59 years ago, the nation was shocked by a horrid attack on Pearl Harbor, This one act alone brought us closer yet also into war. Everyone, even those silly Canadians should reflect on the loss the United States suffered and the men that were sacrificed. __________________  __________________ I get the feeling it's not going to be especially historically accurate, and will probably spin some ridiculous romantic stupidity in there somewhere.Look, it's going to be a Bruckenheimer film. Big explosions, wild SFX, thin plot lines. You've seen the trailers, the shots with swarms of Zeros flying through that canyon. It's going to be visually cool, artistically bankrupt. I'll go see it, just for the boobies and explosions. I won't go to pay homage to war vets. __________________ Quote:
Renots is right, FDR knew about the impending attack and chose not to act because he wanted to make sure the US got involved in WWII. __________________ Bump.Cause it needed to be done. __________________ Yes,It loooks to be a great movie but i have to agree with penny.. im sure there will be some stupid titanic style romantic stuff in there young war bride husband killed in abttle marries his brother all that garbage __________________ AmRivlin, I think calling Canadians silly is pretty stupid. I understand it was meant as a joke, but in a serious topic like this, you shouldn't have said it. I'm not sure of the point you were trying to make. Are you were trying to imply that we don't seem to care about your history?__________________ Quote:
Do we?  Shee-it, we didn't have to be bombed to start fighting Hitler!__________________ "Shee-it, we didn't have to be bombed to start fighting Hitler!" Nazi Germany declared war on America. So America wasn't bombed to start fighting Hitler. __________________ Quote:
No, we had to start fighting Hitler because if we didn't Russia wouldn't have stopped their western progress at Germany, but would have taken all of German-occupied Europe along with it. I hope to God no one out there actually thinks the U.S. had any major role in stopping Hitler. We were just the cleanup crew that put him away. If the movie doesn't get into the questions of what Roosevelt knew or didn't, then I hardly can see this movie offering much for intelligent people, and will probably not bother seeing it. __________________ Quote:
Count the time between Germany's declaration of war and the point at which American soldiers were committed. The latter strangely coincides with which event? Pearl Harbour, I believe... __________________ The US absolutely DID have a tremendous role in winning the European arena of the war. With the opening up of the Western Front, the Nazi forces were split. The Russians could not have won against the full force of the Nazi army. Something about sending soldiers to the front without guns kinda tells you that. On more than one occasion Russian soldiers had to arm themselves with the weapons of their fallen comrades. Certainly we were the late-comers to the battle, but without our help, there was little chance of an Allied victory. Our concern of Russia overrunning Western Europe only arose AFTER the tide had turned towards the Allied forces. That is why we refused to move our forces out of West Berlin and why the vast majority of our European military presence is in Germany. __________________ Quote:
I'm sorry Butch but you swallowed your History class's line of bull**** a little too easily. The Nazi push into Russia lasted over a period of about two years. Your notion of the Russian army is very correct as far as the first year goes. The Russians were caught with their pants down by the German blitzkrieg, unprepared and without necessary armament. Millions of soldiers, often fighting without guns, were killed. Luckily for Russia, like so many times before in their history, it was not the Russian army but the feared Russian winter that stopped the Nazis. Unable to push into Moscow, the Nazis backed off for the winter, and prepared to renew the assault in the Spring. This gave the Russians much needed time, and they did not waste it. With an infrastructure that no longer exists today, Russia was able to get its huge war machine moving, and by Spring was equipped with tanks that outperformed their German counterparts, guns with which to fight instead of swords, and an air force that could defend against German bombers and fighters. In spring the Germans again pushed into Russia, but this time they were met by a superior force and driven right back. This was the real turning point of the war. Germany had overextended itself in Africa long before they had to contend with the allied forces to the West. They had no resources left to draw upon to continue pushing out. They may not have yet turned belly up, but their ability to continue conquest was stifled, and it was only a matter of time before they were driven back, as they were already started in that direction by the now advancing Russians. Russia sure as Hell would have occupied everything if the U.S. forces weren't sent to push through Eastern Europe and Africa. If you look at just about any modern U.S. history text, it treats the European theatre like it was an absolute mess, a total rout for Germany until the U.S. got involved. Look at texts from just about anywhere else in the world, and its more