Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "IJN Kaga - Guide 255" video.

Yeah ... thanks. Learned some things I didn't know. I played the Avalon Hill Game Midway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_(1964_game) dozens of times with my High School War Gaming Buddies. We graduated to compass and protractor games of people playing in different rooms with moves put on vellum and sent to a judge. So ... seeing Kaga has some nostalgic value for me as many, many times I was either her commander or the opponent of her commander. With six fleet carriers and over 400 aircraft - Kido Butai was an extremely powerful naval strike force in the early months of WWII - that just went around stomping on people. Midway really changed things. .
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Yeah. Most people don't realize that WWII started in 1937 at the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_Bridge_Incident .
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@rhino1207 Nope. China and Japan started fighting in 1937 - and kept right on fighting until Japan surrendered in 1945. Now - Japan and China were not fighting any European powers in 1937 - but then - Germany, France and Britain were not fighting any Asian powers until 1941. So - if you were to exclude China and Japan from WWII in 1937 - by that same logic - Britain, France and Germany would not have been fighting WWII in 1939. By that logic - for it to be a World War - there would have to be a war in Asia that the Europeans were involved in and a war in Europe that Asians were involved in - which didn't happen until 1941. This certainly is a criteria that could be argued - but that logic would begin the WORLD war in 1941 not 1939. BUT - if you are using the criteria - when did the first Major Combatants begin fighting - that would be 1937 between Japan and China. Germany, France and Britain didn't start fighting until 1939 almost 2 years later. The only reason the start of WWII is listed as Sept.1, 1939 - is because of a European Centric Point of View. Trust me - if you ask someone from China - they're going to say it started in 1937. Now - the Italians invaded Ethiopia in 1935 but that war was over by 1937. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War So that is why WWII did not start in Ethiopia. The other thing here - is that Ethiopia would not be considered a Major Combatant - and as far as it goes - neither would Poland for the same reason Czechoslovakia wouldn't either. Since the British and the French didn't do anything about Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia - it's not considered the start of the war. The same would be said for Japan's invasions of Korea and Manchuria - which were also not major combatants. The Major Combatants of WWII were the Soviets, Germans, Japanese, British, French, Chinese, Americans and maybe the Italians. Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Norway and Hungary (and anyone of their stature I've left out (like Albania and Yugoslavia)) were all participants but not major powers in how things turned out. It gets hard to try and place the importance of The Netherlands, Denmark and Luxembourg. The same would go for the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Now here - what happened in these smaller countries was very important TO THEM - but not so much to the world as a whole. .
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@rhino1207 DON'T READ ANY OF THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO Ah! OK. If you are Japanese you wouldn't have a Euro specific out look yourself - but - you would have been convinced by everyone else always saying that WWII Started in 1939. Now - if you don't want to read some thing I wrote - that's fine - but you may be missing out on the logical case I'm building. I'll try again but don't feel obligated to read any of this if you don't want to. This is pretty much a Logic Exercise for me and of no value to anyone else - unless - they want to take part in it. There are four ways of looking at this. 1) That it became a World War - when ALL the major participants were in it - which would be 1941 - not 1939. The United States and the Soviet Union were BOTH brought into the war in 1941 - and both of them were certainly major powers. 2) That it was a war - that Started when the first major combatants got involved, in 1937 - that eventually became global. So it may not have started as a World War - but - it was the SAME war that became a World War once all the Major Combatants were in it. For the Americans - it was our involvement in trying to help the Chinese (by cutting off Japans Oil unless they backed down) that got us into the war when Japan attacked us. The US only became involved in the European War - when Germany Declared War on us after Japan's attack - which it did not have to do. So - what brought the US into the war - was the war in China - and only after we had been brought into THAT war - were we brought into the European Part of it by Germany's declaration. This war that had started in 1937, when Japan attacked China, then ended - in 1945. 3) That WWII Started Sept. 1, 1939 - because the British, French and Germans SAY that's when it started. This IS when the War is generally accepted to have stared - but - my contention - is that this is in error - as this IS a very Euro Centric POV. 4) That there were two wars - one in Asia between Japan and China - which started in July 1937 and one in Europe that started in Sept. 1939 and expanded into the USSR in 1941. These wars merged into one war in 1941 when Japan attacked the United States, Britain and The Netherlands Colony of Indonesia. Arguments can be made for all these interpretations. #3 is going to remain the accepted date for the start of the WWII - but I can say this with absolute certainty - the war the Chinese were in in 1937 - did not end until 1945. Here's a description of how the wars got their names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war No one called World War One - "World War One" - until World War Two. Before that it was called The Great War. It was only when they could see that another was about to start - that they started referring to any of them as World Wars. .
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