The History Channel WWII In HD

[Kristy]

I've been watching this series/documentary for the past three days now and besides the purposeful depressing narrative that is being spoken here - much of this lost footage seems to have been originally censored by the War Department due to graphic images of the wounded - to say that footage shot in rudimentary color film at the time hardly qualifies as "HD" affirmation. Though even with its setbacks I still find this to be one fascinating documentary in the sense that history being written by the winners there always seem to be a distorted slant from those who get the opportunity to tell it. The images themselves speak louder than the rhetoric I was taught in school about this era in America History. World War II was fucking horrific and I'm surprised that after all this time not one veteran ever walked up to John Wayne and cut his balls off for making war to be a glorious design if you never show the suffering or blood.

Now in no way am I taking a anti-war liberal stance on the subject for when it comes to war I believe wholeheartedly in destroying your enemy as thoroughly and quickly as possible with little heed to mercy except in instances of surrender or defeat for the ugliness of war lingers far beyond the cessation of gunfire.

What I also find to be strange on a side note is The History Channel retuning to it's roots and doing away with all that mind-numbing doom-and-gloom Nostradamus/2012 end of the world shit? Or is this just a slight reprieve in that nonsense? Either way, it's breath of fresh air for what I pay in my cable bill.

[Hardrock69]

I have found it quite interesting, but I do agree with you.

Try watching another documentary on this week called "Hitler's Stealth Fighter".

It is fucking scary.

There were these two brothers who were aeronautical engineers in Germany. They were involved in top secret projects to develop the ME262 among other things.

Years and years ago, I got possession of a LOT of documents concerning them, as I wanted to know what kind of advanced technology they were developing in Germany.

They were relatively unknown to the public at large. In fact, this documentary is the first public mention of them I have ever seen on television.

Anyway, they developed the first jet-engine powered flying wing. They actually built one, and test flew it for several months.

In dogfights against standard ME-262 jet fighter planes, this flying wing was far superior.

Hermann Goering told the Horton brothers in 1944 that by 1946 Germany would have a functional atomic bomb, and Hitler had demanded that they come up with a bomber for it.

The design they came up with was called the A-18 or something like that. It was a flying wing just like the original fighter.

This documentary follows a team of world-class aircraft mechanics who work in California for Northrop on black projects. They built a full-size replica of this flying wing jet fighter so they could test how it appeared on radar.

After they ran their tests, they discovered that though it was not completely invisible to radar, it's profile was 20% less than a similar sized standard fighter plane, and with the jet engines on it, it could have attacked the living shit out of the UK, and the war would have taken a turn for the worse.

War does suck fucking ass.

We came so close to losing our freedom.

Ever seen the Star Trek episode called The City On The Edge Of Forever?

Kirk, Spock and McCoy find a time portal on a planet they are orbiting, which takes them back to 1930s America. Kirk falls in love with a woman (of course) who (Spock finds out) will delay the US entry into WWII, allowing Germany to develop atomic weapons first, and with their advanced V-2 rockets, they take over the world. Unless Captain Kirk lets her get hit by a car and killed.

The footage is in HD format, meaning it has been transferred to digital in the highest quality possible. That's about all that means.

It is a very interesting documentary. They spent 2 years seeking out previously unreleased color film footage from back then.

And there is a lot more to the behind the scenes stuff that was happening back then than they will ever admit to. For example, Pearl Harbor could have been prevented. But Roosevelt was hoping the Japs would attack, as it would give him an excuse to go to war, which, among other things, would lift the US out of the Great Depression.

Lotta stuff coulda gone wrong. For instance, General George S. Patton wanted to drive THROUGH Berlin, and crush the Russian forces. If he had been allowed to do that, and had succeeded, we would have never had to deal with the Cold War.

But I digress.

Neat documentary.
:D

[kwame k]

Dude watch the secrets weapons of the Nazis! If Hitler had another year and the manufacturing facilities, the weapons they would of produced is mind boggling.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I have to catch up with the last couple of episodes, had to make a quick trip to DC, but I agree, so far it's been fascinating....

I would like to think I know a lot about WWII (not in Nick's league though), but I had no idea Japan had two Aleutian islands at the start of the war....

[ZahZoo]

Caught some of this last night... some interesting story lines that you'd never find in the standard history books.

They had a whole episode on sex during WW II that covered the battles between the military and the Hawaiin vice cops on managing prostitution in Honalulu following the Pearl Harbor attack.

Kinda funny how for a period under martial law the military took over management of the Ho business and where they could work. The girls had given up their rooms for injured military folks. The military even came in and set the going price at $3 as the girls were cashing with the huge influx of of men that came in to mop up the Pearl Harbor mess. Back then a girl could make about $30k a year on her back or only $2k working in factories supporting the war. That's at $3 a pop...

Then washington had to find a quick and quiet way out since it was illegal for them to be managing ho's...

[Dan]

Adolf Hitler And Joseph Stalin Were Both Fucking Killing Machines.:(

Fuck Both Of Them.

[ELVIS]

You can have sex with a killing machine ??

Well, on second thought, Ian Gillan says you can...


:elvis:

[ELVIS]

Wow! They kept HD technology under wraps for nearly 70 years!!!

Gimme a break...:rolleyes:

[Nitro Express]

My grandfather fought in World War I and was a machine gunner. He was a cowboy and always wore a Stetson hat. Everyone in the family was a big gun enthusiast but him. We all had our hunting rifles, shotguns, pistols but he wasn't into it and refused to own a gun. He would never talk about the war.

