Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
7 hours ago, AUinHsv said:

Yeah - doing any new construction in German cities still involves a lot of risk from 80 year old bombs underground

Shit, Verdun is still killing people a hundred years later

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Posted

There's a movie about the hit on Reinhard Heydrich that I need to see.   The Man With the Iron Heart.

For those that dont know the name, he was responsible for the Einsatzgruppen on the eastern front.  Arguably the most heinous individual in Hitler's inner circle.  

Czech and Slovak commandos took him out in 1942.   The reprisals by the Germans killed hundreds if not thousands.  

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
1 hour ago, Macanudo said:

The reprisals by the Germans killed hundreds if not thousands.  

Yeah, the Germans were PISSED at his assassination.  They burned and/or leveled entire villages.  I've read that the total number of deaths in connection with the reprisals exceeded 1,300, and included numerous women and children.  

Fucking Nazis . . .

Posted
22 minutes ago, Carl Spackler said:

Yeah, the Germans were PISSED at his assassination.  They burned and/or leveled entire villages.  I've read that the total number of deaths in connection with the reprisals exceeded 1,300, and included numerous women and children.  

Fucking Nazis . . .

500 for sure.   Some think it could have been 5,000.   Hitler initially suggested killing 10,000.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
2 hours ago, Macanudo said:

There's a movie about the hit on Reinhard Heydrich that I need to see.   The Man With the Iron Heart.

For those that dont know the name, he was responsible for the Einsatzgruppen on the eastern front.  Arguably the most heinous individual in Hitler's inner circle.  

Czech and Slovak commandos took him out in 1942.   The reprisals by the Germans killed hundreds if not thousands.  

There's also this. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4190530/

Posted

Can't get enough of "We have ways of making you talk" WWII podcast.  Two British guys.  One is a historian and the other a comedian that happens to know his stuff.  They turn out a ton of content, do long series formats and keep each episode close to an hour.  

Posted
On 7/9/2025 at 12:19 AM, AUinHsv said:

Yeah - doing any new construction in German cities still involves a lot of risk from 80 year old bombs underground

Regrettably this is still happening in The Solomon Islands as well as other South Pacific locales. Neither the US nor Japan seem real interested in helping clean up the mess left behind so people continue to die each year from unexploded ordinance.

Posted
44 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Visited the WWII museum in New Orleans recently. Pretty pretty good. 

Some of my professors work and teach classes from the museum. Really, really smart men and women that cover every imaginable aspect of the war and its aftermath. I do not like sitting in a traditional classroom, but I would make an exception for Rob Citino. Dr. Citino’s lectures are fantastic. 

Posted
12 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Visited the WWII museum in New Orleans recently. Pretty pretty good. 

My Brit friend was very impressed with it when he visited there last year.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • 1 month later...
Posted (edited)

How little has been learned 80 years on. Also the wording of this “surrender”, as all of you know, never actually used that word in the speech and it’s amazing how different this version of Japanese sounds from the common version of Japanese we all recognize when we hear it.. It’s no wonder Japan and China still have unresolved issues from this war when Hirohito would not even call this a surrender. 

Edited by UpperWestside
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Met a woman today who was on the Big Island on December 7th, 1941. Her recollections of that day as a 9 year old are still as clear in her mind as they were when it happened. She remembered feeling something akin to aftershocks during the bombing. Her brother, then 15 years old, was over at Hickam that morning and saw the Zero pilots flying right above him. He had no idea they were Japanese until someone in uniform pulled him inside to tell him they weren't American planes and they were under attack. She also shared with me about how life changed on all the islands during the war. They had mandatory blackouts at night over on the Big Island, they built bunkers in case of another attack and she vividly recalled carrying a gas mask with her to school every day.

A chance meeting like that was not going to happen in New York. I am really thankful she took the time to share that with me today. She barely spoke above a whisper, but she was so sweet to talk to. She had two family members with her. I gave her a fist bump and took a picture with her. Could not have been more gracious to speak with me after I told her why I was in Hawai'i.

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 5
Posted
 
Visited the WWII museum in New Orleans recently. Pretty pretty good. 

It’s awesome! We were there on the D-Day anniversary and myself and kids got the chance to speak to several WW2 veterans. Love the setup and the architecture too. There’s a nice Hilton hotel attached to it.
  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
15 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

Met a woman today who was on the Big Island on December 7th, 1941. Her recollections of that day as a 9 year old are still as clear in her mind as they were when it happened. She remembered feeling something akin to aftershocks during the bombing. Her brother, then 15 years old, was over at Hickam that morning and saw the Zero pilots flying right above him. He had no idea they were Japanese until someone in uniform pulled him inside to tell him they weren't American planes and they were under attack. She also shared with me about how life changed on all the islands during the war. They had mandatory blackouts at night over on the Big Island, they built bunkers in case of another attack and she vividly recalled carrying a gas mask with her to school every day.

