Fury

[Stearmen]

Sorry about the F words, but this sums it up for me! [video=youtube;K_DnRn9hyFU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DnRn9hyFU[/video]

 

[Stearmen]

Would you say you were afraid to turn your back on kids because they might kill you?

I don't get what you are saying, they weren't afraid of them, they just sent them to POW camps! Not like the SS.

 

[Two Types]

From a personal point of view, I wouldn't care if someone was 14 or 84, if they had a gun and were trying to kill me, I'd be scared of them!

 

[Big J]

From a personal point of view, I wouldn't care if someone was 14 or 84, if they had a gun and were trying to kill me, I'd be scared of them!

Yeah, I agree.
If some one points a gun at me, they better use it or I'm gonna take it and use it on them!

 

[Edward]

Would we? No, I do not think so. I believe that there were/are many in the U.K. and U.S. that believe we would have been better off joining the Germans (not me I hasten to add).

One of the great historical 'what if's relates to Operation Sealion going ahead successfully. My best guess is that the Home Guard would have been broken relatively quickly in the South, and the Wehrmacht would have advanced steadily North and West. Possibly small pockets of isolated, armed resistance would break out. I doubt that by this point, with the war still relatively recent history, we'd see much loyalty to German rule outside of oddballs like the Blackshirts and the broad swathe of aristocracy that had always favoured Hitler. A Nazi sympathiser on the throen may have swayed some of those who thought the crown faultless in everything. In a couple of hundred years' time, it's entirely plausible that there'd be very much two sides to it, with any resistance movement branded 'terrorists'. The knock-on in the constituent parts of the British Isles would be interesting. In England, I think most people would, assuming their own lives weren't in immediate danger and day to day life could go on much as before, just knuckly down and get on with it, even if it was not a situation for which they cared. I could see Scottish devolution occurring much earlier; decentralising government from London, creating a much more federal UK, as it would be thought harder for several power centres to coordinate resistance, maybe. Play the different UK nationalities off against each other. The Irish situation would have been interesting. The then Free State was ostentatious in its official neutrality. Perhaps enough to guarantee reasonable relations with Berlin, but they'd certainly be watched. I imagine the ports to which the British Royal Navy had access, under the Anglo-Irish Treat of 1921, would be maintained by a permanent U-Boat presence, in order to ensure that the 26 counties were not used as a staging post for an American led attack on Europe. (Though I'm sure there would have been a resumption of trade relations with the US by the end of the forties, anyhow.) What would Hitler do with the North? Would the putative forms of the latter-day paramilitatires in Northern Ireland form the basis for a resistance movement? I can't see even opposition Hitler uniting the tribes, as it were, but perhaps some would reach an accomodation. There's a high likelihood that some would have ended up as uniformed SS types; Loyalist paramilitaries in the post-1968 'Troubles' have long had strongl inks to the far-right movement in Britain. I'm sure there's a fantastic novel in there somewhere.... I don't think the Northern Ireland dimension has been dealt with by Harris or Deighton or any of those writing in this alternative genre previously?

From a personal point of view, I wouldn't care if someone was 14 or 84, if they had a gun and were trying to kill me, I'd be scared of them!

Quite! There's something equally disturbing about the preparedness to kill someone as there is the means to do it. I do rather try to avoid placing myselfr in situations which involve persons in possession of both of those.

 

[Otter]

The RMA Sandhurst wargamed out operation Sea lion in 1974. All six umpires were unanimous that the result would have been a decisive loss for the Invading Force. The cited reason was the lack of air superiority and an inability to prevent the Royal Navy interfering with the cross channel resupply mission. The scary bit is we were prepared to use chemical weapons to stop troops on the beach head, mainly mustard gas both sprayed from small aircraft and in bomb form. If you want to know a bit about the background Google MOS Rhydymwyn site or Subterranea Britannica, and look for forward filling stations.

 

[Big J]

Very interesting gentlemen! reminds me of this;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Happened_Here

and this;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Went_the_Day_Well?

 

[jamespowers]

I don't get what you are saying, they weren't afraid of them, they just sent them to POW camps! Not like the SS.

lol lol The Hitler Youth WERE the SS after 1943.

