Talk:World War II

problem with "History of World War II by country..." box on right side of page

In my internet browser (Safari via Mac OS X), the box on the right side of the page that is titled "History of World War II by country and ?" can not be accessed, because the word "show" that you would normally click on to expand the box is covered up by the title of the box ("History of World War II by country and ?"), mixing the words together, so that when you try to click on the word "show" to expand the box, it clicks on the title of the box hyperlink instead, and takes you to that page. I assume the title needs to be shortened, but I don't know how to do this, so I thought I would bring it to your attention in case someone can find time to fix it, or tell me how to. Thanks. Tron55555 (talk) 12:58, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I use Chrome for Mac and have the same problem. 140.247.43.177 (talk) 15:23, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done Mdann52 (talk) 14:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

USA and USSR

During the war, even though the USSR mobilized more men, the United States was far more active and fought on multiple fronts, while the USSR only focused on the Eastern Front (later Manchuria). Therefore, I believe that the United States should be listed first and the USSR second on the belligerents. Does anyone else agree?

What is a measure of activity, in your opinion? You might also be interested to read this--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As an amusing note one could consider listing the USSR in both Allies and Axis. Note the dates of the USSR under Allies: 1941-45. One could add the USSR under Axis as: Soviet Union (1939-41). Why not? Personally the only change I would make is to elevate the British Empire to the top of the Allies list due to the fact that it fought the whole war against Germany and at one important point was the sole supper-power holding the line against Hitler. Just a few thoughts for everyone's consideration. Jason from nyc (talk) 15:02, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

That has also been discussed at Template_talk:WW2InfoBox. Do you have any fresh arguments?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Mabye list them according to join date? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael484 (talk • contribs) 01:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with the above, all WWII contributors should be listed in order of join date, not military contribution. I don't know why Soviet Union is anywhere near first place considering the fact they were on the Axis side of the war for the beginning two years. Poland and France is below China which I see as unneeded and British Empire is below America despite their late join date. Yes, it is rather stupid to list countries that have contributed absolutely near-nothing in WWII just because they declared war on Axis/Allied two weeks after the war has started, and then leaving major contributors (America, SU) till last place, but we have to give the order in join dates, not contributions. Many people have different views on contributions, and there is no 'official' status, so one shouldn't judge by himself and add such to the list.PantherBF3 (talk) 18:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the British Empire should be listed first, followed by the USSR, then the USA. This is because the British Empire was the most important power in fighting Germany in its occupation of Europe. This is because Germany would still have lost if either of the two (USSR or USA) was not at war against it, while it would have won if the British Empire was not at war with them. Also taking in the effect of its empire against Germany and especially fighting in North Africa and the Middle East. Crzyclarks (talk) 01:00, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Sub-headings

I feel that we need to insert sub-headings in each section, to denote events which occured during the same time period but in different hemispheres. I feel that we need to add this in order to refine the overall treatment of the events.

I feel it is a bit difficult problematic to try to create a single narrative which encompasses events in both the Pacific and the European theaters in a single section, without further sub-headings.

The link below displays the revisions which I would like to propose. I feel this would improve our encyclopedic approach to this topic. lots of people may read this entry. we should provide a treatment which reflects a more realistic reflection of the wide-ranging nature of these events. thanks.

comparison showing proposed revisions which were reverted for discussion.

thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 18:29, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

What problems do you see with current narrative?

In my opinion, it is extremely important to show interconnection between the events in different theatres. Thus, German invasion of France forced (or, according to other sources, created an opportunity for) occupation of the Baltic states by the USSR, German deep involvement in the Eastern Front laid a ground for successes of British troops in Africa, invasion of Sicily probably was a straw that broke a camel's back at Kursk, operation Bagration deprived OKW of any opportunity to reinforce German troops in Western Europe; Japanese decision to seize Indonesia, which eventually lead to Pearl Harbor, was a consequence of German successes in Europe; in contrast, Japanese decision to refrain from attack of the USSR was a result of Soviet successes at Moscow and Stalingrad, and so on.

In addition, your editions are simply factually incorrect: you included Soviet annexation of the Baltic states in the "In Western Europe" section; the second paragraph of the "In Pacific Theater" subsection tells mostly about the USSR and Germany; the "Japan attacks Western Allies in Pacific Theater" subcestion contains information about the Eastern Front; "In Europe and Soviet Union" is simply wrong (the major part Eastern Front was situated in Europe, if we draw the Europe-Asia border along Caucasus), and so on. You should be more careful when you edit such a popular article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:11, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi I appreciate your corrections, and am happy to revise the sub-section boundaries. my point is that in terms of narrating history, it is difficult to actually group all events in both theaters into a single section for each phase of the war. I understand that there are patterns and similarities which draw them together. but in my opinion, we only strengthen and reinforce the nature of this treatment if we make clear that eg, the reason the war became global in two different sides of the Eurasian landmass is that Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Japan later on launched a wide attack against Asian possessions of the European powers.

In short, I don't feel that events in the European theater and Pacific theaters need to be grouped together without any further sub-divisions. but obviously, they could still be grouped together within the same larger sections which pertain to the various historical phases of the war. Thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:42, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

This is an international Wikipedia, and I believe it should present an international version of the WWII. For the British, the war started in 1939, consisted in French, African and Burman campaigns, the Battle of Britain, war of Atlantic, Ardennes, and ended in Reims. For the Russians, the real war started on 22th of June, 1941, and ended in Berlin. For the Americans, the wars started in Pearl harbour, continued in Midway, than in Normandy, and ended in Tokyo. However, the problem with nationally biased views is not only in undue weight given to certain theatre of war, but in a tendency to see own theatre separately from others. Yes, the article in its current form is hard to read, however, the Quantum entanglement article is hard to read too. By splitting the article onto different theatres we just mechanically combine several national versions together. That may create a visibility of simplicity, at cost of blurring of the actual picture.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:57, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Sub-discussion on war start date

(NOTE: question; is this sub-section in the right section? may have been inadvertently placed in the wrong section. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2012 (UTC))

True but as Capra's Prelude to War pointed out the war was one in all but name long before 1939. In fact Capra's 1942 film expressly states and I quote "remember that date: Sept 18, 1931 a date you should remember as well as Dec 7, 1941. For on that date in 1931 the war we are now fighting begun." Since it was produced by the United State government at the height of the conflict I have added this to the article noting that most sources put the beginning at September 1, 1939.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:08, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that a 70 year old wartime propaganda film is a reliable source on anything other than itself, and especially not modern historiography about the war. As such, I've removed this from the article. Nick-D (talk) 08:17, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

What you think doesn't matter a hill of beans. Prelude to War was produced by the Special Service Division Army Services Forces with cooperation with the US Army Signal Corps by the United States Government qualifying it as a reliable source (for the views of 1942-42) by wikipedia standards. DEAL WITH IT.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Why the aggression? It's clearly not a reliable source. Nick-D (talk) 02:56, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

The aggression is because it is clearly a reliable source for the views of the US at the time (1942-1945). Furthemore, the Why We Fight series is being marketed as a documentary (since at least 2001 and even Internet Archive uses "documentary" (as well as propaganda) to describe it. Also the overall accuracy of the Why We Fight series both in contemporary and modern terms is covered in Robert Niemi's History in the Media: Film And Television ABC-CLIO ISBN-13: 978-1576079522 which note and I quote "The 54-minute film won the 1943 Oscar for Best Documentary" (pg 71-73) and also note and I again quote "Countless millions of civilians in the United States and Allied nations also saw one or more of the films, making “Why We Fight” the most widely viewed documentary series of its time.

Claiming a film produced by the United State government that got and Oscar as a Documentary is not a reliable source for the views of the US at the time is IMHO boarderline delusional and my third party source shows just how delusional that position is.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:40, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

"While some historians argue that the war started on 18 September 1931 when Japan occupied Manchuria..." Cheng, Chu-chueh (2010) The Margin Without Centre: Kazuo Ishiguro Peter Lang Page 116 Nuff said.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:51, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Not really. That text then goes on to note that there are several other dates suggested [1]. It's also a work on the fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro, and not a history of the war. But it is a better reference. Nick-D (talk) 07:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and you've edit warred this stuff back in despite the lack of support for it here or at WP:RSN. Nick-D (talk) 07:05, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

You are aware that Cheng is referencing Wernar Ghuhl's (2007) Imperial Japan's World War Two Transaction Publishers the "Publisher of Record in International Social Science" for his September 18, 1931 date, right?--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:20, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I would like to point out that in LIFE - Sep 21, 1942 - Page 6 a letter to the editors states "You think World War II began in 1933, by Hitler's seizing power, but the Chinese people shall insist that World War II began on Sept. 18, 1931 by Japan's invasion of Manchuria." As demonstrated by Prelude to War the United states government of the time clearly agreed with that idea.

The United State Holocaust Memorial Museum's World War II: Timeline start with September 18, 1931 though it notes July 7, 1937 as when WWII started in the Pacific

"World War II began along a stretch of railroad track near the northeastern Chinese city of Mukden (now Shenyang). There, on Sept. 18, 1931,..." ( Polmar, Norman; Thomas B. Allen (1991) World War II: America at war, 1941-1945 ISBN-13: 978-0394585307

"He knew the story well, because it had been he who transmitted the orders for the Japanese troops to march that snowy September 18, 1931, which is actually the date when World War II started." Lee, Clark (1943) They Call It Pacific

The point of all this is the US was promoting the idea that WWII did indeed start on September 18, 1931 during the height of the war and the best document of that fact is Prelude to War and today a handful of historians support this view.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:47, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

• Mike Wright (21 January 2009). What They Didn't Teach You About World War II. Random House Digital, Inc. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-307-54916-7.
• Spencer C. Tucker (23 December 2009). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. ABC-CLIO. p. 1850. ISBN 978-1-85109-672-5.

