WWII ended 75 years ago

[summit]

The largest war in history reshaped the world. No other event had as much effect on the last 75 years, but it is hardly studied by the average American.


(Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb)

It was a horrific time with humanity at its worst... and at its best to counter. I've studied it my whole life as an amateur. On August 15, 1945, it ended.


(Peace celebrations)

Estimates are over 100 million casualties (military and civilian... majority civilian). The atrocities are so numerous, large and small. The Holocaust stands out because 1 in 6 deaths in the entire worldwide conflict were from the Nazi's internal, organized, industrialized system of mass murder, 11-12 million deaths, and they planned for another 30-50 million. There were so many atrocities: the Rape of Nanking, Manila Massacre, the Bataan Death March, Palawan Massacre, Unit 731, Katyn Massacre, Chem/bio attacks on China, Coventry, Dresden, the Japanese American Internment... I cannot list them all.


(Nazi death camps and death squads murdered 6 million Jews and 5+ million other "undesirables")

So much technology came from the war, either in initial research or development form experiment to practical: aviation and jets, radar, rocketry, computers, nuclear power/deterrence/medicine, blood plasma, antimalarials, antibiotics, synthetic fuel, internal fixation of fractures, tetanus shots, skin grafts, morphine, and remotely piloted aircraft are all socially positive developments that came out of arms development. Desegregation of the armed forces, women in the workplace, the elimination of fascism, and establishment of the UN were societal positives.


(1942)

I've met and talked to a lot of veterans. My family served.


(Japan attacks Pearly Harbor, Dec 7 1941)

One grandfather was a B-17 pilot instructor and test pilot. He flew P-38s, B-17s, YB-40s, B-29s. The test flights of YB-40s (a B-17 with a bunch of extra guns and no guns meant to escort formations) didn't go well. When the bombers dropped, they got faster leaving the YB-40s behind to get shot up.



He stayed in aviation his whole life. His brothers were all in the Navy.

Other Grandfather was a naval gunnery officer on CV-6 ENTERPRISE

(Kamikaze hits elevator, his gun batteries were very close to it). He then was sent to Chinese language school and to China.

Great Uncle was a staff officer with Patton from North Africa through Europe.

The Atlantic has a fantastic photo essay on WWII divided into parts that is very much worth the look.

[stalefish3169]

Just watched Midway a few nights ago. Acting was a bit off at times, but otherwise a good flick. Woody got some pretty big responsibilities since his days at Cheers! I liked that they dedicated the movie to the soldiers from both sides.

Can't imagine having to go through something like those combat scenes. Hopefully humanity can avoid doing so in the future.


I listened to Dan Carlin's WWI recipe for Armageddon series last winter. It was great but hard to comprehend. I finished it right about as the Rona was ramping up. Really put things into perspective. Might have to go for the WWII supervona in the east series soon.

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[riser4]

I feel blessed that my HS, in 1983, taught US history out of order. And I am incredulous that not everyone had the same experience. We started with Aug 6, 1945 and worked forward. As that was the most relevant to our present day and was the period we spent the most time on. This was also the year of a) the PBS Vietnam television history, b) The Day After. Both of which greatly augmented our in class discussions. I forget the order, but the rest of the year was spent meandering back and forth thought various periods of US history. It was a very effective approach. If I recall it was called the Fenton method, or something like that.

[summit]

Just watched Midway a few nights ago. Acting was a bit off at times, but otherwise a good flick. Woody got some pretty big responsibilities since his days at Cheers! I liked that they dedicated the movie to the soldiers from both sides.

Can't imagine having to go through something like those combat scenes. Hopefully humanity can avoid doing so in the future.


I listened to Dan Carlin's WWI recipe for Armageddon series last winter. It was great but hard to comprehend. I finished it right about as the Rona was ramping up. Really put things into perspective. Might have to go for the WWII supervona in the east series soon.

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The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
There is no better nor any more engaging read on the genesis of WW1

She makes the complex subject make sense and allows you to understand the personalities that drove it.

[old goat]

PBS Reno is replaying Ken Burns documentary about WWII--just did episode 4/14--D Day, among other things.

Interesting how important technology was--the American bomber losses improved greatly once they had fighters with the range to accompany the bombers all the way to German targets. The fighting in the hedgerows was so difficult in part because the German tanks had guns with a longer range than the allies, so they could put one tank at an intersection and pick off allied tanks as they came up the road.

