WW2 Myths

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Unfortunate but true. Most Americans have a very slight knowledge of WW2 beyond "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers". Both are good flicks, but hardley representative of the last major world conflict. I believe there are several reasons for it, some are cultural, some are happenstance, some of geographic.

For starters, Americans are not really tuned into their history the rest of the world is. As a people, Americans tend to knock old things down rather than save them. In Europe, it is common for a house to be habitable for several hundred years. The US is more of a disposable society. As a consequence, what happened yesterday is considered old news and rarely worth bothering with. Today and tomorrow are more important.

Secondly, the US was not materially affected by WW2. There were no effective bombing raids (the odd seaplane attack or balloon bombs were isolated incidents). Whereas Europe and the Far East lost entire cities almost routinely, US casualties on home ground due to bombing amounted to 6 dead from a balloon bomb in Oregon (not counting Pearl Harbor or Pacific Island fights). The affects of devestated cities becomes a major factor in the culture of a country. It is something you tell your kids about. For the US, the war happened "over there". It was beyond the horizon.

The US fought a war of material. While the US did fight all over the globe, it supplied more than it fought. It really was the Arsenal for Democracy (Soviet Union notwithstanding). American equipment was used by every major (and every minor) military contingent in the war. In some cases, exclusively. American casualties were not as significant as our allies. But our supplies (in all realms) generally dwarfed that of other countries.

Lastly, the US was the last player in a war (or more likely, a series of wars) that started in 1931 and finished in 1945. By the time the US showed up, all the major players BUT the US were already heavily engaged. With the exception of Japan, the US was a peripheral opponent to the Axis powers.

Most of the real killing and dying in Europe was done by countries that had been at war with each other (off and on) for the previous 1000 years, and before that as tribes or smaller principalities. Old enemies, old grievences, new flags. Germany and Russia had been going at it, hammer and tongs, since 1200AD. The same could be said for China and Japan. Between those four players is where the majority of the dying took place. The US really didn't fit in those catagories. It's a country that was less than 200 years old at the time of the war. The same could be said for many of the Commonwealth countries. They weren't fighting a fight they had fought many times in the past. For the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, ect, this was a relatively new fight.
 
The fact is, I'm just trying to get a free place to stay in Europe or Oceania by bolstering our allies!
 
Well... I lived in Euro land for 2 years and loved it but I gotta say, one of the things I liked to most were all the Aussie and Kiwi ladies on their walk-a-bouts...

I may have to try the land where the water runs the wrong direction down the drain.
 
timshatz:

I agree with you when you say most Americans know very little if anything regarding world war two...from Alaska all the way down to Chile and Argentina most people are clueless regarding the very basics of the war.
 
timshatz:

I agree with you when you say most Americans know very little if anything regarding world war two...from Alaska all the way down to Chile and Argentina most people are clueless regarding the very basics of the war.

Agreed. When a revisionist historian starts tossing out some BS line, the ground swell against it is not as great as it could and should be. From the Bombing of Hiroshima to the Invasion of Iwo Jima to the decison not to bomb the Death Camps, actions taken or not taken are given sinister perspectives by individuals with an agenda and believed by the partisan and those too lazy to check it out for themselves.

Given people's desire to forget and inability to understand the real fears and threats of the time, the lessons of history are watered down or changed to support present day short term political needs. We were very lucky in the last century. I do not believe we will be so lucky in the future.
 
Unfortunate but true. Most Americans have a very slight knowledge of WW2 beyond "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers". Both are good flicks, but hardley representative of the last major world conflict. I believe there are several reasons for it, some are cultural, some are happenstance, some of geographic.

For starters, Americans are not really tuned into their history the rest of the world is. As a people, Americans tend to knock old things down rather than save them. In Europe, it is common for a house to be habitable for several hundred years. The US is more of a disposable society. As a consequence, what happened yesterday is considered old news and rarely worth bothering with. Today and tomorrow are more important.

Secondly, the US was not materially affected by WW2. There were no effective bombing raids (the odd seaplane attack or balloon bombs were isolated incidents). Whereas Europe and the Far East lost entire cities almost routinely, US casualties on home ground due to bombing amounted to 6 dead from a balloon bomb in Oregon (not counting Pearl Harbor or Pacific Island fights). The affects of devestated cities becomes a major factor in the culture of a country. It is something you tell your kids about. For the US, the war happened "over there". It was beyond the horizon.

