Thanks Flintlock- I never knew that about a resistance attack on the SS. I don't imagine that there's anyone left who was there.
You can find the Ouradour-sur-Glane story on-line without too much difficulty, but from what I've read the situation was this.
There was an SS unit moving toward the Normandy area to re-enforce the German forces there. On the way they were attacked by a French resistance unit, an attack they brushed off pretty quickly.
However, this WAS the SS, and as far as they were concerned that wasn't the end of the matter. The next town they came to on their line of march was Oradour-sur-Glane. As an "object lesson" the SS massacred the towns entire population, some by shooting, some by locking them in the town church and setting it ablaze. Then they went on their way.
The French from the surrounding area buried the dead, and after the war the French government stabilized the ruins and left the town as it was as a memorial.
To this day, no French resistance group has ever claimed credit for the attack on the SS, nor has any veteran of the same come forward to say "I was there." Understandable. The locals in the area now say the moral of the story is "If you see a sleeping dragon don't poke it in the eye with a stick!"
I've seen photos of Heydrich's car after the assassination in Prague. Its sitting in the street with bomb damage and there's no one around. That always seemed odd.
In France there is a small town called Ouradour sur Glane. The nazis gave it the semi-Lidice treatment when they killed everyone and burned down all the buildings and left cars on the street (minus the tires) and it has never been determined just why it happened. There is no record of any German officer being killed, nothing. The entire town is a monument and left as the French found it at the end of the war. The shells of the stone buildings are still there and the cars are rusted hulks.
Overmod Beria was a good family man, too.
Beria was a good family man, too.
He also kept a written record, of all his "actions" with women. Contact info and everything.
The rest of the Soviet leadership knew exactly what he was. Apparently Stalin once learned that his daughter had gone to visit Beria at his house. His response was to immediately phone and tell her to leave.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
zugmann Overmod I'm being sarcastic... but yeah, look it up. I was hoping you were. But with this site, you can't always tell.
Overmod I'm being sarcastic... but yeah, look it up.
I was hoping you were. But with this site, you can't always tell.
There isn't a 'sarcastic' emoticon that is a part of the sites emoticon menu. The printed word doesn't convey sarcasm as well as face to face interpersonal communications.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OvermodI'm being sarcastic... but yeah, look it up.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Thanks for the link!
"Japanese records say the both met their end with dignified defiance." Japanese records. I thought only the Nazis were stupid enough to leave a paper trail of their crimes.
And no I'm not, nor am I prepared to give anyone a free pass. I only quote what I've read from various sources. And just to make it plain, it was NEVER my intention to down-play the horrors of the Bataan Death March, exceptions DON'T make the rule, by any means. So please don't misunderstand, I know damn well how the vast majority of Allied POW's were treated by the Japanese.
I'm also of the opinion that every German and Japanese war criminal that was strung up after the war got exactly what what coming to him.
Rheinhard Heydrich got what was coming to him as well, but considering the horrific aftermath wasting him was a terrible mistake. But hindsight's 20/20 as they say, and if the "Operation Anthropoid" planners had any idea of the Nazi's terrible revenge they never would have gone through with it.
And interestingly, the Nazi's didn't make any attempt to hush-up that revenge.
zugmannWait.. what?
I'm being sarcastic... but yeah, look it up.
OvermodThese were not cultured and witty people like, say, Heydrich.
Wait.. what?
Flintlock76I wonder where the author of "Shattered Sword" got the information from. What witnesses were willing to talk about it? I'm not questioning the truth of the statement but I AM curious as to the source.
Japanese records, of course. See here, for example.
I'm all for PC kindness to our former enemies now that the battles are long over, code of the warrior and all that, but I'm not giving these wretches a free pass. You shouldn't, either. These were not cultured and witty people like, say, Heydrich.
One of my high school friends that I was close to had a father who survived the Death March and the years of captivity in a Japanese POW camp in the Phillippines. Later came the Hell Ship voyage to Japan where he dug coal in a condemned mine. Because I was studying to become a history teacher and already knew a good deal about the events of WW2, he respected me enough to open up several times about his experiences. I don't recall him ever saying that the Death March wasn't so bad for some people. In fact, he had tears in his eyes as he described it to me (and it felt as if my hair were standing up as he did).
