We're gonna take you back, to the year 1939 when Charlie Chaplin and his Nazi regime enslaved Europe and tried to take over the world.. But then an even greater force emerged, the "un" and the U.N. un-nazied the world - forever.
Posted on 05/04/2015 12:45:46 PM PDT by massmike
It was the good war, fought by the Greatest Generation. It was a war for the survival of civilization. It was the deadliest conflict in history. It was America's finest hour.
May 8 marks the 70th anniversary of VE Day – the end of World War II in Europe.
Images flash before us – Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper said to guarantee "peace for our time," Hitler giving a stiff-arm salute at a Nuremberg rally, a Czech woman weeping as panzers rolled into Prague, a smiling FDR wearing his naval cape, his cigarette holder at a jaunty angle, Churchill flashing a victory sign, GIs wading ashore on Omaha Beach, skeletal survivors in a liberated death camp, and a Russian soldier raising the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building above the ruins of Berlin.
The war that ended on May 8, 1945 began with the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919), which, despite its reputed harshness, did little to stop a resurgence of German militarism. When he saw the treaty, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, France's last World War I commander, famously remarked: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years." Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 – 20 years and 65 days later.
Over 60 million died in the Second World War – 3% of the world's population in 1939. The death toll included 291,557 U.S. servicemen. More than 800,000 were wounded. There were 464 Medals of Honor awarded, many posthumously.
In the three months leading up to Germany's unconditional surrender – Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz, where an estimated 1.1 million were murdered, on January 30th. On the Western Front, 1.5 million Germans were taken prisoner. FDR died on April 12th. Mussolini was executed on April 28th. The U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division entered Dachau, on the outskirts of Munich, on April 29th. GIs who were no strangers to carnage were so appalled by the condition of survivors that some of them machine-gunned German guards. Hitler committed suicide on April 30th.
May 8 was the end of the war in Europe. In the Pacific, fighting raged for another three months. On June 22, the Marines captured Okinawa after 82 days of brutal fighting and more than 14,000 Americans dead. On August 6, a mushroom cloud sprouted over Hiroshima. On August 14, 1945 crowds in Times Square celebrated VJ Day.
On November 20, 1945, the Nuremberg Trials began, offering a small degree of justice to Nazism's victims. And on May 14, 1948 – almost three years to the day after Germany's surrender – the State of Israel was proclaimed. The people Hitler tried to annihilate rose from the ashes to reestablish a Jewish state after 2,000 years of exile.
World War II isn't ancient history. In the United States, more than a million veterans of the war are still alive, though their median age is 92 and we are, on average, losing 423 every day.
Who will remember them when they and their children are gone?
In a 1998 National Assessment of Education survey, more than half of 12th graders couldn't pick out one of our WWII allies from a short list. Some thought Germany and Italy fought on our side. A 2008 survey found that about a quarter of teens were unable to identify Adolf Hitler as the leader of Germany during World War II.
In a poll by London's Daily Telegraph, 61% of British youth didn't know the war was sparked by the invasion of Poland. One in 10 thought Germany was invaded. For Millennials, Eisenhower, Patton, MacArthur and Montgomery might as well be the starting lineup of the Patriots' Super Bowl team.
Ignorance will not save us. The Europe of 2015 looks increasingly like the Europe of 1935.
In the last year, Jews have been murdered by religion of peaceniks in Paris, Brussels and Copenhagen. (Heil jihad?) From Malmo to Marseille, assaults on men wearing skull caps and women wearing the Star of David are common.
Shouts of "Hitler was Right!," and "Death to the Jews!:" are SOP at anti-Israel rallies on the continent. Writing in Mosaic Magazine, French Jewish author Michel Gurfinkiel notes, "Polls show as many as 40% of Europeans holding the opinion that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians." This is doubtless why the Arab population of the West Bank has grown by 29% since the year 2000.
Iran is the Third Reich reborn.
Before the Wehrmacht began goose-stepping across Europe, who took Hitler seriously? The funny little man with a Charlie Chaplin mustache can't actually mean what he says, Europeans told each other. Today, apologists for Iran tell us Ahmadinejad never vowed to wipe Israel off the map. It was a mistranslation. Besides, he didn't mean it.
Britain and France gave Hitler the Sudetenland, making the rest of Czechoslovakia indefensible. The dismemberment of Israel to create a terrorist enclave would give the Jewish state what's been called Auschwitz borders.
In 2012, President Obama told a Jewish audience "I have Israel's back." By the end of June, the administration and its partners in appeasement are set to enter an agreement with Iran's psycho-killer regime that will result in lifting sanctions, which in turn will facilitate Tehran's nuclear weapons program.
Speaking in the Rose Garden on April 2, the president said the pact would be an "historic understanding with Iran, which if fully implemented will prevent it from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon." All that was missing was the umbrella.
But the analogy is imperfect. Hitler never led his people in chants of "Death to England" or promised to wipe France off the face of map. Roosevelt prayed publically, including in his D-Day prayer. Obama says Christians have to get off their high horse. Naïve though he was, Neville Chamberlain loved his country.
