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World War II |OT|

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gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Actually something which has always interested me. We know Germany did well in the area of rocket technology (V1, V2 rockets etc), and indeed this knowledge was used as the basis for many applications by East and West during the Cold War (e.g. the space race).

What about nuclear technology? Was there any emphasis on this by Germany? Hell would they have even had access to the materials required?

I'm not sure what active research the Germans were doing wrt nuclear tech during WW2.

I do remember reading, though, that the process of identifying the neutron was mercifully slow - that if its existence had been isolated in the 20s instead of the early 30s as actually happened, it is most likely that nuclear weapons would have been developed first in Europe, probably by the Germans. The focus of research around the 20s by more of the bigger European scientists was on the electron.
 
I wonder what would have happened if Hitler deferred and saved his army from being encircled there, they probably could have taken Moscow they were so close to it.

The initial plan was to capture Moscow within four months of the opening of Barbarossa but Hitler turned the Northern pincer south to take Kiev. Once that was done and the Germans turned back North the weather turned and stalled the advance. Once winter set in the German troops weren't equipped for winter fighting and the Russians turned them back. Some German advance units actually got within sight of Moscow.

Stalingrad is actually pretty far from Moscow, 1,000 miles I think?
 

dschalter

Member
the italian attempt to invade southern france after the germans had won a decisive victory in the real battle was hilarious.

also, whenever someone says "if the nazis/hitler had done X they could have won" is being sort of silly; germany was thoroughly doomed once america entered the war.
 

yacobod

Banned
The beginning of the end when Hitler was doggedly insistent to shell Stalingrad into the ground to take it, and Russians fought tooth and nail hand to hand combat in the hselled ruins of the city to prevent it. At one point, they had most of Stalingrad taken, and Hitler was at a diner bragging about how he had taken a city with Stalin's name on it.

I wonder what would have happened if Hitler deferred and saved his army from being encircled there, they probably could have taken Moscow they were so close to it.


Operation Barbarossa - The German war planners greatly underestimated the Soviet Union in man power, production capabilities, technology, and fighting spirit etc. You could almost say they lost the War when they decided to attack the Soviet Union. And Hitler meddled too much with their military. They could have done much better in 1941 had not Hitler interfered with their directives.
 

MutFox

Banned
They warned them to surrender, they refused, they warned they'd drop it, they did. They warned AGAIN they'd drop it on a city, they did. Blame Japan for refusing to surrender. The lives lost by a full scale invasion of Japan would have been MASSIVE.

Supposedly (Was just checking online) but for the 2nd bombing,
they dropped leaflets warning about the Nagasaki bomb the day after...

Also, Nagasaki wasn't the intended 2nd Target,
they just chose it due to cloud coverage on the other city.
 
Operation Barbarossa - The German war planners greatly underestimated the Soviet Union in man power, production capabilities, technology, and fighting spirit etc. You could almost say they lost the War when they decided to attack the Soviet Union. And Hitler meddled too much with their military. They could have done much better in 1941 had not Hitler interfered with their directives.

The Germans were right to an extent though. Stalin had purged the Armed Forces of nearly every experienced commander. The Germans literally rolled over the Russians in the opening months of Barbarossa and their command structure was frozen. Stalin finally woke up when the Germans turned towards Moscow and he brought Zhukov from the East to stop the Germans. It worked.

You're right though, Hitler meddled too much with his generals
thankfully
 
Have the italians ever done something successful, military/power wise?


honest question

roman-empire.jpg
 

dschalter

Member
Have the italians ever done something successful, military/power wise?


honest question

does the roman empire count? venice had a pretty awesome thing going on back in the day, though that was all about maritime power creating wealth, not military prowess on land.

as for barbarossa, the nazis killed themselves with their own determination to adhere to their stupid ideas. particularly among ethnic minorities (see: ukraine) stalin and the regime were the object of deep loathing, but the nazis didn't exploit that opportunity nearly as well as they could have if they weren't so locked into their racist ideology (there were of course many. many other causes of the eventual failure, this is just one of them).
 
does the roman empire count? venice had a pretty awesome thing going on back in the day, though that was all about maritime power creating wealth, not military prowess on land.