He had an eduring love for the Fillipino people and returned there twice as a tourist of sorts.
Once, when things for me looked very bleak, he gave me this bit of encouragement: "Remember," he said, "they can always cut your rice ration." By which he meant, things can always get worse, so buck up. He was right, of course.
He lived into his 90's, was very patriotic, and now rests in honored glory in Arlington National Cemetery.
I never knew anyone who had any connection with the Bataan Death March. But, a son of one of the trustees of my college died in the march, and the college building which housed the adminstrative offices and the non-physical science faculty and classrooms was named after him. As his family name was "Hay," we spoke of the "Hay Barn."
I did know some of his cousins; one of his father's cousins gave me piano lessons and was also my7th and 8th grade English teacher, and another of his father's cousins was our school superintendant--and his younger son was one of my classmates.
Johnny
Flintlock76 wrote the following post[in part] "... Such was the best information we had at the time. Goes without saying it wasn't necessarily true but that was the thing with the Japanese, you just couldn't be sure.
As hellish as the Bataan Death March was, some prisoners weren't abused at all and were treated pretty well..."
The stories I've over the years were not quite that 'rosey'(?) The above linked site tell a different tale. And a note from that site: "...All told, the total number of prisoners was double what Japanese Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma was expecting.
Since he lacked the vehicles to move the prisoners elsewhere, he decided to make the prisoners march 70 miles in the sweltering tropical heat. On April 9, 1942, the Bataan Death March began.
With little food or water, the prisoners soon began dropping like flies. Others were made to sit in direct sunlight without helmets or protection. Some were stabbed or beaten at random while others were shot if they asked for water. Trucks would run over those who were unable to continue the march.
After the long march, the prisoners arrived at the train station of San Fernando, where they were forced into boxcars in which temperatures reached heights of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Many prisoners died in the trains..."
Site has more, and a number of photos.
Linked site @ https://allthatsinteresting.com/bataan-death-march
Erik_MagThe book "Shattered Sword" has a nice review of the Battle of Midway with emphasis on what was going on in the IJN. One detail new to me was that ~4 USN aviators were captured by the IJN after bailing out, tortured for information and executed by tying weights to their legs and being thrown overboard.
That's disgusting.
I don't doubt it happened, the Japanese, well some of them, were capable of anything, but I wonder where the author of "Shattered Sword" got the information from. What witnesses were willing to talk about it? I'm not questioning the truth of the statement but I AM curious as to the source.
During briefings prior to missions over Japan B-29 crews were advised to stick with the airplane as long as possible if it was damaged and head for the sea. Two reasons, one, maybe they'd be picked up by an American sub if they had to bailout or ditch, but if that wasn't the case it was preferable to be captured by the Japanese navy. They weren't 100% sure but the idea was prisoners would receive better treatment from the IJN than they would from the Japanese Army. As they were told, "The Jap navy and army hate each other, they're mad at each other, the navy blames the army for the war so they may not be in a big rush to turn you over to the army." Such was the best information we had at the time. Goes without saying it wasn't necessarily true but that was the thing with the Japanese, you just couldn't be sure.
As hellish as the Bataan Death March was, some prisoners weren't abused at all and were treated pretty well.
Oh, and the Japanese getting German colonies in Asia as a reward for entering WW1 on the allied side? Anyone remember Tsing-Tao beer? It was brewed in a German-built brewery in China that the Japanese took over!
Going back to WW1, a deal sweetener for Japan joining the Allied cause was granting a mandate to Japan for the German colonies in the Pacific, which were then used as bases by Japan for WW2.
Before Amelia Earhart embarked on her flight, FDR apparently told her to keep her eyes open when she passed the former German islands as there was knowledge that Japan was fortifying the islands in violation of the treaty that gave them control over the islands. But, that's the subject of an entire new thread.
A potential problem for the conspiracy theorists: Professor Graff at Columbia talked firsthand with perhaps the only person in the room with FDR when he received the first report of Pearl Harbor. FDR's reaction, which I think would be difficult to fake with little reason to fake, was to put his head down in his hands and exclaim something like "I should have seen this coming".
