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This is an archive of discussions from August 2005 to February 2006. Please do not add comments to this page, as it is no longer active.

Main Participants

Since there has been various frequent edits of the summary table's 'Main Participants', I created this subject to enable discussions of it.

My opinion on the list is neutrally based on the piecharts of World_War_II_casualties, which list the military casualties, which I believe is the best basis since "participants" indicates "voluntary" and civilian casualties are certainly not voluntary. According to the military casualties, the list should be as follows:

Allies

  1. Soviet Union
  2. China
  3. United States
  4. United Kingdom
  5. Yugoslavia
  6. France
  7. Poland

Axis

  1. Germany
  2. Japan
  3. Romania
  4. Hungary
  5. Italy
  6. Bulgaria
  7. -


Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 10:50, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry but according to the military casualties the alies should be:

  1. Soviet Union (10,600,000)
  2. China (4,000,000)
  3. Yugoslavia (446,000)
  4. United States (407,300)
  5. Poland (400,000)
  6. United Kingdom (307,700)
  7. France (212,000)


That's according to Wikipedia. I found other data:

  1. Soviet Union (12,600,000)
  2. China (1,324,000)
  3. Poland (850,000)
  4. United States (405,000)
  5. France (340,000)
  6. United Kingdom (326,000)
  7. Yugoslavia (300,000)

The last list above has been compiled from the sources:

  1. Alan Bullock - Hitler and Stalin
  2. Richard Overy - Russia's War

Lets discuss it.

Regards. Tlumaczek


There is, however, still the problem that placing Finland under the Axis powers isn't very fair. Or at least it needs an explanation that can't be given in the box. One idea would be to put it in brackets (possibly with an addition like 'see text'). Another solution would be to just list the countries with military casualties over 100.000. That would knock Finland off the list. And Bulgaria with a 'mere' 18.000 casualties (or 'deaths' - that's another dispute). But I don't know how to do that well. Filling in blanks for B6 and B7 works, but the right column then shifts, which doesn't look nice. So I just added two html-breaks, which is a workaround, but at least renders well. DirkvdM 12:15, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you, DirkvdM, Finland as Axis is not fair. Therefore I have changed my suggestion to exclude Finland. To make an empty entry in a template, use a '-' instead of blanks or spaces, then you don't have to add html-breaks. I will fix this now, don't worry. Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 13:08, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that if listing by military casualties produces this ordering, then we shouldn't be ordering by military casualties. If we explicitly said "this is a list in order of military casualites" then it would be OK, but "main participants" needs to work on more general criteria. As I said, anything that doesn't list the big three first gives the wrong impression. China was engaged mainly its own battle with Japan (and itself let's not forget - how many of its casualties were really because of the civil war?) and had relatively little global impact. The US had a relatively low casualty count, but its impact on the war was huge. Same with the UK.

While we are here, I frankly think the Yugoslav military casualty figures need to be looked at. I suspect that casualties during the long and brutal resistance war are included. Not wanting to play down the Yugoslav bravery or contribution at all, but we need some balence.

On the same subject the Commnwealth countries must get a mention, if not individually then collectively. Between them they fought in pretty much every part of the globe, on land sea and air, and from the beginning to the end. DJ Clayworth 15:17, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Someone above asked "what is the idea of the Big Three based on". Well, I'm not making the name up, it was a term used at the time (though it often referred to the leaders rather than their countries). It was the three countries that made the big decisions, and frankly that provided the bulk of the resources. When the Allies got together to decide on strategy, those were the three that came. To pretend that China somehow had a bigger impact on the war is making a serious dent in Wikipedia's credibility. DJ Clayworth 15:26, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Likewise Italy had significantly more strategic impact on the war than Romania. Here is what I suggest as the main participants.

Allies:

  1. Soviet Union
  2. USA
  3. UK & Commonwealth
  4. China
  5. France
  6. Poland

Axis:

  1. Germany
  2. Japan
  3. Italy
  4. Romania
  5. Hungary
  6. Bulgaria

DJ Clayworth 15:30, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

This hangs much on the definition of what WWII was. A case can be made that Finland and China fought their own wars, which just happened to coincide with WWII. But then shouldn't Japan be left out as as well? I didn't question 'the Big Three' as a historical term. I just wondered if it was correct. Grouping the Commonwealth countries together doesn't make sense. They were (as they are) separate countries. You could just as well group North America together. Or all Anglophone countries. The US probably (though I don't really know this) helped more in terms of material support than in terms of troops (in which sense they were already involved from the 1930's). Which is of course also important. But then we move on dangerous ground because that would mean saying that any material support to a war automatically means participating in that war. And I think a lot of governments would deny that in many cases. The decisionmaking of course is also very important. I don't really know what makes more sense anymore, so I'll leave it (for now :) ). But putting the Big Three on top feels a bit too much like perpetuating a myth. That we really want it to be 'our war' and that we only include the USSR because leaving them out would be too big a lie even for the most diehard anti-communist. DirkvdM 08:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

China was essentially fighting only Japan (and itself), but Japan took on the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and India at the very least, plus colonies of various other European nations. I agree with you that it would be ideal to list Commonwealth countries separately, but we only have a limited number of slots. I think what we have is a good compromise. We do have another article which goes into more detail. As for perpetuating the myth - well sometimes the thing everybody knows to be true turns out actually to be true. DJ Clayworth 13:27, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I can't believe it! We finally got rid of the nonsense about major/main participants from Allies of World War II and now it shows up here! As I said there: how do you weigh (for example) the contribution of France, which (although it had a few million personnel for a few months) surrendered in mid-1940, and then made an imporatant but numerically limited contribution in the form of the resistance and Free France (less than half a million personnel by 1945)? How is that comparable (for example) to the contributions of Canada and Australia, both of which were involved from 1939 until 1945 and each had about one million people in uniform during that period? I think we should simply have links to the Allies and Axis in the battle box and leave it at that. The main particpants are mentioned in the article.Grant65 (Talk) 13:50, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Well, the particupation list is at least improved, but we still have some problems. Listing France before US/UK gives a very strange impression, and we have 'UK and Commonwealth' listed as well as the individual commonwealth members. I'm going to move France, but I'll leave it to someone else do decide what we do about the Commonwealth. DJ Clayworth 17:48, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I would prefer to simply have it as "Allies" and "Axis" with no individual countries mentioned, since we can't possibly include a list of every country that made a contribution to either side (or both). That is what Allies of World War II and Axis Powers are for.
Secondly, if "Commonwealth" is listed then the listing of the UK is redundant, since the UK is simply one member of the Commonwealth of Nations among many. That was the whole point of the name "Commonwealth" (first used on 1926), as opposed to the "Empire". There is and was, technically, no such thing as the "British Commonwealth" and the Commonwealth has never been a military organisation. If British overseas territories, for whom the UK's declaration of war was binding, are what is meant then that is what the listing should say. Grant65 (Talk) 18:06, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I like how it is now, but what I don't understand what everybody's aversion to including Finland as an Axis country is. Sure during the winter war most contemporary allies and many future ones supported Finland at least officially, and even though the made the first attack, it was likely inevitable as Finland relied on Germany for arms and had German troops in Finland. Even if those are used for reasons, why should italy be included? they did essentially the opposite of Finland, they started with the Axis, but by the end of the war the Italian government and people supported the Allies. I see this opinion in many different articles and I just don't see why it is so strong.

Romania?

In Romanian I took a class with insisted that they were wrongly considered part of the Axis, because they only fought on that side after being invaded, as several other Allied countries did, to some extent. David R. Ingham 00:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It is the same subject with Finland. Even though we were attacked by an "ally" nation, Soviet Union, recieved military help from Germany and were formally on the Axis side, it is unfair to put us on the Evil side, because like anuone can read, Mannerheim never approved Hitlers way of thinking. Thank you to User:DirkvdM also for clearing things up. Arctic-Editor 11:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
The fact that Finland was part of the Axis because of the political situation forced upon it doesn't change the fact that it was part of that alliance. The Allies declared war on Finland when the Continuation War started. I'm not particularly familiar with the situation in Romania, but my understanding is that the regime allied itself to the Axis. Again, this isn't to say that Romania didn't have its hand forced, but it was allied to Germany. Look at the example of Yugoslavia to see what would have happened had they refusedLeithp 13:05, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
The question is an important one, true. But you are missing some points: GB and Commonwealth declared war on Finland December 6, 1941, not when the Continuation War started. United States never did declare war. (BTW, did US declare war on Romania? I'm not sure.) Romania did sign Tripartite Pact, Finland didn't. --Whiskey 10:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Debated entry: The repatriation of Soviet soldiers

"The repatriation, pursuant to the terms of the Yalta Conference, of two million Russian soldiers who had come under the control of advancing American and British forces, resulted for the most part in their deaths." I am not sure what that means. Kingturtle 06:15, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This article suggests that repatriated Soviet prisoners of War were killed. There is no truth to this whatsoever. According to Alexander Kokurin and Nikita Petrov, a total of 312,000 Red Army personnel up to 1 March 1944 returned from captivity and were checked up by the NKVD. There clearly were traitors amongst the Red Army and thus it was imperative to interrogate them. However, only a miniscule fraction of them were actually met with repression. Of the 312,000, 72% returned to the Red Army; 2% were placed in the NKVD; 1.5% were sent to hospitals for medical care; .5% were sent to penal batallions; and 2.6% were arrested. (Anonymous entry by 66.149.246.200)

