I have been studying the Second World War and related topics for over 30 years. My specialty is the Pacific Theater, particularly the naval battles and campaigns. That said, I have not neglected the European Theater. If you are interested, feel free to ask me anything. If I don't know the answer I know how to find it.
Always wondered why the Yanks didn't have armoured decks for their carriers like the British did, i'm pretty sure it wasn't due to costs
It was a trade off. The British carriers were essentially armored boxes, and the thickness of the armor restricted the number of aircraft the ships were able to operate. In addition to having wooden flight decks, American carriers, starting with USS Ranger (CV-4), had more openings in the bulkheads (walls) -- in fact, the hangar was basically built on the hull rather than inside the hull as in British carriers. As comparative classes at the beginning the war the British Illustrious class could operate 36 planes while the American Yorktown class could operate 90. In this photo of USS Yorktown (Cv-5), you can see the superimposition of the hangar deck on top of the hull and the shutter doors. This shot of HMS Illustrious presents a different profile, with the hangar clearly as part of the hull, with the hurricane bow.
I've never understood the Japanese alliance with Germany. It seems like making a deal if that's what it was with a government that thinks you are inferior isn't a good move.
I ways remember being taught in school that the Germans where close to crippling the British RAF with tactical bombing of their air bases until one of our pilots dropped over Berlin which forced Poppycock, against his will, to then move onto our cities which obviously allowed us to repair our bases and kick some ass (with the help of Ben Affleck). How much truth is in this? I always held it as gospel for many years until my mid twenties when I started to really enjoy history and have realised I haven't heard anything like it since school.
It's actually fairly accurate -- except for the Ben Affleck part. What is true is that had Germany continued pounding the air bases that they could have won the Battle of Britain. Damage to the airfields was a problem as long as the attacks were maintained. More significantly, the RAF was losing both pilots and planes, and the survivors were becoming more and more exhausted. At a critical moment, the Luftwaffe shifted its attacks to the cities. One reason the Germans shifted their efforts is that the attacks on the airfields were taking longer than they expected. Out of frustration and impatience, they felt the need to try something different. What role exactly the bombing of Berlin played may be debatable. One night a pair of German bombers strayed off their course and dropped some bombs on London. Church saw an opportunity, so the story goes, and sent RAF bombers to Berlin, which Goering said would never be bomber -- or his name would be Meyer. Certainly a retaliatory strike would have been put on whether Churchill saw and opportunity or not. A second raid on Berlin took place three nights after the first raid. According to John Toland, in his bio of the German dictator, Poppycock was outraged. He had, so far, refused to allow the bombing of London, and the first bombs were dropped as a result of a navigational error. But it took two more raids on Berlin for der Fuehrer to finally approve the bombing of the British capital city.
In 1939, the Russians routed the Japanese at Nomonhan on the Manchurian-Outer Mongolia border in what was the first large-scale tank battle in history. The Japanese suffered 50,000 casualties, but the bigger casualty might have been national pride -- before that point Japan had never been defeated in a war. The profound embarrassment led to a revolution in weapons and tactics, and it also drove Japan to at least consider an alliance with Germany and Italy. It seemed that the Soviet Union, England and American might combine against her at any moment. . . . And then the Fuehrer surprised everybody by signing a non-aggression pact with Russia. The cabinet of Prime Minister Kiichiro Hiranuma had held 70 meetings on the possible alliance with Germany, but had failed to reach an agreement, and the pact between Stalin and Germany was another embarrassment for Japan, forcing Hiranuma to resign. Japan, of course, was bogged down in its war in China; if victory could not be achieved by the end of the year, she might be forced to withdraw. . . . And then Germany surprised everybody by making short work of Holland, Belgium and France in the spring of 1940. Japanese military leaders became intoxicated by the German victories and change their minds about China. With France defeated and Britain fighting for survival, it was an opportune moment to strike into Southeast Asia for oil and other badly needed resources. The new cabinet under Prince Konoye was just four days old in late July 1940, when it unanimously approved a new national policy which included bring about the Greater East Asia co-Prosperity Sphere as well as the signing of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy -- and a non-aggression treaty with Russia. The formulators of the policy were the military leaders, but they were able to convince the civilian leaders that it was Japan's last hope for survival. The Fuehrer, meanwhile, had written the civilian foreign minister of Japan that close cooperation was the best way to keep American out of the war. The German dictator soon changed his mind, decided that Japan had to enter the war as soon as possible. Navy leaders opposed the pact with Germany, fearing it require Japan's automatic entry into the war under certain circumstances. But Matsuoka, the foreign minister, who might have been a little crazy, though he had engineered a plan for world peace, thinking it was the best way to prevent war with America. "If you stand firm and start hitting back," Matsuoka told his son,, "the American will know he's talking to a man, and you two can then talk man to man." To Dr. Yoshie Saito he confided that he allied with Germany "to check the Army's aggressive policy . . . and to keep American warmongers from joining the war in Europe. And after that we can shake hands with the United States. This would keep peace in the Pacific while forcing a great combine of capitalistic nations around the world against Communism" The Tripartite Pact was also a means of settling the China Incident. "The Solution of the incident should rest on mutual assistance and prosperity, not on the hope of getting outside help to threaten China. To do this we should use the good offices of a third nation. I think the United States would do admirably for this purpose. But here the question is, What concessions will Japan (or rather, the Army) make? Japan should agree to a complete withdrawal of her troops from China." Matsuoka concluded that his aims could best be accomplished by supporting German foreign minister Ribbentrop's plan for a grand quadruple alliance united Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia (Ribbentrop was arrogant and incompetent). If Germans thought the Japanese race was inferior, it was only fair, for the Japanese viewed themselves as the superior race. Source: John Toland's The Rising Sun.
Thanks I like history and am interested in WW2 but do not know a lot about it. I gave looked more into the American Civil War. Mainly because I am from a border state that didn't secede. Anyway thanks again.
To say this is the only reason Japan entered the war is very short sighted and your numbers are extremely off. First you state Japanese troops when the Japanese used both Japanese and Manchukuoan troops. Many sources state between 45-50,000 casualties for the Japanese but that was way more than the Japanese even had in the battle. They had around 28-30,000 troops for the entire Battle of Khalkhin Gol, which lasted from May to September of 1939.
I am not familiar with that movie but I do know that people were complaining when Dunkirk came out that it did not have "more people of color"
U571 is basically how the Americans capture an enigma machine before they have technically entered the war. It caused a lot of upset as it besmirched the work done by people at Bletchly park. Yes the Dunkirk thing was just shocking..I couldn't believe some of the comments. I did see a big US review site that pointed out that as a story it wasn't very believable..
This was about why they signed the pact, rather than why they entered the war. The numbers I got from Toland. Checking other sources gives Japanese strength at 30,000-38,000 with casualties of 17,000-20,000. Timothy Neenon in Nomonhan: The Second Russo-Japanese War (2005) gives the number of Japanese casualties as 45,000. A possible reason for the discrepancy is that the Russians claimed that they faced 75,000 Japanese troops in the campaign. The Soviets initially claimed to have inflicted 29,085 casualties on the Japanese, but later increased this to 61,000 for the official histories. Regardless of the exact numbers, the defeat was costly and embarrassing.
The United States wanted to stop the Russians from accessing territory in Asia like they did in Europe.
Here is why. http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/27/politics/hiroshima-Mister Niceguy-explainer/index.html CNN must have all it's facts right in the matter..
