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#81
07-04-2006, 06:09 PM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
kanman, what? We put all of our efforts into the pacifist not europe, it's well known and often pointed out that russia lost all the troops fighting germany not hte US, we donated a lot of supplies to allies but our main efforts were fighting on the islands and beating back Japan. Also it wasn't a mere formality entering the war vs. germany, a lot of people didn't want to enter the war, diablo said that the fact that the german's gassed the jews enticed us in... but that didn't really make one difference one way or the other, not in the least. in fact i think a lot of people were against entering the war in europe because they thought roosevelt was doing it to save jews. we only went to war vs. japan because our direct interests were attacked and that situation wasn't as clear with germany
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#82
07-04-2006, 08:47 PM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
theBruiser500,
I am going to agree with KanMan on this one. We put most of our efforts into fighting the war in Europe. I'll see if I can find some facts to back this up. All I have is history class from memory this semester.
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#83
07-04-2006, 08:55 PM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
the bruiser 500,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_Conference I know wikipedia is not the best reference, but this should work.
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#84
07-04-2006, 09:16 PM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
I havent read all of this thread (sry, its late here), but, at least in Europe, the American arrival would seem the turning point of the war. Now, given that they used Britain as their staging ground initially to attack the mainland, it would appear a large strategic blunder to have stopped at the French seaside when a final push into Britain may have prevented an American invasion.
I dont know if it was a mistake to invade Russia, but, had I been one of Hitler's advisors, I'd have made the point that the Fuhrer need duff us Brits right up, so Eisenhowers' men can never create a double fronted war. Of course, all of this may not have been possible because of constraints I know little about. I cant really think of any though.
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#85
07-04-2006, 09:19 PM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
[ QUOTE ]
kanman, what? We put all of our efforts into the pacifist not europe, it's well known and often pointed out that russia lost all the troops fighting germany not hte US, we donated a lot of supplies to allies but our main efforts were fighting on the islands and beating back Japan. Also it wasn't a mere formality entering the war vs. germany, a lot of people didn't want to enter the war, diablo said that the fact that the german's gassed the jews enticed us in... but that didn't really make one difference one way or the other, not in the least. in fact i think a lot of people were against entering the war in europe because they thought roosevelt was doing it to save jews. we only went to war vs. japan because our direct interests were attacked and that situation wasn't as clear with germany [/ QUOTE ] It's certainly true that more "stuff" happened in the Pacific in the early years of US involvement, but that fact really conceals the underlying allocation of resources. In the Pacific, there were a lot of naval battles and small scale land battles. Nevertheless, more resources were devoted to preparing for the much larger battles that took place in Europe. For example, the first two Allied invasions in the Pacific were Guadalcanal (August 42) and Tarawa (November 1943). The US committed arund 30k and 35k men to these invasions. By comparison, the first US involvement in Europe was Operation Torch (November 42), which involved almost 75k men. Operation Husky (July 43) I don't have any hard numbers on, but it was more than a quarter of a million troops.
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#86
07-04-2006, 11:31 PM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] The allies not invading and whiping Russia off the face of the map after the fall of Berlin like Patton wanted to. [/ QUOTE ] Are you kidding? There was no way we were going to lose millions of lives to attack the Russians. You do know we lost like 300,000 people and the Russians lost approx 20 million? The Western world underestimated the strength of Russia. So did Hitler. [/ QUOTE ] The Americans had the atomic bomb by the end of the war, they did not need to lose millions of lives in attacking Russia. Patton was right! No country was as devastated by the war as Russia. It is true that without US supplies it could not survive. It is incredible how many lives were lost by the Russians. There was simply no regard for casualties in Soviet thinking. It was a total fight to the finish. The Soviet Union would have crumbled and the cold war avoided if the US either had not intervened during the war, or went on to fight the USSR after the Nazis were destroyed. We are sitting here because the Cuban missle crisis was resolved. Imagine if it had not been? The whole thing could have been avoided if men with guts did their duty 15 years previous. [/ QUOTE ] This is just ludicrous, not only to assume that US would have a chance in defeatign USSR but in doing it promptly... You just lost any credibility you had. [/ QUOTE ] Based on what, your Russian prejudiced opinion? You'll have to provide some more evidence than that.
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#87
07-05-2006, 12:36 AM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
I vote for the arrogance of the Japanese that caused them to be blind to the fact that their codes could be broken. Yamamoto was shot down by the US after they broke the code containing his travel plans and the Japanese STILL didn't consider that their codes could be broken...
Also - with reference to Germany gassing the Jews, many Germans did not agree with the whole thing and I am sure it was not exactly a bonus for morale...
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#88
07-05-2006, 12:51 AM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
[ QUOTE ]
I vote for the arrogance of the Japanese that caused them to be blind to the fact that their codes could be broken. Yamamoto was shot down by the US after they broke the code containing his travel plans and the Japanese STILL didn't consider that their codes could be broken... Also - with reference to Germany gassing the Jews, many Germans did not agree with the whole thing and I am sure it was not exactly a bonus for morale... [/ QUOTE ] I was watching a documentary about the Battle of Midway a little while ago, and they were interviewing Japanese veterans to get their story. One of the veterans mentioned something extraordinary -- the Japanese officers were given their ranks based solely (or primarily) on when they graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy. It was strictly a seniority-based system. This allowed many incompetent admirals, vice-admirals, etc... to rise up through the ranks and make all sorts of foolish decisions that helped lose the war for Japan.
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#89
07-05-2006, 01:42 AM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
[ QUOTE ]
If Roosevelt had not died, you can bet your ass that is exactly what would have happened. Except he would have arranged it so that it appeared that Stalin had attacked us. [/ QUOTE ] This just simply is not true. Attacking Russia was never an option. You are suggesting to prevent the East from being communist we should have lost many more millions of lives to do this? We did not have the atomic bomb until after Germany was defeated. We certainly would have used it on them if we had. You do know that America was desperate to end the war? That's why we were negotiating with Stalin in the first place. I can't believe you would suggest that we should have lost maybe 5 million+ people to defeat communism. First of all we didn't know what the result of communism would be... i.e. from the 50-80s.
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#90
07-05-2006, 01:54 AM
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Re: What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?
[ QUOTE ]
I was watching a documentary about the Battle of Midway a little while ago, and they were interviewing Japanese veterans to get their story. One of the veterans mentioned something extraordinary -- the Japanese officers were given their ranks based solely (or primarily) on when they graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy. It was strictly a seniority-based system. This allowed many incompetent admirals, vice-admirals, etc... to rise up through the ranks and make all sorts of foolish decisions that helped lose the war for Japan. [/ QUOTE ] Between this and the fact that it was unheard of for an officer to admit fault (losing face was very important) there were a ton of mistakes that could probably have been prevented in a different society...
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