Challenges he faced


  • Proving himself so his soul does not disappear
  • Finding a way to defeat Einon
  • Sacrificing himself to kill Einon

How he reacted to these problems

  • He never knew how to prove himself until he met Bowen, he remembered Bowen from years ago and believed he might have a chance to beat Einon. When he realized he had to die so Einon could die he did everything he can to make Bowen kill him so he could have a worthy death and allow Einon to die.
Words that best describe him

  • Smart
  • Hopefull
  • Strong
  • Spiritual