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60 Years Ago This Week....
The History Channel? | 13 April 2005 | Yasotay

Posted on 04/13/2005 6:24:31 PM PDT by Yasotay

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To: ozzymandus

OUR ALLIES (May 3, 1945)

On this day the British 6th Airborne and the US 7th Armoured Division captured the north German town of Wismar. The actual capture was carried out by men of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. Just outside the town were the Russian front lines from where drunken soldiers, fuelled by a mixture of vodka and rocket fuel, were flocking into town in search of wine, women and song. The main hospital in Wismar was now occupied by the Paras. That night, a group of Russian soldiers approached the main gate of the hospital and demanded that all German nurses be brought out. Told that no women were here they pushed the sentry aside and entered the courtyard. A half dressed Para pocked his head out of a window and shouted 'They are our girls, get lost'. Suddenly a shot rang out followed by the rattle of a British Sten-gun. The drunken Russians scattered as shooting broke out on both sides. It was all over in minutes, the Russians retiring to their own lines. In the cobbled courtyard of the hospital lay the bodies of six dead Soviet soldiers.


81 posted on 04/13/2005 8:45:36 PM PDT by albertabound (It's good to beeeee Albertabound.)
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To: muawiyah
The Russians had some really big intercontinental bombers at the time ~ we didn't.

What are you smoking? Show me a link to a WWII Soviet bomber that matched the B-29, or the 17 for that matter.

82 posted on 04/13/2005 8:45:45 PM PDT by Axenolith (The 23rd Century will be here sooner than you think...)
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To: Yasotay
My understanding is that the Allies had agreed to stop at the Elbe. If we had moved on Berlin, and even taken it, would Stalin have just let us do so? If things did then get belligerent and there was all out war between the Russians and the Allies, what is the "end state." Would the Allies have had to go all the way to Moscow?
83 posted on 04/13/2005 8:51:23 PM PDT by schu
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To: muawiyah
We did the same thing on the Eastern front, only there you had Russians doing the fighting ~ still our stuff ~ some to their designs, some to ours, but still a lot more stuff than the Germans could begin to produce under the best possible conditions.

Many historians believe that the Soviets would have crushed Germany even without a Western Front in the picture. The Russians were incredibly tenacious, they suffered millions of casualties, yet continued to move forward. Hitler's gravest mistake was to attack Russia. The German Army wasn't even fully mechanized when Barbarossa began. Neither was the Soviet Union. But their Homeland was being invaded. It gave millions the incentive they needed to repel the Germans, at all costs. Even without our help. I believe the Russian's, underestimated by Hitler, would have eventually prevailed.

84 posted on 04/13/2005 8:53:17 PM PDT by ExtremeUnction
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To: muawiyah; Slump Tester
Originally posted by muawiyah:
The Russians had some really big intercontinental bombers at the time ~ we didn't.


What source do you use for your 'facts'? What 'really big' intercontinental bombers did the Russians have at the time? They took the three US Army Air Forces B-29 Stratofortresses that landed in Soviet Territory after a missions over Japan in 1945 and the flight crews were interned. The Russians then DUPLICATED (reverse-engineered) those B-29s (down to the bullet holes) to create the TU-4 bomber by mid-1947. They had no long-range intercontinental bomber until they duplicated the US B-29.

dvwjr

85 posted on 04/13/2005 9:02:54 PM PDT by dvwjr
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To: Turbo Pig
While Seelow wasn't his finest hour and Glantz does make some interesting points about Army Group Center, Zhukov starving off defeat and then achieving the greatest victory, in the greatest war in history does put Zhuvkov in a different league from Patton.

Tactically you maybe correct about Zhukov, but Operationally and Strategically can you name anyone better? In the end, all the 'Great' German generals lost (and during the Cold War, the Germans got away with just saying it was all Hitler's fault). Glantz's book on Kursk sheds new light on that subject. Strategically the Soviets danced circles around the Germans and Zhukov won.
86 posted on 04/13/2005 9:08:22 PM PDT by Yasotay
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To: bd476
We had the best gear back then.......:o)


87 posted on 04/13/2005 9:10:37 PM PDT by Squantos (Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet. ©)
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To: schu
I don't think we 'agreed' to stop at the Elbe. The Elbe was the line for the "Zones of Occupation". We would have had to withdraw back to it. Stalin thought for sure that we were going to take it and I am sure he would have demanded that we withdraw. Churchill wanted to take it. FDR was dying .... the end state .... the Soviets would not have got the atomic secrets that they got (although it looks like they got even more atomic secrets from the Japanese). They may not have been able to make the advances that they made with rockets and missiles (hence fewer or no SAM missiles) .... no Cold War ..... no Space Race ..... just what if(ing) 'end states'.
88 posted on 04/13/2005 9:20:14 PM PDT by Yasotay
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To: albertabound

I believe there were a number of shooting incidents between Allied and Soviet troops when they met, usually under simlar circumstances as the one you describe. I've heard of a couple involving US troops getting into it with Soviet troops who were attacking German refugee women. There were also some instances of Red Army columns getting blown apart by Allied fighter-bombers mistaking them for Germans (who had learned back in Normandy that they could only travel at night).


