Wow, never thought I'd find this

Hi all,

I'm really glad I found this place because for several years (decades?) I've pretty much been floundering in the dark.

I had a blog in which I would occasionally address WWII issues, but it became really apparent to me that no one really gave a damn what I had to say about the Germans or the Japanese -- it was mostly a monologue that no one -- at least, the people who came to the blog -- was interested in.

So I just gave it up. But through the years, my interest in the period has waxed -- not waned. Maybe because it's that I'm now 57 and I love history, but also because my own father was part of WWII in a big way, and I feel I owe it to him (RIP) to try to find out why humanity went mad for five or so years.

I still wrestle with this notion myself -- I look around and say "Could this ever happen again?" and when stuff like Iraq and Afghanistan come down the pipe I ask again, why? Why are people still dying?

Anyway, I'm not here to proselytize or judge -- I just want to know more about that war that my father fought in and I'm always fascinated by the history of it all.

WWI is just too far away for me to imagine, though of course it figures majorly in my understanding of the Second World War; but I think my main question, one I ask myself often, is why did humanity go down that road? What happened in the minds of men (don't worry, I'm not sexist -- I just adopt the general thought that it was men who were responsible, but I certainly know that women were a huge factor in all fronts)?

Ever since I was small, I was aware that my dad had fought in WWII, and as you can imagine, a little boy's imagination ran wild and I just became absorbed in just what my father had done.

I kind of lost interest in my adolescence -- as can be expected -- but now that he's gone, I find lots of time to ask myself -- what did he do, exactly -- how could so many human beings have perpetrated possibly the most insane crime against humanity as WWII? Who truly was responsible, and why?

Well, as you can tell, I'm thrilled to be here and able to discuss stuff that pretty much lives on only in me -- my wife is not too interested and nor is my remaining family. It seems monumentally unfair to my father's memory that what he went through is now just a cipher to most people alive today.

I don't ever want what my father went through to be a cipher -- he deserves more than that.

I guess you could call me now an amateur historian -- I don't pretend to be academically informed about precise details of this battle or that battle, but just the fact that my own blood was part of it is enough to make me care -- for example, how dare Hitler have put my father's life in jeopardy? So in many ways it's very personal.

Yes, there was Korea and Vietnam. The latter I experienced firsthand as a young teenager, meeting older teenagers who had actually been there -- and one of them who put the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I always asked myself, why did he do that? But remembering him, and the person he was, just blows me away; until you have seen an adult human being who is seemingly of sound mind jumping under a table in a public place upon hearing a car backfire, you have not seen the effects of war.

So, I am very glad to be here. I feel that I have feet in both sides of the war -- my father fought in Europe but I myself moved to Japan in 1988-93 and thus became fascinated in the Pacific war by direct experience; some of my students (I was an English teacher) had been part of Japan's Imperial forces -- two examples are a then-prosperous businessman with silver hair who had been slated to be a kamikaze -- but had been denied because he was too good a pilot And without a single visible flicker of emotion, he said he wished he'd been able to go through with it. And another who had been part of a suicide boat mission -- but the war ended just before he could carry out his orders.

What struck me about these men, and I'm sure it's a story that is repeated ad nauseam -- is how normal they were -- indeed, in these mens' cases, how humble and self-deprecating they were -- also full of humor.

I ask myself still today, how did my father do what he did and remain sane? How did any of these people do what they did and still maintain enough humanity to go on to productive lives, having children, like me, and never ever mentioning the obvious horrors that they must have faced?

I'm American and now also a Canadian, but I have a half-Japanese son. One day I will have to sit him down and tell him about my mixed feelings about the Japanese, and what his own grandfather did in World War II.

Furthermore, my wife is Jewish -- an added brick on the wall of WWII -- how do I reconcile the Holocaust in my own mind, how do I even dare to admit that it's not just some huge story -- WWII -- invented by Hollywood producers -- that it really happened and I myself am a direct link to the very heart of it.

Not many people -- including my wife -- take too kindly to my preoccupation with that war. She especially tells me all the time that she does not want to be reminded about the Holocaust, tells me to "turn that down" when I'm watching some documentary in which bullets fly -- but like it or not, I feel bound to the memory of, at least, my father, in trying to understand what possibly could have gone so wrong with humanity that all those people had to die in so many horrible ways -- but most of all, my question: could it happen again?

So with that spirit I join you. I'm not an expert or an armchair general. I don't have a single clue about whether Patton was right to do this or not do this; whether Hitler was a genius or just an ordinary madman.

