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[ { "body": "Hello again /u/Dinocrocodile! The Islamic Middle East did indeed go through a phase of interest in the past, particularly in Greek philosophy. The desire to be able to read the works of the Greeks was one of the driving forces behind the House of Wisdom, which I talk about in an answer [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6peuaj/how_would_one_go_about_studying_at_the_house_of/), and was core to the Mu'tizilite school that dominated under Caliph Ma'mun. However, it shouldn't be assumed that this was the only place the knowledge of the Greeks was contained to.\n\nThe interest in Greek philosophy, and specifically metaphysics, reached its peak around the 9th to 11th centuries when it was espoused by many of the great scholars of the age: Ibn Rushd from Andalusia (known in the West as Averroes), Ibn Sina from Iran (known as Avicenna), and al-Kindi and al-Farabi from Iraq. The different schools of thought each of the philosophers developed were based upon Greek philosophy but interpreted it in a different light than the West did. Specifically, Islamic philosophy viewed Greek thought as being prophetic, and that they were know mastering their understanding of the prophecy through the Revelation of the Qur'an.\n\n First, the Aristotelian school of thought championed by scholars such al-Kindi and al-Farabi arose. Al-Farabi himself was so important he was known as the Second teacher because \"he was the first to enumerate and delineate clearly the\nsciences in the context of Islamic civilization, as Aristotle, the 'First Teacher,' had done for the Greek sciences\" (Nasr 138). Note here that they were not merely copying the Greek thought. Although they took large inspiration from the Greeks, they adopted the though to a specifically Islamic context. For example, they sought to harmonize faith and reason and used logical proofs for the existence of God (which I'll talk about a bit more with Ibn Sina).\n\nThis more Aristotelian school of thought was then gradually modified and became Avicennian, based on the works and thought of the Persian scholar Ibn Sina. At the heart of this school was an attempt to develop an \"all-encompassing metaphysical model of reality that would allow him to prove the existence of God using logic\" (Khalili 265). Ibn Sina actually did end up accomplishing this, writing a book called *The Proof of the Truthful* in which he outlined that eventually there has to be *something* that simply cannot not exist. To Ibn Sina, that something was God. (This kind of reminds me of the \"uncaused cause\" argument that I hear a lot in Christian circles).\n\nWhile this sort of Aristotelian thought was developing, an opposing school of thought arose under the leadership of al-Ghazzali. Al-Ghazzali is often considered one of the most important scholars in the entirety of Islamic history, being given the titles of both *mujaddid*, renewer of the faith, and *hujjat al-Islam*, the proof of Islam. The Ash'ari school of thought that al-Ghazzali was affiliated with (although he did differ on some issues) belonged to was based upon arose to combat the Mu'atizili rationalist school. The book *Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present* has this to say about the Ash'arites:\n\n>The Ash‘arite school is based on a voluntarism that reduces the function of the intellect to the purely human level and remains nearly oblivious to the aspect of the Divinity as objective Truth and Knowledge. For this school, truth is what God has willed, and the intellect has no function outside the external tenets of the religion. (Nasr 97)\n\nThis is the more extreme version of Ash'ari thought and al-Ghazzali held a moderated view, believing that the \"unchecked\" use of reason disregard of tradition was harmful and instead sought a more balanced use of reason. For example, al-Ghazzali didn't have problems with applying reason and the scientific method to mathematics and astronomy, but he did with philosophy and metaphysics. An argument like Ibn Sina's proof of God would thus be an abhorrent use of reason.\n\nThe conflict between the various Islamic Aristotilian schools of thought and the more fundamentalist Ash'ari of thought came to a head with one of my favorite examples of medievals throwing shade. Al-Ghazzali famously wrote a book called *The Incoherence of the Philosophers*, within which he criticized Avicennian thought and specifically called out Averroes and al-Farabi themselves. In response, Averroes wrote another book, *The Incoherence of the Incoherence*, trying to discredit al-Ghazzali's views! My only regret is that this didn't continue until we had *The Incoherence of the Incoherence of the Incoherence*.... Al-Ghazzali's book is considered by many to be one of the final nails in the coffin of the proliferation of Greek thought in the Islamic world (although there are many other nails as well). \n\nSo to sum up, the medieval Islamic world did indeed have a large interest in the works of the Greeks. However, it was different from the emulation you saw in the West, and they instead seized upon it as a source of logic and philosophy to be adapted to the Islamic system of thought. Eventually, the interest in Greek thought caused a large pushback from those who saw it as too loosely employing human reason in domains that humans could never hope to understand. From here we get the emergence of the more strict scholars, such as al-Ghazalli and his affiliation to the Ash'ari school of thought.\n\nI hope this helps and if you have any questions I'll try to get back to them!\n\n**Sources** \n\n*Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy* by Seyyid Hossein Nasr\n\n*Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science* by Jim al-Khalili", "created_utc": 1501055052, "distinguished": null, "id": "dkqhhdm", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/6plu53/during_the_renaissance_and_enlightenment_in/dkqhhdm/", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Great question! I am studying to be a secondary education history teacher, and work towards my MA to teach at a community college level. My main area of interest is definitely the Enlightenment. I have studied immensely the French, British, and American Enlightenment's, but have never asked this question. \n\nThe answer was astounding! I am new to Reddit, and this was the first thread I read. Goodbye Facebook lol. \n\nBoth Christians and Muslims both adapted reason to their religion such as Newton. Though the Radical Enlightenment thinkers like Hume subscribed to the secular side of the Enlightenment, I am curious if there were Muslim Enlightenment thinkers that did the same? \n\nAlso, is there a page specifically dedicated to Enlightenment history?\n\nThank you!", "created_utc": 1507746300, "distinguished": null, "id": "do88khj", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/6plu53/during_the_renaissance_and_enlightenment_in/do88khj/", "score": 2 }, { "body": "Thank you!", "created_utc": 1507781572, "distinguished": null, "id": "do92xlu", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/6plu53/during_the_renaissance_and_enlightenment_in/do92xlu/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "As a good primary source, I would recommend The Burning of the World by Béla Zombory-Moldován. It’s a first person account of the first six months of fighting on the Eastern Front in the Honvéd, the Royal Hungarian Army. \n\nWhat I learned from that book was that the initial stages of fighting on the Eastern Front was much like the mobile war in the West—no entrenchment. Like the Nazis in WW2, the Hungarians made the mistake of assuming that it would take the Russians months to mobilize their troops. They force marched to the Galician border ill-prepared and ill-trained, with a motley crew of Austrian and Hungarian officers leading Hungarian and Pole and Czech and Slovak and Croat and Romanian-speaking enlisted. The Russians used rail effectively to move men and artillery into position at breakneck speed. The Austro-Hungarians thought they could strike quickly into Russia, but they ended up getting bogged down and slaughtered; the Germans had to bail them out.", "created_utc": 1685857342, "distinguished": null, "id": "jmtxv1d", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/13zgyld/how_did_the_eastern_front_during_world_war_i/jmtxv1d/", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Article 36 of [the 1929 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/INTRO/305) stated:\n\n\"Each of the belligerents shall fix periodically the number of letters and postcards which prisoners of war of different categories shall be permitted to send per month, and shall notify that number to the other belligerent. These letters and cards shall be sent by post by the shortest route. They may not be delayed or withheld for disciplinary motives. Not later than one week after his arrival in camp, and similarly in case of sickness, each prisoner shall be enabled to send a postcard to his family informing them of his capture and the state of his health. The said postcards shall be forwarded as quickly as possible and shall not be delayed in any manner.\nAs a general rule, the correspondence of prisoners shall be written in their native language. Belligerents may authorize correspondence in other languages\"\n \nThe collection and distribution of information was covered by articles 77:\n\n\"At the commencement of hostilities, each of the belligerent Powers and the neutral Powers who have belligerents in their care, shall institute an official bureau to give information about the prisoners of war in their territory.\n\nEach of the belligerent Powers shall inform its Information Bureau as soon as possible of all captures of prisoners effected by its armed forces, furnishing them with all particulars of identity at its disposal to enable the families concerned to be quickly notified, and stating the official addresses to which families may write to the prisoners.\"\n\n... and 79:\n\n\"A Central Agency of information regarding prisoners of war shall be established in a neutral country. The International Red Cross Committee shall, if they consider it necessary, propose to the Powers concerned the organization of such an agency.\"\n\nThe official bureau was organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, who worked in conjunction with a Protecting Power (for British Commonwealth prisoners this was the United States until their declaration of war, from 1942 Switzerland became the Protecting Power for British and American prisoners), various national organisations (the American Red Cross, Australian Red Cross, British Red Cross Society and Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, etc.), and government bodies who held e.g. next-of-kin information. Families would typically be informed by the military first that their relatives were missing, then prisoners of war once that information was confirmed via ICRC channels. As per article 36 a Red Cross card, often pre-printed, was usually made available to prisoners shortly after capture to let their family know they were alive and safe; the Germans used a bogus form (initially labelled \"Red Cross\", later changed to not specifically name the Red Cross but marked \"Printed in Geneva\"), telling prisoners that if they completed it then it would greatly speed up the process of contacting their family. It asked for much more information than the standard name, rank and serial number (e.g. names of units, objectives, comrades etc.), and once word filtered back Allied personnel were warned not to complete it.\n\nSome idea of the scale of the undertaking can be seen in this [picture of records at the Central Prisoners of War Agency, Geneva](https://cpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.unimelb.edu.au/dist/9/92/files/2017/05/Geneva-Bureau-2kuli6f.jpg), from a University of Melbourne [blog post](https://web.archive.org/web/20190110183921/https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/archives/a-humane-and-intimate-administration-the-red-cross-world-war-two-wounded-missing-and-prisoner-of-war-cards/) about their holding of Australian Red Cross cards relating to Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War Enquiries.\n\nPrisoners were also entitled to receive parcels under article 37 of the Convention: \"Prisoners of war shall be authorized to receive individually postal parcels containing foodstuffs and other articles intended for consumption or clothing.\" Individuals could purchase e.g. books or tobacco that were sent directly to prisoners (via the Red Cross) by authorised sellers, and there were central efforts to provide food. These were not intended to be a primary source of food, a luxury rather than a necessity, as article 11 stated that \"The food ration of prisoners of war shall be equivalent in quantity and quality to that of the depot troops.\" \n\nThere were issues establishing the process for procuring and transporting parcels to Allied prisoners in 1940 resulting in questions in parliament, but by mid-1941 they were beginning to be supplied in quantity by the Joint War Organisation (an amalgamation of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and the British Red Cross Society). A typical Red Cross food parcel might contain \"one pound each of dried milk, butter, jam, biscuits, bully beef, and meat roll, eight ounces of salmon, six ounces each of sardines, prunes, and sugar, seven ounces of raisins, five ounces of chocolate, four ounces of cheese, four ounces of tea or coffee, salt, and a cake of soap\", and it was intended that each POW should receive one per week, though this was rarely achieved in practise.\n\nParcels were shipped via neutral countries; in Europe, following the fall of France, this was Portugal. The parcels were carried by ship to Lisbon and, initially, transported over land via Spain and Vichy France to Switzerland. This proved unsatisfactory, so at the end of 1940 a shipping service from Lisbon to Marseilles was established, improving matters considerably. Distribution of the parcels was the responsibility of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which was largely funded by governments and national Red Cross societies. Early British government funding was extremely paltry (the main donations coming from Germany and France), in part due to the issues in establishing the delivery mechanisms in 1940 but also concerns that Switzerland could be occupied by Germany, but as the ICRC proved its worth so British contributions increased to £30,000 per month from September 1941.\n\nAs supplies of Red Cross parcels improved over 1941 Germany cut already meagre rations to POWs by a third; \"... the low levels of rations issued by the German authorities were the result of a formal policy decision made by the OKW, who realized early in the war that the Allies could and would provide generous supplements through the Red Cross, and saw in this an opportunity to reduce the cost of maintaining the prisoners of war (thus causing the Allies to subsidize, indirectly, the German war effort).\" (*Prisoners of War and the German High Command*, Vasilis Vourkoutiotis.)\n\nParcels to prisoners in Italy were somewhat prone to going missing, \"either pilfered by the guards or simply lost in the shambles of the Italian transport system\" (*Britain and the International Committee of the Red Cross, 1939-1945*, James Crossland) but any suggestion of widespread appropriation of Red Cross parcels would have risked the whole operation being suspended or halted entirely. \"Although on occasion the Germans withheld the issue of parcels as a disciplinary measure, they scrupulously respected their contents, and pillaging was a rarity.\" (*Prisoners of Germany*, D.O.W. Hall). Though \"scrupulous respect\" is something of an overstatement, tins of food were punctured or opened so they could not be hoarded for escape attempts meaning the contents could spoil, and the manner in which this was done varied giving a particularly envious or vindictive guard an opportunity: \"‘On one occasion in the early days [at Laufen],’ Jim Rogers recalled, ‘the Germans opened all my tins, took my bowl and emptied everything into it—the meat and two veg stew, loose biscuits, cheese, chocolate, powdered milk, etc.—stirred them all together and handed the mess to me with a smirk.’\" (*The Colditz Myth*, S. P. MacKenzie). By and large, though, POWs received the food parcels, along with cigarettes and other tobacco, books, sporting equipment and such. In addition to making camp life somewhat tolerable the more prized items were useful for bartering, for locally available fresh food or even items such as components for makeshift radios.\n\nThe situation broke down in late 1944 with Germany's crumbling infrastructure as transportation of parcels became increasingly difficult, and Vourkoutiotis notes a 1945 instance of the SS seizing Red Cross parcels at Stalag IIB as camps were evacuated and prisoners transferred, but it does not seem to be widespread. Mail continued to be delivered into 1945 as well, e.g. a family website includes [letters dating to March 17th 1945](https://otterson.org/home/the-people/robert-otterson-1911-1949/10-letters-from-germany/) from Stalag IVB.\n\n(Above based on [How did WW2 POWs receive letters and care packages?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11a7wwy/how_did_ww2_pows_receive_letters_and_care_packages/) from a couple of months back; also note /u/warneagle 's post emphasising the difference in treatment of Soviet and Western Allied POWs.)", "created_utc": 1684093050, "distinguished": null, "id": "jk5i53y", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/13hdsfc/in_world_war_ii_when_prisonersofwar_would_receive/jk5i53y/", "score": 37 } ]

[ { "body": "The Konami Code was the essential backbone of the Allied counter-offensive in the Pacific. Fighting back against an incredibly wide-ranging Japanese offensive that saw the establishment of a line of control from the Atleutian Islands to New Guinea meant that the US was forced to adapt a complex, coalition-based approach that drew on Allied forces scattered around the region, including many (like the remnants of Dutch forces in the Dutch East Indies) with a limited grasp of English. The simple pictogram based code allowed for the wide transmission of the Allied strategy and therefore the successful coordination of forces.\n\nThe plan was simple enough, and went as follows:\n\nAn attack staged **UP** from Australia against the Japanese fleet threatening Port Moresby at the Battle of the Coral Sea.\n\nA further naval counterattack **UP** towards Midway, and the crippling of the Japanese carrier fleet.\n\n**DOWN** towards the Solomon Islands, first taking Florida and then finally even further **DOWN** to capture all of Guadacanal.\n\n**LEFT** to attack the Gilbert Islands and the bloody amphibious assault on Tarawa in November 1943.\n\n**RIGHT** back to Pearl Harbour to refit and resupply ahead of the major 1944 offensives.\n\nThen back **LEFT** to the Battle of Biak in New Guinea in May 1944, pivoting **RIGHT** to Saipan in June.\n\nThen, of course, the iconic **B**attle of Iwo Jima, followed up by dropping an **A**\\-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This of course marked the end of the war, but also the **START** of the Cold War.\n\nThe Phillipines was a bit of a sideshow to all this, serving as a distraction from inputting the key winning strategy.", "created_utc": 1680298166, "distinguished": null, "id": "jeglctv", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/127z9ik/how_did_the_use_of_the_konami_code_by_allied/jeglctv/", "score": 419 }, { "body": "While not the Konami code exactly, a proto-version was used by a cadre of Jewish fighters from Canada, nicknamed the Mitzvah Men, following D-Day.\n\nIt all started when a young recruit named Milton Tanenbaum got together with several friends in training camp, where they entertained themselves by creating a music group. A drill sergeant noticed Tanenbaum’s class-clown tendencies and nicknamed him Uncle Miltie, after the comedian Milton Berle- once Tannebaum started using his Hebrew name, Moishe, the nickname shifted to Uncle Moishy. \n \nOne of the songs they used to sing was called “Hashem is here”- Hashem being a reference to God, an alternative to using one of the more holy names. The lyrics were “Hashem is here, Hashem is there, Hashem is truly everywhere. Up, up, down, down, right, left, and all around, here, there, and everywhere that’s where He can be found.” They used the song under such stressful circumstances, with so much at stake, to remind them that God was with them no matter where they went. \n \nIt was 1944, and soon after D-Day Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men were moving through France as the advanced guard for a whole unit, making sure the coast was clear of German soldiers. As they approached a forest clearing, they started singing the song to themselves. But- as they sang- they began to hear rustling in the trees. Looking around, they noticed snipers in many surrounding trees- a trap waiting for the troops. Had they given themselves away by singing?! \n \nInstead, thinking quickly, Uncle Moishy began singing the song even louder. And as he pointed in each direction, a Mitzvah Man followed his gesture with his gun. As he pointed “Hashem is here,” they shot at one sniper. As he pointed “Hashem is there,” they shot at another. By then, the Nazis were on the alert. They knew they had been seen. So the Mitzvah Men had to move quickly- they shot up, up, down, down, right, left and all around, here, there, and everywhere. \n \nSoon, the Nazis were gone. The unit had barely escaped being caught in a trap, and the Mitzvah Men realized how fitting the song was- showing how God was, indeed, watching over them and the entire unit. They moved toward Paris, which they helped liberate in August 1944. \n \nThe fame of what Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men had accomplished traveled far and wide, and soon others adopted their own versions- with one of those later becoming the Konami Code. Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men, though, wishing to inspire new generations of Jewish children, took the song on the road as part of a children’s entertainment troupe, as you can see [here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=14FB4Ixtwmw). \n \nSources: \nBerry, Yissocher, “The Very Best of Uncle Moishy” \n \nGolding, David, “Safety on Torah Island” \n \nSto Helit, Hannah, [“Will the real Uncle Moishy please stand up”](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/108qf54/childrens_entertainment_will_the_real_uncle/)", "created_utc": 1680299358, "distinguished": null, "id": "jego7r7", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/127z9ik/how_did_the_use_of_the_konami_code_by_allied/jego7r7/", "score": 77 }, { "body": "The code was one of the major contributions by mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing. \n\nPolish code experts had partly cracked Germany's army cypher 1938. This was built on a three rotor Enigma machine that initially seemed secure but did have some vulnerabilities. The Poles discovered that Poke 35899,0 gave infinite tries on their Bombe computers to crack the code. This information was passed on to Bletchley Park before the fall of Poland\n\nIn 1941 concerns over Enigma security led the Kriegsmarine to add an extra rotor and another dpad compared to the simpler the Wehrmacht device, thus blinding the western allies to Enigma traffic. \n\nWith the Battle of the Atlantic raging in 1940 and 1941 it did seem that Britain might be starved into submission. U-boat Wolfpacks reigned supreme in the Atlantic theatre. \n\nHowever it was Turing who attempted new routes into breaking the Kriegsmarine's secure Enigma Traffic. In the late summer of 1941 it was Turing's so-called Konami Code that offered a way in. Breaking daily weather reports in Navy traffic and allowing the new Bombe computers to lay the signals bare once the Konami Code revealed that day's Enigma rotor and plug settings.\n\nThis gave the Royal Navy and Air Force the required knowledge to keep that U-boat menace at bay and Britain was saved. By Winter 1942 nearly 30 percent of Kriegsmarine's Atlantic U-boats had been sunk \n\nThere were new troubles ahead. The Kriegsmarine's introduction of the Lenslok in 1942 kept Ultra traffic unbroken for several months. But by then the war had already turned in Allied favour. New Bletchley codes such as Sweaty Hands Slip Off Joystick and Grow Old Along With Me ensured that new Enigma variations didn't succeed for too long. \n\nFollowing the war all the Bombe's were destroyed and the whole Ultra effort was consigned to deep state secrecy. It wasn't until a former Bletchley cypher expert began writing a book about beating Space Invaders in 1978 that the Konami Code once saw the light of day again.", "created_utc": 1680299219, "distinguished": null, "id": "jegnvtt", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/127z9ik/how_did_the_use_of_the_konami_code_by_allied/jegnvtt/", "score": 36 } ]

[ { "body": "While we're waiting to see if anyone answers this time, I will note that this seems to be a *very* frequently asked question, as you can see by searching the sub for \"Hirohito.\" I've dug up some related questions with relevant answers that weren't just compilations of links to previous answers; I *think* I got everything applicable, but there were literally dozens to comb through, so it's possible I missed something. Here are the questions I found, sorted by date with the most recent first:\n\n* [Did Hirohito really just \"turn good\" after WW2?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/z5yy2t/did_hirohito_really_just_turn_good_after_ww2/) (2022-11-27), answered by /u/BobMarleyDaGhod\n\n* [Is there a debate, or consensus, among historians about how culpable was Hirohito in Japan’s militarism and empire during the 1930s and 1940s?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/m8qace/is_there_a_debate_or_consensus_among_historians/) (2021-03-19), answered by /u/Starwarsnerd222\n\n* [How Involved Was Emperor Hirohito in WW2?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/keq8ef/how_involved_was_emperor_hirohito_in_ww2/) (2020-12-16), answered by /u/kooowhip_m16\n\n* [Did glory-hunting Japanese officers start the Second Sino-Japanese war? Did the Emperor consider the war a mistake?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f6hjfe/did_gloryhunting_japanese_officers_start_the/) (2020-02-19), answered by /u/hellcatfighter\n\n* [Why does Hirohito seem to get a free pass among most historians when it comes to war crimes?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cvv8jc/why_does_hirohito_seem_to_get_a_free_pass_among/) (2019-08-26), answered by /u/sunagainstgold and /u/Lettow-Vorbeck\n\n* [Did Emperor Hirohito ever have a realistic opportunity of halting the militarism of Japan during his reign?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/98euq0/did_emperor_hirohito_ever_have_a_realistic/) (2018-08-18), answered by /u/kumbhira\n\n* [Just Finished Herbert Bix's Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. What's the Scholarly Consensus? Is Hirohito a War Criminal?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8uaear/just_finished_herbert_bixs_hirohito_and_the/) (2018-06-27), answered by /u/kieslowskifan\n\n* [Hirohito often gets lumped in with Hitler as an evil dictator in popular parlance, but to what degree can we actually lay the blame for Japanese atrocities like Nanking and Bataan on him?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7vpyl3/deleted_by_user/) (2018-02-06), answered by /u/Catfulu\n\n* [To what extent was Emperor Hirohito aware of the operations of Unit 731?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2iojob/to_what_extent_was_emperor_hirohito_aware_of_the/) (2014-10-08), answered by /u/ParkSungJun\n\n* [How much power did Hirohito have relative to Tojo?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1zs698/how_much_power_did_hirohito_have_relative_to_tojo/) (2014-03-06), answered by /u/t-o-k-u-m-e-i and an unknown user\n\n* [After the Empire of Japan's defeat in WW2, why wasn't Emperor Hirohito put on trial for war crimes?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1z0tav/after_the_empire_of_japans_defeat_in_ww2_why/) (2014-02-26), answered by unknown users\n\n* [How deeply was Japan's Emperor Hirohito involved in WWII decision making?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pxmci/how_deeply_was_japans_emperor_hirohito_involved/) (2013-11-04), answered by /u/paburon and /u/CrossyNZ\n\n* [How did post-occupation Japan view Hirohito and were there large groups still loyal to him?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ait50/how_did_postoccupation_japan_view_hirohito_and/) (2013-03-18) includes relevant discussion threads", "created_utc": 1681222290, "distinguished": null, "id": "jftv8bh", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/12igt4d/how_culpable_was_hirohito_for_japans_actions/jftv8bh/", "score": 199 } ]

[ { "body": "Thanks to /u/mikedash for the shoutout! \n\n\nLet's start with the short answer: **Swiss neutrality.** After WWI, Liechtenstein's political ties to Austria began to wane in favor of alignment with Switzerland. By 1938, the tiny country was actively working to get the same pledge that Germany had promised to the Swiss. And if Germany refused, Liechtenstein would ask to become a canton of Switzerland having the same effect (except giving up their monarchy.)\n\nA wire piece in the [April 10, 1938 issue of the New York Times](https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/04/10/99539339.html?pageNumber=35) puts this into context through an interview with Dr. Franz Joseph Hoop, who had already been prime minster for a decade at this point. That article notes that shortly after Dr. Hoop returned from Berlin, two things happened. First: the country's popular ruler Prince Franz (aged 85, living in Austria) abdicated his throne in favor of Prince Franz Joseph (aged 31, living in Liechtenstein). And second, that the rest of the ministers and the cabinet expressed their unity in remaining neutral. Therefore, there wouldn't likely be any discord among the officials about Liechtenstein staying out of any conflict to come. \n\n\nA [Time Magazine article from the same weekend](https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,759431,00.html) explains even more: \n\n\n>While the old Prince assured his 10,200 German-speaking subjects that he had abdicated because of his age, observers opined that apprehension over possible annexation by his new neighbor. Greater Germany, lay behind his move. Prince Franz Paul has no desire to be on the throne if Nazi Germany gobbles Liechtenstein. His wife, whom he married in 1929, is a wealthy Viennese Jewess and local Liechtenstein Nazis have already singled her out as their anti-Semitic \"problem.\" The new Prince has no Jewish connections, is unmarried.\n\nBut also, I imagine Hitler looked at a map. There is no strategic advantage to invading Liechtenstein if you're not also going to invade Switzerland. \n\n\nLet's talk about the second part of your question: the people of Liechtenstein. Yes, there are some historical and cultural ties to Swabia. I don't have a definitive source for this, but all of the literature I've found from the era has Liechtensteiners focused on their love of Prince Franz and the monarchy. I don't see much about a connection to a medieval duchy that was disbanded in 1313. \n\nPerhaps what you're really asking is, \"why didn't the people of Liechtenstein want to join the German empire?\" For the most part, they were reading the same reports about fascism as everyone else in free Europe and America. No more than 5% of the population ever expressed Nazi sympathy. There was a small group who attempted a coup in 1939. Most sources dismiss this effort as almost comically inept. But the historian Rebecca Morgan [claims](https://rebeccajanemorgan.medium.com/small-nazis-the-hidden-history-of-fascism-in-liechtenstein-c5342d7a0fc5) \"nazism nearly destroyed the little Principality.\" \n\nNot long after this point, however, it was clear that Hitler was focused on other fronts and Swiss neutrality would remain sacrosanct (even though both Liechtenstein and Switzerland profited immensely from Nazi atrocities and the Germam war machine, but you didn't ask about that.) \n\nSo what's the moral of the story? First, if you're trying to answer a question about a famous person in Liechtenstein's history, guessing \"Franz\" or \"Joseph\" or \"Franz Joseph\" gives you good odds. And second, if you are between a neutral country and a aggressor, your fates will likely go with the aggressor.", "created_utc": 1683214115, "distinguished": null, "id": "jiuavbd", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/137evpf/how_did_liechtenstein_manage_to_stay_independent/jiuavbd/", "score": 21 }, { "body": "There is always more to say, but this question has prompted some strong, and occasionally award-winning, responses in the past. You might like to review some of those while waiting for fresh answers to your query:\n\n[Why is Liechtenstein?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5ktur6/why_is_liechtenstein/) with u/robbyslaughter (came second in the year-end awards for 2016)\n\n[Why did small countries survive](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/zrnqrl/why_did_small_countries_survive/)?, with u/CurrentIndependent42\n\n[I have always wondered how the neutral mini countries of Europe (Monaco, San Marino, Vatican, Liechtenstein, Andorra) did in WWII, especially those completely surrounded by the Axis!,](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/guk2te/i_have_always_wondered_how_the_neutral_mini/) led by u/commiespaceinvader", "created_utc": 1683205106, "distinguished": null, "id": "jitpjfo", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/137evpf/how_did_liechtenstein_manage_to_stay_independent/jitpjfo/", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "Great question!\n\nSo Mussolini's initial conception of Italian grand strategy was the \"**guerra parallela**\", the 'parallel war'.\n\nItaly had been a revisionist power of the World War I peace accords in spite of its victor status, as the treaty had not yielded the territorial and financial spoils that the Italians had hoped for after their large casualties and their less-than-stellar military performance (famously being beaten so badly at the Battle of Caporetto that the word 'Caporetto' has actually entered the Italian language as an idiom indicating an unmitigated disaster).\n\nWhereas Italy had demanded large-scale territorial concessions on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, among the Mediterranean islands and even in mainland Turkey, it had to contend itself with comparatively minor gains in South Tyrol and the Trentino, in Istria, and the Dodecanese Islands. Quickly arose the conception of **\"vittoria mutilata\"**, the 'mutilated victory'. Italy was especially unhappy with the existence (or at least the current shape) of the Serb-Croat-Slovene Kingdom (after 1929: \"Yugoslavia\"), which occupied much of the Dalmatian territory that Italy desired, including some local Italian minority populations whose forceful inclusion in Italy were attractive to Italian nationalists. However, Yugoslavia played a key role in the Entente postwar designs to stabilize Eastern Europe. A strong Yugoslavia, so it was hoped in Paris and London, would contain a resurgent Hungary, Austria, or Bulgaria.\n\nAnd so, any Italian attack against Yugoslavia would have had strong diplomatic consequences — likely much stronger than the invasion of Abyssinia (today: \"Ethiopia\"), which had been the sole remaining truly independent, sovereign and locally-ruled state on the African continent. It had inflicted a crushing defeat against Italy in the late 19th century, so Mussolini's 1935/36 invasion was not just a colonial powergrab to unite Italian Somaliland (today the south-eastern half of Somalia) and Italian Eritrea through the unification with an Italian-controlled Ethiopia into a greater colony of Italian East Africa, but it was also a sort of national redemption effort.\n\nThe Italian government had started to undermine Yugoslavia even in pre-fascist times, but Mussolini really drove the effort home. The Italians supported a Croatian ultranationalist movement known as the 'insurgents' (Serbocroatian: \"Ustasha\"), and Italian support was critical in the assassination of the Yugoslav king and French foreign minister in Marseille in 1934.\n\nWhile Mussolini had been initially somewhat friendly to Italy's former Entente partners (Mussolini's diplomacy was ambivalent: his was also the first major European government to recognize the legitimacy of the Soviet Union, for instance) and adversarial towards Hitler's Germany (Mussolini much preferred an independent and fascist-leaning Austria aligned with Rome over an *Anschluss*, and acted accordingly during the brief Austrian Civil War of 1934 by mobilizing several Italian divisions towards the Brenner Pass (the famous Austro-Italian border crossing)), the 1935/36 Abyssinian adventure and the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War aligned Italy with Germany: First, the war in Ethiopia broke the \"Stresa Front\" between Britain, France and Italy; then the Spanish Civil War saw Italy partner with Germany and Portugal in its overt support for Franco's putschists, with all three autocrats thumbing their noses at the Anglo-French Non-Intervention Committee, which was much more effective at weakening the beleaguered Spanish republican government than it was at slowing the military coup.\n\nItaly wanted to avoid a direct solo confrontation against the British and the French, but it was willing to capitalize in case of a moment of weakness... say, after a crushing French defeat at the hands of Germany.\n\nItaly continued to desire territorial concessions from and political influence in Yugoslavia and Greece. Both states were neutral, comparatively weak, reliant on Anglo-French military support, and held critical strategic positions for the control of the Mediterranean Sea.\n\nThe end goal here was Italian dominance of the Mediterranean, which would eventually require an Italian war effort against Britain, as Britain held a full hand of four aces in the Mediterranean: Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, and the Suez Canal. Mussolini hoped to move his new partner Franco in Spain towards occupying Gibraltar (a hope that the Germans also nurtured and eventually unsucessfully gave up on). Malta was trapped between the southern tip of the Italian moherland and Italian North Africa (modern Libya), so the Italian strategic situation there was decent, but Cyprus and the Suez Canal were still far away. An Italian presence in Crete (then Greek-controlled) could potentially provide a future logistically vital jumping-off point towards Cyprus and Egypt, paired with a land invasion from Libya and a simultaneous naval and air campaign against Malta, hopefully all synchronized with a Spanish coup de grace in Gibraltar.\n\nBut how to get to Greece's islands or into the desirable Yugoslav coastal regions without provoking Allied responses? The Italian government worried about that, and Italy's military buildup was painfully slow. Not much happened, and Italy with its delayed military expansion even (much to Mussolini's chagrin regarding Italy's bad reputation as an unreliable ally) had to inform its German ally that it was not ready for war in September of 1939. This was an admission made even more embarassing by the fact that it had been the Italians who in early 1939 boastfully worded the Italo-German Pact of Steel alliance in way to include both defensive and offensive military partnership, something that the Germans had not expected and something they would not have insisted on.\n\nBut then the Allies did Italy a huge favor. They lost. They lost really badly.\n\nGermany, after striking down Poland in a five-week campaign that was significantly accelerated by Soviet assistance, not only swiped Denmark and Norway and brief 6-hour and 2-month operations, respectively, but proceeded to kick down the French front door and unleash a remarkable military victory, trapping the advancing Allied armies in the Low Countries by a somewhat risky, yet operationally brilliant, mobile thrust across the Ardennes forests towards the French channel coast. By mid-May 1940, France was clearly in serious trouble, and by the end of that month, it was clear France was about to suffer its perhaps most humiliating military defeat in history.\n\nMussolini panicked. His then-commander-in-chief Badoglio later quotes him as saying \"I only need a few thousand dead so I can sit at the table of victors as one who has fought\" (be careful with Badoglio's account, though: After 1943, Badoglio presided over the pro-Allied government in southern Italy, so he had all the motivation he needed to make Mussolini look like a madman).\n\nItaly declared war on France and Britain on 10 June, 1940, and threw some hastily-assembled troops across the Alpine border with France to nominally open up a warfront. There, the Italian troops suffered disproportionate casualties against second-rate French troops that proceeded to withdraw in mostly good order, tactically ceding ground while inflicting losses on the Italians.\n\nBut the Germans were doing their German thing further north, and the new French government of Philippe Petain (the government that later headed so-called \"Vichy France\") agreed to an armistice with the Germans on 22 June. This was (with German pressure) mirrored with a French-Italian armistice on 24 June. Italy received some small occupation zone in the French Alps.\n\nBut now, France was gone! Hurrah! Britain was busy fighting the Germans, so even though Britain and Italy were now at war, Britain's naval attention was divided, and a pro-Axis government in France even provided a naval threat of its own against the British (a threat that would be repeatedly struck at by British naval and air raids against the now neutral French high seas ports).\n\nConvinced that Germany would eventually beat Britain, Italy now prepared its plan. Yugoslavia was ruled out as a target, as the Germans had friendly relations with the Belgrade government, but the Greeks could make a start. In October 1940, Italy invaded Greece over the land border from Italian-controlled Albania.\n\n...and promptly got stuck in the mountainous terrain against fierce Greek resistance. Italy's interim demobilization had critically undermined Italian military strength, and the Greeks quickly received British assistance coming from British Egypt (where minor fighting had now also begun). Greece managed to move the frontline back into Albania, and yet another fruitless stalemate seemed to arise.\n\nThe Germans decided to help, preparing an invasion through nominally-neutral-but-German-aligned Bulgaria, while still influencing Yugoslavia into a pro-Axis position. After a coup in Belgrade by elements in the Yugoslav government that favored a more pro-Allied course, an outraged Hitler quickly added Yugoslavia to the German invasion plan, calling upon Italy and Hungary for assistance.\n\nOn 6 April 1941, the Germans intervened in Greece, and the Axis jointly invaded Yugoslavia. Italy's attempt at \"parallel war\" was now over. Greece and Yugoslavia did indeed fall (and the Croatian Ustasha installed at the head of a bloodthirsty Croatian fascist regime), but Spain's continued neutrality prevented any stroke of genius in Gibraltar. Malta proved quite resilient, withstanding a three-year siege by Axis naval and air forces long enough for the North African theater, where Italy was waging its single-largest war effort, to tip against not just the initial Italian contingent but also against the German intervention forces that joined the theater starting in February 1941.", "created_utc": 1682708164, "distinguished": null, "id": "ji38mt3", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/13227d9/how_did_mussolini_plan_for_italy_to_win_world_war/ji38mt3/", "score": 87 } ]

[ { "body": "You can find the answer to a similar question here: \n\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/njagcf/how_the_royal_navy_was_outmatched_by_the_japanese/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button \n\nI explain how the British Navy had severe treaty and financial constraints. I also go into what happened during the first battle involving Britain's Far East Fleet. \n\nThere's also an interesting discussion between u/Serial-Killer-Whale and u/thefourthmaninaboat about the technical capabilities of the Royal Navy vs the Imperial Japanese Navy.", "created_utc": 1681023401, "distinguished": null, "id": "jfjle66", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/12gacql/why_the_british_navy_was_completely_at_a/jfjle66/", "score": 25 } ]

