flaja wrote:Setanta wrote:Germany declared war on us in December, 1941. The focus of the nation was on the Pacific War, and our first great efforts were made there. We managed to land in North Africa in late 1942. We landed in Sicily in the summer of 1943, and then on the Italian mainland at Salerno in September, 1943. We landed in France in June of 1944. Just precisely how do you suggest he could have done anything any sooner?
Idiot.
The focus of the U.S. war effort was on Germany, not Japan because we were afraid that Germany would develop the atomic bomb. Our troops in the Pacific got the last and least of all of our war-making resources- except leadership. I've heard that Eisenhower had more casualties from December 15, 1944 to January 15, 1945 than MacArthur had in the entire war.
I've read something similar, but of course, your shallow to non-existent knowledge of history means that you fail, once again, to see the significance of events. The MacArthur comparison only works by ignoring the casualties suffered in the Bataan campaign, and the defense of the Philippines altogether. The equation is usually expressed is as MacArthur's command (which was only the Southwest Pacific theater, which leaves out the entire scope of United States Navy/Marine Corps operations in the islands) suffered fewer casualties
after he left the Philippines than were suffered in the "Battle of the Bulge" campaign.
MacArthur, after losing the Philippines, initially attacked the Japanese head-on in New Guinea. This caused horrible casualties, so MacArthur adopted another policy, which he called "island hopping" (modern historical ignoramuses such as you often mistakenly attribute this policy to the United States Navy). It started after the horrible slaughter at Buna and Gona on the eastern end of the north coast of New Guinea when he launched a "big jump" by sending an amphibious expedition and paratroops to New Holland at the western end of the north coast. This had the effect of cutting off all of the Japanese troops in between. Japanese naval resources were so heavily committed to fighting the U.S. Navy in the islands of the central Pacific that they hadn't the resources to relieve, support or even evacuate the Japanese left behind on New Guinea. The Navy didn't like MacArthur (the feeling was mutual), and they gave him damned little aid, so he relied on the United States Army Air Force, the few U.S. Navy vessels grudgingly provided to him, and the Royal Australian Navy. The next move was to take the island of Manus (made famous by Margaret Mead in her pre-war ethnographic studies), and so be able to bypass the Japanese at Rabaul on New Britain. First he had it thoroughly pounded by the 12th U.S.A.A.F. Then, using Manus as an advanced base, he put troops on the opposite end of the main island from the Japanese and had an airfield built. The army dug in, including an armored division, and then just cut down the Japanese every time they launched a desperate attack. It is reasonably estimated that 100,000, and possibly more, Japanese troops were bottled up on Rabaul and took no more part in the war.
MacArthur followed this program as he made his way to the Philippines. There, however, he could no longer adopt this policy, because the area of operations was so extensive, and many of the islands were so large. But even there, he only took those main islands he would need to base his air forces and to supply his troops--and, of course, he had to retake Manila. He promised.
But this ignores both the Bataan campaign (10,000 killed, 20,000 wounded and 75,000 made prisoners), and it ignores the fact that MacArthur used not only members of the United States Army, and the Army Air Force, but that he also used Australian troops (almost as many as the American GIs) and small bodies of Dutch troops, and well as the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal Australian Navy and two Dutch light cruisers which had survived the initial Japanese attack. The addition of the Australian and Dutch casualties increases the total casualty count considerably. The Americans suffered just less than 20,000 killed, just over 40,000 wounded and 25,000 made prisoner in the Battle of the Bulge--so this whole tricky equation can only be made to work by ignoring the casualties on Bataan, and ignoring the Australian and Dutch casualties. It's a numbers game, and it was invented by the admirers of MacArthur. He deserves admiration because he was good; he doesn't deserve such a blatant white-wash. If you compare the Bataan figures alone, although twice as many Americans were killed or wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, three times as many were made prisoners on Bataan as in the Ardennes.
