What if WWII Never Happened?

[Modelcar]

....B-36 bombers....Weren't they awesome for that time frame.  For anyone haven't ever seen one, Wright Patterson AFB Museum...Dayton, Oh. is where I got to eyeball one {many years ago}, up close.  {I would assume it's still there}.

I did get to see and hear {that was the impressive part}, the sound they made as they flew over.

[Saxman]

Wow! What and enjoyable and informative discussion. I laude everyone for staying to the the topic. I too find it interesting to think of the what if in regards to history. I plan on getting the Newt Gingrich books regarding WWII from the what if perspective. Thanks for the good thread.

[wjstix]

Another thing that won't have happened is the depopulation of the Midwest and the boom on the West Coast. Many of the people who didn't fight in the war moved to California to work in the defense plants and never came back. Of my mother's male cousins, (large family), they all either fought, farmed or went to the plants and NONE of the defense workers came back to the rural Minnesota town she grew up in.

Well it may have increased the movement but it was already in progress before the war, certainly my aunt and uncle had moved from Minneapolis to San Francisco by 1939 for example. It's certainly true that it's a rare Minnesotan who doesn't have cousins in California.

The biggest move of course had been the "dust bowl" people from Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas who went to California in the '30's. Plus at the same time blacks from the rural south were moving north, usually by train, so those from Mississippi went on the IC to Chicago, those from the mid-south went to Detroit, and those from the eastern part of the south went to New York and Philadelphia.

[wjstix]

The approval process for what railroads could build during WWII seemed a bit backwards looking. What on earth were they thinking approving old Steam Locomotives for the railroads while pushing Jet Aircraft for the military. It seems like they wanted the railroads to stay stuck in the past to break their power on the transportation of the nations people and products.

Andrew

Well jet aircraft were in the experimental stage, I don't believe the US created a jet fighter until the very end of the war, after Germany and Great Britain had created useable jets.

Diesels were a fairly new technology, and early diesels were prone to break-downs and problems...plus many diesels that were built were being sent overseas, which is why the typical Russian freight diesels of the 1950's-1980's bore a striking resemblence to an ALCO RS-1 - that's what they copied after getting some during the war from the US. Besides, who was making diesels?? EMD wasn't as huge as it would become, and ALCO was still primarily a steam builder. It made much more sense for ALCO, Baldwin, Lima et al to do what they did best - build steam engines.

BTW don't forget oil products were rationed during the war, including automobile gasoline. Coal was in comparison more abundant and didn't have the processing issues of oil. Also oil was burned by the Navy in their ships, which had priority over domestic uses.

[wjstix]

 Although I'm a Northeasterner I've always been under the impression that WWII provided a big shot in the arm for the infrastructure of the Southeast United States, particularly in regards to heavy industry. I'm under the impression that large parts of the South lagged behind the rest of the country in terms of development from the Reconstruction era until the Second World War and the huge construction projects (some of which started during the "New Deal" such as the TVA) started the shift of a lot of manufacturing Southward...

Maybe a bit, especially coastal shipbuilding areas I guess. But the "sun belt" boom really didn't take hold until maybe the 1960's-1970's. Go back to 1955 and the South was generally still fairly rural, with few large cities or large manufacturing centers compared to the North and increasingly the West.

[wjstix]

I was in Sheldon, IA this past weekend where I snapped some non-digital photos of the joint CMO/MILW depot there in town (still in remarkably good shape).  It's an interesting "corner" design with half aligned on the MILW secondary main (now ICE) and half aligned on the CMO main (now UP).  Sheldon is now the western terminus of the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern, and hats-off to that community for keeping the depot up.

At breakfast I got to talking with some locals, and we began to speculate on what would've happened with the US rail system had WWII never happened?  Suppose one of the several plots to eliminate Hitler actually succeeded prior to 1941 (there were a number of high-ranking German officers who plotted his removal well before the failed attempt in '44).  Suppose the Japanese emperor had a change of mind, or perhaps if the German-Italian alliance wouldn't have been in-place, leaving Japan alone to face the US, Britain and the Commonwealth and France combined - perhaps Japan would've backed-down? 

