how vital D-day was

The landings by the Allies led by the American and British forces on the 6th of June 1944 on the golden beaches of Normandy in northern France weren't only important because of the fact it gave the Allies a solid foot hold on Western Europe in which they could from there fight the Nazi's on a second front to that of their allies the Soviets, the Allies had a landing force of 175,000 men crossing the English Channel, by the end of the month after securing ports in northern France they had 1,600,000 men and machines on mainland Europe.

Although I may have sounded indifferent to the Allies fight in the Europe as compared to the Soviets who did the bulk of the fighting (killing 4 of every 5 German soldiers killed in the war) the landings in Normandy were vital to the timely defeat of the Germans.

Not only that but the speedy delivery of logistical support for those fighting against the Germans but also carried with it a good psychological effect on the millions of Soviets fighting on the Eastern Front.



The Soviets had suffered over 20,000,000 casualties after being lain under heavy siege by German oppression for nearly three years.

They had suffered massively and their land had been destroyed during the start of the German offensive because of their scorched earth policy which included the dissembling of factories and burning of crops for miles (that can't have been good for their economic growth of industry), to say they were weary of war would be an understatement.

But they had a fighting chance against the German forces, using massive infantry they overran the Germans where they could, eventually 80% of the German Army were sent fighting in the Eastern Front, several of these forces were pulled from Western Europe to avail in the fight to defend the Reich, the Luftwaffe had been put on the defense of Germany, therefore it would be unable to cover several other parts of Europe.

After the Atlantic Wall was formed in Europe, Hitler thought that any landing would be a failure and that if the Allies failed to spearhead a secure reinforcement zone in the north of France the Allied troops would be trapped and slaughtered by the German Army forces.

However history turned out to be much different, if this had been the case it could have seriously broke the morale of the Soviet Army and might have even prompted Stalin to except a peace treaty with Hitler bringing them back to where they started with the 1939 agreement, which would have seen Soviet forces drawing the border with Nazi Europe in eastern Poland, although Hitler didn't have anything sufficient to hit the several American bases in England with at this time, come 1945 if the D-day landings had failed the Americans would have probably hit the heart of Germany with the atomic bomb and burn the Reich from inside out. (That would be a very alternative to the history we have of two Japanese fishing cities being hit by these deadliest weapons in a vicious attempt to deter the Soviets).

However even though the tremendous sacrifice put forward by the Soviets (something that isn't properly remembered) did sufficiently strain Germany's war machine the timely injection of aid that came in the form of the Normandy landings helped the Third Reich come down before it had a chance to properly revive itself and cause more unthinkable damage and horror.

the bulk of the fighting

The most familiar image relating to the turning point of World War II in the Western world is the iconic image of American and British forces landing at the beaches in Normandy as they proceeded to liberate France from Nazi oppression, however what they fought through was an already war ravaged Europe, it took them six months to conquer what the German Army did in six weeks!

Not only was that because they had unchallenged air space for most of the way but it was also because only 20% of the German Army was all that was left behind to defend that space, not until the Battle of the Bulge which saw the Germans launch a massive offensive against a larger force of Americans using their big artillery guns.

The bulk of the fighting that had slowly eroded the solidity of the German military might was the war on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, which saw the Russians not only fighting back the invading Nazi Army but also Finns and several other states seeking independence from Stalin's Soviet Russia (most notably Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).



But what the Soviets did do was break the back of the German Army after being besieged in their major cities of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad (which saw 20,000,000 people slaughtered), the Soviet counter offensives broke the back of the German Army which had broken into three divisions (Army Group North, South, Centre) which ended up too widely stretched to defend Germany itself.



Emptying the Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland and several other smaller states in Eastern Europe of German forces the Soviets eventually entered Germany itself and captured Berlin meeting the Allies at the Elbe River not long afterwords, they were the biggest single party to contribute to the war effort of ridding Europe of the Nazi's.

Even though they received American equipment from the Lend Lease they gave the manpower logistical support and the practical elements of winning such a huge war, right down to the guns, boots and uniforms that made up their large infantry groups.

While the American effort did help Britain fight out a hefty amount of the war in the European Theater, in the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force cut down hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers and fighters and from 1941 on had proceeded to fly bombing raids against Germany and the occupied countries in Western Europe, this accelerated into the devastating firebombings of Dresden and Hamburg near the closing stages of the war.

However the Lend Lease from the United States which resupplied Britain during the war cost the equivalent of $500 billion today, a loan that literally bankrupted Britain after the war and was only paid off in 2006!

