World War II (1 Viewer)

[timschochet]

Couple of points here:

1. According to Herman Wouk's novelized version in War and Remembrance, Halsey's staff distrusted Spruance, who was not experienced with flattops. Though Spruance and Halsey were personal friends, the two were complete opposites in personality. Halsey was sort of a Woody Hayes type: loud, cigar smoking, hard drinking, ready to chew out a friend, lose his temper and apologize afterwards. He was exciteable, and filled with energy. Spruance was quiet, soft spoken, a religious Methodist who did not smoke, drink or swear. He almost never reacted with haste and was usually cautious. Halsey's staff was much like Halsey himself. What they did not know was that Spruance had been given strict orders from Nimitz: do not risk the carriers. Midway Island can be lost; if so, it could be regained later. But the carriers must not be risked. These orders would come into play later on.

2. Nagumo, Spruance's opponent, had been the admiral who commanded the task force that attacked Pearl Harbor, so he was considered an expert in flattop warfare. But he had never faced other flattops, so in reality he was as inexperienced as Spruance.

3. The fixing of the Yorktown was a remarkable achievement.

 

[Black Box]

 

[timschochet]

Wouk also notes that Yamaguchi's message to Nagumo was a clear insult in the Imperial Navy- one did not send "suggestions" of this sort to one's superiors. Apparently Yamaguchi felt it vital to send anyway, but the suggestion was not accepted.

 

[timschochet]

It's hard to imagine these two men, Spruance and Nagumo, making split decisions based on guesswork without being able to actually see the enemy. This was a unique and very new type of warfare. For instance, when Nagumo received the second message that there MIGHT be a carrier, this must have forced him to disregard this scout's earlier message, and thus disregard the scout. If there is one carrier, there might actually be 2 or 3, or who knows how many?

 

[Ozymandias]

MIDWAY ACT III

When Admiral Spruance heard about the carriers being located, he was 155 miles away. The reports were growing colder by the minute, and the planes would have little margin for error, because of their range. He initially thought to close the gap, but after conferring with his chief of staff, he decided to hit them with everything he had. The advantage of surprise was crucial.

He sent 68 dive bombers, 30 torpedo planes and 10 fighters; everything he had. Only a few fighters were left for Combat Air Patrol. It was risky, but the risk had to be taken. The attack was not as carefully coordinated as it should have been, and Torpedo 8 (from Hornet --the 16-- actually 15--) planes that had been reported headed right in alone. At once they were attacked by Zeros. Some managed to get their torpedoes away, but the torpedoes were avoided; all the planes were downed.

The Japanese breathed a sigh of relief. This was the 6th attack they had beaten off. No sooner had that happened, than another torpedo plane attack was detected, boring in from the south. Although the torpedo planes were supposed to fly at 135 knots, when fully laden they could do barely over 100. As the Japanese turned and raced away from them at 25 knots, it took a long time to close; and once again Zeros pounced on them from above, downing one after another.

Soon after Enterprise and Hornet launched their planes, at 0845 the Yorktown launched her planes. 12 torpedo planes and 17 dive bombers, escorted by 6 fighters. They also knew where the Japanese carriers had been reported, but that was a couple of hours ago, and they did not know where they would be by the time the planes got there. Torpedo 3, from Yorktown found the carriers and headed in. Once again, they were attacked by Zeros, but the fleet maneuvered wildly to avoid torpedoes. By this time, all the Combat Air Patrol was down close to sea level, but Nagumo's carriers, although out of position, were getting ready to launch. Then came the cry: “Enemy dive bombers!”

At 1022, getting ready to launch, the Kaga, the Akagi and the Soryu were some of the proudest ships in the Japanese Imperial Fleet. However, the ceaseless attacks from Midway, and then the torpedo attacks had taken their toll on their organization and planning. Denuded of aircover by the sacrifice of the American torpedo planes, having had to deal with avoiding torpedoes, they were sitting ducks for American dive bombers from Enterprise and Hornet. By 1028, all three of them were blazing wrecks, and were soon at the bottom of the Pacific. There is still some controversy as to which group hit which target. But two dive bombing squadrons from the Enterprise and one from the Yorktown did the damage.

Admiral Yamaguchi on the sole remaining carrier, didn't need to be told what to do. Seeing the smoke and the bombs hitting the other three carriers, he began to launch his planes to attack the American fleet. At 1145 the Yorktown began to recover her planes. Shortly thereafter, the word came down: “Bogeys at 32 miles, closing.” Combat air patrol dropped six of the incoming planes, but the others kept on coming. Anti-aircraft cut a bomber in two just above the Yorktown, but he bomb came free and hit on the flight deck just aft of the island. A second bomb came through the flight deck, through the hangar deck, through the second deck, and exploded in the middle of the ship. A third bomb hit in the forward elevator. The Yorktown started pouring out thick black smoke.

But where was the Hiryu? At 1430 the report came in, she had been located by a scout plane from the Yorktown. By 1530 Spruance was launching planes. No torpedo planes, no fighters, bits and pieces from three different bombing squadrons, (including from the Yorktown) from the Enterprise and 16 dive bombers from the Hornet. At exactly 1703, the Japanese on Hiryu heard what they had dreaded most: “Enemy dive bombers overhead!”

This time, the incoming dive bombers were attacked by Zeros. Several went down, but the others bored in. Bombs rained on the Hiryu, first one, then another, then a third, and she was enveloped in a sheet of flames.

At first, the Japanese thought they could save the ship; she could still make way, but then the fires burned hotter and hotter, and the steel walls began to turn red with the heat. Around 2100 she was dead in the water. A Japanese destroyer pulled close by to pump water on the fires, but at 2358 a huge explosion set the fires roaring again, out of control. Admiral Yamaguchi chose to go down with his ship. At 0500, a Japanese destroyer fired a spread of torpedoes, and down she went.

The Japanese Main Force was stationary, taking on the survivors from the Japanese carriers, and joined now by the carrier Zuiho, which had come from the Aleutians. Yamamoto now considEred trying to salvage something from the battle and planned to lure the American carriers further west. However, Spruance intuitively felt that he had pushed his luck as far as possible, and was under orders from Nimitz not to risk his carriers. He was 400 miles west of Midway, and his destroyers were low on fuel. So, trusting to his instincts, he turned east, away from Yamamoto.

The dawn of June 6 saw the Yorktown still afloat, and hopes were rising that she could make it back to Pearl Harbor. She was being circled by 5 destroyers to prevent submarine attacks, but conditions were poor because of “thermal barrier” which tended to deflect sonar. The destroyer Hamman was alongside, providing power and water. At about 0730, a Japanese submarine which had avoided the destroyer screen fired 4 torpedoes; two struck the Hamman and two struck the Yorktown. The Hamman went down immediately, and it was all over for the Yorktown.

The Battle of Midway was over.

When Yamamoto realized that the American carriers were retiring, he realized it was all over. They could not proceed against Midway without carrrier support. Of course, this was not known at the time; the US Navy were still concerned about Midway Island, and they knew the Japanese still had an overwhelming numerical advantage.

