Any WW2 fanatics out there

[OwlsFan]

Have to say, next to following Ireland, Wednesday and board games, WW2 is my big passion. I have a room full of books on the topic. MY special interest is in the Eastern Front but I'll read most on the topic, other than technical ones about weapons. Just finished Churchill's 6 or was it 5 volume history of the War. Excellent reading.

Favourite books though are the Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer (infantry man's experiences on the Eastern Front) and Iron Coffins by Herbert Werner recounting life on board U-boats during the war where there was a 75% casualty rate.

Presently reading a biography of Field Marshall Slim who kicked the Japs out of Burma and who was one of the best and most unheralded generals in WW2.

[paul_oshea]

there was a few fanatics around during ww2 alright!!!!

not being pedantic but how exactly can you be a fanatic about a lot of people dying?

[Poor Student]

Isn't "Japs" politically incorrect?

[paul_oshea]

watch out the foot.ie pc brigade are on their way!!!hehe

[dcfcsteve]

I'm a huge history fan, but for whatever reason I find WW2 rather dis-interesting. I'd be more interested in WW1, Vietnam, the Boer War, the Arab-Israeli wars etc. Even the Peloponessian Wars from Ancient Greece that I studied for my Ancient History A'Level kick more ass in my mind than WW2 does.

Bought myself a copy of 'The Second World War in colour' on DVD about 2 years ago (cheap in a sale). It's still in it's cling-film wrapper sitting on the shelf above my TV, which says a lot.....

God knows whay it disinterests me so. It's probably a mixture of overkill on TV, films etc, and the fact that it's not recent enough to feel modern/topical (unlike Vietnam) and not old enough to feel mysterious/requiring understanding/truely 'historical'.

Also - my great-grandfather fought in the Boer War and my Grandad in WW1 until he was injured (both for the British), whereas I don't have any close relations who fought in WW2, so I feel less of an urge to understand it.

[Poor Student]

Even the Peloponessian Wars from Ancient Greece that I studied for my Ancient History A'Level kick more ass in my mind than WW2 does.

What do you mean even? It's the war to end all wars!

[OwlsFan]

Isn't "Japs" politically incorrect?

No, but "Nips" might be. Japs is not a pejorative word for Japanese - just an abbreviation just like Brits for British people. Gook for Vietnamese would be different.

Why WW2 ? It's not just about people dying. It shaped most of the world we live in today. It was a victory over the worst evil man has ever seen. Brilliant military tactics. Conflict on a vast scale. Could you imagine the world we'd live in today if the Nazis/Japanese won ? No World Cup How the Allies won after losing the first 3 years of the War. The UK fought to stop one country (Germany) dominating Europe and ended up with another (Soviet Union) dominating instead.

Fascinating.

[Poor Student]

No, but "Nips" might be. Japs is not a pejorative word for Japanese - just an abbreviation just like Brits for British people. Gook for Vietnamese would be different.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=jap says:

Jap
n. Offensive Slang
Used as a disparaging term for a person of Japanese birth or descent.

Also it's on here in a wikipedia list of ethnic slurs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Japs

I know you mean nothing by it Owl, but I am sure Jap and Japs are in fact politically incorrect terms.

[WeAreRovers]

Big history fan myself with WWII being a favourite and like OwlsFan the Eastern Front in particular.

My other big interest is Antarctic exploration - Shackleton, Scott and all that. Fascinating stuff and yes, I am a total geek.

KOH

[paul_oshea]

Also - my great-grandfather fought in the Boer War

I thought it was your great grandmother and she was a sow in it wasnt she??

No World Cup

im getting used to that unfortunately.

owslfan from a tactical and organisational point of view i understand, i just didnt see what you meant by the heading thats all.

[Schumi]

Big history fan myself with WWII being a favourite

Sure Rovers fans are all neo-nazis anyway.

[OwlsFan]

"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"

From the War Memorial in Kohima, Burma. And it is true. Far from perfect as the British, Yanks (hope that's not pejorative) and Soviets (especially them) were, we'd be under the jackboot now since the Celts were on the list of sub humans.