That rings true with the 'comedy of errors' scenario regarding the radar operation and the B-17s, and also with the earlier reports that something was brewing with Japanese reaction to the American embargoes.
I don't remember when we officially abandoned the 'gentlemen don't read other people's mail' approach to coded-communication intercepts, but when we started we certainly did it well. The careful misinformation campaign that led to the identification of Midway as an attack point is a good example.
I don't think anyone in the US had knowledge of specific details (exactly where, exactly when) of the attack, but the was no uncertainty on Dec 3rd that war was only a few days away. On Dec 4th, an order was sent to signal intelligence posts on Guam and the Philpines to destroy all cryptographic equipment.
The FDR administration was presumably trying to hold off war with Japan to allow the US to concentrate on Europe. The US cutting off scrap metal sales and other supplies was a natural response to Japan's hostile activities in the area, e.g. the "rape of Nanking". On the other side of the Atlantic, Germany was hoping that Japan would declare war on Russia as part of the deal of Germany declaring war on the US.
Flintlock- I think you are right about not treating part of the fleet as expendable, but I can't help but think that a major event was necessary to bring the country together. The sinking of the Reuben James in October of 1941 didn't do it, neither did the sinking of the Panay in 1937. It would make a good historical fiction novel if say, there was a plot to hide any knowledge of an attack.
M636C I spent some time researching the loss of the USS Lexington during the battle. Those who know the ship realise it was designed as a battleship (or perhaps a battlecruiser). It was hit by the largest Japanese torpedo which barely affected it, except that the propulsion switchgear flashed over. That was repaired but leaking aviation gasoline fumes reached a motor generator room and exploded, damaging the ship beyond recovery..
I spent some time researching the loss of the USS Lexington during the battle. Those who know the ship realise it was designed as a battleship (or perhaps a battlecruiser). It was hit by the largest Japanese torpedo which barely affected it, except that the propulsion switchgear flashed over. That was repaired but leaking aviation gasoline fumes reached a motor generator room and exploded, damaging the ship beyond recovery..
Which is why USN standard operating procedure for fueling airplanes was changed after Coral Sea to include draining the fueling hoses and purging them with CO2. Hanger decks on USN carriers typically had multiple openings and were well provisioned with multiple water sources for fire fighting.
The IJN carriers typically had closed hangar decks and the water source for fire fighting was vulnerable to a single point of failure. During the battle of Midway, the IJN carriers had attack planes armed and fueled in the hanger decks, and little attention was paid to the refueling hoses. The upshot was that a bomb hitting the hanger decks any time that morning would have likely started uncontrollable fires as what happened in the successful dive bomber attacks in the late morning.
The book "Shattered Sword" has a nice review of the Battle of Midway with emphasis on what was going on in the IJN. One detail new to me was that ~4 USN aviators were captured by the IJN after bailing out, tortured for information and executed by tying weights to their legs and being thrown overboard.
As for the turbo-electric drives, the "General Electric Review" and "The Electric Journal" (Westinghouse) had coverage of the electric drives of the New Mexico class of battleships in their 1920 issues (available for downloading from Google Books or the Internet Archive).
54light15Is it possible that it was known about the attack? I don't know but I think the battleships at Pearl would have been considered expendable and an attack there would have united the citizenry more than sanctions on oil and steel going to Japan.
No.
As I said earlier, the US knew the Japanese were likely to do something, but where or when was the question. In fact, a "War Warning" had gone out the week before, on November 30th to be exact. Every military installation on the West Coast, including the Panama Canal Zone, went on full alert and stayed that way. Why the installations at Pearl didn't stay that way is a mystery, unless the attitude was "Well, they might go somewhere but they'll never come here!"
Again, look at the enemy's capabilities and plan accordingly.
The idea that the Pacific Fleet was sacrificed to bring the US into the war is ludicrous. If it was known an attack was coming to Pearl the fleet could have been sortied out of the dange zone, the installations put into a defensive status so they'd be ready to recieve the attack. Besides, FDR considered the fleet HIS fleet! There's no way he would have let it get shot to pieces!
