Talk:World War II/Archive 7

message: In total, about 23 million soldiers lost their lives in the Second World War along with about 57 million civilians.
This doesn't make sense, as earlier in the article it states there were 55-57 million casaulties total. Should that 57 million civilians be changed to 32 million?  --Njk 12:37, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Casualty typo? 

message: Weasel words.  Does anyone have WP:CITE for:
:By this time the Soviet steamroller had become so powerful that many historians argue that the U.S. and British landing at Normandy was more to prevent a coast-to-coast Soviet block than to fight Germany. In all, 90% of all German casualties were suffered on the Eastern front, and Europe became divided along Germany- had the U.S. not invaded the sparsely defended Western Front, Stalin would have controlled all of Europe. This view-point is seldom heard in U.S. books, movies, and classrooms; an attempt is made to give as much credit as possible to the 1944 "D-Day" landing. (emphasis added)
Wikibofh 21:00, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
:: I have removed the addition since I believe (1) It is very close to a POV, and (2) It does not belong here, but rather on the D-Day/Battle of Normandy page. In any case, to let this addition be the intro to the "Beginning of the end" is a POV in itself! Regards, Dna-Dennis 11:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many historians... 

message: This article looks pretty good, but I made a few edits, and wanted to explain them. First, I rewrote some of the atrocities section - it had a lot of editorializing before, mostly about the Soviet Union's war crimes, and lacked some chronology, which I attempted to add.  I also brought out the Holocaust in its own sub-heading, and tried to summarize the events of the Holocaust there.  Also, I added statistics on the civilian casualties for bombing.  To make it explicit from Matthew White's page:
*Allied bombings:
**Germany: 305,000 (1945 US Strategic Bombing Survey); 400,000 (Hammond); 410,000 (Rummel, 100% democidal); 499,750 (Clodfelter); 593,000 (Keegan; also Grenville citing "official Germany")
**Japan: Total: 330,000 (1945 US Strategic Bombing Survey); 363,000 (Keegan, not including post-war radiation sickness); 374,000 (Rummel, incl. 337,000 democidal); 435,000 (P. Johnson); 500,000 (Harper Collins Atlas of the Second World War)
*Axis bombings:
**Russia: Richard Overy, Russia's War (1997): "an estimated 500,000 Soviet citizens died from German bomb attacks."
**England: Portcities London: >20,000 k. (7/40-5/41) [also London Transport Museum and Virtual London
**Belgrade, Yugoslavia: German air raid: 6 April 1941): 17 000, Gilbert: 17,000 civilians k. (also Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad)
**I don't have figures for Poland and France
Finally, I added a couple of maps from the US Military Academy's site.  They are large, but it was odd not to have any.  Incidentally, the site is a great resource for anyone needing public domain maps of conflicts. Let me know if you have comments.
--Goodoldpolonius2 04:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think your changes were good - not too brief and not to detailed. I also liked the maps! Regards, Dna-Dennis 10:40, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Couple changes

message: I would like to restore the versions of the captions that I added:
*First, I would suggest that we change the map captions back, since otherwise the maps are difficult to parse at their current size.  The original captions: "Axis powers are in pink, the maximum extent of their conquest in yellow. The Allies are in green," and "The maximum extent of Japanese territory in July, 1942 is in yellow," allow readers to at least tell at a glance the basic participants and geographical extent of the war, without needing to click on the full size picture. Since we have no other maps to illustrate the participants, this is important.
*Second, the caption for the first picture is a little too glib: "World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons—the atom bomb being the ultimate." Of the 50+ million dead, few would be classified as a sacrifice, which implies some sort of semi-heroic choice.  Additionally, I don't know what "fierce indoctrinations" means, and why that was a unique feature of World War II.  Finally, "the atomic bomb being the ultimate" reads oddly.  Better to use no caption (since this is just a title picture) or use the summary sentence of the first paragraph: "The most extensive, expensive and bloodiest armed conflict in the history of mankind."
*Perhaps we should replace the title picture with something that is more informative? Maybe a world map showing the participants in the war, which would give a better summary sense of scale.
--Goodoldpolonius2 12:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I understand why you want to keep the picture and caption, that makes sense.  Since the caption serves a summary of the war, perhaps taking a line from the article: "The Second World War was the most extensive, expensive and bloodiest armed conflict in the history of mankind," which sums it up.  If you really want to keep the current version, instead of intense sacrifice, what about "large-scale deaths" or "extensive military and civilian casualties." I would drop the indoctrination point entirely, the problem otherwise is that the indoctrination article isn't specific to World War II, so the point you are making about Japanese and German militarism doesn't come through -- besides, every has had intense indoctrination, see the Crusades, for example.  As for the atom bomb, I don't object to its mention, the sentence was a bit awkward. --Goodoldpolonius2 14:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Captions

message: I would like to replace the main article's intro with the temp article's intro. It is superior IMO. --JPotter 02:51, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
I think that's a bad idea.  The current intro is rather on the long side but it embraces the entirety of a very complicated and expansive topic.  I think the short one in the temp article is bland, too short, and has an oddly written second paragraph.  I don't think we should do this.  However, feel free to edit the current one, and Be bold--naryathegreat | (talk) 04:04, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
I agree with naryathegreat, it is a bad idea. The quality of the temp intro is not even close to the quality of the intro of the current article. Regards, Dna-Dennis 11:15, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Temp merge - Intro 

message: The opening lines of the current article was
"World War II or the Second World War was a truly global conflict that began on 7 July 1937 in Asia and on 1 September 1939 in Europe."
I know what the writer implied, but I have changed this to
"World War II or the Second World War was a truly global conflict that began on 1 September 1939."
because of the following reasons
* The conflict in Asia was not a global conflict - thus the line is misleading and a "slight" POV
* World War II turned global when the Asian and European conflicts converged - thus September 1939
* There are a number of other contending dates: Rhineland occupation, Anschluss, Prague etc.
* But maybe most importantly: it is the common view that the world war started in September 1939
Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 14:49, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The start of World War II 

message: I just learned about a period called 'Bersiap' in Indonesia after the Japanese left, which created a power vacuum. Because it is too specific to mention here, I put that in History_of_Indonesia#Post-war. But I can imagine that similar things happened elsewhere and a general remark about that would be in place in this article. DirkvdM 11:53, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Power vacuum in the aftermath