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Views on the war

Discussion in 'WWII General' started by GunSlinger86, Sep 8, 2019.

  1. GunSlinger86

    GunSlinger86 Well-Known Member

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    I recently watched a documentary by an American film maker with WWII being a major part of it, and it was a bit skewed, and I disagree with his premise. Basically the premise was that the Soviet Union won the war and the West took credit for it and waited until Germany was too weak to invade France and then take credit. Secondly, the documentary only talked about the Pacific with regards to the Bomb, that it was unnecessarily dropped to scare the Soviets, that The Japanese were ready to surrender well before the bomb.

    Firstly, From 1933 on Hitler massively built his military, and before Hitler German shell companies in other countries were already working on new technologies in the 20s and early 30s. His regime was a military dictatorship based on the premise of war. Stalin's Russia was also a totalitarian state with a massive military. Each county had millions of men and Materiel in 1940 ready to go. Secondly, Hitler chose to fight in the East because his ideology was that Slavs/Communism/Judaism had to be destroyed and the Germans needed living space and resources, and that Russia was in his sights since Men Kampf. Thirdly, The Germans couldn't beat the RAF into submission and didn't have the Naval Power to take on the Royal Navy besides U-boats, so the only way Britain could fight was on the peripherals because they had to build their forces and Materiel up as they were not a military-based government set on war from the early 1930s on. Fourthly, When the US was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, we had just begun the process of arming and conscription/training. We didn't have the forces or the weapons, not to mention we had to get everything across the Atlantic and organize and make a strategy. Fifthly, The majority of manpower/land forces and sea power in the Pacific was America, and they certainly took the battle to Japan. The Mediterranean was an important theater with regards to shipping and supplies that Germany had to subvert from the Eastern theater, and the person got it wrong in the documentary when he stated the Allies faced no more than 10 German divisions in Italy. I have a WWII fact book that states Germany had 20-25 crack divisions that were also very well-equipped in Italy. The British weren't prepared when Germany attacked and weren't fully armed and manned, and they didn't fight up to their capabilities until after the war had advanced, as with America. In 1942 the number of men and quality equipment/air power just wasn't in Britain ready to go.

    Thoughts?
     
  2. RichTO90

    RichTO90 Well-Known Member

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    Quit watching stupid documentaries and start reading well-researched histories.
     
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  3. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    Very. Video documentarians have no requirement to be honest or accurate.
     
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  4. belasar

    belasar Court Jester

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    Doc's should be view only as a introduction to the subject, even the best of them have less than a hour to explain a very complex situation. Despite it's age there is still none better than BBC's World at War series from the 1960's. Even so each program has about 45 minutes to cover one aspect of the war and that is only enough time to cover one part of the war.

    One must read more than one book on any subject to get a balanced account. Book writers also have agendas, as well as documentarian's
     
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  5. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    As with so many things today, the maker seems to be trying to provide simple answers to extremely complex questions - the result sounds impossibly muddled.
     
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  6. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    All the cons aside, reading about the destruction of the USS Arizona never comes close to watching the film of it's destruction. Further, there are several little details that can be noticed that were not mentioned or were unreported.
     
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  7. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    It drives me sane when they reverse the footage. I suspect they assume it was taken from the Supply Base and got screwed up. So they correct a mistake that wasn't made.

    The person who shot the film was a doctor on USS Solace, who was anchored northeast of Ford Island.
     
  8. GunSlinger86

    GunSlinger86 Well-Known Member

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    I do read books, I happened to watch that documentary because nothing else was on and it was on Netflix on a day off.
     
  9. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    It should drive you sane when it is reversed...because it was flipped when developed.

    From the position of the Solace,as shown on the maps,
    Pearl Harbor Map on 7 December 1941 | Pearl Harbor Warbirds

    Battleship Row should branch off to the right.


    But, in the original footage in the National Archives, Battleship Row goes off to the left.


    So, either the footage was reversed, or the Solace was somewhere other than has been accepted.
     
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  10. RichTO90

    RichTO90 Well-Known Member

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    Solace's position is well documented from its AAR. It was a Berth X4 near Dobbin, but later moved to X13. That is a series of clips from at least four different rolls of film (and possibly five?) and at least three cameras. There were two movie cameras on Solace. Army (or sometimes Navy) Doctor Eric Haakenson (or Haakensen...I have yet to find a definitive record of his name and the Solace AAR only mentions a civilian USPHS doctor and six medical officers from other ships aboard during the attack) shot the 8mm color film. An unknown Movietone newsreel cameraman and his assistant shot 16mm B&W from the Solace. That B&W film was flipped and the original color film has been lost (it was possibly stolen from NARA in 1966), there are only a few copies of color stills and a B&W version that still exist from it. It has been shown in both flipped and unflipped versions, but the stills are usually correctly oriented. There were also two rolls of 16mm color shot by a Navy Photographers Mate that does not show Arizona, but bits of his work seem to be in that clip?
     
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  11. R Leonard

    R Leonard Member

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    I think the F4F-3's one sees flying about in the above sequence, e.g. 1:17 to 1:23, would indicate that some of the splices are pre-7 December. I don't believe any of the F4Fs at Ewa got off the ground during the attack and the couple at Ford Island were hangar queens. The F4Fs arriving from CV-6 came in the dark, so these can't be from VF-6 after the attack.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2019
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  12. RichTO90

    RichTO90 Well-Known Member

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    "Eric Haakenson" has always mystified me. The story seems plausible, but the details never seem to come together. For example, the variations in name spelling. Was he an Army or a Navy "doctor"? Why is his rank never mentioned if he was Army or Navy? I suspect he may have been the US Public Health Service officer mentioned in the Solace AAR, but can find no conformation of that. Part of the problem is the poor record keeping by the Navy and NARA of the original film and stills. For example, there are any number of stills at the USN History and Heritage Command website such as:

    80-G-K-13513 Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941

    80-G-6683 Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941

    80-G-32920 Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941

    80-G-K-13512 Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941

    All of which appear to be color and B&W stills from the Haakenson roll (and all are in the correct orientation as filmed), but none of which are identified as such.

    I would be very curious if anyone has any additional information on the mysterious Haakenson and the films. Most of what I have been able to discover is from the research of the late David Aikens, but as far as I know he never published a definitive work on the subject.
     

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