One thing about the "America Firsters." Despite what some revisionists would have you believe "America Firster" membership went right across the political spectrum, both Republicans and Democrats supported it, including other high-profile people like General John J. Pershing. Many Americans felt all we'd done in the First World War was help save the British and French empires, since all we got out of the war was enough ground in Europe to bury our dead.
Would the U.S. have pulled out of the depression if not for the war? There were a lot of "America Firsters" back then who wanted the U.S. to stay out of the war not just Lindbergh, Ford and Joseph P. Kennedy but that group included Congressman Hamilton Fish of Duchess County, New York where Roosevelt's home was located. Not only Father Coughlin, but there were William Dudley Pelly and Gerald L. K. Smith who thought the U.S. should stay out, not to mention thier virulent anti-semitism. My point is, the U.S. was hardly united in stopping Germany and Japan until December 7th.
Is it possible that it was known about the attack? I don't know but I think the battleships at Pearl would have been considered expendable and an attack there would have united the citizenry more than sanctions on oil and steel going to Japan.
Flintlock76 The Japanese plan in a nutshell was to inflict a series of costly humiliating defeats on the United States leaving American power in the Pacific impotent, and then go for a negotiated peace. Didn't work out that way.
The Japanese plan in a nutshell was to inflict a series of costly humiliating defeats on the United States leaving American power in the Pacific impotent, and then go for a negotiated peace.
Didn't work out that way.
The major mistake the US made concerning Pearl Harbor, according to a post-war work by Colonel Robert S. Allen, was in trying to guess Japanese intentions in the weeks leading up to the attack. Colonel Allen said (to summarize) "NEVER try to guess the enemy's intentions! Only he knows what his intentions are, and he's not going to tell you! Look at his CAPABILITIES, then plan accordingly."
Make a tremendous lot of sense. The US knew the Japanese were likely to do something, but we didn't know what and we didn't know where.
Lexington, and Saratoga as well, were indeed intended to be built as battlecruisers, however with the London Naval Treaty limiting the amount of capital ships posessed by the signatories they were converted into carriers, carriers not being limited by the treaty.
Peter mentioned a film called "The Death of Stalin." I don't think it was released here in the US, I've never seen it advertised anywhere, but if anyone's curious there's a 47 minute YouTube video about it on a Y-T channel called "History Buffs." I've watched it and it's a lot of fun, you get most of the salient parts of the film (looks hilarious!) and the host's thoughts on it. The host liked it a lot, although he does point out some historical inaccuracies, nothing really to be overly concerned about it. Here's the link for those interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG-tG-Wo0Do
One might wonder what the outcome would have been if the military had read certain signs correctly and were waiting for the Japanese as they flew over Hawaii...
About twenty years ago I read a paper to The Royal Institution of Naval Architects (who conveniently met in the office block I occupied at Defence Headquarters) regarding the fatal engine room fire on the fleet oiler HMAS Westralia..In the paper I described the succession of mistakes and misjudgements that led to the death of four crew members. To me it read like an Agatha Christie novel, with defeat being extracted from the jaws of victory on about four occasions.The really sad thing was that many wrong decisions were taken by people who believed they were doing the right thing at the time. The paper was very well received, to the extent I was congratulated by very senior officers who hadn't heard the paper (it was a small meeting). The head of Mechanical Engineering at the Defence Force Academy asked for a copy of the presentation to show his senior students.
I feel much the same way about Pearl Harbor. The US had decoded the messages about the declaration of war from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy before the Embassy itself. The approaching Japanese aircraft had been detected but were assumed to be a flight of B-17s from California. Even fifteen minutes warning might have allowed the battleships to close their watertight doors and man their anti-aircraft guns. Ships with steam up might have moved out into the bay and taken evasive action.
There were many such mistakes and missed opportunities leading up to 7 December 1941.
However, all the fleet carriers being at sea during the attack was due to luck rather than planning but that alone was responsible for the later succesion of victories, including the Battle of the Coral Sea.
