Comment: Cheese-eating surrender monkeys and fire-eating war

Setanta wrote:

Personality is no basis for judging someone's accomplishments. George himself has acknowledged that the Imperial Navy was marooned in port from a lack of fuel. That lack of fuel resulted directly from Japan being cut off from its sources in Macronesia.

While you're at it, you might want to check your dates, as well. The Battle of Midway took place in June, 1942. We did not land on Saipan in the Marianas until June, 1944, two years later. The definitive destruction of the Imperial Navy took place during the Philippine campaign, in Leyte Gulf, in October 1944. You jumped over an enormous amount of history there, Asherman.

It wasn't MacArthur's campaign in Burma that cut the Japanese off from their sources of petroleum. It was the strangulation of their sea transport system by our submarines and land based air (some of which reported to MacArthur).

It remains a fact that, whatever their sequence, the Coral Sea and Guadacanal battles stoopped the Japanese advance ; Midway ended their offensive capability; The Marianas wiped out what was left of their Naval Air Forces and gave us the bases from which to attacj Japan by air; and Iwo Jima gave us a staging base for subsequent attacks on Okinawa and the homeland. This is what defeated Japan.

There were parallel strategies played out in the Pacific war; one headed by Nimitz, and the other by MacArthur. The former was our real national strategy: it got the main resources and achieved the decisive victories. The latter was a holding and flanking operation that was occasionally inflated a bit to feed the gigantic ego of its leader.

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Set,

Yes I did, and over generalized to boot. However, I still think you are over emphasising the value of MacArthur in the defeat of Japan. His landing at Inchon, if nothing else, has won him an honored place in our history. Arnold was one of the great heros of the Revolution, but that lone unidentified boot marker at Saratoga is overshadowed by his betrayal. MacArthur was not only a great ego, he was often insubordinate.

The real military hero of the Second World War was George C. Marshall, and the poor man never realized his great ambition to lead men directly in battle.

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I believe i am correct in stating that Douglas MacArthur was never in Burma. You want "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell for that.

You don't do yourself any favors by getting your facts so bolixed up.

Certainly submarine warfare was successful, and especially in the Bungo Straits between Kyushu and Honshu. And the attacks of the 12th Army Air Force who perfected a technique for high-altitude bombing which used B-17s to attack shipping were equally effective.

That's my point--both campaigns, in the central Pacific and the southwest Pacific were parts of an effective overall strategy to choke the Empire of Japan.

The 12th U.S. Army Air Force would not have had airbases to attack Japanese shipping without an effective campaign to advance bases by "island hopping."

I see that you've finally recognized that both parts were necessary for the effective pursuit of the overall goal. Yes, the Coral Sea and Guadalcanal halted the Japanese advance--as Eichelberger and his Australian and American troops were doing on New Guinea. Midway destroyed their capacity for offensive use of naval aviation. The attack on the Marianas took place two years later (a point which you and Asherman seem content to ignore) was a part of the advance toward Japan, and it was well-coordinated with the intended campaign against the Philippines. Consult a map sometime--if you go due east from Luzon, you'll find yourself at Saipan. The "Marianas Turkey Shoot" destroyed their aviation capacity, most of which was land-based on Pelau, Guam, Truk and Saipan. As i've already pointed out the destruction of their navy occured during the Leyte Gulf campaign in support of the Philippine landings. Furthermore, control of Luzon cut off transport of supplies to and from Malaysia and Indo-China.

Neither campaign could have accomplished the overall results without the support of the other. You just decide to be offended by MacArthur's personality, and are therefore over-eager to belittle the important results which the Americans and Australians accomplished in the southwest Pacific theater. When that jackass Halsey went roaring north out of Leyte Gulf, effectively suckered by the Japanes feint, is that justification to smear him for his vanity the way you've been smearing MacArthur?

You're peddling character-assassination, and attempting to claim that it represents objective historical analysis.

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Asherman wrote:

Set,

Yes I did, and over generalized to boot. However, I still think you are over emphasising the value of MacArthur in the defeat of Japan. His landing at Inchon, if nothing else, has won him an honored place in our history. Arnold was one of the great heros of the Revolution, but that lone unidentified boot marker at Saratoga is overshadowed by his betrayal. MacArthur was not only a great ego, he was often insubordinate.

MacArthur hardly merits comparison to Arnold. MacArthur accomplished what he accomplished with far fewer resources than any comparable theater commander. He also accomplished it with far fewer casualties than any other theater commander. The United States suffered fewer casualties in the southwest Pacific than were suffered in the Battle of the Bulge. One sore point i have with the Navy, is the extent to which they claim glory for themselves to the total exclusion of credit to anyone else. Often, they took islands by throwing Marines directly at the most heavily defended strong points. Admirals demonstrated time and again that they held the lives of Marines to be very cheap, and that they lacked imagination for tactical operations in support of strategic goals.

I have pointed out all along that the Marines deserve great credit, and that neither campaign by itself could have accomplished the goal without the effects and support of the other. If you don't want to agree to that, that's fine with me. Constant references to MacArthur's ego have absolutely no bearing, however, on a reasonable judgment of performance.