Thanks for the additional references, Moxy (you forgot to sign BTW). Of course given the distribution of Prelude to War one has to ask the question--is that the original source of the September 18, 1931 date? So far NONE of these source predate the movie--not even the letter to the editor in Life.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

BS removed

The casualties and war crimes section mentions Operation Keelhaul, a controversial British-American post-war repatriation of Russians in Germany to the USSR, as an example of a World War II crime of the Soviet Union. (World War II ended a while before that happened.) The provided source describes this as an "evil" rather than a "war crime." It is an essay written by a libertarian political activist that was written for a minor political advocacy group, the Future of Freedom Foundation. (Because American libertarians take the position that becoming involved in World War II was not good.) I am now reverting this. The section also includes "Mass rape of German women by Soviet Red Army" as a piped link for the article Rape during the occupation of Germany. In fact, rape on a vast scale was also conducted by French and American troops, as seen from the sources included there. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 16:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Operation Keelhaul was a POW repatriation operation, and repatriation is an inherent part of the war effort. As for the issue of rape, no one is arguing that apes did not occur in the western sectors, the question is that of scale. The number of rapes in the western sector numbered in the thousands, and many of the culprits were tried and convicted for their crimes, whereas in the Soviet sector the numbers were in the millions, while rape convictions were negligible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mediatech492 (talk • contribs) 20:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

We might want to separate this out:

i. Per WP:RS, you will need a source calling Operation Keelhaul a "Soviet war crime" to cite it as an example of a Soviet war crime on Wikipedia.

ii. Regarding rapes, I am not arguing that there was a fewer or comparable number of rapes done in the east, but saying that Western forces participated in the rape of Germany on a significant scale as well - the number convicted similarly being a fraction of the estimate. (A lot of literature discusses it; see Robert Lilly's book Taken by Force: Rape and American GIs in Europe during World War II, a text by a reputable criminologist, for his estimate of rapes by US soldiers alone.) And since we have an article for Rape during the occupation of Germany, we should link to that and not Mass rape of German women by Soviet Red Army, which is a redirect that was moved to a neutral title by consensus. (Is there an actual number at which many instances of war rapes within a short timespan become "mass rape" - is it in the thousands, or tens of thousands? ) Zloyvolsheb (talk) 22:10, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

That website by the The Future of Freedom Foundation definitely isn't a reliable source, and doesn't label Operation Keelhaul a war crime anyway. A strong citation is needed to support this material's retention in this article. While it's widely accepted by historians that the Soviet soldiers conducted mass rapes and that their commanders were aware of this but did little to stop it, I don't think that many reputable historians argue that the Western Allies also did so, and especially to the extent that this was a 'war crime' or comparable to the extent of what happened in the east (please provide references if my understanding of this isn't correct, however). Nick-D (talk) 08:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The title of the article is "Rape during the occupation of Germany", and it contains references to the sources that confirm that the rapes were committed by most Allied armies, and not only by military personnel (thus, former inmates of Nazi concentration camps also participated in rapes). Therefore, it would be more correct to restore Zloyvolsheb's version, because it does not imply that the rapes were committed exclusively by the Soviet Red Army (and only by the army personnel), which is obviously untrue. Regarding your analysis of the The Future of Freedom Foundation as a source, I completely agree.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

While it is true that rapes were not committed exclusively by the Soviet Red Army, it is certainly true that rapes were committed predominantly by the Soviet Red Army. As I recall the article "Rape during the occupation of Germany" was originally "Mass rape by the Red Army" until someone wanted restrict the focus of the article to Germany and include other allies. Alexander Statiev writes in The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands that Soviet forces also conducted mass rapes in Eastern Europe:

"The authorities could not prevent hungry and poor Soviet soldiers from plundering the local population. However, they could have done much more to prevent grave crimes such as rape. Their failure to do so resulted in a pandemic spread of sexual violence all across the borderlands. Women of all ages became victimes of Soviet rowdies."[2]

Statiev then cites as example the rape of a five year old girl and a 60 year old woman in Western Ukraine. So while the authorites finally put an end to mass rapes in Germany, the pandemic of rape actually started long before Soviet forces reached Germany. --Nug (talk) 19:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

World War 1 & 2 were one continuous war theory.

First of all, I think it is great that you say it was under way by end of 1939, but there is considerable academic debate about whether or not the 2 World Wars were separate conflicts or one continuous conflict that had rounds (similar to a boxing match, you would not call round two a completely separate match). To term it as World War II is certainly not a NPOV and I think that this article should at least acknowledge that WW1 and WW2 may be argued to be two rounds in the same match. I would suggest a new section like "Criticism of Terminology." Dmcl404 (talk) 23:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Opposes - on the grounds they are clearly different conflicts with treaties and all that they imply.Moxy (talk) 02:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

What sources state that these were one continuous conflict?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 02:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The conventional wisdom is that the settlement of WW1 sowed the seeds for WW2, at least as far as Germany was concerned, and that in that sense the second war was a consequence at least partly of the first. But that is not the same thing as saying that the two conflicts were one and the same. In any case it is not plausible to argue that using the term WW2 is not NPOV. That is universally what it is called. -- Alarics (talk) 10:02, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose Just because two wars have similar or related causes (arguable in this case) does not make them a single conflict. There are many wars in history that can only be truly understood as part of a greater conflict, (i.e. the Punic Wars, the Crusades, the Opium Wars, the Arab Israeli Wars etc.) however even in these cases each war does have its own unique origin, progress and resolution and should be studied in it's own context. Mediatech492 (talk) 02:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

No. Original research is not allowed. This would be like arguing that the American Revolution and the War of 1812 were somehow the same war. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose, Comment While there are a handful of people that say WW2 and WW1 were effectively the same war they are a very small minority and so a name change fails under WP:Weight and WP:fringe.

For the editors crying WP:OR you are WRONG:

"It would be more accurate to say that the century had but one world war — with a 21-year intermission." (Richman, Sheldon (February 1995) The Roots of World War II)

"In this version, there is only one world war, though there was a long intermission while the players recovered from the exertions of the first act; and this war was in itself part of a longer-running drama" (McKercher, B. J. C.; Roch Legault (2001) Military planning and the origins of the Second World War in Europe Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN-13: 978-0275961589 Page 14)

The War of 1914 is going on. This is undoubtedly the most appalling similarity between then and now. And just as in the last decade of the fifth century BC, very few observers of our of our own times are aware that we are now in the 28th year of a World War, of one World War (Belgian Press Association, 1942 Belgium, Volume 3 pg 139

Yes the idea is fringe, yes the idea fails weight, but that does NOT mean it is OR. Learn what OR means before you use it! Sheesh.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:45, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

The USA practically dismantled its military after 1918. I guess they thought they could lull Hitler and Hirohito into a false sense of security. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:57, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Considering that neither Hitler or Hirohito were in power in 1918 this statement makes no blasted sense. The reasons for US military dismantlement in 1918 were that until the idiocy of the Zimmermann Telegram the US did not want to get involved.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:24, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

That's precisely the point! The war was over, the soldiers came home, the army shrank to a token force, and everyone returned to normalcy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:38, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

None of which addresses the fact while fringe the idea does have reliable source material for it and therefore canNOT be OR. Fringe is not OR especially when one of the sources supporting the idea is published by Greenwood Publishing Group--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:36, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

the problem with this theory is that World War II had its own causes, its own leaders, its own context and its own political realities and settings. it may have been caused by some of the inequities which resulted from World War I.

Also, the belligerents were different. The Third Reich was not the German Empire. the Japanese were on the Allied side in World War I. Italy also entered the war on the Allied side in 1915. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Hiroshima Nagasaki in intro

It simply states invasion of Japan was "imminent" then Japan surrendered, completely ommiting (in my view) one of the greatest crimes in history, the dropping of A-bombs on the cities. Okay forgetting my view, its still notable and should be put there. --JTBX (talk) 13:19, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I've just reverted you. As has been discussed here previously, it's rather simplistic to state that Japan surrendered as a result of the atomic bombs, and it's generally thought that they were one of a combination of multiple factors which lead to the surrender. Please note that this isn't a forum for general discussion of the war. Nick-D (talk) 08:52, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply Japan surrendered directly because of the bombs, only that it should be mentioned. JTBX (talk) 18:33, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Second world war not world war 2

Does anybody agree with me that "Second World War" should be the title, with also known as world war 2* as subtext rather than the other way around. As an english speaker Second world war is correct but not in common american parlance hence the title of the article but it is a better description both in respect to the events and the people who endured it. It wasn't a sequal to a movie is what I'm driving at.

• I could go further by being snarky and saying or dubyadubyatoo by idiots but thats beside the point.

Brummyjim1 (talk) 16:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The two mean exactly the same thing, such a change for mere semantic is pointless. Mediatech492 (talk) 16:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with the first speaker - the majority of the English speakers to take an active role in the war would live on (or would have lived on) to call it the 'Second World War' in the UK fashion, rather than 'World War Two' as (more sensibly, perhaps) is used in North America. Is it unreasonable to suggest that the rise of 'World War II' west of the Atlantic is more an effort to save on syllables than anything else? The war in the Pacific was, of course, a bad thing, but the war was - fundamentally - a European affair. Just as North American subjects use AmEn spellings, European subjects ought to use BrEn. Wkerry (talk) 18:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Mediatech492 has it exactly right. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:45, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

This question has already been discussed multiple times as recorded in the archives. On all occasions it was decided to leave it as it is . I don't think it needs to be rehashed again. Mediatech492 (talk) 22:36, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the reason Mediatech's conclusion has already been reached is that there are five times as many AmEn speakers as there are BrEn speakers. If we're going to use this reasoning, then 20% of Wikipedia is going to have to be rewritten to eradicate British language. We should allow the British to claim this article as 'more European than American', and therefore use their preferred title. Remember and consider, the USA lost 0.3% of its population in that war, but Britain lost nearly 1% (which is barely anything compared with Russia or Germany etc). Wkerry (talk) 11:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The WP:EGNVAR guidelines are clear enough. If User:Wkerry has anything to add to the the conversation other than conspiracy theory then I'd like to hear it. Mediatech492 (talk) 14:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

No, don't worry. I'm no conspiracy theorist and find I may have been playing devil's advocate. I hope that you appreciate how it is not a good thing for the preponderance of US Wikipedia editors to influence or skew the content. Here, 'World War 2' seems appropriate. I'm not qualified to say so, but I would suggest that you refrain from political rhetoric too fiery - we're supposed to discuss, not attack, but we are agreed that a rehashment is not a very good idea, so thank you Mediatech. Wkerry (talk) 16:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Why was this removed?

The following lines were removed from the article soon after they were inserted:

"There is also evidence of Allied deployment of chemical weapons near the combat areas: in 1943 an American ship storing nerve gas was sunk by German aircraft in the Italian port of Bari. The massive gas leaking that ensued killed more than one thousand Italian civilians."

