TIL the second officer of the Titanic, who survived by swimming from the sinking ship to a capsized raft, later in life sailed his civilian craft to Dunkirk and helped evacuate over 130 men. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearn...SQ&sh=a31259bd [Reply]
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins:
I will just say one thing about WWII in general and its bleakness:
I don't want to take anything away from the sacrifices that American, British, and Western European people made during that war, but World War II was really fought on the Eastern Front. And while actions like Dunkirk, Overlord and The Battle of Bulge were dangerous and harrowing, they really pale in comparison to what happened on the other side of the continent.
If you were to take the Eastern Front, remove it from WWII and make it its own war, it is the largest in human history and deadlier than WWI on its own. Seven out of eight Germans that died did so on the Eastern Front.
The brutality involved in trying to roust thousands upon thousands of Japanese soldiers out of their islands caves in the Pacific, when they would much rather be burned alive than suffer the disgrace of surrender, was just as bad.
Both the eastern front and the pacific campaign were just unbelievably brutal. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc:
The brutality involved in trying to roust thousands upon thousands of Japanese soldiers out of their islands caves in the Pacific, when they would much rather be burned alive than suffer the disgrace of surrender, was just as bad.
Both the eastern front and the pacific campaign were just unbelievably brutal.
Were Japanese soldiers thrown out of the infirmary, soaked with a hose, and left to freeze to death? There are numerous stories of soldiers being unable to roust Soviet soldiers with flamethrowers, and I don't recall there being Japanese batallions ordered to fire on Japanese soldiers if they moved back. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc:
The brutality involved in trying to roust thousands upon thousands of Japanese soldiers out of their islands caves in the Pacific, when they would much rather be burned alive than suffer the disgrace of surrender, was just as bad.
Both the eastern front and the pacific campaign were just unbelievably brutal.
There was brutality all over the world in WWII. But the eastern front dominated the combat deaths:
Most of those German deaths were the eastern front. Stalingrad accounted for almost 2 million deaths by itself.
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins:
Were Japanese soldiers thrown out of the infirmary, soaked with a hose, and left to freeze to death? There are numerous stories of soldiers being unable to roust Soviet soldiers with flamethrowers, and I don't recall there being Japanese batallions ordered to fire on Japanese soldiers if they moved back.
There weren’t Kamikaze’s and banzai charges on the eastern front. [Reply]
Putting aside the regional conflicts that continued well past 1945 and focusing just on the major Axis/Allied war itself, one facet of the eastern/western front debate is the development and use of atomic bombs. There's no telling how much longer the Pacific campaign would have lasted nor how many lives would have been lost had the battle versus Japan ended conventionally. It's odd to say it, but at the least hundreds of thousands were saved, perhaps millions. [Reply]
Originally Posted by keg in kc:
Putting aside the regional conflicts that continued well past 1945 and focusing just on the major Axis/Allied war itself, one facet of the eastern/western front debate is the development and use of atomic bombs. There's no telling how much longer the Pacific campaign would have lasted nor how many lives would have been lost had the battle versus Japan ended conventionally. It's odd to say it, but at the least hundreds of thousands were saved, perhaps millions.
A lot of historians think Japan would’ve surrendered quickly after the Soviets got involved. We’ll never know. Assuming that’s not the case, though, the bombs might’ve saved 1-2 million lives. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc:
There weren’t Kamikaze’s and banzai charges on the eastern front.
Yes, there were. Men in penal companies were forced to charge German machine guns without weapons. And there was nowhere near the amount of civilian suffering encountered in the Pacific theater between the US and Japan. The Japanese did awful things to the Chinese, but there was widespread rape and murder perpetrated by both armies (and their partisans) on the Eastern front. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ShiftyEyedWaterboy:
A lot of historians think Japan would’ve surrendered quickly after the Soviets got involved. We’ll never know. Assuming that’s not the case, though, the bombs might’ve saved 1-2 million lives.
Yea and who knows if /when the Russians would have gotten involved.
Stalin's promises were worth about as much as Hitler's. [Reply]
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins:
Yes, there were. Men in penal companies were forced to charge German machine guns without weapons. And there was nowhere near the amount of civilian suffering encountered in the Pacific theater between the US and Japan. The Japanese did awful things to the Chinese, but there was widespread rape and murder perpetrated by both armies (and their partisans) on the Eastern front.
Yeah, the Wermacht was extremely harsh on the Soviet population during Barbarossa. That’s why so many Germans tried so hard to surrender to the allies at the end of the war. The Russians were looking for revenge and got it. [Reply]
