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Trap One,

While I certainly agree that Oboe, Gee, H2S and more greatly improved delivery accuracy for the RAF later in the war, it was what R.V. Jones reported that led to the outright abandonment of efforts by the British to "precision bomb" and a direct shift to area bombing. Moreover, if you look at British pathfinder techniques, the whole idea was based on a) putting a marker over the target which could be seen from tens of miles away and B) setting the area below the "Christmas Tree" firmly ablaze in case it went out, for whatever reason. Thereafter, it was pile on time, with each bomber trying to drop its load into the area already ablaze.

Vossiewulf,

This is an excellent point, one I've already addressed to some degree. Clearly, the eastern front was a race war, and several historians have pointed out the same thing regarding the War in the Pacific, as clearly expressed in the propaganda from both Japan and the United States.

Heck, I've seen the bucktoothed, bottle glasses "Japs" myself in old Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Regards,

John Kettler

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John Kettler, I understand your misgivings about the area bombing done by the RAF, but it will be a long time before general population of Great Britain (those who know anything about it, that is, our current education system seems appallingly bad at education youngsters about their recent history) think anything other than 'Well, they started it, they got their just reward...' And that includes me. I'll just mention Guernica, Coventry, and Bath (my birth town).

War is hell. If its moral challanges trouble you, I would question your 'playing' at it with a computer game such as Combat Mission.

wunwinglow

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wunwinglow,

As repeatedly noted, I have exactly the same kind of "heartburn" over what we did with the low altitude massed B-29 incendiary strikes against Japan, have had in fact since junior high, when I was first exposed to the information and very nearly lost my lunch in consequence.

I'm well aware of what was done to Guernica, Coventry, Rotterdam and many other places, though am not directly knowledgeable regarding Bath's particular attacks, just as I'm aware a Luftwaffe pilot inadvertently bombed London? early in the Blitz, leading Churchill to order a deliberate strike against Wilhelmshaven that very night. After that, the gloves were off for both sides.

I have a complex relationship with war and its associated technology. Both of my parents were Korean War veterans, my paternal uncle was in WW 2

in Boat Two with Patton, I have a brother days away from retiring from the Army (survived his Iraq tour intact--barely, but many of his friends didn't), and at one time had both a brother and brother in law in the Air Force and a family friend flying F-16s.

Dad spent 40 years as an electronics and electro-optical engineer (for many of my high school years I was surrounded by the top Air Force Phantom II crews assigned to a special program Dad ran), and I grew up in a house full of military history and military fiction. It wasn't at all uncommon to have dinner accompanied by a discussion of jamming tactics.

I got my first wargame at twelve, becoming an avid wargamer, and built models from roughly the same time period on. By college, my team was kicking the daylights out of the opposition as Japan in a rethought War in the Pacific, and I parlayed my wargaming background, deep reading in the Soviets and Warsaw Pact, plus experience gained in writing several white papers for my father into what came over eleven years in military aerospace as a highly respected Soviet Threat Analyst. Somewhere in the later stages, though, I had begun to realize that while I was about war prevention, there were others more interested in war creation, so had to get out. Very nearly destroyed me on several levels. Before that, though, I went through the prelims of becoming a CIA case officer, before deciding that the price would be way too high for my health (was already overstressed).

Should also add that I used to be a full blown hawk regarding Vietnam, a card carrying Republican, and even worked on Goldwater's election campaign. Reading THE PENTAGON PAPERS in my later college days, though, really shocked me, but it took a long time for certain ideas I'd been exposed to take root, but when they did, they grew like weeds and forced me to fundamentally reevaluate everything.

Since leaving military aerospace, I've worked on a stream of articles designed to educate and inform the public as to the true state of military, mind control, weather mod, and many other technologies; I've done some fifteen radio shows on a bunch of topics and have contributed to several documentaries, to include a Primary Research credit in the Oscar winning "The Panama Deception."

I hate war, consider it proof of societal and species insanity, let alone terminal expression of alienation, and we haven't discussed the metaphysical/spiritual/possible karmic aspects, but at the same time find it endlessly fascinating, from a host of perspectives. I love wargaming, love the complex analysis and problem solving it entails, love all the reading and research, and I love the wargaming community, through which I've met, personally and virtually, many wonderful people. I find it's one thing to read about handling troops and equipment in battle, but quite another to have to make it all work yourself, especially in our beloved E-crack, in which I can do tons of things which are terribly difficult when done with board wargames or miniatures.

