Less interest in the Pacific?

You should get in the habit of citing sources...

 

1- Every good student of history knows that the US made important contributions to the war.

2- Also, every good student of history knows that these contributions were mainly economical in nature and not military. The military aspects of WW2 were handled mainly by the USSR.

The main contribution of the US to the war was Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union. The second main contribution was Lend-Lease to Britain. The third main contribution was the production of shipping for Britain. And the fourth main contribution was the strategic bombing of Europe. The American army helped the soviet union to finish the Nazis more quickly.

All right.

 

But I would lose much time, and I usually forget them.

 

???

 

He's correct to an extent. Much of the POW camp guards were in fact ethnic Koreans conscripted by the Japanese. Although Koreans were accepted in the IJ forces, many were restricted only to menial tasks such as guards and laborers. Also in the Japanese military, physical punishment was allowed, with the punishment going down the ranks. An officer hitting an enlisted and the enlisted would hit a Korean. To vent off this frustration, the Korean camp guards often resorted to violence against the POW's.

I believe there was one ethnic Korean, Hong Sa-ik who was a high ranking officer in the IJA who was convicted for war crimes in the Philippines due to his prison guards (mostly Koreans) committing atrocities against POWs.

 

Neither the ETO, the PTO, nor the CBI were "sideshows" by any definition of the term. To designate any of them as such simply reveals ignorance as to the scale and significance of each. Certain theaters may get less attention in specific venues of discussion, but this is purely an artifact of the geographical heritage of the majority of the participants.

I happen to believe the PTO to be much more interesting than anything that happened in the ETO, but that is because both my parents served in the USN in the Pacific, and my wife's parents and siblings, who are Chinese, experienced the Japanese occupation of Borneo first hand. I realize that such associations predispose me to view the PTO as the preeminent theater in WW II and I certainly don't begrudge others the view that the ETO was more important, though I certainly don't agree with it.

In any case, it doesn't matter to me how much interest there is in the Pacific War, it will continue to be my major area of study.

 

All right. I will provide sources when a cite any statistic from now on. If I can't find the source, then I will not post it.

What about that:

"And as is well known, over the course of the war the Red Army inflicted 90 percent of the casualties suffered by the Wehrmacht, namely 4,900,000 German dead and wounded in the east, as against 580,000 suffered in North-West Europe, Italy and Africa."
Source: Mythos revisited: American Historians and German Fighting Power in WWII by Thomas E. Nutter

 

You have a very strange defintion of "good student". The US made huge military contributions in WWII.

 

I begin to see why you are reluctant to post your sources.

Thomas E. Nutter is a St. Louis Patent attorney who has posted two articles on the web site "Military History Online" Military History Online . One article is on Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, and the other is essentially his opinion of the writings of several published military historians. Nutter is otherwise unpublished according to Amazon, but claims to hold a doctorate in "diplomatic/military history". Although I did an extensive online search, I could find no other information on Mr. Nutter or his credentials.

While Mr. Nutter apparently is an accomplished writer, as one would expect of a lawyer, I do not find his opinion or arguments particularly compelling, nor his credentials as a military commentator especially impressive.

 

After all, he's a nutter!

 

In responding to the OP i would say that interest about the war in the Pacific should increase bigtime after the Pacific miniseries is released on HBO March 2010.

 

Sure.

I would want a HBO series about the Eastern front! That could happen?

 

Sure, money contributions are important. Without lend-lease the USSR would be in a even more difficult situation.

I would say that after the USSR, the US was the most important nation to the winning of WW2.

 

All right. However, you should note that I cited him because he in turn cited a statistic that he didn't make. So your criticism is not warranted.

 

I think if you grew up on the East Coast, you learn more about the European Theater. If you were on the West Coast, you learn more about the Pacific. At least for me this was true.

 

I am sorry for my pollution. I have only responded to the posts of others.

 

We cant say German Paratrooper fought harder then a Luxembourgian Commando

We cant say a British Mountaineer fought harder then a American Marine

We cant say a Russian Footsoldier fought harder then a Canadian Merchant Mariner

We cant say a Filipino Guerrilla fought harder then a French Maquis
(The List goes on)

Why cant we say these things? Regardless of whatever statistics we have and what "top" historians say, we can never comprehend the emotional battles that took place in the minds of Millions of men and women; battles that stole their innocence, youth and happiness.