Which war is the most exciting to learn about

@abworsham4

I think from the sides and back it’s possible. It just isn’t possible to armour those parts well enough against modern technology without it being too slow. So they just gave up in hope that with less armour a tank has superior mobility and can destroy the enemy before such a situation happens.

I heard that good tankers never expose the sides or back, and if that happens you deserve to lose.

So who would be your top 10 generals and admirals of World War 2? Put them in order if you can (it’s quite tough). If you could also make a top 5, that would be appreciated. This list also includes all naval, army, and air force commanders regardless of rank.

Personally my picks would be (in no particular order, I just can’t decide):

Erwin Rommel

Jisaburo Ozawa

Takeo Kurita

Walther Model

Erich Von Manstein

William “Bull” Halsey

Raymond Spurance

Tamechi Hara

Chester Nimitz

Georgy Zhukov

Writing this out, there is not enough space for all the generals I want to put, such as Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ernest King, and many Soviet generals.

@Razor:

I think Stalin sabotaged the Republicans cause since he was afraid of disturbing UK, they sure did not want a commy state as neighbour. Imagine UK joining up with Germany against communism in Europe.

I think that over-zealous Comintern agents and an NKVD infiltrated PCE (the communist part of Spain) are what really caused the most damage to the Spanish Republic. The wasting of men and material on useless “prestige” offensives in places like Brunete and Teruel, the lack of initiative shown the Soviet advisors and their communist promoted officers, and the persecution of Republic supporting groups like the CNT, UGT (anarchists) and the POUMS (Spain’s Marxist/trotskiest party) did the most damage.

Also, the other single biggest enemy of the Republic and the country that did the most to help the Nationalists and hurt the Republic was the United Kingdom. Their policy of “non-intervention” and the stupid committee they set up that did absolutely nothing. Even when given proof that both Germany AND Italy were blatantly ignoring their roles in this non-intervention committee, and actively helping Franco with troops and equipment, the UK did nothing. Also Britain keep France from helping the Republic by suggesting that they would not back France against the Germans if they did. It was part of the UK’s stupid policy of appeasement that did the most damage to the Republic and thrust them into the arms of the Soviets, and all the damage that caused.

@KurtGodel7:

@Gargantua:

With that said Kurt Godel…

That makes Jodl innocent.  But also… dead, by execution.

Thus, the United States government is guilty of Murder?  Or is it the internationally community that is to blame?

The Allies conducted Soviet-style show trials after the war, against both the Germans and Japanese.

Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court Harlan Fiske Stone called the Nuremberg trials a fraud. “(Chief U.S. prosecutor) Jackson is away conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg,” he wrote. “I don’t mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas.”[61]

Jackson, in a letter discussing the weaknesses of the trial, in October 1945 told U.S. President Harry S. Truman that the Allies themselves “have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for. The French are so violating the Geneva Convention in the treatment of prisoners of war that our command is taking back prisoners sent to them. We are prosecuting plunder and our Allies are practicing it. We say aggressive war is a crime and one of our allies asserts sovereignty over the Baltic States based on no title except conquest.”[62][63]

Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas charged that the Allies were guilty of “substituting power for principle” at Nuremberg. “I thought at the time and still think that the Nuremberg trials were unprincipled,” he wrote. “Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamor of the time.”[64]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials#Criticism

The above-described trials resulted in a very different outcome than might have been expected, had the trials been conducted by a trustworthy neutral government. (In contrast, the Allied governments which conducted the trials had a strong vested interest in making the Nazis look as bad as possible. The worse the Nazis looked, the better the Allied governments would look for having beaten them.) Also, there is this quote from The Guardian, one of Britain’s most prestigious newspapers:

Official documents discovered last month at the National Archives at Kew, south-west London, show that the London Cage was a secret torture centre where German prisoners who had been concealed from the Red Cross were beaten, deprived of sleep, and threatened with execution or with unnecessary surgery.

As horrific as conditions were at the London Cage, Bad Nenndorf was far worse. . . . Initially, most of the detainees were Nazi party members or former members of the SS, rounded up in an attempt to thwart any Nazi insurgency. . . .