How would peace in the 30's and 40's have affected American railroads? 

Here's what Carl, Bill, Mary and I came-up with:

1.) The interstate highway system, envisioned originally to facilitate a more rapid overland transportation system in-case of a foreign invasion, may have been delayed in its creation.

2.) Joseph Stalin, and his brutal policies within the USSR, may have been assassinated or driven from power, as his purges made many, many enemies for him inside and outside the party (he was terrified of an internal coup - that was the cause for the purges).  This certainly would've delayed the development of the arms race, and that may have allowed more governmental funding for infrastructure improvement/development.

3.) Without the severe wear & tear on the physical plants of the railroads, the railroads would not have emerged from the late 40's in terrible condition (like the PRR, NYC and MSTL to name only a few that I can think of).  Perhaps this would've allowed the railroads to better compete with trucks by allowing more investment in equipment upgrades, ROW upkeep and improvements in traffic control/scheduling/routing?  Maybe this would've delayed "merger madness"?

4.) Without the war industries, there may not have been as much business for the railroads to serve in that period.  There was a huge drain on manpower as the result of hostilities, and had war not occurred, the rail industry wouldn't have lost so much of its workforce.  The war effort, and the "war scare" prior to the US entry in 1941, did help pull the US out of the depression by the drive to prepare for war (armaments production and strategic infrastructure developments).

Does anyone have ideas?

Well it's important to understand that Hitler was against the Japanese attack on the US, and was apparently outraged when it happened. The idea that without Hitler the Japanese would have "backed down" is backwards, if anything it might have happened sooner.

Remember that "World War Two" was really two wars that merged in 1941 - the "official" WW2 in Europe, started in 1939 when Germany attacked Poland, causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany (and German ally Italy to declare war on them); and the Japanese war of agression in the Pacific which dated back to 1931 and was basically Japan vs. Asia (China, Korea, etc.)

In 1941, Hitler had attacked the USSR, and the last thing he wanted was the US to get involved in the war, so he'd be fighting a three way war. However by that time, in response to the horrific things Japan was doing in China, the US embargoed Japan, refusing to sell it oil and other natural resources...which Japan saw as an act of war. The big surprise of Pearl Harbor wasn't that a Japanese attack happened - many people expected it - but was the location, no one thought the Japanese could sail so far to attack Hawaii without being detected.

For a few days in 1941, the US was at war with Japan. It wasn't until a week or two after Pearl Harbor that Hitler reluctantly decided to honor his treaty with Japan and declared war on the US, thereby allowing the US to actively participate with Britain in the European war.

p.s. Without the war, Stalin would have been stronger rather than weaker. Many in the US before the war felt Communism was the real enemy, not Hitler, and without the massive losses the USSR took in the war, they would have been a great threat to the west. Basically the Cold War would have started anyway, and both sides would have worked to develop the atomic bomb.

[nanaimo73]

Well it's important to understand that Hitler was against the Japanese attack on the US, and was apparently outraged when it happened. The idea that without Hitler the Japanese would have "backed down" is backwards, if anything it might have happened sooner.

You need to take into account that the Dutch and French were defeated, and it looked like Germany was also going to defeat Russia and the British at the time. The Japanese probably felt the time was right to expand their territory.

[wjstix]

Well it's important to understand that Hitler was against the Japanese attack on the US, and was apparently outraged when it happened. The idea that without Hitler the Japanese would have "backed down" is backwards, if anything it might have happened sooner.

You need to take into account that the Dutch and French were defeated, and it looked like Germany was also going to defeat Russia and the British at the time. The Japanese probably felt the time was right to expand their territory.

Plus their plan may have worked if the US carriers had been in Pearl Harbor and had been destroyed on Dec 7th. Without them, what ships we had still afloat would have had no air support and it would have been almost impossible to fight any battles. The US might have had to sue for peace - which is what I think the Japanese hoped would happen...that is, I don't think the Japanese would have tried to invade the mainland US, but with out the US in the war they probably would have been able to invade Australia.