Chamberlain "appeasement" rhetoric is getting blunt

Neville Chamberlain Prime Minister of Britain 1937 to 1940 is known almost entirely in today's world for appeasing Adolf Hitler and letting the Nazi's have Czechoslovakia, before they went on to crush the rest of Western Europe, but what exactly was it that Chamberlain did wrong?

Is this rhetoric used by those against Obama or any other politician for that matter factual correct?



The interesting thing is that even after opting for peace before declaring war on Germany after the invasion of Poland in 1939 Chamberlain had this to say:

"We have a clear conscience, we have done all that any country could do to establish peace. The situation in which no word given by Germany's rulers could be trusted, and no people or country could feel themselves safe has become intolerable ... Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things we shall be fighting against—brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression, and persecution—and against them I am certain that the right will prevail."

After declaring war along with France the French Army dug in in the Maginot Line, Chamberlain ordered the Royal Navy to form a blockade to keep economic pressure on Germany, Chamberlain was reluctant to alter the British economy fearing that the emergency war budget would bankrupt the country.

When Germany attacked the Low Countries Chamberlain was soon replaced by Winston Churchill, he then stated they needed to stand united behind their new leader and fight the Nazi war machine, however one has to wonder if the Lend Lease given to Britain by the United States was too much, for ever cent worth of aid given by the United States was surely paid for, the equivalent of $500 billion in today's money was what the UK paid for it's war effort to eventually help to defeat the Nazi's (with help from several other major Allied powers), this hefty bill was only sorted out between Britain and the US in 2006!

Of course no cost is too great to be the pivotal defence against fascist expansion but in comparison to the geopolitical climate of today's wars there is truly no comparison to calling a British or American politician an appeaser like Chamberlain:



An interesting (if not so recent event) was George HW. Bush being called a wimp, before Saudi Arabia was directly bordered by (wasn't threatened by) Saddam Hussein's army after he invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Persian Gulf War that followed saw the entire country being disseminated by aerial bombardment, even though there was no proven plans that the Iraqi Army (who had dug in around Kuwait City) had planned to preemptively attack Saudi Arabia yet alone invade it!

So when the same is being said that the west should preemptively attack Iran before things "get out of hand" people have to ask themselves the question of whether or not a nuclear Iran merely justifies a major war fought 7,000 miles overseas!

the psychology behind the 'Military Industrial Complex'

It's been a long time since America fought a war where it was under any serious threat, and that was World War II, following that war mainland USA was left virtually unscathed after emerging victorious.

However the threat in 1940 was the biggest direct threat to the United States in recent history:



In the liberation of Western Europe the Americans were on the side of common decency and actually liberating the European people from oppression.

The same cannot be said about the war against Imperial Japan, it was high in cost of not only military hardware and the recovering US economy but also on human life, half of Japan was burned and then the two famous nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were executed, most likely to deter the Soviets!

From then on America took to introducing its free market to the rest of the world setting up military bases overseas and riding on the high seas in massive aircraft carriers, intervening where it served their "National interests".

Such interventions were over economic greed and in several cases bankrupted other nations, but to this day the idea of a foreign army invading was always the threat if America lapsed in securing its far away foreign security interests.



This has seen it develop into a hyperpower with a greater military than the old Roman, British and Russian empires!

But even after promoting democracy militarily in recent years in Iraq and Afghanistan (over 7,000 miles from the US) Americans don't consider themselves a militant nation, however when one looks at the hard facts its hard to ignore the fact that it really is!



The United States may be the sole hyperpower and may be the only superpower left in the 21st century to influence an ideology as the Soviets once had, however in trying to secure the vast resources in Eurasia a whole ocean away to serve their hefty economic needs may lead to a costly war with Iran and Pakistan.

During the 1990's it failed to reach the top of the global market and meantime several new economic superpowers such as China, Brazil and India have emerged.

As the US continues to send its army into the 'empire graveyard' that is Afghanistan while suffering serious economic burdens the eastern world is once again gone down the road of autocracy and communism.

Bottom Line: If the US continues such expensive oversea wars and military developments while swindling the budget it could see itself collapsing entirely in a manner similar to that of the Soviet Union, if this does happen not only may the North American continent be plunged into it's own 'Dark Ages' period of uncertainty, but with a new power in the east rising it may not be able afford the rich capitalistic society it had thrived on.

If this does happen and the world gradually goes down the road reform of the best option available the last years of the United States in history will be seen as wasteful and irrelevant, regardless of how big their military was!

right in the middle of it all

During the German conquest of Western Europe in 1940 and the early months of 1941 one country remained untouched right in the centre of the fascists 'Fortress Europe'.


