Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The thing is, there is no shortage of people who think using the A-bombs on Japan was wrong
I've always wondered what would be a better strategy to defeat Japan without using the A-bomb. Was it necessary to defeat Japan quickly with invasion ? Did we really need Stalin's help ? Since we had supremacy of the air and seas, what was our hurry ? After seeing the way they fought for Peleliu and Iwo Jima, why not use a siege, bomb and wait strategy. How long could they hold out on those islands without additional supplies being brought in ?
Starvation would of been their worst enemy. Japan is an island with a large population and limited food production, and was cut off in every way. By destroying their crops with air raids and blocking their ports, sooner or later they would of had to surrender. If not, after a couple years of being bombed and starved, they would of been in such a weakened state that an invasion would be sure to bring a quick defeat with few US casualties.
If the Germans never adopted National Socialism, which in many ways was anti-thetical to Communism (or at least Social Democrats, as described in Mein Kampf), then what would have stopped the Bolsheviks from grabbing all of contiguous Europe? Churchill and a squadron of Lancasters and Hurricanes?
I agree that US, UK, France and some other western countries liberated WESTERN Europe, that's for sure. But I can't call it liberation what happened in Eastern Europe.
So what is your, American, opinion about this?
You can blame the US and Churchill.
The Allies wanted to invade the Balkans in August/September 1942, but the US stupidly insisted on invading Italy.
I guess if Gica Petrescu had been as popular in the US as Frank Sinatra was, maybe the US would have invaded.
The Allies would have had help and intelligence from Regele Simeon of Bulgaria, so they could have landed there unopposed, then moved to Vindin and crossed the Dunarea near Craiova. Another group could have crossed the Dunarea west of Vama Veche and made a pincher move on the oil fields of Ploiesti.
The could have made amphibious landings north of Constanta and had two groups, one driving to Otopeni to encircle Bucharesti, while the other drove toward Buzau.
German Army Group A wasn't in Romania at the time, they were over near Stalingrad, so all you have is the Grossdeutchland Panzer Grenadier Division and the 24th Panzer Division over near Otopeni along with the Romanian 1st Cavalry. The Romanian 1st Guards Armored (the only tank division), 5th Cavalry, and the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 11th and 13th Infantry Divisions (plus the 4th Mountain Infantry) where north of Iasi and up around Tirgu Frumos and east in Bessarabia.
All other Romanian infantry divisions where over around Baia Mare south to Oradea, except the 18th and 20th Mountain Divisions over near Deva/Hunedoara.
The Allies would have captured Ploiesti in 4-5 months with the war ending 6 to 12 months after that, no later than December 1943.
The US was afraid that if the war ended too early, the demobilization of troops and stand-down from a war-time economy would have sent it back into an economic depression.
Quote:
Like so many other things as well, there was more to Lend-Lease than just aid to Great Britain and later, the Soviet Union. In an survey completed by the Surveys Division of the Bureau of Special Surveys of the Office of War Information, which was relayed to the British Foreign Office on October 20, 1943, said that “’money is what [the Americans] want most’”
See British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print. Part III, From 1940 through 1945 Series C, North America Vol. 3., 293
After the US screwed that up, the fat pig Churchill gave away Eastern Europe to Stalin. The US and UK had vastly different interests, and the UK as interested in getting into the Balkans and exerting influence over them like colonies.
In the fat pig Churchill's own words:
Quote:
The moment was apt for business, so I said, “Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Rumania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don’t let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in Rumania, for us to have ninety percent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia?... [After having written this down], I pushed this across to Stalin, who had by then heard the translation. There was a slight pause. Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it, and passed it back to us. It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down.
See Winston Churchill. The Second World War, VI: Triumph and Tragedy. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), page 227.
You can also the blatant attempts to reign in General Patton. If Patton had been cut loose, he'd have been half-way through Poland before the Soviets got there.
My grand-father was physically in Czechoslovakia with his division at the time the Germans surrendered, and so were two other US divisions and a British division. They turned tail and gave it away to the Soviets.
As an avid war-gamer, the US could have turned on the Soviets had forced their surrender in 60 days or less. The US had 5 years of fuel, food, ammunition, parts and supplies in France, and the Soviets barely had 30 days of supplies. A few B-29 raids on key Soviet cities and that would have been the end of it; no more war production for the Soviets.
