Hey y'all, I finished reading "WWII and how it affects you today, and now I'm working on "WWI the rest of the story and how it affects you today" As I said in my other post, these are fantastic books and you NEED to read them, especially if you are considering joining the military!
the basic "plot" is quite simple; wars lead to hard feelings which lead to wars which lead to hard feelings which lead to... you get the idea. It all started in Europe (duh) in, believe it or not, 1870 with the Franco-Prussian War in which the Prussian government won. Of course the French government was overthrown (again) and a new republic was declared (again), anyway, all this planted the seeds of resentment between European Nations and paved the way for WWI.
Eventually 1914 rolls around and WWI brakes out between the chief Allied Powers, (containing Belgium, the British Empire, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and the United states) and the chief Central powers (containing Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, and Turkey.) As you can see, the Central powers really didn't have a prayer, and the war ends with the treaty of Versailles. In case you don't know what that is I'll explain; the Treaty of Versailles was the "treaty" in which all the chief Central Powers surrendered unconditionally to the chief Allied powers. The Allies humiliate the Central powers by making the Centrals pay for the Allies' war expenses. The German economy is crushed, the citizens turn to Adolf Hitler. nice work, Allies.
Japanese attack Manchuria, Franklin Roosevelt send help to China in the form of the Flying Tigers.
Hitler signs a cease-fire with Stalin (Ha! two lying cutthroats promise not to lie and cut each other's throats!). Germany invades Poland, Poland surrenders in 24 hours. England, France and others say: "Hey! if he can cut up Europe and keep the loot, why can't we?!?!?" Germany Declares war on the British Empire in defence of the European "loot". Germany and England duke it out, but Hitler doesn't have any boats to cross the English channel with.
In addition to helping the Chinese, Roosevelt completely cuts off all oil and mineral imports to Japan, sends almost the entire US Navy fleet to uber-vulnerable Pearl Harbor, and starts sending patrols through Japanese waters. this is before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor!
FDR orders all the small craft, fighter planes and new battleships out of Pearl Harbor, but leaves all the old, outdated, WWI battleships in the harbor; the Arizona being one of them.
Defeated at sea, Hitler decides to a) keep attacking England from the Air, and b) attack Stalin in Russia. Baaaaaaaaaaaad Idea... let me tell you why; the very first lesson an officer learns when he joins the military is, NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ATTACK RUSSIA!!!!! here's why; the Russian Army has one of the greatest allies in history, one that can't turn on you... Winter. If the Russian Army doesn't slaughter you, the Russian winter will. Also, the Russian army has this little tactic they like to use on invading forces; fall back, stay low, draw them closer... then cut their supply lines. The attacker will be stranded in a frozen wasteland without supplies. If this strategy worked on Napoleon, it will work on Hitler too.
June 22 of 1941, Hitler invades Russia, September 12th of the same year, the first snow on Moscow, Hitler starts losing in the Eastern front... Russia's old Ally, Winter, has come into play.
Sunday December 7th 1941, 7:55 AM, Hawaii sees the first wave of Japanese fighters. The US Fighters are almost all destroyed because Admiral Kimmel, in charge of Navy activity in Pearl Harbor, has ordered all the planes be parked close together so the guards can watch them, Kimmel is afraid of Sabotage more than air Attack, it's not his fault, keep reading.
All this is part of Roosevelt's plan to get into the war, he wanted to get a piece of the action in Europe, but public opinion (acording to a gallup poll) was 88% against war. So he created a plan to goad the Japanese into attacking first, "unprovoked" and thus gain public support. So Roosevelt left bait; the USS Arizona and others, in an easy target; pearl harbor, and took away practically all the Ak-Ak guns Admiral Kimmel needed to protect the fleet.
In addition to giving Kimmel almost no protection, FDR frequently gave warnings to the Admiral saying that, "the Japanese are attacking soon"... Kimmel recieved almost 20 of these warnings over the course of... get this... 17 months! Washington DC was crying wolf, deliberately trying to get Kimmel to be unprepared. Want more proof? OK, you've all probably seen pictures of the USS Arizona exploding, well that picture was taken from the only safe spot in the harbor, with a color camera 8 minutes after the attack started! how on earth would a color (were talking about a color camera crew! color in 1941 would hard to come by!) camera crew who "didn't know when the Japanese would attack" be able to be up and running in 8 minutes without some sort of warning from Roosevelt? Coincidence? I think not!
Anyway, the US Declares war on Japan, hurtling just another European blood-bath into a World War.
Roosevelt starts calling for unconditional surrender... unconditional surrender, think about this for a second; unconditional surrender, meaning no conditions. Normally when someone surrenders, they ask for conditions, such as "I'll surrender, if you promise not to kill me", if you promise not to kill me is a condition. Unconditional means, "I'll surrender, and you can do anything you want to me".
