I knew a guy I often got drunk with many, many years ago who was captured in the Philippines (Corregidor) by the Japanese at the start of WWII and survived the Death March and prison camps for the duration of the war. He only would talk about it when he got real drunk and I pried it out of him. Victor hated the Japanese until the day he died. Not hard to understand why.
OT: Hiroshima 75 Years Ago
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It's hard to shed tears for Dresden, when the Nazis, Japanese and their allies were responsible for the deaths of 30-40 million people and the enslavement of millions more. They mercilessly bombed the hell out of England, Poland, France, Russia, China and so many other innocent nations. Were it not for the displacement of many German scientists and poor internal coordination, the Nazis probably would have had the A bomb first. And most certainly would have used it.
You can go one step further and thank God for the resolve of the Russian population. The allies refused to help them initially by starting a 2nd front with Germany and Russia was on her own to atop the Germans. Moscow never fell because the Russian population would not allow it. If Russia fell to the Germans things would probably be very different today. 3 and a half years after Stalin asked the allies for a 2nd front he finally got it. Studying History at Rutgers was awesome.
Tell that to Europe. Russia, Sahara Africa, the Far East, Australia and other Countries that the USA either supplied with the war materials and food to continue the WW 2 and waited till we built up the most massive growth in world history.
My understanding based on the book The Rising Sun was that Russia was more or less on the sidelines and when it was clear that Japan was toast, they declared war to get a piece of the spoils of victory. It's not clear they were joining until it was over.
Stalin had neither the troops nor the way to get them to Japan for months after V-E Day.
We sold them war materials and food ok are you saying we did not do a bunch of horrible things all in the name of “National Security “.
My teammate at Manlius's Dad was Silent Lou Walt.
The man just standing there in his Marine uniform scared me.
He won 2 Navy Crosses in WW 2 and retired a 4 Star USMC General.
Larry said he had NOTHING to say EVER about WW 2.
There is a depth of knowledge that is necessary to make statements about WW 2 and Stalin.
First start with researching how many Soldiers were in the US Army in 1039-41. How much ammunition was available at Pearl Harbor day in the US storage, how many Higgins boats were in inventory prior to D-Day.
The Draft and what FDR did to get a draft and then have it extended..
The amount of material left behind at Dunkirk.
Then go to the Stalin's purge of his Army.
Similar to what they did to Poland. Sat there and waited for the Nazi’s to weaken their hold then swooped in to take over Poland.
You are contradicting yourself. Did you not just say we supplied Europe with war materials and food? What did I say that was wrong about WW2? The second front did not occur until deep into 1944. We had an army capable of assisting Stalin deal with Germany and chose not to do it until deep into 1944. Russia saved itself and then pushed forward into Poland and then into Germany.
Russia lost 17 million soldiers in WW2. When were they sitting on the sideline? They lost more than everyone combined.
Start with what a HIggins boat is and how many we needed to fight, not only a two hemisphere war but a two and three front and then four front war in Europe. 1. North Africa, 2. Italy. 3.Southern France,4 D-Day.
No coincidence that Japan surrendered shortly after Russia attacked Manchuria and it was a total surprise that they did to the Japanese.
All the people who would know that kind info are gone.
Sadly yes. I do have a lot of my dad’s photos and other info about his group.
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Truth. My grandfather was a Lt. and among the advancing troops into Germany in the spring of 1945. And he was told that they would be support to a Japanese invasion in a few months.
it would have been quicker ...but things were already uneven with the soviets and transporting people thousands a miles away to the East was going to be logistical nightmare
I agree with you in general (per your other posts) that there was no bigger ingredient in the Allied WWII victory than Soviet resilience and recovery. But I've honestly never read a single word among the volumes available about the post atomic bomb discussions in Japan that would lead me to believe that the surrender was based on anything other than those bombs (and ones they thought were forthcoming).
I'm not sure why there is always such an effort to minimize the political effect of these bombs, while at the same time maximizing the degree of human suffering they caused. The same people seem to do both (not necessarily you). It's very puzzling to me...
I'm sure taught by some uber socialist who thought Russia was great and that communism should replace capitalism here. Sounds like you bought it hook, line, and sinker comrade Chris. The Allies refused to help the country that joined forces with Germany to divide up Poland at the beginning of the war? Maybe they didn't trust them, right? They again showed their true colors post war but you didn't have to live under their control now did you? By the way, Patton could have driven all the way to Moscow.
No my professor was a Texas native and of course Patton could have gone to Moscow if he attempted in the spring and brought his entire army. Russia stopped Germany when the Germans were stopped by no one. Seems like you are the one that believes the history you watched on TV.
My dad was in the Blackhawk division, the first combat division to return from the European theater. They sent him to the Phillipines after that for the invasion of Japan. He was a fan of the bomb.
Side note, I just learned from Wiki that the Chicago Blackhawks got their name from the Blackhawk division.
