OT - WWII quiz

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

140 - The emperor.

That's correct.

In mid-1944 the Japanese military was divided. BEFORE the atomic bombs were dropped the emperor told the military to stop the war. They were in the process of trying to do that through negotiations with the Soviet Union when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on them. That increased the speed and urgency of the negotiations.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: oscar72se

113. Where was "Little Maginot Line"?
Southeast France, in the French Alps

Yes, between Italy and France.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: oscar72se

128) What does the US military casualty abbreviation "PWOP" mean?
In Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" it meant Pregnant Without Permission [:)]

In "World War II Super Facts" by Don McCombs and Fred L. Worth it means Pregnant Without Permission as well!

Good Hunting.

MR

[OzHawkeye2]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

140 - The emperor.

That's correct.

In mid-1944 the Japanese military was divided. BEFORE the atomic bombs were dropped the emperor told the military to stop the war. They were in the process of trying to do that through negotiations with the Soviet Union when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on them. That increased the speed and urgency of the negotiations.

Good Hunting.

MR

Oh, I'd argue this point for a good long while before conceding that.

Hirohito had never, pre-Aug 6 45 expressed his personal desires for peace with anything like the conviction and force that he used the after the bombs. He had always deferred to cabinets stated opinions, which of course, had been to continue the war come what may.

Indeed it wasn't until August 14, 8 days after Hiroshima, 5 after Nagasaki and still four full days after the Americans message to Japan on August 10, did Hirohito push the cabinet into making the surrender decision.

While I don't believe Hirohito ever set deliberately upon Japans aggressively despicable period of conquest, I personally believe he must share some of the blame for not acting sooner than he did, and a lot later than he could have. He watched his nation burn around him for years. For at least the 12 months prior to August 1945 the American bomber fleets had been roaming Japans sky's essentially at will virtually vaporizing one Japanese city after another.

Far more Japanese died in the conventional bombing campaigns of Le Mays fleet than did during the two atomic attacks. Hirohito hid behind his throne for far too long to deserve much if any credit for his last-minute decision to break cabinets long-running deadlock.

[OzHawkeye2]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

ORIGINAL: oscar72se

113. Where was "Little Maginot Line"?
Southeast France, in the French Alps

Yes, between Italy and France.

Good Hunting.

MR

Given the Italians fighting performance during the war, and in particular during their "invasion" of France, I'd imagine that two rolls of barbed wire and a sheepdog would have been sufficient fortifications for this Little Maginot Line.

It's a compliment really, if even the Italian government didn't know it was fighting a cause not worth dying for, her troops seemed to.

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

140 - The emperor.

That's correct.

In mid-1945 the Japanese military was divided. BEFORE the atomic bombs were dropped the emperor told the military to stop the war. They were in the process of trying to do that through negotiations with the Soviet Union when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on them. That increased the speed and urgency of the negotiations.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: OzHawkeye

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

140 - The emperor.

That's correct.

In mid-1944 the Japanese military was divided. BEFORE the atomic bombs were dropped the emperor told the military to stop the war. They were in the process of trying to do that through negotiations with the Soviet Union when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on them. That increased the speed and urgency of the negotiations.

Good Hunting.

MR

Oh, I'd argue this point for a good long while before conceding that.

Hirohito had never, pre-Aug 6 45 expressed his personal desires for peace with anything like the conviction and force that he used the after the bombs. He had always deferred to cabinets stated opinions, which of course, had been to continue the war come what may.

Indeed it wasn't until August 14, 8 days after Hiroshima, 5 after Nagasaki and still four full days after the Americans message to Japan on August 10, did Hirohito push the cabinet into making the surrender decision.

While I don't believe Hirohito ever set deliberately upon Japans aggressively despicable period of conquest, I personally believe he must share some of the blame for not acting sooner than he did, and a lot later than he could have. He watched his nation burn around him for years. For at least the 12 months prior to August 1945 the American bomber fleets had been roaming Japans sky's essentially at will virtually vaporizing one Japanese city after another.

Far more Japanese died in the conventional bombing campaigns of Le Mays fleet than did during the two atomic attacks. Hirohito hid behind his throne for far too long to deserve much if any credit for his last-minute decision to break cabinets long-running deadlock.

Sorry had the date wrong. It was mid-1945 not mid-1944.

You can argue all you want. It was the emperor that stopped the war.

I'm aware of the damage done by the fire raids. I'm also aware, as were the Japanese that only two atomic bombs were dropped to knock out two Japanese cities and that didn't require thousands of B-29's to do it.

If we want to discuss the emperor, and his role in the war, in-depth we can do that. I don't have a really strong background in his role during most of the war, just when he tried to end it.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: OzHawkeye

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

ORIGINAL: oscar72se

113. Where was "Little Maginot Line"?
Southeast France, in the French Alps

Yes, between Italy and France.

