King Charlie

[facthunter]

 While I'm Fairly warm toward Charles I've gone off Camilla somewhat and understand this "allegiance thing" has been Pushed by Charles. Who knows/ But I don't wish to ever be in a position where the Royal family can affect MY life at all. My status was once British But now IS Australian Citizen No iff's or But's. The Rule Brittania Brigade of OLD Fogies will die a natural death as it should. Again How many Countries have another Countries Flag in the corner of theirs? Doesn't it Infer a connection with the other Country to anyone looking at it. Swearing allegiance to the king of England is not something I see as a reasonable request,SO I'm now for a republic as soon as can be arranged and I don't believe a comparison with the USA is relevant. Most cars have pneumatic tyres but some go flat but Pneumatic tyres are the go. USA is not the best example of a democracy let alone a Republic.. Their PRIMARIES are something we don't have an equivalent of and a lot of the worst  aspects here lately have been imported from the USA by some of our own RWNJ's aided by Merdey.  Nev

[facthunter]

The US froze Japan out of trade and connections. No one has clean Hands.  Nev

[onetrack]

The U.S. only froze Japan out of trade and connections because quite of number of intelligent American leaders and business people could see where Japan's military plans were heading - and the U.S. only responded to Japans military aggression, they didn't initiate it. The Mukden Incident precipitated the U.S. trade embargo and other restrictions on Japan, and Japan simply retaliated by becoming intent on attacking America.

 

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/mukden-incident

[pmccarthy]

3 hours ago, old man emu said:

Interesting that 'fascist' comes from from Italian fascio "group, association," literally "bundle," from Latin fasces "bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting". The fasces were carried before a lictor, a superior Roman magistrate, as a symbol of power over life and limb: the sticks symbolized punishment by whipping, the axe-head execution by beheading. Hence in Latin it also meant, figuratively, "high office, supreme power."

I understand that the fascists were Romans who broke the lictor's fasces as a symbol of insurrection, they wanted to remove the establishment.

 

[facthunter]

Depends on whose version of it you read., onetrack. The way America trades can be a bit one sided. What's different to now?    Japan didn't have oil or rubber. Do you think that bothered the US?. Nev

[Old Koreelah]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

Japan Invaded China (and Korea) well before WW2 started.  Nev

True, but if Germany had kept Britain out of the war, who would have stopped Japan spreading their “Greater 
East Asia Co-Prosperity” empire? Not America, which was firmly in the hands of pro-fascists and US firms were making lots of money in Germany.

[facthunter]

The US would not have got into it but for Pearl Harbour. Was THAT deliberately allowed to happen? Tojo (I think)  or Yamamoto said " I think WE have awakened a sleeping Tiger and knew if the war went for a long time The USA capacity to build war Machinery would decide the Outcome.   Nev

Edited May 2, 2023 by facthunter

[spacesailor]

The ' Pearl Harbor ' raid was discovered well before the event happened,  by English ' Amateur ' radio .

And was sent to the American government. 

Typical government Bureaucracy. ! .

spacesailor

[Old Koreelah]

13 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

The ' Pearl Harbor ' raid was discovered well before the event happened,  by English ' Amateur ' radio .

And was sent to the American government. 

Typical government Bureaucracy. ! .

spacesailor

Both Churchill and FDR wanted America in the war, but the US public needed plenty of convincing: a surprise attack by Japan would be the perfect solution. 

[rgmwa]

Churchill was probably quite pleased when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour.

[Old Koreelah]

19 minutes ago, rgmwa said:

Churchill was probably quite pleased when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour.

Of course; he celebrated at the news.
Churchill had form; it is said he schemed to cause an “incident” in the North Atlantic to draw America into WWI.

[willedoo]

6 hours ago, facthunter said:

Again How many Countries have another Countries Flag in the corner of theirs?

Not many these days, only four - Australia, New Zealand, Tuvalu and Fiji. Plus the six Australian states, one U.S. state (Hawaii), one U.S. county, and a couple of Canadian states. But still only 4 nations out of 195.

[nomadpete]

THE KING........

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

I reckon Pearl Harbor was a bit sad. The Germans wanted the Japanese to attack Russia from the East, not wake a sleeping giant. Mind you, the Germans had succumbed to their own propaganda and believed that the US was impotent from being run by Jews.

There is a great story about the German's best spy in the US. He finally( I think at the cost of his life )  got accurate US war production figures to Hitler. Unfortunately for the spy, Hitler just laughted at these "impossible" figures.

[kgwilson]

Yamamotos "Sleeping Giant" quote never happened except in the movie Tora,Tora,Tora. The film director reckoned he found it in Yamamotos diary but was never able to produce the diary, nor can anyone else, American or Japanese, recall it or find it. As well the screenwriter from the movie "Pearl Harbor" readily admitted he copied the line from Tora, Tora, Tora. But as they say never let the truth get in the way of a good story especially one that bolsters the American ego.

[old man emu]

Every time I watch a video on  weapons production by all sides in WWII, it boggles my mind. There's hundreds of thousands of this, and billions of that. Considering how long it takes a homebuilder to complete a plane, the thought of something as big as a B24 rolling off the line every 24 minutes is not able to be believed, although it is fact. At the same time Germany was turning out aircraft in their hundreds while getting the place destroyed by bombing. Talk about environmental rape and pillage! Think of all that was dug out of teh ground to make that amount of stuff.

