Posted on 01/04/2015 9:01:57 AM PST by shoedog
Not really. They and academe and their extension in Hollywood and TV are actually drivers. That's why Dzherzhinsky sent his reptiles after them first.
The media, it were better said, are a tool.
bump
Oh, I surely did NOT mean to paint all our young men with one big broad brush. We still have plenty of red blooded men ready, willing & able to fight, thank G-d. But the American male is now being idealized more as Pajama Boy than Bruce Willis. Those guys in our various overseas theaters are all MEN, in my book. It’s just a disgrace that they have their hands tied by Odungo, almost as if he WANTS them to be killed, to help out his Muzzie true affiliations. He is a Satan who needs to go.
Lets examine part of the historical record of World War II and contextualize it with respect to how contemporary critics of US military actions might critique them with their post modern sensibilities.
If one wishes to adopt the outlook of the contemporary critics of the Iraq enterprise, than World War II could have been characterized as an endless quagmire that we could never win. Relatively few people are aware that the strategic bombing campaign in 1943 nearly ground to a halt when the deep penetration raids into Germany were called off after the staggering heavy bomber losses of the Schweinfurt and Regensberg missions. (So brilliantly characterized in the great World War II movie “12 o’clock High”) There were no loud public howls about the fact that the self defending bomber formation concept was flawed and had revealed itself to be so by the Army Air Force not having a long-range fighter escort ready at the time. We are so used to the Air Force sustaining almost no casualties in current day operations that we often forget that the 8th Air Force based in England suffered more dead (26,000) than the entire Marine Corps did in World War II (less than 20,000) There were no loudly public howls of quagmire, quagmire we can’t win this.
How about the night naval battle off Savo Island, Guadalcanal in August of 1942 in which the United States Navy, defeated by a Japanese navy far better versed in night fighting tactics, sailed away and left 16,000 Marines stranded on Guadalcanal and Tulagi with no immediate hope of resupply? There weren’t any howls of quagmire, quagmire we can’t win.
How about the slaughter off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States in 1942 in which the U-boats of the German Kreigsmarine during Operation Drumbeat sunk 500 allied merchant and navy ships in a six-month period in the greatest naval disaster in United States history? There was an almost incomprehensible failure to develop an efficient convoy escort system despite the lessons of World War I. Again no howls of quagmire, quagmire we can’t win, let’s make the Secretary of War and Chief of Naval Operations resign.
How about the Kasserine pass in Tunisia in February of 1943? The tough panzergrenadiers of Rommel’s Afrika Corps soundly defeated and routed green American troops, sending them into pell mell retreat. Again no howls of quagmire, quagmire these Germans are just too battle hardened and ruthless to beat.
Relatively little is known of the bloody check inflicted on units of the 1st, 4th, 28th, and 9th infantry divisions by the Germans during the battle of Huertegen Forest during Sep- Nov of 1944 as a prelude to the Battle of the Bulge. The men of these units were attrited horribly in one the most soul destroying campaigns in American history, comparable to the Wilderness and Cold Harbor campaigns of the Civil War. Ernest Hemingway called it “Passchendale with tree bursts.” Or the Battle of the Bulge’s disastrous opening on the Schnee Eifel in Belgium where intelligence failures allowed a totally surprised American Army to lose to captivity two whole infantry regiments of the 106th infantry division in the opening rounds of the battle, and a total of over 20,000 dead in the greatest pitched battle of US history? Again no howls of quagmire, quagmire we just can’t win.