Sorry not true. The American army did open up a second front less then a year after Pearl Harbor in North Africa. To try and invade France in 1942 would have been a disaster of an epic scale. In 1942 the Allies had nearly zero experience in amphibious landings. Look at the raid on Dieppe in August 1942 which Churchill called a dress rehearsal for an invasion. An attempt by 6,000 Allied soldiers to hold one seaport for a short time resulted in a casualty rate of 68%. Transpose those numbers to Normandy and there would have been over 100,000 casualties on the Allied side.
Your're correct that the West doesn't recognize enough the sacrifice of the Russian people in the defeat of Hitler but to say that we could have helped Stalin in 1942 is just ludicrous.
In 1940 the number of US military personnel was about 458,000. It eventually grew to over 12 million by war's end.
And without Lend/Lease?.. for which Russia paid 674 million out of 11 billion? That would be about $160B in today's dollars.. they should pay up.
Yeah.. had the USA not helped the commies they would have been defeated. Without the over 17M tons of materiel, the USA provided.. the Ruskies would not have had the tanks they needed to counter the Germans after that harsh winter.
And, yes, we could have rolled over Russia at the end of the war.. our use of massed artillery and air power and logistics with an over-extended Russian military.. yeah.. it would have happened. But there were two factors.. would the American fighting man have WANTED to fight like they had versus Germany? For the duration of the war we made the Russians our allies and friends.. they didn't act like it afterward.. seeking to dominate eastern Europe and even Germany.
We'd have all been better off having defeated worldwide communism right then and there.. and in China as well. And so would the people in China and Vietnam and North Korea and the USSR and the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
My father-in-law (native of Rutherford), who by chance was one of the best people I've ever known, was a SeaBee. He followed the Marines from island to island and built camps and airfields as they were captured. He said they all knew what was next. Having seen Japanese brutality up close, they were okay with not being part of a colossally-bloody invasion of the Japanese mainland...
Well to keep it brief the allies did not refuse to start a second front. By that I assume you're referring to a landing in France. And until 1944, the allies did not have the capacity to launch a cross Channel landing. A probe at Dieppe in 1943 was a cluster ****. Now, why don't you consider North Africa, Sicily and Italy to be a second front? Those invasions certainly tied down a large amount of the armed forces of Germany and were stepping stones to an invasion of Germany proper. And the 8th Air Force and RAF were tying down a considerable portion of the Luftwaffe in 1943 and '44 with their bombing of Germany.
And Russia did not pay for the significant materials shipped to them during the war.
Open a 2nd front, with what? Politicians had defunded the defense department to the point where the US only had a180,000 man Army. We had the 19th largest Army right behind Belgium and Portugal on June 19th 1939. There were no tanks, guns or vehicles to even equip them. They couldn't invade fortress Europe until they had sufficient numbers of trained troops and equipment. They weren't about to pull a Stalin by slapping a gun into a farm boys hands and say go kill Germans kid.
Everyone dropped bombs on civilians then. The whole idea of warfare with the aim of minimizing civilian casualties is a very recent concept. When looking back at historical events and people, it's important to understand the cultural context of the times in which those events took place and judge them based on those values, not ours.
Just finished reading " Countdown 1945 "by Chris Wallace. Great story about the development
and planning of dropping the a-bomb on Japan. The book contends that we could, if necessary,
have a third bomb ready to use in eight days after bombing Nagasaki.
and planning of dropping the a-bomb on Japan. The book contends that we could, if necessary,
have a third bomb ready to use in eight days after bombing Nagasaki.
Stalin stopped the advance of the Red Army in the summer of '44 just outside Warsaw while an uprising by the Polish Underground was underway to drive the Germans out of the city. They waited as Germans slaughtered them and then moved in. Easy to govern Poland after the war when the potential ooposition have been massacred by your opponent.
True of course. But I'm not sure we would have nuked Berlin even if we could. Not unilaterally anyway. I think Roosevelt was quite willing to leave Berlin to the Russians, and would not have wanted to tip his hand that this new weapon was available.
He wouldn't have used it if Allied troops were within 100 miles of Berlin. I believe it was Ike, I'm not sure, who said it will take 100,000 casualties to take Berlin, so if the Russians want to do it so be it. That's not the exact quote, but close.
LOL.
Seriously, though, just so my point is less-muddled: I see some contemporary folks point at modern day Japan -- peaceful, democratic, our ally, and largely de-militarized -- and wonder aloud how American "barbarians" saw fit to drop atomic bombs on them. And I think that's a horrible, lazy and dishonest way to look at history.
You can start with the Rape of Nanking, move the the Bataan Death March, read the real story of the Bridge on the River Kwai and go on from there with a stop along the way of what they did to the civilians of Manila during it's liberation.
Have to smile at those who believe that at Hiroshima, we crossed some sort of irreversible moral threshold. That threshold had been crossed long before. If you believe it is morally acceptable to kill a whole lot of innocent civilians by dropping a whole lot of bombs on them, then clearly it is morally acceptable to kill a whole lot of innocent civilians by dropping one megabomb on them.
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