The reported event really happened. Gas was not widely used in WWII battles (if it was at all) but both the Axis and the Allies had it available--in fact, it was probably the threat of reciprocity that discouraged its use. Only talking of Axis use of gas is unilateral. Suppressing the truth smacks of Ministry of Propaganda. I'm going to re-insert it and I hope it won't be removed again, this time. Pan Brerus (talk) 22:25, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I've just removed it. The Allies didn't use chemical weapons, so there's no need to include it in the article. Moreover, if we do include it we should do it properly and describe the mutually assured destruction-type approach - there's no need to allude to some kind of "evidence of Allied deployments" of chemical weapons given that the pre-emptive stockpiling of these weapons around the world to respond to any Axis first use is well documented (as but one example, the Australian Army supported the publication last year of a huge book which detailed the Australian and American stockpiles of chemical weapons in northern and eastern Australia during the war - most reviewers noted that the book was over long as these deployments have been public knowledge for decades). Nick-D (talk) 00:10, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Suppressing that text gives the impression that the Axis powers were prepared to use gas on the battlefields while the Allies were not. I'm not informed about actual gas attacks; the article seems to suggest the Axis performed such attacks but the Allies didn't, and you state so much (ehm, how do you know?). In fact, as far as I know that may or may not be true. But what business did the gas-filled ship have in an occupied Italian port, with the front line just some 100-200km away? That was not Australia...

Moreover, gas is ONLY mentioned in the section about "war crimes", and the Antipodean gas stockpiles you referred to are nowhere to be seen in the article, even if you deem them worth mentioning in the discussion.

Another contribution of mine was suppressed--the one about the famine in Bengal. The article does mention the famine in Bengal, but says merely that "Large numbers of famine deaths can also be partially attributed to the war" as in Bengal and Vietnam. Indian Nobel Prizewinner Amartya Sen, an economist, clearly puts the famine down to the British war effort. In peacetime, the crop failure wouldn't have been enough to cause mass starvation.

I see BIAS behind all that.

The same bias that I see in the section about "concentration camps". Allied concentration camps for POWs were not kindergartens; mortality was high and from roughly 1945 on, starvation was planned in the American camps, or at least it was an unspoken but quite obvious result of purposeful measures adopted by the military authorities (who covered what they were doing by coining a new category, Disarmed Enemy Forces, implying the inmates were not POWs and therefore were not protected by the Geneva Convention). Mortality in Soviet POW camps was always high, but it stemmed from the harsh climatic conditions and the country's pervasive poverty (there are records of former prisoners stating so much).

I'll anticipate your next objection: reliable sources. I read quite a few books about all that, but that was long before I ever got the idea to contribute to Wikipedia, so I can't readily quote them. Moreover, such sources are a lot more likely to be written in German or Italian than in English - for reasons that are obvious to any somewhat sophisticated observer. My statements are true, as far as I know; there being available any reference to reliable sources is immaterial to the issue of their truth.

I understand proper references are important in their own right, though, and I admit this is a weak point in my argument. I hope in some help from those who are in a position to find adequate references. I'm not going to restore the removed text, but I do maintain the article is biased and something should be done about that. Pan Brerus (talk) 01:38, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Too insignificant for the WWII article. --Paul Siebert (talk) 01:41, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't nerve gas anyway, it was mustard gas. --John (talk) 01:54, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

To Paul Siebert: if gas is insignificant, why is it in the article at all, but only in so far as it relates to the Axis powers?

To John: thank you for the piece of info. Mustard gas is somewhat "nicer" than nerve gas, but even so, it killed more than one thousand civilians in the above-mentioned episode.

I'm worried about the bias.

The article about "Air warfare" is also biased in that it doesn't mention the intentional and methodic targeting of the German civilian population in strategic bombing, nor any number of victims except for one raid on Berlin: "2,900 died (both sides exaggerated the total to 25,000 for propaganda purposes)". The body count for Hamburg or Dresden exceeded 100,000 in either case. In Hamburg, the first wave dropped phosphor torches, some hours later came the blockbuster bombs that could be aimed at the fires. The objective was to set ablaze the wooden houses so typical of German downtown areas, so that the fires might raise air temperature to water boiling point and, even if they failed to do so, they might suck off all of the oxygen. Is this all that irrelevant in an article about "air warfare"? I doubt it. In the essence, that was vintage "strategic bombing". Those effects were consciously planned for and actively sought.

The Germans are not suppressing the evidence of cruel warfare and criminal extermination of certain categories of people during WWII. The Japanese and Italians, to a certain extent, have done so. But should Wikipedia do the suppression of unpalatable truths selectively on behalf of the strategic bombers etc.? Food for thought.

It goes without saying that if the Axis had won the war, an open discussion like this might be a criminal offense -- unless, that is, the Nazi and Fascist régimes had already had time to reform their usual totalitarian ways. Pan Brerus (talk) 10:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Your claims of 'bias' appear to actually be an argument that the article should include a series of dubious, and in several cases fringe, claims about the Allies. For instance, 100,000 people were not killed at Dresden: historians generally believe that the actual death toll was about a quarter of that number. Your suggestion that the Allied post-war POW camps were in some way comparable to Nazi concentration camps or the German treatment of Soviet POWs is seriously ill-informed. Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Nick: not "Allied", but "American" camps, not for POWs but for "Disarmed Enemy Forces" (a brand-new category, coined by Eisenhower so as not to have to grant POW treatment to captured German and other military) were like German camps for "Italienische Militär-Internierte" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_military_internees) in that the inmates were not treated as dictated by the Geneva Conventions, and also because food was given them, er, sparingly.

This is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmed_Enemy_Forces): "Because of the logistical impossibility of feeding millions of surrendered German soldiers at the levels required by the Geneva Convention during the food crisis of 1945, the purpose of the designation—along with the British designation of Surrendered Enemy Personnel (SEP)—was to prevent categorization of the prisoners as Prisoners of War (POW) under the 1929 Geneva Convention."

The German Wikipedia puts it like this: "Bereits im März 1943 bestand in den USA die Befürchtung, nach einem Sieg die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen nicht ernähren zu können. Davon ausgehend wurde im Stab des Oberbefehlshabers Dwight D. Eisenhower beschlossen, die Gefangenen nicht als Kriegsgefangene zu betrachten, sondern als „Disarmed Enemy Forces“, kurz DEF (etwa „Entwaffnete feindliche Streitkräfte“), als arrestierte ehemalige Soldaten eines nicht mehr existenten Staatsapparates. Dem entsprechend sollten sie nicht der Genfer Konvention entsprechend, in bezug auf Ernährung und medizinischer Versorgung den Garnisonstruppen der US-Armee, sondern den Displaced Persons und der deutschen Zivilbevölkerung gleichgestellt. Einen ähnlichen neuen Begriff hatte die deutsche Wehrmacht im September 1943 mit dem Wort „Militärinternierte“ für die gefangenen italienischen Soldaten geschaffen. Militärinternierte wurden ebenfalls zur Zwangsarbeit verwendet und galten nicht als Kriegsgefangene.[2]"

More authorities: Nobel Prizewinner Heinrich Böll, in his "Gruppenbild mit Dame", makes one of his characters die in an American concentration camp like the one the writer himself had been kept for a few months after the end of the war. I know some accounts of Italian POW in Texas who had lived very well there until the spring of 1945 (I do mean "very well", it's not irony - the prisoners were better-fed and freer than they had been while serving in the Italian Army), but had been given insufficient rations from then on and resorted to eating snakes, earthworms and mice.

I guess those accounts wouldn't make much of a killing if they were translated into English and marketed in the US... just as the Hollywood-made, Khaddafi-financed feature film "The Desert Lion" about Libyan anti-Italian resistance hero Omar al-Mukhtar couldn't enjoy much of an audience in Italy, despite being based on historical fact.

Of course, you'd have to understand German or Italian to gain access to such documentation, which you dismiss as "false" to begin with. Pan Brerus (talk) 17:58, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

USA should be above USSR

While i think this is controversial there is the fact that Lend lease aid to the soviet union was key to their victory, not to mention that while 2/3 of the German army was in the eastern front, 3/4 of their air force was in the western front, and that japan was in the perfect position to put the USSR into a "two front" war like the one the Germans were in and couldn't do so because of the pacific front.

and on another note china did NOT contribute to japan ignoring the USSR as china was steadily collapsing and was only a matter of time before their human wave tactics simply exhausted their population.

thus due to being key on every front, dealing the final blow in the war (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) not to mention the largest military power involved the USA should be in the front of the list instead of the USSR. (Undeadplatypus (talk) 10:10, 12 May 2012 (UTC))

What reliable sources support those views? Nick-D (talk) 10:18, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Re " Lend lease aid to the soviet union was key to their victory " I would say, "instrumental". See, e.g., Roger Munting. Lend-Lease and the Soviet War Effort. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1984), pp. 495-510:

"First, and above all, was a vital margin of food supplies, second was the provision of specialist or deficit products such as aluminium and copper, specialized tools, high quality steels. In this respect lend-lease supplies overcame bottlenecks. However, it must be stressed that the major impact came after the Soviet counterattack and the beginning of German retreat. Such aid directly and indirectly helped defeat the German forces, and was in such a way a substitute for a second front, but it did little to defend the USSR from the initial onslaught. "

In other words, Lend-lease was instrumental during the last phase of the war, when it became clear that Germany would not win.

Re "not to mention that while 2/3 of the German army was in the eastern front, 3/4 of their air force was in the western front". Even the last Iraq war demonstrated that the war cannot be won just in air.

Re "japan was in the perfect position to put the USSR into a "two front"" Japan decided not to attack the USSR because the Khalkhin Gol lesson was duly learnt by her, and because the German troops were successfully repelled by the Red Army from Moscow. Both those event took place before Pearl harbour. In addition, please keep in mind that the USSR kept 700,000 troops in Far East, so Japan had to permanently station her best Kwantung Army there. You must agree that that army would be very useful, e.g., in Burma of Guadalcanal.

Re "...their human wave tactics simply exhausted their population " Do not equate China with the USSR. The latter lost 8.5 against ca 4.2 million Axis losses in the East.

Re "dealing the final blow in the war (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)" Exaggeration. See, e.g., Robert A. Pape. Why Japan Surrendered. International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 154-201.