On the morning of the 6th of June, the US submarine Nautilus, the only submarine to torpedo a Japanese ship during the battle, carefully approached the island of Midway. the captain had no idea how the battle had gone, and whether Midway was in Japanese hands. The place looked the same—the gooney birds, the lagoon, the beaches. His periscope swept the island, and then at last, he knew. There high above the command post, the American flag still flew.

 

[DCThunder]

As has been said before by many, you cannot praise too highly the courage of the pilots of the planes who took off from the US carriers knowing that they only had enough fuel for a one-way trip and then went on the attack against heavily defended targets. The sacrifice of the torpedo squadrons who were cut down totally (one man survived in a life raft, IIRC) was one of the keys to the victory at Midway.

 

[Ozymandias]

As has been said before by many, you cannot praise too highly the courage of the pilots of the planes who took off from the US carriers knowing that they only had enough fuel for a one-way trip and then went on the attack against heavily defended targets. The sacrifice of the torpedo squadrons who were cut down totally (one man survived in a life raft, IIRC) was one of the keys to the victory at Midway.

Ensign Gay from Torpedo 8 was the only one of that 15 who survived. He had a ringside seat for the battle and was picked up later by a PBY. I believe 4 of the 14 from Torpedo 6 survived, and 2 from Torpedo 3 made it back. Ensign Gay's ashes were scattered over the site of the Yorktown when he died in 1995.

 

[NCCommish]

Hey all I have been asked to do a reader friendly synopsis of the development and deployment of the atom bomb. I have only skimmed the thread but I see a lot of good stuff here so I hope what I add will measure up. I am pulling together references and notes so I can do the thorough job this thread deserves. I should have it ready in the next day or so.

I have been vocal in my condemnation of the use of the atomic bomb and I know some of you are aware of that. I assure you I intend to leave out my personal feelings. The history of how and why will be there but not my objections. Now after I get that all done if we want to discuss it we could. But I wouldn't want to junk up the thread with that already done to death hijack personally and really it's all been said before.

Anyway I look forward to contributing and I hope you guys will enjoy it.

 

[timschochet]

NC Commish, I see nothing wrong with having a debate about this subject at the proper point in the timeline, meaning when we get to August 1945. My entire life I have leaned towards your viewpoint on this, however, since reading Manchester's The Glory and The Dream I have completely changed my mind, and when given the chance I will lay out my argument based on what I've read. Looking forward to your stuff!

 

[Ozymandias]

MIDWAY AFTERMATH

There was wrangling between the Enterprise and Hornet and the airmen from Midway about who deserved the most honors. The second guessers later said the Yorktown should have been saved, and the submarines were poorly employed. There wasn't good enough coordination between the Task Forces. All the usual things that happen in the heat of battle and in the fog of war, and which look so much easier afterwards.

Spruance was criticized for not pursuing the Japanese surface fleet and inflicting damage. However, most post war analysis agrees that he did the right thing. It would have been foolish to risk the only two remaining carriers we had in the Pacific.

But regardless of the armchair quarterbacks, it was an immense accomplishment. Against overwhelming odds, with the most meager resources, a few determined and courageous men reversed the course of the war in the Pacific. After Midway, the Japanese Navy never mounted a major carrier offensive again. The loss of 4 of their finest carriers, and hundreds of first line aircrew, would haunt them the rest of the war.

The US had been building new carriers since 1938. To man them, they were putting navy pilots through two years of training, preparing for the new carriers as they came on stream. The Japanese were stuck with what they had. Later on in the war, they were putting up pilots who had had one month's training.

And what was Yamamoto thinking of, brilliant as he was? He had two major objectives: 1. Take Midway Island, and 2. Even more important, lure the American carriers out into a battle and destroy them. Nothing else was important. So why were two light carriers off raiding the Aleutians when they could have been with the Carrier Striking Force, particularly after the loss of the Shokaku and Zuikaku.?

The Japanese properly described it as “Victory Disease”. They were overconfident, and had no idea that their communications had been compromised.

General George C. Marshall, Chief of Combined Operations, called Midway: “Our closest squeak, and our greatest victory.”

Churchill described 1942 as “The Hinge of Fate” in his monumental work on the Second World War. Almost exactly in the middle of that year, the hinge of fate turned in the Pacific.

 

[timschochet]

Ozymandias did a great job with Midway. Want to add some final notes:

1. The decision by Spruance not to pursue was roundly criticized by Halsey's staff, some of whom actually predicted he would be court-martialed. The question of course is, if Halsey had not been sick, what would he have done? Given his nature, as we shall see later in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, I believe Halsey would have ignored caution, taken off after the Japanese, and fallen into Yamaguchi's trap. At this point, it's difficult to predict how history might have changed. The Japanese would not have won the war, but they might have delayed it by one year or so, which would have a profound effect on every other theatre of battle.

2. The news of the defeat at Midway was kept hidden from the Japanese public. This began a pattern of hiding all such news of military defeats from the Japanese people. It is important to realize that, up until August of 1945, the average citizen living in Japan believed they were winning the war. This is also true of the average German. If you go to any large public library, you can find English language copies of the German magazine Signal, which continues to discuss Axis victories well into 1945. It's an amazing read.

3. Finally, regarding the torpedo pilots: it's one thing to risk death in combat; obviously, most soldiers that see action have done this. It's quite another thing to carry out your mission knowing you're going to die. I know I couldn't do that, and I have tremendous admiration for those who have. We musn't ever forget what they sacrificed for our freedom.

 

[timschochet]

We are now at the midway point of the war, but certainly not at the midway point of this narrative. The remaining three years of this war were crowded with incredible events that dwarf the first three years. According to the timeline, we should next be discussing three major battles: Stalingrad, El Alamein, and Guadalcanal, along with Torch, the American landings in French North Africa. All of these occurred roughly in the same time period; all of them will require a considerable amount of narrative and discussion. I plan on narrating them in the order I listed above, beginning with Stalingrad, perhaps THE battle of the Second World War.

Before I get to all this, however, I plan on spending the next few days discussing little tidbits and stories about the war that I think are worth relating. Please feel free to add whatever you like as well. We'll probably begin with Stalingrad towards the end of the week.

 

[timschochet]

Tokyo Rose

Her real name was Iva Toguri, and she was born in Los Angeles, a daughter of Japanese immigrants. She attended UCLA and graduated with a degree in Zoology. In July of 1941, she sailed for Japan to visit an ailing cousin. She left without a passport, but with a Certificate of Identification. She was trying to return to America when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

There were several such Japanese Americans trapped in Japan at the outbreak of war, and the Japanese government tried to pressure them into renoucing their American citizenship. Toguri refused, and was declared an enemy alien. She was not allowed to obtain a war ration card.

To support herself, she found work as a typist at a Japanese news agency and eventually worked in a similar capacity for Radio Tokyo.