A chance meeting like that was not going to happen in New York. I am really thankful she took the time to share that with me today. She barely spoke above a whisper, but she was so sweet to talk to. She had two family members with her. I gave her a fist bump and took a picture with her. Could not have been more gracious to speak with me after I told her why I was in Hawai'i.

I went to high school (and UT) with a woman who's mom was at Pearl on December 7th as a kid and had some very vivid memories of the day.  Being the WWII nerd that I am, I talked to her about it a couple of times.  Her dad was in the Navy and they lived in the Hale Moku housing area about a half mile SE of the harbor and maybe 1.5 miles away from Battleship Row and Ford Island.  She was still in bed before church but obviously got woken up by the noise.  Her dad was already scrambling to get dressed and go to the base.   Her mom was outside looking toward the harbor and she went outside to watch with her until her dad shuffled them back into the house and told them to stay put.  Explosions were going off constantly while the other dads in surrounding houses were making their way out and toward the base.  She and her mom went over to a neighbor's house and other wives started congregating while the kids tried to play but the noise was incredible.   When the 2nd wave was done at 9:15, the din and rattle of explosions continued for a while and the smoke was everywhere.   She didn't get a chance to see the Harbor for a day or two but still remembered the amount of damage to everything.   She told me at some point what her dad's job was but I have forgotten.  She was a history buff too and we had some very good conversations about the tank farms not getting hit and the carriers not being in port.  

If you ever been to Oahu, you know Pearl is just smack dab in the middle of the south side of the island, it's not nearly as big as you think it would be and the Harbor was crammed fulll of ships that day.  It was very interesting hearing her account.  

Posted

@Macanudo These stories I feel have been overlooked when it comes to remembering the history of that day. It is the individual stories of the witnesses that still bring these events to life. Thank you for sharing that. 
 

I am glad that I am able to chart a career path that will involve the war heavily in anything I do until I kick the bucket. I want to hear as many stories as possible from the few survivors left front at time as well as their families that know them. One of my main goals is to be able to get to talk with people in New Guinea, Kiribati, The Solomons, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Guam  etc about the experiences of their families during the war. Those stories are not near as well documented and while I understand why it is still a shame more wasn’t written about it the people whose islands were turned into bloody battlefields.

Posted
12 hours ago, Macanudo said:

I went to high school (and UT) with a woman who's mom was at Pearl on December 7th as a kid and had some very vivid memories of the day.  Being the WWII nerd that I am, I talked to her about it a couple of times.  Her dad was in the Navy and they lived in the Hale Moku housing area about a half mile SE of the harbor and maybe 1.5 miles away from Battleship Row and Ford Island.  She was still in bed before church but obviously got woken up by the noise.  Her dad was already scrambling to get dressed and go to the base.   Her mom was outside looking toward the harbor and she went outside to watch with her until her dad shuffled them back into the house and told them to stay put.  Explosions were going off constantly while the other dads in surrounding houses were making their way out and toward the base.  She and her mom went over to a neighbor's house and other wives started congregating while the kids tried to play but the noise was incredible.   When the 2nd wave was done at 9:15, the din and rattle of explosions continued for a while and the smoke was everywhere.   She didn't get a chance to see the Harbor for a day or two but still remembered the amount of damage to everything.   She told me at some point what her dad's job was but I have forgotten.  She was a history buff too and we had some very good conversations about the tank farms not getting hit and the carriers not being in port.  

If you ever been to Oahu, you know Pearl is just smack dab in the middle of the south side of the island, it's not nearly as big as you think it would be and the Harbor was crammed fulll of ships that day.  It was very interesting hearing her account.  

Was there last summer.  It's wild.  We're at the Arizona Memorial, my 30+ yr old retired Firefighter FIL who is a Longhorn nut.....during a moment of remembrance, pulls up his phone and tells me about a football recruit Texas received a commitment from....I was like "dude"....;)

All the ships in the harbor immediately tried to make dry ground for fear of being sunk in the harbor.  Many succeeded, paving a path for others to escape.  

It's been rehashed time and time again, but not targeting the oil reserves, missing the carrier battlegroups, etc.  Just massive misses by the Japanese.  Or American radar that did pick up the incoming planes, but ignored them.  The codebreakers that facilitated victory at Midway.  It was a mess for the Japanese.  