[Lionel Ritchie]

Facinated by the second world war. Particularly the war in the air. But the eastern front was the scene of some of the most vicious debased acts human beings have ever visited on each other.

There's a fabulous Belarussian movie out there called 'Come and See' -if any of you film buffs can find a copy of it I'd love to see it as I've not seen it since C4 showed it in the early 90's.

It centers on a couple of young fellahs of 12 or 13 in a Bellarussian village that switches from being behind german lines to soviet lines and back on an almost daily basis.

As the area is awash with weapons and is constantly shelled both armies are constantly checking to see what the locals are up to. If the germans find that someones been digging out weapons -they shoot some villagers. Then when the Soviets arrive -if they find the locals HAVEN'T been digging out weapons -they shoot some villagers.

harrowing stuff. I've tried googleing but cant find it anywhere.


My own interest is predominantly in the air war. I'm facinated with the aircraft of the time. There's a lot of 'History' we were thought growing up that was in truth closer to folk-lore than fact surrounding WWII ...peoples reasons for getting involved it in it etc... but one of the biggest fairy tales we were taught at school and in books when I was younger concerned the "might of the Luftwaffe" and the "Insurmountable odds" facing the RAF in the Battle of Britain. Now they were well outnumbered -but much closer to 2 to 1 than the 5 or 6 to 1 we were taught not so long ago.

other myths of the era include
*the Spitfire won the battle of Britain
Garbage. If the BoB was won at all it was won by Geography, Fuel-over-weight-by-distance ratios ...and to a lesser extent by the Spitfires slower, uglier, less romantic brother-in-arms the Hurricane. "Hurries" were better armed, better protected and far safer for the relatively inexperienced among the ranks that the RAF were starting to push forward with less than complete training.

Make a mistake landing a Hurricane and you'd walk away and get the ground-crew to have it airworthy by morning.
Make a mistake landing a Spitfire and you died.

Not an ideal countenance if you've just been swapping lead with Jerry over the drink and are bringing her home looking like a swiss cheese.

*Blitzkrieg was an unstoppable mechanised killing machine Lightning war was well co-ordinated by a brilliantly trained observer Korp. Beyond that though the myth has well overtaken the facts. Much of the German armour was horse-drawn ...like it had been in world war one. Many of the german planes including the Junkers 87 Stuka, Junkers 88, Dornier 17 and Heinkel 111 were out of date by the time the war kicked off, were underpowered, underarmed, had low payloads and had been vastly flattered by their success against puny opposition in the Spanish Civil War.

*Britain, and later America, entered the war to once again "defend small nations from tyranny" or other such sh1te I dunno where to start there. more amarach. maybe

[Green Tribe]

I'm a huge fan of it myself, probably because it is incredible to think that these things happened only just 50 years ago

[dcfcsteve]

There's a fabulous Belarussian movie out there called 'Come and See' -if any of you film buffs can find a copy of it I'd love to see it as I've not seen it since C4 showed it in the early 90's.

It centers on a couple of young fellahs of 12 or 13 in a Bellarussian village that switches from being behind german lines to soviet lines and back on an almost daily basis.

As the area is awash with weapons and is constantly shelled both armies are constantly checking to see what the locals are up to. If the germans find that someones been digging out weapons -they shoot some villagers. Then when the Soviets arrive -if they find the locals HAVEN'T been digging out weapons -they shoot some villagers.

harrowing stuff. I've tried googleing but cant find it anywhere.

Sounds very interesting. I've found it on imdb.com (Internet Movie Database) : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091251/ . Click on the readers postings at the end for details on where to get a copy. I might get my hands on a copy as well.

I'm a big fan of the original 'All Quiet on the Western Front" film. The bit where he knives the guy to death is a good representation of the horro of close combat (and was largely copied in Saving Private Ryan)

other myths of the era include
*the Spitfire won the battle of Britain
Garbage. If the BoB was won at all it was won by Geography, Fuel-over-weight-by-distance ratios ...and to a lesser extent by the Spitfires slower, uglier, less romantic brother-in-arms the Hurricane.