[ { "body": "There is always more to say, but this is a question that has come up here before and attracted some good-quality replies. You might like to check out the following while waiting for fresh responses to your query:\n\n[To what extent was the German population aware of the atrocities of the Holocaust?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/61a3up/to_what_extent_was_the_german_population_aware_of/)\n\n[What would the average American (or Brit or Soviet) know about the holocaust before the fall of the Third Reich?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5znuqu/what_would_the_average_american_or_brit_or_soviet/) \\[Note that, because a user has deleted a comment, you have to click on the little dotted line next to the \"Comment deleted\" notice to access the answer I am linking you to\\]\n\n[While the Nazis are clearly the bad guys in Casablanca (1942), they're nevertheless portrayed as superficially affable at times and, while authoritarian, don't quite seem the very epitome of evil that they rightly became once the Holocaust was exposed. How much was known then about Nazi atrocities?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/81ftjo/while_the_nazis_are_clearly_the_bad_guys_in/)\n\nall with u/commiespaceinvader\n\n[How did it become common knowledge that nazi germany was killing it's jewish population?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/121iw5/how_did_it_become_common_knowledge_that_nazi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf), with u/estherke\n\n[Was it known during WWII what Germany was doing and how extensive the holocaust was? If so, did Hitler ever meet with any foreign leaders or representatives and comment on what was going on?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/mys1d0/was_it_known_during_wwii_what_germany_was_doing/), with u/Temponautics", "created_utc": 1681481527, "distinguished": null, "id": "jg8bmmo", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/12lqd33/was_the_holocaust_publicly_known_during_world_war/jg8bmmo/", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "Great question - to start, let's talk about Jewish dietary laws!\n\nI, like most Jews in America, don't keep kosher. That is, we don't adhere to kashrut dietary laws - no pork, shellfish, birds of prey, milk and meat together, etc. There's a whole other set of rules about actually preparing the food, so suffice it to say it's not easy to keep kosher and requires some forethought and planning (I am no expert on the subject but that's the gist). Less than 20% of American Jews keep kosher according to this [2020 Pew survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-practices-and-customs/), and while the numbers have been declining, in 1941 the majority of Jews still didn't keep kosher. However, more than 500,000 American Jewish soldiers served in WWII, which amounts to tens of thousands of troops that kept kosher at home - a pretty sizable number to cater to (pun intended). In training camps and stationed on base it was much easier to eat kosher, although the options were still limited.\n\nYou brought up K-Rations, which were used by paratroopers who required a large caloric intake. These rations included a lot of pork products and other non-kosher victuals that would not have been suitable for the observant paratrooper. However, Jewish law provides exceptions for these dietary restrictions in cases where there are no other alternatives, or when it becomes a danger to your health. Being dropped into a field in France trying to dodge German soldiers and reunite with your unit was absolutely a case where these restrictions could be suspended. In combat situations it was really hard to cater to specific dietary needs, especially when you were in enemy territory. The US industrial machine had developed and standardized rations for the soldiers, often drawing the ire of jealous Allied soldiers whose rations were, sadly, more spartan - deviating too much would have been a logistical problem, so a lot of the more orthodox Jews either traded for things that were kosher or received aid from home. In reality, the army couldn't do all that much to accommodate specific diets, but that doesn't mean there weren't efforts to try. According to Deborah Moore in her excellent book *GI Jews -* *How World War II Changed a Generation,* slogans developed like 'Eat your ham for Uncle Sam' in order to keep Jewish morale up when they were sacrificing their religious traditions to fight. Another slogan, developed by NYC delis, 'Send A Salami to your Boy in the Army', promoted the sale of kosher salamis that could be sent to a soldier as a treat.\n\nI said earlier that most Jews in America don't keep kosher, and that's true - however, the majority of Jews *do* celebrate the High Holidays - Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, etc., in some capacity. This was certainly true in the 1940s, and very touchingly, there is a lot of documentation pertaining to efforts that Army staff, chaplains, Jewish welfare organizations, and families on the home front, made to give Jewish soldiers something of a proper holiday celebration. Yarmulkes, kosher foods like matzoh, siddur prayer books, and many other essentials were distributed to Jewish soldiers who celebrated with their comrades and rabbi chaplains. This, as one can imagine, was so incredibly poignant considering the circumstances of the war and what was at stake. Radio broadcasts were made by rabbis so that Jews who didn't have people to celebrate with could follow along and feel like part of the service. This not only boosted morale, but fostered camaraderie and made clear what all the sacrifice was for - fighting so that generations of future Jews could share in their cultural and religious heritage without fear of persecution.\n\nThanks again for the great question! I'd be happy to answer any other questions as it pertains to the subject, or give more resources. Attached below are some websites about the American Jewish experience during WWII.\n\n​\n\nMoore Deborah Dash. 2004. *GI Jews : How World War II Changed a Generation*. Cambridge Ma: Harvard University Press.\n\n[https://jcca.org/what-we-do/jwb/](https://jcca.org/what-we-do/jwb/)\n\n[https://www.army.mil/article/234403/rainbow\\_haggadah\\_reminds\\_jewish\\_gis\\_of\\_the\\_meaning\\_of\\_freedom](https://www.army.mil/article/234403/rainbow_haggadah_reminds_jewish_gis_of_the_meaning_of_freedom)", "created_utc": 1675136044, "distinguished": null, "id": "j6ldvfh", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/10oriyq/what_did_jewish_american_soldiers_eat_during/j6ldvfh/", "score": 49 } ]

[ { "body": "I will provide an answer here but will also mention that if you go to the “about” section of r/askhistorians you will see a section called book list and you can follow the links in there for most subjects and can reach the eastern front portion which is a wonderful trove of great materials that go beyond my answer here. \n\nThe historiography on the Eastern Front has gone through some big changes since the 1950s. Most of the material pre-1990s has been thrown aside due to their almost exclusive reliance on German sources. Since the 1990s through the early 2000s a lot of new historical scholarship has emerged which makes extensive use of Soviet archival materials (unfortunately much of this is again restricted or outright denied to western historians). There are also a significant amount of memoirs and diaries from soldiers who participated on the Eastern Front, ranging from regular infantry to upper level commanders. I will stay away from these to answer this question.\n\nFor some great entry level material to the subject I highly recommend Richard Overy’s “Russia’s War” it is a shorter book and gets through the key events all from a highly regarded historian of the Second World War. Ostkrieg by Stephen Fritz is another good if a little more detailed account than Overy. \n\nOne of the most highly regarded works is “When Titans Clashed” By David Glantz and Johnathan House. This is a book that has had massive influence on the historiography of the Eastern Front and was given an updated edition in 2015. It is very detailed with mention of specific units for numerous engagements which can be tougher to follow if your brand new to the subject but anything by Glantz (and he has written extensively on the Eastern Front) is worth looking at. \n\nFor the Red Army specifically, Alexander Hill has done a wonderful history of the Red Army as part of the Cambridge series on armies of the second world war. He has also recently created a spectacular photo history of the war on the eastern front which is a great book in its own right. \n\nDavid Stahel has written extensively on the German army in the first year and half of the war on the Eastern Front (most well known is his book on Operation Barbarossa but he has written on other aspects of the campaigns of 1941 and the winter of 1942. \n\nAnthony Beevor has written a very good narrative history of the Battle of Stalingrad and another on the battle of Berlin. He’s not a bad starting point but it is worth mentioning that his account of Stalingrad specifically has some issues for other historians due to the perpetuation of many myths that go back to the 1940s which have been disproven. \n\nOne I would really caution about and urge anyone to stay away from is John Mosier. He has a number of books on the second and first world wars but massively distorts the reality of events. \n\nSome other great options for more specifics are Prit Buttar who has written on many specific battles. Robert Forsyth who has recently written on the Stalingrad airlift, Alexey Isaev is a well regarded Russian historian on the conflict who has some of his work translated and published in English, specifically his book on Stalingrad. And lastly, I have to give small shout out to a former professor of mine, Alexander Statiev who wrote a good history of the fighting in the caucus mountains in 1942 (“At War’s Summit”) and another book on the postwar insurgency in Ukraine that carried into the 1950s. \n\nI hope this goes someway to aiding in your efforts to enter into the subject!", "created_utc": 1679997499, "distinguished": null, "id": "jdzhwls", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/12481gi/eastern_front_of_world_war_ii_what_are_good_books/jdzhwls/", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "More can said but [this older answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bqdimf/this_maybe_silly_but_after_signing_the_geneva/eo54p8e/) should be of interest, since although broader, does include discussion of WWII.", "created_utc": 1680306406, "distinguished": null, "id": "jeh3wm1", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/1280uvo/why_werent_chemical_weapons_used_often_on_the/jeh3wm1/", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "For a Soviet focus, there is *Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia: Remembering World War II in Brezhnev’s Hero City* by Vicky Davis, and *The Memory of the Second World War in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia*, which is an edited volume helmed by David L. Hoffmann. Those both, as the titles might imply, are quite focused on historical memory of the war. For the US, I would point to *The \"Good War\" in American Memory* by John Bodnar. \n\nYou might also find *Finland in World War II: History, Memory, Interpretations*, edited by Tiina Kinnunen & Ville Kivimäki, to be of interest for its focus on Finland which is often kind of forgotten, but has some particularly interesting angles to consider given their alliance with Germany, but attempts to distance that in recollection.", "created_utc": 1679776367, "distinguished": null, "id": "jdnwegj", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/121q0jf/is_there_a_booksource_that_shows_a_history_of_the/jdnwegj/", "score": 5 }, { "body": "/u/Georgy_K_Zhukov has previously answered ['Why do we love WW2?'](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/26be5p/why_do_we_love_ww2/)\n\nu/Kugelfang52 has previously answered:\n\n* [What does it mean for the Holocaust to have been \"rediscovered in the '70s\"?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5gi2s5/in_the_70s_the_holocaust_was_rediscovered_as_a/)\n\n* [Question about Holocaust memory during the Cold War](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7854es/analogies_between_the_holocaust_and_the_crimes_of/)\n\n* [Why was it official U.S. Policy not to use the word \"Jew\" in connection with the Nazi Concentration Camps?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gm7pr7/why_was_it_official_us_policy_not_to_use_the_word/)\n\n[Episode 57 of the AskHistorians Podcast](\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/lz23m4/comment/gpznjk1/), which talks about competing interpretations of the Holocaust in history. The link goes to a transcript but includes a link to the podcast thread as well. It is an interview with /u/commiespaceinvader\n\nSee below", "created_utc": 1679792868, "distinguished": null, "id": "jdows5j", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/121q0jf/is_there_a_booksource_that_shows_a_history_of_the/jdows5j/", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not sure what you mean by \"relocated\". German formations used similar means of transport that the soldiers of other countries used: walking on foot, travelling with horse carts (the reputation of the Wehrmacht as a highly-motorized army did not reflect the experience of the average infantryman for much of the war, with each German infantry division relying on thousands of horses), travelling in motorcycles, civilian-style automobiles, military-style automobiles, trucks of varying sizes, tanks (both inside and on top of (though the latter usually unplanned)), the train network, and even air travel. Certain German soldiers would have been more naturally likely to have experience with some of the more specialized types of redeployment than others: the paratroopers were obviously familiar with military transport planes (with the Ju-52 model receiving the cheerful nickname \"Aunt Ju\"), and tank crews would undertake much of their combat travels within their tanks (though out-of-combat redeployments of tanks were usually done in rail transport).\n\nGenerally, redeployment that was planned and scheduled by the Germans themselves and that happened outside of combat conditions would be undertaken by rail. Railroads and trains have numerous advantages: they can transport large numbers of people with a great degree of coherence, and they can transport even heavy military equipment in a cost-efficient and safe manner (this was especially important for Germany's famed heavy tanks, which had infamous weak spots in their internal engineering and whose engines were prone to be in need of a full replacement every few hundred kilometers, meaning that redeploying from Germany to western Russia via road travel might kill the first engine before the Red Army was even in sight; also, railroad bridges are sturdy enough to safely carry heavy tanks, which was never certain to be true for many smaller road bridges). Railroads have their disadvantages too: they make for large targets (with the railways being static and easily identifiable even if hard to hit by a high-altitude bomber plane), and embarkation as well as disembarkation requires time as well as a well-secured train station at both start and destination. This means that the railroad is less useful in operational-level combat conditions, and almost useless in tactical-level combat conditions.\n\nSo if the Germans were forced to redeploy out of combat necessity, the railway was not an option. Anyone who was part of a vehicle crew would of course stick with that vehicle unless there was a good and pressing reason to abandon it, but infantrymen were often out of their luck. This is where the famous photographs of half-dozens (or more) German infantrymen sitting atop German tanks: they are either offensively redeploying and moving from one local battle to another local battle, or (increasingly likely in the later years of the war) they are withdrawing from an advancing enemy.\n\nYou asked about the Western and Italian fronts of 1944/45. The Western Front especially became a war of movement after the Allied breakout of Normandy in July/August 1944, and the Germans were soon rushing to reach the 'border of the Reich' (that is, the boundary between what was \\*de jure\\* Germany and merely occupied France/Belgium) to get ahead of the Allied advances. Especially Allied airpower made road travel difficult, however, and especially German infantry formations, but also the armored divisions (ever facing high demands by German high command due to their high combat value) were prone to fall victim to the superior Allied ability to move their forces quickly and safely. The Falaise Pocket is the most infamous example during the 1944 campaign; more pockets such as the Ruhr Pocket and Harz Pocket would follow in 1945, and several coastal fortresses along the French coast, secured by 'static' (\"bodenständig\" in German) infantry formations became so-called 'fortresses' immediately upon D-Day — some of these French coastal fortresses were later among the last Wehrmacht forces to lay down their weapons, with some not doing so until 11 May 1945, three days after Germany's unconditional surrender.\n\nYour question could also be read in a way that you ask \"would it be feasible for a German soldier to fight on both the Italian front and the Western front?\". That was absolutely feasible, though not overly common: the two theaters were organized under different army groups (the highest-level German military formations) meaning that formation-level redeployments from one to the other required central command to order them. Individuals might more easily be swept from one theater to the other. Wounded soldiers in the Wehrmacht were assigned to specialized recovery formations at home, and might be drawn upon by another theater than the one they were wounded at; additionally, high-value individuals such as pilots, doctors or staff officers might also be more quickly reassigned. Such individuals would then usually travel either by the rail network or, in the case of high-value individuals, by motor car.", "created_utc": 1678489416, "distinguished": null, "id": "jbqk46h", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/11o0vea/how_would_a_world_war_ii_german_soldier_be/jbqk46h/", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "The obvious retort is that for an \"incompetent\" army, they seem to have had quite a bit of success against the axis powers. \"But the Russians\" doesn't apply against Japan, for example. The US fielded what, 87 infantry divisions in WW2? Only one (the 106th) would ever be 'destroyed' in combat. How many other militaries could say that?\n\nHowever, true, the Army as a whole wasn't as 'good' as would be ideal. It didn't need to be. It needed to be 'good enough.'\n\nThe beginning of it is true enough. The US went through serious growing pains from the pre-war Army 17th-19th (depending on who you talk to) largest in the world. We're talking Romania and Portugal sizes here. And, worse, in 1938 that small army was of questionable competence in modern warfare. It was focused as much as being a border constabulary protecting against incursions from Mexico as it was at conventional warfighting. Not least, the main 'conventional' military defense for the US was the US Navy, which, whilst it did have flaws, would pose a serious problem to anyone trying to invade the place.\n\nBy 1939, though, the US had woken up, and it would spend the next two years 'fixing' itself. I have a video (recorded talk) on this process coming out in a couple of weeks, as it happens. The 30,000 man exercises in 1939 mainly revolved around organisation (square vs triangular) and basic concepts. The 1940 exercises (100,000 man) started exercising larger unit commanders, as well as all the various support skills to keep a large force operating in the field. At the end of the exercises, it was the opinion of senior US leadership that if they went to war with that army, they would lose, badly.\n\nThus various things were done to improve the quality of the troops. Things which today we take for granted like what we now know as \"Basic Training\" or standardised gradings of competency (today, T&EOs) were not a thing before the various McNair implementations. A quarter million tons of explosives were used just to get recruits used to the sounds of battle (Think Infiltration Course at Basic today). Imagine what the Germans might do with a quarter million tons of additional explosives. \n\nIn 1941, the exercises are now 400,000 men in the field. Large numbers of division and corps commanders who couldn't hack it were fired. Doctrines are still being refined, but the opinion at the end of it was \"We're better. We would win, but take more casualties than needed doing it\".\n\nLike everyone else, the US Army was expanding exponentially. No military, even the most professional-to-begin-with, was going to be able to sustain the level of excellence with the massive influx of personnel. The US started a system of taking cadres from extant units and using them to create new units. Pete Mansoor's book \"The GI Offensive in Europe.\"\n\nOf course, there's only so much which can be done in training. War has its own hard lessons to teach, and no nation seems to have been immune to it. Even the Germans, after the success of Poland, realised that they were lucky to have gone up against such an easy target (split with the Russians) undertook a major system of re-training and re-organisation to fix all the flaws, to make them better for France.\n\nThe US version of this period would be North Africa. But even at its worst, Kasserine, it was still a defeat for the Germans. The US learned a lot of lessons, it cost more in lives and equipment than it ordinarily should have. But they still won. Which brings us to the artillery bit. German tanks and anti-tank guns may have been a shock to the Americans, but American artillery was just as much a shock to the Germans. There is a quote somewhere that a typical German infantryman, one for one, was better than a US one. I can believe that, but it only matters if you're playing on equal terms. The US put its smarter people into aviation or the technical services. If an infantry private being able to rapidly call for fire with artillery works, then who cares if the job isn't done by daring maneuver and dash? What's important is how well the Army functions with respect to the doctrine and organisation developed for it, not how well it functions compared to what another country may consider 'best methods'.\n\nBy the time the US gets to El Guettar, it's willing to take on the Germans on their own terms and win. No mean feat at the end of the trans-oceanic supply line.\n\nIn the meantime, on the end of the \\*other\\* trans-oceanic supply line that the US is dealing with, the US is doing a number on the forces of Japan, the same forces which 'blitzed' across SouthEast Asia and embarrassed the British and Dutch, they were hardly incompetent themsevles.\n\nYes, absolutely, there were some questionable decisions. Hurtgen Forest would indeed be one of them. As one Admiral said after the war, \"If officers were gifted with the knowledge of hindsight before the fights of WW2, Peleliu would never have happened\". Find me any army which didn't make one or two decisions which, in hindsight, may not have been the best. For the Germans, Kursk? Crete? If you want to pick and choose examples, you can prove anything.\n\nThe term \"American Way of War\" exists for a reason. It's not \"the way of war\", it's the way Americans fight in particular. It's suited to the US's situation in terms of geography, industry, culture, education, even mentality. The question isn't \"Was the American Army good\", the question is \"was the American Army good at doing what was expected of it\".", "created_utc": 1672613971, "distinguished": null, "id": "j2k5udp", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/100m2n7/was_the_us_army_incompetent_during_world_war_ii/j2k5udp/", "score": 187 }, { "body": "Writing from a British perspective, with many years experience of working with Second World War musea in France, two things strike me about your question.\n\nFirstly, I don’t feel it would be surprising to many in the UK or France that an assessment of America’s performance in the war would find room for improvement. In Europe, it’s long been felt that the America’s advantage was one of quantity rather than quality. It’s sheer size, industrial output and population gave it remarkable advantage over the smaller countries of Europe, and this translated in American military doctrine into an almost reckless disregard for the loss of equipment or personnel - a notable example was during the preparations for, and execution of, the Normandy landings, where American commanders refused to adopt any of the British strategies or technological innovations, greatly \nincreasing the death toll in the American zones relative to the British ones. The failure to properly construct the Mulberry Harbour following the invasion in the American zone, leading to its almost immediate destruction in at Atlantic storm, when compared to the longevity of the same structure at Arromanches, again shows the different attitude shown to the value of materiel. However, ultimately, campaigns which are won are seldom scrutinised with the same fervour as those which are lost, and as another poster here has written, American performance during the war was ‘good enough’, even if felt by other allies to be less than it ought to have been.\n\nThis feeds me on to the second aspect of my answer, which is that assessments of the Second World War still largely follow those of the time. I suspect that there will be considerable academic movement over the next fifty years concerning the performance of the various militaries during the war. Until now the war has just about within ‘living memory’, but as that continues to fade, new assessments are bound to take over and begin to alter our understanding. Americans, British and Russians had good grounds after the war to be self-congratulatory, albeit with various exceptions, such as the Fall of Singapore; the personal element here also meant that people in those countries often had a strong emotional attachment to the war, knowing relatives who fought in it. For France the issue is a little more nuanced, with their appallingly inadequate defence and the spectre of Vichy both lurking beneath the surface of the apparently triumphant popular image of de Gaulle as the liberator of France.\n\nAs nationalist agenda move over time, and popular consciousness fades, we are bound to see new assessments emerging. To refer to Normandy again, there has been a noticeable movement in the historiography of the D-Day musea away from the Allies being the saviours of France, to looking at the damage caused to the area and the suffering of civilians during the landings, with the unfeeling attitude of the Allied command to the French population being discussed in very critical terms. Modern political associations, notably the recent movements within the EU, seem at work in this new narrative which moderates criticism of Germany and replaces it with criticism of the UK. This is not entirely new of course - British involvement in the liberation of France has always been resented there, much as the American involvement in victory in the European theatre has always quietly been resented in the UK, but the self-consciousness of the pettiness of this resentment is now being replaced with a new generation’s academic attempts to assert their own nationalistic superiority more brazenly.\n\nIn short, as the war becomes less of a remembered event and more of a learnt one, we will likely see far more assessments which focus on different interpretations than the hitherto established orthodoxy. Whether or not this is more or less accurate comes down to one’s definition of historical ‘truth’.", "created_utc": 1672670271, "distinguished": null, "id": "j2munvp", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/100m2n7/was_the_us_army_incompetent_during_world_war_ii/j2munvp/", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "Jozo Tomasevich's two-volume *War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945* (Stanford UP, 1975-2001) is probably the best one-stop shop, so to speak. This may not be as comprehensive as you're looking for, but I would also highly recommend Ivo Goldstein and Slavko Goldstein's *The Holocaust in Croatia* (U of Pittsburgh Press, 2016) for further detail on the Independent State of Croatia.", "created_utc": 1679623974, "distinguished": null, "id": "jdfut3j", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/11zoik9/does_anyone_have_any_good_book_reccomendations/jdfut3j/", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The German Reich—and after 1943, the Greater German Reich—certainly launched counterattacks after 1942—notably at Kursk on the Eastern Front and in the Ardennes Forest (the \"Battle of the Bulge\") on the Western Front of the European War—but in a strategic sense she was absolutely on the defensive from the beginning of 1943 onward. That's because the German Defense Force, and particularly the Army, had been irretrievably smashed at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942 and ‘43.\n\nIn the Eastern Front clash of titans with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), the Germans had been thrown back from the suburbs of Moscow—the capital and largest settlement of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (R.S.F.S.R.) and of the U.S.S.R.—the previous winter by an unexpected wintertime offensive. Though their retreat nearly became a rout, the Germans managed to hang on, and Operation *Barbarossa* was grounded to a halt. Once the weather improved in the spring of 1942, the Germans renewed their strategic offensive, with the goal now becoming to bypass and isolate Moscow and, especially, Leningrad (today back to its original name of St. Petersburg) to the north, while conquering the oil fields in the Caucasus to the south. Guarding the gateway to this region on a bend of the Volga River was Stalingrad.\n\nThe battle raged for nearly half-a-year. The Germans called it \"rattenkrieg\", or the “war of the rats.” For weeks on end, it was little more than snipers picking each other off from their nests in piles of rubble. Finally, the Russian winter set in once more, and the Germans were caught by a massive Soviet counterattack led by Army General—and eventually Marshal of the Soviet Union—Georgi Zhukov, the representative of the Stavka for the Reserve and Western Fronts and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of the U.S.S.R.—that trapped them inside the city. Chancellor and *Führer* Adolf Hitler of the German Reich forbade them to try and fight their way out of the encirclement, and the German Air Force was unable to adequately supply the soldiers on the ground. In the end, the entire German 6th Army was annihilated, and only five thousand of its soldiers survived to return to Germany after the war.\n\nIn response to this, Hitler recalled Colonel General Heinz Guderian, previously sacked for saying some things to the *führer* about the *Barbarossa* which he didn’t want to hear. Guderian carefully rebuilt the shattered Panzer arm and was not in favor of Operation *Zitadelle*, which became the Battle of Kursk. Hitler disagreed and pushed the plan forward because he thought he needed a German victory to reassure the Axis of the war and to keep the Soviets at bay while the Germans took their industry underground and tried to perfect war-winning \"wunderwaffe\" (wonder weapons).\n\nKursk was incredibly bloody and enormously destructive to both sides, and while some have argued that the Germans were winning, their victory, had it come, would surely have been a pyrrhic one. Meanwhile, Hitler decided to pull some of his units from the battle and redeploy them to face the Allied landings in Sicily and the Italian mainland. The Soviets were left holding the battlefield and were able to replace their losses relatively quickly (if certainly not easily). The Germans—aside from during the 1944 Ardennes operation, and even then they were overall on the defensive, and simply attacking to drive the Allied forces away from their offensive—no longer had the manpower for another strategic offensive.\n\nSo: the Eastern Front meatgrinder, coupled with the round-the-clock strategic bombing campaign by the United Kingdom and the United States, added to the invasions of Sicily, mainland Italy, and France, spelled the end for the Nazi regime and its war effort. Other than localized counterattacks, they were on the defensive throughout the entire rest of the war after Kursk with the sole sort-of exception of the Ardennes.\n\nBy the way: some will note that German munitions and weapons production actually peaked in 1944, which was also when the Allied strategic bombing offensive was heading for its zenith, and that's true as far as it goes. But while the Germans were able to move many of their factories deep underground, even there they were not invulnerable to attack (as British superweapon scientist Barnes Wallis proved with his Tallboy and Blockbuster bombs). And beyond this, most of the critical petroleum and chemical factories and refineries could not be protected in this way. The end result was thousands of planes, tanks, and other vehicles sitting idle for lack of fuel, and of course the delay in production caused by the German relocation of their factories also greatly aided the Allied cause. But even had the Germans been able to couple petrol with their vehicles and weapons, they and their allies had already been bled white. Just over half of the entire pre-war German population of able-bodied adult males of military age died in the war. There was no one left to fly the planes or fire the weapons. The German war effort was *kaput*.", "created_utc": 1679881227, "distinguished": null, "id": "jdthg16", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/1236ct7/why_was_it_said_that_the_warfares_behavior_of/jdthg16/", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "Herman Kahn was a fan of pithy, oversimplified quips that even he, I am sure, did not really believe encapsulated the truth of things. (A favorite of mine, which he said to a friend of mine after my friend suggested his policies led to overkill: \"There have always been two hands for every throat.\") This one does have a nice have-your-lunch-and-eat-it-too quality for a defense-consulting-creature like Kahn: war can break out no matter what you do — so you might as well be planning for it. (Or create alternative conditions for preventing it, which is more likely his pitch; the problem with the WWI arms race, for someone like Kahn, was that it was insufficiently horrifying enough to make the consequences of war unacceptable. Nuclear weapons, someone like this would argue, make a qualitative difference in that calculation, if done right.)\n\nAs for it being an accurate summation of the causes of either World War I or World War II... I mean, of course not. It is far too oversimplified. There are a million theses on the various causes of both World Wars. Neither can be summed up to a singular cause or slogan with any accuracy worth talking about, unless one is just trying to make some kind oversimplified political point that has nothing to do with the complexities of history (if you are against diplomacy, the lesson of World War II is \"appeasement is bad\"; if you are in favor of diplomacy, the lesson of World War I is \"secret treaties are bad,\" etc.). \n\nOne can find many other answers on here about the origins of either war; there is no need to hash them over to just note that no historian would accept such pithy statement of causes. And I doubt Kahn would have, either. He was a creature of his times but he was not so overly simplistic in his view of the world, or of history. This is the kind of quip that sticks in the mind and makes him look clever, but I wouldn't take it as a serious expression of an historical argument.", "created_utc": 1677438319, "distinguished": null, "id": "ja4a5a8", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/11ck2xi/herman_kahn_once_said_world_war_i_broke_out/ja4a5a8/", "score": 14 } ]

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[ { "body": "This is a complicated question, in part because the French public and the French government are two different beasts. Also, the situation evolved a lot over the decades.\n\nThe official governmental stance immediately following the war was, to sum it up, that \"Vichy wasn't France\". During the war, after the Appeal of 18 June (1940), De Gaulle established himself as the head of a government-in-exile named \"Free France\", and that idea was perpetuated after the Liberation, by the ordinance of 9 August 1944, stating that the legitimacy of the Vichy regime was, I quote, \"null and void\".\n\nThis is also when the national myth took roots for a while that \"most French people were resistants\", at least to a point or after a fashion, even if they didn't all took arms. There were large purges at the Liberation against past collaborators, for sure, but the dominant worry seemed to be if those purges weren't, you know, too harsh. (I mean, there *were* cases of excessive, popular violence, but not to the point of the \"black legend\" of the so-called \"wild purge\", with fanciful figures circulating back then, pretending more than 100 000 people were lynched. The more recent historiography, like François Rouquet and Fabrice Virgili's *Les Françaises, Les Français et l'Epuration* \\[2018\\], points out that this discourse was actually mainly a way to target communists.)\n\nThat idea of a \"mostly resistant France\" was also the one largely sold by the French movie industry for decades, with tonally serious movies like René Clément's *La Bataille du rail* (*The Battle of the Rails*, 1946), *Le Père tranquille* (*Mr. Orchid*, 1946) and later *Paris brûle-t-il?* (*Is Paris burning?*, 1966) as well as Jean-Pierre Melville's *L'Armée des ombres* (*Army of Shadows*, 1969), to name a few, or even comedic movies, most notably Gérard Oury's *La Grande Vadrouille* (\"The Great Stroll\", 1966), which remained the most successful movie of the history of French box-office until *Titanic*. Claude Autant-Lara's *La Traversée de Paris* (\"The Trip across Paris\", 1956), another comedy, was an oddity for its rare choice to show a less stellar aspect of the times, focusing on black market.\n\nDuring that same era, Robert Aron's *Histoire de Vichy* (\"History of Vichy\", 1954) was largely accepted as the reference book on the Vichy regime, substantiating the (actually revisionist) \"sword and shield thesis\", meaning De Gaulle was the \"sword\" fighting the nazis but Petain was the \"shield\" protecting the French people from them and collaborating as little as possible with the Germans.\n\nDe Gaulle's death in 1970, however, proved to be a turning point, opening gates for a less heroic narrative. 1971 documentary *Le Chagrin et la pitié* (*The Sorrow and the Pity*), by Marcel Ophuls, depicted a French population during Occupation made of only very few resistants, very few collaborators, some profiteers, and a vast majority of people in a \"wait-and-see\" attitude. 1973 saw the French translation of Robert Paxton's historical essay *Vichy France* (originally published in '72 in USA), which completely challenged Robert Aron's version of History, and proved that the Vichy regime, not only did not minimize its collaboration, but went actually out of its way, most notably when it came to round up and deport Jews to the nazi concentration camps. Both the documentary and the essay generated heated debates in the public opinion, as did Louis Malle's movie *Lacombe Lucien* in 1974, focusing on a young, coarse French peasant becoming a collaborator during the last months of the war.\n\nIn 1978, *L'Express* magazine published an interview of Louis Darquier, former \"Commissioner-General for Jewish Affairs\" under the Vichy regime, who fled to Spain after the Liberation. Among other things, the man allegated that Auschwitz gas chambers were used \"only to gas lice\". The interview was met with an immense backlash, creating a scandal that put the spotlight on two things. First, the fate of Jews under the Vichy regime, an aspect of things that until then was relatively sidelined in the general representations of that era. And second, the not only remaining, but growing, presence of negationist people, most notably the French academic and Holocaust-denier Robert Faurisson, who applauded to Darquier's interview.\n\nIt is also worth noting that this is the same year that Maurice Papon became Minister of Finance. Papon was already an official during the Vichy regime and nonetheless continued his career afterwards, most notably becoming *préfet de police* (Chief of Police) of Paris from 1958 to 1967, where he was responsible for bloody repression during the Algerian War (Paris massacre of 1961 and Charonne Station massacre of 1962). His past finally caught up to him in 1981 when it was discovered and exposed by the newspaper *Le Canard enchaîné*, leading to the start of a long and highly mediatic trial under the accusation of crime against humanity.\n\nMeanwhile, the \"Vichy wasn't France\" stance kept being the official position of every French government of the 5th Republic. Elected in 1981, Socialist president François Mitterand stayed in line, about this, with his predecessors from the right, De Gaulle, Pompidou and Giscard d'Estaing.\n\nBut the question of the fate of Jewish people under the Vichy Regime became more and more pregnant following the publication, that same year, of Robert Paxton (again) and Michael Marrus' *Vichy et les Juifs* (Vichy and the Jews), a violent denounciation (Paxton would later recognize himself that he was at first a bit too harsh). More particularly, the public opinion's on this started to cristalise around a particular, symbolic event: the \"Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup\", a mass arrest of 13000 foreign Jewish families by the French police. \n\nIn 1992, for the 50 years commemoration of the round up, François Mitterand made a first symbolic step by being the first French president to show up and lay flowers, but he didn't speak there, and he kept repeating in interviews the same official position, saying \"Don't demand accounts to the Republic, \\[...\\] the 'French State' \\[i.e. Vichy regime\\] wasn't the Republic\" that same year, or, in 1994, \"I will not apologize in the name of France. The Republic has nothing to do with it. I do not believe France is responsible.\"\n\nHowever, in 1995, his successor, Jacques Chirac, finally reversed this position, stating in a public speech for the 53th commemoration of the Round Up: \"These black hours will stain our history forever and are an injury to our past and our traditions. \\[...\\] France, home of the Enlightenment and the Rights of Man, land of welcome and asylum, France commited on that day the irreparable.\" And in 1998, Maurice Papon was eventually given a ten-year-sentence as complicit in crimes against humanity for having organized eight \"death trains\". (Aged 88 at the time, he would only serve three years due to his old age and medical problems.) The two events were catalyst for a large reckoning in the broad public about France's involvement of the World War II.\n\nI won't develop much further due to the \"20 years rules\" of the subreddit, but I believe it is worth noting quickly that every French president since then, regardless of political orientation, has kept in line with Jacques Chirac's position; yet also that, nonetheless, both the \"Vichy wasn't France\" stance and, even, the \"shield thesis\" (in particular the idea that Vichy actually protected French Jews) are still parts of the Far Right's speeches.", "created_utc": 1670978361, "distinguished": null, "id": "j04jin6", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/zkp5ni/how_was_vichy_france_remembered_by_the_country/j04jin6/", "score": 22 }, { "body": "Well, I found an article talking very well about your questions talking about the legacy of Vichy France. And as a French living there for a long time, I could say we generally do not really speak about but it has left a good impact on France today. France was like a phoenix, it has been a tough period for France but then when it ended, France arose from their worst time. plus, it has created the France we know of today. But we talk about during World War II armistice Day. And when I was in 9th Grade, this stuff was to learn in our programs and my teacher taught us very well like we could see two sides:\n- A France where we were great\n- A France broken (with Free France and Vichy France)\nSo it is pretty neutral I would say although showing us more positive pictures of us.\nAnd that's all I could say, hope it answer to your question 🥰\n[the article in question ](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/ask-an-academic-the-legacy-of-vichy-france)\n\n(Also, by the way sorry for my broken English it isn't my first language)", "created_utc": 1670966921, "distinguished": null, "id": "j03rlhm", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/zkp5ni/how_was_vichy_france_remembered_by_the_country/j03rlhm/", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Potentially, although it would have depended upon both the time period in which he was examined for military service and the prevailing standards in effect.\n\nThe U.S. Army's physical and psychological standards for entry during the World War II period were defined by Mobilization Regulation (MR) 1-9, first issued on August 1940. MR 1-9 replaced MR 1-5, first issued on 5 December 1932, with change 1, 29 July 1938. The \"peacetime\" regulation that governed the physical and psychological standards for entry into the Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserve was Army Regulation (AR) 40-105, issued on 20 June 1921 and revised on 29 May 1923. MR 1-9 was reissued on 15 October 1942, modified by change 1 on 22 January 1943, and reissued again on 19 April 1944.\n\nMen classified as suitable for \"limited service\" only were initially not inducted. On 26 June 1942, amid a manpower crunch resulting from the activation rate of new units outpacing the induction rate of new men, the Army announced effective 1 August 1942, that men classified for limited service only, but having \"specified defects qualifying them for limited service\" would be inducted. These defects in regard to hearing included \"Those with hearing in one or both ears less than 10/20 but not less than 5/20. Complete deafness in one ear provided hearing was not less than 10/20 in the other,\" \"Those with loss of one or both external ears, if the individual had followed a useful vocation in civil life,\" and \"Those with unilateral atresia of the external auditory canal.\" The total number of \"limited service\" men was set at 10 percent of the total on active duty. \"The induction quota for limited service men was dropped to 5 percent in February 1943. In April 1943, induction of limited service men was suspended completely for a period of 2 weeks, then resumed again at a 5 percent quota.\" In July 1943, the term \"limited service\" was ordered eliminated from personnel records, but \"limited service\" essentially continued as \"men who were not physically qualified for general service, depending upon their skills, ability, intelligence, and aptitude,\" acceptable in \"controlled numbers.\" In November 1943, the quota was returned to the previous 10 percent.\n\n**Definitions:**\n\n* Acute: Developing quickly and lasting only a short time\n\n* Atresia: A case in which an orifice or passage in the body is abnormally closed or absent\n\n* Chronic: Developing slowly and occurring over an extended period of time\n\n* Mastoiditis: Infection of the mastoid bone behind the ear\n\n* Membrana tympani: Eardrum\n\n* Otitis media: Ear infection\n\n* Purulent: Containing or producing pus\n\n* Unilateral: Affecting one side only\n\nCategory|31 Aug. 1940-14 Mar. 1942|15 Mar.-14 Oct. 1942|15 Oct. 1942-21 Jan. 1943\n:--|:--|:--|:--\nGeneral Service|Hearing in each ear of 10/20 or better.|No change|Hearing in each ear of 10/20 or better; 5/20 in one ear and 15/20 in the other; 0/20 in one ear and 20/20 in the other.\nLimited Service (1)||Healed scar of mastoid operation without marked deformity and if hearing is not below requirements.|No change\nLimited Service (2)|Hearing in one or both ears less than 10/20 but more than 5/20.|Hearing in one or both ears less than 20/20 but not less than 5/20. Complete deafness in one ear if the hearing is not less than 10/20 in the other ear.|No change\nLimited Service (3)|Loss of one or both external ears, if the registrants have followed a useful vocation in civilian life and the deformity is not too greatly disfiguring.|No change|No change\nLimited Service (4)||Unilateral atresia of the external auditory canal.||\nLimited Service (5)|||Perforation of the membrana tympani provided there is a trustworthy history of no symptoms of otitis media or disease of mastoid during previous 2 years.\nNon-acceptable (1)|Hearing less than the minimum prescribed under limited service.|No change|No change\nNon-acceptable (2)|Chronic purlulent otitis media, with or without mastoiditis.|No change|No change\nNon-acceptable (3)|Chronic perforation of membrana tympani.|No change|No change\nNon-acceptable (4)||Atresia of both external auditory canals.|| \nNon-acceptable (5)||||\nNon-acceptable (6)||||\n\nCategory|22 Jan. 1943-18 Apr. 1944|19 Apr. 1944-\n:--|:--|:--\nGeneral Service|Hearing in each ear of 8/15 or better. Effective 1 February 1943 per AG letter to CGs, Svc Comds, 22 Jan. 1943: Hearing, normal, 15/15 for each ear as tested by the whispered voice.|Hearing in each ear of 8/15 or better, or 15/15 in one ear and less than 8/15 in the other.\nLimited Service (1)|No change|No change\nLimited Service (2)|Hearing in one or both ears less than 8/15 but not less than 5/15 in either ear. Deafness in one ear if the hearing is not less than 15/15 in the other ear.|There are no defects in hearing that warrant initial classification for limited service.\nLimited Service (3)|||\nLimited Service (4)|||\nLimited Service (5)|||\nNon-acceptable (1)|No change|No change\nNon-acceptable (2)|No change|Purulent otitis media with or without mastoiditis.\nNon-acceptable (3)|Perforation of the membrana tympani.|No change\nNon-acceptable (4)|Atresia of the external auditory canal, or tumors of this part.|Severe atresia of the external auditory canal.\nNon-acceptable (5)|Acute or chronic mastoiditis.|No change\nNon-acceptable (6)|Total loss of an external ear.|No change\n\n**Source:**\n\nFoster, William B., Ida Levin Hellman, Douglas Hesford, and Darrell G. McPherson. *​Medical Department, United States Army: Physical Standards in World War II​*. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 1967.", "created_utc": 1671969364, "distinguished": null, "id": "j1lpj5v", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/zup2ia/would_one_deaf_ear_have_really_disqualified/j1lpj5v/", "score": 79 } ]