BTW anyone watch the "Battle 360" series on the USS Enterprise?? Pretty interesting stuff.

[Anonymous]

Well it's important to understand that Hitler was against the Japanese attack on the US, and was apparently outraged when it happened. The idea that without Hitler the Japanese would have "backed down" is backwards, if anything it might have happened sooner.

You need to take into account that the Dutch and French were defeated, and it looked like Germany was also going to defeat Russia and the British at the time. The Japanese probably felt the time was right to expand their territory.

Plus their plan may have worked if the US carriers had been in Pearl Harbor and had been destroyed on Dec 7th. Without them, what ships we had still afloat would have had no air support and it would have been almost impossible to fight any battles. The US might have had to sue for peace - which is what I think the Japanese hoped would happen...that is, I don't think the Japanese would have tried to invade the mainland US, but with out the US in the war they probably would have been able to invade Australia.

BTW anyone watch the "Battle 360" series on the USS Enterprise?? Pretty interesting stuff.

That's not a realistic projection.  The US had massive ship-building facilities and the naval bases at San Diego, San Francisco and of course on the east coast and the gulf.  Losing four carriers at Pearl Harbor would never have been cause for Roosevelt, the Congress and the military to consider suing for peace.  If we'd lost twice that many, it still wouldn't have prevented our declaration of war - it just wasn't in the mindset of the American people.  Heck, after the decimating Japanese naval strike at Port Arthur in 1904, czar Nicholas II (incompetent boob that he was) wasn't compelled to sue fo peace, over Chinese territory that wasn't rightfully a Russian possession.  Why would we sue for peace after Pearl Harbor?

[daveklepper]

I disagree with "NO ISRAEL"   Zionism did not start after or during WWII, but in the middle of the 19th Century, when immigrants intending to farm joined religious Jewish settlers that had been in the Holy Land for centuries, some invited to return when Muslims drove out the Crusaders, some escaping from the Spanish Inquisition and some that of families that never left despite the Roman and then much later the Crusader persecution.  In fact, Roosevelt litterally sold out the Jewish community to the Saudi Arabians for the oil that was necessary to insure Allied victory in North Africa.   He had gotten Stalin's agreement for Jewish immigration to Israel at Yalta, but then met King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in a lake in Egypt on a USA warship, who told him flatly that Jews must go back to where they came from after WWII.  But Truman defied the State Department in recongnizing Israel, largely resulting from the pleas of his old Jewish business partner.  If it had not been for the need for Arab oil during WWII, the very special relationship of a "Christian" America with a Kingdom that forbids any open Christian worship of any sort (and has paid for and supported open persecution of Christians in the past), would never have occured, and the immigration of Jews from the Arab countries would have been a matter of choice, rather than as refugees from Saudi- inspired persecution.  Perhaps Israel would not be called Israel.   It would not be called Palestine, because the Arabs in the Holy Land never called themselves Palestinians until well after Israel was established in 1948.   Perhaps it would have been called the Land of Abraham, or just the Holy Land.   Jerusalem is derived from the Hebrew "City of Peace" but the Arab name is El Kuds, meaning Holy City, and the Arab University in Jerusalem is called El Jamayel El Kuds, the El Kuds University.   But WWII did not create Zionism.   On of my Great Grandfathers attended Hertzl's first World Zionist Congress in Basel Switzerland in 1898.  My Aunt first visited Israel in 1922, moved from America, like many Jews reaching retirement age, in 1950.  I waited until age 64, 1996, and I can compare my move and my life here to any American Catholic who joins a monestary, in the USA or elsewhere.  The founders of the Hebrew U. and many other Zionists were working toward a binational state before WWII.

