On August 15th, 1945, known ever since as VJ Day, World War II came to an end with the unconditional surrender of Japan. Wild celebrations took place in all the victorious Allied powers, but the victory did not solve most of the problems that had led to the war in the first place. Indeed, it created a host of new problems that would spark the decades-long Cold War and radical socio-political realignments on every continent.
This 45-minute documentary summarizes the last few months of World War II leading up to VJ Day. It does a very good job of drawing together the many threads that came together on that day. Most people today have little or no idea of all that was involved, which is why I'm posting it here. I learned my first lessons about it from my parents, who fought from September 1939 through VJ Day with the armed forces of Great Britain. For almost all my life, I've read and studied about World War II and its aftermath. It created the world we live in today, more than any other event in history.
I think this documentary will be well worth your time to watch.
May all the millions who lost their lives during that terrible conflict rest in God's mercy.
Peter
20 comments:
We went from 7 carriers to over 140 in 4 years. Each one of our Pacific fleets, the Western and the Central, ended up with more carriers than everyone else combined.
Crazy, isn't it? We built carriers to just carry planes to other carriers. And to carry land planes, like 70+ land planes on a carrier designed for 30.
That's how we won. We overproduced and overwhelmed Japan.
And essentially blockaded the whole island chain, and we were working on destroying everything that could possibly float. And destroy every habitable building. We were ready to start deforestation of all the fields and forests using chemicals and good old fire.
I've long believed that, through what was known at the time and the decisions that were made, we "won the war but lost the peace." Hindsight is 20/20, but it is sad nonetheless -- the loss of life and treasure, the misery endurred by so many over the next 50+ years. And yet, "our God is a awesome God, he reigns from heaven above with wisdom, power and love."
My Dad was a Marine in the Pacific from 43 until he was severely wounded on Okinawa and spent over a year in a Naval Hospital. I saw his massive scars on his body but he would never talk about the war. My mom would not talk about it either and he would have to go back to the VA every 6 month to have his back straighten out. He and my mom died over a decade ago.
My Dad was a fighter pilot in the Pacific who didn't expect to survive Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands. To him the ending of the war was like being granted a second life.
Don in Oregon
Read "Postwar" by historian Tony Judt for an education. I am finding it emotionally difficult reading, but stuff I needed to know.
My dad was the same. Never talked about the war ever. I learned what happened from my uncle who my dad confided in as my uncle was a Korean war vet. My father was in the first Marine rifleman division on Iwo jima. 130 or so went in and out of them 8-9 went home? His best friend from Pittsburg was shot in the head and part of his helmet lodged in the corner of my dads eye. He used to tell us he was a cook and got an eggshell in the eye for getting the purple heart. He absolutely refused to allow us (his sons) to join the military. "War is a horrible horrible thing."
It's not just that we out produced Japan. We were more adaptable. For example, between Coral Sea and Midway we came up with putting inert gas in carrier fuel lines and the Thach weave. We also worked actively to preserve our human capital and send experienced folks back to teach others.
The Japanese also had several strokes of good fortune right at the start of their attacking the US. Pearl Harbor had a couple of US communication mistakes which enabled the Japanese to achieve surprise.
It was truly horrible on all sides... but it could have been worse. Everyone who served was 'changed' in many ways.
The F6F Hellcat and the F8F Bearcat were specifically designed to outfight the Zero and any improved version of the Zero. The Hellcat got priority in building because it was designed for the big fleet and light carriers. The F8F was specifically designed to give the same fighter performance in a smaller, lighter size that would work off the escort carriers. Same engine, same guns, just basically a lighter, smaller slimmed-down version of the Hellcat.
The F6F stayed relevant all throughout the war, performing as expected against the Japanese fighters that followed after or supplemented the Zeros.
Seems to be a day for "My dad was..." postings. Here is mine. My dad was in an infantry division that had spent from August '44 to VE day driving the Germans from Holland to the Oder river. Among the first Divisions to be retired home, they were at Camp San Luis Obispo training for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. Needles to say dad was elated when th atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered.
So what was won? Funny that WWII was about 'freedom and democracy' but somehow we have way less 'freedoms' in America than a post WWII American? But German mustache man was bad, right? You know, the failed painter who made a number of reasonable peace offers before and during the war.
The West allied itself with a despicable Bolshevik tyrant that killed millions of Christian Ukrainians and even more later. The way Eisenhower treated German POWs was a total disgrace. And spare me the nonsense that only one group suffered during WWII. So many lies about this very unnecessary war. WWI was also not needed.
Let us not forget that FDR lied us into WWII. The vast majority of Americans wanted to stay out of it.
The main thing to note here is the severe lack of understanding of history among most people. This is understandable, to an extent, as there's only so much that elementary and high school curricula can squeeze in, amidst other subjects. A serious study of history is a large undertaking. As I reach my "retirement" years, I've been doing more reading, and more understanding, of just a short list of U.S. involved history, and I'm finding not enough time for it all.