In November 1943, Allied prisoners of war forced to broadcast propaganda selected her to host portions of the one-hour radio show The Zero Hour. Her producer was an Australian Army officer, Major Charles Cousens, who had pre-war broadcast experience and had been captured at the fall of Singapore. Cousens had been tortured and coerced to work on radio broadcasts,as had his assistants, U.S. Army Captain Wallace Ince and Philippine Army Lieutenant Normando Ildefonso "Norman" Reyes. Toguri had previously risked her life smuggling food into the nearby prisoner of war (POW) camp where Cousens and Ince were held, gaining the inmates' trust. After she refused to broadcast anti-American propaganda, Toguri was assured by Major Cousens and Captain Ince that they would not write scripts having her say anything against the United States. True to the their word, no such propaganda was found in her broadcasts. Toguri hosted a total of 340 broadcasts of The Zero Hour.

Under the stage names "Ann" (for "Announcer") and later "Orphan Anne"and possibly "Your Favorite Enemy, Anne", reportedly in reference to the comic strip character Little Orphan Annie, Toguri performed in comedy sketches and introduced recorded music, but never participated in any actual newscasts, with on-air speaking time of generally about 20 minutes. Though earning only 150 yen, or about $7, per month, she used some of her earnings to feed POWs,smuggling food in as she did before.

Toguri aimed most of her comments toward her fellow Americans ("my fellow orphans"), using American slang and playing American music. In one of the few surviving recordings of her show, she refers to herself as "your 'Number One' enemy." In contemporary American slang (especially that used by US Marines and naval forces in the Pacific), she was telling them that she was their "best enemy" (in other words, their friend), while the Japanese thought that it meant that she was their greatest enemy.

At no time did Toguri call herself "Tokyo Rose" during the war, and in fact there was no evidence that any other broadcaster had done so. The name was a catch-all used by Allied forces for all of the women who were heard on Japanese propaganda radio.

After Japan's unconditional surrender, reporters Harry T. Brundidge of Cosmopolitan Magazine and Clark Lee of Hearst's International News Service (INS) offered $2,000 (the equivalent of a year's wages in Occupied Japan) for an exclusive interview with "Tokyo Rose".

In need of money, and still trying to get home, Iva stepped forward to claim the money, but instead found herself arrested, on September 5, 1945, in Yokohama. Brundidge not only used her arrest and subsequent public press conference as an excuse to renege on the "exclusive interview" deal and nullify any payment, but also tried to sell his transcript of the interview as Iva's "confession". She was released after a year in jail when neither the FBI nor General Douglas MacArthur's staff found any evidence she had aided the Japanese Axis forces. Furthermore, the American and Australian prisoners of war who wrote her scripts assured her (and the Allied headquarters) that she had committed no wrongdoing.

She had gotten married to a Filipino named D'Aquino, and upon her request to return to the United States to have her child born on American soil, the influential gossip columnist and radio host Walter Winchell lobbied against her. Her baby was born in Japan, but died shortly after. Following her child's death, D'Aquino was rearrested by the U.S. military authorities and transported to San Francisco, on September 25, 1948, where she was charged by federal prosecutors with the crime of treason for "adhering to, and giving aid and comfort to, the Imperial Government of Japan during World War II".

Her trial on eight "overt acts" of treason began on July 5, 1949, at the Federal District Court in San Francisco. During what was at the time the costliest and longest trial in American history, totaling more than half a million dollars, the prosecution presented 46 witnesses, including two of Toguri's former supervisors at Radio Tokyo, and soldiers who testified they could not distinguish between what they had heard on radio broadcasts and what they had heard by way of rumor. Although boxes of tapes were brought by prosecutors to the courthouse and rested near the prosecution table, none were entered into evidence and played for the jury. Toguri claimed she and her associates subtly sabotaged the Japanese war effort.

Toguri was defended by a team of attorneys, led by Wayne Mortimer Collins. Collins had been at the forefront of the battle for the rights of Japanese Americans. Collins enlisted the help of Theodore Tamba, who became one of Toguri's closest friends, a relationship which continued until his death in the 1970s. Both Charles Cousens and Wallace Ince paid for their own airfare to attend the trial as witnesses and testify on Toguri's behalf.

On September 29, 1949, the jury found Toguri guilty on a sole count. She was fined US$10,000 and given a 10-year prison sentence. Attorney Collins called the verdict "Guilty without evidence". She was sent to the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia. She was paroled after serving six years and two months, and released January 28, 1956. She moved to Chicago, Illinois.

After her parole, resisting efforts at deportation, Iva moved to Chicago, where her father had opened the J. Toguri Mercantile Company Japanese-import retail store during the war, following the release of the Toguri family from internment at the Gila River War Relocation Center in September 1943. She lived and worked at the store on Belmont Avenue in the Lakeview neighborhood until her death in 2006, her former notoriety all but forgotten.

Following the trial, Iva's husband, who had been arrested and put on parole immediately upon his arrival in the U.S. to be a witness for the defense, was required by law to return to Japan. Operatives of the FBI and INS boarded his ship as it was leaving Hawaii and coerced him into signing a document that barred him from returning to the U.S. He and Iva would never see one another again, as he was precluded from entering the country and she could never leave it for fear of not being allowed to return. Although they remained technically married but effectively separated by decree, until 1980, when Iva resumed her maiden name. Toguri never reunited with or again saw her husband and, after 30 years of forced separation, they divorced in 1980 so that he could get on with his life without her. He died in 1996, nearly half a century after the trial that separated them.

In 1976, an investigation by Chicago Tribune reporter Ron Yates discovered that Kenkichi Oki and George Mitsushio, who had given the most damaging testimony at Toguri's trial, had lied under oath. They stated they had been threatened by the FBI and U.S. occupation police and told what to say and what not to say just hours before the trial.[ This was followed up by a Morley Safer report on 60 Minutes.

Due to these revelations, President Ford granted a full and unconditional pardon to Iva Toguri D'Aquino on January 19, 1977, his last full day in office. The decision was supported by a unanimous vote in both houses of the California State Legislature, the national Japanese-American Citizens League, and S. I. Hayakawa, then a United States Senator from California. The pardon restored her U.S. citizenship, which had been abrogated as a result of her conviction.

In 2006, the World War II Veterans Committee (sponsors of the Memorial Day Parade in Washington D.C. and the National World War II Memorial, the newest monument on the National Mall), citing "her indomitable spirit, love of country, and the example of courage she has given her fellow Americans", awarded Toguri its annual Edward J. Herlihy Citizenship Award. According to one biographer, Toguri found it the most memorable day of her life.

On September 26, 2006, at the age of 90, Toguri died in a Chicago hospital of natural causes.

 

[Ozymandias]

Ozymandias did a great job with Midway. Want to add some final notes:

1. The decision by Spruance not to pursue was roundly criticized by Halsey's staff, some of whom actually predicted he would be court-martialed. The question of course is, if Halsey had not been sick, what would he have done? Given his nature, as we shall see later in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, I believe Halsey would have ignored caution, taken off after the Japanese, and fallen into Yamaguchi's trap. At this point, it's difficult to predict how history might have changed. The Japanese would not have won the war, but they might have delayed it by one year or so, which would have a profound effect on every other theatre of battle.