like a war between Germany and Russia, with the U.S. and remaining allied forces throwing in the final dagger into the Nazi's dying corpse after Russia had mortally wounded it. You think Truman and Churchill would have let the Russians have the whole Eastern bloc otherwise? If the Russians couldn't handle the Nazi army, then why did we let them get away with that occupation? __________________ Hmmm . . . yep, I swallowed it just a little too easily . . . and I also swallowed the lines of people who were fighting a little too easily also I suppose, huh? (On both the Russian and Western fronts)The Nazis underestimated their needs in Northern Africa and therefore got routed there. The Nazis had the best equipment in the war hands down. The US was only able to beat them on the Western front through superior numbers. The accepted tank kill ratio was that it would take 5 US tanks to kill one German tank. The Soviets had worse equipment than the US did. You are correct about the Russian winter - The Nazis did not learn from history, and thought they could somehow beat it, but they were wrong. Regardless, the Russian military was completely demoralized and begging the US to start the Western front to take the pressure off. The opening of the Western front raised Russian morale and split the Nazi forces - the effect of which cannot be underestimated. __________________ Quote:
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:embarassed: whoops, my bad. Regardless, perhaps you misinterpreted the original point: the US never committed any forces until Pearl Harbour (yeah, I spelled it Canadian...whaddya gonna do about it! ) Ergo, we (Canadians) didn't need to be bombed to get us out of our collective isolationism. The States did, leading to speculation FDR knew about the Japanese attack and allowed to it happen, yada yada yada, you know the rest.And as far as Canada being part of the British Empire, while the last symbolic ties were severed until 1982 (?I think?), Canada operated, for all intents and purposes, autonomously after the First WW. __________________ Why all the US vs. Canada barbs?? The Canadians fought very respectfully in Europe throughout the entire campaign - from BEFORE D-Day all the way through. (Many Canadians were involved in an ill-fated attempt to cross the British Channel and land in France a year or two before D-Day. While it was a disaster, it served as a lesson to those who planned for D-Day and played a part in it's success) . . . and before anyone says it was Canadian ineptitude that doomed the landing, it was planned by the Brits . . . many Canadians are still VERY bitter about what went down.__________________ cue renots with his anti-British vitriol.  __________________ Quote:
You bet. Actually, most of the bitterness stems from the debacles of WWI, which lead to Canada's policy seccession from the BE. __________________ Quote:
And that's why when you check out canadian coins they've got...who else... QE2 I think you downplay how good the British R at hiding their true motives; what better control than the appearance that U Rn't controlling things at all __________________ Quote:
Butch, I'm really not impressed with the way you believe that having talked with a few old geezers who fought in a war 60 years ago renders your opinions infallible. This is the second time you've attempted this in argument, and it hasn't worked yet. Besides, its pretty well known that in times of war, the people who do the fighting are the ones who receive the LEAST accurate information feed, with the MOST propaganda strewn into it, for obvious reasons. Those old veterans fought hard, but were fed and swallowed the same lines you did. Quote:
On this point we agree. The Nazis overextended themselves by pushing into Africa and the Soviet Union at once. They would have been better served if they had concentrated one way or the other, Western Europe and their African colonies, or the USSR. Quote:
This is debatable. The term "best equipment" is subjective to many criteria. German methodologies of production were not well suited to the large scale needs of their forces in the war. German tanks and planes were specially engineered by many different independent producers, and this made war production more time consuming and expensive, as well as increasing costs of maintenance and training. While many of the German engineered devices performed better in the field, inconsistent levels of quality control resulted in a higher rate of breakdowns. This became a critical issue in the battle of Kursk, where the newly commisioned and deployed Gemran "Panther" tanks had overheating problems and were demolished by the advancing Russian tanks, artillery and anti-tank rockets. Allied factories mass-produced cheap, reliable, standardized devices and vehicles that were easier to maintain and cheaper to keep spares for. They may not have been optimized for top performance, but they could get the job done. So who had better equipment isn't as cut and dry as you think. Quote:
The Russians were rightfully begging for a Western Front because it had been promised to them by Churchill and Roosevelt! The Russian army was fighting to save their homeland, and I think you underestimate their morale. Look, my point is this: U.S. army forces weren't deployed until Jan. 1942, a year and a half after Germany and Russia started going at it. Some Air Force support had been sent to Britain a few months before, but their role was mainly defensive at that time. While the bulk of the German forces and resources were centered in Central and Eastern Europe, the U.S. wasted time and energy in Africa, retaking the fiefed African colonies back on behalf of their British and French rulers, running the errands for European Royalty, basically. By the time U.S. forces actually met the Germans in combat for the first time in late 1942, the Soviet army had already cut off the German 6th army at Stalingrad, who were in for a historically dismal winter. With that army wiped out, the Germans had suffered their first major defeat. The Germans were forced back, and the Russian army advanced and gained the initiative. An army of 1.5 million Germans were wiped out, and Hitler never recovered. He tried to bulwark his forces at Kursk and move on to take the Caucuses, but got hammered by the bolstored Soviet army, who had spent the Winter grinding out its own mass produced tanks, planes, artillery, rifles, and rocket launchers. Soviet General Zhukov, who helped plan the manuevers that trapped the German 6th army in Stalingrad, again surprised the Germans, manuevering thousands of tanks, artillery, and launchers within 50-75 kilometers of the German's built up forces without detection. While both sides suffered losses, the Germans were turned back again, and now the remainder of the Eastern front activity would consist of the Soviets advancing, retaking Minsk and other cities which fell in the early days of the German blitzkrieg, continuing all the way to Berlin. Two days after the German defeat at Kursk, U.S. armies touched foot on European soil in Sicily for the FIRST TIME. By then the Soviets had already smashed the German advance, inflicted heavy losses, and killed German expansion. It was now just a matter of pushing the Germans back to their homeland. The U.S. was a late comer who served primarily to bail out Britain and France, who failed to take care of the little German upstart when they had the chance because they found what he was shouting about the communists to be too entertaining. __________________ Quote:
I have spoken with Stalin's interpreter, who was involved in countless high level international discussions (He was the only person to survive this job), so as much as you would like to believe it was simply a few old geezers who were fed disinformation - you are mistaken. As far as the old geezers you speak of, I will trust their versions of how much morale they had. Quote:
You are sort of right here - As I said, the accepted tank kill ratio of US vs. Nazi tanks was 5 US tanks to 1 German - the US was only able to overpower Nazi tanks through overwhelming numbers and the only way they were able to push out those overwhelming numbers was because the production lines were more streamlined through standardized parts etc. Germany had countless problems with production with all sorts of weapons through logistics and through misdirection of resources by Hitler and his command. For instance, we all know that the Nazis had the first jet warplanes . . . but the effort towards their production was minimal . . . why? Because the Nazi high command thought they needed more tanks . . . why? Because of the Western front. The Nazis flat out had the best technology on the battlefield, but because they did not effectively use that tech, they couldn't win. In any case, I do not see how you can possibly marginalize the effect of splitting a war to two fronts. Nobody would argue that the Soviets did not fight hard and fight well, but forcing the Nazis to fight a fresh and well armed US force in the West was a savior for the Soviets. Clearly the US did not simply enter the war for humanitarian purposes - it knew that it had to enter in order to have a strong say in the post-war world - both by preventing a Nazi victory and by undercutting the influence of the Soviets if the allies were to win without the US - but the Soviets were hardly the most important reason for US participation. [Edited by Butch on 12-09-2000 at 09:23 PM] __________________ F*ck the old white people who are still alive you contributed to the Japanese interment camps.Roosevelt was a dickhead too. He helped towards that cause. That was friggin messed up and those that were imprisoned and those that did not comply that were arrested have yet to be pardoned by the federal government or the supreme court. Yes, a moment of silence for those who died at Pearl Harbor and the entire war, but also for those innocent japanese-american's who were screwed over by their own country, the united states.__________________ http://www.sightings.com/general6/war.htmAmong the first "Germans" captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were captured by the US Army __________________ America apologized to and financially compensated the interned Japanese-American's Tse How. Just like the Canadian government did for doing the same thing to its citizens of Japanese descent. My suggestion is you let go your anger since it destructive and will do you no good.Mavi forum |
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
December 7, 1941: "A date which will live in infamy."
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