Well, AFAIR the biggest part of returned POWs arrived in the later period, that is in late 1944 and in 1945. Also, I've read (where? I can't remember) that the repression rate among those who returned was significantly higher than the 9,1% quoted above (and even if it was "only" 10%...). For instance, I've read that the majority of those who returned to the Red Army were sent to the farthest areas of Siberia, with no chance of returning to some better posts. Could anyone confirm? Halibutt 22:24, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • I have removed this debated entry since it seems we can not confirm it at this moment. The original entry remains however documented and saved here:

" The repatriation of two million Russian soldiers previously serving under Germany (pursuant to the terms of the Yalta Conference), who had surrendered to advancing American and British forces, resulted for the most part in their deaths. "

It would be good if more users with knowledge could assess this entry. Regards, Dennis Nilsson. --Dna-Dennis 22:42, 28 August 2005 (UTC)


The offical policy of the Red Army was that anyone who was captured was necessarily a traitor because he was captured or surrendered instead of fighting to the death. There were many Red Army soldiers and other Russians who fought for the Germans. Stalin was extremely suspicious of any POWs. I believe the fate of these soldiers was decided at the Yalta conference. I do not have any statistics but this was a definite historical worry and concern of the Allies but in the end they forcibly repatriated the POWs. --Anonymous

Resistance section

One of the criticisms of the WW2 page (why it failed as FA) was that it missed a section describing the "resistance". Since I could not find any (!) main article for resistance during WWII, I have created one: Resistance during World War II. I have added the introductory text to the WWII main article under a new section called "Resistance".

Please help by reviewing & expanding the main article Resistance during World War II and possibly the WWII main article section "Resistance"!

I am far from an expert on the resistance...

Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 15:56, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


>>I felt the reason it failed was because it touch to lightly on all the subjects concerning world war 2. I realise that ww2 was a historic event that can never be fully documented and that wikipedia hosts many in depth studies on various parts of the war, but this main portal article lacks depth on many of the issues it talks about and misses many links to in depth articles concerning topics of this page. Perhaps some of the in depth historical articles concerning ww2 might be merged with this main portal or the information overlapped. Either way much of this article lacks extended explaination and as such should be restricted to a simple portal, or if it is going to be a main article should be much more comprehensive of the events.

--BMgoau

Edited deaths

I edited paragraph 4 and the statistics table to no longer refer 'total human loss' of life only to those of the allies. It was neccisary not to descriminate between axis and allies when refering to total loss of life concerning military and civilians casualties. see the casualties page for more information. User:203.217.68.136

  • You have got sharp eyes, 203.217.68.136! I wonder how I and all the other NPOV-fanatics have failed to see this before. I will now also update the section called "Casualties", according to your edits. Thanks again, 203.217.68.136! Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 21:43, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

A general template for WWII

Due to requests I have created this template for World War II : Template:World War II. It is immediately based on all entries appearing under "See also" in the WWII article, except those under "Specific articles", "Related articles", "Media" and "External articles".

The idea is to replace those affected entries with this new template. In this way, the reader won't have to scroll down through the rather large list of articles, since the template instead lists the articles in four columns from left to right. I also think the template would make it more comprehensive. Another benefit is that contributors of other articles can use this template in their articles immediately if they wish to, instead of copying links from "see also" on the WWII main page. Furthermore, updating will be easy, since it will have to be made only in one place - the template.

I don't want to be so bold that I immediately do this, so therefore I would like to know your opinions on this.

Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 03:21, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I like it! Looks much nicer than what we have now. And since it takes up much less space, we can maybe even put in some more campaign/operations articles there as well? At least I liked the compact way you could browse the various campaigns in that template so much that I immediately started to look for what major campaigns were missing ;-). But if we add more operations, the first coloumn will probably be too long. So either we just limit ourselves to the ones listed (we'll can't list every battle specific article, anyway), or we could maybe put the "Specific articles" below the Main Theaters, and let the yearly timeline-listing, with all the Campaigns and battles, have its own coloumn, so we could put in some more of the major ones.
But, either way, what you have there is IMO better than what we have now. So I'm all for putting it in the article. Shanes 04:03, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
I listed some sugested articles to add on Template talk:World War II. Let's keep the debate over what to include in the template there. Shanes 04:51, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Shanes! I have responded on Template talk:World War II. Regards, Dna-Dennis 06:20, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Since no one seems to oppose it, I have been bold and replaced the affected links under "See also" with this general template. Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 10:43, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Atrocities?

I (Dna-Dennis) and User:Shanes have been discussing the term "Atrocities", as it is one of the headers of this article. To our (Scandinavian) ears it sounds a bit harsh...I've checked for synonyms in Webster's, but they are not any better: savage deed, atrocious deed, outrage, horror, villainy, enormity, barbarity, barbarism, brutality, inhumanity, heinousness, savagery.. All you native English-speaking - is "atrocity" the best term for the section it describes? Isn't there any term which is less "POV"? Not that I don't myself think they are serious events! Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 20:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Atrocities is the correct word, and it correctly describes the Holocaust, murders of POWs, etc. The only controversal aspect is strategic bombing, everything else definitely qualifies. It is not POV, it is actually the right term. --Goodoldpolonius2 21:16, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
So the term is perfectly fine, and not POV, for the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese American internment as well? There are many people who still believe those were justified actions. And if we call them atrocities, it (to my ears) sounds like we are taking a stand and call them wrong. Shanes 21:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
You are right, the bombings and internment are POV to call atrocities. Lets make the title "Atrocities and effects on civilians" --Goodoldpolonius2 21:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Good idea, Goodoldpolonius2. But maybe the title "Civilian impact and atrocities" is even better? Then the slight POV word comes second (and after all, "civilian impact" is a larger concept, since it (mostly) encompasses "atrocities"). Regards, Dna-Dennis 12:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Alas the historical consensus is this: any thing done by the losers in the war is called an attrocity. And that's not POV because it becomes a consensus statement of fact. Anything done by the victors can not be called an attrocity because that is POV because victors write their own history. In the case of the now disolved USSR, there (a)is also a willingness to discuss attrocities by their forces too (such as rapes that took place in Berlien in 1945). So you may find it best to split the section into "Atrocities" for Nazi and Soviet actions (since there's consensus for those) and "Possible Allied atrocities?" since academic debate for those.
In short, the definition of atrocity is POV but after 66 years of being the victor that POV generally speaking has become the consensus. Coricus 19:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
"Atrocities", "war crimes" etc. are words that should be used for the same kind of actions regardless on which side they occurred. That much I agree with Coricus. However, it is valid to distinguish between different kinds of actions or different levels. For isntance, I wouldn't call internment (speaking only about internment), as deplorable as it may be, an atrocity, but mass murder is certainly an atrocity. These are your extremes and in between you have a couple of other things. Str1977 20:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
While the internments were clearly unjustified and wrong, they are not quite the same as ethnic cleansing. To paint it with the same brush as mass murder sounds like an attempt to justify actual atrocities (Along the lines of "See, even the Americans committed atrocities!")
I also fall into the camp that feels the atomic bombings were justified. The Japanese military had already shown that it would fight to the last man and civilians were also expected to perform their duty to the emperor. Check the Battle of Saipan for mass suicides (soldiers in suicidal attacks, civilians leaping to their deaths). Japanese soldiers also used civilians as "screens" to attempt to slip into American lines in battles late in the war. As such, I would expect that Japanese civilian casualties in an assualt on Japan would have been far higher than suffered in the atomic bombings. If you throw in the expected million American casualties, the bombings clearly make the most sense. --Habap 21:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
See Operation Downfall. It would have been Allied casualties, not just American. I wonder how history would regard Harry Truman, had he refused to use the A-bombs and insisted on an invasion or a prolonged naval blockade. Either of these would have had appalling consequences for the Japanese civilian population. Grant65 | Talk 01:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
My apologies. As I was typing it, I wondered about other Allied contributions. Not having read about Operation Downfall at that point, I just didn't know. I expect the Commonwealth Corps and any other Allied troops would have suffered significant casualties as well. --Habap 17:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm also in the (currently rather unfashionable) camp of thinking the atom bomb decision is justifiable (albeit not necessarily jusitified). There is currently evidence that Japan was considering a radiological bomb attack on the US had the war not ended when it did. However, I recognise there is debate about the subject. Does this then not back up the case for a section on "Atrocities" for Nazi and Soviet actions (since there's consensus for those) and "Possible Allied atrocities?" since academic debate for those. Coricus 04:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Why does this matter? We have a section labelled "Civilian impact & atrocities" and we do not label each event as such - we simly describe the civilian impact and atrocities of the war, divided into "genocide," "concentration, labor, and internment camps" and "war crimes and attacks on civilians." These labels seem to work, the text behind each seems quite NPOV, so what proposal are we debating? --Goodoldpolonius2 04:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to quite put my finger on but there's just something uncomfortable to me about putting the regretable and racist internment of 100,000 - 140,000 Japanese Americans in the same boat as Japanese POW camps (where people were tortured to death) and Soviet Gulags. Similarly, I understand the overiding logic behind the "War Crimes and Attacks on Civilians section" but I just find lumping "Japanese war crimes also included rape, pillage, murder, cannibalism and forcing female civilians to become sex slaves" in with the German Blitz on London (which was clearly a military event, albeit civilian directed) and even the British bombing of Dresden (which is probably about the clearest case for an Allied mass atrocity... and even then it's debatable). I can live with the article the way it is but it does seem odd to me. Coricus 06:08, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I understand your discomfort, this is a basic flaw of the NPOV policy, which despite other advantages, makes it difficult to make editorial judgement calls of this sort in the way that an individually-written work would. The result are multiple POVs squeezed together into a relatavistic mishmash. The best approach I have found is to quote some of the more respectable historians of the subject. And I highly reccomend reading this piece on subject of WWII war crimes and Wikipedia. --Goodoldpolonius2 06:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Peer review

I have requested for the World War II article to be peer reviewed.

Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 23:36, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

A number of interesting opinions have already gathered on Wikipedia:Peer review/World War II/archive2. I think they are definitely worthy of consideration. Regards, Dna-Dennis 10:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

No 1944 Pacific Overview

The article overviews the war in Europe in 1944 but doesn't mention the Pacific. It overlooks the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, invasion of the Phillipines, and the capture of Marianas from which the Enola Gay dropped the first atom bomb.

Good point. You can add it yourself. Be bold. (and you may want to sign your comments with a --~~~~ --Goodoldpolonius2 22:56, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Then it needs attention? --AI 01:41, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Notices

I removed the pages needing attention notice and the limited geographic scope notice (the second one is just hogwash). Unless someone mentions specifics (as in actual quotes or ideas) I don't think it appropriate to add such serious accusations. Also, it would be nice if such an addition was noted here, since this is a very active page.--naryathegreat | (talk) 02:32, September 4, 2005 (UTC) I don't know if it was added lately or if I just missed it but there appears to be a overview for the war in Asia 1943-1945 listed under 1943 yet a separate article is devoted exclusively to 1945. This is extremely confusing so I think we should delete the 43-45 overview.IndieJones 21:27, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Crete

It was actualy hitler who said that crete was the grave of the parachutist. He said it to student who disagreed. Rich tea man.

Is that from a dream that you had? Students who disagreed with Hitler rarely graduated.

Lestrade 23:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

He meant General Kurt Student, the developer of the German Airborne forces. The story is accurate; the Germans never made another Division-size airborne assault. DMorpheus

cost more than all previous wars combined?

The intro now has a statement that wwII is

"estimated to have cost more than all previous wars in history combined".

What is the reference for this? I'd like to delete it since I don't think it's true, or at best a very controversial calculation. Shanes 03:05, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Shanes. For WWII to cost more than all previous war combined would be quite an impressive feat - WWI, The Thirty Year´s War, The Hundred Year´s War, Napoleonic Wars, Russian Revolution, Russian-Japanese War, Seven Year´s War, Revolutionary War, American Civil War, uncountable Roman Empire wars, the Crusades, Attila the Hun and Genghis Kahn all added up together. Doidimais Brasil 00:31, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
I removed the claim. Shanes 00:24, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
That's right you removed the claim since it made nonsense (all the war??). But still, WW2 likely costed more lives than all the wars cited bt Doidimais Brasil together. The fact is that before WW1 casualties were low. Napoleonic wars were sometimes bloody, but nothing w.r.t. the world wars. In the first battles in the Hundred Year's War, about 15000 thousend people died. It was a shock in that time, something really unbelieveble. I have a good source saying that in WW1 died more than twice the people that died in all the european wars since 1700. Likely, it is quite hard to estimate casualties in wars before 1700, and saying all the wars does not make sense. Gala.martin 05:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Brazil

Brazil is listed under "neutral / ambivalent". Brazil sent hundreds of troops to Italy and, Brazilian soldiers died fighting Mussolini´s men. It is both historically innacurate and offensive to include Brazil under "neutral". We were the only South American country to send troops to World War II. Doidimais Brasil 00:27, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

This regretful error has been corrected. Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 10:31, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Poland as ally

I am quite unhappy with current description of the 1939. I think that the reader unfamiliar with the topic will assume, that Poland was defeated in 1939 and stopped participating in the war. I was thinking in adding at least one sentence reflecting the fact that Poland was still fighting and was part of the allies. The link to Polish governmen in exile is ok, but it is linked from the sentence "Polish government escaped" which have no sense to me. Maybe another sentence: "within days, Polish government in-exile was formed in the west" or something similar?

No

Szopen 10:56, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Removal of line

I have removed the line about the Nazis hating Slavs as much as Jews as it strikes me as silly and throwaway. As I said in the summary "KKK members hate Jews and Blacks equally" would be a sort of senseless line.

Further, however bizarre, there was a hierarchy to things and that Jews ranked at the bottom seems to me beyond question. Rough rank order:

  • Favoured: Germans, Scandinavians, Britons (remember, Hitler admired the British Empire)
  • Acceptable: French Latins
  • Debatable: Other Latins (eg., Spanish and Italians)
For political reasons, the Nazis would often rank the Italians (their allies) above the French (their enemies). Similarly, the Magyars, of eastern steppe origin, were given honorary Aryan status, as were, even more absurdly, the Japanese. States allied to Nazi Germany somehow came off higher in the race hierarchy than those opposed. john k 05:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Prior to the Tripartiate alliance, I have read Mussolini actually actively opposed the Nazi racial hierarchy because it placed Italians in a middling position. I also recall "research" was conducted to prove a cognate link between the German and Japanese languages... Marskell 14:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Degenerate Aryans: Slavs, with an West to East rank (Holocaust: "The Nazis considered various ranks of Slavic peoples, e.g., it was thought that Russians were inferior to Ukrainians and Belarusians, and that the latter were inferior to Poles." Poles, after all, would have had some German blood).
  • Worthless races: Gypsies, Africans, Jews
The Jews were worthless in a different way than, say, Africans. Africans were considered to be less evolved, primitive, and so forth. The Jews were actively evil, and degenerate. Gypsy status was even weirder, as I recall. john k 05:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

In the words of one author Slavs were "rubbish" and Jews were "unspeakable" [1]. Marskell 11:51, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Ok, so my wording was too strong. But the hatred of Slavs is still relevant I'd say, right? DirkvdM 14:24, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Slavs are mentioned quite clearly as targets of the Holocaust along with Jews in the relevant section, World War II#Genocide, other than that, the article does not talk about motivating factors of the Nazis, the Holocaust article and others go into that in more detail. --Goodoldpolonius2 14:42, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Rather than comparing to Jews I compared to Western Europe: "the Nazi drive into Eastern Europe was further animated by powerful anti-Slavic bigotry which was not paralleled on the Western Front." Yes, anti-Slavic hatred is important. As has been said many times, if Hitler and Stalin had hung together the world would be a very different place—but Hitler's belief system could never have allowed for that.

Also re-structured the section more generally. Marskell 15:47, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Soviet-Japanese Neutrality

Is there something on the Soviet-Japanese neutrality? It effected the course of the Pacific War, but I am having trouble finding any background info on it at all. kaiser matias 22:43 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Check out the Battle of Khalkin Gol. Oberiko 22:02, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

attacks on US soil, eastern front and some more

Marskell just rewrote the bit about the entry of the US and the USSR. I partially reverted that.
The Germans didn't literally attack on US soil, but ships in the harbour of New York, which is not soil but water, but that's nitpicking. The point is it was not in international waters, as it had been until then, which makes a huge difference.
Maybe two fronts can be a good tactic, but in this case it wasn't. Several German generals heavily criticised this and I believe some even resigned because they considered the war lost when the USSR was atacked. So I rewrote it to include info from the Two Front War article.
Leaving out the 'getting supplies in' and 'scorched earth' is a bad idea because those were the major (connected) problems, I believe.
I left out the 'vital resource and population base' because that seems rather obvious.
I'm not too sure about the 'moral boost' bit, but I believe that that did make quite a difference. DirkvdM 08:27, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I have to go after this one first: "I left out the 'vital resource and population base' because that seems rather obvious." Why don't we leave out D-Day, Hiroshima etc. given how obvious they are? Harsh winters in Russia?—obvious, no need to mention. Please.
There was no second front in 1941. The British were fighting a naval and air war with Germany. There was, literally, no front to speak of. Indeed, as I say said in the summary, the creation of a second front was Stalin's primary (in some ways his only demand) of the U.K. and U.S. until D-Day.
"The Germans didn't literally attack on US soil"—then we shouldn't imply that they did.
"But ships in the harbour of New York" and as far south as the coast of Florida I think. Then there was Pearl Harbour. So "direct attack on its navy, shipping and other interests" makes perfect sense. Marskell 11:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it worth saying that the participants section is now a mess. People seem to be using it to argue some rather odd points. Can I suggest that we revert it back to being a summary of who took part, when and why, and not whether shipping or ground was attacked. There are also some very strange statements: "Thus neither the US nor the USSR need necessarily have entered the war." What you mean they should have ignored Pearl Harbor and Barbarossa? I'm assuming whoever wrote it meant something different, in which case please a) explain and b) take it to an article on the lead-up to WWII.