"1943 marked the military turning point for Hitler's Reich. In January, the German Sixth Army was destroyed by the Russians at Stalingrad. In May, the last German strongholds in North Africa fell to the Allies. In July, the massive German counter-attack against the Russians at Kursk failed. The Allies invaded Italy. An Allied invasion of northern Europe was anticipated.
The war could only end with the "unconditional surrender" of Germany and its Axis partners, as stated by President Franklin Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. In February, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels retaliated by issuing a German declaration of "Total War."
Amid a dwindling supply of manpower, the existence of an entire generation of ideologically pure boys, raised as Nazis, eager to fight for the Fatherland and even die for the Führer, could not be ignored. The result was the formation of the 12th SS-Panzer Division Hitlerjugend.
A recruitment drive began, drawing principally on 17-year-old volunteers, but younger members 16 and under eagerly joined. During July and August 1943, some 10,000 recruits arrived at the training camp in Beverloo, Belgium.
To fill out the HJ Division with enough experienced soldiers and officers, Waffen-SS survivors from the Russian Front, including members of the elite Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler, were brought in. Fifty officers from the Wehrmacht, who were former Hitler Youth leaders, were also reassigned to the division. The remaining shortage of squad and section leaders was filled with Hitler Youth members who had demonstrated leadership aptitude during HJ paramilitary training exercises. The division was placed under of the command of 34-year-old Major General Fritz Witt, who had also been a Hitler Youth, dating back before 1933."


"The shocking fanaticism and reckless bravery of the Hitler Youth in battle astounded the British and Canadians who fought them. They sprang like wolves against tanks. If they were encircled or outnumbered, they fought-on until there were no survivors. Young boys, years away from their first shave, had to be shot dead by Allied soldiers, old enough, in some cases, to be their fathers. The "fearless, cruel, domineering" youth Hitler had wanted had now come of age and arrived on the battlefield with utter contempt for danger and little regard for their own lives. This soon resulted in the near destruction of the entire division."

Yeah they were nothing to be feared. Riiiiiggghhhhttt......

 

[jamespowers]

From a personal point of view, I wouldn't care if someone was 14 or 84, if they had a gun and were trying to kill me, I'd be scared of them!

Just a gun pointing at you is one thing but a fanatical bunch of troops took Lord of the Flies to a NEW height.

 

[Big J]

Just a gun pointing at you is one thing but a fanatical bunch of troops took Lord of the Flies to a NEW height.

On this thread people have talked about how the movie expresses frustration that the Germans fought on even when the outcome of the war was clear to see, but I'm thinking that that might have been the best result.
After all, if the German leadership had been able to negotiate a surrender earlier in the war, all of those fanatical SS and HY wouldn't have got themselves killed, and would have spent the immediate post-war period as terrorists and suicide bombers, I guess.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Very interesting gentlemen! reminds me of this;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Happened_Here

and this;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Went_the_Day_Well?

Interesting. I just recently a picked up a book called Resisting the Nazi Invader by Arthur Ward which discusses the creation of the Auxiliary Units (Auxunits) by the British in the early days of the war. The Auxunits, recruited largely from the Home Guard, were trained to conduct guerilla warfare in the event of a German invasion and occupation of Britain.

 

[jamespowers]

On this thread people have talked about how the movie expresses frustration that the Germans fought on even when the outcome of the war was clear to see, but I'm thinking that that might have been the best result.
After all, if the German leadership had been able to negotiate a surrender earlier in the war, all of those fanatical SS and HY wouldn't have got themselves killed, and would have spent the immediate post-war period as terrorists and suicide bombers, I guess.

The Hitler Youth would have done it too. :doh:

 

[Big J]

Interesting. I just recently a picked up a book called Resisting the Nazi Invader by Arthur Ward which discusses the creation of the Auxiliary Units (Auxunits) by the British in the early days of the war. The Auxunits, recruited largely from the Home Guard, were trained to conduct guerilla warfare in the event of a German invasion and occupation of Britain.

I can't help it, Home Guard = Dad's Army in my feeble mind.
They don't like it up 'em!

 

[Big J]

The Hitler Youth would have done it too. :doh:

No doubt at all.

 

[Otter]

VC,

The Aux units were recruited from people who were exempted from being drafted, usuale due to having a reserved occupation. The picked people who had particular skill sets, Ghillies, gamekeepers and the like who may also have been Home Guard members. They were officially discharged from the HG and formed into small squad sized local units with a secure hidden hide, usually underground. They were supplied with an assortment of weapons and explosives including silenced pistols and rifles. There is notoriously little information on their function on an invasion and indeed many of the hides were so well hidden that they are still being discovered today, one was located last week in the Scottish Borders http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/h...war-ii-bunker-discovered-in-selkirk-1-3752250.
A lot of speculation has occurred into their role, one of the major ones being that their mission was targeted assassination of collaborators following the invasion.

