WWII

jnimhaoileoin

Am onto D-Day, also by Stephen Ambrose. A fairly weighty tome but have been ploughing through it over Christmas and it's really fantastic. Although D-Day is widely considered a great success, I'm now realising it could have gone a hell of a lot better! The air bombardment prior to the landings were of absolutely no help to the unfortunate soldiers who then came in under heavy fire, particularly at Omaha. I don't quite understand how they failed to bomb anywhere near the beaches, despite what has been said about cloud cover and fear of dropping short. Has anyone any insights?

Thirty Bills Unpaid

jnimhaoileoin said:

Am onto D-Day, also by Stephen Ambrose. A fairly weighty tome but have been ploughing through it over Christmas and it's really fantastic. Although D-Day is widely considered a great success, I'm now realising it could have gone a hell of a lot better! The air bombardment prior to the landings were of absolutely no help to the unfortunate soldiers who then came in under heavy fire, particularly at Omaha. I don't quite understand how they failed to bomb anywhere near the beaches, despite what has been said about cloud cover and fear of dropping short. Has anyone any insights?

The timing was off too. They were supposed to be landing just before day break.

jnimhaoileoin

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

jnimhaoileoin said:

Am onto D-Day, also by Stephen Ambrose. A fairly weighty tome but have been ploughing through it over Christmas and it's really fantastic. Although D-Day is widely considered a great success, I'm now realising it could have gone a hell of a lot better! The air bombardment prior to the landings were of absolutely no help to the unfortunate soldiers who then came in under heavy fire, particularly at Omaha. I don't quite understand how they failed to bomb anywhere near the beaches, despite what has been said about cloud cover and fear of dropping short. Has anyone any insights?

The timing was off too. They were supposed to be landing just before day break.

Now this is another thing, presumably they decided to land during daylight so as to allow for the pre-landing air bombardment but given how little help this was, surely a lot of lives could have been saved by landing in darkness? Though I suppose at the same time, that would have made the naval bombardment more difficult...

mrussel1

Fog of war I guess. The airborne drops were awfully scattered as well. It's kind of amazing that it succeeded. Many historians will attribute it to the lack of German communication (Rommel was celebrating his birthday or something back in the Fatherland). There is a theory of German military command which is that they were incapable of doing anything without the explicit command of leadership. So with Rommel gone, communication cut, the field officers were paralyzed. Who knows how true this is, but it's one theory on why they were so slow to respond to the assault.

jnimhaoileoin

mrussel1 said:

Fog of war I guess. The airborne drops were awfully scattered as well. It's kind of amazing that it succeeded. Many historians will attribute it to the lack of German communication (Rommel was celebrating his birthday or something back in the Fatherland). There is a theory of German military command which is that they were incapable of doing anything without the explicit command of leadership. So with Rommel gone, communication cut, the field officers were paralyzed. Who knows how true this is, but it's one theory on why they were so slow to respond to the assault.

Yeah Rommel was off celebrating his wife's birthday and most of the other generals were messing around with war games in Rennes. So in many cases it was the inability of the lower ranking officers to act without the approval of their superiors. Also it seems none of the Panzer divisions could go anywhere without Hitler's approval and apparently he was asleep and everyone was scared to wake him up! Really you start to wonder how the Germans got so far in the first place with that kind of leadership...

cp3iverson

Nothing more interesting to me historically than WW2.

Weird that we all knew veterans of that. They'll be like mythical figures one day IMO

Enkidu

I think I've written about this before - Rick Atkinson wrote 3 books about the Allies in WWII and they're great books, kind of ridiculously dense and you need a dictionary beside you, but they're really really good. The first one, An Army at Dawn, is about the U.S. entering the war and you sort of assume - yay ,they're gonna be amazing and save the day, and they're not. It's disorganized and Eisenhower isn't especially impressive yet... fascinating.

http://liberationtrilogy.com/

jnimhaoileoin

Enkidu said:

I think I've written about this before - Rick Atkinson wrote 3 books about the Allies in WWII and they're great books, kind of ridiculously dense and you need a dictionary beside you, but they're really really good. The first one, An Army at Dawn, is about the U.S. entering the war and you sort of assume - yay ,they're gonna be amazing and save the day, and they're not. It's disorganized and Eisenhower isn't especially impressive yet... fascinating.

http://liberationtrilogy.com/

Oh I think I came across the third one of those in the library today, will have to see if they have the first

cp3iverson

jnimhaoileoin said:

Has anyone visited any WWII sites? I'm thinking of trying to visit a few next year, mainly in France. Would appreciate advice from anyone who has been, would be a big help as I look into logistics...

