I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Without the Germans we might be talking Russian here. They gave us weapons and in the end also troops to keep the Russians away and later the Germans were chased out to Norway.
One of the reasons why Hitler underestimated Stalin's forces was that Stalin underestimated us and couldn't conquer Finland with his army. After seeing how huge losses Russia suffered against our tiny army Hitler thought the Soviet troops to be no match for the Germans, but of course they fought differently when they were defending their homeland and not attacking some unknown small country.
...
I think the Russian Winter was a great factor on the Eastern Front.
Look at German Air Aces... the top aces on the Eastern Front had 200 - 300 kills, while the top Western Front Ace, Adolph Galland, scored 104 (many of those over Spain). The Russians weren't the best soldiers... but, damn... there were a lot of the buggers.
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
The Winter War was won because the Russians were equipped to fight in the Tundra and the German's froze their asses off.
Actually, there's a bit of a misconception there. Sure the winter conditions slowed up the war and thousands died in the terrible conditions, but it was in fact the mud that did the most damage over there. Once the thaw set in the germans became bogged down. Thousands drowned in the mud. And supplies by land to the Germans on the front line became impossible. The Russians took full advantage of this.
...
I think the Russian Winter was a great factor on the Eastern Front.
Look at German Air Aces... the top aces on the Eastern Front had 200 - 300 kills, while the top Western Front Ace, Adolph Galland, scored 104 (many of those over Spain). The Russians weren't the best soldiers... but, damn... there were a lot of the buggers.
Yes and like i said the morale is different when you're on home soil defending and afterwards they were out to get even in Germany.
I remember reading all of this, I remember reading about the Winter War and Barbossa and all that shit, just forget the details. You guys must love this stuff.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Without the Germans we might be talking Russian here. They gave us weapons and in the end also troops to keep the Russians away and later the Germans were chased out to Norway.
One of the reasons why Hitler underestimated Stalin's forces was that Stalin underestimated us and couldn't conquer Finland with his army. After seeing how huge losses Russia suffered against our tiny army Hitler thought the Soviet troops to be no match for the Germans, but of course they fought differently when they were defending their homeland and not attacking some unknown small country.
Yeah, the Finns kicked Russia's ass in 1939. An amazing victory. It was the Finnish ski troops who carried out a successful guerilla war against the Rooskies, if my memory serves me right?
I remember reading all of this, I remember reading about the Winter War and Barbossa and all that shit, just forget the details. You guys must love this stuff.
It is fascinating. I mean the fact that the Germans came within 15 miles of Moscow before being literally frozen in their tracks, and the fact that Stalin had already boarded a train to take him East before changing his mind at the last minute and deciding to defend Moscow. There are just so many amazing stories involved with what happened over there. It became a story of an advanced, modern army against a proud and determined people fighting for their freedom. A battle of tactics. Marshall Zhukov really was the hero of world war 2 in my eyes. He was there at all the major battles and survived the war.
Yeah, the Finns kicked Russia's ass in 1939. An amazing victory. It was the Finnish ski troops who carried out a successful guerilla war against the Rooskies, if my memory serves me right?
Exactly right. The Russians didn't use skis, only roads so during winter on a road in the middle of a forest surrounded by snow they were basically trapped.
Motti is a Finnish military slang for an encircled enemy unit. This tactic of envelopment was used extensively by the Finnish forces in the Winter War and the Continuation War to a good effect. Basically motti is a double envelope manoeuvre using bad going terrain and light troops to encircle an enemy restricted on good going or roads. Heavily outnumbered but mobile forces could easily immobilize an enemy twenty times larger than itself.
The idea was to cut the enemy columns or battlegroups into smaller groups and then encircle them by light and mobile forces, such as ski-troops during winter. This was especially effective against some of the mechanized units of the Soviet Army, as they were effectively restricted to the roads. The Finnish troops on the other hand could move quickly through the forests and strike weak points in the formations. The smaller pockets of enemies could then be dealt with individually by concentrating forces on them.