OTOH the soldiers would tell you that courage, bravery, individual soldierly qualities counted for nothing. Pure chance if you lived or died. Soldiers were just numbers, still are.

I was taught in surgery school that more lives were saved by the medical and technological advances of warfare than were lost in wars. I say bullshit.

So WWII is over. When will the Civil War be over?

[stalefish3169]

Thanks, will keep in mind. After 18hrs of podcasts on WWI I'm good for a little bit. Haha! I like to read, but the podcasts are nice for my 2 hour drives to surf.

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[Rideski]

PBS, Frontline, Nova, and similar were on frequent rotation on my dad’s tv the entire time I lived there. Certainly changed my view of the world. He frequently said things such as “war is hell” and others. He did a brief tour in the Korean War. Several of my Uncles were in Nam. One year when I was in high school a buddy talked me into going to a one day ROTC class. My dad found out later and flipped his shit. Hats off and all due respect to vets, but he wanted me no where near it.

[Meadow Skipper]

OTOH the soldiers would tell you that courage, bravery, individual soldierly qualities counted for nothing. Pure chance if you lived or died. Soldiers were just numbers, still are.

That is so fucking rough...and I suppose there’s some sort of lesson there.

So WWII is over. When will the Civil War be over?

[ötzi]

My Dad was a combat infantryman in WW2 in Europe, landed in France shortly after D-Day with the 100th Infantry and carried a BAR far into Germany. I'm sure he killed quite a few Germans with that thing.

He very rarely said anything about the war but one time he did say that the Germans were much better soldiers than us, better trained, equipped and led. We just overwhelmed them with numbers and materiel and they got tired.

100th Infantry route map: http://www.marshallfoundation.org/li...4/06/001_1.jpg

[k2skier112]

My Father was on U.S.S. Robinson DD562 Water Tender second class, in the bowels of the ship. WT2c(T)
He was late to port for some reason and wasn't supposed to be on DD562. The ship he was assigned to was torpedoed and sank, very few survivors. Fate, Karma... or just plain lucky.
"Robbie", as she was called, was in the Leyte battle
http://www.ussrobinson.org/Star_Four.htm

[Meadow Skipper]

He very rarely said anything about the war but one time he did say that the Germans were much better soldiers than us, better trained, equipped and led. We just overwhelmed them with numbers and materiel and they got tired.

Interesting. The Germans almost certainly had more experience than the Allied troops at the time of the invasion.

[wooley12]

Never thought of Hiroshima as the end but it was over that day. My passion and hobby is finding the stories of infantrymen and commandos at the front that they don't teach in history class from the MTO and ETO.

Not all of the prisoners captured on the front made it down the mountains of Italy to a POW camp

Pointe du Hoc was a "Bad Operation" that wasn't worth the human cost.

One does not slit a sentry's throat when approaching from the rear. You stab and cut to the front.

The last original Darby Ranger died last week.

Many didn't speak about it because of what they saw and did. More didn't speak easily as silence about operations was indoctrinated into them and examples were made of some who's lips slipped. My dad's CO got two Silver Stars and a Dishonorable for telling Life magazine he turned his clothing inside out and escaped the POW camp by sneaking out with an Italian work crew. He died a drunk in Buffalo. 1972.

My dad was with the Rangers and FSSF. He told a lot of stories and checking them out got my research started.

I've become a Ranger historical resource with a database of names and dates. Any mag wanting info on a WWII Ranger, I'm your Bobby Stainless.

[old goat]

My dad was a butcher when he enlisted. The army sent him to Chicago to buy meat for the army. He bought good meat for the enlisted men and bad meat for the officers, so they fired him. Then he took a typing test. He was a good typist but when he took the test his fingers were on the wrong row of the unfamiliar machine and every letter was wrong. So they made him a clerk-typist. (Like Upham in Saving Private Ryan). Finally they made him a lab tech and he served on New Guinea. He must have been a decent soldier because he made Master Sgt. He talked about the war--being bombed by American planes, sleeping in the mud (he refused to take us camping), and hating his CO--Col. Tiggert. He published a little news letter that made fun of the officers. Col. Tiggert hated him. In the 60's we visited the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Museum--part of the Smithsonian--and Gen. Tiggert's name was on the directory so my dad went to see him and they reconciled. My dad was a doctor by this time. The general told my dad about his research on malaria. A couple of weeks later I found an article--General Tiggert was in charge of germ warfare. He was researching how to give people malaria. My dad was not surprised. He never came under enemy fire but he was slated to go in the first wave of the invasion of the Japanese mainland to test the water. The bomb saved his life.

