WWII: What was the big deal?

[jake431]

Actually Japan officially joined the Axis Powers by signing the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, well over a year before Pearl Harbor.

-Jake

 

[Baron Kurtz]

The Onion did a book called "headlines from the past Century" or something similar. September 1940 was headlined "Japan signs treaty with Xenophobic white supremecists, in well thought-out long-term strategy decision" (i don't remember the exact headline, but along those lines, you understand).

As you can imagine, the story was hilarious. Another date from around that time was amply illustrated with "Kampfy the Überhund" cartoons.

bk

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Re: Fighting the Russians in 1945. I totally agree that it would have been difficult to convince American GIs that our erstwhile friends, the Russians, were now our enemies, but the British in Greece were able to realize the threat the Communust guerillas were posing in late 1944. They were able to shut down the leftist insurgency very quickly. So maybe after a few months more of ugly confrontations, American opininon night have changed. The policy from early on was to stand back and let the Russians into Berlin. Churchill pleaded for greater resistance to Russian plans, but to no avail.

If you read your Churchill - maybe all the way back in volume 5 - the Russian involvement in the Greece "situation" in the fall and early winter of 1944 was unknown to most, and unthinkable to many of those even at the highest levels of power. Gullible? Yes! Easy in hindsight, of course, knowing as we do the real Russian machinations throughout their nascent "sphere of influence" (dare we call it a co-prosperity sphere?).

The ordinary troops i would imagine saw it as a purely greek situation, without Russian influence.

Yes, i believe people were naive, just as they are today.

bk

 

[dhermann1]

There's a lifetime of research to do on the activities of the communists during WW II. The implication (if I'm reading him correctly) in Churchill is that the Greek reds were somewhat freelance. I don't know. There must have been some support from Moscow, but I would think they could have won if the Russians had been more involved? I'm ignorant on the subject, other than knowing a lot of hideous stuff was perpetrated. I know the Brits achieved two of the few successful anti-communist counterinsurgency campaigns ever in Greece during the late 40's, as well as in Malaya. Also, he says that the British soldiers in Greece quickly realized the threat posed by the communists, and didn't need to be persuaded to fight them.
Likewise I wonder how and when the split betwen Tito and Moscow developed.
The Russians were very focused on taking complete control of Poland, and there was really never any hope that they could have been stopped. Each of the other eventual satellites was a unique story, too. It's sort of amazing that the communists were successfully booted from Austria.
As a kid in the 50's communist control of Eastern Europe was a given. I'll never forget watching the films of the Hungarian revolt in October of 1956. That was a really dramatic moment, and it was all on TV.
Don't you just wonder what's wrong with people who don't love history?

 

[Wesne]

Likewise I wonder how and when the split betwen Tito and Moscow developed.

That's a great story still waiting to be fully told, I'm sure. I've read bits and pieces about it but am really not possessed of enough knowledge to offer any details, other than my perception that it was a clash of monumental egos. Tito seems to have been just too independent and sure of his own greatness to have submitted to being one of Stalin's toadies. He had, after all, just fought off the Nazis with his Partisan army and united Yugoslavia (no mean feat) with little outside help. I think he saw himself as at least Stalin's equal and wasn't afraid of telling "Uncle Joe" where to go.

There's a fascinating little tidbit at the end of Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore (which I highly recommend - reads like a Mario Puzo novel) that sheds a little light on this subject. The story goes that on Stalin's death, a handful of documents were found in some private location (a locked box in Stalin's top desk drawer or something to that effect). They were personal letters of apparent great significance to Stalin, which he had kept close at hand for some time. I don't recall right now what the others were, but one was a letter from Tito with words to the effect of "Please stop sending your men to Belgrade to assassinate me, or I will send one of mine to Moscow and it will take only one." Say what you will about Tito, but the man had a pair...

