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Tim_Tex
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31 Jul 2008, 8:53 pm

When I was on vacation in Fredericksburg last weekend, I went to the Pacific War Museum (Fredericksburg is the birthplace of Chester Nimitz).

After touring the museum, I became an instant WWII buff.


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JerryHatake
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31 Jul 2008, 8:59 pm

^Just to let you know Tim, its really called the Japanese-American Pacific War. Anyway that my theater of interest because my Grandpa Jerry served aboard USS Franklin CV-13 working on the Hellcat, Avenger, Corsair, and Helldiver monoplanes.


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Last edited by JerryHatake on 31 Jul 2008, 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Alaspi
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31 Jul 2008, 8:59 pm

that sounds interesting. could you tell a bit more? :D :D


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JerryHatake
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31 Jul 2008, 9:23 pm

^Basically the Pacific theater was mostly fought between the Japanese and the Americans due to the British and her empire along with the Dutch were unable to fight well against the Japanese. The Royal Navy was humiliated when it lost the Prince of Wales to Japanese carrier aircraft. Though Pearl Harbor was a success to Japan it however didn't destroyed the carriers nor other vital naval targets like the drydocks and submarine pens which would later cost Japan in the long run. In 1942 alone, the first four carrier to carrier battles occurred, Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz where two draws and two total victories where give to the U.S. Navy though we lost five carriers in this year alone. This left the Big E to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy alone carrier-wise. We also took the offense with Guadalcanal which later lead to capturing of other Solomon Islands. We eventually used the island hopping tactic to capture key islands to cut off Japanese held islands like Rabaul. The U.S. Marine Corps was a key part in the island hopping tactic which lead many marines into history. By 1944, the drive for the central Pacific began with the Invasion of Saipan days after Normandy. The Battle of the Philippine Sea would quickly followed after the invasion where the Japanese Navy and its air corp is defeated making it useless as a fighting force. The recapture of the Philippines would followed along with the greatest naval battle of the 20th century, the Battle for Leyte Gulf, where the Japanese Navy becomes a former shadow of itself. In 1945, Iwo Jima and Okinawa were a wake call because it show how the Japanese would fight if an invasion of the Home Islands occurred. When the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, Japan knew they have to surrender. August 15th the Japanese surrender unconditional to the U.S. and her allies. September 2nd is the formal surrender of Japan, VJ-Day, thus World War II ended.


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Alaspi
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31 Jul 2008, 9:29 pm

WOW! i'm still processing all of that. incredibly interesting.


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JerryHatake
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31 Jul 2008, 9:31 pm

^I just summarized it basically but there are a lot of books that give better detail on the Japanese-American Pacific War literally.


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Alaspi
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31 Jul 2008, 9:33 pm

those will be on my list next trip to the library.


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Tohlagos
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31 Jul 2008, 10:39 pm

*raises hand*

I have studied various aspects of WW2 for the last 20 years. My main area has been the Eastern Front. Just something about it I have found fascinating. Perhaps it was some of the long sieges. Perhaps the use of tanks. Perhaps just the sheer scale of it all.

I did part of my bachelors in history on the Eastern Front when at university.

I know your in school Tim, but if you are looking for some interesting books to read about the Eastern Front just let me know.



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02 Aug 2008, 2:05 am

I love World War II, though you could call me a history buff in general. The Pacific Theater was quite an interesting conflict; a lot of people neglect to think about the war in China, as well, which was incredibly brutal. Japanese soldiers did alot of very cruel things to the Chinese people- anyone familiar with the Nanjing Massacre knows what I mean



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02 Aug 2008, 3:02 am

American-Japanese pacific war? Uh... yeah, way to support your allies.

Yanks; please - learn about Kokoda. Learn about how Australians fought the Japanese - the Japanese bombing raids on Darwin, how the majority of Australian forces were off fighting the Germans and Turks, with severely outnumbered soldiers remaining to fight the Japanese. It's easy to say, yeah, we got 'em, when you've two nukes to drop; but, climbing a steep, seemingly neverending track in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, your mates dropping like flies from the diseases of the jungle, hidden Japanese forces firing down on you, the rain, the mud, lack of supplies, infections, etc.

Learn to acknowledge those who fought alongside you, okay? Many nations and people fought - though, it seems nobody remembers any of the conflicts in Africa, China and the Mid-East.



ImTheGuyThatDidThat
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02 Aug 2008, 6:06 am

Check out the history on the german occupation of Hydros
heavy-water plant in norway during the war, thats one hell
of a story (hitler wanted to make the bomb), norway was the
only place with procuction of heavy-water, so of course they
came our way then. But the resistance blew it all up in the end :)
after traveling for days in very harsh climate and landscape,
lost some fingers n`stuff but they got the job done! Very impressive.
The leader of the gang was a guy named Gunnar "Kjakan" Sønsteby,
still alive i think, 90-something of age. Now he is what i would call i real,
living hero. If it hadn`t been for these guys, germany would have made
the bomb, and probably used it! how about that... Think theres a movie
being made about it, or maybe its already in the theaters. This story
has everything a great action movie has, and then some :)

The germans acually managed to get some tons of heavy water on to
a boat and was heading home. So then the resistance blew the boat and
everything on it a mile into the sky :) and then the germans gave up
their heavy water plans, everything in the plant was destroyed so there
was nothing for them there anymore.

I am very very proud of my grandfather, during the war he helped jews
get out of norway and across the border to safety in sweden by walking
secret paths in the woods, often in -25 degrees celsius for days on end.
And the border was packed with german soldiers, roaming the forrests
looking for jews on the run. He got chased and shot at but he survived
the whole thing, and he did this so many times i cant count them. Now thats
a man! he put his life on the line again and again to help others, no questions
asked, no reward expected. Tuff as nails and lived to be around 98 somewhere.