Quote:

The real military hero of the Second World War was George C. Marshall, and the poor man never realized his great ambition to lead men directly in battle.

With this i agree, and wish to point out also, that Admiral King gets none of the credit he deserves in the midst of the loud trumpeting of the excellencies of Halsey and Nimitz.

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One would get the impression that China didn't exist at all during WW2 from reading the accounts here.

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No one in the Navy would have asserted that Halsey would ever float head down. Nimitz cleverly alternated Spruance and Halsey in the naval campaigns: when he needed the will to fight against long odds he used Halsey; when the prospective battle had great strategic significance and required acute decisions, he used Spruance.

We agree about the complimentary roles of the central and southwest Pacific campaigns: we disagree about the roles and respective contributions of their commanders. The continuing conflict between the two priincipals is a matter of historical record, as is Roosevelt's compromise with respect to the invasion of the Philippines as a salve to the general's ego and perhaps a political nod to the postwar situation.

The Japanese Navy was defeated long before Leyte Gulf. They had no more Naval aviation and just a collection of battleships, some not fully outfitted and trained (Yamato and Musashi). They were given a final opportunity for the showdown they sought by the Leyte landings, which owing to the archipelago and its many straits, gave them a better battleground than they would have had if we had instead gone directly to Okinawa as Nimitz wished.

The period from the Marianas campaign until Leyte and Okinawa involved intense submarine and air interdiction of Japanese shipping - imports of raw materials and resupply of their stranded outposts. Ultimastely it was this action that enabled us to bypass most of these bases - including those like Truk that macArthur wanted taken. MacArthur conceived of hopping: Nimitz was taking giant strides.

Certainly MacArthur distinguished himself in his stewardship of jaopan after the war, but his military leadership, from the defense of the Philippines to the landings at Leyte contributed little but photo opportunities for himself.

Did I write Burma? Perhaps you guessed I meant Borneo.

Level bombing at even medium altitudes by B-17s was not effective against ships, despite the propaganda you may have read. . Even in a 45 deg dive with a 4000ft release altitude the error sensitivity is about 15 ft per mil aiming error. Worse, a ship at 25 kts moves over 300 ft during the 8 sec time of fall of the bomb. B-17s at 10000ft in level flight had an aiming sensitivity of over 100ft/mil and, with a bomb time of fall of > 18sec almost no chance of hitting a moving ship. It wasn't until later when with B-25s doing mast height bombing with high drag bombs that they became effective. I've done a fair amount of this myself and know it first hand. (The Japanese got Prince of Wales & her escort with low altitude level bombing and lots & lots of aircraft. i.e. many bombs, few hits. These ships had virtually no air defense guns, so they could fly low & slow overhead.)

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Comong back to the origianally posted comment:

On pages 46 to 49 the Guardian has today a report about
"How London carried on"

Quote:

An extract of that to be online HERE

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Re: Comment: Cheese-eating surrender monkeys and fire-eating

Walter Hinteler wrote:

There's a comment in today's The Guardian by Timothy Garton (page 23), which might be worth reading to understand the differences between the USA and the UK (Europe) ...

Quote:
Conservative America celebrated July 4 as a country at war; the July 7 anniversary here reveals a very different attitude.

They think they're at war with us....

Quote:

Report: Holland Tunnel bomb plot uncovered

Friday, July 7, 2006; Posted: 7:08 a.m. EDT (11:08 GMT)

Plotters planned to bomb New York's Holland Tunnel and flood the city's financial district, a newspaper reports.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A plot to bomb New York's Holland Tunnel in an effort to flood the Wall Street financial district has been uncovered by the FBI, with a suspect arrested in Lebanon, New York's Daily News reported on Friday.

Source

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Comong back to the origianally posted comment:

On pages 46 to 49 the Guardian has today a report about
"How London carried on"

Quote:

An extract of that to be online HERE

From the article...

"What explains this rapid return to normality? The first answer is sensitive, but important. Despite the instant naming of the day as 7/7, this was hardly a British 9/11. Every death is a tragedy for those affected, but the scale of July 7 does not compare with the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. There the final death toll stood at 2,975; here, the four bombers left 52 people dead, besides themselves. It is a safe assumption that if Britain had come anywhere close to the carnage of September 11 a year ago today, our scars would have taken longer to heal."

This in addition to the many other failed attempts to hit America, specificlly yesterdays news, should make poeple in this country just a bit more sensitive to the war on terror.

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Re: Comment: Cheese-eating surrender monkeys and fire-eating

Brandon9000 wrote:

They think they're at war with us....

Not only with the USA: as Britain marks the first anniversary of the London suicide bombings on today - thanks, Brandon, for remembering that - police warns that threats of another attacks had grown.
(That's what all reports in European media say, too.)

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woiyo wrote:

This in addition to the many other failed attempts to hit America, specificlly yesterdays news, should make poeple in this country just a bit more sensitive to the war on terror.