[facthunter]

I would consider the comment being realistic and appropriate. The war had to be short or Japan would not succeed. it's what happened in Europe too , when the US put it's industrial might into the war there. The "Liberator' was a standardised thing like a jeep. It had faults but the design was unaltered to keep things simple. Consolidated means just that. I think FORD built the bulk of them. .. Whats going into commercial airliners today would be greater I feel than the Materials of the war period.. They are more exotic. Nev

[kgwilson]

The failure rate of a lot of the mass produced stuff was massive. Car companies were building planes and barely or partly trained people were doing the work. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Over 15,000 US airmen were killed in training in the US alone during WW2 partly attributable to poorly made aircraft.

 

The German war production was amazing as they produced more aircraft in 1944 than ever before. Of course they had enslaved millions from the conquered countries including hundreds of thousands of engineers and skilled manufacturing personnel. For the Nazis it was Total War and anything goes. The allies couldn't and wouldn't emulate this so went for overwhelming production of everything where Quality Control was not a major consideration.

 

During the Battle of Britain none of this was in place and the British produced twice as many aircraft then as the Germans did.

[facthunter]

I question the "poor quality" bit in regard to the US built  aircraft in general. Production techniques were  good. You can't mass produce unless they are.  Poor training methods were the cause of high fatalities in that area. You don't get lost because the plane was faulty or crash during assy because you didn't have adequate airspeed. due poor skills level or a mad gung  Ho instructor.. .   Nev

[red750]

Speaking of numbers built, I took a look at the WWII bombers built where the number was more than 1,000.

 

Armstrong Whitworth Whitley       1,814

Avro Lancaster                               7,377

B-17                                               12,731

B-29                                                3,970

B-24                                               18,188

Beaufighter                                     5,928

Blenheim                                         1,821

H.P. Halifax                                     6,176

Heinkel He-111                               6,508

Heinkel He-177                               1,169

Short Sterling                                  2,371

Vickers Wellington                         11,461

 

So it surprised me, after more than 2 years research, it was only recently that I heard of the 4th most produced bomber of WWII, the Petlyakov Pe-2, with 11,430 built.

[Old Koreelah]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

…At the same time Germany was turning out aircraft in their hundreds while getting the place destroyed by bombing. Talk about environmental rape and pillage! Think of all that was dug out of teh ground to make that amount of stuff.

I read an interesting comment recently about WWII.

Allied warplanes that were shot down provided lots of good quality aluminium scrap that the Nazi war machine was desperate for. A crashed De-Havilland Mosquito yielded mostly splintered wood or ashes!

[Bruce Tuncks]

There is a Len Deighton book about the ww2 generals....   They all were failures, except the one who was in charge of US war supplies, and we don't even know his name.

Thousands of bombers arrived complete with crews at the right time! Nobody else came near.

[Bruce Tuncks]

You could well be right old K, in that Yamamoto might well have never said that,( about wakening a sleeping giant )  but he sure did the deed.

I reckon Yamamoto would have spoken Japanese mainly, and the wakening a sleeping giant is a bit of a  European fairy-tale story.

And, getting back to generals, I thought Patton was good, Montgomery was bad and Rommel was good. They were all described as failures. Rommel is the one  I remember best, he was  in reality too much of a cowboy to succeed.

I was proud to read that the first defeat of German ground forces in the war was inflicted by Australians in Libya, Tobruk I think. What made me proud is how the Germans were surprised at how the troops kept fighting even when their officers were killed.

[Old Koreelah]

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

You could well be right old K, in that Yamamoto might well have never said that,( about wakening a sleeping giant )  but he sure did the deed.

I reckon Yamamoto would have spoken Japanese mainly, and the wakening a sleeping giant is a bit of a  European fairy-tale story.

It wasn’t me who mentioned Yamamoto.

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

And, getting back to generals, I thought Patton was good, Montgomery was bad and Rommel was good. They were all described as failures. Rommel is the one  I remember best, he was  in reality too much of a cowboy to succeed.

Plenty of military historians say Patton was over rated and Monty was exceptional. 

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I was proud to read that the first defeat of German ground forces in the war was inflicted by Australians in Libya, Tobruk I think. What made me proud is how the Germans were surprised at how the troops kept fighting even when their officers were killed.

A proud tradition. Despite what we saw in Lawrence of Arabia, the Arabs didn’t liberate Damascus. I believe the first Allied troops to enter the city were Australian Light Horse. The story goes that the British ordered them not to go in, but to secure the northern gates. Bugger this, they said, it’s miles around the outskirts to get there, so they took a shortcut through Damascus, becoming the first to liberate this most ancient city.

 

Most history books are written for and by people from the larger winning nations. The amazing contribution of other countries is overlooked or actively suppressed. Millions of Indian troops helped defeat Japan, but are forgotten. 
 

[onetrack]

Bruce - We do know his name, it was Gen. William S. Knudsen. He was the prime mover behind the organisation of the manufacture of War material. The biggest problems the Americans had was bottlenecks in the production of raw materials, a U.S. transport system that was deficient in many ways - including many weight-limited bridges - and orders being placed for equipment on a monthly basis at astonishing levels, then the orders quickly being changed on a vastly different numbers basis, depending on what had been decided as the most important item needed, according to changed priorities. 

 

There were four manufactured U.S. items that were decided as being critical - aircraft, tanks, ships, and construction equipment (for airfields and war zone clearance). Production of all four items was ramped up to incredible levels.

But behind those items was the need to also ramp up military engine production, machine tools production, and steel production and alloys production. The amazing part about the U.S. WW2 manufacturing effort, is that it was all done without computers, everything was hand-written and printed, from plans through to manuals, through to teaching materials.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Knudsen

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by onetrack