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In Reply to: Re: Das Boot. posted by Bruce from DC on August 01, 2000 at 14:58:40:
If I had the choice between dying at sea of thirst while hanging on to a bit of flotsam or being shot I think I'd choose the latter. Death is merciful if life is abhorrent.
Follow Ups:
In the instances I was referring to (both the US crews gunning down survivors and the U-Boat crews' assistance), the survivors were in lifeboats. The U-Boat captains' logs were corraborated by survivors' acocunts. I believe the survivors were given water and perhaps some food by the U-Boat crews.At least in the Atlantic, there was a very large amount of shipping traffic in defined "lanes." This made the chances of rescue fairly good if you were in a lifeboat. Obviously, if you were in the water in the North Atlantic, hypothermia would finish you in an hour or less.
I personally know a man who served as a fireman (coal stoker) on both military and civilian ships in WWII. He had two ships sunk from under him. One was torpedoed; I can't remember what sank the other one. Needless to say, since I was born after WWII, he survived all of these sinkings.
As many survivors of that era will tell you, they were grateful for even a 1 percent chance of making it out alive.
An interesting and somewhat unrelated bit of information: during the "Battle of Britain" in 1940 the Germans unleashed a furious air attack on Britain. There were large numbers of planes shot down by both sides, and many of them went down in or over the English Channel. One of the factors that allowed the British to survive the Nazi onslaught was that they were better at rescuing downed pilots than the Germans. The planes could be reproduced fairly easily; an experienced combat pilot cannot be.
RBB --
"Still getting the wax out of my ears."
*At least in the Atlantic, there was a very large amount of shipping traffic in defined "lanes." This made the chances of rescue fairly good if you were in a lifeboat. Obviously, if you were in the water in the North Atlantic, hypothermia would finish you in an hour or less.*
Precisely, and the German wolf-packs knew where those routes were, thus sinking millions of tons of cargo as well as thousands of people while waiting for them along the convoy tracks.
Books I found interesting about this subject were Valentin Pikul's "Requiem for the caravan # PQ17" and a book by an American author, whose name I forgot, titled "Convoy".
Evidently you picture the U-boats as sort of samurai warriors, thus providing examples of gracious warfare on their part, whereas there were soldiers who did their duty without stooping to sadism(and that line is so thin) and henchmen on both sides.
Do you know who captain Marinesco was? Wilhelm Gustlov tragedy of 1944; 6000 on board, 1200 survivors?Ask any German WWII vet about who gassed people in the camps and burned whole villages in Belorussia, and he will most likely answer - "It was all SS' doing."
***Ask any German WWII vet about who gassed people in the camps and burned whole villages in Belorussia, and he will most likely answer - "It was all SS' doing."I agree. It seems ironic that with the concentration camps *industry* running full steam, busy producing human skin handbags and lamp shades, human hair mattresses, etc., apparently not only was no one buying all that merchandise, but was not even aware of its existence.
Hearing the stories about the Luftwaffe aces soluting their downed adversary, having just come back from bombing hell out of Coventry makes me want to throw up.
Some people take the fact that only, I believe, 19 or so Nazi officers were convicted at Nuremberg, as a complete exoneration of all officers. In fact, not just the Soviet, but also the Western prosecutors did not like that fact, but were simply reluctant to go ahead with more "witch hunt" for number of reasons.
Russians went about it a bit differently.
I believe that only 2000 or so German war prisoners came out of Soviet concentration camps in 1955, out of a million or two. Built the railroads, oil wells, worked in manganese deposits and chemical plants, cleared up the taiga and died.
What is more moral(or immoral)- using war prisoners as slaves and lab rats or dropping 2 atomic bombs on children and elderly?
War is hell.P.S. Saw an NTV segment yesterday - a Hungarian man who spent the last 50 years in a Russian psychiatric hospital was just released and sent back home. He says that he saw Raoul Vallenberg in a psihushka in the late 40s - early 50s. Russians say Vallenberg died in Lubianka in 1947, convicted of spying for the US. Man saved 10 thousand Hungarian Jews.
***I believe that only 2000 or so German war prisoners came out of Soviet concentration camps in 1955, out of a million or two.Your figures are wrong. I don't have sources with me, but I have been through this subject before and the number of Germans who survived the captivity was I believe in 50% or higher. Your number I suspect is an extrapolation of the Paulus army story - if I remember correctly some 5000 to 10000 made it out of about 300,000. That was very early in the war and things changed later, so it was not even close to 2000 overall.
***Built the railroads, oil wells, worked in manganese deposits and chemical plants, cleared up the taiga and died.Sounds reasonable to me. No?
***What is more moral(or immoral)- using war prisoners as slaves and lab rats or dropping 2 atomic bombs on children and elderly?
According to many accounts the alternatives would mean many more Japanese killed. Estimate for the blocade were close to 30 million Japanese civilians dead from starvation, so 100000 or so from a-bomb can be considered a humane thing for both sides.
This, however, is a comletely separate subject.
***War is hell.
I don't like that phrase - it is used too often as an excuse. This is like saying "crime is bad". There are cases and there are cases. Killing the bomber's crew while shooting it down is one thing, shooting 10,000 Polish officers in Katin woods is another. Letting 1 million civilians die in a besieged city is different from shooting Soviet tanks at Prokhorovka.
