Pacific war in pictures.

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Photo 20:

Nov. 3, 1942: Pushing through New Guinea jungles in a jeep, General Douglas MacArthur inspects the positions and movements of United Nations Forces, who would push the Japanese away from Port Moresby and back over the Owen Stanley Mountain range. (AP Photo)

United Nations? a case of copy-paste idiocy

Not your fault, thank you for the link
 
Thanks One Eye Jack...my Dad was a Marine on Guam during the very long battle and he came home, married, had kids and had some souvenirs he would share with his fellow Marines over beer, TV and the World Series.

One souvenir was a long string of gold teeth (gold teeth were some sort of status symbol or attractive "grill" with the 1930's 40's Japanese troops) It was about three feet in length. He and his Marine combat buddies would collect the gold teeth from the presumably dead Japanese soldiers they had killed. The longer the string of gold teeth you came home with..well, I guess everyone gets the meaning.
 
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WAR is horrible. We should never, ever forget what happened back then from evil men.
The pictures are a stark reminder.......and should be kept forever...
Thanks OneEyeJack.
 
Originally Posted By: Y_K
Photo 20:

Nov. 3, 1942: Pushing through New Guinea jungles in a jeep, General Douglas MacArthur inspects the positions and movements of United Nations Forces, who would push the Japanese away from Port Moresby and back over the Owen Stanley Mountain range. (AP Photo)

United Nations? a case of copy-paste idiocy


Those are not American soldiers. They look Australian or British. So therefor they are soldiers of the "united nations" fighting the axis powers. The UN was born on Jan 1st, 1942 with a signed declaration of 26 allied nations. The picture caption is correct, and you are not.
 
Originally Posted By: bubbatime
Originally Posted By: Y_K
Photo 20:

Nov. 3, 1942: Pushing through New Guinea jungles in a jeep, General Douglas MacArthur inspects the positions and movements of United Nations Forces, who would push the Japanese away from Port Moresby and back over the Owen Stanley Mountain range. (AP Photo)

United Nations? a case of copy-paste idiocy


Those are not American soldiers. They look Australian or British. So therefor they are soldiers of the "united nations" fighting the axis powers. The UN was born on Jan 1st, 1942 with a signed declaration of 26 allied nations. The picture caption is correct, and you are not.


Well....being that the 1942 signing was a declaration and not what was to occur in 1945 (regarding a charter, structure, and complete implementation).....I don't think he's completely incorrect. In other words I think it would be a misnomer to say that the United Nations were heavily involved in ww2...at least in a capacity we understand the organization today.

http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/history/index.shtml
 
I don't recall it ever being called the "UN" vs the Axis, it was the ALLIES vs the Axis. My dad went into Peleliu a 1L T with a platoon and left, wounded, the CO of what was left of the company. He was not that found of "Dugout Doug".
 
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Originally Posted By: DB_Cooper


One souvenir was a long string of gold teeth (gold teeth were some sort of status symbol or attractive "grill" with the 1930's 40's Japanese troops) It was about three feet in length. He and his Marine combat buddies would collect the gold teeth from the presumably dead Japanese soldiers they had killed. The longer the string of gold teeth you came home with..well, I guess everyone gets the meaning.



This is gross! I didn't know about it. I did know about Nazis removing gold teeth from victims in death camps though.
 
The Marines were dealing with an enemy that was ready to die with enthusiasm. The Japanese troops were very brutal with captured Marines and other POWs Japanese Troops ate flesh of their prisoners often cooking them alive, beheading and long tortures.

Once those sorts of Japanese activities were discovered...Marines do what Marines do.

Japanese troops ate their enemies

LeonardGSiffleet.jpg
 
The ferocity of the fighting in the Pacific is only now coming out. As the violence in the world today escalates, so will the response. During WWII and for many years after, all this was censored. War is dirty business. If you've never been involved thank someone that has. You may never know the debt of gratitude that you owe that person.
 
These are great photos. My Dad was in WWII in the army in Europe and my uncle was on the Lexington that was sunk in the Coral Sea. Some of these photos I have not seen before.

Unfortunately history is not being taught in a lot of schools today and many young people have limited knowledge of WWII.

I am amazed how inaccurate some things are that are said on TV. Recently I heard a description on one of the history channels about the Japanese Zero at Pearl Harbor. They talked about how the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor with 45 Zero fighter planes. They also said that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor with the same 4 aircraft carriers that the Japanese lost in the Battle of Midway. Actually the Japanese launched two strikes at Pearl Harbor with about 100 aircraft in each strike and the Japanese had different types of aircraft-fighters, torpedo bombers, high level bombers, dive bombers, scout aircraft, etc. And the Japanese used 6 aircraft carriers in the attack on Pearl Harbor in addition to several other warships and submarines.