Sorry, I choose to blame Stalin. Holy crap, the US hating really has gotten out of hand.
Nuke Japan to help China? US bad.
US doesn't nuke Russia and stop them? US bad.
Intervene in Bosnia? US bad.
Don't intervene in Darfur? US bad.
The Allies wanted to invade the Balkans in August/September 1942, but the US stupidly insisted on invading Italy.
Whoooaa. Lot of stuff here, so little time to answer. Are you talking in 1943? 1942 we were just getting our legs wet in Northern Africa (and the British were fighting for their lives in Egypt before Monty got on the scene) and the allies were certainly in no state to invade Greece or the Balkans with Rommel still in Tubrok.
Sicily was the next obvious target, why extend our line of supplies and invade Greece? It made no strategic sense. The soft underbelly was Italy - knocking them out of the war first. Plus - Greece - the Balkans. You are talking about some mountanous country, easy to defend. It wouldn't be an easy fight.
No - Greece was the diversion. Operation Mincemeat - fooling the Germans, was ingenous and it worked.
By the way, the original U.S. attack of German power wasn't even N. Africa - it was directly into France as early as 1942. The Balkans wouldn't even be a factor.
Curious - what war games do you play? Attacking Russia after Germany was defeated. Yup a favorite topic of war gamers. But from a geo-political standpoint it was unrealistic.
Half sounds quite high - I would have to ask exactly how the question was paraphrased. I've spent plenty of time in the eastern part of germany, especially in Leipzig, a city that I enjoy a lot. Many who lived there in the former GDR days might be a bit nostalgic for certain things out of the past. Nearly everyone is nostalgic about certain things from our younger years. But that doesn't translate to a very many people who think that Honecker's SED brought them a better life within the tightly controlled one party marxist-leninist state than what they have today. The Left Party of Germany (containing the remnants of the former SED and PDS parties of the GDR) has about 8 percent of the seats in the Bundestag (German lower house of congress). I know they have polled much higher support in the former eastern germany than in the west, but nowhere close to 50 percent.
Im sure they would want to be free to travel, but this article is where I plucked the figures from. Here is a paragraph from it, but I realize this is a dated article.
"A recent poll indicated that while most former East Germans welcomed the greater political freedom and supported reunification, more than 40 percent said they were happier under the communist regime. A majority said they were unhappy with the economic changes. "
You can also the blatant attempts to reign in General Patton. If Patton had been cut loose, he'd have been half-way through Poland before the Soviets got there.
My grand-father was physically in Czechoslovakia with his division at the time the Germans surrendered, and so were two other US divisions and a British division. They turned tail and gave it away to the Soviets.
As an avid war-gamer, the US could have turned on the Soviets had forced their surrender in 60 days or less. The US had 5 years of fuel, food, ammunition, parts and supplies in France, and the Soviets barely had 30 days of supplies. A few B-29 raids on key Soviet cities and that would have been the end of it; no more war production for the Soviets.
Its a shame they didn't let Patton finish the job, think of all that money that was spent later on the cold war. Plus the 40 years of suffering eastern europe had to endure, and the paranoia from nuclear attack the west had to endure, cuban missile crisis, ect.
Im not so sure it could of been done in 60 days, but it could of been done.
Whoooaa. Lot of stuff here, so little time to answer. Are you talking in 1943? 1942 we were just getting our legs wet in Northern Africa (and the British were fighting for their lives in Egypt before Monty got on the scene) and the allies were certainly in no state to invade Greece or the Balkans with Rommel still in Tubrok.
North Africa was irrelevant except that it resulted in the attrition of German units. The US already had dozens of divisions in the UK training for a planned invasion of France that was called off/delayed until 1944.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dd714
Sicily was the next obvious target, why extend our line of supplies and invade Greece?
Sicily was a useless target and the British didn't even want to invade.
No one is talking about invading Greece, because like Italy, it has nasty mountainous terrain and is of no benefit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dd714
It made no strategic sense. The soft underbelly was Italy - knocking them out of the war first. Plus - Greece - the Balkans. You are talking about some mountanous country, easy to defend. It wouldn't be an easy fight.
No, I'm not talking about Greece, I never mentioned Greece once.
I'm talking about invading Bulgaria and Romania, where the Bulgarians would have helped the Allies and the Romanians would have switched sides.