Absolutely not because Roman Administration was based in Latium and Byzantium, the former was just a baby province within Italia, not Italia itself (which as a nation state only exists 150 years ago). Etruscans, Indigenous Sardinians, Sicilian Greeks, Epirote Greeks in the south of Italia (which still exist today), etc. etc. formed what we now call "Italia" so any credit of this being "Italy" is only Italian nationalism revisionist nonsense. North Africa was just as Roman as Italy, if that makes sense.

I was discussing it with some friends a while ago the even they were villainous, the Nazi army is the greatest army to engage to warfare. They propelled modern concepts of the mechanized warfare, air warfare ( specifically close air support) para-warfare, armored warfare, and the unified advance of air, land, and sea. Tactics and designs used by modern militaries today. To see the stuff they had on the field such as an all aluminum fighter (bf-109) when the allies were still flying wood frames, it was amazing and decades ahead of what anyone else had.

yeah this has always fascinated me. The german (prussian) war machine was always magnificent, to say the least, but i think in WWII it really showed what a fully mobilized and pissed off german war machine could do. Not that it was justified by any extent, but even train wrecks can be works of arts.





My question is this, and it's always bothered me; Was Nazi Germany the "necessary" (imagine 1,000,000 more "" here) bulwark against Stalinism in Europe, or did they bring on the Stalinism? I think we all agree that Stalinist USSR was just as bad if not worse than Nazi Germany, so did the weakening of the USSR by the Nazis prevent a full Soviet Europe?
 

TheNatural

My Member!
Operation Barbarossa - The German war planners greatly underestimated the Soviet Union in man power, production capabilities, technology, and fighting spirit etc. You could almost say they lost the War when they decided to attack the Soviet Union. And Hitler meddled too much with their military. They could have done much better in 1941 had not Hitler interfered with their directives.

Yup, if you ever watched World at War there's a whole hour part focused on that.I don't know if they underestimated the Soviet Union as much as were ill prepared tactically and supply wise. I mean, they DID push deep, deep into the Soviet Union and inflict ridiculous amounts of casualties. They were ill prepared for winter warfare though, and when that dark, cold Russian winter hit, the Germans weren't prepared and didn't know what the hell to do when the USSR pulled troops from Siberia to counter offensive who were adept at winter warfare. .

Besides the human standpoint, this war is ridiculous on every level of tactical warfare you can think of, and with advances in technology, there will never be anything like it again.
 

bengraven

Member
rfuHa.jpg


The Siege of Leningrad is one of the most interesting and horrifying stories of the war.

I remember the Dan Carlin "Hardcore History" on this part of the war. You had Nazis and Soviets fighting from alley way to alley way. They were setting traps along roads and in basements. It was like a post-apocalyptic war. It was an important battle, but the population was destroyed physically and emotionally.

Then there's the food shortages and cannibalism:

In the first days after the siege began, people finished all leftovers in "commercial" restaurants, which used up to 12% of all fats and up to 10% of all meat the city consumed. Soon all restaurants closed, food rationing became the only way to save lives, and money became obsolete. The carnage in the city from shelling and starvation (especially in the first winter) was appalling. One of Nikolai I. Vavilov's assistants starved to death surrounded by edible seeds so that the seedbank (with more than 200,000 items) would be available to future generations.

During the first year of the siege, the city survived five food reductions: two reductions in September 1941, one in October 1941, and two reductions in November 1941. The latter reduced the daily food consumption to 250 grams daily for manual workers and 125 grams for other civilians. Reports of cannibalism began to appear in the winter of 1941–1942, after all birds, rats and pets were eaten by survivors. Starvation-level food rationing was eased by new vegetable gardens that covered most open ground in the city by 1942.

Edit: yeah, no one's going to read this now. ha
 
My question is this, and it's always bothered me; Was Nazi Germany the "necessary" (imagine 1,000,000 more "" here) bulwark against Stalinism in Europe, or did they bring on the Stalinism? I think we all agree that Stalinist USSR was just as bad if not worse than Nazi Germany, so did the weakening of the USSR by the Nazis prevent a full Soviet Europe?

