Wich was the worst nation in the war?

[Maestro]

Excuse me "GERMANSAREGENIUSES"?

Sure the Netherlands was not fighting for a long time, 4 days is wimpy at best, but what is little known is that in those 4 days the Dutch used their 109 aircraft (survivors of Germans attempt to demolish the Dutch Air Force in a first surprise strike) to shoot down 328 (!) of the 1024 German aircraft!

For this the Dutch used mainly Fokker D-XXI aircraft, a handfull of (beautifull) G-1's and a lot of old, obsolete aircraft like the C-V and C-X bi-planes against the aircraft that were the Luftwaffe's finest.

No other country to date has shot down that many fighters within 4 days ever!

The fact that the Netherlands surrendered that quickly is due to the size of the country and the ignoranze of it's army's commanders. You see... they counted on the flooding of large pieces of land to stop the German tanks but they didn't even think about the bombers and transport planes flying over these pieces of land and landing troops behind them.
Also the utter destruction of The Hague (after the surrendering!) showed that the Netherlands had no other option but to surrender or the country would have been turned into a parking lot.
The Dutch were outnumbered and they knew it.

The bombing of The Hague by the way was terrible and this with the fact that Germany killed a lot of inocent (not just the Jews were mass murdered here) people just because they needed some space and low-cost factory workers makes Germany the worst country in my eyes.
Of course Japan killed more Chinese civilians than Germany killed Jews (but nobody cares about that little fact, right?) which makes them as bad as the Germans to me, but America is close behind with its mass-masacre of Tokio, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There's nothing anybody can say to make me feel good about killing 230.000 (mainly civilian) lives with first a bombing of Tokio and afterwards dropping two experiments on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just to make a point when Japan was already on brink of surrender. Of course there's Pearl Harbor, but I see that more as a tactical very clever attack (even though the Americans knew about it but forgot to mention it to the proper people so it could have been avoided) and this was after America "bullied" Japan enough to force them into a position they only saw one way out of.

Then there is Russia, a regime which was worse then Hitler's because Stalin didn't care about race or religion, he hated everybody! (both in his own and other countries). Yes it was Russia that got Germany, if Hitler didn't attack Russia Europe would still be German today but Russia accomplished this with fear, not knowledge and thinking. Kill Germany or get killed by your own commander was the thinking then. After Russia reached Berlin they occupied the countries Germany occupied before but the Allied forces were okay with that.

France is another story altogether. They had a good army and a huge country but "surrendered" (signed an armistice) in little more than a month which basically means they sold 3/5 of the country to Germany and in return the other 2/5 would be "free". The Vichy government ruling France for Germany during the occupation was composed out of most of the same people as before the war! (Petain was France's vice-premier when Germany attacked). Sounds like treason to me, but hey... the French were happy with this! Of course France was the country which in my eyes started WWII with the hard-line view on Germany after WWI.
Germany was in ruins and struggled to get back it's industries which was totally denied by the French thus forcing them to choose for the only leader that could bring them out of this missery... Adolf Hitler. Germans didn't want to kill, rape and pillage, they wanted work and prosperity like all countries desire but France took Germanies biggest industrial area (Ruhrgebied) away and didn't want to give it back untill Hitler forced them to.

By the way... France started a lot of wars during history, even the Vietnam war (unlike the Americans they actually saw they couldn't win and bugged out leaving the mess for America to clean up, which of course failed), a fact that is not talked about much.

So who is the worst country in WWII?

All I know GERMANSAREGENIUSES is that it certainly was not the Netherlands who was as bad as any of above countries.

Best Regards...
Dennis Verhaaff

ps... know your history!

Something bugged me in your post, Muskiet.

You seems to talk like if the civilans lives could have been spared during Allied attacks. Think about all major attacks. If the USAAF wouldn't had A-bombed Japan, many Allied soldiers would have died, may be much more than 230,000 loses. Because the war would have lasted may be one or two more years. The Japanese Empire was not weak when USAAF A-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Sometimes, armies MUST destroy city. Think about Operation Overlord. If the RAF and RCAF never had bombed Caen in July 1944, the city would have never been taken. I mean, the Britishs and Canadians tried to take the city intact from June 6th 1944 to somewhere around July 17th 1944. They were able to take a part of Caen, but they realised they would never take it completely without air support. So they bombed the part of the city that was not under Allied control.

Before June 6th 1944, the RAF, USAAF and RCAF bombed many city like Le Havre, Cherbourg, Coutances, St-Lô, Vire... But those bombings were needed. Mainly because that street fightings are very deadly to both sides... and civilans die anyway. So bombing cities is smarter.

