world war 2 (1 Viewer)

[Greg Morse]

I may remember this completely wrong, but wasn't the famous Yamato actually laid down as a carrier, then converted mid-way to a battleship?

I believe you're referring to the Shinano, which was originally laid down as a battleship and then sunk on its way to being outfitted

 

[felix_suwarno]

sentosa should mean "prosper".

prussian? havent heard that word before.

i was born and raised in indonesia, they didnt teach us world war history. they spent a lot of their history classes talking about their own national history, which is dead boring.

indonesia was conquered for 350 years by the netherland, about 3 years by the japanese.

i was wondering why the netherland didnt get involved in world war 2. or did they? and why did japan want to conquer indonesia anyway? i think the country didnt have a lot of oil.

 

[Jeremy Illingworth]

didn't leading generals of the time scoff at the novelty of those flying machines, believing that the infantry was the be-all and end-all of warfare?

If were still talking about WWI, the generals were so old school it wasn't funny. Machine guns, air planes, what a bunch of crap they though. Just send in more men. Some allied scientist developed a method, using microphones to time the occurence of sound at different places, to locate enemy artillery. The generals blew them off and sent in more infantry.

jeremy

 

[Jeremy Illingworth]

prussian? havent heard that word before.

Thats what you get for not being a country anymore. Nobody remembers you. I'm pretty sure they shared borders with France and Germany but the state was dissolved in the interwar period. I guess somebody else will have to fill you on the details.

jeremy

 

[Greg Morse]

prussian? havent heard that word before.

It was the largest and most powerful of the German City states prior to unification; now the land is in Poland (post WWII).

Teutonic Knights->Prussians->Bad Ass Militaristic Germans.

Clausewitz, Bismarck, Hindenburg, many of the great German Generals of WWII. If you see a name that has "Von" in the middle, that's a Prussian name.

 

[felix_suwarno]

how did prussia become poland then???

 

[Yee-Ming]

how did prussia become poland then???

IIRC, Prussia covered parts of Eastern Germany (East Germany before 1991), the bit that the Russians still hold with the city Kaliningrad (previously Konigsburg), and teh western part of modern Poland.

pre-1937 Poland was situated further east to where it is today. Hitler and Stalin carved it up; in effect when the Russians emerged on the victorious side of WW2, Stalin didn't give anything back (I think), whilst the Germans gave back the part they took and more, I suppose to "compensate" for the bit Poland lost to Stalin.

again, this is mostly my speculation/deduction, based on what I know of pre-1937 borders etc.

the name "Prussia" lives on today as "Borussia" apparently, which is IIRC a Latin version of Prussia -- there are two German football clubs with "Borussia" as part of their name.

Greg, my mistake, Shinano sounds right.

as for the Netherlands, by the 20th Century they were no longer much of an imperial power, and were conquered by the Germans fairly easily as part of the blitzkrieg. if you've watched Band of Brothers, you'll remember seeing the celebrations by the Dutch of their liberation by the Americans (as well as revenge against collaborators).

partly to by-pass the static Maginot Line, the Germans invaded the Netherlands and down to Belgium, and simply went around the Maginot Line instead of going head-to-head with it.

 

[Holadem]

Bad Ass Militaristic Germans.

OFF Topic:

Teutonic Knights by Henryk K. Sienkiewicz. Terrific historical fiction about the events leading to the battle of Grunwald (1410).

--
Holadem

 

[Lew Crippen]

i was born and raised in indonesia, they didnt teach us world war history.

Indonesia’s National Day is tied to WWII. IIRC, it is six days after the bomb was dropped.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Might I suggest the documentaries on Pearl Harbor: Vista Series? There's a ton of good stuff in there about the origins of Japanese expansion and imperialism

Now, to be fair this was by no means the first time Japan has invaded China or Korea for that matter. In fact as the joke goes "Every time Japan invaded China, they took a few kanji with them" (The Japanese pictographic alphabet is virtually identical to Chinese, with some changes). Japan also has a long history of invading Korea, which is one of the reasons why North Korea has been kidnapping Japanese and shooting missles over the country. Long history of agression.

The main reason for conquering was yes, the "because we can" factor, but mostly it was simple need of raw material to keep their war machine running. Japan itself has very little oil and other raw materials, and it's cheaper to conquer it than buy on the open market.

Emperor Hirohito was a very young man at the time of WW2, and he had been reduced to a figurehead puppet. What WW2 DID do was to serve as a wakeup call to him, and he was instrumental in the ending of the war. Had the Emperor not gotten on the radio (I believe this was the first time an emperor had ever done an address like this) and said "this has to stop" it might not have for a long time. O

One misconception was that the entire peopel were worked up into a fervor willing to meet us with pitchforks. Were there militias training? YES. But honestly, look what happened with Saddam's militias just now. The Japanese people were in a similar situation, people were starving, rice hadn't been planted, food rationing all over the place. They were broken in body and spirit for the most part.

I highly recommend the manga Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen). It's simply, but beautifully written and very much shows how things really were at the end of the war. It deals with the bombing of Hiroshima. The DVD of the anime version is dubtitled in ugly purple subtitles, but it's still a decent adaptation. When I was in Hiroshima,all i could think about were the landmarks from this series, standing on those places the author stood, it gave me a connection I othewise never would have had. Of course, I]Hotaru no Haka[/i] (Grave of the Fireflies), is another superb example of the conditions at the end of the war.

 

[Lew Crippen]

One misconception was that the entire peopel were worked up into a fervor willing to meet us with pitchforks. Were there militias training? YES. But honestly, look what happened with Saddam's militias just now. The Japanese people were in a similar situation, people were starving, rice hadn't been planted, food rationing all over the place. They were broken in body and spirit for the most part.