If the encircled enemy unit was too strong, or if attacking it would have caused unacceptable friendly casualties, e.g. because of a lack of heavy equipment, the motti was usually left to "cook" until it ran out of food, fuel, supplies and ammunition and was ready to be eliminated. Some of the larger mottis held until the end of the wars, because they were resupplied by air.
The word motti (originally borrowed from Swedish mått, "measure") means one cubic meter of firewood. When collecting firewood, the logs were cut and stacked in 1 m³ cubical stacks, which were left scattered in the woods to be picked up later.
The largest motti battles in the Winter War occurred at Battle of Suomussalmi. Three Finnish regiments enveloped and destroyed two Soviet divisions and tank brigade trapped on a road. (from wikipedia)
I don't know if i love this stuff since it's war but hearing stories from my grandfathers (R.I.P) and many like them you're kind of brought up appreciating what they did over here. Not to mention the compulsory military training we still have.
Exactly right. The Russians didn't use skis, only roads so during winter on a road in the middle of a forest surrounded by snow they were basically trapped.
Motti is a Finnish military slang for an encircled enemy unit. This tactic of envelopment was used extensively by the Finnish forces in the Winter War and the Continuation War to a good effect. Basically motti is a double envelope manoeuvre using bad going terrain and light troops to encircle an enemy restricted on good going or roads. Heavily outnumbered but mobile forces could easily immobilize an enemy twenty times larger than itself.
The idea was to cut the enemy columns or battlegroups into smaller groups and then encircle them by light and mobile forces, such as ski-troops during winter. This was especially effective against some of the mechanized units of the Soviet Army, as they were effectively restricted to the roads. The Finnish troops on the other hand could move quickly through the forests and strike weak points in the formations. The smaller pockets of enemies could then be dealt with individually by concentrating forces on them.
If the encircled enemy unit was too strong, or if attacking it would have caused unacceptable friendly casualties, e.g. because of a lack of heavy equipment, the motti was usually left to "cook" until it ran out of food, fuel, supplies and ammunition and was ready to be eliminated. Some of the larger mottis held until the end of the wars, because they were resupplied by air.
The word motti (originally borrowed from Swedish mått, "measure") means one cubic meter of firewood. When collecting firewood, the logs were cut and stacked in 1 m³ cubical stacks, which were left scattered in the woods to be picked up later.
The largest motti battles in the Winter War occurred at Battle of Suomussalmi. Three Finnish regiments enveloped and destroyed two Soviet divisions and tank brigade trapped on a road. (from wikipedia)
I don't know if i love this stuff since it's war but hearing stories from my grandfathers (R.I.P) and many like them you're kind of brought up appreciating what they did over here. Not to mention the compulsory military training we still have.
The Finns did indeed give the Soviets a beatdown. Also noteworthy is the fact that one of their fighter units (forget which one exactly) enjoyed the best kill to loss ratio (against Soviet aircraft) of ANY fighter unit in the war, including Luftwaffe units (who also racked up huge numbers).
I wouldn't say that Americans solely defeated Hitler's Germany. However the Americans sure did help with the defeat. Hitler was defeated by an awesome coalition. One could never say what would have happened if the allies didn't all come together.
While Stalingrad was the turning point, the war didn't end until 3 years after. It takes more than one battle to win a war. Following Stalingrad there was D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge as well as other battles. I wouldn't say the country that had the most killed means they won the war. This war was on European soil and Germany had tried to invade Russia. If the Germans had invaded the US there would have been more Americans killed. Americans traveled a long way to fight a war not on US soil during a period of time when that wasn't so easy.
The American Experience
Timeline: World War II in Europe
1939-1942 | 1943-1945
1939 August: The Russians and the Germans sign a non-aggression pact. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin agree not to invade each other's borders. The two leaders secretly plan to divide Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe between them.
September: Employing blitzkrieg (literally, "lightning war") tactics, Germany invades Poland. Polish military forces are unprepared for the ferocity of Germany's attack. When efforts to negotiate a withdrawal fail, Britain and France declare war on Germany. World War II begins.