The US fought a war of material. While the US did fight all over the globe, it supplied more than it fought. It really was the Arsenal for Democracy (Soviet Union notwithstanding). American equipment was used by every major (and every minor) military contingent in the war. In some cases, exclusively. American casualties were not as significant as our allies. But our supplies (in all realms) generally dwarfed that of other countries.

Lastly, the US was the last player in a war (or more likely, a series of wars) that started in 1931 and finished in 1945. By the time the US showed up, all the major players BUT the US were already heavily engaged. With the exception of Japan, the US was a peripheral opponent to the Axis powers.

Most of the real killing and dying in Europe was done by countries that had been at war with each other (off and on) for the previous 1000 years, and before that as tribes or smaller principalities. Old enemies, old grievences, new flags. Germany and Russia had been going at it, hammer and tongs, since 1200AD. The same could be said for China and Japan. Between those four players is where the majority of the dying took place. The US really didn't fit in those catagories. It's a country that was less than 200 years old at the time of the war. The same could be said for many of the Commonwealth countries. They weren't fighting a fight they had fought many times in the past. For the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, ect, this was a relatively new fight.

I will agree with you there, even more on the part of the Commonwealth part. The South African government of the time betrayed their people to go and fight with the country that killed so many of their people not even a 30 years old and at the end brought the country to its knees just to supply the war effort of a country that did not have enough to fight its own battles. The whole thing were bull. To help somone fight in something that has nothing to do with you.
 
The whole thing were bull. To help somone fight in something that has nothing to do with you.

Should America said the same thing? As I recall there were no Swastikas over Pearl Harbor.
 
Yes, but the whole thing how the US got involved with the war in the Europe was all bull, but Germany did declare war on the US and thus I can understand that. The US saved the whole war effort in Europe and thus won the whole war, but I did not refer to the US in that staement I was pointing out why the Government of South Africa helped the UK. It was only something that made the country even less and put it in a mini depresion.
 
The difference with Commonwealth Countries like Australia New Zealand Canada and in some cases South Africa we were still tied to the crown as the Monarch was the Head of State for those Countries already mentioned. So in consquence if England was to declare war on Germany which she had done twice in the 20th century WW1 WW2 respectfuly of the consquence of the declaration of war by England Australia New Zealand Canada and South Africa declared war also on Germany. So what Cosmosis said that the Commonwealth Countries were like the USA being young countries of less than 200 years of colonial history etc made little difference accordingly to were the Commonwealth Nations stance was with other Countries relationships to England. For example Australia prior to becoming a Federated Nation as such sent Colonial Troops to not only South Africa in 1899 to fight in the Boer War but also sent contingents of Troops to fight in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Previous to that Contigents of Australians from each Colonial State were sent to the Sudan and also the Maori Wars in New Zealand. So as you can imagine Cos the relative situation for Colonial or Commonwealth Governments and their Troops were somewhat different to that of the USA. However those events were in the past at the moment Australia New Zealand Canada and South Africa are effected by other treaties not necassarily with England and the attitudes in those countries has changed since WW1 and WW2 both politically and ethically
 
Canada did not declare war on 3 Sept we declared war on the 10th as we waited for Parliment to convene
 
I will agree with you there, even more on the part of the Commonwealth part. The South African government of the time betrayed their people to go and fight with the country that killed so many of their people not even a 30 years old and at the end brought the country to its knees just to supply the war effort of a country that did not have enough to fight its own battles. The whole thing were bull. To help somone fight in something that has nothing to do with you.

Henk You obviously believe that South Africa should have kept out of the war. Can I ask what do you think would have happened to South Africa, if the British had lost?
 
Ahhhh...but when it comes to myths no one can hold the candle to the red guys of the former USSR.

Possibly the nastiest, dirtiest and most ridiculous of all myths can be the whole portfolio collection of soviet claims regarding the performance of the VVS during the war...hands down, nothing will come close to match the soviet fairy tales.

I have the whole document of the official history of the VVS during the war, as published by the ministry of defence of the USSR in russian...also had the chance to read excerpts frome some translated version that by the way contained translation inaccuracies.

In spite of this i am not saying i discarded every piece of info contained in the document off hand...but let´s say 95% of the content is crap...