Click to enlarge

You could argue that Switzerland wasn't conquered by the Nazi's for the same reason they didn't invade Sweden, that being that Switzerland was neutral, but the difference is that Switzerland was directly in the middle of Europe, the Nazi's knew that Sweden being neutral would mean that if the Soviets attempted to attack their forces in Norway the Swedes would provide a large buffer to protect them.

Switzerland geographically didn't have a similar situation.

However towards the end of the war when the Americans were liberating Europe Swiss air space was violated several times by both Americas and Germany's respective air forces, in several incidents the USAAF (United States Army Air Force) 'accidentally' dropped bombs on Switzerland, on one occasion B-24 bombers bombed Zurich believing they were bombing the German city of Freiburg!

The Americans stated these incidents were navigational errors but several claim that it was a direct attempt to force Switzerland to end it's economic ties with Nazi Germany as the war was coming to an end.

Apart from Nazi gold among other things being in Swiss banks and the role of the bankers operating from a neutral country to finance both sides of that war would Switzerland have been worth invading?



It would have meant open air space across all of Western Europe for the Luftwaffe and Italian Air Force to operate in, apart from that not much else, and it could have done heavy damage to the German economy if they lost their assets in Swiss banks!

Apart from troops operating in harsh conditions the tactic of blitzkrieg that defeated Poland wouldn't have been properly put into effect considering certain parts of mountainous areas that armored columns wouldn't be able to operate in, apart from that Swiss resistance would have been very stubborn.

one birds eye view

The Battle of Midway was truly the most decisive war in the Pacific which turned the tide against the Japanese for the first time since their attack on Pearl Harbor the year before, the war saw a lot of action at sea of vast proportions, one ensign George Gay really ended up right in the middle of it all seeing some key events from the Battle of Midway.



Launching an attack on Japanese carriers with TBD Devastator torpedo bombers without a fighter escort the entire squadron was doomed with near ultimate failure, gunned from the sky George managed to fly his attack on the Japanese aircraft Kaga, flying at low level for a split second he recalled thoughts of flying his own kamikaze raid on the carrier deck, later stating:

"It's when a fellow is just gone and knows it, it is just crash into the ship or crash into the sea, and you have enough control to do a little bit more damage, why you crash into the ship."

Gunned down by five Zeroes he avoided being strafed in the water and while drifting helplessly on his back he witnessed the sinking of three Japanese aircraft carriers by US Dauntless dive bombers.



He was lucky to be rescued after surviving the doomed raid and the subsequent 30 hours of destruction that took place around him.

Japan really thought it could invade Australia?

A proposed invasion of Australia was considered by the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) before they instead opted to attack the much smaller Midway Island in the Pacific was actually bought about in the early short days of Japans victories against the Allies.



But could it have worked?

When you think about the size difference and the distance it seems very far fetched, even though the Imperial Japanese Navy was one of the most advanced in the world and one of the very few with aircraft carriers.

Japan had a way bigger military and was more industrialized at the time than Australia but the sheer size of Australia would have been a major factor.



The height of the Japanese actions against Australia was the bombing of Darwin in 1942, another notable incident was the sinking of a midget submarine in Sydney Harbour, however following the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway the US Navy had the strategic advantage over the IJN in the South Pacific and was able to fight a massive war against Japan away from the home front.



However apart from bombing and promoting general terrorism and hitting key strategic military and economic targets in an attempt to cripple the Australian war effort could have been catastrophic it would have been of huge military effort on the behalf of the Japanese to try and bring the Australians to their knees, after all if the IJN had diverted their main muscle to striking Australian cities they would have given the United States Navy the upper hand in preparing a long hand offensive war against Japanese held territory in the Far East, unfortunately (for them) the IJN using their best ships were unable to capture the tiny island of Midway let alone bring the whole of Australia to its knees!

when 'The Moon Is Down'

Published in March 1942 The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck hasn't exactly stood the test of time, similar to the movie Red Dawn it focuses on the occupation of a single small town in Northern Europe by a state which is at war with England and Russia obviously referring to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany in World War II, the book even goes on to refer back to Germans humiliation after their defeat in World War I.



While for the time it was published the book was an inspiration showing a discontinued struggle with a growing resistance force of the town against the invaders, the mayor character who is forced to collaborate with the Nazi's stating "to break man’s spirit permanently is impossible!"

The historical background when this book was published was one of significance of the turning point of World War II, Western Europe had been conquered (except for England) and the war in the east was only just beginning to turn against the Nazi's after they were halted at the gates of Moscow and the same month the British launched the St Nazaire Raid.