Then when he passed away my mom was cleaning out his dresser drawers and she went,"Oh my." It was 8x10 black and white photos of the war. Trenches with dead bodies with the flesh rotted off. Some were just skeletons. I was a little kid and it was horrifying. My mom said the only thing her dad really said about the war was he would never forget about the smell of it. He also had respiratory problems due to not getting his gas mask on fast enough and he told my mom what they really feared the most was mustard gas which would burn your skin.

[Nitro Express]

Dude watch the secrets weapons of the Nazis! If Hitler had another year and the manufacturing facilities, the weapons they would of produced is mind boggling.

They figure the Nazi's were 40 years ahead technology wise. They even had a big program on flying disks which apparently they managed to get working.

[Nitro Express]

Horny young men who knew they could die at anytime created this sort of thing. If you want to know what's up there in priority well, hey, it's SEX!

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[Seshmeister]

They figure the Nazi's were 40 years ahead technology wise. They even had a big program on flying disks which apparently they managed to get working.

That sounds like complete nonsense.

Remember that all these same scientists were scooped up by the allies after the war and set to work.

Also a lot of the best German scientists were jews which is part of the reason they never got that close to a nuclear bomb. By the end of the war they were still at the same point they had been at close to the start.

Thats not so exciting for the doc channels though. It's like those shark documentaries where they try and make out how dangerous sharks are for the first 58 minutes before admitting at the end hardly anyone ever gets eaten by a shark.

[Sensible Shoes]

I've been watching this too - something about the color footage that makes it all seem so much more real.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Just thought I'd include this, my maternal grandfather... My mother was 9 when he died in '44 in the Netherlands....

[ELVIS]

I've been watching this too - something about the color footage that makes it all seem so much more real.

It is real...

Just don't buy into everything that they try to sell you on a documantary...

It's actually better to watch it with most of the sound, OFF!


:elvis:

[Coyote]

They figure the Nazi's were 40 years ahead technology wise. They even had a big program on flying disks which apparently they managed to get working.

Probably the same people figure the Nazis still have their base under the South Pole...

[Coyote]

Now in no way am I taking a anti-war liberal stance on the subject for when it comes to war I believe wholeheartedly in destroying your enemy as thoroughly and quickly as possible with little heed to mercy except in instances of surrender or defeat for the ugliness of war lingers far beyond the cessation of gunfire.

Right, and the whole campaign in the Middle East has been all about "the liberation of the people" and "giving them democracy"...

[Seshmeister]

Just thought I'd include this, my maternal grandfather... My mother was 9 when he died in '44 in the Netherlands....

Ahh yes I remember that story.

He was the one that got drunk on night watch and fell out of his guard tower at the concentration camp.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Was that an attempt at a joke about my grandfather dying in combat ??

You're better than that Sesh...

[Seshmeister]

It's a great gag! :)

Comedy= tragedy + time.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I suppose...

[ZahZoo]

My grandfather fought in World War I and was a machine gunner. He was a cowboy and always wore a Stetson hat. Everyone in the family was a big gun enthusiast but him. We all had our hunting rifles, shotguns, pistols but he wasn't into it and refused to own a gun. He would never talk about the war.

Then when he passed away my mom was cleaning out his dresser drawers and she went,"Oh my." It was 8x10 black and white photos of the war. Trenches with dead bodies with the flesh rotted off. Some were just skeletons. I was a little kid and it was horrifying. My mom said the only thing her dad really said about the war was he would never forget about the smell of it. He also had respiratory problems due to not getting his gas mask on fast enough and he told my mom what they really feared the most was mustard gas which would burn your skin.

Similar story with my father... he served in WWII as a staff sargent under Eisenhower in North Africa and most of Europe. Never would talk much about the war ever.

Then a few years ago my parents joined us on a trip to Hawaii and we toured Pearl Harbor. He met 2 Pearl Harbor survivors and 2 other vets on the tour. The 5 of them stood there on the Arizona memorial for 2 and a half hours trading stories of their time in the war. I got to see a part of my dad I'd never really knew much about. Also was only the second time in my life I saw him shed a tear...

When we returned home he pulled me aside and showed me a box of memories he'd kept. Several German issued military watches he'd collected from the dead. About 8 medals he'd been given. Pieces of shrapmel they removed from him... and several old photos of the pure hell and destruction he'd witnessed and inflicted. Said he kept them to remind him of the hell he'd never want to experience again... It was an eye opener...

[Nitro Express]

That sounds like complete nonsense.

Remember that all these same scientists were scooped up by the allies after the war and set to work.

Also a lot of the best German scientists were jews which is part of the reason they never got that close to a nuclear bomb. By the end of the war they were still at the same point they had been at close to the start.

Thats not so exciting for the doc channels though. It's like those shark documentaries where they try and make out how dangerous sharks are for the first 58 minutes before admitting at the end hardly anyone ever gets eaten by a shark.

Yeah. It was those German scientists that gave both the US and Russian space programs a shot in the arm. They were far more advanced on rocket technology amongst other things. England was advanced in radar technology. The US basically was the mass producer. The German/Jewish scientist Albert Einstein is who warned Roosevelt that the Germans could make a nuclear bomb and amazingly the HUGE Manhattan Project got started which was a program as big as the Apollo moon mission program.

Germany's problem wasn't technology but producing it. Hitler started the war too soon and mismanaged his resources badly. The international bankers were more than willing to finance his war machine because they wanted to take Europe and the world over with their axis but Hitler was a loose cannon and they lost control of him. I think one reason Hitler was reluctant to attack England was many of his financial backers were from England. Taking over mainland Europe and going into Russia was the goal. The City of London and Wall Street actually were giving Hitler lot's of money in the 1930's.

[Nitro Express]

I blame WWI, WWII, and our current meddling in the middle east on the American/European bankers. Read your history. Wars are started so bankers can play both sides and make money and grab power. Sometimes they endanger themselves by what they start but greed is a hell of a drug. Banking and religion are how populations are controlled. The politicians and priests are whores that do the bidding of the bankers.

