Comments by "Philip B" (@philipb2134) on "Imperial War Museums" channel.

  1. Yamamoto knew the US and was well aware of the immense industrial capacity of the country.
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  2. The decision to resist was not necessarily always taken out of the highest ideals. My family had been occupied by the Germans 3 times in as many generations. My grandfather was a forger for the Resistance, perhaps out of patriotism - but IMO at least as likely because his cousin died of pneumonia after the Boches had kidnapped the local doctor to serve their troops.
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  3. An alternative to Downfall or using the A bombs could have been a siege of Japan via naval blockade. I expect the Japanese casualties - through starvation and disease - would have been far higher; meanwhile LeMay's bomber fleet would have continued to pummel any target of value. Both a naval blockade and Downfall would have taken far longer and have inflicted more civilian casualties than both bombs. In one single bombing raid over Tokyo, USAAF had inflicted more death than were immediate casualties at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. A naval blockade or Downfall would not only have caused much death in Japan, but also elsewhere in the Pacific Theater - especially in China. The Japanese were horribly brutal as they invaded... imagine how savage they might have been as they beat in retreat? 05:38 BTW, Nagasaki was not selected as the second target: that was Kokura. Since this primary target was hidden by cloud cover, the mission went on to drop Fat Man on the secondary target.
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  4. The Allies also made sure that they carried out twice as many bomber and reconnaissance sorties over the Pas de Calais as over Normandy.
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  5. The [West] German economy was built back, to some large extent, on the Marshall Plan. Bombed-out industrial facilities were replaced with the newest, spiffiest, equipment available. Industrial areas in other parts of Europe which were lucky/unlucky enough not to have been destroyed, found themselves at a stark economic disadvantage after the War.
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  6.  @khuret1773  You seem to place some value and credibility on the notion of an opposed Soviet amphibious invasion of Japan in the waning moments of WWII. If you had studied what it took for the western Allies to undertake landings under fire at Dieppe, Anzio, Salerno. Normandy... you might not have been so fast to proclaim that the Soviets, operating primarily out of Nakhodka and especially Vladivostok - could have been up to the task. The Soviet forces in the Pacific Far East were at the far end of a very long logistics chain almost exclusively served by the Trans-Siberian railway, and with a very small industrial base locally. There was no way the Soviets in Summer 1945 might have gathered enough force along with the complex matrix of logistical solutions to carry out a successful invasion of one of the major Japanese home islands if these were adequately defended: the would . It invasion force was not fiy for task; it would have been pointless for them to do so if the islands were not adequately defended. From what I have understood, they could not have staged an attack on the home islands, except for limited ambitions in northern Hokkaido - and then could not have done so except at the cost of casualties not acceptable to any other army. Since Stalin didn't give a damn about Soviet casualties, maybe that might have happened anyway. As it turned out SU invaded and took ovee the southern half of the shared island of Sakhalin, several islands in the Kuril chain, along with with closer inshore Kunashiri, Shikotan, Etorofu, and the Habomai group - which Japan still considers part of its integral sovereign territory. Fun fact: technically, WWII is still happening: an armistice had been signed between SU and Japan, but no peace treaty - because Russia (as successor to SU) will not restore Japan's occupied Northern Territories.
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  7. German tanks also had their own stark vulnerabilities. A major factor in the west-European theatre, is that American tanks were relatively easy to repair; and there were a lot of them.
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  8. On a good day.
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  9.  @bob_the_bomb4508  When you wear the uniform, you serve. Your alternative might be to invoke conscientious objection, but countries tend to make this a harrowing experience. However ineffectual one possibly might portray the air campaign from Britain, at the very least it had diverted significant resources away from the Russian Front. The Luftwaffe was signally under-strength compared with the operational requirements to the East.
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  10. The Blitz had not broken the will of the British public. It was immense hubris to think that the Germans could not also withstand similar airborne harm.
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  11. 00:25 This is the wrong map: it shows Finland in her borders prior to ceding land to USSR following the Winter War.
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  12. The V2 was very expensive and very inaccurate. If Hitler had committed the same resources into full development and deployment of the Me-262, allied air forces would have been in immense trouble. Even the V1 was a better weapon for it's purpose: Brits in the ground woul hear buzz-bombs, and not worry... until the buzzing stopped, and you had to scramble for cover; the V2 impacted at supersonic speeds (i.e., before you could hear and react). That's a failure as a weapon of terror: soon enough, the Public would treat it like the weather. It's unpredictable, and there's nothing you can do about it.
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  13. ​ @NightRNRoblox They had neither the investment, nor the time. If Alexander had equipped his army with sub-machine guns, he would have conquered India.
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  14.  @killthereds2.043  Britain seems to slip from one hypocrisis to another.
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  15. You can easily get the right answer if you ask the wrong question.
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  16. The invasion terrain was not favourable, and should never have been attempted.
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  17. Rebounding from an anemic Budget defense allocation, is no sign of express preparedness.
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  18. Churchill is so quotable. Post WWII, he lost his seat in Parliament. His wife suggested that it might be a blessing in disguise. He responded, as one hears: "it's a rather convincing disguise."
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  19.  @OlanKenny  Churchill essentially hated anyone... other than Churchill, hey? He had hubris which would put Trump's to shame.
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  20.  @feedyourmind6713  That shall remain unsolved; but thank God that he became PM instead of Halifax.
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  21.  @feedyourmind6713  Your POV has become known. . . might you provide verifiable evidence, rather than MAGA banter? Thanks.
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  22.  @TheBottlenose33  which dude you had not identified?
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  23. Crocodiles were rather common in many domains of the British Empire; alligators.... vastly. less so.
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  24.  @TheRealBigfeet  That is not credible. The switch to a war economy under Chamberlain is massively unimpressive.
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  25. Hindsight is always 20/20. After the bloodshed of WWI - the "war to end all wars" - there was no appetite in Britain for combat, nor in France.
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