[ { "body": "It was very important. Saying it was the difference between defeating Germany or not is a question with far too many counterfactuals to answer in a meaningful, grounded way, but we can certainly say it is important. I would point to [this older answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8pmc3z/how_much_of_war_material_in_the_ussr_during_world/e0cdcon/) which looks at the critical nature of her industrial contributions, and then [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dvnwrv/during_wwii_ussr_received_large_quantities_of/f7eiwyc/) specifically for food aid to the USSR.", "created_utc": 1676474775, "distinguished": null, "id": "j8n6crb", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/112acqo/how_decisive_was_us_intervention_during_world_war/j8n6crb/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "France (and Britain) declared war on Germany (due to the guarantee for Poland sovereignty by France and Britain). \n\nGermanys intent was a war against the Soviet Union to gain access to ressources basically. Due to the lack of colonies, they hoped to fulfill the demand of ressources for the german economy this way. There was also the animosity towards the communism in the soviet union.\n\nThe Germans were more concerned about the french army than about the soviet army, but invaded France nonetheless to avoid a two frontal war like in the first world war.\n\nAfter the declaration of war by French and Britain, the Germans did thought about the invasion of France and considered it possible (otherwise they would have accepted the demand of the French and British to retreat from Polish territory and end the war). There is still a debate, if France and Britain could have ended the war in 1939 by invading the only lightly defended western German border. They didn´t do it (only some light attacks, you can call them probing attacks on German territory) and its hard to tell if they actually could. Unlike Germany, French and Britain didn´t prepared for this war for years. \n\nThe occupation of France after its capitulation was a mix between (presumed) military necessity (the occupation of the coast, due to the war against Britain) and opportunism (the bascially annexation of some eastern French regions).\n\nIt´s a possibility that Germany would have attacked a neutral France later anyway, but at the day of the attack on Poland (=beginning of the second world war in Europe), the Germans didn´t had the intention to conquer France or whole Europe in this war.", "created_utc": 1673953266, "distinguished": null, "id": "j4pl9w7", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/10dtwn5/during_world_war_ii_what_was_the_purpose_of/j4pl9w7/", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "Battleships usually played the biggest role in disabling enemy ships but battleship guns take longer to sink an enemy ship than torpedoes. Usually a battleship would cripple a target and it would be finished off or scuttled. The only instances of capital ships being sunk in WW2 without help from smaller ships, aircraft, or scuttling are: \n\n-French Battleship Bretagne (blown up at Mers-El-Kebir by 15inch shells from probably HMS Hood)\n-Hms Hood (blown up by German battleship Bismarck during the battle of Denmark Strait)\n-Japanese battleship Kirishima (sunk by USS Washington during the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal) \n\n\nThe main thing about these are that either a magazine detonation put them down immediately, or in Kirishima’s case, the armour was already poor for a capital ship and she was hit by dozens of above average caliber battleship shells. If you have a more even contest like Hood and Bismarck, a magazine detonation is essentially needed to sink a target. \n\nThere are two examples in WW2 of battleships beginning to sink because of battleship gunfire but being finished off by smaller ships. \n\nBismarck was essentially sunk by gunfire from King George V and Rodney but it was the torpedoes from heavy cruiser Dorsetshire which finished her off. Granted the torpedoes hit above where her waterline was so they didn’t have much effect on the outcome but Bismarck was sinking rather slowly. \n\nThe other example is Duke of York against Scharnhorst. Scharnhorst was (most likely) beginning to sink due to the many penetrating shell hits Duke of York landed on her but the actual sinking was caused by destroyer and cruiser launched torpedoes. \n\nIn both of these instances, the battleship would not have been sunk without the battleship gunfire but would have been sunk without the torpedo hits. It’s just the torpedoes sped the sinking up.\n\nSo battleships did cause the sinking of many ships and essentially did sink many ships, it’s just they rarely got the final blow. But as far as I am concerned, King George V and Rodney sank Bismarck and Duke of York sank Scharnhorst. \n\nHope this answers the question.", "created_utc": 1672910125, "distinguished": null, "id": "j3134dy", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/zurm8f/how_many_vessels_were_sunk_by_battleships_in/j3134dy/", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "This is a relatively popular question/category of question. More answers remain to be written. Previous answers of interest include:\n\n* /u/The_Alaskan's response to ['What was the general feeling amongst American citizens when FDR instituted mandatory internment camps for people of Japanese ancestry (some even with American citizenship) after the attack on Pearl Harbor?'](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5rnjb7/what_was_the_general_feeling_amongst_american/)\n* /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov's response to ['Was there an argument about what to call Japanese internment camps back when they were first implemented?'](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c4zn4v/was_there_an_argument_about_what_to_call_japanese/)", "created_utc": 1672011026, "distinguished": null, "id": "j1nw57u", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/zuzhop/what_was_the_american_publics_reaction_to/j1nw57u/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I have a more in depth answer I wrote on Tuva [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ev6j3z/comment/ffuh54z/). It had Russian settlement in the region (mostly for mining) dating back to the 19th century, and the reasons for annexation in 1944 were both strategic (to put more Soviet territory in front of the industrial Kuzbass region) and domestic (to discourage potential separatist ideas among other nationalities like the Oirats and Buryats by eliminating a nominally independent state of a \"brother\" nation.\n\nMongolia (technically Outer Mongolia) had different strategic uses for the USSR. Its independence was ensured by a relatively large Soviet military presence. I have some further info [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/qdmyih/why_was_mongolias_request_to_join_the_ussr/), which also links to some info from u/kaisermatias. To restate it a bit: from the 1920s both the Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists considered Mongolia Chinese territory. Directly annexing it would have disturbed Soviet relations with both parties, and the Soviets already effectively controlled the nominally independent Mongolia anyway, so it would have been a big diplomatic loss for nor real gain. The border between Outer and Inner Mongolia wasn't even demarcated until the 1960s, so a direct Soviet annexation would have meant that the Soviets would have vastly multiplied their already-existing territorial disputes with China and would have had to commit major resources to defending Soviet sovereign claims. Which again, was not something they needed to do since they already had effective political, economic and military control over Mongolia anyway.", "created_utc": 1666619005, "distinguished": null, "id": "itl69yi", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/ybwisc/why_did_the_soviet_union_annex_the_tuvan_peoples/itl69yi/", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Although I'm not able to answer your question (it being far outside my areas of specialism), I do have a question about your question: what do you mean by \"never any mention\"? To what context are you referring? General histories of WW2? TV documentaries? Other sources? I think you need to be just a little bit clearer in the framing of your question in order to get an answer that is going to be focused and useful. The more focused, specific, and clear you can make a question on Ask Historians, the easier it is for the community to give answers.\n\nMalcolm", "created_utc": 1669912860, "distinguished": null, "id": "iyia55b", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/z99f9g/how_come_theres_never_any_mention_of_the_italian/iyia55b/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "The German Reich - and from 1943, the Greater German Reich - certainly launched counterattacks after 1942---notably at Kursk on the Eastern Front of the European War and in the Ardennes Forest (the \"Battle of the Bulge\") in the Western Theater---but in a strategic sense she was absolutely on the defensive from early 1943 onward. That's because the German Army had been irretrievably smashed in the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942 and '43.\n\nIn the Eastern Front clash of titans with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), the Germans had been thrown back from the suburbs of Moscow - the capital of the U.S.S.R. - the previous winter by an unexpected wintertime offensive. Though their retreat nearly became a rout, the Germans managed to hang on, and the 1941 operation, Operation *Barbarossa*, ground to a halt. Once the weather improved in the spring of '42, the Germans renewed their strategic offensive, with the goal now becoming to bypass and isolate Moscow and, especially, Leningrad (today back to its original name of St. Petersburg) to the north, while conquering the oil fields in the Caucasus to the south. Guarding the gateway to this region on a bend of the Volga River was Stalingrad.\n\nThe battle raged for nearly six months. The Germans called it \"rattenkrieg\", or \"the war of the rats\". For weeks on end, it was little more than snipers picking each other off from their nests in piles of rubble. Finally, the Russian autumn and winter set in once more, and the Germans were caught by a massive Soviet counterattack led by Army General Georgy Zhukov, of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, the Deputy Commissar of Defense and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R., that trapped them inside the city. Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor and *Führer* of the German Reich, forbade them to try and fight their way out of the encirclement, and the Luftwaffe was unable to adequately supply the soldiers. In the end, the entire German 6th Army was annihilated, and only five thousand of its soldiers survived to return to Germany after her surrender in May 1945.\n\nIn response to this, Hitler recalled Colonel General Heinz Guderian, the former commander of the 2nd Panzer Army, who had previously sacked for saying politically incorrect things to the *Führer* about the *Barbarossa* offensive, and appointed him to the newly created position of Inspector General of Armoured Troops and later the Upper Command of the Army's Acting Chief of the General Staff. Guderian carefully rebuilt the shattered Panzer arm and was not in favor of Operation *Citadel*, which resulted in the Battle of Kursk. Hitler disagreed and pushed the plan forward because he thought he needed a German victory to reassure his faltering allies and to keep the Soviets at bay while the Germans took their industry underground and tried to perfect war-winning \"wunderwaffe\" (wonder weapons).\n\nKursk was incredibly bloody and enormously destructive to both sides, and while some have argued that the Germans were winning, their victory, had it come, would surely have been a Pyrrhic one. Meanwhile, Hitler decided to pull some of his units from the battle and redeploy them to face the Allied landings in Sicily and Italy. The Soviets were left holding the battlefield, and were able to replace their losses relatively quickly (if certainly not easily). The Germans, other than the Ardennes operation of 1944, no longer had the manpower for another strategic offensive.\n\nSo: the Eastern Front meatgrinder, coupled with the round the clock strategic bombing campaign by the United Kingdom and the United States, added to the invasions of Sicily, Italy, and France, spelled the end for the German's cause of the war. Other than localized counterattacks, they were on the defensive throughout the entire rest of the war after Kursk, with the sole sort-of exception of the Ardennes.\n\nBy the way: some will note that German munitions and weapons production actually peaked in 1944, which was also when the Allied strategic bombing offensive was heading for its zenith, and that's true as far as it goes. But while Greater German Reich was able to move many of its factories deep underground, even there they were not invulnerable to attack (as British superweapon scientist Barnes Wallis proved with his Tallboy and Blockbuster bombs). And beyond this, most of the critical petroleum and chemical factories and refineries supplying the German war effort could not be protected in this way. The end result was thousands of planes, tanks, and vehicles sitting idle for lack of fuel, and of course the delay in production caused by the German relocation of their factories also greatly aided the Allied efforts. But even if the Germans had been able to couple petrol with their vehicles and weapons, they, along with the rest of the Axis, had already been bled white. Just over half of the entire prewar adult male population of the German Reich died in the war. There was no one left to fly the planes or fire the weapons. The German war effort was *kaput*.", "created_utc": 1669854935, "distinguished": null, "id": "iyfj7g9", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/z97snq/why_was_it_said_that_the_warfares_behavior_of/iyfj7g9/", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "*The 20th century – ‘the century of departure, of migration, of exodus – of disappearance. The century of people helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon.’ (John Berger)i* \r \n\r \nDisplacement, forced migration, and expulsion recur time and time again in history. A pithy answer to your question (‘Were there significant population transfers anywhere after the war?’) could simply take the form of a list. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, India, Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia, Malaya, Singapore, Israel, Palestine – these were all places where significant numbers of displaced people and refugees originated, travelled through, or ended up both during and after WWII. In Asia, displacement and forced movement arose from invasion (about 95 million in wartime China, as you mention, amounting to a quarter of China’s population; about 5.3 million in South Korea, estimated the UN in July 1951), as well as post-war settlements that removed Japanese settlers and their forced overseas labour. \r \n\r \nThe enormous scale of such movement in Asia and elsewhere point to the phenomenon of ‘refugees’ as a distinctive and more recent phenomenon, where refugees’ large numbers and ambiguous legal and national statuses jostled uneasily with rising nationalism and decolonization around the world. I’ll therefore sketch the evolving political, bureaucratic and humanitarian logic around Asian refugees, who did not just lie at the periphery of international developments, but played a great formative role in the concept of a refugee itself and shaping the role of various international agencies. \r \n\r \n A ‘modern’ history of refugees and migration tends to begin (or at least be bookmarked) with certain international institutions or agreements. As WWII drew to a close, the nascent UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was established to restore economic stability and self-sufficiency, and provide the relief and aid necessary in the meantime. The UNRRA’s brief five-year existence in Asia already revealed the difficulty for Asian societies and international agencies alike in achieving nationalist, anti-imperialist political ambitions alongside the inherent limitations of a nation-state in overcoming developmental and security obstacles.\r \n\r \n Other landmarks in the modern regime of refugee management include (1) the 1951 Refugee Convention, an uneasy outcome of UN negotiations, (2) the formation of agencies like the International Refugee Organisation (established 1946, later to become the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR), and (3) discussions at forums like the UN General Assembly (which created the aforementioned agencies). As the premise of your question reflects, refugees were overwhelmingly European, an artifact of the definition of refugees themselves. \n\n​\n\n(1/3)", "created_utc": 1650205449, "distinguished": null, "id": "i5321lk", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/u4w4vv/ive_heard_a_lot_about_refugees_duringafter_world/i5321lk/", "score": 28 } ]

[ { "body": "This is specific to the situation in (the Grand-Duchy of) Luxembourg.\n\nHistorian Michel Pauly alludes that after the war, a lot of Luxembourgers made the assimilation of Italian = Fascist, including at least two ministers who used this “justification” to seize all Italian property. Historian Maria Caldognetto notes the 1946 report of the Italian Legate to Luxembourg where he informed Rome of the tense situation in Luxembourg and the countless sequestrations of property among fascists and non-fascists alike. The sequestration even hit those who had their property previously seized by the fascists in Italy or who had actively fought and resisted during the war. This is the case for Luigi Peruzzi, who had his property confiscated.\n\nPeruzzi was an anti-fascist who was deeply involved in actions against the fascist community in Luxembourg during the 1930s. The Luxembourgish government at the time repeatedly expulsed anti-fascists and was heavily criticized by the anti-fascists for doing Mussolini’s bidding. In May 1940, during the evacuation of Luxembourg following the German Invasion, Peruzzi fled with his family to France. There he encountered anti-Italian sentiment because the French assumed he was fascist.\n\nAfter the French capitulation he returned to Luxembourg and resumed his resistance, now also against the Nazis. In 1942 he and many others were caught by the Germans and held in Prison before being moved to the SS-Sonderlager Hinzert in September of 1942. Upon arrival, the inmates were highly suspicious of him and his Italian colleagues. They too believed he was a fascist spy. It took quite some time (and a lot of torture by the Germans) to finally convince the inmates that Peruzzi was safe and on their side.\n\n>Sidenote: Peruzzi’s story during the war continues to be fascinating: After Hinzert, he’s moved to Italy and held under house-arrest, then joins the Free Italian Forces, gets captured by the Germans again and forcefully deported to Berlin to work in a factory there.\n\nThe anti-Italian sentiment was also present among resistance fighters, including those who had known of anti-fascist Italians among their ranks. As such, in 1952 Raymond Steichen (a co-inmate who was part of the same prisoner-convoy as Peruzzi from Luxembourg to Hinzert) co-published the “Livre d’Or de la Résistance” (a collection of all the names of the victims of the Nazi terror among resistance fighters). Neither Peruzzi nor his other Italian colleagues are mentioned.\n\nEven worse, historian Denis Scuto notes that in the 1996 published book “Livre d’Or des Prisons” (list of names of those imprisoned based on the incomplete prison register), the author (and resistance fighter) Aloyse Raths purposefully leaves out Peruzzi as ever having been imprisoned. For the convoy of the 14th of September 1942, Raths stops at Prisoner N°36. Guess who prisoner N°37 was, none other than Luigi Peruzzi. As such Italian antifascist resistance was still (purposefully) being ignored as late as the early 2000s.\n\nNow what about the rest of the Italians? Historian Vincent Artuso notes that after the war there was a massive need for foreign workers to rebuild the country and fulfil the economic needs. The government was hesitant to ask for Italian workers because they considered them as enemies. However, the government had little choice. They couldn’t request German workers as the French were hoarding them and the “displaced persons” couldn’t be used because they had nowhere to go to once the government no longer needed them.\n\nSo, the economic need and the restrictions forced the government in September of 1946 to pursue Italian workers, but only those that were specifically noted for their anti-fascist attitude. In 1948 both governments signed a deal. By 1949 relations had normalized to the point that anti-Italian sentiment was no longer as present as before. Anti-Italian sentiment was present after the war and hit the Italian community hard, but the economic needs of the country offered no other choice than to normalize relations again in order to profit of the manpower. This didn't stop the memory of anti-fascist resistance to be \"forgotten\" by the historiography.\n\nMaterials used:\n\n* Artuso, Vincent, Déi vergiessen Auslänner, déi d'Land erëm opgebaut hunn, in: radio 100,7 (16.08.2020), URL: [https://www.100komma7.lu/article/wessen/dei-vergiessen-auslanner-dei-d-land-erem-opgebaut-hunn](https://www.100komma7.lu/article/wessen/dei-vergiessen-auslanner-dei-d-land-erem-opgebaut-hunn)\n* Caldognetto, Maria Luisa, L’antifascisme des Italiens au Luxembourg (années 1920-1940), in: Musée National de la Résistance et des Droits Humains, Le Luxembourg et le Troisième Reich. Un Etat des lieux, Esch-sur-Alzette 2021.\n* Pauly, Michel, Un Italien dans la Résistance luxembourgeoise. À propos des “Mémoires“ de Luigi Peruzzi, in : forum 224 (March 2003), URL : [https://www.forum.lu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/4980\\_224\\_Pauly.pdf](https://www.forum.lu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/4980_224_Pauly.pdf)\n* Peruzzi, Luigi, Mes Mémoires. Un antifasciste italien déporté au SS-Sonderlager Hinzert raconte. Traduit de l’italien par Véronique Igel. Présenté et annoté par Denis Scuto, Esch-sur-Alzette 2002.\n* Vitali, David, Les caractéristiques du fascisme italien au Luxembourg, in : Musée National de la Résistance et des Droits Humains, Le Luxembourg et le Troisième Reich. Un Etat des lieux, Esch-sur-Alzette 2021.", "created_utc": 1650808825, "distinguished": null, "id": "i601t2p", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/ua2nuf/why_there_was_no_strong_antiitalian_sentiment_in/i601t2p/", "score": 28 } ]

[ { "body": "More can always be said, but [this older answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/kjp6dg/were_the_battlefields_of_the_first_world_war/ggyo49k/) might be of interest for you.", "created_utc": 1662143766, "distinguished": null, "id": "imtw5v4", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/x3kkso/did_the_alliedgerman_armies_in_world_war_ii_ever/imtw5v4/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "It’s probably fair to say that the film was the primary cause of this misperception insofar as the general public’s understanding of that theater is concerned…although this must be couched in the fact that most Americans (and perhaps Western Europeans, I can’t say for certain) know very little about the Eastern Front. So, yes, speaking about the average casual history fan in 2021, a significant proportion of his understanding of the Eastern Front can likely be traced, directly or indirectly, back to “Enemy at the Gates.” But, again- how many other Eastern Front related films has the average non-Russian moviegoer seen? It would likely be difficult to provide a significantly more specific answer to this part of your question, but perhaps someone else here can. \n\nAs far as where these myths about the Red Army originated, this is in large part due to Erich von Manstein and other German generals recruited by the US to write official histories of the war from the German perspective and to provide insights into Soviet operations based on their own experiences. While these officers *did* provide valuable and interesting perspectives, they also had an agenda, namely, protecting their own reputations and the reputation of the Wehrmacht as a whole. \n\nIt’s never easy to admit when one has thoroughly, unconditionally had their ass beat, after all. What these generals realized, however, is that both the American officer corps and the Western European & American publics were uncritical audiences in this regard. They consequently provided a less-than-accurate narrative about the German-Soviet War. Among many other things, they tended to overemphasize Soviet numerical superiors and attrition-based tactics. This was largely an attempt to explain that, although the Wehrmacht had been defeated, it hadn’t truly been *bested*. The message was that “we were way better then the Soviets, they just had such a numerical advantage and threw their forces at us headlong to such a degree that we were overwhelmed.” \n\nThis is, of course, mostly untrue. After surviving the first six months or so of Barbarossa, the Soviets demonstrated steadily a increasing level of maneuver-based tactical and strategic competency which had become genuinely formidable by 1944. This isn’t to say that the Wehrmacht wasn’t also formidable or the Soviets didn’t benefit from significantly greater manpower and materiel- both of these are true- but the narrative provided by von Manstein & Friends was clearly intended to explain the Soviet victory as primarily owing to the fact that the Red Army was an unsophisticated, musclebound colossus with high pain tolerance. These were men writing their own legacies, after all. \n\nThis was not limited only to the self-serving former generals’ “official” work for the US Army, but also to the rest of their post-war careers which included publishing memoirs and speaking engagements. Other exaggerations and distortions they played a prime role in spreading included the notion that their own consistently wise strategic counsel was routinely overruled by an irrational Hitler- in truth, both Hitler & his generals were responsible good & bad military decisions, but the generals rarely owed up to those instances where Hitler’s intuition had been correct. In effect, much of the widely-believed inaccuracies about the European war in general, and the Eastern Front in particular, can be traced back to former German generals concerned with burnishing their own reputations.\n\nThere also wasn’t much in the way of rebuttals from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Memoirs and such like von Manstein’s were published comparatively infrequently in the USSR and, when they were, they were often riddled with naked propaganda and obvious distortions (example: Zhukov’s memoirs.) Nor were official Soviet analyses of the war made public until after the USSR’s collapse. So the German generals essentially had free reign to write history as they saw fit. \n\nThe book “The Myth of the Eastern Front” by Edward Davis and Ronald Smelser is an excellent overview of the topic that your question addresses.", "created_utc": 1638151776, "distinguished": null, "id": "hmha4s7", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/r4f8mi/did_the_2001_film_enemy_at_the_gates_popularize/hmha4s7/", "score": 468 } ]

[ { "body": "I think these pictures show that your grandfather was stationed at Buckner Bay, Okinawa in October 1945, either before or after serving aboard USS Carter Hall (LSD-3).\n\nThe vessel in the first picture is definitely not USS Carter Hall! It looks like a barracks ship of the APL-2 class. These were non-self-propelled vessels used as temporary housing for personnel who did not have berths aboard ship, perhaps because their ships were sunk or destroyed or because they were working ashore but there were no suitable shore barracks. Basically floating barracks (or if you prefer hotels) that would be towed from harbor to harbor. Since he called that APL *his ship*, it appears your grandfather was temporarily berthed aboard her for some reason. Note that a few APL-2s are still in commission.\n\n\"Nahu\" could be Naha, the largest city of Okinawa. That is also a place where he could have met Japanese civilians as shown in one of the pictures. Also with reference to that caption, he would probably have thought of Okinawa as an \"island.\" Okinawa had a rail system, with its main terminal in Naha, which would explain the locomotive picture. Naha was a large enough city to fit the other pictures of urban devastation. There was a Catholic mission in Naha as well. Okinawa's Catholic population exploded after the war because of the American military bases, but there was a pre-war presence.\n\nKeeping with the Okinawa theory, Typhoon Louise hit Okinawa on October 9, 1945 and wreaked havoc on the ships anchored in Buckner Bay, which is what the Americans called Nakagusuku Bay. Buckner Bay was a major base during the closing months of the war and afterward. Actually, Buckner Bay is still a USN/JMSDF facility.\n\nWe can match some of the ships in the pictures to Typhoon Louise victims. LST-568, which is clearly shown in one of the pictures, was in Buckner Bay during the typhoon. She grounded but was freed. In that picture, it looks like there is a foundered vessel off LST-568's bow, so maybe this is the aftermath of Typhoon Louise. Both APL-10 and APL-14 of the APL-2 class were in Buckner Bay during the typhoon. APL-14 was grounded high and dry, like the vessel in the picture. Again, maybe that was his ship at this time.\n\nSo one possible explanation is that after your grandfather was aboard USS Carter Hall, he was assigned to Buckner Bay, perhaps to provide additional medical support. During this time, he was berthed aboard a barracks ship, possibly APL-14. He was there during Typhoon Louise and saw the destruction. He also would have gone into Naha at least once and taken pictures of the devastated city and a group of civilians.", "created_utc": 1659039638, "distinguished": null, "id": "ii1bphv", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/w9rcb3/can_someone_help_me_identify_a_ship_and_locations/ii1bphv/", "score": 15 } ]

[ { "body": "BLUF: IJN in the interwar period tended to favor heavy cruisers due to it matching their doctrine of attritional night engagements utilizing nighttime gunnery and torpedoes... both of which were more effective on heavy cruisers. The USN in the interwar period tended to favor light cruisers due to longer range and better fleet support for what was perceived to be a carrier/airplane dominated war.\n\nI'll place some artificial restrictions on this given the interwar period encompasses the Washington and London Naval Treaties which themselves set the stage for early war engagements between navies, particularly the USN and IJN in cruiser engagements, so I'll focus on those. \n\n# Naval Treaty Limitations - Cruisers\n\nThe Washington Naval Treaty in 1922 laid out, for cruisers, that they should be restricted to 10,000t and 8\"/203mm caliber gun maximum. In 1922, there weren't really \"light\" and \"heavy\" cruisers... just filling a void between destroyers and battlecruisers. The London Naval Treaty in 1932 specifically set forward hardline definitions of what a Light Cruiser is and what a Heavy Cruiser is. Both were limited to 10,000t and a Light Cruiser could not have any armament above 6.1\"/155mm and a Heavy Cruiser could not go above 8\"/203mm. \n\nThe London Naval Treaty also directed that there would be tonnage limitations on the cruiser class, both heavy and light, for each primary nation. It set forward: \n\n* 339,000 tons for Great Britain with 15 heavy cruisers\n* 323,500 tons for the United States with 18 heavy cruisers\n* 208,850 tons for Japan with 12 heavy cruisers\n\nAdditionally, before jumping into doctrine, a significant point must be emphasized and that is the enormous gulf, if not ocean, of difference between US and Japanese torpedoes. The IJN had by far the best torpedo of the war and the generic differences are as follows:\n\nType 93 IJN Torpedo (2700kg with a 490kg warhead): \n\n* 22,000m (24,000 yd) at 89km/h (48 knots) <- this was the shortest range with highest speed and typical of IJN engagement ranges early in the war\n\nMark 15 USN Torpedo (1700kg with a 224kg warhead)\n\n* 5,500m (6,000 yd) at 83km/h(45 kn)\n\nAs can clearly be seen, the long lance at its closest range was able to be launched at higher speeds than the USN equivalent. However, it should be noted that the IJN only officially declared the Type 93 was capable of an 11,000m range at 78km/h. This is a very important point for later. \n\n# IJN Design Doctrine\n\nSince Japan could not equal the USN in tonnage or number of cruisers, doctrinally for both the heavy and light cruisers the IJN typically focused on two things: night gunnery and torpedo attacks. The long lance torpedo was without a doubt the best torpedo of the war, clearly displayed in the above section. It was capable of being launched well outside of spotlight distance and at a speed of almost 90km/h and at night, it was capable of hitting ships even with lookouts before they would know they're being engaged. \n\nTherefore, Japan focused their doctrine on night fighting with a significant number of destroyer/cruiser engagements anticipated early on until a final pivotal battle could be forced between capital ships. This is why, simply put, there wasn't really a space for a light cruiser in the IJN Doctrine of the 1930s so they did away with them. The IJN built and commissioned 10 heavy cruisers, all well above London Treaty limits, without commissioning a single light cruiser in the 1930s. \n\nFor the IJN there was a 17 gap between light cruisers from the Yubari in 1923 to the Katori in 1940. Even then the Katori-class were intended to be trainers and the IJN didn't commission a fleet CL until 1942 with the Agano-class which were intended to be \"destroyer flagships\". \n\n# USN Design Doctrine\n\nThe USN went about cruiser design almost completely differently. The USN fleet doctrine itself knew about it's own short-comings, identified through a series of \"Fleet Problems\". Fleet Problem XIII in 1932 showed that US fleet arrays were woefully unprepared for night engagements given a destroyer was able to come within 500m of a carrier before being spotted. This is beyond being within kill range even for a US torpedo. Fleet Problem XV tried to rectify this by pushing out the destroyer screen to 13km, but most ships within the fleet weren't able to tell friend from foe at that distance. Eventually, doctrine described a middle ground of 6km for an effective screen to allow the \"fleet\" to identify potential attackers and react.\n\nAdditionally, the USN doctrine (USN War Instructions FTP 143, 1934) specifically warned against night action for cruisers because of Fleet Problem issues laid out and the general consensus with the USN that Japan would intend to engage in a nighttime war of attrition and slowly whittle away the superior numbers of the US fleet. \n\nTherefore, in the interwar period, the US more so focused on light cruisers that would be armed roughly equivilant to a destroyer in caliber but with about 10x the number of guns and far more AA capabilities. Like the IJN abandoned the light cruiser, the US abandoned the heavy cruiser. The New Orleans class was a complete mess of \"trying to do too much not well at all\". It was an 8\" armed cruiser with a decent belt but was top heavy, again due to limitations in weight with poor maneuverability and a highly exposed aircraft hanger amidship. \n\nThe USN laid down 1 CA, the Wichita-class (1 ship), in the 10 years leading up to the war and that was essentially a heavy cruiser prototype attempting to do with 9 8\" guns what the Brooklyn-class was able to do with 15 6\" guns. The US laid down 9 Brooklyn-class and 9 Cleveland-class light cruisers before the war started.", "created_utc": 1656017010, "distinguished": null, "id": "idh6jbi", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/vixwyr/doctrinally_how_did_different_navies_view_the/idh6jbi/", "score": 22 }, { "body": "Traditionally, cruisers have had two main duties. The first was as a fleet scout and escort, the second was on the sea-lanes, either raiding the enemy's merchant shipping or protecting it. The heavy cruiser filled both roles doctrinally. This answer will cover the development of the heavy cruiser in British doctrine; I'll leave other navies to those more familiar with them.\n\nThe Royal Navy's first 'heavy' cruisers (and arguably the world's first) were the *Hawkins* class cruisers, laid down in 1917 but completed in the years following WWI. These were an outgrowing of a pre-war design for a 'big' cruiser often dubbed the 'Atlantic cruiser'. As its name suggests, this ship was primarily intended to operate away from the fleet in the trade protection role. The large size made it more seaworthy and gave it more space for machinery than smaller cruisers, meaning it could be faster than any smaller raider. Its heavy armament of 7.5in guns would let it outgun most raiders. It was not intended for fleet work, to the point where a 7.5in armour-piercing shell was not developed, as it was only expected to fight smaller, more lightly armoured raiders. The *Hawkins* class was a development of these pre-war designs to match the RN's wartime experience. The new ships were armed with seven 7.5in guns, with a secondary battery of ten 12pdr guns, for anti-destroyer and anti-aircraft work. They displaced 9,750 tons, and could make up to 31 knots. When completed, they were the most powerful cruisers in the world. \n\nHowever, they would not stay that way for long. The American and Japanese navies were already hard at work on similarly large cruisers armed with 8in guns, and there was information that the French were thinking similarly. This posed a major threat to British interests. Britain was heavily dependent on its maritime trade. These new large cruisers could easily sweep aside many existing British cruisers, and prey on Britain's trade. They would also make it impossible for Britain to do the same to its enemy's trade. A cruiser arms-race threatened, but was swiftly brought to an end by the Washington Treaty of 1921. The Washington Treaty limited new cruisers to a maximum tonnage of 10,000 tons, and a maximum armament of 8in guns. However, the British were unable to achieve one of their key goals, limiting the total number of cruisers.\n\nFollowing Washington, and the breaking of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the RN began work on a new 8in cruiser to match those being built abroad. The design was heavily influenced by the strategic shift away from alliance with Japan. Britain had significant interests in the Far East, which the Japanese navy could pose a major threat to. Britain could not maintain a battlefleet in the Far East. Instead, local forces (primarily cruisers) would need to fight a delaying, harassing action in the South China Sea until the battlefleet could arrive from its bases in Europe. This imposed certain qualities on the new cruiser. It needed to have the range to patrol the sea lanes between Japan and Hong Kong or Singapore. It had to have the armament to engage enemy cruisers and be capable of acting as a scout for the battlefleet - the British did not know how the Japanese would use their heavy cruisers, so their British equivalent would have to be capable of operating in both situations. The result was the 'County' class (technically three related sub-classes), armed with eight 8in guns. \n\nThe Counties were capable ships, but were also expensive. Given the extent of British trade lines, the RN's strategic planners calculated that the fleet would need seventy cruisers. However, Britain could not afford to build Counties in sufficient volume to make a modern seventy cruiser fleet viable. A cheaper 8in cruiser was needed to cover the sealanes, letting the more capable Counties stay with the fleet or protect shipping in more threatened areas. This resulted in the two ships of the *York* class, armed with six 8in guns. \n\nThe *York*s were the last British heavy cruisers to be built. Part of this was down to exercise reports. Fleet exercises in the late 1920s found that the *Hawkins* class, the only heavy cruisers taking part in the exercises, were less suitable for fleet duties than light cruisers. The more manoeuvrable and faster-firing light cruisers were more able to repel enemy destroyer attacks or support light forces in night attacks. This reduced the desire to have 8in cruisers with the fleet. The First London Naval Treaty, signed in 1930, put limits on the number of heavy cruisers in service with the major naval powers. Not only did this prevent the RN building more heavy cruisers, it also reduced the threat to Britain's merchant fleet. Britain no longer needed large amounts of heavy cruisers, because nobody else was allowed to build large amounts of them. Instead, 6in cruisers would suffice to protect the trade routes.\n\nIn the latter half of the 1930s, cruiser sizes began to creep back up again. The First London Treaty had a fairly major loophole; it limited the number of 8in cruisers but not the number of 6in cruisers, while the 10,000 ton limit from Washington was still in effect. This meant that, especially with the development of triple 6in turrets, a navy could achieve similar capabilities to a heavy cruiser by building a 10,000 ton 6in cruiser. The Japanese were the first to do so with the *Mogami* class, with the USN following suit with the *Brooklyn* class. The RN needed to counter these, especially for trade protection. The result was the 'Town' class cruisers, armed with twelve 6in guns (again, this is technically a mix of three subclasses). The Second London Treaty of 1936 attempted to close this loophole, by decreasing the cruiser tonnage limit to 8000 tons. This was ineffectual; the British were able to cut the tonnage of the 'Town's down to 8000 tons to produce the 'Crown Colony' class, while the Japanese and Americans largely ignored the limit. These two classes don't really count as heavy cruisers, being armed with 6in guns, but their size and capabilities put them into the same weight class. \n\nBy the start of WWII, the RN's 8in cruisers were primarily seen as being most useful for commerce protection. This was a role they easily fell into. In October 1939, after it became clear that there were German commerce raiders at sea, eight hunting groups were formed, combining British and French ships. These eight groups included eight of the RN's fifteen 8in cruisers. Two of the forces were composed of two British 8in cruisers, a third added in the carrier *Eagle*, and a fourth had two 8in cruisers and two 6in cruisers. This last one found significant fame in December 1939, when it engaged the German large cruiser *Graf Spee* at the Battle of the River Plate - though one of the 8in cruisers, *Cumberland*, had been detached for a boiler cleaning and repairs and so missed the battle. Other 8in cruisers were engaged in patrolling the sealanes hunting for German shipping, both in the waters around the UK and further afield. They continued in these roles throughout the war. On Christmas Day 1940, HMS *Berwick* fought a brief action with the German cruiser *Hipper*, warding the German cruiser away from convoy WS5A. In December 1943, *Norfolk* joined the 6in cruisers *Sheffield* and *Belfast* to cover the convoys JW55B and RA55A, and as such was a significant component of the sinking of the *Scharnhorst*. Other ships hunted down raiders (and their supply ships) more directly. The auxiliary cruiser *Atlantis* was sunk by *Devonshire*, while her supply ship *Python* was sunk by *Dorsetshire* a few days later. \n\nSome 8in cruisers did operate with the fleet, but this was rarer, with the big 6in cruisers being preferred for this work - these ships were more modern and more suited to the demands of fleet work. *Suffolk* and *Norfolk* did sterling work during the *Bismarck* campaign, shadowing the German battleship - though these two ships were already on patrol in the Denmark Strait when she sortied. *Dorsetshire* would also join in the final battle, but she had been detached from the escort for convoy SL74. *Berwick* formed part of the cruiser screen for the Mediterranean Fleet during the Battle of Cape Spartivento. *Dorsetshire* and *Cornwall* were part of Somerville's screen in the Indian Ocean during the Japanese raid, but both would be sunk after being detached from the screen to take up independent roles (*Cornwall* to escort a convoy, and *Dorsetshire* for a refit). However, in both of these cases, these ships were operating in theatres that were seen as relatively less important.\n\nOther ships operated independently against Axis warships, or as a significant component of independent forces. *Suffolk* would be heavily damaged by German bombers after bombarding the airfield at Stavanger on the 17th April 1940. *York* supported the 6in cruiser *Ajax* during the Battle of Cape Passero. *Exeter* was a major part of the doomed ABDA fleet during the Java Sea campaign in early 1942. During the Battle of the Coral Sea, the *Australia* was part of a surface force protecting the approaches to New Guinea. Her sister ship *Canberra* would be sunk while on patrol near Guadalcanal during the Battle of Savo Island. \n\nThe 8in cruisers had a varied set of roles throughout the war, but this was not a significant divergence from pre-war doctrine. The cruiser was a swiss-army knife of a ship, and was expected to be capable of performing many tasks. The trade war was probably the most important role available, and one they had been initially designed to be most suited for. As such, it's no surprise that it was the one they carried out most.", "created_utc": 1656034134, "distinguished": null, "id": "idi7xs1", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/vixwyr/doctrinally_how_did_different_navies_view_the/idi7xs1/", "score": 15 } ]

