Some Historical "Revision" questions to ponder.

19 Nov 2015 | US Navy Vet

[US Navy Vet]

Please put your comments below...

[Boogieman]

“Not going into Russia would have provided Germany with time and resources to confront the Royal Navy and finish the RAF.”

Perhaps, but I think that’s a pipe dream. The Germans never really displayed any aptitude at competing head to head with a real naval power on the high seas. Like Russia, they are a land power.

[Leaning Right]

Young people get confused.

That's a good point. And it's more worrisome in the so-called historical movies that take liberties with the truth, in order to be more "entertaining". Folks walk away from those movies believing in lots of wrong things.

[Mollypitcher1]

Biggest problem with your theory is the RAF was not about to be beaten. Hugh Dowding was brilliant and the English use of RADAR was perhaps the saving grace over Germany’s superiority in number of aircraft.

A deciding factor was perhaps the change from bombing and strafing the small British airfields and swinging the concentration of German attacks onto bombing London, known as the Blitz. This allowed the Brits to gain time and control of the skies. Some British airfields were never discovered by the Germans.

Considered the first AIR WAR,the Battle of Britain is an incredible history of courage and the right person at the hed of the RAF.

[Mollypitcher1]

Going into Russia also pulled resources, men and materiel from Germany’s African campaign. Rommel was stripped of planes, supplies, and men that were sent to the Russian front and told by Hitler to fight to the last man in Africa.

[Purdue77]

The RAF was days away from crumbling. If Germany’s veteran pilots on the eastern front had been instead fighting against GB then things might have been different. Of course, all things may have changes if Goering hadn’t been in charge of the Luftwaffe. But speculation is just speculation. If an asteroid had hit the earth then, we’d all have died and cockroaches would conquer the planet. :)

[Mollypitcher1]

What if America had stayed out of World War I, as Wilson promised?
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Europe would all be speaking German.

[TBP]

Would they? I’m not so sure.

[TBP]

I like your screen name. My dad was a member of a group called “The Friendly Sons of Molly Pitcher”.

[Mollypitcher1]

Here’s a big, likely one I rarely see discussed. December, 1941. The Japanese bomb Pearl, and the US goes to war with them. A few days later, Hitler decides to join the pile on and declares war on the US himself.
What if Germany hadn’t declared war? The US populace was mad as hell at Japan, and wanted it to be our top war priority. Yea, we’d have likely ended up at war with Hitler eventually, but what if Adolph kept his cool and declared strict neutrality (maybe even offering some back channel intelligence help to the US)?
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Declaring war on us was perhaps Hitler’s greatest mistake according to experts. However, Germany and Japan were Allies along with Italy so Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor sealed our fate.
We were already working more or less under and over the table with Churchill, so we were “IN” even before we “GOT INTO” the war. We had no other choice and Hitler’s Operation Drumbeat, a massacre of our Merchant Marine, began a month after Pearl Harbor. Over 600 ships were sunk at a cost of only 22 U Boats. Drumbeat, also called the Second Happy Time or the Second Battle of the Atlantic started in January 1942, was most devastating in February 1942 and lasted until August, when we finally got our act together and organized convoys. Single ships had been sitting ducks but convoys were protected. It took a while to get ourselves organized.

[Mollypitcher1]

I pretty well agree. But Operation Sea Lion was a reality and only the Luftwaffe defeat in the Battle of Britain saved England. Remember there were a lot of German sympathizers in England...even among the Royal Family. But the Man of the hour was Churchill and his speech on May 13, 1940 pretty well says it all. A nation will follow a great leader. Not only England, but the western world as well, had a great leader through the war......and it wasn’t Roosevelt or Stalin.

I would like to hear that same speech by our president:”I have nothing to offer but Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat.”

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Kennedy would’ve been killed somewhere else. Castro spent a lot of time and money on his assassination.

[Mollypitcher1]

Some things should never be joked about. I don’t intend to lighten up about serious subjects. For me, some things are still sacred. Millions died for freedom in the world, but Hollywood considers it all a joke. They are the influence on our young.