Few people know that the Japanese had the two largest warships in the world in WWII. The Yamato class battleships. And a third Yamato class battleship was finished as an aircraft carrier with about twice the displacement of the American Essex Class aircraft carriers.

I think history is very important and it is sad that so many people know so little about history.
 
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The prisoner looks Australian.

Note the soldier smiling to the left of the executioner.

One of those men is in Heaven, you know where the others are.
 
Originally Posted By: Mystic
I think history is very important and it is sad that so many people know so little about history.


Good point. WWI & WWII were required subjects when I was at school.

It's also important to understand that much history is written from the perspective of the conqueror and to teach accordingly.
 
Apollo14, you like to follow me around and try to attack me.

Let me tell you something that you don't know. A lot of guys say that-that the conquerors write the history books and the history books are therefore only written from the view of view of the conquerors and therefore inaccurate. Well, GREAT HISTORIANS insist on accuracy. And they have ways of cross checking historical accounts and determining the actual truth. And guess what-the conquerors and their empires do not last forever. After their empires disappear other empires appear. And whatever false histories may have been written to support the previous empires means nothing to the new historians. A truly GREAT HISTORIAN wants to know the TRUTH! And they do whatever it takes to find out the truth. If they find out a famous historian of the past was telling fairy tales that historian no longer has credibility. The truth, in the end, winds up being told. I bet you never stopped to realize that empires do not last forever, and the conquerors do not remain conquerors forever-did you?

And the USA is a much different country compared to the Roman Empire. An emperor in the Roman Empire could potentially dictate what Roman historians wrote about him. Nobody could go against his wishes. It is much more difficult to try to try to distort historian accounts and eyewitness reports in the USA. There is no Roman emperor who can dictate what the historians write and kill any historian who does not write what the emperor wants.

Do you really think that every single war correspondent in WWII would be willing to write whatever the military and political leaders wanted written? Sure, most of them supported the war effort of the USA and most were loyal Americans. But that does not mean that they would deliberately lie for the leaders of the USA. It was not like they would be facing an all powerful Roman emperor when they returned home.

And if you think the history of WWII is inaccurate then tell us what actually happened.

I want the TRUTH! I don't need some sort of rewritten history to support some ideology.

I think we have a pretty accurate history of WWII and I really don't want to hear some goofy revision based on some ideology. The historical record from WWII has been checked and rechecked by historians.
 
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History by definition is inaccurate because what is written down, recorded and interpreted is done by humans. We always manage to fudge-up something either due to incomplete or incorrect information, ignorance, bias...etc.

The thing about history is that our knowledge of it is always changing/evolving as new things come to light. New theories are tabled and evaluated...etc.

A couple of examples:

1. After the Bismarck was sunk the British claimed they sunk it. The Germans argued that the ship was scuttled. You can imagine which of those arguments went down in the history books.

But eventually the "history" was challenged when the wreck was explored and it was proven that the Germans did in fact scuttle the vessel.

2. Nick and I were discussing the statements I made regarding the devastation that was present at the end of the war and my statement that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were what led to the Japanese finally surrendering. This was what I was taught and was in all of the books I'd read on the subject.

He stated that there is a new(er) theory that part of the reason they surrendered was due to the Russian advancement, which would have lead to the assassination of the Emperor or something along those lines.

Now, I have not done any further research on #2, but I know there will be conflict about it because of what it implies. But it is yet another example of "evolving history".


That all said, that is still "honest" history. Something that is completely different from the revisionist history (or whatever you want to call it) that is supposedly taught in Japan regarding the war.
 
And, the history books are being rewritten as the real truth of what happened comes to light. Like you said, evolving history.

I believe that the Japanese surrendered because of the nuclear weapons that they had no defense against but it is true that the Russians were advancing. Maybe someday we will find out that the Japanese leaders took that in consideration also. If so, another correction to the history books which are self-correcting, because true historians want the truth.

It is not like the Roman Empire where a Roman historian could dictate what was written into history. The Roman Empire is gone and historians try to write the truth about the Roman Empire.
 
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The USSR and Imperial japan had a "neutrality Pact" signed in April 1941; the USSR had repulsed Imperial Japanese forces pushing out of Manchuria in 1939.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutrality_Pact

Only after the defeat of Nazi Germany did the USSR renounce the pact on April 5, 1945 (note I said defeat, V-E day when Nazi Germany finally surrendered was 3 days later).

On Aug. 9, 1945, the USSR invaded Manchuria, in accord to the Yalta agreements.
 
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