Who were the big brains that gave away Bessarabia to the Soviets after WW I?
That would be the fat pig Churchill and the idiot Wilson.
Romanians had only lived there for 2,000+ years, so it wasn't important to them at all, was it? No, the Romanians just sat around for the next 20 years singing songs about Bessarabia and how they got screwed up the arse (and they still do today -- crowd symbols never go away).
The Germans promised the Romanians that they could have Bessarabia back if they helped the Germans to invade Ukraine, and the Germans followed through on their promise, and that was the only reason the Romanians sided with the Germans.
All the fat pig Churchill had to do was admit he was wrong and tell the Romanians they could keep Bessarabia, and the Romanians would have switched sides right then without blinking an eye. Without oil from Ploiesti, the Germans would have collapsed in a matter of months with no fuel for the aircraft or vehicles.
North Africa was irrelevant except that it resulted in the attrition of German units. The US already had dozens of divisions in the UK training for a planned invasion of France that was called off/delayed until 1944..
Yeah but, I still have an issue with your timeline. We perhaps could have invaded the Balkans in 1944, but I will get to that in a second.
1942 as you originallys stated - no way. American were still mobolizing for war and UK at least until the second half of the year was getting their butt kicked by Rommel. They were hanging on by a toenail to Cairo. They were resupplying through the Suez Canal. If they invaded the Balkans (and they would have had to go through Greece, or actually Turkey) what resources would they have to hold off Rommel? They lose Cairo they lose the Suez. They lose the Suez they lose the entire middle east, everything.
1943 - The plan was Italy via Sicily. The Balkans (again, via Greece) was never seriously considered except as a diversion. That the German's believed we would invade Greece was ingenious because the plan was so illogical. Italy was sticking out there in the mediteranian like a sore thumb. You know from your war games - men and materials is only half the battle, the other half is logistics - supply lines. You had to knock out Italy, before that you had to knock out Sicily, capture ports, get the supply lines.
1944 - OK here we go. Italy had fallen, although we were still fighting up the boot. But we had ports in Italy, supply lines, air supremecy, the Med was ours. Churchill actually did want to invade the Balkans. I don't know why you say he didn't. Between Roosevelt and Churchill, it was Churchill that did not trust the Russians. But invading the Balkans vs. Normandy involved some risk - it's still mountanous and easily defendable, you didn't have the supply depot of the UK 50 miles across the channel, you had V2 rockets still hitting England, you didn't have the political pressure of France and other western Europe allies saying "hey liberate us", etc. At the end of the day Churchill had to agree with his more powerful ally the U.S.
By the way the Allies did invade France in 1942 - Dieppe. UK and US forces landed. It was a limited landing - but we got our butt kicked bad by axis forces. 50% casualties. Disaster. That's one of the reasons it was called off/delayed.
This got me interested in Finland's position durring the cold war, did some research the other night. Finland played it pretty cool, from what I read. It may not have seemed that way in '48, as they had to pay war reparations and honor agreements to the letter, with the USSR. They could not join NATO, allow foreign troops on their soil, or participate in the marshall plan.
At the same time, the US secretly paid them around 200 million in aid. They remained independent of Russia as a free market western democracy, and after the reparations were paid off in the early 50s, built a strong industrial base. The Finns deported many russian defectors back to Russia, as per agreement. Iron ore, oil, and natural gas was supplied to Finland by Russia at reasonable rates.
Later after the breakup of the soviet union, Russia raised its energy rates, and the economy slumped for a short time. They joined NATO, the EU, built nuclear power plants, one of which is going online soon, and will be the largest in the world. The people of Finland also have a high level of religious participation among its citizens compared to other EU countries. They have great social welfare benifits, and a strong economy.
Im not so sure their deal with the devil worked out so bad for them. Yes, they had to crawl for a while, but they didn't end up like the other east bloc countries. Was the US going to protect Finland if Russia invaded her borders in 1948 ?
The word "Finlandization" was born out their situation during the Cold War. Yes, they did not suffer any occupation or puppet government, but they had a gun pointed at their head and knew their were limitations on what they could and could not do.
Basically, the USSR took them out of the game via forced treaties, coercion and suttle threats. Certainly better than what happened to Eastern Europe, but still an infringement of sovereignty.
And I believe Finland did receive Marshall Plan funds and was the only country to repay them in full.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.