Anther great story is how a group of people managed to get all the norwegian
banks gold reserves out of the country and into england, all 40 tons of it!
And this they did as german soldiers hit ground and started marching up the
parade street in the capital oslo (where the gold was hidden in a basement). The
germans really really wanted that gold to finance the war, but they didnt get
any of it! :) nothing! amazing story of armed people driving trucks filled
with gold while germans tried to bomb the convoy to stop it. But no such luck,
they got it into england safely where it stayed for many years. I actually bought
a couple of gold coins a while ago that came from this load of bankgold, fun to have
coins that has so much story behind them, they were on quite a trip.



Last edited by ImTheGuyThatDidThat on 02 Aug 2008, 6:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

Fuzzy
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02 Aug 2008, 6:35 am

I didnt know heavy water was used for anything but nuclear. What else is its use?

I know that the last soldier killed in WWI was a canadian, and that the last killed in WWII was as well. I'll have to check my brothers book on the matter, but he was stationed on a ship near Japan and died during a bombing.


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ImTheGuyThatDidThat
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02 Aug 2008, 6:44 am

Fuzzy wrote:
I didnt know heavy water was used for anything but nuclear. What else is its use?

I know that the last soldier killed in WWI was a canadian, and that the last killed in WWII was as well. I'll have to check my brothers book on the matter, but he was stationed on a ship near Japan and died during a bombing.


Actually not sure of the uses for heavy water except the bomb thing..
must have been something since Hydro had a plant operating

Scary thought, isn`t it..? Hitler..with nuclear bombs *shrug*
we would probably be living the results of it still, had it happened



"""Adolf Hitler had the atom bomb first but it was too primitive and ungainly for aerial deployment, says a new book that indicates the race to split the atom was much closer than is believed.

Nazi scientists carried out tests of what would now be called a dirty nuclear device in the waning days of World War II, writes Rainer Karlsch, a German historian, in his book Hitler's Bomb.

Concentration camp inmates were used as human guinea pigs and "several hundred" died in the tests, conducted on the Baltic Sea island of Rugen and at an inland test in wooded hill country about 100 kilometres south of Berlin in 1944 and early 1945."""



Last edited by ImTheGuyThatDidThat on 02 Aug 2008, 7:35 am, edited 2 times in total.

JerryHatake
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02 Aug 2008, 6:55 am

Ishmael wrote:
American-Japanese pacific war? Uh... yeah, way to support your allies.

Yanks; please - learn about Kokoda. Learn about how Australians fought the Japanese - the Japanese bombing raids on Darwin, how the majority of Australian forces were off fighting the Germans and Turks, with severely outnumbered soldiers remaining to fight the Japanese. It's easy to say, yeah, we got 'em, when you've two nukes to drop; but, climbing a steep, seemingly neverending track in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, your mates dropping like flies from the diseases of the jungle, hidden Japanese forces firing down on you, the rain, the mud, lack of supplies, infections, etc.

Learn to acknowledge those who fought alongside you, okay? Many nations and people fought - though, it seems nobody remembers any of the conflicts in Africa, China and the Mid-East.


Actually we do acknowledged you in the Pacific theater but also we save you guys as well because of Battle of Coral Sea and other operations with your help of course. Its just the U.S. was mostly involved in the fighting. Many historians called the Pacific Theater the Japanese-American Pacific because mostly of the war was between the U.S. and her allies against Japan. Also if I recalled you're were fighting a retreating battle in New Guinea and you would have been cut if Port Moresby was captured if the Battle of the Coral Sea didn't occurred with your help. Yes we were not adapted to jungle warfare as you were but then most of New Guinea and more couldn't have been retaken without our help either. You guys weren't not at Iwo Jima but you were there at Okinawa under the Royal Navy command aka Task Force 57. The point is historians called it the Japanese-American Pacific War for many reasons because mostly like the U.S. was mostly fighting though they we had allies fighting as well, it just based on different factors.

Actually China and other nations in Asia still have not forgiven Japan for its wartime atrocities and when the U.S. told Japan to say sorry their government was divided on the issue though they did say sorry for the comfort women matter. That really did not good well though from the victims' view point. Everyone back then said trialed the Emperor himself but MacArthur realized doing that would cause Japan to fight the occupation force. Yes China took a brutal beating from Japan from 1937-1945 but Japan done cruel things like testing chemical warfare and biological warfare on POWs, killing and mistreating POWs, and far more disturbing matters.


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Douglas_MacNeill
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02 Aug 2008, 12:03 pm

It's part of my amateur, stereotypically
masculine interest in military history in general
(my mom gets really peeved at that.) :)

BTW, I'm too proudly Canadian not to allude to the
attack on Hong Kong here. Two regiments of our boys
fought there against the Nips--and did well to hold out
until Christmas of '41 in the face of overwhelming enemy
forces.
Apart from bloody Dieppe, our land army didn't get
any good licks at the enemy till the mainland of Italy
(especially the Loyal Edmonton Regiment--from my
adopted home town--at Ortona). Then, there's Juno
Beach, of course, and the whole slog up the Channel and
North Sea coasts. I could go on for days, if I so wished.

And that's before you mention what the Aussies or Brits
did.



Last edited by Douglas_MacNeill on 02 Aug 2008, 6:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ed
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02 Aug 2008, 12:52 pm

My dad was a gunnery officer on the USS Atlanta ( http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/4072/ ) which was sunk at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Subsequently he served on its sister ship, USS Oakland. I was born during the war.

I disagree with JerryHatake's name "Japanese-American Pacific War." I've never heard it called that, and suspect that the name is part of some group's agenda. It truly was a World War. By that same reasoning, the war in Europe would be called the German-Russian European War.


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