(OOPS long winded again. Delete if you have no interest in either WWII or
Veterans. One unusual and one global milveh are briefly mentioned, with a
plug for the enjoyment of my own M38)
Plenty of dates to forget (the ultimate climax to the Battle of Britian 15
Sept 40); Campaigns half remembered (The Kokoda Trail between Buna and Pt
Moresby over the Owen Stanley Range in New Guinea); Plenty of lucky battles
to commemorate (should one need proof that God was on the Allied side
carefully read the history of Midway). In a truely global war, however, it
is relatively easy to overlook the fundamental but still uncelebrated events
which barely allowed the United Nations to emerge victorious; And continue
to affect world affairs today.
Other little known turning points, any of which may have altered the
progress and perhaps eventual outcome of the war include:
1. The theft, by the Polish Security Service, of a german cypher machine
and its transfer to the British eight days before the invasion of Poland.
GCHQ (General Communications HeadQuarters) found it much easier to decypher
german communications thereafter.
2. The health-ruining work before the war of William Friedman, the father
of american cryptology, which allowed us to read japanese messages. Two
direct results of this ability were the Battle of Midway (which simply would
not have happened otherwise- the Japanese would have occupied Midway
virtually without hinderence) and the later assassination of Admiral
Yamamoto.
3. Roosevelt's tacit entry into the war, long before Dec 7th, 41. He
allowed the American Navy to participate as combatants in convoy duties in
the North Atlantic and also permitted William Stephenson, who ended up
overseeing nearly all British worldwide intelligence and covert operations,
to establish his headquarters in New York where it remained til war's end.
4. The Commonwealth's stand at Imphal which turned back the Japanese
invasion of India. The British and Free French takeover of Syria from the
Vichy French just prior to planned german occupation which was then
cancelled. The successful defense of Malta, the unsinkable British aircraft
carrier in the Mediterranean. Failure in any of these efforts would likely
have soon resulted in the cut off of the Soviet supply line through Iran
which would likely have forced an early withdrawal of the Soviet Union from
the war.
5. Rosie the Riveter!
There are others. Most interesting are failures in foresight: Had Hitler
noticed the outcome of the "pre-war" Russian-Japanese tank battles along the
Amur he may have had second thoughts about the invasion of the Soviet Union.
And had American Admirals noted the British destruction of the Italian fleet
at Taranto (using an ancient cloth winged biplane, the Fairey Swordfish, no
less, only plane to be in combat service from the beginning to the end of
the war) they may have had second thoughts about both the primacy of
battleships and their defensibility at places like Pearl Harbour.
Two failures in political will which, had they not occured, would likely
have prevented or at least postponed the war, are worth mentioning. The
British failure, in 1935, to close Suez and blockade the Red Sea ports of
Massawa, Assab, and Djibouti to cut off the Italian invasion of Ethiopia
was first. The plans were on the table and the fleet was getting steam up
but the Prime Minister thought it a bit risky. Hitler got many of his ideas
for the Third Reich directly from Mussolini's dream of reestablishing the
Roman Empire. The next year France could have easily denied the german
remilitarization of the Rhineland and the occupation of Alsace Lorraine but
lacked the will to do so (if you think politicians don't still ponder these
events of 65 years ago I would submit the gulf war and NATO activities in
the Balkens as evidence the lesson has been learned).
The United States didn't even belong to the League of Nations, so we have no
pre-war legs to stand on.
Had Hitler not gone insane the Third Reich would today likely control
one-third of the world, and Japanese Militarists and the Soviet Union the
remainder, it was that near a thing. Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of
the Soviet Union by Germany) in the summer of 1941, before the US even
entered the war, decided the eventual fate of Germany and her allies in the
West. In the East the Japanese Army never really entered the naval war in
the Pacific (partly because of politics initially - which allowed our
submarine force time to solve its problems and eventually remove the ability
to relocate these troops). The bulk of their troops (probably 90 percent of
their combat strength, over one and a half million veterans) were in China,
and stayed there throughout the war. The value of the Nationalist Chinese
cause is little credited today (but if you wonder why the US still makes a
big deal of defending Taiwan now you know at least part of the story).
The U.S. uniformed some ten million men, women, and children (likely the
youngest american in a D Day assult boat was 15) and some 200,000 died. The
Soviet Union likely had over thirty million war dead. Over six million jews
were put to death (and this particular insanity likely cost Hitler early
completion of an atomic bomb, et.al.). Certainly more casualties then
suffered by all of the english speaking countries combined.
The greatest sea and air armada the world has ever known barely managed to
land 8 divisions on the shores of France. That was roughly ten percent of
the german strength in the west (roughly 80 divisions - which was roughly
equal to the full world-wide strength of the US Army at its peak during
WWII) At the same time Hitler had some 200 more divisions fighting on the
Eastern Front. (Didn't look up the numbers - the scale is correct).
Second guessing military history, war gaming, is nearly as much fun as
driving my M38 over Coal Bank and Molas passes from Durango to Silverton.
But on a more serious note...
There is neither glory nor honor in war, it is insanity, but, in retrospect,
there are glorious individuals and honorable people. Some respect for the
dead, the men, women, and children of all sides, certainly. But don't
revere their bones, rather, revere the living, though they don't want your
reverence, the men, women, and children who survive this or any war
regardless which side their life circumstance placed them on. They are the
one's who, sixty and more years later still have trouble getting a good
nights sleep at times. They are the ones who, for as long as they live,
feel as though they are living on borrowed time. When Tom Hanks said "Earn
this" (Saving Private Ryan) he wasn't speaking to a survivor, they say it to
themselves. He was speaking to you who weren't there, trying to give you a
glimpse, the briefest glimmer, of what the rest of their lives would be
like. For every day they wonder why they survived while their buddy sitting
next to them got his head blown off.
Were attachments allowed I would pass on the moving story of a former
japanese aviator visiting the Battleship Arizona Memorial, and the silent
salute and respectful bows exchanged with the visiting american veteran of
that attack. They have shared more, I know and I'm sure they do as well,
throughout their culturally separate lives with each other then they have
with family and close friends who weren't there that day.
Private Ryan's real name was Fritz Niland from Tonawanda, New York. He was
a trooper with the 501st Parachute Regiment of the 101st Airbourne
Division. One brother, with the 4th Division, died on Utah Beach; Another
brother, with the 82nd Airbourne, also died on D Day. The third, a pilot in
the China-Burma-India Theater, also died around that time. And yes his
mother got all three telegrams the same day. The dead are gone, the
survivours regardless of nationality, of whom Mr. Niland was one, have my
deepest compassion.
My apologies to those of you who do not need to read this. And regardless
of which country or what service the only vehicle that was virtually
everywhere during this war was the MB/GPW (milveh content). And by the way
the rest of that story was fiction, Fritz found out about two of his
brothers dying by visiting their units on June 14th and the Chaplain told
him, the next day, about the last. He was released from the army as being a
sole surviving son (from Ambrose's "Band of Brothers E Co, 506th Para Regt,
101st Airbourne" whose surviving members spent D Day this year in Normandy
previewing the upcoming HBO miniseries about them).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 05 2001 - 00:40:35 PDT