[Hardrock69]

That sounds like complete nonsense.

Remember that all these same scientists were scooped up by the allies after the war and set to work.

Also a lot of the best German scientists were jews which is part of the reason they never got that close to a nuclear bomb. By the end of the war they were still at the same point they had been at close to the start.

Thats not so exciting for the doc channels though. It's like those shark documentaries where they try and make out how dangerous sharks are for the first 58 minutes before admitting at the end hardly anyone ever gets eaten by a shark.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I have enough declassified documents concerning what the Nazis were working on to KNOW they WERE 40-50 years ahead of their time.

Watch the documentary Hitler's Stealth Fighter.

We did not have any jet fighters that advanced for many, many years after WWII.

[Hardrock69]

It is real...

Just don't buy into everything that they try to sell you on a documantary...

It's actually better to watch it with most of the sound, OFF!


:elvis:

Why? 90% of the voice-overs are what is being said by WWII Vets who are merely telling their stories because THEY WERE THERE.

Why would you want to hide your head in the sand over something like that?

Elvis with hands over ears: "I'm not listening! I'm not listening!"
:hee:

[Hardrock69]

Here is a page where you can download a lengthy .pdf file with lotsa details about the Horton Brothers and their projects, as well as info about the search for them after the war. The file contains a lot of documents I have had for years.


FOIA: Army CIC UFO Files Various Subjects Including "Horten Brothers - Flying Wing", page 1 (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread321480/pg1)

[Hardrock69]

Here is a page where you can download a lengthy .pdf file with lotsa details about the Horton Brothers and their projects, as well as info about the search for them after the war. The file contains a lot of documents I have had for years.


FOIA: Army CIC UFO Files Various Subjects Including "Horten Brothers - Flying Wing", page 1 (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread321480/pg1)

[Seshmeister]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I have enough declassified documents concerning what the Nazis were working on to KNOW they WERE 40-50 years ahead of their time.

Watch the documentary Hitler's Stealth Fighter.

We did not have any jet fighters that advanced for many, many years after WWII.

But it didn't work.

It's the shark thing again.

If you read carefully it was only 20% more stealthy than a normal plane and couldn't be controlled lurching all over the place.

This is why the US didn't start building them because they were shit until technology allowed fly by wire and so on not because they couldn't understand for 40 years how the nazi plane worked.

It looks cool I'll give you that but it's the usual over egging. Saying it was 40 years ahead of it's time is like saying Da Vinci could build helicopters.

[thome]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I have enough declassified documents concerning what the Nazis were working on to KNOW they WERE 40-50 years ahead of their time.

Watch the documentary Hitler's Stealth Fighter.

We did not have any jet fighters that advanced for many, many years after WWII.


As far as you know.......don't get me started.....

How do we know he didn't invent the thing...(Transparent Aluminum)...It will take them years to figure out the matrix..

http://www.hame.ca/blog2/pictures/scotty.jpg

[ELVIS]

Why? 90&#37; of the voice-overs are what is being said by WWII Vets who are merely telling their stories because THEY WERE THERE.

:hee:

And the ten or so percent must be taken very cautiously. It's sometimes mixed in with revisionist history and it's done very cleverly. Especially on a made for television documentary...


:elvis:

[Nickdfresh]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I have enough declassified documents concerning what the Nazis were working on to KNOW they WERE 40-50 years ahead of their time.

Watch the documentary Hitler's Stealth Fighter.

We did not have any jet fighters that advanced for many, many years after WWII.

Um, dude, a "flying wing"--or the "Amerika Bomber" you're talking about--was not sole providence of the Germans. The US in fact had very experimental, tentative plans for a flying wing jet fighter in the late 1930s. The main problems was that our jet engines sucked because they were in their infancy, and more importantly, flying wings are completely unstable and almost impossible to control without extremely sophisticated avionics and computers. Several projects were tried into the 1950s with catastrophic crash rates. And the Germans were never 40 or 50 years ahead on anything and made huge errors in the research and development, which almost ironically, was completely disorganized and fractured. They were ahead enough of the Allies in that they were able to usually field something first, but even their ME-262 Swallow jets were far from omnipotent and many were shot down by Allied P-51s and Tempests, and they showed the vital weaknesses in German jet engine technology that were never really solved. For instance, the Me-262 was extremely slow to accelerate at low speeds making them highly vulnerable to P-51s "cherry-picking" around Luftwaffe air bases. It was British engineering that really perfected the jet engine into a reliable power plant...

As for Hitler's "wonder weapons," about 75-90&#37; of it is internet bullshit and many of the History Channel documentaries such as the "Secret Aircraft of the Luftwaffe" (or of the Allies, the Soviets, etc.) are usually filled with gross exaggerations, speculation, and sensationalism. For instance, in that one, they pretty much stated that a German fighter was to be built in a year if WWII had lasted until 1947. It was called the Ta-183 and that it would out-fly the US F-80 Shooting Stars (which were comparable to the Me-262 if not superior in some ways). But the Ta183 essentially was actually produced in Argentina after the war (where all the good little Nazi aeronautical engineers went ;) ) and the thing sucked and was a complete disappointment. That's not to say the Germans didn't make some ground breaking contributions to jet technology--such as swept wings in addition to their missile technologies. I'm just saying that a lot of the Nazi-wunder weapon thing is overrated...