Maybe in the 30's. But once the Russians got back on their feet they just steamrolled over the Germans. The only reason that they didn't keep going to the Atlantic was the success of D-Day and the Allied invasion of Europe. I think that's D-Day's legacy; not the defeat of Nazi Germany, that was inevitable once the Russians got going. It was keeping Western Europe free of Soviet domination post war.

Great thread btw. I look forward to learning a great deal about this war.
 

dschalter

Member
yeah this has always fascinated me. The german (prussian) war machine was always magnificent, to say the least, but i think in WWII it really showed what a fully mobilized and pissed off german war machine could do. Not that it was justified by any extent, but even train wrecks can be works of arts.





My question is this, and it's always bothered me; Was Nazi Germany the "necessary" (imagine 1,000,000 more "" here) bulwark against Stalinism in Europe, or did they bring on the Stalinism? I think we all agree that Stalinist USSR was just as bad if not worse than Nazi Germany, so did the weakening of the USSR by the Nazis prevent a full Soviet Europe?

nazi germany strengthened the soviet union more than you can imagine. after world war i, there existed a ring of staunchly anti-communist states in eastern europe. germany destroyed some of those states and strong-armed others into joining the axis, which meant that the ussr had a completely legitimate excuse to take over those states when the tide of war turned against the axis. also, to note a more 'abstract' issue- world war ii created the glorious "anti-fascist" myth that the soviet union, which had appeased hitler at every turn and was just as culpable in allowing germany to expand prewar as britain and france, had been the bright light of resistance of nazi germany. obviously the soviet union took the brunt of losses from the war, but it was a war they were forced into.

it's also worth noting that the nuclear age made the soviet manpower less important and they had a huge edge regardless postwar.

also, the soviet union was much less bad for people outside it. i can think of no country in history that was so bad for its own people, but nazi germany was far worse to its neighbors and to other european countries (which i think is worse).
 

TheNatural

My Member!
Funny strip, sums it up pretty well.

Also, just think of how all the problems today still exist because of WWII. Jews were mass murdered, so given their own state thatis right in the middle of this Middle East conflict. Japan's war with China led to democratic China being so weak they couldn't win a civil war against the communist party of China, and Communist China now rules - and lent support to batshit Korea in the Korean War and continues to this day.

You could seriously make a tree of all the problems we have today with wars, and you can strace all that shit back to the table being flipped over during WWII.
 

TheNatural

My Member!
rfuHa.jpg


The Siege of Leningrad is one of the most interesting and horrifying stories of the war.

I remember the Dan Carlin "Hardcore History" on this part of the war. You had Nazis and Soviets fighting from alley way to alley way. They were setting traps along roads and in basements. It was like a post-apocalyptic war. It was an important battle, but the population was destroyed physically and emotionally.

Then there's the food shortages and cannibalism:





Edit: yeah, no one's going to read this now. ha

Also watched that in World at War. It was crazy, people were getting rations of shit that wasn't even food. Bread made of sawdust, all kinds of shit. Eventually the Soviets replinished the supply lines there and held firm, but all kinds of people died of starvation.
 
Someone mentioned it earlier in the thread but I feel it may have been overlooked.

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History- Ghosts of the Ostfront I -IV

Part One covering the conflict between the Germans and the Soviet Union in the Second World War. Dan gives an introduction to the subject and discusses the causes and opening moves of Operation Barbarossa.

In Part Two of the Ostfront series covering WW2 on the Eastern Front, Dan looks at the attempt to take Moscow and the many compelling stories surrounding the momentous1941 German offensive.

In Part Three of the Ostfront series covering WW2 on the Eastern Front, Dan looks at the situation in the U.S.S.R. during 1942 and early 1943, including the dreadful Battle of Stalingrad.

In the final episode of the horror story that is the Eastern Front the tale descends into unimaginable darkness as vengeance is called down on Germany. This graphic episode is not for young ears.

Play time:5.7 hours
 

TheNatural

My Member!
Someone mentioned it earlier in the thread but I feel it may have been overlooked.

