A brief hello...

D-day movies: I haven't seen Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan. And I have no desire to see the latter. 5 minutes of it on network TV cured me of that. Instead, I want to know if anyone else has seen The Longest Day (1962), with Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Mel Ferrar, and John Wayne, among others. It's a great 3-hour movie that I've seen twice and I highly recommend it!

Miniseries: has anyone seen Piece of Cake or We'll meet again? They're both about World War II Britain. And let's not forget Foyle's War on PBS! Its portrayal of wartime Britain is certainly interesting, and a bit scary.

No one has mentioned Memphis Belle yet. What did you think of that movie? The soundtrack is great, but the storyline ... and the language?

Spielberg/Hanks WW2 production: it's coming to HBO next spring and one of its cast members is VDT's Gary Sweet, aka Captain [Lord?] Drinian. You can read about it here.

I like Vera Lynn's songs from this time,' We'll meet again is my' favorite.
I also love the fashion, how elegant it all was.

What do you love [or hate, even] about World War II?:D

What I dislike about World War 2 is the amount of movies and books which justly celebrate the participation of major powers such as USA but virtually ignore the participation of other countries such as Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand, or those who escaped occupied countries, like Poland or Czechoslovakia, who served in the Battle of Britain, in North Africa, at places like Monte Cassino, and as well as the D-Day landings.

I've actually been to the D-Day beaches in Normandy where at Omaha beach there is the American War Memorial to commemorate the D-Day Landings, to neighbouring Arromanches, where the British landed troops on Sword Beach and further on, at Juno beach, where the Canadians also landed and fought.

Although you may not have heard about it, Americans did participate in some of the fighting in Papua New Guinea where the Aussies won important victories at Buna and Gona, Milne Bay and along the Kokoda Track to stop the Japanese advance. I'm aware of the bombings of Pearl Harbour, in Hawaii, but have you heard of how Darwin was bombed something like 63 times? The first time, American ships were lost in Darwin Harbour, such as the Mauna Loa, the Meiggs and others.

-Heroes, generals, and other public figures? Douglas MacArthur, Montgomery, Thomas Blamey and John Curtin. Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, Anne Frank, and many others like Oscar Schindler, whose outstanding courage enabled others to survive the hell that was World War II.

-Battles and events? Tobruk, El Alamein, the Japanese advance through Indonesia, and the eventual defeats of Japan and Germany. The sinking of the Tirpitz, the Bismark and other ships during the war.

-Books? One of my favourite books as a child was Ian Serraillier's The Silver Sword, about how four children survived World War II in Poland, despite the total destruction of Warsaw, how they travelled across Europe after the fighting stopped and how they were reunited with their parents in Switzerland. There was a movie made from this story.

Other books I have enjoyed include adult books like Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance or Hans Helmut Kirst's books, or young adult books like 'The Dam Busters', 'Carve her name with pride' (the story of Violette Szabo) and the Diary of Anne Frank. One book/movie which has particular resonance for those times is 'Goodnight Mr Tom', Michelle Magorian's tale of a boy, whose evacuation to the UK countryside during the war brought him release from a terrible home life.

What I dislike about World War 2 is the amount of movies and books which justly celebrate the participation of major powers such as USA but virtually ignore the participation of other countries such as Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand, or those who escaped occupied countries, like Poland or Czechoslovakia, who served in the Battle of Britain, in North Africa, at places like Monte Cassino, and as well as the D-Day landings.

I agree, and I'd love to see more films involving those countries and their exploits during the war as well. I'd especially like to see some films about the Polish campaign as they were really in a terrible place. Nazis on the left, a treacherous Soviet army on the right (and make no mistake, they were no choir boys by any stretch of the imagination) and nothing but some outdated aircraft such as the PZL P11 monoplane and a handful of light and medium bombers, and horse-mounted cavalry to hold them back with. And given the impossible odds against them the Poles displayed incredible courage and heroism. There's certainly enough there for at least several good movies.

I'm aware of the bombings of Pearl Harbour, in Hawaii, but have you heard of how Darwin was bombed something like 63 times? The first time, American ships were lost in Darwin Harbour, such as the Mauna Loa, the Meiggs and others.

I knew Darwin had been bombed multiple times, but I honestly didn't know it had been bombed that many times. I think the reason so much of the focus rests on Pearl Harbor is because it was such a seminal moment for the country (and by extension the world) as a whole. We were isolationist and were determined not to be at war with anyone and so Pearl Harbor caught us completely flatfooted. The reason the US is what it is today (regardless of what one thinks of it today) can be traced back to that moment. With that in mind it seems a pretty important event, yes?