2. The news of the defeat at Midway was kept hidden from the Japanese public. This began a pattern of hiding all such news of military defeats from the Japanese people. It is important to realize that, up until August of 1945, the average citizen living in Japan believed they were winning the war. This is also true of the average German. If you go to any large public library, you can find English language copies of the German magazine Signal, which continues to discuss Axis victories well into 1945. It's an amazing read.

3. Finally, regarding the torpedo pilots: it's one thing to risk death in combat; obviously, most soldiers that see action have done this. It's quite another thing to carry out your mission knowing you're going to die. I know I couldn't do that, and I have tremendous admiration for those who have. We musn't ever forget what they sacrificed for our freedom.

Interestingly enough, they did tell Emperor Hirohito the truth:

"On 10 June, the Imperial Japanese Navy conveyed to the military liaison conference an incomplete picture of the results of the battle, on the ground the real extent of damage was a military secret not to be entrusted to all members. Only Emperor Hirohito was accurately informed of the carrier and pilot losses. He chose not to inform the Army immediately, and Army planners continued to believe the fleet was healthy and secure for a short time."

 

[Ozymandias]

Earlier, Tim mentioned that the Japanese had 10 carriers, and that the US had 3 in the Pacific. After Midway, the Japanese had 6, and the US had 2.

But it is interesting to see what the great industrial might of the US was going to produce.

These are carriers of all types, including the Jeep carriers that the US produced, and which typically carried about 24 planes, about a third of what the complement was for the large carriers.

Carrier Production:

1941--Japan 6---US 0

1942--Japan 4---US 18

1943--Japan 2---US 65

1944--Japan 5---US 45

1945--Japan 0---US 13

Total--Japan 17--US 141

Japan's losses were essentially irreplaceable.

 

[Wilk]

Hey all I have been asked to do a reader friendly synopsis of the development and deployment of the atom bomb. I have only skimmed the thread but I see a lot of good stuff here so I hope what I add will measure up. I am pulling together references and notes so I can do the thorough job this thread deserves. I should have it ready in the next day or so.I have been vocal in my condemnation of the use of the atomic bomb and I know some of you are aware of that. I assure you I intend to leave out my personal feelings. The history of how and why will be there but not my objections. Now after I get that all done if we want to discuss it we could. But I wouldn't want to junk up the thread with that already done to death hijack personally and really it's all been said before.Anyway I look forward to contributing and I hope you guys will enjoy it.

Welcome to my favorite thread of the year. I have zero to add, but really am enjoying following along.

 

[timschochet]

The Voice

I'm 25. I look maybe 19. Most kids feel I'm one of them- the pal next door, say. So maybe they feel they know me. And that's the way I want it to be. What the hell, they're nice kids.

Without a doubt, the most hated and resented American during the war among serviceman was a frail, pallid, bow-tied, 135 pound crooner (soaking wet) with jug-handed ears and a starved look named Francis Albert Sinatra. Sinatra's skill at singing made his well-known, but it was the absence of men overseas that turned him into a national icon, the first of the century's mega music stars. Sinatra's popularity would only be rivaled by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Michael Jackson.

The Voice was created on December 30, 1942. Frankie was singing at New York's Paramount Theater. (He had recently bought himself out of Tommy Dorsey's band, even though Dorsey swore he'd never let him leave. Who knows- perhaps Luca Brasi put a gun to Dorsey's head?) A girl in the 12th row who hadn't eaten lunch fainted- or "swooned". Another girl, startled, stood up and screamed. No one knows eactly what happened in the next few seconds, but Sinatra continued to sing- nobody was going to scream him down- and by the time he had finished, the theater was like a roller coaster ride, with every girl in the place on her feet, screaming.

The screaming spread like the plague. Wherever the Voice appeared, pandemonium followed. His weekly fan mail rose to 5,000 letters, and 2,000 Frankie fan clubs were organized across the country. Girls and autograph hunters chased him through drugstores, restaurants, department stores, and his home. They climbed his roof to peer into his bedroom. Twice he was almost strangled by women tugging for possession of his bow tie. By 1944 his reappearance at the Paramount for a 3 week engagement was greeted by 30,000 wailing adolescents.

In less time than the GI's needed to capture Sicily, the Volce- alias Frank Swoonatra, alias the King of Swoon- was rich. His annual income was over a million dollars. Despite wartime controls, he seemed to be spending most of it. He built a huge pink mansion in Hollywood with every known contrivance and many unknown. His tailored clothes were gaudy and enormous in every dimension, from the floppy bow ties to padded shoulders. His many friends gathered around him like he was a king.

Parents were angry and confused. The hero of the hour was supposed to be a strapping steel helmeted GI, not this thin little Italian guy with a voice and style that they (the parents) considered unlistenable. "As a visible object of female adulation," Newsweek observed, "Sinatra is baffling." The truth was, he was the only male left around. He was not eligible for the draft (a punctured eardrum). Girls went crazy over Frankie in large part because he was there and the other men were not. Besides, it wasn't really cheating; this was merely a bobby-soxer rite.

To men in the Army, Navy, Air Corps, and Marine Corps, most of them overseas for the duration of the war, Frankie was symbolic of all civilians who avoided going to war. Sinatra was worse, because their girls back home were going crazy over him. It did not help that Frank made just one USO tour during the war, in Italy, after V-E Day. Then he flew off sneering that the USO was "strictly for cheap hacks." Stars and Stripes commented that "Mice make women faint, too." And Marlene Dietrich, who had performed near the front, called him a coward.

Frank would of course move on to make extraordinary record albums a decade later, and he would be an icon all of his life. But like Elvis in the mid 1950's, the Beatles in the early 1960's, and Michael Jackson in the early 1980's, Sinatra's fame during World War II is a unique time period for him. Before he ever became Chairman of the Board, he was the Voice.

 

[timschochet]

My top 20 list of the best films about World War II, in no particular order:

Saving Private Ryan

Schindler's List

Eye of the Needle

The Great Escape

The Guns of Navarone

Stalag 17

From Here to Eternity

Judgment at Nuremberg

Letters from Iwo Jima

The Dirty Dozen

Where Eagles Dare

A League of Their Own

The Bridge Over The River Kwai

King Rat

The Eagle Has Landed

Inglorious Basterds

Casablanca

The English Patient

Europa, Europa!

Empire of the Sun

 

[timschochet]

My top 10 best World War II novels, in no particular order:

The Winds of War

War and Remembrance

The Caine Mutiny

Mila 18

The Power of One

Eye of the Needle

The Young Lions

Battle Cry

From Here to Eternity

King Rat

 

[Mjolnirs]

Tokyo Rose

...

Fascinating.

 

[Ozymandias]

My top 20 list of the best films about World War II, in no particular order:

Saving Private Ryan

Schindler's List

Eye of the Needle

The Great Escape

The Guns of Navarone

Stalag 17

From Here to Eternity

Judgment at Nuremberg

Letters from Iwo Jima

The Dirty Dozen

Where Eagles Dare

A League of Their Own

The Bridge Over The River Kwai

King Rat

The Eagle Has Landed

Inglorious Basterds

Casablanca

The English Patient

Europa, Europa!

