The bombing of Dresden was a joint effort by both the British and the Americans. To this day, there is controversy over the bombing of Dresden. Some claim that Dresden had very little military value and that it was a war crime. Personally, I am of the opinion that when you are in a street fight you should not be blamed for picking up a brick and using it in an attempt to end the fight. In any event, if the war had lasted thru all of 1945, we would have used nuclear weapons.
Another failure of Germany was the fight between the Luftwaffe, under Herman Goering and the German Imperial Navy. The Imperial Navy wanted a separate air force to indict British shipping. However, Goering said that anything that flies is mine and he did everything in his power to keep control of the air force. Early in the Battle of the Atlantic the German navy had only 12 Focke-wulfe condors and it still was able to sink 85 British ships for a loss to Britain of 300,000 tons of shipping. This represented nearly 1/3 of the shipping going to Britain. Not only were the Condors able to sink shipping , they were quite valuable as "spotters" and then pass that info on to the U-boats. Had Admiral Donitz been given the 300 submarines he wanted AND given many more Focke-wolfe Condors, the Battle of the Atlantic might very well have been won by Germany.
Another of the complete failures of Germany was it's arrogance. They, especially at the top, felt that no nation could compete against German engineering and technology. I have always been amazed that the top command of Germany did not understand that the United States, which was free from any possible bombing , had the ability to massively out produce Germany and that the United States had nearly unlimited resources. A half a world away, The Japanese Admiral Yamamoto clearly understood this . BUT not the Germans. At the peak of American production, we were producing a new aircraft EVERY FIVE (5) MINUTES.
And now we are in the role of the Germans, and the Chinese (with the help of Russian resources) are in the role of the U.S.--arrogance and emphasis on the high-tech "superior" weapons. Our aircraft carriers are the battleships of the new era.
Well, you may be correct, but I don't wish to go off thread by discussing anything except WW2. I hope you understand .
I have never been able to understand the politics or thinking of the French before and during the early days of WW2. First, they never even attempted to enforce the Treaty of Versailles when Germany re-occupied the Rhineland in 1936. Thus they missed a golden opportunity to stop Hitler. Second, after the Germans had occupied France in 1940 many French officials fell in line with German dictates and actually became pro Nazi. Third, the French police, the gendarmes, helped the German demand that all Jews be rounded up and sent to their deaths. To me this clearly shows the antisemitism rampant in France. How dissimilar to the Danes who not only managed to save 93 % of Danish Jews, the Danes hid their Jews and they protested German demands by also wearing a yellow star on the clothing. What the French gendarmes did is unforgivable. 4th, and lastly, when the allies landed in Morocco and Algeria, the French actually fought against the American troops as they landed. That did not last long as the Americans overwhelmed them and only then did the French armed forces join the fight against the Nazis. Truly, the thinking of many French was strange indeed.
From the very beginning of Hitlers regime he always said he wanted certain things for the "betterment" of Germany. 1st and foremost was to expand the greater German Reich. He accomplished that by re-occupying the Rhineland in 1936, absorbing Austria into Germany (from then on it was called, Ostmark) and the Sudetenland , the western portions of Czechoslovakia (a predominately German population). Had Hitler left well enough alone, Germany would have not only prospered but it would have gained ever more military strength. Secondly, Hitler wanted to destroy the remaining communist party within Germany. That was accomplished by sending them into concentration camps. And 3rd, he had always said he wanted "cleanse" Germany of all Jews. That was an ongoing process, which started slowly but gradually picked up evermore draconian measures. However, Hitler was far from satisfied . He had much bigger plans. Less than a year after the Munich Agreement Hitler invaded Poland, on Sept 1st 1939. In response, 3 days later Britain declared war on Germany. WW2 , in Europe, was now well and truly underway.
On Sept 9th, 1939, only 5 days after they had declared war on Germany, the British sent the B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Force) to France. A total of 390,000 men, expecting that Germany would soon invade western Europe. What followed was a long wait of 8 months. During that wait, the British news media and the general public called it "The Phony War", because the Germans made no attempt to engage the B.E.F. or the French Army. Confidence was running high among the 2 allied forces.
Well, I was really hoping that i could get more people involved. I guess few are interested or perhaps there are just too few members .
Studying history without applying lessons learned to the present or future is a foolish exercise. I appears you wish to expound on your knowledge of a past war and are not interested in discussion at all.
No so. I was hoping that someone, some people, might also be interested in WW2 and wanted to discuss aspects of the war. I'm sure that there are many people out there somewhere with a much greater knowledge than me. i was hoping to exchange knowledge. What's wrong with that ? I was also hoping that someone might say something like, "Yes, I agree BUT did you know that ..... ?" OR, "There was also.... such and such" OR, "I think that it goes further than that. BUT, i don't want to go off on some rant that has nothing to do with WW2.
There has been ample opportunity for someone to apply lessons learned from the past . EXAMPLE: When France and Great Britain clearly saw that Hitler was violating The Treaty of Versailles (in the mid 1930's) they could have, should have, acted. The moral of that story is that weak leadership often has devastating results. It that particular case we need only to look at the weakness, and naivety of Neville Chamberlain the PM of of Great Britain and the PM of France , Edouard Daladier. BOTH of whom signed the "Munich Agreement" which gave Hitler his way and gave Hitler ever more power. Thus, in my opinion, WW2 COULD have been prevented before it even began. So, Don, you see learning from history is far from a foolish exercise. Tom Galty's post #20 is spot on.
Most of the cities the Germans attacked in Britain were making matériel for their war machine. WWII really is composed of many facets as to just the whys and wherefores to have a general discussion. Hitler was totally ticked off at the raw deal Germany received at the Treaty of Versailles. He decided to resolve it his way, which was not the right one. He could have attempted a diplomatic approach to renegotiate that Treaty. Well, we know what path he followed, sadly.
I always wondered why we chose Nagasaki and Hiroshima to drop the bomb on instead of Tokyo. Turns out they were the only cities left to destroy.
Yes, Tokyo had already been bombed numerous times. On one single night Tokyo was fire bombed and 16 square miles was leveled with an estimated loss of 100,000 civilians. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were set aside from previous bombing as a test to see how effective the atomic bombs would be. As it turned out, neither Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed fewer than the fire bombing of Tokyo. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was meant to be a "shock value" to show what was possible with a single plane. If we had been forced to invade Japan, it is certain that many more Japanese would have been killed than were killed by the 2 atomic bombs. It is said that Pres, Truman gave authorization for the use of A-bombs because he believed that American casualties would have exceeded up to one million , had America been forced to invade Japan.