Additionally, it ignores the incompetence of Bernard Law Montgomery. When the German advance had been stopped--to a great extent because Patton pulled three divisions out of his line and hurried them north--Patton urged Eisenhower to let him attack the base of the salient created and bag the Germans. But Montgomery threw one of his hyssie fits, and demanded to be put in command of the counteroffensive, and Eisenhower caved in, as he usually did when it came to Montgomery. Montgomery then attacked the Germans head-on, and bludgeoned them back to the German border, in true World War
I fashion. Casualties were heavy on both sides, although conditions and equipment favored the Germans on defense, and the weather was appalling. It was a nightmare campaign, and it is almost never referred to in rah-rah accounts of the American experience in World War II in Europe. And, of course, when it comes to Allies and former Allies, thou shalt never complain of Monty. Most of the killed and wounded were lost in Montgomery's insanely inept counteroffensive, most of those made prisoner were lost in the initial German offensive. Separate Monty's counteroffensive from the German offensive, and the casualties on Bataan were much higher, especially in the matter of the 75,000 men captured on Bataan.
When you add it all up, MacArthur did pretty well, and that's because he was good, he was really good. But not as good as his fan club would have you believe. Besides, for chrissake, anybody could have done better than Montgomery, who was more a butcher than a Field Marshall. Unfortunately, it was his own troops who were as likely to be butchered as the enemy. Ask the New Zealanders about El Alamein some time.
More than ignoring Bataan and the casualties of the Australians and the Dutch, you seem to think that MacArthur was the only show going in the Pacific. In fact, MacArthur's command was the Southwest Pacific theater, and the U.S. Navy showed that Montgomery had no corner on head-on, bloody assaults when they slaughtered Marines attacking the Japanese islands in the central Pacific. Almost three quarters of the Navy's resources were committed to the Pacific. A handful of old battleships and cruisers were sent out for the North African invasion, the invasions of Sicily and Italy, and for the Normandy invasion. Otherwise, most U.S. Navy resources in the Atlantic were destroyers and a few cruisers to hunt down U-boats. The Royal Canadian Navy escorted the convoys, and in fact, the RCN escorted more merchants ships across the Atlantic than the Royal Navy and the United States Navy combined. The United States Coast Guard committed their resources to hunting U-boats on the East coast, and most convoy duties done by the U.S. Navy were to escort ships to Halifax where the RCN or the Royal Navy took over.
In fact, American casualties in the Pacific War as a whole were more than 100,000 killed, and almost a quarter of a million wounded. Most of these were either United States Marines or members of the U. S. Army serving in United States Navy operations. The Australians had more than 17,000 killed, and most of these were lost serving with MacArthur. The Dutch lost over 25,000, although more than half of these were lost to the Japanese in the attempt to defend the Dutch East Indies (think: Indonesia), before the Dutch evacuated and the survivors joined the Americans and Australians. In the process, more than one and half million Japanese soldiers, sailors and Marines were killed.
According to the United States Navy's Naval Historical Center web site, 36,950 members of the United States Navy and the Marine Corps were killed in the Pacific, with more than 25,000 dead from causes other than enemy action; 100,392 members of the Navy and Marines were wounded. This was out of slightly more than 4,000,000 who served in the Pacific. That does not include death among aviation personnel, which according to the same source was over 12,000 from all causes, enemy action and aviation accidents. According to the same source, United States Navy and United States Marine Corps killed in action in the entire war, including operations in the Atlantic total more than 51,000 dead. An additional 2,600+ died of wounds, and just over 1400 died as prisoners of war. That's just the dead, it doesn't include the wounded.
I rather suspect that you don't have clue as to the scope of the entire war, never mind the scope of the war in the Pacific. If all you can think of when the subject is the Pacific War is MacArthur, you're just looking at one little corner of the overall picture, and through a distorted, rose-colored lens.
Quote:If you'd learn some history, you wouldn't come off as such a fool all the time.
Oh god, i laughed aloud over that one. You need to get a mirror and stare into, then read back that line.
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