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Celebrating two Canadian POWs who took down an entire shipyard

ilamont 6y ago
Amazing story. Kind of surprising that the Japanese didn't recognize the vulnerability of this part of the shipyard, considering it had been subjected to attacks before. It's a massive single point of failure, and it seems like some steps could have been taken to minimize the risk ... for instance, distributing the blueprints and templates in different parts of the facility, or making backups of critical plans.
- lsiebert 6y ago
  They may have, but in war you don't always have all the resources you want to secure things and prevent failure. Not unlike in a startup.
abledon 6y ago
Wow, what are the odds that he ended up dying in a house fire aftewards!?!?
valuearb 6y ago
I can’t imagine the balls and levels of patriotism these men had. If caught their deaths would have been incredibly gruesome, and almost certainly would have involved their extensive torture, and murder of many other prisoners. Reminds me of a story Dan Carlin related on his latest Supernova In The East. During the early fighting in New Guinea with green Australian troops, the Japanese troops would tie captured Aussies to trees, torture them to death, and leave their bodies for other Australian troops to find with signs reading “he took a long time to die” on them. A captured Japanese soldier explained why. The Japanese soldiers did this under their unit leaders orders, to convince every Japanese soldier to fight to the death knowing that surrender would only get them the same treatment from the Australians. Japan had not signed the Geneva convention on prisoner treatment and refused to be bound by any of its principles.
- smitty1e 6y ago
  This is among the reasons why putting people in the position where they have nothing to lose is a terrible idea.
  - nicbou 6y ago
    A good example being the Allies declaring that they wouldn't accept anything short of an unconditional surrender. You can imagine how Germany reacted to that.
    - magicsmoke 6y ago
      Nazi Germany's leadership and the German people are two different entities. Western allies also treated German POWs relatively well. The eastern front was a different scenario though, surrender for German and Soviet soldiers and civilians was very unpleasant.
      - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
        Indeed, my grandfather (German) spent the better part of the war in an American POW camp in Kentucky after being captured in North Africa. He learned English there, got along with his guards, and didn't hate the Americans. Coming home to Mainz and seeing what the French and British had done to his ancestral home and the civilians who lived there, he had other things to say about them. After escaping from a French POW camp (they were still being held despite the war being over and there were reprisal killings, etc.) he made his way back to Mainz (French occupation) but fled across the river in the dead of night to Wiesbaden, which was under American occupation and thus considered safer. A similar story for my Oma. He was actually my father's adopted father. My dad's biological father I don't know much about, but he served on the eastern front and came home a broken man with a missing leg.
        ithkuil 6y ago
        Badly treated pow do hold a grudge for life, and (try hard to) pass on that grudge to next generations. My grandfather happened to be on the losing side of wwii in yugoslavia and hot harassed for decades because of that. Having tons of people like him, kindling hatred and privately teaching their children that the state you're living in is run by / controlled evil people, ultimately reignited a conflict half a century later.

Amazing story. Kind of surprising that the Japanese didn't recognize the vulnerability of this part of the shipyard, considering it had been subjected to attacks before. It's a massive single point of failure, and it seems like some steps could have been taken to minimize the risk ... for instance, distributing the blueprints and templates in different parts of the facility, or making backups of critical plans.

lsiebert 6y ago
They may have, but in war you don't always have all the resources you want to secure things and prevent failure. Not unlike in a startup.

abledon 6y ago

Wow, what are the odds that he ended up dying in a house fire aftewards!?!?

valuearb 6y ago

I can’t imagine the balls and levels of patriotism these men had. If caught their deaths would have been incredibly gruesome, and almost certainly would have involved their extensive torture, and murder of many other prisoners. Reminds me of a story Dan Carlin related on his latest Supernova In The East. During the early fighting in New Guinea with green Australian troops, the Japanese troops would tie captured Aussies to trees, torture them to death, and leave their bodies for other Australian troops to find with signs reading “he took a long time to die” on them. A captured Japanese soldier explained why. The Japanese soldiers did this under their unit leaders orders, to convince every Japanese soldier to fight to the death knowing that surrender would only get them the same treatment from the Australians. Japan had not signed the Geneva convention on prisoner treatment and refused to be bound by any of its principles.

smitty1e 6y ago
This is among the reasons why putting people in the position where they have nothing to lose is a terrible idea.
- nicbou 6y ago
  A good example being the Allies declaring that they wouldn't accept anything short of an unconditional surrender. You can imagine how Germany reacted to that.
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    Nazi Germany's leadership and the German people are two different entities. Western allies also treated German POWs relatively well. The eastern front was a different scenario though, surrender for German and Soviet soldiers and civilians was very unpleasant.
    - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
      Indeed, my grandfather (German) spent the better part of the war in an American POW camp in Kentucky after being captured in North Africa. He learned English there, got along with his guards, and didn't hate the Americans. Coming home to Mainz and seeing what the French and British had done to his ancestral home and the civilians who lived there, he had other things to say about them. After escaping from a French POW camp (they were still being held despite the war being over and there were reprisal killings, etc.) he made his way back to Mainz (French occupation) but fled across the river in the dead of night to Wiesbaden, which was under American occupation and thus considered safer. A similar story for my Oma. He was actually my father's adopted father. My dad's biological father I don't know much about, but he served on the eastern front and came home a broken man with a missing leg.
      - ithkuil 6y ago
        Badly treated pow do hold a grudge for life, and (try hard to) pass on that grudge to next generations. My grandfather happened to be on the losing side of wwii in yugoslavia and hot harassed for decades because of that. Having tons of people like him, kindling hatred and privately teaching their children that the state you're living in is run by / controlled evil people, ultimately reignited a conflict half a century later.