70 Years ago today

[TommyK]

By a German U-Boat. It was the first U.S. ship lost during WWII. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about it.

[Californiaman]

Yeah,

and I'm pretty sure we won that war.

[DanvillRob]

Yeah,

and I'm pretty sure we won that war.

 

 

In contrast to the war I was in.......

[Jantha]

Yeah,

and I'm pretty sure we won that war.

 

We ended it... I'm not sure anyone really "won" though.

 

[milod]

Woody wrote it to the tune of Wildwood Flower. Started doin' the song in '63 when the war was a lot more real to folks than it is today. But then... I had WWI vets as friends, too...

 

m

[Californiaman]

In contrast to the war I was in.......

 

 

That's because the polliticians f'd that one all up.

[Enmitygauged]

Yeah,

and I'm pretty sure we won that war.

 

Technically From the German side of things the Russians arrived in Berlin first they were told to wait by America so they could march in together, Russians kinda had their own plans hence East and West Germany cold war thing. The Pacific War on the Japanese was indeed ended by the American's. With the help of 2 million Allies

[pippy]

...It was the first ship lost during WWII....

TommyK; with all due respect and really not wanting to start a bun-fight; are you referring, perhaps, only to ships from the US Navy?

 

As there had already been hundreds of what we'd call 'friendly' vessels sunk by U-boat attacks more than two years earlier (not least the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous; torpedoed on the 17th Sept '39 with the loss of 518 men) I think you should, perhaps, re-phrase your first post.

 

P.

[damian]

The world changes...Way back when; U-Boats, then; U-Ban coffee, Today; U-Tube, Tomorrow; U-Broke....... ...

[stein]

TommyK; with all due respect and really not wanting to start a bun-fight; are you referring, perhaps, only to ships from the US Navy?

 

As there had already been hundreds of what we'd call 'friendly' vessels sunk by U-boat attacks more than two years earlier (not least the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous; torpedoed on the 17th Sept '39 with the loss of 518 men) I think you should, perhaps, re-phrase your first post.

 

P.

Don't forget the HOOD.

 

If not for YOU guys, fighting your asses off before we got there, we would have no allies over there at all.

[ZenKen]

My dear Uncle Otto, who now rests in a place of honor among his mates at Arlington National Cemetery, was a seaman first class on the flagship of the Asiatic Fleet, the heavy cruiser USS Houston, when it was sunk during the Battle of the Sunda Straights. He survived the sinking and spent the remainder of the war as a POW of the Empire of Japan as part of the forced laborers who built the infamous Thai-Burma Railroad. The treatment he and his fellow prisoners endured at the hands of their captors was brutal and under any definition inhumane.

 

My uncle, as did many of his fellow survivors, returned to civilian life after the war and went about making a life for himself and his family. They did not ask for anything other than a chance at a normal life. He lived and he died never letting his experience taint his humanity. He was one of those Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. Along with my father, he was my hero.

 

Thank you TommyK for this thread.

[damian]

All who have served and serve in the Services are heros to me.....

[milod]

Yes, Reuben James was the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk in the war.

 

She was a four-stacker, a very old design. A good friend of mine got his start in the US Navy on one of these frail ships literally shoveling coal into the boilers by hand with just a single sheet of steel plates between him and the cold sea.

 

That's why a four stacker hit by a torpedo - or much of anything else very big - wouldn't last long.

 

Oh, that friend of mine? He had but an eighth grade education. Retired after serving in WWII, Korean conflict and Vietnam War as a master chief petty officer electronics specialist. Qualified out of high school after retirement and quickly received a bachelors, then a masters degree. He taught high school until a second retirement. He's currently a city council member where I live and is an officer in the shrinking rolls of "Three War Veterans."

 

=-=-=-=- RE: Hood. Some of us with a bit of gray hair remember a very popular song on "rock" stations.

 

m

 

[TommyK]

TommyK; with all due respect and really not wanting to start a bun-fight; are you referring, perhaps, only to ships from the US Navy?

 

As there had already been hundreds of what we'd call 'friendly' vessels sunk by U-boat attacks more than two years earlier (not least the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous; torpedoed on the 17th Sept '39 with the loss of 518 men) I think you should, perhaps, re-phrase your first post.

 

P.

 

 

Oops, You are correct. I meant to say it was the first U.S. ship sunk. Thanks for the correction.

[TommyK]

... Russians arrived in Berlin first they were told to wait by America so they could march in together,...

 

I had heard it the other way around. Everyone else was waiting for the Russians to catch up. This bears research.

:huh:

 

Although I don't think it much matters who got there first or last. In a multi-national operation like this, allowing all parties to take part in taking the capital is good p.r. for all involved.

 

History records that Russia lost more people than any other country, 23 million.