In summary, your post is a collection of some national stereotypes, which are not a worldwide mainstream views.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:53, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Since Stalin began the war as an aggressor partnered with Hitler, the USSR probably doesn't merit the lead position. There is scholarship to indicate that Stalin's preemptive invasion of his western neighbors was actually a tipping point in Hitler's subsequent invasion. Be that as it may, I suggest Allies be listed in the order they declared war on Germany/the Axis. That's an order devoid of any value judgements and personal lobbyings for who was more heroic, lost more combatants or civilians, etc., etc., etc. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 04:30, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not mind to regroup the list of participants in a neutral way. However, the same neutrality criteria would require us to re-write the article, because currently the space devoted to the different theatres of war does not reflect thir actual scale or strategic implications. If the USSR will not be at the first position then we will have to devote more space to the Eastern Front, because the actual scale of the events there is not fully clear from the current narrative.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really qualified to add my tuppence here, but - since any ranking will always be slightly opinionated - perhaps a simple, sensible and unopposable alphabetical order might solve a lot of problems? Wkerry (talk) 08:31, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

@Paul, I fail to see any reason why ordering Allies' combatants in order of declaration of war on Germany should create a POV issue of subsequently imbalanced content. The USSR was certainly not the first Ally. If the USSR is not listed first, there is no compelling requirement to balance the article by devoting more space to Hitler eventually turning on Stalin. If we devote more space to that, then we also need to devote more space to the Soviet annexations of Baltic and Romanian territory which Hitler cited in his announcement of the attack on the USSR as violating the intention of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and so on, and so on. The only item requiring change is that the order of the Allies reflect the order in which they formally acceded to the conflict.

Of course, this is only my editorial opinion. If you agree to change the order of the Allies to be historically (chronologically) accurate, I am happy to subsequently discuss proposed content changes and their necessity. There's no quid pro quo here. If you have changes which merit consideration, they neither gain nor lose merit relative to the order in which the Allies are specified. This isn't bargaining на местном блошином рынке. Apologies in advance for Russian as a rhetorical device. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 02:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

@Paul No offense but the soviet union DID use human wave tactics quite abit, although "tank wave" would be more accurate. There is also the part about lend lease which i find grossly understated, Those katsuhyas or however you spell em were, by majority, pulled by American trucks, and fueled with American propellants, Soviet tanks were almost always made with American metals, fueled by American lend-lease oils and so on. a debt which to this day is unpaid by the Russians (who i bet are saying they are the Russian Confederate not the soviet union to get out of it) not to mention that the UK was even more under US financial support. Further on i will argue that the UK despite being the frontline for longer than the other members of the big three has contributed the least, being mostly as Churchill would commonly act, overfocused on maintaining it's empire over winning the war. the US however funded by it's own, a massive naval war that dwarfed the land battles of the eastern front and the constant bombardment of the western front, a battle where monstrous battleships such as the Yamato faced what is, at that time, the worlds foremost naval air force. on the subject of casualties most of the soviet casaulties were civillians who, although quite sad, were not any contribution to the war effort.

I might be spinning things but hey, it's all true.(Undeadplatypus (talk) 13:18, 29 May 2012 (UTC))

Re "although "tank wave" would be more accurate" Correct. The Soviet tactics was to use large amount of cheap and mobile tanks, whereas Germany (during the second phase of war) had to use small amount of good quality low mobile tanks. The Soviet tactics appeared to be superior, because Soviet personnel attacked German positions was protected by armour (although that protection was not absolute), whereas most Germans fought unprotected at all. Therefore, good score achieved by few skilled German tank crews are impressive for non-professionals, but misleading.

Re "lend lease which i find grossly understated" Not "grossly". The USSR got almost no help during the pivotal (first) phase of German invasion (Moscow, Stalingrad).

Re "fueled with American propellants", "fueled by American lend-lease oils ". As far as I know, the USSR had more than enough of oil, so only some sorts of aviation kerosene was supplied by the US.

Re "Soviet tanks were almost always made with American metals" You seem to be wrong. You probably meant "Soviet planes were made with American aluminium".

Re "Further on i will argue that the UK despite being the frontline for longer than the other members of the big three has contributed the least" During the second half of the war.

Re "a massive naval war that dwarfed the land battles of the eastern front" Really? How did you come to this conclusion? Just compare Midway and Stalingrad. In addition, you should remember that Japan was a junior member of the Axis, and the focal point of WWII was Europe.

Re "constant bombardment of the western front" Just look at the American Strategic Bombing Survey: the effect of this bombing was not impressive until 1945.

Re "on the subject of casualties most of the soviet casaulties were civillians who". I have to repeat the same arguments, but you seem to be wrong: the USSR sustained ca 8 million military casualties (mostly at the initial phase of German invasion), and inflicted ca 4 million casualties on the European Axis. More than a half of all Axis losses were sustained in the Eastern Front.

Re "a battle where monstrous battleships such as the Yamato faced what is" If the US were so powerful, why did they put pressure on Stalin in Potsdam to force the USSR to join a was against Japan and to invade Manchuria?

--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:05, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Re "The USSR got almost no help during the pivotal" What im disagreeing with here is just what counts as pivotal, stalingrad was simply a case of the Soviets Putting their heels in and fighting until the winter saved them

Re" The USSR had enough of oil" Theres oil and theirs usable oil, also i meant propellant as in solid propellant, as soviet rockets had due to the tendency of their troops to crack missiles open to brew alcohol with

On the metal note i do believe the soviets took alot of lend lease in steel, just a guess where they went though

Re"more than half of of all axis losses were sustained in the Eatern front" Casaulties are not exactly the only thing that matters, B-27 Daytime raids and Lancaster Night raids basically left german industry in shambles, which i believe means they had many less of their tanks, not to mention over 10k tanks sent over to the USSR (mostly shermans with diesel engines specially built for soviet use)

Re"Midway and Stalingrad" The pacific front moved rapidly, was complex, had constant innovations, an unspoken agreement of "take no priosners" and your comparing a trap with a full out attack, The fact that we are talking about Naval warefare just means it dwarfs land battles by sheer size alone, and the US was building Warships at a breakneck pace

Re" Pressure Stalin in Potsdam" the estimated loses in a invasion of the japanese mainland meant that truman was trying to crush the japanese spirit in order to minimize casaulties, having the USSR, which left them alone for 5 years of war with the Allied nations suddenly attack is considered a "fear weapon" just like the Atom bombs, which some argue that actually caused japan to surender(despite the dating supporting the idea that the 2nd nuke did it).

We just gonna be at this until one of us runs out of Counterarguements arent we?(Undeadplatypus (talk) 23:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC))

Re "...Soviets Putting their heels in and fighting until the winter saved them..." Please, avoid frivolous arguments, and do not reproduce standard stereotypes. Defenders of Stalingrad occupied a thin stretch of land on the Volga bank, all supplies were being delivered by water, so by November, when the ice was thin, neither boats nor cars could be used. As a result, in November the situation became desperate (by contrast to the situation on the German side). In addition, the Soviet counter-offensive started in late November, which is the very beginning of winter in that climatic zone.

Re "Theres oil and theirs usable oil, also i meant propellant as in solid propellant, as soviet rockets had due to the tendency of their troops to crack missiles open to brew alcohol with" If you want your arguments to be treated seriously, please, avoid reproducing anecdotal evidences. BTW, total costs of US shipments of oil products to the USSR was just 42 million dollars versus 732 million to Britain.

Re "On the metal note i do believe the soviets took alot of lend lease in steel" We have a freedom of religion, so one's belief is his/her private business. You can believe in anything you want.

Re "having the USSR, which left them alone for 5 years of war with the Allied nations " Firstly, Roosevelt himself left the USSR alone during the most critical period of the WWII. Secondly, the main Japanese fighting force, her best and the most numerous Kwantung Army stayed near the Soviet border during whole war, and the USSR kept ca 750,000 troops there to neutralize this threat. Thirdly, as Churchill said in 1942, Soviet declaration of war on Japan would be extremely useful, provided, but only provided, that it would not negatively affect the Soviet war efforts in Europe. Therefore, neither Churchill nor Roosevelt tried to distract Soviet forces from the most important theatre of war, the Eastern Front.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment This is not a new discussion. The talk page archives are full of similar discussions. Yet nothing ever seems to come of them. Everyone always seems to have some formula to solve the "problem". First of all, I will only reiterate my previous position that the countries should be listed in order of "time spent" in the war. Therefore Britain would go on top, followed by USSR, and so on. A case could be made for China going on top, but they were divided throughout the conflict and were never fully engaged as a " nation". Only small pockets of military resistance.--JOJ ^Hutton 14:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

At the first glance, the arguments about "time spent" in the war seem quite reasonable, as well as the reference to "small pockets of military resistance" in China. However, to avoid double standards, we need to expand this approach to all participants. For example, you cannot deny the fact that, starting from Sept 1 1939 till the start of the Battle of France the war Britain spent time in is called a Phoney war, i.e. the war with virtually no hostilities. Moreover, neither US nor British leadership never denied the fact that no full scale Second Front existed in Europe until the D-day. Therefore, for "time spent in the war" to be a good criterion, the intensity of hostilities should also be taken into account.

Of course, it is hard to compare naval, air and land battles, however, it is quite possible to compare land theatres between each other, and the amount of troops and losses sustained by both sides are a good indicator. In connection to that, a single Operation Bagration (ca 3 million troops from both sides, about 900,000 total casualties, one third of whom from German side) outweighs Invasion of Normandy (ca 1.7 million troops, ~250,000 casualties, 120,000 from the German side). However, whereas Normandy landing was the only major Allied operation in the West, Operation Bagration was followed by two equally massive (and even more devastating for the Germans) offencives: Lvov-Sandomierz offensive and Yassy-Kishivev offensive. Similarly, a single Battle of Stalingrad involved more troops then in all other (not EF) 1942 theatres of WWII taken together, and the losses (both Allied and Axis) exceeded all other 1942 losses. Moreover, Soviet casualties at Stalingrad (478,741 killed or missing, which in that situation usually meant the same) exceeded the American casualties during the WWII (416,800, both in Europe and Pacific); the amount of Axis losses at Stalingrad only (750,000 killed, missing or wounded) exceeded their losses in the West in 1941-45(80,820 killed, 490,260 missing, and 265,526 wounded).

