The most momentous wartime message simply read: "The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945."

The anniversary of Dwight D. Eisenhower's message is Thursday.

The day Germany surrendered. I recall that scene in Band Of Brothers when they are sitting on the ruins of a town + one guy reading from The Stars + Stripes says, It says here Hitler killed himself + another guy says, why the hell didn't he do it 4 years ago?

quote:

why the hell didn't he do it 4 years ago?

Because he hadn't started reading all of your posts Norman!

quote:

Because he hadn't started reading all of your posts Norman!

Ouch.

Dave

Don't mind him, I remember when I had my 1st beer.

My great uncle was laying in the mud in a ditch in Czechoslovakia after marching all the way from Italy in Patton's 3rd army, fighting through the battle of the bulge.......

He was nineteen years old.

I can't imagine............

Men were definitely men in those days!

quote:

I remember when I had my 1st beer.

I thought you invented beer?

You're right JTEX, they were a different breed + in my opinion a large part of that was due to the fact that they grew up in the great depression + were better able to cope with hardships. My dad was a fighter pilot, one of my uncles was a waist gunner on a B-17, + another was in the Pacific theatre. God bless them all! Oh, + Ed, although I do know how to brew, I think that you are mistaking me with the Russian who swears the the Soviets inwented babies! DAH SURE!

Oh + BTW, Wilhelm Keitel surrendered the Reich army + navy on May 7, 1945, to Eisenhower's staff. he had to do it again a few days later to the G.D. commies just so they could get their pound of flesh. Letting the commies into Berlin 1st was a screw up of major magnitude + it has cost us through the years. General I.D. White was infuriated that he could not take Berlin + then had to watch the Soviets rape every women in sight + steal anything left. To this day I have no use for the Russians + the Chinese, I guess the latter is self explanatory.

So, we see the debacle the world has become since the allies won the war so many decades ago. I wonder what the world would be like today if the Germans won.

And they came damned close. They were toe to toe with us in the development of the atomic bomb + leagues ahead of us in the jet engine. The latter would have enabled them to keep our B-17s from the sky over Germany + thus no bombings. There is always that "what if" factor; I.E. if I hadn't driven instead of walked etc. ad nauseum. You might enjoy the Harry Turtledove books on alternate history.

quote:

Originally posted by NormanConquest:
Oh + BTW, Wilhelm Keitel surrendered the Reich army + navy on May 7, 1945, to Eisenhower's staff. he had to do it again a few days later to the G.D. commies just so they could get their pound of flesh. Letting the commies into Berlin 1st was a screw up of major magnitude + it has cost us through the years. General I.D. White was infuriated that he could not take Berlin + then had to watch the Soviets rape every women in sight + steal anything left. To this day I have no use for the Russians + the Chinese, I guess the latter is self explanatory.

Yup, the war in Europe had to end twice.

Grizz

the most momentous message in my mind was "you're going home"

I'd have to say it was Truman's announcement that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Japan.

Grizz

quote:

Originally posted by NormanConquest:
And they came damned close. They were toe to toe with us in the development of the atomic bomb + leagues ahead of us in the jet engine. The latter would have enabled them to keep our B-17s from the sky over Germany + thus no bombings. There is always that "what if" factor; I.E. if I hadn't driven instead of walked etc. ad nauseum. You might enjoy the Harry Turtledove books on alternate history.

Not really...at least in terms of the atomic bomb. The Nazi's never really put enough money or brainpower into the project. Plus they were following the heavy water thing down a rabbit hole that would have never played out. Forget the fact that we destroyed the Norwegian Heavy Water facilities and set their plan back for years. Read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" ny Richard Rhodes. Its considered the definitive work on the subject and tracks the Nazi and Japanese efforts as well.

At the end of the war the US effort to develop and construct atomic bombs employed more workers than the entire US automotive industry during the war! Germany never had even a tenth of that commitment.

Also see: https://www.atomicheritage.org...-atomic-bomb-project

Back to the subject matter of the heading, I would have to say that the comment from Leonidus to Xerses after the latter's demand that they lay down their arms, was "Molon Labe" ( come + take them.)

My personal favorite is the Cryptographers at Pearl Harbor having a message sent out in the open that Midway's water distiller was having problems. This set up the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway.

"Nuts"

Nice choice Bob!

quote:

Letting the commies into Berlin 1st was a screw up of major magnitude

Nope, it was the right call. It was already agree that Berlin would fall in the Russian occupation zone. They were willing to take 10-15k casualties PER DAY for weeks in order to seize it. The west would never accept those losses just to hand it over to the Russians when done. And we still had the invasion of Japan in our future.

My favorite is "Then we'll fight in the shade" by Dienekes when informed that the Persians had so many archers their arrows would blot out the sun at Thermoplyae.

It might well have been the right call to let them take it with their Mongol forerunners but it was a mistake to let them keep it. They should have taken Patton off the leash + saved ourselves + the free world 50+ years of soviet misery.

1)
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Blessent mon coeur
D’une langueur
Monotone.

2)
As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.

3)
Czar Alexander got to Paris.

4)
No enemy plane will fly over Reich territory.

Let us not forget today, the anniversary of D-Day, the day that saved freedom for 80 years (so far).

Goliad, 1836