Poland's continued existence was the initial issue of what World War 2 was all about. Prior to World War 2, Hitler had demanded the Sudeten Lands, saying they had a large German minority, and that they had been treated badly by the Czechs. From that point in 1938, Hitler not only got the Sudeten Lands, but also Czechoslovakia, though Slovakia preserved some independence under Tiso's puppet government. Germany and Russia had already signed the Treaty of Brest-Livotsk to carve up Poland between them. It was the guarantees that UK and France had given Poland, that caused them to declare war on Germany when it invaded Poland on 3rd September, 1939. And it was Germany's subsequent invasion of Russia in June, 1941, which forced the Russians to switch sides.

I agree there hasn't been much discussion of Poland's entire history even in school, let alone in books and films, despite the famous people who came from this country, like Frederick Chopin, Marie Curie, or Count Strzlecki, the Australian explorer, who named our tallest mountain after Tadeusz Kosciuzko, the Polish patriot. Between 1795 and 1919, Poland had not existed as an independent country, though it had quite a strong history beforehand. After 1795, Poland was partitioned between Austria-Hungary, Russia and Prussia, a part of Germany and it had been the intention of Stalin and Hitler in 1939 to restore that status quo.

I think the reason so much of the focus rests on Pearl Harbor is because it was such a seminal moment for the country (and by extension the world) as a whole. We were isolationist and were determined not to be at war with anyone and so Pearl Harbor caught us completely flatfooted. The reason the US is what it is today (regardless of what one thinks of it today) can be traced back to that moment. With that in mind it seems a pretty important event, yes?

Of course Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour brought the USA into the war, and was therefore what you call a seminal moment. After all, just because that country was isolationist and didn't want to be part of the looming war, didn't mean it couldn't be attacked. But the initial 19 Feb 1942 attack on Darwin was just as shocking, and just as damaging. Up to that point Australia, itself, had never been attacked, despite the participation of its troops elsewhere, in defence of the British Empire. And that Darwin attack only happened a mere four days after the fall of Singapore, in which Australia's entire 8th division had been taken prisoner after the British surrender to the Japanese.

You could say that Darwin and its aftermath, even more than USA's entry into WW2 changed Australia's relationship with the United States, and Australia's involvement with the rest of the world ever since.

With my parents coming from northern England, I grew up knowing about England's experiences during the war (learned about NZ's soldiers in the celebration of 50 years of peace in 1995).
I recall hearing my mother talk about the blackouts and houses bombed during the night, and how she as a younger teen went to help at a first aid place (?maybe just learning first aid and rolling bandages? can't recall).
Then there were stories from my dad who was 18 at the end of 1942 and was called up as a regular soldier in mid 1943 (after being in the Home Guard from 16 or 17). So when the war began in 1939, they were almost the ages of Susan and Peter in LWW.
As we grew older Dad told us more significant information about army life, some of the ugly jobs he had to do as an Engineer (repairing and building).
And books and films showed us what it was like "back home" with so many of the men away in war work, and women getting out of their kitchens to do support work too. [This generation of women went back to their kitchens after the war and many took up volunteer work as a replacement for the fulfilling things they had been doing]
War stories? Films? Probably any historical novels that show the effect of the war on normal people - pretty much everyone.

World War II. I feel like I "know" about this war, but after reading some of what you've all been writing I can see that it was much deeper than Hitler being the antagonist and America the protagonist. There were other countries involved in the war and other villains as well.

It's interesting to look at Josef Stalin and how, though he switched sides in the war after Hitler tried to invade Russia, he was in his own way as much a villain as Hitler was.

It's strange to me to think that World War II happened relatively recently. There were photographs, and videotape, and modern devices during the war- things I associate with now. I wonder what it was like to grow up during the war.

Favorite WWII books? I'd have to say that I really love The Borrowed House, by Hilda Van Stockum. It's a fictional work set in the World War II days, based on facts. Very good.

It's interesting to look at Josef Stalin and how, though he switched sides in the war after Hitler tried to invade Russia, he was in his own way as much a villain as Hitler was.

Stalin was as much a villain as Hitler was, in my opinion, but I think he gets something of a pass because the Soviets were allies and, frankly, I'm not sure WW2 could have been won by the Allies without them. Sometimes you can't really pick your friends in a war and that's a clear cut example of it.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of WW2 that I love reading about were the various experimental weapons each side came up with in an effort to turn the tables on their antagonists. Companies were given carte blanche to develop these Frankenstein creations in the hopes they would ultimately find something that would put their opponents on the defense. Such as...

The Vought XF5U, affectionately known as the "Flying Flapjack"

Or from our British friends Project Habakkuk, plans to make ships (notably carriers) out of a unique ice/sawdust composite material known as Pykrete which would make the ships completely impervious to torpedoes and bombs. A very novel idea, really, and one I think would have worked given enough time to develop more.

