80 years ago this summer

In PJ Media, Victor Davis Hanson writes,

...In sophisticated times, we sometimes forget that time-honored concepts like the balance of power and military deterrence -- not good intentions and international peace organizations -- alone keep the peace.

...The final ironies? The Soviet double-cross of the Western democracies eventually ended up almost destroying Russia, which bore the brunt of an empowered Germany.

The redirection of Japanese war strategy to target America finally brought the United States into World War II, which ensured the destruction of Japan and Germany.

Add this all up, and in some sense World War II really started on Aug. 23, 1939, 80 years ago this summer.

Read more here.

Did you know that Japan came back to Pearl Harbor to try again in 1942?

Soldiers examine a wrecked Japanese Kawanishi H8K near Makin, Gilbert Islands in November 1943. Two similar planes were used in a bombing raid on Oahu, Hawaii, on March 4, 1942.
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

At Stars and Stripes, Wyatt Olson writes,

The Japanese surprise air attack of Dec. 7, 1941, on Hawaii was a staggering military triumph that decimated the Pacific Fleet’s battleships in Pearl Harbor and wiped out most of Oahu’s air defenses.

Three months later, the Japanese Imperial Navy sought to repeat a surprise bombing raid on the island using its newest long-range aircraft, the “flying boat” Kawanishi H8K.

While the two H8Ks successfully flew the 4,800-mile roundtrip from the Marshall Islands to Hawaii, the March 4, 1942, bombing raid was a tactical flop.

But its greatest failure was strategic, tipping the Japanese navy’s hand to U.S. military leaders who leveraged the intelligence to achieve victory in the Battle of Midway three months later.

Read more here.

The turning point of World War II

Victor Davis Hanson writes,

Seventy-five years ago this month, the Soviet Red Army surrounded -- and would soon destroy -- a huge invading German army at Stalingrad on the Volga River. Nearly 300,000 of Germany's best soldiers would never return home. The epic 1942-43 battle for the city saw the complete annihilation of the attacking German 6th Army. It marked the turning point of World War II.

...In part, it had no choice. Germany was intent on not just absorbing Russia, but wiping it out or enslaving millions of its citizens. In part, Britain and the United States under the Lend-Lease policy began sending huge amounts of material aid, providing everything from boots to locomotives. In part, Red Army soldiers were terrified of their own communist strongman, Josef Stalin.

Prior to the German invasion, Stalin was responsible for some 20 million Russian deaths through forced farm collectivization, planned famine, show trials and purges, and the murders of his own Red Army troops. More than 10,000 soldiers were likely executed at Stalingrad by their own officers.

But most importantly, no European invader -- neither Sweden under Charles XII in the early 1700s nor France under Napoleon in the early 1800s -- had ever successfully invaded and defeated Russia.

...Despite the horrors of Soviet Communism, the Allied winners of World War II owed a great deal to the Russian people. Russia's male and female soldiers were most responsible for destroying Hitler's vast ground forces, having killed more than two-thirds of the German soldiers lost in the war.

The Soviet Union lost about 27 million soldiers and civilians -- about 60 times more than America lost in the war.

...Despite the horrors of Soviet Communism, the Allied winners of World War II owed a great deal to the Russian people. Russia's male and female soldiers were most responsible for destroying Hitler's vast ground forces, having killed more than two-thirds of the German soldiers lost in the war.

The Soviet Union lost about 27 million soldiers and civilians -- about 60 times more than America lost in the war.

...But most Americans have forgotten key aspects of Russia's 20th-century history, a tragedy of unspeakable human losses. Outside Kiev in late summer of 1941, more than 700,000 Russian soldiers were killed or captured by Germans in a single battle.

In one of the costliest sieges in history, at Sevastopol in July 1942, 100,000 Russians were killed or captured in a failed effort to save the port on the Black Sea.

We rightly see Putin as an aggressive autocrat. But millions of Russians view Ukraine and the Crimea as sacred, blood-soaked Russian ground.

After the collapse of the nightmarish Soviet Union, Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd "city on the Volga." Today, few in the West know exactly what happened there 75 years ago this month.

This Veterans Day, we should also remember those heroic Russian soldiers. In bitter cold, and after losing hundreds of thousands of lives, they finally did the unbelievable: They halted the march of Nazi Germany.

Read more here.

Deterrence, not deference!

Victor Davis Hanson discusses World War II:

"The more you try to defer to someone when you have power that you did not need to defer, you earn contempt for your magnanimity."

Why the war? American isolationism, British appeasement, and Russian collaboration.

Stalin cut deals with all six major combatants.

Hitler stupidly invaded the Soviet Union in June, 1941.

Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor in December, assuming that because we did not come to the aid of Britain, we would do little or nothing to fight back after Pearl Harbor.

Germany and Italy declared war on us on December 11.

Now the war was global.

By July, 1942 the Axis had almost defeated the Allies.