On the other hand, the very fierce and desperate defense during the Battle of Okinawa, helped to persuade the Allies that the planned invasion of Japan would be very costly in terms of human life. (Don’t read this as a defense for using the bomb—it’s just something that I think was a factor in the decision).

 

[Jeff Kleist]

definatly. The point i was trying to make was that most of them would be fighting at gunpoint, not because they were defending their nation.

 

[Holadem]

He had indeed, but there was nothing particularly new about this. The emperor had long been a political figurehead—the real power in the country being the Shogun.

OFF Topic:

Shogun by James Clavell

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Holadem - sorry, can't help it :b

 

[felix_suwarno]

indonesia proclamate their independence day on august 17th 1945. but not because they won the war against japan; merely because japan was nuked. i hate it when history teachers in my school glorified the heroism of indonesian fighters at that time. exagerrated at best; no way indonesia could win the war without any help from outside. they didnt have money or education.

 

[felix_suwarno]

i just saw the longest day, the great escape, the bridge on the river kwai, dirty dozen, and casablanca. all of them were grrrreat!

i have a few more questions :

- in the longest day and saving private ryan, they used somekind of pipe to destroy german's bunker. how does that work, and what is it called? did they bring the pipe themselves?

- i am not satisfied with the d-day movies; it looks like they depicted day 1 and maybe day 2. what about the rest? how long did it last? i just got a glimpse of "operation overlord", but i havent done extensive research about it.

- south east asian countried were somehow involved with world war 2, but why wasnt thailand involved? nobody conquered that place, right? i thought the movie "kwai" took place in thailand because there were people talking siamese.

3 days without zelda, just ww2 movies.

 

[AjayM]

i am not satisfied with the d-day movies; it looks like they depicted day 1 and maybe day 2. what about the rest? how long did it last? i just got a glimpse of "operation overlord", but i havent done extensive research about it.

Define d-day? By definition it would only be one day. As to the actual battles, the beach heads were secured within a few hours of the first landings and a few of the nearby towns as well. Which enabled the US/UK forces to start bringing massive amounts of troops/equipment into the country. Each beach when secured brought in 20,000-30,000+ men and mechanized divisions and multiply that by 5 beachs.

Also not all of the 5 beach's (Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, Sword) had the fierce fighting that we see in the movies. Omaha is credited with having the fiercest fighting for a few reasons, the tanks that were supposed to come in first all sank (Sherman tanks with flotation devices), there was a lot of confusion going on because the groups of troops got spread out because the landing crafts were effected by the currents/tides. So the forces were pinned down and were taking heavy casulties, it wasn't until the navy came in real close to shore and started shooting at german positions (imagine a battleship, designed to lob a shell 10-20 miles shooting at positions 1/2 mile away) did the US get the upper hand.

Casulties at Omaha were around 2400 I believe
Casulties at Utah were fewer than 300.

The landing at Normandy is fascinating in it's own right from a tactical sense, if the Germans had been awake and could have predicted what was going to happen things could have turned out VERY badly for allied forces. The Germans didn't send in all their available tank power, troops, etc. The dropping of paratroopers is also credited with the victory that day, if you've watched Ep 2 of Band of Brothers you'll see that the Airborne guys got scattered all over the country side, so you had little groups of allied troops running around, but no big force to deal with, so the Germans didn't know where to send troops/tanks to attack, so what turned out to be a huge mistake/problem helped insure victory for the day.

Andrew

 

[Holadem]

You need to watch Band of Brothers. While it focuses on the Easy Company (101st Airborne), you get enough background to get a fair feel of the progression of the invasion after the landing.

People tend to believe that after D-Day, the outcome was foregone - not true at all.

A Bridge Too Far is about the failed allied plan that would have otherwise allowed them to "go home before christmas". It seems every other army general has uttered these words, you would think they would have learnt by now :rolleyes

Patton which I just finished watching yesterday focuses more on the man than the war. Still, a decent showcase of the strategies involved.

--
Holadem

 

[Lew Crippen]

- i am not satisfied with the d-day movies; it looks like they depicted day 1 and maybe day 2. what about the rest? how long did it last? i just got a glimpse of "operation overlord", but i havent done extensive research about it.

You are correct. The invasion of Normandy lasted for more than one day. There was a buildup of troops and supplies as the Allies gradually expanded the beachhead. There was a big offensive by the Allies at the village of St-Lo on July 11 that was preceded by an (until then) unprecedented carpet-bombing. There were a couple of days of slow going, but this was when the Allies began their move across France to Germany. This offensive is referred to as The Breakthrough at St-Lo and it is when the invasion was considered complete. So that would have been from June 6 to July 11. During that time, references were to D-Day plus some number of days. So one way to look at this is that invasion turned into an offensive at about D-Day plus 35 or 36.

You need to get a good general history of WWII.

 

[AjayM]

You need to get a good general history of WWII.

I think everybody here is getting a pretty good one actually.

Andrew

 

[felix_suwarno]

thank you for spending some time to type those info for me.

i have watched a bridge too far, some time last year.

band of brothers is already in queue. after i watched all of these world war 2 movies then i think i am gonna buy the world war 2 books mentioned somewhere in this thread; they look interesting. i took a look at amazon.com last night.

one more question, i dont know whether this would spark things or not. i dont want to talk about politics though :
it seems to me that all wars in the past were about "A" wants to conquer "B", "B" fights back, "C" helps "A" and "D" helps "B".

england had conquered so many countries all over the world and no one in europe seems to care. but when germany conquered a few european countries, world war 2 started. the bad guy ( england ) now becomes the good guy.

i just dont get it.