#world War ii

[wordcubed]

something incredibly American about an Allied trooper yelling brand names at Soviets until they recognize him as an ally.

[whereserpentswalk]

If I have learned anything from this comment section it's that the average goy is far closer to holocaust denial then they know.

The nazis that you see in movies are as much a historical fantasy as vikings with horned helmets and samurai cutting people in half.

The nazis were not some vague evil that wanted to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. They had specific goals which furthered a far right agenda, and they wanted to do harm to very specific groups, (largely slavs, jews, Romani, queer people, communists/leftists, and disabled people.)

The nazis didn't use soldiers in creepy gas masks as their main imagery that they sold to the german people, they used blond haired blue eyed families. Nor did they stand up on podiums saying that would wage an endless and brutal war, they gave speeches about protecting white Christian society from degenerates just like how conservatives do today.

Nazis weren't atheists or pagans. They were deeply Christian and Christianity was part of their ideology just like it is for modern conservatives. They spoke at lengths about defending their Christian nation from godless leftism. The ones who hated the catholic church hated it for protestant reasons. Nazi occultism was fringe within the party and never expected to become mainstream, and those occultists were still Christian, none of them ever claimed to be Satanists or Asatru.

Nazis were also not queer or disabled. They killed those groups, before they had a chance to kill almost anyone else actually. Despite the amount of disabled nazis or queer/queer coded nazis you'll see in movies and on TV, in reality they were very cishet and very able bodied. There was one high ranking nazi early on who was gay and the other nazis killed him for that. Saying the nazis were gay or disabled makes about as much sense as saying they were Jewish.

The nazis weren't mentally ill. As previously mentioned they hated disabled people, and this unquestionably included anyone neurodivergent. When the surviving nazi war criminals were given psychological tests after the war, they were shown to be some of the most neurotypical people out there.

The nazis weren't socialists. Full stop. They hated socialists. They got elected on hating socialists. They killed socialists. Hating all forms of lefitsm was a big part of their ideology, and especially a big part of how they sold themselves.

The nazis were not the supervillians you see on screen, not because they didn't do horrible things in real life, they most certainly did, but because they weren't that vague apolitical evil that exists for white American action heros to fight. They did horrible things because they had a right wing authoritarian political ideology, an ideology that is fundamentally the same as what most of the modern right wing believes.

[nueveg]

[city-of-ladies]

"In 1944, with the support of the First Lady, Bethune pushed for the admittance of Black women in the military, through inclusion in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), a branch of the Army created in 1942. Though there was a backlash against having women in uniform from conservative elements in military leadership, tens of thousands of women were trained in a variety of non-combat specialties that were thought appropriate for women at the time: switchboard operation, baking, mechanics, stenography, postal work, and more.

All were critical to the operation of the Army during wartime. Sending and receiving mail, for example, was a lifeline for soldiers, and the only way to stay connected to the friends and families they left behind. In 1945 alone, more than 3.3 billion pieces of mail went through the military postal service. Around 8 million Americans were stationed in Europe that year. The task of organizing and delivering all that mail was daunting, and a shortage of qualified postal workers led to a massive backlog. Army officers reported that the undelivered mail was hurting morale. Something had to be done, and a unique WAC battalion answered the call.

The task of sifting through this growing stack of letters and packages—some of which had been mailed years before—was given to the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-Black, all-female battalion to serve overseas during World War II. The 6888th—nicknamed “Six Triple Eight” and led by Major Charity Adams Earley—was originally expected to sort through 7 million pieces of mail and packages in Birmingham, England, over the course of six months. They did the job in three."

[funnypages]

Lessons of Resistance from WWII: The Rosenstrasse Protest and Evacuation of the Danish Jews

So a long history rant I think people should know about and keep in mind for the future. I want to talk to people about a little talked about story in the history of WWII, the Rosenstrasse protest: the one time, during the height of the Holocaust, when the German public protested against the deportation of Jews; and they won.