The Germans really had the whole Secret Weapon thing down pat. One such was a parasite aircraft system called the "Mistel". Basically a fighter would be attached to the top of an aging bomber (like a Ju-88) and would fly towards a target. The figher pilot would then guide the whole rig into a collision with the target and then detach from the bomber, which was filled with high explosives. Voila! Dive bombing on a huge scale.

The Russians had this little operation called the Zveno Project, which entailed attaching a bunch of small I-16 fighters (as many as 5) as parasites to a large bomber. When the bomber reached its destination it would detach the fighters, who would add to the carnage, as well as providing escort for the bomber.

Here's another one from the Germans. They developed this lethal rocket powered aircraft called the Me-163 Comet. The aircraft itself was relatively small but packed a heckuva punch holding a pair of 30mm cannons (those hurt). The fuel for this aircraft was itself an unconventional mixture and was as likely to combust the aircraft on the ground as it was extremely volatile. The Comet could attain speeds of up to 600mph but could only run on its engines for a few minutes before the fuel ran out, at which point it would glide back to its home base and was designed to land on soft surfaces such as turf. Despite the killer specs it only succeeded in shooting down 9 allied aircraft.

The Japanese had a similar idea but applied the kamikaze methodology to their incarnation, the Ohka, or "cherry blossom".

The Ohka was carried by a mothership, usually a Japanese bomber, and then dropped when enemy ships were located. The pilot would activate a rocket motor and descend to wavetop level and plot a collision course with the ship. The nose of the aircraft was packed with high explosives, enough to demolish most smaller vessels and severely wound larger ones such as battleships.

One of the Allies, the Brits or the US, came up with this unique hovering platform for infantry. Essentially the infantryman would stand on a platform with a guardrail around it, probably not much wider than the man. A giant fan motor built into the base would lift the whole rig up so that it could essentially hover in place. The soldier could use this device to conceivably hide behind trees, peek over them at enemy forces, and then lower the platform again. I think even for the time the military looked at the whole thing as being a little too far out.

Interesting stuff!

Well some inventions actually worked. Radar and sonar were worthwhile inventions, whilst Enigma and Colossus led eventually to the computer revolution. Some of those weapons, like the V2 rockets, weren't all that interesting when they rained down on the East End docklands of London. I am well aware of the WW2 German quest for heavy water (deuterium oxide) in Norway, and the goings on at Peenemunde on the Baltic Coast.

And I guess that I'm glad it was the Allied side that won the race to make an atom bomb and not the other side. Though the arms race experimenting with A bombs and H bombs at Bikini Atoll, Woomera and elsewhere caused quite a bit of damage to the environment in those places. Much as Chernobyl is still a contaminated area over twenty years after that power plant blew up. It is terrible that even after all these years that the world is no safer place now than it was to live in during the Cold War, which followed on from WW2.

I feel like I "know" about this war, but after reading some of what you've all been writing I can see that it was much deeper than Hitler being the antagonist and America the protagonist. There were other countries involved in the war and other villains as well.

It's interesting to look at Josef Stalin and how, though he switched sides in the war after Hitler tried to invade Russia, he was in his own way as much a villain as Hitler was.

Yes, Josef Stalin was a villain, and a paranoid one as well. He was not liked in the Ukraine, a rich agricultural area, where he caused a famine through his oppression of the kulaks. Not only did he collude in the invasion of Poland, thereby winning a full third of Polish territory, plus USSR control over the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but he also murdered thousands of Polish officers that fell into the Russian hands at Katyn. The Baltic nations and Ukraine were among those who welcomed their subsequent invasion by Germany, seeing it as a respite from Stalin's Russians. Finland, who was already fighting against the USSR which had invaded Finnish territory at the outset of WW2, became an Axis power.

The Russian army stood by and watched on the other bank of the Vistula, refusing to help during the Warsaw uprising, when the Poles tried to resist German occupation. But then their own losses were horrific. The death tolls due to the sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad, and battles like Kursk are hardly imaginable.

And whilst those victories were useful, Stalin remained very distrustful of both Britain and America, blaming them for not starting D-Day invasions much earlier.
Here are pictures I took at Omaha beach of the American War memorial there:

Wow! Ya'll been busy!

I don't know that much about World War II, except what I've seen in movies. I prefer the movie genre to books when it comes to this war. I'm not sure why.

Okay, more WW2 movies I've seen...
Monte Carlo [with Joan Collins ... yeah, not much]
Jewels and The Ring [both Danielle Steele books]
BBC's Island at War
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe [I'm the first to mention it? ]
Berkeley Square
Hanover Street [cheap love story...]
Schindler's List