[Nickdfresh]

....
And there is a lot more to the behind the scenes stuff that was happening back then than they will ever admit to. For example, Pearl Harbor could have been prevented. But Roosevelt was hoping the Japs would attack, as it would give him an excuse to go to war, which, among other things, would lift the US out of the Great Depression.
...
:D

That's not true. The US government--specifically the FDR Admin. and the War Dept.--certainly believed the Japanese were going to attack by early 1942. But they had no idea the Japanese had the audacity and wherewithal to launch carrier strikes against Hawaii for various reasons. Many in the US Navy hadn't accepted the premise that the battleship was relegated to second behind the aircraft carrier in importance to naval tactics. They believed the Japanese would strike at the outer precipice of the US holdings and I believe they anticipated an attack in the Philippines as most likely scenario with US and Filipino forces holding out on Bataan and Corregidor while they waited for a naval task force that would rescue them and defeat the Japanese in an epic battle at sea...

It was called "War Plan Orange" I believe, and what actually happened was that MacArthur fucked up and deviated from the plan by trying to push the Japs back into the sea instead of just retreating to fortifications where their supply dumps were right away. And of course, there would be no rescue because much of the larger component of the Pacific fleet was under water...

[ELVIS]

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:elvis:

[Dan]

Make Love Not War.

Peace Out.

God Bless You All.

[Seshmeister]

Um, dude, a "flying wing"--or the "Amerika Bomber" you're talking about--was not sole providence of the Germans. The US in fact had very experimental, tentative plans for a flying wing jet fighter in the late 1930s. The main problems was that our jet engines sucked because they were in their infancy, and more importantly, flying wings are completely unstable and almost impossible to control without extremely sophisticated avionics and computers. Several projects were tried into the 1950s with catastrophic crash rates. And the Germans were never 40 or 50 years ahead on anything and made huge errors in the research and development, which almost ironically, was completely disorganized and fractured. They were ahead enough of the Allies in that they were able to usually field something first, but even their ME-262 Swallow jets were far from omnipotent and many were shot down by Allied P-51s and Tempests, and they showed the vital weaknesses in German jet engine technology that were never really solved. For instance, the Me-262 was extremely slow to accelerate at low speeds making them highly vulnerable to P-51s "cherry-picking" around Luftwaffe air bases. It was British engineering that really perfected the jet engine into a reliable power plant...

As for Hitler's "wonder weapons," about 75-90% of it is internet bullshit and many of the History Channel documentaries such as the "Secret Aircraft of the Luftwaffe" (or of the Allies, the Soviets, etc.) are usually filled with gross exaggerations, speculation, and sensationalism. For instance, in that one, they pretty much stated that a German fighter was to be built in a year if WWII had lasted until 1947. It was called the Ta-183 and that it would out-fly the US F-80 Shooting Stars (which were comparable to the Me-262 if not superior in some ways). But the Ta183 essentially was actually produced in Argentina after the war (where all the good little Nazi aeronautical engineers went ;) ) and the thing sucked and was a complete disappointment. That's not to say the Germans didn't make some ground breaking contributions to jet technology--such as swept wings in addition to their missile technologies. I'm just saying that a lot of the Nazi-wunder weapon thing is overrated...

I bow to your knowledge on this, it's not an area of expertise of mine.

What I do know is technology and any talk of anyone in the 20th century ever being 40 years ahead of everyone else jumps out as being batshit crazy bullshit.

Fuck you only have to look at how quickly post war the Russians managed to get a nuclear bomb. Even with their isolation and command economy they were never more than say 5 or 6 years behind and that's just one country.

[kwame k]

Wasn't it Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who gave the Nuclear secrets to the Russians.

[Terry]

Interesting stuff to watch, but none of it convinces me that WWII was some noble war fought by the "greatest generation".

[Seshmeister]

Depends who you were I suppose.

I think that a lot of the allied leaders motives were different at the time than they are spun out to be now.

For example I don't think saving jews from the concentration camps was such a major motivation despite what Hollywood would like us to think.

[Nickdfresh]

I bow to your knowledge on this, it's not an area of expertise of mine.

I'm merely standing on the shoulders of giants. But one thing I've learned is you really have to read about it and not rely on documentaries. Having said that, I think that WWII in HD is a pretty good overview. The thing is, it's hardly new. The History Channel has been running this in some form for at least five years (as 'WWII in Color') and IIRC Peter Fonda narrated the older ones which covered a lot of the same topics...

Here's a recent thread we have that involves WWII jets:

The First American Jet (1942) - Page 5 - WW2 in Color History Forum (http://ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?p=162566#post162566)

As for reading, for the American point of view, I'd recommend the "Liberation Trilogy" by Rick Atkins starting with An Army at Dawn.

And I finished Anthony Beevors' Berlin as well as Stalingrad. Both of which are pretty horrifying and depressing...


What I do know is technology and any talk of anyone in the 20th century ever being 40 years ahead of everyone else jumps out as being batshit crazy bullshit.

It's the stuff of fanboi comic-book fantasies. One of the things I've realized with being involved with a history site is that there is a class of North Americans and Euros on the internet that seem enthralled with the dark, mystic aspect of the Wehrmacht/Waffen SS. I think it's the perception that they had cool, high tech weapons that were in some ways better than the Allies stuff, wore cool black or camo uniforms, and sort of had the underdog card as they were mostly fighting outnumbered by 1943. But I think that although the Germans were ahead of the Allies (initially), generally very competent, and well trained at the arts of War; their fighting prowess is a bit exaggerated. I.E. It's nice to have excellent Panther tanks which were generally better than anything the Allies had in most respects, but when your army is mostly reliant on horses, oxes, and railroads for resupply, it really doesn't matter. Especially when you produce only a fraction of the tanks the Allies did. It's kind of silly to get hung up on German super-weapons fantasies, when in truth they were far less mobile than the Allied armies were by 1944 and barely could keep their armies in the field logistically....