But an overriding need in me, which has just grown stronger over the years -- needs to get answers as to why this happened or that happened, and to analyse in depth what went through the minds of ever single person who was there.

I realize this is a tall order, but in joining this group, I hope to at least be able to unravel some of the mysteries about the time the whole world went completely mad -- and what we can do to prevent anything like it ever happening again.

I have no illusions that I will find any answers to my endless questions -- but at least I will be among people who still think about this horror that visited mankind all those years ago -- and the effects of which still make me shake my head every so often and prompt me to ask: Why?

I'm hoping that this place will be somewhere that can maybe make a stab at trying to answering that almost-unanswerable question.

Glad to be here . . . and glad to know each and every one of you.

Nick

 

I'm sorry, I failed to read the guidelines recommended for new members.

Well, of course I know who I am, so it never occurred to me to tell YOU who I am ^=^

So I shall do so.

Please excuse the verbal diarrhea, but I really have had an interesting life. To me, it's all "Yeah, yeah, yeah, so whaddya say, lets go for a drink" but I realize that in some ways, my life story is one for the books -- one which I've made several attempts at writing, but unfortunately don't have the infinite patience for. But you asked for it, so here it is! ^=+O (don't ask what that means -- I just made it up).

I was born in Calcutta, India, in November, 1957, the third of four children. My father was working as the District Traffic Sales Manager for Pan American. My mom was a housewife, as befitted any normal American woman of the time.

I don't believe I actually saw the country of my nationality until I was quite old -- three or four. So basically, I thought I was Indian.

But since my father worked for Pan Am, flying places was just a matter of him picking up the phone and booking the tickets. We flew free everywhere and anywhere, with the only caveat that we would get bumped off the plane if real paying passengers needed our seats. Hence, we got "Off-loaded," which was the term used then, in very bizarre places, often at odd hours of the morning -- at the time, there were few restrictions as to when planes could fly, so we often went to the airport at 1 a.m. to catch Flight One, which went one way around the world, or Flight Two, which went the other way. It was either a 707 or a DC-8. Thus, I saw Baghdad, Rangoon, Teheran and Tokyo quite often.

When I turned nine or so, my parents saw fit to send me -- and both older brothers -- to boarding school in England. I despised every minute of it, but ended up at Charterhouse, about five years after the group Genesis had formed there. One of my best friends was the brother of one of the founding members.

When I was ten, we moved to New York -- my father then worked in the famous Pan Am building (now Met Life?). we lived there for three years while I and my brothers shuttled back and forth to England.

In 1970 or so my father was transferred to Zaïre, Africa -- his job was to run the national airline, Air Zaïre, as a "subsidiary" of Pan Am. His life in Kinshasa could not have been a good one, but it was the "golden age" of post-colonial Belgian Congo, and consequently everything was veddy correct in a colonial sort of way. This was to change, but we left just before everything went to Hell -- just before the famous Ali-Foreman fight, or "Rumble in the Jungle."

By that time I, at age 14 or so had rebelled and I refused to go back to boarding school. Thenceforth, I attended the American School of Kinshasa for a time, until we moved yet again. Temporarily we lived in Northern California, but were quickly whisked away in 1974 to Dakar, Senegal, where my dad had started working with ICAO, or the International Civil Aviation Organisation. His job was helping out fledgling airlines in places like Mauritania or Mali.

We stayed in Dakar for about two years and then moved back to California briefly, before my father was transferred to ICAO headquarters here in Montreal.

From then on until his retirement in 1989 or so, the family lived in the very apartment in which I now sit.

I stayed in Montreal for about a year, and at 19 moved to Northern California to attend art school in Oakland. I messed around for five years getting a degree in Fine Arts, but only a year or so after graduating I found myself at loose ends and by pure chance met someone who was living in Japan, teaching English.

I dropped everything and in 1988 moved to Osaka, japan. I taught English there for five years, married a Japanese woman but in about 1993 I was heartily sick of the country and we moved back to North America. I spent about three months there at my parents' house getting my bearings, and since my Japanese wife had no visa, we decided to move here to Montreal, where my parents had thoughtfully not sold their apartment (there was a big brouhaha going on about Quebec separating from Canada at the time, so real estate prices were at an all-time low-- so they kept this apartment vacant, only to visit here every autumn or so).

My wife and I settled down here, and I was out of work for about two years until I landed a job working as the exclusive freelance graphic designer for Air Canada Cargo -- a job anyone would have given their eyeteeth for. I basically worked from home doing all their publicity work -- calendars, brochures, newsletters etc, and was the person (just me) who designed their very first website, At the time I also designed the Symphony of Montreal's first website.