Empire of the Sun

That's a pretty good list. I won't quibble with it. If you'd expand it to top 25, I'd add:

Patton

The Longest Day

Das Boot

Run Silent, Run Deep

Stalingrad

 

[timschochet]

That's a pretty good list. I won't quibble with it.

If you'd expand it to top 25, I'd add:

Patton

The Longest Day

Das Boot

Run Silent, Run Deep

Stalingrad

I certainly should have included Das Boot- just slipped my mind. What is Stalingrad? Is that the one with Jude Law about the two snipers? That was a great flick, but I thought the title was different.

 

[Ozymandias]

That's a pretty good list. I won't quibble with it.

If you'd expand it to top 25, I'd add:

Patton

The Longest Day

Das Boot

Run Silent, Run Deep

Stalingrad

I certainly should have included Das Boot- just slipped my mind. What is Stalingrad? Is that the one with Jude Law about the two snipers? That was a great flick, but I thought the title was different.

No, it's a German production. Shows the gritty horror of Stalingrad from the standpoint of the soldiers in it.

 

[DCThunder]

A League of Their Own isn't a war movie any more than The Summer of '42 is a war movie.

Both are movies that happen to be set during WWII, but that doesn't make them "war movies".

I'd also add Twelve O'Clock High, In Harm's Way, The Sands of Iwo Jima, They Were Expendable , 30 Seconds Over Tokyo and The Best Years of Our Lives, to the list.

As for WWII novels, Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" is pretty good, although it's early Mailer. And I love "Once an Eagle" by Anton Myrer, which isn't strictly a WWII novel, but is a great story with some great characters who asre composites of real people.

 

[DCThunder]

That's a pretty good list. I won't quibble with it.

If you'd expand it to top 25, I'd add:

Patton

The Longest Day

Das Boot

Run Silent, Run Deep

Stalingrad

I certainly should have included Das Boot- just slipped my mind. What is Stalingrad? Is that the one with Jude Law about the two snipers? That was a great flick, but I thought the title was different.

The sniper movie was "The War of the Rats" from an excellent novel by the same name.

 

[Ozymandias]

That's a pretty good list. I won't quibble with it.

If you'd expand it to top 25, I'd add:

Patton

The Longest Day

Das Boot

Run Silent, Run Deep

Stalingrad

I certainly should have included Das Boot- just slipped my mind. What is Stalingrad? Is that the one with Jude Law about the two snipers? That was a great flick, but I thought the title was different.

No, it's a German production. Shows the gritty horror of Stalingrad from the standpoint of the soldiers in it.

By the way, we ought to have a special Oscar for Downfall.

Hitler's reaction to being banned from FBG's was one of the high points of the war.

 

[timschochet]

The Greatest Year

For American sports fans, one of the worst aspects of the Second World War was that it interrupted the most amazing rivalry in the history of baseball, between the Yankee Clipper and Teddy Ballgame. The summer of 1941 was the greatest year ever in that sport, in my humble opinion, because of the incredible accomplishments of these two men. Joe DiMaggio put together a record 56-game hitting streak, and Ted Williams batted .406.

DiMaggio, who had shown a predilection for hitting streaks since his minor league days, started his 1941 streak with a hit against the White Sox on May 15. This was ironic because DiMaggio struggled against Chicago pitching throughout the season. Twice he prolonged the streak with bad-hop singles off Sox shortstop Luke Appling, and once with an infield dribbler in front of Sox third baseman Bob Kennedy.

DiMaggio faced White Sox righty Johnny Rigney four times during the streak and went 1-for-3, 1-for-5, 1-for-4, and 1-for-3. DiMaggio hit half of his 30 homers and drove in 55 runs during the streak to lift the Yankees out of a team slump and into the driver's seat in the 1941 race. On July 2, a DiMaggio homer broke Wee Willie Keeler's 44-year-old major league hitting-streak record of 44. And on July 17, his streak was ended at 56 by two terrific back-handed stops by Indians third baseman Ken Keltner. (He had just signed a contract the day before with Heinz company to promote their 57 sauce, but it had to be cancelled!) Many baseball experts believe this record will never be broken.

DiMaggio finished the season third in the American League in batting at .357, first in RBI with 125, second in doubles with 43, and fourth in home runs. But his season was dwarfed -- statistically, at least -- by that of Williams, who led him in runs 135 to 122, homers 37 to 30, on-base average .551 to .440, and slugging average .735 to .643. Williams also batted .406, the highest batting average in either league since Rogers Hornsby's .424 in 1924.

To put Williams's feat in perspective, consider that DiMaggio hit .409 during his hitting streak -- just three points higher than Williams's season mark. At one point in June, Williams was hitting .436 but then began to fade. On the final day of the season, he found himself at .3995 -- technically .400 by baseball scoring rules. Nevertheless, Williams refused to play it safe and played both ends of a doubleheader. He went 6-for-8.

DiMaggio won the MVP that year, to the anger of Red Sox fans forever. The legend is that two New York sportswriters left Teddy Ballgame off their lists completely so as to swing the vote to the Yankee Clipper. Ted was never liked by sportswriters, and the feeling was certainly mutual. Personally, I've always felt that, statistically speaking he deserved the award. The streak is one thing, but .400 is a bigger accomplishment, especially when you consider that Williams was a power hitter. All of the baseball players in our era who have come close to flirting with .400 were not power hitters. It is much more difficult to do this when you are the main batter on your team. This is why most people regard Ted Williams as the greatest hitter of all time.

After 9/11, most Americans revered a certain Arizona Cardinal football player who chose to give up his career to serve in the armed forces. But during World War II, this was not special, it was standard behavior and expected, and most of the prominent athletes of the time served. DiMaggio and Williams were no exception.

With the outbreak of the war, both men enlisted in the armed services. Williams joined the Navy, where he became a pilot and and flight instructor. (Later on in the Korean War, he would actually fly combat missions.) DiMaggio enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces, rising to the rank of sergeant. He was stationed at Santa Ana, California; Hawaii; and Atlantic City, New Jersey as a physical education instructor. Both men missed these years of their prime, (along with many other famous players) so we will never know what their numbers might have been. This is especially regrettable for Ted Williams- who knows what he might have done if not for the two wars?

 

[timschochet]

A League of Their Own isn't a war movie any more than The Summer of '42 is a war movie.

I get your point, but I disagree, and here's why: An important aspect about the war in terms of this country was how it changed us. The societal roles of women were never the same after the war as they had been before. The film explores this, and also what life was like on the homefront. World War II is not simply about the battles, it's also about how human experiences were altered. That's why I chose that movie.

 

[timschochet]

Much earlier in the thread (I think on the first page) someone requested that I discuss anything to do with Canadian soldiers. I haven't really had the opportunity to do this, but now I can, because the timeline (summer, 1942) allows for discussion of the Dieppe Raid, which I will try to get to later today.