Having died repeatedly on the startline while playing paintball, I'm well aware of my own mortality and agree with H.G. Wells that war is fine for playing but should be confined to the game room, rather than being conducted in real life.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 03, 2006, 06:20 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

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Mr. Jingles: You are in the process of concocting a fairy tale. War is Hell said Gen. Sherman. If you lived in Germany/Britain/USSR/Japan during WWII you were "the enemy" and subject to being treated as such. I had some long discussions with my deptuty combat crew commander about the morality of Nuclear Missiles and whether they could ever be morally used. I was ready to go on a moments notice to destroy the enemies of my country, any of them, all of them until they surrendered.

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= = =I was ready to go on a moments notice to destroy the enemies of my country, any of them, all of them until they surrendered.= = =

And 60 years later someone would have the signature: I do not approve of lining up Tagwyns against wall. Shoot the SOBs before you get to the wall!! Gen. Ihate Alltagwyns, Neverneverland smile.gifsmile.gif

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Mr Jingles,

Here are some books I believe you'll find valuable. The three between the lines seem especially appropriate to your task.

JUST AND UNJUST WARS, Michael Walzer

_________________________________________________

ACTS OF WAR: The Behavior of Men in Battle, Richard Holmes

FIGHTING SPIRIT: Psychological Factors in War, F M

Richardson

NO MORE HEROES: Madness and Psychiatry in War, Richard A. Gabriel

__________________________________________________

WAR AND MORALITY, Richard Wasserstrom

WAR AND THE LIBERAL CONSCIENCE, Michael Howard

WAR, Gwynne Dyer

Also, the American Civil War has some stellar examples of chivalrous conduct, one of my favorite being the Yankee who crawled out of his cover in the middle of a furious fight to give water to a wounded Confederate who'd shortly before been attacking his position.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Thank you John Kettler for those books, I've looked into a few (Gwynne Dyer especially makes some good points), but there are some there I haven't heard of before. I really appreciate it.

Tagwyn,

I don't believe I am concocting a fairytale. I am not going into this with a biased opinion at all, and I am doing extensive research into this subject. By no means will I have a definitive thesis stating one way or the other, because it is obvious that this issue is not black and white. I don't believe that writing a paper on this 'fairy tale' would get academic approval from a well known professor with a PhD from Kings College, if there was not something legitimate to back it up.

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MrJingles,

You're welcome! Of the three I singled out, I'd recommend you start with ACTS OF WAR, since I recall it was rich in the kinds of anecdotes you're seeking. I believe Saburo Sakai's SAMURAI has an episode in which he did something chivalrous, too. This is doubly important, considering the ferocity with which the War in the Pacific was waged.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Originally posted by Vossiewulf:

On the other hand, the peoples of Eastern Europe and Russia are mostly Slavs...from a totally different family of tribes.

Put it this way: had the Americans and Russians turned the cold war hot at any point, do you think there would have been much quarter granted on either side? I think not.

The rate of atrocity in war is almost a direct function of how alien the enemy is to you, on a primal, tribal level. Compare the fighting in Western Europe vs. the fighting in the Pacific. I don't think you could argue much for the Americans having committed atrocities, but the grunts sure didn't go out of their way to give quarter.

I think that there are some gigantic holes in the tribalism theory. Poles and Czechs are also Slavs, yet the russians were neither particularly kind to the poles, nor were the Germans particularly harsh to the Czechs.

On the other end of the globe, you get the Japanese vs. the Chinese - both related, but no shortage of cruelty in, say, Nanking. And of course the "relatedness" of Allies and the Germans didn't stop tens of thousands of Germans from being bombed by their fellow tribes in Hamburg or Dresden.

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Originally posted by John Kettler:

You may also wish to look at a famous case in which a U-boat, burdened with merchie survivors and towing more in lifeboats, was attacked by aircraft and submerged, leaving its former charges

to die in mid ocean. Skipper was charged with war crimes at Nuremberg, but was found innocent when American sub skippers described that and worse that they did in the Pacific. At least one U.S. skipper ordered survivors machine gunned! Believe that last was not entered into the testimony.

If all your other unsourced examples are of the same quality as this one in terms of correctness, I can only recommend to Mr. Jingles to immediately forget all about them.

http://www.uboat.net/articles/index.html?article=33

Neither KK Hartenstein nor Schacht were charged at Nuremberg. It would have been difficult to do so since they both fell in 1943.

Stop spreading nonsense.

