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Post by Abraham on Jan 5, 2021 16:17:20 GMT -5
Here's another one:
Isoroku Yamamoto (the Japanese Admiral who planned the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Midway) was, prior to the war, vehemently opposed to war with Great Britain or the United States (he wasn't either a big fan of the Japanese hostilities in China). Opposing him, though, were the militarists in the army, who fully controlled the government of Japan and who would literally just assassinate anyone who got in the way of their plans.
Anyway, on one occasion Yamamoto was at a big meeting in which a prominent general got up and began giving an interminable speech on the need for war. As the man spoke and spoke, Yamamoto slowly moved the general's chair further and further back, so that when the guy was finished speaking and sat back down, he totally missed his chair and sprawled on the floor. Throughout the whole ensuing fracas Yamamoto just sat in his chair with a poker face, looking straight ahead.
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Post by andrew on Jan 5, 2021 18:19:07 GMT -5
Here's another one: Isoroku Yamamoto (the Japanese Admiral who planned the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Midway) was, prior to the war, vehemently opposed to war with Great Britain or the United States (he wasn't either a big fan of the Japanese hostilities in China). Opposing him, though, were the militarists in the army, who fully controlled the government of Japan and who would literally just assassinate anyone who got in the way of their plans. Anyway, on one occasion Yamamoto was at a big meeting in which a prominent general got up and began giving an interminable speech on the need for war. As the man spoke and spoke, Yamamoto slowly moved the general's chair further and further back, so that when the guy was finished speaking and sat back down, he totally missed his chair and sprawled on the floor. Throughout the whole ensuing fracas Yamamoto just sat in his chair with a poker face, looking straight ahead. I love that guy. Curiously he's remembered as this "winning" Admiral of vast strategic knowledge and superior insight, so deadly that US forces literally jumped at the opportunity of killing him when it presented itself. In reality, he never won a single actual battle - even Pearl Harbor was a flop, missing its intended targets and, by bypassing the oil farm, leaving the port fully functional. He wasn't present at, nor responsible for the planning of any of the great Japanese naval victories early in the war at all, yet somehow he gets the credit for being the biggest obstacle to ultimate Allied victory. A curious phenomenon I call it the "Rommel Syndrome". |
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Post by Abraham on Jan 5, 2021 19:07:34 GMT -5
Here's another one: Isoroku Yamamoto (the Japanese Admiral who planned the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Midway) was, prior to the war, vehemently opposed to war with Great Britain or the United States (he wasn't either a big fan of the Japanese hostilities in China). Opposing him, though, were the militarists in the army, who fully controlled the government of Japan and who would literally just assassinate anyone who got in the way of their plans. Anyway, on one occasion Yamamoto was at a big meeting in which a prominent general got up and began giving an interminable speech on the need for war. As the man spoke and spoke, Yamamoto slowly moved the general's chair further and further back, so that when the guy was finished speaking and sat back down, he totally missed his chair and sprawled on the floor. Throughout the whole ensuing fracas Yamamoto just sat in his chair with a poker face, looking straight ahead. I love that guy. Curiously he's remembered as this "winning" Admiral of vast strategic knowledge and superior insight, so deadly that US forces literally jumped at the opportunity of killing him when it presented itself. In reality, he never won a single actual battle - even Pearl Harbor was a flop, missing its intended targets and, by bypassing the oil farm, leaving the port fully functional. He wasn't present at, nor responsible for the planning of any of the great Japanese naval victories early in the war at all, yet somehow he gets the credit for being the biggest obstacle to ultimate Allied victory. A curious phenomenon I call it the "Rommel Syndrome". I'm not sure that's a fair assessment of his role in Pearl Harbor. He was very strongly in favor of sending the Japanese planes on a third run to finish off the damaged warships and (I believe) to destroy the oil farm. Nagumo, though, decided not to commit his forces a third time and Yamamoto accepted that, rather than publicly show up his fellow admiral. I get what you're saying, but there's context to his failure to override Nagumo and send in a third strike. But I don't understand how you can say that he wasn't the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, in every sense of the word. He was intensely involved in advocacy for the attack as well as its planning. But yes, after Pearl Harbor the only major operation he was directly involved in was Midway, and we know how that turned out. Although, he had no way of knowing that HYPO had cracked his communications and knew all about the plan. The fundamental premise of the plan was sound (bait the Americans into a naval battle where they can be destroyed), and the crackpot distraction in the Aleutians was most definitely not what he wanted. |