The Foreign Office briefed Clement Attlee, the prime minister, that “the guards had apparently been instructed to carry out physical assaults on certain prisoners with the object of reducing them to a state of physical collapse and of making them more amenable to interrogation”. . . .

Threats to execute prisoners, or to arrest, torture and murder their wives and children were considered “perfectly proper”, on the grounds that such threats were never carried out. . . .

One victim of the cold cell punishment was Buttlar, who swallowed the spoon handle to escape. An anti-Nazi, he had spent two years as a prisoner of the Gestapo. "I never in all those two years had undergone such treatmdescribed tactics would have been used to extort confessions for use at the Nuremberg Trials.

@KurtGodel7:

@Gargantua:

With that said Kurt GNuremberg," he wrote. “I don’t mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas.”[61]

Jackson, in a letter discussing the weaknesses of the trial, in October 1945 told U.S. President Harry S. Truman that the Allies themselves “have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for. The French are so violating the Geneva Convention in the treatment of prisoners of war that our command is taking back prisoners sent to them. We are prosecuting plunder and our Allies are practicing it. We say aggressive war is a crime and one of our allies asserts sovereignty over the Baltic States based on no title except conquest.”[62][63]

Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas charged that the Allies were guilty of “substituting power for principle” at Nuremberg. “I thought at the time and still think that the Nuremberg trials were unprincipled,” he wrote. “Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamor of the time.”[64]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials#Criticism

The above-described trials resulted in a very different outcome than might have been expected, had the trials been conducted by a trustworthy neutral government. (In contrast, the Allied governments which conducted the trials had a strong vested interest in making the Nazis look as bad as possible. The worse the Nazis looked, the better the Allied governments would look for having beaten them.) Also, there is this quote from The Guardian, one of Britain’s most prestigious newspapers:

Official documents discovered last month at the National Archives at Kew, south-west London, show that the London Cage was a secret torture centre where German prisoners who had been concealed from the Red Cross were beaten, deprived of sleep, and threatened with execution or with unnecessary surgery.

As horrific as conditions were at the London Cage, Bad Nenndorf was far worse. . . . Initially, most of the detainees were Nazi party members or former members of the SS, rounded up in an attempt to thwart any Nazi insurgency. . . .

The Foreign Office briefed Clement Attlee, the prime minister, that “the guards had apparently been instructed to carry out physical assaults on certain prisoners with the object of reducing them to a state of physical collapse and of making them more amenable to interrogation”. . . .

Threats to execute prisoners, or to arrest, torture and murder their wives and children were considered “perfectly proper”, on the grounds that such threats were never carried out. . . .

One victim of the cold cell punishment was Buttlar, who swallowed the spoon handle to escape. An anti-Nazi, he had spent two years as a prisoner of the Gestapo. "I never in alldescribed tactics would have been used to extort confessions for use at the Nuremberg Trials.
I don’t see a problem here
the nazis got what they deserved

I scored Finland, I’m trying to score Italy to see what it says  :-D

@Fishmoto37:

All of the above made important contributions to the war effort. Which one do you think contibuted the most. Do you think that there is one fighter that the U.S. could not have done without?

The voting is now closed and the P51 is the winner by 3 votes. Although there was very little commentary as to why.

Here is the series discussed above

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TU1dQK-j-4

War creates a thousand heroes a day and almost no one ever hears about them. Vernon Buss  of Portland is a hero of the unsung variety, but he never cared about recognition or notice for his actions that day on Samar.

But Irving Saunders  did – and long ago, Buss realized that Saunders was “a stubborn man” and it was pointless to deter him.

At last, the stubbornness paid off. All Buss had to do was show up Tuesday morning at a state office building and accept the thanks of a grateful nation . . . and of a grateful Saunders.

It would not be far wrong to say that Saunders, 87, has thought about Buss, 84, almost daily since Jan. 24, 1945. He gets reminders when he looks in the mirror, when he celebrates a birthday, when he speaks of his wife, Pearl,  his children and grandchildren.