1942-early 1943 was arguably the height of Nazi Germany; with most of the continent occupied, allied, or neutral to them. It was also 2 years into the Final Solution phase of the Holocaust, the planned mass killing of Jews. In February 1943, the government began the final round-up of the 20,000 remaining Jews in Berlin. This included a category of Jews that the government had previously avoided deporting: Jews married to gentile Germans. While the Nazis had cracked down on these relationships since they came to power, there were at this time 1,800 mixed couples remaining in Berlin; almost all Jewish men married to gentile women (After the consolidation of power under Hitler, more German men had divorced their Jewish partners than women).

When these Jewish men were arrested, hundreds of their non-Jewish spouses descended upon the building they were held in, bringing with them friends and families, screaming for their husbands to be released. The protests were so large, that the Nazis could not suppress news of it spreading through Germany and internationally; and they were also genuinely afraid that arresting or shooting these women could cause the situation to spiral even further into an outright uprising. As a result, the men were released, and most of them survived the war.

Now there are a lot of critiques and analyses that can be done of the protest, about privilege and gender, and noting that nothing was said about releasing the 18,000 other Berlin Jews set to be deported to camps. Still, the reaction that the public had to these deportations, combined with the shockingly hopeful story of Denmark in the Holocaust, gives some valuable lessons in how fascists can be thwarted.

Demark was invaded by Germany in 1939 and was given a degree of autonomy, being treated as the "model protectorate." While the Danish government did acquiesce to demands to ban Communist and Socialist political parties, they refused to enact racial laws targeting Danish Jews. While not to say anti-semitism didn't exist in Denmark, for reasons debated by historians and sociologists, Denmark did not have a strong history of "othering" its Jewish community, and it was largely seen as an accepted part of Danish society.

In September 1943, German plans to deport the Danish Jewish community to concentration camps leaked to the Danish government, which then alerted leaders of the Jewish community. Over 3 weeks churches, civil servants (notably mostly working independently of the government), political parties, the Danish resistance (mostly at this point made up of the before mentioned Communists and Socialists), and private individuals helped evacuate 7,220 Jews, plus 686 non-Jewish spouses, by sea to nearby neutral Sweden. For context, the Jewish population of Denmark before the invasion was around 7,800. Of the 580 Danish Jews who failed to escape to Sweden, 464 were arrested; however, work by Swedish and Danish groups saw 425 of them released. Further, when the war ended, it was discovered that 116 Danish Jews had been hidden by their neighbors. In all, a shocking 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust; the most of any occupied nation in Europe.

I tell both of these stories because they show what fascists and authoritarians are aware of: the limits of their power. They are aware of the simple fact so much of their power comes from average people just accepting what they do with no pushback. These groups thrive on atomization, demonization, and otherization. Because when people refuse to let their neighbors be attacked, that's when issues pop up. There were other individuals and groups in Germany who spoke out against the Nazis (the White Rose and the Edelweiss Pirates to name a few), but they were small and disorganized, they could be arrested or exiled or killed without much effort. But large groups of resistance? How do you arrest or kill those without stopping their families and friends from protesting? And the foot soldiers enacting their agenda tend to get antsy if there is large-scale pushback to them. The big guys in charge might be safe, but them? They are vulnerable to being fired, sued, arrested, or ostracised if they are seen enacting unpopular policies. Such actions put authorities on the defensive, stall them, and make them reconsider their tactics; which in the long run, can save lives.

This is what people mean, whether they know it or not, over the last few days when they have been saying "Help those close to you, keep your friends close." They want you to think they are all-powerful. They want you to think they are unstoppable. They want you to think there is no hope in openly denying them. Because they know that if those few people openly defying them become large groups openly defying them, then things spiral out of control.

[greatworldwar2]

• Satoru Anabuki (Japanese IJAAF Ace)

Lieutenant Colonel Satoru Anabuki 穴吹 智, Anabuki Satoru, was depending on the source, the second or third highest-scoring flying ace of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in World War II, with 39 victories (51 claimed).