Taking into account all said above, the considerations about "time formally spent in the war" look unconvincing. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me theres exactly 3 arguements here

USA had a effect on all 3 major fronts and should be put first

USSR lost the most people

UK was first!

that one in particular sounds like a sad "runt of the litter" type of thing to say considering the first combatants in WWII were actually japan and china, followed by germany and polland — Preceding unsigned comment added by Undeadplatypus (talk • contribs) 23:42, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Re USA, you probably meant "theatres"?

Re USSR, you are missing the point: not only USSR lost the most people, it inflicted more losses on the Axis then all other Allies taken together.

Re Britain, that is untrue. The first was Poland.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:58, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

It's good that this article is so perfect that all that's left to worry about is the order of participants in the infobox! Anyway, I think that Australia should go first as a) it's first in the alphabet and b) I'm Australian ;) Nick-D (talk) 23:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Good point, Nick ;-)

Frankly speaking, the article still needs in some improvement (btw, what about A-class article? What do we need to do for that, in your opinion?)--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:58, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The main barriers to A class are removing surplus material and improving the references. I've gotten side tracked with the project to get the article up to scratch, but I'll try to restart in a couple of weeks (unless someone beats me to this!) Nick-D (talk) 11:08, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Link to capitol punishment in the sidebar?

I noticed in the sidebar, in the "Axis Leaders" section, there is a skull and crossbones beneath Mussolini's name that acts as a link to this article. Is there any special reason for this? TheNewKarl (talk) 04:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not able to see it on the page. The reason may be due to the fact he was exucuted near the end of the war Mdann52 (talk) 10:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have posted here. I removed the marking. From memory, previous discussions decided against including symbols to mark the death of Hitler (and possibly FDR?), so there seems to be no grounds for including it. Nick-D (talk) 10:13, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Capitol punishment??? Also, I'm not sure Old Baldy Ill Duce's death qualifies as standard "capital punishment" - more like a bloody coup (as opposed to the bloodless kind). As is well-known, he was then hung out to dry. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:52, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

SpellCheck doesn't catch everything. Although, somehow I got the link right. Go figure. TheNewKarl (talk) 02:08, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Prelude to war (when the war started)

Content issue aside, the sentence:

"Although during the war itself Prelude to War and some later historians stated 18 September 1931 was the date the world war started,[2][3] Japan was already at war with China in 1937,[4] the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany and Italy by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth."

is grammatically embarrassing on multiple levels. Please fix it if it's still there after the edit wars. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 07:32, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

The wording could be better but the point is that during the war 18 September 1931 was presented as the date WWII started by the US government and that view is still held by a minority of scholars today.

I'll have to digging around to where I saw it but there was a show on PBS where the surviving makers of the Why We Fight series were interviewed. One stated that they were told to tell the truth as best they knew it 'because if we lie to them (the troops) we're dead' I think it was "Right in der Fuehrer’s Face" episode of America Goes To War: The Homefront but I have to go and double check.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:00, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

In the mean while here a possible reworking:

"While the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany and Italy by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth,(ref) there have been other dates presented. For example, during the war the United States Government in Prelude to War (released May 27, 1942) presented 18 September 1931 as the stating date (Prelude to War) a date repeated in some contemporary works by civilians and military alike (Liang-Mo) (Clark (1943)) and accepted by handful of modern scholars (Cheng, Ghuhl, Polmar, Tucker Wright). Other sources point to 1937 while accepting September 18, 1931 as the lead in to the conflict. (Holocaust Memorial Museum)"

References

Liu Liang-Mo, Letter to the editor LIFE - Sep 21, 1942 - Page 6

Lee, Clark (1943) They Call It Pacific pg 45

Cheng, Chu-chueh (2010) The Margin Without Centre: Kazuo Ishiguro Peter Lang Page 116

Ghuhl, Wernar (2007) Imperial Japan's World War Two Transaction Publishers pg 7

Polmar, Norman; Thomas B. Allen (1991) World War II: America at war, 1941-1945 ISBN-13: 978-0394585307

Spencer C. Tucker (23 December 2009). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. ABC-CLIO. p. 1850. ISBN 978-1-85109-672-5.

Mike Wright (21 January 2009). What They Didn't Teach You About World War II. Random House Digital, Inc. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-307-54916-7.

The United State Holocaust Memorial Museum's World War II: Timeline starts with September 18, 1931 though it notes July 7, 1937 as when WWII started in the Pacific

That at least this would address the September 18, 1931 starting date issue.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for finding some recent reliable sources, and thanks also for stopping the all-caps shouting. However, I see no need to give any prominence to an ancient propaganda film (not a RS, and this clearly violates WP:UNDUE) or letters to the editor. Material on this topic belongs in the 'Chronology' section rather than the lead. Nick-D (talk) 05:38, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Reliable source establishing the impact (both force and scope) as well factual reliability of Prelude To War:

• Dick, Bernard F. (1996) in The star-spangled screen: the American World War II film University Press of Kentucky -- It (Prelude To War) claims to provide "factual information of events leading up to World War II" — a valid enough aim."

• Rollins Peter C.; John E. O'Connor's Why We Fought: America's Wars in Film and History University Press of Kentucky - "It's (Prelude to war's) aim was to provide factual information of events leading up to the war"

• Alpers, Benjamin Leontief (2003) Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture by University of North Carolina Press pg 178-179 - "Capra defend the film's style, maintaining that it was simply the most effective way to package fact."

• Thomas Patrick Doherty's (1999) Projections of war: Hollywood, American culture, and World War II Columbia University Press Page 72

• Gordon Martel's The World War Two Reader (reprinting much of Benjamin Leontief Alpers work) Psychology Press (ie Routledge) pg 167-168

Let's see four modern University Press book and a modern work published "publisher of quality academic books, journals & online reference" in my favor. What more do you need?--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The discussion at WP:RSN in which there was no support for this being a RS? Also, why do you think that this propaganda film deserves such prominent treatment in the highest-level article on World War II? The subject of when the war was presented as having begun in individual countries' propaganda is a rather arcane one to cover in this article. Nick-D (talk) 06:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

No support? Hardly. Albert14nx05y fully supported its use and GabeMc supported its use with provisions. In fact, later on Albert14nx05y stated "It seems to me that the issue is whether or not WW2 started in 1931 with the invasion of China. Most academic sources say "yes"" to which you asked "What academic sources say World War II started in 1931?" and I did a major info dump on such sources. Furthermore, an involved editor tried to archive the thread after only three hours which IMHO comes off as an attempt to WP:GAME the results. Sorry but that is NOT how the Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard works as otherwise it would allow editors simply close threads when they had enough editors agree with whatever position they wanted.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I should remind Nick-D that I said "He clearly don't understand what reliable source as Prelude to War is being presented as the views the US had at the time of the conflict so can we rule this is a reliable source for the US views of 1942-1945 and end this nonsense?"

Now admittedly "US views" can be read as general populous or as I had in mind when writing the blasted thing United States Government. Nick-D explain to use how in that context Prelude to War is NOT reliable (ie how a movie made by the United States Government during the height of WWII and one would assume fully controlled by said Government is NOT a reliable source for views held by United States Government between 1942-1945.) You keep claiming this please explain it to me.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:37, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're getting at here to be honest. If we want to discuss the views of the US Government at the time on the origins of the war (and I don't think that we should in this article given that it's written at a very high level and tries to cover all the main countries involved in the war), we'd consult one of the many books published on the Roosevelt Administration's foreign policies or similar, and not try to figure this out from what was included in a propaganda film. In regards to the above, thanks again for providing reliable sources on the view that the war is sometimes seen to have started in 1931. However, I'm still not seeing any reason to highlight this film. Nick-D (talk) 11:59, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Sigh. The reason the film should be highlighted is our earliest widely known record (May 27, 1942) of the September 18, 1931 date (there one in 1941 but it is obscure as all get out). Dick, Rollins, Alpers, Doherty, and Martel all document the power of the film on the soldiers and civilians of WWII. I might add that the book I found by Rollins is more detailed regarding the film then the one referenced as a reliable source for the Prelude to War article itself.

Jowett, Garth S.; Garth Jowett, Victoria O'Donnell (2006) SAGE Propaganda And Persuasion ISBN-13: 978-1412908979 pg 244 noted the Why We fight series was mandatory viewing by military personal and back on page 168 we are told the recrutes "accepted the information in them as accurate" Now there was roughly 12 million people that were classified as "military personal" in WWII. That is nearly 1 in 10 Americans (based on the 1940 census) and that is ignoring the fact that Why We fight was also put out for general public consumption.

I should note that Kurash, J. "A Prelude to War" (1 March 2009) U. S. Army Military History Institute quotes the exact words of the citation on the 1942 Oscar plague Prelude to War: "A special award to Prelude to War for its trenchant conception and authentic and stirring dramatization of the events which forced our nation into the war and of the ideals for which we fight." Key word there is "authentic".

It terms of scope and effect on WWII personal Prelude to War is well documented. Its mandatory viewing by military personal from May 27, 1942 to the end of the war is also well documented. If there are one film someone in the military during most of WII would see and believe is was Prelude to War.

For the 1941 source:

"Although we didn't realize it at the time, World War II started sn the night of Sept. 18,' 1931, when a small clique of Japanese officers secretly issued orders for Japanese toops to move from their barracks in Manchuria and Korea,..." (The China monthly review: Volume 98 1941:SEP-NOV pg 353)

Like I said obscure as all get out. I'm not even sure if it would even qualify as reliable.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:30, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

We should not use the film series as a reliable source because it is not; it is a propaganda film. For discussion of when the war started, there is no need to determine the earliest reference saying 1931 was the start. We are free to use established and recent sources, whatever best serves the reader. Of course, those sources will generally be tertiary tomes and scholarly secondary sources. Not films. Binksternet (talk) 15:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Binksternet, you seem to have a misunderstanding of what WP:RS is. "Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context." Scholarly works are preferred not mandatory; as long as reliability can be established we are fine.

The Zapruder Film is consider reliable for the Kennedy assassination is is not?