More to the point.   Perhaps the great untapped oil reserves in Northern Canada and in Alaska would have been developed before the environmental lobby raised all sorts of objections, because Saudi oil was convenient for the North African and Italian campaigns, but far away from USA markets.  But lots of streetcar systems that were preserved and in a few cases even expanded (Washington DC, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Oakland-Berkely) during WWII would have been replaced by buses a lot earlier.   The auto would have knocked out a lot of railroad passenger service earlier, too.   Ditto th einroads of trucks into lcl and loose car freight service.  But on the other hand jet plane development would not have had the spark of military necessity, unless we armed to face the Communist threat, and aircraft erosion of first class long distance service might actually have been postponed.   Concerning the communist threat:  Would Russia have controlled Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czeckoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Rumania, etc., if they had not earlier been occupied by Germany?  I don't know, but I suspect that USA, British, and French help could have prevented that from happening.   Would we have helped?  

[shawnee]

It's nearly impossible to imagine the world today had WWII not happened, as it was the touchstone of development for the next century.  Technologically, it was a turbo-boost.  Internally, migration patterns not just of rural to urban but of the increased black diapora north to cities like Chicago, Detroit, etc.  Certainly Zionism as a philosophy was established prior to the war but it was propelled in force by the experience of the Holocaust.  Israel probably wouldn't be what it is today, and Middle East might have had quite a different course.  Russia, or more accurately the USSR, certainly would not have accelerated technologically as much as they had by the end of the war, and who knows if Stalin could have survived without the war - the German invasion, particularly in its brutal execution, galvanized the USSR and shored up support for Stalin. The European nations would have remained stronger, with empires intact and viable far longer, and the power - economic and military - would not have shifted so profoundly to the US.  Remember, the US military prior to the war was relatively small and thin.  It would have been a much more multi-polar world politically, economically and militarily...probably thus would have led to a few more wars of competition between various players.  It almost certainly wouldn't have been as much an "American Century", if at all.  The war changed that forever.  Much of Europe was a wreck after the war, and people in India, Africa and Asia experiencing the weakness of western colonial powers like Britain, France and the Dutch during the war definitely accelerated the colonial breakdown.

I think railroads, perhaps one of the lesser affected areas if WWII didn't happen. 

But then again, so much for counter-factual history!  What if...  

[TimChgo9]

The one thing I dislike about "what if" history, is that sometimes crucial facts and events are igonored, or minimized.  Don't forget World War I.  Going through history, WWI was the impetus for WWII in Europe.  The "Great War" was destructive not only to the nations involved, but the economies as well.  In order for Hitler to not have come to power would have meant that either Germany won WWI, or was defeated but was able to negotiate a more favorable peace that would have left the Kaiser on his throne, and the House of Hohenzollern in order. 

But that didn't happen.  You cannot discount the events of the early part of the century before World War II.  Discounting them, or ignoring them then leaves holes in the "No WWII" theories.  World War I grew out of the arms race, and the seething  tension between Germany and France over France's humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.  The Continental Arms Race was in full swing starting about 1898, with the passage of the Navy Bills in the German Reichstag.  Germany was bent on designing and building a navy that could challenge the British on the open sea. Lenin called Europe "A powder keg" in 1902, and all it needed was a spark.  That spark came in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Joseph of the Austro Hungarian empire. 

If WWI had ended in less than a humiliating defeat for Germany, then Hitler would have been reduced to a blabbering Socialist, along with a few others.  If that had been the case, then the 20's, 30's and 40's would have been far more peaceful, maybe.  Who knows how many other "small wars" between say, France and Germany, Italy and Austria, or the like would have happened.  It is true WWII is what revved up the  technology boom of the postwar period, in addition to the other "booms" that went on.  The Russian Revolution probably would have been postponed, at the very least, and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire probably would have taken longer.  

That then, would have changed the make up of the world leading into the 1930's  and at this point we could probably surmise that some of what has been offered here would have happened. 