Depending on the kind of personality you are you might feel the document can either make you puke or have some of the greatest fun moments in your life.

You could never imagine such a massive set of lies could have been published and presented as "official". We do know governments lie...one of the fundamental ventures of any administration -any country- is precisely to improve their methods to continue tricking the populace...yet the publishing of the paper definetly made the soviet ministry of defense look like some of the biggest clowns of XX century.

I will not comment on their lies regarding the training of the new pilots, the air combat tactics, etc. but they claim for instance the Luftwaffe was effectively "destroyed" during the summer of 1943. Period.
 
Henk You obviously believe that South Africa should have kept out of the war. Can I ask what do you think would have happened to South Africa, if the British had lost?

The Germans did not have anything against the South African people or did they ever, they helped the Boer states during the Anglo Boer war and Hitler even said that the British robbed the Boer people of their freedom.

Well the US would get involved anyway to help the British so they would never have lost, but we sure as hell would not get the crap the other guys got.

Will you guys fight with someone or for someone who's country were responsable for your wife or your childs death in a consentration camp or that of your family?

I will sure as hell not, it still hurts today to think about it and to think 27 000 woman and children for those times are high.
 
This was not a myth but true. The US govenment namely Rooservelt recieved a letter from a guy regarding a plan to use millions of bats as tiny incendiary bombs in japan these would be dropped from a bomber and after a predetermind time (after they had be given enough time to roost in the eves of the mainly wooden buildings of Tokyo) the minature bombs they carried would burst into flame and set the buildings ablaze.
The plan was studied and got a lot nearer to actuality than many thought it would.

Yes, have heard about this, often wondered.
But I can make you an otter you cant defuse.......

:lol:
 
I will not comment on their lies regarding the training of the new pilots, the air combat tactics, etc. but they claim for instance the Luftwaffe was effectively "destroyed" during the summer of 1943. Period.

There's certainly some truth to that. From Williamson Murray, Strategy for Defeat:
This attrition was only a foretaste of what happened in July and August. In those
two months, the Luftwaffe fought three great air battles and on each one of the three
fronts the Germans lost more than 1,000 aircraft .
In combat units, the attrition
rate reached a level that no military force could long sustain . Fighter losses were
31 .2 percent for July and 36 percent for August, while bomber losses were 27 .3
percent in July and 32 percent in August . As with the January through June
period, only fighter pilot losses are readily attainable. They are clear enough: In
July, the Germans lost 16 percent of single-engine fighter pilots available on July 1 ;
in August, they lost 15 .6 percent . The impact of the pressure exerted by three
different fronts forced the Germans to shut the air war down somewhere.
Given the
threat posed by the American bombers, there was no other alternative but to defend
the Reich. Thus, the air war in the east and in the Mediterranean, with one final
gasp in September to meet the invasion of Italy, became subsidiary theaters for'the
Lufwaffe. Allied air forces dominated the skies over and behind these two fronts,
and the German soldier would see little of his air force for the remainder of the war.
 
The Germans did not have anything against the South African people or did they ever, they helped the Boer states during the Anglo Boer war and Hitler even said that the British robbed the Boer people of their freedom.

Well the US would get involved anyway to help the British so they would never have lost, but we sure as hell would not get the crap the other guys got.

Will you guys fight with someone or for someone who's country were responsable for your wife or your childs death in a consentration camp or that of your family?

I will sure as hell not, it still hurts today to think about it and to think 27 000 woman and children for those times are high.

I can understand your feelings over the people who died in the concentration camps first set up by the British, something I would also condem, however your belief that Hitler would have left you alone, is I suspect, misplaced. Hitler had no problem crushing a number of countries that had done nothing to hurt him. He also hankered over the lost German Empire and South Africa with its strategic position and mineral reserves of all kinds would I believe have been high on his wish list for controlling if not invading.

Whatever the British did and I wouldn't hesitate to consider it a war crime in modern terms, 27,000 is nothing to what the Germans are likely to have killed had they decided to invade.
 
When Hitler started to invade the whole of the EU the king of Lichtenstein called a meating with Hitler and asked Hitler please not to invade his country, Hitler agreed and also never did do so, but the King in gratatude gave the fleeing German soldiers a place to hide from the Soviet troops and never gave them to the Soviet Army.
 

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