Posted on 12/17/2005 5:37:00 PM PST by blam
"Stillwell constantly complained "
Yes, he certainly did, when he wasn't putting broomsticks in Chennault's spokes. Yadada yadada yadada, shut the hell up, Vinegar Joe.
Chiang tried to get rid of him from almost the day he arrived.
Have you read "The Flying Tiger," by Jack Samson?
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I do not mean to run down the Flying Tigers or those Chinese troops that fought alongside Merril's Maruaders at Mytchkina (sp?), for example. All I'm saying is that lives and treasure were expended (opening the Ledo Road, Flying the Hump, Keeping the 14th Air Force supplied, etc)on a scale that far outweighed the Chinese contribution to the overall fighting.
China served best as a magnet for Japanese troops and materiel that would have gone elsewhere.
Chiang played Roosevelt like a fiddle, getting the money, supplies and other aid that he artfully avaoided using against the Japsanese. He instead used it against the Commies, and look where it got him? The fact is that the Chinese Army was rife with corruption, staffed by political cronies and ineffective officers and served mainly by standing in front of the Japanese who had to station troops to merely watch them.
Over 2 million Japanese troops were still in China in August of 1945. No Chinese troops were in Japan, or anyplace else for that matter.
I wasn't making the argument for the state of their economy, but solely when you have a totalitarian government in place with the aformentioned nuclear weaponry, and a population 4 times ours, I'd still call it an 800-lb gorilla.
I probably should not have used "de facto" as a modifier, please excuse me. That being said, they still should not whitewash their history. For the record, I favor the remilitarization of Japan.
What a bizarre, inhumane and irrational statement.
Read Iris Chang's book about the Rape of Nanking and
see if theres a shred of decency in your heart.
I admire your in-your-face attitude toward the Chicoms, but I must disagree with the outcome of your thought experiment.
Japan is an important US ally and a responsible actor on today's international stage. But Japan has a problem with getting fully in touch with the humanity of non-Japanese people (and they have trouble looking honestly at history). My guess is that China under the Japanese would have been horrific beyond description. It gives me no pleasure to say this.
I'll give you an example of what I mean.
I believe it was about 15 years or so ago that the Economis (not exactly America's friend) ran a cartoon in which Saddam Hussein sat astride a nuclear weapon, shouting loudly "We're a Superpower! We're a Superpower!"
The missile was tied with rope to the back of a donkey (or perhaps a camel, I forget).
The point was, simply, that possession of a nuke means nothing when your country cannot even produce it's own food, toilet paper or lacks even rudimentary mineral wealth and the means to turn them into finished products, with indigenous financing, indigenous industry and technical skill. (I will, however, give the CHinese credit for formidible technical skills).
So China has a nuclear arsenal? So what. If China launches nukes, we have the capability to turn it into a self-lighting, glass-topped parking lot for the next 1 million years. The damage they can do, by comparison, is puny (although it would be tragic).
So China has 1 billion+ people? So what. It's still a static society that had to reach outside of it's borders and heritage to find a political philosophy (invented by the same Westerners they despise, no less!). It's still a society in which repression (political and economic) is the rule. It is a society that demands conformity and does not unleash the imaginations and talents of those 1 billion souls. It is a country that still labors under the mistaken impression that it is the center of the universe, and that it's people are a "Master Race", while the reality is on display for everyone to see. China is a cardboard cutout with a glass jaw.
I laugh at China. I laugh even harder that those that fear it because it will collapse from within long before it has to be defeated from without.
I don't think you know what you are talking about.
"I believe, in fact, the current generation of ships was designed under the philosophy, "Why have a machine do it when sailors are so cheap?"
No, I don't think so.
The routine maintenance required of a ship of the line and all its gear is unbelievable, from chipping and painting to replacing the klystron on a Vulcan Phalanx.
When you take a hit, or multiple hits, you need men, lots of men, for damage control.
In the end, a ship is still a steel box floating on the ocean, and there is no technology to "auto-repair" a big hole in the hull under the waterline. There is no practical technology to set various conditions of watertight and airtight integrity throughout that steel box.
And when the "automatic" fire suppression systems fail, as is inevitable, you need men to suit up and fight the fire.
Another consideration is watchstanding. Consider a ship steaming in modified condition 1, that only has two qualified TAOs. One of them has to be in CIC at all times.
Suppose they take 12-hour watches, port and starboard. Since the surface navy eats its own, they will also be expected to spend at least 8 hours a day on routine department head functions. That's 20 hours, excluding meals, officers' calls, special briefings, and contingencies.
All too many men spend their entire tours of duty trembling on the bring of collapse from fatigue, even with a crew of 350. Cut that number in half, and what will ensue?
On the other end of the chain of command, take the day of a deck seaman. Midnight to four, watch. 0430 to 0600, sleep. 0600 to 0730, titivate ship, shower, shave, breakfast. 0730, turn to, commence working day (chipping and painting, maintenance, etc.). 1130 to 1150, grab some lunch. 1200 to 1600, back on watch. 1600 to around 1700, back to normal work day. 1700 to around 1745, dinner. 1800 to 1945, there *might* be a chance to get some sleep, unless there's a drill or underway replenishment. 2000-2400, back on watch.
That's with three-section watches. On port-and-starboard watches, it's worse. And I haven't added in things like GQ drills, vertreps, unreps, weapons shoots, and on and on.
Fatigue causes accidents, and even at today's manning levels, fatigue is a serious problem.
Oh, yeah. I haven't read very much about the Chindits, but they should certainly be included.
"So China has a nuclear arsenal? So what. If China launches nukes, we have the capability to turn it into a self-lighting, glass-topped parking lot for the next 1 million years. The damage they can do, by comparison, is puny (although it would be tragic). "
I think you're overlooking Beelzebubba's treasonous sale to the Chinese of all the technology, and even machine tools, that they need to develop first-strike MIRV and MARV ICBM technology.
The day the Chinese pop up and tell the world that they have a hundred warheads precisely targeted on each of fifty American cities, in hardened silos deep within the Asian mainland, the world will suddenly become a much different place.
"I think it would be possible to achieve 60% or greater casualties on any Chinese force with not much effort."
Which would accomplish very little.
The Chinese took 40 million casualties in the 19th century Tai Ping rebellion. They wouldn't lose a moment's sleep over taking another 40 million tomorrow.
"But Japan has a problem with getting fully in touch with the humanity of non-Japanese people"
My, but that's a diplomatic way of putting it.
I wish I had your bravado. We may be able to turn China into a glass-topped parking lot and give those standing nearby permanent orange afros, but in an act of desperation, I don't want to imagine the damage they could inflict upon us or our allies. We still can't ignore that threat.
"we have the capability to"
Do we? What effect did the Klintstone years have on that? Is our arsenal sufficiently well-maintained that we can actually expect high-order detonation from most of our warheads? How many silos have been decommissioned? How about boomers? How many of those do we have left?
"Most Japanese who fought in WWII are dead. To hold their children and grandchildren accountable for their actions would be akin to racism."
Funny, that's what the young Nazi would say too. Of course, there really was no holocaust, you know.
"The people of China will never forget the good German John Rabe..."
Anyone remember the good Jap? While ambasador to Hitler's Germany he issued protection papers to as many Jews as he could and when he ran out of official forms he issued them on common paper.
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