Personally, it's a tough sell for me.  Europe, from about 1870 on, was a continent careening toward a major conflict.  The French were properly humiliated during the Franco-Prussian war, and  the country we know as Germany had finally been united under the Kaiser. Previous to that, Germany was a collection of Kingdoms, Pricipalities, Duchies and Free Cities (Prussia, Silesia, Schleswig-Holstein, Bavaria, Saxony, etc, etc. etc) After the victory over France, and the unification, the Germans were feeling pretty powerful.  "Deutschland uber Alles" wasn't Hitler's idea, it first came into use under the Kaiser, who said  "The world belongs to Germans".  Due to the rivalries, the arms race, and the fact that back then, as Churchill had said, Europeans still regarded war as "cruel and glorious".   

I could go on for quite a bit on this one, but, this is my third long post on this subject, so I'll just read what everyone else has to say.  At the very least, it's interesting.

[Anonymous]

But that didn't happen.  You cannot discount the events of the early part of the century before World War II.  Discounting them, or ignoring them then leaves holes in the "No WWII" theories.  World War I grew out of the arms race, and the seething  tension between Germany and France over France's humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.  The Continental Arms Race was in full swing starting about 1898, with the passage of the Navy Bills in the German Reichstag.  Germany was bent on designing and building a navy that could challenge the British on the open sea. Lenin called Europe "A powder keg" in 1902, and all it needed was a spark.  That spark came in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Joseph of the Austro Hungarian empire. 

 

Quite correct, and to go even further, the flashpoint for WWI actually came from the Turkish conquest of the Balkans.  The assassin of the Archduke, some bonehead named Princip as I recall (a Bosnian Serb), had grown-up with tales of daring-do of his ancestors fighting a guerilla war against the Turks.  He and his unemployed cohorts had no Muslim Turks left to fight, so the next best thing were the Catholic Austrians, and it all hit the fan from there.

And just to tie my comments back to railroading, I believe the Archduke and his wife both travelled to Sarajevo by train.

[Convicted One]

I disagree with "NO ISRAEL"   Zionism did not start after or during WWII, but in the middle of the 19th Century, when immigrants intending to farm joined religious Jewish settlers that had been in the Holy Land for centuries, some invited to return when Muslims drove out the Crusaders, some escaping from the Spanish Inquisition and some that of families that never left despite the Roman and then much later the Crusader persecution. 

 

Well, you are certainly entitled to disagree

But I base my hypothesis upon the provisions of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and the fact that even with that in place, the creation never gained much traction until after the post WWII sympathies brewed a sense of urgency.  In fact, if you look at one particular provision of the original text of the declaration, where it reads "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine "

I attribute the afore mentioned sympathies to the near total disregard for that stipulation in the way the cards ultimately fell when Israel was created in 1948.

 Said  sympathies were the catalyst that made it happen.

[Murphy Siding]

..........  Basically the Cold War would have started anyway, and both sides would have worked to develop the atomic bomb.

I'd have to disagree with you on that point.  The atomic bomb was developed under great pressure and expense because of the war.  Without the war, it's hard to conceive putting that much time, effort, and money into it's development.

     As I recall, a big factor in speeding up postwar dieselization was escalating coal prices, due to demands by labor for higher wages, brought on, no doubt, by the economic conditions of the war.  Perhaps, without the war, steam would have retained it's advantage?  The folks at ALCO seemed to have believed it would work out that way.

[Convicted One]

  The folks at ALCO seemed to have believed it would work out that way.

 

I wonder if Alco would have perhaps failed sooner if not for those phat war time contracts? (Alco armor , etc)

 

The war time traffic boost seemed to breath new life into some withering roads, freightwise.

 

And I seem to recall that passenger ridership was in steep decline before the war, only to pick up for the duration. So it's plausible to consider that passenger rail might have died an even  earlier demise, if not for the war.

[KCSfan]

Since I'm not a geo-political authority I'll confine my remarks to what might of happened to the railroads if the war hadn't have occurred. Because of the Depression many railroads were baxket cases living on borrowed time by the late 30's. Many if not most were bankrupt and hadn't had the funds to invest in keeping up their ROW's, motive power and rolling stock since the pre-1929 years much less to invest in modernization. The WW2 traffic boom was a fininacial windfall that enabled them to invest heavily in modernization in the post war years. Without these wartime profits I think a growing number of railroads would have gone belly up in the 40's very possibly resulting in the government nationalizing the entire rail system.

