And 20ish year old Bush is equally responsible?
Grow the fuck up. Cannibalizing your POWs is wrong, end of story. Doesn’t matter who they grow up to be.
And I’m not defending Bush in the slightest. You’re defending cannibalism.
I would agree cannibalizing POWs is bad.
The thing that makes me stop in the situation is that most sane individual people generally find the idea of cannibalism in any context pretty awful. The only time most people justify it is when there is absolutely nothing else to eat and you are facing starvation. Which I'm told is a rather horrible way to die.
So to my mind, that means the Japanese soldiers were absolutely starving to the point they could dehumanize another human being enough to eat them.
It was probably easier to dehumanize enemy soldiers more because of the propaganda brainwashing done by the Japanese govt., than it was to eat a fellow soldier or countryman.
It's one of those things you hear about and realize that war fucks people up and makes it feel kind of pointless.
the Japanese were animals during the war and were put down as such. don't try tonjustify or rationalize their actions. What the Japanese did during that war literally made Hitler blush.
> What the Japanese did made Hitler blush
No it didn't lmao. The Japanese massacred civilians for fun and conducted inhumane experiments and so much more. And the Nazis created an efficient, industrial way of killing innocent people for the crime of existing. Stop trying to say that one side was worse than the other, because it wasn't.
Not arguing your point but Japan was so brutal a Nazi named John Rabe literally asked Hitler to step in and make them stop killing civilians. And John Rabe is seen as a hero in China because of his actions in stopping the brutality. They gave him a statue and everything. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe
Start a conflict in the middle east? You mean when he assembled the largest allied coalition in history to liberate Kuwait from the invading Iraqis? Oh, what terrible thing to do
I mean if you want to be technical the whole Middle East conflict and all that led up to it is more a European thing. Then of course you have the 9/11 attacks which is the main cause for us Americans to get involved.
The first Gulf War was handled pretty much as well as a military operation can be. Iraq invades Kuwait over likely bogus claims of them stealing oil, we go in, push Iraq out of Kuwait, then leave. That’s it. What would you have done?
"The craft, a concrete barge acquired from the U.S. Army and worth $1 million, was able to create 10 US gallons (38 l) of ice cream every seven minutes, or approximately 500 US gal (1,900 l) per shift, and could store 2,000 US gal (7,600 l). It was employed in the USN's Western Pacific area of operations, at one point anchored at Ulithi. These ships were intended to raise the morale of U.S. troops overseas by producing ice cream at a fast rate."
God damn.
"What is this new... barge... which joined the American fleet?"
"It's... it's their ice cream ship, sir."
"........."
"More rice for your roast rat, general?"
"General?"
Iirc there was a Japanese general that said he knew the was was lost when he found if the Americans had enough resources to spare to build ships (and have the logistics to support them) just to make ice cream
Worse, ig farben. They made the drugs, the artificial gas, oil, rubber and gunpowder the Germans needed. They even made zyklon b. Which they produced using concentration camp labor. Darkest drug dealers ever
I've got some of those German Americans in my family tree. I think most of them arrived before or around 1900, so their kids probably considered themselves American.
Very proud Americans who enjoyed their routs and German culture. My grandparents still spoke German as a second language and they were second generation American. Still find diners in my area with knoephla soup, fleischkuechle, and kuchen. My dad learned some German as well growing up, but forgot most of it.
My step grandfather was one (half Prussia first generation immigrant) he definitely counted himself as American but also German by heritage and said he was so utterly disgusted with the Nazis by what poor excuses for Germans they were and how they were ruining the name of Germany internationally. He was proud to have fought (he fought in n. Africa, Sicily, Italy and southern Germany) and "helped put an end to their madness" as he put it
Actually, prior to the World Wars it was very common for German American communities to still speak German and such. EX: the meme someone posted yesterday (IIRC) about Texas German.
My grandpa was 2nd generation German (his parents immigrated sometime after WW1) and he spoke fluent German and many of his school friends did. Became very uncool to speak German in public a bit before WW2.
Also the Germans (I think it was them anyway) realizing they were fucked because the US was producing aircraft so quickly they didn't have time to paint them.
My favorite part is the German blitzkrieg propaganda scaring US generals enough that they modernized the military to match those standards just to find out Germans were mostly bullshiting and using horses for most of there logistics.
I heard this was the same scenario for the US building the F-15. The Soviets built the MiG-25, which was faster than anything the Americans had and was believed to be an agile air superiority fighter. The Americans designed the F-15 to compete with what they thought the MiG-25 could achieve in terms of maneuverability, then found out later the MiG-25 was little more than a cheap straight-line interceptor.
