The Dambusters

Monty........ Millions of Russians POWs were killed are allowed to die of starvation, can you tell me when the Allied Armies did this also. Okay before you get back on your soap box I will agree that the Russians managed to get rid of a lot of German POW, there again the German invasion of Russia killed some 20 million Russians.

If one follows your argument then if one Army has big gun that kills more people than the ones you have then it would be wrong for you to build a bigger gun that would counteract his big gun. I suppose you will argue that the V 1 and V 2 were okay as they did kill as many people as area bombing.


Any war is a criminal act of some one trying impose there ideals on to you and if you disagree then you will be wiped out, now if it is wrong then to fight against things then we are all guilty and having myself taken up arms for my country then I am also guilty. Now I can't help wondering if you have ever served in the military and have smelled gunpowder at close range.

Oh cut the sanctimony, I fully understand that wars kill people and some of those will be innocent parties, you do not see me waffling on about the bombing of Hamburg, Cologne or any other German cities because they were destroyed when the war was in its balance and the allies did what they needed to do to turn the tide but Dresden was a totally different scenario and it was destroyed for the sake of it which is where I draw the line.

The allied propaganda post WW2 emphasised that we were the "good guys" fighting an unprecedented evil and in part I can buy that as Hitlers Germany was the unprecedented evil portrayed but the facts that we refuse to face up to is that we really weren't the good guys we were just the more justified of two evils.

Incidentally the Russian casualty figures are somewhat debatable and I would suggest that your 20 million is total for the WW2 period of which approximately half that number were killed by Stalin's team (that was the lot we consider part of the "good guys") and not Hitlers lunatics.
 
Oh cut the sanctimony, I fully understand that wars kill people and some of those will be innocent parties, you do not see me waffling on about the bombing of Hamburg, Cologne or any other German cities because they were destroyed when the war was in its balance and the allies did what they needed to do to turn the tide but Dresden was a totally different scenario and it was destroyed for the sake of it which is where I draw the line.

The allied propaganda post WW2 emphasised that we were the "good guys" fighting an unprecedented evil and in part I can buy that as Hitlers Germany was the unprecedented evil portrayed but the facts that we refuse to face up to is that we really weren't the good guys we were just the more justified of two evils.

Incidentally the Russian casualty figures are somewhat debatable and I would suggest that your 20 million is total for the WW2 period of which approximately half that number were killed by Stalin's team (that was the lot we consider part of the "good guys") and not Hitlers lunatics.



Vadim Erlikman has detailed Soviet losses totaling 26.5 million war related deaths. Military losses of 10.6 million include 6.0 million killed or missing in action and 3.6 million POW dead, plus 400,000 paramilitary and Soviet partisan losses. Civilian deaths totaled 15.9 million, which included 1.5 million from military actions; 7.1 million victims of Nazi genocide and reprisals; 1.8 million deported to Germany for forced labor; and 5.5 million famine and disease deaths. Additional famine deaths, which totaled 1 million during 1946–47, are not included here. Soviet repressions seems also to be not included. These losses are for the entire territory of the USSR including territories annexed in 1939–40.
Belarus lost a quarter of its pre-war population, including practically all its intellectual elite. Following bloody encirclement battles, all of the present-day Belarus territory was occupied by the Germans by the end of August 1941. The Nazis imposed a brutal regime, deporting some 380,000 young people for slave labor, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians more.[citation needed] More than 600 villages like Khatyn were burned with their entire population.[71] More than 209 cities and towns (out of 270 total) and 9,000 villages were destroyed. Himmler pronounced a plan according to which 3/4 of Belarusian population was designated for "eradication" and 1/4 of racially cleaner population (blue eyes, light hair) would be allowed to serve Germans as slaves.
Some recent reports raise the number of Belarusians who perished in War to "3 million 650 thousand people, unlike the former 2.2 million. That is to say not every fourth inhabitant but almost 40% of the pre-war Belarusian population perished (considering the present-day borders of Belarus)." [72]
Just a few sources to back up my claim of the unparalleled catastrophe brought on by the Nazi’s in the USSR during WW2. These statics do not include the deaths resulting from forced relocation by Stalin and the NKVD of the Chechens, Tartar’s, Volga Germans, and others deemed enemies at of the USSR for collusion with the Germans (many “but not all” of which took place after the war). In total their deaths would amount to ~ (1.5 to 2) million. Also thousands (not millions) of members of the Red army were killed for failure to obey Stalin’s not one step back order. Often dying while participating in suicide attacks. A disciplinary measure also used by the Germans as well.
Note: As for the 20 million WW2 deaths attributed to the German invasion this figure is outdated as was pointed out in the above breakdown. See below for more references of Soviets deaths in WW2. I think that there is a place for numbers when the numbers are this high and occurred in less than 4 years. It's helps make one aware of the magnitude of the crime.
http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/about/living_history/wwii_soviet_experience.dot
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/world-wide-deaths.html
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)
http://www.secondworldwarhistory.com/world-war-2-statistics.asp
 
All nifty but there are 10,000 historians out there analysing these numbers and coming up with different conclusions that vary from 20 million to 46 million.