The decline in both the frequency and quality of rail service would have given added impetus to highway construction and the shift from rail to auto and truck transport. WW2 staved this off until the early to mid 50's. Airline service would have grown much more slowly lacking the advances in aviation that were an outgrowth of research and development for military purposes.

Dieselization would have progressed slowly and Alco, Baldwin and Lima would have raced to produce a new generation of steam locomotives that incorporated technical advances such as those pioneered by Porta. Their incentive would be to increase sales by making engines that were far more efficient and less costly to operate and maintain than the 1920's engines in gereral use in pre-war times.

In short, WW2 gave railroads a new lease on life and enabled them to survive and once again become the vital transportation arteries that they are today.

Mark

 

[daveklepper]

Ben Gurion offered all Arabs within Israel citizenship, and many did stay and received citizenship, and their rights are not compromised in any way.  They vote in Israeli elections, are represented in the Knesset, and share in all pension and other citizenship rights.   King Feisel, who was murdered much later by people presumed by many to be Saudi agents, told the League of Nations that he welcomed Jewish immigration and gave the specific reasons.  Then the League of Nations gave Britain the Mandate to provide a Jewish National Home, and then broke off 2/3rds to give the Heshemite Kings, who may have been rightful rulers of Saudi Arabia, a kingdom, then named Transjordan. The Jewish population of the Holy Land was about 50,000 and the Arab population about 70,000, but Jews had been a majority in Jerualem for a long time, ever since census has been established by the Turks.  More Arabs entered the Holy Land during the Mandate because the British Colonel Office was basically anti-Semitic, undermined the Balfour Declaration, and restricted Jewish immigration, and Arabs from the surrounding countries were attracted by the economic improvements Jewish immigration brought.   Ben Gurion set the basic policy for the Zionists  "Help the British win the war against the Axis as if they were helping settle the land, and fight the British as much as possible to facilitate immigration as if there were no Axis."   A rather Schizophrenic policy, but I guess the only realistic one.   But  perhaps if there had been no WWII, the local Arabs and Zionists would have combined to fight the British and get an independent state, again assuming that Saudi Arabia had not had the wealth and ability to spread is virulent hatred of non-Muslims throughout the Islamic world.

Anyone who wishes evidence in this matter may contact me at my email address:

[e-mail]

I will be glad to send the evidence as attachments to the reply.   Also concerning Saudi inspired persecution of Christians.

Saudi oil was not only needed for the North African and Italian campaigns, but also for Russia's efforts on the Eastern Front.  The Caucasis, which had been Russia's main oil source, was occupied.   The Russian far-eastern oil fields had not been developed, perhaps not even discovered.  So first by ship and rail and then by ship and pipeline, through Iran, Saudi oil reached Russia.   Hitler had sent spies by the thousands to Iran, formenting anti-Western, and anti-Semitic views, reinforcing the lessons from Saudi Arabia (although Iran is basically Shi'eit, not Sunni), and the Americans and British were forced to sieze and operating the Iran railway to insure the oil and lots of other supplies reached Russia.   Thus the Alco RS-1 invation of Iran, sequested from the USA railroads that had them.    TRAINS ran an article on this several years ago, also many years ago RAILROAD MAGAZINE had a wonderful article "Caboose Chaplain."

I would like this to be my last comment on this matter and suggest that anyone wishing to argue further can contact me at the above email address, since the views on this matter are not specifically what the Forum concerns.

But I will add one more matter, specifically railroad related.   The 1892 Jaffa - Jerusalem railroad was not built by the Turks as most histories state.   It was built by a Jew, Joseph Navon, born in the Holy Land, educated in engineering in France, a Sephardic native Holy Land Jew, whose family had lived in the Land for centuries.   He married the daughter of Euoprean Jewish immigrants, the Frumkin family who owned a bank.  (This was the first known Sephardic-Ashkenazi wedding among Holy Land Jews that we know of since the Roman dispersal!)  The Frumkins put up the capital, Navon went to Istambul and got the necessary authorization from the Turks.   This was narrow gauge, not meter gauge but close, and it was converted to standard gauge by the British during the '20's during the Mandate and made part of their general colonel railway system which eventually allowed travel between Cairo and Beirut and Istambul (Asian side).   I hope to be alive when this is restored.