The Battle of Britain was won primarily by a significant tactical change on Hitler's part. In the early days of the 'battle' the Germans clearly had the upper-hand. The British air-bases in the south of the country were decimated (airplanes were having to take off and land in fields), anti-aircraft facilities and listening posts had been almost erased, the towns on the southern coast had been 'softened-up' in advance of the land invasion that was assembling on the French coast, and the Germans were clearly in the ascendancy.

However - on one particular German bombing raid at night (they started night raids to prevent the British form conducting repairs to machines and facilities under the cover of darkness), the Germans accidentally bombed a series of civilian targets in London. Hitler had actually forbidden attacks on civilian targets, as he didn't want to boost the Brits resolve. Anyhoo - in response, the British retaliated by bombing Berlin, which enraged Hitler. He then ordered the Luftwaffe to switch their strategy from military to civilian targets - thinking that he was failing to break them militarily, and that he might be able to break their will. This was a huge mistake, as it gave the decimated RAF the opportunity to get back on its feet and fix/replace its planes, air-fields, defences and surveillance facilities without interference. If the Germans had kept their focus and continued assaulting solely military targets day and night, there is little doubt that they would've impacted the RAF sufficiently to enable a land assault.

*Blitzkrieg was an unstoppable mechanised killing machine Lightning war was well co-ordinated by a brilliantly trained observer Korp. Beyond that though the myth has well overtaken the facts. Much of the German armour was horse-drawn ...like it had been in world war one.

I'm not sure this is broadly correct Lionel. There may well have been instances of horse-drawn armour, but to suggest that it was anything other than the exception would be totally incorrect. Blitzkreig relied upon light tanks, air support, and large number of troops moving quickly in half-track vehicles. It would simply have not worked as a tactic if it had been based largely or even significantly on horse-drawn power. Also - Germany was the most advanced industrial nation in Europe at the time. The Nazis had even set-up their own mass-production vehicle factories years previously (Volkswagen), and were creating more advanced vehicles at a lower cost than manufacturers elsewhere on the continent. They therefore had the means to not need to rely on horse-drawn 'armour' (how armoured is a horse...??). They would also have come nowhere near the results they did gain if they relied on more than a smattering of non-mechanised transport. The only cases of horse-powered fighting involved in the Blitzkreig period of WW2 that I have encountered was the Polish Cavalry. For the record, Poland effectively lasted a whopping 17 days against the Germans....

*Britain, and later America, entered the war to once again "defend small nations from tyranny" or other such sh1te I dunno where to start there. more amarach. maybe

I'm with you there. There are very, very few examples of altruistic military intervention in history. WW2 was far from being one such example.

[dcfcsteve]

I'm a huge fan of it myself, probably because it is incredible to think that these things happened only just 50 years ago

Or even 60 years ago.......

[SaucyJack]

Or even 60 years ago.......

always liked the sea battle stuff, The hunt for the Graff Spee, Sinking of the Bismark, and the fighting in the Pacific Theatre and the Aircraft carrier stuff, used to read loads about it when I was younger.

[Closed Account 2]

Studied Military History at University, did essays on WWII (War in the Pacific, Soviet-Japanese War and Eastern Front), also did work on the Soviet-Afghan War and the Balkans amongst other things.

[Mayo Red]

Favourite books though are the Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer (infantry man's experiences on the Eastern Front)

I am interested in WW2 and Military History in general, and between that and football books have enough to start a small library. The History Channel and the like are also great sources of information. Guy Sajer's book is outstanding and likewise is one of my favourite reads. Stalingrad by Antony Beevor is also excellent.

I also have an interest in the Irish Army/Naval Service/Air Corps and am looking forward to a new book coming out this week called "The Irish Army in the Congo 1960-1964: The Far Battalions" by David O'Donoghue.

[Green Tribe]

Or even 60 years ago.......

feck off Meant to write 60!