The sanitized history being taught ends up being a disservice. Few people today understand the full range of justifications for the American Revolutionary War, or the War Between the States - just two examples.
I'm rather troubled, recently, regarding the rehabilitation of Hitler. And again, I wish for a broader and deeper knowledge and understanding, not just on the part of others, but for myself as well. A quotation from Patton, re. fighting against the communists rather than the Axis, has been going around the web, and there's some truth in there, but I think it lacks consideration of the larger picture at the time. And this is our challenge - separating the wheat from the chaff.
I can't address the necessity of any particular conflict. But I'm reminded of a quote from John Stuart Mill:
War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of
better men than himself.
- jed
The "rehabilitation of Hitler" thing is, I think, a consequence of both historical ignorance and a failure to think critically. The ignorance lies in failing to remember the various shenanigans Hitler got up to before he started the war and the mass murder, especially his double-dealing in Eastern Europe. The failure to think critically comes in where you realize that the hostorical narrative you were given as a child was incomplete, and instead of thinking for yourself and doing a sober reassessment, you just go to knee-jerk contrarianism instead and go into Swamp Whackadoo.
"You know, the failed painter who made a number of reasonable peace offers before and during the war."
And reneged on just about all of the ones that were accepted before the war. After that track record, why on God's green earth would anyone with the good sense the good Lord gave a grasshopper trust him to hold to a peace deal?
The rest of your comment is similarly misleading/misinformed. I'm...kind of impressed by just how wrong it is.
There's the famous picture of MacArthur sitting at a table with the Japanese dignitaries standing in front of him. Standing behind MacArthur are two really skinny guys.
They were found in POW camps, hosed off, uniformed, and flown out to the ceremony, like living likenesses of Death in medieval paintings.
One is an American, General Wainwright. He's the one that got left holding the bag for the Bataan Death March, with Marshall telling him that reinforcements were on the way. Except there never were any reinforcements.
The other is a Brit, General Percival. A couple of generations of WTF decisions had rendered Singapore essentially defenseless. When it became apparent that it was soon to be a target for the Japanese, the officers responsible were pulled back to safety and Percival was sent to hold the bag for the surrender.
In both cases, they and their men were sacrified for propaganda purposes.
Word got around. A *lot* of American and British officers were angry about what happened to those two. And strings were pulled, and Wainwright and Percival were there to show that people remembered what had happened to them.
How so? the trend of whitewashing the prominent national socialist is gross but the parts about the bolshevik tyrant and his buddy Stalin are true enough
Falls under "technically true but missing context."
Yeah, we fought with Stalin, who killed millions of Ukrainians and other peoples...against Hitler, who killed millions of Jews, Poles, Russians, and other peoples (including Ukrainians)--and, if you're going to get all up in arms about killing Christians, many if not most of the Poles and Russians were Christians.
World War Two was the unnecessary war only insofar as the Great War which preceded it was avoidable, because the latter made the former all but inevitable.
As far as Stalin and Hitler were concerned, both men were highly-intelligent as well as psychopathic. Both ended up having the blood of millions on their hands. Allying with one or the other was bound to be ugly, no matter which was chosen.
Stalin's USSR and Hitler's Germany fought not because of how dissimilar they were - but because of how alike. Stalin and Hitler were allies of convenience for a time in the late 1920s and 1930s - but both men knew that sooner or later there would be conflict between them. At the time Germany invaded the USSR in June, 1941, the Soviets were working on plans of their own to do the same in reverse.
Even if the U.S. managed to stay out of the conflict in Europe, Imperial Japan would sooner or later have to be dealt with. Japan's expansionist government - emulating the imperialist powers - was intent upon adding territory, and must have run up against America's possessions in the Pacific.
As it happened, the German Chancellor solved the problem for the U.S. of whether or not to go to war by declaring war on the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
MacArthur was so impacted by seeing emaciated POW survivor General Jonathan Wainwright that he was moved to tears. Wainwright and Percival's presence at the surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri was a silent reminder that the war crimes of Japan were not just a nasty rumor but cold hard fact.
Dad survived a tour in ‘43 as a ball turret gunner with the 91st- you know memphis belle time, a tour in ‘44 and was home on leave august 45, waiting to report for the pacific in when the bombs went off. He was never anything but pleased about using the A bombs on Japan.
The war began years before and ended years later. The Italians, Japanese, Britains and especially the French fought all over the world and invaded other countries even before Hitler and Stalin talked about Poland and the "winning" nations did not miss a beat to reclaim territory they lost control over during the war. Two weeks after Germany surrendered the French were bombing civilians in Damascus protesting for Independence from France. The whole Vietnam War was started because France did not want to let go of Indochina after the war.
The British were busy blowing up tribes in Africa right after the war because the crown was too greedy to let them be - the backlash is still felt today.
And Italy was the reason the Germans even got involved in the Balkans and Africa - because they wanted to help their brothers in arms.
Hitler was a maniac and will not be defended. But that made him an easy "Big Bad" and everything else that was going on could simply be ignored by focusing on him.
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