 

[DCThunder]

A League of Their Own isn't a war movie any more than The Summer of '42 is a war movie.

I get your point, but I disagree, and here's why: An important aspect about the war in terms of this country was how it changed us. The societal roles of women were never the same after the war as they had been before. The film explores this, and also what life was like on the homefront. World War II is not simply about the battles, it's also about how human experiences were altered. That's why I chose that movie.

Well, your definition of "war movie" is much broader than mine (no pun intended).Good article on Sinatra, are you going to talk about musical topics related to the war years, such as Glenn Miller and the Army Air Forces Band, as well as morale building songs, both in the US, Britian and Germany too?

 

[timschochet]

A League of Their Own isn't a war movie any more than The Summer of '42 is a war movie.

I get your point, but I disagree, and here's why: An important aspect about the war in terms of this country was how it changed us. The societal roles of women were never the same after the war as they had been before. The film explores this, and also what life was like on the homefront. World War II is not simply about the battles, it's also about how human experiences were altered. That's why I chose that movie.

Well, your definition of "war movie" is much broader than mine (no pun intended).Good article on Sinatra, are you going to talk about musical topics related to the war years, such as Glenn Miller and the Army Air Forces Band, as well as morale building songs, both in the US, Britian and Germany too?

I'm no expert on Glenn Miller, or the morale building songs and movies- would you like to take a shot at this stuff? I'd love to read about it.

 

[DCThunder]

A League of Their Own isn't a war movie any more than The Summer of '42 is a war movie.

I get your point, but I disagree, and here's why: An important aspect about the war in terms of this country was how it changed us. The societal roles of women were never the same after the war as they had been before. The film explores this, and also what life was like on the homefront. World War II is not simply about the battles, it's also about how human experiences were altered. That's why I chose that movie.

Well, your definition of "war movie" is much broader than mine (no pun intended).Good article on Sinatra, are you going to talk about musical topics related to the war years, such as Glenn Miller and the Army Air Forces Band, as well as morale building songs, both in the US, Britian and Germany too?

I'm no expert on Glenn Miller, or the morale building songs and movies- would you like to take a shot at this stuff? I'd love to read about it.

I'll see what I can put together. It won't be that soon, but I'll give it a shot.

 

[Ozymandias]

A League of Their Own isn't a war movie any more than The Summer of '42 is a war movie.

I get your point, but I disagree, and here's why: An important aspect about the war in terms of this country was how it changed us. The societal roles of women were never the same after the war as they had been before. The film explores this, and also what life was like on the homefront. World War II is not simply about the battles, it's also about how human experiences were altered. That's why I chose that movie.

Well, your definition of "war movie" is much broader than mine (no pun intended).Good article on Sinatra, are you going to talk about musical topics related to the war years, such as Glenn Miller and the Army Air Forces Band, as well as morale building songs, both in the US, Britian and Germany too?

I'm no expert on Glenn Miller, or the morale building songs and movies- would you like to take a shot at this stuff? I'd love to read about it.

I'll see what I can put together. It won't be that soon, but I'll give it a shot.

Don't forget about Bing Crosby. He didn't have bobby soxers going crazy over him, but US and British soldiers all over the world listened to him, and thought of home. At the end of the war, more people had heard his voice than that of any man who had ever lived.

 

[DCThunder]

Don't forget about Bing Crosby. He didn't have bobby soxers going crazy over him, but US and British soldiers all over the world listened to him, and thought of home. At the end of the war, more people had heard his voice than that of any man who had ever lived.

Dame Vera Lynn singing "White Cliffs of Dover" did as much to boost British morale as any Churchill speech in Commons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdGX_FcvVoE And Gen. Jimmy Doolittle said that next to a letter from home, Glenn Miller was the best morale booster in the ETO.

 

[Ozymandias]

Don't forget about Bing Crosby. He didn't have bobby soxers going crazy over him, but US and British soldiers all over the world listened to him, and thought of home. At the end of the war, more people had heard his voice than that of any man who had ever lived.

Dame Vera Lynn singing "White Cliffs of Dover" did as much to boost British morale as any Churchill speech in Commons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdGX_FcvVoE And Gen. Jimmy Doolittle said that next to a letter from home, Glenn Miller was the best morale booster in the ETO.

The best song to come out of Germany:http://www.gatasi.com/video/bUsePoATbrU/ww...39-version.html

 

[rsanford]

That's a pretty good list. I won't quibble with it.

If you'd expand it to top 25, I'd add:

Patton

The Longest Day

Das Boot

Run Silent, Run Deep

Stalingrad

I certainly should have included Das Boot- just slipped my mind. What is Stalingrad? Is that the one with Jude Law about the two snipers? That was a great flick, but I thought the title was different.

The sniper movie was "The War of the Rats" from an excellent novel by the same name.

The movie I watched in the US was "Enemy at the Gates". Maybe it was released elsewhere under "The War of the Rats"? According to IMDB:

In Paris, when the movie was released, posters advertised the movie's title as "Stalingrad".

 

[Sweet J]

gonna do a placeholder here. this seems interesting and I know next-to-nothing about WWII

 

[Hopheads]

My top 10 best World War II novels, in no particular order:

The Winds of War

War and Remembrance

The Caine Mutiny

Mila 18

The Power of One

Eye of the Needle

The Young Lions

Battle Cry

From Here to Eternity

King Rat

I love historical fiction and am ordering The Winds of War and War and Remembrance based on this thread.I don't see The Power of One as a War novel. Yes it was based in the time and gave some interesting insights on the effect of the war on South Africa, but it was more a setting than the topic of the book. None of the major themes revolved around the war itself.

I've seen it recommended earlier in the thread, and have to recommend City of Thieves if you haven't read it. It definitely belongs in this list.

 

[acapella]

My top 20 list of the best films about World War II, in no particular order:

Saving Private Ryan

Schindler's List

Eye of the Needle

The Great Escape

The Guns of Navarone

Stalag 17

From Here to Eternity

Judgment at Nuremberg

Letters from Iwo Jima

The Dirty Dozen

Where Eagles Dare

A League of Their Own

The Bridge Over The River Kwai

King Rat

The Eagle Has Landed

Inglorious Basterds

Casablanca

The English Patient

Europa, Europa!

Empire of the Sun

That's a pretty good list. I won't quibble with it. If you'd expand it to top 25, I'd add:

Patton

The Longest Day

Das Boot

Run Silent, Run Deep

Stalingrad

No love for:Midway

Tora Tora Tora

Band of Brothers (not really a movie, but also a great book)

A Bridge Too Far

Bridge over the river Kwai

 

[DCThunder]

My top 10 best World War II novels, in no particular order:

The Winds of War

War and Remembrance

The Caine Mutiny

Mila 18

The Power of One

Eye of the Needle

The Young Lions

Battle Cry

From Here to Eternity

King Rat

I love historical fiction and am ordering The Winds of War and War and Remembrance based on this thread.I don't see The Power of One as a War novel. Yes it was based in the time and gave some interesting insights on the effect of the war on South Africa, but it was more a setting than the topic of the book. None of the major themes revolved around the war itself.