We celebrated the Battle of the Coral Sea at my primary school every year. The politicians talk about Australia and the USA being allies since 1917 in France. While this is technically true it was in the Coral Sea 78 years ago last week that the USA saved Australia, and we aren't going to forget it (although as far as I know it wasn't celebrated this year). To us who remember it it was much more important than VE Day. My own father was a gunner on a MkIII 40mm Bofors Anti Aircraft gun during WWII. He was initially in the Middle East but returned by ship in 1942 (with his gun set up on the deck of the troopship) and was in the Pacific until VJ Day where he took his own photos of the Japanese formal surrender (I think in Finschafen, New Guinea.)
This was important because pretty much by accident I ended up on a group studying electric propulsion for use on the RAN LHDs Adelaide and Canberra. The propulsion system is fine but the Spanish designers of the ship were not as smart as we thought they were and the German manufacturers of the propulsion equipment are too smart for us. But neither ship is likely to explode due to internal design errors.
But everyone my age or older should remember the Battle of the Coral Sea and we are grateful that the carriers survived Pearl Harbour, even if it was just by luck.
Peter
Right on, Peter. The Japanese knew, before they attacked Pearl Harbor, that if they had not won by the end of 1942 they could not win.
M636CAlthough Roosevelt used the words "unprovoked attack" in Congress, in the Japanese view this was definitely not the case, to the extent they were willing to go to war over it.
And there are those who feel that, if anything, the US (ie, our leaders) actually did provoke the attack. The idea was apparently to stoke the US economy with wartime manufacturing. The US public would never go along with the US being a protagonist, so the attack was necessary to garner public support.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
How close to a facist state did Great Britain and the USA get to in the mid to late 30's. Lindbergh, Ford, all that. They changed their tune pretty quick after Pearl Harbour. ... but!!!.. just how close to succeeding were they and thus no Pearl Harbour, probably allies with Japan.
The Japanese didn't attack Pearl Harbour in support of Germany: Germany wasn't at war with the United States until after Pearl Harbour.
The attacks on Pearl Harbour and Midway were direct reprisals for the economic sanctions the United States had imposed on Japan as a result of the war between Japan and China, which were depriving Japan of strategic supplies.
Although Roosevelt used the words "unprovoked attack" in Congress, in the Japanese view this was definitely not the case, to the extent they were willing to go to war over it.
The Japanese knew that they couldn't win against the uSA in the long term, but hoped to keep the US forces out of the Western Pacific while they occupied South East Asia as far as New Guinea, at which stage they presumably planned a negotiated settlement with the USA recognising their occupation of South East Asia.
Hitler declaring war on the USA after Pearl Harbour might have been discussed, as a means of distracting the USA into a war on two fronts, but I'd doubt that it was a precondition for war with the USA. It is likely that Japan would have waited for Germany to declare war first, at which stage they might have waited for the USA to move assets from the Pacific to the Atlantic Fleet to reduce the capacity for response.
Remember that both Pearl Harbour and Midway were relatively minor aspects of the Japanese plans at that time. They were to dissuade the USA from interfering with the occupation of French Indo-China and Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, which provided minerals, oil and rubber for Japanese industrial expansion.
Miningman How close to a facist state did Great Britain and the USA get to in the mid to late 30's. Lindbergh, Ford, all that. They changed their tune pretty quick after Pearl Harbour. ... but!!!.. just how close to succeeding were they and thus no Pearl Harbour, probably allies with Japan.
FWIW, Lindbergh was not a fan of the Axis powers and did a lot of intelligence work as an Army Air Corps officer in the late 1930's. He was trying to get Congress to increase funding for aircraft development after seeing what was going on in Germany. Lindbergh and Ford were members of Defend America First as they were concerned that the war materials sent overseas would leave the US open to attack. This was a realistic concern as the shortage of PBY's (remember the Bismarck was spotted by a PBY sent to the UK) prevented a 360 degree patrol of the waters around Hawaii (see Eddie Layton's book). The IJN took note attacked from the sectors that were not being patrolled.
Also keep in mind that the American public had a strong aversion to getting involved with another war in Europe and that the US waited for Germany to declare war first.
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