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History- Ghosts of the Ostfront I -IV









Play time:5.7 hours

Last part, I'n guessing is about a hundred thousand women being raped n Berlin, taking out all the aggression the soldiers has seeing their towns and villages burned and people executed in Russia as they retook their territory.

That sums up war for me. Hitler got the easy way out, a bullet in the head. All the civilians on both sides were in the pawns in all this, getting the brunt of the aggression of the armies as they took over territories, and in Berlin, pure revenge to people who didn't cause it.
 
Funny strip, sums it up pretty well.

Also, just think of how all the problems today still exist because of WWII. Jews were mass murdered, so given their own state thatis right in the middle of this Middle East conflict. Japan's war with China led to democratic China being so weak they couldn't win a civil war against the communist party of China, and Communist China now rules - and lent support to batshit Korea in the Korean War and continues to this day.

You could seriously make a tree of all the problems we have today with wars, and you can strace all that shit back to the table being flipped over during WWII.

And the reason for WWII you can track to the peace terms of WWI. So we can pretty much blame France for everything that happened post WWI!
 

numble

Member
Funny strip, sums it up pretty well.

Also, just think of how all the problems today still exist because of WWII. Jews were mass murdered, so given their own state thatis right in the middle of this Middle East conflict. Japan's war with China led to democratic China being so weak they couldn't win a civil war against the communist party of China, and Communist China now rules - and lent support to batshit Korea in the Korean War and continues to this day.

You could seriously make a tree of all the problems we have today with wars, and you can strace all that shit back to the table being flipped over during WWII.

That really isn't why the Communists won. The KMT had much more forces at the end of the war, with better weaponry. They decided to hole up in cities, align with the landlord class, handle the economy horribly, and became rift with corruption, while the Communists mobilized peasants in the countryside (not hard to do if you guarantee that you will usurp land from the landlords--this led to an unlimited supply of soldiers), took in deserting KMT forces, used guerrilla tactics, and were able to starve out KMT troops holed up in cities.
 

PersonaX

Member
Then there's the food shortages and cannibalism:

Yep, dunno if this is fake, but here it goes:

Finnish soldiers displaying Soviet soldiers' skins near Maaselkä, on the strand of lake Seesjärvi during Continuation War on the 15th of December in 1942. Original caption: "An enemy recon patrol that was cut out of food supplies had butchered a few members of their own patrol group, and had eaten most of them."

dyK3r.jpg
 

dschalter

Member
That really isn't why the Communists won. The KMT had much more forces at the end of the war, with better weaponry. They decided to hole up in cities, align with the landlord class, handle the economy horribly, and became rift with corruption, while the Communists mobilized peasants in the countryside (not hard to do if you guarantee that you will usurp land from the landlords--this led to an unlimited supply of soldiers), took in deserting KMT forces, used guerrilla tactics, and were able to starve out KMT troops holed up in cities.

or... they were both reasons. that the KMT was hurt far more seriously by the war is something that no serious historians denies.

And the reason for WWII you can track to to peace terms of WWI. So we can pretty much blame France for everything that happened post WWI!

disagree, versailles wasn't harsh enough.

don't even mean that jokingly, it wasn't that bad at all, germany just couldn't get over the fact that it had lost.
 

TheNatural

My Member!
or... they were both reasons. that the KMT was hurt far more seriously by the war is something that no serious historians denies.



disagree, versailles wasn't harsh enough.

don't even mean that jokingly, it wasn't that bad at all, germany just couldn't get over the fact that it had lost.

And the conditions don't mean shit when the League of Nations let things go over and over again that led to Hitler gaining confidence enough to start invasion of other countries. The prewar broken record was constantly, "Germany did X and the League of Nations did nothing." He built up an army and broke all kinds of sanctions that led to him eventually invading other countries. Hell, even when the war did start, France was still hiding behind the inept Maginot line not doing anything. It was a war that no one wanted except Germany and they capitalized on it.
 
disagree, versailles wasn't harsh enough.

don't even mean that jokingly, it wasn't that bad at all, germany just couldn't get over the fact that it had lost.

That is pretty silly

Westgermany and Japan are textbook examples how you should handle defeated nations.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
I love how Americans justify the Atomic Bombs...
The justification in 1, maybe... Both?
The 2nd didn't need to be dropped, they just did it for the sake of doing it.
Lives mean nothing to some people.