 

[Corto]

And if I had to pick one special event, I would find a Holocaust survivor to speak. There are so few of them left, and the Holocaust is falling out of favor as a topic of study in many circles. This may be your students only chance to hear an account firsthand. Your students will never forget what they hear. I know I never have. If you need some guidance on the subject, you could try contacting the Center for the Study of the Holocaust at Sonoma State University. http://www.sonoma.edu/holocaust/intro.htm

Oddly, given that this school is about 90% African-American, they still have a semester long class on the Holocaust, which is a holdover from the days this was a middle-class Jewish suburb 40 years ago...

I actually had a homosexual WWII-vet slated to speak, but he backed out at the last minute.

 

[Corto]

Corto, is all this talk actually helping you develop ideas for your lesson plans?

It has.

I've been too busy to respond to everyone (which I'd like to do).
So far, I've strongly emphasized to the kids that WWII started in about 1933, and I've spent a lot of time talking about Italian, German and Japanese expansionism up to 1941.

I also talked about American volunteers who went to Spain (including a fair number of African-Americans- which somewhat engaged a couple of hardcase "thugs" (it's a compliment where I teach, not a pejorative) and of course...the Flying Tigers. I've got one "struggling" student who's interest was piqued by Pappy Boyington's story, because I mentioned that Pappy was a wrestler. (The student is also a wrestler...)- It was tough explaining the concept that the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the AVG weren't exactly mercenaries or PMC's. I did link the AVG to the Raven FAC's that I hope I'll be able to teach them about when we get to the Vietnam War.

Small victories.

I talked about The Blitz (and how Britain held the line for so long alone)- greatly aided by the fact I recently watched a few episodes of the excellent 1980's TV show "Danger UXB". The kids couldn't believe that ze Germans would engineer bombs not to always blow up on impact, or make the fins so that they'd scream...

Anyways. Friday I broke down and showed them a video on Japanese militarism and the build up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. One student was particularly engaged so I recommended he read Yukio Mishima's "Runaway Horses" to get more depth on that issue.

Monday I might show them the North African/Vichy French invasion scene from "The Big Red One".

General Sir Rupert Smith's book "The Utility of Force" has come in very handy giving me a big picture context on military developments from Napoleon up to WWII. It gave me some significant depth when explaining why "blitzkrieg" warfare was a revolution in military affairs (beyond just saying "The put radios in their tanks and planes blah blah")- and how the invasion of Russia deepened Germany's need for oil...etc. Great book. Clean, concise, simple. Great overview of Western warfare.

The beat goes on.

 

[Corto]

Probably not!

Most likely he got all the ideas he needed in the first couple of pages or so

I'm working on it!
I've just been so busy I haven't been able to respond to everything I've wanted to!
(and, it's true...I haven't worked my way through the whole thread yet...:whistling )

Again, thanks all of you.
Keep it coming. I'm doing my best to keep up...

 

[Twitch]

Smithy- all I am saying is the Germans knew they were for something military. The Germans simply did not know the Chain Home towers were for radar. RDF stood obscurely for radio direction finding until Radar was coined in 1943. There were scads of anti this and anti that radio devices. Some broadcast fake navigational coordinate beams (anti- Knickebein and X-Ger?§t) to the Lutwaffe along with other radio jammers, electronic countermeasures all requiring some sort of antenna and stations.


At Dunkirk at least 1 British radar set was captured intact by the Germans. They dismissed it as crude compared to their radars, which at the time it was, and basically forgot it.

For a time Berlin and London were both diluded to believe the other side knew nothing of radar technology.

In 1937 during an official visit to England Erhard Milch, who would later be head of the - Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Air Ministry), and WW I ace Ernst Udet, also later attached to the RLM, openly boasted about German radar to the RAF officials present.

"Now gentlemen, let us all be frank," Milch said. "How are you getting on with your experiments in the detection by radio waves of aircraft approaching your shores?"

Embarrassed laughter and an attempt to change the subject was thwarted by Milch who continued. "Don't be so cagey. We've known for some time that you were developing a system of radio-location. So are we, we think we are a jump ahead of you."