On VE Day plus 70, "never again" has a hollow ring – the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe, an ideology set on world conquest, and appeasement by leaders so detached from reality that they may as well inhabit an alternate dimension.
If you meet a World War II vet, thank him, gratefully shake his hand, and make a silent vow that the sacrifices his generation made shall not have been in vain.
“If you meet a World War II vet, thank him, gratefully shake his hand, and make a silent vow that the sacrifices his generation made shall not have been in vain.”
Sadly once they are all gone history will be re-written. It has already begun.
I think I saw Kaufmanns and the Smithfield Street Bridge. Mom remembers seeing them make landing craft here and rode on one at an exhibit. My parents were just young kids then.
I went to school in the 1960’s.
70-80 years before that was the Spanish American War. As a high school student I could hardly tell you anything that caused that war other than the Battleship Maine, and the Teddy Roosevelt charged his men up San Juan hill.
WWII, while fresh in our collective minds from our fathers and elder uncles, is ancient history to high schoolers of today.
For example, a few years ago Dane Cook, a comedian, did a bit about jumping into a pool that had fire on the water from gas or some such thing. Our kids found the bit amusing—in a dark humor kind of way.
My wife and I (in our mid forties at the time) were aghast. We had heard stories from our uncles about jumping off sinking ships into oil burning on the water—and the horrible burns that such a thing caused. We would never, ever, find a comedy routine about such a thing funny. It would be like telling concentration camp jokes.
It is the fading of memories and the progression of time. The Spanish War monument at Arlington is mostly unvisited. Yet at one time it was a main “attractiion” there.
WWII will just be remembered in the movies and by a few history buffs.
“In Color”
I said Grandpa what’s this picture here
It’s all black and white, and it ain’t real clear
Is that you there, he said yeah, I was eleven
And times were tough, back in thirty-five
That’s me and Uncle Joe just tryin’ to survive
A cotton farm, in the Great Depression
And if it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should’ve seen it in color
This one here was taken overseas
In the middle of hell, in nineteen forty-three
In the winter time, you can almost see my breath
That was my tail gunner ole’ Johnny McGee
He was a high school teacher from New Orleans
And he had my back, right through the day we left
If it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should’ve seen it in color
A picture’s worth a thousand words
But you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered
You should’ve seen it in color
And this one is my favorite one
This is me and grandma in the, summer sun
All dressed up, the day we said our vows
You can’t tell it here but it was hot that June
And that rose was red and her eyes were blue
And just look at that smile, I was so proud
That’s the story of my life
Right there in black and white
And if it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should’ve seen it in color
Yeah a picture’s worth a thousand words
But you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered
You should’ve seen it in color
(Should’ve seen it in color)
(written by Miller, Lee Thomas / Johnson, Jamey Van / Otto, James)
I was visiting my wife in a hospital and a nurse asked me if I was a WWII guy. I said "Yes" and she asked me if I was at the battle of Bunker Hill. So we might look bad but that would really be old. I'll have to ask my wife. She still looks good. Some of us are still around. Thank God.
I believe the number of American KIA in WW2 was about 435,000.
We're gonna take you back, to the year 1939 when Charlie Chaplin and his Nazi regime enslaved Europe and tried to take over the world.. But then an even greater force emerged, the "un" and the U.N. un-nazied the world - forever.
All they’ll teach about WWII was that the Soviet Union defeated HItler single-handedly, we interned Japanese citizens, and dropped nukes on brown people.
You can do more than that while there is still time. Find the local chapter of ‘’Veterans Of The Battle Of The Bulge’’, ‘’VBOB’’ for short and join as an associate member. I did. Chapter 56, Ft. Monmouth, NJ(Ft. Monmouth is closed now.) The Battle of The Bulge is the single largest, costliest and longest battle the US Army ever fought and so the over whelming majority of vets from the ETO who are still with us fought in this battle. Do quick if you plan to. The old vets are dying at a rate of about 1,000 a day.
I have to laugh.
When my girls were in school they came home with the BS about dropping the bomb. At the time, my mother in law was 88 and living with us. We had to physically restrain her from driving to school to talk to the teacher about WWII and her brother getting his leg blown off in the Philippines.
We settled by sending in a letter home from one of our uncles written the day after the bomb was dropped and the “GI Joe” reaction to it.
Two out of three frontline infantry in Europe—casualties.
I know. My late Uncle Fred nearly had his head blown off during The Bulge serving with the 84th. Infantry Division.
And Hitler told his Generals, “Our enemies are worms, I saw them in Munich.”
My great uncle died in the attack by German E-boats on transports during a pre-Dday training exercise. A lot of troops died that day.
You mean Slapton Sands? My God, how horrible. God Bless him. There was another tragedy of WW2 not many people know about. The awful fate of the 66th. Infantry Division. On Christmas Eve, 1944 a troopship carrying the division, badly needed for the fighting in The Ardenne was torpedoed in the English Channel and some 800 men went down with the ship. It was horrible.
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