Good Hunting.

MR

Given the Italians fighting performance during the war, and in particular during their "invasion" of France, I'd imagine that two rolls of barbed wire and a sheepdog would have been sufficient fortifications for this Little Maginot Line.

It's a compliment really, if even the Italian government didn't know it was fighting a cause not worth dying for, her troops seemed to.

Mussolini was given a choice of where to fight by Hitler when Italy entered the war. Mussolini chose France because they were already on the verge of collapse and he figured for very little effort he could gain a large amount of spoils.

All he had to do was put up a token effort to be included in the negotiations with France. So, that's where Italy went.

Good Hunting.

MR

[monkla]

Wasn't General Buckner, killed on Okinawa, also a lieutenant general?

And I'd give the answer to Q9 as EVERYBODY ducks when the americans bomb.... [:D]

[OzHawkeye2]

ORIGINAL: monkla

Wasn't General Buckner, killed on Okinawa, also a lieutenant general?

And I'd give the answer to Q9 as EVERYBODY ducks when the americans bomb.... [:D]

Thank you Monkla. Buckner was the General I was thinking of. I thought he was also a Lt.Gen too. And in fact, he was (thank you Wiki). So, the correct answer is in fact both Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair AND Lt. Gen Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr.

[OzHawkeye2]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

ORIGINAL: OzHawkeye

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian




Yes, between Italy and France.

Good Hunting.

MR

Given the Italians fighting performance during the war, and in particular during their "invasion" of France, I'd imagine that two rolls of barbed wire and a sheepdog would have been sufficient fortifications for this Little Maginot Line.

It's a compliment really, if even the Italian government didn't know it was fighting a cause not worth dying for, her troops seemed to.

Mussolini was given a choice of where to fight by Hitler when Italy entered the war. Mussolini chose France because they were already on the verge of collapse and he figured for very little effort he could gain a large amount of spoils.

All he had to do was put up a token effort to be included in the negotiations with France. So, that's where Italy went.

Good Hunting.

MR

It was a good thing that only a token effort was required because it was all that they managed to accomplish. Indeed, in a humiliating development the Italians had to ask for German assistance.

[OzHawkeye2]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

ORIGINAL: OzHawkeye

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian




That's correct.

In mid-1944 the Japanese military was divided. BEFORE the atomic bombs were dropped the emperor told the military to stop the war. They were in the process of trying to do that through negotiations with the Soviet Union when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on them. That increased the speed and urgency of the negotiations.

Good Hunting.

MR

Oh, I'd argue this point for a good long while before conceding that.

Hirohito had never, pre-Aug 6 45 expressed his personal desires for peace with anything like the conviction and force that he used the after the bombs. He had always deferred to cabinets stated opinions, which of course, had been to continue the war come what may.

Indeed it wasn't until August 14, 8 days after Hiroshima, 5 after Nagasaki and still four full days after the Americans message to Japan on August 10, did Hirohito push the cabinet into making the surrender decision.

While I don't believe Hirohito ever set deliberately upon Japans aggressively despicable period of conquest, I personally believe he must share some of the blame for not acting sooner than he did, and a lot later than he could have. He watched his nation burn around him for years. For at least the 12 months prior to August 1945 the American bomber fleets had been roaming Japans sky's essentially at will virtually vaporizing one Japanese city after another.

Far more Japanese died in the conventional bombing campaigns of Le Mays fleet than did during the two atomic attacks. Hirohito hid behind his throne for far too long to deserve much if any credit for his last-minute decision to break cabinets long-running deadlock.

Sorry had the date wrong. It was mid-1945 not mid-1944.

You can argue all you want. It was the emperor that stopped the war.

I'm aware of the damage done by the fire raids. I'm also aware, as were the Japanese that only two atomic bombs were dropped to knock out two Japanese cities and that didn't require thousands of B-29's to do it.

If we want to discuss the emperor, and his role in the war, in-depth we can do that. I don't have a really strong background in his role during most of the war, just when he tried to end it.

Good Hunting.

MR

I don't deny that he eventually acted to break the Japanese War Cabinets deadlock in favour of peace. I do however deny that he did so at any point prior to the commencement of atomic attacks upon Japan and that the "credit" he receives for his actions on August 14/15 1945 should be viewed in a light that takes account of his sustained moral cowardice for years up until that point.

I'd be quite happy to continue this in a separate thread also, as I don't want to derail the interesting quiz thread going here.

[ItBurns]

8. I beleive the Danes themselves liberated Copenhagen

[composer99]

134) Why were there no pictures of President Roosevelt in a wheelchair published during the war?
 