But 9/11 put a stop to all that -- they hunkered down and started doing everything in-house.

We had a son in 2001 but by 2004 my then-wife met some Japanese guy over the Internet and decided to leave me -- with my son along for the ride.

Basically, since 2004 I have been doing contract work and am now teaching Japanese. I married a nice Jewish girl and I live in downtown Montreal with her and our two cats.

I've been heavily interested in World War II all my life, since my father worked as a radioman on B-24s based in Yorkshire for the Mighty Eighth, and bombed our favorite midget corporal, Adolf Shicklegrüber, for the entire year of 1944 and on to the end of the war. Because he spoke German, he was slated to become a spy and was in training until the war abruptly ended. He went on to work for Pan American, I flew everywhere a plane can fly, and now I find myself here in Montreal in the year 2015 with a 13-year-old son who has basically been kidnapped by his mother and lives in Japan. I spend my time these days teaching Japanese and reading large numbers of books about the history of World War II and watching any and every documentary ever made on the subject.

My father passed away at age 86 in 2008, but not before I attended a convention of his old bomb group -- the 790/791st on his behalf in 2001, actually getting to meet some of his old crew members in the process. I also arranged a telephone call between my father and his former captain of his crew, which tickled him no end.

Now, I wish to research as much as possible about WWII and the people who were unfortunately caught up in it -- it is a lifelong quest which I will no doubt pursue to my own grave.

Anything and everything about the conflict is of immense interest to me, thus, I find myself here, hopefully among others of my kind.

See? I told you I had verbal diarrhea . . .

 

Welcome, Nick.

That is probably the best introduction I have ever seen here on the forums!

You have certainly come to the right place to learn more about WW2 as we have many knowledgeable members here who are experts in all aspects of the conflict.

 

Welcome aboard. I for one, do not feel that your intro was verbal diarrhea, very complete and well done.

 

Welcome to the forums!

 

Nice intro and welcome.

 

Thank you, my new friends! I just regret that I have probably come very late to the party -- probably a lot of the nitpicky kinds of questions that I might ask, spontaneously, while I try to absorb new information as it comes by, which is often, have been answered ad nauseam somewhere in these forums. So I hope you will forgive me when I ask something like, do you think the fact that the search plane from the Japanese ship Tone being half an hour late in taking off during the rollup to Midway truly inadvertently caused the defeat of the Combined Fleet? Or is that just a myth?

At any rate, what I'm happy about is that, as I said, I have my feet in both wars -- the Pacific one and the European one. So usually I troll back and forth between them. To me, they are equally as interesting!

And I must mention, that if we have German or Japanese participants, which is almost 100% certain, I don't want to step on any sensitive toes and generalize about "racial attitudes" of any of the countries involved.

In other words, I'd like if at all possible to stay completely neutral and view the war through the eyes of an historian, (which I am not) -- rather than the bitter son of a participant.

In fact, what I just said brings to mind something that happened a number of years ago. I had built a replica of one of my father's B-24s and had researched it right down to the plus sign on the tail -- and I was getting ready to build a BF-109. But in the spirit of getting things accurate, I wanted to build a BF-109 with the markings of those that may have been buzzing past my dad's turret from time to time.

And in my researches I actually ran across living Luftwaffe pilots (I forget the forum, but no doubt it has gone now) and I was struck by how kind they seemed to be and how interested they were in helping me find the correct type of Messerschmidt that my father may have encountered, and as he claimed, personally shot one down.

When one views documentaries on the History Channel or reads the voluminous books, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that a lot of the men who were fighting against us were just as kind, heroic and loving as our own father/grandfathers were. Because in a documentary, all you ever get to see is the same old stock footage of the same old POWS from Stalingrad, plus endless scenes of Stormtroopers marching in formation in this city or that city. In other words, it's easy to dehumanize them and view them as some kind of body lice infecting the Earth -- which is not true at all. But that's what each side wanted to believe about the other.

That's why I love movies like Stalingrad, which tries to humanize these people, rather than Saving Private Ryan, which bears many jingoistic hallmarks and stereotypes of "the vicious Nazi animal."

At any rate, I seem to have gone through phases; my bookshelf is jammed with books such as "With the Old Breed" by EB Sledge, or "Tennōzan," by George Feifer, or "Stalin," by Montefiore, or, possibly the most hostile book about the war ever written (and rightly so): "Prisoners of the Japanese," by Gavan Daws.