The fact is we will never know the exact number and to a large degree it doesn't matter because we can say that the Soviet casualties of all types during WW2 exceeded 20 million and that a fair proportion of those we not killed by the Germans.
 
All nifty but there are 10,000 historians out there analysing these numbers and coming up with different conclusions that vary from 20 million to 46 million.

The fact is we will never know the exact number and to a large degree it doesn't matter because we can say that the Soviet casualties of all types during WW2 exceeded 20 million and that a fair proportion of those we not killed by the Germans.



Take the example of the Ukraine’s, the 2nd largest Soviet republic. Before the war the Ukraine resisted Soviet rule. Large scale genocide occluded as a result of Stalin’s forced collectivization policy and the starvation and murders of millions that went with it. These losses in human life were not in related to WW2 and ended by the mid 1930’s.
The 7+ million Ukrainians that died in WW2 died primarily at the hands of the Germans. With a few exceptions of suspected German sympathizers. It would be naïve to think that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi German government was not bent on destroying as many Ukrainian subhuman’s as possible. Approximately 5 million Ukrainians joined the Red army (and were glad to take part in the fight against the hated invader) upon liberation of the Ukraine from Germany. The point is that Stalin did murder millions in Soviet republics like the Ukraine. But during the war the vast majority of the killing were dished out by the Nazi’s in the anti Slavic ethnic cleansing polices. This is one of the main reasons that many of the Red army soldier fought so hard was for lost family and loved ones.
 
The bombing that took place in Britain caused 2 million people to be made homeless, and V 2 were still wreaking havoc right up to 1945. There were small workshops all over German making items for the German war machine just like they did in Britain and Hamburg just like any other city was engaged in the war effort. Request for the bombing of Hamburg had been received from the Russians and it was considered a fair target by those in Britain. Due to fact the Bomber command had grown to a very large force and had the Lancaster which could carry a very pay load, just added to Hamburg's problem, yet if the Germans had such a bomber they would have have used it to destroy London and the German would have cheered them on. People that take the morale high ground that did not live through this period of history are disillusioned about just what a close run thing it was. There was also a great worry by the Allies that the Germans were working on the Atom bomb and would have put it on V 2 The intelligence services knew this and every effort was made to crush Germany before this would happen. As it was Germany was down as the first choice target for the Atom bomb to used on but Germany fell just before it was ready, so if you think Hamburg was bad then it could have been a dam sight worse.
 
My Grandmother with two aunts were in Enfield Town in North London, near the old Enfield Lock Small Arms Factory, when there was an air raid warning. For some reason she refused to go into the public air raid shelter. Minutes after passing the shelter it got a direct hit killing all inside. My Grandmother and my two aunts were blown off their feet, suffering only minor injuries.

My Grandfather a WW1 Vet joined the Home Guard, he finished his patrol and decided to go into the local pub for a pint. Three German bombers enroute to Enfield Lock were shot down, as one was coming down one of the German gunners opened fire on the pub. My Grandfather realised what was going on and threw himself on the floor. Covered in broken glass but thankfully unhurt, he was most annoyed that his pint was smashed. The bomber crashed into a row of houses then blew up. The bullet pock marks were in the pub walls when I was a boy.
 
One can argue all day about the allies being on the same moral low gnd because we shelled building that were enemy strongholds “even if they contained civilians” and we bombed cities in Japan and Germany as Germany did to the rest of Europe (however they never had the numbers or quality of long range bombers as the Allies had). The allies took all possible measure to win the war but never made it their policy to murder millions of POWs, prisoners and ethnic groups. Japan left a trail of blood, rape and destruction wherever the Japanese army went. Basically all occupied countries were squeezed for resources and their people used as slaves as needed by the Japanese. Germany was somewhat more lenient in the west (although plenty of French, Italians, Dutch and Belgium’s were used as slaves and were killed if any resistance was even suspected. However in the east Hitler went on an unparalleled killing spree. These are behaviors never condoned by any allied army and were in part why we were fighting the war. Yes the USSR was a brutal regime, but during the war, they toned down the brutality in order to get the popular support they needed. I’m not sticking up for Stalin, he went right back to his old ways after the war was over.
 