And that was true enough. What GB developed was a superior radar control and reporting system not necessarily superior hardware. Ingenious organisation not technology is what proved Britain's forte in radar.

So radar antennas on the coast were known to be putting out radio signals, but so were a great many other British electric countermeasures. The Germans knew the antennas were something electronic but probably didn't not know for sure. They could have been simple IFF interigators not worth a concentrated effort.

The fact remains that the ordnance of the time didn't not lend itself to easy destruction of skeletal tower structures. When 5 towers were attacked in August with one destroyed and the others damaged those were back in operation the next day!

The focus was the airfields anyway. Group EprGR210 attacked radar stations one morning but were back to hitting places like Manston in the afternoon. And this was a fighter-bomber group using Bf 109s and 110s. No level bombing of radar installations by He 88 or He 111s. Just hit and mostly miss raids with very light wing bombs without proper air to ground aiming optics.

 

[Smithy]

What GB developed was a superior radar control and reporting system not necessarily superior hardware. Ingenious organisation not technology is what proved Britain's forte in radar.

I think you'll find that's what I said in all my posts on the subject above. So we're on the same page here!

They could have been simple IFF interigators not worth a concentrated effort.

I have never seen a report that says that the Luftwaffe thought the structures were for Pipsqueak HF/DF. As I said The conclusion reached by Martini and reported to Göring by Luftwaffe Signals was that the structures were for the detection of shipping. This is well documented.

No level bombing of radar installations by He 88 or He 111s. Just hit and mostly miss raids with very light wing bombs without proper air to ground aiming optics.

Although most raids were by light raids, Ventnor RDF was bombed once by Ju88s on the 12th August at 12:20pm. Erpro 210 was only used once on RDF tasking (Dunkirk RDF station on 12th August at 9:40am). All other RDF raids were undertaken by Ju87s.

But no doubt we are boring people rigid with this discussion. Feel free to PM me if you wish, it's always a pleasure discussing my great interest - the BoB, otherwise I can recommend two very good documents on the RDF system from the National Archive (formerly the PRO):

AIR 16/186, R/T RDF Interception
AIR 20/222, R/T and RDF Station: provision

 

[Naphtali]

Surveying a topic, while not useless, is significantly inferior to tightly focused analyses. Apparently, you will not have a semester to investigate the topic, so . . .

have you considered creating a series of questions/postulates of narrow focus. Either assign or allow students to volunteer to address one [each]. By spreading the load of analysis, you may be able to have the students organize their data into a coherent whole -- that is, be a resource, a supervisor, rather than a lecturer.

 

[carebear]

I think you'll find that's what I said in all my posts on the subject above. So we're on the same page here!

I have never seen a report that says that the Luftwaffe thought the structures were for Pipsqueak HF/DF. As I said The conclusion reached by Martini and reported to Göring by Luftwaffe Signals was that the structures were for the detection of shipping. This is well documented.

I think you're completely on the same page.

Whether the Germans thought they were for HF/DF or were designed to track shipping, they apparently didn't think they were anti-aircraft radars worthy of sustained attack.

Given the infancy of radar on both sides and Britain's extreme lack of planes compared to Germany, even if the Germans knew they were air radars they would probably analyze the radar's utility in terms of their own perceptions of their technical superiority and the fact their own radar system, including C&C, wasn't particularly useful.

Given the uncertainty of the towers' purpose, and the German perception of general radar superiority, and the German experience with their own radar's limitations; they might have thought it just as efficient to concentrate on using their aircraft superiority to just stamp out the British planes in the ground and air. By the time they figured out the extent of British radar ability, the (anti-aircraft) Battle of Britain was effectively over and they had other targets (the cities) and other threats (Russia) to worry about.

The German's were notorious for operating on preconceived notions, especially concerning other countries military capabilities, in the absence of direct intelligence.

 

[surely]

"The ........ were notorious for operating on preconceived notions, especially concerning other countries military capabilities, in the absence of direct intelligence." Carebear

hmmm, now what other names can be inserted?

