History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

One other thing on a perspective thing. If you look at how we treat June 6 vs. other invasions that were much larger than that later in the war, it is interesting to me that we focus so much on Europe. Again- I am guilty of that, too.

I have no idea if this is true but I wonder sometimes if we focus on Europe because more of us came from there at some point in our history than di we come from Asia. Especially true for those living and fighting during the war as many were first generation American born and had parents and certainly grandparents who were born in one of the countries suffering the fighting.

[St. Clown]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

If the goal of the Japanese was "Asia for the Asiatics" and the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," don't you think those goals were met?

If you take the long view, who won the Pacific War?

The goal of the Japanese was to subjugate Asia to Japanese control. They would've expanded that to all Pacific islands, too, including Australia. They weren't interested in other Asians as they saw them as being lesser people than the Japanese - just ask the Koreans about that big of Japanese culture.

[Kepler]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

The goal of the Japanese was to subjugate Asia to Japanese control. They would've expanded that to all Pacific islands, too, including Australia.

I don't think this is true, at least for Australia. The Japanese had their eyes on Manchuria for space, the Philippines for agriculture, Malaya and Singapore for rubber, and a clear route to the Middle East for oil. The Plan was to settle in Manchuria and use the other possessions as extractive colonies much as the British had.

Had they been able to dictate terms they would probably have prohibited other powers from having bases in that area -- a sort of Japanese Monroe Doctrine -- but I don't think long-term expansionism was their goal. They were more about mercantile exploitation like the Brits, once they had secured a defensible kernel which meant a mainland foothold.

[solovsfett]

Having been to Normandy- Germany also has a memorial burial site there. It's really odd, and hard to accept, given that they were the enemy.

Still, the US pattern has been for a long time to do a war where we sacrifice as little as possible to win- from Spanish American War up to the present- we've never really put out as other countries did (or were seemingly gladly to put in harms way- which is odd, too). Even with 400,000 deaths in WWII, we did whatever it took to minimize that. The interesting thing about Yamamoto was that knowledge- the attempt at Pearl was to make the sacrifice so big that it would be something we'd want get into. It wasn't, and then putting the factories on line was just part of the battle. So it was a long and painful loss that was already known.

One other thing on a perspective thing. If you look at how we treat June 6 vs. other invasions that were much larger than that later in the war, it is interesting to me that we focus so much on Europe. Again- I am guilty of that, too.

It's interesting how June 6 surpasses all the other battles in terms of cultural significance. It's obviously incredibly important but at the same time there were more medals of honor given in Iwo Jima than in the entire European theater iirc and the entire pacific theater seemed to be a much more severe set of battles both physically and psychologically.

I can't wait to to visit Normandy but I'd love very much to visit Iwo Jima or Pelileu as well

[joecct]

It's interesting how June 6 surpasses all the other battles in terms of cultural significance. It's obviously incredibly important but at the same time there were more medals of honor given in Iwo Jima than in the entire European theater iirc and the entire pacific theater seemed to be a much more severe set of battles both physically and psychologically.

I can't wait to to visit Normandy but I'd love very much to visit Iwo Jima or Pelileu as well

There were rules (such as they were) on Western Front. There were none in the Pacific Theater or on the Eastern Front.

[alfablue]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

There were rules (such as they were) on Western Front. There were none in the Pacific Theater or on the Eastern Front.

How does that make it more culturally significant?

Heck, it's a better story that we won a war when there were no rules.

[joecct]

How does that make it more culturally significant?

Heck, it's a better story that we won a war when there were no rules.

read the last line or 2 of sovo's 1st paragraph. The Pacific War was kill or be killed. At least your surrender was usually honored on the Western Front.

[alfablue]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

read the last line or 2 of sovo's 1st paragraph. The Pacific War was kill or be killed. At least your surrender was usually honored on the Western Front.

And?
Kill or be killed gives a situation less cultural impact, somehow? Fighting "fair" Germans is better, somehow?


Again, it's a better story that we won a war where the enemy would rather die than give up. But it isn't. Far more difficult fight, and we won.