I've seen it recommended earlier in the thread, and have to recommend City of Thieves if you haven't read it. It definitely belongs in this list.

I've been pimping City of Thieves every chance I get..."Winds" and "War & R" are both big, sprawling books that have more to do with interpersonal relatonships as the war, but they are very good books, especially if you're Jewish.

 

[DCThunder]

That's a pretty good list. I won't quibble with it.

If you'd expand it to top 25, I'd add:

Patton

The Longest Day

Das Boot

Run Silent, Run Deep

Stalingrad

I certainly should have included Das Boot- just slipped my mind. What is Stalingrad? Is that the one with Jude Law about the two snipers? That was a great flick, but I thought the title was different.

The sniper movie was "The War of the Rats" from an excellent novel by the same name.

The movie I watched in the US was "Enemy at the Gates". Maybe it was released elsewhere under "The War of the Rats"? According to IMDB:

In Paris, when the movie was released, posters advertised the movie's title as "Stalingrad".

You're right, the novel was War of the Rats, I forgot they changed the name of the movie.

 

[timschochet]

Back to the timeline for a strange interlude...

The Road to Dieppe

From the moment the Soviet Union was invented, the hue and cry from the Russians was for a second front in Western Europe. It was the first request at every diplomatic meeting, every conference. In March of 1942, Molotov flew to Washington for talks with FDR and again demanded the 2nd Front. It was at this time that the Soviet rhetoric started to get rather nasty. They accused the Allies, and especially England, of not wanting to interfere while Nazis and Communists killed each other. There is quite a bit of evidence that this wasn't just talk; Stalin really believed it.

Roosevelt was sympathetic. He told Molotov that he had 120,000 men set aside ready to attack, but that he had to convince Churchill. Churchill was against the premature opening of a second front.While he fully appreciated the need to keep the Soviet Union in the war and America focused on the European theatre, and therefore saw the political logic for a show of force, understandably he balked at a full-scale strategic commitment uncertain of success. The main problem, as he pointed out repeatedly, was landing craft; there simply weren't enough in manufacture to invade fortified beaches. The Russians scornfully responded that this was simply an excuse. And the arguments continued.

There now arose in America a new debate regarding this issue. Many left leaning groups and celebrities began to make "Second Front Now!" their key issue, accusing the FDR administration of cowardice. Ironically, these were many of the same people who only a year earlier had urged pacifism upon the public and no help for England. Now they were urging more direct warfare. Large rallies were held in Madison Square and the Hollywood Bowl for a Second Front. Some Hollywood stars, writers, and directors involved themselves in these rallies, and this would prove unfortunate for them later on. It is doubtful that these people were anything but genuine in their belief that helping the Soviets was the best way to defeat the Nazis; the President agreed with them. But because the meetings were organized by groups connected to the Communist party, the attendance of these celebrities was later used by the Witch Hunters of the late 1940s and early 1950s to blacklist them.

At the same time as these rallies were going on, and perhaps in response to them, the isolationist movement found new life. Thought to have died as December 8, 1941, it turned out this was a premature verdict. The now "former" isolationist senators and congressmen demanded to know why Germany was first in FDRs plans rather than Japan. Ever anti-Communist, they proposed that the preponderance of supplies and men be sent to General MacArthur in Australia in order to help him in his plan to recapture Japanese territories, starting with New Gunea. They were aided in this, of course, by the General himself, who continued to send demands to Washington ( and would complain about Europe throughout the remainder of the war.)

Faced with these pressures, the Americans and British conferred, and eventually came up with a compromise by invading French North Africa, which we shall return to later. But in the meantime, wasn't there some means of alleviating the pressure on the Russians, at least temporarily? Lord Louis Mountbatten thought he had the solution: a quick raid on a French port. Furthermore, this would solve another problem as well: there were Canadian troops idling in England, and the Canadian prime minister was insisting they be used. (The troops themselves were never polled about this; most likely they would have preferred to continue to idle, rather than what was about to be asked of them.) Mountbatten believed a surprise raid would be perfect: the troops could get in, do a whole bunch of damage, and leave. It would create chaos among the Germans! Perhaps the RAF could engage the Luftwaffe. And the Russians would be appeased. Enthused, Churchill gave the go-ahead, and the operation was set into motion.

 

[Ozymandias]

Didn't Lenin invent it?

 

[timschochet]

The Dieppe Raid Part One

Dieppe, located on the northern coast of France, was selected for several reasons. It was a port that British intelligence believed had been weakened by troops moving to the Russian front. More importantly, it was the home of a heavily guarded building which carried the newest German radar system. The British were attempting to develop radar jamming devices for use when the time came for the more massive invasion; in order to accomplish this, they needed to learn what they could about the German radar. To this end, they gave a special assignment to RAF Flight Sergeant Jack Nissenthall, a radar specialist who had also completed Commando training while stationed in Yugoslavia.

Nissenthall was to command a small crack team of Saskatchewans. While the main attack was going on, whatever the outcome, Nissenthal was sneak his small team into the radar building. There he was to learn what he could, and then try to blow it up. This was essentially a suicide mission. The British were also worried that, because Nissenthal was a radar specialist, if captured he could be tortured and give up vital information to the enemy. He was therefore instructed to carry a cyanide capsule. But just in case he hesitated to swallow it, the Saskatchewans received private orders from the command that Nissenthall was not aware of: if it looked like the Germans were closing in, they were to kill Nissenthall.

The main attack plan was flawed in that Mountbatten had too many goals at once, never a good idea: storm the beach, capture the port, engage the Luftwaffe in combat. It is true that the Germans had weakened this sector of their defense line in France. It's also true that they were surprised by the attack. But the assault would demonstrate just how incredibly difficult it was to storm a beach.

After training and delays, over 6,000 Canadian infantrymen, supported by a large Naval contingent, landed on the beaches at Dieppe at 5 in the morning on August 19, 1942. They were opposed over all by about 1,500 Germans. Despite surprise, the Germans easily defended all areas. Two separate beach flanking attacks of around 300 men each lost 75% of their initial forces before being forced to retreat. The main attack wave was caught in a crossfire, unable to proceed, and unable to retreat. The Luftwaffe refused to engage the R.A.F., and 106 planes were shot down by local AA fire. Things looked grim almost from the first moment of the attack.

 

[timschochet]

The Dieppe Raid, part 2

Four hours of combat ensued on the beaches of Dieppe; for the survivors, it was likely the longest four hours of their lives. Not an inch of ground was gained. Of the 6,086 Canadians, 3,623 were killed, severly wounded, or captured. The Germans lost a few hundred men: their positions on the beach were so superior they simply could not be touched, even though their numbers were low.

Meanwhile Nissenthall made it to the radar station, but mostl of his Saskatchewan bodyguards were killed en route. The building was too heavily guarded for Nissenthall to enter. But by himself, he somehow managed to crawl up to the rear of the station under enemy fire and cut all telephone wires leading to it. This forced the crew inside to resort to radio transmissions to talk to their commanders, transmissions which were intercepted by listening posts on the south coast of England. The Allies were able to learn a great deal about the arrays of German radar stations along the channel coast thanks to this one simple act, which helped to convince Allied commanders of the importance of developing radar jamming technology. Jack Nissenthall managed to escape back to England.