I moved from such generalized fare to more specific stuff such as the "aktionen" by the Police Battalions (Einsatzgruppe) as depicted in books like "Ordinary Men," by Christopher R. Browning, or "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" by Daniel Goldhagen, and then on the other side, the tragic book "Rape of Nanking," the writing of which so traumatized the young author, Iris Chang, that she blew her brains out in a car, or "The Good Nazi," the story of John Rabe, who rescued thousands of Chinese civilians in Nanjing and was upbraided by Hitler for his efforts.

At the same time, my video library doesn't quite groan, but I have The Battle of Britain, which, despite the extraordinary battle scenes, is just another star vehicle from Hollywood, and Tora Tora Tora, which at least had the cooperation of Japan during the making.

So as you can see, I have not restricted myself to any particular microcosm of WWII but have tried to get a huge, sweeping understanding of the forces at work in all quarters; I remember that I was reading Shirer's "The Nightmare Years" while my wife suddenly started going into labor with my only child! (I actually wrote down in pencil in the inside cover of the book the exact time that my wife announced she was going into labor, and tattered but still readable, that very book sits on the bookshelf in the next room, alongside other classics such as "Stalingrad," by Anthony Beevor, and "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," by that master of words, Richard Rhodes).

The thing is, that the span of WWII, which can truly be said to have started in 1933, encompassed so many compelling stories that any one book would have to be ten volumes of 2,000 pages each in very small type to even remotely cover.

And controversies, such as the veracity of Albert Speer's humble apology tactics during Nuremberg (question; was he as guilty as the other henchmen, or, as he maintained, just an ignorant servant of the Third Reich)?

So . . . for me, there is always some new story that has not been told, or is news to me, such as that of the Malmédy massacre and the subsequent assassination of legendary tank Commander Jochen Peiper (Joachim in some circles) by persons unknown.

But always there lingers that smell of death, that horror of knowing that men like Reinhold Heydrich could possibly have really existed, despite being the very epitome of Satan's right-hand man -- when you don't stop to consider that his BOSS was the embodiment of Satan, and HIS boss might as well have tucked his forked tail int his pants leg every morning and combed over the little horns that wanted to poke through his greasy, lank locks at any given moment -- that . . . person/thing being, of course that upstart midget Bavarian corporal that we all love to hate.

The kinds of questions I have are, frankly, quite mundane, but bear consideration: for example, did Hitler or Stalin speak any English? Why did Admiral Yamamoto of the Combined Fleet accede to the militarists despite his knowledge that any war longer than six months would bring Japan to ruin, he having gone to Harvard and served in a diplomatic capacity in the U.S., knowing full well the wrath that "The Sleeping Giant" would be able to bring to bear if sufficiently aroused.

So, probably more than a question such as "Why didn't Paulus just ignore Hitler and break out of the Stalingrad salient while he still had time?" which no doubt has been endlessly debated here and in many other places, I would want to know exactly what happened the night Korechika Anami tried to steal a copy of the Emperor's surrender tape but was unsuccessful and committed hara-kiri (and luckily, being able to speak Japanese, I know that "hara" means "belly" and "kiri" means cut! So please, no longer say "Harry Carey!")

I have, as usual overrun my limits in this post and should now shut up.

But there are so, so many stories to tell; 13 or so years of war or preparation for it, with the entire fate of Earth's human inhabitants hanging in the balance. Surely this is not one of, but THE single most important event that has steered humanity to the point that it now finds itself. From Alan Turing, master codebreaker, to Leslie Groves, the architect of the atomic bomb, there are quite possibly 20,000 1,000-page tomes that could be written and we still would probably find ourselves with only half the story told.

Of course, I wish I could read ALL the books ever written, from Trevor-Roper to the great drunken architect of the Battle of Britain, Winston C. -- whose memoirs, I must say, are exceedingly interesting -- and watch every documentary and film treatment ever made.

Instead, I come here! And I intend to plague you all with vexing questions about obscure details like, how difficult is it to get a permit to dive in Truk Lagoon, and what has become of the Berghof?

Better sharpen your swords and oil your weapons, because here I come, intending to leave no obscure mystery unsolved!

If someone would be so kind, please point me to the best place to start exploring this site, because I really should lurk for a substantial period instead of just barging in and disturbing everyone's "wa."

Cheers

Nick

Oh, PS, please go to a website I cowrote and produced . . . I apologize in advance for the small type, but at the time I was concerned that most computer users had 14" monitors. I think you will find it quite interesting!

 

I'd just ask a question I was interested in discussing, give my take on the question, and let the discussion go wherever it goes. Those usually end up being the better, more interesting threads.