Just glad my Grandfather survived the Nagasaki bomb, being 1.4KM away.
(I wouldn't have been born if he didn't survive.)

On the other hand, had the bombs not been dropped, he might just as well have been conscripted as part of Ketsugō, whereupon he and the other civilian forces would have made the German Volkssturm look lavishly equipped, but still been fighting to the death nonetheless. As has been mentioned in other posts, just look at the battles on the outer islands. At Saipan, most of the 22,000 civilians who died committed suicide, in large part due to a decree by the Emperor, who was afraid that civilians would find US treatment of prisoners absolutely generous compared to their own.
 

dschalter

Member
That is pretty silly

Westgermany and Japan are textbook examples how you should handle defeated nations.

this comparison is a bad one.

world war ii germany surrendered unconditionally and japan surrendered almost unconditionally (the emperor business). this gave america (and the soviet union in the eastern zone) free reign to do what it desired. this simply was not possible during world war i, because germany did not surrender unconditionally. the war was ended with an armistice and the allies had not set foot on german soil. if they had wanted to thoroughly restructure germany they would have had to continue the fight and lose even more men.

also important- germany and japan after world war ii both had the "fear of god" aka the soviet union in them. people and leaders in both of those countries saw and were horrified by the incredible strength of that regime and realize that the safest thing to do was to get very close to the united states. granted the soviet union existed after world war i, but it was not nearly as threatening then.
 

bengraven

Member
Someone mentioned it earlier in the thread but I feel it may have been overlooked.

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History- Ghosts of the Ostfront I -IV

Play time:5.7 hours

Yep.

I remember a scene he talked about that made me open my mouth and go "fuuuuuck" at the library.

Russian troops are using outdated guns and tanks against the more modern German soldiers. The Russians, however, have a larger force however and these soldiers are not allowed to turn back for fear of being shot. We're talking upwards of 100,000 Russian soldiers.

So they start marching towards these Germans with new submachine guns. Half of them don't even have guns.

The German guns run RED from overheating because they're literally firing so much. Stacks of dead Russians start to actually become a HILL between the two forces. Germans are having a blast because it's basically like shooting fish in a barrel.

It's a massacre.

Yep, dunno if this is fake, but here it goes:
dyK3r.jpg

I said "god damn". The war on the Eastern front was the most brutal parts of the war.
 

yacobod

Banned
Yup, if you ever watched World at War there's a whole hour part focused on that.I don't know if they underestimated the Soviet Union as much as were ill prepared tactically and supply wise. I mean, they DID push deep, deep into the Soviet Union and inflict ridiculous amounts of casualties. They were ill prepared for winter warfare though, and when that dark, cold Russian winter hit, the Germans weren't prepared and didn't know what the hell to do when the USSR pulled troops from Siberia to counter offensive who were adept at winter warfare. .

I'm pretty sure that was mandated from Hitler and the high command. They thought they were going to Blitz the Soviet Union like the rest of the Europe. Hitler didn't want to hurt the troops morale thinking they were going to be there for the winter. That's why the German army were in their spring or summer gear.

TheNatural said:
Last part, I'n guessing is about a hundred thousand women being raped n Berlin, taking out all the aggression the soldiers has seeing their towns and villages burned and people executed in Russia as they retook their territory.

That sums up war for me. Hitler got the easy way out, a bullet in the head. All the civilians on both sides were in the pawns in all this, getting the brunt of the aggression of the armies as they took over territories, and in Berlin, pure revenge to people who didn't cause it.

I'd check it out MMA-friend. It's a great audio book on the Eastern Front. Part 4 largely deals with Operation Bagration, The Warsaw Uprising, the Soviet advance on Berlin, and then the revenge that followed. I think the eastern front is often overlooked by the West, so this is a pretty informative podcast.
 

numble

Member
or... they were both reasons. that the KMT was hurt far more seriously by the war is something that no serious historians denies.

