Misconceptions of World War II

[Lincsong]

That the need to defeat Japan was a mere footnote to the "real story of the war," the need to defeat Nazism. Ten million dead Chinese would disagree with that.

Exactly.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

It's also worth noting that although the Poles did have mounted cavalry at the time of the blitzkrieg, that was not their sole form of resistance. The Polish troops were simply outnumbered and outgunned, not necessarily "backwards and old fashioned" as often remarked. Even the Germans still used horses to move some gunnery, etc.

Not very many people today realize this but in 1939 the Polish army that was steamrollered by the Wehrmacht was actually more modern than the US Army at the time!

One of the most enduring myths of World War II was, of course, that of Polish cavalry charging German panzers. It was during the fighting near the Polish town of Chojnice that the 18th Ulan Regiment found itself in danger of being cut off by elements of a German motorised division. To allow the regiment to escape the regimental commander ordered half of his men to mount up and led them in an old-fashioned cavalry charge against a German motorised battalion. It's worth noting at this point that the Polish cavalry -- like cavalry throughout the world at the time -- were primarily trained to fight dismounted using their horses mainly for mobility.

The Polish cavalrymen, with their swords and lances, made short work of the hapless German infantry until they were decimated by the timely arrival of German armored cars (not panzers). Afterwards foreign journalists who viewed the aftermath of the battle were told that the dead lancers had charged German tanks and a legend was born.

 

[SGT Rocket]

Still, it takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to charge on horseback in this day and age.

 

[AmateisGal]

I knew I'd get some spectacular answers here. Keep 'em coming! This is a great discussion.

 

[Fletch]

That the need to defeat Japan was a mere footnote to the "real story of the war," the need to defeat Nazism. Ten million dead Chinese would disagree with that.

The Chinese didn't write the history books.

 

[AmateisGal]

Historian John Keegan has a terrific book called The Battle for History: Re-Fighting World War II, and in it, he makes a very wise statement that not enough time has passed for us to write a definitive history of World War II. For example, James McPherson came out with probably the definitive history of the Civil War 130 years after it was fought. So I think we may even look at WW2 differently in another 50 to 75 years or so. And who knows what new information we will uncover in that time?

 

[Spitfire]

I still love Eddie Izzards version of WWII though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siBX0i1EIWk

(Mind you he's british, dressed as a drag and he swears...don't say you haven't been warned.)

 

[Undertow]

The Chinese didn't write the history books.

Very true. Much is overlooked in History 101 when it comes to the horrors that went on there. Anybody interested might enjoy The Rape of Nanking; informative and chilling

 

[scotrace]

A story from my father:
Large numbers of surrrendering Italians created such logistical problems that a single US guard was assigned per truckload of Italians being transported. He remembered handing his rifle up to a prisoner at the back of truck, then climbing aboard himself and retrieving his weapon.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Hermann Goering once said, "Don't worry, the Americans can't build planes, only electric ice boxes and razor blades"...which turned out to be a rather large misconception of WWII.

AF

 

[AmateisGal]

A story from my father:
Large numbers of surrrendering Italians created such logistical problems that a single US guard was assigned per truckload of Italians being transported. He remembered handing his rifle up to a prisoner at the back of truck, then climbing aboard himself and retrieving his weapon.

This very same thing happened in the German POW camp at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, as well. The truck was full of German POWs set to go out and work (probably help the neighboring farmers due to the labor shortage) and the guard handed his gun to the prisoners and they helped him climb in.

 

[AmateisGal]

How about a more general misconception...for instance, that Stalin was a "good guy" merely because he was on the Allied side. I think as a high schooler learning WW2, I had no idea that Stalin was just as bad if not worse than Hitler.

 

[dhermann1]

On the subject of the Germans' technology being really inferior in many ways, I was surprised to find out that in North Africa, one unnecessary handicap the Germans inflicted on themselves was in sanitaion. The British were fanatical about digging a hole, using it, and covering it up. The Germans had no such qualms, and were very careless about how and where they "went". The result was drastically higher levels of disease among the German soldiers.
Likewise, the Allies had blood serum, and blood transfusions in bottles available. For a wounded German soldier to get a transfusion, there had to be a live donor right next to him, hooked up and pumping the blood from body to body. This removed 2 soldiers fron the battle line, instead of one.

 

[dhermann1]

Another interesting misconception: the idea of Japanese fanatical discipline. The cult of Bushido was so powerful among the lower levels of army commanders, that very often when they were ordered to withdraw or retreat, they chose to engage in suicidal banzai charges instead. Countless thousands of lives were squandered in the process.

 

[Edward]

Four pages in, and no-one has yet mentioned something I heard very recently from many American kids on a web forum - "You'd have been speaking German if not for us..." lol

 

[Shangas]

Uh, I already basically covered that further back, but not as bluntly.

