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D-Day, as told by paratroopers

politico.com

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Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#31

Post by lukan »

racional wrote: post #20
lukan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Bandera Ooh, scary. Here's the deal, though -- the guy is glorified by some people in Ukraine, but not in any official capacity at the national level. When an attempt was made to grant him official "Hero" status at the national level, it was rejected. The monument in particular is a local endeavor. Doesn't make Putin's war anymore justified Right, but the idea here seems to be to throw cold water on idea that Ukraine…

"Right, but the idea here seems to be to throw cold water on idea that Ukraine is unambiguously the victim of aggression here"

Yes, that is Putins plan. That doesn't mean there isn't any truth in its propaganda.

The point we are discussing is, if the war Ukraine vs Russia is "as black and white as it gets". To which I disagree, you can find quite some black elements in Ukraine, too. Not at all on the same level and I support weapon delivery etc. But I do not support closing my eyes to only see everything in simple shapes and colors.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#32

Post by lukan »

armada651 wrote: post #29
lukan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Also the russian language get supressed and in general russians are seen as enemies. Not just russian soldiers, but people with a russian cultural background. Nationalism in all its glory. That's not anywhere near as bad as the U.S. during WWII when Japanese Americans were sent to actual internment camps.

Sure. Or german jews fleeing from Hitler also being put in such camps. Or the use of weapons of mass distruction. WW2 was not a clean war by our standards.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#33

Post by rightbyte »

punk-coder wrote: post #28

My grandfather was a medic and was part of the storm of Normandy beach on D-Day. He never really spoke of it and had a stroke and passed away before Saving Private Ryan came out. We wondered what he would have thought of the beginning of that movie, as someone who was there and was running around helping people the whole time.

My take is that Saving Private Ryan is "pro-war" movie like most Hollywood productions on the topic and not about 2WW really.

The give away is how the save Ryan squad seem to have agency and do like cool self-govern manouvers, like the storming of the 80mm AA gun hill, etc. More like a teenage boy fantasy. Band of Brothers is another good example of cool agency.

The opening assualt on the beach is some sort of low point for things to get better and under the protagonists' control.

A true to history version would be soldiers getting shrapnel wounds from indirect fire and being shot at by soldiers they can't see. Then they redo it somewhere else becouse someone said so.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#34

Post by lukan »

montagg wrote: post #22
llamaimperative wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read up a bit more on how people perceived it contemporaneously. It’s too easy to absolve oneself of having to think hard about the current goings on when we can look at WWII and act like the right answer was obvious to everyone.

This is an important point. There was a US isolationist strain as strong as it is today. The Man in the High Castle alt history, or The Plot Against America, both involve FDR not being involved for WW2, and that's where the US stands today: at a similar decision point about how it decides to act. The right path is never clear when you're in the valley of the moment.

"The right path is never clear when you're in the valley of the moment."

Also in hindsight it is not always clear, if the choosen path was really the best.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#36

Post by jhallenworld »

booleandilemma wrote: post #24
jhallenworld wrote: post #16

What a shit job, I'm amazed we (well they) were unified enough to do it, even with Pearl Harbor. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-nazi... https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/great-debate

Pearl Harbor. Larry Wall wasn't involved.

Hah yes, fixed.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#38

Post by _DeadFred_ »

lukan wrote: post #19
multjoy wrote: post #11

Ukraine is about as black and white as it gets.

[flagged]

Funny every Ukrainian I know can speak russian, but not all of them can speak ukrainian.

A large portion went to university at least in part in Russia.

A large portion are intermarried with Russians or have intermarried Russian/Ukrainian parents.

Prior to the war Ukrainians' views on russians seemed way more friendly than the 'mainstream' american's views on mexicans.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#39

Post by hermitcrab »

willyt wrote: post #18

The tank commander, (edit2) David Render, in this podcast has a pretty amazing description of joining at age 18, landing on the beaches and not long afterwards finding himself commanding a squadron of tanks in Normandy. Absolute humility and incredibly sanguine about what happened to him. No bullshit about glory and bravery. Just a straightforward but very engaging description. https://www.historyhit.com/what-it-was-…

If you found that interesting I recommend the book 'Brothers in Arms' by James Holland, about the Sherwood Rangers tank regiment.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#40

Post by thombat »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #26
SkipperCat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people, including myself, feel similar when looking back at WWII. The roles of good and evil were very clearly defined and that has forged the US foreign policy up to today. Of course, there's a lot of things we know now which show the conflict was a lot more complex, but at its core, the Axis needed to be defeated for our western style of freedom to exist. I don't think we'll ever have something as clear cu…

That's true towards the end of the war, but in the beginning ? The US didn't join the war until they were attacked. Same goes for UK and France - they technically did declare the war when Poland was invaded - as there was a defensive agreement between the 3 countries - but in reality they didn't send any help.

What help could they realistically send? Poland was between the two nations that were invading it and the UK was only just introducing a bomber (Wellington) with the range for a direct return flight to Warsaw (and such a flight was impossible since it passes over Germany). Marine access means a long Baltic voyage past the main German navy bases. An assault on Germany would have been via the neighbouring countries and so needed their cooperation, and would still have come too late to save Poland.
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