1940
May: As Germany marches into Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, Winston Churchill replaces a disgraced Neville Chamberlain, the man responsible for the appeasement of Hitler, as prime minister of Great Britain.
June: Germany captures Paris, and France surrenders to the Nazis. Exacting revenge for his nation's defeat in the first World War, Hitler forces French officials to sign surrender papers in the same railroad car in which Germans signed the armistice of 1918.
July 10: The Battle of Britain begins. A three-month battle fought in the skies over Britain will include destructive bombing raids on London and other cities, but by the end of October, the British will hand Hitler his first defeat.
1941
March: President Franklin Roosevelt convinces a largely isolationist Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act, allowing the U.S. to sell or lend war materials to "any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States."
June: Roosevelt freezes German and Italian assets in the U.S.
August: Emerging from secret meetings conducted on warships off of Newfoundland, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt unveil the Atlantic Charter. The charter outlines goals concerning "the final destruction of Nazi tyranny," and a pledge to support "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live."
December 7: The United States is thrust into war when Japan launches a devastating surprise attack on the U.S. Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. President Franklin Roosevelt will ask the Congress to declare war on Japan the following day, December 8th.
December 11: Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.
1942
January: U.S. troops arrive in Europe. Through March, the number of troops shipped overseas averages about 50,000 per month -- a number that will soar upwards of 250,000 per month in 1944.
August: Germany begins its assault on the Russian city of Stalingrad. In a battle that will rage for six months, and take hundreds of thousands of German and Russian lives, the Red Army finally defeats invading Nazis. The long, bloody battle proves to be a turning point in the war, as Germany begins a retreat from the Eastern Front.
1943
January: Roosevelt and Churchill hold a conference at Casablanca, Morocco. They affirm their goal of securing the Axis nations' unconditional surrender.
May: U.S. troops led by Generals Dwight Eisenhower and George S. Patton join forces with British troops under the command of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to defeat German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in North Africa.
June: Eisenhower is appointed commander of the U.S. forces in Europe.
July - September: Allied forces capture Sicily and key spots in southern Italy. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is overthrown and imprisoned. Hitler dispatches German troops to fend off an Allied advance in what will be a series of hard fought, costly battles.
November: The "big three," Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, convene in Teheran, Iran to discuss the invasion of Italy. It is the first time all three have met.
December: Eisenhower is named supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
1944
February: German aircraft production centers are the target of a massive bombing campaign by the U.S. Army Air Corps. Shortly thereafter, more than six hundred U.S. bombers raid Berlin. Despite the devastation caused by the bombing, Germany is able to maintain weapons and aircraft production levels.
June: The Allies capture Rome, Italy.
May 30: The Allied invasion of France commences; troops based in England begin their mobilization to cross the Channel, in a massive effort code-named Operation Overlord. Eisenhower will wait for a good weather forecast to determine the exact day of the invasion.
June 5: Overlord is set into motion. An advance wave of paratroopers flies to drop spots over France late in the evening, and descends into enemy territory.
June 6: D-Day. Over 160,000 Allied troops and 30,000 vehicles are landed along a 50-mile stretch of fortified French coastline and begin fighting on the beaches of Normandy.
July: The Allies take control of the French port city of Cherbourg. The retreating Germans, however, have left the city badly razed and booby-trapped.
August : After four years of German occupation, the Allies liberate Paris with the help of French resistance troops led by General Charles de Gaulle.
December 16: The Battle of the Bulge begins. Hitler sends a quarter million troops across an 85-mile stretch of the Allied front, from southern Belgium into Luxembourg. In deadly cold winter weather, German troops will advance some 50 miles into the Allied lines, creating a deadly "bulge" pushing into Allied defenses.
1945
January: By the end of the month, the Battle of the Bulge ends. Over 76,000 Americans have been killed, wounded, or captured. The Allies regain the territory they held in early December.
February 4-11: The last meeting of the Big Three -- Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin -- takes place in the Soviet city of Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill agree to allow Stalin to control the governments of Eastern Europe at war's end, thereby setting the stage for future Cold War clashes.