Born into a farming family in the Kagawa Prefecture, he graduated high school to take the entrance examination for the Juvenile Flying Soldier School and entered the Tokyo Army Aviation School in April 1938, In Oct 1940, he was enrolled in Tachi'arai flight school in Fukuoka Prefecture graduating in March 1941 in the 6th Juvenile Soldier Course and receiving a promotion to corporal in October. He was assigned to the 3rd Company of the 50th Air Squadron, stationed on Formosa in 1941. With the outbreak of the Pacific War, he fought in the conquest of the Philippines, where he claimed his first victory, a Curtiss P-40, on December 22nd, 1941 flying a Ki-27 aircraft. On February 9th, 1942, he shot down two more.

He returned to Japan with his squadron in Apr 1942, where the squadron was re-equipped with Ki-43 Hayabusa aircraft; Anabuki named his new fighter "Fubuki", partially based on his own surname. In Jun 1942, his squadron was transferred to Burma, where he would see combat over Burma, India, and southwestern China. He was promoted to the rank of sergeant in Dec 1942. On December 20th, 1942, he shot down a Blenheim bomber over Magwe, Burma, the first of many bomber victories. On December 24th, he shot down three British Hurricane fighters in combat over Magwe, Burma. In May 1943, he received a new Ki-43 fighter; he named this new aircraft "Kimikaze" after his wife Kimiko. He was seriously wounded in combat while flying "Kimikaze" over Rangoon, Burma on October 8th, 1943; after initial recuperation, he was transferred to the Akeno Army Flying School in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan in Feb 1944.

In late 1944, after being cleared to fly once again, he shot down four US F6F Hellcat fighters over Takao, Taiwan and the Philippine Islands while ferrying Ki-84 Hayate fighters from Japan southwards. In December 1944, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant major. In the final months of the war, he was an instructor at Akeno with frequent combat assignments; in this role, he scored his 39th and final confirmed victory (53rd claimed victory), a B-29 bomber, over Japan while flying a Ki-100 fighter. After the war, he joined the Police Reserve in 1950, eventually reaching the rank of captain. Later, he joined the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, becoming a helicopter pilot stationed in northeastern Japan; he retired from his military career in 1971 at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He worked for Japan Airlines before retiring in 1984. Many of Anabuki's victory claims during the Burma Campaign have been contested by comparing them to Allied records of lost aircraft on particular occasions. In several cases, there were no records of Allied planes even operating in the area where the claims were made. Anabuki passed away on an unknown date in June of 2005 at the age of 83 years old.

[adventurelandia]

"Don't be a Job Hopper" 1940s Disney WWII propaganda poster

[troythecatfish]

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

so in an attempt to actually use positive thinking, anytime i fuck up and my brain reacts as if ive cause a minor apocalyptic event, i compare my fuck up to the 4 minute fuck up committed by the crew of the uss william d porter.

and only today, as i was having to explain what happened to my mom when i was explaining the whole comparison thing, did i realise that most people dont know about it and ive decided that needs to change because its objectively hilarious.

...which is a weird thing to say about an event that occured on a warship in 1943, specifically november 14th.

see the uss william d porter was a fletcher-class destroyer but you dont need to know what that means, just that she had guns that went bang bang and that she was escorting another ship, the uss iowa, to cairo.

while they were on their way there, they performed some gun trials like testing the anti-aircraft guns or the torpedos. and while they were running a torpedo drill, the crew of the porter managed to fire a live torpedo straight at the iowa which you know, in terms of a list of things to do while escorting a ship, shooting a torpedo at them is not on that list.

especially if the president of the united states is on board.

yeah so fdr was on board and the gun trials were actually his idea, and part of the trials was that they were conducted under radio silence.

and that means the crew of the porter couldnt just call the iowa to be like "move out the way, we accidentally shot a torpedo at you."

but they did have signal lamps and you know, the signalman on board was trained to signal this exact kind of message.

