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WWII–-75th ANNIVERSARY DISCUSSION--#29---DECEMBER 1941 #2

World War II History

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RJL518
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The Battle of Wake Island began simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor and ended on 23 December 1941, with the surrender of the American forces to the Empire of Japan. It was fought on and around the atoll formed by Wake Island and its islets of Peale and Wilkes Islands by the air, land, and naval forces of the Empire of Japan against those of the U.S., with Marines playing a prominent role on both sides.

The island was held by the Japanese for the duration of the Pacific War; the remaining Japanese garrison on the island surrendered to a detachment of United States Marines on 4 September 1945.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wake_Island

The Marines at Wake Island held out against the Japanese early in December 1941 before being overwhelmed. Do you guys agree that it was truly an episode of heroism?
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WWII–-75th ANNIVERSARY DISCUSSION--#27---OCTOBER 1941

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• • • RJL518

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at the start of the battle, the german OKH had two options. Both where considered. They had a very limited capacity to transport vital supplies to the front. They had enough to send the ammunition and fuel for a drive on Moscow without winter equipment. Or, they could send the winter equipment, fuel and ammunition that was needed for defensive operations. They chose to send ammunition and fuel, but no winter coats. This resulted in the disaster in front of Moscow, and the loss of a lot of the elite leadership of the german army. I believe the only reasonable choice would be to realize that the campaign could not be won in 41 and plan for a 42 campaign. Instead they decided to launch a battle with the potential to lose to war.
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WW2 75th Anniversary Poll–- #7--FEBRUARY 1940

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• • • RJL518

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As I recall, when the Norwegains protested to the British that Britain had violated Norwegian neutrality by entering Norwegian waters and boarding the Altmark, the British retorted that the Altmark had violated Norwegian neutrality by anchoring in Norwegian waters while retaining a cargo hold full of prisoners of war. The British also apparently implied that the Norwegians had been either openly complicit in this action or, at the very least, negligent in not discovering the German ruse. My understanding of international law is that belligerent ships entering neutral waters are required to release any prisoners of war they are carrying – a good example being, ironically enough, the British prisonners who were released in neutral Uruguay by Captain Langsdorff when the Graf Spee (the ship supplied by the Altmark) anchored in Montevideo harbour. At any rate, the British position vis a vis Norway was basically, “You drop your protest and we’ll drop ours.” Which they did.
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WW2 75th Anniversary Poll–- # 3 OCTOBER 1939

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• • • RJL518

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The “just sit and wait for the Phony War to end in April 1940” option is a bit perplexing as an answer to “You are the German High Command! What is your next Combat Movement?” because it seems to imply that the Phony War was operating on a fixed timetable, and that this timetable was in someone else’s hands. The lack of action on land on the Western Front is certainly due in part to inaction by France and Britain (whose strategy was basically to sit around for a couple of years to built up their strength for a showdown, while simultaneously hoping that the Nazi regime would be overthrown by a coup), but it was also very much a deliberate choice by Germany. The Wehrmacht needed to analyze the Polish Campaign, fix the tactical and operational elements that hadn’t worked as well as expected, plan the upcoming campaign against France and the Low Countries, rest and replenish its forces, give them more training, provide them with additional equipment, and redeploy them to the west. Doing this properly took time, but Germany could afford to take the time to do the job right because of the lack of Anglo-French pressure on the western front. ( In other words, by sitting on their collective hindquarters France and Britain surrendered the strategic initiative to Germany, which gave the Wehrmacht the luxury of attacking at the time and place of its own choosing.) Moreover, the time period during which these activities took place were the fall of 1939 and the winter of 1939-1940, which was conveniently timed because this meant that the Wehrmacht wouldn’t have to fight in the fall (manageable, but rainy and muddy) or in the winter (far less harsh in the West than in Russia, but still potentially nasty as veterans of the Battle of the Bulge will recall). The late spring / early summer period chosen for the offensive in the West was much more congenial for military operations.
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December 12, 1937, a Date that will live in Infamy?!?!

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• • • Gargantua

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@Gargantua:

On December 12, 1937, Japanese planes bombed the U.S. gunboat Panay, cruising China’s Yangtse River. Three Americans were killed, and 43 were injured.

W H A T ? ! ? ! ? !

Comments please…

This gets its own thread, really? I bet if we started a thread about what began on the day after the Panay was bombed, Dec. 13 1937, the thread would get closed down.

This was all the pre-text America needed to start taking economic action against Japan, and if this didn’t what took place the following six weeks after sure as hell did. Alas it was not to be about would take America another 4 years to pull its head out of the sand and do the right thing……
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Germany, December 1944

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• • • ABWorsham4

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@CWO:

@Hobbes:

@RedArmySoldier:

So it’s either ‘join together vs Russkieland’, or ‘fall together’.

Isn’t this what happened in real life?

Not really. In the last days of the war in Europe, the Nazis entertained all kinds of fantasies that the Anglo-Americans would come to their senses and would team up with them to fight the barbarous Soviet hordes, but it never happened. The Soviet/Anglo-American alliance held together until the surrender of Germany, and indeed until the surrender of Japan: Stalin fulfilled his prior commitment to go to war against Japan three months after Germany surrendered (the time which had been allocated for him to shift some of his forces from Europe to the Far East). Germany surrendered on May 7, and the USSR invaded Manchuria almost exactly on schedule on August 9. In Europe, the Soviet, American and British armies all settled into the occupation zones which had been defined ahead of time for each power. The predefined occupation zones were even respected where the fighting had taken the Americans into areas assigned to the Russians (such as Leipzig) and the Russians into areas assigned to the Anglo-Americans (such as parts of Austria, and of course the western half of Berlin).

Yeah, but afterwards the West set up the ‘denazification’ because they needed the former Nazis to run West Germany, while taking a blind eye to both the fascist regimes of Portugal and Spain since they were anti-communist as well, and had no problems in supporting dictatorships everywhere to prevent the communists from taking power.
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Could WWII have been avoided?

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• • • Raunchy The Pirate

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Then there is the other side of the war, the Pacific theater. I don’t think any events in Europe regarding Hitler (or even Churchill) would have affected the decision by Japan to annex Manchuria in 1931, China proper (at least as much as they could get) in 1937, and then to attempt the quick strike at Pearl along with the dash to the oil-rich Dutch East Indies in 1941.

WWII, at least in the Pacific, was pretty much going to happen regardless of events in Europe. Considering the culture of the Japanese (essentially controlled by the military leaders) at the time, I don’t think the change of any single person in Japan (even the emperor considering the Japanese military could and did replace emperors when convenient for them) could have altered this course.
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WWII in HD

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• • • ABWorsham4

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@balungaloaf:

Edit: Let’s not include hidden messages (political) in your posts. What happens is people who are on the other side start a flame war.

:lol:

This is exactly what I talk about with the bias around here. B isn’t starting a flame war, but someone who responds to that nonsense is?

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Anyway, the WW2 in HD is on Xbox Live. I watched the preview and was tempted to get it, but since I don’t own an HD TV, it would be semipointless.
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Today in History: December 7

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• • • colringbk

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If Japan didn’t bomb us, then we would’ve still got in to the war, just alittle later. Hitler wasn’t going to let us just sit around being nutral the whole time.

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