Yet we hung Germans for doing exactly the same and pandered to Stalins wishes who was as bad as if not worse than Hitler. Once again you are adopting the philosophy that because we were the "good guys" whatever bad we did was justified and that seems to be the Wests modus-operandi for the last 100 years and the reason the world is still in a mess today.
 
Yet we hung Germans for doing exactly the same and pandered to Stalins wishes who was as bad as if not worse than Hitler. Once again you are adopting the philosophy that because we were the "good guys" whatever bad we did was justified and that seems to be the Wests modus-operandi for the last 100 years and the reason the world is still in a mess today.

The victor gets the spoils , among them is the right to pen the scrolls of history.
 
Yet we hung Germans for doing exactly the same and pandered to Stalins wishes who was as bad as if not worse than Hitler. Once again you are adopting the philosophy that because we were the "good guys" whatever bad we did was justified and that seems to be the Wests modus-operandi for the last 100 years and the reason the world is still in a mess today.



I disagree from a historical standpoint. During the war Hitler killed far more than innocents than Stalin easily by greater than an order of magnitude. The topic is constrained to the WW2 period and in the case of Hitler and Stalin the war on the eastern front. Fact Stalin cleaned up his act to a great extend relaxing both religious and political persecution during the war to drum up popular support which he desperately needed for his great patriotic war. If he didn’t the Soviet forces wouldn’t have fought as hard as they did against the hated and feared enemy. This made Stalin and the NKVD the lesser of the 2 evils during the war. Also most Soviets hoped that the reforms that took place during the war would continue into peace time period. Unfortunately they were in for a rude surprise. As for the allies I don’t even know how you can begin to compare the allies to the Nazi’s, the Wehrmacht or the SS. The Nazi were responsible for a minimum of 25 million murders of which greater than 99% occurred in less than 5 years. This does not include the million killed by bombing, shelling, or other misc losses of war. The allies fought a no quarters given or asked for war in which their military actions resulted in the deaths of many civilians. Of this there can be no dought. Do you think they could have defeated the Germans by playing patty cake, this was total war on a scale such as the world had never seen? I do agree some poor decisions were made such as Dresden and Monte Casino. The history is well documented with the fog clearing on the Soviet history it has little to do with victors but much to do with research.
 
Last edited:
I disagree from a historical standpoint. During the war Hitler killed far more than innocents than Stalin easily by greater than an order of magnitude. The topic is constrained to the WW2 period and in the case of Hitler and Stalin the war on the eastern front. Fact Stalin cleaned up his act to a great extend relaxing both religious and political persecution during the war to drum up popular support which he desperately needed for his great patriotic war. If he didn’t the Soviet forces wouldn’t have fought as hard as they did against the hated and feared enemy. This made Stalin and the NKVD the lesser of the 2 evils during the war. Also most Soviets hoped that the reforms that took place during the war would continue into peace time period. Unfortunately they were in for a rude surprise. As for the allies I don’t even know how you can begin to compare the allies to the Nazi’s, the Wehrmacht or the SS. The Nazi were responsible for a minimum of 25 million murders of which greater than 99% occurred in less than 5 years. This does not include the million killed by bombing, shelling, or other misc losses of war. The allies fought a no quarters given or asked for war in which their military actions resulted in the deaths of many civilians. Of this there can be no dought. Do you think they could have defeated the Germans by playing patty cake, this was total war on a scale such as the world had never seen? I do agree some poor decisions were made such as Dresden and Monte Casino. The history is well documented with the fog clearing on the Soviet history it has little to do with victors but much to do with research.
Hang on a sec you are saying it was perfectly alright to bomb the elderly, women and children in German and Japanese cities night and day because those civilians were supporting the axis war effort by growing food, going to work etc. and there should be no repercussions what so ever yet it is also perfectly alright to hang the likes of Jodl for doing exactly the same thing. I am not for an instant claiming that the allies should have anything differently I am just pointing out that we are deluding ourselves and lying to the world by claiming to have been the virtuous bunch of choir boys WW2 history tries to paint the allies as. The problem is that this line of thinking continues through to today where around the world we are busily destabilising countries that don't agree with us and funding despotic ones that do all the while claiming god is on our side and the other side is the devil incarnate.
 
I do agree that the type of thinking and warfare that was needed to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan is not warranted today. I think the situation has become largly political. In some case I believe the present day coalition (allies) are at times justified say the airstrikes against ISIS and the fight against Al-Qaeda. Other times perhaps we'd be better to mind our own business. Like in Viet Nam where we supported a dictatorial regime. Not to slight any veterans who served there.
 
The only thing I will say on this.

I don't care who you are, if your home or family are attacked, you will want to fight back by any means. At that time the only way Britain could fight back was bomber command.