[ { "body": "The Royal Navy provided a significant proportion of the escorts that fought the Battle of the Atlantic throughout the entirety of the battle, suffered more losses than the other Allied navies, and sank somewhere in the region of 250 submarines in the North Atlantic alone. It fought from the first day of the battle in 1939, through to its last day. For more information on how the RN fought the Battle of the Atlantic, you could see [this answer on British convoy doctrine](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/m837de/convoys_proved_an_effective_means_of_protecting/), [this answer on Britain's use of aircraft carriers to protect convoys](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gpymm7/in_ww2_why_werent_aircraft_carriers_assigned_to/frq29fd/?context=999), or [this one on the difficulty the RN had finding convoy escorts](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hr1kl5/the_us_and_uk_seemingly_went_into_wwii_with_a/fy1reb2/?context=999). While more can always be said [this answer provides a general overview of the battle and some of the RN's contributions to it](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7acgb6/did_the_kriegsmarine_ever_stand_a_chance_of/).", "created_utc": 1661989874, "distinguished": null, "id": "imlc9x8", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/x2qqe3/did_the_british_royal_navy_play_an_important_role/imlc9x8/", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) is more than just breaking codes. The act of transmitting by radio yields quite a bit of information in itself. How much a station transmits is a good indicator of how high in the chain they are. Some radio types are unique to certain headquarters units, so the frequency band they're transmitting on can point to certain types of units. Direction finding can locate the transmitter. And each telegraph operator has a unique 'hand', the cadence and speed of his transmissions, that can be identified. The aggregation of all this information is called \"traffic analysis\".\n\nAll this information is used to build an \"electronic order of battle\" (EOB), or who is talking to with who. A division will talk down to it's regiments and up to the corps headquarters. If I know one of their radiomen had previously been associated with a particular panzer division, I can make a reasonable guess he's still with that unit. I can then start to build a picture of where the regiments are, which corps it belongs to, and so on. So even if I can't read the messages, I can form a surprisingly good picture of an enemy force from their radio traffic alone. And the information can cue other intelligence assets to help.\n\nIf a bunch of new transmitting stations suddenly appeared behind the German lines, as the Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies formed up in their assembly areas, this would certainly have raised some eyebrows. Allied signals analysts would have immediately began trying to build the EOB. Identifying important stations and then finding a general location, they would also request aerial reconnaissance flights over the area, something the Germans were desperately trying to avoid.", "created_utc": 1655131326, "distinguished": null, "id": "ic7it22", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/vb7h0o/during_world_war_ii_why_did_the_germans_maintain/ic7it22/", "score": 33 } ]

[ { "body": "On the 18th November 1942, three days after the sinking of the sixth British carrier of the war, the Royal Navy's Future Building Committee delivered an interim report. This committee had been set up to digest the lessons of the war, and determine the future direction of the British fleet. The interim report made strong statements about the utility of the aircraft carrier, and its likely place in the Royal Navy. However, they were strongly positive. The Committee's key conclusion on how the war had changed naval warfare was that:\n\n> the Carrier must be the core of the Fleet,\nand the deployment of aircraft both Carrier borne and shore based, must be the king pin of Naval strategy.\n\nTo this end, the carrier was to become a much more significant part of the fleet.\n\nThis conclusion, despite the losses suffered by the British carrier force, and those of the US and Japanese Navies, was easy to justify. Aircraft had proven to be a highly effective weapon of war. By the end of September 1942, the RN had lost two capital ships, a carrier, eight cruisers and forty-one destroyers to aircraft, plus many more ships damaged to a greater or lesser extent. At Taranto and Pearl Harbor, they had showed that they could devastate a fleet at anchor. At Matapan and against the *Bismarck*, they proved they were a useful part of a battlefleet, slowing an enemy so it could be caught. Off Crete in May 1941 and Malaysia in December 1941, they showed that they could devastate a fleet. Battles like the Coral Sea and Midway, meanwhile, showed that carriers alone could swing the course of a battle. Aircraft were so effective because they could deliver a large amount of ordnance at a much greater range than was previously possible.\n\nThe carrier was vulnerable, certainly. It carried large stocks of highly flammable aviation spirit, a large quantity of munitions, and its ability to generate strikes was dependent on a flight deck that was easily damaged by bombs and the like. However, unlike other classes of ships, the carrier could carry an effective defence. The Royal Navy's pre-war doctrine for air defence saw the fleet's anti-aircraft gun armament as its main defence. This was swiftly proved to be the wrong choice, contributing to the many losses to aircraft. Only fighters could provide a capable defence, and for a fleet that was out at sea, these could only come from a carrier. A carrier could also provide defence against the other major threat a fleet faced. Submarines sank four of the six British carriers lost to enemy action during the war - but a carrier's aircraft could, when provided with effective weapons, fend off subs as well. \n\nHowever, this opinion was not universally held within the Royal Navy. Aircraft were seen as a key weapon, certainly, but opinions varied on the carrier. One suggestion was the idea of the hybrid ship or 'battle-carrier', which had both heavy guns and a flight deck. This could carry enough fighters to protect it in the approach to a surface action. A paper on the topic was prepared by the staff of the Mediterranean Fleet in early 1942, with the support of Admiral Cunningham. The concept was examined by British naval designers, but ultimately discarded. The problem was that designing such a ship required too many compromises. For the price of five 'battle-carrier's, three conventional battleships and three conventional carriers could be built. The conventional ships would have more (and heavier) guns and more aircraft than the hybrids, a much more efficient use of construction time and materials. \n\nAnother option was to move towards an entirely shore-based force of aircraft. Carrier-borne aircraft required serious compromises in their construction. Operating from a carrier imposed maximum size and weight limits, due to the need to fit into a ship's lifts and hangars. The need to make a landing on a tiny strip imposed a requirement for a strong structure due to the vast forces involved. All of these put carrier-based aircraft at a disadvantage compared to land-based aircraft, which could be as large as they needed to be and had less stringent structural requirements. The carrier was also much more complex and expensive than an airbase on land. In July 1942, the Fifth Sea Lord (the official in charge of the RN's aircraft and carrier force), Rear Admiral Lumley Lyster, wrote a memorandum arguing for the development of new aircraft to replace the carrier at sea. Lyster, an experienced carrier captain who had made the original plan for the Taranto raid, looked forward to the development of new higher power aircraft engines and of technologies like inflight refuelling. These would allow the new shore-based aircraft to reach out to ranges that previously would only be possible using a carrier as a base. To provide a fleet with fighter protection, it was to be capable of 'towing' fighters in flight. Lyster's memorandum called for the development of an aircraft with 5,000 nautical miles of range, an armament of four torpedoes and cannon, as well as the capability to tow four fighters. This new aircraft was to be delivered within two years. Lyster's memorandum was given some serious consideration, but it was discarded. It was felt unlikely that such an aircraft could be produced in time to affect the war. It was also felt that carrier-based aircraft would benefit just as much from the process of developing technology as shore-based aircraft and remain competitive.", "created_utc": 1654893533, "distinguished": null, "id": "ibwdd5u", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/v6em0i/was_there_ever_any_doubt_of_the_efficacy_of/ibwdd5u/", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "There are a few things going on in the post you shared, so I'm going to take them one at a time. Starting from the top: No - the idea of moving out at 18 is not an artifact of World War II. Or, to put it another way, events or conditions that happened between 1939 and 1945 did not cause young people to suddenly leave home at 18. The idea that a young person would leave their parents' home had been established long before the war. \n\n> In Western culture, including America, it was normal for kids to live with their parents into adulthood and until marriage, sometimes longer.\n\n\"Normal\" is a complicated, usually misleading, word to describe patterns among young people in history. That is, what's true for one group of young adult Americans isn't necessarily true for another group. The generational patterns among young adult Black Americans whose ancestors were brought to America through chattel slavery look different than young white men who have access to generational wealth which are different than Indigenous young adults. It took massive resistance from young disabled people to expand the social safety net to include them and the supports they need(ed) to live independently. Etc.\n\n> In America, that changed (for men) in the 40's and 50's when it became extremely easy for an 18 year old to get a job that paid more than enough to live comfortably on or even to afford college which would practically guarantee an even better job.\n\nThis statement does not accurately reflect patterns across history. In the early 1800s, thousands of unmarried women between the ages of 16ish and 24ish left their homes on the east coast to travel South and West to work as schoolteachers. Their housing situation ranged from living with a local family, in a room attached to a schoolhouse, to communal living. These young women didn't have to fight against social norms to move away from their parents; instead, there was a deliberate campaign led by advocates for public schools to shift social norms such that it became acceptable for young unmarried women - mostly white, but not always - to leave her home and live independently (while \"fulfilling her natural obligation to the next generation\" - more on that [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ensrbc/how_did_teaching_nursing_and_being_a_secretary/).) Similar movement could be seen among young men (and women, mostly white, but not always) before the Civil War who followed the sentiment of, \"go west, young man.\" This isn't to say all white young adults living in the Northeast left home to head West or South, only that it wasn't uncommon and a young person interested in doing such a thing may have faced some pressure from their parents to not go but the conditions were such that it wouldn't necessarily be seen as uncommon or as aberrant behavior. \n\nI'm going to skip the next bit as it's modern politics. \n\n> In fact, a great deal of American culture is still based on the memory of the '40s and '50s as baseline normalcy despite them being a total fluke at the time.\n\nI'm not sure what the author of this means by \"fluke\" but leaving the family farm became fairly routine and common beginning in the 1850s as the American economy transformed from an agricultural one to manufacturing. One study even described the consequence of this economic shift as \"shattering\" the system of intergenerational family farms that had endured for generations.^1 Specifics related to which child left home or why they left the family farm were idiosyncratic and more education didn't always mean a child would move away from their parents. A 1930 profile of American teachers by Frances Donovan identified a variety of archetypes, including unmarried teachers who received their Normal College diploma (a de facto teacher certification) and spent her days teaching and her morning and evenings caring for her parents. These women were of note to Donovan precisely because they stayed at home.\n\nThere is one more trend worth exploring that emerged before World War II and that's the idea that in many households, parents felt they simply didn't need their children's help. (Our friends over at /r/AskSocialScience are better positioned to discuss the why behind this than we are - or if it's a uniquely American trait.) Ruggles' study explores this theory in more depth and it pops up in a few other places. *How Old Are You: Age Consciousness in American Culture* by Chudacoff is one of my favorites on the topic of age and he explores the theme in terms of the construct of being *elderly*. In effect, he offers, World War I vets, couples who built their homes, adults who were otherwise living full, independent lives - whose children were adults - didn't appreciate the idea of their children, or their neighbors, thinking they needed help. (Although it wouldn't emerge until well after World War II, the sentiment \"empty nester\" can also mean the birds, as it were, were kicked out of the nest.) \n\nSo, finally, let's talk about why 18. We got lots of questions about the question of \"[why 18](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9sltgx/what_is_the_history_of_how_the_number_18_was/e8q5poo/)\" and to summarize, it's because most young people start school at 5 or 6, are in school for 13 years, putting them at 17 or 18 when they're done. As America expanded the social safety net, established the draft, set legal boundaries around childhood and adult over the course of the 20th century, 18 became a bright line to mark the end of childhood (it's not necessarily a physical line as the changes associated with adolescence continue well into a person's 20s.) \n\nSo, to reiterate, no, not really. While more young white men did go to college as a result of the GI Bill and were able to obtain mortgages through special programs set up for vets, the norm of young white adults leaving their parents' home once they reached adulthood was established long before 1939.\n\n____\n1.Ruggles, S. (2007), *The Decline of Intergenerational Coresidence in the United States, 1850 to 2000* [link](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3090139/#) The entire article is worth reading as the author explores a variety of different theories related to why white and Black Americans leave home. (A tip of the hat to /u/jbdyer for putting it on my radar)", "created_utc": 1631277473, "distinguished": null, "id": "hcazffo", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/pl6drg/is_moving_out_at_18_an_artifact_of_world_war_ii/hcazffo/", "score": 577 } ]

[ { "body": "Most current popular knowledge in the United States about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is centered exclusively around the terms of the historical debates that were taking place around 1995, the 50th anniversary of the bombings, when it became a locus for a \"culture war\" conflict (like \"Critical Race Theory\" today and a lot of other things). This was politics by other means, and the understanding of the bombings became core to a debate about the history and present identity of the United States. The most prominent location of this conflict was the Smithsonian's _Enola Gay_ exhibit fracas, but one sees the ramifications of this throughout lots of books and debates that came out in that era, both promoting the \"orthodox\" view of the \"decision to use the bomb,\" and the \"revisionist\" view (that framed things in basically the same terms, except it argued that the bombs weren't necessary and that the US dropped them to try to intimidate the USSR). \n\nThat particular white-hot moment made such an impression on several generations of educators, popularizers, and journalists that it is incredibly, incredibly hard to make them see it in any other terms. The historical debate has shifted quite dramatically since then, towards many other things (including the essential consensus that there was no \"decision to use the bomb\" and the entire terms of the previous argument are anachronistic), including the question of the role of the Soviet invasion versus the atomic bombs in Japan's eventual agreement to surrender. \n\nBut there is a deep cultural lag in the United States, reflected in textbooks, news media, documentaries, popular books, and the like. So yes, it is entirely unsurprising that most people have not heard of this particular debate at all and still find it surprising even though in its modern form it is 20 years old, and earlier versions of it existed in the 1940s and 1950s.\n\nBut to your point as to why people hold such strong views on a topic that they themselves would probably, if pushed, admit that they only have a cursory understanding of — it is because this is one of those topics that is not seen as a merely academic question (like \"how were medieval samurai swords actually made?\"), but as one that points to fundamental understanding of the identity of the United States. This is true of both the 1990s \"orthodox\" view (United States essentially good) and the 1990s \"revisionist\" view (essentially bad), and the question of, \"what actually did the Japanese think and do?\" is almost irrelevant to most people when it comes to that approach to it (and just complicates things immensely). So I would say it is more than just being not informed, but it is one of the many places where historical narratives are subscribed to as part of broader political identities, and so are much harder to dislodge. (Other places where one sees this are discussions about the Civil War, the history of slavery, and — less so today than 20 years ago — McCarthyism.)", "created_utc": 1653968042, "distinguished": null, "id": "iamfosi", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/v1f4m4/is_there_actually_a_debate_among_historians_as_to/iamfosi/", "score": 14 } ]

[ { "body": "Contact was tried; see [this prior answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/afxy65/many_japanese_soldiers_in_wwii_cut_off_from_the/) by /u/RealFactorRagePolice/, and also the link from /u/mikedash at the end of [this answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/um1px6/hiroo_onoda_the_japanese_ww2_holdout_who/) which goes into incredibly comprehensive detail.", "created_utc": 1656464708, "distinguished": null, "id": "ie4nxg7", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/vn2t76/why_did_it_take_until_the_70s_for_the_final/ie4nxg7/", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "/u/Kugelfang52 has previously answered:\n\n* [Did American soldiers who saw the racist atrocities of the Holocaust realize the horrors of prejudice and have a moral awakening or did they go back to nonchalantly eating at whites only diners? If the 2nd, why? (I doubt every American soldier was watching blackface shows but you get what I mean)](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/eo0jta/did_american_soldiers_who_saw_the_racist/)\n\n* [Why was it official US policy not to use the word \"Jew\" in connection with the Nazi concentration camps?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gm7pr7/why_was_it_official_us_policy_not_to_use_the_word/)", "created_utc": 1652637451, "distinguished": null, "id": "i8pyx0u", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/uq8l5r/did_fighting_against_antisemites_in_world_war_ii/i8pyx0u/", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "I have written [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/s4wsev/comment/hsuh8z3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about the process that increasingly marginalized the Emperor and the civilian government during the 1930s.\n\nWith that as context, the contradiction you are describing starts to fit into the big picture a bit more. Technically, you are right, and the Emperor held sole supreme authority to make war and peace. Technically, he could give orders and expect to see them obeyed. However, his various efforts over the preceding decades to bring the army and navy to heel had simply been snuffed out with violence. By the time war broke out, he was quite reasonably in fear of a military coup that would seize control of the Imperial palace and issue proclamations in the Emperor's name, but without the Emperor's consent. This sort of arrangement for governing was perfectly in line with practices that were normal during much of Japan's history. And, in point of fact, when the Emperor finally did give the order to accept the allied Potsdam declaration, just such a coup was, in fact, attempted, and even succeeded in seizing and holding the palace grounds (but not, importantly, the Emperor himself, nor the recording he had made of his surrender declaration) before it was ultimately suppressed.\n\nI think there is also a bit of an oversimplification in your question. I don't think the Emperor wanted to *surrender*, in the sense of submitting to the allied demand for unconditional surrender as expressed in the Casablanca and (eventually) Potsdam declarations. Rather, the Emperor became, over time, more and more friendly to the idea of a negotiated peace which would, perhaps, leave Japan in possession of certain colonial possessions and some part of her Navy and Army. There was a consistent but somewhat quixotic belief that Russia might be willing to mediate such an agreement with the allies, which was a pipe dream from the start and which was shattered for good when the overwhelming Soviet juggernaut forged in the war was unleashed on Japanese Manchuria on August 9, 1945.\n\nNo source I've ever seen has given compelling evidence that the Emperor was even a little bit in favor of actually surrendering (in the sense of what ultimately happened, with Japan submitting to complete disarmament and full military occupation) until after the atomic bombings.", "created_utc": 1652640534, "distinguished": null, "id": "i8q5x1e", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/uptuks/why_was_the_emperor_of_japan_unable_to_surrender/i8q5x1e/", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "I have been going a bit back and forth on this question because the material on the Luftwaffe's manpower recruitment, especially in the early war years, is relatively thin. The destruction of a lot of Luftwaffe records in 1945 did not help either. But as a whole, the family stories and hypotheses are not very plausible. \n\nConscription within the Luftwaffe was a complicated animal in the peacetime and early war years. German males completing their year of compulsory labor service (RAD) were then drafted in their respective *Wehrkreise*. Upon completion of the RAD, German men could volunteer for either an extended enlistment in the *Heer* or volunteer into service in Kriegsmarine or Luftwaffe (the Waffen-SS comes into play during the war). In the later cases, volunteering also had the benefit of choosing which branch of the specific service (submarines, pilot training, etc.) the volunteer wanted, although in a pattern familiar in many modern militaries, volunteering for a specific branch within the Wehrmacht was not a guarantee the applicant would get it. The result of this was the early war Luftwaffe's personnel had a strong volunteerist character to it, albeit the volunteers were operating in a dictatorship that allowed next to no opportunities for conscientious objection. \n\nBut the available sources suggest that, particularly for the early years, the Luftwaffe had a strong cohort of volunteers within it. Flying and the allure of high technology drove a number of Germans to want to join up in this service. The allure of clean beds at night, less formal military discipline, as well as technical education also held an appeal for many Germans going into this branch of the service. Pilots and aircrew in particular were by and large volunteers. Training for these positions took years, although wartime pressures cut that down considerably. The Luftwaffe leadership was quite careful in trying to screen out applicants to these posts. \n\nNow there were exceptions to this general outline. Germans with a civilian pilot license were inducted into the Luftwaffe once hostilities began in 1939. This was how the postwar sex entrepreneur Beate Uhse and Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, sister-in-law to the 20 July plotter, found themselves in Luftwaffe service despite being women. However, pilot licensing in Germany was not a politically-neutral affair. Both the *Deutscher Luftsportverband* (German Air Sports Association) and its successor, the *Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps* (National Socialist Flyers Corps) had enormous ideological and financial support from the dictatorship. Pilots emerging from these groups were exposed to a considerable amount of indoctrination. Although Luftwaffe memoirists often played down ideological within their prewar civilian flying education, Hitler did reportedly quip he had a monarchist navy, a reactionary army, and a National Socialist Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe also did absorb the bulk of the Austrian armed forces during the *Anschluß*, including the comparatively small Austrian air force. \n\nSo it is *possible* that the ancestor in question was a drafted pilot, but it is *unlikely* he was compelled to serve as one, especially in the early war years. The lengthy screening process for pilots such as vision tests made it very easy to wash out. Nonetheless, flying for the Luftwaffe did not necessarily mean being a true National Socialist. The Wehrmacht, including the Luftwaffe, did have its share of grumblers and unenthusiastic soldiers. The war itself did not really become popular in Germany as a whole until the massive victories of 1940. Internal SD reports often highlighted this general lack of enthusiasm until the spring of 1940, even if such flagging spirit did not translate into open opposition. The internal security apparatus of the dictatorship, which was often quite small compared for the task of policing the whole of Germany, reacted to petty grumbling with guarded indifference; Germans denounced to the Gestapo usually received a stiff warning and further monitoring rather than further punishment if the accused did not translate grumbling into open acts of opposition. \n\nPopular memory though holds that the SS terrorized the whole population into reluctant obedience. This was very prevalent in the immediate postwar years and has continued in both popular media representations of the Third Reich as well as familial stories about life under Hitler. Historians such as Eric Johnson, Peter Fritzsche, Nicholas Stargardt, Michael Wildt, as well as studies like the University of Hannover's [*Opa war kein Nazi*](https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9159) have demonstrated less terror and more cooperation with the dictatorship among the wider German populace. In the *Opa war kein Nazi* project, the team discovered familial narratives often projected resistance and victimization upon parents and grandparents that did not exist. \n\nState violence and threats of violence did exist though. The Third Reich did employ the *Sippenhaft*, family collective punishment, for those who committed treason. But as Robert Loeffel in his study of family punishment showed, the dictatorship' application of *Sippenhaft* was often patchy and up to 1943 largely limited to outright political opponents of the regime. Families punished for actions of one member do go up after the Stalingrad defeat and escalated after the 20 July Plot, but even here there were limits. There usually needed to be a more visible form of treason, such as joining the Soviet-sponsored *Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland*. Yet such terror could still be selective. Even the aforementioned Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg was able to resume her flying duties at Rechlin while her husband was imprisoned at Buchenwald (tragically, and ironically, her husband survived and she did not as she took off in a plane during the last days of the war flew to the prison she thought he had been transferred to and an American fighter shot her down). \n\nBut all the above is only a general outline of what the OP's great-grandfather did during the war. A lot of research has shown that family memory mythologizes and invents resistance, but that does not mean such stories are automatically false. However, the odds are against it.", "created_utc": 1639327227, "distinguished": null, "id": "ho9iatq", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/rdz8wy/could_you_be_unwillingly_in_the_luftwaffe_during/ho9iatq/", "score": 15 }, { "body": "Yes. I have previously found answers by /u/kieslowskifan and /u/vonadler and /u/commiespaceinvader for the broader question [How did conscription work in Nazi Germany?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/k14boe/how_did_conscription_work_in_nazi_germany/)", "created_utc": 1639281294, "distinguished": null, "id": "ho7fgdn", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/rdz8wy/could_you_be_unwillingly_in_the_luftwaffe_during/ho7fgdn/", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "The best overview of the terminology that I'm aware of is a terrific essay on this in David Reynolds' anthology *From World War to Cold War: The History of the 1940s*, with the entirely appropriate title of \"*The Origins of 'The Second World War'*.\" Much of this answer is sourced from it.\n\nIt is fairly widely known that the Soviet Union never adopted the term World War II, partially since the First World War didn't really fit into Communist ideology - for party theorists, it was a capitalist and imperialist struggle. Instead, the favored term used by the press and leadership starting the day after Barbarossa became \"The Great Patriotic War,\" which tied in with the language used to describe the 1812 invasion by Napoleon (\"The Patriotic War\".) I can say that long past the fall of the Berlin Wall - and back when I still comprehended Russian on more than a very marginal level - that terminology (*Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna*) survived well into the 1990s even by Russians far outside the FSU, and I believe it's still used today.\n\nFor the Chinese, the preferred term is apparently *Kang-Ri Zhan-zheng*, or the War of Resistance Against Japan, but I don't have first hand knowledge of the scholarship here, although it looks like it may have been a post-1949 event. I'm not sure if the current regime has refined this further.\n\nThe Japanese had a slightly different take; I'll quote Reynolds directly here because it succinctly summarizes the complexity of the multiple political implications underlying the language so well.\n\n>\"Its brutal and massive invasion of China remained an undeclared war and was therefore dubbed, in a characteristic Japanese euphemism, as ‘The China Incident’. After the conflict\nexpanded in December 1941 to include the United States and the European colonial powers, it was described as the ‘Greater East Asian War’ (*Dai Toa senso*). Under the American occupation after 1945 the ‘Pacific War’ (*Taiheyo senso*)\nbecame the official title, but nationalist revisionist writers revived the earlier term in the 1960s.\"\n\nFor the French, de Gaulle referred to the war as \"une guerre mondiale\" (\"a world war\") after 1940, but his audience was small and I don't have any references for what the Vichy called it.\n\nFor the Germans, the most frequently used general term was *der Krieg* (\"the war\") although this sometimes was escalated to *Weltkrieg* (\"world war\"), which fit into the vision of it as a continuation of the war that had begun in 1914 since the latter term had been part of the contemporary vernacular for the previous one. (This also dovetailed with the Nazi straw man ideology of worldwide Jewry as the underlying enemy.) Postwar, it was relatively easy then to adopt the English language terminology - *Zweiter Weltkrieg*.\n\nNow we get to the English language fun.\n\nIn Great Britain, there were a couple of early references. One was from Duff Cooper, one of the tiny handful of Tories in leadership who openly opposed appeasement, outright resigned after Munich, and later served in various posts under Churchill. Much like Churchill, Cooper had made a majority of his income by writing, and in late 1939 after war was declared he tried to make a quick buck by publishing a collection of his previously published criticisms over the last couple years as a book titled \"The Second World War: First Phase\". It didn't stick; like their German enemies, pretty much everyone else on the British side of things just called it \"the War.\"\n\nChurchill made a comment in August 1940 talking about \"this second war against German aggression\" and finally talked about \"a great world war\" in July 1941 and after Pearl Harbor referred to it in front of a Joint Session of Congress as \"Twice in a single generation the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us,\" but there even was a question asked by a publisher of His Majesty's Government all the way in late 1944 about what to call it given a discrepancy between the American and British references - and no official response was forthcoming, so \"the War\" continued in popular vernacular.\n\nThat finally changed a bit when Churchill wrote his memoirs. His initial working title in 1946 was \"The Second Great War\", but finally in September 1947 when the initial release of his books in the United States market was just a few months away, he formally settled on \"The Second World War.\" As I've written before, given [the unexpected prominence of Churchill's memoirs in the immediate post-war literature](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hbbw97/how_did_winston_churchill_become_so_revered_in/fva18jq/), I'd argue this had an outsize role in the wider English language adoption of that terminology. With official government war histories well underway by not just the British but also the Dominions and others, all involved were polled in 1948 and - with the exception of Australia, which apparently disagreed - the concession by Churchill to American standards was formally adopted across the English speaking world under the leadership of the Attlee government. French government entities formally followed suit by late 1950. \n\nAnd last, we have the United States.\n\nAs the previous answers of /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit and /u/the_alaskan point out, you can trace the first widespread popular usage of \"World War II/Second World War\" back to September 1939 and Time Magazine.\n\nBut there's some massively ironic context here in that *Time* of all publications - publisher Henry Luce and his wife and future Congresswoman Claire Booth Luce had been among the most virulent enemies of Roosevelt administration policies both foreign and domestic from 1932 onwards - unwittingly helped FDR in his attempt to change the minds of the American people about the European war and how it would affect their lives. FDR's struggle against isolationism from 1939 through 1941 is far too broad a question for this answer, but he began to refer to the conflict as 'a world wide war' in May 1940. On March 8, 1941 - notably, the day after Lend-Lease passed - he expanded it further to state outright, \"When the second World War began a year and a half ago\" and continued this usage throughout 1941. This appears to have been a deliberate choice of language to get the citizenry of a reluctant United States thinking about an overseas war that would affect them even if many clung to a stubborn belief that it wouldn't or shouldn't.\n\nWhen it came time for an official government title of the war, though, FDR balked at his own choice and in the Spring of 1942 stated publicly at a press conference that \"the Second World War (wasn't a) particularly effective (title)\" and even solicited public suggestions for the War Department to come up with a new one. (This was the reason behind the Louisville *Courier-Journal* article that /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit posted on the subject.) He briefly tried \"The Survival War\" (it didn't translate well and some aides thought it sounded desperate) and \"Everyman's War\" and even as late as 1944 thought about a term he'd heard in passing, \"The Tyrant's War.\" None of these attempts even made a ripple, so FDR's unintentional intentional choice of language is how the Western World found itself with the interchangeable terms the Second World War and World War II.", "created_utc": 1637793256, "distinguished": null, "id": "hlyke3i", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/r1bod5/at_what_point_was_world_war_ii_known_as_world_war/hlyke3i/", "score": 48 }, { "body": "While you wait, check this old answer from /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit\n\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8f4mtc/when_did_world_war_2_started_being_called_world/", "created_utc": 1637788420, "distinguished": null, "id": "hly8b06", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/r1bod5/at_what_point_was_world_war_ii_known_as_world_war/hly8b06/", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "> I'd like to know more about how draftees were selected for officer school to become 2nd Lt's.\n\nPrior to January 1942, regulations for admission to officer candidate school were such that in addition to other standards, men *de facto* needed to have completed the equivalent two years of college. In January 1942, after U.S. entry into the war, the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, intervened and dropped the college requirement.\n\nAfter this, there was “No formal educational requirement…ever set for OCS applicants. War Department directives suggested that for certain technical schools (e.g., Engineer, Ordnance, Finance) academic degrees would be desirable, but they were held not to be essential. The educational standard was merely the possession of 'such education or civil or military experience as will reasonably insure…satisfactory completion of the course…'\" Nevertheless, the head of the Army Ground Forces (AGF), General Lesley McNair, desired that, as an ideal, 50% of his officers be college graduates and 25% have at least some college experience.\n\nDuring 1942, a limited number of civilians exclusive of Medical Department officers (i.e., trained doctors or veterinarians), were directly commissioned by the Army with or without college degrees; these men mostly went to Ordnance and Signal Corps units, responsibility for which had been delegated to the AGF: \n\n> From civilian life, during the period of shortage, Army Ground Forces commissioned, mainly for antiaircraft units, about 600 men who had formerly been officers or who had graduated from ROTC or CMTC....For certain signal and ordnance units activated by Army Ground Forces, civilians were commissioned directly, with no requirement of military experience. This was accomplished by the process of affiliation, by which a group of employees of an industrial concern were organized bodily as a military unit, the higher employees in the civilian group becoming officers in the military unit. The relation of officers and enlisted men under this system did not prove altogether satisfactory. Direct commissioning of civilians for other purposes was negligible in the Ground Forces.\n\nFor admission to OCS, soldiers were required to have, at a minimum, an Army General Classification Test (AGCT) score of 110 (a proposal to raise this to 115 was rejected). They also had to meet the criteria of an examining board, which varied, but always included determination of proven leadership ability, “age, physique, citizenship, [and] learning ability.” An Officer Candidate Test (OCT) was under development in 1941 but did not enter widespread use until late 1944. It was found that scores on the OCT correlated with scores on the AGCT.\n\nAn AGCT score of 110 or above was found to be correlated most closely with a man who had completed high school, or had attended or completed college.\n\n> **TABLE II**\n\n> **THE AGCT ARMY GRADE PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION BY EDUCATIONAL CATEGORIES FOR COLORED AND WHITE SELECTEES PROCESSED JUNE 1941 TO FEBRUARY 1942**\n\nEducation|Race|I (130+)|II (110+)|III (90-109)|IV (70-89)|V (69 and below)|No. of cases\n|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--\nSome school|White|0.3%|3.5|18.9|42.9|34.4|81,033\n\"|Colored|0.2|1.1|4.9|20.7|73.1|24,456\nCompleted grade school|W|2.0|21.8|42.8|27.6|5.8|212,949\n\"|C|0.3|3.6|19.4|43.4|33.1|22,343\nCompleted high school|W|15.1|50.5|28.5|5.4|0.5|177,556\n\"|C|1.6|16.5|41.5|32.6|7.8|8,404\nCompleted college|W|47.5|45.0|7.1|0.4||19,580\n\"|C|6.4|34.9|44.3|12.9|1.5|776\nCompleted college - post-grad|W|53.3|40.2|6.0|0.4|0.1|2,533\n\"|C|12.5|56.3|25.0|4.2|2.1|48\n\nDuring the period of rapid expansion of the Army climaxing in late 1942, many officer candidates needed to be found. As a result, criteria were compromised to obtain the required number of candidates, and failure rates correspondingly increased. The AGF found itself at a significant disadvantage when obtaining qualified officer material, since the Army Air Forces and Army Service Forces, on principle, utilized applicable civilian skills much more so than did the combat arms, [and in the case of the Army Air Forces, received preference in the most intelligent men for a period of time](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9bdixo/why_were_pilots_in_world_war_two_so_young/e52emrv/). When the Army troop basis was amended for 1943, the need for officer candidates decreased significantly. The Army had initially contemplated allowing graduates of the \"advanced\" course of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), a program where soldiers were sent to civilian colleges for academic and technical training, to attend OCS, but this never came to pass and no quotas were ever allotted for them. Deemed a waste of manpower, the program was drawn down significantly in spring 1944, with most attendees being sent in their rank (junior enlisted men) to replenish depleted lower-priority AGF divisions being stripped for replacements.\n\n> \"The ROTC problem, observed G-1 AGF on 15 July 1943 ‘is, with the possible exception of ASTP, one of the most sensitive administrative problems we have at this time.’”\n\nMembers of the ROTC first became available in large numbers between the spring of 1943 and the spring of 1944, and as a result of the language of their contracts, students of the advanced course (the last two years of the four-year course) called into military service, or recent graduates, constituted the bulk of officer candidates in late 1943 and early 1944. Coincident with the reduction in OCS output, “requirements for officers were so low and pressure to commission the ROTC so high during late 1943 and early 1944 that OCS quotas were allotted almost entirely to the ROTC, soldiers getting very little chance at officer candidate school....During the period beginning with the reduced OCS quotas...for July 1943 and lasting through May 1944 with the exception of October and November 1943, ROTC students formed a large majority of candidates admitted to OCS.\"\n\nIt was concluded that it took at least a year from when a man entered the Army to when he became \"usable\" as an officer in a combat zone: selection of candidate, 2 months; OCS course, 3 months; required service in ZI unit, 3 months; in depot, leave, etc., 1 month; movement overseas, 1 month; in overseas depots, 1 month.\n\nWith the reduction in the troop basis for 1943 and fears of surplus, several schools were drawn down or suspended entirely. The Coast Artillery School was discontinued in November 1943, and the Antiaircraft Artillery School in February 1944. To deal with an “embarrassing” surplus of Antiaircraft Artillery officers estimated between 5,000 and over 10,000, a Special Basic Course was conducted at the Infantry School to convert officers of other arms to Infantry. Between February 1944 and 31 August 1945, 10,877 officers had been converted. Between February 1944 and the end of 1944, 5,220 of the 8,678 attendees had previously been Antiaircraft officers.\n\nBranch|Number\n:--|:--\nAntiaircraft Artillery|5,220 \nCoast Artillery|284\nTank Destroyer|1,102\nField Artillery|792\nArmored Force|243\nInfantry [refresher]|12\nVolunteers (all branches)|1,025\nTotal|8,678\n\nThe Armored School closed from June-October 1944, and the Cavalry and Tank Destroyer Schools between December 1943-October 1944; in November 1944, these schools reopened as a consolidated course at the Armored School. The finding of suitable OCS candidates as input was increased or restarted in 1944 soon became an extremely severe problem in the continental United States as units, which were ideal sources of candidates with military experience, departed for overseas service. Personnel in units were \"frozen\" from usually one to three months before departure, as Army regulations prohibited the taking of officer candidates from units that were alerted for overseas movement. \n\n> Circumstances that were less propitious for releasing large numbers of well-trained enlisted men could scarcely have been imagined than those in which units, especially divisions, found themselves during the latter half of 1944. Since late 1943, divisions had been plucked repeatedly to provide enlisted replacements. In March and April [1944], climaxing nearly complete turnovers of personnel, they had received infusions of new blood from the disbanded ASTP and from the replacement centers. Forming these recruits into tactical teams was a major preoccupation...during the summer of 1944. The few experienced men left in the divisions were badly needed to conduct this essential training; they could ill be spared....It was no wonder that commanders did not respond readily to pleas that even men whose \"work was critical or whose replacement was difficult\" be sent to officer candidate school.\n\nAs a result of this heavy turnover in units, and resultant poor response from unit commanders unwilling to give up their most experienced men, 40% of officer candidates during the fall of 1944 had to be enrolled from replacement training centers. AGF disliked taking officer candidates from this source, as the men were \"generally young, [and], it was thought, would be less useful for immediate use as combat replacements than men of greater maturity and military experience.\" Failure rates in the fall of 1944 reached nearly 45% in officer candidate schools of the various branches; a failure rate of 20% had been used as a baseline.", "created_utc": 1638801126, "distinguished": null, "id": "hngn4ku", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/ra0t4h/when_joe_medicine_crow_joined_the_us_army_at_the/hngn4ku/", "score": 38 } ]