I do not ever, ever, ever believe...that the US just decided to come in when the time was JUST right for them to take all the glory. And neither do I believe that they all wanted to go to war. These days people tend to forget the isolationist tendencies that existed in the 'States during the 1930s. They already got themselves involved in one war that they didn't consider their fight, and they damn well weren't getting themselves involved in another war that they didn't consider their fight. THAT was why they kept out.

They joined IN because they finally woke up to the fact that if they didn't go to war, the war would come to them, no matter how isolationist and "not our business" they wanted to be. It had nothing at all to do with America "charging in to save the day!!!". They came in because they were FORCED to, because they had no other choice. It's got nothing to do with taking the glory and trying to save everyone else from hell.

 

[AmateisGal]

Pearl Harbor was the turning point for America to enter the war. It took something that tragic to effectively change people's minds. But you're right, Shangas, the isolationist mentality was alive and well before that.

I'm collecting quite a few WW2-era magazines - Ladies Home Journal, Time, McCalls, etc., and it is amazing how nearly every single ad mentions the war. They drenched themselves in propaganda, and I think this can deceive us into thinking every single person in the U.S. was behind the war effort. But there were conscientious (sp?) objectors and those who didn't believe we should be in the war. Their voices were barely heard, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is because they feared a backlash. I haven't done any studies on this, so I'm just making assumptions here (and hoping they're not too terribly off the mark).

What is really interesting is the treatment received by German-Americans right before and during World War I. It effectively wiped out the very obvious signs of German culture for quite a few years and assimilated Germans into the "American" culture. I wonder if there wasn't a fear of this happening again when WW2 arrived. There's a great book on this topic called Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and World War I by Frederick Luebke (who happens to be a professor of my alma mater). And, of course, German Americans WERE rounded up and harassed as well as Italian Americans and Japanese Americans.

 

[Cobden]

Uh, I already basically covered that further back, but not as bluntly.

I do not ever, ever, ever believe...that the US just decided to come in when the time was JUST right for them to take all the glory. And neither do I believe that they all wanted to go to war. These days people tend to forget the isolationist tendencies that existed in the 'States during the 1930s. They already got themselves involved in one war that they didn't consider their fight, and they damn well weren't getting themselves involved in another war that they didn't consider their fight. THAT was why they kept out.

They joined IN because they finally woke up to the fact that if they didn't go to war, the war would come to them, no matter how isolationist and "not our business" they wanted to be. It had nothing at all to do with America "charging in to save the day!!!". They came in because they were FORCED to, because they had no other choice. It's got nothing to do with taking the glory and trying to save everyone else from hell.

I think, even with Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt would have had a tough time convincing the American people to go to war against Germany - Japan would have been an easy sell - had Germany not declare war on the US.

That is in no way to denigrate America's input and dedication to the cause, I hasten to add, and all of the Allies attempts at avoiding the war were fully justified with the knowledge they had then, their recent experiences, and the inability to predict the future. American isolationism, British appeasement, and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact are all down to a very similar set of circumstances. The US leadership didn't think Europe was none of their business, but with the death toll of WWI, poor military preparation, the effects of the Great Depression, it would have been hard to convince them that it who controlled what in Europe was a big enough problem to waste lives on. Chamberlain didn't think Germany should have had the Sudetenland and Austria, but he was in no position to prevent it, he had enough problems at home, and the mechanisation of the military had yet to be completed. Stalin didn't think Hitler was a nice guy who he could sit around a fire sniffing brandy and discussing which bits of Europe they should each get: his officer corps was decimated, and as a war had brought in revolution in Russia once before, it wasn't difficult to expect it again.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What is really interesting is the treatment received by German-Americans right before and during World War I. It effectively wiped out the very obvious signs of German culture for quite a few years and assimilated Germans into the "American" culture. I wonder if there wasn't a fear of this happening again when WW2 arrived.

There was actually a good bit of this in 1939-40. For one thing, German dialect comedians disappeared from radio and the stage overnight -- as an example, the long-running comedy program "Kaltenmeyer's Kindergarten," a show featuring a comic German schoolmaster, was unceremoniously cancelled, and its star, dialect comic Bruce Kamman, never worked in radio again.

There was also quite a bit of fear about the activities of the German-American Bund. Life magazine ran an expose on that organization in June of 1940, with photos of its paramilitary camps, and that helped feed a "fifth columnist" hysteria in which anyone who didn't display sufficient Americanism was liable to be mobbed in the street. (Religious groups that didn't salute the flag were facing particular wrath that summer, with several attempted lynchings of members.)

 

[Shangas]

I don't know how much of a misconception THIS one is, but I believe that there is such a misconception that the Blitz only affected London during the Second World War.

This of course, is not true. And unfortunately, because people think it IS true, finding reliable information (which is what I'm currently looking for, for a history assignment) can be tricky. The Blitz didn't JUST target London. It attacked almost every major British city. London, Bath, Coventry, Southampton and lots more that I couldn't possibly list. Granted, London was the city that was most heavily bombed, but it certainly wasn't the only one. Coventry was so completely near-annihilated that people almost thought about surrendering at that point.