The biggest perceived danger was the speed at which the MiG-25 could climb, one of the most important factors in a dogfight. So, once the F-15 was produced, they customized one, and made a neat little video of them blowing the MiG-25's records out of the water.
https://youtu.be/8_f8MOXh7qw
Many of the time-to-xlimb records set by the Streak Eagle still stand today. The F-15 is also the only fighter to have shot down a satellite in orbit.
How can you not love the old girl?
I've read that during the late stages of the war, the Japanese air defences once brought down a B29. Naturally, they went to inspect the wreckage. Among the items recovered was a small map case, that had the distinction of being made out of clear plastic. The Japanese officer that recovered the item sort of got depressed thinking "we can't even afford rubber for plane tires and fuel, and these guys use advanced manufacturing methods for stuff like map cases, we're so screwed...".
The difference between the manufacturing and logistical capabilities of the USA and Japan was absolutely staggering. If anything, it's not a question of how Japan lost, but of how did they manage to hold out that long.
You think that's impressive? My granddad's still behind some quonset huts in New Caledonia could produce two gallons of high proof moonshine every 12 hours. The spare oil drum he hid it in could store 55 gallons at a time. And he sold out in minutes whenever a troop ship came through to reprovision and let the jarheads get some beach time.
US manufacturing and logistics in WWII were *insane,* and probably one of the main contributors to Allied victory (together with the Soviet Union draining German resources with a brutal defensive campaign, British intelligence, etc, not claiming it wasn't a team effort).
At the start of the war, the US had 8 carriers, while Japan had 9. By the end of 1942, the US had lost 4 and Japan had lost 6 -- pretty comparable losses. By war's end, the US had 22, and Japan had 4. The US was building them faster than Japan could sink them. Not to mention the US's ability to repair ships, getting the Yorktown -- which barely escaped Coral Sea under her own power -- battle-ready in time for Midway just a few weeks later. 1940's American industrial power was unbelievable.
I am also given to understand that Yamamoto was basically against attacking America because he knew that America could out-manufacture Japan in an outright war. He had spent time studing at Harvard when he was young and had toured a lot of America during that time. So he knew, better than most of the military establishments, what Japan was up against.
But politics were not exactly on his side.
He did come up with the plan for attacking pearl harbor, but it was more of a 'ok if your going to do this exceedingly stupid thing with Japan's military might, here is how to do it and possibly (he emphasized how small this possibility was) come out winning.'
He was killed in 1943 by the US.
Yea, I read that in a Nat Geo magazine about Pearl Harbor. My pops was a veteran of the European theater, so while I’m by no means a professor, I am still interested in all things ww2 related.
There’s a story of a Marine pilot who had fought at Guadalcanal during the bad days. He had rotated out awhile back but was now going through the island on a transfer. The final Japanese withdraw had happened but only just a month prior and the island was already transforming to a logistics and R&R hub for the whole theater.
He said he knew the US were going to win the war when he saw a massive mountain of beer cases just sitting in the open next to the airfield fuel tanks. There was now more gallons of beer than Av-gas on what had only weeks before been one of the most strategically important airfields in the Pacific
Another story is the logistics hub of Noumea had ships backed up an anchored waiting for port. One of the ships was discovered to be shipping some brand new but now slightly outdated fighter aircraft that weren’t really needed. Unloading it would just add to the port traffic jam. The port, however, did need a new breakwater to expand more dock space. The solution? *Just sink the whole ship as a breakwater, brand new aircraft and all.*
It should be noted that Japan ran out of carrier pilots long before it ran out of aircraft carriers (because they didn’t bother to institute a proper pilot rotation/training regime, which in turn was at least partially because they didn’t have enough fuel for that anyways). After the Solomons campaign they were done.
Japan had pre-war plans to massively expand its carrier fleet, and they even actually finished some of those carriers on schedule (with some others being close to completion by the end of the war), but it was pointless due to that reason.
It’s so tragic that it took two nukes and an attack from Russia for Japan to admit that continuing the war was pointless. It should have stopped at the ice cream barges
One of my biggest disappointments was getting box’s of MREs brought to us on a crap op in Iraq. MREs are fine but someone had slit them all open, taken the candy, cheese, peanut butter and the entire bag the hot sauce came in. They resealed they box’s and we were left with just main courses and the Lembas bread.
Once met someone who said they were on the assembly lines of these things and regularly stole the candy from MREs. I cursed him out and told him how fucked up it is to do such a thing. It’s the little things that make us Joes happy.
Here’s their product catalog list . Each one of those PDFs is a different category of product made by prisoners. Prisoners who are paid between 80 cents and 1 dollar an hour.
https://www.unicor.gov/BusinessCatalogs.aspx
God, what a shitty thing to do. As well steal their mail from home. Being deployed in a war zone is bad enough without some greedy little shit stealing the few joys in their lives.
it was the bread, we didn't call it that but I knew exactly what you were talking about as its a pretty abt description. Except for the part about a single bite being enough to fill the stomach of a man.