It is also not helpful to argue about which front is the Centrepiece. This is an ill-defined term which people can argue about. Instead it's much better to make an unarguable factual statement such as "The majority of the deaths occurred on the Eastern Front".

Please remember that this is an overview article and already too long. Anything that doesn't absolutely have to be in this article should be moved to one of the more detailed ones. DJ Clayworth 13:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Point taken and I would only add that once a tangent exists you either have to clarify it or remove it. Given that (rightly) editors try to avoid removing the work of others, tangents often bloat sections until nobody knows what's what. Anyhow, I have taken the liberty of removing the following and will preserve it here.
"Thus neither the US nor the USSR need necessarily have entered the war. The US had already helped with supplies (to Britain particularly), but its full entry into the war was an enormous boost for the Allies. In the immediate sense it greatly increased the morale of the embattled British and Russians and in the longer term it meant a full commitment from a vital resource and population base. But especially the German attack on the USSR, and the latter's turn from Axis to Ally, is often considered the mistake that caused the Nazis to lose the war. Not only did it draw in another powerful enemy, but conquering Russia had proven notoriously difficult previously, due to the distances involved and logistical difficulties, the harsh winters and the tactic of the scorched earth.
When judged by scope, the Eastern Front of the war, between Germany and the USSR, is the centerpiece of World War II and indeed has little parallel in the history of human conflict. The USSR lost as many as 25 million people while the 3 million German battle deaths in this theatre represent a large majority of over-all losses. Here too, ideology played a much larger part, with the respective leadership of each power portraying Nazism and Communism as utterly antithetical and locked in a to-the-death struggle; the Nazi drive into Eastern Europe was further animated by powerful anti-Slavic bigotry which was not paralleled on the Western Front". Marskell 14:08, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
About the attacks on US soil, like I said the point is that these attacks didn't take place in international waters, which seems essential to me. But I'll leave that. If the whole thing is to be kept short, this might even be removed, because the declaration of war is the more important bit.
About the removal; preserving it here makes no sense, because this is not part of an article. Moving parts of it to more specific articles (and leaving a summary here!) makes more sense. But of all the details that could be mentioned in this 'overview-article', the eastern front is one of the most important ones. I'd sooner leave out the bit about the neutral countries because, after all, they did not take part.
So I've somewhat shortened the two sections and put them back. I'm still not happy about the exclusion of how and why the US entered the war, though. DirkvdM 07:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
However DJ Clay is right that a Participants section doesn't need to wander off-topic. I've moved the second paragraph to the Eastern Front overview. I'm removing the first again until a better place can be suggested for it. The Two Front bit is editorializing and as I say no second front existed in 1941. Marskell 08:53, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

the beginning of the war

replace second paragraph of the leading section

"The conflict began by most Western accounts on September 1, 1939 due to the German invasion of Poland (however some say it started on July 7, 1937 due to the Japanese attack on China) "

by this?

"The conflict can be said to have began in the western front on September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and in the eastern front on July 7, 1937 with to the Japanese attack on China. But there is no (broad?) consensus on what event constitutes the start of the war. "

yes, it is longer. but it clarifies that the disagreement is not over the dates but over "what constitutes the start of the war". Doldrums 14:49, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

As "World War II" rather than as the "Sino-Japanese War," the war in hte Pacific/Asia is generally said to have begun with the attacks on Pearl Harbor and other British and American targets on 7/8 December 1941. Saying it began in 1937 is like saying the War of the Austrian Succession began in 1739 with the British declaration of war on Spain. Just because there was a war going on already which later fed into a larger conflict does not mean that the beginning of the smaller war marks the beginning of the conflict as a whole. john k 15:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

By that logic, 1 Sep 1939 should not be considered the beginning of WW2 in Europe, since it was a 'smaller war' with fewer participants. Neither the USA nor the USSR was fighting the Axis until 1941, thus the war was not 'global' or at least multi-continental until that point. At least that is AJP Taylor's take on it; his argument is that several smaller wars coalesced into WW2. I am not necessarily agreeing with him, but our logic should be consistent in both theatres. -DMorpheus Nov 4 05

Further, the Sino-Japenese conflict is not referred to as the Eastern Front. "The Pacific theatre" or perhaps "East Asian theatre" is better. Marskell 15:41, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
i've no particular view on which particular date is to be used. is the current wording the result of previous discussion/consensus? (dare i hope!). i think the phrase "however some say it started on" is too vague and needs to be changed. also, i think "war began with the invasion of poland..." is better than "war began due to".
agree that the "eastern front" is incorrect and can be replaced by "pacific" or "east asian" theatre depending on which date for the eastern theatre is found suitable. Doldrums 16:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
1939 is the correct date since the Sino-Japanese war was not global, however in 1939 it was not England alone but also Commenwealth and France with her colonies that got involved, hence a true world war had started. The Sino-Japanese war had as little to do with WW2 as the Chinese and Spanish Civil wars. Sneaking Viper 23:36, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I am not sure if I am glad or sad this is brought up to discussion again, but it is nevertheless interesting...I think it actually is a complex question. See this discussion we had in August this year:

Talk:World_War_II/Archive_7#The_start_of_World_War_II

I myself go for this date: only "1939" or "1 September 1939". The reason for this can be found in the discussion I mentioned. Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 23:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

There should be a long list of the links within the article put at the end or bottom of the article. There is no way I am going to comb through this. The See also section should be a mega-link farm. I can't find anything in this article. Its perfectly useless. There actually has to be a notice at the See also that says "Click on "Category:World War II to see all the articles". --McDogm 01:28, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

What we have here, is a failure to communicate. Visually, people often hate the links within sentences. Practically, they are unquestionably useful. You can't anywhere comb through WWII properly if that's what you were after here (certainly not within an hour). But here you can follow or not follow tangents as you please, and still get an overview. Perhaps a link to World War II links? Really, not a bad idea. But "perfectly useless?"—I suspect you overstate things. Marskell 01:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

In reference to the US and Canadian Internship of North American Japanese

Though the hardship of these people is perhaps not comparable to the Gulags, or the Japanese POW camps, it is well documented that most lived in sub-standard conditions, with little if no communication with the outside. Entire families spent years in forced isolation. I think it is misleading to say that they did not endure hardship. ANON

You're right. I changed the line. Marskell 04:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

"Some historians"...

Some historians contend that The Italian ocupation of Ethiopia (The Second Italo-Abyssinian War) which lasted seven months in 1935-1936 was the actual start of World War II.

Are there any sources or citations for this? Otherwise "some historians" is way too weasely, IMO, and it should be reverted out. Wikibofh 03:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

what stalin "felt" & soviet "partisans" in US press

are there sources for the following statements? perhaps the phrases "Stalin was happy to" and "Soviet partisans" can be changed to a more "encyclopediac" terms.

The Soviet Union, due to its treaty relationship with Nazi Germany was satisfied not to fight the fascists, as Stalin was happy to have those he felt were his natural and true enemies—the capitalist West and Nazi Germany—fight each other. For example, the Soviets had their partisans in the U.S. press for the U.S. to remain neutral in the war, and those partisans would continue to do so until the German invasion of the USSR.

Doldrums 03:34, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Europe Map

The europe overview map seems to use the same colour for axis-conquered territories as neutral ones, resulting in a near heart-attack for me as I came to the shocking revelation that germany had conquered Ireland! Save us!-- Revolutionary Left | Che y Marijuana 09:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The war ended in 1990?

BBC quiz show QI just stated that the war officially ended in 1990 with the unification of Germany, though admitted that was a technical oddity. An interesting fact, if true. violet/riga (t) 21:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Hm. Like the 18th century ended at Waterloo in 1815 and the 20th century began in 1914. It's "catchy history speak." The war, as a war, ended in 1945. It's reprecussions still continue. But we must state the obvious and acceptable here. Marskell 23:18, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Then by this logic WWII is still going on--Korea is still divided.--Buckboard 09:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Lead pic problems

Could someone please remove the World War II out of the lead collage? It gives the very inappropriate appearance of being the cover of some exciting, high-budget action movie.

Peter Isotalo 07:52, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

There is a similar image on World War I. I personally don't see any probem with it, it gives a good initial insight into the numerous aspects of the war. What do you perceive to be wrong with it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chowells (talk • contribs) 09:39, 25 October 2005
I think its a very fine pic, picking just one thing for the lead being so hard in this case. Marskell 09:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
The choice of images I have no problem with, It's the image text that makes it look quite tasteless. Same goes for the WWI image. They both resemble movie posters.
Peter Isotalo 14:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • We hashed it out and came up with consensus a few months ago, and it's one we liked. I'd recommend trying to figure out how to make another and we can see if we like it better.  :) Check through the archives and you'll see the discussion. 162.93.249.1 14:43, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The photo labeled as Auschwitz - is that not in fact Dachau? User:DMorpheus

  • Hi guys, I'm the one who did the image, thus I am to be held responsible :). I am happy to make changes to both the WWI and WW2 pictures, but I think I need to be more convinced. I am not sure I like the title letters myself, but it seems there are only two people in the previous discussion who wants them removed. I will have to hear more opinions on this. In the meantime, I have uploaded a version without the title here: Image without title. You can compare this with the original to get a feel of the difference.

