Posted on 03/10/2005 7:10:45 AM PST by rcocean
George Washington packed way too many men into that boat on the Delaware. Idiot! What about the Women who suffered at Valley Forge? How about that? And Jesus really didn't feel pain on the Cross because he was God and God can't feel pain and neither can fetuses, but lobsters scream, they feel pain, buddy boy, and my last analyst told me that feeling good is only aboout me. I can't worry too much about others ,. .... .;. ;/. Modern thinker
Good book.
From what I've studied, the Marines encountered a Japanese army that had their backs against the wall so to speak, and it was the first "real" exposure to the fanaticism of the Japanese soldier. They would rather be burned alive in a cave than surrender. That type of mentality is what caused so many American casualties.
The Europeans on the other, would for the most part, concede defeat and surrender, with the hope of living. The Japanese viewed life pretty much as the islamofascists of today do. They felt the need to be martyred to bring honor to their family.
As for the LA slimes, don't read it, and never will.
My $.02
Cheers!
A stat to back up your fine point in my Post #40.
Can you tell us how they were to predict the actual amount of casualties that were to occur before they went in?
And once in, with the casualty rate exceeding all estimates, are you suggesting they should have withdrawn?
I knew that the lives lost/lives saved balance was favorable, but I had no idea it was that many!
The article I provided was taken directly from Capt. Burrell's study. Now I ask you, do the facts I highlighted in that article resemble what was put forth by Mr.Boot?
Pantload
Thought you might want to see this one.
We could skip over some of the islands, but we couldn't skip over all of them. If it hadn't been Iwo Jima it would have been an equally bloody battle somewhere else. Iwo Jima was judged to be strategic.
Besides which, who knows what the effect on Japanese morale may have been to this exemplary courage, which must have undermined their propaganda that only Japanese had true courage?
Well at least you read the article. Not certain what your question to me is.
Both the columnist and the author seem to take exception to the fact that Iwo Jima had to be taken.
And all of them were prepared for death in advance. Their job was to kill a certain number of GIs before they died. They accepted that.
At least you got that part right.
;)
"If Ted Kennedy had been in the Senate in 1945 (hard to believe, but he wasn't), he would have been hollering about the incompetence of the Roosevelt administration, which produced many times more casualties in five weeks than U.S. forces have suffered in Iraq in the last two years."
Who's this guy crappin'? Kennedy would have kissed ol' Frank's butt over and over again.
During WWII both sides made numerous costly blunders. For instance, the Japanese should have attacked oil storage facilities at Pearl Harbor and pressed the attack on Pearl Harbor until they out of ammunition and aviation fuel. There was more petroleum at Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941 than in Japan.
Japanese incompetence in the field of cyphers was criminal.
The truly unnecessary attack was the Phillipines, which advanced absolutely no strategic purpose, rather it allowed MacAuthur to claim a public relations victory by redeeming his pledge to return.
Not one of those 6,000 was this stupid author, so why doesn't he just STFU. These SHITHEADS that blast the military from the comfort of their homes under the umbrella of security the military has provided them, makes my blood boil.
My grandfather is rolling in his grave right now. What this idiot is ignoring is the fact that if the US had not taken Iwo Jima, the Japanese would have used it against us.
Is any land worth the price in blood? I honestly don't know, but I know my freedom is.
The question for me has always been the necessity of taking the island. It was argued that P51s needed the airstrip to escort the B29s. Before the island was secure the decision had been made to concentrate on low level incendiary bombing, rather than so called daylight precision bombing. This made the P51s much less necessary. The second justification for the assault was the B29 bombers that subsequently used the airstrip for emergency landings. The numbers are usually given as 25,000 aircrew saved. This demands that we accept all aircraft that used the strip as lost, if Iwo was in Japanese hands, and all aircrew as KIA. A stretch. What is not a stretch is that the US faced the assault on Okinawa less three highly trained and competent Marine divisions which were rendered unusable after suffering 23.000 killed and wounded on Iwo.
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