89 posted on 04/13/2005 10:29:17 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: Squantos
Ookay, I'll play. Those are tin door hinges, prehistoric single edged face scrapers, C ration can openers or a big pile of doodads, I give, LOL, what are they?
90 posted on 04/13/2005 11:26:01 PM PDT by bd476
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To: Yasotay
War in the East was unlike anything that the Western Allies experienced. Had hostilities with Russia broken out, Western casualties would have been horrific.
91 posted on 04/13/2005 11:39:25 PM PDT by fso301
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To: pensiveproletariat

IMO = "In my opinion". (FWIW)


92 posted on 04/14/2005 3:16:30 AM PDT by Slump Tester (John Kerry - When even your best still isn't good enough)
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To: dvwjr
I think it's fairly evident that most of the folks on here have had pinko teachers that drummed the "we can't beat them so we should join them" mindset into their heads.

To recap:

1. The US is a bunch of of pansies who can never beat the Soviet Union in ANYTHING (to the moon or even hockey!)
2. WW2 would have been lost if not for Russia.
3. The soviets were our brave allies, so it would have been wrong for us to try to stop them from dominating Europe and elsewhere.
4. Their superior technology and numbers has doomed us to 2nd place.
5. Communism isn't really a bad thing - It's just a force we cannot stop.

Did I forget anything?

93 posted on 04/14/2005 3:32:57 AM PDT by Slump Tester (John Kerry - When even your best still isn't good enough)
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To: Slump Tester
We should have turned Patton loose on [the Soviets] AFTER they got to Berlin.

They would have flicked us off the continent like a piece of lint. Sorry, just the fact. Besides, in 1945 there was absolutely no public support for a wider war or picking new fights, we still had the Japanese to defeat. No one knew at that time whether the A-Bomb would work, or if the Japanese would even surrender after one or several were employed.

Eisenhower saved a lot of American, British and Canadian lives by letting the Russians take Berlin.

94 posted on 04/14/2005 3:38:26 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Deadcheck the embeds first.)
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To: 76834

Pure BS. After VJ day, if we flew a plane over Moscow and dropped and Little Boy or Fat Man, we would not had to worry about the Soviets for the next 40+ years. However, it is pointless to argue that because so many Soviet sympathizers were in our government by that time so that never would have happened.


95 posted on 04/14/2005 4:09:04 AM PDT by 7thson (I think it takes a big dog to weigh a hundred pounds!)
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To: Yasotay
Try Erich von Manstein, author of the plan that brought France to its knees in six weeks, author of the counter stroke at Kursk in early 1943 that stopped the post Stalingrad Soviet offensive. Try Eisenhower who planned the greatest amphibious invasion of modern times (Overlord). Try Yamashita, who took Singapore in six weeks. Try Rommel, whose 1942 offensive was a tactical and strategic jewel. For defense, try Kesselring in Italy.

Zhukov's two greatest claims to fame are Stalingrad, and the destruction of Army Group Center in 1944. He showed a good strategic sense, but he wasn't in Manstein's class.
96 posted on 04/14/2005 4:38:19 AM PDT by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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To: 76834
Exactly what you described, "rectal clevage kicked" thingy happened in Korea.

We should have copied the German Panther tank at that time.

97 posted on 04/14/2005 7:02:16 AM PDT by painter (We celebrate liberty which comes from God not from government.)
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To: bd476

I still carry mine on my key chain .... P-38s .... not the same P-38 as American's greatest Ace but your third lined out item.


98 posted on 04/14/2005 7:15:54 AM PDT by Yasotay
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To: Yasotay

If we had taken Berlin, certainly there would have been casualties, maybe not on the Russian scale, but significant number. Given that Churchill wanted to keep it and the US was essentially leaderless (HST was kept a bit in the dark) I am not sure we would have pulled back.

If Stalin had decided that Berlin was his and fighting broke out, where would it have ended?


99 posted on 04/14/2005 7:18:39 AM PDT by schu
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To: muawiyah
The Russians had some really big intercontinental bombers at the time ~ we didn't.

HUH??!!

Thats news to me.Lets hear the details.

At that time we where ready to roll out the B 36 Bomber.It was designed to fly from the US to Germany and back.Early in the war we thought England was going to fall to Germans and a crash course to build a bomber that could hit Germany from here was on.The B 36 was developed by the end of it.

100 posted on 04/14/2005 7:20:40 AM PDT by painter (We celebrate liberty which comes from God not from government.)
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