Bombing on Tokyo

I was reading online and it seems that what the Allies did to the city of Tokyo was much worse with all the incideary bombs that were dropp. In two raids alone 56 square miles of the city was burned to the ground with millions more left homeless. Imagine what the Germans did fire bombing London times like ten. The 500 or so B-29s on two separate nights did just as much damage to japans CAPITAL if not more than what the atomic bomb did. Plus it sounds bad to say but dying in a firestorm and watching thousands suffocate to death is a lot worse than being instantly vaporized in a an atomic bomb it seems. The fire bombings of Tokyo and other Japanese cities is a lot worse in my opinion

Invasion of pelelu

After watching and learning about the invasion of Pelelu, I strongly dissagree with the fact that it was not used for anything after all of the men who were killed taking the island. What a waste of American lives in my opinion. The allied commanders should have thought through the aftermath of the invasion more than they did. Seeing a loved one die for nothing would rea
Ly make me angry at the US military.

The atomic bomb

I did not ever realize that the two atomic bombs were that different from each other. I thought they were basically the same thing. Also I believe that it could have been avoided. Putting the Japanese in. A naval Blockade would have accomplished the same thing without the use of a horrible bomb. Sure many would have died. But the blame would be put on the Japanese government for not surrendering, not the US. Although the Japanese would have killed some US ships, in the big picture they wouldn't have had the resources to put a dent in the US navy.

Part three of the reading HW

Ok so a couple of things that came to mind while I was reading the last third of the reading. When the author mentioned that the soldiers were as young as 18 year old that really hit me. I knew they were young but i cant even imagine if I had had to go to fight only a year from now. They had thier whole lives ahead of them, they hadnt even been to college yet. Also, going from the movies we have seen lately from BOB and Saving Private Ryan i really see how brutal the wars can be. No matter how many times I see it, the amount of suffering gets to me every time.

Uncle Chuck and the Holocaust

Here are a couple pages about my great Uncle Chuck liberating the concentration camp of Buchenwald. I found these couple pages from his memoir  that i blogged about earlier.  I also found someone at the Holocaust museum who was liberated from Buchenwald and I thought it was pretty cool that i had a family member there. Here is his account (click on the picture for a bigger view)!!!!

My family in WWII

When I was younger, Im not sure exactly when, my grandpa gave me a memoir of his uncle in world war two. It is a full story with his accounts of the war. He talks about seeing death camps and having a grenade land a few feet from him, but never exploded. I have read it twice in my life but its been a while. I believe it is one of the original copies typed on a typewriter, check it out!

(the top right conner says "to Mike Rench [my grandpa] from, your uncle chuck")

The eastern front.

I feel like hitler underestimated the Russians because of the fact that he though he could march right into Moscow. I think that he forgot how many people they have and as we talked about Russia can afford to having millions killed. I don't think any country of that time could defeat Russia with now allies simply because of numbers. If hitler had stayed away fro mattacking Russia head on we could be looking at a very different Europe because it would be extremely hard to defeat a Germany that was only fighting on one front.

The pacific

I dont believe that either side can gain moral superiority in a battle like Guadalcanal. there is just too much loss of life to. Although in the end the men felt good about holding the island, there wasnt much in it for them. to the soldiers it was just a jungle where they lost a bunch of their friends. The battle especially wasnt a moral victory for the Japanese because they were slaughtered by the thousands by American machine gunners, and they couldnt hold the island. All in all the island was nothing but a strategical victory for the military.

What's up with the Facial hair

Ok so here is my question to all of you. Throughout history this is not the most common type of beard, and I think that you would agree. But why would two of the most creepy killers of all time have the same style beard. It is probably coincidence, but I just found it kind of funny. 

Big Military Experience

As we have been discussing the last couple weeks about how the Axis powers came to be, I noticed that each one has gained major battlefield experience that the Allies don't have in their time of peace. Germany fought in Germany testing out new tactics giving them the edge at the beginning of WWII with their Blitzkrieg attacks. Mussolini and Italy gained experience in North Africa, and finally the Japanese. They fought multiple wars in China and gained naval experience in the Pacific. All of these things put the Allies at a major disadvantage to start the war and it showed as the Allies were beaten early in the war.