He should have died that day, at 22, but Buss saved his life. For decades, Saunders, then an aircraft ground crewman, never even knew the name of the fellow Marine who had pulled his burning body from the crashed F4-U Corsair  on the speck of an island in the Philippines.

“I wasn’t supposed to live,” Saunders said, “but the Marines had developed this new way to treat burns, and as soon as I could, I asked to go back to my unit, so I could find my rescuer.”

When Cpl. Vernon Buss, a 20-year-old aircraft mechanic, saw the Corsair explode, he raced to the burning aircraft searching for survivors. He scooped up the unconscious Saunders, carried him to an ambulance and returned to the crash site to rescue others.

Nearly a year later, when his tour ended, Buss returned to his hometown of Portland, worked seven years in a rendering plant then joined the Fire Bureau, where he spent 31 years, retired as battalion chief and even had a fire boat named after him. He and Madge  have been married 63 years; they had four children and are great-grandparents.

“I wondered what had happened to him,” Buss said of Saunders. “But there were other things to do.”

Saunders finished his service – never finding his rescuer – and went back home to Southern California. His back, arms and legs carry the scars from third-degree burns he suffered in the aircraft fire. The back brace he wears daily is another reminder.

Saunders went to veterans’ reunions with the No. 1 aim of finding his rescuer. In 1996, he went to an event wearing a T-shirt silkscreened with an image of an F4-U. A woman approached him and complimented the T-shirt; she said her husband would love to see it.

A moment later, the husband appeared and said his name was Vernon Buss. He and Saunders engaged in the veterans’ eternal guessing game: Where did you serve?

In the Pacific – check. Through Guadalcanal  – check. In the Philippines – check. . . On the island of Samar  . . . Jan. 24, 1945 . . .

Saunders had found him. He gave Buss the T-shirt.

They stayed in touch. Saunders carved a plaque from solid basswood with the Marine Corps’ emblem and presented it to Bass. But that wasn’t thanks enough.

So Saunders got stubborn. Three times, he petitioned the Marine Corps to give Buss a medal. But few witnesses were alive to corroborate events. Finally, he contacted a staff member in the office of U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer  because Buss lived in that House district.

After much back and forth, with Saunders pushing hard, Blumenauer’s office worked out a plan for Rep. Darrell Issa,  R-Calif., who represents Saunders, to read a commendation into the Congressional Record on July 29:

“With total disregard for his own safety, Corporal Buss rushed to the side of Staff Sergeant Irving Saunders and carried him away from the burning aircraft, the burning pools of gasoline and the random detonations of .50 caliber ammunition as it ‘cooked off’ from the Corsair’s burning ammunition supply.”

The Marine Corps in Portland and Blumenauer’s staff arranged for the ceremony in Blumenauer’s district office to present Buss with a framed copy of the Congressional Record statement.

The day before the ceremony, Saunders said he wouldn’t make it. He is 87, after all. Then, “My daughter said, ‘Dad, this is what you’ve worked for! You have to be there! I’ve already bought the plane tickets.’ So, here I am.”

Buss never wanted the attention – Madge Buss said, “Vernon is a very, very modest man” – but he didn’t deter Saunders from his quest.

"I didn’t say, ‘Go to it, pal,’ but I didn’t say, ‘Let it rest,’ " Buss said. “It was obviously very important to him.”

Saunders’s son-in-law, Derek Barton, who accompanied Saunders to Portland, said Buss “literally saved Irv twice: One, in the wreckage; two, it kept him going. He had another will to live, to continue to find this man and to recognize him.”

Shortly after 9 a.m., two Marines in dress uniforms arrived. They invited Buss and Saunders to stand before them for the reading of the Congressional Record commendation.

The veterans stood side by side. Saunders put his arm around Buss’s waist.

When it was over, Buss said, “OK, pal.” Saunders said, “OK, pal.”

After the ceremony and handshakes, Saunders plopped down on a soft couch. Buss’s daughter, Jan, sat with him.

“It was so nice of you to persevere,” she said.

“I could not give up,” Saunders replied.

“Well, now you can rest.”

“Yeah,” he said, “now I can rest.”

By Anne Saker, The Oregonian
October 20, 2009, 7:51PM