March: U.S. forces cross the Rhine River. The Germans retreat into Germany.
April 30: As Soviet forces push into Berlin, Adolf Hitler takes shelter in his bombproof bunker. There, he marries his mistress, Eva Braun, before poisoning her and shooting himself. His remains will never be found.
May 7: General Dwight Eisenhower accepts Germany's unconditional surrender at Reims, France. Germany likewise surrenders to Russia in Berlin.
"...believe in lies...to get by...it's divine...whoa...oh, you know what its like..."
I always though Mussolini and Stalin were the biggest fools of WW2, and maybe Winston Churchhill. I guess none of them read Mein Kampf
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Churchill read it. He was an intellectual, though a bulldog. He won the Nobel Prize for literature, in 1953.
Really, that dude was just dumb then haha. Or he didn't read it until half-way through the war. Don't ask me for any details.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
...
Another ironic twist... The Germans used Charles De Gualle's tank warfare tactics to over run France's static Maginot Line.
I always got a kick out of the one invasion, what was it Poland? When the German's crossed the marsh and none of the enemy was there to stop them, haha, fools.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
See, I like the thick texture. In Germany, I even had the bartenders add more wheat if they had it. Ah, Germany. I went from bemused surprise when a waitress asked me if I wanted any extra wheat - whaddya mean, extra wheat? - to asking bartenders for it.
Provided they spoke English.
Which many did.
Thankfully.
I'll have to try Krystal, though. Is there a specific brand you'd recommend, or is Krystal the brand?
There’s usually an ulterior motive when it comes to the US.
And that would be?
Maybe the motive was rebuilding everyone's economy so that all can benefit. Including the US, (god forbid). Trading had to start again, and w/ Europe being destroyed, no trade would happen.
But no, had to be something much more sinister because the US initiated it.
....just like when the US rebuilt japan, making it into the industrial and economic powerhouse that it later became. The US must've somehow known that Japan would someday invent the nintendo and the playstation. I see what you mean about ulterior motives.
Maybe the motive was rebuilding everyone's economy so that all can benefit. Including the US, (god forbid). Trading had to start again, and w/ Europe being destroyed, no trade would happen.
But no, had to be something much more sinister because the US initiated it.
As you said before, I'm glad we have all these Enlightened Europeans on the board today telling us how it "really is".
It's a shame our country is filled with such ignorant trash and run by our evil government. Maybe I will stay in Europe where no ones shit stinks; where a 8% unemployment rate and a 2% growth is celebrated. I'm sure GDP would be a lot higher and unemployment lower if they all werent so moral and by the book...
Europeans should be thanking Americans' grandparents that they are not speaking German right now?
Nice example of American ignorance if you ask me.
The roll the US played in WO II should not be marginalised, but that same roll is often glorified by Americans, which is just as bad, imo.
And if I should be thanking anyone's grandparents, it's Canadians'.
The first soldiers my mother saw when her city was 'liberated' were the Canadians, then the British, then the Americans and finally the Polish....
In all of this, let's not forget the huge role the 'resistance' had in numerous european countries. Their actions contributed greatly to the 'libration'.
As you said before, I'm glad we have all these Enlightened Europeans on the board today telling us how it "really is".
The thing is.. it happened on our soil, our parents were in the thick of it, we hear about it first hand, it is taught to us 'in depth' at school.. just as in the US, you learn about your civil war in depth (I would hope)..
I absolutely hate when people say america won the war, it fucking cunts me off something proper and is just so fucking disrespectful to the millions of people who died its unreal. Its also ignorance of the highest fucking order.
Anyway, to recap, the allies won the war, the nazi's lost
"I am a doughnut." (live - Berlin, Germany - 11/03/96)
"Behave like rock stars - not like the President." (live - Noblesville, IN - 8/17/98)
--Ed
"Yeah, I was gonna learn to play it (Breath) but somebody slipped me a bottle of viagra and was busy doing something else six times last night" (live - New York, NY - 9/10/98)
i just want to say i read through this whole thread and found it genuinely fascinating... best thread on the MT for a long time
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
The first soldiers my mother saw when her city was 'liberated' were the Canadians, then the British, then the Americans and finally the Polish....