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Post by andrew on Jan 5, 2021 19:24:10 GMT -5
I love that guy. Curiously he's remembered as this "winning" Admiral of vast strategic knowledge and superior insight, so deadly that US forces literally jumped at the opportunity of killing him when it presented itself. In reality, he never won a single actual battle - even Pearl Harbor was a flop, missing its intended targets and, by bypassing the oil farm, leaving the port fully functional. He wasn't present at, nor responsible for the planning of any of the great Japanese naval victories early in the war at all, yet somehow he gets the credit for being the biggest obstacle to ultimate Allied victory. A curious phenomenon I call it the "Rommel Syndrome". I'm not sure that's a fair assessment of his role in Pearl Harbor. He was very strongly in favor of sending the Japanese planes on a third run to finish off the damaged warships and (I believe) to destroy the oil farm. Nagumo, though, decided not to commit his forces a third time and Yamamoto accepted that, rather than publicly show up his fellow admiral. I get what you're saying, but there's context to his failure to override Nagumo and send in a third strike. But I don't understand how you can say that he wasn't the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, in every sense of the word. He was intensely involved in advocacy for the attack as well as its planning. But yes, after Pearl Harbor the only major operation he was directly involved in was Midway, and we know how that turned out. Although, he had no way of knowing that HYPO had cracked his communications and knew all about the plan. The fundamental premise of the plan was sound (bait the Americans into a naval battle where they can be destroyed), and the crackpot distraction in the Aleutians was most definitely not what he wanted. I don't say he wasn't the architect of Pearl Harbor; I say it was a flop. As a strategic exercise- and Midway too, I actually agree with the concept: Inflict such a crushing blow at one time that the enemy will sue for peace or, failing that, it will buy you enough to time to make an enemy counterattack unappealing, and they sue for peace again. But anyway, it's deserving of its own thread in the proper forum, so I don't sidetrack things here. I merely make the anecdotal interjection that this famous winner never actually won anything.  |
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Post by andrew on Jan 9, 2021 3:50:01 GMT -5
On the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, a dummy paratrooper was hung from the bell tower of the church in Ste Mere Eglise. It's still there today.  Private Steele (the unfortunate jumper) is also memorialized in a stained glass window in the same church. ![]()  |
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Post by andrew on Feb 10, 2021 23:55:36 GMT -5
Maria Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya was the wife of a Red Army officer. She lost contact with her husband when she was evacuated to Siberia in the summer of 1941. Her husband was killed in action in the great encirclement of Kiev in August of that year, but the news would not reach her until 1943 (As a political commissar, he was probably executed summarily if he was captured). She sold all her possessions, raising 50,000 rubles, which she donated to the state defence fund - the cost of a T34 tank. She then wrote a letter to Joseph Stalin... "To the Chairman of the State Defence Committee, Supreme Commander-In-Chief, Dear Joseph Vissaryonovich My husband, Regimental Commissar Ilya Fedorovich Oktyabrskya, perished in the battles for the Motherland. For him and for all the Soviet people tortured by the fascist barbarians, I want to take revenge on these dogs, for which I contributed all my personal savings to the state bank to build a tank. Please name the tank "Fighting Friend" (Боевая подруга) and send me to the front as its driver. I also have excellent command of machine guns and I am a sharp-shooter. I send you warm greetings and wish you good health for many, many years to the fear of our enemies and the glory of our Motherland. -- Maria Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya" She was 38 years old. Stalin read the letter, and replied.... "To Comrade Maria Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya, Thank you, Maria Vasilyevna, for your concern for the armoured forces of the Red Army. Your wish will be granted. Please accept my best wishes. -- I. Stalin." After a five-month training course as driver and mechanic (unusually long training), she was assigned to the 26th Guards Tank Brigade as a Sergeant Driver. Her comrades considered the whole thing a publicity stunt and she a bit of a joke. In her first