Or how about the defeat inflicted on the allies during Operation Market Garden (a Bridge Too Far) in 1944 when everyone knew that the Germans were already beaten? Or the horrendous losses off Okinawa? Or the failure to ensure sufficient numbers of tracked landing craft at Tarawa due to a misinterpretation of the meteorological conditions affecting the tides around Betio atoll? Nearly 1,000 Marines died in a 76 hour battle for an atoll smaller than Manhattan’s Central Park, many because they had to wade hundreds of yards to shore from Betio’s lagoon after their landing craft hung up on the reef. Or the largely unnecessary Pelielu campaign in which 1,800 were killed and 8,500 wounded? Or the bloody repulse at Italy’s Rapido River in January of 1944, or the grinding stalemate at Anzio or the entire checkmated Italian campaign, hopelessly bogged down in the Liri Valley before Monte Cassino? Even though the Rapido River attack generated enormous controversy, culminating in a congressional inquiry, it did not commence until the war was over. Or, due to logistical failures, the inability to maintain the pressure on a retreating German Army, which had been shattered in Normandy, which allowed it to refit and regroup behind the Westwall, lengthening the war and costing thousands of lives. Again no howls of quagmire, quagmire we can’t win. Or the inexplicable failure to close the trap on some 40,000 cornered Axis troops in Sicily, who escaped across the straits of Messina, to further bedevil the Allies in Italy?
Ill-considered, incorrect strategic and tactical decisions by Allied leadership cost tens of thousands of Allied troops their lives, their health and the failure to achieve objectives. We often forget that World War II was no unrelieved string of victories until the final triumph. We often suffered defeat on the battlefield, sometimes catastrophic ones, but we prevailed because we knew that we had to, since the alternative to victory was just too bitter to contemplate. In 1944, after the Tarawa bloodbath was over, there was an enormous controversy over whether or not to show the gruesome color film shot by combat cameramen of dead Marines floating in the lagoon of Betio, their bloated, rapidly decomposing corpses turning black in the hot equatorial sun and piled in ragged heaps on the beach. It was feared that the hideous sights would damage home front morale too much. The decision was made by President Roosevelt to release the film and trust that this would impress upon the public the gravity of the maelstrom that their sons were being flung into. The decision was correct. War bond sales skyrocketed after the release of the film, and war production soared as the American people realized that their support for the war effort would help to return their men with victory in hand that much sooner. I fear that the present day home front has been too demoralized by the cultural marxits that comprise too many of today’s journ-o-lists to exhibit much of of the same stern stuff as its antecedent.
America’s fighting forces of World War II responded to the above described setbacks with a mix of determination, grim courage, innovation, and a uniquely American quality that historian Victor Davis Hanson terms as “Civic Militarism.” This can be characterized as a combination of virtues possessed by soldiers of those societies that inculcate their armies with the sense that their military contributions are derived from a sense of participatory citizenship.
That is an excellent post, a great description.
As far as
“We often forget that World War II was no unrelieved string of victories until the final triumph.”
My personal connection to the reality of that was my father, on December 7th, 1941, he wss in Tarakan, Borneo, his and the few ships from other allied nations had a lonely and deadly time of it so far away, and so deep in hostile territory. His light cruiser had to journey for 16,000 miles and 4 months time trying to stay afloat and avoid the enemy, before it reached the states for repairs after it was badly damaged in battle, and in danger of sinking, during that journey they had, had to abandon wounded shipmates in Tjilatjap, Java, as the Japanese Army was sweeping in victoriously.
He got to be there for Normandy as victory was hopeful, but he had also experienced the dark days of the beginning, when he and his shipmates started the war a long way from the patriotic, confident war fever of the United States homeland, and our massive war mobilization.
“...But the American male is now being idealized more as Pajama Boy than Bruce Willis....”
By psychotics, yes. By normal folk, not so much.
But I get your point.
Lowered standards got us Manning, and possibly Bergdahl.
We would’ve surrendered when the Japanese landed in Hawaii.
I scanned this thread. Noted comments about and against FDR. But I will say this FOR the man.....
I’m watching World War II by Ken Burns. Excellent stuff. And what I heard last night astonished me.
They played a clip of President Roosevelt leading the nation in prayer for the safety of our troops and for freedom to prevail. It was a powerful prayer.
Fast forward to now. Could you imagine Obama leading a prayer? Maybe to Allah, but not the Lord.
Could you imagine the anger, hatred and outrage if Bush or even Clinton had bowed their heads and lead the nation in prayer to God?
Obama has claimed this is NOT a Christian nation. Maybe. But it used to be. And I believe God did deliver the world from tyranny, Socialism and mass murdering Nazis. Because men like FDR prayed to God.