Please tell me your opinions! About Auschwitz: According to the original photo and it's corresponding category it is the gates of Auschwitz.

Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 22:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Arbeit macht frei was placed at the gates of many consentration camps, including Dachau. But this particular image is the one from Auswitz. The one at Dachau looked different. Shanes 23:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

End of WWII

Here's an interresting little tidbit from QI. The end of WWII was made official through the Paris Peace Treaties in 1947. But that was about Germany, which didn't exist anymore at the time. It only came back into existence at the reunification in 1990, so, technically, that's when WWII ended. Not sure if this should go into the article, though. :) DirkvdM 12:08, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

This was mentioned above. However a quick check of the facts finds that the DDR did not come into existence until 1949, so at the time of the Paris Treaties it was still one country (albeit divided into occupation zones). Furthermore since both East and West Germany would consider themselves the legitimate heirs of Germany, they would consider that the Paris Treaties would apply to them ,and so would be no longer at war. If for some reason one country did not consider itself the legitimate heir of Germany, then it was never at war at all. DJ Clayworth 14:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
It's also worthwhile pointing out that QI is a comedy quiz show. Such shows do no usually spend a lot of time on getting their facts right, since correct facts are not always funny. DJ Clayworth 14:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Great Patriotic War

The Soviets called it the Great Patriotic War, which exists as a wikipedia redirect Great patriotic war linking to Eastern Front (World War II). This needs to be included in this article, but I didn't see an obvious place to locate it. Any thoughts? JJackson8 22:52, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Onslaught of WWII

On September 1, 1939 when the Germans began shelling Westerplatte near Danzig the moon was full. On December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor at Honolulu the moon was full. Is this a coincidence or does a full moon give an advantage to a pre-dawn attack? ref: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/vphasepost.sn Musicwriter 03:40, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I would think so. Remember, night vision technology in 1939 pretty much consisted of a technique known as 'squinting'. :) Guapovia 08:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Map Wrong

This map shows Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland as Axis 'conquests'. HUH? Spain and Sweden were on friendly terms, but were not 'conquests'. Maybe I am misreading this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ww2summarymapeurope.gif

Yeah, it looked strange. Someone had made changes to the original image. I reverted to the first version now. Shanes 15:42, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Uhm, it would be nice if "Sweeden" and "Saraha desert" were spelled correctly, too. It looks pretty embarassing right now.
Peter Isotalo 09:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I've corrected these spelling errors: Sweeden->Sweden, Saraha->Sahara, Lativa->Latvia. I am a Swede, not a Sweede..:) Regards, --Dna-Dennis talk - contribs 01:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Causes

Regarding the reverts over causes, "intensely fanatical nationalism" sort of whacks the reader over the head ("non-intense fanaticism" is an oxymoron methinks). Nationalism is mentioned twice in the intro and the third reference here as I had it seems sufficient.

Finally, applying this as a fundamental motivation to the allies is largely incorrect. The war brought about a nationalist surge in the U.S.S.R., U.S., UK etc. but nationalism did not propel them into the conflict. Marskell 19:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Marskell. →Raul654 20:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I strongly agree with Marskell. Dna-Dennis 23:09, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Reconstruction of the bunker(s)

Hi wikipedians!

Finally I have added the reconstructions I made in 2004 of the two bunkers (Führerbunker & Vorbunker) and their location to wikimedia. These maps certainly don't earn a place in this article, so therefore I have not added any (they have been added to the article Führerbunker, Hitler's death and Reich Chancellory). Nevertheless, I wanted to inform you of their existence, since I believe they are of interest to some of you. Instead of repeating the information about my reconstruction here, I refer the descriptions I have made on the actual image pages:

  1. Fuehrerbunker.jpg
  2. Vorbunker.jpg
  3. BunkerLocations.jpg

I hope you enjoy the maps. Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 14:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC) Dna-webmaster (talk · contribs)

New lead picture(s) - without text

Hi wikipedians! Due to opinions from various places (e.g. Talk:World_War_II#Lead_pic_problems), I have changed the lead pictures for the WWI & WWII page, so that they now are without the top title text ("World War I" & "World War II" (remember to hit "refresh" in your browser). I believe this is what the majority desires, but if you object, please say so here. Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 23:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Great job Dennis. And may I say again that those pictures are superb. Major kudos for producing them. DJ Clayworth 14:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Intro paragraph source

Many consider World War II to be the only true world war due to the overwhelming number of nations involved and the extraordinary number of theatres—from Europe and the Soviet Union to North Africa, China, South East Asia and the Pacific. In World War I non-European theatres had seen quick and short colonial battles, but in World War II these theatres demanded far more resources and human sacrifice. Can we have a source for this? Who are the "many"? I can think of wars other than those in the 20th century which have spread across the globe. Obviously none were quite as intensive as WW2, but I don't think this statement belongs in the intro unless there is a very convincing source. Wiki-Ed 14:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. That's way too detailed for the intro paragraph. Even if it was sourced it would be much better somewhere else. DJ Clayworth 14:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Where do these ideas come from? The "World War" came into being because it was seen by the world at the time as being a world war. Having a bigger world war doesn't negate any of that. Even if it could be sourced, it's an absurdity in this article.--Buckboard 09:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi I'd like to change some details but I am not allowed by someone

The part about france and indochina seems unfair and untrue to me. I'd changed it and my changes were erased.

I'd like to have your opinion. What is wrong with what I wrote ? after that part : "German forces then invaded France itself, in Operation Red, advancing behind the Maginot Line and near the coast. "

"As the situation was clearly hopeless, France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22 1940 and with Italy on June 24 (Italy tried (but failed) to invade France on June 10), leading to the establishment of the Vichy France puppet government led by the former supreme commander of all French armies in WWI (in 1917), hero of Verdun (1916), the 84 years old Marshall Henri Philippe Pétain, in the unoccupied part of France."

Is it normal that the original text can be seen on several website ? Is this one just a copy from other websites ?

then the Asia part :

Asia:

"On September 11 1940, Thailand (name of Siam since 1939) started a war against the French Indochina. It had lost 40% of its fleet on 17 January 1941, leading the Japanese to intervene. The Japanese suggested to Thailand to ask for a truce that was accepted by the admiral Decoux on 01/31/1941. Negotiations ended with Thailand receiving what Siam had to cede formerly to Indochina. Peace was signed in Tokyo on 9 May 1941. By The Darlan-Kato agreements (29 July 1941) Vichy allowed the Japanese troops to be stationed in Indochina"

The original text that seems to come from : http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2129.html

is not true IMO.

TIA

--above by anon.

This appears to be because your changes are historically inaccurate and inconsistent with information on other wikipedia pages, namely Military_history_of_France_during_World_War_II Jok2000 17:01, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


-- I don't think so ... The page you gave don't even talk about Indochina !!!

France didn't even surrender ... that's pretty easy to show since France signed an Armistice ... by definition it means that it didn't surrender. The text about Indochina is simply false ...

Plus the text of this page seems to be just copy and paste from other websites ...Is that normal ?

Everything I said is true and easily verifiable anyway ... Show a point that you think is actually wrong.

Is there a way to prevent people to change things for dubious reasons ? I don't think so ... but just asking.

---Above by Anon. Get an account and talk here first, revert later, sign with 4 tildes. You are seriously altering the consistency of this page with the one above and History_of_Thailand I gave it a quick read, why not fix the "errors" here with the facts from over there?.Jok2000 21:59, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

-- waggg 11:36, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I have an account. Why the fact of talking here will change anything ? are you the one that made the page on WWII ? I am not an English-speaking person (I'm French) so I don't trust my English abilities enough to be an "author"... I changed the article because what I read was incorrect from what I know (what I wrote is easily verifiable on th web or in book - if you disagree with one point tell me which and i'll try to reply) and I thought it was my duty to change it ... That's why people can change things by themselves on wikipedia, I thought it was the way it worked. I have neither the desire nor the time to change other pages, the fact that all the pages are not in harmony is a detail, I won't change every pages that lack the element or contradict what I wrote ...

The simple fact that "armistice" (a sort of TRUCE) and "surrender" (the nation has lost the war) are antinomic should be enough to allow me to change that ......

It isn't even mentionned that Italy went at war w/ France on June 10 (one month after Germany) or that who was the leader of Vichy (what explained partly the French people in this dark situation relied on this leader to make things better) I thought this was some details that had to be said.