...and uh never mind, the signalman did manage to successfully tell the iowa that a torpedo was coming toward them but wasnt as successful when it came to the direction the torpedo was coming from.

not all hope is lost though because the signalman could still use the signal lamp to correct his previous mistake and-, never mind, he announced that the porter was reversing, which she wasnt.

yeah so at catastrophic mistake number 3, they broke radio silence to warn the iowa and she managed to turn out of the way just in time which meant no one got hurt. and even though the inquiry into the incident led to chief torpedoman (fantastic job title btw) lawton dawson being sentences to hard labour, fdr intervened and waved away his sentence, saying it was all an accident.

but yeah, so thats my new measure for "how much did i really fuck up?" and when i compared accidentally picking up a pencil case without a tag on it in wilko, turns out it was a very minor fuck-up. yes, the cashier had to ask another worker to grab a duplicate so they could scan the barcode, but i didnt nearly kill the president during wartime via accidental friendly fire

[diana-andraste]

We New Yorkers, Josef Breitenbach, 1942

[uss-edsall]

I read a very interesting article recently.

Hiroo Onoda is a famous name among WWII history buff circles. He was the soldier who disappeared into the Philippine jungle at the end of the war with three other soldiers, and ended up being the last to surrender after 29 years fighting a "guerilla war" until he surrendered in 1974. For at least twenty years he fought with one other, Kinshichi Kozuka; who was killed by police in 1972.

The article was about one woman named Mia Stewart, a Filipino-Australian, who's trying to get the funding to finish a documentary she's been working on for about 20 years.

The documentary she's making is trying to shed a little more light than the fascinating "lone samurai" legend that has been built up around Onoda. It very pointedly asks one thing -- what is this "guerilla war" he was fighting for 29 years? Who were his opponents? Who was he fighting?

Onoda (and Kozuka until his death) were killing, sometimes in very gruesome ways, almost exclusively Filipino civilians. Innocent people who were just living their normal lives -- who couldn't fight back. One of their victims was Mia Stewart's great uncle, when she was barely two years old.

The article essentially asks, "war hero or serial killer?"

Those civilians he stalked and killed or stole from for nearly thirty years weren't ever asked their opinion before the Filipino president gave a blanket pardon, Onoda was welcomed home a hero, and he gained worldwide fame. Their side of the story entirely forgotten as some nebulous force he was fighting "guerilla warfare" against.

It was genuinely kind of enlightening because even I have kind of looked at the Onoda story as a, "wow that's crazy" and never really gave it more thought of "who exactly was he fighting?" I figured he was shooting at cops, if anything. But no, it was nothing as simple as that.

The documentary is not out yet (she doesn't have the funding to finish it, the article was essentially one long ad to go "and if you can donate please do so") but there is a nine minute extended trailer from two years ago

On some level I think if I'd just given it any ounce of thought I'd have gone, "who was he fighting actually?" But instead I just assumed he spent nearly thirty years fighting cops… not doing what the IJA did best and mutilating helpless civilians. But I bought the popular narrative entirely and didn't give an ounce of a think at the question of who was he fighting in this 'guerilla war.'

"Actively fighting a war… against who?" is a question that just straight up never came to my mind.

[deforest]

September 8, 1942 — "HEDY LAMARR SPURS WAR BOND SALE! The glamorous star makes personal appearance before thousands of admiring fans in Newark, New Jersey, as drive, slated for the entire country, goes into high gear."

[prokopetz]

The trouble with self-consciously edgy urban fantasy RPGs which are explicitly set in the real world is that they always get fixated on the Second World War, and there's literally no good way to speculate about whether Hitler was a vampire or whatever – not only is it tasteless, it's done. It was cliché even in the 1990s, and it hasn't become any less cliché since. Like, at least switch up the war – I want to see an edgy urban fantasy RPG whose Secret History™ revolves around the proposition that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was from space.

[nueveg]

[femtay]

kaneko's (japanese soldier) testimony on comfort women

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Things World War II was about:

-the post-ww1 reorganization of Europe

-Japan and the USA's long-term cold war over who gets to claim the South Pacific as their sphere of influence

Things World War II was not about:

-saving the Jews

-fighting the Communists

-defeating white supremacy