All the best

Andreas

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Andreas,

There's a big difference between working from an admittedly porous memory in the wee hours (had been up all night) while trying to help a fellow Forum member and deliberately "spreading nonsense" as you have charged. Apparently, I managed to conflate two or more memories. Having read Doenitz's Nuremberg testimony on the matter here

http://wernerhartenstein.tripod.com/U156DoenitzNuremberg.htm

it is clear that I made precisely that kind of mistake. The excerpt does not show, though, testimony made by U.S. Pacific sub skippers at/offered in evidence (not sure which; memory's fuzzy) at Nuremberg in defense of Doenitz's instructions regarding rescue by submarine crews of crews from torpedoed enemy vessels.

What I do recall, though, is that they were on par with our own. What is clear, from the Nuremberg testimony cited, though, is that quite a few U-boats did in fact rescue survivors, that Doenitz viewed with utmost dismay an episode in which such survivors were directly attacked, and that it took strong, direct orders to stop the crews from "doing what came naturally" (saving their fellow mariners) in the face of rapidly increasing fast, deadly Allied long range maritime aircraft.

Further, such memory as I have tells me that Doenitz was convicted of war crimes on matters other than submarine warfare policy, being exonerated on those counts on the basis of statements/testimony from various Allied sub commanders. The correctness of my memory on this point is attested here

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/juddoeni.htm

in which we see that the Nuremberg Tribunal concluded that it could not charge Doenitz with a war crime for doing what both the British and Americans had been doing with regard to waging unrestricted submarine warfare from 1940 for the British and the beginning of the war for the Americans. I quote the Finding directly:

"In view of all the facts proved and in particular of an order of the British Admiralty announced on the 8th May, 1940, according to which all vessels should be sunk at sight in the Skagerrak, and the answers to interrogatories by Admiral Nimitz stating that unrestricted submarine warfare was carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war, the sentence of Doenitz is not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare."

The Admiralty and CINPACFLT--pretty authoritative sources, those!

Wikipedia has this to say on the matter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconia_incident

and bear in mind how incredibly crowded a U-boat at war is to begin with (for a refresher course, watch "Das Boot"), then revisit how many survivors some of them were carrying. One had 200!

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 07, 2006, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

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Here's a kind look at Mush Morton's attack from the Wahoo on survivors of a Japanese convoy he engaged.

Note particularly the duration of the engagement and the fact that the only thing shielding Mush Morton from war crime charges was that he was on the winning side in a situation where the other side started the war.

http://www.warfish.com/patrol3con.html

Regards,

John Kettler

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The statements of Charles Lindbergh and others below his on this site powerfully reinforce what I said earlier regarding U.S. and Allied war crimes with regard to the treatment of POWs. Actually, the problem was that those Japanese surrendering weren't allowed to become POWs!

http://www.vho.org/tr/2003/3/Bartling301-308.html

Per the same sources, the situation in Europe was

not only pretty much as I described it, but I was nauseated to learn that direct torture was used to extract confessions from those tried by the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 07, 2006, 12:38 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

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Originally posted by John Kettler:

The statements of Charles Lindbergh and others below his on this site powerfully reinforce what I said earlier regarding U.S. and Allied war crimes with regard to the treatment of POWs. Actually, the problem was that those Japanese surrendering weren't allowed to become POWs!

http://www.vho.org/tr/2003/3/Bartling301-308.html

Per the same sources, the situation in Europe was

not only pretty much as I described it, but I was nauseated to learn that direct torture was used to extract confessions from those tried by the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Regards,

John Kettler

John

You are walking some very dangerous ground here. VHO is a to the best of my knowledge a holocaust denial site. If you bring this up here you are putting yourself in very nice company. Do you really want to go down that road?

I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt regarding your memory, but with every post you make you are digging yourself deeper into the hole of being a Nazi apologist who uses websites promoting holocaust denial to excuse the wartime crimes of the Nazis. What's next, David Irving to tell us that Adolf did not know about the Holocaust? Ernst Zuendel to tell us that there was no Holocaust? If I were you I would seriously consider where you are going with this.