 

[carebear]

"The ........ were notorious for operating on preconceived notions, especially concerning other countries military capabilities, in the absence of direct intelligence." Carebear

hmmm, now what other names can be inserted?

Not sure there's enough bandwidth...

 

[Smithy]

I think you're completely on the same page.

Whether the Germans thought they were for HF/DF or were designed to track shipping, they apparently didn't think they were anti-aircraft radars worthy of sustained attack.

Given the infancy of radar on both sides and Britain's extreme lack of planes compared to Germany, even if the Germans knew they were air radars they would probably analyze the radar's utility in terms of their own perceptions of their technical superiority and the fact their own radar system, including C&C, wasn't particularly useful.

Given the uncertainty of the towers' purpose, and the German perception of general radar superiority, and the German experience with their own radar's limitations; they might have thought it just as efficient to concentrate on using their aircraft superiority to just stamp out the British planes in the ground and air. By the time they figured out the extent of British radar ability, the (anti-aircraft) Battle of Britain was effectively over and they had other targets (the cities) and other threats (Russia) to worry about.

The German's were notorious for operating on preconceived notions, especially concerning other countries military capabilities, in the absence of direct intelligence.

I think you are pretty much on the money there Carebear. But at the same time it wasn't a case that the German radar system Freya "wasn't particularly useful". Freya technologically was at virtually the same level as British radar. The difference was in terms of how the two sides utilised their radar systems.

And that is the crux of the matter. The Luftwaffe and their intelligence arms completely misunderstood what the coastal structures were along England's coast, and in turn had no idea of the scope to which the RAF was able to read what Luftwaffe raids were doing, even from form up. As you say Carebear, I think that it is fair to say that the Luftwaffe believed that their superiority of numbers would crush all resistance as it had over Europe. But the flexibility of RAF controllers to react (due to RDF) as the air picture changed during raids was also a major advantage over Luftwaffe raids which were highly pre-planned with set raid routes and waypoints.

At the end of the day RDF enabled the RAF to meet the threat as efficiently as was possible and to use her hugely limited resources to the best of their abilities. Had the Luftwaffe known the extent of the importance of the RDF structures to Britain's defence, and how vital they were in marshalling the RAF's interceptions, and had the Luftwaffe reacted to this, then it is not unlikely that the Battle may have had a very different outcome.

 

[carebear]

I think you are pretty much on the money there Carebear. But at the same time it wasn't a case that the German radar system Freya "wasn't particularly useful". Freya technologically was at virtually the same level as British radar. The difference was in terms of how the two sides utilised their radar systems.
And that is the crux of the matter. The Luftwaffe and their intelligence arms completely misunderstood what the coastal structures were along England's coast, and in turn had no idea of the scope to which the RAF was able to read what Luftwaffe raids were doing, even from form up. As you say Carebear, I think that it is fair to say that the Luftwaffe believed that their superiority of numbers would crush all resistance as it had over Europe. But the flexibility of RAF controllers to react (due to RDF) as the air picture changed during raids was also a major advantage over Luftwaffe raids which were highly pre-planned with set raid routes and waypoints.

At the end of the day RDF enabled the RAF to meet the threat as efficiently as was possible and to use her hugely limited resources to the best of their abilities. Had the Luftwaffe known the extent of the importance of the RDF structures to Britain's defence, and how vital they were in marshalling the RAF's interceptions, and had the Luftwaffe reacted to this, then it is not unlikely that the Battle may have had a very different outcome.

Glad I got part of my summary right anyway.

If I know little enough about the BoB, I know even less about German radar systems. The "not useful" was my rough (and ig-nint ) summary of what I read in your guys' posts. Good stuff. :eusa_clap

I've been rereading SLAM's Commentary in Korea (ORO-R-13) and it's amazing how key good systems and processes for processing intelligence are, perhaps even more than the hardware itself.

