What was the most brutal theater of WWII?
Harold Hutchison
Pacific, and I think that there could not have been a theater that had
combat that was more brutal, vicious, and with enemies that absolutely
DEPISED each other more than the U.S.-Japanese battles that occured
there.
We had one of our top Admirals (Halsey) have a slogan that
went: KILL JAPS, KILL JAPS, AND KILL MORE JAPS.
Another one of our heroes (the late Arleigh Burke) back then
passed out a memo that had the following:
"If it's related to killing Japs, it's important,
If it's NOT related to killing Japs, it's NOT important,
The only good Jap is a DEAD Jap."
And over 50% of our soldiers said in a survey that they would
want to kill a Japanese soldier.
I just wanted some comments on this, as well as other ideas as
to which theater was the most brutal.
--
Check out Harold's Hangout!
http://wwwacn.cornell-iowa.edu/~hhutchison
yin%ssdevo....@nntpd2.cxo.dec.com
In article <DnIMs...@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, hhutc...@cornell-iowa.edu (Harold Hutchison) writes:
|> I've done a lot of reading on World War II, mostly about the
|>Pacific, and I think that there could not have been a theater that had
|>combat that was more brutal, vicious, and with enemies that absolutely
|>DEPISED each other more than the U.S.-Japanese battles that occured
|>there.
Comparison to the Russian front is interesting. I think they hated each
other because of a long and bitter history of ethnic hatred (at least
that's the impression I have; I may be wrong). For the Japanese, it was
just the opposite -- the hatred came because there was absolutely no
history between the sides, they didn't know what to expect of each other,
and so they could not comprehend each other's behavior.
Then again, I'd argue that all wars with the Japanese (and their long
civil wars) were brutal, as the theory they were operating on was that
war is an all-out thing without quarter.
The retaliatory anger of the Americans reminds me of "powder-puff" soccer.
Guys are used to being hit, and after you deck them, they just say "Nice
hit". Girls, however, are not used to it, and they get REALLY mad and
follow you all over the place looking to get you back...
As an advertising plug, I've been going through great effort to write down
the experiences of a Marine in the Pacific (INTERVIEW with a GI). Look
for them and tell me what ya think!
Bob Tucker
In article <DnIMs...@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, hhutc...@cornell-iowa.edu (Harold Hutchison) writes:
|> I've done a lot of reading on World War II, mostly about the
|> Pacific, and I think that there could not have been a theater that had
|> combat that was more brutal, vicious, and with enemies that absolutely
|> DEPISED each other more than the U.S.-Japanese battles that occured
|> there.
for 2 enemies DESPISING each other, look no further than the Eastern Front
in Europe. Aside from the hatred, the conditions on the Front were apalling:
blistering, dry summers on the Steppe and unfathomably cold winters in which
the Germans, especially, were unable to operate because of insufficient
winter equipment and idiotic leadership.
Everyone knows the objectives of the Nazis in the East. No pow's were treated
worse, on a mass scale, than Russian pow's. There was a Russian compund at
Auschwitz. Usually Russian prisoners were not fed or sheltered until large
percentages died from attrition. If they were "liberated" by Soviet troops,
they were often treated as traitors and executed or imprisoned by their own
people.
On the other side, look at the Germans taken prisoner at Stalingrad. 90,000+
were captured and less than 5,000 returned to Germany after the war. Many
Germans died in Russian prison camps long after the war ended. Eric Hartmann,
Germany's leading Luftwaffe ace was not released from Russia until 1955.
The savagery of this conflict also reached the civilian populations. The
SS Einsatzgruppen murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians outright;
both Jews and Gentiles. The atrocities committed upon the Russian people
are enormous in scope. Of course, when Russia finally gained German terri-
tory retributions were horrible but still not on the scale of what happened
in Russia. Regardless, the war in the East was a savage, no quarter given,
bloodbath for combatants and innocents alike.
Brent Richards
> I've done a lot of reading on World War II, mostly about the
>Pacific, and I think that there could not have been a theater that had
>combat that was more brutal, vicious, and with enemies that absolutely
>DEPISED each other more than the U.S.-Japanese battles that occured there.
I have to say that for sheer brutality nothing can beat the Eastern
Front. 20 million Russians & 6 million Germans lost their lives there.
The atrocities of both sides were apalling. Very few POW's from either
side came back.
Brent Richards
Jhm3
Subject: Re: What was the most brutal theater of WWII?
In article <DnIMs...@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, hhutc...@cornell-iowa.edu
(Harold Hutchison) writes:
|> I've done a lot of reading on World War II, mostly about the
|>Pacific,
I would think that the Eastern Front (including Yugoslavia) had more
brutality because sooner or later the opponents were fighting in their own
country, in many case with many civilian (relations, family, etc.)
casualties whether intentional or not. The Pacific (if you leave out
China) was generally fought in "third countries" where the warring sides
were ethnic outsiders.
jh...@aol.com
KWeiler854
You make a good case for the small island engagements in the Pacific;
places like Tarawa and Saipan, not to mention Iwo Jima were all hell
holes. However, I'm an eastern front historian and I can relate tales of
savagery that made my hair stand on end. The Red October tractor factory
in Stalingrad, the grain storage tower in the same city, the hand to hand
fighting in the underground factorys and bunkers in Savastopol, the
ill-fated breakout from the Cherkassy pocket in January 1944.
It is an impossible task to find the most brutal theater in a brutal war.
Ken Weiler
Sterling, Virginia
George F. Hardy
>
> I've done a lot of reading on World War II, mostly about the
>combat that was more brutal, vicious, and with enemies that absolutely
>DEPISED each other more than the U.S.-Japanese battles that occured
>there.
Well, you are taking a purely USA-centric view of W.W.II. If you are
going to restrict your examination to theaters inwhich the USA was a
major combatant, you are probably correct. But on a W.W.II basis, you
must count the Eastern Front - Germany vs. USSR - and the Sino-Japanese
theater as the most brutal, vicious and with the most hate between
enemies.
GFH
Nik Simpson
In article <DnJwG...@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, bre...@schobers.com says...
>
>I have to say that for sheer brutality nothing can beat the Eastern
>Front. 20 million Russians & 6 million Germans lost their lives there.
>The atrocities of both sides were apalling. Very few POW's from either
>side came back.
If you look at %ages, the very worst place to be was U Boat in the North
Atlantic, I think something like 60% killed or missing for U Boat crews. I
think you'll find that RAF Bomber Command was not a good place to be either.
--
Nik Simpson