In all of this, let's not forget the huge role the 'resistance' had in numerous european countries. Their actions contributed greatly to the 'libration'.
OK well we had a more hands off foreign policy then. You criticize and bitch either way. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.
England and France had two years to stop the Germans before they invaded Russia.
The war may have started on your soil yet it spilled onto ours bc you couldnt control it. Anyhow, I am getting away from this stupid computer.
Comments
In Operation Barbarossa yes.
Different than winter war.
Wasn't that the same shit?
I think the Russian Winter was a great factor on the Eastern Front.
Look at German Air Aces... the top aces on the Eastern Front had 200 - 300 kills, while the top Western Front Ace, Adolph Galland, scored 104 (many of those over Spain). The Russians weren't the best soldiers... but, damn... there were a lot of the buggers.
Hail, Hail!!!
Well same shit yes (=war) but different battles.
Barbarossa was when Hitler attacked Russia and winter war (not so well known outside nordic countries) was Finland against Russia.
Actually, there's a bit of a misconception there. Sure the winter conditions slowed up the war and thousands died in the terrible conditions, but it was in fact the mud that did the most damage over there. Once the thaw set in the germans became bogged down. Thousands drowned in the mud. And supplies by land to the Germans on the front line became impossible. The Russians took full advantage of this.
Yes and like i said the morale is different when you're on home soil defending and afterwards they were out to get even in Germany.
Yeah, the Finns kicked Russia's ass in 1939. An amazing victory. It was the Finnish ski troops who carried out a successful guerilla war against the Rooskies, if my memory serves me right?
It is fascinating. I mean the fact that the Germans came within 15 miles of Moscow before being literally frozen in their tracks, and the fact that Stalin had already boarded a train to take him East before changing his mind at the last minute and deciding to defend Moscow. There are just so many amazing stories involved with what happened over there. It became a story of an advanced, modern army against a proud and determined people fighting for their freedom. A battle of tactics. Marshall Zhukov really was the hero of world war 2 in my eyes. He was there at all the major battles and survived the war.
Exactly right. The Russians didn't use skis, only roads so during winter on a road in the middle of a forest surrounded by snow they were basically trapped.
Motti is a Finnish military slang for an encircled enemy unit. This tactic of envelopment was used extensively by the Finnish forces in the Winter War and the Continuation War to a good effect. Basically motti is a double envelope manoeuvre using bad going terrain and light troops to encircle an enemy restricted on good going or roads. Heavily outnumbered but mobile forces could easily immobilize an enemy twenty times larger than itself.
The idea was to cut the enemy columns or battlegroups into smaller groups and then encircle them by light and mobile forces, such as ski-troops during winter. This was especially effective against some of the mechanized units of the Soviet Army, as they were effectively restricted to the roads. The Finnish troops on the other hand could move quickly through the forests and strike weak points in the formations. The smaller pockets of enemies could then be dealt with individually by concentrating forces on them.
If the encircled enemy unit was too strong, or if attacking it would have caused unacceptable friendly casualties, e.g. because of a lack of heavy equipment, the motti was usually left to "cook" until it ran out of food, fuel, supplies and ammunition and was ready to be eliminated. Some of the larger mottis held until the end of the wars, because they were resupplied by air.
The word motti (originally borrowed from Swedish mått, "measure") means one cubic meter of firewood. When collecting firewood, the logs were cut and stacked in 1 m³ cubical stacks, which were left scattered in the woods to be picked up later.
The largest motti battles in the Winter War occurred at Battle of Suomussalmi. Three Finnish regiments enveloped and destroyed two Soviet divisions and tank brigade trapped on a road. (from wikipedia)
I don't know if i love this stuff since it's war but hearing stories from my grandfathers (R.I.P) and many like them you're kind of brought up appreciating what they did over here. Not to mention the compulsory military training we still have.