 

[pippy]

Oops, You are correct. I meant to say it was the first U.S. ship sunk. Thanks for the correction.

I trust you understand that I didn't post my reply in a point-scoring way. In fact, I was almost embarrased to post my reply. As Damian suggests we, all of us, owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to all those who risk, and sometimes lose, their lives in these conflicts, and the last is mourned just as much as the first.

 

Don't forget the HOOD.

H.M.S. Hood....

 

Sunk at 06:13 on the 24 May 1941 by a salvo, at a range of 16,500 yards (nine-and-a-half-miles!), from the Bismark which exploded in one of her armaments magazines. Out of a compliment of 1,418 officers and ratings there were THREE survivors. The ship, the greatest and most renowned in the British Fleet, some 860 feet long and weighing 47,000 tons, sank in under 90 seconds.

 

I didn't Google that stuff, BTW. By a weird co-incidence, Stein, one of the first 'real' (i.e. grown-up non-fiction) books which I read with absolute fervour, a cheap second-hand paperback, was "The Mighty Hood" by Ernle Bradford. I must have been about 8 or 9 years old. I still have it (it's beside me as I type). It is an awesome tale in the truest meaning of the word.

 

P.

[stein]

I had heard it the other way around. Everyone else was waiting for the Russians to catch up. This bears research.

:huh:

 

Although I don't think it much matters who got there first or last. In a multi-national operation like this, allowing all parties to take part in taking the capital is good p.r. for all involved.

 

History records that Russia lost more people than any other country, 23 million.

 

I don't actually know all of it, but what I understand about it is the cold war was in it's beginnings.

 

The east and the west were allies against Germany, and also against Japan. At the last of the war, both the east and the west were making attempts to get as much territory as they could-and there was a dash to get to Berlin by both fronts for this reason.

 

Patton's famous dash to Berlin was much for this reason, but I THINK he was also after bragging rights trying to beat the British armies as well.

 

In the far East, Japan had already had control over much of it before the war was started by them against the USA. As Japan fell, much of that territory was up for grabs. The Soviets advanced on many of these as well in an effort to gain as much as they could. The result of that was the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

[stein]

I trust you understand that I didn't post my reply in a point-scoring way. In fact, I was almost embarrased to post my reply. As Damian suggests we, all of us, owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to all those who risk, and sometimes lose, their lives in these conflicts, and the last is mourned just as much as the first.

 

 

H.M.S. Hood....

 

Sunk at 06:13 on the 24 May 1941 by a salvo, at a range of 16,500 yards (nine-and-a-half-miles!), from the Bismark which exploded in one of her armaments magazines. Out of a compliment of 1,418 officers and ratings there were THREE survivors. The ship, the greatest and most renowned in the British Fleet, some 860 feet long and weighing 47,000 tons, sank in under 90 seconds.

 

I didn't Google that stuff, BTW. By a weird co-incidence, Stein, one of the first 'real' (i.e. grown-up non-fiction) books which I read with absolute fervour, a cheap second-hand paperback, was "The Mighty Hood" by Ernle Bradford. I must have been about 8 or 9 years old. I still have it (it's beside me as I type). It is an awesome tale in the truest meaning of the word.

 

P.

BOTH halves of the HOOD! An AMAZING battle, if not THE most amazing battle of ships, including the sinking of the Bismark.

[milod]

Actually in ways the most interesting sea battle of "modern" times is what I'd tend to consider the very first: The Battle of Tsushima. The Japanese Navy with its big gun concept such as on the flagship Mikasa led to the development of Dreadnaught types of battleships.

 

Jutland was just a skirmish in comparison. Trafalgar perhaps the only comparable sea battle.

 

Tsushima in ways set up WWII in the Pacific, too, IMHO, and didn't hurt the anti Romanov folks in Russia with virtual destruction of the Russian fleet. Besides validating the big gun concept, it was the first sea battle with functioning ship-to-ship radio.

 

It also got Japan a piece of the action in the 1922 naval treaty among the UK, US, Japan, Germany and Italy limiting ships with larger guns in the ship size. In ways that doomed the Hood since it was still relatively light. Germany and Japan didn't particularly care - but the US and Japan reeeeally improved technology and also got more into aircraft carriers. Japan however still worked early for huge dreadnaughts.

 

Japan was in ways a better maritime force than the Germans and up there with the US - although it's questioned whether they got into submarines tactically and strategically nearly as well as the Atlantic powers. The UK and especially Germany in the Atlantic didn't seem quite to get the idea of carriers as did the US and Japan - although the UK seemed to get into the idea far more than Germany.

 

And Japan forced the US to emphasize carriers and... we know where that led after Pearl Harbor, Midway etc.