Plus it is said that Vichy Indochina was under the Japanese rule in 1940, that's false.

http://www.bookrags.com/history/worldhistory/indochina-war-of-19401941-ema-03/

http://www.photius.com/countries/cambodia/national_security/cambodia_national_security_the_japanese_occupat~9241.html

In 1940 the Japanese government, after negotiating a treaty of friendship with Thailand, sought special concessions in Indochina from the French colonial authorities. The Vichy administration in Hanoi, under pressure from the German government, signed an agreement with Tokyo that permitted the movement of Japanese troops through the transportation hubs of Indochina.

Thailand subsequently sought to take advantage of both its friendship with Tokyo and French military weakness in the region by launching an invasion of Cambodia's western provinces. Although the French suffered a series of land defeats in the skirmishes that followed, a unique twist in the confrontation came from a naval battle that ensued near the Thai island of Ko Chang. A small French naval force intercepted a Thai battle fleet, en route to attack Saigon, and sank two battleships and other light craft. The Japanese then intervened and arranged a treaty, signed in Tokyo in March 1941, compelling the French to concede to Thailand the provinces of Batdambang, Siemreab, and parts of Kampong Thum and Stoeng Treng. Cambodia thus lost one-third of its territory and nearly half a million citizens.

The Japanese, while leaving the Vichy colonial government nominally in charge throughout Indochina, established in Cambodia a garrison that numbered 8,000 troops by August 1941. Preservation of order on a day-to-day basis, however, continued to be the responsibility of the colonial authorities, who were permitted to retain the constabulary and the light infantry battalion. These forces were sufficient to quell the first stirrings of nationalistic unrest in 1941 and in 1942.

Hi, wiki-ed, i'd like to know why you removed my changes about the WWII page (concerning France in 1940 and Vichy indochina). I don't understand. I've started a discussion on the "talk" page of WWII, if you want to reply, you're welcome. Waggg 12:36, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
The change I just made was to the intro paragraph. Please check the page history. It has nothing to do with Vichy Indo-China, a subject about which I know very little. Wiki-Ed 13:37, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
That doesn't make the intro more correct to the facts ... -_-
waggg: Talking here is part of a good policy called WP:1RR. The armistice document you refer to is also called the surrender agreement see Vichy France. ..and actually, I was just on vandal patrol at the time, it is painfully obvious that you had not read the other pages, you were French, nationalistic, making POV mods, and not reading the edit history. I don't really want to have to learn about Indochina to debate you. I like France, I don't like POV stuff. Take the Cuban missile crisis. Here in North America, I lived most of my life believing Kennedy beat Castro. However since I started studying some Spanish, I have noticed not everyone thinks so. You'll get used to it. Try refering to the surrender agreement's name which includes the word "armistice" in your next change, but no fair calling something that was debated at the time by Churchill and the like as a "clearly lost" (or some such) situation.Jok2000 19:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
to Jok2000 :

>you were French, nationalistic, making POV mods, and not reading the >edit history

nationalistic : not that much - that is, not up to accept to be blinded by nationalism. The changes I made seemed logical to me.

making POV mods : Saying that the French didn't surrender but signed an armistice (a kind of truce) and saying that Japan was not controlling Indochina by 1940, seemed OK to me... I didn't see it as Point of View but as a non-debatable truth (and no, my POV is not the official version of the French people on the question, I don't even remember how they presented that to us in school).

not reading the edit history : I wasn't aware of all that. I usually just read Wikipedia, I don't know the details.

Armistice implies a truce ... If Hitler had refused to sign an armistice and continue the war (it is pretty obvious he would have won) then France could have surrendered - that's nothing to do with POV but with widely available definitions of words .... But well, whatever, I give up, I guess that's just a detail anyway knowing the situation of France in the end of June 1940. I still think "In 1940, Japan occupied French Indochina (Vietnam) upon agreement with the Vichy Government, despite local Free French, and joined Axis powers Germany and Italy" isn't really the truth but I perhaps not understand quite well what "occupy" means in English (a language I don't master). Whatever.

Have a nice day. Sorry for the trouble.

Battles of the Eastern front

There are no battles of the Eastern front listed in the bottom.--Nixer 16:08, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean the "See also" section? Because there are some listed there, Kursk & Stalingrad as well as articles giving an overview of the campaign. Leithp (talk) 16:42, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive

Hi guys, good news! The WW2 article has been nominated for an Improvement drive. There are now 6 votes, but someone has voted twice (not good). It needs at least 9 votes by December 13, so please vote for the improvement drive on this page: Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive (go down to section "World War II"). My regards, Dennis Nilsson. --Dna-Dennis talk - contribs 20:06, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

International Date Line

Quote:

Australia and New Zealand declared war the same day, although through the quirk of the international date line, New Zealand then Australia were the first to declare war on Germany.

The International Date Line doesn't have any effect on which country or countries declared war first. It only affects how the times are reported. (And I think the logic is backwards here anyway; the reported time in Australia or New Zealand at any point is later, not earlier, than the reported time in Europe.) This sentence (and maybe the whole paragraph it came from) should be reworded to remove this confusion, and present the chronology of war declarations in the order that they actually occurred, not in the order that the local dates and times would suggest if time zones are ignored. —Bkell 17:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Featured Article

I don't get it, why is this not a featured article? The last vote was in May, have not the concerns raised in the last unsuccessful nomination been addressed yet? There is a box with the message This article is a current featured article candidate. I do not see this article on the featured article candidate page though. --156.34.67.209 05:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Cos it's not good enough and when it gets close someone comes in and wrecks it again - look at the page history to get an idea of how often it is vandalised. Vote for the improvement drive - as above. Wiki-Ed 10:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
The article is, as it stands, pretty bloody awful for such an important subject. It's not improving either, due to the nature of the edits coming in. It really needs a concerted drive by one of the projects and a willingness for a lot of users to watch it and be ruthless in trimming out the vast majority of edits. Leithp (talk) 12:42, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
This is a major problem with Wikipedia. I am sure this was a fairly decent article not so long ago... but then people who have put effort into making it that way drift off and it gets ripped apart by newcomers. Until I added it to my watchlist I had no idea that it was vandalised so many times a day. Personally I feel that once an article has been peer reviewed or featured it should be locked and any proposed edits discussed on the talk page. If a consensus change is required then an admin could make that alteration, but otherwise it remains static. Such a system would save a lot of effort and maintain a degree of academic rigour right across Wikipedia. Wiki-Ed 01:15, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I would say your very remarks prove that we should emphatically not do so. If you can associate the concepts of "peer review" and "academic rigour" with an article as poor as this one, never rising above the level of the Comic Book Version of History and riddled with mistakes, it shows that the value of anything can be overestimated. The strength of Wikipedia lies in its dynamics. Statis is another word for death: implementing your proposal would indeed be the death-blow to the entire project. The only rigour it would cause would be the rigor mortis. Vandalism is easily reverted; but the effort of discussing every single improvement and then waiting for approval is much higher — and it's a rare article on Wikipedia that isn't in need of much improvement.--MWAK 09:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Definitely, locking articles is not the way to go forward. This article just needs more effort applied. Leithp (talk) 10:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

MWAK I think you've misread me. I am not advocating locking it in its current state. I am advocating locking it once it has reached a high standard and then been peer reviewed. There are articles which reach a balanced state. This is not one of them (any more). Wikipedia's "dynamism" (a euphemism for unreliability) is a major weakness. What else are we working towards if not a balanced article on each topic? Once an article has reached a consensus balance it makes no sense to allow revisionists to come in and wreck all that work with POV comments and "useful facts" which tilt the article again. Leithp, as I said, this article has had a lot of effort applied to it already. At one point recently (and possibly at other points in the past) it was good. We waste time constantly revising things. For example, the argument below this one has been had a few pages up on the talk page, but the OP didn't bother to check, so we go round and round and round and other articles are left untended. Wiki-Ed 11:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

NB Perhaps both of you could sign up for the article improvement drive at Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive. Your votes would swing it. Wiki-Ed 12:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, this has strayed into a discussion about policy, rather than about the article itself. Your point about about the Improvement Drive is well taken though and I've added my vote there. Leithp (talk) 12:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but who is going to decide when a "consensus balance" has been reached? Certainly there are a lot of vandals (but the number is atypically high with this particular article), crackpots and nasty revisionists (like those denying the Holocaust). But how do you know an edit is written by one of those or a necessary change by someone better informed? And revisionism in general is simply the progress of science. Science is indeed unreliable and inherently unstable; but in the dynamics of the scientific method lies our only hope of gaining knowledge. If you reject it you get stuck forever in an eternal popular mythology embodying what "everybody" knows that happened. So we could read in the article — until I recently changed it — that the Allies in 1940 prepared for WW1-style trench warfare. Which is utter nonsense — by the knowledge of today. And we can still read that Operation Barbarossa can be accurately summed up as: "German gains after a surprise attack; German Army beaten by Russian winter". Which isn't totally nonsensical but still a grave distortion of the facts — as we today understand them to have been.
So the Wikipedia project shouldn't want to actually reach an ideal form of each article; but only strive to do so and thus change forever. However we can easily combine stability and dynamics: each version is saved, so why not introduce a new "Star" option for featured articles, allowing the reader to reach with one click an especially balanced and polished version, a local optimum so to say? And then we can waste even more effort on deciding which one it should be ;o).--MWAK 09:04, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
D Interesting idea. However, it would seem that Wikipedia is going down the avenue of article validation (see all the recent bad press) and comments at the Village Pump. I'd like to know what it involves, but having some closure on an article gives me a sense of purpose again. Wiki-Ed 13:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I've been advocating for a semi-protected state for awhile that I think would address this. Please go to Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy to learn more. Oberiko 13:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

When was WW2 named?