[ { "body": "/u/Abrytan is flaired for this:\n\n* [I've heard of the French Resistance to the Nazis in WW2, and the Polish Resistance etc, but was there any German Resistance to the Nazi Party working with the others to take down the Nazi Regime?](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/j43k1e/ive_heard_of_the_french_resistance_to_the_nazis/g7i9nsi)\n\n* [Other question about German Resistance](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bzedov/did_any_germans_create_resistance_movements_to/eqshqeu/)\n\n* [Question about Operation Valkyrie/20 July Plot](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/henz6c/did_operation_valkyrie_conspirators_intend_to_end/fvu5kqx/)\n\n/u/commiespaceinvader has answered (with /u/gingeryid) [Are there examples of riots in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust? Were any of them successful?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/48igu4/are_there_examples_of_riots_in_nazi_concentration/d0jttvr/) and [Question! Why was there no revolution during the Holocaust?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/41i9at/question_why_was_there_no_revolution_during_the/)\n\nI think commiespaceinvader has also written about backlash to the T4 euthanasia program somewhere, can't find it now.", "created_utc": 1645853474, "distinguished": null, "id": "hyhcdng", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/t1e532/there_seems_to_be_a_lot_of_public_backlash_in/hyhcdng/", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "There was a recent answer by /u/kieslowskifan to this question that I recall reading - https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sw65g6/the_year_is_1942_and_i_am_a_japaneseamerican/hxkzusy/ .", "created_utc": 1647744621, "distinguished": null, "id": "i1cypcc", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/ti9gdn/us_history_how_much_property_did_japanese/i1cypcc/", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "I know of one instance in which flaming petrol as a defence of a blockaded colony was not just considered, but planned for and eventually used, albeit very poorly. This was during the 1942 invasion of the British colony of Singapore by the Japanese.\n\nBy February 1 1942, The Japanese had eliminated Allied resistance in Malaya after a incredibly quick campaign of about 55 days. Units from Britain, India, Australia and other parts of the Empire that hadn’t surrendered or been killed had withdrawn across the narrow Johor Strait to Singapore, where Malaya Command planned to make a final stand. With the only bridge across the strait demolished during the retreat, the idea was to turn Singapore into a fortress and make the Japanese pay dearly as they struggled across the water.\n\nSingapore’s northern coast had two lines of natural defences. The first was the aforementioned Johor Strait, where invaders in canvas-sided boats would be extremely vulnerable. The second was a belt of mangrove swamp which dominated the coast. Both of these watery obstacles lent themselves to petrol traps, which the Japanese feared the British would prepare and trigger.\n\nThis was indeed on the cards. Brigadier Ivan Simson, the Chief Engineer in Malaya, worked out a detailed plan for well concealed and strongly entrenched company positions that could dominate landing points. Simson intended that these areas would also be blocked by all manner of booby traps, including pools of flaming petrol in the water. In this, it seems he was inspired by the techniques that had been prepared for the coastal defence of the UK.\n\nHowever, when the attack came on the night of February 8, Singapore’s defence was still in shambles. The Japanese attacked Singapore’s northwest in force and rapidly overwhelmed the defenders. \n\nOn February 9 the Japanese made another crossing in the northwest, this time to Kranji. This area contained petrol storage tanks, and the defenders had orders to destroy them if they had to retreat. When the time to retreat came, however, the engineer platoon wiring the petrol tanks lost their equipment to a direct hit.\n\nAround 0400H on February 10, one Lt. Watchorn of 2/12 Field Company of the Royal Australian Engineers took the initiative to drain the tanks into the mangrove swamp. He then ignited the stream of petrol, setting off a horrific (to the Japanese, anyway) firestorm. The waters carried the flaming petrol right into the left flank of the attacking Japanese, incinerating at least one company of Guards. Corporal Tsuchikane, caught in the inferno, later described it as ‘a picture of hell - Abikyokan - Buddhism’s worst of all hells.’\n\nSo dramatic was the flaming petrol that some Japanese Guardsmen reported that the attack was being destroyed. Nishimura Takuma, their commander, panicked and demanded that Yamashita Tomoyuki, the overall commander of the invasion, call off the attack. Yamashita ignored him and ordered his forces to press the attack. As it turned out, the defenders had simply used the inferno to cover a desperate retreat. By the time the sun rose, the Japanese had secured the coast.\n\nAs dramatic as the petrol trap had been in the moment, it made no difference to the eventual outcome. That’s not to say that petrol traps in general are not useful, or that flaming petrol wouldn't have made any difference to the defence of the UK. There was simply too much wrong with the defence of Singapore for it to have made a difference in this particular instance.\n\n&#x200B;\n\nFarrell B. (2005). *The Defence and Fall of Singapore (2015 edition)*. Monsoon Books.", "created_utc": 1652273616, "distinguished": null, "id": "i86fgn1", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/umzkqt/how_effective_would_british_plans_to_use_flaming/i86fgn1/", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "David Fletcher is the expert on British tanks. His work *British-Made Tanks of World War II* provides two reasons for the naming of three different tanks. The TOG 1 and TOG 2, prototypes, were named after \"The Old Gang\" (Eustace Tennyson D'Eyncourt, Ernest Swinton, William Tritton, and Harry Ricardo. Fletcher implies the old gang may have comprised more, but these were the main people behind the Special Vehicle Development Committee). The A25 Harry Hopkins was named after FDR's special adviser in the UK at the time. However, Fletcher concedes \"why it should \\[be\\] named after him is not known\".\n\nI am not familiar with Perter Chamberlain and Chris Ellis, but I do have a copy of their *British and American Tanks of World War II*. They stated the Matilda was named by the Tank Corps first commander, Hugh Elles, \"due to the vehicle's diminutive size and duck-like shape and gait.\" The reference is lost on me though. They also state that the Valentine tank's design was submitted on St. Valentine's day and hence the name.\n\nTo answer your question \"More broadly, how were these things named?\", kind of randomly. Some had themes (in my other post), some were named after contemporary politicians, and some were nicknames that stuck.", "created_utc": 1643343516, "distinguished": null, "id": "hujg71e", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/seeo1a/was_the_naming_of_equipment_and_fortifications/hujg71e/", "score": 3 }, { "body": "A point to remember about the Mannerheim line is that the name was promoted by the Soviets for propaganda purposes, to make the line sound more formidable than it actually was after failing to breach it. \n\nInternational media picked up the name and it stuck. The original name was something less exciting.", "created_utc": 1643375871, "distinguished": null, "id": "huku4u1", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/seeo1a/was_the_naming_of_equipment_and_fortifications/huku4u1/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "So many questions! Some time back I read an article specifically about 'Devil Dogs', and Caesar von Steuben stuck with me in particular, from a picture of him undergoing an X-ray (you probably know the one I mean?). It's been a topic I think is *so* interesting, but criminally undercovered in academic literature, so it is super cool to see it getting is due. \n\nEnough gushing though, and I'll try to keep it to only a few Qs!\n\nFirst off, I know that modern MWDs are bred for the role, but this obviously wasn't the case for WWII. How specifically did training focus on 'militarizing' them? Was there specific methods required to deacclimate them to the norms of civilian life, compared to modern training which simply raises them in that mold?\n\nAdditionally, did DfD remain the main pipeline through the war, or did the military attempt a breeding program by the end of the conflict to supplement it?\n\nAn old friend of my dad's was a handler in Vietnam, and would talk about the bond he had with this dogs and it seemed like a very focused role from what he told, but it was also a generation removed. What sort of specific protocols were made for handlers and their dogs when in the field? Were they soldiers who had a dog along with them as an additional role, or did they mostly have allowances to provide hyperfocus on *that* role?\n\nFinally... I know they were all good puppers, but who is your personal goodest pupper of them all?", "created_utc": 1607106899, "distinguished": null, "id": "gemd68r", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/k6qcbq/my_name_is_hannah_im_a_phd_student_studying_the/gemd68r/", "score": 19 }, { "body": "Hi Hannah, thank you for doing this AMA! \n\nIn every World War 2 film, allied prisoners are guarded by a fearsome German soldier with a submachine gun on his back and an angry German shepherd on a lead. Is this image accurate for the US as well? How were dogs used to guard POW camps?\n\nI'm also curious how this became your speciality!", "created_utc": 1607106247, "distinguished": null, "id": "gembs9x", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/k6qcbq/my_name_is_hannah_im_a_phd_student_studying_the/gembs9x/", "score": 13 }, { "body": "Hello Hannah! Was Dogs for Defense inspired by American police canine programs, or did police canine units in the United States take any inspiration from the military use of dogs?", "created_utc": 1607106245, "distinguished": null, "id": "gembs6h", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/k6qcbq/my_name_is_hannah_im_a_phd_student_studying_the/gembs6h/", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "While more can definitely be said about this topic I've written about this before in [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/guklla/how_relevanteffective_was_the_bombardment_of/fsj52e0/?context=3) post (by me, /u/superplaner). I suggest you start there and if you have follow-up questions I'm happy to help.\n\nIf you want a brief TL;DR it'd be: This is really \"what if\"-history. All other things equal the war might have lasted a little longer without strategic bombing but not by much. By the time the bombing was resumed in earnest Germany was very much losing and losing fast. However, assuming \"all other things equal\" is a pretty strange assumption. Production of strategic bombers was significant, what would the allies have done with those resources instead? Perhaps produced more medium bombers and close air support? Would that have shortened the war even more than the strategic bombing did? We don't know.", "created_utc": 1651658369, "distinguished": null, "id": "i79v1l7", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/uhtku5/was_world_war_ii_shorter_thanks_to_allies_carpet/i79v1l7/", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "From an older answer:\n\nThe story of how Dirndl and Lederhosen became the icons of whom we think when we think Germany is unfortunately not one of drugs, sex and rock n'roll but rather one of invented traditions, toursim, and the Nazis.\n\nWhat needs to be mentioned first is that the Dirndl and the Lederhosen most closely resemble historical articles of clothing worn in Southern Germany, i.e. Bavaria, Austria, and some other regions. Traditional dress - \"Tracht\" as is the specific German word - from Northern Germany tends to look differently. However, one thing they all share, from the Lederhosen to the Dirndl to the Northern German Tracht is that in the form most familiar to us today, they are what Eric Hobsbawm famously described as \"invented tradition\".\n\nIn his 1983 essay volume edited together with Eric Granger, Hobsbawm describes that a lot of traditions we today associate with being old, handed down for generations etc. are invented, mostly in the service of nationalism in the 19th century and only claim to be much older than that. As they remark, \"modern nations and all their impedimenta generally claim to be the opposite of novel, namely rooted in remotest antiquity, and the opposite of constructed, namely human communities so 'natural' as to require no definition other than self-assertion.\" and that also applies to many a symbol or practice associated with that new nation and national sentiment. From supposedly ancient Scottish clan tartars that were introduced in the 19th century to the martial arts of Japan, the nationalist movement lies at the base for a lot of these supposedly ancient traditions and symbols.\n\nThis is also true for the Dirndl and the Lederhosen, who are both products of a a German romanticism and later one of the need to redefine certain national narratives.\n\nThe Dirndl was not soemthing that originated in rural areas but rather something that was introduced and popularized in cities by the Bourgeoisie. While resembling older items of Tracht clothing, it was around 1870/71 when the ubran Bourgeoisie started wearing Dirndl when visiting rural areas in the summer. The reason why it was popularized are closely related to those that formed the basis for the resurgence of what we know today as the Lederhose.\n\nWhile work pants made from leather did have a certain longevity in certain areas in what today are Germany and Austria, leather as a material for pants had all but disappeared by the 19th century in favor of the cheaper and more comfortable Loden, a thick, water-resistant woolen material. With the renaissance of German romanticism - a movement that adovacted against modernity and for a return to tradition etc. - and the search for a new German identity shortly after unification in the 1870s, a Bavarian teacher, Josef Vogel, founded an association with his frineds intend on promoting the supposedly ancient Lederhosen. The idea caught on and spread all over Southern Germany after the Bavarian king, Ludwig II, endorsed the idea and wore them himself.\n\nThe reason why he endorsed the idea and why the trend caught on was that it was immensly popular among the Bourgeoisie and the nobility to dress up as peasants for weedings, for such things as the Oktoberfest etc. This was not the only the fashion du jour back then but also was intended to serve to give people a better and new feeling of national identity, uniting all classes around the idea of Germanness.\n\nAnother reason it caught on was the rising importance of tourism as a source of income. In the Tyorl e.g. the various regions tourism associations got together in 1883 and designed Trachten to be worn in the various valleys and regions as a way to gain a distinct profile among those who wanted to holiday in the Tyorl. When desining Innsburck's huge panorama portrait of the insurrection against Napolenoic troops in 1809, the tourism associations insisted that the Tyrolean fighters be clad in their newly designed Trachten, as can be seen [here](http://www.parkhotel-igls.at/gesundheitsblog/wp-content/uploads/Riesenrundgem%C3%A4lde-Detail_TLM-72dpi.jpg). The different color combinations and patterns, supposedly representing different Tyrolean valleys are a product of the 1880s. In 1809 no Tyrolean fighter would have worn anything resembling this.\n\nWhile the popularity of this kind of clothing continued throughout the 1920s, it was the Nazis who gave especially the Dirndl its contemporary form. Gertrud Pesendorfer, the Reich Designee for Trachten (Reichsbeauftragte für Trachtenarbeit), took it upon herself to renew the Tracht in a more nationalistic and national socialistic sense. That meant \"de-catholisizing\" the Dirndl. Meaning that she designed new cuts in which she did away with the closed collar, gave the Dirndl a larger décolletage, did away with the sleeves and introduced the laced midriff still present in modern Dirndls. The idea was for this kind of clothing to symbolize the traditional German woman as envisioned by the Nazis, folksy eroticism claiming ancient German origin while best carrying seven Steins of beer.\n\nAfter the war, the Dirndl and Lederhosen Tracht contiued in popularity, this time because they ocne again became symbols for a new national narrative. Rejecting the old trope of Prussian militarism, Bavaria and its Tracht featured heavily in the various cultural undertakings of building and presenting to the world a new identity and image of a democratic Germany. The Bavarians and their clothing were the anti-Prussian. Through the genre of the Heimatfilm (think The Sound of Music but German) and a variety of other means, the image of the jolly beer drinking Lederhosen German and his Dirndl clad wife were pandered to Germans and foreigners alike in order to present Germany as harmless, jolly, sausage-loving and beer gurgling people who were more interested in celebrating, being marry, and getting fat than starting wars or genociding people.\n\nThis did work to a certain extent and especially aborad. The roots of why the sterotypical image of the German today is the Lederhosen and Dirndl version, which is neither representative of old German tradition or was ever really agree upon by all German states or regions (it is more like this being the cause of some chagrin amongst non-Bavarians) is that it was an oppurtune and estbalished iconic symbol at a good time. From the time where there was a unified Germany onward, the Trachten have served as symbols of identity and a national narrative. And with those changing the Dirndl has changed. The reason why it became so popular is not that all of Germany sat down and decided that this was going to be their symbol but rather due to good marketing and political use of these items of clothing.\n\nSources:\n\n* Simone Egger: Phänomen Wiesntracht: Identitätspraxen einer urbanen Gesellschaft, Dirndl und Lederhosen. München und das Oktoberfest.\n\n* The University of Innsbruck's project on the [history of the Dirndl](https://www.uibk.ac.at/geschichte-ethnologie/ee/trachten/projekt.html)\n\n* the not very good book by Elisabeth Wallnöfer: Geraubte Tradition.", "created_utc": 1641483760, "distinguished": null, "id": "hri455w", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/rx1b3g/a_lot_of_modern_american_stereotypes_of_german/hri455w/", "score": 16 }, { "body": "/u/commiespaceinvader has previously written a [history of dirndl and lederhosen](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5aocbl/is_there_a_traditional_french_dress_how_about/d9i68ks/).", "created_utc": 1641483710, "distinguished": null, "id": "hri40js", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/rx1b3g/a_lot_of_modern_american_stereotypes_of_german/hri40js/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I answered a similar question a while ago [here](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/caierp/did_queen_elizabeth_really_work_as_a_mechanic/et92nz7?context=3).\n\nIn short, yes she did join the ATS and did participate in training. However, from there her role was mostly symbolic.", "created_utc": 1577185113, "distinguished": null, "id": "fbxfr5n", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/eenbkj/queen_elizabeth_ii_is_known_to_have_received/fbxfr5n/", "score": 122 } ]

[ { "body": "I answered a similar question a while ago [here](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/caierp/did_queen_elizabeth_really_work_as_a_mechanic/et92nz7?context=3).\n\nIn short, yes she did join the ATS and did participate in training. However, from there her role was mostly symbolic.", "created_utc": 1577185113, "distinguished": null, "id": "fbxfr5n", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/eenbkj/queen_elizabeth_ii_is_known_to_have_received/fbxfr5n/", "score": 118 } ]

[ { "body": "In case no one comes through with more today, there's this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/22n9dp/why_did_german_aces_have_so_many_more_confirmed/) on basically the same question from years ago, with a nice response from u/eidetic.", "created_utc": 1633174064, "distinguished": null, "id": "hf340i2", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/pzkj5d/the_top_german_fighter_pilots_of_world_war_ii_all/hf340i2/", "score": 18 } ]

[ { "body": "While the answer partly depends on who you consider an “officer,” the answer to “was it commonplace for these people to be arrested?” is that it couldn’t really have been considered “commonplace”, but it certainly did happen. There were many arrests, but there were also many officials and leaders within the National Socialist German Workers Party during the Hitler years. These ranged from people who joined for the associated the career benefits to the vilest extermination camp officials. Ascertaining the crimes of each and every one of these card-carrying Nazis was a daunting task, and it simply wasn’t practical to arrest millions of people solely for being NSDAP members. \n\nMany of the most shockingly cruel and fanatic Nazi officials were indeed arrested and put on trial after the war. The “arrests” were often “captures” conducted by Allied soldiers during the last days of the war as millions of German troops and Nazi party members surrendered (whenever possible, they surrendered to the British or Americans). Other Nazis were arrested by Allied troops during the post-war occupation as well (GIs and Tommies in post-war Germany to a large extent functioned as local police.) Some of the guiltiest Nazi leaders, like Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler, committed suicide at the war’s end while others escaped via “ratlines” to places such as South America. \n\nThe highest-ranking Nazi leaders in custody (Göring, Hess, Dönitz, Speer, et al) were put on trial before the famous Nuremberg tribunal. This was not the only such trial, but it is the most famous of them. Many other trials were held in American/British-controlled territory and in Soviet territory as well. These included the trial of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss, who was found guilty and hanged on the site of the camp itself. There was even a trial specifically for female concentration camp guards such as Irma Grese. \n\nUltimately, however, many Nazis were never brought to justice. This was due to a combination of factors including the difficulty of gathering evidence, the sheer number of potential defendants, and the increasing focus on the burgeoning East/West tensions that would define the next several decades. Much of the crime scenes, witnesses, and evidence was also located in the Soviet-controlled zone of Europe, and this fact did not lend itself readily to prosecution. The Americans & British also needed West Germany as an ally in the new NATO alliance, and it was hard to garner support for years of litigating a painful chapter that many preferred to forget. The need for positive relations West Germany (not to mention a re-armed West Germany) also prevented more extensive prosecutions of Waffen-SS veterans and regular Wehrmacht veterans, a great many of whom committed grave war crimes and/or participated in the Holocaust. \n\nI am not familiar with the film you mentioned or any such camps, perhaps someone else can chime in. \n\ntl;dr Allied troops captured/arrested many Nazis and these were put on trial and many were imprisoned and executed. It was ultimately a incomplete justice, however, as many guilty Nazis escaped trial due to a variety of reasons.", "created_utc": 1642190415, "distinguished": null, "id": "hso68rv", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/s3q8mp/what_happened_to_nazi_officers_once_world_war_ii/hso68rv/", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "First off, there is a pedantic mistake in the question itself: Germany did not exist as a unified nation until 1990. East Germany was a communist dictatorship until the very end and did not have a process of democratization. We'll ignore that and examine the West German democratization process. \n\nWest Germany's political system, and indeed existence, was shaped by events and tensions following the end of WWII and the immediate freezing of relationships that was the Cold War. The Western powers (US, UK, France) never really liked the Soviets, and since the Allies after WWI had intervened in Russia's civil war, the Soviets didn't have any love for the West either. France was still recovering from Nazi occupation, Britain was spent from the war and was undergoing a process of decolonization in its vast imperial holdings, and the United States did not have the manpower or political will to occupy Europe, given the distance. On the other side, Stalin's Red Army remained menacing mobilized, and although it was heavily battered from the push to Berlin, it was in the field, unfriendly to both the Germans and the West, and Stalin wasn't known for his diplomatic light touch. \n\nGermany proper was split into four occupation zones post-war, French, American, British and Soviet, and after a few attempts to work together on its governance, issues on how to restart the economic engine of Germany failed to reach consensus, with the allies minting the new Deutschemark and the Russians blockading Berlin. The Berlin Airlift would mark the official start of the Cold War, and the Americans, like in every global war in the 20th century, had two big problems. They were called the Pacific and the Atlantic. The frontline between the Communist and the West was drawn across the North German Plain and the Americans could not be expected to man the trenches so far from home. Western Europe, and especially the Germans, had to not stand behind the Yanks or even side by side with the Yanks, but in front of them. \n\nTo facilitate this, a series of interlinked economic, diplomatic and political policies were launched between 1944 and 1949 to turn Europe from war-torn wasteland into the new bulwark against the Red Menace. The Europeans needed to *want* to defend the liberal democratic systems which were America's natural allies. The economic side was the Bretton Woods system and the Marshall Plan, creating the international monetary system and pumping American subsidies into Europe; rapid economic recovery reduced starvation and civil unrest which may cause Communist leanings in the people. On the diplomatic side was NATO, which linked the West by treaty obligations, and politically, the Federal Republic of Germany was established by combining the three allied occupied territories. \n\nIn order to facilitate this rapid revitalization of German society, the new Republic needed bureaucrats. From lawyers to chief of staff, Germans who knew how to run a country were needed to ensure continuity. And while the idea of a \"clean Wehrmacht\" has been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked, it should be noted that the Nazi Party penetrated every aspect of German life, and anybody with any sort of technocratic skill would have had to join the Nazi Party regardless of their personal alignment with its twisted philosophy. This did mean that the crimes of Nazis outside of the highest echelons were swept aside by reformed bureaucrats and that total justice was denied, but this continuation of institutions from not just the Nazi era, but all the way to the founding of Germany itself in 1870, did contribute to the rapid recovery of the nation. Remember, the creation of the new German state was ideological expedience in the face of a very real geopolitical issue with the threat of nuclear war hanging in the balance. \n\nThe subsequent democratizations throughout the 20th century were slightly different. Most of the nations which embraced liberal democracy in the post-War 20th century were former colonies in some form or another, and were definitely part of the larger geopolitical struggle of the Cold War. This created two discrepancies between Germany and these later systems: first, the colonial institutions, which were designed first and foremost for resource extraction and the benefit of the Imperial overlord, was far less useful in providing institutional continuity to the nascent democracy, and second, since Europe was seen as the frontline, other nations did not receive the economic, diplomatic and political attention from the West that Europe did. In many cases, a strongman or a junta that had a vested interest in suppressing Communism was an easier and more reliable solution to securing the flanks of the West (A.K.A Containment) than injecting money and political effort to establishing a democratic system where there was never a history of democracy, and where a populist flip towards communism was a possibility.", "created_utc": 1643719868, "distinguished": null, "id": "hv4k8sv", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/shsldl/why_was_the_democratization_of_germany_stable/hv4k8sv/", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "u/wotan_weevil answers your question [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/kylref/after_japan_annexed_korea_in_1910_did_foreign/).", "created_utc": 1646542035, "distinguished": null, "id": "hzjgnjy", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/t7pt3t/how_were_korean_americans_treated_during_world/hzjgnjy/", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "[In World War II, when did Germany's commanders realize they were going to lose, and that the US was a major reason?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ta5c2/in_world_war_ii_when_did_germanys_commanders/dtbucr6/) written by u/Bodark43", "created_utc": 1642610947, "distinguished": null, "id": "htc5gcb", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/s7ru1a/at_what_point_of_world_war_ii_most_of_german_high/htc5gcb/", "score": 16 } ]

[ { "body": "Hi. As a walking intergenerational trauma case study, I really enjoyed this episode. That said, I was surprised you didn't mention the [epigenetic intergenerational trauma hypothesis.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6127768/) Do you have any thoughts on it?", "created_utc": 1636943097, "distinguished": null, "id": "hko5csv", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/qsj48s/askhistorians_podcast_episode_189/hko5csv/", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Not entirely on topic, but since it was mentioned in the episode at one part regarding baby boomers.\n\nThe public's treatment of vets returning from Vietnam. It's my understanding that stories of their negative treatment are at the very least overstated as it became a ball in the culture war. Does historiography significantly contradict the narrative presented in Lembcke's *The Spitting Image*?", "created_utc": 1636923499, "distinguished": null, "id": "hkmw1bm", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/qsj48s/askhistorians_podcast_episode_189/hkmw1bm/", "score": 1 }, { "body": "What a fantastic episode. I knew it would be extremely interesting when I saw the description, but I didn't quite expect it to hit home so hard. It really felt like Rudinski was describing me/my family at times, which was honestly a bit jarring but also incredibly validating. I'm grateful this phenomenon is being studied.", "created_utc": 1636985269, "distinguished": null, "id": "hkpychv", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/qsj48s/askhistorians_podcast_episode_189/hkpychv/", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "While more can always be said, I've previously written about the origins of the terminology of the war [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/r1bod5/at_what_point_was_world_war_ii_known_as_world_war/hlyke3i/), which also has links to a few previous answers on the topic.", "created_utc": 1647202812, "distinguished": null, "id": "i0j6c9k", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/tddmt4/how_long_was_it_between_first_hostilities_and/i0j6c9k/", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Although it was hardly the only way Japanese citizens processed defeat, surrender and occupation, *kyodatsu* (虚脱) was the term applied to the mix of \"depression and disorientation\" collectively experienced across the country.\n\n[In Embracing Defeat, John Dower writes:](http://www.endofempire.asia/0815-3-defeat-and-despair-3/)\n\n>On the morning after the emperor’s surrender broadcast, farmers in Kanagawa prefecture did something unprecedented: they slept late. What is one to make of this? Had years of physical and emotional exhaustion caught up with them? Was this collective behaviour an all too human response to the shock of defeat? Is it best seen as a homely harbinger of the enervating ‘kyodatsu condition’? Surely, the farmers’ fatigue was all of these. \n> \n>Acknowledging defeat was traumatic, and this trauma found immediate expression in a rhetoric of despair. People spoke of the ‘shame and dishonour’ of unconditional surrender. For many, sudden confrontation with the hitherto unspeakable words maketa senso – ‘lost war’ – was almost stupefying. Since the early 1930s, the Japanese had been told they were a ‘great country’ and a ‘great empire,’ a ‘leading race’ destined to overthrow Western imperialism and bring about a ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,’ a people possessed of a unique and indomitable ‘Yamato spirit.’ \n> \n>Now, what could one say to the war dead? How was one supposed to survive, spiritually as well as materially, in the midst of such a stupendous abandonment of purpose? Any people mobilized to fight a holy war and then, after prolonged sacrifice, told that they had been totally defeated, that it was now incumbent on them to go along with whatever the victor commanded, might have responded similarly. However elusive the term kyodatsu might have been, little was peculiarly Japanese about the state of depression and disorientation it described insofar as the immediate psychic numbing of defeat was concerned. \n> \n>To attribute the ‘kyodatsu condition’ simply to the shock of defeat would be misleading, however, for exhaustion of a deep and complex sort had set in long before 15 August 1945 as a result of the government’s policy of wasting its people in pursuit of impossible war objectives. In the final year of the war, the secret records of the police as well as diaries from the privileged elites were shot through with expressions of apprehension concerning the war weariness and declining morale of the populace. Similarly, the fact that exhaustion and despondency lasted for years did not so much reflect the lasting trauma of defeat as the manner in which wartime fatigue was compounded by incompetence and outright corruption on the part of the post-surrender leadership. In the long view of history, Japan rebounded quickly from defeat. For ordinary people, however, the postwar recovery seemed agonizingly slow.\n\nI heavily recommend *Embracing Defeat* for a comprehensive view of Japanese society's views and reactions to the American occupation.", "created_utc": 1643347430, "distinguished": null, "id": "hujnulc", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/seb70p/what_were_the_reactions_and_sentiments_of_the/hujnulc/", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "To answer this question we first have to adjust the opening assumption that the entire royal family was evacuated to Canada. While princess Juliana and her daughters Beatrix and Irene were indeed evacuated to Canada, queen Wilhelmina and prince Bernhard - Juliana's husband - remained in England. Apart from ensuring the safety of the succession to the throne, the princesses had no active part in the Dutch government (Beatrix and Irene in particular, they were still children) and as such it was deemed better to evacuate them from England as it was not at all a given that it would be a safe location; as soon as May 20, the president of the United States, Roosevelt, had telegraphed the queen that in the eventuality of German bombings of England, he was willing to send American ships to Ireland to facilitate evacuation of the royal family to the United States.^(1) Instead, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and Canada were considered. The former was less than ideal: not only was it a long distance away, but even in 1940 the political situation in the far east where it concerned Japan was uncertain. Canada was considered the best option.\n\nThe reason was that Canada - while overseas and out of feasible reach of Germany - was still a part of the British Empire, which, just like the Netherlands, was in a state of war with Germany. This ensured that, as Wilhelmina would later put it:\n\n>\"*alleen dáár zeker was dat zij (Juliana) de koninklijke macht kon uitoefenen als in Nederland*\"^(2) \n> \n>\"only there it was sure that she (Juliana) could execute her royal powers as she would have in the Netherlands\"\n\nIn other words, the state of war between the British Empire and Germany ensured that Juliana - if necessitated by her succession - could execute her powers as Queen of the Netherlands without interference from pro-German elements. While that answers why Canada was a better choice than the United States (which at this point had not yet declared war on Germany) it doesn't explain why the Dutch colonies in the west - the Netherlands Antilles (including Aruba) and Suriname - were not seen as feasible alternatives.\n\nThe political situation surrounding the Dutch West Indies was complex. It was a colonial vestige in a part of the world that, due to the anti-colonial attitude of the United States, was seen as an anomaly, especially as Roosevelt was eager to maintain good relations with the various Latin-American republics that had wrested themselves from colonial control in years past.^(3) Suriname in particular garnered attention from the United States, as it was their primary supplier of bauxite (used to create aluminium), yet was ill-defended by the Dutch (the United States would when war was declared on Germany garrison it with troops, primarily because the government in nearby French Guyana was loyal to Vichy France).^(4) Of the aforementioned Latin-American republics, Venezuela was eager to exert their influence over Curacao and Aruba (due to an incident in 1922 in which Venezuelan insurrectionists had captured a ship in Willemstad in Curacao that carried the governor, Venezuelan-Dutch relations had remained tense in the first place). Coupled with the anti-colonial sentiment of the United States, it was an unpredictable state of affairs and definitely not considered to be safe grounds for the princesses.^(5) Princess Juliana would on occasion visit these colonies later during the war, but the situation was never deemed stable enough for the successor of the Dutch crown to settle there permanently.^(6)\n\n1. De Jong (1979) Part 9 Section 2, p. 12, from a transcript of this telegraph in the depot of Foreign Affairs\n2. De Jong (1979) Part 9 Section 2, p. 12, from Wilhelmina (1959) p. 279\n3. De Jong (1979) Part 9 Section 2, p. 213\n4. De Jong (1979) Part 9 Section 2, p. 212\n5. De Jong (1979) Part 9 Section 2, p. 214, from notes of the Dutch cabinet of 4 September 1941\n6. De Jong (1979) Part 9 Section 2, p. 385", "created_utc": 1550725936, "distinguished": null, "id": "egxnykn", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/asq854/when_the_dutch_royal_family_fled_the_netherlands/egxnykn/", "score": 407 }, { "body": "While we wait for a quality answer that follows the rules, [there is a slightly similar question about the British Royal Family's plans and preparations to move to Canada during WWII over here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ne4i7/in_ww2_did_the_british_have_plans_in_place_for/)", "created_utc": 1550705626, "distinguished": null, "id": "egwyrrn", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/asq854/when_the_dutch_royal_family_fled_the_netherlands/egwyrrn/", "score": 269 } ]

[ { "body": "Hi! So this is rather complicated in explaining the whole history. The US solely causing Japanese economic miracle is rather problematic, but there was contribution by the US. Yet there are also questions of intentionality.\n\nWe have to take into account that the Japanese miracle began mostly after the Americans left. The so-called ‘Japanese miracle growth’ occurred during the 1960s, nearly a decade after the Americans left in 1952 when Japan had its sovereignty returned where they did as they pleased (such as dismantling the policies established by the Occupation). That is too much of a lag for direct causation, and it puts a lot of variables in play. So French et al (2018) take up the question of whether the Occupation in fact was a change, or a pause, or a continuity in Japanese history. They argue that Japan was on a continuous trend toward advanced economic development with the Occupation being like a pause or a slowdown. \n\nIt has to be noted that Japan was rather industrialized by the time of its defeat, but there was chaos at war’s end. So the pre-existing conditions need to be considered.\n\nThe US initially was not concerned about Japan’s recovery (French et al, 2018; Caprio & Sugita et al, 2007). Here is quotation from a Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) directive:\n\n>“You [SCAP] will not assume any responsibility for the economic rehabilitation of Japan or the strengthening of the Japanese economy.” The Japanese alone were made responsible for avoiding “acute economic distress.” (Fuchs, 2007 in Caprio & Sugita - eds, 2007)\n\nThis only changed due to MacArthur seeing that democracy in Japan could crumble without economic recovery and Japan could end up like post-WW1 Germany. So he did some convincing to Washington, but it was not about an about-face. The US was only concerned for the two D’s, democracy and demilitarization initially. Then it should be noted the shifts depending on who had influence. The FDR New Deal administrators and the later Truman conservatives had different directions with the latter being concerned less on democracy and giving more priority to economic development. The shift away from democracy is known as the “reverse course” (Dower, 1999) occurring after 1948 when it was found that the Nationalists in China were going lose to Mao’s Communists. Thus beginning the Cold War. So there was significant political issues and changing concerns as time passed. So even the goal of democracy is rather ambivalent since the Occupation favored conservatives and purged leftist leaning people in government, politics, and academia. This can also be seen in the suppression of labor movements and their supposed Communist sympathies. In addition, the Occupation was more autocracy than democracy. So mind the contradictions that existed, and many theorize this has had lasting implications. \n\nIn regards to the Marshall Plan and recovery of Europe, it should be noted how different they were compared to Japan and the rest of Asia. (As far as the literature does not state, the Marshall Plan did not occur in Asia and this remains a separate policy and history altogether). First, there is a huge difference in aid. Germany got almost 3 billion dollars in aid while Japan had about 2 billion. Most aid was in grants, but Japan was also loaned more money percentage-wise than Germany (Serafino, Tarnoff, & Nanto, 2006). Japan repaid a slightly higher percentage than Germany. Then, the Occupations was quantitatively shorter by 3 years in Germany. Germany was occupied from 1945 - 1949 while Japan’s occupation was nearly double from 1945 - 1952. There are various things affecting this, but it has to be noted that the Americans could have left sooner had their plans not changed because of the Cold War. However, there are some that argue that the longer occupation was motivated by openly prevalent assumptions on race and remaking Japanese society (in the image of American society), and there are certainly statements by American officials reflecting this. MacArthur and others were recorded on how the Japanese mind was not like others (to put the racism mildly), and it was a motivating factor why the emperor was kept as an institution (Dower, 1999). There was open debate in Japanese society about the emperor, but it was clearly not open for debate with the Occupation. The decision was already decided by SCAP. So this is an illustrative of the contradictions the Occupation created. \n\nSo, there are differences in the US occupation of other countries. The cases of US occupation in the Philippines, Iraq, and Afghanistan were clearly different outcomes from Japan and Germany. In studying the history of US occupations and the policies of ‘nation-state building’, instituting such concepts of social change, democracy, markets, and governance is more thorny and arduous than meets the eye. Also theory of government was remarkably different in each circumstance. (Such that even Japan’s occupation was schizophrenic.) Institutional design is just not easy to get right and immediately, and put in the wrong hands leads to corruption or other distorted incentives.", "created_utc": 1653082175, "distinguished": null, "id": "i9dn9cb", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/qz7xug/how_did_the_united_states_build_back_the_japanese/i9dn9cb/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "[This older answe](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/naqfmw/were_japaneseamerican_in_internment_camps_paid/gxvpj1o/) should be of interest.", "created_utc": 1634587245, "distinguished": null, "id": "hh5dbl4", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/qampyi/during_world_war_ii_were_pows_of_anyevery_nation/hh5dbl4/", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "The natives in the Solomons were largely neutral at the beginning of the war, as they didn't feel invested in the conflict and generally took a \"wait and see\" approach. In many instances, they had been interacting with colonial government, missionaries, and plantation owners for years and so had some experience with and loyalties to the Australians and New Zealanders. These prior relationships were helpful, but were not a guarantee of continuing loyalty. Martin Clemens (the British colonial official and coast watcher on Guadalcanal) writes in Alone On Guadalcanal about his pervasive fear that the natives would turn him into the Japanese. He relied on his personality and key natives to hold his alliance together. He needed a team of native porters to move his radio and gear farther into the mountains in order to stay ahead of the Japanese in the first few months of the Guadalcanal invasion. This support was critical for him as well as all the other coast watchers on the other islands. The coast watchers provided critical intelligence for the Allies and were often completely dependent on native support.\n\nIn most cases, the fighting on the islands took place largely near the coasts. The natives would usually move their families away from the fighting to wait out the conflict. In places like New Guinea, an area so large and often inhospitable that the fighting rarely moved inland, the tribes in the interior barely knew a war was taking place. \n\nAll the combatant armies needed and relied on native workers. The Japanese, taking the stick over the carrot approach as they often did, alienated many tribes at the beginning of the conflict with indiscriminate violence. This was greatly to their detriment. In some areas (Bougainville? New Britain?) the Japanese found themselves embroiled in a long-running guerilla war with the natives, in addition to fighting the Allies.\n\nA couple of books on the subject:\n\nLonely Vigil by Walter Lord\n\nAlone On Guadalcanal by Martin Clemens\n\nTouched With Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific by Eric Bergerud\n\nAlso, check out Jacob Vouza on google. Crazy story about a native who fought on Guadalcanal.", "created_utc": 1607019706, "distinguished": null, "id": "geiddeh", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/k60yr4/how_did_local_civilians_on_islands_like/geiddeh/", "score": 119 }, { "body": "To pickup on what the earlier poster said, how the Melanesians view both the Japanese and Americans were mixed but I would like to add that the interaction greatly affected by the vast surplus of military supplies.\n\nSome of the Melanesians were indeed incorporated into the colonial economy but this was really only at best a small minority. The plantation economy of the Solomon Islands had collapsed in the 1920s and 1930s and had been effectively abandoned by the Europeans. Most of the Melanesians returned to a traditional way of life which worked but was also an extremely sparse life devoid of substantial possessions. \n\nWhen the Japanese, Australians and Americans landed they brought with them substantial stores of food, clothing, advanced technology and hand tools like shovels. Much of this was scavenged by the Melanesians or given to them as gifts or just as basic acts of kindness. \n\nThe arrival of this stuff, referred to as 'Cargo', was hugely transformative to local cultures. Melanesians had no way of producing the goods and the raw amount of them overwhelmed the traditional reality of property. All of this was very disruptive, but frankly in a good way because these cultures were very poor. \n\nFood was a big deal. It is a complete misnomer that less advanced societies have more food than more advanced societies. We have several examples of less advanced societies having more food (like Jamestown) but in reality the superior production and storage capacities of more advanced societies gives those societies huge advantages in the availability of food.\n\nThe average Melanesian was borderline starving and at best eating a meager diet of fish and local edibles. All of the combatants brought in large stores of food (particularly the U.S.) and this food made it into the hands of the locals. For this reason many of the islanders actually viewed the war as a 'good thing' as it brought up their standard of living so drastically.\n\nAs to seeing large sea battles, dogfights and so forth...no the islanders had seen nothing like that.", "created_utc": 1607052949, "distinguished": null, "id": "gek5wh0", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/k60yr4/how_did_local_civilians_on_islands_like/gek5wh0/", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I don’t have a whole lot of resources at my disposal and I’m on a phone, but the Native population is credited with exemplary and dedicated service to the US military. Bear in mind that the “Indian Wars” weren’t exactly faded from memory. The S-A War began in 1898. Massacres such as Wounded Knee (1890) and Little Bighorn (1876) were fresh in the minds of many, particularly the Natives. Speaking in relatives, it is the equivalent of the end of WWII and the end of the Korean War - not exactly ages ago. Many of the veterans from the Indian Wars were now becoming ranking military officials such as Nelson Miles, who would eventually become Commanding General. I mention this because it added to tensions on both sides.\n\nDespite resentment from both sides, Native participation was strong and the military was receptive for a few reasons. First, being a warrior was ingrained into Native culture. It was almost expected to serve in a fighting capacity in the name of honour and pride. Second, many wanted adventure. Thirdly, joining the US military could potentially have socio-economic benefits, as well as potential earned respect, so many sought to improve social and economic standings. For the government, assimilation was key. This began in the early 1890s by recruiting nurses for $30/month and scouts with specialty military training- again for assimilation. Even Teddy Roosevelt was mostly unsympathetic towards the plight of the Native peoples. He is quoted as referring to Indians as “savages” on multiple occasions and praising pioneers for their “righteous” conquest. Still, he confessed that some white men were responsible for butchery and that certain Indian leaders deserved recognition as courageous and possessing integrity. Teddy would also rather see the Native tribes assimilate than to become extinct.\n\nAccording to Jon Ault, who authored information for the S-A War Centennial:\n\n>> Formally mustered on 30 April, two hundred Arizonans reported for duty at the regiment’s training grounds, Camp Wood in San Antonio, Texas. Other officers culled recruits for the unit from neighboring territories. 340 men came from the New Mexico Territory. Among them were two brothers, Joseph and Frank Brito of the Yaquí Tribe, who became privates in Troop H of the New Mexico contingent. From Indian Territory came 170 men, under the command of Allyn Capron, Jr. Among them were Thomas Isbell, of partial Cherokee descent, and William Pollock, a full-blooded Pawnee\n\nThat is at least 710. According to the US Census for 1890, there were 248k. So about 0.28% of all Indians for these regiments alone. During WWI, it is suggested that about 12,000 served according to the Naval History and Heritage Command. The 1910 Census shows that there were 291,018. That’s 4% of all Natives serving.\n\nWhile you asked about participation since the Spanish-American War, I will also note that they have been documented serving during the War of 1812, the Civil War, etc. These numbers may seem low, but the recent history with the government and perhaps inadequate data might skew this. Hope this was what you’re looking for!\n\nSources:\n\nhttps://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1910/volume-1/volume-1-p4.pdf\nhttp://www.spanamwar.com/NativeAmericans.htm\nhttps://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/t/american-indians-us-military.html", "created_utc": 1563803732, "distinguished": null, "id": "eugaaf1", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/cg4oxj/in_world_war_ii_a_third_of_native_american_men/eugaaf1/", "score": 73 } ]

