WWII POW Ring Returns Home

@barnee said in Wrecks of WWII Carriers Kaga and Akagi Located:

@CWO-Marc
yea Spruance steaming away at night was a smart move. I wonder if Halsey was in the same situation if he would have. I kinda doubt it

Agreed. Ray Spruance was an excellent combat officer – he and Halsey spent the last few years of WWII alternating command of the 5th Fleet / 3rd Fleet, which was actually the same force whose name got switched every time the two admirals rotated, much to the confusion of Japanese naval intelligence – but he was very different from Bill Halsey in terms of style and personality. Spruance was precise and analytical; he certainly didn’t lack aggressiveness (when he made a decision to attack, he sent in “everything that wasn’t bolted to the flight deck”), but before making his decision to attack he would carefully weigh all the factors of the situation, which sometimes translated into over-cautiousness. Halsey was a hell-for-leather type – sort of the naval counterpart of George Patton – whose fighting spirit greatly inspired his men (the enlisted sailors loved him, not least for the fact that he could drink and swear as well as any of them), but this sometimes translated into recklessness. After the war, someone – I think it was Spruance himself – said that it would have been better if Halsey has been in command at the Battle of the Philippine Sea (where the IJN lost hundred of planes and pilots, but managed to save the bulk of its fleet) and if Spruance had been in command at the Battle of Leyte Gulf (where Halsey fell for a Japanese decoy operation, and compounded his error by leaving no covering force to guard the San Bernardino Straight).

Here’s an interesting news story from yesterday. For technology buffs, note that Mr. Smoyer posed in front of a Sherman tank for the occasion (which was a nice touch), but that the tank in which he served as a gunner, and with which he destroyed a Panther, was a Pershing, a late-war 90mm-gunned well-armoured US tank which could take on the Panther on better terms than the thinly-armoured 75mm-gunned Sherman.

Published Wednesday, September 18, 201
World War II veteran Clarence Smoyer, 96, receives the Bronze Star from U.S. Army Maj. Peter Semanoff at the World War II Memorial, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019, in Washington. Smoyer fought with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Armored Division, nicknamed the Spearhead Division. In 1945, he defeated a German Panther tank near the cathedral in Cologne, Germany — a dramatic duel filmed by an Army cameraman that was seen all over the world.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/the-u-s-hero-of-cologne-receives-his-bronze-star-75-years-late-1.4599606

@barnee said in WWII Mohawk Code-Talkers:

@CWO-Marc

On a side note, the Tlingit’s were/are badasses. They kicked ass on the russians and were hired to pack 200lb packs up the chilkoot trail. They all seem to be naturally strong. Probably weeded out the weak genes long ago : )

I saw something similar in a 1950s US Army film about the Korean War, part of which showed UN troops employing locals as porters to haul impressively large loads of supplies and equipment up steep trails to hilltop positions.

Another example of a simple-yet-sophisticated solution which the Americans used to address a WWII problem was the Marston Mat, which was conceptually similar to those Meccano construction sets for kids. It required heavy industry to manufacture it in the required huge quantities, but the device itself was mechanically straightforward: standardized sheets of steel mesh which could be laid down in an interlocking pattern, at whatever length and width was desired, to construct runways for aircraft in places where they were needed in a hurry, or in remote locations like Alaska and the Pacific Islands. The Marston Mat, combined with the use of heavy equipment like backhoes and bulldozers – which were commonplace in the US civilian construction industry – and chainsaws, allowed the Navy’s SeaBees (in the Pacific) and the Army’s Corps of Engineers (in Alaska) to turn an area of wilderness into an operational runway in just a few days.

The second Italian Facist regime : la Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI) was set up today, with its capital, not in Rome, but Salo, a small town in Lombardy on Lake Garda,  Northern Italy, where the RSI had his Foreign Office.  
Mussolini was its head, but it was nothing more than a German puppet, dependent on its military and financial support.
Mussolini had been rescued from captivity in a daring raid by a soon to be famous German SS Colonel, Otto Skorzeny on September 12th.
Italy had  surrendered on the 8th and the Allies had  landed at Salerno on the 9th and were fighting the Germans in the south of Italy at this time, though they had not yet captured the city port of Naples.

Best ww2 Doc. EVER!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvgm-Jx6IvI My favorite of all time.        well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ngTjtm3b0&feature=related this one is more complete, but youtube removed alot of the part ones :(

Germany because of the SS’s elite training and morale stemming from their admirable mission to defend Europe from Bolshevism. Kurt is absolutely right about the Soviets planning to invade Europe, and yes, including Germany. This is why the Germans had such success at first by attacking a mere 2 weeks before the Soviets. All The Soviets’ airfields and other pertinent facilities and equipment was DIRECTLY behind the front lines in preparation for supporting the advancing army proceeding kilometers ahead. See Operation Groza(Thunderstorm). http://defence.pk/threads/operation-groza-soviet-invasion-of-western-europe-july-6-1941.293859/
Btw, the Germans would have won if they had implemented “total war” production practices that the British had done in 1940 and Soviet Union had done at the outbreak of hostilities with Germany. They did not do so until 1943 because they cared about citizens’ well-being and morale. This is why they were so far behind regarding equipment totals.

@balungaloaf:

Edit: Let’s not include hidden messages (political) in your posts. What happens is people who are on the other side start a flame war.

:lol:

This is exactly what I talk about with the bias around here.  B isn’t starting a flame war, but someone who responds to that nonsense is?

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Anyway, the WW2 in HD is on Xbox Live.  I watched the preview and was tempted to get it, but since I don’t own an HD TV, it would be semipointless.

I played WaW once. Didn’t like it much. But I’ll give it another try if you think it is worth it.
  What do you like about it?
  Crazy Ivan