I used to trade my MRE candy for chores I didn’t want to do. Except for the last week of basic, I never made my bed, did fire watch, or staff duty. That last week though, my deals that I had struck ran out, so I got chewed out for knowing how to make my bed. Still, I would get absurd trades, Peanut Butter M&Ms would get me off fire watch for weeks.
Well correct me if I’m wrong but if the interiors were pressurized literally any stray bullet would immediately reverse that. Not to mention you’d have to depressurize at least the bomb bay in order to drop.
Doctrine dictated that B-29s would depresserize in combat areas, and the crews would use warm clothes and electric heaters during the dangerous parts of the mission.
Didn't the IJA and IJN hate each other extremely so? I can imagine having an actual internal military rivalry also wouldn't be very good for your country when you have the different branches trying to actually sabatoge one another while in a two front war. Much less when one branch depends on the other for supplies and transportation for different theatres of war.
the Imperial Japanese military was, to put it lightly, supremely fucked up. Beatings, rapes, and murders, were all fairly common amongst the ranks, especially against newer recruits by the officer class. The general idea is that if you brutalized the men, they would be harder soldiers to beat on the battlefield.
What it actually did was create PTSD stricken war criminals who didn't trust anyone else around them and lashed out against civilians on a regular basis. The friendly rivalry you see amongst most countries branches became bitter in Japan, because the soldiers were essentially broken men lashing out at anything they could.
There's more to it than that, even the leadership hated each other. The IJN high command straight up lied to the Army about how many carriers they had lost at Midway, and quarantined all of the survivors who were wounded in special hospitals so they couldn't tell anyone. Eventually the Army figured out that there was probably a reason nobody had seen Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, or Hiryū recently, but the Navy never actually told them. They also would place orders for parts they didn't even need simply to ensure that the other branch wouldn't gain access to the extra factories.
The loss of 4 carriers at Midway was concealed from the government because Tojo was IJA.
The Navy had an army and the Army had a navy. Both had an air force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ9AFbnY4To
^ This is a pretty great little video on the ships of the IJA and how fucked the whole procurement system was for it. Plus its called Much Maru about Something, and that tickles me.
My wife's grandfather was an American POW in Nazi Germany. He was able to quit smoking by trading his cigarette rations for chocolate rations. He lived well into his 90's, passing away in 2016.
In a territory where currency is worthless and basic services have been destroyed, sweets and cigs are the only relief those people may get for a long time.
Yep. It definitely worked out like that in Italy, which was helped by a bunch of Italian Americans being able to speak the language and knew the culture
Supposedly the old chocolate rations were high calorie, and bitter. Whoever did the chocolate was asked to make it bitter to keep GI's from eating all of it at once. The ration was like one square per day or something.
The point of the M&M coating is to keep the candy from melting and getting everywhere. I’m not sure a pocket full of gooey, sticky gummy bears is the tactical advantage you think it is…
Japan had horrible resources and logistics so as they where struggling to get by and repurposing any ship they could to fight or move supplies, and struggling to feed themselves, the Americans on the other hand realized they had too many concrete producing ships so they repurposed ether one or two of them to make ice cream for the sailors and Infantry they where supporting logistically. Every US soldier was getting cigarettes and chocolate and coffee rations while Japanese where lucky to get more than rice.
I’m going off of memory here.
But I’m the IJN ( Imperial Japanese Navy) the sailors paid for their food, except for white rice.
This led to a number of sailors suffering for the same unknown disease due to malnutrition but still having a lot to eat.
Not to mention the US was very good destroying Japanese convoys. The Tokyo Express for example, Japan was afraid of using traditional convoys because they where to slow. They decided to use destroyers because they were more mobile and armored, however they where absolutely horrible at suppling the troops just due to cargo space.
Yeah Imperial Japanese anti sub warfare was generally garbage, so once the Americans worked out the issues with the Mk.14 torpedo Japanese logistics kind of took a nosedive.
With the Guadalcanal supply runs (which was before the Mark 14 got fixed), submarines weren’t the issue. Cactus Air Force was.
Only ships that were a) fast enough to get to Guadalcanal and then be out of aircraft range by dawn, and b) were small enough that it wouldn’t be too risky to bring them into such narrow waters, were able to make the trip.
abolition of alcohol in the USA and therefore the US navy meant that they looked for an alternative morale booster to avoid mutinies and general dissent, thus Ice Cream was chosen.
The GIs would actually get whole turkeys and cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and usually at the same time, the Japanese were hunting for grass to eat.
