Thoughts on the French? Other than seeing a couple of documentaries I don't know much about 'those years'.
I’ve always respected the French. My grandfather fought for France as Algeria was part of France. I speak French, and I live in France for part of the year now.
Looking at the pics and I'm thinking whether the next big war would be anything like this. Probably more Urban and asymmetric. Just as low tech on the ground with the high tech stuff flying overhead or zapped out through countermeasures. Much easier and "humane" to kill a whole lotta people these days. RIP
It was a team effort, tania! It's difficult imagining the allies winning without the Soviet Union but Normandy was a very very big deal. Went to France 2 years ago with my family and toured the Atlantic Wall. It was an incredible tour. Through the pillbox openings you can't help but wonder how in the world' did operation overlord even succeed. Pure determination by the U.S, Canada and Brits. Can you imagine being Robert Capa on that beach. No rifle just a camera. If anything, war photographers don't get enough love.
Sorry for turning this into a commentary on Russia. Two points. To quote Patton, "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other b*stard die for his." When you have a political officer threatening to shoot you for retreating, the equation on charging a machine gun position with bayonets changes. With Stalin, there would have been no evacuation at Dunkirk. Everybody would have died on that beach for their country. As cavalier as the Stalin was with Russian lives, it seems odd to suddenly value them so much seventy five years later. How many of those soldiers died because Stalin purged every competent officer from the army? Secondly, I was watching a Sky news story on the miners who were at Chernobyl and they mentioned that a bunch of Russians are mad at HBO and think the miniseries was a plot by the West to discredit great Russian mastery of nuclear engineering. Russians have the fragile ego of a 12 year old school girl. Finally, and most importantly, for everybody who died fighting, it didn't matter how many other Russians or Germans or British or French had died. Each death was an individual tragedy. Every soldier who died storming those beaches paid a price as tragic and final to every Russian soldier.
Speaking of the Battle of Midway...here is part 1 of the Battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective. I wish he had part 2 already done but this is too good not to post
That's awesome. Youtube has been suggesting that I watch that for about a month or so, so I gave in a few days ago. Does he have one on the Battle of the Coral Sea? Or the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot? The hunt for the Bismark would also be cool.
The numbers of people that died in these battles are just mind boggling and beyond comprehension. Every time I start to revisit this period of history I am still just awestruck by the level of violence and death. This was only a few generations ago and people seem to be able to forget it so quickly.
His videos are awesome, I subscribed a while back. My Grandfather served in the Pacific theater. His ship was hit by a kamikaze near Okinawa, but he never really talked about it, like a lot of other WWII vets.
Granddad was in Korea and never talked about it, ever, other than he said it's the coldest he can imagine you could get. Granny's oldest brother was Normandy through the Battle of the Bulge, he finally started telling stories in his last few years.
Because they don't give a hoot about us winning the war against Japan? I get that posters point that we as American's don't understand the role of the Russians in WW2 very well at all. It's not hard to understand why. They were allies of necessity and became enemies the minute WW2 was over. The countries live in a state of hair trigger fear. Weird to think we should be celebrating together, but true that Americans need better education.
Of course they did. Stalin wanted a land grab and was quite ready to get into the Pacific after the Nazis surrendered. They wanted to partition Japan, for one thing. Then other terrible things happened first.
I'm not talking about Stalin, I'm talking modern day Russians. For Russians the enemy of WW2 that has lasted in memory is the Nazis.
Oh. Well nevermind then. but as an aside...most of Central and Eastern Europe hates the Russians far, far more than the Germans.
Sure because their rule lasted longer. The question was why don't the Russians celebrate US victories in the pacific theater today at ceremonies. My answer stands. They don't care about our victory over Japan. Germany turned into a good global citizen. Russia tried to dominate Europe for half a century (nearly). It's no wonder why Russia has the worse legacy despite being on the "good side" in that war.