My Grandmother and two aunts who were not engaged on any war work were almost killed by German bombers, my grandfather a WW1 vet was in the Home Guard patrolling the local gas works, he too was almost killed during an air raid.

Here is a map of the bombs dropped on London.

http://bombsight.org/#9/51.4591/0.3804

As for the fire bombing of Japan, I give as much a damn for the Japanese as they gave the people they over run.

Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC was an observer when an Atom bomb was dropped on Japan. Years later he was in Japan, a Japanese reporter asked him what it was like to be a war criminal.Its a pity Group Captain Cheshire didn't flatten him
 
Last edited:
The bombing of German cities was a necessity to reduce the industrial capacity in Germany. What we need need to consider is the technology in the 1940s, they could not hit military targets without hitting something else. The British tried in the beginning of the war, but they failed. The Americans tried the same and failed. The failure caused a huge amount of casualties. The allied changed the approach and viewed the civilians as a legit target and much easier to hit.

In addition to this, there is a huge academic difference between when atrocities are a policy and when they occur in the heat of war. Hence, the Nazi KZ' can never be compared with the camps for the Americans with a Japanese ancestry, nor can the behavior of German forces and Japanese forces be compared with how the allied behaved. thus, the allied weren't angels and they reacted to what they experienced.

We also need to differentiate between the Soviets and the Western allied when it comes to the atrocities committed by the Russians.

The Second World War changed everything, it was something abnormal.
 
The bombing of German cities was a necessity to reduce the industrial capacity in Germany. What we need need to consider is the technology in the 1940s, they could not hit military targets without hitting something else. The British tried in the beginning of the war, but they failed. The Americans tried the same and failed. The failure caused a huge amount of casualties. The allied changed the approach and viewed the civilians as a legit target and much easier to hit.

In addition to this, there is a huge academic difference between when atrocities are a policy and when they occur in the heat of war. Hence, the Nazi KZ' can never be compared with the camps for the Americans with a Japanese ancestry, nor can the behavior of German forces and Japanese forces be compared with how the allied behaved. thus, the allied weren't angels and they reacted to what they experienced.

We also need to differentiate between the Soviets and the Western allied when it comes to the atrocities committed by the Russians.

The Second World War changed everything, it was something abnormal.

I couldn't have summed it up any better concerning the allies.

Stalin cleaned up his act during the war relaxing both religious and political persecutions to drum up popular support which he desperately needed for his great patriotic war. So for a few years he pretended to be the good guy. Not that all persecutions ended but he brushed aside most of his pet peeves to win the war. Most Soviets hoped that the reforms that took place during the war would continue into peace time period.

Unfortunately they had a rude awaking at wars end as Stalin started taking revenge against German sympathizers (most of who were imagined) and again purging the army's upper ranks due to his jealously of their popularity.

Several million died at wars end and in the aftermath due to Stalin's madness. The Crimean Tartars, the Kalmucks, 1/2 the Chechens, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Balts, ex-Soviet POW's and ex-Soviet slave laborers “who had somehow managed to survive the Nazi's” all were suspect just by proximity to the German enemy.

Whether Stalin or Hitler was a bigger murderer or caused more hardship and death may never be resolved. However what I’m saying is that during the context of WW2 Hitler defiantly wins the bad boy award.
 
By 1944 the U.S. was out producing all the Allies and Axis combined in Planes , Ships , tanks , Bombs , guns and bread , Japan had shot her wad at Pearl Harbor down hill from there , Germany self destructed not at Stalingrad but when they declared war on the U.S. , Russia received Manna from heaven in the form of bennies from the U.S. and became our biggest enemy , we could have easily pinched Japan off from all her lifelines and avoided all those messy Island campaigns , we could have supplied the Empire and Russia with all they needed and more and could have stayed out of the European war altogether .
 
Are civilians innocent during the war, well they make the weapons of war and their taxes go on to support the war. I think it was an American General during the American civil war who when asked about laying waste huge sections of the south as he marched across it stated that with out the money and food from these people the war would have ended earlier.

It is very easy for all the people who did not live through WW 2 and this period of history and especially in war zone to fully understand what it was like. It is very easy to read a few books written by some one who also was not there and disagrees about what should have happened. I have been in Arnhem a few times and speaking to the people there that treat the British Airborne like their own family, I have often asked them why they treat us that way seeing we killed so many of the population and ruined their town and the reply is always the same. which is "Unless you have been a conquered nation then you will never understand or appreciate freedom". Now I think this says it all about what happened when the fight to defeat Hitler took place.
 
Last edited:
Can we completely understand the Second World War without being a part of it? We can probably understand the strategical/political decisions during the war, but can we understand how it was in London during the Blitz or standing in a Higgins boat approaching Normandy?
 
Back
Top