[Slap Shot]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

Battles such as D-Day and the BotB - and to larger extent the entire theater in which they were fought - resonate more for several reasons. Some of this is simplified but I think for most part make sense:

1. Depiction in film. It’s easier to film battles on land than on sea. Granted much of the gains in territory in the Pacific were the result of combat on land, for the general public the war in Europe felt more conventional. This massively misses the point that war is hell and barbaric at any level, but the masses…
2. Also while the war in the Pacific initially garnered much attention (They Were Expendable and The Sands of Iwo Jima for example), that dedication eroded over time and filmmakers have devoted far more time to the war in Europe until we saw another resurgence with The Pacific and Eastwood’s complimentary pair of films.
3. Additionally battles in Europe were much more expansive. They were often fought across huge swaths of land, in huge forests, across bridges and rivers, hills and mountains, the enemy was engaged while circumnavigating city streets framed by blown out buildings, we saw the liberation of cities and countries alike in which inhabitants had parades and made for a more photogenic backdrop, etc. Wars in the pacific on land typically were in more confined spaces and included having to flesh out the Japanese from behind and under every rock, and of course in some places immensely dense jungle.
4. The war in Europe ended with a full surrender while troops closed in on Berlin. The Pacific ended with 2 atom bombs.
5. Ike and Monty, et al. The war in the Pacific of course included many men of prominence, but the aforementioned seem to supersede all others and I think if most people were they asked would associate Churchill with the war in Europe.
6. Hitler.
7. Tanks! I want tanks!
8. The Germans were a more traditional enemy including surrendering at times by the thousands, some fanatical, many saw the Americans as humans. There was less animosity between Americans and Germans which was not the case with the Japanese. Additionally there’s been the emerging understanding that the Pacific war was underpinned on both sides by racial hatred.
9. The European enemy was much more familiar. There’s a reason we didn’t intern Germans.
10. Story time. The war in Europe just comes across as sexier valid or not.
11. Casualties. Without looking I believe Americans were lost 4 to 1 in Europe vs. the Pacific
12. For whatever reason there was more of an unwillingness of veterans of the Pacific to pass on their memories of combat, while those who fought in Europe more likely did. Also the unfamiliarity of its locations, contributed to the gradual forgetting. Most people didn’t have to look at a map to know where France was. Guadalcanal was a different story. Americans got to know these places – Guam, Saipan, Wake Island, Bougainville, Okinawa – but it was never quite the same.

[MaizeRage]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

I think you're missing the biggie--which has largely been retconned in--but the war in Europe had the effect of ending the Holocaust. The level of German atrocity makes it a much simpler good guy/bad guy scenario on the grand scale.

[Kepler]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

3. Additionally battles in Europe were epically expansive. They were often fought across huge swaths of land, in huge forests, across bridges and rivers, hills and mountains
7. Tanks! I want tanks!

Kursk alone is unbelievable. The Red Army used 400,000 men just to dig trenches. Everybody remembers the tanks but the Russians lost 2,000 aircraft just as sugar on top.

[Slap Shot]

I think you're missing the biggie--which has largely been retconned in--but the war in Europe had the effect of ending the Holocaust. The level of German atrocity makes it a much simpler good guy/bad guy scenario on the grand scale.

You're right. I did list Hitler but didn't expand on that massive component.

[SJHovey]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

I apologize if there is another thread for this...

Remember when you read THAT book or article, or watched THAT documentary or movie that caused you to pause, take a step back and realize some of the things you've taken for granted as solid fact are in essence a fiction created by the winners (whether that be winners in war, philosophy, financial influence etc)? Obviously that happened quite a bit in high school and especially college. But now that I've entered my 40's I haven't felt this in a long long time....until now

So the real Ty Cobb is not necessarily the stereotype I'd grown up hearing about for so many years (Ken Burns, ahem, I'm looking your way)
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/who-w...w-thats-wrong/

https://soundcloud.com/jfk-lancer/bu...ringuie-oswald - I've never heard this before, it's an absolutely fascinating window into the early 60's commie scare

and related to that last link (boy was my ignorance on the bay of pigs exposed after reading this one) - http://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Ess...ill_Alive.html


so...now it's your turn, what have you read, watched or listened to (podcasts etc) recently that caused you to rethink some element of what has generally been considered historical FACT?

I grew up thinking Dan Devine was a pretty good guy, but fortunately Rudy Ruettiger cleared up that misconception for me.

[alfablue]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

I think you're missing the biggie--which has largely been retconned in--but the war in Europe had the effect of ending the Holocaust. The level of German atrocity makes it a much simpler good guy/bad guy scenario on the grand scale.

Oddly enough, when I look back, it seems as if contemporary news didn't want to write about that, too. The worse the situation on humans, the less we want to hear about it. Heck, there was a lot of post war denial, still, in the US.

It seems as if the more the suffering, the less we want to hear about it. Even though invasions were larger, there were more MOH winners, etc etc.

[alfablue]

Re: History - questioning the winners and how we arrived at this point

Kursk alone is unbelievable. The Red Army used 400,000 men just to dig trenches. Everybody remembers the tanks but the Russians lost 2,000 aircraft just as sugar on top.

Again, we barely give credit to the Soviets, so that battle doesn't count.