Fuck you only have to look at how quickly post war the Russians managed to get a nuclear bomb. Even with their isolation and command economy they were never more than say 5 or 6 years behind and that's just one country.

Don't forget that despite Stalin being a massive cunt and purging everyone that looked at him wrongly, they still had a tradition of excellence in science and engineering. The T-34 was almost a wonder weapon initially that shocked the German Army (Heer) and forced the Germans to create their own excellent tanks in response...

[Nickdfresh]

Interesting stuff to watch, but none of it convinces me that WWII was some noble war fought by the "greatest generation".

That was Tom Brokaw's buzz slogan. But I think even many members of the "greatest generation" would say they were just doing what any other generation would do. Again, a more realistic, balanced view is offered by Rick Atkins in An Army at Dawn, where American soldiers and their leaders are portrayed not just as weepy-eyed heroes from some distant age, but also as cowards, rapists, and incompetents at their worst. And courageous, selfless, and morally courageous at their best...

However, as cynical as I generally am, there was an aspect of nobility at ridding the world of fascism and death camps. Unfortunately, we're not very consistent about such things since...

[Seshmeister]

when your army is mostly reliant on horses, oxes, and railroads for resupply

I think very few people realize that most of the WWII German army was moved around by horses and oxes. I didn't know that until just a few years ago, we always imagine an incredible high tech machine.

Do they ever show 'The World At War in the US', it's maybe too dry for the History Channel?

For me that's the definitive series and has the benefit of lots of interviews with people who were running things on both sides who will now be long dead.

Nowadays the only people left to interview are the people who were very young at the time and so in very junior positions.

[ZahZoo]

Depends who you were I suppose.

I think that a lot of the allied leaders motives were different at the time than they are spun out to be now.

For example I don't think saving jews from the concentration camps was such a major motivation despite what Hollywood would like us to think.

At the time it was more of a power play to prevent Germany from taking over any more of Europe, North Africa and Russia. It wasn't until well into the war when the allies started finding the concentration/death camps hidden away in far off the path places did they realize what else the nazis were up to...

[Seshmeister]

Lucky that you were too old for the draft, it must have been close... :)

[Terry]

That was Tom Brokaw's buzz slogan. But I think even many members of the "greatest generation" would say they were just doing what any other generation would do. Again, a more realistic, balanced view is offered by Rick Atkins in An Army at Dawn, where American soldiers and their leaders are portrayed not just as weepy-eyed heroes from some distant age, but also as cowards, rapists, and incompetents at their worst. And courageous, selfless, and morally courageous at their best...

However, as cynical as I generally am, there was an aspect of nobility at ridding the world of fascism and death camps. Unfortunately, we're not very consistent about such things since...

Am not disparaging toward the soldiers who fought in WWII, despite my own cynicism, but there has been a bit of at times almost adulatory retro-worship in the tones some speak of WWII. Not referring to any specific posts on this thread, but that attitude is out there.

Maybe some wars are necessary. Leaving that whole can of worms to one side, while I'm far from a pinko-commie-metrosexual-PC tree hugger, I just don't think wars should be glorified. When I look at what happened in the concentration camps, I don't think by contrast that dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was somehow more noble just because it was the US that did the bombing.

War is a nasty business all the way around, and when people say that compassion is what differentiates us from the animal kingdom, I think about some of the images that came out of the Vietnam conflict and would tend to disagree.

[Nitro Express]

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[Nitro Express]

My question about Vietnam is we went over there, got lot's of people killed, wasted billions of dollars and got our country in debt because of it, lost the war. Now we trade with the communists that run it but yet refuse to do business with Cuba. Go figure.

[Nitro Express]

The fuel for war is basically social pressure. Talk to anyone who was alive in the US during World War II. You had better have a good excuse not to be in a uniform if you were male and 18 or above. The military actually found they had to put riflemen in groups because so many of them were not aiming at their targets and just shooting because they didn't want to kill anyone. Put a snitch on their ass and the peer pressure thing is effective. I would say peer/social pressure is the most powerful psycological tool on the planet. It will make people do things they normally don't want to do.

[Nitro Express]

The United States can't afford any more wars. We have to borrow money from China to keep the wars we have now going. Maybe the Chinese are using our own stupidity to wear us down and ruin us economically. Then they will demand repayment of their loans and that could start another war. It won't be terrorizing third world countries the next time. I think the powers that be got too confident on our weapons superiority possibly thinking we will just borrow their money and if they want it back well, we still have nuclear first strike capability. What worries me is where we are going once all this money printing and borrowing plays out and destroys itself.

[Nitro Express]

The US is like a big thug with a baseball bat that borrows from the other kids in the playground. Once the other kids get mad and want their money back the thug figures it has a big baseball bat and will say, come and get it! We won the cold war and then turned into a big fat pig.

[Terry]

This country on the whole has gotten soft and lazy, and greedy with a sense of being entitled to whatever we want without having to do any of the work to get it.

One way or another, we get what we deserve.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

On the last episode of this series, one of the Tuskegee Airmen made a great statement, something along the lines of "the people who're making decisions to go to war are not the ones going to war"....

[Seshmeister]

The other problem we have at the moment is that the people who make the decision to come end the war are the ones who will look like they fucked up...

[thome]

The other problem we have at the moment is that the people who make the decision to come end the war are the ones who will look like they fucked up...


Not one single of you coKK suKKer MF'ers were there, but you talk all this BS ........................................can It GIT a BSHIT!
With some you pussy bitch rat bastards.......?

[thome]

Sept'n for the chick that started this thread ....

she just wasn't there either...

can you tell me about the one that never ends

it's just killing me
.....

just like my butterfly

just a little to late...

by my wonderment of the just a little to late..