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I found the Guardian article Walter posted to be a fairly partisan propaganda piece, replete with smarmy self-congratulation and delusion about the stoic, ever peaceful population of good old unflappable Britain. The image put forward in the final paragraphs of Londoners turning the solid steel barriers in front of Victoria station into picnic tables was almost laughable in its saccarine tone and the rather juvenile sentiment it evoked.

The truth is that even on a relative basis 9/11 here involved ten times the human cost as the 7/7 bombings in London. Moreover 9/11 involved the destruction of very visible, indeed emblematic structures of the core economic life of New York and of government in Washington. Contrast that with a damaged bus which was quickly towed away and basically invisible underground damage to a subway tunnel. The image of happy, contented Moslems, well-accepted by their welcoming neighbors in Britain is - how shall I say it - a bit contrary to well -established facts. With respect to the noble resistence of the British public to further encroachment on civil liberties by police and the courts, it should be recognized that police powers in Britain, and even more so in continental Europe, have long been far greater than has existed in the U.S. We have very different starting points in this area.

It is true though that Americans are easily excited by a serious attack on their country. In view of their rather desperate circumstances in 1941, I believe most Britains have good reason to be glad of that characteristic of Americans.

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georgeob1 wrote:

The truth is that even on a relative basis 9/11 here involved ten times the human cost as the 7/7 bombings in London. Moreover 9/11 involved the destruction of very visible, indeed emblematic structures of the core economic life of New York and of government in Washington. Contrast that with a damaged bus which was quickly towed away and basically invisible underground damage to a subway tunnel. The image of happy, contented Moslems, well-accepted by their welcoming neighbors in Britain is - how shall I say it - a bit contrary to well -established facts.

I wondered when someone started to a naive assessment of the situation. I didn't expect it on the day of the 7/7 anniverary.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

I wondered when someone started to a naive assessment of the situation. I didn't expect it on the day of the 7/7 anniverary.

Have I profaned the holy day Walter? I'm not sure of your intent with the word "naive" here, but hope you aren't suggesting that, because of the date, thinking Ameriicans should simply bite their tongues while reading such a piece that, quite unnecessarily, went out of its way to criticize our reactions to a much worse event, while pouring the praise upon themselves. It appears to me that you are applying different standards of behavior to the parties in this matter. You and the Guardian are entitled to the moment of self-pity, as were we, but that doesn't require that any of us go far out of our way to compare our own supposed virtues with the imaginary defects of others.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Walter Hinteler wrote:
I wondered when someone started to a naive assessment of the situation. I didn't expect it on the day of the 7/7 anniverary.

Have I profaned the holy day Walter? I'm not sure of your intent with the word "naive" here, but hope you aren't suggesting that, because of the date, thinking Ameriicans should simply bite their tongues while reading such a piece that, quite unnecessarily, went out of its way to criticize our reactions to a much worse event, while pouring the praise upon themselves. It appears to me that you are applying different standards of behavior to the parties in this matter. You and the Guardian are entitled to the moment of self-pity, as were we, but that doesn't require that any of us go far out of our way to compare our own supposed virtues with the imaginary defects of others.

My sentiments exactly.

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It is not established that the defects of the Americans stipulated are imaginary.

England lost people in the twin towers, too. And they have supported us in Afghanistan without question. They have honored our losses, and shown us a respect which attitudes such as yours suggest to me that we might not deserve.

You further ignore that they have a hell of a lot more experience of terrorism and its consequences than we have. The Provos invented that delightful little terrorist technique of a small explosion preceeding by a few seconds the main explosion, which then catches so many victims running away from the first explosion. They practiced and perfected the technique in England.

Have your ever donated to Noraid, Paddy?

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In New York, more UK-citizens died than in London.

But of course, 7/7 was nothing against what happened in the USA.

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this is not a sympathy competition

If it were, Baghdad would top the poll.

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Hear Hear

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Aye, America has its defects, and we will fix them if we feel they need fixing.

One solution to all the terrible things represented by the United States has been forcibly demonstrated on 9/11 and 7/7. Convert to radically consrvative Islam. Ban all images of people, or anything that might compete with the worship of Allah. Replace all legislation that gives women any rights with laws requiring them to be "modestly" clothed in public. Ban any book or media that religious leaders dislike as an affront to their interpretation of the Koran. The Koran is written in Arabic, and so Arabic should become the primary langues of all humans. Replace the Anglo-American legal system with its decadent notions of innocent until proven guilty before a jury of ones peers, with religous courts trained only in interpreting the Holy Word. Hold public executions where offenders are either beheaded or stoned to death for violating any of the strictures in the Koran. Foreswear all forms of materialism that only divert the faithful from their worship of the devine. Join in the Jihad and bring all the heathens and infidels to Islam. Send our sons and daughters not to do the work of Satan, but to blow themselves up in the process of killing dispicable Infidel women and children.

Now if we are willing to all that, America will be pure and unblemished. We will be welcomed into the Islamic world of the 8th century, and won't have these terrible partisan political battles anymore. Right?

Priorities my dears. First, we defeat this gang of religious murderers and free those enslaved to them.

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Comment: Cheese-eating surrender monkeys and fire-eating war

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