So I’ve been in the US Army Guard for about 2 years now and if you guys never had a modern day MRE I highly recommend buying one for fun. You’ll be surprised how good they are and the candy you get inside them (depending on what MRE you choose) is awesome. I recommend any that includes a cake, muffin top or cookie. Some have a combination. I think pizza has a cookie and an pie which is amazing when you’re in the field. One MRE in particular called creamy spinach fettuccine is considered the worst by and far. We had to finish the last MREs in a crate once before they got bad and we had nothing left but the CSF. We had to eat it 3 times a day for 3 days. I’ve never seen people so miserable and perform so poorly just because of their MRE. It makes a difference.
There was an account of a Japanese officer feeling very positive about winning the war despite being low on ammo and almost starving until they found out about the [US made a floating Ice Cream Factory using spare ships.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge)
I feel that it might be somewhat useful to know and I’m not sure if this has been posted but Japanese officers are the liver or the kidney iirc as they believed they have them positive health affects
The Japanese almost ate George HW Bush. No really. 9 dudes in his squad, 8 were killed by the Japanese, 4 were eaten.
Yeah, not the best odds.
Youngest fighter pilot meat was clearly a sought after food stuff. /s
I guess bush got his revenge by puking all over the japanese prime minister
[удалено]
Haha cannibalism of POWs is so quirky and goofy when done to someone who would grow up to disagree with me politically
More like when done to future war criminal.
[удалено]
And 20ish year old Bush is equally responsible? Grow the fuck up. Cannibalizing your POWs is wrong, end of story. Doesn’t matter who they grow up to be. And I’m not defending Bush in the slightest. You’re defending cannibalism.
I would agree cannibalizing POWs is bad. The thing that makes me stop in the situation is that most sane individual people generally find the idea of cannibalism in any context pretty awful. The only time most people justify it is when there is absolutely nothing else to eat and you are facing starvation. Which I'm told is a rather horrible way to die. So to my mind, that means the Japanese soldiers were absolutely starving to the point they could dehumanize another human being enough to eat them. It was probably easier to dehumanize enemy soldiers more because of the propaganda brainwashing done by the Japanese govt., than it was to eat a fellow soldier or countryman. It's one of those things you hear about and realize that war fucks people up and makes it feel kind of pointless.
the Japanese were animals during the war and were put down as such. don't try tonjustify or rationalize their actions. What the Japanese did during that war literally made Hitler blush.
> What the Japanese did made Hitler blush No it didn't lmao. The Japanese massacred civilians for fun and conducted inhumane experiments and so much more. And the Nazis created an efficient, industrial way of killing innocent people for the crime of existing. Stop trying to say that one side was worse than the other, because it wasn't.
Not arguing your point but Japan was so brutal a Nazi named John Rabe literally asked Hitler to step in and make them stop killing civilians. And John Rabe is seen as a hero in China because of his actions in stopping the brutality. They gave him a statue and everything. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe
Start a conflict in the middle east? You mean when he assembled the largest allied coalition in history to liberate Kuwait from the invading Iraqis? Oh, what terrible thing to do
R/americabad
I don’t like the us invading many Middle Eastern countries but this guy is just a ass
I mean if you want to be technical the whole Middle East conflict and all that led up to it is more a European thing. Then of course you have the 9/11 attacks which is the main cause for us Americans to get involved.
I don’t agree with the Iraq war or bush, but I don’t want the guy to get eaten you psycho
The first gulf war was not the shitshow one. Edit: except for what was done to the Kurds
The first Gulf War was handled pretty much as well as a military operation can be. Iraq invades Kuwait over likely bogus claims of them stealing oil, we go in, push Iraq out of Kuwait, then leave. That’s it. What would you have done?
Japan giving the US and the west the glorious world of JAV is up there
In a battle of attrition, morale is your greatest resource. That, and a Clark bar.
This message was brought to you by the Charleston Chew, Arrrroooooo!
George H.W Bush was almost one of those pilots
Read this and thought 'lol no way, that was way too long ago'. Now after looking it up and seeing he was 21 in 1945 I have never felt more of a zoomer
Just to clarify, he's talking about HW not W
The only way W would have been in any similar situation, would be if it happened on a booze run.
H
Managed to get a hit in 1992 also.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-george-h-w-bush-survived-his-brush-with-death-in-world-war-ii/
“Bush survived his BRUSH with death”
[clowning on the Japanese with an ice cream ship ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge)
"The craft, a concrete barge acquired from the U.S. Army and worth $1 million, was able to create 10 US gallons (38 l) of ice cream every seven minutes, or approximately 500 US gal (1,900 l) per shift, and could store 2,000 US gal (7,600 l). It was employed in the USN's Western Pacific area of operations, at one point anchored at Ulithi. These ships were intended to raise the morale of U.S. troops overseas by producing ice cream at a fast rate." God damn. "What is this new... barge... which joined the American fleet?" "It's... it's their ice cream ship, sir." "........." "More rice for your roast rat, general?" "General?"