The Finns did indeed give the Soviets a beatdown. Also noteworthy is the fact that one of their fighter units (forget which one exactly) enjoyed the best kill to loss ratio (against Soviet aircraft) of ANY fighter unit in the war, including Luftwaffe units (who also racked up huge numbers).
While Stalingrad was the turning point, the war didn't end until 3 years after. It takes more than one battle to win a war. Following Stalingrad there was D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge as well as other battles. I wouldn't say the country that had the most killed means they won the war. This war was on European soil and Germany had tried to invade Russia. If the Germans had invaded the US there would have been more Americans killed. Americans traveled a long way to fight a war not on US soil during a period of time when that wasn't so easy.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/timeline/timeline2.html
The American Experience
Timeline: World War II in Europe
1939-1942 | 1943-1945
1939 August: The Russians and the Germans sign a non-aggression pact. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin agree not to invade each other's borders. The two leaders secretly plan to divide Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe between them.
September: Employing blitzkrieg (literally, "lightning war") tactics, Germany invades Poland. Polish military forces are unprepared for the ferocity of Germany's attack. When efforts to negotiate a withdrawal fail, Britain and France declare war on Germany. World War II begins.
1940
May: As Germany marches into Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, Winston Churchill replaces a disgraced Neville Chamberlain, the man responsible for the appeasement of Hitler, as prime minister of Great Britain.
June: Germany captures Paris, and France surrenders to the Nazis. Exacting revenge for his nation's defeat in the first World War, Hitler forces French officials to sign surrender papers in the same railroad car in which Germans signed the armistice of 1918.
July 10: The Battle of Britain begins. A three-month battle fought in the skies over Britain will include destructive bombing raids on London and other cities, but by the end of October, the British will hand Hitler his first defeat.
1941
March: President Franklin Roosevelt convinces a largely isolationist Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act, allowing the U.S. to sell or lend war materials to "any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States."
June: Roosevelt freezes German and Italian assets in the U.S.
August: Emerging from secret meetings conducted on warships off of Newfoundland, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt unveil the Atlantic Charter. The charter outlines goals concerning "the final destruction of Nazi tyranny," and a pledge to support "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live."
December 7: The United States is thrust into war when Japan launches a devastating surprise attack on the U.S. Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. President Franklin Roosevelt will ask the Congress to declare war on Japan the following day, December 8th.
December 11: Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.
1942
January: U.S. troops arrive in Europe. Through March, the number of troops shipped overseas averages about 50,000 per month -- a number that will soar upwards of 250,000 per month in 1944.
August: Germany begins its assault on the Russian city of Stalingrad. In a battle that will rage for six months, and take hundreds of thousands of German and Russian lives, the Red Army finally defeats invading Nazis. The long, bloody battle proves to be a turning point in the war, as Germany begins a retreat from the Eastern Front.
1943
January: Roosevelt and Churchill hold a conference at Casablanca, Morocco. They affirm their goal of securing the Axis nations' unconditional surrender.
May: U.S. troops led by Generals Dwight Eisenhower and George S. Patton join forces with British troops under the command of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to defeat German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in North Africa.
June: Eisenhower is appointed commander of the U.S. forces in Europe.
July - September: Allied forces capture Sicily and key spots in southern Italy. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is overthrown and imprisoned. Hitler dispatches German troops to fend off an Allied advance in what will be a series of hard fought, costly battles.
November: The "big three," Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, convene in Teheran, Iran to discuss the invasion of Italy. It is the first time all three have met.
December: Eisenhower is named supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
1944
February: German aircraft production centers are the target of a massive bombing campaign by the U.S. Army Air Corps. Shortly thereafter, more than six hundred U.S. bombers raid Berlin. Despite the devastation caused by the bombing, Germany is able to maintain weapons and aircraft production levels.
June: The Allies capture Rome, Italy.