[nanaimo73]

Perhaps, without the war, steam would have retained it's advantage?  The folks at ALCO seemed to have believed it would work out that way.

I wonder if Alco would have perhaps failed sooner if not for those phat war time contracts? (Alco armor , etc)

The ALCO S2 switcher came out in 1940, and 1600 were built by 1950. I'm not sure those figures would have been significantly different without WWII. 

[Mr_Ash]

If WWII didnt happen do you think air travel would be anywhere close to where its at today?

The world made tons of advancement in aircraft during the war

Would there even be a space program?

 

 

[Modelcar]

....My thoughts on both questions:  Air travel advancements: Minimal as compared to today's level.

.....Space Program:  Might be started by now but 40 years slower.

[TimChgo9]

If WWII didnt happen do you think air travel would be anywhere close to where its at today?

The world made tons of advancement in aircraft during the war

Would there even be a space program?

 

 

Hard to say, since both our space program, and that of the Soviets benefited greatly from the German rocket programs, and their wartime rocketry research.  Both the U.S. and the Soviets managed to get many of the high ranking German scientists from the V-1 and V-2 weapons programs to work with them, or for them, to develop not only rockets for space exploration, but for ballistic missle use as well. 

I think that the space programs probably would not have been started until the 1970's at least...

[daveklepper]

When I worked for EMD, the summer of 1952, an ex-German Rocket scientist named Rudy was one of my  best friends.  My first personal wheels came over a year later, so Rudy would pick me up a the La Grange - La Grange Road station and drive me to the plant and return me there in the evening.  He was an expert on diesel fuel combustion.  I worked purely in electrical controls.

[Convicted One]

The ALCO S2 switcher came out in 1940, and 1600 were built by 1950. I'm not sure those figures would have been significantly different without WWII. 

 

Didn't ALCO get wartime contracts to build armored vehicles, etc? the proceeds of those phat contracts are the stipends I was alluding to.

[nanaimo73]

Perhaps, without the war, steam would have retained it's advantage?  The folks at ALCO seemed to have believed it would work out that way.

I wonder if Alco would have perhaps failed sooner if not for those phat war time contracts? (Alco armor , etc)

The ALCO S2 switcher came out in 1940, and 1600 were built by 1950. I'm not sure those figures would have been significantly different without WWII. 

Didn't ALCO get wartime contracts to build armored vehicles, etc? the proceeds of those phat contracts are the stipends I was alluding to.

But weren't the railroads limited in the number of switchers they could buy at that time as well? Would one effect balance out the other?

[Convicted One]

Ben Gurion offered all Arabs within Israel citizenship, and many did stay and received citizenship, and their rights are not compromised in any way.  .

 

Except, of course, those who fell victim to the "Absentee Property Law of 1950", the "Land Acquisition law of 1953", those who lost their homestead to creative employ of Israel's "Closed Military Zone" mechanism of property seizure, ...and then there was curfew, expulsion, and administrative detentions to reel in those belligerent enough to belive they were going to preserve their native culture within their new enviro.

[MichaelSol]

Ben Gurion offered all Arabs within Israel citizenship, and many did stay and received citizenship, and their rights are not compromised in any way.  .

Except, of course, those who fell victim to the "Absentee Property Law of 1950", the "Land Acquisition law of 1953", those who lost their homestead to creative employ of Israel's "Closed Military Zone" mechanism of property seizure, ...and then there was curfew, expulsion, and administrative detentions to reel in those belligerent enough to belive they were going to preserve their native culture within their new enviro.

This is antagonistic and way off topic. Aside from representing a false implication nearly libelous on its face.