[ { "body": "In being very scarcely funded before the war, the Finnish air force had a blessing in disguise as a curse. The shortage of planes meant that they could have near-superhuman requirements to become a fighter pilot. Only the best of the best of the best in Finland would ever become fighter pilots.\n\nFinnish fighter pilot training was also extensive, very hard and focused a lot on shooting. Jorma Sarvanto, of shooting down 6 Russian bombers in one mssion with his Fokker D.XXI during the Winter War fame notes that immediately before the Winter War, during the 24. Fighter Squadron's training at Kexholm and over Lake Ladoga, he conducted no less than 18 live fire exercises during 14 days in July 1939 in order to become a good enough shot to pass his fighter pilot training.\n\nThe Finnish air force was also first in the world in using the more modern rotten-schwarm (or fighting pair-finger four) formation rather than the older v or vic formation. The Finns experimented with this formation from 1932 and fully adapted it in 1935. The older formation consisted of a tight formation of 3 planes in a V formation with the centre plane a but further ahead and the flanking planes on either side slightly behind. However, the vic formation was based on ww1 tactics, when radios had not been common equipment in planes and communications and order-giving relied on the subordinates being able to see their flight leader. Thus the formation was tight, so that the flight leader could communicate with hand gestures or by \"wiggling\" the wings of his plane.\n\nThe rotten-schwarm tactic relied on two planes further apart, and with another pair even further away and above them. The flight leader could communicate by radio and did not need to see his wingman. The formation was larger and thus covered more space, making it easier to spot enemy formations and harder to for the enemy to spot your own formation. The wingman was also in a prime position to attack any plane that tried to get behind the flight leader's plane and the two planes above and behind in a good position to attack any planes trying to get behind the wingman.\n\nThe Germans developed the same tactics during the latter part of the Spanish Civil War and used them to great effect during the Battle of France, casuing the RAF to switch to the German tactics during the early parts of the Battle of Britain.\n\nThe Finns also developed their own version of boom'n'zoom tactics. The US Army Air Force developed this tactic over the Pacific during the later part of ww2, refusing to get into dogfights (or \"hairballs\") with the nimble Japanese Zero fighters and instead opting to climb high, dive on the Japanese planes from above and use their heavy armament to shoot down Japanese planes and then their superior engine power and speed to climb again, where the Japanese fighters with their less powerful engines could not follow, to rinse and repeat.\n\nSince the Finns lacked the powerful engines of late war US fighters, their version instead relied on skilled pilots that knew their planes intimately. The Finns would climb as high as they could, and when they spotted a Soviet formation, they would dive on it. Excellent shooting skills extensively trained would let them destroy or damage one or several Soviet planes. The Finns would then continue to dive through the Soviet formation, often drawing the Soviet fighter escort after them, leaving the other Finnish planes to attack the unescorted bombers, or dive after the Soviet fighters.\n\nThe diving Finnish plane would then continue to dive to tree-top level. Only a skilled pilot that knows his plane inside out knows how far he can dive before he needs to pull up to fly at tree top level after a long high-speed dive. The Soviet pilots, often less skilled and not experienced in these tactics would either pull up too early, at which they most often lost the Finnish fighter against the forest on the ground due to focusing on pulling up and not crashing or would simply pull up too late and crash. The Finn would then continue at tree top level until he had shaken any Soviet pursuers off, and then climb to repeat the process.\n\nBut extremely skilled and well-trained pilots with modern tactics was not the only thing that made the Finnish Buffaloes successful. The Finns received B-239 Buffaloes, that had the more powerful 980Hp engine (rather than the 950Hp engine the other Buffaloes had). The Finns also equipped their Buffaloes with lisence produced versions of the excellent German reflector sights, which was a strong improvement over the telescopic or ring sights most other Buffaloes used. \n\nThe Finns also de-navalised their Buffaloes, removing the tail hook and the emergency raft, which saved quite a bit of weight. The Finnish Buffaloes were also delivered without armour, but equipped with a back rest armour in Finland, giving the pilot decent protection at a smaller drawback of extra weight.\n\nThe biggest improvement of the Finnish Buffaloes were their armament - the Buffaloes used by the US were about half equipped with one .30 MG and one .50 MG and half with one ,30 MG and three .50 MGs. The Finnns armed theirs with four 12,7mm (.50) FN-Browning machine guns. These had a significantly increased rate of fire (~1 100 shots per minute) compared to the US AN/M2 (~850 shots per minute).\n\nSo, the bottom line is that the Finns had better Buffaloes through reduced weight, a slightly stronger engine, armour (the earlier versions of the US Buffalo lacked armour), much better armament and a much better sight.\n\nThe Finnish pilots were superbly trained and many of them veterans of the Winter War, had very high shooting skills and used locally developed modern tactics.", "created_utc": 1617043194, "distinguished": null, "id": "gsps9g2", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/mfppro/the_brewster_f2a_buffalo_was_a_deathtrap_when_it/gsps9g2/", "score": 56 } ]

[ { "body": "u/commiespaceinvader has given an answer to this question [here ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6696bw/new_understanding_of_allies_knowledge_of_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)", "created_utc": 1617897419, "distinguished": null, "id": "gttnbp6", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/mmu53s/today_is_holocaust_remembrance_day_how_was_the/gttnbp6/", "score": 20 }, { "body": "See [this thread from last week](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/miso8c/how_did_the_nazi_propaganda_machine_respond_to/) with thanks to /u/PeculiarLeah and /u/commiespaceinvader and /u/Kugelfang52", "created_utc": 1617961416, "distinguished": null, "id": "gtwvlhf", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/mmu53s/today_is_holocaust_remembrance_day_how_was_the/gtwvlhf/", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Not at all. It's not clear to me that the US had any awareness of any such plans, and in any event, it is _very easy_ to trace why the atomic bombs were dropped, and it has nothing to do with that. It is easily documented. I always find it very strange when people \"invent\" new reasons for dropping the atomic bombs when the government was pretty clear about the multitude of reasons they had for dropping them. It is a strange variant of the need to invent a \"rationale\" as if the government was very averse to using them without one. There was essentially no \"decision\" to drop the bombs — it was assumed they would be used, and the people in the position to drop them saw essentially no reasons _not_ to drop them.", "created_utc": 1630377372, "distinguished": null, "id": "hb0dcmu", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/pewbor/looking_for_a_world_war_ii_historian_with/hb0dcmu/", "score": 15 } ]

[ { "body": "I suspect this document relates to your grandfather's return from France.\n\nThe map and instructions show the route from Suippes to Calas. The map is most likely traced. The TCPs marked on the map are Traffic Control Points where military police would direct traffic. The G.I. Joe's Canteen locations are basically refreshment stops and the Bivouac Area is basically a campsite. Presumably these were scheduled stops. The notation of one Bivouac Area suggests the drive was expected to take two days. Nowadays this would be an easy one-day drive, but a truck convoy at this time would be very fortunate to make 25 mph so it seems prudent to plan on a two-day drive to cover the 480 miles listed in the instructions.\n\nWhy and when was this move being made?\n\nSuippes and Calas were both locations of U.S. Army staging camps. During the fighting, these were holding areas for personnel who were awaiting assignment to units as replacements. After VE-Day, the facilities were expanded and used to process personnel for what was officially called \"redeployment\" and consisted of return to the United States via ship and in most cases demobilization promptly thereafter. \n\nI suspect this move was made after VE-Day because driving from Suippes to Calas was driving away from the front and toward the port of Marseille, which was a major port of embarkation for redeployment. Also, it just makes sense that your grandfather would have preserved a souvenir of his trip home.\n\nThe staging camps in eastern France around Reims, including Suippes, were known as the City Camps because they were named after U.S. cities. (The one in Suippes was Camp Boston.) There was another set of camps in Normandy near Le Havre called Cigarette Camps because they were named after cigarette brands. The staging camps in southern France, including Calas, were collectively known as Delta Base Section. I don't think they had any system of names and as far as I know the camp near Calas was just called Calas.\n\nPhysically, the staging camps were huge tent cities holding as many as 60,000 personnel each. In some case they were built at the location of a prewar French army base but the population in late 1945 was simply gigantic and far larger than the permanent facilities. The personnel of an arriving unit would typically be assigned to a contiguous set of tents. The camps had large hospital and mess facilities to see to everyone's needs, which was necessary because the units would arrive with only personnel and their personal effects and did not bring equipment such as field kitchens that was normally used for sustainment. The camps also provided recreational facilities and outdoor theaters for USO performances, lectures, etc. Sports leagues were organized, newspapers were published, classes were taught, movies were shown, and in general an effort was made to make the stay in the staging camps as agreeable as possible. Keep in mind there was really no military work for the personnel passing through: the camp was run by its own staff and units did not have their weapons, vehicles, or equipment so could not really do any maintenance or training activities even if they wanted to.\n\nIn addition to the opportunities within the camps, personnel also generally had freedom to visit nearby cities and mingle freely with French civilians. In some case, organized tours were offered.\n\nThe staging camps were operated by units under the control of the Communications Zone, which was the rear area headquarters. In addition, substantial use was made of local civilian and enemy prisoner of war labor. The staging camps also typically had facilities for caring for displaced persons, liberated prisoners of war, and Allied personnel. (Although there was so much work to do in the Delta Base Section area that an infantry division was given temporary duty assisting with camp administration.)\n\nResources:\n\nThere is a map similar to your grandfather's here: [https://www.historynet.com/footlocker-strip-map-100th-infantry-division.htm](https://www.historynet.com/footlocker-strip-map-100th-infantry-division.htm)\n\nThis webpage tells the story of a field artillery unit's relocation from Suippes to Calas, its time at Calas, and its embarkation on a ship at the port of Marseille, but note they made the trip via train: [https://robgorrell.com/the-388th-mp-bn](https://robgorrell.com/the-388th-mp-bn)\n\nShort article on Camp Lucky Strike near Le Havre emphasizing return of liberated prisoners of war: [https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/camp-lucky-strike](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/camp-lucky-strike)\n\nThe official history of Delta Base Section can be found here: [https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll11/id/1310](https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll11/id/1310)\n\nThe pictures in the linked resources should give you some idea of the scale.", "created_utc": 1634855177, "distinguished": null, "id": "hhjqrdf", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/qcz53h/hand_drawn_world_war_ii_map/hhjqrdf/", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "from the FAQ\n[What role did women play in the Holocaust?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/478tiz/what_role_did_women_play_in_the_holocaust/) by /u/commiespaceinvader", "created_utc": 1636998118, "distinguished": null, "id": "hkqsnel", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/qujkbv/what_role_did_german_women_play_in_the_holocaust/hkqsnel/", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "You might be interested in [my previous answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5op658/one_vastly_known_deciphering_success_during_world/dcl0ys0/) on this topic.", "created_utc": 1626013596, "distinguished": null, "id": "h4t7clr", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/oi2a90/everybody_talks_about_enigma_and_the_various/h4t7clr/", "score": 16 } ]

[ { "body": "I can't speak to Europe as a whole, but Anglo-American relations were complex in the lead-up to and early stages of the war. On the one hand common cause against the increasing aggression of Germany, Japan and Italy over the 1930s, on the other economic and political rivalry as the power of the United States waxed and that of the British Empire waned. British rearmament in the 1930s cost it heavily in foreign currency and gold reserves, spending that threatened to be unsustainable in a protracted war without economic assistance, and the US had no desire to prop up the protectionist British Empire at its own expense or be drawn into war. Roosevelt did favour the Allies, though, as far as neutrality would allow; the British and French placed large orders for aircraft before the war, but once war was actually declared US Neutrality Acts forbade the sale of arms to combatants. Roosevelt quickly pushed through amendments to these Acts such that arms could be purchased by either side, but they had to be paid for in dollars and transported by the country that purchased them ('Cash and Carry'). As the Allies had far greater foreign currency reserves, and the Axis had no practical way of transporting armaments from the US, this was effectively a way of supplying the Allies, seen as such by Hitler. (See also a [previous question] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7oar9z/did_america_give_planes_to_britain_in_1940_by/) about aircraft being towed over the Canadian border.) Britain and France were gearing up for a protracted war, and as their armed forces strengthened during the 'Bore War' Chamberlain was confident that they could withstand attack while Germany would be unable to sustain its economy; Hitler had 'missed the bus'.\n\nOf course the situation rapidly changed in April and May with the fall of Norway then France. Though Britain did not exactly stand alone, with its Empire behind it, the situation looked parlous. American aid was not merely useful, but now vital. Chamberlain had always been somewhat sceptical of American intentions, Churchill (who replaced Chamberlain in May) was much more hopeful for greater support from the US and appealed for it from the start of his tenure, frequently frustrated that he did not receive more. Roosevelt, with an eye to upcoming elections, had to be mindful of both strong isolationist elements and the possibility of Britain either surrendering or being invaded. As the US escalated its own rearmament programme there were concerns that anything sent to Britain would simply be lost to the Germans, and the prospect of the Royal Navy in German hands was a major threat to America. In fact that's what Churchill was specifically referring to in that speech:\n\n\"... even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.\"\n\nChurchill was assuring Roosevelt that he would not surrender the fleet, an assurance Roosevelt had sought. Less publicly there was also the suggestion that if Churchill did not receive support he might be replaced, and there was no guarantee his replacement would take the same stance. \n\nWith British success in the Battle of Britain and no German invasion, US confidence in Britain holding out grew. Roosevelt was re-elected in November 1940 prompting hopes for considerably greater assistance, hopes that were dashed in the short term by Roosevelt continuing his cautious policy of Allied-leaning neutrality, Britain still purchasing American arms with dollars that, by the end of 1940, were almost exhausted. US involvement was increasing, though; the US military considered direct involvement in the war increasingly likely, if not inevitable, and began secret discussions of joint strategy with the UK. Roosevelt announced Lend-Lease in December, allowing US aid to continue even if hard currency ran out, with the added benefit of expanding the arms industry to supply its own forces. The two nations worked increasingly closely over 1941, exemplified by the Atlantic Charter in August, but it took Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war by Germany to finally and fully bring the USA into the war.", "created_utc": 1521116365, "distinguished": null, "id": "dvqic25", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/84issz/in_churchills_famous_we_shall_fight_on_the/dvqic25/", "score": 683 }, { "body": "Hi there! \n\nIf you've come to the thread and are wondering why there's no answer yet, please be patient: [we have found](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6a5duv/a_statistical_analysis_of_10000_raskhistorians/) that it takes an average of 9 hours for a good answer to appear on a popular thread. Properly researching and writing an answer simply takes time. Additionally, it's the middle of the night on the East Coast of the US right now, which means that plenty of the historians interested in this topic might be asleep. Please be patient! If you want to be reminded of this thread in 24 hours, [please see here for information on how to send a private message to RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/24duzp/remindmebot_info/) to remind you about this thread.\n\nIf you're wondering what's in the 25 removed comments at the time of writing, mostly it's people wondering where all the comments are ('This is no comment section. It's a tomb.'). Several people have asked follow-up questions that are tangential enough to this question that they'd be better off asked in their own thread, which received some attempts at answers. There are some posts that largely consist of links (which are against our rules unless they're links to content on /r/AskHistorians which credit the original author and which don't function as a TL/DR). You're not missing anything great, we promise.\n\nAll of these comments get removed on /r/AskHistorians because the huge majority of our subscribers really do want accurate, comprehensive, in-depth historical answers based on good historical practice and high-quality sources. It's amazing how many downvotes and reports an obvious shitpost can attract on a popular thread on /r/AskHistorians within minutes, thanks to our readers (if you see it, report it!) \n\nPlease see [our subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules) for more information on how to write an answer up to our standards. On /r/AskHistorians, we want people answering questions to be able to explain not just what the basic facts are, [but why we know that these basic facts are right, and to put those basic facts into context](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_write_an_in-depth_answer). This is why we encourage [the use of primary and secondary sources in answering questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_sources), rather than tertiary sources like Wikipedia, podcasts and textbooks.\n\nIn other words, on /r/AskHistorians, we'd rather have no answer than bad attempts at answers. By removing the short, quick, bad answers that would otherwise crowd them out, the well-researched in-depth answers (that take people time to research and write) are more likely to be seen ([see this graph for more detail](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/64y44g/the_mostupvoted_comments_in_reddit_threads_arent/#)). The downside to this is that we have to remove a lot of comments wondering what happened to the removed comments (no seriously, this honestly really is the bulk of removed comments on popular thread - ironic, isn't it?. The upside is that our contributors consistently post amazing stuff to /r/AskHistorians (which we collate the best of every week in our [Sunday Digest](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/search?q=title%3A%22Sunday+Digest%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)). Alternatively, if you want to discuss history without these constraints, /r/history or /r/askhistory might be more appropriate subreddits for you than /r/AskHistorians. \n", "created_utc": 1521101568, "distinguished": null, "id": "dvqbosv", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/84issz/in_churchills_famous_we_shall_fight_on_the/dvqbosv/", "score": 84 } ]

[ { "body": "The second world war had a very pronounced, if not short lived effect on the fisheries of the North Sea and the Northern Atlantic. During the war, fishing activity in the North Sea was seriously disrupted by ongoing naval conflict, shortages of fuel and equipment, as well as the recruitment of experienced sailors and fishing vessels into the war effort. While the Nordic and Low Countries were able to maintain a modest amount of inshore catch, [trawler fishing by British vessels fell to 1/8 of the previous peak](https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1013/figures/1) during the war and Germany had lost a similar proportion. The need to find alternatives have lead to the exploitation of previously untapped Baltic fisheries by Axis powers and a revival of cod fishing in Newfoundland, possibly contributing to the degradation of these two fisheries in the following decades. \n\nThe effect of war on fish population was both immediate and highly tangible, with [population growth](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2929348/figure/Fig2/) measured in orders of magnitude as early as 1940. In addition to a general increase in quantity, sudden cessation of fishing caused some interesting reorganization in some fish species. For example, the [haddock population](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2929348/figure/Fig6/) in the North Sea saw a general increase similar to other species, however the number of young fish (<1 years old) actually declined by 83% despite a much larger number of sexually mature fish capable of breeding. The exact cause is still not well understood but it's been attributed to a combination of an adverse climate as well as the lack of time for the population to find a new equilibrium. \n\nIn any case, most studies agree that any marine biomass accumulated during five years of war was mostly depleted by the end of 1950s as commercial fishing activity plateaued and most traditional fisheries went into long-term decline therafter. \n\nMain reference is a review article titled *World War II and the “Great Acceleration” of North Atlantic Fisheries* by Prof. Paul Holm. Additional sources are provided inline as hyperlinks. ", "created_utc": 1546821827, "distinguished": null, "id": "edfl4r1", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/ad6ox6/given_the_scale_of_world_war_ii_its_effects_on/edfl4r1/", "score": 223 }, { "body": "In countless ways, big and small. World War II was by far the biggest ecological impact of any conflict up to that point, a combination of several factors, including technology but also the sheer scope of course. The *space* that a single soldier commanded in World War II was over 10x larger than in World War I, let alone previous conflicts, with the front per 100,000 soldiers being roughly 3,000 km in the former, and a mere 248 km for the latter. This increases not only how much damage happens in any given area, but also how widespread it can be. 'Obvious' things such as tanks and infantry maneuvering can wreak havoc on a region, and some *still* haven't really recovered. Deserts especially, being particularly fragile, might never do so, with portions of the Libyan desert where the Desert Rats and the Afrika Korps fought still suffering for it - and similarly even in the US, where evidence of US armor training for deployment to North Africa can still be seen. The 'crusts' of the desert, once broken by the weight of the tanks, can take decades to heal, if they ever do at all, causing an increase both in the frequency and severity of sandstorms for generations.\n\nIn similarly perhaps obvious fashion the arrival of thousands of men, animals, and material on previously isolated Pacific islands was hardly conducive to their continued health. Small atolls, transformed into airbases, saw large parts of their land left unable to support the bird populations that had once played host to, while many islands, previously rat free, found themselves now infested by the foreign vermin. Less seen, but no less felt was the introduction of new microbes and diseases which too could be quite harmful. Across the globe, a more famous example of war and disease would perhaps be the outbreak of malaria in Italy during the war, which saw a very noticeable uptick during the Second World War, in part caused by the creation of excellent breeding grounds for the mosquitos in the waterlogged craters and scars of battle, further assisted by the German destruction of the drainage machinery in the Tiber Delta. Curtailing this would be one of the first large scale uses of DDT.\n\nBack, briefly, to the Pacific again though, some islands recovered well enough, but many felt the impact for decades beyond. In more enterprising areas, the transformation could at least be repurposed, such as Ellis Island, where the native population found that although unable to grow coconuts in the coral areas that they once had, the trees took well in the area around the abandoned Japanese airstrip, helped by the fact they had been planted over a massive reservoir of \"fertilizer\"... the mass gravesites of the Japanese dead. At least in theory the Allies were willing to make things right, but words and practice are not always the same thing. Although congress provided for settling damage claims, Public Law 393 required rather prompt filing of it, with only a year for its statute of limitations, and of course, any damage from enemy action was not covered. \n\nThe ecological damage can be far from immediate or obvious though.\n\nOne popular anecdote you can find included in several books, not to mention from there propagated out into the interwebs, relates to the displacement of the lupine populations in Eastern Europe. Mark Bellamy uses the story as the opening to his history of the Eastern Front, *Absolute War*, specifically because of how it illustrates the unexpected, and wide reaching impact that war can have, focusing on the spread of rabies. An outbreak first observed in the red fox population of Poland in 1939-1940 was displaced westward initially due to the conflict and slowly - as little as 20 to 40 kilometers per year - worked its way west, until the late 1960s when it finally had made its way entirely across the continent to the English channel, where it created something of a scare in the UK that it could, despite strict quarantine laws, nevertheless make its way over. Had the war never happened, could the spread still have happened? Perhaps, or perhaps it would have stayed put, or it instead would have been the Soviet Union experiencing the inordinate number of rabies infections in the period.\n\nIn another example of how war interacts with the environment that we might not notice immediately, a 2018 study published in *Annales Geophysicae* was able to isolate and analyze the damage caused on the ionosphere, specifically focusing on the impact of the Allied bombing campaign over Germany in the latter half of the war. If you're interested in the methodology, the article is (I believe) from an open access journal so check out the citation below, but as for the conclusion, they found very clear evidence that the shockwaves from the bombing campaign caused very brief, short-term damage on the ionosphere:\n\n>The bomb blasts heated the upper atmosphere, weakening it by reducing the number of electrons. The damage from each raid typically lasted about 24 hours; the impact of the diminished ionosphere at the time isn’t clear, but the research helps explain why Allied airmen reported that their bombers were damaged by shock waves even when they flew above the recommended heights.\n\nIn this case, the impact was smaller, or at least what we have so far observed, but it is certainly an interesting illustration of how the war was able to reach to the edge of space.\n\nSome impacts though can be positive, even if unintended. During the conflict, the threat of submarine attack significantly curtailed deep sea fishing, for instance, which in turn gave populations several years to recover, even if only a temporary reprieve.\n\nThis is, all in all, a rather varied set of examples, but that is to be sure quite purposeful, as I feel that this rather meandering set of pickings illustrates exactly the core point, that the impact of the war touched everything, from big to small, and from the obvious to the strangely connected.\n\n**Sources Cited**\n\nBellamy, Chris. *Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War*. Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.\n\nBennett, Judith A. *Natives and Exotics World War II and Environment in the Southern Pacific* Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009.\n\nClosmann, Charles E. *War and the Environment Military Destruction in the Modern Age* College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009.\n\nLloyd, H.G. “Wildlife Rabies in Europe and the British Situation.” *Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene* 70, no. 3 (1976): 179–187.\n\nScott, Christopher J., and Patrick Major. 2018. “The Ionospheric Response over the UK to Major Bombing Raids during World War II.” *Annales Geophysicae* (09927689) 36 (5): 1243–54. doi:10.5194/angeo-36-1243-2018.\n\nTripathi, Anil Kumar. *Changing Environmental Ideologies*. APH Publishing, 1992.\n\nWiseman, Paul. 2019. “War’s Shock Waves Touched Upper Atmosphere.” *World War II* 33 (5): 10–11.\n", "created_utc": 1546825213, "distinguished": null, "id": "edfqptn", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/ad6ox6/given_the_scale_of_world_war_ii_its_effects_on/edfqptn/", "score": 314 }, { "body": "Cormac Ó Gráda, the famous economic historian, argued that after 1900, famines became more associated with war or political upheaval than with poor harvests. To him, ‘Human action had a greater impact than, or greatly exacerbated, acts of nature’. This is especially true in the case of the Chinese theatre, where a military decision led to natural disaster. \n\nWhen the Japanese advanced towards Wuhan during 1938, Nationalist leadership decided to blow up the Yellow River dikes to slow the Japanese advance and allow Nationalist forces to beat an ordered retreat. The destruction of the dikes led the river to leave the channel it had followed since 1855, moving southeast to the Huai River at a pace of sixteen kilometers per day. Post-war investigations revealed that the extent of the damage, with the released water swamping the twenty counties of eastern Henan, resulting in the inundation of thirty-two percent of the cultivated land (489,200 hectares) and forty-five percent of the villages. In Henan, 325,000 people died from wartime flooding, 4.8 percent of the pre-war population, while more than 1,172,000 people were displaced. After the river channels had stabilised, both the Chinese and the Japanese tried to utilise the newly inundated area by building dikes and deflection dikes to divert water into the other’s territory, which only exacerbated the situation in Henan.\n\nThe ecological change caused by the breaching of the dikes led to other problems in Henan province. In his work *The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938–1950*, Muscolino points to ecological change as the main reason for the Henan famine of 1942-43. The ecological damage brought about by the breaching of the Yellow River dikes meant not only reduced food production but also problems in the circulation of food via transport networks. Short-term climate change in the form of global El Niño Southern Oscillation event which reduced levels of rainfall, as well as locust infestations, meant that food production was even more strained. However, as a frontline region, Henan province had to satisfy the needs of the Nationalist and Japanese armies, the Communists, and the local population, all of whom competed for the meagre harvest. This ‘energy crisis’ resulted in a famine that killed around 1.5 to 2 million people.\n\nThe man-made disaster caused by the breaching of the Yellow River dikes not only resulted in substantial ecological change that caused tremendous short-term damage, but also had a long-term ecological effect that resulted in another natural disaster in the form of famine. \n\n&#x200B;\n\nSources:\n\nLary, Diana, 'Drowned Earth: The Strategic Breaching of the Yellow River Dyke, 1938', *War in History* 8 (2001), 191-207.\n\nMuscolino, Micah S., *The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938–1950* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).\n\n*The scars of war: the impact of warfare on modern China,* ed. by Diana Lary and Stephen MacKinnon (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 2001).", "created_utc": 1546850598, "distinguished": null, "id": "edgi8zg", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/ad6ox6/given_the_scale_of_world_war_ii_its_effects_on/edgi8zg/", "score": 22 } ]

[ { "body": "USAAF or Navy? Which theatre? Or all of the above?\n\nExtremely different experience (so not sure I have it in me to draft an all of the above answer) in India vs UK vs North Africa vs carrier based, etc. If you're looking for Bomber Boys like intensity, I'd start with early Pacific war carrier based when they were getting eaten alive by Zeroes.", "created_utc": 1635395653, "distinguished": null, "id": "hicdb5m", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/qgvf5y/what_was_life_like_for_an_american_fighter_pilot/hicdb5m/", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "A *Reductio ad Germania* for all of the First World War's causes has been a popular one almost from the start of the war. It's one that started as an act of propaganda that started as far back as the fall of 1914, mostly in the British and French press, and it only grew in popularity through the course of the war as they vilified the German occupation of Belgium and northern France. This popular perception was then all but enshrined in the various articles of the treaties that came out of the Paris Peace Conference. While the Treaty of Versailles is the most famous of the treaties, and it is the treaty that is generally believed to be the one that ended the First World War, each of the belligerent Central Powers signed their own separate treaties. And each and all of these treaties had what was considered in later years to be a guilt clause that helped create a sense of responsibility on the Central Powers for those unfamiliar with the nuances of the article in question.\n\nEach of these treaties that came out of the Paris Peace Conference, between January 1919 and June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles (which dealt with Germany), the Treaties of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Austria), of Trianon (Hungary), of Sévres (The Ottoman Empire), and of Neuilly-sur-Seine (Bulgaria), were all very similar, with regards to their structure and format, as well as their intent. On the whole these treaties were designed to do the same thing for all of the defeated belligerents: to reduce their territorial extents, to limit their warmaking capacities, and to ensure that reparations and other indemnities were made to the victorious parties, while also refuting any future claim to the redrawn boundaries. Reading through the the five treaties, one will see nearly identical language and structure. Included in these similarities is the so-called War Guilt Article, though it was never called as such at the time, nor intended to be framed as such, at least as it was written. This article (231 in Versailles, Article 175 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Article 120 in Neuilly, 161 in Trianon) simply laid the legal framework for the reparations scheme that the Entente had agreed to amongst themselves.\n\nIt reads as follows (I quote from Article 231 in Versailles, but the wording is identical, with the appropriate national substitutions being made for the other treaties):\n\n>\"The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.\"\n\nThis wording, written by Norman Davis and John Foster Dulles (in 1919, the American delegation's legal council and an aid to Robert Lansing, the American Secretary of State, and Dulles's uncle), was carefully phrase in such a way that there was no actual declaration of guilt in this article that is generally perceived to be the War Guilt Clause. Instead, Article 231 and its ilk were carefully crafted in such a way that the various belligerents simply acknowledged their culpability in the damages caused by the war, as the loser of the war. This is not a statement of guilt, as written and phrased (though Dulles would later write of a certain degree of guilt surrounding the clause, this was done much later after the longer-term consequences of it would be more apparent). Instead, it is an acknowledgement, that lays the legal foundation for the claiming of reparations. Without establishing responsibility for destruction, these reparations would be functionally unenforceable. These sorts of articles were part and parcel to countless peace treaties. \n\nThese articles were neither new, nor particularly harsh. And on the whole, with the exception of Germany, there was no wild backlash, no outrage, no...nothing, really, surrounding the reparations articles in the associated treaties. These largely went unremarked-upon, and most of the popular and national backlash in those countries surrounded many of the other articles, such as the military restrictions, or the territorial reductions, population transfers in line with the new political borders, and other associated matters. It was only in Germany that Article 231 really became a hotbed of resentment in and of itself.\n\nNow, the reason for this perception of Germany being the cause is several-fold. Firstly, there is some truth that Germany pushed for war. There is truth too in the fact that the Blank Check, laid out by the German government to the Austro-Hungarian government as it was drafting the ultimatum to Serbia in July 1914 likely gave Austria the political stiffening required to see that it went through with a much more hardline approach on Serbia. It was also true that there was an acknowledgement in the German military that if war was to come, the sooner it happened, the better, before Russian population growth and military-industrial modernization (begun in 1912) would overwhelm Germany, especially as she was simultaneously squeezed from the west by France, and in the east by Russia, and that projections suggested that by 1916 or 1917, there was no hope for a German victory if a war were to start at that time, or later on.\n\nHowever, beyond that, it is largely acts of British propaganda as it rallied around \"Gallant Little Belgium\" as it was overrun by the German advance, that captured the public's attention and began to start solidifying Germany as the root cause of the war. It is also acts of French propaganda as the Germans occupied vast swathes of territory in northern France, and that the French government began to see the war as an opportunity to reclaim what was lost in 1871, that Germany quickly became the primary villain of the war. This was not helped at all by the fact that except for a few token units in the south, near Switzerland, there were very few Austro-Hungarian soldiers in the West, and German forces fought not only in the West, but also in the East along Germany's own border with Russia, but also were extended significantly into Austria-Hungary's border with Russia as Germany was forced to give aid to the collapsing Austrian army. Further, more German forces were sent into Serbia as well to aid there. Thus, while Austria-Hungary may have been initially responsible for the war, it proved itself to be spent offensively in mere weeks, and was on the back foot in the span of months. An enemy that can't even be called a paper tiger is not a very good enemy to drum up propaganda against. Least of all when the Anglo-French alliance was fighting in the West primarily, and against the Germans, and not the Austrians. The Austrians were simply not compelling enemies in a lot of ways during the war from a propagandistic perspective. Further, the initial declarations of war by Britain and France were against Germany alone.\n\nBritain and France did not declarer war on Austria-Hungary until August 12. In contrast, the French declaration of war against the Germans was announced 3 August; and the British declared on Germany on 4 August with the violation of Belgian neutrality. As such, in the Anglo-French perspective, which is what drove much of the post-war perception due to Russia succumbing to revolution in 1917 and civil war thereafter, and a general Western European bias in history to begin with, the First World War was a war against Germany.\n\nIn short, German guilt for the Firs World War neatly fits into the popular expectations of the period, fitting with the lived experiences, as the death of Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 was a tragedy, but barely went remarked on, and the July Crisis was something that was likewise considered to be a thing that would soon pass, as these things tended to do, with a bit of saber rattling before the world went back to normal. War, if it happened, would be a localized affair, and just another conflict in the Balkans. Remember, the Balkans had been perennially at war since 1911 and these kind of conflicts had become routine. It was only when German troops crossed the borders in the West that things \"got real\" for a lot of people, and when it is German, not Austrian, troops doing the crossing, and it is these events in the West that suddenly capture the rapt attentions, that German guilt can start to be appreciated as the perception in the time period.\n\nAdditionally, this view of what I termed at the opening *reductio ad Germania* is not just an act of popular perception, but also very real political perception, primarily in France and Britain. I touched earlier on how Dulles and Davies had written the final wording. This wording comes from a stern compromise between American views on wanting no reparations, and an Anglo-French view that Germany should pay for \\*all\\* war costs, not just civilian damages. This view stemmed largely from that popular sentiment and outlook on responsibility. These French and British politicians had genuine concerns on their political futures if they did not sufficiently lay the blame at Germany's feet after such a costly war, because it was the Germans that had been the enemy in the popular imagination.", "created_utc": 1619899459, "distinguished": null, "id": "gwkvmlt", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/n2iqf1/the_cause_of_world_war_i_is_often_boiled_down_to/gwkvmlt/", "score": 26 } ]

[ { "body": "A while back [I answered a similar question, about civilians hit by falling flak.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2sp8qt/did_any_shell_fragments_from_flak_cannon_defense/)\n\nWhile it's not *entirely* the same, I think it's appropriate.", "created_utc": 1545116736, "distinguished": null, "id": "ec15f0e", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/a75dip/during_world_war_ii_were_trhere_any_accounts_of/ec15f0e/", "score": 156 }, { "body": "Add-on question; Supposedly even the shell casings from aircraft guns were deadly to people on the ground. Did anyone ever actually get killed this way? Is that why modern fighters don't eject spent shells?", "created_utc": 1545109692, "distinguished": null, "id": "ec108pu", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/a75dip/during_world_war_ii_were_trhere_any_accounts_of/ec108pu/", "score": 115 } ]