Would love to see the woods in Bastogne (Battle of the Bulge). The foxholes are still there. Eerie.

Normandy is also on my list

The National WW2 Museum in New Orleans is unbelievable. Tom Hanks and Spielberg helped put it together.

jnimhaoileoin

cp3iverson said:

jnimhaoileoin said:

Has anyone visited any WWII sites? I'm thinking of trying to visit a few next year, mainly in France. Would appreciate advice from anyone who has been, would be a big help as I look into logistics...

Would love to see the woods in Bastogne (Battle of the Bulge). The foxholes are still there. Eerie.

Normandy is also on my list

The National WW2 Museum in New Orleans is unbelievable. Tom Hanks and Spielberg helped put it together.

Stephen Ambrose played a big role in that museum as well. I'd like to see Bastogne as well but some places are easier to get to than others! I'd say I'll need to plan several trips to France to see various places

jnimhaoileoin

Watching a documentary on PBS America called Memory of the Camps. To say it's harrowing doesn't even begin to describe it. There's footage of the SS men and women burying the bodies, a job they were ordered to do by the Allied liberators. In theory I can see the reasoning behind this, the hope that they might come to realise and regret what terrible crimes they had perpetrated. However, all I see is Nazis being given a further chance to persecute their victims, as they show nothing but disgust and disrespect, manhandling the corpses as if they were bits of waste being thrown on a scrap heap.

Surely at the very least these wretched victims could have been given a proper and respectful burial? I understand the difficulty of dealing with so very many bodies but it was just so inhumane and seems like committing one final crime against them.

I know this is a subject not many will wish to discuss but I just needed to share my thoughts somewhere...

chadwick

december 7, 1941
national pearl harbor remembrance day
75th year

mace1229

chadwick said:

december 7, 1941
national pearl harbor remembrance day
75th year

It is really sad how so many have no idea what today is.

tbergs

I still remember learning about this in school and reading the accounts of those who were trapped inside compartments on the ships that were hit. It was the 50 year anniversary. I think it was one of those scholastic readers we did in my 6th grade class.

Gern Blansten

mace1229 said:

chadwick said:

december 7, 1941
national pearl harbor remembrance day
75th year

It is really sad how so many have no idea what today is.

How have you made that determination?

unsung

mace1229 said:

chadwick said:

december 7, 1941
national pearl harbor remembrance day
75th year

It is really sad how so many have no idea what today is.

What is worse is that so many think we didn't provoke it.

mace1229

Gern Blansten said:

mace1229 said:

chadwick said:

december 7, 1941
national pearl harbor remembrance day
75th year

It is really sad how so many have no idea what today is.

How have you made that determination?

Talking to people under 20.
I'm a teacher, if I have a quiz on this day I will make it an extra credit question.
It is a good class when 5 out of 30 know Pearl Harbor happened today.

Youd be shocked at their knowledge (or lack of) of 20th century history. Ten you'd know those clips of Late Show Jay-Walking are actually real.

Gern Blansten

unsung said:

mace1229 said:

chadwick said:

december 7, 1941
national pearl harbor remembrance day
75th year

It is really sad how so many have no idea what today is.

What is worse is that so many think we didn't provoke it.

JC29856

unsung said:

mace1229 said:

chadwick said:

december 7, 1941
national pearl harbor remembrance day
75th year

It is really sad how so many have no idea what today is.

What is worse is that so many think we didn't provoke it.

McCollum Memo

chadwick

this day is a big deal to me. later on after supper & whatnot, i'll be sitting my fat ass on down to watch some pearl harbor footage. in all actuality i do this often, it's just that today is the day & WWII guys amaze me to no end. if i were worth a damn i'd go to the VFW in hopes of buying some old-timer a cold beer... that is a lot to ask of a 90+ year old gentleman to find his way to a VFW for a mug of beer. those guys are the best