I don't think it's mentioned in the article, but, as an amateur etymologist, I want to know when did the name World War 2 or the Second World War became the English name for this series of conflicts. In many of the related articles, the description of the war is usually something like the War of Resistance (China), the Great Patriotic War (Russia), and a bunch of names in Japanese such as the Chinese Invasion, Operation "C", or HEI. I think even Churchill named the war against Germany as the Twilight War, and the Germans used Operation or Campaigns for their part during the war. So, when and where did the name World War 2 come from? --YoungFreud 19:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Churchill calls it the Second World War in his history. If I remember from his introduction he recalls speaking to Roosevelt about the naming of the war while it is still on, and suggesting "The Unnecessary War" as a name. DJ Clayworth 01:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I have some almanacs/encyclopaedias published during the conflict, and there it is called "The War Against Aggression" -, even the 1945 edition. Jooler
I recall that people called it the "second World War" before it even began. Morwen - Talk 07:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Newspapers called it World War II or the Second World War all throughout the war, and as Morwen says, even on occasion before it began as speculative. The media named it, as they have named a lot of things.--Buckboard 09:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Blitzkreig

How come there's no mention of this military technology anywhere in this article, or on the Technology during World War II article? This was one of the most important aspects of the early success of the Wehrmacht. - eykanal, 3:20 PM EST, 12/14/05

It's mentioned twice; once at the top as one of the 'tactics that changed the face of warfare', and once in the section on the invasion of Poland. As for your second point Blitzkrieg is a methodology, not a technology, which is why it probably isn't mentioned in the technology article. But you should really ask at Talk:Technology during World War II. DJ Clayworth 20:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Poland Fared Poorly?

There's a bit in the WWII article that says "Unsurprisingly, Poland fared poorly" against Germany.

However, in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_September_Campaign :

"It should be noted that the September Campaign lasted only about one week shorter than the Battle of France in 1940, even though the French forces had much better parity with the Germans in numerical strength and equipment [11]. Plus, the Germans consumed eight months worth of fuel, spare parts, ammunition and other supplies in a campaign that lasted barely a month. Poland also never officially surrendered to the Germans."

That sounds like faring rather well to me.

You're right. It should be amended to "Surprisingly, Poland fared poorly" Fornadan (t) 12:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Or, "Surprisingly, while Poland was defeated, it did not lose quickly or quietly." Then add the paragraph above. :)

Hmm, you'll need to cite a more credible source than Wikipedia for the claim that they fared well. They'll post anything there. ;-) Leithp (talk) 12:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

A few things should be noted here. Firstly by the time the Polish campaign came to an end Poland was virtually overrun. The Battle of France ended by Armistice, with well over half of France still in French hands. I think it without question that had they continued to fight the French could have resisted for many more weeks. Secondly the Battle of France should not be taken as an example of a battle that went well - for the French at any rate. Maybe both can be said to have fared badly. Thirdly, as I wrote on Talk:Polish September Campaign the measure "consumed eight months worth of fuel, spare parts, ammunition and other supplies" is not really a mainingful one. A months supplies at what rate? The difference in supply usage between a static army and a fighting mobile one is huge. If it was compared to the expected rate then maybe the Germans just got their estimates wrong. DJ Clayworth 05:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point. However, in the September Campaign the Poles had retreated to a holding area near Romania, and troops managed to withdraw in reasonable order into neutral Romania, where they made up (as stated) a significant portion of Allied forces. Their contributions did not end with their defeat in 1939.
Polish forces were not split into pro- and anti-Axis factions (as in Vichy and Free French) and managed to make several noteworthy contributions to the course of the War (The battle of Monte Cassino is one of the more memorable.) Polish pilots were also a key part of the air forces in the Battle of Britain. French forces (by virtue of the political nature of their defeat) always managed to have problems with suspected loyalties. (Yes, I am aware that many Vichy contingents switched to supporting De Gaulle after Nazi Germany took over Vichy France.) Guapovia 08:43, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
None of this is disputed. DJ Clayworth 14:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

There is currently one sentence on the build-up to the war in Europe" "The peace was uneasy and Gemany annexed Austria and Czcheslovakia". Surely a few more sentences is deserved? DJ Clayworth 14:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It should be added that the French performance in the war was utterly shocking to everybody. That Poland was overrun in a month was more or less expected, although obviously constitutes performing "poorly". That France was utterly defeated (but not overrun) in only slightly longer was shocking. john k 19:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The bravery of the Polish military should not be called into question, as their airmen showed in the Battle of Britain, nor should the bravery of the French resistance and also the French pilots. The fact that neither Poland nor France had an effective answer to Blitzkrieg should not count against them. We should be all the more grateful that we had Churchill when we did.

To state the 'Poland fared poorly' is not to call into question the bravery of the Polish military. Armies can 'fare poorly' for many other reasons. Britain and France both 'fared poorly' in the Battle of France, for example. DJ Clayworth 22:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Just coming across this by chance, I want to ask why we have to use "fared poorly". As we have seen this can lead misunderstandings and is in itself not very informative. "Poland was overrun" seems more factual to me. Str1977 18:16, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I have now implemented my suggestion, as it was necessary to edit wrongful geographic information. Poland was not surrounded by Germany on three sides but only on two sides (the borders to Eastern Prussia and the old border of the Holy Roman Empire. "Czechoslavakia" (actually Czechia/Bohemia-Moravia) is irrelevant as the Czech-Polish border was minute). Str1977 21:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Image

Image:Ww2summarymapeurope.gif needs to be corrected, it currently says Sweeden. This has been noted on the image talk page, but no-one has done anything about it. Can someone proficient with image editing software correct this please? Leithp (talk) 11:59, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

World Map

I've added a World map with the participants (Image:WWII.png). If you want to suggest a correction just tell me and I'll do it. Thanks. - Gameiro 18:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

War Box

World War II/Archive 8
Date1939–1945
Location
{{{place}}}


Where the hell has this gone?

I love how the war box is now part of the main picture, but it seems like the new one was aiming for a much less informative representation....

The other one was superior in both design and the avliable information. It also included links that one could find very useful such as the casualties link, and links to parties involved.

I suggest with community approval that the information contained in the old warbox (in this post) be intergrated into the newly designed warbox.

The new one aims for a cleaner interface, but only acts to dumb down, or remove helpful and vital information. Bmgoau 14:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, more info here is better. Merecat 05:30, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with adding the old information into the new info box if it makes this article more helpful we just removed the old one because it looked old fashioned but like I said feel free to move info from the old war box to the the new one if you want. Tarret 19:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Argentina

Argentina (on the map) is painted a light green, the same color as the United States, and I wasn't aware that they had joined the allies so soon? In fact, for all my studies I've read that Argentina was pro-German, especially considering that several German officers and soldiers fled to Argentina during and after the war. The epic of the Graf Spree and it's scuttle at Monte Video and the soldier's migration to Argentina surely supports that. Can anybody enlighten me? Catalan 21:41, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

They're there by technicality, they did declare war on Germany, and it was after Pearl Harbor... after by about 3 years. I agree that it does lead to the wrong impression though. My suggestion would be to have at least one map for each year of the war with multiple territory border lines (to show conquest) and to have more colors.
My rationale for doing so is that the war is simply to policitically complicated to place all on one image, especially when considering how many countries changes sides during the course of the conflict. Plus, the start could show the large amount of neutral (grey) countries, as well as the multiple factions that existed prior to the formalized alliances (ie, Japan and Germany would be seperate colors until after the Tripartite Pact in 1940; the Soviet Union would have its own color as a co-belligerent of Germany until Barbarossa). Oberiko 20:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Content

I put this in the featured article poll, hopfully there can be some dialogue here, I want to hear comments before I start editing!

Introduction -- The far east shouldn't be given such a background position. The fascist expeditionary forces should not be listed in the intro, way too much detail (and somewhat misleading). Calling the Commonwealth the Allies is misleading too, the term only applys after the invasion of Poland. China goes to China as a civiliazation. Rape of Nanking (sp?) needed in the casualty section. "Fundemental shift of power" needs to be somewhat explained.

Causes -- Such a minute section for what is the most important! Some things needed include failures of the League of Nations, (lack of US, and USSR involvment in the League), The economic depression outside of Russia... In Germany the desperate economic climate was what saved the Nazi party. Japan is almost a characterised... like Germany the liberal democratic government there was percieved to be failing, and the militants came in with popular support. I don't think de-facto is the proper choice of words.

Participants -- The many other countries list needs to be fixed up, "considered important allies" is weasily, perhaps "fought under their own banners" or somthing as the such --India was an important member, but fought under Britian. How does the neutral situation create hotbeds of espionage?