 

Welcome to this forum..

 

Nick welcome to the forum!

 

Welcome to the Forum, Nick. That was quite an introduction. Suddenly, my life seems extraordinarily inadequate.

 

I'm so happily amazed that you guys are so pleasant and welcoming. I've joined sites before (not on this subject) where I got the distinct impression that all my fellow posters were sullen teenagers -- so I made a hasty escape!

As far as my life making anyone feel inadequate, I really can't quite say whether or not all the stuff that happened to me because I was an airline brat was good, or bad. All I know is, that for a while there -- a long while -- I just wanted to blend in with the people I was with, not stand out and be told "Wow, you sound English (I wasn't and am not)" and as a youth I got extremely tired of running through all my history to inquisitive people.

Now I realize that what happened to me wasn't a curse, but a gift, however, I would not in general recommend that my life's experiences generate jealousy in any way, large or small. I guess Armed Forces brats would have similar tales to tell, but frankly, being uprooted every year or so during my teens must have done some odd things to my axons and dendrites -- I probably would be an interesting case for some clinical study about what happens when the brain is constantly interrupted during childhood -- in other words, trying to put down roots only to be ripped away from them, one's new friends never to be seen or heard from again.

But anyway, that's not the subject!

Right now I'm reading "Rising Sun," by John Toland, and his amazing approach to the whole subject that allows us to inhabit the minds of the JAPANESE instead of just us Ally folk, is amazingly eye-opening. There is so much in that book that I didn't know at all, and, being the rather suspicious person that I am, I actually went and checked out a lot of his anecdotes -- which all turn out to be right on the money.

It's really cool, by the way, to be able to be reading this stuff, then punch some keywords into YouTube and watch this stuff as documentaries by such illustrious folk as BBC 4. When I was younger (so much younger than today!) I would definitely have had to schlep down to my nearest library and somehow find the relevant info through much searching.

In that way, thank God for the Internet! I wonder though, not having been here very long, are there any major faux-pas I can avoid making right up front that I might need to know about? Such as, are we allowed to use strong language on occasion, or not? Are there any no-no topics such as commenting on Holocaust denial or just in general, topics I should stay away from? Quite frankly I'd like to rip Reinhard Heydrich limb from limb at some point, but I obviously don't want to do that if it's an old and tired subject that needs no repeating.

At the present moment, I'm up to the battle of Leyte Gulf (the great Marianas Turkey Shoot), which I really haven't studied in the detail that it seems to deserve, and I have a big problem with John Toland's seeming complete absence of comment on the hideous lot of Japanese prisoners of war (sorry, prisoners of war of the Japanese, big distinction!), plus, I'd like to know what anyone thinks of the mini-series Pacific -- especially the rather odd decision to take the narratives of two completely different accounts of sometimes exactly the same battles by people who were there (EB Sledge and Robert Leckie, among others) and how their writing styles can be so different about the same subject.

Also I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my boys! (and here)

Cheers

Nick

 

Thankyou for posting this, some very interesting points indeed. I am also a descendant of a ww2 veteran and I had many relatives who participated in the fighting of WW2 so I would love to help you with your questions, etc...

 

Okay, got you on the rules! Don't worry, i won't be denying any Holocausts here. I think in my case, though, I've done enough thinking and researching on the subject, while being married to a Jewish girl (she'd love it if I called her a girl!) that I don't feel at all qualified to comment on the whole obscene episode of human history -- so I'll be leaving that well enough alone.

So many better-qualified people than I will ever be have put their stamp on it, so I will probably be discussing more mundane subjects, such as the one I'm about to post.

And I do have a sailor's mouth but I'll refrain from using it here. If I could go my entire lifetime so far not saying so much as a "Shoot!" in front of my non-swearing (also non religious!) parents then that will be the rule here.

I'm still working on the Toland "Rising Sun" and I have to ask myself: where has this book been all my life? The level of detail is astounding, particular the Japanese points of view, which I might venture are more detailed in this book than the Allies'. And that's refreshing! Highly recommended.

 

well,..welcome.
So many years on internet, so many numerous WW2 fora all over the world , and only now you have landed on one.

But please, next times, make your comment/question/thoughts short. We don't expect to read someone's diary here.

Cheers and great new year.

 

you were born in India ? ah.

 

I myself don't mind the long comments/questions/thoughts. If they're interesting (and his was) I read all of them. If boring or IMO not worth my time I just scan over them.
Keep them as long as you feel necessary kamakiri.