Prelude to War was produced by the Special Service Division Army Services Forces with cooperation with the US Army Signal Corps by the United States Government so even though it is a film and propaganda (as I said before all Documentaries have some propaganda elements to them") it is also effectively a United States Government document with all that implies.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:38, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

There are two questions - 1) whether it is a reliable source for an assertion of fact. It is not. 2) whether it is a reliable source to assert the US government's view in 1943. There is no reason to assume that every single statement made by the voice-over represents the official view of the government. There is no reason to interpret the assertion that the US joined an existing war, which no-one would deny, as a claim that "World War II" began when the earlier war did. The film does not even make that assertion. SYN. SYN. SYN. p.s. The Zapruder film is evidence, not a source of opinion. It is not "considered reliable" in this sense. The comparision is pure equivocation. It does not have a voice-over interpreting events. Paul B (talk) 17:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Imho, the whole thread is a re-iteration of old arguments presented here. In addition, the article already has a "Chronology" section that discusses this issue. I am not sure more detailed discussion of this issue is needed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

@Paul B: I don't understand how you came to that conclusion. You claim the film does not even make the assertion that WWII began on Sept 18, 1931? What about "remember that date: Sept 18, 1931 a date you should remember as well as Dec 7, 1941. For on that date in 1931 the war we are now fighting begun" which is taken straight from the film? The film even cites the then believed to be authentic Tanaka Memorial as evidence for which step 1 was presented as "Conquest of Manchuria" a point reiterated in Battle of China.

@Paul Siebert: The "Chronology" section doesn't even mention the idea that the Japanese invasion of Manchuria is one of the suggested points for WWII beginning something we have ample evidence both contemporary and modern for.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:26, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen the film. The contention of the film is that the war is one between "free peoples" and militaristic dictatorships (Soviet Russia is rather unconvincingly included among the "free peoples". Of course we also learn from the series that the "German mind" cannot understand why "free people fight on against overwhelming odds".). It is the whole purpose of the propaganda film to portray the Bad Guys as having a global masterplan which includes domination of America itself, to achieve the final obliteration of "free people". The war that began in 1931, according to the film is the war against freedom. That is the "war we are now fighting". The point is that what they mean by this, is not a specific war in the normal sense, but a global struggle for "freedom" against "dictatorship". It's completely different from the definition of "World War II" as a specific war with a beginning and end. Indeed it's really a concept that later extended to the Cold War. All this, however, is moot. We can debate the intentions of the film makers on the page for Why We Fight. The films are not reliable sources for this article. Now I'd like to see you go to the German people article and explain to them that these films are clearly highly reliable sources, and so we should add all their assertions about the way the "German mind" works. Paul B (talk) 10:20, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 May 2012

Hello,

Please remove the Philippines as a puppet state subcategory of the Allies. It is demeaning and hurtful to the filipino people who fought as bravely as any man against the axis japanese.

In a general query, why should there be a puppet state subcategory?

Joelvalencia (talk) 03:16, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

It is a historical fact that the Philippines was under the control of the United States at the time of the US entry into World War II. (Officially it was a "Commonwealth" territory of the United States) This means it does belong in the category of Client States. Stating this fact in no way demeans the bravery of the Filipino army and resistance fighters. Mediatech492 (talk) 06:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

 Not done: Mdann52 (talk) 10:05, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Mass rapes, only Soviet?

There's an inclined mention in "war crimes" about mass rapes by the red army in occupied germany, when most probably there were other allied mass rapes too, remember "copulation without conversation was not fraternization" was said among non-soviet allied soldiers, and furthermore the germans had widespread rape in the eastern front, documented in:

- Gertjejanssen, Wendy Jo. 2004. "Victims, Heroes, Survivors: Sexual Violence on the Eastern Front during World War II." PhD diss., University of Minnesota. - Alison, Miranda; Bergoffen, Debra; Bos, Pascale; du Toit, Louise; Mühlhäuser, Regina; Zipfel, Gaby (May 2010). ""My plight is not unique" Sexual violence in conflict zones: a roundtable discussion". Mittelweg 36. Eurozine. - Pascale R . Bos, Feminists Interpreting the Politics of Wartime Rape: Berlin, 1945; Yugoslavia, 1992–1993 Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2006, vol. 31, no. 4, p.996-1025) - Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany Atina Grossmann page 290 - http://www.gegenwind.info/175/sonderheft_wehrmacht.pdf

So such a strong call should be completed with a good context on the sexual crimes commited along the world war II otherwise it seems inclined to show as if the soviet soldiers were the only ones to perpetrate such action.

Here's another reference from the German brothels in the ussr

- War crimes against women: prosecution in international war crimes tribunals Kelly Dawn Askin page 72 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.215.75.98 (talk) 19:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

You are right. I changed the text accordingly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:03, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Belligerents by order of accession to conflict

I propose that a heading be added to the belligerents box (or could be a note/ref) that participants in the war are listed by formal order of accession to the conflict, and that the belligerents be re-ordered to reflect that (with years specified for all parties, as already done for some). That solves a host of POV and thorny issues around arguments regarding the order, whether or not to include neutrals which were attacked (no), whether to include the USSR as an Axis power prior to their being an Ally (not formal, so no) et al. Once that is done, we can address the nuances of the USSR being initially allied with Germany but not as an Axis power prior to Barbarossa, the USSR invading and annexing Baltic and Romanian territory, etc. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 15:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

(this is the reply on both this proposal and the Vecrumba's 18 May 2012 post.) I see several problems with your proposal. Firstly, as I already explained, implementation of this your idea would require us to re-write the whole "Course of the war" section. If you agree to be historically accurate, you should realise that many sections, for example, the "Axis advance stalls" section devote unproportionaly high attention to the Pacific/Western European theatres than to the Eatsern Front. As a result, the actual contribution of the Allies (as well as the relative importance of theatres) is unclear from the narrative. Thus, the section devotes equal space to the Battle of Buna–Gona (20,000+ Allied troops, ca 6,500 Axis troops, unimpressive strategic results), and the Operation Mars (more than a half a million troops from both sides, heavy casualties, which resulted in dramatic delay of the advancement of the Allied troop to the West). The Operation Winter Storm (which was comparable to the Battle of El Alamein by its scale, and had extremely important consequences: the Germans failed to relieve the blockade of 6th Army, although they prevented the Army group B in Caucasus from being cut off, and delayed capture of Rostov) is totally ignored. And so on and so forth. Therefore, in a situation when real large scale battles having important strategic implications appeared to be diluted with large number of low to moderate importance events, it is hard for a reader to obtain a real impression of the overall importance on different events (and of overall contributions of different participants). The situation is not so dramatic now, because the order of the belligerents partially compensates for this imbalance. Therefore, the change of the order as you proposed is possible only when the balance will be restored.

The second issue is the China. ROC was de facto at war with Japan from 1937, so if we adopt the chronological order, to list ROC after the USSR and the USA would be misleading (despite the fact that formally ROC declared war on Japan only after Pearl Harbour).

The third problem is the order of the Axis belligerents. If we adopt your scheme, Japan (at war with China since 1937) should go before Germany and Italy.

As a result, the first impression of the infobox would be that the WWII was a war between China and Japan, so poor school students who will be looking at this article will draw totally misleading impression about the war. Can we afford to pay this price for removal of the USSR from the first position of the list? I am not sure this article is a proper place for making a stress on the MRP. If you want to edit such a global article, try to think globally.

And, finally, taking into account that discussion about the starting date of the war re-starts again and again (the last example can be found here, and even had been a subject of MedCab, this issue is even more controversial than the dispute over the order of belligerents. By accepting your proposal, we thereby endorse one concept (either Euro- or Asia-centric), which by no means is neutral.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Vecrumba's proposal has merit. Given that this article is about world war, the war between China and Japan (prior to Pearl Harbour) can be seen as a regional war so it would be incorrect to place ROC first in any case, particularly since they did not formally declare war on Japan until after Pearl Harbour as you say. --Nug (talk) 10:07, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely with Paul's well-considered post. Nick-D (talk) 10:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

There is a disconnect between the start date of WW2 in the infobox of 1 September 1939 and the argument that WW2 started in 1937 for ROC (I have a source that states Japan/ROC's WW2 started in 1931[3]). On what basis is the current ordering made? if it is casualties then China should be mentioned second, if it is economic then the USA should be first, the criterion should be at least mentioned in a footnote. Paul's argument that we would have to list Japan and China first if we adopt a chronological order isn't valid, because it is generally accepted that WW2 was a war between the Axis and the Allies and thus any chronological ordering would be based upon when nations joined the Axis or Allies as belligerents, not when individual countries fought isolated regional wars, such as Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1934 or Japan's war with China in 1937 (as stated in the article). --Nug (talk) 18:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The ordering was made based on the military contribution (which is not equal to the amount of losses sustained). You should probably re-read the past discussions, the talk page's FAQ, and the template:WW2infobox talk archives.

Re Axis, you should re-read the arguments that had been put forward during the last MedCab and the recent discussion on this talk page. You should also keep in mind that no Axis existed by the moment the WWII officially started in Europe: the major document signed by Germany, Japan and Italy by that time was the Anti-Comintern pact, which (i) was directed mostly against world Communism and the USSR, and (ii) was not a military alliance at all.

I also found the exaggerated attention to formal issues (war declaration, alliance signing, etc) in this particular case illogical, because during the discussion about the USSR participation of the invasion of Poland the opposite argument was used, namely, that the fact that no war was declared on the USSR did not change the fact that the USSR was physically involved in hostilities. Interestingly, both arguments serve the same goal: to remove the USSR from the top position of the list at any cost...