Under the Land Acquisition Law of 1953, land could be taken only under certain conditions:

(1) that on the 6th Nisan, 5712 (1st April, 1952) it was not in the possession of its owners; and

(2) that within the period between the 5th Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948) and the 6th Nisan, 5712 (Ist April 1952) it was used or assigned for purposes of essential development, settlement or security; and

(3) that it was still required for any of those purposes

The owners of acquired property were entitled to compensation therefore from the Development Authority. The compensation was to be given in money, unless otherwise agreed between the owners and the Development Authority. Compensation was fixed by agreement between the Development Authority and the owners or, in the absence of an agreement, by the Courts.

The Act further stated in the event the lands taken were agricultural lands which had formed the absentee owner's main source of livelihood, agricultural lands elsewhere would be found at Government expense and offered.

I find it not just ironic but maliciously hypocritical that people will lecture on Israel's efforts to accomodate the victims of the 1948 War, including active participants in it, without noting the eventual Grand Mufti of Jerusalem's street protests demanding expulsion of resident Jews as early as April 1920, and his meetings with Hitler in 1941 seeking Hitler's assistance in "exterminating" the Jews in Palestine -- no doubt with the idea of official "government policy" of expropriating without compensation the property of that policy's dead victims in the guise of Dar al-Islam. So much for respect for "native culture". To me, pious invocations as posted above are nothing but vicious double-standards which seek to legitimize a completely false and irresponsible historical fiction which fully intends to legitimize genoicidal political and relgious movements.

In the broad scheme of things, and in the particular context of what was being threatened long prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, Israel's respect for property of people who had just attempted to "drive them into the Sea" is historically extraordinary. It ranks far higher on any scale of civilized behavior than Cuba, Russia, China, North Vietnam, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, etc. etc., just about 99% of the Earth's current national governments and, in fact represents a more restrictive view of "takings" than eminent domain in the United States which can, in fact, evict people who are in current possession of their property, without any recognition of prior government need or use.

 

[TimChgo9]

Wow, how did we get all the way the heck over here???

[erikem]

The one thing I dislike about "what if" history, is that sometimes crucial facts and events are igonored, or minimized.  Don't forget World War I.  Going through history, WWI was the impetus for WWII in Europe.  The "Great War" was destructive not only to the nations involved, but the economies as well.  In order for Hitler to not have come to power would have meant that either Germany won WWI, or was defeated but was able to negotiate a more favorable peace that would have left the Kaiser on his throne, and the House of Hohenzollern in order. 

A related "what if" would be what if the US did not get involved in WW1?

Some of the negative effects on RR's included an almost doubling of costs between 1917 and 1920 with rates pretty much frozen at pre-1917 levels (especially bad for urban transit). Then there was the USRA mess caused in part by the draft taking up a lot of RR workers - and the impetus it gave to the trucking companies.

The US economy might have been on a more even keel in the 1920's not having to deal with the let-down from war spending after 1920 (and the great let-down in naval construction after the Washington Treaty). Another major difference is the economy may have avoided the aftershock of the Great Influenza (AKA Spanish Flu) - which would have probably stayed in western Kansas ahd it not been for the massive mobilization - which ocurred under ideal conditions for transmitting flu viruses (cold and dry).

[daveklepper]

Michael, I appreciate your help.   Again, may I ask that anyone wishing to challange me on any of the points regarding Near East politics and interpeople relations do so by emailing me at:

[e-mail]

and not repeatedly use this forum for a purpose not intended by the vast majority of its users.

All these points raised can be answered.   Even Warsaw Ghetto Partisan survivors, would never have (1) gone into German schoolyards to wreak injury and death or (2) used children as camoughflage for automatic weapons or (3) ambulances as ammunition carriers.   Obama did state before a Jewish audience:  "The problem in the Mideast is Islamic Fundamentalism and not Jewish occupation of Arab Lands."  I hope he has the courage to say it to everyone, not just Jews.   (I am waiting to hear anything like this from the other two frontrunners.)    Incidentally, I do hope the IC-EJ&E merger does go through and hope that some mitigation of noise and traffic will be enough to make everyone happy.