The book was way before its time and shows the true spirit of man and in the end was right in stating that it would take time but the people would win over the evil presented by fascism, it did what it was written to do, and that was motivate and enthuse the resistance movements in occupied Europe, while it did this history shows (especially in Norway and France) that the will of the people is always stronger than the guns, the tanks and the planes of an evil empire.

Also it's a good book in the context of ordinary human beings and their ability against overwhelming odds to overcome them no matter how oppressed they are or how long it takes.

how bad it could have gotten

The British in one sense were lucky when Hitler turned and repeated history by invading Russia which subsequently led to his downfall and the destruction of the Third Reich, however for a time the United Kingdom did stand up against the mighty Reich after watching its powerful ally France being crushed in a matter of weeks, the famous Battle of Britain know for its large scale air engagements saw the RAF outnumbered but far from being defeated, what saved Britain to be able to actually engage Hitlers Germany was Hitler turning to engage the Soviet Union, in a war that would kill millions.



But the British were lucky not to have to endure a direct full on total war with Nazi Germany in 1941, the Battle of Britain we know had seen Britain's air and naval forces stretched to the limit whilst the ground forces were readied to resist an invasion, but the British had already taken on a permanent war economy, stretched to the limits the British economy would have exhausted basic needs for its citizens, that followed by round the clock bombings of British cities after the eventual defeat of the RAF would have made surrender and eventual defeat inevitable for Britain.



But right off the bat Britain could have probably as Churchill put it "postpone martyrdom" against the might of the Nazi military machine for a good two years before the eventual breaking up and disillusion of Britain's armed forces (if America up to this point didn't join the war directly declaring war on a less preoccupied Germany), with the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy defeated if unable to mount a successful landing the Germans could have easily by this point made every aspect of life hell for British citizens, for instance as in the real war in 1945 battering London and other British cities with a new weapon, the V2 ballistic missile.



Any landing by the Germans would have been a bloodbath, but that being said having total air superiority with only barely sufficient anti aircraft guns to face they could have easily laid waste to dug in British forces in a matter of days such as they did with the Maginot Line in France in 1940, a large scale invasion of Britain would have surely resulted in large scale fighting from an already war weary people.


Home Guard light reconnaissance cars in Scotland circa 1941

As in the Allied landing in Normandy it would require huge logistics but focusing its war economy on it the Germans would have surely come up with such logistics necessary to execute such a landing.

After the general defeat and post war break up and confusion of the Home Guard the following wide scale resistance would have had irritating effects on the occupying force but it would have been hell for the British that would have had to endure it!

But one thing was for sure, Churchill as promised would have most likely led a rag tag resistance force up north and fought against the Nazis no matter what!



That being said if it wasn't for one impatient decision by Hitler to turn his military might against the Russians (which were halted by the winter of all things) and thus repeating once again the European desire to conquer Russia he saved Britain from certain annihilation.

how private cooperations mucked up US government policy

In World War II the United States remained neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor, yet before did support the Allied cause, legally giving them weapons through lend lease, yet private companies in the United States were at the time making profits by making business with the Nazi's.



Nazi Germany's war effort was largely supported by two organizations, one of which was called IG Farben. IG Farben produced 84% of Germany's explosives and even the Zyklon B used in the concentration camps to kill the Jews in their millions!

Also IBM (which later made personal computers) produced counting machines to help the Nazi's keep track of the vast amount of prisoners in the big concentration camps such as Auschwitz.



The Luftwaffe could not operate without a special additive patented by Rockefeller standard oil. The drastic bombing of London by Nazi Germany for example was made possible by a 20 million dollar sale of fuel to IG Farben by the Rockefeller standard oil company. This is just one small point about how America business funded both sides of World War II.



Another thing worth mentioning is the Union Banking Corporation of New York City. Not only did it finance numerous aspects of Hitler's rise to power, along with actual materials during the war, it was also a bank used for Nazi money-laundering. Which was eventually exposed for having millions of dollars of Nazi Money in its vaults. The Union Banking Corporation of New York was eventually seized for violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act.

The director and Vice President of the Union Bank was Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's Grandfather and of course our former George HW Bush's father, both of whom were presidents of the US!

But well before all of this in 1933 a group of wealthy businessmen that included the heads of Chase Bank, Goodyear, the DuPont family, Standard Oil, GM, and Senator Prescott Bush attempted to recruit Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler to lead a military coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt to take down that government and in the insuing chaos install a fascist dictatorship in the United States!

Although it never got past its initial planning stages and Smedley did testify to a congressional committee in 1934.