Not having to fight Japan would've helped the KMT a lot, I agree. But at the end of the war, they still were the favorite against the CCP. Simply choosing to not side with the landlords would have won them the war. A bad decision, especially since one of the first things they did when they got to Taiwan was to implement land reform and side against Taiwanese landlords.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
My great uncle was a bomber pilot for the RAF and he wrote a book.

stSTq.jpg


This book tells the story of the voluntry military service of on of New Zealand's longest-living Lancaster Pilots. He survived a full tour of operational flying from Britain with Bomber Command, achieving the position of Flight Commander of B Flight with 630 Squadron at East Kirkby. His story is based upon his meticulous personal diary records, as well as his official professional flying records. The text, both in respect of his early life and Air Force experience throughout, is full of uniquely observed incidents and written with a sense of humour, substantiated by logical analysis. Distinctively for a text of war time bombing combat missions, the narrative is enriched with technical and operational data, in which the author took an interest beyond the necessities of his pilot duties, together with research data on contingent losses and events from national archives that have only become accessible in recent years. It includes the record of a negative mission involving a celebrated Wing Commander which other accounts have concealed. Included is a previously unpublished personal account of the experiences of Allied bombing from aircrew members who were delivering them, and the Germans and Japanese who were suffering them. It is published to mark the 60th anniversary of the period of greatest effort by Bomber Command during the Second World War.

he gave me a copy, it was such an interesting read.

The celebrated wing commander was involved or in charge of the dambusters mission and was quite the douchebag apparently. Wish I still had the book with me so I could post more details.

It's pretty much out of print now and can't be purchased. Feel pretty lucky to have got one from him. He made it to 90 something years old before dying. Not bad for a dude that flew for a force that had an average lifetime of 2 weeks.
 
Why did Spain and Portugal stay neutral?

Spain was in the middle of a Civil War between the Communists and the Fascists. The Nazis and the USA were supplying and supporting the fascists, while obviously the Russians were backing the commies.

Interesting fact: the bombing of Guernica (depicted in Pablo Picasso's painting) was actually an experiment endorsed by the Nazis, to see whether the tactic of demoralizing the citizenry was effective in winning a war. The tactic worked in Spain, as after Guernica was devastated, most of the Spaniards lost the will to continue fighting.

Because it worked so well in Spain, the Nazis tried to use that same tactic in England; that's why Hitler insisted on bombing civilian targets rather than military ones early on.

Unfortunately for Hitler, this tactic did NOT work in England.

On a personal note, my grandfather was a teenager in Spain when the war broke out. He had to get someone to help smuggle him across the border to Portugal, and from there he fled to the USA and had to wait there alone for the rest of his family to escape and join him. While waiting, a family friend got him a job cleaning ships in a New York harbor, and somewhere along the way he was introduced to my grandmother.

They're still together today, well into their 80's. So, I owe my existence to the Spanish Civil War.
 

TheNatural

My Member!
I'm pretty sure that was mandated from Hitler and the high command. They thought they were going to Blitz the Soviet Union like the rest of the Europe. Hitler didn't want to hurt the troops morale thinking they were going to be there for the winter. That's why the German army were in their spring or summer gear.



I'd check it out MMA-friend. It's a great audio book on the Eastern Front. Part 4 largely deals with Operation Bagration, The Warsaw Uprising, the Soviet advance on Berlin, and then the revenge that followed. I think the eastern front is often overlooked by the West, so this is a pretty informative podcast.

I did may last college class project on Patton, I find about anything interesting with WWII.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Jack Churchill is one of my favourite solider stories (along with Simo Häyhä).

jackchurchillo8c9i.jpg


Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming "Jack" Churchill, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar (16 September 1906 – 8 March 1996), nicknamed "Fighting Jack Churchill" and "Mad Jack", was a British soldier who fought throughout World War II armed with a longbow, arrows and a claymore. He once said "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."

Churchill resumed his commission after Poland was invaded. In May 1940, Churchill and his unit, the Manchester Regiment, ambushed a German patrol near L'Epinette, France. Churchill gave the signal to attack by cutting down the enemy Feldwebel (sergeant) with his barbed arrows, becoming the only known British soldier to have felled an enemy with a longbow in the course of the war. After fighting at Dunkirk, he volunteered for the Commandos, unsure of what Commando duty entailed, but interested because it sounded dangerous.

