USN fleet aviator in the Pacific. Something about flying off and back onto carriers has always fascinated me. Besides, it beats slogging it out on islands like my USMC relatives did.
From what I have read the entire past time for Germans/Finnish and Russians on the Northern Eastern front was wood cutting. Spring and Summer was spent on patrols and splitting firewood for the long upcoming winter.
Least desirable
I think being a Russian infantryman fighting in the winter war would have been just terrible conditions.
Followed closely by being a marine left to fend for myself on Guadalcanal for several months.
(Or pelelieu for that matter)
Honorable mention would be a german infantryman in dec of 41 outside Moscow…not only are you miserable, but you can actually see the kremlin…and that’s the closest you’ll ever get.
Most “desirable”
Being a TD crewman under Creighton Abrams
Or being a grunt with either the US 1st or 3rd infantry divisions since I’ve actually served in combat with those units already. Good, solid regular grunt infantry divisions. Nothing fancy, just guts and a lot of combat experience.
Honorable mention would be a Brit fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain.
It seems clear to me that the choice of theatre depends on what one would hope to accomplish.
If I were seeking glory (assuming I would survive the conflict), as a citizen of the USA I would select Normandy, or maybe Bastogne.
If I were seeking to help enact victory (assuming my presence could somehow do this such), probably I would choose one of the turning points of the war. The naval battle of Midway or Guadalcanal would be tempting…but I under this assumption I would choose the battle of Wake Island because it was possible for a US victory. Had this happened, a naval turning point 6 months earlier than the battle of Midway, I presume the Pacific war could have ended 6 month sooner…though of course the necessary surrender of Japan might still have required the A-bomb.
If I were seeking to survive the war, I would definitely want something like the US coast guard defending the Panama canal. Nice and quiet with no casualties.
@221B:
It seems clear to me that the choice of theatre depends on what one would hope to accomplish.
If I were seeking glory (assuming I would survive the conflict), as a citizen of the USA I would select Normandy, or maybe Bastogne.
If I were seeking to help enact victory (assuming my presence could somehow do this such), probably I would choose one of the turning points of the war. The naval battle of Midway or Guadalcanal would be tempting…but I under this assumption I would choose the battle of Wake Island because it was possible for a US victory. Had this happened, a naval turning point 6 months earlier than the battle of Midway, I presume the Pacific war could have ended 6 month sooner…though of course the necessary surrender of Japan might still have required the A-bomb.
If I were seeking to survive the war, I would definitely want something like the US coast guard defending the Panama canal. Nice and quiet with no casualties.
You should be careful about using the word glory and war in the same sentence. They don’t belong together. There is nothing glorious about combat in the least. Just pain, misery, death, and loss…even to the “winner” if there is such a thing.
You should be careful about using the word glory and war in the same sentence. They don’t belong together. There is nothing glorious about combat in the least. Just pain, misery, death, and loss…even to the “winner” if there is such a thing.
A relevant quote from John Steinbeck’s WWII novel The Moon is Down:
“Lanser had been in Belgium and France twenty years before and he tried not think what he knew–that war is treachery and hatred, the muddling of incompetent generals, the torture and killing and sickness and tiredness, until at last it is over and nothing had changed except for new weariness and new hatreds.”
An american in europe because i dont want to get tortured raped and killed by Japanese soldiers in POW camps