Though many of the people who had backed the planned Business Plot still maintained financial ties with Nazi Germany up through America's entry into World War II.

the story of the Donau

Known as the 'slave ship' in Norway during World War II the Donau was a 9,000 ton transport ship used by the Kriegsmarine between Nazi Germany and World War II.

Although a transport ship when the war started, it was later requisitioned for war duty and outfitted with anti aircraft guns and depth charges.

It was used by the SS and the Gestapo operating in Norway to transport 540 Jews from their home where they would be then moved to Auschwitz in Poland, whilst on the Donua Jewish men and women were put in separate holds, there they were deprived of basic sanitary and treated badly at the hands of the soldiers.

When the Allies were getting the upper hand over the Germans the Donau was seen by the Norwegian resistance as a very dangerous threat to the RAF, so while it was docked in Oslo Harbor Roy Nilsen from Milorg and Max Manus (who had already sunk another vitally important German ship) from Kompani Linge planted ten limpet mines on the port side of the Donau in the maximally secured harbor getting away Scott-free.

The departure of the Donau from Oslo Harbor was delayed however meaning that the limpet mines detonated before the ship reached its destination (Drøbak).



The captain managed to beach her however where it lay until seven years after the war.

* Photos from the Norwegian movie Max Manus

** A picture of the real ship

the Americans barbarians in the Pacific War?

We all know the story that is World War II, but one would have to wonder with close inspection that in the Pacific War if the Americans were the real barbarians, I know that battleship row in Pearl Harbor was attacked but in fairness the Japanese hadn't intended for a very high casualty rate, and when Admiral Yamamoto stated he feared he had awoken a sleeping giant I doubt even he expected the war to go so badly for his side.



The Doolittle Raid in May of 1942 which saw 15 B-25's launched from the USS Hornet bombing military and industrial targets in Tokyo and Yokohama killing about 50 people, it was early on symbolized that the US could hit anywhere they wanted to in Japan and they were going to exploit that fact later on in the war.

The Japanese public had seen nothing yet.

After several vital IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) aircraft carriers were destroyed in the Pacific in the Battle of Coral Sea and Midway in 1942 the US begun to force the Japanese to retreat eventually having them hold up on their main islands while supporting Chinese forces fighting the invading Japanese in Nationalist China, the island hopping then begun.

The Japanese eager to hold their home islands had built up main lines of defence on several smaller islands (such as the famous battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa).



These massive battles saw thousands of casualties on both sides and truly horrific acts of war such as Japanese A6M Zeroes flying Kamikaze (divine wind) raids against US ships and Japanese civilians living on the outer islands killing themselves with hand grenades or throwing themselves along with their children off cliffs believing the American barbarians as they were described in Japanese propaganda would murder their families.

Most of the young and able men were sent to such islands to die in their thousands and on the mainland women, children and older men were urged to learn martial arts to defend themselves because of the shortage of guns thanks to the US naval embargo on mainland Japan.

As islands closer to the mainland were captured they were used as bases for US bombers such as the new B-29 which could go at a higher altitude than Japanese interceptors, this however also meant that the accuracy of the bombs hitting their target wasn't very good, keeping this in mind a group of B-29's flying low and using incendiary bombs firebombed 51% of Tokyo, this burned to death 100,000 civilians in one night!



Tokyo was a wooden city and completely burned, throughout May up until August 1945 the US continued to fire bomb Japanese cities in this way killing tens of thousands of civilians, examples of cities destroyed using incendiary bombs include:

99.0% of Chattanooga
85.2% of Tokushima
69.6% of Gifu
68.9% of Okayama
67.5% of Takamatsu
66.1% of Shizuoka
65.0% of Hachioji
63.9% of Imabari
63.4% of Kagoshima
58.0% of Yokohama
56.7% of Isezaki
56.0% of Ichinomiya
55.7% of Kobe
50.0% of Wakayama
48.3% of Tokuyama


The list goes on, it seemed nowhere was safe, the only cities that barely scathed were Hiroshima and Nagasaki which were to be completely leveled by the worlds first two and only two nuclear bombs used on live people, killing over 60,000 people in each case and poisoning thousands across Japan finally brought them to surrender after their whole country had been destroyed!

Now I don't think that's proportional to the attack on US naval warships at (at the time) territory of Hawaii which was a gesture to Japans actions in Nationalist China, the Japanese leadership at the time knew there would be consequences but they doubted they would have been as bad as to affect every Japanese man, woman and child!

does Shock and Awe actually work?

During World War II Nazi Germany crushed Western Europe in the early days using their Blitzkrieg tactics that was basically working their military of airplanes, tanks and infantry to correct precision to get the best results.