The Belgium-based European Foundation for Free Historical Research (Vrij Historisch Onderzoek -- VHO), headed by Siegfried Verbeke, is one of the main distributors of Holocaust denial maerial in the world today (see previous reports). This is in spite of the fact that Belgium passed a law in 1995 making Holocaust denial illegal. VHO maintains strong links with individuals and organizations in several countries, such as Radio Islam in Sweden, the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) in California, and the Australian Adelaide Institute. VHO publishes, translates and disseminates Holocaust denial publications from all over the world, mainly through its widely-linked website on the Internet. Recently, Verbeke began propagating on his website the quarterly Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung (Quarterly for Free Historical Research), a forum for Holocaust denial in German. He distributes books and pamphlets that are banned in Germany (see Germany). German Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf, who fled to Spain to avoid serving a prison sentence, is one of Verbeke's favorite authors. His publications, translated into several languages can be downloaded from the VHO-website.
Linky

If VHO told me the time I would get a second opinion. And if you or anyone believes at face value what VHO writes on anything there are only two possibilities: either you are extremely gullible and have taken (temporary) leave of your facility for critical thinking, or you are a believer in Holocaust denial. Which is it?

Regards

Andreas

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Andreas,

I had just about finished a detailed response, only to lose it when I bumped the power cord, causing the computer to crash before I could post. Shall therefore summarize.

1. I have repeatedly and emphatically attacked any and all forms of genocide, ethnic cleansing, terminal eugenics and any other such multiply abhorrent actions, regardless of politics, nation, ethnic or religious group doing it, to include my own country and government. Therefore, walk lightly indeed before attempting to portray me as anything but a seeker after Truth.

2. Whether you like or dislike the politics of the

parent VHO group, the validity of my argument lies not in that organization's evidently controversial and in some places illegal views, but in whether a) the quotes are accurately given and B) the books and others sources cited exist. If so, then, what's said deserves serious and sober consideration, not a kneeejerk rejection merely because the source is unpalatable to you. The site itself happened to be highly ranked by Google based on my search phrase. I was looking for documented core facts, not the packaging.

3. No one group, however PC, religiously, or socially acceptable, has a monopoly on the facts, let alone the Truth writ large. So many of my interlocutors here somehow can't comprehend that rather obvious notion, thus prefer to sweep aside my arguments simply because they don't approve of the sponsor, usually coupled with pressure tactics along the lines of "if you continue to cite from this source, then we'll think/know you're a..." Jimmy Carter's then SecNav W. Graham Claytor put the basic issue eloquently: "Everybody's entitled to his own opinion; everybody's not entitled to his own facts."

4. A fast read of the paragraphs in the article before the Lindbergh and following quotes indicated a well constructed and devastating argument that the U.S. has two systems of jurisprudence: one for itself and friends, the second for everyone else. The author rightly skewers U.S. hypocrisy in this matter and related ones.

5. Past atrocities against one group do NOT, in my view, allow those victimized to wrap themselves in the cloak of Righteousness while themselves being victimizers. Likewise, I deem it both wrong and ultra hypocritical that my own country is force feeding a particularly self-serving form of "democracy" (officially defined in an old Army manual as "a form of mob rule"), preaching freedom, plurality of views and tolerance--while systematically stifling and intimidating domestic discussion, operating/using secret prisons here and abroad, exporting torture trainers and torture devices, and torturing individuals held without charge or legal representation--all while proclaiming itself Good Guy and Font of Liberty.

6. Instead of resorting to thinly veiled ad hominem attacks or threats thereof, Andreas, please address the evidences presented. I've put forward what, unless somehow refuted as outlined above, would seem to be strong and multiple firsthand and secondary sources attesting to a catalogue of almost routine Allied war crimes ranging from theft, to mutilating the dead, to rape, to outright murder of POWs and those attempting to surrender.

Disgusting? Yes! Upsetting to long held preconceptions about the goodness and virtue of the Allied troops? Absolutely! In need of being addressed head on, rather than being dismissed out of hand based on non PC sites or swept under the rug? You bet!

Regards,

John Kettler

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Thanks John, but I have to decline. I find arguing with people who take their arguments from websites denying the holocaust leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. You go on believing what you want. There is nothing thinly veiled or ad hominem about it. You are either gullible, or a holocaust denier, if you think that VHO can help you on your search for the truth.

Regards

Andreas

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More to the point, Lindbergh himself was something of a Nazi sympathizer. Yet his observations have been confirmed and are a matter of record. Everyone knows about the Japanese skulls and ears and shinbones, and the execution of prisoners and survivors. What Lindbergh does not comment on, because he couldn't know and didn't care, was who started it. I think the Japanese did, because by 1942 all their officers were peasants who knew nothing of "honor." The Pacific theater was a nasty place, and the GIs adapted to it quickly.

In Europe, it's known that SS camp guards were shot upon liberation. I don't know about other times.