The Dieppe Raid was hailed in Germany as another great victory for the Third Reich. Once again, the prisoners were paraded before Hitler, and it was a great propaganda coup. Churchill and Mountbatten were heavily embarrassed.

There are several important results of this raid for that would affect the war:

1. Canadian survivors were bitter. They claimed that the German defenses seemed too well placed, and they wondered if their was a conspiracy to inform the Germans. The Soviets, always looking for conspiracies, grabbed on this idea, and accused the British of informing the Germans so that the attack would be a failure, so that the Russians would stop pushing the English for a second front. Let me say that I almost never believe in conspiracy theories, and I don't believe in this one, either. But that doesn't mean that Churchill was above such tactics. There is still a contingent in Canada that believes this actually happened.

2. Mountbatten later claimed the success at Normandy was directly due to the failure at Dieppe. This may be an overstatement designed to excuse his blunders there, but it is certainly true that this assault was studied in great detail by the Allied planners, and the decision to create artificial harbors was a direct result (also the decision to attack at Normandy itself, as a more accessible beach.)

3. The attack by Nissenthall only temporarily took out the radar station, but the forced communication allowed the Allies to learn a great deal, as I wrote. Hitler was so outraged by the success of this and a few other Commando raids,that in October of 1943 he issued the infamous "Commando Directive", which ordered that all captive commandos be immediately executed. It was later determined at Nuremberg that this was a violation of the laws of war.

One final note: a total of 60 US Rangers went ashore at various locations in order to gain battle experience, suffering the first American land casualties of the war in Europe. Lt. Edward V. Loustalot of Louisiana is widely believed to have been the first of the three Americans to die in the fighting.

 

[Mjolnirs]

This post backtracks to the pre-war discussion, but it is something I just read. I'm reading through a book titled EUROPE A History by Norman Davies; not very good, but I'm determined to finish it. Anyways, I'm finally up to WW II and thought this part was interesting:

Discussing Chamberlain after his third visit to Germany -

He alighted from his plane waving a paper which he claimed to bring 'Peace in our time'. He did so in the same spirit which underlay the British Foreign Office's advice to the England football team that same year - to give the Nazi salute at the start of their match against Germany in Berlin.

Can you imagine how those players might want to forget about that later?

 

[Ozymandias]

THE RELOCATION OF SOVIET INDUSTRY

One of the most extraordinary stories of WW2 is how Stalin, faced with the German invasion, and fearing that German Panzers would overrun his industrial heartland, moved Soviet industry eastward, to the Ural Mountains.

The relocation of Soviet industry to the east of the Urals that took place in front of the German advance was a modern marvel, Stalin's machine at its most effective, with more than 1,500 factories picked up and moved wholesale in less than three months. One American reporter described it vividly: "It is as if the principal factories of New England were suddenly picked up lock, stock, and barrel and shifted bodily to the slopes of the Rocky Mountains." The enormous operation had also, and to no surprise, been accompanied by extreme hardships to the literally millions of workers involved. They had been shipped east in unheated cattle cars, with few provisions and poor sanitation. When they reached their final destinations, there was little food or shelter available in the grimy, unfinished industrial boomtowns. Workers began production in factories that didn't have roofs.

The shortage of food was greatly aggravated by the fact that vast regions of productive agricultural land and livestock had been lost to the Germans, and the loss of almost all able-bodied men from the ages of 16 to 40 into the ranks of the Soviet war machine. Women, old men, and young boys kept the factories and farms working. With production and supply all going to the front, such necessary equipment as farm tractors was hard to come by, and even when old tractors were available, there was little fuel available to run them. Plows were pulled by milk cows and farm workers, often women.

The winter of 1941:1942 was the worst, with substantial civilian losses from starvation and deprivation. By the spring of 1942, some order was beginning to return to the Soviet Union, though the USSR was still strained to the limit. Everything was rationed and hard to come by, and citizens had to scrounge, mend, and improvise to get by. Matches were scarce, so the people scrounged up flints or spyglasses to light fires. Newspapers were valued for everything from use as cigarette rolling papers, wrapping paper, toilet paper, and an extra layer between the blankets.

The citizens endured the hardships, having little choice, but they also gave up their savings to support the war effort, donating roubles to build tanks and planes, which were delivered to the front painted with text to announce that the machine was a gift from a particular collective farm or other civic organization. Stalin's propaganda apparatus helped encourage the citizens through appeals to their patriotism. The newspapers played up Soviet successes and played down Soviet defeats, though citizens quickly learned to read between the lines and figure out some approximation of the truth anyway. The propaganda mill encouraged hatred of Germans -- all of them, not just Hitler and his Nazi stooges. Ilya Ehrenburg, the Soviet Union's answer to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, glorified the killing of Germans, encouraging the people to kill as many as they could.

The earnestness of the Soviet people in support of the war would, with help from state propaganda, become exaggerated in memory later. There had always been petty corruption, pilferage, and black marketeering in the USSR, and the war didn't put a stop to these practices by any means. Still, the patriotic fervor behind the support for the war was widespread and deep.

The Gulag was far from disbanded, and prisoners were pushed to build new production sites. They also performed more sophisticated work than simply digging ditches and cutting down trees. Lavrenti Beria (Head of the NKVD) had recognized that there was no reason to waste the technical skills of Soviet engineers and scientists simply because they were officially traitors to the state, and organized "technical prisons" where those skills could be put to use. The technical prisons were called "sharashkas", a Russian word roughly meaning "gang", and they were by the standards of the Gulag relatively comfortable and survivable.

The great Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spent time in a sharashka during the war and described it in his novel THE FIRST CIRCLE, a reference to the first, mild circle of Dante's Hell. The master airplane designer Andrei Tupolev, a grand older statesman of the Soviet aviation industry, ran one of the more notable sharashkas, where the excellent Tu-2 medium bomber was designed. It was later said to be one of the few production aircraft ever designed by an engineering team whose members were all in prison at the time. Tupolev would be given his freedom for his efforts in 1943, and as the story goes Stalin even personally apologized to Tupolev and shook his hand.

 

[timschochet]

I never know, when I read this stuff, whether to admire the Russians or look upon them in horror.

 

[Ozymandias]

I never know, when I read this stuff, whether to admire the Russians or look upon them in horror.

Admiration for the stoicism and bravery of the people, horror and revulsion at the evil leadership they had.

 

[timschochet]

I never know, when I read this stuff, whether to admire the Russians or look upon them in horror.

Admiration for the stoicism and bravery of the people, horror and revulsion at the evil leadership they had.

The Russian people themselves have to bear some sort of responsibility for allowing these sort of leaders to be in charge of their country. Of all the major countries in the world, they seem to have the longest history of succumbing to one dictatorship after another. They admire strong men, and always have since Ivan the Terrible. Putin is only the latest example of a long line.