Posted on 01/29/2015 4:43:33 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Shows the difference between replacing a state as in the De-Nazification of Germany compared to creating a nation as we attempted to do in Iraq. Even before unification there was the concept of a German Nation so the victorious Allies were just trying to reconstitute a state not a nation.
The French nuclear carrier Charles De Gaulle is roughly the same size as our old Wasp class Amphibious Assault Ships, such as Iwo Jima, LHD-7.
Russia's Kuznetsov is somewhat larger, fully loaded, having more the dimensions of a Nimitz class than even America class amphibious assault carriers.
USS America class:.jpg&ei=rJvKVOrrJ8vgggTSroDABw&psig=AFQjCNGutsHnVf_EWF2Y58DkMaNLYQxPYQ&ust=1422650668723488)
Once in a while we read the Brits are getting back in the large carrier business, but then later, budget cuts take them back out.
Can't say where that stands today...
International relations are all about power. The USSR was going to have it, the British Empire was ready for a “going out of business sale.” The adults who play international politics as a serious game with high stakes don’t play for sentimental favorites.
The cold reality was that the United States and the USSR were going to be the two top powers in the world, so it makes sense to deal with each other. What didn’t make sense was trying to trust a guy like Stalin. To the extent Churchill was trying to warn FDR of that, FDR was foolish to not listen. Unfortunately, Chuchill also spent too much time trying to get FDR to preserve the British Empire, and that was a non-starter for FDR.
PS: I sometimes worry that the United States today is in the same relative power position as the British Empire at the close of World War 2, but maybe worse off. Barack Hussein 0bama is no Winston Churchill.
The Kuznetsov does look more like a fleet carrier, but for Russia, the Kuznetsov is a one-off construct. They build one, we build a dozen.
Japan had that problem too.
Hmm? Soviets take Memel. I guess that means the veteran Wiener is dead.
No Viagra back then?
LOL! Nope. In Guy Sajer's book The Forgotten Soldier, Wiener the machingunner extraordinaire was known as the veteran. He presumably died in rearguard action at Memel.
I may have read something about him recently, but I may be confusing him with three or four I've read about recently whose WW2 machine-gunning exploits brought well-deserved notoriety. Seems like a machine-gunner wouldn't have the chance to rack up a long, distinguished record, though, being such an important target; isn't that what rifle-grenades, mortars, and Audie Murphy were for?
By the way, with his movie star earnings ol' Audie retired to a 100± acre ranch near my home in Menifee, CA, midway between LA and SD, inland. It's recently been turned into a housing tract called, appropriately enough, Audie Murphy Ranch. So, at least locally, his memory lives on.
Now that I think of it, defensibility might have mattered to him then, too. That ranch-house was atop a hill with good sightlines.
I thought I read that all of the defendants at Nuremberg picked Nazi lawyers and were allowed to use them. This probably did not win them any sympathy from the judges.
Hitler was only in power 12 years. German memory easily stretched back to the pre-Nazi era. There were many non-Nazis and anti-Nazis still around who had managed to survive.
It was different when the USSR fell after 75 years and Russia had no democratic tradition to remember.
What tradition does Iraq have besides Saddam? The country is a British creation, wedged between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
“This does not include the 70 some CVEs we built,”
70? More like 123 if you count the ones we gave the Brits. And you aren’t counting the 9 CVLs.
No problem. Over the years the topic of Guy sajer's book The Forgotten Sodier occasionally comes up among Homer's students.
I may have read something about him recently, but I may be confusing him with three or four I've read about recently whose WW2 machine-gunning exploits brought well-deserved notoriety.
My guess is that you read of others.
Seems like a machine-gunner wouldn't have the chance to rack up a long, distinguished record, though, being such an important target; isn't that what rifle-grenades, mortars, and Audie Murphy were for?
True. The machinegun attracts a lot of attention. However Sajer's description of Wiener is that of a natural soldier. He was credited with saving their squad from certain destruction innumerable times. Finally at Memel, a morbid fatalism overcame him and he waved his comrads away to go board an evacuation ship leaving just him, his MG-42 and a few ammo cans versus the Red Army.
Just extrapolating here, but it sounds like perhaps his identity had become intertwined with "saving [his] squad from certain destruction." Now, with all of them leaving, he could only do that by staying, alone. The Grand Gesture.
That's possible but the way it is presented is in such a way that the reader can conclude that the veteran who by now is 35-36 years old recognizes the war is lost, does not want to return to Germany and a civilian life that prior to the war he was not doing well at.
One can presume that as a civilian, he had difficulty maintaining stable relationships, or holding a steady job and that such jobs never amounted to more than manual labor.
Soldiering was the only thing in life that he ever did well at and soldiering would be what he would spend the rest of his life doing.
When in the war the veteran first saw combat is not mentioned but he did reportedly take part in the drive into the Caucasus in 1942.
Through many hardships he was described as calm... possessing coping mechanisms enabling him to sleep comfortably in the worst of conditions.
At Memel, the veteran must have recognized that the squads final position was an easily defended one and that that would be where he made his stand doing something that he excelled at. When he told the squad to leave, he said that there was nothing in Germany for him.
Thereby giving God short shrift, as though either He couldn't intervene in his circumstances or else enable him to become productive and content regardless. Hell was hardly likely to be an improvement.
I see a good object lesson here--no doubt God is speaking to me through your explanation. Thanks for serving as His (perhaps unwitting) conduit.
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