--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:37, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

@Paul, just letting you know I will provide a much longer and considered response. However, you cannot have it both ways, if you wish the USSR atop the Allies leader board based on contribution, then the USSR needs to be reflected as the leading a Nazi co-belligerent in the infobox as well up until Barbarossa based on the Soviet contribution to the bifurcation of Eastern Europe. You speak of all the misconceptions which would be created were the order to change in the infobox. No, the infobox is already creating gross misconceptions, the question is how to fix them. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 16:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Whereas there is no disagreement about the fact that the Eastern Front (it terms of losses, from both sides, and of the amount of troops involved) exceeded all other theatres taken together (the figures have not been contested, so this statement is not a subject of debates), there is no consensus that the USSR was an Axis co-belligerent from sept 1939 till june 1941: annexation of the Baltic states and Bessarabia occurred without the war, and none of the states annexed by the USSR (except Poland) were the Allies: most of them were future Axis members (Romania), Axis co-belligerents (Finland) or Axis collaborators (population of the Baltic states massively collaborated with Nazi). The only questionable case is Poland, however, even here there is no consensus. However, I have some deja vu feeling: I recall we have already had similar discussion before.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Your mantra of massive Nazi collaboration on the part of those who had first been attacked by the USSR, your mantra of "no war" regarding brutal Soviet invasion and subjugation is yet again a rehash of your favorite baseless and uber-POVed personal provocations. You've already proven yourself wholly incapable of even discussing the Soviet invasion of the Baltic states, or have you already forgotten your fantastically abysmal conduct? VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

What exactly do their future allegiance matter? Which were in several cases actually results from the Soviet aggression. The future allegiance of the countries listed has no relevance what-so-ever to the matter at hand. For example with mild sarcasm we might with the logic applied by Paul Siebert just as well judge Nazi Germany as a NATO country while we are at it. - Wanderer602 (talk) 20:11, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

"Logic" implies some syllogisms. I drew no conclusions from e.g. Romanian Axis membership. However, if you want to criticize my logic, here it is. "Co-belligerence" means fighting against the same enemy. In the case of the USSR, only Poland fit this criterion, because in other cases either there were no fighting (thus, in the case of Romania, the USSR just issued an ultimatum and took disputed territory back, there were no war in the case of the Baltic states either), or Soviet opponents weren't the Allies (the fact that most of them were future Axis members, co-belligerents or collaborators just demonstrates that they had no relation to the Allies). In other words, the USSR had military conflicts with several states, most of whom would become the Axis members or co-belligerents, and were not the Allies. How all of that can be interpreted as Soviet the Axis co-belligerence?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:09, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

(od) @Paul, in carefully reading over your points, I am in the end left with the observation that the infobox does not exist to address shortcomings in the article. If the Battle of Buna-Gona and Operation Mars get equal time--unjustly by your estimation--then simply suggest how to fix that article content problem. If Operation Winter Storm lost out on any editorial time whatsoever--unjustly by your estimation--then simply suggest how to fix that article content problem.

Your objections to chronological order for the infobox relate to the article, not the infobox. From the very start, the article's Chronology section is an unsubstantive self-contradicting mass reflecting the pointless POV conflicts giving birth to the fragments left remaining which diddn't overly offend anyone. At the moment, that section concludes nothing and merits its own cleanup proposal, but another conversation. To your specific cases:

• ROC formally accedes to conflict (declares war on Japan) after Pearl Harbor while being at war from 1937.
  • This is not a problem. This is no different from the USSR formally acceding to conflict as an Ally in 1941 and having no mention as a Nazi co-belligerent prior, that relationship stopping just short of a formal military alliance. Regarding the ROC accession, simply note that there had been no interruption in hostilities since the Japanese attack of 1937.

• Japan AXIS power at war before Germany and Italy
  • This, too, is not a problem. There is no serious opposition to the notion that World War II started in 1937 in Asia. It was the opening of widespread conflict in Europe that added the "world" to World War. The problem is that the supporting, indeed foundamental, Chronology section of the article is a shambles with regard to cohesive narrative--that is the real source of confusion here.

• Endorsing a Euro- or Asia-centric view
  • Simply no. Quite frankly, too many people think nothing material was going on prior to Hitler's attack on Poland. Improved awareness of conflict in the Asian theatre would be a tremendous benefit. Again, this all goes to the issue of a proper Chronology section.

• No formal AXIS
  • So?

• "Interestingly, both arguments serve the same goal: to remove the USSR from the top position of the list at any cost."
  • Your defense of the sanctity of the #1 position for the USSR and contention that anyone who disagrees with you is out--at any cost--to strip the USSR of that glory points only to your own lack of objectivity in this matter . You don't appear concerned at all, speaking of your concern for misconceptions, that the current infobox implies that WWII started with the Great Patriotic War. The simple bottom line is that the USSR does not merit the top position regardless of the argument made.

Your objection that changes to the infobox result in article bias are unfounded; your objections to current shortcomings in the article stand on their own and should simply be addressed in due course. There is no "price to pay" regarding content balance for removing the USSR from the top of the Allied leader board. If anything, the true price being paid should we construct an infobox that is congruent with the formal conflict is, as I've already alluded, that we won't indicate that the USSR was a Nazi co-belligerent for 1939-1941--and there are ample scholarly sources for "co-belligerent," so let's not jump down that rathole. (We simply note that prior to 1941, the MRP Pact was in effect between Germany and the USSR with regard to dividing Eastern Europe.) But on the positive side, the precursory role of the conflict in Asia will get the recognition it deserves.

Lastly, I tire of your attack innuendo ("Interestingly,..."). Since you saw fit to level accusations of over-the-top POV motivation (your "at any cost"), since I am prepared to not list "USSR (1939-1941)" in the "Nazi co-belligerent" section as the inevitable result of adopting a chronological formal accession to conflict order, that clearly proves your attack is completely baseless. I suggest you work on your need to denigrate other editors. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Re "the sanctity of the #1 position for the USSR and contention that anyone who disagrees with you is out--at any cost--to strip the USSR of that glory" No "sanctity" and no "glory", just bare facts: more people fought and died in the Eastern Front (from both sides) then in all other theatres taken together. The fact that some of those peoples had a relation to occupation of the Baltic states does not mean their lives was less precious than the lives of, e.g. Americans, who invested a lot in the war (in terms of money and materiel), but lost just 1/55 of what the USSR lost (and killed much less Axis personnel then the Soviets did). In contemporary world human life is a primary value, isn't it? If you agree (and I am sure you will not object to this thesis) then why are you trying to come out with some secondary (and artificial) criteria? The only reasonable explanation is that you believe that the USSR was the bad guy, and the bad guy does not deserve to be on the top. Yes, I agree that the USSR was not an angel. However, the fact is that one of the most important Allies was a bad guy does not mean we have a right to give a distorted picture of the war.

Re Nazi co-belligerence. If we agree that formal signing of the Tripartite Alliance, as well as formal war declarations, mean nothing then the USSR should be listed before Poland and Britain, because Khalkin Gol preceded the invasion of Poland. Although I again have a deja vu feeling, let me remind you that during 1939-41 the USSR (i) had been involved in several minor (comparable to the Battle of Iwo Jima by their scale) clashes with Japan (future Axis member), invaded Poland (future Ally), annexed territories of Romania (future Axis member), annexed three Baltic states (whose population would massively support Germany), attacked and invaded neutral Finland (future Axis co-belligerent). I believe I haven't missed anything. Of course, these facts may serve as unequivocal evidence of USSR's Axis co-belligerence, aren't they?

Speaking seriously, your attempts to present my objectivity as my bias are amazing. Noone can denigrate your better than yourself.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Again, can you please explain what relevance does the future allegiance have to the events that took place (apart from being clear violation of causality) prior to the formation of such allegiances? Also for the note, Poland was an allied nation already when the Soviet Union invaded it. - Wanderer602 (talk) 21:12, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I explained that in my previous (21:09) post. Future allegiance is important only in the case of Japan, because if we consider the war between China and Japan as a part of the WWII, then Khalkhin Gol is a part of the WWII too. If you propose to discuss seriously Soviet invasion of Poland, then Khalkhin Gol should be discussed too. Regarding future allegiance of other states, that is not too important. What is important, it the fact that none of them was an Ally. If Germany and the USSR had no common enemy (except, probably, Poland), what co-belligerence are you talking about?

Re "Poland was an allied nation already when the Soviet Union invaded it" Yes, such an opinion exists. However, you must take into account the following: (i) there were no Allies by Sept 1: Anglo-French alliance was just a continuation of the Triple Entente, this alliance ceased to exist after French defeat, Britain, USA and USSR formed quite new alliance in 1942; (ii) Poland was not a member of the Anglo-French alliance, in actuality, Britain and France gave guaranties to Poland, but those guaranties were directed against Germany only; (iii) as a result, Soviet invasion of Poland was not an act directed against the (non-existent by that moment) Allies, hence no war declaration.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:28, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec) @Paul, regarding your latest contentions/rhetoric:

1. Re your objectivity on the USSR's role in this, need I remind you of yours followed by Nug's and then mine?
2. What "artifical" criteria are you talking about? Absent of political or moral machinations is not "artificial", it is "objective."
3. There's plenty written that the Soviet invasion of the Baltics et al. sealed Hitler's decision to invade the USSR, if so, Stalin brought that suffering upon his own nation.

Your personal thesis that the "value of human life" puts the USSR atop the leader board is ironic given that the value of human life in Stalin's USSR was nothing. How many Red Army died because their officers shot them on orders that no one retreat? 300,000+ casualties in a failed attempt to take the Courland Pocket? The squandering of life in victory does not make that squandering any less immoral. We value life now, Stalin did not. The massive Soviet casualties are reminiscent of the U.S. Civil War, where old style tactics (throw innumerable troops against the enemy in the field of battle) were met by modern instruments of war (mow down charging attackers like a harvester cutting down a field of wheat).

If human cost is of interest, then Poland needs to be at the top given its horrific losses of both Jews and Poles. Surely you cannot contend that the victim of both Nazi and Soviet aggression at the start of the war is less of an Ally than one of the powers that attacked it. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 21:21, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Can you please provide some non-local example? What relation does occupation of the Baltic states have to the question of military contribution of the Allies into the WWII? Yes, Stalin occupied the Baltic states, but Truman bombed Tokyo and Hiroshima (where more innocent civilian died). Does that change our vision of relative military contributions of those nations in WWII? I am not sure.

Regarding your last claim, yes. I do declare that the countries that signed non-aggression pacts with Nazi Germany during Anglo-Franco-Soviet anti Hitler negotiations in 1939 (and thereby actively contributed into negotiation's failure), the countries whose population made no contribution into the Allied war efforts (and actively collaborated with Nazi Germany) were less Ally then the USSR. The Baltic states had never been on the Allied side, and to claim otherwise would be a lie.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Oceania?