[Hardrock69]

You can have sex with a killing machine ??

Well, on second thought, Ian Gillan says you can...


:elvis:

:lmao:

[Hardrock69]

Um, dude, a "flying wing"--or the "Amerika Bomber" you're talking about--was not sole providence of the Germans. The US in fact had very experimental, tentative plans for a flying wing jet fighter in the late 1930s. The main problems was that our jet engines sucked because they were in their infancy, and more importantly, flying wings are completely unstable and almost impossible to control without extremely sophisticated avionics and computers. Several projects were tried into the 1950s with catastrophic crash rates. And the Germans were never 40 or 50 years ahead on anything and made huge errors in the research and development, which almost ironically, was completely disorganized and fractured. They were ahead enough of the Allies in that they were able to usually field something first, but even their ME-262 Swallow jets were far from omnipotent and many were shot down by Allied P-51s and Tempests, and they showed the vital weaknesses in German jet engine technology that were never really solved. For instance, the Me-262 was extremely slow to accelerate at low speeds making them highly vulnerable to P-51s "cherry-picking" around Luftwaffe air bases. It was British engineering that really perfected the jet engine into a reliable power plant...

As for Hitler's "wonder weapons," about 75-90% of it is internet bullshit and many of the History Channel documentaries such as the "Secret Aircraft of the Luftwaffe" (or of the Allies, the Soviets, etc.) are usually filled with gross exaggerations, speculation, and sensationalism. For instance, in that one, they pretty much stated that a German fighter was to be built in a year if WWII had lasted until 1947. It was called the Ta-183 and that it would out-fly the US F-80 Shooting Stars (which were comparable to the Me-262 if not superior in some ways). But the Ta183 essentially was actually produced in Argentina after the war (where all the good little Nazi aeronautical engineers went ;) ) and the thing sucked and was a complete disappointment. That's not to say the Germans didn't make some ground breaking contributions to jet technology--such as swept wings in addition to their missile technologies. I'm just saying that a lot of the Nazi-wunder weapon thing is overrated...

Why don't you go to work for History Channel? Seems to me you know a lot about this! ;)

And of course they are going to gloss over lotsa stuff. Can't freak out the sheep, ya know. :D


I'm not going to argue about any of this stuff. You can all look on the net to find out the absolute accurate info about all this rubbish. But even if one were to claim the sky was blue, there would be some goober running up saying "No it's not". :D

My nutshell response should have just been "it is a good TV series" and then I should have shut the hell up. ;)

[Nitro Express]

On the last episode of this series, one of the Tuskegee Airmen made a great statement, something along the lines of "the people who're making decisions to go to war are not the ones going to war"....

Yup, and brave black heros who protected our bombers got no meddles or due recognition when they got home. The way we treated the black veterans of that war was a discrace.

[Nitro Express]

This country on the whole has gotten soft and lazy, and greedy with a sense of being entitled to whatever we want without having to do any of the work to get it.

One way or another, we get what we deserve.

You pretty much described the problem.

[hideyoursheep]

Nick has got to be pleasuring himself during this documentary..:hee:

It's porn for WWII buffs..

[LoungeMachine]

Sept'n for the chick that started this thread ....

she just wasn't there either...

can you tell me about the one that never ends

it's just killing me
.....

just like my butterfly

just a little to late...

by my wonderment of the just a little to late..


What a waste of DNA you are.........

:gulp:

Can we get our collective money back on you?

[Seshmeister]

You do wonder what was Dorothy thinking...?

[Hardrock69]

She's not in Kansas anymore? :D

[Seshmeister]

If their geography is like their English she wouldn't know one way or the other. :)

[Hardrock69]

Depends on whether or not the Tin Woodman has her bent over a fence giving her the Chromium Cob.
:D

[Sensible Shoes]

It is real...

Just don't buy into everything that they try to sell you on a documantary...

It's actually better to watch it with most of the sound, OFF!


:elvis:

Having been a writer for the small screen for years, I already knew this. ;d

[Nitro Express]

The wars will end. Afganistahn and Iraq will be full of American equipment, monuments withe dead Americans will go up, and nothing will change over there. The price we paid for those wars will effect us for decades after. Just look at how Vietnam affected us. I created revolution in our country, if got our country in debt and got us off the gold standard so we could pay for the war, and we have a monument in DC full of dead people's names. Vietnam was the begining of our economic downturn.

[Nickdfresh]

Why don't you go to work for History Channel? Seems to me you know a lot about this! ;)

Because I'd piss on the parade. Actually, they've done some fine stuff, the best of which they don't play anymore. Military Blunders was classic, but again was politically incorrect as it pointed out the flaws not just in obvious targets, but in the hallowed warriors such as MacArthur and Montgomery whose shit is encrusted in gold...


And of course they are going to gloss over lotsa stuff. Can't freak out the sheep, ya know. :D

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean...


I'm not going to argue about any of this stuff. You can all look on the net to find out the absolute accurate info about all this rubbish. But even if one were to claim the sky was blue, there would be some goober running up saying "No it's not". :D

My nutshell response should have just been "it is a good TV series" and then I should have shut the hell up. ;)

Okay, well, how could the Germans have lost if they were 40 to 50 years ahead in technology? Can anyone actually explain that?

[Nickdfresh]

Nick has got to be pleasuring himself during this documentary..:hee:

It's porn for WWII buffs..

It's better than my Rosie the Riveter poster! :)

http://www.eraserheadgraphics.com/assets/images/rosie_the_riveter.jpg

[Nickdfresh]

At the time it was more of a power play to prevent Germany from taking over any more of Europe, North Africa and Russia. It wasn't until well into the war when the allies started finding the concentration/death camps hidden away in far off the path places did they realize what else the nazis were up to...