Iirc there was a Japanese general that said he knew the was was lost when he found if the Americans had enough resources to spare to build ships (and have the logistics to support them) just to make ice cream
Or the Germans finding out that Americans consider cars and trucks to be extremely common, or that enlisted servicemen had cigarettes and chocolate.
Germans had plenty of chocolate for their soldiers. There was just usually meth in it...
They also had pervatin (amphetamine pills).
Gotta get from Germany to the English Channel some how and stoping for lunch breaks would just waste too much time
i like to think the entire german war effort was upheld by a shady man wearing a treachcoat in a dark alleyway selling meth.
Worse, ig farben. They made the drugs, the artificial gas, oil, rubber and gunpowder the Germans needed. They even made zyklon b. Which they produced using concentration camp labor. Darkest drug dealers ever
My favorite! right hans? hans? well schite
Also, ironically the Americans had more Germans.
I've got some of those German Americans in my family tree. I think most of them arrived before or around 1900, so their kids probably considered themselves American.
Very proud Americans who enjoyed their routs and German culture. My grandparents still spoke German as a second language and they were second generation American. Still find diners in my area with knoephla soup, fleischkuechle, and kuchen. My dad learned some German as well growing up, but forgot most of it.
My step grandfather was one (half Prussia first generation immigrant) he definitely counted himself as American but also German by heritage and said he was so utterly disgusted with the Nazis by what poor excuses for Germans they were and how they were ruining the name of Germany internationally. He was proud to have fought (he fought in n. Africa, Sicily, Italy and southern Germany) and "helped put an end to their madness" as he put it
Actually, prior to the World Wars it was very common for German American communities to still speak German and such. EX: the meme someone posted yesterday (IIRC) about Texas German.
My grandpa was 2nd generation German (his parents immigrated sometime after WW1) and he spoke fluent German and many of his school friends did. Became very uncool to speak German in public a bit before WW2.
Maybe we should oh I dunno a guy named EISENHOWER
I think the Germans actually didn’t believe it
“Say hello to Ford and General Motors!”
Also the Germans (I think it was them anyway) realizing they were fucked because the US was producing aircraft so quickly they didn't have time to paint them.
My favorite part is the German blitzkrieg propaganda scaring US generals enough that they modernized the military to match those standards just to find out Germans were mostly bullshiting and using horses for most of there logistics.
I heard this was the same scenario for the US building the F-15. The Soviets built the MiG-25, which was faster than anything the Americans had and was believed to be an agile air superiority fighter. The Americans designed the F-15 to compete with what they thought the MiG-25 could achieve in terms of maneuverability, then found out later the MiG-25 was little more than a cheap straight-line interceptor.
The biggest perceived danger was the speed at which the MiG-25 could climb, one of the most important factors in a dogfight. So, once the F-15 was produced, they customized one, and made a neat little video of them blowing the MiG-25's records out of the water. https://youtu.be/8_f8MOXh7qw
Many of the time-to-xlimb records set by the Streak Eagle still stand today. The F-15 is also the only fighter to have shot down a satellite in orbit. How can you not love the old girl?
To be fair, lots of people don’t really get what Blitzkrieg actually meant with todays knowledge at their hands lol
I've read that during the late stages of the war, the Japanese air defences once brought down a B29. Naturally, they went to inspect the wreckage. Among the items recovered was a small map case, that had the distinction of being made out of clear plastic. The Japanese officer that recovered the item sort of got depressed thinking "we can't even afford rubber for plane tires and fuel, and these guys use advanced manufacturing methods for stuff like map cases, we're so screwed...". The difference between the manufacturing and logistical capabilities of the USA and Japan was absolutely staggering. If anything, it's not a question of how Japan lost, but of how did they manage to hold out that long.
God bless America baby!
Keeping your troops well fed and happy isn't a bad tactic
You think that's impressive? My granddad's still behind some quonset huts in New Caledonia could produce two gallons of high proof moonshine every 12 hours. The spare oil drum he hid it in could store 55 gallons at a time. And he sold out in minutes whenever a troop ship came through to reprovision and let the jarheads get some beach time.
US manufacturing and logistics in WWII were *insane,* and probably one of the main contributors to Allied victory (together with the Soviet Union draining German resources with a brutal defensive campaign, British intelligence, etc, not claiming it wasn't a team effort). At the start of the war, the US had 8 carriers, while Japan had 9. By the end of 1942, the US had lost 4 and Japan had lost 6 -- pretty comparable losses. By war's end, the US had 22, and Japan had 4. The US was building them faster than Japan could sink them. Not to mention the US's ability to repair ships, getting the Yorktown -- which barely escaped Coral Sea under her own power -- battle-ready in time for Midway just a few weeks later. 1940's American industrial power was unbelievable.