 

[Lightning Guy]

I once wrote a paper in school on the decision to drop the atomic weapons on Japan. It is my firm belief that individuals who claim Japan could have been successfully invaded with as little as 100,000 casualties must be smoking something. Early battles (like Okinawa and Iwo Jima) had required inflicting something like 95% casualties on the Japanese defenders. The Japanese military still had aproximately 4 million in its ranks in Aug. 1945. A little easy number crunching suggests that Japanese MILITARY fatalities would have run into the millions (not to mention civilian and Allied losses).

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i believe it was right to drop the A-bombs, primarily for the reasons you've mentioned, however i hope they're never needed again...................

 

[Maestro]

For once, we agree on one point, LG. Nobody (even the US army) could invade Japan without VERY HEAVY losses.

And like you Lanc, I hope A-bombs won't be needed again. What I said is that sometimes, destroying important cities (with or without A-bombs) is the lone way to win.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i take it you mean one way to win?? becuase you can't win just by bombing a city, you'll have to invade it too.......................

 

[GermansRGeniuses]

Muskiet . . . the USN shot down more aircraft than that in one day during the Marianas Turkey Shoot.

Ahem, Great Marianas Turkey Shoot...

 

[Maestro]

i take it you mean one way to win?? becuase you can't win just by bombing a city, you'll have to invade it too.......................

Yeah, that's what I meant.

 

[GermansRGeniuses]

Excuse me "GERMANSAREGENIUSES"?

Sure the Netherlands was not fighting for a long time, 4 days is wimpy at best, but what is little known is that in those 4 days the Dutch used their 109 aircraft (survivors of Germans attempt to demolish the Dutch Air Force in a first surprise strike) to shoot down 328 (!) of the 1024 German aircraft!

For this the Dutch used mainly Fokker D-XXI aircraft, a handfull of (beautifull) G-1's and a lot of old, obsolete aircraft like the C-V and C-X bi-planes against the aircraft that were the Luftwaffe's finest.

No other country to date has shot down that many fighters within 4 days ever!

The fact that the Netherlands surrendered that quickly is due to the size of the country and the ignoranze of it's army's commanders. You see... they counted on the flooding of large pieces of land to stop the German tanks but they didn't even think about the bombers and transport planes flying over these pieces of land and landing troops behind them.
Also the utter destruction of The Hague (after the surrendering!) showed that the Netherlands had no other option but to surrender or the country would have been turned into a parking lot.
The Dutch were outnumbered and they knew it.

The bombing of The Hague by the way was terrible and this with the fact that Germany killed a lot of inocent (not just the Jews were mass murdered here) people just because they needed some space and low-cost factory workers makes Germany the worst country in my eyes.
Of course Japan killed more Chinese civilians than Germany killed Jews (but nobody cares about that little fact, right?) which makes them as bad as the Germans to me, but America is close behind with its mass-masacre of Tokio, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There's nothing anybody can say to make me feel good about killing 230.000 (mainly civilian) lives with first a bombing of Tokio and afterwards dropping two experiments on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just to make a point when Japan was already on brink of surrender. Of course there's Pearl Harbor, but I see that more as a tactical very clever attack (even though the Americans knew about it but forgot to mention it to the proper people so it could have been avoided) and this was after America "bullied" Japan enough to force them into a position they only saw one way out of.

Then there is Russia, a regime which was worse then Hitler's because Stalin didn't care about race or religion, he hated everybody! (both in his own and other countries). Yes it was Russia that got Germany, if Hitler didn't attack Russia Europe would still be German today but Russia accomplished this with fear, not knowledge and thinking. Kill Germany or get killed by your own commander was the thinking then. After Russia reached Berlin they occupied the countries Germany occupied before but the Allied forces were okay with that.

France is another story altogether. They had a good army and a huge country but "surrendered" (signed an armistice) in little more than a month which basically means they sold 3/5 of the country to Germany and in return the other 2/5 would be "free". The Vichy government ruling France for Germany during the occupation was composed out of most of the same people as before the war! (Petain was France's vice-premier when Germany attacked). Sounds like treason to me, but hey... the French were happy with this! Of course France was the country which in my eyes started WWII with the hard-line view on Germany after WWI.
Germany was in ruins and struggled to get back it's industries which was totally denied by the French thus forcing them to choose for the only leader that could bring them out of this missery... Adolf Hitler. Germans didn't want to kill, rape and pillage, they wanted work and prosperity like all countries desire but France took Germanies biggest industrial area (Ruhrgebied) away and didn't want to give it back untill Hitler forced them to.