[ { "body": "The concrete planning for \"how to deploy the atomic bomb\" was not started until late 1944, and didn't really ramp up until spring 1945. By that point they knew that a) the bomb wouldn't be ready until late summer 1945, and b) Germany was going to be out of the picture by then. \n\nSo there was really no other country contemplated in a serious way.\n\nThis is different from asking what might have been done if the schedule of the bombs was different. [There are some indications](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/10/04/atomic-bomb-used-nazi-germany/) that if the bomb had been ready in 1944, Roosevelt was prepared to consider using it against Germany. But it wasn't, so the point was a moot one.", "created_utc": 1632428793, "distinguished": null, "id": "he09k3r", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/pu39uk/had_they_been_ready_early_enough_were_there_plans/he09k3r/", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "**That claim appears to be apocryphal. It can be surmised that the average ages of men serving on the front lines in both the Vietnam War and World War II were older than 18, but younger than 26. An average of around 20-25, leaning to the lower end, is a reasonable estimate assuming that casualty distributions roughly mirrored the number of men of each age sent to war.**\n\nOf the 58,256 Americans listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the average age is [22.8 years old](https://go.fold3.com/thewall/). The youngest, [Marine Private First Class Dan Bullock](http://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/6670/DAN-BULLOCK), was only 15 years old, lying about his age to enlist. The oldest man listed on the wall is 63 year old [Army Sergeant First Class Dwaine U. McGriff](http://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/300018/DWAINE-U-MCGRIFF). McGriff survived serious injuries in 1970 at the age of 35, but died in 1999, never fully recovering; men whose deaths are deemed to have been caused by war-related injuries are entitled to have their names put on the wall as well. As many as 38 men are believed to be mistakenly listed on the wall because of clerical errors, although the exact number is not known.\n\nIn another estimate, the Department of Defense's Combat Area Casualties Current File, with 58,169 names (58,148 with both birth date and date of event), says that the average age of those killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years old. [About 24% of those killed were 20, with the next most common age (17%) being 21](https://www.militaryfactory.com/vietnam/casualties.asp). It can also be noted that well over 1,000 men over the age of 40 died.\n\n**Selected CACF Figures:**\n\nType|Number of Casualties|Average Age\n:--|:--|:--\nTotal|58,148|23.11\nEnlisted|50,274|22.37\nOfficers|6,598|28.43\nWarrant Officers|1,276|24.73\nE-1 (Private)|525|20.34\n11B MOS (Infantryman)|18,465|22.55\n\nThe figures for WWII on the ages of fighting men mirror those from Vietnam. American soldiers again varied widely in age. Some were 17 year old volunteers, others were 35 year old draftees, but most were in their early 20s. The 1994 journal article [*Why Do World War II Veterans Earn More than Nonveterans?*](https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2535121.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A14bdc3da93ac0fb48b35800871230117) by Joshua Angrist and Alan Krueger sampled 306,979 men for the table on page 80. Men born in 1922 (19-23 years old from 1941 to 1945) would be the most likely to have served in the military in WWII, with men born in 1921 (20-24 years old) being the second most likely. \n\nBirth Year|% of Veterans in Each Sample\n:--|:--\n1919|73.2\n1920|75.5\n1921|77.9\n1922|78.0\n1923|76.6\n1924|75.9\n1925|75.0\n1926|73.9\n1927|65.6\n1928|30.8\n1929|12.2\n\nIn October 1943, the age distribution of the 6,862 men in the [10th Light Division (Alpine)](https://history.army.mil/books/agf/agf28.htm) while training at Camp Hale, Colorado was as follows. The most common age group can be seen to be 20-22, with those 18-19 second, and those 23-25 third.\n\n**Ages of Men in the 10th Light Division (Alpine), October 1943:**\n\nGroup|Number|% of Men in Each Age Group\n:--|:--|:--\n18-19|1,493|21.8\n20-22|2,141|31.2\n23-25|1,167|17.0\n26-28|839|12.2\n29-31|580|8.4\n32-34|313|4.6\n35-37|262|3.8 \n38+|67|1.0\n\nMost of the original soldiers in the experimental battalion that would become the 10th Mountain Division had been selected or volunteered because they showed proficiency in skiing or mountaineering. Other soldiers came from the 3rd, 41st, and 44th Infantry Divisions. As not enough experienced men could be found to make a whole mountain division, soldiers were transferred from the 30th, 31st, 33rd, and 89th Infantry Divisions. Other fillers came from inactivated armored infantry or tank destroyer units.\n\nA snapshot of the 192 members of [Company L of the 134th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division](http://www.coulthart.com/134/r-44-may-l.pdf) in Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, in May 1944 in combination with [enlistment records from 1938 to 1946](https://aad.archives.gov/aad/fielded-search.jsp?dt=893&tf=F&cat=WR26&bc=,sl) can be used to give a good sample. The 35th Infantry Division was a National Guard division made up of troops from Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri; the 134th Infantry Regiment was raised mainly from eastern Nebraska, and Company L came from Omaha.\n\nSoldiers who had served in the Regular Army or National Guard before WWII tended to be slightly older than what could be considered average. Promotions in the small pre-war U.S. military were often few and far between, and it was not unusual to find a private or private first class born in 1908 or 1909. As National Guard units could rarely be considered complete as per the TO&E and combat ready with just the men who assembled at the town armory, they needed to be filled up with draftees and volunteers. The addition of large numbers of non-local men as well as turnover meant that many units only ended up being National Guard in name and tradition only; the 30th Infantry Division had 100% turnover in 1942 alone.\n\nA common Army practice when filling units with men in an efficient manner was taking draftees or volunteers from reception centers near where the unit was activated or where they were going to start their training. The 4th Armored Division, while stationed at Pine Camp, New York, received large numbers of draftees from the mid-Atlantic states. The 35th Infantry Division, after its federalization on December 23, 1940, moved to Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, to begin training. 62 of the 149 draftees from the Company L roster can be seen to have Army Serial Numbers that begin with \"17\" or \"37,\" indicating that they volunteered or were drafted from the [Seventh Service Command](https://imgur.com/a/BFVbQ). This resulted in an interesting situation where a man from Nebraska, Kansas, or Missouri, if he was drafted or volunteered at the right time, could find himself serving in his \"local\" unit even though he had never been a member of the National Guard to begin with.\n\n**Men of Company L by Origin, May 1944:**\n\nNumber|Description\n:--|:--\n87|Draftees not from the Seventh Service Command\n62|Draftees from the Seventh Service Command\n29|Federalized National Guard soldiers from Nebraska\n3|Volunteers from the Seventh Service Command\n3|Volunteers not from the Seventh Service Command\n3|Federalized National Guard officers from Nebraska\n3|Federalized National Guard officers not from Nebraska\n1|Federalized National Guard soldier not from Nebraska\n1|Pre-war Regular Army volunteer\n\n[The draft age was lowered to 18 in November 1942](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/561vrb/what_was_boot_campmilitary_training_like_during/), and men of 18-20 soon became the predominant group called to serve, often being drafted out of high school. By mid-1944, [50% of all men received by the Army were 18 years old. 50% of Army men went to the Army Ground Forces, and 90% of those were assigned to replacement training centers, with 80% of them going to Infantry or Armored Force RTCs](https://history.army.mil/books/agf/AGF007/ch11b.htm). Due to a [manpower crunch which began in the Army in late 1943](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4yrj2r/ww2_ive_heard_contradicting_reports_on_how/?), fathers began to be drafted (many of whom had children born before Pearl Harbor and were over 30) and men with manageable sexually transmitted diseases, as well as mild physical and mental disabilities, were accepted beginning in early 1944. As a result of the receipt of many older or less physically qualified men, rejection rates at replacement training centers for unsuitability reached an all-time high in fall 1944. It was not uncommon to find 30 year old replacement privates with two or three children back home by winter 1944 as the manpower crisis began to bite.\n\nMost of the men serving with Company L in May 1944 were born in the late 1910s or early 1920s, with a few exceptions, As can be seen in the charts below, the average age of the draftee was lower than that of the federalized National Guard soldier, ~20-24 versus ~25-26.\n\n**Ages of 6 Federalized National Guard Officers of Company L, May 1944:**\n\nBirth Year (Age)|Men\n:--|:--\n1913 (30-31)|1 ([2nd Lt. John Campbell, O-1325554](https://imgur.com/a/1L4gV))\n1921 (22-23)|1 ([1st Lt. Francis S. Greenlief, O-1291268](https://imgur.com/a/X8FJq))\nUnknown|4 ([1st Lt. William D. Brodbeck, O-416863](https://imgur.com/a/qhxsI); 1st Lt. Dwight F. McCollister, O-1286325; Capt. James Lassiter, O-1290769; [2nd Lt. Lewis E. Dailey, O-1325357](https://imgur.com/a/tHooi))\n\n**Ages of 29 Federalized National Guard Enlisted Men of Company L, May 1944:**\n\nBirth Year (Age)|Men\n:--|:--\n1906 (37-38)|1\n1914 (29-30)|1\n1915 (28-29)|1\n1916 (27-28)|2\n1917 (26-27)|2\n1918 (25-26)|4\n1919 (24-25)|9\n1920 (23-24)|3\n1921 (22-23)|5\n1922 (21-22)|1\n\n**Ages of 69 Drafted Enlisted Men of Company L, May 1944:**\n\nBirth Year (Age)|Men\n:--|:--\n1906 (37-38)|2\n1907 (36-37)|3\n1908 (35-36)|2\n1909 (34-35)|3\n1910 (33-34)|3\n1911 (32-33)|4\n1912 (31-32)|1\n1913 (30-31)|1\n1914 (29-30)|2\n1915 (28-29)|3\n1916 (27-28)|1\n1917 (26-27)|3\n1918 (25-26)|1\n1919 (24-25)|1\n1920 (23-24)|5\n1921 (22-23)|8\n1922 (21-22)|7\n1923 (20-21)|6\n1924 (19-20)|9\n1925 (19)|3\n\nThe ranks of Company L would be torn asunder within days after it entered combat, being subject to the horrific attrition that characterized infantry fighting. By the end of the war, 44 of the 192 original men that crossed the Channel with it had been killed or died of wounds, and just 11 didn't become casualties.\n\nMonth|KIA|DOW|SWA|SIA|LWA|LIA|MIA|POW|Sick|NBC|Total\n:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--\n7/44|37|3|16||111|5|1|6|6|10|195\n8/44|9|1|7||36|6|3||15|3|80\n9/44|15||2|1|30||3|13|2|1|67\n10/44|3||||3||||3|2|11\n11/44|24||12||124|8|1||20|43|232\n12/44|8||13||46|7|22|89|14|3|202\n1/45|6||3|2|16|21|||14||62\t\n2/45|2||2||6|3|||10|1|24\n3/45|1||||28|1|||6||36\n4/45|||||4|1|||9||14\n5/45|||||||||2||2\nTotal|105|4|55|3|404|52|30|108|101|63|925", "created_utc": 1508701442, "distinguished": null, "id": "doqgkja", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/7825zd/in_world_war_ii_the_average_age_of_the_combat/doqgkja/", "score": 1414 }, { "body": "A mildly paranthetical, but still related point: I believe the voice reciting the bit on relative ages in conflicts on the song 19 was a sample of Will Lyman, the narrator for Stanley Karnow's VIETNAM series, which aired in the early 80s. ", "created_utc": 1508772001, "distinguished": null, "id": "dorst32", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/7825zd/in_world_war_ii_the_average_age_of_the_combat/dorst32/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I'll preface this by saying this is a complicated topic, every article is biased in some way or shape, it's truly difficult to find accurate information online, especially since I live in the West and do not speak Chinese, therefore it's truly hard to find some stuff, and since this is a political subject, my answer might also be biased in some way, I'll not hide this, although I'll try my best to not let that happen.\n\nSo, during the Korean War, most of the UN/US soldiers captured by the *Korean People's Army* (KPA for short), were given to the *Chinese People's Volunteer Army* (PVA for short), the internment camp most of this POWs were kept in a place near the Yalu River, which is near the border between NK and China, their situation is mainly explained by what we call here in the West as \"Leniency Policy\", what it means?\n\n*The Leniency Policy* was a different approach to deal with POWs, but before I explain it, you need to understand that before the war, the communist favor was all time high, therefore, the idea to proselytize these beliefs was accepted, even though we know that Communism is not a religion and it's entirely based on a scientific approach, this \"deviance\" from the norm, can be explained by the hundreds of years that religions like Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, etc., dominated Chinese culture and it's the foundation of their country, so...it's not too far fetched to understand why some of this favor was translated to the political cause. \n\nSo, what is the Leniency Policy? The best way for me to explain this is saying, an effort to through the use of psychological warfare, to indoctrinate POWs about communist ideas and history, through the use of regular study of political and historical communism, there was also a practice of asking the US POWs to write confessions about war crimes committed, some wrote personal war crimes they committed, others wrote about general war crimes committed by the country, such as the use of biological warfare (of course the US denied that), those confessions were used mainly as a propaganda, the POWs read this confessions in front of a camera and later it was broadcasted.\n\nThe leniency policy is called that because instead of the \"normal\" methods of torture and brutalizing the captured folk for battlefield information, it was used as a way to convert prisoners, we cannot simply say people weren't tortured, of course it happened, but it was **NOT** the intention; soldiers who accepted the teaching were offered better cells and rations, living an easier life inside the camps, according to the sources, it was devised into three groups.\n\n* **Progressives** → Those who made the confessions, agreed to the interrogators and simply complied with the system in place, we can argue some were just faking it, but there were those who truly converted.\n* **Reactionaries** → Those were the folk who vehemently refused to comply in spite of beatings and isolation, they believed themselves to be patriots and some were even members of the KKK, they considerate the progressives as traitors and conducted murders and attacks inside the camp\n* The last are called the **\"play it cool\"** folks, who agreed to some stuff, refused others, but generally kept their head low and did not tried to attract attention to themselves.\n\nThis the best answer I can give about this, the sources will go a lot more in-depth, but in order to truly grasp the situation of POW's during the Korean War, one needs to analyze both sides of the conflicts, if you want a thoroughly complete answer to your question, the US side of things need to explained as well, I could explain it, but since you did not specifically asked for it, I'll not write.\n\nOh another thing to keep in mind, some things are impossible to verify, there is some information China never released, North Korea is the same, so...any answer will come short in a few areas. Hope this is decent!\n\nSources:\n\n* Powell, T. (2021). Road to Empire: POWs and Total War in Korea. Socialism and Democracy, 1–50.\n* *The Hijacked War*: The Story of Chinese POWs in the Korean War. By DAVID\r \nCHENG CHANG. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2020.\n* Fitzpatrick, Meghan (2019). ‘Hard, primitive and below the belt’: The Korean War, Prisoners of War, and Training for Conduct After Capture. War in History. (I truly hated this source, but hey, I'll list it here anyway)", "created_utc": 1634510374, "distinguished": null, "id": "hh1hfop", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/q9z084/what_was_life_like_for_a_pow_under_the_north/hh1hfop/", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "See [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ajw517/what_changed_in_the_japanese_military_that_caused/ef0i505/) answer by /u/amp1212.", "created_utc": 1619069707, "distinguished": null, "id": "gvex4k3", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/mvo2qj/what_caused_imperial_japan_to_treat_prisoners_of/gvex4k3/", "score": 21 } ]

[ { "body": "I have interviewed several WWII veterans on this subject and read hundreds of soldier autobiographies and it depends entirely on the situation. The treatment of prisoners varies by country, the circumstances, and of course human emotion. \n\nThe countries had different ways of treating prisoners. The Japanese were well known to find those who surrender to be dishonorable. During the Bataan Death March the survivors recalled troops on passing by trucks sticking their bayonets out and decapitating POWs in the night, not to mention the lack of food and water that they gave them. Germany took prisoners took prisoners but also executed many of them too. During Operation Barbarossa, German High Command issued the \"Commissar Order\" explicitly stating all captured commissars to be shot, for Germany was trying to reduce rival party leaders. The U.S. took prisoners but there were also several cases where POWs were mass executed by U.S. troops. \n\nSoldiers could lose their temper and emotions and execute POW's. In North Africa a officer of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division had an incident when he had a soldier escort a group of 20 POWs back to HQ for interrogation/processing. After a short travel down the road the soldier opened fire and executed them all, for it turned out that the soldier he picked was Jewish. The Officer said he also choose to not report it because they were getting ready for a push in Sicily and he \"needed Everyman he could get\". Another soldier interview they talked about how his best friend was chosen to be a point man for a short recon with the officer and Sgt. when his friend got \"chewed in half\" by a German machine Gunner who then promptly raised his hand and surrendered seconds after killing him. He said that the new inexperienced office took the German prisoner which angered him, and their old officer that the new one replaced would have shot him on the spot. He said that he still regrets it to this day that they didn't kill the German. I have also heard several interviewed Normandy vets that they would just kill the S.S. for they were \"nasty B*******\". In the Biscari Massacre where U.S. soldiers executed 71 Italian POWs in cold blood, General Patton said \"I told Bradley that it was probably an exaggeration, but in any case to tell the Officer to certify that the dead men were snipers or had attempted to escape or something, as it would make a stink in the press and also would make the civilians mad. Anyhow, they are dead, so nothing can be done about it.\" Patton's opinion later changed when he found out the real facts and they decided to try the men culpable. Of the men who were culpable it was argued in their defense that they were operating under fatigue and emotional distress as well as following their generals orders that \"prisoners should be take under limiting circumstances\". The men were tried and both were eventually sent back into the war. With these first hand accounts it shows how hard it is to say the frequency that these events happen as it can be covered up or chosen to go unreported. However taking prisoners was frequent and most of the time it was done without a hitch, most archival footage I've seen has the POWs and soldiers appear to be pretty relaxed.\n\nThe circumstances was also an important deciding factor. The Biscari incident was not the only time prisoners were executed because of orders. During the Battle of Bastogne the Germans infamously killed 84 US POWs in the Malmedy Massacre. The Germans were at the start of a High risk offensive and couldn't risk being slowed down by the massive amount of prisoners they were receiving, so when they questioned the German CO what they should do with them he responded to just get rid of them. The men took it as an execution order, when the officer would later say he ment for the lower officers to figure it out on their own. The massacre turned out to hinder the offensive as the Americans were now afraid to surrender and would rather die fighting. I interviewed a vet that was part of the 176th Regiment that was massacred, however he and the men with him were sent to a concentration camp instead of being executed. When the war got near it's end and the fighting became more desperate, a vet said that German snipers started targeting Medics and it got so bad that they lost 3 in one day. At that point they agreed they wouldn't play fair either. \n\nSo the answer to your question is yes taking prisoners was sometimes dramatic and emotional for the soldiers, and POWs were very occasionally executed through vague orders and those emotions. The U.S. soldiers I've interviewed with REALLY didn't like taking SS prisoners for reasons of the deadlier encounters they had with them or because they were antisemetic extremists. While prisoner processing did slow down the advancing army, it follows the golden rule of \"treat others how you want to be treated\", and good treatment of prisoners might encourage more of the enemy to surrender rather than feeling backed in a corner.\n\nI hope this didn't stray too off topic, but I do find that the stories and events paint a good picture.\n\n\n\nSources: First hand Interviews with countless WWII USGIs\nAnd a bunch of books on firsthand accounts of the Italy and Bastogne fighting.", "created_utc": 1621588719, "distinguished": null, "id": "gyxb0br", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/nhd64f/in_world_war_ii_fiction_taking_prisoners_is/gyxb0br/", "score": 16 } ]

[ { "body": "About 2 months ago, I asked a WW2 question in one of the Saturday reading posts that never got answered. Though it doesn't have to do with the new CoD, it deals with the very first one.\n\n> A common setting in WW2 FPS games are small French communes and/or towns where you fight in skirmishes and/or small battles. For example, in the first *Call of Duty* game, you take part in the engagement at [Sainte-Mère-Église](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Mère-Église) What are some good books or articles that talk about WW2 engagements (such as Sainte-Mère-Église) which took place in small communes or towns?\n\nAnd as a followup question, how accurate are Call of Duty's representation of these small town battles anyway?", "created_utc": 1510498269, "distinguished": null, "id": "dppi4h5", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/7cfnnm/panel_ama_the_world_war_ii_of_call_of_duty/dppi4h5/", "score": 57 }, { "body": "Just how widespread was the usage of the \"reflex\" sight on weapons?\n\nThanks for doing this ama.", "created_utc": 1510500317, "distinguished": null, "id": "dppjf72", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/7cfnnm/panel_ama_the_world_war_ii_of_call_of_duty/dppjf72/", "score": 35 }, { "body": "Ok so I have a few questions, answer any you can. Thank you for doing the AMA.\n\n- During the very start of the game, we see aircraft numbering in the thousands flying directly over the Normandy beaches. Is this accurate? Or just a trope made to look cool?\n- Later in the game, you take control of an American aircraft pilot as he fends off enemy aircraft from bombers. How accurate is it for pilots to fly into enemy formations? Seems more like a suicide to me.\n- Does flak really explode in a \"poof of black smoke\" like that?\n- I recently read Bill Bellamys war memoir 'Troop Leader' and in it he's subject to a Nebelwurfer salvo. He is informed that these Nebelwurfers are so dangerous that they're crewed by Russians (Likely POWs but it never specifies). Is this true or likely to be a rumour? What made them so dangerous?\n- And, because nobody has asked it yet, what exactly happened at the Battle of Kasserine Pass?", "created_utc": 1510504464, "distinguished": null, "id": "dppme7k", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/7cfnnm/panel_ama_the_world_war_ii_of_call_of_duty/dppme7k/", "score": 21 } ]

[ { "body": "[This older answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bxf7gi/many_of_the_units_opposing_allied_landings_on/eq8mhqr/) should be of interest.", "created_utc": 1623161050, "distinguished": null, "id": "h112rts", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/nuwrsj/during_world_war_ii_did_the_germans_really_use/h112rts/", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm going to focus on the criticism of Japanese tactics in the defense of Okinawa, as well as a general overview of the doctrine of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and the general strategy of Japan in World War II for context.\n\nTo start with, I've talked about the IJA's doctrine [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/mygbvb/the_red_army_had_deep_battle_and_the_wehrmacht/gxcbu91/). To summarise, the IJA's doctrine was built around overcoming the undeniable economic reality that Imperial Japan lacked the ability to compete with its likely rivals (from the Army's perspective the Soviet Union) on a material basis. As such, the IJA sought to overcome this material inferiority with spiritual superiority. The enemy may have more and better weaponry and equipment, but the Japanese soldier would have a greater will to fight and would thus be willing to sacrifice more in order to achieve victory. To that end, IJA tactics were all about offensive action, to rely upon the greater fighting spirit of the Japanese soldier to quickly achieve victory, before the drain of attritional warfare could come to bear. \n\nThe overall Japanese strategy in the Pacific War had remained the same, though it had changed somewhat in execution. Japanese leadership had always known that they had no ability to compel the U.S. to surrender. The thought of Japanese soldiers landing in San Francisco, let alone advancing into the United States was laughable. Instead, the Japanese plan was to make the costs of war with Japan too high for the United States to pay, and that the U.S. would come to a negotiated settlement favorable to Japan. Originally, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had hoped to accomplish this via a decisive battle with the U.S. Navy. However, the campaigns of 1942--in particular the defeat at Midway and the extended Solomon Islands campaign--had weakened the IJN, while the superior economic output of the U.S. had come to bear. Thus, when the Japanese had tried to stage the decisive battle in defense of Saipan, the resulting Battle of the Philippine Sea had been a disaster for Japan, permanently crippling the IJN. However, despite this, the hope of making the cost of war too high for the U.S. to bear had remained the main goal of the Japanese military, in the hopes of bringing the U.S. to a negotiated settlement. \n\nWith that in mind, it's worth noting that the Japanese goal in defending islands like Okinawa and Iwo Jima was no longer \"keep the U.S. off the island\" or \"keep the islands airfield in operation\" it was \"hold out as long as possible to buy more time for the preparation of defenses on the Home Islands and inflict as many casualties on the U.S. as possible to underline Japanese.\" The hope was that by bleeding the U.S., the Americans would opt for a negotiated settlement, rather than insisting on unconditional surrender and risking an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. To that end, let's examine how Japanese island defense doctrine had evolved over the course of the Pacific War. In the beginning of the war, the IJA hadn't really had a special doctrine for the defense of islands. Rather, the IJA had simply adapted its guidelines on defending rivers to the defense of islands. This called for forward defenses on the waterline, with strong counterattacks intended to drive the enemy back into the sea. While this had indeed caused heavy casualties for U.S. forces landing on islands like Tarawa, it also meant that the battles for these islands were relatively short. The sheer amount of firepower that the U.S. could bring to bear, and their flexibility in being the attacker meant that--while the U.S. might suffer losses--they would almost certainly be able to force a landing somewhere on the island. Furthermore, Japanese forward defenses and counterattacking were more exposed to fire support from aircraft and ships, which helped blunt these attacks. This meant that once the Americans were ashore, they could relatively easily roll up Japanese defense now trapped in forward fighting positions or defeat Japanese counterattacks, quickly--if bloodily--securing the islands. However, Japanese doctrine was evolving, as shown by examples such as the extended defense of Peleliu. In October 1944, the IJA published an updated manual on counter-amphibious attack, which called for avoiding a defense of the waterline, and instead opting for a mobile defense of well fortified interior positions. Remaining on the defensive would avoid exposing Japanese forces to American firepower, and instead force the Americans to attack into well prepared defensive fortifications in depth. Indeed, the new doctrine seemed quite successful at Iwo Jima, for the first time in the island hopping campaign, the Americans suffered more casualties than the Japanese. \n\nI've only talked about here how Japanese tactics for island defense evolved over the course of the war, and the guiding principle behind those changes in tactics. Suffice it to say, Japanese tactics were heavily constrained by the situation they found themselves in, as Japan had always had issues in equipping its forces, due to its limited industrial base. However, Japanese tactics overall can be pointed back to the guiding principles of the IJA, which had always emphasised superior fighting spirit, manifested in aggressive offensive action to bring about quick victories. This is not to even touch on the IJN, which arguably had the world's most effective carrier doctrine in 1941 or general Japanese air doctrine. It's always worth noting that American observers often mischaracterised Japanese actions, both due to racist stereotypes of the Japanese, and their own lack of knowledge as to the factors the Japanese were trying to overcome. A classic example of this comes from the air war, where Allied observers would routinely characterises Japanese aircraft as attacking in uncoordinated \"swarms\". However, from the Japanese perspective, they were flying in well ordered formations, but the lack of effective radio meant that aircraft were constantly maneuvering in order to maintain situational awareness and ensure pilots were watching all approaches. To the Allied point of view, this maneuvering seemed as though the Japanese were flying without formation at all. I would not be overly reliant on first hand American accounts of Japanese tactics to criticise those tactics.", "created_utc": 1629910228, "distinguished": null, "id": "hab9ebi", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/pb8rrq/were_the_japanese_during_world_war_ii_considered/hab9ebi/", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "Overall, the soviets were actually very well equipped in 1941, with many of the war defining weapons already adopted and made in large numbers. Tanks such as the KV series, T-34, and thousands of inter-war period tankettes and scout tanks and armoured vehicles, a rather large number of semi-automatic rifles at a time when nearly all continental powers were entirely bolt-action based, a very large degree of motorization thanks in large part to licensed production with Ford through GAZ, effective and standardized artillery modules available in large numbers, and a large fairly modern airforce (for the time). Most of this equipment was well tested in the wars preceding Germanies invasion such as in Finland, the Spanish Civil War, and Khalkin Gol, and was already in the process of being modernized and replaced (such as the PPD-40 being decommisioned in '39, in favor of the simplified PPSH.) The Soviet economy was vertically planned from right after the end of the Russian civil war two decades before to beef up military capabilities and avoid the humiliating defeats Russia suffered in WW1 due to military backwardness. Not merely on paper, but materially the Soviet armed forces were at the time probably the most formidable in the world, and across the board plans were already in motion for further modernization in hand with the rapid military industrialization.\n\nWhat they crucially lacked however was not even leadership, but the ability to exercise it. Despite losing huge numbers of experienced officers in the Purge, there were still a good number of officers with lifetimes of leadership experience or natural talent such as Zhukov, Rossokovsky, and others. However, because of the purge, and the overriding climate of fear which was instilled by Stalin during this period, most of these talented officers were unable to exert much control over their actual commands, and caution and textbook leadership decisions prevailed. Orders were given rigidly from above regardless of understanding on the ground, and although sometimes this was actually beneficial in the cases of inexperienced new officers, in most cases the catastrophic losses in the first months of Barbarossa were direct results of these orders and allowed the more flexible German command structure to simply run circles around the static Russian positions.\n\nThe experience and training of the soldiers on the ground in '41, was probably on par with most nations at the time if even better because of the combat experience, albeit disastrous, which many soldiers would have recently had during the winter war. However, overall Soviet Military doctrine, even the nascent Deep Operations theory placed great emphasis on large scale movements, and offensive operations, possibly to the detriment of small, low level decision making and defensive experience, but there remained a legacy going back to Brusilov in WW1 in the Soviet military of specialized shock training for certain detachments, and in this way small unit tactics were still being honed. Soviet infantry were probably in general just as the rest of the military; well equipped, and experienced, but not well led. The thinking and theorizing was definitely there, but like everywhere else there were organizational catastrophes going on in the Army which prevented their realization in 41, which resulted in a great proportion of the most experienced soldiers being wiped out early on.\n\nBy 1943, the slow process of reorganizing the Military was beginning to bear fruit, and a leaner, far more experienced and even equipped infantrymen would be facing Germans. In later 41 and 42 the Soviets had thrown much of their complex military organizations, such as large independent tank divisions, out the window in favor of more manageable, yet large military structures, and the leadership and tactics at a lower level no doubt reflected these less complex structures as well. In 43 however, they began to return to the more intricate structures with smaller commands, and you would likely have begun to see smaller scale leadership improve as well. Deep Operations became the dogma again, and with it came a greater degree of autonomous delegation on the front-lines. In terms of equipment, the huge losses suffered in 41 had been overcome and things were turning around. Soviet production of small arms drastically outpaced that of the Germans in many key areas, notably automatic adoption. In 41, the emphasis for infantry equipment was a higher proportion of semi-automatic rifles such as the Tokarev SVT. By 1943 they decided to bypass this, and bolt actions were now paired with enormous amounts of submachine guns reaching the frontlines. Whereas the German war industries sought in every sphere to be masters, Soviet production had always emphasized doing one thing well, and doing a lot of it, though some things would remain woefully outdated.\n\nBy 1945, the differences in the these military philosophies had become even more stark. Whereas the average German soldier would still be using a bolt action rifle, and most likely not using motorized transport even this late, with a small number of far more elite troops using very advanced weapons and mechanized transport, the Soviets had continued to produce their tried and true equipment such as the PPSH, except in enormous quantities. It got to the point where entire infantry companies (~100-150 soldiers) would be entirely equipped with sub-machine guns, something uncommon even to the lavishly supplied US soldiers of the time, and producing devastating levels of firepower. Whereas in 41 and 42 very hastily trained Soviet soldiers flooded the ranks to stem the tide of the German onslaught, by 1945 the most hardened Soviet veterans remained, and they faced on average woefully inexperienced, under or overaged and infirm German adversaries. Another final change from 43 to 45 however would be that Lend-lease shipments began to affect things for the average infantry in earnest. Most notably Soviet soldiers motorization skyrocketed, and for once Soviet logistics were almost entirely freed from being tied down by the Rail-head.", "created_utc": 1532627573, "distinguished": null, "id": "e32y82v", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/922eb1/i_am_a_soviet_soldier_in_world_war_ii_what_is_the/e32y82v/", "score": 691 } ]

[ { "body": "The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had a legendarily poor inter-service relationship, with a very strong rivalry between the two branches of the Imperial military. This rivalry in turn indeed impacted Japan's ability to properly project power, as often decisions of policy or operations was based as much on the political needs of cooperating between the two branches of the Imperial military as it was Japan's actual interests or the needs of combat operations. \n\n\nAt this point it's helpful to discuss at least some of the reasons why the inter-service rivalry between the two branches was so extreme. For a variety of reasons, when the IJA was established, the General Staff reported directly to the Emperor and bypassed the civilian cabinet completely. Later, when the IJN received its own independent General Staff, this body also reported directly to the Emperor. The Emperor, for his part, was the Supreme Commander of both the Army and the Navy, but custom and tradition commanded that he remain mostly detached and not take an overly active role in managing the government. Importantly, there was no unified body responsible for coordination between the IJA and IJN short of an Imperial Conference between the two branches with the Emperor in attendance. This meant that while there were draft Imperial Defence Policies created and circulated, they were ultimately little more than two entirely separate operational plans from both the Army and the Navy with little thought given to crafting a true unified strategy for Japan. There was no effort made to craft a unified view that would apply *all* of Japan's resources to a particular strategic vision. Rather, the Army and Navy each pursued their own version of the same. \n\n\nThe Army, for its part, saw Japan's main interests as on continental Asia, and thus the main threat to Japan's security as first a potentially revanchist Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. The Navy on the other hand, sought to increase its own relevance in order to create further justifications for its expansion, and so made its main rival the United States. Importantly, when the Navy initially decided that it would begin building against the US, there was little in the way of direct conflict between the US and Japan. Rather, the United States Navy served as a simple budgetary enemy for the IJN, enabling the IJN to demand a fleet capable of challenging the US Navy. When combined with Japan's relatively limited resources--not only shares of the national budget, but also resource allocations like steel--these completely separate targets resulted in both the IJA and IJN squabbling against each other for resource allocations. While some of these demands could be relieved by squeezing resources out of the civilian sector, ultimately, an increased focus on one service meant a reduction of resources for the other. The two branches simply refused to work together, resulting in a duplication of efforts on a variety of fronts. One example helps to illustrate this, pulled from Mark Peattie's \\*Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941\\* : \n\n\n> An example of the obdurate nature of such interservice suspicion and hostility was provided by Germany’s wartime naval attaché to Tokyo, Capt. Paul Wennacker. After the war Wennacker recalled that during a tour of the Nakajima aircraft plant he was first guided by several naval officers around the navy’s development and manufacturing division of the plant. At the conclusion of the tour, the navy men opened a door that had been kept tightly closed. Here the naval officers bade him good-bye, and on the other side of the door a group of army officers took him on a tour of their section of the plant, an area to which the navy officers had no access. \n\n \nTo say that interservice relations were \"poor\" is a bit of an understatement. \n\nThis divide was astoundingly apparent in the immediately lead up to the Pacific War. The IJA had found itself heavily tied down by the apparently endless war in China, and its eyes had turned southward to the European colonies in South East Asia (the Navy's traditional area of interest). The Army hoped that operations there would not only seize resources vital for Japan's economy and war machine, but also help isolate China from the West, which the Army hoped would enable them to finally win the war. Operations in the South would require cooperation with the Navy, which was all too happy to play a dangerous game, using the Army's need for their aid to demand increased resource allocations to prepare for war against the United States and the European colonial powers, while also attempting to avoid provocations against the same, as the IJN doubted its ability to defeat the European and American fleets. These internal political squabbles between the IJN and IJA ultimately led to the decision to occupy all of French Indochina as a \"compromise\" between the two, which set the final chain of events in motion that would culminate at Pearl Harbor. \n\n\nDuring the war itself, cooperation between the IJA and IJN remained fraught at best. While the initial offensive operations had gone well, once these were completed, the lack of strategy meant that the IJA and IJN were effectively at odds with what they were to do now that they had achieved much of what they had set out to. The IJA was more defensively minded and wanted to fortify Japan's early conquests and was very hesitant about future aggressive operations. The IJN on the other hand, sought to keep expanding Japan's defensive perimeter by launching operations to defeat the remnants of the US Pacific Fleet and also further isolate Australia. This lack of strategic vision caused by the limited cooperation between the two branches resulted in Japanese operations in the spring of 1942 to be far more haphazard, with forces spread out engaged in limited operations to satisfy the demands of the Army in order to support Navy operations and vice-versa. This dispersal was one factor (among many others) in what led to the Japanese disaster at the Battle of Midway. \n\n\nI hope this has helped to answer your question. Please let me know if you have any follow ups.", "created_utc": 1620060898, "distinguished": null, "id": "gwswajb", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/n2wp5o/how_bad_was_the_interservice_rivalry_in_the/gwswajb/", "score": 26 } ]

[ { "body": "The Royal Navy did not abandon dive bombing, as such. Throughout the war, it operated strike aircraft capable of making dive bombing attacks, although they were not designed solely for the purpose. It started the war with the Skua, a dive-bomber/fighter. This had several successes in the dive-bombing role, most notably the sinking of *Konigsberg* during the German invasion of Norway. However, it was a poor fighter, and was retired from frontline service in 1941 as a result. After this, the Fleet Air Arm's strike capability centred on its TSR (Torpedo Strike Reconnaisance) aircraft. The Swordfish and Albacore, with their low speed, could be used for dive bombing, albeit at shallower angles of dive than purpose-built dive bombers. The Swordfish was commonly used for this task in the Mediterranean. Notably, of the 21 Swordfish that raided the Italian base at Taranto in November 1940, five were tasked with making dive-bombing attacks on cruisers and destroyers in the anchorage of the Mare Piccolo. Four more had the primary task of dropping flares to illuminate the harbour, with the secondary task of dive bombing targets of opportunity. The successor to the Swordfish and Albacore was the Fairey Barracuda. Like the earlier aircraft, this was a multirole aircraft, capable of dropping both torpedoes and dive bombing. The Barracuda was fitted with large Fairey-Youngman flaps. These, as well as giving it good low-speed performance for landing on carriers, had a special setting which allowed them to serve as dive brakes. Again, this capability was often used. Barracudas made dive-bombing attacks against *Tirpitz* in the Norwegian fjords, and against Japanese targets in the Far East.\n\nWhile all of these aircraft were able to dive bomb, none of them had been designed solely for this, unlike their foreign counterparts. The Skua was a dive bomber and fighter, while the Swordfish, Albacore and Barracuda were also torpedo bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. The reason for this multi-role focus largely lies in the pre-war system of procurement for British naval aircraft. Between 1918 and 1939, the Fleet Air Arm was a part of the Royal Air Force, under the auspices of the Air Ministry. The Air Ministry was largely responsible for the procurement of naval aircraft. The Navy (from 1924) set the requirements for new naval aircraft, but the Air Ministry set the numbers of aircraft that were to be purchased. The Air Ministry was more interested in strategic bombing than in naval aviation, and so tended to underfund the Fleet Air Arm. The RN never got as many aircraft as it wanted. This meant that the RN tended to build carriers with smaller aviation contingents than the USN or IJN did. It also affected the specifications the RN set for new aircraft. As the RN had comparatively few aircraft, it needed to maximise the capabilities of the aircraft it did have. This was done by making the aircraft multi-role, capable of doing more than one job. \n\nThat said, the RN definitely preferred torpedo bombing as a means of attacking ships. The torpedo was a more damaging weapon, and more versatile. Dive bombers could only damage an unarmoured target. Torpedoes could be used against any sort of ship. A bomb could start fires and damage a ship's superstructure, but was unlikely to do damage that would sink a ship. Torpedoes, which damaged a ship's hull directly, were much more likely to sink a ship. Dive bombers required a long, steady approach at high altitude, making them vulnerable to fighters and flak. Torpedo bombers, meanwhile, could take more evasive action during their approach; British doctrine for torpedo attacks called for the attacking aircraft to make rapid, extreme changes in height and bearing. Dive bombing attacks were harder to make at night, especially against moving ships. However, this approach would soften as the war progressed and the British learned from American experience in the Pacific. The RN's appreciation of the Battle of Midway suggested that dive bombers were much more important for fighting carriers; the damage done by dive bombers would neutralise the carrier's ability to launch aircraft, while the torpedo was only useful to finish them off. The conclusion of the report indicated that in future, carriers should carry more dive bombers than torpedo bombers.", "created_utc": 1610813884, "distinguished": null, "id": "gjh1enk", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/kyjx6f/why_did_the_royal_navy_in_world_war_ii_seem_to/gjh1enk/", "score": 29 } ]