 

Brit military historian - and a favorite author of mine - John Keegan posited that the carrier was pretty much done for in his 1990 book "The Price of Admiralty," in which he saw subs as too powerful. He seems rather wrong as the face of naval warfare needs evolved.

 

m

[pippy]

Just adding some thoughts to Milo's excellent post the battle between the U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia had very profound consequences.

 

P.

[TommyK]

I don't actually know all of it, but what I understand about it is the cold war was in it's beginnings.

 

The east and the west were allies against Germany, and also against Japan. At the last of the war, both the east and the west were making attempts to get as much territory as they could-and there was a dash to get to Berlin by both fronts for this reason.

 

Patton's famous dash to Berlin was much for this reason, but I THINK he was also after bragging rights trying to beat the British armies as well.

 

In the far East, Japan had already had control over much of it before the war was started by them against the USA. As Japan fell, much of that territory was up for grabs. The Soviets advanced on many of these as well in an effort to gain as much as they could. The result of that was the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

 

 

Some of what you say is true. The Cold War had not even begun. Patton was frustrated by the other Generals', of all Allied countries, for moving too slowly. Patton understood that the longer you engage the enemy, the more men and materiel you lose. He learned this is WWI, but the other Generals seem to have forgotten it. Patton had no love for the Soviets. While having been ordered to attend a celebratory party with another Russian army General he refused to drink with him.

 

Patton, if he had his way, was going to reconstitute the German Army and continue with them towards St.Petersburg. The politicians said no. Most probably because the Allies were absolutely exhausted from the five years of fighting and needed to concentrate on the South Pacific.

 

After the war, the Allies divvied up the German rocket scientists. THAT is when the Cold War began. The first 'shot' in The Cold War was the launching of Sputnik.

[Enmitygauged]

I had heard it the other way around. Everyone else was waiting for the Russians to catch up. This bears research.

:huh:

 

Although I don't think it much matters who got there first or last. In a multi-national operation like this, allowing all parties to take part in taking the capital is good p.r. for all involved.

 

History records that Russia lost more people than any other country, 23 million.

 

 

The Russians Arrived first on the 15th of April. The Allies on the other side of Berlin Halted their advance so the Russians could start an artillery campaign. The Russians wanted retribution for the crimes committed against them by the NAZI's. The Russians pounded the city from Artillery sites whilst the Allies Bombed it from the air. The Russians then went in to Germany and committed some shocking crimes against the German population. This only stopped (on such a large scale) when the Allies met up with them.

 

Excuse the graphic nature of this article but its worth a read.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1080493/Stalins-army-rapists-The-brutal-war-crime-Russia-Germany-tried-ignore.html

[TommyK]

Could be the Russian Generals remember how WWI turned out. Germany lost very few if any civilians and very little of its infrastructure was damaged. Why? The Kaiser capitulated, then left the country, pretty much as soon as the allies crossed the former German border.

 

This time Hitler stayed entrenched in his bunker until Berlin was about to fall. When and where he died is all conjecture as his body and that of his new wife Eve Braun were never found. It is commonly believed they both committed suicide.

[EVOL!]

All of this WWII talk makes me think of The Man In The High Castle.

[milod]

Tommy...

 

Actually the "cold war" was well under way in the immediate aftermath of WWII in Europe - at least according to Churchill who used the "Iron Curtain" term (it wasn't a new term) as early as '45 and most famously in Missouri, USA, in '46. The Berlin airlift was '48-49. The Korean War arguably was a significant issue of the "Cold War."

 

By the time the Russians hit Berlin in '45, they'd already leveled much of eastern Germany and didn't advance much farther west.

 

In a sense, the "cold war" had much of its origination in the "west" supporting the white rather than red faction in the Russian revolution. That fact never was forgotten by the Soviets. I'll wager there are plenty of Russians today who believe the West delayed invading Europe until after the Soviet Union had absorbed German armies like an amoeba, yet lost millions of people. I'm not sure how strongly I'd argue on that, one way or another.

 

In terms of a "First shot?" Naah, probably that would be when the Soviet Union exploded its first atom bomb. Even before that, there were apparently "incidents" that may or may not have reached the point of "war," but nasty little incidents weren't necessarily discouraged by the powers that be on either side.

 

I'm much happier now that Russians and Americans can discuss local musical cultures 'stedda glaring at each other over politics.

 

At worst, Americans and "Russians" may have had a very uneasy time scoping each other with fears of atomic war, invasions, etc., but in my recollection there always was at least a spark of sanity on both sides that kept us from glowing today.

 

I believe that nowadays both Russians and Americans - and everybody else who's half sane - should have more concerns about those for whom "war" is more personal and who are willing make their point in ways such as flying hijacked airplanes into buildings. Those folks aren't sane in the sense that regardless of politics, most of "us" in guitar-playing cultures would define it.

 

m