They failed to crush England in this way and nearly had the Russians defeated after they arrived at the gates of Moscow in 1941!

There have been no wars as big as the Second World War since, but the modern day Blitzkrieg (or lightning war whatever you want to call it) is very similar to the Shock and Awe thesis written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996.

Shock and Awe is a designated doctrine to completely paralyze the enemy and destroy their will to fight, a bit like the Blitzkrieg invasion of Poland except with late 20th and early 21st century weapons.

The idea for a country like Iraq would be to incapacitate its command and destroy its infrastructure and physically and emotionally break the enemy having him surrender or his remaining forces being crushed.

Ullman said this before Operation Iraqi Freedom:

""You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2,3,4,5 days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."

During the buildup before the Iraqi invasion it was repeated that they would be employing Shock and Awe, Iraq was to be an easy test for the US military applying Shock and Awe, the Iraqi's had barely any air power, gaining air superiority would be very easy, defeating ground forces would be challenging but hitting high command and points of communication across the country would divide enemy forces and convince them resisting wouldn't be fighting but be suicide.

Following the theory the invasion begun:



Limited bombing to try and instantly take out Saddam Hussein commenced, these failed however, one area the Dora Farms was hit with two F-117's backed by four Tomahawk cruise missiles, this resulted in one civilian killed and another four wounded and it was then revealed Saddam had never visited the area since 1995!

On the 21st of March 2003, the main bombing campaign by the US and their allies began. Its forces launched approximately 1700 air sorties (504 using cruise missiles). Coalition ground forces had begun a "running start" offensive towards Baghdad on the previous day. Coalition ground forces seized Baghdad on 5 April, and the United States declared victory on 14 April.

So in comparison it took shorter than the invasion of Poland by the Nazi's, a lot less people were killed in the invasion to ratio than the invasion of Poland.

The shock and awe air bombing campaign didn't seem to break the Iraqi people, many continued with their daily lives, working and shopping, as the bombs and missiles continued to fall around them. According to some analysts, the military's attack was perhaps too precise. It did not trigger shock and awe in the Iraqis and, in the end, the city was only captured after close combat on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Ullman was one to criticize the way the invasion was carried out, the initial invasion did not instantly crush the Iraqis will to fight like the theory, the coalition having to seize the city of Fallujah in April of 2004 is a perfect example of how the rapid dominance theory failed in that war!

the Nazi's Death Star

During the Nazi reign in Germany from 1933 to 1945 some very hi tech weaponry (for the time) was created, the Nazi's one idea Nazi physicists began to work on was launching a giant mirror into orbit.

The mirror, which they planned to design from about one million tons of metallic sodium, would burn cities to the ground, boil reservoirs, crisp people like bacon, kinda like the Ion cannon from the game Command & Conquer: Generals.



This so-called “sun gun” would be part of a space station 5,100 miles above Earth. “They calculated that the use of a huge reflector could produce enough heat, if focused on certain area, could make an ocean boil or burn up a city.”

The space station would be manned by Nazi spacemen with magnetic boots to help overcome weightlessness and most likely be powered by the sun (go figure).



The mirror itself was 100-meter-wide and would have been fitted at a point on the space station.

There are many obvious reasons this didn't come through, the closest the Nazi's got in space development was the V-2 rocket, 20,000 died of exhaustion making the ones fired at London that killed around 7,000 people!

Most of the German scientists moved to the US to continue their rocketry research. In addition to their work with US missile defense systems, many of the men went to work for the fledgling space program in the 1950s.

From this they developed the Saturn V, the engine which carried the Apollo astronauts into orbit for the moon missions of 1969-1972.

That being said the development would have been possible over a couple of decades had the Nazi's not been fighting a losing World War II by 1942!

a man who paid for being an American hero!

Joe Louis (also known as the Brown Bomber) was a heavy weight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949, he was victorious in his very first 27 fights before he rose to heavy weight campaign.

Famous for his fight against Max Schmeling a heavy weight campaign from Germany, at the time Hitler believed him (since he was German) to be better than every other "race".

He was nearly right when Schmeling beat Louis, but on a rematch Louis beat Schmeling which was remembered as one of the major sports events of the 20th century.

Louis had proved the Nazi race ideology was a load of bullshit!

This earned him the admiration of millions of Americans, after Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 Joe had a title fight where he donated his earnings to Navy war relief, he later donated his normal fee to army relief giving away a lot of money to help the Americans in the Pacific war against Japan.



But since the checks were in his name the IRS taxed him full amount, even though Joe never saw a penny of it!

