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The 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 contribut

The 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.

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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 ago
  There'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.

deleted 4y ago

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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 ago
There'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.