 

[p51]

As a kid, it never made sense to me how easily the Germans and Japanese submitted to allied control without a great fuss.
Now that I know far more about the nature of totalitarian/dictatorship cultures, it's in a way more confusing why we didn't have an insurgency in Germany and Japan for a long time after WW2 was over. But then again, you're not dealing with a theocracy like in the Philippines after the Span-Am war or the Middle East at pretty much any time in history...

 

[jamespowers]

As a kid, it never made sense to me how easily the Germans and Japanese submitted to allied control without a great fuss.
Now that I know far more about the nature of totalitarian/dictatorship cultures, it's in a way more confusing why we didn't have an insurgency in Germany and Japan for a long time after WW2 was over. But then again, you're not dealing with a theocracy like in the Philippines after the Span-Am war or the Middle East at pretty much any time in history...

Japan had kind of both of those. The Emperor was a dictator and god like. Dictatorships are easy to take over as the people are used to acquiescing to force. Theocracies are harder as they have two layers of dictators in the sense that you have a dictator AND a religious heirarchy to take over. Usually the religious heirarchy will never acquiesce to outside forces unless they are of the same mindset.

 

[Big J]

Japan had kind of both of those. The Emperor was a dictator and god like. Dictatorships are easy to take over as the people are used to acquiescing to force. Theocracies are harder as they have two layers of dictators in the sense that you have a dictator AND a religious heirarchy to take over. Usually the religious heirarchy will never acquiesce to outside forces unless they are of the same mindset.

Yeah, good point. Imperial Japan makes a lot more sense (that is to say, it is easier to understand) if you think of it as being a giant cult, based on the Emperor.
Also, many of the fanatics in both Germany and Japan were so wrapped up in the mythos that these regimes were based on, that if they couldn't get themselves killed facing the enemy, then they killed themselves somewhere else. No doubt this contributed greatly to the lack of organized resistance after the surrender.

Another major factor is that aside from fanatics, the general population had had their belief in the lies of the leaders totally shattered by Allied air power. Food and fuel shortages reduced the will to resist dramatically, to the point in Japan where street parties were thrown when the 'God- Emperor' made his radio broadcast that 10,000 year empire was finished- not very patriotic of them.

As a point of order, the Japanese Emperor never actually used the word for surrender, but rather just told the Japanese people that to save them from 'further suffering', they must 'endure the unendurable'. Typical Japanese authority double-speak that Japanese nationalists use to this day to deny Japanese defeat.

And while we're on the subject of fanatics, I strongly urge those who are able to do so to visit the kamikaze exhibition being held on the USS Missouri right now at Pearl Harbor. It contains many exhibits from the museum at the Japanese Kamikaze airfield of Chiran. It dispels so many popular myths about the kamikaze, such as they were all volunteers who only left with enough fuel for a one way mission. The kamikaze were almost entirely men under voting age (25 years at that time), who were told they were volunteering.

Whilst I wouldn't want the plight of the kamikaze to eclipse the appropriate sympathy due to their victims, almost everything people think they know about the kamikaze is based on post-war glorification of the 'Japan's noble and patriotic sacrifice' myth. A myth invented to prevent Japan's reinstated wartime leaders from facing a peoples revolution after MacArthur let them out of jail.

 

[p51]

I met a kamikaze pilot many years ago. He was indeed, "voluntold" for the duty. He said he got full flight training and actually went out several times but never found anything until his final mission. He said his last flight was the day before VJ day and the pilots knew that was coming very soon. They communicated with hand signals and they saw some ships off the coast. The flight lead made the hand signal for 'No joy, return to base,' and he said though they never talked about it, the other pilots had to have seen those ships yet nobody was angry at all for not attacking them. He also said they all threw their (pressed steel copy) samurai swords into a creek next to the runway after they landed, all knowing it was all over anyway. One apparently taxied his plane into the creek, ripping off the landing gear and damaging the engine and props, on purpose, as apparently they knew the allies were very close by that point and he couldn't handle the idea of 'his' plane being taken intact. Sort of reminded me of what Rudel did with his Stuka when he surrendered...

 

[jamespowers]

Another major factor is that aside from fanatics, the general population had had their belief in the lies of the leaders totally shattered by Allied air power. Food and fuel shortages reduced the will to resist dramatically, to the point in Japan where street parties were thrown when the 'God- Emperor' made his radio broadcast that 10,000 year empire was finished- not very patriotic of them.

Very sentient points. There comes a time when the public realizes that they have been lied to and all of the fight and sacrifice has been for nothing. That is when they do not have the will to fight back. Throwing more lives onto the fire of deception ends right there.