The IRS were charging him $50,000 a year in interest alone on his debt, when his mother died leaving him $600 the IRS immediately seized it, they also confiscated all of his children's trust funds!
He was forced to continue fighting until he was 37 and out of shape just to pay off his ever mounting debt to the IRS which grew to $1,000,000 (a massive debt at the time) just in interest, just before the end of his life he was forced to work as a greeter to a Las Vegas hotel just to make ends meet.

He was humiliated and destroyed, everything he possessed was taken away from him even though he had tried to help his country in a time of need!



When he died his former opponent Max Schmeling paid for his funeral.

imagine the firepower of the USS Nimitz in 1941

The question is put forward by the character played by Martin Sheen in the 1980 film The Final Countdown in which the super carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) is time warped back to December 6th 1941 just off the shores of Hawaii.

I enjoyed the movie for the scene in which two F-14's splash two Japanese A6M Zeroes and was eagerly awaiting the finale in which several squadrons of F-14 Tomcats and F-8 Crusaders were launched to counter the attacking strike force of Zeroes prepared to attack Pearl Harbor!



Of course at the last minute they are prepared to be time warped and abort their strike force leaving me wondering about what would have happened and how awesome it would have been!



I would assume that if they hadn't averted the strike they would've used the AIM-54 Phoenix armed F-14 Tomcats to take down at least 4 Zeroes each from long range and then close in and hunt down the remaining of them with smaller missiles and even the cannons.

Obviously the Japanese strike force of 1941 wouldn't stand a chance against a squadron of mighty AIM-54 armed F-14A Tomcats.


www.military.com

But could the USS Nimitz take on 1941 Japan on its own (with no support ships), remember it could have taken out the six aircraft carriers that attacked it with a single nuclear warhead dropped in the water;


Like this only dropped from a plane

Now the Nimitz (in this scenario) operating on its own would be on full alert (remember 1980 deck configuration);

A CAP of two F-14's at a time both armed with six AIM-54's while bombers escorted by other AIM-54 armed F-14's could carry out a series of nuclear esq Doolittle Raids against strategic targets (unlike the real life Doolittle raid) such as the Yokosuka naval base and other large air fields around Japan at all times of the day.

This being said we shouldn't forget the lessons we learned in history from ships such as the USS Bunker Hill since it would be hard to keep F-14's on constant rotation one being only able to hold off a guaranteed 12 interceptors, and remember Japan had at least 4,000 Zeroes alone at the time!



This is big, bigger than the colony and a 48 hour series of strikes against Japan couldn't ensure that they would not only just cripple their military and civilian infrastructure but would have had every second warship and warplane in the Imperial Japanese forces coming down on the one lone Nimitz!

That being said I would much rather have the "Old Salt" on my side.

* "Old Salt" is the nickname given to the USS Nimitz by its crew in case you're wondering what the hell I'm on about!

modern day amphibious warfare

The above famous picture of one of the D-day landings on June 6th, 1944 shows the massive American/British/Canadian amphibious assault in Northern France spearheading the liberation of Nazi occupied Europe (or Fortress Europe), it was the largest amphibious landing in all of history.

Just over a year later two atomic bombs where detonated no Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan bringing the Pacific War and World War II to an end, conventional war was to continue throughout the cold war and up to this day, so even today with all these super weapons conventional warfare, including amphibious warfare is still important.



Your standard amphibious assault ship today can hold around 12 helicopters or 10 AV-8B Harrier II's or a mix of the two along with smaller boats for amphibious landings (stored in the well, see image above).

Its punch on shorelines would include strafing runs from marine Harriers backed by Marines in RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, to me the ship is more of a transport fleet to land in troops after the major punch is given, the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991 is all the evidence I need for this theory.



Built the same year as the Normandy invasion the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) with its 16 inch guns served along with other battleships in World War II on coastal bombard of islands in Japan such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, it also served in the Korean War in the 1950's helping amphibious landings there.

But in the 1980's under under Ronald Reagans 600-ship Navy it was restored replacing its old World War II era flak guns with the latest in AA defences along with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

It's shells could hit and destroy solid concrete dug in positions from 26 miles away on the coast of its target, even the 2,000 pound bombs dropped from B-52's can't do this, and I'm pretty sure a strafing run from a Harrier couldn't neither, this was proven in 1991 when engaging Iraqi targets in Kuwait; its Tomahawk cruise missiles could also engage reinforcing convoys to the besieged ground forces outflanking them while troops get a chance to land;

So while World War II era battleships could still do some major damage in today's conventional warfare not much has really changed with amphibious warfare.