***P.S. Saw an NTV segment yesterday - a Hungarian man who spent the last 50 years in a Russian psychiatric hospital was just released and sent back home. He says that he saw Raoul Vallenberg in a psihushka in the late 40s - early 50s. Russians say Vallenberg died in Lubianka in 1947, convicted of spying for the US. Man saved 10 thousand Hungarian Jews.
I believe there have been numerous accounts of people seeing him many years after the war. Knowing what was going on in the USSR this doesn't take ANY effort to belive.
*Your number I suspect is an extrapolation of the Paulus army story - if I remember correctly some 5000 to 10000 made it out of about 300,000. That was very early in the war and things changed later, so it was not even close to 2000 overall.*Perhaps I was wrong in the numerical sense, no denying that, however, 5000 out of 300,000 sounds quite reasonable(if it can be).
Battle of Stalingrad was fought from Summer of 1942 till Feb. 2, 1943 exactly, so I wouldn't call that early in the war, perhaps on the bulge. As far as the numbers go, 91,000 troops turned themselves over to the Soviets. The Soviets recovered 250,000 German and Romanian corpses in and around Stalingrad and total Axis losses (Germans, Romanians, Italians, and Hungarians) are estimated to have been 800,000 dead. Official Russian military historians esitmate that 1,100,000 Soviet soldiers lost their lives in the campaign to defend the city.
What do you mean by "things changed later"?
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*According to many accounts the alternatives would mean many more Japanese killed. Estimate for the blocade were close to 30 million Japanese civilians dead from starvation, so 100000 or so from a-bomb can be considered a humane thing for both sides.*Interesting utilitarian take, but "yesli-by da kaby":)) Are you calling Truman a humanist? I think he couldn't careless how many Japanese soldiers and civilians would perish in the siege. It was a political bomb, that's what I think of it. How about bombing of Tokyo and the subsequent fires that killed thousands? Couldn't the Americans drop their atomic bombs on a deserted island or naval base or imperial escadra; the effect would be just as devastating. A show-and-tell like this would perhaps install the same fear in Japanese high command.
Remember the Damansky island that was whiped off the map by the Russians when Chinese occupied it. Nobody bombed Shanghai. Chinese promptly removed their forces around Amur river and Russian border after that.
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****War is hell.I don't like that phrase - it is used too often as an excuse. This is like saying "crime is bad". There are cases and there are cases. Killing the bomber's crew while shooting it down is one thing, shooting 10,000 Polish officers in Katin woods is another. Letting 1 million civilians die in a besieged city is different from shooting Soviet tanks at Prokhorovka.*
I didn't use that sentence as an excuse for the said war, but simply expressed my opinion. Viktor, could you please elaborate on your comparison of bombers, Katyn' and Prokhorovka?
Regards
Usual estimates for prisoners taken at Stalingrad are in the 90,000 to 100,000 range. Also, out of these, about 60,000 were dead already by the spring of 43. Out of 90+K about 5000 survived.What I meant by "things changed" was that this case was in the middle of the most critical period, when the treatment was perhaps the worst. Prisoners captured towards the war's end had much better odds of surviving. Will look for more stats.
Just quick for now, will try to comeback again.1. Will try to dig out some numbers.
2. Not ready yet to start a war over the A-bomb, but one never knows
3. Will try. Did you see the story on Khatyn vs. Katyn?
http://www.go.com/?win=_search&sv=M6&qt=katyn&oq=&url=http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v01/v01p230_FitzGibbon.html&ti=Khatyn+vs+Katyn&top=
I was thinking about the "therapeutic" usage of an A-bomb and the slaughther of 10,000 to 15,000 Polish officers in Katyn by the Soviets that you'd mentioned. Perhaps it was as "therapeutic" as the A-bomb you mentioned. An army without command is a dead army. So, 15,000 dead Poles against 100,000 dead Japanese. What's more humain then?
I really don't want to start a discussion over an atomic bomb either. I have a point of view on that, which is probably pretty solid, but another aspect is always interesting to read. As you might've guessed I am something of a pacifist, but I take interest in reading war stories and always go into the Medeival arms and armour wing of the Met.
I read the article about Kh vs. K and to my eyes it's nothing more than yet another revisionist paper. Appearance and disappearance of both places on the Soviet-era maps(of 1950s-70s to boot) doesn't prove or disprove anything. Soviet cartography was as politicised and incorrect as anything. Actually, Soviet maps were notoriously inaccurate. I read several accounts of geologists and geographers doing field research with these maps, noting their tremendous shift, compression and inaccuracy(purposeful, I suppose). One geologist wrote that all the major reserch was done using western maps which, after the field research was over, were to be returned to you know who. Add the freaky secrecy of the Soviet era and you get this article, based on nothing more than speculative and overimaginative thinking.
I am not sure about your negative reaction to that article. While it is not that everyone should just take it at face value, using the word "revisionist" is in my view uncalled for. Surely you are not saying that there is something sacred or God given about the Soviet history. Nothing in the story strikes me as implausible. If anything, many new things about it are what I would call 'discoveries'.
Victor, I'm not sure if the article was a genuine piece of historical reporting. I know that the Soviets killed those people in Katyn', no dispute here; Now, as far as the Khatyn' fires are concerned I really need more than a few lines on the internet to prove the hoax, if there were any.
Peace.
No argument here. I myself am curious too and will try to find out more. So far I spoke to several people, usually well informed, and got nowhere.What do YOU know about Kh?
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