The damage done by his childhood polio(myelitis) was not a publicly-known fact and he meant to keep it that way.

[marcuswatney]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

If we want to discuss the emperor, and his role in the war, in-depth we can do that. I don't have a really strong background in his role during most of the war, just when he tried to end it.

I do.

Read Bergamini's "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy". It's an eye-opener ... the single most important book I read on the Pacific War. Bergamini was an American citizen brought up in Japan, and so uniquely placed to explain the Japanese mind-set (including 'belly-talk' = irony) to western readers.

He argues very convincingly indeed that Hirohito was always in direct control of the Japanese war, and frequently over-ruled military staffs using people like the ubiquitous Colonel Shoji. For example, the annexation of Manchuria was not a revolt by the (highly-disciplined) Kwantung Army, but rather a response to a direct order from the Palace that ignored conventional channels. These orders were identified as coming from the Emperor by the showing of the Imperial Crysthanemum.

There is documentary evidence too. Sugiyama's diary includes an entry noting that the Emperor had just ordered Admiral Onishi to begin preparing for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: ItBurns

8. I beleive the Danes themselves liberated Copenhagen

but only because it wasnt raining that day....[8|]

Ur friend dane, making internal danish jokes

Rasmus

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: monkla

Wasn't General Buckner, killed on Okinawa, also a lieutenant general?

If you guys are going to use Google then dig deep. Here is a post that I found when googling Buckner....

General Gustav J. Braun, Jr. was the assistant division commander of the 34th Division at the time of his death in 1945 in combat in Italy.

Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., was the commanding general of the 10th Army and was one of the highest ranking American officers killed in action during the war.

Brig. Gen. James Leo Dalton II was the assistant commanding general of the 25th Division in the Philippines. The 25th Division was involved in fighting across the South Pacific but met its strongest resistance in one of its last battles, capturing the Balite Pass at the head of Cagayan Valley at Luzon in 1945.

Brig. Gen. Claudius Miller Easley was the assistant commanding general of the 96th Infantry Division when it was activated in 1942...Easley was wounded by a sniper during the Leyte campaign and was killed on June 19, 1945.

Brig. Gen. Charles L. Keerans, Jr. was the assistant commander of the 101st Airborne Division. His death was one of the oddest to occur during the war. In 1943 the 101st had prepared to make a night combat jump into the area around the Gulf of Gela, on the western coast of Italy. The effort was plagued with problems, including several American transport planes being shot down by friendly fire. Keerans’ plane was one of those hit by friendly fire, but the pilot was able to crash land the plane in the water, 400 yards off shore. Keerans survived the crash and the next morning chatted with a sergeant from another unit and asked the sergeant to accompany him inland. The sergeant said that he wanted to return to his outfit and left. Keerans went inland by himself and was never seen again. For several years the army assumed he had been killed during the ditching of the aircraft, but the sergeant’s story provided a different interpretation and the general was simply listed as killed in action, although his body was never found.

Maj. Gen. Edwin Davies Patrick was the commanding general of the 6th Division, heavily engaged with the enemy ...when he died of wounds he received in battle in 1944. Patrick was given command of the 6th Division in September 1944, and was in hostile action near Bayanbayannan, Luzon, at the time of his death.

Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose was commander of the 3rd Armored Division when he was killed in March 1945...

Brig. Gen. James Edward Wharton replaced General Lloyd Brown as commander of the 28th Infantry Division in August 1944. A few hours later he was killed while visiting one of his regiments on the front line.

Brig. Gen. Don F. Pratt was the assistant division commander of the 101st Airborne Division and was in the first wave of glider landings in France, which began at 3 am on D-Day. His glider took a lot of enemy fire as it approached the field surrounded by hedgerows that was his designated landing area. When the glider landed, cargo broke loose from its moorings, broke through the bulkhead, and crushed Pratt, who was sitting in the cockpit.

Brig. Gen. Guy O. Fort commanded the 81st Division in the Philippines at the time of the massive Japanese invasion of Luzon. Nothing more is known of Fort’s death, only that he was captured, tortured, and executed by the Japanese in 1942.

Brig. Gen. Vicente Lim was a native Filipino, with a military education that included officer training at Fort Benning Infantry School. One of his classmates at Fort Benning was Akira Nara, who as a Japanese general was in combat with Lim’s 41st Division on Bataan.Lim was taken captive at Bataan and survived the infamous death march. He was freed by the Japanese, as they were attempting to separate or alienate Filipinos from the United States. Once freed, Lim became a member of the resistance. He was captured again in the vicinity of Manila and taken to Fort Santiago. After being tortured, he was executed by the Japanese.

Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews was a pioneer in the field of military aviation...In 1942, he became the commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, and in February 1943, he was given supreme command of all U.S. forces in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). Unfortunately, three months after this assignment he was killed in the crash of a B-24 Liberator bomber while attempting a landing in Iceland.Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, on the southeast outskirts of Washington, D.C., is named in his honor.

Brig. Gen. Charles Henry Barth, Jr., was the chief of staff for General Andrews’ European theater command and was on the same flight that crashed in Iceland, killing General Andrews and 13 others.

Maj. Gen. Hugh J. Gaffey...Gaffey commanded the 4th Armored Division during the relief operation at Bastogne. Following this successful operation, he was given command of VII Corps. He was killed in a plane crash shortly after the capitulation of Germany in 1945.

Brig. Gen. Stuart Chapin Godfrey was commander of Geiger [Air] Field near Spokane, Wash. Godfrey had directed construction of airfields in the China-Burma-India theatre for use by B-29 Superfortress bombers on raids against Japan prior to assuming command at Geiger Field. He was returning from a conference at Fort Hamilton in San Francisco in 1945 when his plane crashed into a small hill six miles from Geiger Field.

Major Gen. Stonewall Jackson was commander of the 84th Infantry Division at the time of his death in 1943. Jackson had only been in command a few months, assuming command of the division in February 1943, and he was promoted to major general in March. The division was on maneuvers at Fort (then Camp) Polk, La.

Lt. Gen. Leslie McNair was one of the highest ranking American officers killed in World War II. McNair had been commander of Army ground forces and was responsible for training of all components of the active Army, Army Reserve, and National Guard. He wanted a field command but never received one. As frequently as he could, he visited the fronts and was wounded in Tunisia. He was made commander of the mythical 1st Army Group, replacing General Patton McNair was observing the 30th Infantry Division’s preparations for deployment to St. Lo in 1944 when the Army Air Corps accidentally dropped bombs on his position and he was killed. He was posthumously promoted to full general in 1945.Ironically, his son, Colonel Douglas McNair, chief of staff of the 77th Division, was killed two weeks later by a sniper on Guam.

Maj. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., was the only American general to go ashore in the first wave on D-Day...On July 12, 1944, Roosevelt was given command of the 90th Division. He died later that night of a heart attack, at the age of 57.

The most prominent of these actually killed by the enemy in WWII are Brigadier General Maurice Rose and Major General Simon Bolivar Buckner (I believe both officers were awarded promotions posthumously, I know that Buckner was in 1950 or 52) as these two actually encountered enemy fire and were killed by it. Rose's death came as the result of his Jeep, driving a winding road deep in the Ardennes forest, came around a blind corner only to encounter an oncoming Tiger tank. The tanks commander opened his hatch and ordered them out of the Jeep. For no known reason, the commander of this tank shot General Rose, which caused the others to flee into the woods. At least two made it back to safety and told the story. Buckner was more the result of fate, as sometimes even a sliver of shrapnel is enough to kill. He was caught in the temple by a small piece of an exploding munition while touring the frontlines late in the Pacific campaign.

Lt. General Leslie McNair's death came as a result of the bombing campaign which was the breakout from the Normandy beachhead, and with so many bombers n the air, the margin for error was much greater. Friendly fire resulted in many deaths in WWII, as well as all wars. McNair was the most high profile of these.

I think this should explain why Buckner wasn't the considered. I've always read that it was McNair as the highest ranking US general killed. But you never know....that's why these quizzes are so much fun. But if you want to count their final ranks after promotion McNair was promoted to full general and that still puts him first.

Good Hunting.

MR

[OzHawkeye2]

MR,

At the time of their deaths both were Lt. Gens. Both were later posthumously promoted.

[marcuswatney]

ORIGINAL: Walloc

ORIGINAL: ItBurns

8. I beleive the Danes themselves liberated Copenhagen

but only because it wasnt raining that day....[8|]

Ur friend dane, making internal danish jokes

Rasmus

Incorrect answer

... oh, and I'm a quarter Danish.

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: OzHawkeye

MR,

At the time of their deaths both were Lt. Gens. Both were later posthumously promoted.

After more digging, both McNair and Buckner were Lieutenant Generals at the time of their deaths. Both were promoted Posthumously. Even with that, McNair is listed as the highest ranking American General killed in the war and Buckner as the highest ranking American General killed in combat by enemy fire.

Even if they are both Lieutenant Generals one of them outranks the other in time of service etc. I don't have a listing of their places within the rankings I'm just going by what my sources have. If anyone out there can dig deeper then I'm good to go.

At the moment I'm going with, "McNair is listed as the highest ranking American general killed in the war and Buckner was the highest ranking American general killed in combat by enemy fire."

Good Hunting.

MR