Churchill was second in command of No. 3 Commando in Operation Archery, a raid on the German garrison at Vågsøy, Norway on December 27, 1941. As the ramps fell on the first landing craft, Churchill leapt forward from his position and played a song on his bagpipes, before throwing a grenade and running into battle in the bay. For his actions at Dunkirk and Vågsøy, Churchill received the Military Cross and Bar. Perhaps Churchill's most impressive military exploits came in early 1942. It is claimed that he and five other Commandos took down a whole German outpost of around 300 men. The mission took them three weeks, in which time they hid in the dense undergrowth surrounding the outpost, surviving on a diet of Marmite and salami.

In July 1943, as commanding officer, he led 2 Commando from their landing site at Catania in Sicily with his trademark claymore slung around his waist and a longbow and arrows around his neck and his bagpipes under his arm. This was again repeated at the landings at Salerno. Leading 2 Commando, Churchill was ordered to capture a German observation post outside of the town of La Molina controlling a pass leading down to the Salerno beach-head. He led the attack by 2 and 41 Commandos, infiltrating the town and capturing the post, taking 42 prisoners including a mortar squad. Churchill led the men and prisoners back down the pass with the wounded being carried on carts, pushed by German prisoners. He commented that to him it was "an image from the Napoleonic Wars." He received the Distinguished Service Order for leading this action at Salerno.

In 1944, he led the Commandos in Yugoslavia, where they supported the efforts of Josip Broz Tito's Partisans from the Adriatic island of Vis. In May, he was ordered to raid the German held island of Brač. He organised a motley army of 1,500 Partisans, 43 Commando and one troop from 40 Commando for the raid. The landing was unopposed, but on seeing the eyries from which they later encountered German fire, the Partisans decided to defer the attack until the following day. Churchill's bagpipes signalled the remaining Commandos to battle. After being strafed by an RAF Spitfire, Churchill decided to withdraw for the night and to re-launch the attack the following morning. The following morning, one flanking attack was launched by 43 Commando with Churchill leading the elements from 40 Commando. The Partisans remained at the landing area. Only Churchill and six others managed to reach the objective. A mortar shell killed or wounded everyone but Churchill, who was playing "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" on his pipes as the Germans advanced. He was knocked unconscious by grenades and captured. He was later flown to Berlin for interrogation and then transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

In September 1944, he and a Royal Air Force officer crawled under the wire through an abandoned drain and attempted to walk to the Baltic coast. They were recaptured near the coastal city of Rostock, a few kilometres from the sea. In late April 1945 Churchill and about 140 other prominent concentration camp inmates were transferred to Tyrol, guarded by SS troops. A delegation of prisoners told senior Germany army officers they feared they would be executed. An army unit commanded by Captain Wichard von Alvensleben moved in to protect the prisoners. Outnumbered, the SS guards moved out, leaving the prisoners behind. The prisoners were then set free. After the departure of the Germans Churchill walked 150 kilometres (93 mi) to Verona, Italy where he met an American armoured force.

As the Pacific War was still ongoing Churchill was sent to Burma, where the largest land battles against Japan were still raging, but by the time he reached India, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed, and the war abruptly ended. Churchill was said to be unhappy with the sudden end of the war, saying: "If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years."
 
Also, about the nukes being dropped. Truman was backed into a corner by Stalin. Stalin mandated that if the USA didn't secure a Jalanese surrender by a certain date (it was within a week or two of the mandate), then Russia would invade Japan.

Tensions were already heating up between USA and USSR by that point, and USSR had already won the race to Berlin. Truman knew that if the Russians were to take credit for winning both fronts of the war, their influence would be significantly greater, which would have made the coming Cold War much tougher. So he didn't only drop the bombs to save casualties; he also did it to save time.
 

DonasaurusRex

Online Ho Champ
Around 230,000 people died. Mostly civilians. You'd have to be a right prick to think those bombings were justified.

how many people died at the invasion of okinawa alone? Not that i buy we had to use a bomb, i think we could've waited japan out. Perhaps the russians declaring war on japan had something to do with that.
 
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