May 30: The Allied invasion of France commences; troops based in England begin their mobilization to cross the Channel, in a massive effort code-named Operation Overlord. Eisenhower will wait for a good weather forecast to determine the exact day of the invasion.
June 5: Overlord is set into motion. An advance wave of paratroopers flies to drop spots over France late in the evening, and descends into enemy territory.
June 6: D-Day. Over 160,000 Allied troops and 30,000 vehicles are landed along a 50-mile stretch of fortified French coastline and begin fighting on the beaches of Normandy.
July: The Allies take control of the French port city of Cherbourg. The retreating Germans, however, have left the city badly razed and booby-trapped.
August : After four years of German occupation, the Allies liberate Paris with the help of French resistance troops led by General Charles de Gaulle.
December 16: The Battle of the Bulge begins. Hitler sends a quarter million troops across an 85-mile stretch of the Allied front, from southern Belgium into Luxembourg. In deadly cold winter weather, German troops will advance some 50 miles into the Allied lines, creating a deadly "bulge" pushing into Allied defenses.
1945
January: By the end of the month, the Battle of the Bulge ends. Over 76,000 Americans have been killed, wounded, or captured. The Allies regain the territory they held in early December.
February 4-11: The last meeting of the Big Three -- Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin -- takes place in the Soviet city of Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill agree to allow Stalin to control the governments of Eastern Europe at war's end, thereby setting the stage for future Cold War clashes.
March: U.S. forces cross the Rhine River. The Germans retreat into Germany.
April 30: As Soviet forces push into Berlin, Adolf Hitler takes shelter in his bombproof bunker. There, he marries his mistress, Eva Braun, before poisoning her and shooting himself. His remains will never be found.
May 7: General Dwight Eisenhower accepts Germany's unconditional surrender at Reims, France. Germany likewise surrenders to Russia in Berlin.
Churchill read it. He was an intellectual, though a bulldog. He won the Nobel Prize for literature, in 1953.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
Really, that dude was just dumb then haha. Or he didn't read it until half-way through the war. Don't ask me for any details.
Another ironic twist... The Germans used Charles De Gualle's tank warfare tactics to over run France's static Maginot Line.
Hail, Hail!!!
I always got a kick out of the one invasion, what was it Poland? When the German's crossed the marsh and none of the enemy was there to stop them, haha, fools.
There’s usually an ulterior motive when it comes to the US.
Paulaner comes to mind.
point proved.
And that would be?
Maybe the motive was rebuilding everyone's economy so that all can benefit. Including the US, (god forbid). Trading had to start again, and w/ Europe being destroyed, no trade would happen.
But no, had to be something much more sinister because the US initiated it.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
As you said before, I'm glad we have all these Enlightened Europeans on the board today telling us how it "really is".
It's a shame our country is filled with such ignorant trash and run by our evil government. Maybe I will stay in Europe where no ones shit stinks; where a 8% unemployment rate and a 2% growth is celebrated. I'm sure GDP would be a lot higher and unemployment lower if they all werent so moral and by the book...
The first soldiers my mother saw when her city was 'liberated' were the Canadians, then the British, then the Americans and finally the Polish....
In all of this, let's not forget the huge role the 'resistance' had in numerous european countries. Their actions contributed greatly to the 'libration'.
The thing is.. it happened on our soil, our parents were in the thick of it, we hear about it first hand, it is taught to us 'in depth' at school.. just as in the US, you learn about your civil war in depth (I would hope)..
Anyway, to recap, the allies won the war, the nazi's lost
"Behave like rock stars - not like the President." (live - Noblesville, IN - 8/17/98)
--Ed
"Yeah, I was gonna learn to play it (Breath) but somebody slipped me a bottle of viagra and was busy doing something else six times last night" (live - New York, NY - 9/10/98)
--Ed
OK well we had a more hands off foreign policy then. You criticize and bitch either way. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.
England and France had two years to stop the Germans before they invaded Russia.
The war may have started on your soil yet it spilled onto ours bc you couldnt control it. Anyhow, I am getting away from this stupid computer.
Keep on spewing...