engagement, near Smolensk on October 21, 1943, after destroying several machine gun nests and antitank guns, an enemy shell disabled the engine of "Fighting Friend". Against orders, Oktyabrskaya exited the vehicle and effected repairs under fire, enabling the tank to return to the fight. She was no longer considered a joke after that. In a wild battle in the darkness on the night of November 17-18, she drove fearlessly through German positions, creating havoc. When a German shell broke the track she once again, with another crewman this time, effected repairs on the battlefield under fire while the remainder of the crew covered them with submachine guns. Eventually the track was repaired, but friendly forces had withdrawn. It would take them three days to find their lines again. In yet another night battle on 17 January, and in yet another orgy of rampaging about German positions, squashing machine gun positions, and destroying a self-propelled gun, "Fighting Friend" once again lost a track due to enemy fire. Once again she was out making repairs under fierce small arms and artillery fire, but her luck had run out. She managed to repair the track, but was struck in the head by a shell splinter before she could get back inside. She was taken to a military hospital near Kiev where she lingered in a coma for two months, before passing away in March of 1944. In August she was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.   |
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Post by Aurelia on Feb 11, 2021 9:44:12 GMT -5
Someone once shared (elsewhere) a very brief synopsis of Vasilyevna's tank story - and it came off as slightly humorous, though they were calling her tank the Fighting Girlfriend, which is just rather funny sounding without much background info. But this quote makes you realize she was something of a total badass... I also have excellent command of machine guns and I am a sharp-shooter. Good on Stalin for letting her join a tank crew... she's brave for wanting to be in any of the Allied tanks, IMHO. 😅 Sounds like she did her country proud to a degree - and got her revenge. |
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Post by andrew on Feb 11, 2021 15:29:06 GMT -5
Someone once shared (elsewhere) a very brief synopsis of Vasilyevna's tank story - and it came off as slightly humorous, though they were calling her tank the Fighting Girlfriend, which is just rather funny sounding without much background info. But this quote makes you realize she was something of a total badass... I also have excellent command of machine guns and I am a sharp-shooter. Good on Stalin for letting her join a tank crew... she's brave for wanting to be in any of the Allied tanks, IMHO. 😅 Sounds like she did her country proud to a degree - and got her revenge. If you punch it into Google Translate it comes out as "Fighting Girlfriend", but that's a bit of a minefield. The name of the tank is literally the feminine form of "Fighting Friend". Russian applies gender to everything. The wife of Mr. Pavlov is Mrs. Pavlova. So it's fighting friend, but it's female. The only English translation of that is girlfriend. (I don't know the masculine form of Oktyabrskaya, if there even is one, so I relied on someone else's translation when I wrote her husband's name. Many committed communists [or people wanting to be believed as such] changed their names after the revolution. Oktyabrskaya refers to the October Revolution, and many people changed their names to this). Regarding her bad-assery, Soviet officers' wives were committed. One said, "to be an officer's wife is to be a soldier." In peacetime garrison they pretty much ran the show, taking care of common soldiers, and learning the trade of their husbands. I don't have it handy, but German war diaries from the early days of the war report many, many instances of soldier's wives participating in the initial defence. The movie "Brest Fortress" (IMO the best of the Russian war movies, as it deals with people only and not politics) demonstrates this absolutely and without agenda or prejudice. I'm unclear on what she actually did between 1941 and 1943, but one surviving photo of her would suggest she was an accomplished mechanic too. Also, if you're Stalin, and someone sends you 50,000 r to buy a tank, you bloody well reply and make it public too. It might inspire someone else to do the same!  |
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Post by andrew on Apr 24, 2021 7:43:14 GMT -5
In the year 2000, a World War 2 era motivational poster appeared in the window of Alnwick books in Britain. Considered the epitome of the so-called (and entirely mythical) "blitz spirit", the poster has inspired a staggering number of spin-offs. Ironically, though genuine, this poster was never issued during the war. It was the third of a three-part poster series intended to boost morale if things should get bad. The first two posters in the series, however, were considered patronizing, with a "rich man's war, poor man's fight" flavour, and so the whole series was binned in April 1940 before the blitz even began. Attachments:
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