The people who killed the most people lost to the people who built the most stuff!

Members of the Axis did not trust each other. Roosevelt and Churchill could trust each other, and Stalin could trust them.

The biggest winner and the biggest loser? The Soviet Union! They lost 27 million men, but they gained most of Europe for their totalitarian pleasure!

Britain fought the entire six years of the war. They were flat broke when the war was over. They began to socialize everything and they gave up their empire willingly. Within ten years Japan and Germany were industrial powers. Italy quit in 1943. Japan killed 17 million people in China.

We had to rebuild Germany and Japan and convince China and others that things would work out!

War is a measuring device, a very bitter one. Each side has material power, and each side has willpower. War then tells you in a very difficult way who is stronger after all. But it doesn't need to occur if you can convey that message before the war breaks out.

"World War II happened because of American isolationism, British appeasement, and Russian collaboration."

How much do you know about World War II? Victor Davis Hanson knows more than anyone I know of. I hope you can find time to listen to him.

"The Axis countries lied to each other. Britain and the United States went to war for principle. We trusted each other. Unfortunately, Britain was flat broke when the war was over. Because of their deprivation, they began to socialize their transportation, their healthcare, their iron and steel industries, their power, and they lost their empire.
Germany and Japan, having been decimated by the allies, came back to become industrial powers. Britain was the most admirable and idealistic of all the allies.

Japan was the most vicious. The United States achieved all of its goals. We lost 425,000 people, only 3% of our military. Yet, when the war was over, we helped rebuild Germany and Japan.

War is a laboratory, a measuring device. Two sides have differences. War tells you in the end who is stronger. Nobody knows sho is going to win. World War II happened because of American isolationism, British appeasement, and Russian collaboration."

Remembering Pearl Harbor and World War II

Historian Craig Shirley, author of December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World, joined SiriusXM host Matt Boyle on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

“Everything changes in America,” he said. “We stop announcing ship movements and troop movements. We get used to blackouts. We get used to roadblocks. Japanese nationals begin to be rounded up. All reserves are canceled. Everybody’s to go back into their uniform, which they’d been wearing civvies most of the time. Gas rationing starts to take hold quickly, food rationing, sugar rationing, coffee rationing. Scrap metal drives, paper drives, rubber drives all take place very, very quickly after December 7th, and the nation is transformed within a matter of days and weeks after December 7th.”

“The arsenal of democracy is such that within three weeks of December 7th, Ford Motor Company, along with Fisher Auto Body and Goodyear Tire, stops producing cars – which by the way, Washington told people are complaining about Trump manipulating businesses. FDR manipulated and directed every business in America for four years,” he observed. “Washington told Detroit, ‘You are no longer to build new cars,’ and Detroit said okay. So Detroit starts churning out fabricated B-24 and B-25 bombers made out of the parts of new cars that were going to be made.”

...Shirley said it was interesting to recall that “Churchill had been lobbying FDR for months” to support Britain, which he accurately presented as the “last line of defense against Nazism,” but “there was no will in this country for getting involved in another European war after World War I.”

“Even after the attack, there’s no linkage whatsoever between the attack at Pearl Harbor and our getting into the European war. The reason we get into the European war is four days after the attack, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini declare war on the United States because of the Tripartite Pact with Japan, which was a mutual defense agreement,” he pointed out. “So, therefore, we have to respond, so we declare war on Germany and Italy. But there’s no evidence whatsoever that would have gotten involved in the European war after Pearl Harbor, until Hitler and Italy declare war on the United States.”

“The Japanese soldier fought tenaciously and to the very death because they actually preferred death to being taken hostage or being taken prisoner, so it was a long slog over all these tiny atolls and islands, over three, four thousand miles across the Pacific, to invade them and to eradicate them. Guadalcanal was the tail of a bloody, bloody conflict which took months, and many, many American lives were lost,” he said.

“And we haven’t even mentioned the wounded,” Shirley added. “We lost in World War II something like 275,000 men, I believe, but it was well over a million wounded men [who] lost limbs, lost arms, lost their eyesight, lost their hearing – in some way, shape, or form were somehow badly damaged by the war effort. The casualties were exceedingly high in some instances, like Anzio in Europe.”

Read more here.

"Any pilot should fly a Spitfire at least once"

In 2005, an 83 year-old World War II pilot is surprised to see 16mm footage of his 1944 Spitfire crash for the first time.


Thanks to Curt Dale

Bravery

Rick Tosches writes here about his mother raising her hand to wave farewell to her husband, Rick's father, who fought the Germans and the Japanese.

Pay attention to Iran and North Korea

I found the cartoon over at Dan in Panama's blog. Dan is concerned about the naivety of our current civilian leaders and our politically correct military leaders. He writes about how World Wars I and II could have been avoided had various leaders not been so naive. He discusses the alliance between North Korea and Iran, and how they might work together to threaten the world.