[jono]

Interesting. The Germans almost certainly had more experience than the Allied troops at the time of the invasion.

Just watching Maggie's War on Amazon. Definitely highlights the importance of experience--and the differences between a lot of later guys and, for instance, the 82nd Airborne who got into combat sooner.

My wife's grandpa died a few years back, but late in life he started to open up a lot more with the stories. He was the chief in the one boiler room that got up steam to move a ship on December 7, and as far as we know the only survivor of his group. They were under water when the Nevada ran aground and I think it was the morning of the 8th when he finally surfaced after swimming between air pockets in pitch darkness the whole time. I can't imagine how many life and death gambles he had to win to make it out. We should put on the recordings he made.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

My grandad drove a truck, chased Patton across France and the Rhine.

My Grandma packed ammunition in a war factory near Chicago. She and the other girls would slip perfumed notes with lipstick kisses into the crates to help morale. She mentioned some notes were rather suggestive. Anything to help the war effort.

[Viva]

My grandad drove a truck, chased Patton across France and the Rhine.

Red Ball Express?

[Benny Profane]

He very rarely said anything about the war but one time he did say that the Germans were much better soldiers than us, better trained, equipped and led. We just overwhelmed them with numbers and materiel and they got tired.

They had better drugs, too. The Blitzkrieg was a mystery to the allies until they discovered that the tank crews were on amphetamines, then it made sense. A little over ten years later Elvis is shipped over to Germany and becomes addicted to the pills like maybe most others in his unit as the army tries to replicate that fighting spirit in our soldiers in war games. That was the beginning of his long end.

It was a race for Hitler to achieve a diplomatic end to the war before he ran out of resources. All he really wanted was an expanded Germany into the Ukraine and the Caucacus ports, to accommodate his expanding population and, yes, breed his master race. But his end was America, with its vast industrial capacity, joining in. It was a war of attrition at that point.

Of course, we as Americans have been so brainwashed, though, that we never even mention that the Russians were absolutely heroic in beating back the German army and then the Red army advancing all the way to Berlin and arriving there first.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Maybe a little heroic, maybe more just fight or die either at the hands of the Nazis, or by Stalin.

[old goat]

My grandad drove a truck, chased Patton across France and the Rhine.

My Grandma packed ammunition in a war factory near Chicago. She and the other girls would slip perfumed notes with lipstick kisses into the crates to help morale. She mentioned some notes were rather suggestive. Anything to help the war effort.

Too bad they hadn't invented selfies yet.

[byates1]

cool thread. don't have much to add other than met and hung out w a 10 mtn div skier. still alive i think. dude at 90 looks like 65.

gave him my parking spot at the front of a small cc i was running. i rode my bike most everyday. he gave me a book where he is mentioned numerous times. won't talk about it though. don't blame him.

[Talisman]

My uncle standing in front of his position on a RCAF Lancaster in August 1944. He survived the war despite flying 100+ missions over Europe starting in 1941 on Wellington bombers.


My dad in the center with his crew at Clark Airfield just after the fall of Manila in March 1945. Manila was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific by some accounts with 100,000 civilians killed. Both my dad and uncle were big believers that dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved a million lives including their own.

[jono]

Too bad they hadn't invented selfies yet.

Loose lips sink ships: I always knew my grandpa made drive shafts for PT boats, but I think it was 2014 or so when we learned that my wife's grandma built airplanes in her high school's gym. They were always told not to discuss it.

[jono]

Of course, we as Americans have been so brainwashed, though, that we never even mention that the Russians were absolutely heroic in beating back the German army and then the Red army advancing all the way to Berlin and arriving there first.

Went both ways: I met a woman from the Czech Republic some years ago who related that throughout the Cold War Czechs had been taught that the Russians liberated them, but the eyewitnesses all knew (and told their kids) that Patton got there first. Made it sound like a bit of a national sore spot, which might be understandable.

Not to diminish the Russian effort, but there was a pretty common expression among women in Berlin in 1945: "better a Russki on the belly than an Ami on the head." The American bombers reached Berlin long before the Russians, with huge effect.

[AKPogue]

Of course, we as Americans have been so brainwashed, though, that we never even mention that the Russians were absolutely heroic in beating back the German army and then the Red army advancing all the way to Berlin and arriving there first.

Guess you missed the part of WWII where the Russians invaded Poland to start off WWII.

[Benny Profane]

???

And then the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?