He points out all the information noted at the company level prior to the November CCF offensive that either never made it up the chain due to lack of a system for collection or that did make it up that was disregarded because it countered prisoner interrogations and, particularly, aerial recon.

Great hardware without good processes might as well be junk.

 

[Corto]

Surveying a topic, while not useless, is significantly inferior to tightly focused analyses. Apparently, you will not have a semester to investigate the topic, so . . .

have you considered creating a series of questions/postulates of narrow focus. Either assign or allow students to volunteer to address one [each]. By spreading the load of analysis, you may be able to have the students organize their data into a coherent whole -- that is, be a resource, a supervisor, rather than a lecturer.

I sort of did this with a paper/project assignment. I gave them 16 different facets of the war from which they could pick and choose, to do a small research project.

The problem is the day-to-day teaching. There aren't enough textbooks to send home with my students at night (I'm about 35 books shy)...so I'm faced with the problem of having to basically tell them everything they would be reading from their books every night - which doesn't leave any time for discussion or debate. Even though the kids know this, it doesn't help focus their attention during a lecture.

You just can't conduct an engaging activity without grist for the mill.

 

[Corto]

have you considered creating a series of questions/postulates of narrow focus. Either assign or allow students to volunteer to address one [each]. By spreading the load of analysis, you may be able to have the students organize their data into a coherent whole -- that is, be a resource, a supervisor, rather than a lecturer.

Here's the list of topics that I suggested they do research projects on:


1. The Holocaust: How did the experience shape attitudes towards the creation of the State of Israel?

2. The Madmen: How Hitler and Mussolini built up fascist cults of personality.

3. The Imperial Japanese: Write about the beliefs that drove Japan to seek its Imperial destiny. What role did economics and nationalism play in their aggressive behavior?

4. Day of Infamy: Write about America’s isolationist foreign policy before Pearl Harbor and why we changed our stance on foreign involvement.

5. Propaganda: Write about how, when, where and why the Americans used propaganda (at home and in each combat theater). What impact did it have?

6. Willy and Joe: Write about the experiences of the average infantry soldier or Marine in either theater of war. How did the experience shape veteran’s lives and attitudes after the war?

7. The OSS: Detail Office of Strategic Service operations during WWII. Did they have an impact in the outcome of the war? How do you think they shaped America’s thinking about clandestine intelligence operations?

8. The African-American Experience: Write about an African-American unit: The Tuskegee Airmen, The 761st Tank Battalion (Black Panthers), The Mare Island or Port Chicago “Mutineers”, and African-American’s in Army infantry divisions. Contrast these experiences with the non-combat jobs African-Americans were normally assigned to. Or, write about the irony of serving in combat as an African-American and returning home to a Jim Crow America.

9. The Japanese-American Experience: Write about Japanese internment in America and the 442nd Infantry Regiment.

10. Women at War: Write about women who served in the military or in stateside industrial jobs.

11. Cold Warriors: Write about the military experiences of Eisenhower, George Marshall, John F. Kennedy, Robert S. McNamara, Edward Lansdale, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Victor "Brute" Krulak or William Westmoreland (or all of them briefly). How do you think the war shaped their attitudes on conflict?

12. World War II and Popular Culture: Write about how WWII has affected pop-culture from movies, books, comic books, music to video games. Why are WWII movies still being made? Why are WWII video games so popular?

13. "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" (P. Fussell): Write about both sides of the debate on whether we should’ve used the bomb or not. Discuss how the invention of atomic weapons changed warfare.

14. A Nation at War (or Not): Write about how Americans sacrificed comfort at home to help the war effort and compare it to how we live today- and what we do (or don’t) sacrifice for our current “war effort”.

15. Coming Home: Write about the experience of disabled, traumatized or severely wounded WWII veterans after returning to America.

 

[NoirDame]

I think those are excellent topics and will give you a lot of variety grading them!

 

[Badluck Brody]

Excellent!!

It actually makes me want to do some more research on my own!!

I wish I had a teacher like you... I would have actually gone to school instead of cutting class!

Well done