This makes Berlin think of their "unconditional Surrender" after WWI which ended in the treaty of Versailles. Think about this, if your mortal enemy, who is trying to torture and kill you, said to you "surrender to me and I'll torture and kill you", would you want to surrender? Well the Germans didn't want another Treaty of Versailles and FDR's demand propels the world into another 3 years of war.
with Russians still kicking some serious booty on the eastern front, the US and Britain attacking on the western front, the Italian Generals decide they've had enough of Mussolini, so they kill him, and switch sides to start fighting against Germany.
Meanwhile, back in the Pacific, the US starts Island Hopping toward Japan and is soon in sight of the Japanese Homeland. the Nuclear bombs are in production, and testing is picking up speed.
June 6th 1944: D-Day. the US sets foot on French soil and starts it's offencive against Germany to take a little pressure off of Stalin. Remember that, D-Day was not about "liberating the French" , many of the French didn't want to be liberated! D-Day was about helping Russia in the Eastern front!
May 7th 1945, Germany Surrenders about a week after Hitler's suicide, Japan holds out for another few months, even though it has no Allies (there's the Unconditional surrender for ya' again). Nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima August 6th, 75 hours later, before waiting for a reply, the US area-bombs some more, and then drops the second Nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. tens of thousands of Innocent civilians killed... no, murdered. The nuclear bombs were not necessary as most people think, Japan was just about to surrender, but Truman, who succeeded FDR, decided that, he needed to drop not only one, but two atomic bombs, and not so he could avoid a gigantic amphibious invasion, but to scare the Russians. yes, the cold war had already started before WWII ended.
One war leads to hard feelings, which leads to another war which leads to hard feelings which leads to... etc.
Now right about here I gotta say something, the Good guy vs Bad Guy model you've seen in every war film you've ever watched is false. WWII was a Bad-guy vs Bad-guy war, as is almost every war in history. "oh...well Hitler wanted to take over the world" actually, Hitler's ambition only went as far as "living space" in eastern Europe. Hitler declared the need for only "living Space" in a speech given before the war broke out. Further, read this letter written by Winston Churchill to Franklin Roosevelt, and I quote: "I [Churchill] am half American and the natural person to work with you [Roosevelt]. It is evident we see eye to eye. Were I to become Prime Minister of Britain we could control the world." end quote. I have put the last five words in red italics to make sure that you see them. "we could control the world"... wow.
if you have any more doubts about my idea of the bad-guy vs. bad-guy war, here are the body counts of the Innocent civilians murdered by their country's governments. these are not soldiers killed, or civilians killed in battle, these are men, women and children murdered as Hitler murdered the Jews.
Murders by the worst governments of World War II:
Axis
Germany: 20,946,000
Japan: 5,964,000
Axis Total: 26,910,000
Allies
Russia: 42,672,000
China: 10,214,000
Allied total: 52,886,000
And the Allies were the good guys?!?!?!?!?! if you measure badness by body counts, the allies were twice the cutthroats the Axis were! and don't get me started on the US and Britain! area bombing, unconditional surrender, and the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bad enough! Believe it or not, the English actually had a formula that stated how many tons of bombs were needed to be dropped to destroy X amount of houses. They called it, "Terrorization", scaring the German people into submission.
by the way, this is not just another conspiracy theory, this stuff is nothing new, dictators have been murdering Innocent people ever since the fall of Adam... why should today, or 1939-45 be any different?
Also, all historical facts concerning Pearl Harbor were taken from the FBI's storage wear houses. Death tolls are well known to historians and are widely available for research, and historical incidents such as the treaty of Versailles are also widely known and available for research.
right now, you may be asking "why?", "how could anyone purposely slaughter thousands of people and not feel remorse?" three words: drunk with power. that's right, what good is it to amass a gigantic military and not use in on someone? Power corrupts, and the "leaders" during WWII were no exception.
Bear in mind, I'm not criticizing America's ideals, I love America, and I only want to live here in America, but the fact remains that given the power, people want to use it on someone. It's like a bully on a playground, why does the bully push over the little guy? Bullies are usually bigger than their targets; they have power. Why punch him? Why not? It's "fun!"
This brings me to my conclusion, what should have happened during WWII. America should have stayed put, like Switzerland, watch and shake your head, defend against attack, don't go looking to get into a war. Germany, England, Russia, Japan, China, and Italy would have beaten each other to pulp, Russia would be somewhat crippled, the Russian people wouldn't be afraid of the US and they would have revolted against their government far sooner, England would have had to release all it's colonies sooner, and millions upon millions of lives would have been spared.
