Opinionated History Lessons! World War 2!

I do believe that the Aleutian islands actually had some ground combat, but I'd have to look it up to be 100%.

It's actually to bring out the discussion of WWII from other threads that doesn't belong there. Plus its something I can contribute on.

Regarding France and its history in War....

We Americans might joke, but let's not forget two things:

1. We BEGGED for their assistance in the American Revolution to distract England, and their Navy.

2. Napoleon. If you've got a guy like that in your history, you kinda get a pass for 200 or so years :)

Now, I do think its totally fair to criticize and laugh at the Maginot Line...THAT'S some funny ***.


**EDIT**

and this is a phenomenal topic! Next week, we discuss the Sacco and Vanzetti conspiracy!

It was also what helped the Blitzkrieg on the Eastern Front for the first few months. Ukraine was actually all for German occupation, as they didn't like Russian communism.

Never said it didn't. I didn't know so I looked it up. I'm just pointing out that the only action California saw, outside it's own false alarm battle (aka Battle of Los Angeles), was just a bombing of an oil field. Still counts as an attack on the mainland though.

The Japanese did mount a small Aleutian campaign, but it was stupid, and they abandoned it quickly. It was just too far for them to go. We just essentially waited for them to pack up and go home, and they did.

*Laughs in Canadian*

Which reminds me that there were Canadian forces involved as well. One famous Canadian was in WW2. RIP James Doohan.

No, I get that, it's just that I've been hearing about cheese-eating surrender monkeys my whole life when Italy invented Fascism, exported it to Germany, and got on the military expansionism train only to fail to conquer Greece, barely conquer Ethiopia, and leave defending their homeland to the Nazis. Way to go, guys!

Its true, the Italian appearance in WWII was a joke, their leadership especially was inept. Rommel thought nothing of them, wanted nothing to do with them, and subsequently ignored every single one of their opinions. They didn't do anything.

One of the BEST parts of "Man in the High Castle" is the concept that Rommel was a great stabilizing force in the Nazi regime. Very much in the same vein as Robert E. Lee for the South. Brilliant military mind, not distracted nor agreed with the inhuman policies supported by their nation.

Rommel was a brilliant leader, not listening to him cost Hitler a great deal, especially at Normandy, where the invasion should have failed. Also, not listening to Hitler furthered Germany's advances up until Rommel's death.

Gain gil is over, so ahem.

Its always been British nationalism to try to pump up their war efforts and play down the Americans' contributions. Its all a bunch of crap, hence why France and England are constantly mocked. Stop trying to downplay the USA winning the war.

Post D-Day, Eisenhower was named Supreme Commander of all the Allied land forces, putting him in charge of the entire theater. Everything that happened was done with Ike's go ahead. He was in charge of managing the egos and winning the war.

Sidenote - This does not include Montgomery's abysmal behavior at Caen during the Normandy invasion, a French city he was desperate to take quickly, failed, then tried to spin it as he was holding the Nazis while the Americans broke through. It was like the 300 Spartans vs Xerxes' hordes. Except the Nazis were the Spartans slaughtering Monty's forces for no reason other than ego.

The American strategy was simple on both fronts. Win the war as quickly as possible while minimizing the loss of Allied lives. Roosevelt put Eisenhower in charge with that exact goal and Ike followed it to the T. Anyone that was obsessed with personal glory (Patton, Montgomery) was knocked down. England was on board with this because A. the American forces outnumbered their own by over a 3:1 margin, and B. They needed to minimize their own casualties in order to maintain influence in Europe after the war was won.

Montgomery of course hated this setup, he had been in charge of the land forces pre Normandy and resented being placed under the command of an American general. So, he misbehaved. A lot. First it was Market Garden, which Ike reluctantly agreed to, only because Monty committed his forces to the more difficult objectives, because he wanted to be the one that broke into Germany first. 13,000 British troops lost. No breakthrough. The war got extended by at least 6 months because of this failed operation. Eisenhower was officially done with Monty and his ego. Sorry England, your out.

But that didn't stop Monty from continuing to misbehave at Antwerp, the key to the whole front. We captured Antwerp, a major port city that we needed to base our forces in order to break into Germany. Cherbourg was too far, we had to hold the city. That whole Battle of the Bulge thing? The German goal was to recapture Antwerp. They had been launching their V-2 rockets at it, bombing it, trying to displace the Allies. It was imperative that they failed.

But Monty wasn't taking it seriously, trying to break through again into Germany, ignoring his supply charges, which were defending Antwerp. He could have had his own glory here, instead he insisted that the Americans once again divert their resources to cover his flank while he broke into Germany. Eisenhower literally told him if he didn't shut up and resupply his forces at Antwerp, he was getting fired. That day. He was not listening to Monty's ravings anymore. A week later, Patton broke through their lines at Bastogne and the counterattack failed.

So again, whats up with this British ingenuity I keep hearing about? It certainly was not present in the European theater. The only goal was winning the war, and Monty did more to hinder that than anything.

Foolish. If you want to talk about myth, its the myth that England did anything other than be a staging point for D-Day and "held out" long enough to matter. If it weren't for that stretch of water, and Hitler's foolishness of an Eastern Campaign, they would have fallen within 6 months of ground combat.