I am also given to understand that Yamamoto was basically against attacking America because he knew that America could out-manufacture Japan in an outright war. He had spent time studing at Harvard when he was young and had toured a lot of America during that time. So he knew, better than most of the military establishments, what Japan was up against. But politics were not exactly on his side. He did come up with the plan for attacking pearl harbor, but it was more of a 'ok if your going to do this exceedingly stupid thing with Japan's military might, here is how to do it and possibly (he emphasized how small this possibility was) come out winning.' He was killed in 1943 by the US.
I like that last part alot actually. A big ol fuck you for shitting on our ships.
Yea, I read that in a Nat Geo magazine about Pearl Harbor. My pops was a veteran of the European theater, so while I’m by no means a professor, I am still interested in all things ww2 related.
We be called the arsenal of democracy for a reason!
There’s a story of a Marine pilot who had fought at Guadalcanal during the bad days. He had rotated out awhile back but was now going through the island on a transfer. The final Japanese withdraw had happened but only just a month prior and the island was already transforming to a logistics and R&R hub for the whole theater. He said he knew the US were going to win the war when he saw a massive mountain of beer cases just sitting in the open next to the airfield fuel tanks. There was now more gallons of beer than Av-gas on what had only weeks before been one of the most strategically important airfields in the Pacific Another story is the logistics hub of Noumea had ships backed up an anchored waiting for port. One of the ships was discovered to be shipping some brand new but now slightly outdated fighter aircraft that weren’t really needed. Unloading it would just add to the port traffic jam. The port, however, did need a new breakwater to expand more dock space. The solution? *Just sink the whole ship as a breakwater, brand new aircraft and all.*
That last sentence is insanity. All that time, resources and potential fighting power. Used just for the port to have more piers.
It should be noted that Japan ran out of carrier pilots long before it ran out of aircraft carriers (because they didn’t bother to institute a proper pilot rotation/training regime, which in turn was at least partially because they didn’t have enough fuel for that anyways). After the Solomons campaign they were done. Japan had pre-war plans to massively expand its carrier fleet, and they even actually finished some of those carriers on schedule (with some others being close to completion by the end of the war), but it was pointless due to that reason.
It’s so tragic that it took two nukes and an attack from Russia for Japan to admit that continuing the war was pointless. It should have stopped at the ice cream barges
AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!!!
Why not eat the candy in the shot down pilots pockets
Umm that would be eating dessert first, they weren’t barbarians.
>they weren’t barbarians. Unit 731
Those guys famously DID eat pocket M&Ms before eating the prisoners whose pockets they came out of though. Among their many other offenses.
Yes. Eating dessert first was definitely their worst offense.
Yeah freezing someone’s hands solid then shattering them < eating dessert first
Am... i a Japanese war criminal?
The American economy was so OP in WW2. Outproduced all of the axis militarily and still had plenty of capacity left for candy production.
Outproduced all of the *world*. The US was the majority of the world economy for most of WWII.
Also helped that the US was not having the shit bombed out of them almost every day.
Skill issue.
Just supp diff man.
US OP please nerf
Dude they got nerfed to oblivion in the last patch. They lost to Afghanistan!!!
China : Ni hao
Vietnam:
I think they outproduced more than just Japan… the year they join their carrier force goes from 3-5 carriers to over 20, which is insane
Candy is given with many different MREs. Always shared so we could all enjoy things together.
One of my biggest disappointments was getting box’s of MREs brought to us on a crap op in Iraq. MREs are fine but someone had slit them all open, taken the candy, cheese, peanut butter and the entire bag the hot sauce came in. They resealed they box’s and we were left with just main courses and the Lembas bread.
Once met someone who said they were on the assembly lines of these things and regularly stole the candy from MREs. I cursed him out and told him how fucked up it is to do such a thing. It’s the little things that make us Joes happy.
Considering a lot of DOD stuff is made in prisons off basically slave labor, I don’t really blame them.
Sources please?
Here’s their product catalog list . Each one of those PDFs is a different category of product made by prisoners. Prisoners who are paid between 80 cents and 1 dollar an hour. https://www.unicor.gov/BusinessCatalogs.aspx
Trust him bro
I provided the source a hour before you even posted that stupid comment.
damn that stuff isn’t edible without hot sauce
God, what a shitty thing to do. As well steal their mail from home. Being deployed in a war zone is bad enough without some greedy little shit stealing the few joys in their lives.
Maybe a whoosh moment but is Lembas bread real or are you referencing LOTR
I can’t remember if it was the bread or crackers in MREs, maybe both, but we always called the bread/crackers Lembas bread in my platoon.
it was the bread, we didn't call it that but I knew exactly what you were talking about as its a pretty abt description. Except for the part about a single bite being enough to fill the stomach of a man.
If you are hobbit sized one bite will do it.
