What have you learned about WW2 recently?

Discussion in 'General' started by dbf, Oct 22, 2010.

  1. Richelieu

    Richelieu Well-Known Member

    Sarcasm is very mature.

    Taken at face value, Hoover’s words support the Wikipedia entry - if it was the intention of your post #690 to suggest only that Hoover could be the source of the suspicion, then that was not apparent to me.
     
  2. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    A very improvised and ineffective weapon
    Luftwaffe airborne flamethrower??

    has some additional detail
     
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  3. Markyboy

    Markyboy Member

    Cheers Rob, this particular incident reads more like a comic than real life. Great stuff.
     
  4. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    Well, I was reading about the Alcan Highway a little while ago. For the most part I was researching routes for a motorcycle trip there and back to my home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Not anytime soon, but one day you know. I was planning several routes up to the southern point of where the Alcan started, which is Dawson Creek, British Columbia. From there we'd ride the Alcan all the way into Alaska. So as usual, I detoured off on the WW2 aspect of the highway which I think is pretty interesting. I have read about it before, but not as in depth as this time. As y'all know, I'm partial to historical trivia, and the historical trivial matter that I came across and thought was interesting was that after the highway was completed and put into use (construction began 9 Mar 42 and was completed 28 Oct 42), that 99% of the troops and materials that were moved to Alaska was via air and sea transport, and not the highway that took so much time and effort to complete. Dang. The US Army relinquished control (and maintenance) of the Canadian portion of the highway to Canada on 1 Apr 46.

    The route of the Alcan (in red).

    [​IMG]


    The starting point. It will take us about a week or so to get there.

    [​IMG]


    We can expect to see a lot of this on the way up there.

    [​IMG]

    The Alaskan terminus, near Delta Junction, Alaska.

    [​IMG]


    I hope that we don't come across too many portions of the highway that look like this. It'll be a bit tough on a motorbike. Especially if it's wet.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2020
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  5. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Yeah, that Harley will be even harder to push if the road is wet. ;)

    EDIT: Sorry, couldn't resist.
     
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  6. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    I have you know that I ride an Indian Chief Vintage and it’s several hundred pounds heavier than the Harley Road King, the closest HD in style and configuration to the Indian Chief Vintage.

    Here's my ride.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2020
  7. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    I stand corrected. :)

    Hey, what do Harleys and dogs have in common?

    They both like to ride in the back of pickup trucks! Harrrrrrrr

    Looks like beautiful country up there. I just learned that the SS Northwestern was sunk by an air attack on Dutch harbor is still visible today in Captains Bay in the Aleutians.

    Wreck of the Steamship Northwestern
     
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  8. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    The raid on Taranto (Battle of Taranto) was only really possible after the RAF acquired Martin Marylands originally destined for the French, which were able to get much better aerial photos of the defenses.
     
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  9. vestingjager

    vestingjager Well-Known Member

    the forgotten part of an almost forgotten battle of the Scheldt, just 10kms from my front door.....Unbelievable hard fighting to cut the Beveland peninsula, started in Belgium and raged for a month.
     
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  10. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Just so you have an idea of the scenery on the Canadian side:

    113020299_3110424089070080_4516680688930531832_n.jpg
     
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  11. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Or alternatively how empty Canada is
     
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  12. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    In looking at the wartime careers of several of the more successful Canadian senior officers, I was struck by the ranks most held when the war began. A great many of the Major Generals, Brigadiers and Lieutenant Colonels in 1945 had begun the war as lieutenants and captains (Moncel, Whitaker, Matthews, Hoffmeister, Rockingham, Fulton, Stewart, Spry, Kitching).
    In the case of "Big Jim" Stone, he joined the Loyal Edmonton Regiment as a private soldier in September 1939 and rose to become it's commander by 1944.
    Canada had an admittedly small peacetime, permanent army so this dynamic may have been more pronounced in the Canadian vs British/U.S. forces.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2020
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  13. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    I didn't know that there were any trees in Greenland, just icicles. I'd read that Lief Ericsson (not the actor) or some other Viking dude named it Greenland as an advertising ploy to convince uninformed settlers to migrate there, as opposed to Iceland that does has a few trees from what I've heard about. As far as marketing goes, whoever (whomever) came up with the moniker "Iceland" should've been sacked, Viking style.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2020
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  14. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    I learned that the USN had something called Ice Cream Barges in the south Pacific. Apparently they were ex US Army cargo barges that were outfitted with ice cream plants and ice cream parlors and were towed around to ships in harbors. Can't find much about them on the net. The articles that mention them are more about the permanent ice cream facilities on ships
     
  15. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    I've seen an advert in National Geographic - one of those patriotic corporate puffs of the time -- in which one company claims one of it's ice cream ships was the third vessel into Guadalcanal - presumably after the beach head was secured.
     
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  16. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    I read something similar to that about the support facilities at Ulithi, while it was the largest forward naval base in the Pacific up until the Philippine invasion.
     
  17. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    Probably the third support vessel of a convoy when the area was secured rather, but I get your point. I'm sure the Jarheads wanted boatloads of beans and bullets before ice cream.
     
  18. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    In the case of Greenland, it's the tiny population of 57,000 people that creates the favourable ratio.
     
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  19. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

  20. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    There's more people AND trees in Greenland than I thought there were.

    And keeping with the theme of the thread, after reading about Greenland and WW2, it seems that Uncle Sam offered to buy Greenland from Denmark sometime after the war, but they refused the offer. Not sure how all that would've worked out, the US obtaining Greenland that is. The congressmen from Texas surely would've blocked statehood efforts if it would've gotten that far as they did when Alaska applied for statehood in 1959. The reason for the Texicans voting against statehood for Alaska was that would've put Texas as #2 in size of all the states behind Alaska. Greenland probably would've moved into the #2 spot, dropping Texas to #3.
     
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