4 ms·
Bizarre to write something called "the real war" that is focused on American forces, who were, by any measure, enjoying vast advantages and resources unavailabl
by eduction 4y ago
Bizarre to write something called "the real war" that is focused on American forces, who were, by any measure, enjoying vast advantages and resources unavailable to other combatants (including being able to choose the time and place of engagement). Below is a table of WWII military casualties by nation:
World War II casualties - Wikipedia
Soviet Union 8,668,000 to 11,400,000
Germany 4,440,000 to 5,318,000
China (1937–1945) 3,000,000 to 3,750,000+
Japan 2,100,000 to 2,300,000
United States 407,300
United Kingdom including Crown Colonies 383,700
Italy (in postwar 1947 borders) 319,200[68] to 341,000
- hef19898 4y agoRussian blood, British intel and sheer stubborness and US industry won WW2. A fact that both sides of the Iron Curtain down played and ignored throughout the Cold War.
- yamtaddle 4y agoThe author's American addressing, more or less, an American audience, and does make some mention of the others—Britain is covered extensively; the German perspective a bit, plus American perspectives on the terrible things they were doing to the Germans; the horror visited upon civilians in France and Belgium by the allies, and more. Besides, is there any requirement that such a piece be utterly comprehensive before it can be so-titled? It's not bizarre at all.
- eduction 4y agoI think it's near impossible to tell the story of "The Real X" -- that's a pretty sensational/trollish way to title something -- but if one is going to make such a rhetorical gesture there should be a lot more to back it up than what is given here. It's a complete American fantasy that our forces played a major role in the downfall of Germany, or that our blood sacrifice was particularly crucial to the outcome of any aspect of the war as a whole. Certainly U.S. resources like oil and materiel were critical to Allied success, not to mention the atom bomb in the defeat of Japan, and the (severely delayed) opening of a western front in France 1944 helped contain Soviet victories (in other words, impacted the Cold War), but it is pretty insulting to the 20X more USSR trooops who died and the nearly 10x more Chinese forces who perished to say that an account of the "Real War" could possibly exclude them like this.
- yamtaddle 4y ago> It's a complete American fantasy that our forces played a major role in the downfall of Germany, or that our blood sacrifice was particularly crucial to the outcome of any aspect of the war as a whole. Certainly U.S. resources like oil and materiel were critical to Allied success, not to mention the atom bomb in the defeat of Japan, and the (severely delayed) opening of a western front in France 1944 helped contain Soviet victories (in other words, impacted the Cold War), but it is pretty insulting to the 20X more USSR trooops who died and the many many Chinese forces who perished to say that an account of the "Real War" could possibly exclude them like this. Please indicate which part of the article is claiming this. > I think it's near impossible to tell the story of "The Real X" -- that's a pretty sensational/trollish way to title something I think most people find such a title for a piece like this is appropriate and communicates its meaning just fine, if they're not going out of their way to find "gotchas".
- Edman274 4y agoThe purpose of the article was to detail the ways that the true visceral horror of world war two was sanitized or censored for public consumption. The contributions of individual nations in the Allied victory was immaterial for the purpose of that article. The title, "The Real War" is drawing a contrast with an imagined "fake" war, where men die with dignity, in important, courageous and heroic circumstances, for high minded ideals, without terrifying disfigurements and mutilations. The title is not saying "the real war was fought and won mostly by Americans for democracy", it's saying "the real war had people piss their pants in fear and die before seeing any combat in a B-29 that was unfit to fly". I do not believe that you saw the title and did not understand this distinction.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- eduction 4y ago> it's saying "the real war had people piss their pants in fear and die before seeing any combat in a B-29 that was unfit to fly". Using this as an example of the horrors of combat in ww2 just further underlines my point because it’s so incredibly mild compared to the combat on the Eastern Front or against the Japanese in China. Most US service members, as grateful as I am to them, were far luckier than almost all other soldiers in ww2 — better equipped, coming in stronger numbers, and with much better odds of survival. The story the author wants to tell is fundamentally not an American forces story (but talking about Soviet suffering wouldn’t sell in 1989 or even today).
- badpun 4y agoThere's a story [1] about russian soldiers at some points of war being assigned one rifle per two infantrymen. The idea was that one guy would get the rifle and the other one would be a "spare", waiting for the first one to die. He was also free to pick up a rifle from one of other people already dead on the ground. BTW I suspect that the widely portrayed in media horror of being in the attack boat on D-Day was something of a common occurence for Soviet soldiers. They were routinely ordered to perform near-suicidal attacks, as Stalin's strategy was "strength in numbers". That's how he "achievied" the record number of casualities across all countries in the war. [1] Can't find it right now, so I can't say how accurate it was, or how widespread.