That's not entirely true actually. In fact, factions of Allied intelligence were quite aware than the Nazis were massacring Jews, Communists (on the Eastern Front), and just about anyone non-Aryan. The New York Times had a series of stories on this in the late 1990s, and even posted sections or articles written as early as 1942 describing mass-murder of the Jews. I think the consensus was that the reasons that the Allies never specifically mentioned such atrocities were many: Partially because no one in any intelligence agency ever put everything together to get a big picture so to speak, so no one had a clear picture of the Holocaust. Secondly, neither Roosevelt nor Churchill wanted the War to be perceived as a narrow "crusade to save the Jews." Thirdly, in cold military terms, it was irrelevant as they were more concerned with the enemy's order of battle than specifically what they were doing to civilians, and trains carrying victims of genocide to Auschwitz couldn't carry troops or tanks to the front...

[Hardrock69]

The Nazis murdered about 14 million people during WWII.

Less than half were Jewish.

Then there were all the others who died after the war as their country was now bombed to hell, many were homeless, lotsa sick peeps, starving peeps, etc.

[Seshmeister]

The Nazis murdered about 14 million people during WWII.

Less than half were Jewish.


Yet the rest didn't get their own countries after the war.

The gypsies didn't get a homeland created for them in Palestine...

[Nitro Express]

The Nazis murdered about 14 million people during WWII.

Less than half were Jewish.

Then there were all the others who died after the war as their country was now bombed to hell, many were homeless, lotsa sick peeps, starving peeps, etc.

Probably more than that. The Russians figure they lost 20 million people fighting the huns during WWII.

[Seshmeister]

I think he meant civilians

[Hardrock69]

Probably more than that. The Russians figure they lost 20 million people fighting the huns during WWII.

The number 14 million was direct from WWII in HD in the episode where they discuss the liberation of the kamps.

[Nickdfresh]

The number 14 million was direct from WWII in HD in the episode where they discuss the liberation of the kamps.

I'm not sure, but they might just mean those in captivity...

[Hardrock69]

I SAID......that was how many the Germans murdered. NOT how many they killed in battle.

They were talking about the number of people killed in the koncentration kamps.

[Seshmeister]

Sounds too high for just the camps.

Maybe that's how many they killed if you include Russian civilians.

[letsrock]

The United States can't afford any more wars. We have to borrow money from China to keep the wars we have now going. Maybe the Chinese are using our own stupidity to wear us down and ruin us economically. Then they will demand repayment of their loans and that could start another war. It won't be terrorizing third world countries the next time. I think the powers that be got too confident on our weapons superiority possibly thinking we will just borrow their money and if they want it back well, we still have nuclear first strike capability. What worries me is where we are going once all this money printing and borrowing plays out and destroys itself.

Let them demand repayment. We are Americans, when they call us out on it, we'll just say: "call back next week when i get paid"

[Nickdfresh]

Sounds too high for just the camps.

Maybe that's how many they killed if you include Russian civilians.

It's hard to say. Remember the second largest grouping to be murdered in terms of numbers were Soviet POWs (at least 3.3 million)--who were essentially just penned into fields and allowed to die of starvation, disease, and exposure...

[standin]

That reminds me of a song...
<object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BAqP35A9Oi8&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BAqP35A9Oi8&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object>
I really like Al Stewart's music... :heart:

[Hardrock69]

Regardless of the actual number of people who died in WWII, it was too many.

[Terry]

Sounds too high for just the camps.

Maybe that's how many they killed if you include Russian civilians.

If one even suggests that Russian civilian deaths might have approached the numbers of Jews murdered in concentration camps, one sometimes runs the risk of all kinds of backlash...like, to even express the opinion that there were ethnic or religious groups besides the Jews who didn't exactly have a picnic during WWII, sometimes people will go fucking bananas.

[Seshmeister]

Regardless of the actual number of people who died in WWII, it was too many.

Controversial stuff... :)

[Nickdfresh]

If one even suggests that Russian civilian deaths might have approached the numbers of Jews murdered in concentration camps, one sometimes runs the risk of all kinds of backlash...like, to even express the opinion that there were ethnic or religious groups besides the Jews who didn't exactly have a picnic during WWII, sometimes people will go fucking bananas.

Without checking, I'm pretty sure than Soviet civilian deaths far exceeded the Jews in the camps. I'm also pretty sure the line is blurred here because many of the first Soviet citizens murdered were Jewish and more then six million Jews died in the Holocaust...

[Nickdfresh]

Remains of five Nazi soldiers killed on D-Day are discovered in France

By Peter Allen
Last updated at 3:41 PM on 20th May 2009

The ghostly remains of five Nazi soldiers gunned down by the British on D-Day have been uncovered in northern France.

Still surrounded by their World War II German helmets and ammunition clips, they were found almost exactly 65 years to the day since Allied forces stormed ashore on June 6th 1944.

Scraps of camouflage smocks and tunic buttons also adorn the mangled skeletons, which were all hastily placed face down in a shallow grave ten feet long and four feet wide.
The remains of five Nazi soldiers were discovered near Bavent, in northern France. The bodies were placed in a shallow grave
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/20/article-1184995-0505AE96000005DC-936_468x286.jpg
The remains of five Nazi soldiers were discovered in a shallow grave near Bavent, in northern France

All retained their ‘dog tags’ – small aluminum plates on a chain inscribed with name, rank and number – which would normally have been removed by their comrades and sent home to the Fatherland.

Rifles and machine guns were all taken, possibly by British parachutists who had lost their own weapons during the night-time landings before D-Day.

‘The bodies weren’t covered before being buried which was unusual,’ said local council director Jean Deloges.

