The U.S.A. had already broken the Japanese code and knew about the Aleutian Islands feint. We sent some U.S. Army troops (I believe that they included units of the California National Guard) up there just to make it look good, but the focus was Midway Island. The Japanese were being "set up for the kill". It was no accident that the U.S.A. was focused on Midway Island. The Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands was dubious in my opinion. There is no strategic value in the region, and it was difficult to provision. It was clearly a feint. Interesting factoids. The Americans bombed some oil refineries in northern Japan very late in WWII just to prevent the Soviets from taking them. By 1945, American leaders had finally determined that the Soviet Union was probably as big a threat to America as Nazi Germany. The Soviets had already stolen B-29s and held airmen in captivity. We suspected that the Soviets would make a play for the northern Japanese Islands on the basis of our early WWII treaty with them. Truman was backing off the relationship that Roosevelt had established in the early 40s. The American bombings of northern Japanese oil refineries happened AFTER Hiroshima and Nagasaki! In fact, the Emperor of Japan was saved from a botched Imperial Army cue by a serendipitous blackout that occurred over Tokyo on the night of the failed cue. The blackout was ordered because of the American air raid on the northern oil refineries. The raid and blackout coincided with the night when the Emperor had decided to surrender and sign the capitulation documents.
I agree that it was a diversion to send the Americans scurrying to protect the Aleutian Islands while they took Midway. With Midway bases they would have been able to use their larger land based bombers to hit the Americans in Hawaii and take the Americans out in one punch, but as you note by that time the Japanese naval code had been broken, and the Americans let the Japanese basically occupy Attu and Kiska while fortifying Midway. Midway has to have been one of the most decisive battles the American Navy has ever fought, for with basically not having a whole lot of ships or aircrafts, they fought off and started the destruction of the Japanese navy, from which it NEVER recovered. Roosevelt was basically incapacitated by the time that he met with J I Stalin at Yalta, he was only really weeks from dying, and he really was ineffectual during that conference. However the USSR did not "steal" the B-29 bombers, they were flown into what was technically "non-combatant" territory and they were seized. Similarly Switzerland and Sweden seized aircrafts that USA aircrews flew into their territories during WWII. I cannot say for Sweden, but Switzerland definately protected it's airspace zealously, in fact they downed several German BF-109 fighters with their own BF-109's which had been previously purchased from Germany before WWII. Sweden impressed several USA aircrafts into their air force when they were repaired. Which worked out for the Americans and the Japanese, because had the Emperor been killed, and he was not there to end the conflict, surely an invasion in November 1945 would have taken place and resulted in hundreds of thousands of American and Japanese deaths. History will determine Emperor Hirohito's culpability in the conflict, surely he did not end it when he could have, but had he not ended it when he finally got around to it, it saved Japan and many American lives.
The Soviets stole those B-29s, plain and simple, and they behaved dishonorably with their most important wartime allie. We should have ignored the Soviets from the beginning of the war, delayed the D-Day Invasion, and invaded Germany from the south. Comparing the Soviet Union in WWII with Switzerland and Sweden is almost unimaginable.
You need to sit back and think, who was in the control of USSR? And then differentiate "they" from "him". Had J I Stalin not been the leader in power, and USSR had any leader with even minimal capacities instead, the war of 1941-1945 would not likely have happened. Stalin was so busy prior to the opening of the war with killing off his officer corp in the army that he ignored Richard Sorge's reports coming in from Japan that Germany was going to invade USSR in the summer of 1941. Americans honorably differentiated USSR from Stalin, the Americans did not help Stalin so much as they helped the people of USSR. Had the USA and USSR not fought the war against the fascists together, the fascists would have controlled Europe from Ireland all the way to the Ural mountains. And we all would be dead or servants to the aryans
It was his fathers fault. His father flew a plane off an aircraft carrier so in effect Bush Sr. was supporting the oil companies that made the fuel that the plane used. Which in turn would also make the son guiity by association. Twisting reality is really easy, shame that the truth seems to need to be constantly proven to be believed. Stalin evil, people born into the Soviet Union under the communist rule, victims. I think the world would have been a much better place if the first russian revolution was successful with maintaining power. But they made their own mistakes so there is no finger of blame just reasons.
If it had been Bush's fault, we'd still be fighting WWII. Fortunately, we had competent leaders that had a military that knew what to do and what we couldn’t or shouldn’t do. I’m not in the least against the war on terrorism. I just wish it could be fought intelligently without the need to waste our son’s and daughter's lives on foolish trumped up crusades.
There were plenty of military blunders in WWII, but that is the case in all wars. What I think distinguishes some wars being fought today is that we do way too much to avoid civilian casualties; even to the detriment of our soldiers. Plus, Bush started the war without any authority to do so, the Congress only is able to declare war, and if he can't even start a war right; how can he finish one??? Craig
Prior to WWII civilian casualties in wartime were rare and usually accidental rather than purposeful. In the early days of WWII German bombers attacking London, England navigated off course and bombed a civilian area, in retaliation the British then attacked German civilian areas, which prompted the Germans to wholesale attack at will any area in England. In one still debated incident in the war, German bombers attacked Ireland, which was throughout the war neutral, but still had many soldiers serving in the British army and workers in Britains factories, and it has been theorised the attack in Ireland was deliberate rather than an accident as the Germans claimed afterwards. In every conflict since WWII there has been a much higher percentage of civilian casualties than in prior wars, probably because of this concept of "total war" which exists in theory since WWII.
This should NEVER be forgotten... >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It was market day in Guernica when the church bells of Santa Maria sounded the alarm that afternoon in 1937. People from the surrounding hillsides crowded the town square. "Every Monday was a fair in Guernica," says José Monasterio, eyewitness to the bombing. "They attacked when there were a lot of people there. And they knew when their bombing would kill the most. When there are more people, more people would die." For over three hours, twenty-five or more of Germany's best-equipped bombers, accompanied by at least twenty more Messerschmitt and Fiat Fighters, dumped one hundred thousand pounds of high-explosive and incendiary bombs on the village, slowly and systematically pounding it to rubble. http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/guernica/glevel_1/1_bombing.html >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Warm Up for Poland I guess???
European wars, in fact wars around the world, were focused on killing civilians. All the Miedieval wars involved killing innocent civilians. The same was true in the ancient world. Civilians always got smoked because they could not defend themselves. Napolean generally avoid killing civilians. I am not sure how many civilians were killed in the Franc-Prussian War. Look at what the Turks did to the Armenians during WWI. WWII was Medieval, but look at what also happened in China after WWII. Look at Africa and Cambodia. I think a lot of civilians will die when the Muslims torch-off a suitcase nuke in Los Angeles.
I agree Quickdog. and as the old saying goes, "The army is the safest place to be in during a time of war". The stats of civilians killed during time of warfare is amazing never mind the issue of rapes. One of many examples would be what the Japanese did in China and with the Koreans before and during World War II. Now the saddest and most dangerous thing is the fact that we have a religion of over 1 billion and two hundred million that preaches page after page, passage after passage on waging war on cilivians.
Well now that is an issue that Americans can debate about as Americans. What is the best course of action to fight the threats against us. Should we have gone into Saudi Arabia? Should we have gone into Iran? Should we have not gone into Iraq unless we also took out Syria? What is the best action to take now? Should our troops be given more air support? Should proxy military forces be used more or less depending on the location? Should be have a shake up with the decision makers? After all Lincoln made quite a few changes depending on results during the civil war. Another question is should we still have Army Rangers training elite fighting forces within muslim nations like Jordan and Turkey. After all, could that training be turned against us by members of those said muslim exiting the military and becoming high priced terrorists themselves.
