Lou, that was one hell of a Good Read!!!
Thanks Pard for these words. I was humbled and honored to read them.
Pike
TEXAS!
lou wrote:
> (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).
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 05 2001 - 00:40:35 PDT