‘The presence of identity tags also suggests that they were buried extremely quickly by English or Canadian parachtists who were operating in the sector. All the Germans were clearly killed in the early hours of June 6th 1944.’

Tunic buttons have revealed that one of the men was an officer, with artifacts also including gas mask bags, gold teeth, and even a Berlin-made fountain pen.

The grave was found on May 8th by an amateur historian investigating the battlefield around Bavent, seven miles north east of Caen.

The town is even closer to the fabled Pegasus Bridge, where the first troops to land on D-Day were from D-Company, 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, in a 6th Airborne Division glider.

Their commander, Major John Howard, led his men against an onslaught of enemy fire, including an attack by the 21st Panzer Division.

It will now be up to archeologists to establish whether the newly discovered Germans died fighting airborne soldiers, or in a combined air and sea bombardment.

Commandos of the 1st Special Service Brigade, led by Lord Lovat, eventually arrived in Bavent after landing on Gold Beach.

In Bavent the Commandos experienced World War One-style trench warfare, with the Germans well dug into their positions.

Today a green tent covered the burial site, with a permanent guard watching over it.

An exhumation will soon take place, with the soldiers likely to be buried in the German military cemetery at La Cambe , near Bayeux. Efforts will also be made to trace any surviving family.

American President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be among those commemorating D-Day in Normandy next month.

DailyMail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1184995/Remains-Nazi-soldiers-killed-D-Day-discovered-France.html)

[Seshmeister]

I'm confused.

Speilberg taught me that it was only Americans that took the beaches on D-Day...

[Nickdfresh]

Well, someone had to take care of our light work. :)

[Nitro Express]

I'm confused.

Speilberg taught me that it was only Americans that took the beaches on D-Day...

That's because Tom Hanks doesn't have a British accent and probably couldn't load an Enfield stripper clip properly.

[Nickdfresh]

I'm confused.

Speilberg taught me that it was only Americans that took the beaches on D-Day...

More seriously, to be fair though, he missed a lot in that film in the Normandy landing part--basically making it seem as if a Ranger captain was responsible for the breakthrough of the German defenses when the US and Royal navies had a lot to do with it. Three destroyers came in close and nearly risked running aground to pepper the German forts and trenches with 5-inch gunfire. There was also no one singular breakthrough. It was a number of guys, sometimes privates taking charge, that broke through the seawall in horrible terrain where basically they were fucked...

I find Band of Brothers to be a much better view of the War, and even though it was about an American airborne regiment, they took pains to show the British during the "Market Garden" sequences, and even a scene Free French executing German soldiers...

[Hardrock69]

James Doohan, otherwise known as Scotty on the original Star Trek, landed on Omaha beach with his Canadian unit, and had one of his middle fingers shot off.

You can clearly see it towards the end of the episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", when the door to the bridge opens, and he walks out of the elevator with an armful of tribbles.

I saw it in person when I met him in the early 90s.

[Seshmeister]

I think it was 5 beaches, 2 American, 2 British and 1 Canadian.

[Nickdfresh]

Correct. Omaha and Utah were the American beaches. Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches were Commonwealth...

[Hardrock69]

I stand slightly corrected then. James Doohan was in the Canadian unit, so whatever beach it was......


Doesn't matter what beach it was actually, still results in the same thing....minus half a finger.

[Seshmeister]

Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, nineteen-year-old Doohan enlisted as a gunner in the Royal Canadian Artillery. After rising through the ranks to Sergeant, he won a place at Officer Training School, becoming a Lieutenant in the Thirteenth Field Regiment. On June 6, 1944, Doohan, by then promoted to Command Post Officer (Captain), was among the Canadian forces sent to take Juno Beach in Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion. He was in command of 120 men. That night, Doohan was machine-gunned when returning to his command post, sustaining wounds in the leg, right hand and chest – a cigarette case caught a bullet that would otherwise have killed him – and lost the middle finger of his right hand (because of this injury, outside of rare occasions, Doohan would conceal that portion of his right hand in film shots.) "I was twenty-four," Doohan wrote in his book Beam Me Up, Scotty, "And if the Germans had been marginally better shots, I wouldn't have seen twenty-five."

After convalescing in England, Doohan became a qualified pilot at 43 Operational Training Unit, Andover, England, winning Air Observation Post pilot's wings in early 1945. He was posted to 666 (AOP) RCAF Squadron, where he flew the AUSTER Mark V aircraft, a dangerous, low-level flight tasking for artillery officers who photographed enemy positions, and directed artillery fire from the air. Although 666 (AOP) RCAF Squadron was not sent into battle, the unit was stationed at Apeldoorn, Holland, through the summer of 1945 to conduct "air taxi" duties, as documented in the 1945 publication (and 2006 republication), Battle History 666 (Calgary: Abel Book Company, 2006), and in the 2002 publication entitled Canada's Flying Gunners, by Col. Dave Fromow.

Ooof.

You sometimes wonder why they didn't just make soldiers uniforms out of the same stuff as cigarette cases...

[Nickdfresh]

You could make a whole thread on celebrity veterans who generally downplayed their very heroic service in WWII...

Off the top of my head of other actors who should have died in the War is Lee Marvin, who was wounded numerous times in the Marines. I think also Eddie Albert did something extremely heroic, but I might be wrong about that...

*I'm correct, Albert saved the lives of almost fifty marines as a Coast Guard officer commanding a landing craft. Marvin was an infantrymen who saw some of the most vicious fighting in the pacific and was wounded more than once. Jimmy Stewert flew bombing missions, and so did Charles Bronson. Jack Palance was severally wounded I believe...

Here's a related thread: http://ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4349

Charles Durning actually landed on Omaha Beach in the first wave and was severally wounded...