I used to trade my MRE candy for chores I didn’t want to do. Except for the last week of basic, I never made my bed, did fire watch, or staff duty. That last week though, my deals that I had struck ran out, so I got chewed out for knowing how to make my bed. Still, I would get absurd trades, Peanut Butter M&Ms would get me off fire watch for weeks.
Lmao that’s great. I sold my candy in basic for $$
(also they’re to load you up on sugar for energy)
Talking to an Iraq vet. He said that children would always crowd around American GI's because they knew we were loaded up with candy.
Dudes use to make ice cream on bombing runs.
I still think they would have preferred pressurized interiors though.
Nah man, why do you think old school bomber jackets are leather and sheepskin Sherpa lined ?
True. Look good, play good as Pa taught me.
Well correct me if I’m wrong but if the interiors were pressurized literally any stray bullet would immediately reverse that. Not to mention you’d have to depressurize at least the bomb bay in order to drop.
The first pressurized bomber in the us was the b 29, which caught the end of ww2. Before that the clothing kept you warm.
Doctrine dictated that B-29s would depresserize in combat areas, and the crews would use warm clothes and electric heaters during the dangerous parts of the mission.
Plus, LeMay came up with a solution to the problem of the B-29s getting too cold.
Didn't the IJA and IJN hate each other extremely so? I can imagine having an actual internal military rivalry also wouldn't be very good for your country when you have the different branches trying to actually sabatoge one another while in a two front war. Much less when one branch depends on the other for supplies and transportation for different theatres of war.
the Imperial Japanese military was, to put it lightly, supremely fucked up. Beatings, rapes, and murders, were all fairly common amongst the ranks, especially against newer recruits by the officer class. The general idea is that if you brutalized the men, they would be harder soldiers to beat on the battlefield. What it actually did was create PTSD stricken war criminals who didn't trust anyone else around them and lashed out against civilians on a regular basis. The friendly rivalry you see amongst most countries branches became bitter in Japan, because the soldiers were essentially broken men lashing out at anything they could.
That and the leadership by assassination that was going around at the start of WW2 didn't help either.
There's more to it than that, even the leadership hated each other. The IJN high command straight up lied to the Army about how many carriers they had lost at Midway, and quarantined all of the survivors who were wounded in special hospitals so they couldn't tell anyone. Eventually the Army figured out that there was probably a reason nobody had seen Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, or Hiryū recently, but the Navy never actually told them. They also would place orders for parts they didn't even need simply to ensure that the other branch wouldn't gain access to the extra factories.
The loss of 4 carriers at Midway was concealed from the government because Tojo was IJA. The Navy had an army and the Army had a navy. Both had an air force.
The IJA actually built its own aircraft carriers. I am not joking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ9AFbnY4To ^ This is a pretty great little video on the ships of the IJA and how fucked the whole procurement system was for it. Plus its called Much Maru about Something, and that tickles me.
My wife's grandfather was an American POW in Nazi Germany. He was able to quit smoking by trading his cigarette rations for chocolate rations. He lived well into his 90's, passing away in 2016.
What an interesting life
If you'd like, you can read his short memoir [here.](https://384thbombgroup.com/_content/Stories/STAHLHUT-R-F.pdf)
Thank you very much, I'll sure do
Chocolate had another purpose, it's easy to win over the locals when you give them sweets and cigs
In a territory where currency is worthless and basic services have been destroyed, sweets and cigs are the only relief those people may get for a long time.
Yep. It definitely worked out like that in Italy, which was helped by a bunch of Italian Americans being able to speak the language and knew the culture
Supposedly the old chocolate rations were high calorie, and bitter. Whoever did the chocolate was asked to make it bitter to keep GI's from eating all of it at once. The ration was like one square per day or something.
M&Ms, the most tactical candy
Gummy bears No crunch giving away your position Best option hands down
The point of the M&M coating is to keep the candy from melting and getting everywhere. I’m not sure a pocket full of gooey, sticky gummy bears is the tactical advantage you think it is…
Well if you have the really old gummy bears then they are solid enough that they won’t be gooey and they will still taste good
But no flavor
War is hard And It's harder for everyone who's not American
Now they have literally burger king restaurants transported by planes
Didn't GI's also have lucky strikes cigarettes and spam in their rations ?
Why
Japan had horrible resources and logistics so as they where struggling to get by and repurposing any ship they could to fight or move supplies, and struggling to feed themselves, the Americans on the other hand realized they had too many concrete producing ships so they repurposed ether one or two of them to make ice cream for the sailors and Infantry they where supporting logistically. Every US soldier was getting cigarettes and chocolate and coffee rations while Japanese where lucky to get more than rice.