[ { "body": "/u/commiespaceinvader has previously answered [What was Nazi Germany's endgame for *Western* Europe?](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6hmn23/what_was_nazi_germanys_endgame_for_western_europe/)", "created_utc": 1626487884, "distinguished": null, "id": "h5gzsdh", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/olnt2q/what_was_germanys_plan_for_britain_and_their/h5gzsdh/", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Part I\n\nOn the bright side, you're in good (well, maybe not exactly morally) company. 16 million men served in World War II, and there were 2 million courts martial convened. There were probably tens of millions of non judicial punishments (NJP) below that - one particularly notable Navy miscreant went through 61 Masts along with his 9 court martials - but there's no way to really tell the actual totals of NJP handed out as the overwhelming majority of both crimes and punishments never made it to someone's personnel file (jacket).\n\nNow the only good news for you is that despite The Articles for the Governance of the Navy aka [Rocks and Shoals](https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/a/articles-government-united-states-navy-1930.html) getting its memorable nickname from one of the 20 Hanging Offenses named in Article 4 (\"The punishment of death or such other punishment as a court martial shall adjudge...may be visited on any person...[who] intentionally or willfully suffers any vessel of the Navy to be stranded, or run upon rocks or shoals, or improperly hazarded or maliciously or willfully injures any vessel of the Navy...\"), Absent Over Leave isn't among the crimes that can get you charged with the death penalty.\n\nIn general, those are limited to actions that directly put ship and crew in mortal peril, be it insubordination, sleeping on watch, or behaving improperly while engaged with the enemy. A marvelous if fictional illustration of the last that's well worth reading is in the book version of the *Caine Mutiny*, when the mutineers' attorney presents a defense that his clients' actions were in direct response to Captain Queeg behaving with cowardice in the face of the enemy, which in Queeg's position as CO is particularly devastating as it constitutes four separate Article 4 offenses. The initial reaction of the court when he begins to do so is shock and a bit of outrage. That gets replaced when they all have the grim realization that not only do the mutineers have potential grounds for an acquittal but the court itself now is faced with a capital case against the authority that convened the whole mess in the first place - and that it's likely far stronger than the one argued against the mutineers.\n\nBut you still made the bad mistake of being Absent Over Leave (AOL), tripping Number 19 (\"Or is absent from his station or duty without leave or after his leave has expired\") of the 22 Article 8 offenses that require court martial, like when one runs their ship upon rocks and shoals through inattention or negligence instead of intentionally. In and of itself, that's not terrible. If you commit a potential capital offense under Article 4, the Navy must try you in front of a general court martial - the highest level available - because only that panel has the authority to decide whether to impose the death penalty.\n\nArticle 8, though? You'll usually end up with a summary (3 man) or special (1 man) court martial. This is generally to your significant benefit since the lower the level of the court martial, the lower the punishment it can impose. Instead the potential of life in prison or forfeiting your pay for the rest of your career, the more junior court martials have significant caps on the severity of punishments available - like a maximum of one year in the brig and 6 months of pay being forfeited. Unfortunately, since it's a named Article 8 offense, the option of Mast isn't available, where the maximum punishment drops to around the 60 day range and in lieu of that often included a couple weeks of the legendary bread and water diet, which remarkably took until the 2010s to be eliminated.\n\nHere's the even greater upside of less serious charges: if you can present a good defense you might even have a shot of walking away scot-free. In fact, while CO of *Lexington* in the early 30s, one then-Captain Ernest King was outraged to discover that a cook who had been a day late reporting back from home leave had run afoul of a local sheriff. That sheriff knew if he'd detained the sailor he had the poor guy in between a rock and a hard place: either he'd have to pay a bribe for release or likely lose at least a month's pay when getting back to the ship late. King intervened in the court martial and released the cook without punishment, turned the tables, and called in several Federal agencies to prosecute the sheriff.\n\nSo in general - both back then and today - you're usually going to want to be brought before the lowest level hearing that's available. Except what you (and 75% of the others who went AOL/AWOL at the time, with 84% admitting later they'd have never done so had they known) probably weren't aware of is that if your AOL took place and caused you to miss your ship...the Navy automatically escalated that straight back up to a general court martial.\n\nOops.\n\n(Edit: added special court martials, which despite one source claiming otherwise did apparently exist pre-UCMJ per the Manual of Courts Martial 1921. Edit 2: Article 8, not Article 4, and cleaned up the junior court martial section.)", "created_utc": 1586245193, "distinguished": null, "id": "fmo4lyj", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/fw8qx7/im_an_american_seaman_second_class_on_a_usn/fmo4lyj/", "score": 88 }, { "body": "I forgot to specify, the shore leave pass I got was for 24 hours.", "created_utc": 1586216737, "distinguished": null, "id": "fmn2c7v", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/fw8qx7/im_an_american_seaman_second_class_on_a_usn/fmn2c7v/", "score": 26 } ]

[ { "body": "More can definitely be said, but you might want to check out this [answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cl4gw8/comment/evtcez1) I wrote about convoys to the USSR along the North Pacific route.\n\nIn short: there definitely was a North Pacific sea route, plus an air route (ALSIB). The major issues with using this route were: both got supplies to the remote \"wrong\" end of the USSR compared to where they were needed, and required extensive transportation across the USSR once delivered. Also the USSR and Japan were not at war with each other until August 1945, while the US and UK were at war with Japan, so supplies sent by sea had to be carried by Soviet merchant vessels.", "created_utc": 1620828673, "distinguished": null, "id": "gxusmv6", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/naoxiw/the_arctic_convoys_of_world_war_ii_often_skirted/gxusmv6/", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "From my limited knowledge, it seems that Soviet women were much more active in combat roles than in the militaries of the other combatants. If that is the case, would the main reason be the desperation of the Russian military situation or is it representative of different attitudes to gender in the USSR?", "created_utc": 1543669461, "distinguished": null, "id": "eaunps7", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/a22qb9/the_world_war_ii_battlefield_v_panel_ama/eaunps7/", "score": 55 }, { "body": "In one of my university courses, women in war was discussed. The only notable combat service that was shared in the class was that of the Russians, specifically in the air doing bombing raids and the like.\n\nOther than Resistance groups, did any other major militaries/countries deploy women in combat roles, or in situations where they would reasonably or likely be found to have had to take up arms for defense of a base or camp?", "created_utc": 1543669599, "distinguished": null, "id": "eaunttg", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/a22qb9/the_world_war_ii_battlefield_v_panel_ama/eaunttg/", "score": 28 }, { "body": "Hey there everyone! Thank you for hosting this AMA. \n\nTo start with a (probably) straightforward, but very ignorant question: Who were the French Tirailleurs and what did they do? \n\nFor a much less straightforward but still very ignorant question, what is the legacy of their involvement in World War Two and what is their place in the historical memory of modern France?", "created_utc": 1543669404, "distinguished": null, "id": "eauno09", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/a22qb9/the_world_war_ii_battlefield_v_panel_ama/eauno09/", "score": 15 } ]

[ { "body": "Content Warning: We're talking about issues involving race, colonialism, cultural appropriation, and history of people who weren't writing their own history at the time all this happened. I'm also not a full-on historian, just a tikiphile who's also interested in keeping my fandom of the genre respectful, so consider this amateur work. I'm 100% hopeful someone with better context can fill in the gaps and/or correct me here.\n\nBackground:\n\nThe American \"Tiki\" scene (I'm going to use Polynesian Pop Culture or PPC from here on out) got started before WW2 with some themed restaurants that became wildly successful on the west coast. The earliest on record is Don the Beachcomber's, a restaurant started by the son of a prohibition-era rum bootlegger named Ray Gantt who eventually changed his legal name to Donn Beach. His restaurant was decorated with \"beachcomber\" style artifacts (nautical, tropical, vaguely referencing prior ideas like Robinson Crusoe, etc) and featured a menu of mostly Cantonese cuisine with made up names (Crab Rangoon anyone? Rangoon - now Yangon - ~~is a Tibetan city, far from the ocean~~ with help from /u/sukritact adding context, Yangon is coastal, but the dish is absolutely not traditional or from the city, and cream cheese was never a traditional Asian ingredient) and riffs of traditional Caribbean rum-based drinks with likewise fantastical marketing names.\n\nThe other major known influence was the restaurant and resulting chain named Trader Vic's, created by Vic Bergeron in Oakland, California. The restaurant was originally known as \"Hinky Dink's\" in 1934 and featured an Alaskan adventure theme, but quickly converted to a nautical theme as Vic discovered Don the Beachcomber and loved the gimmick.\n\nCheck this link out for more info on how this all went down, and pay particular attention to the second photo, which is ca. late 1930s Don the Beachcomber's Hollywood restaurant. Note the lack of Polynesian-influenced imagery - it's just bamboo, plants, and Japanese fishing floats. No tapa cloth patterns, no \"tikis,\" nothing like that.\n\nhttps://www.foodrepublic.com/2016/10/24/inside-don-the-beachcomber-the-original-tiki-bar/\n\nThe PPC influence came later, with the rise of post-war interest in the South Pacific. Some early broad cultural references were the Rogers & Hammerstein film \"South Pacific,\" a musical reinterpretation on the James Michener novel \"Tales of the South Pacific,\" a huge hit both in literary and musical form, as well as Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition and subsequent 1950 documentary film and book.\n\nThat, combined with stories from American GIs returning from the Pacific theater seemed to create a gestalt imagining of a tropical paradise. \n\nI'm not sure exactly when the PPC imagery got blended in, but it was definitely some time in the early 1940s - Trader Vic's famous drink the Mai Tai was created in 1944, and the same phrase was used to name a separate drink in Donn Beach's notebook possibly as early as 1933. \"Mai Tai\" as a phrase is definitely of Polynesian origin, regardless of the origin story of the drink, with Vic's story claiming the name came from a Tahitian friend who was an early taste tester of the concoction - so by 1944 there was already some Polynesian influence at least in the naming of food and drinks.\n\nhttps://beachbumberry.com/recipe-mai-tai.html\n(Jeff Berry is the historian of tiki drink recipes, and is pretty much the authority on historicity of when these things happened. Read his notes here on the origins of the Mai Tai drink.)\n\nGetting to the timing of when Polynesian imagery started being imported into the emerging American \"tropical bar\" trent, the most interesting to me is the \"Goof,\" the mascot of a bar called Christian's Hut on Shelter Island in San Diego, which got started during the filming of \"Mutiny on the Bounty\" in 1935. I don't know when the \"Goof\" mascot got started, but by all reports it's earlier than the \"tiki\" imagery that resulted when Christian's Hut was rebuilt in the late 1950s as Bali Hai in the same location. This link has a photo of the Goof on the back of a panel van in 1953:\n\nhttps://classicsandiego.com/restaurants/christians-hut-san-diego/\n\nThe final thing to mention here is that in 1959, Hawaii was brought officially into the United States as the 50th state (along with Alaska). US interests, along with the rise of air travel opened up tourism to Hawaii in a way that had never happened before. American interest in the South Pacific was never higher, and tourists were bringing home Hawaiian carvings of pre-Christian gods as souvenirs (many, probably most, of which weren't artifacts, but were carvings made by native Hawaiians for the tourist trade.)\n\nPPC and its implications:\n\nNow we're late 1940s moving into the 1950s and for whatever reason, Polynesian cultural imagery is now incorporated into the American tropical bar trope. The bars got bigger and more elaborate - the biggest of which boasted floor shows with native Islander entertainers performing traditional dances and staging full floor shows with hula, fire dancing, drumming, and other cultural performances from Polynesian cultures all across the Pacific. There is one remaining giant palace from those days, currently closed due to rain damage over the last year, but with all intentions of re-starting service once some investment can be found if anyone wants to travel and see what things were like then - it's in Fort Lauderdale, Florida:\n\nhttps://www.maikai.com/\n\nBartenders, likewise, were in large part from the Pacific, but many were of Filipino, not Polynesian, heritage. Mario Licudine of the Mai Kai, became famous after serving as staff bartender at Don the Beachcomber's for over a decade. A lot of the other bar staff were also Filipino.\n\nhttps://www.maikaihistory.com/2017/07/27/mariano-licudine-the-houdini-of-the-liquids/\n\nSome more history for context:\n\nThe idols, ancestor images, and god carvings were almost entirely cultural, not spiritual art by the time of the American PPC explosion. European colonialism and the spread of Christianity had for the most part wiped out a lot of the spiritual traditions of Polynesian cultures. There were (and are) some holdouts - in particular (from my experience - I don't have a lot of scholarly reference here - people who have more please add in!) New Zealand Maori culture managed to hang on to a lot of its oral history. There's a huge difference in visiting Hawaii versus New Zealand in how Polynesian imagery is handled - In Hawaii, there's a lot of tourist and pop culture imagery (less now than there were in the 50s) compared to New Zealand where there's more of a living tradition. Hawaii does have some cultural continuation, but the plantation and exploitation was more complete in the Hawaiian islands from what I've been able to put together.\n\nResponses I've seen:\n\nI've been to several \"Tiki\" scene history discussions, particularly focusing on the Mai Kai and its family business history - at this point, the family who runs the Mai Kai is pretty much of Islander descent - a lot of care was taken by the founders to represent its heritage and staff well, to the point that the founders married Islander people and their descendants are operating the place now. The interviews and comments were all positive - promoting Pacific cultures, outreach, etc. \n\nPersonal comment: from a family business whose prosperity is based on the business, this is understandable. But I'm a white dude who is only relaying what I've heard - I am not in any position to pass a value judgement.\n\nI haven't seen any direct commentary particularly of mid-century contemporary responses from Islanders. \n\nThere's some scholarly study that I'm aware of, but I have not had the opportunity to read much of it. Some older, some very modern. A lot of the earlier study was focused on the impact of tourism in general to Polynesian identity. I've not seen a lot specifically referencing American tropical bars and their use of PPC. Here's some links I've had bookmarked for a while - I can't get past the paywalls and/or they're books I have yet to read:\n\nhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/25169171\n\nhttps://www.atiner.gr/journals/tourism/2014-1-2-1-Caneen.pdf\n\nhttps://www.academia.edu/30777117/The_Cultures_of_Tiki\n\nhttps://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/reviews/6167193/smith-arvin-possessing-polynesians-science-settler-colonial-whiteness\n\nThe next-to-last is available behind an odd login wall, but has an excellent reading list and is well cited.\n\nThere's TONS of modern commentary, from apologists within the tiki community as well as criticism from both within and without. That's pretty easily available from a Google search. I'd love to see contemporary comments if anyone has them - American culture in the mid-20th century was definitely not recording much sentiment from Islanders, although looking at the Hawaiian tourism angle might be a good route to dig up adjacent opinions.\n\nEdits over time to fix typos, links, etc. I also removed a \"this isn't a super comprehensive\" disclaimer 'cause I wound up going way more in depth than I thought I would.", "created_utc": 1620328263, "distinguished": null, "id": "gx6o00t", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/n66mci/what_was_the_general_sentiment_of_pacific/gx6o00t/", "score": 86 } ]

[ { "body": "The question of resources was a major underlying factor in what drove Japan's aggressive stance and action in the Pacific and East Asia. While oil is usually touted as the foremost resource in question, issues such as steel production were as important, if not more so, than oil. \n\nI am not going to comment on Germany, as that is well outside my area of expertise. However, in Japan's case, its expansion and desire for empire was not solely about oil, but rather, oil was a small portion of a much more deep set goal for the Empire. Indeed, at the time of the American oil embargo in the summer of 1941, the oil cut off was not at the absolute forefront of Japanese policy maker's minds. For quite some time before, the US had been seeking out ways to reduce oil exports to Japan, without resorting to a full embargo, via various export restrictions related to the US's own military build up. Of equal or greater concern was the steady closing off of export options for machine tools, chemicals, specialty alloys, and other such goods from the US, as well as the asset freeze, which crippled Japan's ability to acquire further resources on the international market (what little of an international market that was left, given the war in Europe).\n\nHowever, all of this is ultimately secondary, because while the asset freeze and full oil embargo may well have been the final straw that convinced Japanese leadership that the Southern Advance was their only option, the deterioration in US-Japanese relations that led the US to take such measures was only in place because of Japan's own continued aggressive warring throughout the 1930s and into the 40s. It cannot be overstated how much of a presence the War in China had for Japanese policy making. Ultimately, it was the inability of Japan and the US to come to an understanding over China that led to the increasing economic pressure placed on Japan by the US in an effort to limit further Japanese aggression, which in turn led Japan to striking South, and going to war with the West.\n\nYet how did we get to the War in China? It was not a war that many Japanese policy makers wanted. In the aftermath of World War I, the lesson Japan took away was that any future war would be a total war. Prior to World War I, Japanese war planning tended to assume that--whoever Japan was fighting--there would be neutral powers available for trade and loans in order to provide both the resources and financing that Japan lacked domestically. Moreover, the war would likely be short, completed while Japan had reserves of resources to rely upon. Yet, World War I had seen what was arguably the world's preeminent industrial power, Germany, completely cut off from wider international markets, and forced to slowly wither away, its advanced industrial base starved of resources over a long, attritional war. How to deal with this threat would form the core of Japanese foreign and even domestic policy throughout the interwar period, and the proposed solution was autarky: a Japan that would not be vulnerable to interruption of international trade, and could support a full war economy on its own resources.\n\nIn the late 1920s, the Cabinet Resources Bureau conducted a series of studies and exercises to develop a full scale mobilisation plan, that would determine what wartime demand for resources would be, and how Japan could meet those demands. While the plan was never fully drafted (its calculations would be thrown off by the Mukden Incident in 1931), early studies had shown that if Japan was to support a war economy, it could not limit itself to domestic resources in Home Islands and Korea. Access to additional resources would have to be acquired, and nearby Manchuria was the first goal. Manchurian iron deposits could become desperately needed steel, while coal deposits offered the prospect of synthetic oil for the Navy. While the Japanese had long had a strategic interest in Manchuria, seeing it as vital to securing their continental flank against Russia, the need for resources deepened the interest in controlling Manchuria economically, not just the strategically key railways. As Chiang Kai-Shek's efforts to unify China under the Kuomintang banner came closer to fruition, and it became clear that he would not be willing to grant Japan the economic concessions in Manchuria they desired, the Kwantung Army took matters into its own hands, and occupied Manchuria on its own authority.\n\nThe occupation of Manchuria, in turn, sparked Japanese interest in northern China as a whole, both to secure their new critical resource base in the puppet state of Manchukuo, but also for further sources of potential resources. To this end, the Army supported efforts to create either a wholly independent northern Chinese state that would be susceptible to Japanese domination, or at least an autonomous north with substantial economic concessions. This led to a continued intermingling of Japanese and local Chinese forces, while heavy handed Japanese rule increased Chinese distaste for Japan, while the Army's typical response strategy of massive response to every threat to \"show strength\" laid the groundwork for a minor skirmish at the Marco Polo bridge in 1937 to escalate into a full scale war. In its efforts to \"bring an end to the war\", the Japanese often sought to expand it, committing more troops to the ongoing struggle in the north, landing an invasion force at Shanghai, and eventually the occupation of Indochina, all to try and \"end the war\".\n\nAn interesting note throughout this whole process was how those total war planners in Japan were constant advocates for maintaining peace with the West. These total war planners sought to try and stabilize the situation in China, both to secure Manchukuo's southern flank in the even of war with the Soviet Union, but also to prevent a war that would drain resources at the same time as Japan was seeking to build up its industrial base.The US in particular was a critical source for technology, capital goods, and other necessary materials to establish an expanded Japanese industrial base that could support an autarkic total war economy, and development of economic concessions in northern China could be a vital resource for further economic development. To go to war with China held the potential to completely derail Japanese development plans, if the war dragged on. And drag on it did.\n\nThe war in China thus presented an almost insurmountable quagmire for Japan. The Army would not countenance withdrawal, arguing that this would be showing weakness that would only lead to future incursions. It was also draining the Japanese economy, as resources meant for further industrial build up were pulled into more immediate needs for supplying the War in China, and the United States became increasingly hostile. Moreover, the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1939 further worsened the situation, as prices for key materiel vital to war industries increased due to European demand, and the United States tightened up its export control regime to retain resources for its own military buildup. Simultaneously, the US wished to place economic pressure on Japan, hoping that such pressure would lead to a restoration of more moderate civilian leaders, rather than militarists, with whom the US could then negotiate with. Japanese demands for an almost exclusive economic zone in China, including recognition of Manchukuo were incompatible with US goals of maintaining the Open Door policy, and this incompatibility proved an immovable stumbling block in the continued US-Japanese negotiations that would ultimately culminate in the attack on Pearl Harbor.\n\nSo, to sum up, while economic and resource concerns loomed large in the mind of Japanese policy makers, it was not the only issue at stake. This analysis has focused primarily on physical resources and military policy, but issues of currency reserves, balances of trade, Japanese exports, as well as an incredibly important cultural aspect all played a part in shaping Imperial Japanese policy in the lead up to the outbreak of World War II. Resources availability and access to resources was a major concern for Japan, that was a major part of it stumbling into the China War, which in turn led to the steady deterioration of relations culminating in the outbreak of the wider Pacific War.\n\nI hope this has helped answer your question. Please feel free to ask any follow ups. \n\n**Sources**\n\n* Michael A. Barnhart, *Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919–1941* \n\n* Edward J Drea, *Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945* \n\n* Stuart D. Goldman, *Nomohan: The Red Army's Victory Which Shaped World War II*", "created_utc": 1611088663, "distinguished": null, "id": "gjvb1d3", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/l0mwtc/to_what_extent_was_the_origin_of_world_war_ii/gjvb1d3/", "score": 41 } ]

[ { "body": "More than be said about the topic, but check out /u/kieslowskifan [previous answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8fjcw8/why_wasnt_japan_divided_into_zones_of_occupation/) about it.", "created_utc": 1622873194, "distinguished": null, "id": "h0npv1s", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/nsio0h/why_wasnt_japan_occupied_the_way_germany_was_at/h0npv1s/", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Greetings! Whilst I cannot unfortunately comment on the second half of your title and the exact number of *volunteers* for the colonies of the British Empire, I can shine some light on the distinction between casualties for the British troops and those who were recruited from the Empire. All of which come from R.A.C Parker's excellent publication *The Second World War: A Short History.* Let's begin. \n\nThe British Empire after 1945 had suffered irreversibly from the Second World War. From the Home Isles, the once mighty Britannia had lost 264,000 servicemen, and 90,000 civilians (most of whom perished during the Blitz of 1940-41). Across the empire, the white dominions had also suffered significant casualties:\n\n* Canada: 35,000\n* Australia: 19,000\n* New Zealand: 11,000\n* South Africa: 8,000\n\nThe other British colonies combined (that is, those countries which were not self-governing dominions and had colonial ministries exercising control) lost 20,000 men. The British Raj in India had lost 32,000 men, but millions more are believed to have perished in the Bengal Famine of 1943, when crucial supplies of food in a drought were diverted to make up for the shortage of it elsewhere.\n\nHope this brief overview helps with the first part, and I look forward myself to seeing if any other contributor can weigh in on the second.", "created_utc": 1612362545, "distinguished": null, "id": "glv3yan", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/lbmlmq/world_war_ii_military_casualties_of_homeland/glv3yan/", "score": 6 }, { "body": "In addition to /u/Starwarsnerd222's excellent short summary, [I have written about](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/68c2js/how_many_africans_were_forcibly_conscripted_by/) the reactions and responses of volunteers and conscripts to the Second World War in British East and West Africa within the larger context of the legacy of the First World War in Africa.", "created_utc": 1612367944, "distinguished": null, "id": "glvglpd", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/lbmlmq/world_war_ii_military_casualties_of_homeland/glvglpd/", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "You might be interested in the following post from /u/Cal_Ibre on various political forces in the 1930s-40s.\n\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fwkii8/comment/fmpqyqu", "created_utc": 1593813526, "distinguished": null, "id": "fwuh6ks", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/hkp0do/was_there_a_japanese_resistance_before_andor/fwuh6ks/", "score": 18 } ]

[ { "body": "In Germany the Second World War and the Third Reich are covered at length but the focus is more on how it happened and the crimes which were commited by the Germans during war. The actual war is only given as overview. The most time for this subject is used for teaching how Hitler was able to become the dictator, which steps he took and what mistakes the Weimarer Republic commited to enable Hitler and the NSDAP. The second part is the Holocaust. German crimes are explained very graphic and the lesson tries to show the pupils the scope of these crimes. AFAIK it is mandatory for every class to visit a KZ ( apparently incorrect not every school does it), these KZs are now museums and the pupils see what happened with their own eyes. Iam not entirely sure if every class does that since the German system is federal and the state have some self determination in regards to education. I did visit a KZ so did everybody else i know. As you maybe know the Germans tried to come to terms with the past. The history class is very blunt and the crimes are pretty tough to process for 14 year olds. The KZ visit is even harder obviously.\n\nWhen in comes to the actual war it is not explained as you might imagine. The first campaigns are mostly described as \"Überfall\" on the other countries like Poland. The military aspects are not really important. AFAIK there is no \"boasting\" about the short campaigns. The attack on Poland for instance was mainly described as unprovoked devious attack. The Gleiwitz incident was discussed to show how the NSDAP/Hitler tried to put the blame on poles and how propaganda worked.\n\nThe next hours are about when which country was invaded by us and how the Wehrmacht was driven back until the end of the war. The course of the war was done in a few hours. The destruction of Germany was also only shortly mentioned and more like \"that were the results of the mistakes\" i guess to avoid that pupils get the feeling that we were victims.\n\n>As someone who grew up in America, the idea of learning about a war in which people who may have been your parents or grandparents were horribly defeated, your homeland destroyed, government forcibly abolished, and leaders publicly tried and put to death seems utterly foreign to me\n\nWell i just can give you my own view. It didn't feel weird since you know already this happened and school only gives you a deeper understanding. You grandparents took part in the war and your grandparents likely lost relatives. Just in my family alone my grandparents lost at least 5 brothers. When you take history classes its not like you hear this the first time. German TV is also full with World War 2, many educational channels have a lot of programms about World War 2. The depiction for the Nazis/Hitler is extremly negative. Same for school. \n\nI should mention again that the German curriculum varies from state to state.\n\n", "created_utc": 1418057104, "distinguished": null, "id": "cmotk9j", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/2on5b1/how_iswas_world_war_ii_history_taught_in_germany/cmotk9j/", "score": 553 }, { "body": "Well i can comment on how it's taught in Japan. To answer this question fully, I'm going to have to break the 20 year rule. \n\nIf I go too far, please let me know and I'll edit/delete my comment as appropriate!\n\nThere have been various times throughout the years when Japanese textbook controversies have made the news, especially in Asia where feelings are still raw for many parts of the population about Japanese imperialism, partly because of racism, partly because of nationalism/political reasons, and partly because it is still a personal thing for some people and/or their immediate family, friends, etc. \n\nThese revisionist textbook news controversies coupled with some hardliner historically revisionist politicians are some of the main reasons why Japan still has tensions with its neighbors over a war that happened almost a century ago. \n\nThat being said, the majority of Japanese textbooks today and recent history teach the history of World War II in a fairly objective light. While one could argue whether or not the Japanese textbooks are 'apologetic' enough or 'graphic' enough to showcase the horrors of the war, there is no argument in the objective historical content. \n\nJapanese mainstream textbooks that are approved by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) for national curriculum in the public Japanese education system covers all the fundamentals of WWII, including Japanese war crimes as well as Japanese aggression against various Asian countries, colonial holdings, and Allied nations. \n\nRevisionist textbooks are, as far as I could tell in my research, not used at all in the public sector (as they have not received MEXT approval) and is used in fewer than 20 schools in the private sector. \n\nBut it has not always been this way in Japan. \n\nBack in the 1950s, Japan was just really beginning to come back from the destruction of the war. Meanwhile, the Cold War is blowing up. The Korean War had just happened and Western troops had fought toe to toe with the PRC and North Korea, seemingly the vanguard of a rising red tide that was threatening to swallow Asia. \n\nJapan was feeling a lot of pressure from the US to crack down on any kind of 'red' sentiment. Japanese people themselves were slowly building up to their own 'red scare'. The government subsequently started a large scale campaign to suppress freedom of speech, freedom of press and control information and political dialogue. \n\nI'll mainly focus on education. The Japanese government began a campaign of banning books, especially textbooks that seemed to support communist viewpoints, which included content that showed the Japanese working class as suffering or oppressed, lack of political freedom, encouraging questioning central authority, as well as any books that even remotely supported anything related to the Soviet Union or the PRC. \n\n**Consequently, this meant that any books that condemned the Japanese Empire for its actions during World War II were heavily suppressed.** \n\nScholars and academics were heavily targeted of course while newspapers and media outlets were co-opted into the information control scheme, for the sake of national order with the threat of violent Communist revolution and invasion feeling very real at the time. \n\nFunnily enough, part of this is due to the fact that the US was so adamant on building up an anti-Communist ally in Asia. The Japanese government had political free reign to crack down on labor movements, political expression, and academic learning/research, all in the name of fighting the Communist threat. \n\nDirectly after World War 2, the Japanese education system went under a number of reforms, many of which were focused on cultivating critical thinking through group discussion and teaching the method of self study (teaching students *how* to learn instead of rote memorization).\n\nBut this changed very quickly as American strategic concerns overruled the progressive educational reforms of the late 1940s and we move into the 1950s. \n\nEducation changed very quickly, with the banning of hundreds of books and almost seeming to return to war time education. Political hardliners rejoiced at the apparent return to fundamentalist education. \n\nElementary schoolers curriculum required teachers to teach students to hold favorable views of the Emperor, as in pre-war years. Middle school teachers didn't need to teach World War II at all, simply that a war had occurred and post-war reconstruction, with a focus on the efforts of a patriotic, united citizenry that made rebuilding possible. Highschoolers only needed a 'recognition...of the importance of avoiding wars'. \n\nNow, these education standards would be unthinkable today and would cause massive controversy in modern times in Asia. So why was this even considered back in the 1950s? \n\n**Because of Cold War adversarial politics.** \n\nWith much of Asia seemingly falling to Communist forces, there was very little political value put in reconciliation. China was militant and aggressively pursuing a doctrine of violent Communist revolution in the region. Korea was war torn and half of it was controlled by an adversarial regime. South East Asia had swarms of Communist militias if not out right revolutions. \n\nJapanese politicians simply didn't care. More importance was put in inspiring patriotism and convincing the people of the Communist threat while extolling the superior virtues of the capitalist system. Education was more about preparing the citizens for ideological warfare than critical thinking. \n\nSpeaking about the politicians that created this educational policy, many of these politicians were heavily conservative. Many of them had actually been purged by the American occupation but were reconciled and reintegrated because their staunch anti-Communist views made them desirable for American interests in the region.\n\nUnfortunately, these politicians are the origins of political historical revisionism and academic repression. For example, in 1957 under the authorization system that was first installed during the US occupation, 8 middle school textbooks were banned. The contents of the books were fairly graphic and very anti-war, detailing the many atrocities and war crimes Japan had committed in the war. \n\nThey were labeled and politically dangerous and harboring Communist sentiments, and subsequently banned. \n\nDuring this time period of heavy academic suppression, many gave up writing textbooks at all. Some historians even stopped publishing and working on research because they kept coming up against the government roadblock every time. \n\nBut there were those who were vehemently opposed to these restrictions. Ienaga Saburo was the most well known figure for this. He brought multiple lawsuits against the Japanese government, claiming the censorship was a violation of the Constitution. \n\nIt's also important to note that at the time (1950s), the general mood of the Japanese people was extremely anti-war, anti-establishment, and anti-military. Part of the almost ironic educational reforms of the 1950s (in some respects seemingly returning to pre-war and wartime education) was to try and reverse this public sentiment that was seen as politically conducive to Communist and revolutionary feelings. \n\n**As we move on into the 1960s and 1970s, textbooks are no longer the focus of political action.** Massive movements of anarchists, communists, socialists, anti-military, anti-conservative, anti-establishment, anti-American, etc spring up. Protests and riots become common place. Most of these political movements are focused around students, particularly high school and college students. \n\nSocial issues force social reform and it was reflected in books and textbooks. Textbooks begin to broach the events of WWII and some even hint at the war crimes committed. \n\n**By the 1980s, we actually see books that detail the atrocities during the war start to be sold in stores, or rather, were allowed to be published and sold in stores.** A big step from the earlier decades. Textbooks began to use more direct language such as 'military aggression' and 'invasion'. \n\nOf course, conservative reactions were loud and intense. Cries of unpatriotic books destroying the social fabric and eroding national values, a war on the Japanese identity, demands for revisions to these books, etc. Conservative groups published their own books and textbooks. \n\n**The biggest turn around in education occurred in 1989, when Emperor Hirohito passed away.** Now it was much easier and more acceptable to publish textbooks and books that were more openly critical of war time aggression and atrocities. In the early 1980s, there were finally some books that explained in more detail the suffering of civilians and victims of Japanese invasions but after the passing of the Showa Emperor, a flood gate opened. \n\nThe Nanjing Massacre, suppression of Korean independence and identity, comfort women, slave labor, POW war crimes, etc. All these things had been excluded from textbooks for decades and for the first time, were reintroduced on a national scale. From middle school to college, students learned about the realities of what happened during World War II. \n\nConservative reactions were just as loud and vehement as before. But they were in the minority. Progressive history teachers were in the majority and educated their students passionately. But this only intensified conservative reactions, which were becoming more and more isolated socially. \n\nThey were beginning to see the liberalization of society as a war on 'Japanese-ness' and Japanese values. They saw this large change in society, not just education, as a threat to the very fabric of fundamental Japanese values and views. So reactionary education systems, schools and books were born. \n\nToday, historically revisionist views are decidedly in the minority, but magnified by media. Generally, education on the war in Japan is the same anywhere. \n\nAny Qs?\n\n\n\n\n", "created_utc": 1418060196, "distinguished": null, "id": "cmov83e", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/2on5b1/how_iswas_world_war_ii_history_taught_in_germany/cmov83e/", "score": 336 }, { "body": "Germany and Japan actually approach this issue from fundamentally different positions. In Germany, with the near-total annihilation of the country, its complete unconditional surrender to the Allies and the intensive de-nazification processes undertaken there (perhaps best epitomized by the massive Nuremberg trials post-war), contemporary Germans are accutely aware of their country's contentious past, and have mostly tried to distance themselves from it. This took different contours in East Germany (the communists tried to sever any connection to the Nazi past completely as it was ideologically problematic), but in today's Germany you don't see this difference too strongly. (Interesting sidenote - the Holocaust wasn't really discussed in any great depth at all until the 1970s, when a new generation of German/Western historians began to ask what the hell had gone on throughout the war-years. Since then, it's come to represent the single-most important part of WWII in the collective German conciousness. Just interesting to look at how historical emphasis/focus changes over time).\n\nIn Japan, the same type of regime-deconstruction was conciously avoided. This can be seen in the figure of Emperor Hirohito. There is strong, compelling evidence that Hirohito (along with fellow members of the Imperial family) played an important part in the worst excesses of Japanese forces throughout the war. However, the American occupation government did everything they could to shield the Imperial family from persecution. This was in particular the perogative of General MacArthur, who saw the Emperor as an essential part of Japanese cohesion and order (partially out of the belief that the Japanese were too 'childlike' to govern themselves democratically). Because of this shielding of the Emperor, many of the crimes of the Empire of Japan were never dealt with in the same way as in the Nazi context. There is a notable ommision of Japanese atrocities in teaching the history of WWII in the contemporary Japanese context, and there are many Japanese who are totally unaware of their contentious past. Moreover, many 'revisionists' exert a strong voice in Japan today. The Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo, which commemorates all the soldiers of the Empire of Japan in WWII, including those considered 'Class A war criminals,' is regularly visited by Japanese politicians and heads of state in commemorative services.\n\nIn Russia, the war is still known as the 'Great Patriotic War,' and its commemoration is a really prominent part of the Russian memorial landscape. There are an astounding number of monuments and sites of commemoration in St Petersburg and Moscow. This extends beyond the borders of Russia-proper into the wider Soviet Union. I was travelling around Central Asia this summer, and it's amazing how, even in tiny one-horse towns, you can almost always find a statue/plaque complex with the names of the war-dead, adorned by Red Stars and all.\n\nSorry for the length of this, I really like memory studies.\n\nEdit: Sources\n\nJohn Dower, *Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II,* New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999.\n\nTony Judt, *Postwar,* London: Penguin Books, 2005.\n\nCatherine Merridale, *Night of Stone: Death and Memory in 20th Century Russia,* New York: Penguin Books, 2000.\n\nRobert Moeller, *War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany,* Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.\n", "created_utc": 1418058546, "distinguished": null, "id": "cmoucc5", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/2on5b1/how_iswas_world_war_ii_history_taught_in_germany/cmoucc5/", "score": 152 } ]

[ { "body": "If I could ask a tangential question, what is this memoir called? Sounds interesting", "created_utc": 1500664366, "distinguished": null, "id": "dkja2rk", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/6oo73m/in_a_memoir_of_his_experiences_during_world_war/dkja2rk/", "score": 221 }, { "body": "Other sources seem to suggest a similar perception of Stalin, and not only during the Great Patriotic War.\n\nThroughout the Yezhovshchina from 36-38, and indeed in relation to any kind of purging or extra-judiciary punishment from the secret police, there was a mentality that these problems were localised systemic problems which Stalin would have fixed if only he knew they were taking place. This is a result of propaganda glorifying Stalin and a lack of awareness that these problems were, in fact, taking place across the USSR. Back then, especially given the size of the USSR, people in Kiev, for example, had no clue what was going on in Moscow, let alone Vladivostok.\n\nI came across another instance of the mentality you describe in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book \"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich\" (a great read) which basically describes a day in the life of a Gulag prisoner. In it, if memory serves me well, Stalin is venerated as a God by prisoners despite the fact that they have been thrown into the Gulag for ridiculous reasons. Once again, the prisoners prefer to believe that the injustice that has befallen them is a blip in the system rather than the norm, and that if Stalin was made aware, he would have fixed it. Ofcourse, in reality, it was Stalin himself who decided to lock up millions of POWs after the war. It's true that perhaps the experience of a Gulag prisoner are not representative of the general public of the USSR, but given that there were, at its peak, 10 million in the Gulag system under Stalin, their perspective represents a large chunk of the Soviet population.", "created_utc": 1500691419, "distinguished": null, "id": "dkjvxry", "permalink": "/r/AskHistorians/comments/6oo73m/in_a_memoir_of_his_experiences_during_world_war/dkjvxry/", "score": 153 } ]