By the way... France started a lot of wars during history, even the Vietnam war (unlike the Americans they actually saw they couldn't win and bugged out leaving the mess for America to clean up, which of course failed), a fact that is not talked about much.

So who is the worst country in WWII?

All I know GERMANSAREGENIUSES is that it certainly was not the Netherlands who was as bad as any of above countries.

Best Regards...
Dennis Verhaaff

ps... know your history!

Look, I'm Dutch too, I just research the Germans! Anywho, we got our language from them~with changes, of course. I research WWII through many means, but it is impossible to do it all in a short period of time! I simply haven't gotten round to the Netherlands and didn't know any of that stuff (other than the fact that the G.1 was beautiful, among other things...). Also, I'm more Brasileiro than Dutch (My grandpa was the only Dutch in me family as far as I know, rest is Brasileiro~1/8th). I have a question, if we capitulated in Mau of 1940, how were we fighting the Japs in 1941? (If I'm wrong on the date, then the book had a typo...) I mean, we were forced to ally with Germany and Germany was allied with Japan. In other words, how were we fighting our own ally? Did Germany allow? Or was it just a typo?

 

[Maestro]

Look, I'm Dutch too, I just research the Germans! Anywho, we got our language from them~with changes, of course. I research WWII through many means, but it is impossible to do it all in a short period of time! I simply haven't gotten round to the Netherlands and didn't know any of that stuff (other than the fact that the G.1 was beautiful, among other things...). Also, I'm more Brasileiro than Dutch (My grandpa was the only Dutch in me family as far as I know, rest is Brasileiro~1/8th). I have a question, if we capitulated in Mau of 1940, how were we fighting the Japs in 1941? (If I'm wrong on the date, then the book had a typo...) I mean, we were forced to ally with Germany and Germany was allied with Japan. In other words, how were we fighting our own ally? Did Germany allow? Or was it just a typo?

May be they were "rebel" soldiers... Just like Free French Forces during D-Day, at Sword Beach who landed with the British No. 4 Commando. The FFF unit was called the No. 10 Commando.

 

[GermansRGeniuses]

Nah, they were Dutch East Indies forces, same markings on the aircrafts and everything. Obviously, they probably weren't led by the government, but they WERE official.

 

[Maestro]

Nah, they were Dutch East Indies forces, same markings on the aircrafts and everything. Obviously, they probably weren't led by the government, but they WERE official.

No. 10 Commando was official too. Go to http://www.dday.co.uk/ and click on the "Ouistreham" link. They talk about the No. 10 and No. 4 Commando units. I don't know a lot about the Dutch East Indies Forces, but it looks quite the same than Free French Forces to me...

 

[plan_D]

You've got the right idea Germans. They were Dutch national military personel but were not under the control of the home Dutch government when it captiulated. It was under the Dutch East Indies control, and I think under over-all command of the British or Americans.

 

[GermansRGeniuses]

Cool 8) At least we were doing SOMETHING.

 

[plan_D]

The Dutch had 3 Cruisers, 7 Destroyers and 15 Submarines in the pacific.

 

[Lightning Guy]

Most of which, I believe were sunk. The early going against the IJN was very rough and any sort of night battle into 1943 was most likely going to come out in favor of the Japanese.

 

[muskiet]

The Dutch government and its Royalty fled to the United Kingdom from where they led the remaining Dutch forces including the ones in the Dutch Indies. Okay... those were largely on their own because the government in exile had bigger fish to fry, but they had at least leaders in the United Kingdom. The Dutch even had their "own" Spitfire squadron (167) first based in Castle Town to defend the navy base Scapa Flow and afterwards flying defense for air to ground missions from Ludham airforce base. In 1943 it became the 322 squadron of the Royal Dutch Air Force (even though only 8 of the 25 pilots were Dutch).

It's interesting to know that the biggest supporter to the remaining Dutch forces and the one that made the Dutch Spitfire squadron possible was Prince Bernhard who himself was German. This was a German who was the Commander of Dutch troops trying to free The Netherlands from Germans.

 

[Stuka-99]

So in other words we english are your best friends

 

[Stuka-99]

like my spitfire? besides the germans, italians,japanese weren't the real enemy it was fascism thee real enemy....

 

[plan_D]

The rest of Europe seems to fail what Britain has done for them in the past. But it's their opinions, it's not my place to try and defend or uphold the actions of past generations.

 

[Stuka-99]

Too true plan_D I reckon most of europe are pretty ignorant because, come on if we wanted to we could have made a pact with axis and it would have probably meant that we would be a Superpower and the US woulld have probably joined the axis as well....(The only European nation that appreciated what we did were the dutch I mean the german people apreciated us more than the french who let the axis walk all over them....)