 

Posted
19 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

@Macanudo These stories I feel have been overlooked when it comes to remembering the history of that day. It is the individual stories of the witnesses that still bring these events to life. Thank you for sharing that. 
 

I am glad that I am able to chart a career path that will involve the war heavily in anything I do until I kick the bucket. I want to hear as many stories as possible from the few survivors left front at time as well as their families that know them. One of my main goals is to be able to get to talk with people in New Guinea, Kiribati, The Solomons, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Guam  etc about the experiences of their families during the war. Those stories are not near as well documented and while I understand why it is still a shame more wasn’t written about it the people whose islands were turned into bloody battlefields.

Walter Lord wrote a really good book on the Coastwatchers:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18683511-lonely-vigil

These were, for the most part, British and Australians who stayed behind on Pacific Islands and fed info to the Allies on Japanese shipping and aviation.   If they got caught, they faced a brutal death.  Unsung heroes of the war.

Baba, there's lot of great debate on whether the Japanese not attacking the fuel tank farms was a big deal or what if the carriers had been in port.   Both would have really, really hurt if they had been attacked.  They would have only delayed the inevitable though.   

By December of 1941, there were 11 Essex class carriers under construction with 7 of those launched by the summer of 1943.  We put another 30+ escort and light carriers in the water by summer of '43 too.   Throughout the entire war, the Japanese launched 16 carriers of any size (7 fleet, 6 escort, 2 landing cradt carriers and 1 seaplane carrier.)   We launched 102 fleet, light and escort carriers by war's end with 17 fleet carriers alone before the Japanese surrendered with Midway and the FDR (both from the upgraded Midway class that was 50% larger tonnage wise than the Essex class) both hitting the water by October 1945.   

The Japanese were never going to win a war in the Pacific.  

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
1 hour ago, Macanudo said:

Walter Lord wrote a really good book on the Coastwatchers:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18683511-lonely-vigil

These were, for the most part, British and Australians who stayed behind on Pacific Islands and fed info to the Allies on Japanese shipping and aviation.   If they got caught, they faced a brutal death.  Unsung heroes of the war.

Baba, there's lot of great debate on whether the Japanese not attacking the fuel tank farms was a big deal or what if the carriers had been in port.   Both would have really, really hurt if they had been attacked.  They would have only delayed the inevitable though.   

By December of 1941, there were 11 Essex class carriers under construction with 7 of those launched by the summer of 1943.  We put another 30+ escort and light carriers in the water by summer of '43 too.   Throughout the entire war, the Japanese launched 16 carriers of any size (7 fleet, 6 escort, 2 landing cradt carriers and 1 seaplane carrier.)   We launched 102 fleet, light and escort carriers by war's end with 17 fleet carriers alone before the Japanese surrendered with Midway and the FDR (both from the upgraded Midway class that was 50% larger tonnage wise than the Essex class) both hitting the water by October 1945.   

The Japanese were never going to win a war in the Pacific.  

Yamamoto tried to tell those cocksuckers but they wouldn't  listen.

 

As far as the coastwatchers go, I agree with all that you wrote.  They were invaluable, and had balls of steel.  And the same goes for the natives that worked with them, and I feel that they are often overlooked.

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
11 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

One of the best bad movies I've ever seen. 

Regarding the coastal defense force...remember:

You shouldn't touch the ordnance at all. But more specifically, you should never pull this hand-operating lever to the rear.

Do not push a clip of ammunition down into the feed rollers here.

You never restore this lever to firing position. Do not make sure that this cover is completely closed.

And....Never depress operator's foot triggers here, here and at the rear here.

 

 

  • Haha 1
Posted
2 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Regarding the coastal defense force...remember:

You shouldn't touch the ordnance at all. But more specifically, you should never pull this hand-operating lever to the rear.

Do not push a clip of ammunition down into the feed rollers here.

You never restore this lever to firing position. Do not make sure that this cover is completely closed.

And....Never depress operator's foot triggers here, here and at the rear here.

 

 

1941 (1979) - Eddie Deezen as Herbie Kazlminsky - IMDb

  • Haha 1
Posted
21 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

Yamamoto tried to tell those cocksuckers but they wouldn't  listen.

 

As far as the coastwatchers go, I agree with all that you wrote.  They were invaluable, and had balls of steel.  And the same goes for the natives that worked with them, and I feel that they are often overlooked.

Yeah, I should have mentioned the local populations.  They fed and provisioned the Coastwatchers at great cost to themselves.  

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...