Starting Date -- That is the most common date used in the west. Saying it is the most common in the world, is controversial, probabaly wrong.

1937 -- Which "Chinese government?"

1939 -- The charactarisation of Stalin in the second paragraph is written conversationally, and probabaly compleatly misleading, if not false. "Indeed, the Soviets had their agents in the U.S., working alongside Nazi sympathizers."

I'll try to look at the rest as well.--sansvoix 21:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

the link near the end of the article leads to a search page and no actual page on wikiquote. It should probably be changed/removed unless a World War II page is created on wikiquote with quotes about the war placed there. I have no specific idea about what actually to do about it so I won't do anything. 70.49.40.39 03:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


article improvement drive

Why is the current article improvement drive template at the top of the article? It hasnt been the AID for some time. Whats really strange is I cant find where it is so I can remove it? -- Astrokey44|talk 08:16, 14 January 2006 (UTC)


Flying Tigers kills

600 aircraft destroyed by 100 volounteers flying relatively mediocre P-40s for half a year period? That sounds too much even for propaganda! Check the article Flying Tigers for post-war extensive research that stated no more than 115 aircraft were destroyed in the air and on the ground. It also says that they actually had their first fight over China on Dec. the 20th 1941 - AFTER US entered the war. Rumors are not facts!

Veljko Stevanovich 22. Jan 2006. 11:00 UTC+1

Animal World War II

Is there any book on the animal history aspect of WWII? I mean millions of horses, dogs, oxen, etc. were used and killed in combat, logistics. There must have been courier pigeons. Also, it is said the USSR slaughtered about 80% of its northern wild animal population to harvest precious fur as a gold-parity method of payment for US Lend-Lease supplies. The best snipers allegedly fought not in Stalingrad, but on skis in the tundra, trying to shoot arctic foxen exactly between the eyes so the fur is not wasted. One Liberty ship alone bought 60 metric tons of fur to USA and there were many dozens of such occasions between 1942-1945. 195.70.32.136 14:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I'm not aware of one offhand. We do have some articles on animals in war (see Anti-tank dog for example). It sounds like you know quite a bit about the subject, perhaps you'd like to add something about it? It'd be better to put it on specialised pages though, as this article is already very full. Lisiate 20:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

A debated starting date

The Great World War 1914-1945 view readded with a reference as per WP:NPOVUW. It would not be allocating undue weight to mention this theory once, in an article of this size. Bobby1011 17:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I would have thought the size of this article is a good reason to take things out rather than add them. Leithp 17:58, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Taken from WP:NPOVUW: If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. Bobby1011 18:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I've read the NPOV policy before, though possibly not today's iteration. But this viewpoint just doesn't have wide currency. I can't think of any books I've read on WWII, and I've read quite a few, that espouse that view. It just isn't important. The link between the two world wars is clear enough without showing a theory held by a tiny minority of historians. Leithp 18:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd also say that this article failed to get featured status mainly because it was so bloated. It still needs major trimming. Leithp 18:09, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I Have quoted a book source and I'm sure we can dig up about a million semi-credible internet ones. That being said I see your point that the article is too big anyway, so maybe an article just can't become big enough for this point of view to be significant. Revert it if you feel so inclined. Bobby1011 18:12, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

It is not that uncommon to see the two World Wars as one big conflict with a hiatus, but that hardly constitutes making it one war. It might be one conflict, just as the Israel-Palestine since 1948, but that doesn't make the four Israeli-Arab wars one war. Str1977 21:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Interesting theory, Str1977, but I'm afraid your drawing of comparisons falls under Original Research. I removed the entry myself. Bobby1011 00:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Bobby, please read the actual Original research policy. Of course this is my own comparison, but it is not original research according to the policy, as I never suggested including it into the article. Also, it is not a interesting theory but just a comparison. I don't want to change the article and quite frankly don't see a real valid debate on the starting date. It is quite clearly 1 September 1939, at least as far as the European theatre is concerned. Str1977 01:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

See European Civil War for an interesting academic take on this debate (with a couple of academic citations... any additional ones are welcomed, obviously). Coricus 23:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

possible solution to article size problem

The USS Tennessee (BB-43) article was broken (which is over 96kb combined) into five seperate parts. I think this should be done to this article. It would have the advantage of being quicker to load and more managable.--KrossTalk 20:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

This gets done every year or so, spawning a new set of articles - and the main article slowly rebuilds to this length. Rmhermen 21:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. We have a lot of sub-articles. I think the logical thing would be to reduce the lengths of all the sections, moving any information we remove into the subarticles (assuming it isn't there already). This would be a lot of work, but worth it. I'd be happy to help. What we have to do is find a way of stopping everyone arguing because their pet piece of fact has been moved out. For example, everyone seems to want their favourite atricity to be mentioned in the intro.

Would it be reasonable to declar a moratorium on adding new things to the article for a few weeks while it it shrunk? DJ Clayworth 22:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Axis dead

User:Fisenko recently added one million to the Axis war dead. See history for the reasoning. This is a suspiciously round figure. Is this change valid? Rmhermen 22:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

info box restored

I have restored this box 66.98.130.224 05:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

World War II/Archive 8
Date1939–1945
Location
{{{place}}}

Request

Can someone figure out how to fix the infobox's formatting? If you look at the current revision, there's an extra margin or section on the right side that stretches the infobox too far beyond the rightmost border of the included picture. I don't know enough about formatting to figure it out myself, so the best I can do is call attention to it. Thanks in advance. TKarrde 05:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree; that's got to be the ugliest infobox I've ever seen.--naryathegreat | (talk) 05:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh well, I fixed it for you. So it's not so ugly now.--naryathegreat | (talk) 06:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks!! It looks a billion times better now :) teh TK 10:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The pictures at the top seem to disproportionally represent the european theater (1 pic for pacific theatre, 3 pics and one big pic for European theatre) could someone maybe add just one more picture of like a kamikazee hitting an aircraft carrier, or something from the sino-japanese conflict? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.130.149.121 (talk • contribs) .

German attack on USA

The sentence the USA entered the war on the Allies' side after first Japan and then Germany attacked and declared war on the US has been altered several times, deleting the attack bit and Germany altogether (and it was gramatically badly done edited the way). The Japanese attack seems relevant, especially since it started before the declaration of war arrived in the US. That Germany declared war on the US is most decisively relevant. Str1977 remarked that Germany didn't attack the US, but they did. Of course at first by attacking US ships in the Atlantic, but later they started attacking ships in US harbours. And that certainly constitutes an attack on the country itself, not just it's interrests. DirkvdM 09:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Dirk, due to the brevity of edit summaries I might be misunderstood. I meant "Germany did not attack the US and thereby implicated the US into the war". Rather the sequence is:

  1. Japan attacks the US (and the declartion of war arrived a little later) > Japan and US are at war
  2. Germany, ally of Japan, declares war on the US (though Hitler's reasons for that have been debated) > Germany and the US are at war
  3. Germany and the US, not now at war, "interacted militarily", which included the attacks on ships and all that followed.

The intro doesn't need to cover every military move. This passage is concerned with who entered the war and why.

Str1977 (smile back) 11:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I agree with that last bit. So both Japan and Germany declared war on the US, which is how that country entered the war. So why do you delete that then? What remains is if Germany attacked the US first or vice versa. I remember seeing a BBC documentary that stated that German u-boats attacked ships in US harbours before the war between the two countries was official. However, I cannot find any source to back that up right now. Maybe you'll have better luck?
I don't get the last two of your three points. They're supposed to be chronological. But point 2 says Germany declared war on the US and then point 3 says they're not at war. And your second sentence says Germany implicated the US into the war by not attacking them. I suppose that is a 'slip of the fingers' (or what should one call that?). :) DirkvdM 06:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Dirk, I am sorry. What a difference a typo makes. It should read "now at war".
My overall point is that the passage is about the entrance of respective powers into the war, which started as Germany vs. Poland/UK/France. The US entered the war with Japan as Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, with Germany as Germany declared war on the US after that. The remaining details are better addressed in the main text.
Examples include: the US merchant ship Robin Moor sunk by U-69 on May 21, 1941 and the US destroyer Reuben James sunk by U-552 on Oct. 31, 1941. Both before war was declared. But these were more random skirmishes and mistakes than planned assualts. Rmhermen 20:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
What I remember from the documentary is that uboats found it so easy to sink those ships (because the US wasn't prepared for them) that they regretted not having come in greater force, so they could have caused greater damage. If the first attack was in May I wonder how the latter attacks could have been so successful. One possibility is that the US regarded that attack as coincidental and didn't think repetition was likely (although that would have been rather naive - or is that just hindsight?). Another possibility is that it was indeed a 'mistake' that gave the Germans an idea. However that may be, an attack is an attack. And also, how does one unintentionally happen to sail into a harbour and sink ships? I can't see that happen. I know submarine captains have a lot of freedom to act on their own initiative because communication with central command is difficult. But to attack a country (on its own territory) without specific instructions goes way beyond that because it is an effective declaration of war. Right? DirkvdM 08:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

World War II Campaigns

I found this page that should be included here: Campaigns of World War II

SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 21:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

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