Rosemary

It is very easy to make a statement like that but if it had been your countrymen dying whilst fighting an aggressor that did not even declare war before they attacked and you were in charge what would your answer be, "oh yes let thousands more of my fellow compatriots die, cannot upset the aggressor." Personally I would class that as an act of treason.
If you want to ask what was wrong then query the two locations and the same with Dresden which to my mind should have been classed as a war crime and did nothing to hasten the end of the war but just killed thousands of civilians.
As to the war was over try telling that to my brother in law who was still fighting them after the war had officially ended along with many others to say that their forces were finished is certainly not true.
I am of an age when I worked with many ex soldiers from WW2 plus many in my family and yes there were lots of inhumane acts by our troops but, and it is a big but, if your comrades are being killed around you on a daily basis do you really mean to tell me that you would just be a good person and perform all of your duties by the book.
War is despicable and makes monsters out of any of us that are involved, I believe that you are correct in much of what you have posted but never try to rationalise war, it is a political creation and one thing that politics and politicians is not is rational.
The day the ordinary people of the world tell the politicians what to do when they decide that they want to leave their mark on history will be the greatest day that mankind has ever seen but I am afraid that people are sheep and believe the crap that they are fed.

Graham

cricketman

Agree 100%

jimenato

So what is the allied equivalent of the Germans killing 6 million Jews and others in concentration camps? And Germany invaded Russia so how was it not Russia's war?

The first atomic bomb was dropped on August 6th 1945, on the 8th the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded on the 9th. A second bomb was dropped on the same day. The emperor didn't announce the surrender until the 15th August.

Also ask any Pole about the Russian 'heroics' in Warsaw where they asked the Polish in the city to attack the Germans (known as The Uprising) and then waited outside the city for 63 days causing the death of over 200,000 Poles.

jimenato

Very true - especially the red bit.

Dick Dasterdly

The Soviets declared war on Japan knowing full well it was all over bar the fat lady singing and was just another example of Stalins extreme treachery hoping to take advantage of the situation, despite all the sacrifices the Allies had made to help him out.
There is little doubt that he was every bit as evil as Hitler though not quite as mad.
At the end of proceedings he began a systematic purge of exterminating the very same war heroes who had done so much to lead his cause, simply to eliminate any even remote future challenge to his authority.
For sheer unadulterated treachery and unpleasantness, I doubt the World has ever seen anything much worse than Stalin, surely the very lowest of the low.

C'man unfortunately has a very convenient memory, as usual, and appears to forget that the whole nasty business was kicked off by the Japs and the Germans.

bil

The joke was, of course that Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler did.

Rotor

If it was 1945 C`man would be hung for treason I think

Rosemary

Speaking of treason a lot of the envoys from Britain that were sent over to Germany in the thirties to check that their factories were not creating armaments but who were wined and dined and taken to other factories than the designated ones, just how much responsibility do they bear.
And don´t even get me started on the duke of windsor he should certainly have been shot as a traitor.

Graham

bil

The royal family is a tree that bears poisonous fruit. It was said of the Queen mother that she would have seen Europe burn if it had meant she stayed on the throne.

Domino

Have been watching the excellent "World at War" and it would appear to be quite obvious that both Germany and Japan were building up a warrior class and weapons to match.
meanwhile UK was dearming, there was the picture of the whole of the RAF gathered together in a single field.

and many didnt think it unusual that Germany did all their practical dive-bombing practice in places like Guernica in 1937, giving them pilots in the Condor Legion with actual war experience that came in handy shortly afterwards.

as to the DoW, no one had the guts to actually indict him for treason, but sending him to the Bahamas was a big slap in the face for a fun loving individual who hated negros.

Dick Dasterdly

So all things considered, it was quite amazing that we recovered quickly enough to be able to defend our shores.
Adaptability and improvisation were our biggest advantages, not something the Germans were so clever at.
We converted everything from bicycle factories and clothing factories in order to produce aircraft as quickly as possible, and even many of those were heath robinson devices made from wood and fabric mostly by the women folk, yet very successful nevertheless.
Meanwhile the Germans failed to adapt in a similar ways leaving their traditional industry to carry on as normal until it was too late.

cricketman

Thats not really the case. The Germans were building ammunition as Neville Chamberlain was appeasing everyone. They were incredibly efficient - as to be expected

The Germans lost because Hitler was crazy and lost all sense of perspective. He spread into countries he had no real interest in conquering such as the UK and Russia where they were beaten soundly because they were not prepared.

Russia and Britain won the war - with a little bit of support from the US. They both had a strong leaders (OK Stalin was crazy too) and a resilient people - and they knew they were morally right which is a big driver of who is going to win a war.

Rosemary

We are probably the best in the world at improvisation closely followed by the US, but then the highest proportion of US citizenry can be traced back to the UK and Ireland.

Graham

agoreira

And all so the likes of CM could be raised in a free country, get dragged out of the gutter, get an education, and then come back and tell us what a shower of cowardly barstewards they all were.

cricketman

I've never said anyone was cowardly

And you didnt drag me out of anywhere, I wasnt even born. That would be like calling a 20 year old German a Nazi

I'm glad and thankful that the allies won WWII, but it is in the past. We need to learn from our mistakes and World Wars are mistakes on a huge scale.

I am a member of the human race above anything else, then I am European and then British. I am ashamed of events like WWII because above all they show how stupid, greedy and evil humans can be.