In the "locations" box, it states everywhere even North America except Oceania? Oceania comprises New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and many island nations. In Oceania there was some significant conflict such as the Battle for Australia, Battle of Kokoda, Battle of Milne Bay, Battle of the Coral Sea, Battle of Guadalcanal as well as many air raids and attacks on the shipping lanes. I do not see why Oceania is not included whereas North America is, to my knowledge North America was not even attacked in WW2. In my opinion this is an attempt to airbrush these battles out of WW2 history by refusing to acknowledge the conflicts in Oceania in WW2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collingwood26 (talk • contribs) 12:42, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Those are links to the articles on the various theatres of the war. Oceania is part of the Pacific Theatre, which is linked. Nick-D (talk) 09:52, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

The Pacific is an OCEAN, OCEANIA is a region. There are seven regions in this world. North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Middle-East, Africa, and Oceania. Each region comprises many countries or continents. So I ask again why has there been this deliberate attempt to cover up the battles in Oceania? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collingwood26 (talk • contribs) 04:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

There hasn't been, and why are you making such a sweeping assumption of bad faith? What specific change to you think should be made to the infobox? Nick-D (talk) 05:09, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

The so called "Pacific Theatre" covers an area from North America, to Asia and to Oceania. BUT if you are going to label other places by their regional names than why not name Oceania? You have to remember that the Pacific is just an Ocean, I would want to see Oceania added into the list of locations but not to replace the pacific itself as there were conflicts in the pacific ocean too.--Collingwood26 (talk) 23:26, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

The second World War is a huge topic to cover, this article is only intended to give an overall perspective, it is not intended to cover the minutia of every aspect of the war. A single article with that much information would be far too large to be usable. Further details on Theatres of Operation, Campaigns, and individual battles are all available on separate linked pages. If you feel the pages covering a specific topic need to be improved then use the talk page for those articles to suggest them. Mediatech492 (talk) 04:35, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Dude, your making it out like I'm trying to get every single WW2 battle mentioned in the infobox? WHICH I"M NOT!!! All I'm saying is if North America is worth mentioning then why not Oceania?--Collingwood26 (talk) 10:18, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

As I recall, the only action in North America was the bombing of Pearl Harbour. The events in Oceania is a lot more important that that of North America. Crzyclarks (talk) 00:41, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Your recall is faulty; you have forgotten the Aleutian Islands campaign. Also, Hawaii is in Oceania. . Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Your geography is also faulty, Pearl Harbour is not in North America, it is in Hawaii. Furthermore North America was the source of the vast majority of troops and equipment that fought against Japan, and several western ports (Anchorage, Vancouver, Seattle, Los Angles, San Diego, Panama) were heavily used as as operational bases against Japan. Mediatech492 (talk) 03:10, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Japan only had 8500 troops in the Aleutian Islands campaign. Since Hawaii is in Oceania, then maybe that's more reason in support of Collingwood. Also I'm thinking more along the lines of battles and campaigns, rather than where the tanks were produced. Crzyclarks (talk) 20:11, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

So MediaTech, just because America had more troops and equipment you think that reinforces North America over Oceania? I'm with Crzyclarks on this, it isn't about the contribution but the conflicts in those regions and Oceania had a hell of a lot more fighting than North America.--Collingwood26 (talk) 06:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Collingwood: I'm not arguing for or against anything, I'm merely point out the flaws in his (and your) logic. Geography is important in a war, but not nearly as much as logistics. Mediatech492 (talk) 07:21, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you've pointed out any flaws. Crzyclarks (talk) 18:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Article suffers from bias

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global war that was under way by 1939 and ended in 1945

Is this really true? It seems that there were actually two wars going on, one in Europe and another in Asia that had virtually nothing to do with each other. The two wars in fact had completely separate origins. Germany and Japan were completely cut off from one another and did not even coordinate their actions together. The Soviet Union and Japan did not engage in all-out hostilities until the very last month of the war in Asia.

Germany set out to establish a large empire in Europe.

Somewhat misleading, Hitler's ambitions were to subjugate Eastern Europe, Poland and the Soviet Union specifically.

Why are Allied war aims not discussed?

In December 1941, Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia, joined the Axis, attacked the United States and European possessions in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the West Pacific.

Japan didn't attack the United States and Britain just because it wanted to dominate Asia, it attacked them because they imposed economic embargos against Japan, and Japan felt like it was being strangled.

The war in Europe ended with the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.

Well, this completely ignores the invasion of Germany, of which Berlin was one part.

The Battle of Britain and the bombing of Germany is completely omitted from the intro. The post-war occupation of Germany and Japan is not mentioned either.

Pre-war events

This ignores Hitler's failed attempts to secure an alliance with Britain against the Soviet Union. It ignores how the Franco-Soviet-Czech alliance in many ways influenced Hitler to eliminate France and Czechoslovakia so as to have a free hand against the Soviet Union. It ignores how the guarantee to Poland was instrumental in prompting Hitler to launch the invasion.

The strategic implications of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact are not mentioned, specifically how it allowed Hitler to escape the dilemna of a two-front war.

In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to secure shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were about to disrupt

Should be made clear the sort of "disruption" envisioned, namely the violation of a sovereign state's territory for the purposes of provoking an enemy reaction.

Axis advances

Hitler's public offer to end the war with Britain on July 19, 1940 is not mentioned at all.

At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact united Japan, Italy and Germany to formalize the Axis Powers

They did not form the "Axis powers" until Japan entered the war in December 1941. The pact was merely a defensive alliance which Hitler intended to use to deter U.S. intervention.

The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three

In fact, Japan made clear numerous times that it would take an independent interpretation of the pact.

In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased and, after the Japanese incursion into Indochina, the United States embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts against Japan.

Ignores that the U.S. banned aviation gasoline to Japan on 31 July even before the move into northern Indochina was made.

During this time, the United States continued to support the United Kingdom and China by introducing the Lend-Lease policy authorizing the provision of materiel and other items[86] and creating a security zone spanning roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean where the United States Navy protected British convoys.[87] As a result, Germany and the United States found themselves engaged in sustained naval warfare in the North and Central Atlantic by October 1941, even though the United States remained officially neutral

Ignores the fact that the American-escorted convoys were in violation of international law. Ignores how Roosevelt provoked clashes with German ships which gave him an excuse to engage in an undeclared naval war with Germany. Does not mention Roosevelt's public accusations, using false intelligence supllied by British propaganda, that Germany wanted to control Latin America and abolish world religion. Does not mention the massive U.S. re-armament which began in 1940, nor the high level talks with the British to discuss U.S. entry into the war.

In early April, following Bulgaria's signing of the Tripartite Pact, the Germans intervened in the Balkans by invading Greece and Yugoslavia following a coup; here too they made rapid progress, eventually forcing the Allies to evacuate after Germany conquered the Greek island of Crete by the end of May.[98]

Fails to mention the British role in overthrowing the Yugoslav government.

By early December, freshly mobilised reserves[126] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops

In fact, they substantially outnumbered the Axis troops.

German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in south-east Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, while refusing to hand over political control of the colonies. Vichy France, by contrast, agreed to a Japanese occupation of French Indochina.[130] In July 1941, the United States, United Kingdom and other Western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on Japanese assets, while the United States (which supplied 80 percent of Japan's oil[131]) responded by placing a complete oil embargo.[132] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in Asia and the prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.

Japan didn't ask for "control" over the East Indies. Japan wanted to secure resources that had been cut off to it due to Roosevelt's embargo policies. The move into southern Indochina was designed to pressure the East Indies into making economic concessions that it had been refusing to make at the behest of the U.S. and Britain. This also ignores the immense lengths Japan went to avoid war in negotiations with the U.S., and how Roosevelt rejected compromise at every turn.

Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war.[134] To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet from the outset.

This does not make clear that the U.S. implicitly threatened Japan with war if Japan tried to break through the blockade against it. Again, Japanese peace proposals are ignored.

Germany and the other members of the Tripartite Pact responded by declaring war on the United States.

In fact, the German declaration stressed the U.S. attacks on German ships as the reason for the war.

Allies gain momentum

This section ignores the Allied demand for unconditional surrender issued at Casablanca, thereby making a negotiated solution to the war impossible.

Also completely missing is mention of the Allied bombing of Germany designed in part to terrorize the German population into submission. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in indiscriminant bombings and millions made homeless. The Hamburg raid in particular stands out. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed by the Allied bombing of France and Italy, literally no mention is made of this in the text. This is is a military event that belongs in the military section.

On 6 June 1944 (known as D-Day), after three years of Soviet pressure

The Soviet's self-serving demands are hardly notable for inclusion. You might as well say "On August 8, 1945, after three years of American pressure, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan". It would be better if overall Allied grand strategy was discussed.

On 16 December 1944, Germany attempted its last desperate measure for success on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes to attempt to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp in order to prompt a political settlement.

It should be clear that by "political settlement" it is meant that they wanted to force the Western Allies to make the peace which they consistently rejected up to that point.

Aftermath

Post-war suffering in Germany is largely skirted over. Economic devastation. Cities in ruins. Massive refugee crisis. Some 1.2 million dead by harsh conditions, up to 2 million dead in expulsions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.125.27 (talk) 05:38, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The article's biased because it doesn't present Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as being keen to make peace and fails to emphasise how the Allies caused the war? Wow. Nick-D (talk) 08:00, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The article is as it is as a result of a consensus of all contributors. It sounds like you are accusing the article of bias so that you can have it restructured to reflect your own bias. Irony that. Mediatech492 (talk) 16:33, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Is there an algorithm to tell us how long the article would be if we covered all the events of the war consistently in this much detail? Britmax (talk) 09:35, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but it would take infinitely long to execute, so no immediate help. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 16:24, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Not only the anon's post contains the Axis whitewashing, it is simply inaccurate. Thus, he writes:

"Japan didn't attack the United States and Britain just because it wanted to dominate Asia, it attacked them because they imposed economic embargos against Japan, and Japan felt like it was being strangled." That is incorrect. The oil embargo was imposed on Japan in response on her expansionist policy in south-east Asia. The situation when the US provided ROC with moral support and provided Japan with oil needed for continuation of her war in China was ridiculous.

"In fact, they (the Soviets) substantially outnumbered the Axis troops." Incorrect. About 1 million troops had been involved from both sides. Taking into account that the Germans usually did not count auxiliary units, whereas the figures for the Red Army show the total strength, the ration was probably even less favourable.

"The Soviet's self-serving demands are hardly notable for inclusion. You might as well say "On August 8, 1945, after three years of American pressure, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan"." That is incorrect. Neither the US nor UK pressurized the USSR to declare a war no Japan, taking into account that the USSR bore lion's share of the war in the major theatre of war, Europe.

Leaving Axis apology beyond the scope, I have to concede that there is at least one reasonable proposal in the anon's post. He writes:

"It would be better if overall Allied grand strategy was discussed."

I support this idea, and I propose to discuss Allied and Axis grand strategy in the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:00, 5 June 2012 (UTC)