Most significant battle of the 20th Century?

[Blarg]

A big part of our war against the Japanese was won by Japanese misunderstanding of our capabilities. At Pearl Harbor, they skipped bombing our huge oil storage facilities. That oil was just about our only oil in the entire Pacific. Our fleets and planes would have been effectively crippled, with drastic repercussions. The Japanese said that they didn't bother because they thought we surely had much more oil than we really did, and in more places, so they didn't think there was a point.

Another interesting note is that American submarines played a huge part in sealing the Japanese fate. Japanese forces across the Pacific were literally starving to death, as we stopped an enormous percentage of Japanese attempts to feed, refuel, and re-arm both their homeland and outlying forces simply by sinking most anything that came near Japan. Eventually almost nothing was getting through.

[Blarg]

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As the Germans made their way through Russia, the initial policy was to shoot surrendering troops. Bad policy. Many Russians felt they were living under the devil and may have been friendly towards the German cause.

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By that time, Germany and Russia had long established a mutual hate and sadistic behavior toward each other. What some have called and still call the "eastern influence" in Russia's past made them treat both their own citizens and enemy soldiers abominably as a matter of course, much as Genghis Khan would slaughter an entire city and burn it to the ground if it didn't surrender immediately. German soldiers would routinely murder Russian soldiers, as opposed to Brits, French, Americans, etc., because there was a whole different understanding going on between the "civilized" West and the Russians, who also routinely killed and tortured captured and surrendering soldiers. However the citizens of either country might act or feel, Russian and German soldiers treated each other horrifically as a matter of course. It wasn't standard German practice to react this way with soldiers of other nations, but once ground rules like those were set with the Russians, it was probably impossible to stop in the field, even if orders were ever to run to the contrary.

[Oski]

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As the Germans made their way through Russia, the initial policy was to shoot surrendering troops. Bad policy. Many Russians felt they were living under the devil and may have been friendly towards the German cause.

[/ QUOTE ]

By that time, Germany and Russia had long established a mutual hate and sadistic behavior toward each other. What some have called and still call the "eastern influence" in Russia's past made them treat both their own citizens and enemy soldiers abominably as a matter of course, much as Genghis Khan would slaughter an entire city and burn it to the ground if it didn't surrender immediately. German soldiers would routinely murder Russian soldiers, as opposed to Brits, French, Americans, etc., because there was a whole different understanding going on between the "civilized" West and the Russians, who also routinely killed and tortured captured and surrendering soldiers. However the citizens of either country might act or feel, Russian and German soldiers treated each other horrifically as a matter of course. It wasn't standard German practice to react this way with soldiers of other nations, but once ground rules like those were set with the Russians, it was probably impossible to stop in the field, even if orders were ever to run to the contrary.

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Exactly: Which is why an effective "occupation" of Russia was unlikely.

[Rick Nebiolo]

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How do you define battle?

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It's great having the onelook.com dictionary search on my MS IE6 Links:

http://www.onelook.com/?w=battle&ls=a

"battle:

noun: a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war"

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Since Pearl Harbor wasn't attacked in the course of war it wasn't a battle.

~ Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

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Has anyone seen Band of Brothers? This is a wonderful series and the DVD collection is worth every dollar.

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The series was great but read the book by Ambrose too. Probably his best.

~ Rick

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I would recommend all of Ambrose's WWII books.

D-Day;
Band of Brothers;
Citizen Soldiers;
Pegasus Bridge.

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I've enjoyed your entire series of posts tonight.

Anyway, I've read D-Day and Citizen Soldiers, both are great but if I had to pick one of the three I'd stay with Band of Brothers. I'll check out Pegasus Bridge when I get through the Patrick O'Brien Aubrey-Mautrin series [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

The Wild Blue was a little bit of a letdown but he wrote when he was sick shortly before he died. It did amaze me what a warrior George McGovern was.

Not about WW2 but I also liked "Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West".

Would you recomend Ambrose's Eisenhower"?

~ Rick

[Oski]

Rick: If I said I read "all" of Ambrose's books, I was too enthusiastic. I only read the ones I mentioned.

Pegasus Bridge is a great, quick read ... You can knock it off while waiting for your game to start.

I am glad to hear about his other books, your post has me geared up for it.

Take it easy.