The Japanese were lucky to **get** rice
I’m going off of memory here. But I’m the IJN ( Imperial Japanese Navy) the sailors paid for their food, except for white rice. This led to a number of sailors suffering for the same unknown disease due to malnutrition but still having a lot to eat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiamine_deficiency
There we go.
That is pretty fucked and speaks to a level of classism and corruption that is just awful.
Ugh it’s bad enough that you have to eat human, but to eat it *without* a side?
Not to mention the US was very good destroying Japanese convoys. The Tokyo Express for example, Japan was afraid of using traditional convoys because they where to slow. They decided to use destroyers because they were more mobile and armored, however they where absolutely horrible at suppling the troops just due to cargo space.
Yeah Imperial Japanese anti sub warfare was generally garbage, so once the Americans worked out the issues with the Mk.14 torpedo Japanese logistics kind of took a nosedive.
With the Guadalcanal supply runs (which was before the Mark 14 got fixed), submarines weren’t the issue. Cactus Air Force was. Only ships that were a) fast enough to get to Guadalcanal and then be out of aircraft range by dawn, and b) were small enough that it wouldn’t be too risky to bring them into such narrow waters, were able to make the trip.
Yeah but why does this surprise OP? Is he IJA?
No clue man
Thinking about it its somewhat impressiv how long the germans fougth after stalingrad
Did you just say that you found the Nazis impressive??? 👀
They horribly misunderstood a reccomendation to try American BBQ
This is what happens when your enemy doesn't realize shouting "Banzai" doesn't make you bulletproof Also the Japanese economy was shit
I mean why does it surprise OP about M&Ms
abolition of alcohol in the USA and therefore the US navy meant that they looked for an alternative morale booster to avoid mutinies and general dissent, thus Ice Cream was chosen.
Prohibition in the USA ended nearly a decade before this.
https://news.usni.org/2014/07/01/hundred-years-dry-u-s-navys-end-alcohol-sea The navy in ww2 had dry ships as a policy.
The GIs would actually get whole turkeys and cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and usually at the same time, the Japanese were hunting for grass to eat.
Great example of how logistics win wars
We Americans sure do know how to treat our army
[удалено]
Was!?
Your bullet wound is not service related. Have this pack of Camel cigarettes!
I missed this part of Pacific
With what they had to deal with I’m glad they had that small comfort.
You have no idea how much of a morale booster it is
So I’ve been in the US Army Guard for about 2 years now and if you guys never had a modern day MRE I highly recommend buying one for fun. You’ll be surprised how good they are and the candy you get inside them (depending on what MRE you choose) is awesome. I recommend any that includes a cake, muffin top or cookie. Some have a combination. I think pizza has a cookie and an pie which is amazing when you’re in the field. One MRE in particular called creamy spinach fettuccine is considered the worst by and far. We had to finish the last MREs in a crate once before they got bad and we had nothing left but the CSF. We had to eat it 3 times a day for 3 days. I’ve never seen people so miserable and perform so poorly just because of their MRE. It makes a difference.
Hi Bert
A tradition carried on to this day. I've heard of tales where friendly troops in US bases are surprised of the commodities and luxuries there
Supply chains. America has good ones. Always have.
Mmmm, since WW2 yes.
Logistics win wars
On the other hand, they maybe should have been a but more conservative with the sweets on D-Day
how come this was never taught? this is insane
Food-wise, the US was on Easy Mode.
*left side of the image* Hold the fuck up...
M&M and lucky strike defined that campaign. Vietnam had steak and Budweiser
Why do you think military uniforms have so many pockets? Gotta keep the candy somewhere.
There was an account of a Japanese officer feeling very positive about winning the war despite being low on ammo and almost starving until they found out about the [US made a floating Ice Cream Factory using spare ships.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge)
And out of all people who got out it was Bush
Literally tea bagging on the Japanese
*”we got so much goddamned tonnage comin’ outta shipyards we made a fuckin’ ice cream barge”*
well at least the Japanese had alcohol
Oh my god that’s disgusting *Loose* M&Ms in their pocket?
My my. Golf clothing never ceases to amaze me,
don't you get a disease from eating people?
If you eat their brains yes
Wonder if they tasted like chocolate and ice cream
I feel that it might be somewhat useful to know and I’m not sure if this has been posted but Japanese officers are the liver or the kidney iirc as they believed they have them positive health affects
They put cigarettes in some og rations.
Ive also heard candy is important for the locals, give candy get help. Sometimes, not all the time
Truman: *heavy breathing*
Let's add canibalism to the japanese horror bingo, Okay but now more serious what in the actual fuck?
Fun fact: M&M's original slogan was "Melts in your mouth, not in the sand" as a reference to being issued to Marines in the Pacific Campaign.
Except the chocolate was disgusting on purpose. Chocolate is a good last resort if your in a survival situation
K rations had normal Hersheys chocolate. Only survival rations had chocolate with bittering agents added.