[SunkenCiv]

1. What would have happened if Hitler had listened to his Generals and authorized a withdraw; from Stalingrad in 1941-1842?
   • Historically, the III Battle of Kharkhov was a massive defeat of the Red Army, and stopped dead its advance.
   • Hitler, always on the lookout for the wrong move to make, was convinced that the residue of that advance, the Kursk salient, was an affront to German prestige before all the world.
   • Von Manstein told him the time to launch the counteroffensive was right away, before the Reds had the time to build defense in depth. Hitler overruled him, said the offensive would take place in the summer.
   • Just to ice the cake, Hitler pulled three divisions out of the preparations and sent them to Italy, where the terrain was more than sufficient. The allied objectives in Italy had been reached when those 13 airfields in the south had been taken.
   • In reality, the Battle of Kursk is what broke the Wehrmacht, not the Battle of Stalingrad. Both defeats were the result of a power-hungry jackass with no grasp of strategy or tactics.
   • Had the commander at Stalingrad pulled out contrary to orders, he'd have been punished, probably executed, but his army would have survived.
   • The defeat of the Red Army at Kharkhov III would still have taken place, and the Kursk salient wouldn't have become a problem, probably wouldn't have existed.
   • At the very least, the end of the war would have been greatly delayed, and it's not unlikely that a German counter in Italy would have been made with much greater force and effect, the airfields retaken, and the Romanian targets of those allied bombers put out of reach.
   • However, in 1945, after the Battle of Okinawa in the Pacific Theater, the first nuclear weapon would have been dropped on Berlin.
   • The Red Army would have been through another full year of mauling, and have gained no significant amount of ground.
   • The German armed forces would still be more or less intact.
   • Stalin would not have had so much leverage (or occupied territory) during the late wartime conferences or in postwar Europe.
   • The ceasefire, armistice, and treaty would have seen a staged demilitarization in Europe, and fewer redrawn borders.
   • During the late 1940s, von Braun's space program would have orbited a human; during the 1950s, there would have been a series German moon landings. In the 1970s, and prior to von Braun's death, human missions to Mars would have taken place.
   • Meanwhile, a greatly depleted USSR would have been more involved in the politics and military struggles in China.
   • The US would have still wound up in Korea and Vietnam.
   • The British and French empires still would have been devolved, and by 1970 the EEC would have evolved into something similar to the EU, but Germany would be part of one bloc, and the UK and France would be part of another.
2. What would have happened if Kennedy had not gone to Dallas in 1963?
   • He was killed by the Mob, they'd have kept trying until they got him.
3. What would have happened if Lincoln had not gone to Ford's Theatre in 1865?
   • John Wilkes Booth and his fellow retards would have drunk themselves to death.
4. What would have happened if President Reagan would have replaced George HW Bush as his VP with a Conservative in 1984?
   • What if people had shown up to vote for GHWB instead of ushering in eight years of Clinton, which have only been eclipsed by Zero's terms?

[Mollypitcher1]

You’re correct and I fight it every day by educating those I can and not throwing up my hands and saying it’s no use.
The young need to learn that everything in life isn’t funny, and some things are going to “offend.”

[Mollypitcher1]

It happens also in books. We can all do something about it. My turning point came several years ago when I asked my granddaughter what she was learning in school. She launched into a spiel on the Underground Railroad and Abraham Lincoln. When she was finished, I asked her did she know who George Washington was. She didn’t have a clue! The next day my son went to the school and set them straight, and I started teaching my grandchildren American History. We don’t have to accept the destruction of our country and our history. “When good men do nothing..........”

[Mollypitcher1]

LOL! I hope you eat only Purdue’s chicken!

[Does so]

What would have happened if Kennedy had not gone to Dallas in 1963?<

JFK would have been assassinated in a different top-down convertible.

[Mollypitcher1]

The USA was the “deciding” factor. England was exhausted and even their leaders were fighting amongst themselves, including a great disagreement with Gen.Haig. They had no more reserves, and France was in like condition, having defended the huge majority of the battle line. America’s fresh troops, fresh supplies, tightly held control over contributing forces by Pershing, enabled the new troops to fight decisively. It was a weight of factors Germany couldn’t deal with, being exhausted themselves from the long war of attrition. Belleau Wood was a tremendous victory and the place is still called the Marine’s Wood even though in size as battles go, it was quite small. The third battle of Passchendaele was important for the Brits and Anzacs in 1917. Verdun was the site of five battles and many other sites like Chateau Thierry and St.-Mihiel tell the story. It was a ghastly war and was truly a World War, taking place everywhere. Even though we ignored the sinking of the Lusitania, we were bound to get in it.

[Mollypitcher1]

I think the switch from bombing the English airfields to bombing London was the critical mistake by the Germans.

[Mollypitcher1]

Thank you. I’ve been around here and there under Mollypitcher with or without the 1, for a lot of years. My granddad first told me the story of the real Molly Pitcher and I’ve been hooked on history ever since.
Molly Pitcher did what needed to be done in the Battle of Monmouth. Today, too many females are afraid of their own shadow, or scared of breaking a fingernail. The name means a lot to me but too many people don’t know who she was.