Their resources were extremely limited once the submarine embargo began around Great Britain. It was only the United States' extreme willingness to lose their own to keep Britain out of Nazi hands that broke that blockade. Britain couldn't bring their own ships into port from their colonies, which typically provided their raw materials for industry. Not like England is sitting on oil fields, iron and coal mines, or even enough farmlands to feed their own.


I want to see REAL numbers of the industrial production capabilities of Great Britain, MAIN ISLANDS ONLY, in 1940. There is NO WAY they were able to produce. Estimates by your own government put deployable planes in the RAF at around 1,900 in July 1940. This included 300+ coastal non-armored, non-weaponized planes for observation. The Luftwaffe had around 2500 WAR planes dedicated to the Battle of Britain.

Britain's Radar relay system was superior, and cut down civilian deaths in the London Raids. A VERY large reason that the German suffered higher casualties than the British.

Churchill was an amazing man. I seriously doubt anyone would challenge you on this statement. But again, had Germany not divided its forces and the US not commit major resources to the saving of Britain, an occupied country doesn't have much choice. Having that English Channel did more than you ever could appreciate- in 1940 there was NO force in the world equivalent to Germany's Panzer forces...there wasn't a single nation in the world, including the US, at that time able to stop them.


Very true. But reread your own comments. You accurately state the REAL reasons Germany's invasion of Britain failed. American industrial power combined with bad decisions of the Nazi leadership to invade Russia and divide their forces.

awww....I just wanted to show I've watched more random "can't find ***on Netflix to watch" nights than anyone else!

Hitler's greatest hits biggest blunders.

What eventually became operation sea lion was offered to him as an immediate followup to the fall of France. He passed.

He opened a second front.

He wasted perhaps the finest general of the war in what everyone thought was a sideshow.

He pretty much killed the ME 262.

I will expound on any of these if needed.

As to who else might have done the most? Without a doubt, American industry.

P. S. THANKS KN!!!

Something else about Rommel, and this is a very interesting 'what if' scenario... Eisenhower and Montgomery actually respected him a lot. If he was still alive when the Nazis fell then plans were drawn up to appoint him as the German head-of-state. This shows up in Eisenhower's memoirs and I was pretty amazed to read it.

Yeah, I did know that. Sadly, we strafed his car and he took some pretty serious injuries, and then he got caught up in a coup attempt against Hitler, which scared Hitler to death because if he lost the support of the Army, which loved Rommel, he was done. So, cyanide.

All of you and your biased BS American education! Shame on you

Can't really gloss over his participation in said coup d'état like he got "caught up". He sent Hitler the letter on his feelings about the Western Front on July 15th (which didn't arrive until two weeks later). He was strafed on July 17th. The failed bombing plot happened on July 20th. There are photos of him with members of the plot in May of 44 (2 months prior).

Yet we really can't say for sure since the Good German Erwin Rommel Myth also benefited people like Hans Speidel and Western Germany greatly. Being that he was a surviving conspirator and had aspirations for success in a post WWII Europe, its not implausible that Rommel's participation in the resistance was played up posthumously, for the benefit of his legacy, Speidel's ambitions and to a greater extent the future of Western Europe and Germany.

On the subject of "What if's...", what if the myth of Rommel didn't exist? Would Western Germany seen rearmament so swiftly? Would there have even been a Western Germany? etc etc.

This is a good idea for a series of Chatterbox threads if you ask me. I'd like to see them continue.

The Germans helped the most.
They tried to take over the world, then got defeated and the Americans stole all the scientists.
Boom, checkmate.

For decades I've been told (school, college, etc.) that, in nazi-occupied France, the Gestapo was after jews but I found out a few weeks ago that they were mostly after socialists (no matter the religion and origin) until late 1942, when they decided to implement the final solution.
I was aware of the atrocious judenfrei campaign in eastern europe but when it comes to France I had no idea the "witch hunt" was for political reasons (until 1942 that is).

From the polish point of view Russia was not a savior, but another aggressor. They took 22000+ of our officers as hostages and *** executed them all in woods (in Katyn) and put in mass graves.

Poland resistence during WWII was way above our capabilities. Somoneone mentioned Germany wasnt that great because they took them weeks to beat us, I would say it wasnt Germans who were that weak, but it was Polish people who was that desperate to not lose their country again (Poland ceased to exist for 123 years until the end of World War I). After we got defeated finally, our people were fighting hard on all fronts in alliance forces. Our pilots were known to be one of the best aces among British forces. Also even that we got defeated, we still were fighting Germany in Poland from underground with great success. We even tried to get back our capitol city before Russia came over with their *** help in '44. It was called The Warsaw Uprising and it was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II. *** Russia waited just outside of our borders for Germany to defeat us, then they went in and took our country for themselves with *** propaganda that they were helping us against Hitler. We paid a big price for our efforts. Our capitol city was destroyed to the ground and we were under Russia control till 1989, but we finally forced them to *** off in April 1989 and we actually started Revolutions of 1989 that reaulted in end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond (people mostly remember destroying of Berlin Wall in November, but it was mostly a consequence of our actions in April).

I believe it was an equal level of hate against the communists and Jews. The scapegoat of the hardships presented against the German people during the Great Depression has always been towards Jews, but Hitler did consider commies as the biggest obstacle against total power.

Dirty little secret as to why that's "taught" that way- there were many sympathizers of the Nazi view of the Jews in France. Re-writing that the Gestapo were more interested in socialists in France is merely a cute way to give the collaborators with the occupying Nazis a nice cover story.