Favorite WWII Ship

Operation Anthropoid was the code name for the assassination of Schutzstaffel (SS)-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office, RSHA), the combined security services of Nazi Germany, and acting Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.[1] The operation was carried out in Prague on 27 May 1942 after having been prepared by the British Special Operations Executive with the approval of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. Wounded in the attack, Heydrich died of his injuries on 4 June 1942. His death led to a wave of merciless reprisals by German SS troops, including the destruction of villages and the killing of civilians. Anthropoid was the only successful assassination of a senior Nazi leader during World War II.

Heydrich was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and an important figure in the rise of Adolf Hitler; as a Nazi potentate, he was given overall charge of the so-called Final Solution (Holocaust) of the Jews in Europe. Despite the risks, the Czechoslovaks decided to undertake the operation to help confer legitimacy on Edvard Beneš’s government-in-exile in London, as well as for retribution against Heydrich’s harsh rule.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid

Just want to hear your thoughts on a military operation designed to kill only one man.  Even if that man was SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SS-RSHA!

The Bataan Death March (Filipino: Martsa ng Kamatayan sa Bataan; Japanese: バターン死の行進, Hepburn: Batān Shi no Kōshin) was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000–80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war from Saisaih Point, Bagac, Bataan and Mariveles to Camp O’Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, via San Fernando, Pampanga, where the prisoners were loaded onto trains. The transfer began on April 9, 1942, after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II. The total distance marched from Mariveles to San Fernando and from the Capas Train Station to Camp O’Donnell is variously reported by differing sources as between 60 mi (97 km) and 69.6 mi (112.0 km). Differing sources also report widely differing prisoner of war casualties prior to reaching Camp O’Donnell: from 5,000 to 18,000 Filipino deaths and 500 to 650 American deaths during the march. The march was characterized by severe physical abuse and wanton killings, and was later judged by an Allied military commission to be a Japanese war crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March

Considered a war crime, the Bataan Death March was a dark day in the US Army’s history as well as a black page of World War II.
Do you guys believe that this WAS truly a war crime or not?
Do you guys think that it compares to Germany’s war crimes in the European Theater?
I know that this is a touchy subject, but im looking for opinions and objectivity.

Maybe the website I got the French DOW on was wrong, or just listed the allied ones - since many times they reciprocate a dow even though they don’t need too…

Anyway, Germany was perfectly happy sitting there and doing nothing before Russia decided to stick it’s big fat nose in things, then France and England decided to fight Germany (DOW or not, they did cut off transport and trade with them, so in effect, they did declare on Germany even if it wasn’t on paper)

It’s clear that the side that supported the rebellion against the law abiding, peace loving states of Germany and Austria-Hungary are the aggressors, Germany and Austria-Hungary just defending themselves from unwarranted and unwanted attack. :P

And Belgiums a country?  Sheesh, I thought it was a truck stop on route to Paris!  Next you’ll be telling me Rhode Island is a state in the United States of America and not a gas station with delusions of grandeur!

Here’s a weapon which could more properly be described as “low-profile” rather than underrated: the proximity-fused anti-aircraft artillery shell.  Proximity fuses were essentially miniature radar sets, built small enough to fit in a shell and tough enough to withstand the tremendous kick of being fired from a gun.  They were quite a technical achievement and they increased the chance that a shell would bring down an airplane even if it didn’t hit it directly.  The Americans kept the proximity fuse very hush-hush; if I recall correctly, it was restricted to being used at sea, where unexploded shells couldn’t be recovered by the enemy and studied for their secrets.

Another effective weapon whose details were kept secret from the American public was the shaped-charge warhead.  I own a laminated WWII magazine advertisement page which tells Americans about a revolutionary new anti-armour weapon called the bazooka; it makes the point that GIs are finding it very effective against German tanks, but it adds that the exact details of how it works and what it looks like can’t be revealed.  As it happens, the Germans knew all about the Munroe Effect (discovered as far back as the 19th century) and had their own shaped-charge anti-tank weapon: the Panzerfaust.  An amusing example of the public on your side being kept in the dark more than the military people on the enemy side.

It is amazing how much resources Hitler put into the defense of the British owned Channel Islands. He demanded between 10 to 25% of all Atlantic Wall material get dedicated to these Islands.

Lucky for us, Hitler was really dumb and was a terrible commander. He crippled his air force, threw away an army (6th), wasted his Kriegsmarine,he made Normandy an allied victory.
I believe that Germany would have won if they had been a competent military mind as head of state, or even if Hitler just didn’t interfere in military decision.

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.

Also on the subject of Italian POWs: some Italians captured by the British in North Africa ended up being interned in the Orkney Islands, where they were put to work constructing concrete barriers to seal off the eastern entry route into Scapa Flow (the route taken by U47 when it torpedoed the battleship Royal Oak in October 1939).  Sometimes, arguments would break out between the Italians and the British personnel supervising the work, and an Army interpreter would be called in to sort out the dispute.  After one such altercation, a Navy officer took the interpreter aside and asked him why he had been translating for the Italian man who’d been complaining, saying that, “This fellow can speak English!”  The interpreter retorted that the man couldn’t “even speak Italian!” – an answer which no doubt baffled the Navy officer until the prisoner later confided that he’d been speaking in dialect.  (“Churchill’s Prisoners: The Italians In Orkney, 1942-1944.” St Margaret’s Hope : Orkney Wireless Museum, 1992.)

CWO Marc

@Col:

With the ME 262 seemingly winning the poll, eyebrows should be raised at the fact that the ME 262’s closest rival in it’s own catagory, the Gloster Meteor was unfairly banned from the poll.

I’m surprised that a jet is the winner. I came close to not including the Me 262.  I may just be old school.

Col Cool, i have named you the Poll Cop- always fighting poll injustice.