The Soviet Union focused a lot on this type of warfare in the 1970's, an example above (the Polnochny) shows that they carried helicopter gunships rather than Marine transports and Harriers, the above example being the Mil Mi-24 'Hind' gunship, which could ferry troops while engaging ground targets;
however very few examples of these are seen in Russia today!

waiting out an emergency

I have to say I can't but not find the military history of my country from 1939 to 1941 (the height of the Nazi thriving in Europe) very amusing, for instance marking random parts of the countryside with signs that read 'Eire' (this tactic must have failed night bombings) so that idea had its major draw backs.

And the fact that the British had a plan to invade and the Germans had a 'plan' called Operation Green to co inside with the Operation Sealion invasion of mainland Britain.

So while the Irish Army were building up more man power around 1940 while France was falling prey to the Nazi's the Irish based a strategy on neither a Nazi or British invasion, bolstering a line of defence placing explosives beneath bridges along rivers and canals in County Donegal to County Louth in case of a British invasion from the North.

While in the south preparing for a Nazi invasion in Cork any forces from an amphibious landing would have been met with 9.2 inch and six inch guns in the Treaty forts, then a blockship would have been sunk in the harbour channel and the Harbowline oil refinery would have been set on fire, while local volunteers defended the city itself backed by First Division troops in the surrounding countryside.

Once these lines of defence fell the Irish Army would fight using guerrilla tactics against the enemy, these plans were all well and good for probably the most rural and not industrially advanced part of Europe, but Ireland had to get in on the next thing that was 'up there' in this war.

And that was of course the war in the skies.

While nimble British Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes kept the mighty German air force at bay only 21 miles of channel was stopping the German army from crushing Britain.

Apart from shooting down escape barrage balloons Ireland didn't get much into the air war, however several aircraft crashed and a hefty amount were force landed, in this way the air corps acquired a British Lockheed Hudson, three Hawker Hurricanes and a Fairey Battle while sending their pilots back home via the border to Northern Ireland.


military.ie

While Germans were detained on the Curragh (many came back to Ireland after the war years with fond memories) Ireland was safe after the Battle of Britain, which saw a German bomber drop some bombs on Dublin, apart from that there wasn't a whole load of action, and thankfully so because we were neutral to the end, the two greatest powers were against each other yet both were potential enemies to us if they attempted an invasion, luckily that never came to be, because if it did that meant the one step Ireland couldn't afford to take, and that was right back into the stone age!

I guess that's another reason to hate Germany

Someone said this to me awhile ago and its been on my mind since;
it was something along the line of quote:

"I hate Germany cause of Hitler and all of them."

The ignorance of this bothered me for along time, sure there were about ten thousands Nazi's but most of the German people just wanted to live their lives, and Hitler came to power from a general election however, the result was only 33.1% for the NSDAP in that election. Only 71.1% of the eligible voters voted in that election in November 1932. That reduced the share to 23.5%.

I'm not praising Hitler or anything but he did take a shattered state in 1933 that was blamed for a war it didn't cause (The Great War) which was the biggest war in history at that time, but Hitler eliminated all opposition, made himself a powerful dictator and making the growing super power that was Germany a totalitarian state trying to Nazify everybody.



As a totalitarian state there were ways to stop people from starting a revolution or uprising against the Nazi's, a simple population surveillance, this was called the Blockwart (officially Blockleiter); one spy/contact person for about 40-60 households (about 170 individuals in average).
The system was very extremely effective.

The scary truth about fascism also is it's the most powerful form of government ever seen in history, the effects the Nazi's had fighting on the Eastern Front was proven by the fact that the Soviet forces had to withdraw nearly as far as Moscow scorching their own land, destroying their farms and factories to try and slow down the massive Nazi advance, Stalin's war of annihilation against Hitler showed both sides fighting a total war anyone who could hold a gun in Russia's case sent to fight.



The people of Germany suffered mightily during the Second World War on the hands of Stalin and the Allies, for instance what about the firebombing of Dresden by the RAF in early 1945, most of the city burned and over 40,000 people burned alive with it, most of them just civilians, where is the morality in that?


As if that wasn't enough the German people were to suffer for along time more, especially those in the east sector of Germany in the early post war years, hundreds of women who possibly had their husbands or sons killed fighting in the Eastern Front were raped by the occupying Red Army in the mid to late 1940's!



Also after Berlin was divided between West Germany and East Germany the inevitable World War III between the Allies and the Soviet Union would have resulted in the Germans being forced to kill each other before most probably have millions killed as the result of, American, British, French and Soviet nukes!

It would have been the mother of all suffering for one nationality in the 20th century but luckily it was never that bad.

What sickens me is with all this obvious evidence people can still say they hate Germany because of Hitler!