” Think about it. “
oh I do , every day
Was sagen Sie?
” ‘USAAF did operate with a large degree of de facto autonomy. It was always staffed by volunteers, so the problems that came with draftees were largely absent.’
I don’t think so since the Army was 93% draftees, I believe you mean that the Army pilots were volunteers, not everyone in the Army air forces.”
I defer to ansel12. Memory is not what it once was.
To the best of my knowledge, all USAAF aircrew were volunteers. Lots more involved than mere pilots, in every other aircraft type, especially bombers: in B-17s, B-24s etc the enlisted technicians outnumbered the commissioned officers almost two to one. A majority were aerial gunners.
_Training to Fly_ by Rebecca Hancock Cameron (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2012; ISBN-10: 1477547762; ISBN-13: 978-1477547762) provides an in-depth treatment. She has written the only study ever published on the topic.
A major purpose of the draft is to get the men where they don’t want to be, pilot is not one of those jobs that men avoid, but I would have to see how the Army handled assigning other jobs related to aviation.
“Terror bombing, like torture, not only was immoral but it didn’t work. Dresden certainly had nothing to do with victory, and was mere vindictiveness. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only useful if you cared about unconditional surrender, which we shouldn’t have. But even if we did all we needed to do was sit on Japan, which was helpless. Neither invasion nor mass slaughter were required.
What did victory get us, whether or not murdering civilians was necessary? Our Gallant Ally Russia in charge of nearly as much as the big, bad Nazis and Japs conquered, and 50 or so years of Cold War and a never-ending commitment to being World Police. All the evils that come with empire.”
tubalcane pines for the pre-1860 Agrarian Republic. Which - yearnings of libertarians and paleocon nostalgia addicts nothwithstanding - never existed. Imperialism, then, is unavoidable; the only question left is, how do we deal with the empire we’re stuck with? Americans are not entirely without flaws, but I prefer an empire run by Americans, to an empire run by anyone else.
tubalcane writes just like many revisionists: we won the Second World War, therefore the issue was never in doubt, therefore there was no need for US forces to do ugly deeds. Deeds that an overly pampered, overly prissy coterie of latter-day moralizers are pleased to condemn, three generations after.
Especially that mean, unfair strategic bombardment stuff.
30 to 90 seconds with a map ought to dispel any doubts about Dresden; it was a transport nexus. Therefore, it was a key target. The only way to deny Germans the use of it was to strike it exactly as the RAF and USAAF raids did. To say otherwise is to play the Nazi propaganda game - not a pleasant prospect, even at this late date. Did the residents suffer? Undeniably. Why should any of us care?
The Home Islands of Dai Nihon were becoming ever more completely cut off by mid 1945. But a very large fraction of the Imperial Japanese Army stood firm on occupied territory in northeastern China. Blockade had worked in the past and was working then, but it was a slow process. All what-ifs are irreducibly speculative, but it’s a safe bet many more millions would have starved, contending with the winter of 1945-1946, and even greater numbers would have perished throughout the following year. Many, many more times than the actual number who met their end in Allied air strikes.
The only puzzle here is why tubalcane and like-minded forum members believe they are morally superior to the rest of us, when they poormouth decisions of wartime leaders, taken 70 years in the past or earlier yet.
tubalcane seems to be telling us it’s better to be moral than to be effective. A pretty sentiment, perhaps, but it falls short of workable policy even in peacetime. And in wartime, it invites ruin and defeat. After which, all talk of morality stops.
“terror-bombing”?
Terror bombing was what Germany did to other countries. On purpose. The allies responded. You do realize, tubalcane, that WW2 bombs were very inaccurate, don’t you? A bomb landing a half-mile or more from the target was a “hit” very often.
It could take thousands of bombers dropping tens of thousands of bombs to knock out a ball-bearing factory. The factory might be located in a city. Bombing the nexus of the German railroad was an important target, as it was in Dresden.
I wouldn’t get my WW2 history from Ken Burns.
FDR’s idea of freedom was communism, “freedom from want” and all that
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