Everything falls apart in a total war. Some atrocities result from chaos and desperation and the disregard for life that you learn when you repeatedly kill to save your own. Some are accepted or ignored. Some are planned at the highest levels. These are the crucial differences.

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Originally posted by Dave Stockhoff:

In Europe, it's known that SS camp guards were shot upon liberation. I don't know about other times.

Not many though. There is one well-documented incident at Dachau that I know of. This has become a cause célebrée amongst those whose intent is to whitewash the Nazis. Wild numbers of casualties are bandied about how many were killed. Quite often the number 560, while the relevant US report documents around 30 Linky - scroll down to post by Rob - WSSOB. This is actually discussed in the division's history 'The Rock of Anzio', written by a former member of the 45th Division, and a book on the matter can be bought through the website of the 42nd Division Association, IIUC. Try looking for mention of warcrimes committed in a German divisional history written by a former member. Let me know when you find one.

Originally posted by Dave Stockhoff:

Everything falls apart in a total war. Some atrocities result from chaos and desperation and the disregard for life that you learn when you repeatedly kill to save your own. Some are accepted or ignored. Some are planned at the highest levels. These are the crucial differences.

I agree about the crucial differences, but weshould not forget that POWs were taken on all sides during the war, throughout the war, regardless of the nature of the fighting. Even German Stalingrad survivors tell of how they were treated medically soon after capture by Red Army physicians.

All the best

Andreas

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Andreas,

Once again you've missed the point! You've confused the core data, which from what I can tell so far seems solid, with the wrapper, in your view, apparently weeks old smelly fish wrappings. I tried to get you to look beyond the packaging, but you not only clung to that view tenaciously, you stuck a label on me in the process--a label I absolutely reject.

The fact that I can quote Mao on guerilla warfare or Stalin on the purges makes me neither a Maoist nor a Stalinist, yet by your, to me at least, skewed "logic" I'm both. Should I turn around, then, and a brand you a Red or a Commie because your interests happen to lie in the of the Krasnaya (sp?) Armiya? After all, you have the VIZh there, and it's demonstrably full of Soviet propaganda, and when it was written, the military archives were pretty much closed to researchers, so could not easily be checked. Should I brand you as somehow being responsible for all the peoples enslaved and killed by the Red Army since its inception? Nyet!

Instead, I draw a clear distinction between who you are personally and your research interests, between the packaging and the info itself. This is a process requiring experience, maturity, discernment and even a certain amount of intuitive feel for the matter. In short, like the coffee importer with rats in the packing house, you need to learn to sort the coffee from the rat manure. And when it comes to information about charged subjects, there's rat manure everywhere. It's even worse with intelligence matters, where according to one West German intelligence official, spending on disinformation can be 90% of the budget. As noted earlier, no one organization has a monopoly on the facts.

The real issue at trial here, Andreas, is whether or not VHO (however disgusting an organization) got its facts right in the Lindbergh and related materials quoted in the article. If you won't address that, then it seems to me that you are dodging the real issue by flinging personal attack and condemnation neither deserved nor appropriate.

I'll see what I can turn up from Lindbergh on sites which won't yank your chain to the point you abreact. Properly, though, it's your job to counter my evidence.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 08, 2006, 07:10 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

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Andreas,

Here's one from a site you should find acceptable.

Please see the last five short paragraphs or so here:

http://www.charleslindbergh.com/ny/106.asp

Once you have done so, please compare it with the citations here for 21 July, 1944 et seq.

http://www.ety.com/berlin/lindberg.htm

Seems to me that they're remarkably congruent and in accord, yet one's a quote from the NEW YORK TIMES and the other from another one of "those" sites, as it turns out. My Google search under "Lindbergh, wartime journals" has kicked up a number of such entries within the first ten, but here's what Wikipedia has to say (toward the bottom of the page), and it confirms the quotes from "those" sites as being accurate.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh

See also the first quote here from the Lehigh University official web site.

http://www.lehigh.edu/~ineng/ews2/ews2-soundbites.html

Surely they aren't ALL Revisionists?

Regards,

John Kettler

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JasonC,

True, but it started with CM related material and even CMAK Companion derived information and expanded from there. Fundamentally, there seems to be a great aversion among some here to grokking that the Germans and Japanese had no monopoly on the commission of warcrimes, and that the Allies, generally presented as almost lily pure, committed plenty of their own. Seems to me that such information is historically valuable, of considerable moral and ethical significance, and is very much pertinent to the work of the thread initiator.

Regards,

John Kettler

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