Thanks for reading this extremely extensive "summary" of the event leading up to, during, and after World War II. Feel free to comment, I would love a good discussion. :-)
-Graydon L
P.S. The Nuking of Japan is also somewhat responsible for the 9-11 attacks on New York city! by scaring the Russian people with two unnecessary bombs, the US practically said to them "We're not afraid of you, or anyone else. Step out of line, and you'll all be little particles of radioactive dust" This statement made the Russian people cling to the only shield between them and and the force of the atomic bomb; their socialistic government. This started the Cold War, and made the US government make alliances in every direction... and making enemies just as fast. Osama Bin-ladin became an enemy...
9-11, just like pearl harbor, was not unprovoked.
Think about it.
Overhauling Our New Yard..
6 years ago
3 comments:
Graydon,
Quick question. Considering that at the start of the war before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had a very small navy the majority of which was in the Pacific. England, on the other hand, had the worlds largest navy in the Atlantic making them the thin red line between us and Germany. With England collapsing (after the Blitz, England had barely enough fighters left to patrol London, let alone the whole island), and lets say, Germany capturing her shipyards leaving America all alone to fight Germany and Japan. Don't you think then it would be right for us to send supplies ie. money, guns, airplanes, ammo, ships.....? Awaiting your reply!
Hmm, you raise some interesting points, Graydon.
I personally wouldn't go so far as to say that FDR had such a hand in Pearl Harbor such as to place a camera crew and to remove the planes and Ack-Ack guns.
All FDR needed was a Japanese attack to start a war. Once the attack had been made, why not shoot down as many Japanese planes as you could? Why take such pains to make sure that the attack would be a total surprise, ensuring the maximum loss of life and property? What would have been wrong with having the base aware of the Japanese attack and driving them off?
The fact is, the Japanese attack did exactly what the Japanese intended it to do. It made our navy inferior to theirs for more than a year, and gave them domination over the Pacific.
On the the other hand, I DO believe that Pearl Harbor was provoked. As you mentioned, the US cut off the Japanese supply of oil and gas when they invaded Manchuria. The Japanese were told that they could have their gas back when they removed EVERY solder from the Asian mainland. The US then closed negotiations, turning the situation into a yes or no question and leaving no room for compromise. Sound familiar?
Now the French would have probably agreed to this arrangement, but the Japanese weren't quite ready to give up all of their dreams of Asian domination and were left with a couple options:
1) Negotiate (Whoops, sorry, the US closed that option)
2) Capture some island nation that had oil reserves like Indonesia (Sorry again, the US moved their fleet to Hawaii and would kick our behind if we did)\
3) Create a surprise attack on the US fleet so we CAN capture an island nation that has oil.
It was an interesting game of political chess, and FDR won the game.
In answer to your question Jonathan, No. England had a vast military scattared all over the globe, Germany had only a few hundered subs and a few battle ships, in addition to this, Hitler had a thing for dive bombers and he insisted that every bomber have dive-bombing capabilities, this made it necessery to create a smaller, lighter bomber, as compared to the B17s and Lancaster bombers flown by the RAF and USAAC. Allow me to prove my point, A poll was taken which asked the English people "what worried them the most"... the weather came out ahead of German bombers. Wow.
So this brings me to my final point; why help someone when they don't need it? the English have landing craft for amphibious invasions, the Germans don't. Hitler had no where to go but east... into Russia, that's where the war should have ended, June 22 1941 with Germany's invasion of Russia.
Also, the US navy was just as large as Japan's and the US had the oil and minerals needed to create a larger navy, the only ships destroyed in Pearl Harbor were the old outdated clunkers. Listen to this: the USS Arizona had only 8 Ak-Ak guns on board, where as the newest US battleships had 87.
In answer to Sam's question, Not necessarily, FDR not only needed public opinion, he had overcome the nutrality act which stated that the US wouldn't volentarily get into a war. FDR knew that the attack needed to look devastating, it had to look fatal to the US navy. If there were lots of Ak-Ak guns the Japanese may not have attacked or worse, they may have been defeated and turned back. As I said to Jonathan, only old WWI battleships were destoyed in Pearl Harbor.
I would agree with you, Sam, on most points but the one above and the one about a third of the way down in which you said "It made our navy inferior to theirs for more than a year, and gave them domination over the Pacific." The US navy was just as powerful as the Japanese and had a far greater production potential. Think about it, Japan is nothing more than volcanic rock sticking up out of the Pacific. It's only natural resoursed are Wood, Water, and a little coal. without Steel and Oil, the Japanese Navy was doomed to run out of ships, they simply couldn't produce as many ships as the US. here's what I mean: Japan's fleet of 11 aircraft carriers took 20 years to create. In just 4 years, the US produced 146 of 'em. that's 35 times as fast as the Japanese. Japan didn't have a larger fleet for long.
Thanks guys for you great questions! I'll be seeing you guys soon! :-)
-Graydon :-)
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