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Von Braun was happy to use slave labor to build V2s targeting London civilians. Then the US, the good guys, made him a "hero" . . . |
Posted on 12/09/2006 9:31:30 AM PST by Zakeet
I'm a believer in beating our enemy into yesterday. Before Japan and Germany ever straightened their act up we had to beat them to a pulp. We are much to PC today, imo. War is hell and our troops should be free to initiate that hell upon our enemy.
Amen!!
You may be thinking of The Forgotten Soldier by "Guy Sojer" (a pseudonym), a French lad with a German mother who went to the eastern front to do his duty for western civilization. At the end of the war, we was isolated. The French veterans who actually had war stories to tell couldn't, since they'd fought on the wrong side!
See also the incredible book Iron Coffins, by one of the few U-boat commanders who survived the war, AND the enslavement of 600,000 German military personnel parceled out among the victors (including the French) as "human reparations."
Correct me if I'm wrong,but weren't many Japanese war criminals also tried and executed in a procedure similiar to Nuremberg?
Indeed, I do. As do the hundreds, probably thousands of volumes that speak to the complexities of the Pacific and European theater.
The Lend-Lease Act and the Oil Embargo of Japan were seen by the Japanese as acts of war, too.
As Churchill said, I believe, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, after trying all the others." So eventually, America did 'defend freedom.'
Fortunately for the world.
Had America lost the war, the Japanese would have written the history. And it could have also been written in a simplistic jingle by the Imperial Japanese. But it wouldn't have been accurate either.
The emotions this provokes are great....perhaps you can turn that energy into some objective study of the events, too.
"Further, our own country let the majority of those responsible for the war crimes off. Now, look at what is going on today--the old U.S. of A. gets no free pass--ever."
Yes we did. We also brought a passle of NAZI's over here after the war. We gave them a pass, especially the intelligence people and the scientists.
After the war, in an episode of incredible treachery, the allies disarmed hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers, with their wives and children who'd sought refuge in the west. At Roosevelt's orders, our folks put them on cattle cars and sent them to their deaths. Like Hitler, like Mussolini, like Stalin, Roosevelt was a socialist. Let's not forget that. As an international socialist, he felt a closer kinship with "Uncle Joe" than he did with the national socialists.
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Von Braun was happy to use slave labor to build V2s targeting London civilians. Then the US, the good guys, made him a "hero" . . . |
One Japanese officer murdered an American Airman and ate his liver. After the war he was tried, convicted and given a prison sentence by the Allies. After serving his prison sentence, he was elected to the Japanese Diet (Parliament), and served there too. All without any apology or change or heart.
What's the line from the book 'Flags of our fathers'
Something to the effect of "The Japanese fought for the Emperor and that made them formidable, the Marines fought for each other, and that made them invincible."
God Bless Ira Hayes
Semper Fi
Hiroshima. It is a major port, and the home of the the Japanese equivilant of the US Naval Academy at Anapolis.
Nagasaki was not at the top of the list of targets in 1945. The target for 9 August was Kokura, but one of the three B 29s in the flight (bomb plane, instrument plane, observation plane) was late, and by the time the bomb plane decided to go on without them, Kokura was clouded over. Rather than waste an atomic bomb (the US had only more ready for use), the pilots were ordered to not attack without visual identification of the target, so Kokura was left alone.
The bomb plane headed to Nagasaki, the secondary target. It too was cloudy, but at the last moment a break in the cloud cover showed Nagasaki below. You know the rest.
" she remembered the Doolittle raid and then a couple years later when the B-29s started coming over every day "
I have lived and taught in Japan for 20 years ...Kids learn about the B-29s from elementary school . They study the revisionist history in depth ( especially about Nagsaki and Hiroshima ) in junior high school . All know who Hitler was , but ask them about Tojo and you will get a black stare .
" If you were to have no knowledge of WWII (public education) and visited the "Peace" Museum you would come away with the following impression. Japan and the U.S. had conflicting interests in Asia, and somehow a war broke out, and then America nuked us, now look at the pictures of the victims and devastation. "
You should go to the Nagasaki Peace Museum . I walked away with the impression that the peaceful Japanese were just sitting around minding their own business when out of nowhere a nuclear bomb was dropped on their city .
Yeah, pretty much the same with a whole lot of, "We're the only victims to ever have a nuclear bomb dropped on us."
Our Peace Studies program faculty and friends had a table at the farmer's market one year quibbling about the US and the Atomic Bomb and how horrible it was to bomb the cities (It was, but it was a necessary evil). My 2nd cousin, who was captured and hurt by the Japanese gave them an earful. He was NOT a happy camper. It's great for all these peace loving draft dodgers to protest but not for our American heroes who actually fought and died or were maimed in that war.
The Japanese were not brought up in a Christian nation as our soldiers were. Even if the soldiers weren't all Christians, they were brought up with certain moral values and ideals. I believe that was the difference.
And wrongly so. Yet you seem to defend it.
Japan joins the German-Italian axis in 1940. Lend-Lease is signed in '41.
If the Japanese didn't like us providing defensive aid to nations who were fighting the axis powers, then they should have left the axis alliance. There were no Lend-Lease assets used in an offensive manner against Japan.
There was no moral justification for the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Lend-Lease was no excuse.
Most objective people would agree....
The emotions this provokes are great....perhaps you can turn that energy into some objective study of the events, too.
...yet you -- don't.
Didn't he also refuse to let Jews on ships come into America? They had to turn back and go home.
Seem nothing of the sort. Assign "seems to's" to someone else.
All I ever said was that the genesis of American involvement in WWII cannot be summed up in a single saw....as you have now proven with your expansive hysterics.
I'm out. Ridicule me more tomorrow.
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